The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - What Is A Nation？ with Dr. Stephen Wolfe - S05E03

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00:00:30.000 All right, here we are. This is episode three of the series that we're doing, myself and Dr.

00:00:50.380 Stephen Wolfe. Today, we are going to be talking about what is a nation. So if you haven't already

00:00:57.200 seen the first two episodes, you can go back. We talk about Aristotle in the first episode,

00:01:02.460 among other things. And then the second episode, right before this one, is where we define

00:01:06.720 Christian nationalism. But to properly understand that, we get into our topic today, what is a

00:01:12.720 nation? Because a bunch of moderns, classical liberals, and especially here in America,

00:01:19.300 have a very difficult time understanding what a nation is. Is it just a set of propositions?

00:01:24.480 anybody at any time can come in and salute and all of a sudden be a part of that nation or is

00:01:30.360 the nation something more so here we are all right yeah yeah so the way the way i build

00:01:36.280 the idea of christian nationalism is i i start with nation and i discuss that and then i go into

00:01:43.400 nationalism what would be nationalism and then actually i go from nation then to what a christian

00:01:48.180 nation is and then what would be nationalism and what's christian nationalism but i think they

00:01:52.420 build upon each other. So you want to, a lot of people, they want to jump straight to these laws

00:01:59.680 that we'd pass for the nation, but they want to talk about Christian nations, but what actually

00:02:05.700 is a nation itself. And so I sought to define that. And the approach I went with was not

00:02:11.740 this like bird's eye view, where let's look at cultural geography, let's look at these old maps

00:02:18.080 where it shows that these people groups are here and that sort of thing, or deal with the

00:02:21.980 conceptually, the way I went about it is trying to ask the reader to reflect upon their experiences,

00:02:30.560 like, you know, to think about how you relate to people, familiarity and foreignness, and work

00:02:37.700 from there. So when I go about defining a nation, it's firstly an experience of place,

00:02:50.480 of experience of people and a place that it's like, I try to describe that there's, that in

00:02:58.220 our world we have, we bring to kind of bare material this, these relationships of things

00:03:05.260 and places that we, like even like a house can become a home by your experience with it.

00:03:13.040 So you can be in a place where there's very similar houses, but you're only going to relate

00:03:17.180 to that one place as, as home. And that's because you and your loved ones were in that house, did

00:03:22.780 things together and have made it a home by your activity and your love for one another. And when

00:03:29.560 you extend that out into a community, you can think of a home ballpark, like a little league

00:03:34.240 field that you hit your first home run or whatever pitched your, your, uh, won the game by being a

00:03:39.420 pitcher. Um, you can think of your local school that you spent a lot of time with, with friends

00:03:44.500 and teachers that you loved.

00:03:46.920 And your love for these places extends because into them,

00:03:51.060 it's almost as if they become part of who you are.

00:03:53.940 Like yourself has extended into these places

00:03:57.460 and they're familiar.

00:03:58.520 You have an intimate familiarity with them.

00:04:01.120 So you have to think in terms of a place.

00:04:04.160 And then you can expand that out to your state

00:04:06.640 and expand that out to your nation.

00:04:10.280 And so you have this intimate connection

00:04:13.720 to the place, but it's connected also with the people themselves. Um, I, it, when, when I was,

00:04:20.800 uh, probably about, I don't know, 10 years old, I hit my first home run. Um, and actually my only

00:04:26.360 home run, I have to admit, uh, in little league and, uh, I'll never forget. I know exactly where

00:04:32.200 it was. And my, my father liked went running out and he, uh, he found a kid because the kids would

00:04:39.860 run out. We're watching. They grabbed the ball and I go, Oh, I got a ball. And my dad, uh, he

00:04:44.920 saw the kid and he's like, here, I got a $20 bill. And so he gave, gave the kid. I still have that

00:04:49.200 ball. So, um, so like that, that place is a place of memory. Um, sorry, that place is a place of

00:04:56.640 memory for me. It's in Napa, California. Anyway, whenever I go there, I would experience that place

00:05:03.020 as a place of love for that sort of act that my dad did for me.

00:05:07.000 real quick yeah when did your dad pass away uh it was about uh it was about two years ago

00:05:12.580 yeah a little over two years ago he loved trump right oh yeah yeah yeah you were telling me he

00:05:17.680 had like a maga hat in every room of the house yeah yeah i mean um in 2016 when he won uh the

00:05:24.660 first person i called uh was my father and he he's like he like broke down crying like it was crazy

00:05:31.980 in it with happiness but uh so yeah he'd love to see trump win again um was your dad

00:05:40.100 was he was he blue collar was he an academic like you like yeah would he what kind of conversations

00:05:47.720 would you guys have about your book would he be tracking with you would he agree with your

00:05:53.320 political philosophy your theology yeah yeah broadly yeah he would agree i mean i i attribute

00:05:58.300 to him really my instincts for basically paleoconservatism. So he was, he was a kind

00:06:04.860 of a news junkie. And whenever we go on these trips, even like to baseball practice or to

00:06:09.920 Yosemite on these hour long trips, he would play talk radio. And so we'd listen to talk radio,

00:06:16.260 Rush Limbaugh, things like that. It'd be like Rush Limbaugh. It was also a guy named Michael

00:06:19.860 Savage was one we heard a lot just because of the time he was a local guy back then. And then

00:06:23.920 he became national um so we'd listen to those guys and then during the commercial he'd always

00:06:28.740 turn it down so i i never listened to music as a kid right never except my mom's like light like

00:06:34.380 light 80s rock which i didn't you know pick up from her but uh right but yeah we listened to

00:06:39.380 that and and he was a pappy cannon fan cool pappy cannon voter he bought me the first book i have

00:06:45.000 from pappy cannon and another one so he's really the reason why and so i mean to tie to that i

00:06:51.220 I mean, so my dad was, grew up poor,

00:06:54.260 grew up in like a chicken coop.

00:06:55.900 Like literally they lived in a chicken coop

00:06:57.360 for several years.

00:06:58.600 But then they built their own house

00:06:59.720 and they called it the Wolf Ranch.

00:07:01.020 And it's still there.

00:07:01.860 It's still the Wolf Ranch in Napa County, California.

00:07:07.040 And, but yeah, he became, I guess,

00:07:09.400 a white collar guy later in life.

00:07:11.840 Eventually he landed on the job.

00:07:14.720 So yeah, I guess rags to riches sort of guy.

00:07:17.160 Wow.

00:07:17.520 um but yeah but the i i guess the the point though is that home is what we were saying

00:07:23.800 yeah yeah like he yeah and and so that will i mean the wolf ranch to this day is a place where

00:07:29.420 i'd go and play and there's a pool and and like there's this intimate connection with even the

00:07:33.940 driveway there was like a 200 yard driveway going up a hill and i even my relationship to that

00:07:39.540 driveway is one of like a positive affection because i would drive up and i'd be all excited

00:07:45.400 and they'd have, like, you know, peacocks run around.

00:07:47.700 It was a very weird place.

00:07:49.180 But it was a great place.

00:07:51.880 So, like, through experience and through loved ones,

00:07:54.440 you develop these affections, and it extends out.

00:07:58.900 And it's also through time as well.

00:08:02.260 Like, so, generations.

00:08:04.440 So, people in the United States have a connection to World War II,

00:08:07.900 not because anyone here, very few people actually were part of that war,

00:08:12.220 but they have loved ones who are part of it.

00:08:13.740 We have connections in Vietnam. My wife's grandfather was in the Navy in the Korean War and the Incheon Landing. He was one of those boat landing craft drivers and was part of that invasion. So you have a connection of these great historical events through your loved ones. And that connects you to that place.

00:08:34.940 um it connects you not only you to that place but connects you to all the people who were um

00:08:42.200 a part of that same event so that you and i i mean i don't know you know your grandparents

00:08:48.760 whatever but if they're in the wars but like there's ways we can talk about it like my other

00:08:52.740 grandfather was a bandsman in honolulu he played the trumpet for and and uh for all the guys on r&r

00:08:59.000 so he was the guy playing the trumpet for all the band uh all the dance bands and he was training to

00:09:04.440 jump into Tokyo before the bombs hit. But we all have these stories and they connect us to the

00:09:10.200 national, the great events of our past. And they unite us in love. And someone who's new to a place

00:09:20.000 who doesn't have those historical connections, you can have the best intentions. You can want

00:09:26.720 to be a part of that place as much as all your heart's desires. I want to be an American, but

00:09:32.340 you're from China or wherever you are, you still don't have that historical connection to the

00:09:37.440 nation. It is very propositional. It's very conscious. It's very deliberate. Whereas people

00:09:43.340 who have been raised up with those historical connections, that intergenerational connection

00:09:48.460 to a nation, it's unconscious. You have this almost, yeah, like a subconscious love and delight

00:09:55.740 in your people and place. And this would be true if I went to Hungary or if I went to China. I mean,

00:10:00.960 I went to, a few months ago, I was in Italy and I went to Hungary and I spoke in Hungary

00:10:04.620 and Italy felt very foreign to me. Like, you know, with the language, the customs, the way of life.

00:10:09.600 And if I moved to Italy, I would feel out of place. I'd feel foreign. They were all, you know,

00:10:16.040 most people were very friendly and nice. And so I have nothing against them. There's no animosity

00:10:19.980 or hostility, but it was foreign. When I went to Hungary, I actually felt a little, some of it, 1.00

00:10:24.400 I feel actually closer to home, but it was still very foreign to me. And if I had moved there,

00:10:29.220 I'd still be a foreigner. And because I have no historical connection or anything like that to

00:10:33.500 them. And the same thing would be for like the United States. And we as a people have a connection

00:10:39.880 to historical events. You can be hospitable, you can receive people, you can be welcoming,

00:10:46.500 but you welcome people into a nation in order to bring them into the life of the nation so that

00:10:52.520 their subsequent progeny would experience life.

00:10:58.960 And in a way they would,

00:11:00.340 like you wouldn't become fully American.

00:11:02.400 Like you can have a citizenship, 0.90

00:11:03.680 you wouldn't become fully American 0.59

00:11:05.540 until that second or third generation

00:11:07.800 has integrated into the whole.

00:11:10.140 Right.

00:11:11.360 And I think that's just obviously true.

00:11:15.180 Like when people question me on this all the time,

00:11:18.420 and it seems just obviously true

00:11:20.960 that you're going to be attached to a piece of dirt on the ground more if your grandfather

00:11:25.400 worked that land as a farmer than I would just walking outside and looking around. Like if

00:11:32.080 that Wolf Ranch means more to me as even though it's really just dirt and some rose bushes and

00:11:37.320 a cinder block house, it means more to me than any sort of grand mansion I could walk across

00:11:43.520 or observe because of those family connections. So anyway, I just guess, what's that?

00:11:50.720 do you still own it we do not um that's a whole other story it's very sad to me there was attempts

00:11:57.660 to do that but not unfortunately it was sold um but uh yeah it's still there and it still has a

00:12:03.300 if you drive by third avenue in napa california you'll see a sign that's a metal like almost like

00:12:11.260 a cartoonish wolf that's on the side of the road in front of that driveway and uh that's it says

00:12:17.740 wild wolf ranch on it um and that's what my my uncle my uncle made that and it's still there

00:12:24.260 and there's stories of like their friends stealing it and all this stuff then they

00:12:27.820 they put it in like cement in the ground so you can't take it it's not going anywhere unless you

00:12:31.620 get a angle grinder to it but um anyway so uh yeah so i i think that that conception of nation

00:12:41.140 seems to me to be obvious. And if someone is, I think there's something inhuman about

00:12:47.760 not letting your love for your loved ones extend into the places that they've been.

00:12:55.940 Right. And this is why when people come here from Mexico or wherever, let's say Mexico, 0.97

00:13:05.240 and it actually in a way makes sense that when the Mexican team shows up in soccer that they

00:13:10.580 would wave the mexican flag like i don't think it's right because we've welcomed them and they

00:13:14.620 should deliberately choose to support the people that have received them but there is still

00:13:20.360 something natural about identifying with that place that your people came from right and so

00:13:25.920 i don't really fault them like when people come here in mass and they and they they go in uh

00:13:30.140 communities like there's in my area there's these large indian communities and they congregate

00:13:34.840 They congregate together, and that itself shows an impulse.

00:13:38.400 Like, it's not a coincidence that, you know,

00:13:41.400 with the Haitian migrants that a bunch of them

00:13:44.520 ended up in the same town in Springfield.

00:13:46.840 Yeah, and...

00:13:47.640 Why wouldn't you?

00:13:48.940 Yeah, in terms of, from their perspective,

00:13:51.180 that makes perfect sense.

00:13:52.820 Right, terrible for the town.

00:13:54.400 Yeah, it's bad for the town.

00:13:55.280 But for them, of course.

00:13:55.940 It's bad policy for our country.

00:13:59.020 But for them, from their perspective,

00:14:00.820 it makes perfect sense.

00:14:01.720 If I were, like, my understanding,

00:14:03.360 there's like some american communities in mexico city so there's people who said we got a bunch of

00:14:07.520 money let's go buy a huge mansion mexicans mexico city and if i i wouldn't of course do this but if

00:14:13.700 i had to do it for some reason i'd probably go to the american district of mexico city uh speak the

00:14:19.140 language same customs and not only that they have the same history ancestrally that i do they they

00:14:25.380 have the grandfathers in world war ii right so this has been going on for a while like things

00:14:29.620 are crazier with immigration today than they've probably ever been. But like the idea of Chinatown,

00:14:36.260 Little Italy, these different groups congregating in one centralized geographic region on American

00:14:45.480 soil, because that's what we instinctively do. If I move to China, which God forbid, 0.95

00:14:52.240 but if I, for whatever, what madness drove them there, you know, but if I did, for whatever reason,

00:14:57.320 um and this is things that some of my christian brothers just can't for whatever reason they can't

00:15:04.340 get or won't get won't allow themselves to comprehend but none of this is a betrayal of

00:15:09.540 my christian faith i love the lord jesus christ i love the bible like my my ultimate allegiance is

00:15:13.800 to christ but the first thing that i would do if i moved to china for whatever reason is i would

00:15:18.380 not seek out christians i would seek out americans i would seek out people that like first and

00:15:25.820 foremost that I can actually talk to and understand the language. I'm sure there are precious Chinese

00:15:32.240 saints in China that speak another language, and I will enjoy their fellowship for all of eternity

00:15:39.240 in heaven. And I look forward to that. But here in this temporal life on earth, I would need somebody

00:15:46.020 that I could ask directions from and be able to understand their answer. You know, I would seek

00:15:52.480 out the temporal earthly familiarities. And that's not a sin. Yeah. And when I was in Italy,

00:15:58.280 you'd hear people in different languages and you'd hear people speak English. And if they're

00:16:03.940 speaking an American accent, you're initially drawn to them. And they could be half the world

00:16:10.500 away. They could be lefties or whatever, but there's that instant ability for you to say,

00:16:17.280 oh, where are you from? And then they say, oh, I'm from, I don't know, New York. Okay. Oh,

00:16:23.320 interesting. I went to college in New York. Things like that, where there's a commonality

00:16:26.820 where you can now discuss things you wouldn't be able to discuss. There'd be a familiarity.

00:16:34.660 So you wouldn't be, the way I define like foreignness is when you enter a space and

00:16:41.060 you become basically a spectator.

00:16:43.700 So if you went to a festival in Mexico,

00:16:47.320 I would just be a spectator.

00:16:48.940 And even if I put on a mask or a costume,

00:16:52.400 I'd be a part of it, but I'd still be a spectator.

00:16:55.060 I would just be a guy and I'd be an American.

00:16:57.340 And it'd be fun and exciting and fascinating.

00:16:58.820 It'd be fun, exciting, thrilling, yeah.

00:17:00.340 But I wouldn't want to live my life in that context.

00:17:02.400 It would be something that I'd want to go,

00:17:03.840 I'd want to visit, I'd want to spectate,

00:17:05.440 and I'd enjoy it and appreciate the culture,

00:17:07.500 and I could do so in an honoring way.

00:17:09.740 But then after a while, I'd want to go home.

00:17:13.840 Yeah, and this is even true in church traditions as well.

00:17:16.580 So if you go to a black church, I could be received as a member.

00:17:24.040 I could participate in the fellowship. 0.84

00:17:26.520 I could receive the word and sacraments just as much as the guy next to me.

00:17:30.680 But there is a sense in which because of the traditions brought to that context,

00:17:34.900 I would be a sort of spectator because that is a very black church culture.

00:17:39.740 um, again, spiritually fully communicate, but in terms of the culture, I would be a type of

00:17:44.680 spectator. Now, again, nothing wrong with that, but, but it's, it just speaks to this, there is

00:17:49.620 a, there is a distinct, like, yeah, that's what foreignness is. It's, you become a spectator.

00:17:55.060 And even after years and years and years of living in Italy, there's ways that you could

00:17:59.800 come to adopt that culture. Um, but I think you're always, you as the first generation is all,

00:18:07.520 you're always going to be a spectator. And it's even true for me. I mean, less so, less in degree, 0.97

00:18:12.720 but as a guy who grew up in California, who went to college in army and decided,

00:18:17.180 where are we going to move now? You know, why, where should we go? And so we decided North

00:18:20.740 Carolina, North Carolina is in the South. We love the South. We love Southern culture,

00:18:25.360 but we're not Southerners. You know, I don't like sweet tea. I'm sorry. I don't, I'm Californian.

00:18:30.080 So I like non-sweetened tea, iced tea. Um, I know that I probably offended a bunch of people

00:18:35.440 like that um but i i don't you know in texas you have to specify you have to say oh yeah non-sweet

00:18:41.300 tea you have to say the default the factory setting is here's your tea in california it's

00:18:45.600 like you have to specify a huge either one yeah yeah but anyway i i know that when i go to let's

00:18:51.700 say like a a bluegrass festival um then there's that in california too but i feel like when when

00:18:57.580 i'm there i still am kind of a spectator and i always will be but in moving there i try not to

00:19:03.820 disrupt. I try to support everything that is uniquely Southern. And I want my kids, I want

00:19:09.560 my grandkids to go to a bluegrass or some sort of country music thing and they're participants.

00:19:16.500 I know that I would never will be like, I really, you know, I have to realize that I'm not going to,

00:19:20.800 but they can be that. And that's, that's integration. I hope, I really hope someday

00:19:26.100 that at least one of my grandkids has a Southern accent. My kids will not, I can't,

00:19:33.740 I can do it ironically, but I want someday that little grandkid to, you know, wow me with the

00:19:41.420 Southern accent. So anyway, that's kind of integration. Like even from the theonomic

00:19:46.400 perspective on this issue, there is actually a lot of alignment. The theonomic, you know,

00:19:51.940 side of the aisle does begin to derail a little bit when it comes to propositions and certain

00:19:58.000 things can just be universal and imported. As long as you are a professing Christian, you enter,

00:20:03.160 you know, a nation legally, you know, whatever legal processes they have. And as long as you're 0.94

00:20:07.160 not, you're going to contribute into work, you know, and not expecting welfare or government

00:20:11.720 handouts, then, you know, you can go to any nation and be a part of it. However, I will say this,

00:20:16.600 even for the theonomist, there is a general equity extraction principle where, you know,

00:20:25.180 the scripture that says that for those who, you know, not the sojourner was, it was temporary.

00:20:31.820 They were expected to eventually go back.

00:20:34.240 But for those who really wanted to not only immigrate, 0.70

00:20:37.040 but assimilate and become Israel, 0.79

00:20:40.340 like a Ruth kind of situation, 0.86

00:20:42.060 you know, like your people will be my people,

00:20:43.760 your God, my God. 0.51

00:20:44.840 Well, for one, even in the case of Ruth,

00:20:46.680 there really is a leaving behind

00:20:48.940 and a forsaking of those things that were past,

00:20:51.440 those things that were familiar.

00:20:53.060 She's giving them up.

00:20:54.420 She's not coming to Israel to say,

00:20:56.620 Moab, Moab.

00:20:59.000 No, she's coming to Israel and saying, 0.92

00:21:00.840 i'm i'm done with uh moab i your god is my god and not just here's the problem the theonomic

00:21:08.280 guy can say uh in some sense it's half of ruth they would say as long as um as long as you're

00:21:13.780 able to say your god is my god jesus is lord then that's enough but ruth doesn't just say your god

00:21:19.300 will be my god but your people will be my people right um and and your their customs and and their

00:21:26.220 history and all these different things. Um, so with that back, back to, you know, this other

00:21:30.740 text of scripture that says, um, then in terms of like the full rights, especially when it came

00:21:35.620 to the temple and worship and those kinds of the access to, you know, make certain, uh, sacrifices

00:21:40.300 and, uh, certain temple, you know, rituals and customs. And, um, you wouldn't be able to do that

00:21:46.140 as somebody who immigrated to Israel until the third generation. And then, you know, the scripture

00:21:50.440 etches out, you know, uh, in the case of some nations, uh, you know, as a judgment to them

00:21:55.440 because of something in the past and the way that they treated Israel in an immoral sense.

00:22:02.660 As a judgment, there were some nations that says they wouldn't be able to be fully assimilated

00:22:07.240 until the 10th generation. But my point is that even from a general equity standpoint,

00:22:13.220 aside from natural law, even with special revelation, the argument seems clear. Whether

00:22:19.540 you're coming from the side of the coin, the special revelation or natural revelation, either

00:22:23.240 way um what seems obvious as you said i think that's a good way to say it obvious what seems

00:22:28.900 obvious is that um you can't move to a country and become that people in 15 minutes that's just

00:22:35.360 not a thing and assimilation takes time and and and and also i i don't think assimilation happens

00:22:41.620 unless there are certain incentives um so like to me like it's it's a sign of in many ways being a

00:22:48.360 defeated nation uh when even in your elections you have uh different languages on the ballot

00:22:54.960 like i mean you might as well just say to the world um we're a joke we we've given up yeah we're

00:23:02.680 suicidal like what in the world like no no no it should be in english if you can't read the ballot

00:23:08.680 then you have no business voting i mean that's insane but but some of the invent uh or not

00:23:14.380 inventions, but incentives for assimilating, I think part of it is that you, like, I have to

00:23:21.160 learn the language by necessity. I need to understand the customs and the culture by

00:23:25.160 necessity. Otherwise, I'm completely isolated. But one of the things, in my mind, just practically

00:23:31.620 speaking, one of the ways that incentivizes that is by mitigating immigration. If everyone can come 1.00

00:23:38.140 all at once, then you never actually have to assimilate. You just, you and your cousin and

00:23:43.060 your grandma and 500,000 of your Haitian friends. You all come at once. You all go to the same 0.98

00:23:48.260 place. You all stay right there. And you're not becoming Americans. You have actually no desire

00:23:53.680 to become Americans. You just want to be Haitians in America and take certain benefits for people 1.00

00:23:59.940 who bled and died and fought and worked and sweated without paying any homage or respect 0.99

00:24:05.620 at all. To me, that's a nation that's lost the will to live.

00:24:13.060 Yeah. And a lot of people, they'll come here for the economic benefits. And like you said,

00:24:18.520 that they, their own, and a lot of, and a lot of times they are the lowest skilled people, 0.92

00:24:25.660 because if you're leaving as a so-called economic migrant, it's because the country that you're in

00:24:32.440 cannot hire you. You cannot, you cannot get enough to live. And so you go to a place where

00:24:38.760 you can do that. And a lot of these guys will make money and they'll send them back through

00:24:43.880 remittance to the Mexico and Central America and South America. So you have a lot of guys coming

00:24:50.860 who are interested in an economic system that the American people through generations have created

00:24:57.600 and essentially to exploit that system for your gain. Now, it makes rational sense for you to do

00:25:05.540 that. If I was living in a country that was very poor and I couldn't get a job, I would want to

00:25:12.420 leave as well to go to a place that's prosperous. It's not sinister for the immigrant, but it can 1.00

00:25:17.340 be, especially in the case of nations like England. It's not sinister necessarily for the

00:25:22.880 immigrant. It is sinister for the political leaders to allow it and almost orchestrate it 1.00

00:25:30.140 against, especially in England, when it's like a real case can be made that the English people

00:25:35.320 never voted for that never gave their consent to that and have just been completely sold out

00:25:40.000 in england there's been like anti-immigration not necessarily anti-immigrant anti-immigrant

00:25:46.000 immigration sentiment for a long time and it's really been for them for us it started in the

00:25:50.080 1960s and 70s it accelerated a lot but for them it only began about like 20 30 years ago it was

00:25:56.900 a project of the labor party and then the conservative party as well in the late 90s

00:26:01.160 early 2000s. And so what they see today in England, which wasn't a very large country

00:26:06.440 relative to the United States back then either, is just a huge influx of immigrants that have 1.00

00:26:13.480 essentially taken over London. And even to this day, and you can be thrown in jail for questioning 1.00

00:26:21.160 that. You can be thrown in jail for saying that actually sexual assaults have increased

00:26:28.520 because of the immigration. 1.00

00:26:31.900 This is true for Germany. 0.78

00:26:33.360 Some countries have said enough,

00:26:34.960 like in Denmark and Finland,

00:26:37.440 or not, yeah, Denmark and Netherlands.

00:26:39.680 They've said basically enough is enough.

00:26:41.340 Ireland's getting there.

00:26:42.740 Ireland's kind of...

00:26:43.980 It's incredible.

00:26:45.060 This shows how the Western mind is so broken 1.00

00:26:48.100 because Ireland has the claim 1.00

00:26:51.120 to being the victim for centuries,

00:26:54.640 if not millennia.

00:26:56.400 They've had a reason to have a victim mentality 0.88

00:26:59.540 and also a reason to say there is an ethnic Irish.

00:27:03.460 Like we are a true ethnic group with actual borders

00:27:07.540 on an island apart from, yeah.

00:27:10.180 And yet now they are calling themselves racist

00:27:14.160 as if they have some colonial,

00:27:15.620 they didn't have any sort of colonies. 0.96

00:27:17.560 They have no reason to have a busted brain on this. 1.00

00:27:20.020 But it's infected the Irish to the point 1.00

00:27:22.040 and now they're receiving migrants 1.00

00:27:24.400 and all the problems that come with that, 0.99

00:27:26.600 it's sweeping throughout the Western world. 1.00

00:27:30.320 And the Irish, the irrationality of the Irish situation 0.99

00:27:34.940 is so obvious, but that same irrationality 0.69

00:27:37.880 infects all of the West, particularly Germany,

00:27:41.860 but also in France, surprisingly in France,

00:27:44.840 parts, you know, Italy and other places.

00:27:47.060 And of course, the United States.

00:27:49.060 So it's, I mean, this is the post-work consensus mentality,

00:27:52.600 but it's-

00:27:53.600 The United States, to me, correct me if you think differently, but the United States, to me, certainly, I don't think anybody should be operating under this bone-crushing spirit of guilt.

00:28:04.860 But, you know, historically, and just thinking about it practically, the United States makes sense that it would be the most, out of Western countries, the most susceptible.

00:28:13.320 in the sense that, like, ever since our founding,

00:28:17.980 we've had waves of immigration at various periods of time,

00:28:20.600 whether it was, you know, it's the Irish are coming,

00:28:22.560 the Italians are coming, this is, you know.

00:28:24.760 And America was, you know, it was predominantly, 0.91

00:28:27.760 certainly, you know, Anglo-Protestant.

00:28:31.140 But from early days, there was still,

00:28:33.640 even though it was a minority,

00:28:34.600 there were different, you know, different peoples

00:28:35.980 and different ethnicities represented, you know,

00:28:38.200 early on as a minority and much more of a minority

00:28:41.460 than they are today.

00:28:42.480 but still present. And whereas if I'm, you know, if I was an Englishman, you know, or a Scotsman

00:28:49.480 or an Irishman, I'd be like, what? No, it's been a thousand years. It's always been us.

00:28:56.500 What are you talking about? You know, like, so I think that America, because of our history,

00:29:02.640 our unique history and the discovery of this massive landmass and everybody coming and,

00:29:07.740 and for a while we needed people to come because we, we actually needed settlers today. There's

00:29:11.540 no more settlers. There's just immigrants. It's been settled. But we had waves of immigration 1.00

00:29:17.520 when there was still lots of land that was unsettled and lots of places and lots of work

00:29:21.700 to be done. And a lot of different people at various points of our history, waves of different

00:29:26.320 countries coming in. There was always problems and animosity and things that had to be sorted

00:29:31.040 out. But a lot of these people came and they did get to work. They really did get to work and

00:29:35.560 became a part of American culture as time went on, not in 15 minutes, but by the time you get

00:29:40.800 to their great-grandchildren and stuff.

00:29:42.160 It's like, yeah, like the Irish settlers here in America,

00:29:44.860 you're Americans, and that's great. 0.79

00:29:47.160 But again, and so again, like that, you know,

00:29:49.560 that mixed with slavery and other things like that,

00:29:51.780 it's like, I can see why America would be susceptible

00:29:55.140 to the woke mind virus.

00:29:57.440 But in my opinion, and you've already kind of said it,

00:30:01.220 it seems like the common denominator is not history.

00:30:05.100 Like, oh, there's historical reasons.

00:30:07.260 It's pretty much anybody who's white, 0.96

00:30:09.480 whether they have any reason for it in their history or not if you're white you're guilty 0.96

00:30:13.960 and you're and you've given over to this marxist yeah i mean to be white to be white means you 0.74

00:30:21.580 don't actually have a people you don't have an ethnicity right um only only non-whites can have

00:30:29.040 an ethnicity and this has been part of our language for a while i mean i remember going to

00:30:32.740 the grocery store as a kid and seeing the ethnic aisle and didn't think anything different about it

00:30:37.760 but I knew what ethnic meant.

00:30:38.900 Ethnic basically meant you're not white.

00:30:41.960 And so there was no kind of like distinct

00:30:44.920 self-conscious ethnicity.

00:30:49.020 And that's even, and for the United States,

00:30:51.260 that's like, I guess, a more difficult question

00:30:54.020 than to say German or to say French

00:30:56.140 or to say English or Scottish or Welsh. 0.98

00:30:58.920 For them, it should have been very easy

00:31:00.520 to say, wait, we are a people.

00:31:03.480 But the guilt and subversion

00:31:06.380 that the Western Europe encountered

00:31:09.440 since, I think World War I started it, 0.97

00:31:15.140 World War II afterwards actually made it, 0.73

00:31:17.060 of course, much worse.

00:31:18.300 But that's led them to deny

00:31:21.700 that they have a people and a place.

00:31:23.700 And so they'll affirm that everyone else

00:31:25.340 has a people and a place. 0.83

00:31:27.280 And when they come here or they go to Germany

00:31:29.780 or France or whatever,

00:31:31.240 they still have a people in place.

00:31:32.740 And that people is their ethnic people

00:31:34.900 and their place is the place they came from. 0.98

00:31:37.340 Right. 0.56

00:31:38.120 And so it's really only white people. 0.93

00:31:40.220 And this, again, this even infects the Irish mind 0.65

00:31:43.020 of those in Ireland,

00:31:45.240 that somehow Ireland is no longer a people and a place.

00:31:48.400 And so it does extend. 0.82

00:31:49.880 And I think what this means is that white people 0.59

00:31:51.640 have adopted a type of universal man.

00:31:54.440 Like this is, the left kind of has,

00:31:56.240 a lot of leftists kind of say this as well.

00:31:57.800 And I think in this case,

00:31:58.960 I think the lefts are left people

00:32:00.320 or left-wing people are generally,

00:32:02.760 or at least are onto something.

00:32:03.900 And that is that we tend to think

00:32:06.660 that we are kind of the universal people.

00:32:11.980 And the way the left would frame it

00:32:14.320 is that we demand them essentially make everyone else white.

00:32:17.920 Like we're the norm and you guys have to become like us.

00:32:20.820 That's the way the left would critique it.

00:32:23.060 What I would critique it is it means

00:32:24.420 you're the universal man, but you're actually,

00:32:26.680 you're not bounded.

00:32:28.040 You're not particular.

00:32:29.380 You're just, you're the universal.

00:32:31.400 And so you don't actually have a,

00:32:32.940 that you can't actually claim a people and a place.

00:32:36.760 Your people have to be everyone.

00:32:38.400 Your people have to be all people in the entire world.

00:32:40.740 It has to be anyone. 1.00

00:32:41.680 So whereas like blacks can claim,

00:32:43.620 I'm black, black is beautiful. 0.86

00:32:46.080 Hispanics can say, you know, I'm Mexican,

00:32:48.400 Mexico is beautiful, you know,

00:32:49.900 shake the flag, Mexican flag. 1.00

00:32:52.440 White people cannot have a bounded people in place. 1.00

00:32:56.000 And that's anywhere. 0.93

00:32:57.500 So I don't mean white as like a racial category

00:33:01.220 as if I need to claim solidarity with the Russians

00:33:03.760 or the Ukrainians or the Hungarians,

00:33:06.020 but just any particular people that happen to be white

00:33:10.120 cannot have a people in place.

00:33:11.820 They have to be maximally open.

00:33:14.580 They have to be maximally self-deprecating.

00:33:18.180 And ultimately, they have to, in their minds,

00:33:20.060 displace themselves so that they cannot have that.

00:33:22.800 And so it's, I think it's psychologically set up

00:33:25.620 so that we'll have, it'll be national suicide.

00:33:29.200 you'll be, you are, you're mentally prepared to be replaced. 0.77

00:33:34.500 That's so sad.

00:33:35.640 Yeah, I think that's everywhere.

00:33:36.920 Like, I think that's happening absolutely everywhere.

00:33:40.940 What is it called?

00:33:41.920 I think Eric Kaufman's a sociologist.

00:33:44.040 He calls it asymmetric multiculturalism.

00:33:47.020 So if anyone, anyone watching-

00:33:48.420 Break that down for me. 0.99

00:33:49.180 Type in asymmetric multiculturalism. 0.76

00:33:51.760 Okay.

00:33:52.560 And he wrote an article on this.

00:33:54.020 And what he says is that basically white people

00:33:57.640 have to be multiculturalists but what that means is that white people cannot have a culture

00:34:05.060 they can't have a people but they they must as a group affirm multiculturalism

00:34:10.980 which means that all other cultures can have people in a place everyone gets to have that's

00:34:16.800 why it's asymmetric it's that you have to affirm it but you affirm their identities your only

00:34:23.780 identity is wrapped up in you affirming their identities. So you can't actually have a people

00:34:28.520 in place at all. And so, and that's not just, that's reflected in policy. It's reflected in

00:34:36.100 the fact that even what I'm saying right now is causing people watching to be uncomfortable.

00:34:40.560 Right.

00:34:40.960 Because I'm actually identifying what you're not supposed to identify. Like it's supposed to be

00:34:46.100 by habit that you'll say that, that you affirm, you know, oh, look at that, you know, they got

00:34:52.000 great food or this that and then you're like oh my food's bland and it's it's junk and we don't

00:34:56.180 have culture like you're my habit meant like all that what all i remember seeing like tiktok videos 0.93

00:35:03.060 of uh uh like like black people making fun of white people for not using spices yeah you know 0.85

00:35:08.940 like uh yeah it's like your food's bland and yeah and then we even pick on the english and say you

00:35:13.840 know and i'll be honest as a white dude i do think that the english food is a bit bland but but we

00:35:18.680 You know, but even that is like me at some level giving into the stereotype that that's kind of,

00:35:25.200 it's similar to what happened with feminism, you know, like all the sitcoms in the 90s,

00:35:29.740 everybody loves Raymond, the Simpsons, and like the husband is always, he's fat, he's lazy, 1.00

00:35:34.160 he's out of shape, and he's dumb. And the wife is, you know, she's sexy and fit and sharp and smart 0.99

00:35:42.060 and competent and rules the roost. And we've done the same thing with race. You know, what we've 0.93

00:35:49.420 done with gender, that white people are the, you know, like the butt of every joke. And you don't 0.99

00:35:56.180 have a culture, your food's bland, or white people can't dance, white people can't jump, white people 0.98

00:36:00.340 can't, yet everybody still wants to live here. Yeah, that is the irony. Well, I mean, the thing 0.98

00:36:07.440 is like being able to laugh at yourself is actually a good quality and the groups that

00:36:13.620 are unable to laugh at themselves we tend to like it's like you need to lighten up like we can make

00:36:19.120 jokes about each other uh for all sorts of reasons but you can do it in a way that still affirms 0.99

00:36:25.040 the difference still affirms there's something positive about you the the thing about white

00:36:29.360 people is we are required to not say anything positive about ourselves we're only we're required 0.79

00:36:35.200 to say only negative things about ourselves so when we talk about western civilization which is 0.77

00:36:40.800 largely speaking a white generated civilization because it's europe which is white um we have 0.73

00:36:49.040 to talk about colonialism and slavery and uh and uh repression of women and all these things we 0.82

00:36:55.520 have to we have to speak of the negative and then when we go to the the obvious goods we want to

00:37:01.040 identify like political liberty um these sorts of things then we have to speak art philosophy yeah

00:37:09.780 dance music um cathedrals and like i mean there's so many yeah we'd have wonderful things we have

00:37:15.080 to speak all those of those in terms of uh universality like they're actually a political

00:37:20.440 liberty yeah maybe like this was generated from the interaction of europeans and also their own

00:37:25.800 experience. But in the end, like liberal democracy is just the universal good. And, uh, oh, by the

00:37:31.700 way, these other countries experienced it too. So it's not unique to Europe. And so you have to

00:37:36.020 universalize it. Um, and so you see these guys, like, like I remember like Paul Miller does this

00:37:41.040 in his book. It's like, yeah, well, yeah, there's angle Protestant liberties, but by the way, also

00:37:44.660 these other countries practice them as well. So it's not a white thing. So you have your impulses

00:37:48.780 in everything particular about white nations is bad. You have to, you have to criticize them 0.99

00:37:55.820 and anything that's good is actually universal, which, which, which then mean that, which then

00:38:01.220 can be attributed to everyone else universally. It's not something we have to claim the bad.

00:38:06.980 That's unique to us. You always have to identify, you can't claim that actually

00:38:10.400 white people can identify as a group only if they're identifying their, their evil for blame, 0.73

00:38:16.020 for blame. But in terms of praise, the undeniables have to be universalized 0.79

00:38:21.560 away from them arising from a European context into something all people

00:38:30.540 would affirm. And oh, by the way, they would have affirmed it if you didn't colonize them 0.85

00:38:36.100 and you didn't exploit them and you turned them into slaves and all that.

00:38:38.860 Right. Real quick with that, all this is really helpful. But on the slavery thing,

00:38:46.020 that was, I think that might've been the first big controversy that I had. And on this one,

00:38:51.560 you know, to, you know, to be fair, uh, part of it is I did word it poorly. So it was, uh,

00:38:57.200 it was actually me and 80 Robles. We were doing an episode together. And I think it was the first

00:39:00.480 time I ever had him on the show. Maybe the second we were just becoming friends. This is close to

00:39:04.900 three years ago at this point. And, um, and we were actually doing an episode, um, defending

00:39:10.480 Doug Wilson, cause he gotten some controversy or whatever. And we both appreciated him and

00:39:14.720 still, still appreciate him. I shouldn't say it like we don't anymore, but, um, you know,

00:39:20.600 but now Doug and I have had some disagreements and so I still appreciate him, but it, you know,

00:39:24.480 it's, it's a little bit complicated at the moment. Um, but back then, you know, just, uh, we were,

00:39:28.920 we did a whole episode on, uh, defense of Doug Wilson, you know, because he's gotten a lot of,

00:39:33.420 uh, flack and a lot of it really has not been fair. And so we were doing that and we were

00:39:37.680 talking about like, Oh, he's gotten flack on, uh, you know, his book, Southern slavery as it was,

00:39:41.880 and things about slavery, things about race.

00:39:44.980 And so we were doing a defense

00:39:46.540 and the problem is me and A.D. just,

00:39:50.760 we just have too much fun.

00:39:52.600 And so I said one thing

00:39:54.340 and didn't get to finish the thought.

00:39:56.420 And then he made a joke

00:39:57.960 or started laughing and cut in and said something,

00:40:01.540 which we always do.

00:40:02.440 I cut in with him, he cuts in with me.

00:40:04.240 But then the thing he cut in with

00:40:06.540 gave me another idea.

00:40:08.340 And this is one of the times

00:40:10.380 where you've got to finish that thought.

00:40:11.880 And I didn't know, I forgot and didn't finish the thought.

00:40:14.660 And then of course the hackling hints, you know,

00:40:17.820 of the spiritual HR department of examining Moscow, 1.00

00:40:22.520 you know, all the 60 plus feminist ladies, you know, 1.00

00:40:26.060 whose husbands live outside, you know, 1.00

00:40:28.580 in a tent in the backyard and hate Doug Wilson and, you know,

00:40:31.800 and write, you know, scathing, unfounded, you know,

00:40:34.960 critiques every other day.

00:40:36.360 They, you know, picked me up and they picked me up,

00:40:38.540 not because I was at the time, nobody knew who I was.

00:40:40.660 I wasn't a big deal.

00:40:41.360 they literally used me simply as a pawn to say, here's one of Doug's disciples and listen to what

00:40:46.300 he just said. And it was the irony was the whole episode, the purpose was to defend Doug. And I

00:40:51.380 probably got him into more trouble. You know, it's like, thanks for, thanks for helping Joel,

00:40:55.060 you know, because I didn't finish this thought. Here was the thought. I said, you know, like,

00:41:01.340 you know, we, we talk about, you know, slavery and, you know, but the Bible, you know, it says

00:41:06.320 that man stealing is wrong and punishable by death and not just the one who steals, but even

00:41:10.800 the one found in possession of the one who was stolen. These kinds of things are biblical

00:41:14.620 principles. We find it in Leviticus. We find it in, I believe, Exodus chapter 21. And so I was

00:41:19.400 fleshing that out. And I said, but at the end of the day, it's not like white people were going 0.86

00:41:23.220 over to sub-Saharan African countries with human-sized nets, going into the jungle and

00:41:29.380 capturing people. And then AD cut in and we never got back to it. And that one didn't look good.

00:41:34.540 So I'm going to finish it now. Yeah. So three years later, I'm going to actually say what I

00:41:39.680 meant. But this is what I was trying to say. So everybody took that as, Joel thinks slavery is

00:41:44.000 fine as long as you didn't capture the people. And on one hand, I do think that slavery in some

00:41:51.000 forms is permissible. And the reason why I think that is because the Bible says it. I love the 0.86

00:41:54.920 Bible. Let God be true in every man a liar, and I won't apologize for it. That said, though, many

00:41:59.980 of the Confederates, guys like Stonewall Jackson or guys like Robert E. Lee or even Dabney, who I've

00:42:05.900 you know, read a decent amount on. These guys who defended slavery, they did. There's no denying 0.90

00:42:13.360 that. But even these guys, they hated the slave trade. And they wanted to see the slave trade end.

00:42:18.860 And these guys were better guys than many of the people, you know, a part of the union

00:42:22.240 up north, because, you know, they were saying, you know, slavery needs to end today. And part of the

00:42:29.200 concern was the defense of slavery and property and economic activity. That's true. There's no

00:42:33.740 denying that. But part of it also was, what are we going to do with these people? And it was guys

00:42:37.440 like Abraham Lincoln, who, you know, they either like, we'll just drop them back off in the bush 0.51

00:42:43.520 in Africa. Even if you accidentally, the ship goes the wrong direction, you take them to a 0.61

00:42:47.080 whole nother nation, who cares? You know, or one of the more humane. That was a common position.

00:42:51.040 It was. It really was. The founders talked about that as well. Yes. And then another position,

00:42:56.220 a little bit more humane was, well, okay, we'll send them out West. But the reason why that didn't

00:43:01.080 work out wasn't even because of the Confederates necessarily, but because of the Northerners who

00:43:05.640 said, well, wait a second, but we eventually, we're planned to get there. We want to settle

00:43:09.980 the West. We don't want Black neighbors. So it was the Northerners who in so many ways were 1.00

00:43:14.800 really malicious. And a lot of the Confederates, you know, and a lot of the Black people fought, 0.87

00:43:21.040 not at gunpoint from their masters, but they loved the South and they loved, you know, so

00:43:25.040 anyway, so all these things, my point was to say this. So slavery in some cases is permissible.

00:43:29.760 I don't think that it should be race-based, and it certainly shouldn't be man-stealing.

00:43:33.760 The Bible does condemn that, stealing people into slavery.

00:43:36.860 The point that I made about, well, it wasn't white people who were going into jungles in 0.64

00:43:40.200 Africa with human-sized nets and rounding them up. 0.89

00:43:42.240 The point that I was trying to make is, number one, Europeans bought slaves in a race-based

00:43:51.040 slave market, knowing that they were kidnapped. 1.00

00:43:53.540 That's true.

00:43:54.680 And the slave trade, I think, was a pernicious evil, and it needed to end.

00:43:58.420 and I praise God for ending it. A lot of other nations, European nations, were able to end it

00:44:02.300 without a war. That sucks for America. I think slavery was a judgment, and I think the Civil War 0.97

00:44:08.620 was a judgment in itself. I think that that was wrong, the way that we ended it. But beyond that,

00:44:14.560 there's plenty of guilt and blame to go around. Africans were conquering each other and selling 1.00

00:44:21.040 themselves into slavery. And when you look statistically, numerically, at the number of

00:44:25.780 slaves, far more of them went to South America than ever came to the United States. And so my

00:44:31.220 point in all that is to say, no, America is not absolved or immune to any critique that could be

00:44:37.980 levied in terms of slavery or the slave trade or racism, which who even knows what that means

00:44:46.640 anymore, you know, but whatever, that's true. And there really is genuine failure and sin.

00:44:53.820 um my point though was to say that a lot of guys look at the west especially in 2020 and 2021 the

00:45:01.840 time that me and ad recorded that episode and they would attribute that to the success

00:45:06.340 of western civilization and say well yeah sure you've been successful and prosperous and all

00:45:10.760 this kind of stuff but that's just because you exploited the rest of the world and enslaved

00:45:13.780 them and if that's the case then what happened to south america they had more slaves than we did

00:45:20.620 How come America is so much richer? No, no, no. God blessed these United States and he didn't do

00:45:26.120 it because of slavery. He did it despite slavery. And that's my point is to say, even for the

00:45:31.800 critiques that can be levied with legitimate history to back them up, like slavery, the point

00:45:38.600 is the whole world at some point, virtually every nation on the planet has had slaves and many of

00:45:44.160 the practice is far more inhumane, enslaving each other, capturing, man-stealing. Africans 0.94

00:45:50.500 were conquering and selling their own people and man-stealing. Europeans were aware of it and bought 1.00

00:45:58.060 them. And there is a guilt imputed for that. The slave trade needed to end. South Americans,

00:46:03.320 though, they were doing it too and buying them at even larger numbers. All these things were going 0.97

00:46:07.240 on. So if you think that the West, its secret sauce and its success is free labor through

00:46:15.900 slavery, then you're an idiot. The whole world has had slaves. And many countries outside of 1.00

00:46:22.360 the West are far more guilty for it. The West, you have to account for the success of the West

00:46:27.560 outside of oppression. That just doesn't, it doesn't have the explanatory power. That was my

00:46:33.240 point yeah yeah and yeah every like you said every every nation every every continent has seen

00:46:40.980 massive amounts of slavery and uh i i think it's been refuted like tons of times that the idea that

00:46:48.280 the reason why the united states was prosperous is because of slavery um economically i think that

00:46:54.480 the end the economic powerhouse was more in the north so there's if you want to say anything it's

00:46:59.160 because of, you know, the capitalists using cheap immigrant labor might be, might be one reason.

00:47:04.760 That's probably a better explanation. And just natural resources. Yeah. Well, I think it's also,

00:47:09.840 I think the better explanation for why the West prospers, it's not geography. I mean,

00:47:14.840 geography plays a part in it, but it's institution building. The fact that the West was able to

00:47:20.780 develop, um, systems of laws, um, customs, like, um, you know, uh, importation, like

00:47:28.460 customs and, and, and, uh, uh, for like markets and, and also technology.

00:47:34.900 So you got the technology factor and you have the, uh, the institution factor that

00:47:40.160 enabled you to do, enabled you to do complex market transactions, um, also with the technology

00:47:46.140 to move goods from place to place.

00:47:49.860 Certainly there was economic value in using slaves,

00:47:53.300 but I think the predominant reason is,

00:47:56.360 like you said, there's a commonality

00:47:57.940 amongst all the countries,

00:47:58.980 which is they all had slaves.

00:48:00.620 But the distinctive factor was the institutions

00:48:03.180 and the technology.

00:48:06.420 Which now, by the way,

00:48:08.280 the rest of the world is now relying upon.

00:48:11.020 They're using the...

00:48:14.020 They replicate Western institutions

00:48:17.320 because they know those are more effective

00:48:19.480 at creating good economic outcomes.

00:48:21.520 And then they use the technology

00:48:23.700 that the West has developed.

00:48:27.080 Then they can develop it on their own as well.

00:48:29.400 But primarily it's because of Western development

00:48:31.760 that the rest of the world is prosperous.

00:48:35.500 So essentially every time someone leaves poverty

00:48:38.860 and enters into the middle class in say India or China,

00:48:42.760 um it's because of the western civilization and yet all this back to our main theme of

00:48:52.880 what is a nation um it's like this it's this weird dynamic it's like this the superman

00:49:00.500 you know of like um everyone at some level has an expectation and is reliant upon him

00:49:09.540 needs him except in this scenario everyone needs superman recognizes the sense of his unique

00:49:18.300 contributions and simultaneously hates him yeah yeah it's like we're the most racist country on

00:49:26.500 earth and yet everyone wants to come here right it doesn't make any sense at all um if if people

00:49:32.140 are rational if they are rational and and they're choosing to come here then the conclusion is that

00:49:39.400 we're actually not with whatever what the left and we we tell ourselves it's just not the case

00:49:44.680 and and and it's so obvious on its face that here's my my suspicion i can't explain it i've

00:49:51.720 thought about this several times i can't explain that phenomenon of everyone wants to be here

00:49:58.000 everyone the whole world not just you know the west but the whole world has economically benefited

00:50:04.760 from the innovation and the contributions of Western civilization. So everyone wants to be

00:50:09.660 here. And even those who aren't here fare better because of here. And yet also they're the most

00:50:15.780 oppressive, terrible people in the world. These whiteys. How do you account for that? The only 1.00

00:50:20.800 thing I can come up with is I feel like that you can only come, you can only get to this place that

00:50:31.320 we've arrived at with your own people selling you out. I don't think it's just a bunch of,

00:50:37.480 you know, uh, really, you know, hateful, spiteful people in South America or in Africa or in Asia. 0.53

00:50:43.560 I feel like white people, not all of them, not even a general populace, but elites, leaders, 0.56

00:50:53.020 leading white Western civilization, people, politicians or corporationals at some point, 0.52

00:50:59.500 maybe it was slowly, maybe it was calculated, maybe it was organic. But at some point,

00:51:05.300 elites in Western nations had to consciously make that choice to sell out their own people

00:51:10.620 and to hate their own people in order to somehow use that guilt for the GDP to go up,

00:51:21.260 to get cheaper labor, or somehow, some way, with some incentive. I don't think it's just

00:51:26.260 uh the rest of the world finally got tired of all those whites and their oppression like because 0.96

00:51:30.960 there was a time i remember even as a kid you know watching news stories and where a lot of 0.62

00:51:36.640 the world loved us like even the rest of the world learned american hatred from america i feel like

00:51:42.960 in some sense and then it's like well then where did americans get hatred for themselves and to me

00:51:49.080 i can't get away from it like i think it had to have been our leaders i what do you think yeah

00:51:55.240 Yeah. Man, this is the hardest thing to understand. I think, I mean, after World War II,

00:52:03.340 there was a change in mentality. It happened in the 70s. And among conservative circles,

00:52:09.180 it happened in the 80s. I think that there's something to do with the Cold War as well,

00:52:13.100 and that even the strongest conservatives, I guess, they weren't the most right-wing people,

00:52:20.040 but they were on that edge, would differentiate the West from the communists. And the West was

00:52:27.480 freedom, economic opportunity, individual self-determination, whereas communism was

00:52:32.960 highly collectivistic. It was statist and controlling. And so there is that. And that allowed,

00:52:38.320 I think, this mentality that was expressed in the 80s by someone like Ronald Reagan,

00:52:45.160 who would then say that, you know, bring the huddled masses if they come here to work hard,

00:52:49.780 just like the pilgrims and to fight and obtain their freedom, then we want them. And so then

00:52:56.300 he retells, actually, I mean, recrafts the myth of the pilgrims. You know, this was one of his

00:53:04.140 big things. The pilgrims came and they were freeing oppression and they just wanted a better

00:53:09.740 life and economic opportunity. You know, it's a shining city on a hill and that's what we can

00:53:15.020 become a and and he he framed it in terms of like industrial production like gdp and so if someone

00:53:21.780 comes here and they want to contribute to the our well-being in terms of material well-being

00:53:26.740 then come on let them bring so there was no sense of like uh common culture common heritage

00:53:32.720 as long as you make connection if you want to come here and make us richer that's fine and we

00:53:37.900 don't care if you like apple pie yeah i don't care if you like george washington or a history

00:53:42.180 anything like that. Yeah. So he, he basically retold and re like refashioned that, that sort

00:53:46.940 of myth, uh, of, uh, of, um, uh, of like the, the first founding of America with the colonies

00:53:53.320 settling as, uh, as yeah. And, and that to this day, that is what we deal with. So when you talk

00:53:59.900 to someone who is 40 or older, 45, maybe 50 or older, they grew up and they're conservative.

00:54:06.620 They grew up with that mentality. So you are, when you get an argument with an older person,

00:54:11.760 on the idea of ethnicity, the idea of American identity.

00:54:15.840 You're arguing with Fox News.

00:54:16.840 You're arguing with, yeah, you're arguing with Ronald Reagan

00:54:19.540 mediated through Fox News, you know, decades of socialization through TV.

00:54:24.800 And you're probably not going to win that argument.

00:54:26.580 Unless they were listening to Pappy Cannon in the early 90s

00:54:29.080 and some other guys and they followed that.

00:54:32.960 But if they had not, that's their conservative approach.

00:54:36.100 And so that's what you're up against.

00:54:37.160 but now what we have is people who are younger like 40 45 and younger and they did not experience

00:54:44.780 that they did not grow up watching fox news or talk radio their alternative media is online so

00:54:49.900 now they're now they're able to access another narrative of american history which is far more

00:54:55.400 um well it's actually true what reagan actually said what most of what he said was false

00:55:01.240 um on the pilgrims anyway he also conflated the puritans and pilgrims but that's doesn't matter

00:55:06.960 to academic, but, but yeah, these younger people are able to, to now receive a different narrative

00:55:12.800 of American identity. And so people like you and I are part of that now. What's Joel Berry's

00:55:17.580 excuse then? Is he, is he secretly like 65 years old and he just physically hasn't aged? No, no.

00:55:23.680 Well, yeah, no. Exactly. I'm like, you're too young to be this silly. I think it's probably

00:55:31.000 lingering dispensationalism

00:55:33.060 is one of those causes.

00:55:35.580 That he loves him some Israel.

00:55:37.800 Yeah, so if you,

00:55:39.060 yeah, and it tends to go,

00:55:40.860 one goes with the other.

00:55:42.340 So if you have a theological

00:55:45.240 connection to Israel,

00:55:47.660 I mean, it's one thing

00:55:49.020 to consider Israel a geopolitical entity

00:55:51.100 in a world of states,

00:55:53.840 and that's a different question.

00:55:55.800 In that sense, I'm actually

00:55:56.860 a supporter of Israel

00:55:58.080 as a geopolitical entity

00:56:00.160 in the Middle East. Not a comfortable supporter, I'll say, but I don't have any theological

00:56:05.520 love for Israel. But people have this theological love for Israel through dispensationalism and

00:56:11.020 some of the hangovers from that. And that also tends to coincide with the propositional notion

00:56:16.120 of America. Now, there's really no logical connection to those two things.

00:56:19.840 But they always come as a pair.

00:56:20.900 Those come as a pair. And for whatever reason, that's the fact. But yeah, it is like what we

00:56:27.940 have to then combat is this notion that there never was American identity. There never was

00:56:33.920 an American ethnos. It was always multicultural, designed that way from the beginning.

00:56:39.360 We have to push back because that's all false. It's all false. You read the founders on immigration, 0.98

00:56:44.720 on Protestantism, on the importance of having a similar culture to maintain American order 0.98

00:56:52.060 Liberty, they all affirmed that immigration can actually destroy this country because you import 0.81

00:56:59.600 people of different customs, different conceptions of liberty, different economic, different, you 0.97

00:57:04.740 know, so with all of that, you can actually destroy. And, and, um, I mean, we're probably

00:57:09.540 past time for this episode. We, I can't keep going on and on about that. But we have, but we have,

00:57:15.180 But yes, but we have to go—the first thing is that it's—what we experience now in a 1.00

00:57:22.980 multicultural society is something that wars against human nature. It wars against the human 0.98

00:57:30.520 good as a political community. You cannot have a cohesive political community in which

00:57:35.380 a large portion of those people in a heart live somewhere else.

00:57:41.940 Right. If you live here and your heart is for Mexico or your heart is for Israel or your heart 0.78

00:57:47.900 is for, I don't know, Germany, it doesn't matter. Right. That's great that you have a heart for a 0.96

00:57:52.720 place. That's great. I don't have any problem with that. And let your heart be synced up with your

00:57:56.820 home. Go back. Right. Yeah. Or either go back or cut ties. Right. There's no dual loyalty. You're

00:58:03.500 here and you're an American and you are seeking to become, integrate as an American, historically

00:58:09.220 speaking. We cannot function as a society in which most, which increasingly, this is my fear, 0.72

00:58:17.760 is my kids and grandkids and great grandkids will live in a society in which they are from here. 1.00

00:58:26.420 This is their home. They have nowhere else to go. But they'll be surrounded by people who all have

00:58:31.440 someplace else to go. They're all from somewhere else in heart, not just ancestral. We're all

00:58:37.400 derivative in some sense, but their heart's somewhere else. And then you try to fashion

00:58:47.260 and hold together a political community. And then, by the way, you who are from here, who have

00:58:52.280 nowhere else to go, are like the enemy. You're the villain of the story. All of the problems of

00:58:59.220 the people who are from somewhere else fall down on you. And now you're the minority. So instead

00:59:04.240 of the majority you're the minority you're the villain and you're surrounded by people who have 0.89

00:59:08.680 no or very limited ancestral connection to the place that they live whose heart is elsewhere 0.70

00:59:13.920 that's talk about an experiment in liberty right that that is far beyond the experiment of liberty

00:59:20.600 in uh from the founding and that's where we're going and that scares me for my love my my my

00:59:27.100 my yet to be borns, you know, my, yeah, they are going to be subjected to that. Like I almost

00:59:35.260 saying like that, that is what most likely they're going to be subjected to. Um, unless

00:59:39.800 something happens, unless we all change our mentality and say, you know, either be American

00:59:46.220 or go somewhere else. Right. Yeah. When I first started delving into some of these things and

00:59:52.020 learning. Um, my initial reaction was, you know, shock, surprise, then quickly followed up by

00:59:59.320 anger. Um, I don't feel angry anymore. That phase went pretty quick for me. Um, but I do feel sad

01:00:07.520 and not sad for myself because self-pity is not really virtuous. Um, but I, I'm a dad. I've got

01:00:14.840 five kids and one day, Lord willing, I hope to be a grandfather. And unless something changes,

01:00:21.380 with the will of the people in Western nations

01:00:25.360 and a real act and revival and work of God.

01:00:30.880 My grandchildren, it makes me sad

01:00:34.220 to think that everyone else, all their neighbors, 1.00

01:00:38.040 I mean, even now, most of my neighbors are either Hindu

01:00:40.820 or they're Pakistani, they're Muslim.

01:00:45.820 It's rare when we go for a family walk

01:00:48.460 and we see another white family. 0.69

01:00:51.380 And when I think of that, and that's today, 2024, when I think of my grandchildren, you know, in their mid-20s or early 30s, having kids and buying their first home, and I think of if this trajectory continues, they'll be surrounded by all their neighbors having this place as theirs and another place where their heart is, home somewhere else. 0.76

01:01:14.240 and my grandchildren have nothing like this is they don't have anywhere else to go they don't

01:01:19.540 have another home this was the only home they ever had they're a minority in their own home

01:01:23.580 that their fathers actually built and uh and their minority have no say so they don't they

01:01:30.100 can't leave but they also can't really stay not within and it's just it's it's it's one you know 0.92

01:01:38.620 at first you're like oh man we should be angry at this point i'm just sad and i just hope you 0.74

01:01:43.780 One of my prayers is I just hope that Westerners will listen and wake up and stop hating their

01:01:52.000 future grandchildren. Don't hate your kids. And don't hate your fathers. It's a hatred of your

01:01:58.060 fathers. And it's like despising of the past and despairing for the future. Whereas the only way

01:02:06.480 that we can move forward is honor for the past and hope for the future. Honor the past, hope for

01:02:12.600 the future versus despising the past and despairing of the future. And yeah, but if we continue to

01:02:20.100 believe all these lies that have been said about, you know, all the founders were terrible,

01:02:25.260 oppressive people and this, that, and the other, like every nation has that history. Every nation

01:02:30.220 can look back to the 1800s and find political leaders in their nation that were 10 times worse

01:02:35.500 than George Washington or anything like that. And yet they don't, other people don't hate their

01:02:39.560 nation they love their nation they're proud of it they're proud of it because it's theirs and

01:02:45.000 we're the only ones who actually have a better history a more moral history and and yet somehow

01:02:51.460 are just completely ashamed and so yeah it's just yeah it's not viable i think going forward like i

01:02:58.740 emphasize like the psychological aspect of it a lot and and i think what people need to do and

01:03:05.520 there is a pit there is a pitfall on the side on the side of this but i i think there's a habit of

01:03:11.280 the mind that like when you and i talk about this we can talk about it very comfortable because we've

01:03:15.520 essentially desensitized ourselves to what we're socialized into which is to avoid these kind of

01:03:21.840 conversations right like the idea of talking about white people and saying something good about them

01:03:26.360 uh feels uncomfortable to people psychologically they say wait a second stop stop stop it's in

01:03:32.780 your mind you feel like it's it's like when a lot of people if they talk about stuff like this over

01:03:38.000 like just you like the you and you and your spouse and you talk about this you're in your

01:03:43.620 own kitchen by yourself and you start talking quietly you're looking over your shoulder there's

01:03:47.620 no one in the room but you you know that but you start talking quietly well i'll tell you why

01:03:51.640 because your wife might call the elders well yeah yeah that's true and turn you in for church

01:03:56.740 discipline yeah but barring that though you're both on the same page there still is that tendency

01:04:02.560 to do that. And whenever you have that tendency to do that, you need to check yourself

01:04:11.180 and do a self-assessment and criticize your own habits of your mind and get rid of that stuff.

01:04:20.440 And that includes all that. It's not until you get freed from that habit of the mind that's

01:04:28.940 been that's not the call of conscience to go towards what is good that is your mind having

01:04:35.920 been shaped by socialization to not think in certain ways right by the way to not think in

01:04:42.540 ways that everyone else but you can actually think and say and and do all they do anything they want

01:04:47.740 and self-affirm um so you have to get you have to get in that habit and it's something that i

01:04:53.180 discovered probably about

01:04:55.800 15 years ago, and it was

01:04:57.720 a slow process of being able to

01:04:59.920 desensitize yourself from these

01:05:01.760 kind of conversations or these kind of thoughts.

01:05:05.080 The only thing

01:05:05.800 I would warn people is there

01:05:07.700 is something that can

01:05:09.740 arise from that. If you start

01:05:11.960 hating other groups,

01:05:14.620 if you start degrading,

01:05:15.800 preference for your own does not

01:05:17.740 necessitate hatred of others.

01:05:19.460 I don't mean hatred as a left-wing term.

01:05:21.800 like literal animosity as a, as a group where you would, where you'd go so far as, um, again, 1.00

01:05:29.380 a left-wing term, but it's appropriate dehumanize. So if you, if you're, uh, like, don't, you know,

01:05:35.780 the, you see memes going around of like blacks being like monkeys or something like that. Like 0.95

01:05:39.480 don't, that stuff's that's bad. If there is racism, that's racism. So that that's where you've like,

01:05:45.620 you've desensitized your conscience. Like that's gone too far.

01:05:50.780 That's not desensitizing.

01:05:52.100 That's searing.

01:05:52.900 You've seared your conscience.

01:05:53.660 Yeah, exactly.

01:05:54.540 So there is that.

01:05:55.380 But in everything that's good, there's always a possibility of abuse.

01:05:58.680 Yeah.

01:05:58.920 So don't put up a guardrail that makes you nationally suicidal or makes you self-degrading

01:06:06.500 or self-demeaning.

01:06:08.400 Don't take that away, but retain that natural guardrail, which is to prevent you from sin.

01:06:15.940 But at this point, there's actually, I would say we're psychologically engineered to sin against ourselves.

01:06:22.800 Yes.

01:06:23.260 And you need to get that, clear that sin out of your mind without going too far and jumping into sin itself.

01:06:29.380 Well said. Very well said.

01:06:31.180 So next episode, did you ever watch the movie Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio?

01:06:36.520 So dream within a dream.

01:06:38.040 Sometimes with these long form conversations with our special show that's multiple parts,

01:06:42.680 sometimes you have to do a series within a series.

01:06:44.640 Yeah.

01:06:45.940 And so this is what I'm thinking is, you know, this is episode three now and we're answering

01:06:52.000 the question, what is a nation or at least trying to, that's our goal.

01:06:55.980 And so I'm thinking, you know, this is a 10 part series at large and I'm thinking series,

01:07:01.060 you know, mini series within the series.

01:07:02.460 I think we need a two parter on what is a nation.

01:07:05.200 Okay.

01:07:05.460 Yeah.

01:07:05.800 Yeah.

01:07:05.960 So what we've hit so far is, and it's not like we didn't cover any ground.

01:07:09.840 This was, I think this is gold.

01:07:11.280 This was a great episode.

01:07:12.620 I hope our listeners have enjoyed it.

01:07:14.220 Uh, but if I was to recap, I think what we've hit, you know, big picture so far in this first

01:07:18.760 episode, um, of what is a nation, the series within a series is, um, home in history that,

01:07:26.120 that that's, that's integral to a nationhood. Um, and so what I would like to do in the, in the

01:07:31.740 next, um, episode is, uh, again, like kind of a part two on what is a nation. And I have six

01:07:39.620 components all start with the letter L. And I got these from my friend, Michael Belch,

01:07:44.760 who sent you actually a part of his rough draft with the book and might get a blurb from you.

01:07:50.880 Well, we'll get a blurb, but-

01:07:51.820 We'll get a blurb, great. Get an endorsement for that. But he's going to be publishing it soon,

01:07:56.640 either with us, with Right Response, or we might publish through New Christendom Press,

01:08:00.180 and they've expressed interest. But his whole book, you wrote The Case for Christian Nationalism,

01:08:06.160 I mean, his is called The Biblical Case for Nations.

01:08:08.600 But it's basically answering that question,

01:08:10.000 what is a nation?

01:08:11.040 And he came up with six L's,

01:08:14.240 and it's land, lineage, language, laws, loves, and liturgy.

01:08:22.400 Land, lineage, language, laws, loves, and liturgy.

01:08:29.260 And so in our next episode,

01:08:30.820 we've kind of been talking about land and lineage

01:08:33.220 in a lot of ways, family, home, heritage, history. But then to go beyond that and talk about

01:08:40.980 commonality with liturgy, worship, that there's a shared sense of worship and that a nation really 0.99

01:08:48.780 can't survive with all these different religions, you know, where none of them is, it's one thing 0.99

01:08:54.800 to tolerate other religions as minority representation, but to say that every religion 0.97

01:08:59.640 is equal and none of them get any preference, or if anything, all the other religions, the false

01:09:04.580 religions from foreign people who've immigrated in, that they get the preference. And the dominant 0.97

01:09:09.700 religion, Christianity, becomes the butt of every joke and gets the least. That's just not, again, 0.94

01:09:14.380 viable. So I would love to, in the next episode, talk about those four L's, land, lineage, laws, 0.90

01:09:21.700 loves language and and liturgy and i think that um because nationhood uh it is more than land and

01:09:30.540 lineage particular people particular place um but it's it's not less it is that and i think that's

01:09:37.400 what we first established and we can get into that a little bit more but um it's it's never

01:09:42.060 less than people in place but uh but it also is to be fair more than people in place and i think

01:09:46.940 you can add those other components without going full boomer into propositional nationhood so

01:09:52.060 That's it.

01:09:52.660 All right.

01:09:53.040 Thanks for tuning in.

The NXR Podcast - July 19, 2025

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - What Is A Nation？ with Dr. Stephen Wolfe - S05E03

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