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

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00:00:30 All right, here we are. This is episode three of the series that we're doing, myself and Dr.

00:00:50 Stephen Wolfe. Today, we are going to be talking about what is a nation. So if you haven't already

00:00:57 seen the first two episodes, you can go back. We talk about Aristotle in the first episode,

00:01:02 among other things. And then the second episode, right before this one, is where we define

00:01:06 Christian nationalism. But to properly understand that, we get into our topic today, what is a

00:01:12 nation? Because a bunch of moderns, classical liberals, and especially here in America,

00:01:19 have a very difficult time understanding what a nation is. Is it just a set of propositions?

00:01:24 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 the nation something more so here we are all right yeah yeah so the way the way i build

00:01:36 the idea of christian nationalism is i i start with nation and i discuss that and then i go into

00:01:43 nationalism what would be nationalism and then actually i go from nation then to what a christian

00:01:48 nation is and then what would be nationalism and what's christian nationalism but i think they

00:01:52 build upon each other. So you want to, a lot of people, they want to jump straight to these laws

00:01:59 that we'd pass for the nation, but they want to talk about Christian nations, but what actually

00:02:05 is a nation itself. And so I sought to define that. And the approach I went with was not

00:02:11 this like bird's eye view, where let's look at cultural geography, let's look at these old maps

00:02:18 where it shows that these people groups are here and that sort of thing, or deal with the

00:02:21 conceptually, the way I went about it is trying to ask the reader to reflect upon their experiences,

00:02:30 like, you know, to think about how you relate to people, familiarity and foreignness, and work

00:02:37 from there. So when I go about defining a nation, it's firstly an experience of place,

00:02:50 of experience of people and a place that it's like, I try to describe that there's, that in

00:02:58 our world we have, we bring to kind of bare material this, these relationships of things

00:03:05 and places that we, like even like a house can become a home by your experience with it.

00:03:13 So you can be in a place where there's very similar houses, but you're only going to relate

00:03:17 to that one place as, as home. And that's because you and your loved ones were in that house, did

00:03:22 things together and have made it a home by your activity and your love for one another. And when

00:03:29 you extend that out into a community, you can think of a home ballpark, like a little league

00:03:34 field that you hit your first home run or whatever pitched your, your, uh, won the game by being a

00:03:39 pitcher. Um, you can think of your local school that you spent a lot of time with, with friends

00:03:44 and teachers that you loved.

00:03:46 And your love for these places extends because into them,

00:03:51 it's almost as if they become part of who you are.

00:03:53 Like yourself has extended into these places

00:03:57 and they're familiar.

00:03:58 You have an intimate familiarity with them.

00:04:01 So you have to think in terms of a place.

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

00:04:06 and expand that out to your nation.

00:04:10 And so you have this intimate connection

00:04:13 to the place, but it's connected also with the people themselves. Um, I, it, when, when I was,

00:04:20 uh, probably about, I don't know, 10 years old, I hit my first home run. Um, and actually my only

00:04:26 home run, I have to admit, uh, in little league and, uh, I'll never forget. I know exactly where

00:04:32 it was. And my, my father liked went running out and he, uh, he found a kid because the kids would

00:04:39 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 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 ball. So, um, so like that, that place is a place of memory. Um, sorry, that place is a place of

00:04:56 memory for me. It's in Napa, California. Anyway, whenever I go there, I would experience that place

00:05:03 as a place of love for that sort of act that my dad did for me.

00:05:07 real quick yeah when did your dad pass away uh it was about uh it was about two years ago

00:05:12 yeah a little over two years ago he loved trump right oh yeah yeah yeah you were telling me he

00:05:17 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 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 in it with happiness but uh so yeah he'd love to see trump win again um was your dad

00:05:40 was he was he blue collar was he an academic like you like yeah would he what kind of conversations

00:05:47 would you guys have about your book would he be tracking with you would he agree with your

00:05:53 political philosophy your theology yeah yeah broadly yeah he would agree i mean i i attribute

00:05:58 to him really my instincts for basically paleoconservatism. So he was, he was a kind

00:06:04 of a news junkie. And whenever we go on these trips, even like to baseball practice or to

00:06:09 Yosemite on these hour long trips, he would play talk radio. And so we'd listen to talk radio,

00:06:16 Rush Limbaugh, things like that. It'd be like Rush Limbaugh. It was also a guy named Michael

00:06:19 Savage was one we heard a lot just because of the time he was a local guy back then. And then

00:06:23 he became national um so we'd listen to those guys and then during the commercial he'd always

00:06:28 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 light 80s rock which i didn't you know pick up from her but uh right but yeah we listened to

00:06:39 that and and he was a pappy cannon fan cool pappy cannon voter he bought me the first book i have

00:06:45 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 I mean, so my dad was, grew up poor,

00:06:54 grew up in like a chicken coop.

00:06:55 Like literally they lived in a chicken coop

00:06:57 for several years.

00:06:58 But then they built their own house

00:06:59 and they called it the Wolf Ranch.

00:07:01 And it's still there.

00:07:01 It's still the Wolf Ranch in Napa County, California.

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

00:07:09 a white collar guy later in life.

00:07:11 Eventually he landed on the job.

00:07:14 So yeah, I guess rags to riches sort of guy.

00:07:17 Wow.

00:07:17 um but yeah but the i i guess the the point though is that home is what we were saying

00:07:23 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 i'd go and play and there's a pool and and like there's this intimate connection with even the

00:07:33 driveway there was like a 200 yard driveway going up a hill and i even my relationship to that

00:07:39 driveway is one of like a positive affection because i would drive up and i'd be all excited

00:07:45 and they'd have, like, you know, peacocks run around.

00:07:47 It was a very weird place.

00:07:49 But it was a great place.

00:07:51 So, like, through experience and through loved ones,

00:07:54 you develop these affections, and it extends out.

00:07:58 And it's also through time as well.

00:08:02 Like, so, generations.

00:08:04 So, people in the United States have a connection to World War II,

00:08:07 not because anyone here, very few people actually were part of that war,

00:08:12 but they have loved ones who are part of it.

00:08:13 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 um it connects you not only you to that place but connects you to all the people who were um

00:08:42 a part of that same event so that you and i i mean i don't know you know your grandparents

00:08:48 whatever but if they're in the wars but like there's ways we can talk about it like my other

00:08:52 grandfather was a bandsman in honolulu he played the trumpet for and and uh for all the guys on r&r

00:08:59 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 jump into Tokyo before the bombs hit. But we all have these stories and they connect us to the

00:09:10 national, the great events of our past. And they unite us in love. And someone who's new to a place

00:09:20 who doesn't have those historical connections, you can have the best intentions. You can want

00:09:26 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 you're from China or wherever you are, you still don't have that historical connection to the

00:09:37 nation. It is very propositional. It's very conscious. It's very deliberate. Whereas people

00:09:43 who have been raised up with those historical connections, that intergenerational connection

00:09:48 to a nation, it's unconscious. You have this almost, yeah, like a subconscious love and delight

00:09:55 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 I went to, a few months ago, I was in Italy and I went to Hungary and I spoke in Hungary

00:10:04 and Italy felt very foreign to me. Like, you know, with the language, the customs, the way of life.

00:10:09 And if I moved to Italy, I would feel out of place. I'd feel foreign. They were all, you know,

00:10:16 most people were very friendly and nice. And so I have nothing against them. There's no animosity

00:10:19 or hostility, but it was foreign. When I went to Hungary, I actually felt a little, some of it, 1.00

00:10:24 I feel actually closer to home, but it was still very foreign to me. And if I had moved there,

00:10:29 I'd still be a foreigner. And because I have no historical connection or anything like that to

00:10:33 them. And the same thing would be for like the United States. And we as a people have a connection

00:10:39 to historical events. You can be hospitable, you can receive people, you can be welcoming,

00:10:46 but you welcome people into a nation in order to bring them into the life of the nation so that

00:10:52 their subsequent progeny would experience life.

00:10:58 And in a way they would,

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

00:11:02 Like you can have a citizenship, 0.90

00:11:03 you wouldn't become fully American 0.59

00:11:05 until that second or third generation

00:11:07 has integrated into the whole.

00:11:10 Right.

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

00:11:15 Like when people question me on this all the time,

00:11:18 and it seems just obviously true

00:11:20 that you're going to be attached to a piece of dirt on the ground more if your grandfather

00:11:25 worked that land as a farmer than I would just walking outside and looking around. Like if

00:11:32 that Wolf Ranch means more to me as even though it's really just dirt and some rose bushes and

00:11:37 a cinder block house, it means more to me than any sort of grand mansion I could walk across

00:11:43 or observe because of those family connections. So anyway, I just guess, what's that?

00:11:50 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 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 if you drive by third avenue in napa california you'll see a sign that's a metal like almost like

00:12:11 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 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 and there's stories of like their friends stealing it and all this stuff then they

00:12:27 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 get a angle grinder to it but um anyway so uh yeah so i i think that that conception of nation

00:12:41 seems to me to be obvious. And if someone is, I think there's something inhuman about

00:12:47 not letting your love for your loved ones extend into the places that they've been.

00:12:55 Right. And this is why when people come here from Mexico or wherever, let's say Mexico, 0.97

00:13:05 and it actually in a way makes sense that when the Mexican team shows up in soccer that they

00:13:10 would wave the mexican flag like i don't think it's right because we've welcomed them and they

00:13:14 should deliberately choose to support the people that have received them but there is still

00:13:20 something natural about identifying with that place that your people came from right and so

00:13:25 i don't really fault them like when people come here in mass and they and they they go in uh

00:13:30 communities like there's in my area there's these large indian communities and they congregate

00:13:34 They congregate together, and that itself shows an impulse.

00:13:38 Like, it's not a coincidence that, you know,

00:13:41 with the Haitian migrants that a bunch of them

00:13:44 ended up in the same town in Springfield.

00:13:46 Yeah, and...

00:13:47 Why wouldn't you?

00:13:48 Yeah, in terms of, from their perspective,

00:13:51 that makes perfect sense.

00:13:52 Right, terrible for the town.

00:13:54 Yeah, it's bad for the town.

00:13:55 But for them, of course.

00:13:55 It's bad policy for our country.

00:13:59 But for them, from their perspective,

00:14:00 it makes perfect sense.

00:14:01 If I were, like, my understanding,

00:14:03 there's like some american communities in mexico city so there's people who said we got a bunch of

00:14:07 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 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 language same customs and not only that they have the same history ancestrally that i do they they

00:14:25 have the grandfathers in world war ii right so this has been going on for a while like things

00:14:29 are crazier with immigration today than they've probably ever been. But like the idea of Chinatown,

00:14:36 Little Italy, these different groups congregating in one centralized geographic region on American

00:14:45 soil, because that's what we instinctively do. If I move to China, which God forbid, 0.95

00:14:52 but if I, for whatever, what madness drove them there, you know, but if I did, for whatever reason,

00:14:57 um and this is things that some of my christian brothers just can't for whatever reason they can't

00:15:04 get or won't get won't allow themselves to comprehend but none of this is a betrayal of

00:15:09 my christian faith i love the lord jesus christ i love the bible like my my ultimate allegiance is

00:15:13 to christ but the first thing that i would do if i moved to china for whatever reason is i would

00:15:18 not seek out christians i would seek out americans i would seek out people that like first and

00:15:25 foremost that I can actually talk to and understand the language. I'm sure there are precious Chinese

00:15:32 saints in China that speak another language, and I will enjoy their fellowship for all of eternity

00:15:39 in heaven. And I look forward to that. But here in this temporal life on earth, I would need somebody

00:15:46 that I could ask directions from and be able to understand their answer. You know, I would seek

00:15:52 out the temporal earthly familiarities. And that's not a sin. Yeah. And when I was in Italy,

00:15:58 you'd hear people in different languages and you'd hear people speak English. And if they're

00:16:03 speaking an American accent, you're initially drawn to them. And they could be half the world

00:16:10 away. They could be lefties or whatever, but there's that instant ability for you to say,

00:16:17 oh, where are you from? And then they say, oh, I'm from, I don't know, New York. Okay. Oh,

00:16:23 interesting. I went to college in New York. Things like that, where there's a commonality

00:16:26 where you can now discuss things you wouldn't be able to discuss. There'd be a familiarity.

00:16:34 So you wouldn't be, the way I define like foreignness is when you enter a space and

00:16:41 you become basically a spectator.

00:16:43 So if you went to a festival in Mexico,

00:16:47 I would just be a spectator.

00:16:48 And even if I put on a mask or a costume,

00:16:52 I'd be a part of it, but I'd still be a spectator.

00:16:55 I would just be a guy and I'd be an American.

00:16:57 And it'd be fun and exciting and fascinating.

00:16:58 It'd be fun, exciting, thrilling, yeah.

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

00:17:02 It would be something that I'd want to go,

00:17:03 I'd want to visit, I'd want to spectate,

00:17:05 and I'd enjoy it and appreciate the culture,

00:17:07 and I could do so in an honoring way.

00:17:09 But then after a while, I'd want to go home.

00:17:13 Yeah, and this is even true in church traditions as well.

00:17:16 So if you go to a black church, I could be received as a member.

00:17:24 I could participate in the fellowship. 0.84

00:17:26 I could receive the word and sacraments just as much as the guy next to me.

00:17:30 But there is a sense in which because of the traditions brought to that context,

00:17:34 I would be a sort of spectator because that is a very black church culture.

00:17:39 um, again, spiritually fully communicate, but in terms of the culture, I would be a type of

00:17:44 spectator. Now, again, nothing wrong with that, but, but it's, it just speaks to this, there is

00:17:49 a, there is a distinct, like, yeah, that's what foreignness is. It's, you become a spectator.

00:17:55 And even after years and years and years of living in Italy, there's ways that you could

00:17:59 come to adopt that culture. Um, but I think you're always, you as the first generation is all,

00:18:07 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 but as a guy who grew up in California, who went to college in army and decided,

00:18:17 where are we going to move now? You know, why, where should we go? And so we decided North

00:18:20 Carolina, North Carolina is in the South. We love the South. We love Southern culture,

00:18:25 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 So I like non-sweetened tea, iced tea. Um, I know that I probably offended a bunch of people

00:18:35 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 tea you have to say the default the factory setting is here's your tea in california it's

00:18:45 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 say like a a bluegrass festival um then there's that in california too but i feel like when when

00:18:57 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 disrupt. I try to support everything that is uniquely Southern. And I want my kids, I want

00:19:09 my grandkids to go to a bluegrass or some sort of country music thing and they're participants.

00:19:16 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 but they can be that. And that's, that's integration. I hope, I really hope someday

00:19:26 that at least one of my grandkids has a Southern accent. My kids will not, I can't,

00:19:33 I can do it ironically, but I want someday that little grandkid to, you know, wow me with the

00:19:41 Southern accent. So anyway, that's kind of integration. Like even from the theonomic

00:19:46 perspective on this issue, there is actually a lot of alignment. The theonomic, you know,

00:19:51 side of the aisle does begin to derail a little bit when it comes to propositions and certain

00:19:58 things can just be universal and imported. As long as you are a professing Christian, you enter,

00:20:03 you know, a nation legally, you know, whatever legal processes they have. And as long as you're 0.94

00:20:07 not, you're going to contribute into work, you know, and not expecting welfare or government

00:20:11 handouts, then, you know, you can go to any nation and be a part of it. However, I will say this,

00:20:16 even for the theonomist, there is a general equity extraction principle where, you know,

00:20:25 the scripture that says that for those who, you know, not the sojourner was, it was temporary.

00:20:31 They were expected to eventually go back.

00:20:34 But for those who really wanted to not only immigrate, 0.70

00:20:37 but assimilate and become Israel, 0.79

00:20:40 like a Ruth kind of situation, 0.86

00:20:42 you know, like your people will be my people,

00:20:43 your God, my God. 0.51

00:20:44 Well, for one, even in the case of Ruth,

00:20:46 there really is a leaving behind

00:20:48 and a forsaking of those things that were past,

00:20:51 those things that were familiar.

00:20:53 She's giving them up.

00:20:54 She's not coming to Israel to say,

00:20:56 Moab, Moab.

00:20:59 No, she's coming to Israel and saying, 0.92

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

00:21:26 history and all these different things. Um, so with that back, back to, you know, this other

00:21:30 text of scripture that says, um, then in terms of like the full rights, especially when it came

00:21:35 to the temple and worship and those kinds of the access to, you know, make certain, uh, sacrifices

00:21:40 and, uh, certain temple, you know, rituals and customs. And, um, you wouldn't be able to do that

00:21:46 as somebody who immigrated to Israel until the third generation. And then, you know, the scripture

00:21:50 etches out, you know, uh, in the case of some nations, uh, you know, as a judgment to them

00:21:55 because of something in the past and the way that they treated Israel in an immoral sense.

00:22:02 As a judgment, there were some nations that says they wouldn't be able to be fully assimilated

00:22:07 until the 10th generation. But my point is that even from a general equity standpoint,

00:22:13 aside from natural law, even with special revelation, the argument seems clear. Whether

00:22:19 you're coming from the side of the coin, the special revelation or natural revelation, either

00:22:23 way um what seems obvious as you said i think that's a good way to say it obvious what seems

00:22:28 obvious is that um you can't move to a country and become that people in 15 minutes that's just

00:22:35 not a thing and assimilation takes time and and and and also i i don't think assimilation happens

00:22:41 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 defeated nation uh when even in your elections you have uh different languages on the ballot

00:22:54 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 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 then you have no business voting i mean that's insane but but some of the invent uh or not

00:23:14 inventions, but incentives for assimilating, I think part of it is that you, like, I have to

00:23:21 learn the language by necessity. I need to understand the customs and the culture by

00:23:25 necessity. Otherwise, I'm completely isolated. But one of the things, in my mind, just practically

00:23:31 speaking, one of the ways that incentivizes that is by mitigating immigration. If everyone can come 1.00

00:23:38 all at once, then you never actually have to assimilate. You just, you and your cousin and

00:23:43 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 place. You all stay right there. And you're not becoming Americans. You have actually no desire

00:23:53 to become Americans. You just want to be Haitians in America and take certain benefits for people 1.00

00:23:59 who bled and died and fought and worked and sweated without paying any homage or respect 0.99

00:24:05 at all. To me, that's a nation that's lost the will to live.

00:24:13 Yeah. And a lot of people, they'll come here for the economic benefits. And like you said,

00:24:18 that they, their own, and a lot of, and a lot of times they are the lowest skilled people, 0.92

00:24:25 because if you're leaving as a so-called economic migrant, it's because the country that you're in

00:24:32 cannot hire you. You cannot, you cannot get enough to live. And so you go to a place where

00:24:38 you can do that. And a lot of these guys will make money and they'll send them back through

00:24:43 remittance to the Mexico and Central America and South America. So you have a lot of guys coming

00:24:50 who are interested in an economic system that the American people through generations have created

00:24:57 and essentially to exploit that system for your gain. Now, it makes rational sense for you to do

00:25:05 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 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 be, especially in the case of nations like England. It's not sinister necessarily for the

00:25:22 immigrant. It is sinister for the political leaders to allow it and almost orchestrate it 1.00

00:25:30 against, especially in England, when it's like a real case can be made that the English people

00:25:35 never voted for that never gave their consent to that and have just been completely sold out

00:25:40 in england there's been like anti-immigration not necessarily anti-immigrant anti-immigrant

00:25:46 immigration sentiment for a long time and it's really been for them for us it started in the

00:25:50 1960s and 70s it accelerated a lot but for them it only began about like 20 30 years ago it was

00:25:56 a project of the labor party and then the conservative party as well in the late 90s

00:26:01 early 2000s. And so what they see today in England, which wasn't a very large country

00:26:06 relative to the United States back then either, is just a huge influx of immigrants that have 1.00

00:26:13 essentially taken over London. And even to this day, and you can be thrown in jail for questioning 1.00

00:26:21 that. You can be thrown in jail for saying that actually sexual assaults have increased

00:26:28 because of the immigration. 1.00

00:26:31 This is true for Germany. 0.78

00:26:33 Some countries have said enough,

00:26:34 like in Denmark and Finland,

00:26:37 or not, yeah, Denmark and Netherlands.

00:26:39 They've said basically enough is enough.

00:26:41 Ireland's getting there.

00:26:42 Ireland's kind of...

00:26:43 It's incredible.

00:26:45 This shows how the Western mind is so broken 1.00

00:26:48 because Ireland has the claim 1.00

00:26:51 to being the victim for centuries,

00:26:54 if not millennia.

00:26:56 They've had a reason to have a victim mentality 0.88

00:26:59 and also a reason to say there is an ethnic Irish.

00:27:03 Like we are a true ethnic group with actual borders

00:27:07 on an island apart from, yeah.

00:27:10 And yet now they are calling themselves racist

00:27:14 as if they have some colonial,

00:27:15 they didn't have any sort of colonies. 0.96

00:27:17 They have no reason to have a busted brain on this. 1.00

00:27:20 But it's infected the Irish to the point 1.00

00:27:22 and now they're receiving migrants 1.00

00:27:24 and all the problems that come with that, 0.99

00:27:26 it's sweeping throughout the Western world. 1.00

00:27:30 And the Irish, the irrationality of the Irish situation 0.99

00:27:34 is so obvious, but that same irrationality 0.69

00:27:37 infects all of the West, particularly Germany,

00:27:41 but also in France, surprisingly in France,

00:27:44 parts, you know, Italy and other places.

00:27:47 And of course, the United States.

00:27:49 So it's, I mean, this is the post-work consensus mentality,

00:27:52 but it's-

00:27:53 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 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 in the sense that, like, ever since our founding,

00:28:17 we've had waves of immigration at various periods of time,

00:28:20 whether it was, you know, it's the Irish are coming,

00:28:22 the Italians are coming, this is, you know.

00:28:24 And America was, you know, it was predominantly, 0.91

00:28:27 certainly, you know, Anglo-Protestant.

00:28:31 But from early days, there was still,

00:28:33 even though it was a minority,

00:28:34 there were different, you know, different peoples

00:28:35 and different ethnicities represented, you know,

00:28:38 early on as a minority and much more of a minority

00:28:41 than they are today.

00:28:42 but still present. And whereas if I'm, you know, if I was an Englishman, you know, or a Scotsman

00:28:49 or an Irishman, I'd be like, what? No, it's been a thousand years. It's always been us.

00:28:56 What are you talking about? You know, like, so I think that America, because of our history,

00:29:02 our unique history and the discovery of this massive landmass and everybody coming and,

00:29:07 and for a while we needed people to come because we, we actually needed settlers today. There's

00:29:11 no more settlers. There's just immigrants. It's been settled. But we had waves of immigration 1.00

00:29:17 when there was still lots of land that was unsettled and lots of places and lots of work

00:29:21 to be done. And a lot of different people at various points of our history, waves of different

00:29:26 countries coming in. There was always problems and animosity and things that had to be sorted

00:29:31 out. But a lot of these people came and they did get to work. They really did get to work and

00:29:35 became a part of American culture as time went on, not in 15 minutes, but by the time you get

00:29:40 to their great-grandchildren and stuff.

00:29:42 It's like, yeah, like the Irish settlers here in America,

00:29:44 you're Americans, and that's great. 0.79

00:29:47 But again, and so again, like that, you know,

00:29:49 that mixed with slavery and other things like that,

00:29:51 it's like, I can see why America would be susceptible

00:29:55 to the woke mind virus.

00:29:57 But in my opinion, and you've already kind of said it,

00:30:01 it seems like the common denominator is not history.

00:30:05 Like, oh, there's historical reasons.

00:30:07 It's pretty much anybody who's white, 0.96

00:30:09 whether they have any reason for it in their history or not if you're white you're guilty 0.96

00:30:13 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 don't actually have a people you don't have an ethnicity right um only only non-whites can have

00:30:29 an ethnicity and this has been part of our language for a while i mean i remember going to

00:30:32 the grocery store as a kid and seeing the ethnic aisle and didn't think anything different about it

00:30:37 but I knew what ethnic meant.

00:30:38 Ethnic basically meant you're not white.

00:30:41 And so there was no kind of like distinct

00:30:44 self-conscious ethnicity.

00:30:49 And that's even, and for the United States,

00:30:51 that's like, I guess, a more difficult question

00:30:54 than to say German or to say French

00:30:56 or to say English or Scottish or Welsh. 0.98

00:30:58 For them, it should have been very easy

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

00:31:03 But the guilt and subversion

00:31:06 that the Western Europe encountered

00:31:09 since, I think World War I started it, 0.97

00:31:15 World War II afterwards actually made it, 0.73

00:31:17 of course, much worse.

00:31:18 But that's led them to deny

00:31:21 that they have a people and a place.

00:31:23 And so they'll affirm that everyone else

00:31:25 has a people and a place. 0.83

00:31:27 And when they come here or they go to Germany

00:31:29 or France or whatever,

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

00:31:32 And that people is their ethnic people

00:31:34 and their place is the place they came from. 0.98

00:31:37 Right. 0.56

00:31:38 And so it's really only white people. 0.93

00:31:40 And this, again, this even infects the Irish mind 0.65

00:31:43 of those in Ireland,

00:31:45 that somehow Ireland is no longer a people and a place.

00:31:48 And so it does extend. 0.82

00:31:49 And I think what this means is that white people 0.59

00:31:51 have adopted a type of universal man.

00:31:54 Like this is, the left kind of has,

00:31:56 a lot of leftists kind of say this as well.

00:31:57 And I think in this case,

00:31:58 I think the lefts are left people

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

00:32:02 or at least are onto something.

00:32:03 And that is that we tend to think

00:32:06 that we are kind of the universal people.

00:32:11 And the way the left would frame it

00:32:14 is that we demand them essentially make everyone else white.

00:32:17 Like we're the norm and you guys have to become like us.

00:32:20 That's the way the left would critique it.

00:32:23 What I would critique it is it means

00:32:24 you're the universal man, but you're actually,

00:32:26 you're not bounded.

00:32:28 You're not particular.

00:32:29 You're just, you're the universal.

00:32:31 And so you don't actually have a,

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

00:32:36 Your people have to be everyone.

00:32:38 Your people have to be all people in the entire world.

00:32:40 It has to be anyone. 1.00

00:32:41 So whereas like blacks can claim,

00:32:43 I'm black, black is beautiful. 0.86

00:32:46 Hispanics can say, you know, I'm Mexican,

00:32:48 Mexico is beautiful, you know,

00:32:49 shake the flag, Mexican flag. 1.00

00:32:52 White people cannot have a bounded people in place. 1.00

00:32:56 And that's anywhere. 0.93

00:32:57 So I don't mean white as like a racial category

00:33:01 as if I need to claim solidarity with the Russians

00:33:03 or the Ukrainians or the Hungarians,

00:33:06 but just any particular people that happen to be white

00:33:10 cannot have a people in place.

00:33:11 They have to be maximally open.

00:33:14 They have to be maximally self-deprecating.

00:33:18 And ultimately, they have to, in their minds,

00:33:20 displace themselves so that they cannot have that.

00:33:22 And so it's, I think it's psychologically set up

00:33:25 so that we'll have, it'll be national suicide.

00:33:29 you'll be, you are, you're mentally prepared to be replaced. 0.77

00:33:34 That's so sad.

00:33:35 Yeah, I think that's everywhere.

00:33:36 Like, I think that's happening absolutely everywhere.

00:33:40 What is it called?

00:33:41 I think Eric Kaufman's a sociologist.

00:33:44 He calls it asymmetric multiculturalism.

00:33:47 So if anyone, anyone watching-

00:33:48 Break that down for me. 0.99

00:33:49 Type in asymmetric multiculturalism. 0.76

00:33:51 Okay.

00:33:52 And he wrote an article on this.

00:33:54 And what he says is that basically white people

00:33:57 have to be multiculturalists but what that means is that white people cannot have a culture

00:34:05 they can't have a people but they they must as a group affirm multiculturalism

00:34:10 which means that all other cultures can have people in a place everyone gets to have that's

00:34:16 why it's asymmetric it's that you have to affirm it but you affirm their identities your only

00:34:23 identity is wrapped up in you affirming their identities. So you can't actually have a people

00:34:28 in place at all. And so, and that's not just, that's reflected in policy. It's reflected in

00:34:36 the fact that even what I'm saying right now is causing people watching to be uncomfortable.

00:34:40 Right.

00:34:40 Because I'm actually identifying what you're not supposed to identify. Like it's supposed to be

00:34:46 by habit that you'll say that, that you affirm, you know, oh, look at that, you know, they got

00:34:52 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 have culture like you're my habit meant like all that what all i remember seeing like tiktok videos 0.93

00:35:03 of uh uh like like black people making fun of white people for not using spices yeah you know 0.85

00:35:08 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 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 You know, but even that is like me at some level giving into the stereotype that that's kind of,

00:35:25 it's similar to what happened with feminism, you know, like all the sitcoms in the 90s,

00:35:29 everybody loves Raymond, the Simpsons, and like the husband is always, he's fat, he's lazy, 1.00

00:35:34 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 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 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 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 can't, yet everybody still wants to live here. Yeah, that is the irony. Well, I mean, the thing 0.98

00:36:07 is like being able to laugh at yourself is actually a good quality and the groups that

00:36:13 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 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 the difference still affirms there's something positive about you the the thing about white

00:36:29 people is we are required to not say anything positive about ourselves we're only we're required 0.79

00:36:35 to say only negative things about ourselves so when we talk about western civilization which is 0.77

00:36:40 largely speaking a white generated civilization because it's europe which is white um we have 0.73

00:36:49 to talk about colonialism and slavery and uh and uh repression of women and all these things we 0.82

00:36:55 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 identify like political liberty um these sorts of things then we have to speak art philosophy yeah

00:37:09 dance music um cathedrals and like i mean there's so many yeah we'd have wonderful things we have

00:37:15 to speak all those of those in terms of uh universality like they're actually a political

00:37:20 liberty yeah maybe like this was generated from the interaction of europeans and also their own

00:37:25 experience. But in the end, like liberal democracy is just the universal good. And, uh, oh, by the

00:37:31 way, these other countries experienced it too. So it's not unique to Europe. And so you have to

00:37:36 universalize it. Um, and so you see these guys, like, like I remember like Paul Miller does this

00:37:41 in his book. It's like, yeah, well, yeah, there's angle Protestant liberties, but by the way, also

00:37:44 these other countries practice them as well. So it's not a white thing. So you have your impulses

00:37:48 in everything particular about white nations is bad. You have to, you have to criticize them 0.99

00:37:55 and anything that's good is actually universal, which, which, which then mean that, which then

00:38:01 can be attributed to everyone else universally. It's not something we have to claim the bad.

00:38:06 That's unique to us. You always have to identify, you can't claim that actually

00:38:10 white people can identify as a group only if they're identifying their, their evil for blame, 0.73

00:38:16 for blame. But in terms of praise, the undeniables have to be universalized 0.79

00:38:21 away from them arising from a European context into something all people

00:38:30 would affirm. And oh, by the way, they would have affirmed it if you didn't colonize them 0.85

00:38:36 and you didn't exploit them and you turned them into slaves and all that.

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

00:38:46 that was, I think that might've been the first big controversy that I had. And on this one,

00:38:51 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 it was actually me and 80 Robles. We were doing an episode together. And I think it was the first

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

00:39:04 three years ago at this point. And, um, and we were actually doing an episode, um, defending

00:39:10 Doug Wilson, cause he gotten some controversy or whatever. And we both appreciated him and

00:39:14 still, still appreciate him. I shouldn't say it like we don't anymore, but, um, you know,

00:39:20 but now Doug and I have had some disagreements and so I still appreciate him, but it, you know,

00:39:24 it's, it's a little bit complicated at the moment. Um, but back then, you know, just, uh, we were,

00:39:28 we did a whole episode on, uh, defense of Doug Wilson, you know, because he's gotten a lot of,

00:39:33 uh, flack and a lot of it really has not been fair. And so we were doing that and we were

00:39:37 talking about like, Oh, he's gotten flack on, uh, you know, his book, Southern slavery as it was,

00:39:41 and things about slavery, things about race.

00:39:44 And so we were doing a defense

00:39:46 and the problem is me and A.D. just,

00:39:50 we just have too much fun.

00:39:52 And so I said one thing

00:39:54 and didn't get to finish the thought.

00:39:56 And then he made a joke

00:39:57 or started laughing and cut in and said something,

00:40:01 which we always do.

00:40:02 I cut in with him, he cuts in with me.

00:40:04 But then the thing he cut in with

00:40:06 gave me another idea.

00:40:08 And this is one of the times

00:40:10 where you've got to finish that thought.

00:40:11 And I didn't know, I forgot and didn't finish the thought.

00:40:14 And then of course the hackling hints, you know,

00:40:17 of the spiritual HR department of examining Moscow, 1.00

00:40:22 you know, all the 60 plus feminist ladies, you know, 1.00

00:40:26 whose husbands live outside, you know, 1.00

00:40:28 in a tent in the backyard and hate Doug Wilson and, you know,

00:40:31 and write, you know, scathing, unfounded, you know,

00:40:34 critiques every other day.

00:40:36 They, you know, picked me up and they picked me up,

00:40:38 not because I was at the time, nobody knew who I was.

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

00:40:41 they literally used me simply as a pawn to say, here's one of Doug's disciples and listen to what

00:40:46 he just said. And it was the irony was the whole episode, the purpose was to defend Doug. And I

00:40:51 probably got him into more trouble. You know, it's like, thanks for, thanks for helping Joel,

00:40:55 you know, because I didn't finish this thought. Here was the thought. I said, you know, like,

00:41:01 you know, we, we talk about, you know, slavery and, you know, but the Bible, you know, it says

00:41:06 that man stealing is wrong and punishable by death and not just the one who steals, but even

00:41:10 the one found in possession of the one who was stolen. These kinds of things are biblical

00:41:14 principles. We find it in Leviticus. We find it in, I believe, Exodus chapter 21. And so I was

00:41:19 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 over to sub-Saharan African countries with human-sized nets, going into the jungle and

00:41:29 capturing people. And then AD cut in and we never got back to it. And that one didn't look good.

00:41:34 So I'm going to finish it now. Yeah. So three years later, I'm going to actually say what I

00:41:39 meant. But this is what I was trying to say. So everybody took that as, Joel thinks slavery is

00:41:44 fine as long as you didn't capture the people. And on one hand, I do think that slavery in some

00:41:51 forms is permissible. And the reason why I think that is because the Bible says it. I love the 0.86

00:41:54 Bible. Let God be true in every man a liar, and I won't apologize for it. That said, though, many

00:41:59 of the Confederates, guys like Stonewall Jackson or guys like Robert E. Lee or even Dabney, who I've

00:42:05 you know, read a decent amount on. These guys who defended slavery, they did. There's no denying 0.90

00:42:13 that. But even these guys, they hated the slave trade. And they wanted to see the slave trade end.

00:42:18 And these guys were better guys than many of the people, you know, a part of the union

00:42:22 up north, because, you know, they were saying, you know, slavery needs to end today. And part of the

00:42:29 concern was the defense of slavery and property and economic activity. That's true. There's no

00:42:33 denying that. But part of it also was, what are we going to do with these people? And it was guys

00:42:37 like Abraham Lincoln, who, you know, they either like, we'll just drop them back off in the bush 0.51

00:42:43 in Africa. Even if you accidentally, the ship goes the wrong direction, you take them to a 0.61

00:42:47 whole nother nation, who cares? You know, or one of the more humane. That was a common position.

00:42:51 It was. It really was. The founders talked about that as well. Yes. And then another position,

00:42:56 a little bit more humane was, well, okay, we'll send them out West. But the reason why that didn't

00:43:01 work out wasn't even because of the Confederates necessarily, but because of the Northerners who

00:43:05 said, well, wait a second, but we eventually, we're planned to get there. We want to settle

00:43:09 the West. We don't want Black neighbors. So it was the Northerners who in so many ways were 1.00

00:43:14 really malicious. And a lot of the Confederates, you know, and a lot of the Black people fought, 0.87

00:43:21 not at gunpoint from their masters, but they loved the South and they loved, you know, so

00:43:25 anyway, so all these things, my point was to say this. So slavery in some cases is permissible.

00:43:29 I don't think that it should be race-based, and it certainly shouldn't be man-stealing.

00:43:33 The Bible does condemn that, stealing people into slavery.

00:43:36 The point that I made about, well, it wasn't white people who were going into jungles in 0.64

00:43:40 Africa with human-sized nets and rounding them up. 0.89

00:43:42 The point that I was trying to make is, number one, Europeans bought slaves in a race-based

00:43:51 slave market, knowing that they were kidnapped. 1.00

00:43:53 That's true.

00:43:54 And the slave trade, I think, was a pernicious evil, and it needed to end.

00:43:58 and I praise God for ending it. A lot of other nations, European nations, were able to end it

00:44:02 without a war. That sucks for America. I think slavery was a judgment, and I think the Civil War 0.97

00:44:08 was a judgment in itself. I think that that was wrong, the way that we ended it. But beyond that,

00:44:14 there's plenty of guilt and blame to go around. Africans were conquering each other and selling 1.00

00:44:21 themselves into slavery. And when you look statistically, numerically, at the number of

00:44:25 slaves, far more of them went to South America than ever came to the United States. And so my

00:44:31 point in all that is to say, no, America is not absolved or immune to any critique that could be

00:44:37 levied in terms of slavery or the slave trade or racism, which who even knows what that means

00:44:46 anymore, you know, but whatever, that's true. And there really is genuine failure and sin.

00:44:53 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 time that me and ad recorded that episode and they would attribute that to the success

00:45:06 of western civilization and say well yeah sure you've been successful and prosperous and all

00:45:10 this kind of stuff but that's just because you exploited the rest of the world and enslaved

00:45:13 them and if that's the case then what happened to south america they had more slaves than we did

00:45:20 How come America is so much richer? No, no, no. God blessed these United States and he didn't do

00:45:26 it because of slavery. He did it despite slavery. And that's my point is to say, even for the

00:45:31 critiques that can be levied with legitimate history to back them up, like slavery, the point

00:45:38 is the whole world at some point, virtually every nation on the planet has had slaves and many of

00:45:44 the practice is far more inhumane, enslaving each other, capturing, man-stealing. Africans 0.94

00:45:50 were conquering and selling their own people and man-stealing. Europeans were aware of it and bought 1.00

00:45:58 them. And there is a guilt imputed for that. The slave trade needed to end. South Americans,

00:46:03 though, they were doing it too and buying them at even larger numbers. All these things were going 0.97

00:46:07 on. So if you think that the West, its secret sauce and its success is free labor through

00:46:15 slavery, then you're an idiot. The whole world has had slaves. And many countries outside of 1.00

00:46:22 the West are far more guilty for it. The West, you have to account for the success of the West

00:46:27 outside of oppression. That just doesn't, it doesn't have the explanatory power. That was my

00:46:33 point yeah yeah and yeah every like you said every every nation every every continent has seen

00:46:40 massive amounts of slavery and uh i i think it's been refuted like tons of times that the idea that

00:46:48 the reason why the united states was prosperous is because of slavery um economically i think that

00:46:54 the end the economic powerhouse was more in the north so there's if you want to say anything it's

00:46:59 because of, you know, the capitalists using cheap immigrant labor might be, might be one reason.

00:47:04 That's probably a better explanation. And just natural resources. Yeah. Well, I think it's also,

00:47:09 I think the better explanation for why the West prospers, it's not geography. I mean,

00:47:14 geography plays a part in it, but it's institution building. The fact that the West was able to

00:47:20 develop, um, systems of laws, um, customs, like, um, you know, uh, importation, like

00:47:28 customs and, and, and, uh, uh, for like markets and, and also technology.

00:47:34 So you got the technology factor and you have the, uh, the institution factor that

00:47:40 enabled you to do, enabled you to do complex market transactions, um, also with the technology

00:47:46 to move goods from place to place.

00:47:49 Certainly there was economic value in using slaves,

00:47:53 but I think the predominant reason is,

00:47:56 like you said, there's a commonality

00:47:57 amongst all the countries,

00:47:58 which is they all had slaves.

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

00:48:03 and the technology.

00:48:06 Which now, by the way,

00:48:08 the rest of the world is now relying upon.

00:48:11 They're using the...

00:48:14 They replicate Western institutions

00:48:17 because they know those are more effective

00:48:19 at creating good economic outcomes.

00:48:21 And then they use the technology

00:48:23 that the West has developed.

00:48:27 Then they can develop it on their own as well.

00:48:29 But primarily it's because of Western development

00:48:31 that the rest of the world is prosperous.

00:48:35 So essentially every time someone leaves poverty

00:48:38 and enters into the middle class in say India or China,

00:48:42 um it's because of the western civilization and yet all this back to our main theme of

00:48:52 what is a nation um it's like this it's this weird dynamic it's like this the superman

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

00:49:09 needs him except in this scenario everyone needs superman recognizes the sense of his unique

00:49:18 contributions and simultaneously hates him yeah yeah it's like we're the most racist country on

00:49:26 earth and yet everyone wants to come here right it doesn't make any sense at all um if if people

00:49:32 are rational if they are rational and and they're choosing to come here then the conclusion is that

00:49:39 we're actually not with whatever what the left and we we tell ourselves it's just not the case

00:49:44 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 thought about this several times i can't explain that phenomenon of everyone wants to be here

00:49:58 everyone the whole world not just you know the west but the whole world has economically benefited

00:50:04 from the innovation and the contributions of Western civilization. So everyone wants to be

00:50:09 here. And even those who aren't here fare better because of here. And yet also they're the most

00:50:15 oppressive, terrible people in the world. These whiteys. How do you account for that? The only 1.00

00:50:20 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 we've arrived at with your own people selling you out. I don't think it's just a bunch of,

00:50:37 you know, uh, really, you know, hateful, spiteful people in South America or in Africa or in Asia. 0.53

00:50:43 I feel like white people, not all of them, not even a general populace, but elites, leaders, 0.56

00:50:53 leading white Western civilization, people, politicians or corporationals at some point, 0.52

00:50:59 maybe it was slowly, maybe it was calculated, maybe it was organic. But at some point,

00:51:05 elites in Western nations had to consciously make that choice to sell out their own people

00:51:10 and to hate their own people in order to somehow use that guilt for the GDP to go up,

00:51:21 to get cheaper labor, or somehow, some way, with some incentive. I don't think it's just

00:51:26 uh the rest of the world finally got tired of all those whites and their oppression like because 0.96

00:51:30 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 the world loved us like even the rest of the world learned american hatred from america i feel like

00:51:42 in some sense and then it's like well then where did americans get hatred for themselves and to me

00:51:49 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 Yeah. Man, this is the hardest thing to understand. I think, I mean, after World War II,

00:52:03 there was a change in mentality. It happened in the 70s. And among conservative circles,

00:52:09 it happened in the 80s. I think that there's something to do with the Cold War as well,

00:52:13 and that even the strongest conservatives, I guess, they weren't the most right-wing people,

00:52:20 but they were on that edge, would differentiate the West from the communists. And the West was

00:52:27 freedom, economic opportunity, individual self-determination, whereas communism was

00:52:32 highly collectivistic. It was statist and controlling. And so there is that. And that allowed,

00:52:38 I think, this mentality that was expressed in the 80s by someone like Ronald Reagan,

00:52:45 who would then say that, you know, bring the huddled masses if they come here to work hard,

00:52:49 just like the pilgrims and to fight and obtain their freedom, then we want them. And so then

00:52:56 he retells, actually, I mean, recrafts the myth of the pilgrims. You know, this was one of his

00:53:04 big things. The pilgrims came and they were freeing oppression and they just wanted a better

00:53:09 life and economic opportunity. You know, it's a shining city on a hill and that's what we can

00:53:15 become a and and he he framed it in terms of like industrial production like gdp and so if someone

00:53:21 comes here and they want to contribute to the our well-being in terms of material well-being

00:53:26 then come on let them bring so there was no sense of like uh common culture common heritage

00:53:32 as long as you make connection if you want to come here and make us richer that's fine and we

00:53:37 don't care if you like apple pie yeah i don't care if you like george washington or a history

00:53:42 anything like that. Yeah. So he, he basically retold and re like refashioned that, that sort

00:53:46 of myth, uh, of, uh, of, um, uh, of like the, the first founding of America with the colonies

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

00:53:59 to someone who is 40 or older, 45, maybe 50 or older, they grew up and they're conservative.

00:54:06 They grew up with that mentality. So you are, when you get an argument with an older person,

00:54:11 on the idea of ethnicity, the idea of American identity.

00:54:15 You're arguing with Fox News.

00:54:16 You're arguing with, yeah, you're arguing with Ronald Reagan

00:54:19 mediated through Fox News, you know, decades of socialization through TV.

00:54:24 And you're probably not going to win that argument.

00:54:26 Unless they were listening to Pappy Cannon in the early 90s

00:54:29 and some other guys and they followed that.

00:54:32 But if they had not, that's their conservative approach.

00:54:36 And so that's what you're up against.

00:54:37 but now what we have is people who are younger like 40 45 and younger and they did not experience

00:54:44 that they did not grow up watching fox news or talk radio their alternative media is online so

00:54:49 now they're now they're able to access another narrative of american history which is far more

00:54:55 um well it's actually true what reagan actually said what most of what he said was false

00:55:01 um on the pilgrims anyway he also conflated the puritans and pilgrims but that's doesn't matter

00:55:06 to academic, but, but yeah, these younger people are able to, to now receive a different narrative

00:55:12 of American identity. And so people like you and I are part of that now. What's Joel Berry's

00:55:17 excuse then? Is he, is he secretly like 65 years old and he just physically hasn't aged? No, no.

00:55:23 Well, yeah, no. Exactly. I'm like, you're too young to be this silly. I think it's probably

00:55:31 lingering dispensationalism

00:55:33 is one of those causes.

00:55:35 That he loves him some Israel.

00:55:37 Yeah, so if you,

00:55:39 yeah, and it tends to go,

00:55:40 one goes with the other.

00:55:42 So if you have a theological

00:55:45 connection to Israel,

00:55:47 I mean, it's one thing

00:55:49 to consider Israel a geopolitical entity

00:55:51 in a world of states,

00:55:53 and that's a different question.

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

00:55:56 a supporter of Israel

00:55:58 as a geopolitical entity

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

00:56:05 love for Israel. But people have this theological love for Israel through dispensationalism and

00:56:11 some of the hangovers from that. And that also tends to coincide with the propositional notion

00:56:16 of America. Now, there's really no logical connection to those two things.

00:56:19 But they always come as a pair.

00:56:20 Those come as a pair. And for whatever reason, that's the fact. But yeah, it is like what we

00:56:27 have to then combat is this notion that there never was American identity. There never was

00:56:33 an American ethnos. It was always multicultural, designed that way from the beginning.

00:56:39 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 on Protestantism, on the importance of having a similar culture to maintain American order 0.98

00:56:52 Liberty, they all affirmed that immigration can actually destroy this country because you import 0.81

00:56:59 people of different customs, different conceptions of liberty, different economic, different, you 0.97

00:57:04 know, so with all of that, you can actually destroy. And, and, um, I mean, we're probably

00:57:09 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 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 multicultural society is something that wars against human nature. It wars against the human 0.98

00:57:30 good as a political community. You cannot have a cohesive political community in which

00:57:35 a large portion of those people in a heart live somewhere else.

00:57:41 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 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 place. That's great. I don't have any problem with that. And let your heart be synced up with your

00:57:56 home. Go back. Right. Yeah. Or either go back or cut ties. Right. There's no dual loyalty. You're

00:58:03 here and you're an American and you are seeking to become, integrate as an American, historically

00:58:09 speaking. We cannot function as a society in which most, which increasingly, this is my fear, 0.72

00:58:17 is my kids and grandkids and great grandkids will live in a society in which they are from here. 1.00

00:58:26 This is their home. They have nowhere else to go. But they'll be surrounded by people who all have

00:58:31 someplace else to go. They're all from somewhere else in heart, not just ancestral. We're all

00:58:37 derivative in some sense, but their heart's somewhere else. And then you try to fashion

00:58:47 and hold together a political community. And then, by the way, you who are from here, who have

00:58:52 nowhere else to go, are like the enemy. You're the villain of the story. All of the problems of

00:58:59 the people who are from somewhere else fall down on you. And now you're the minority. So instead

00:59:04 of the majority you're the minority you're the villain and you're surrounded by people who have 0.89

00:59:08 no or very limited ancestral connection to the place that they live whose heart is elsewhere 0.70

00:59:13 that's talk about an experiment in liberty right that that is far beyond the experiment of liberty

00:59:20 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 my yet to be borns, you know, my, yeah, they are going to be subjected to that. Like I almost

00:59:35 saying like that, that is what most likely they're going to be subjected to. Um, unless

00:59:39 something happens, unless we all change our mentality and say, you know, either be American

00:59:46 or go somewhere else. Right. Yeah. When I first started delving into some of these things and

00:59:52 learning. Um, my initial reaction was, you know, shock, surprise, then quickly followed up by

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

01:00:07 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 five kids and one day, Lord willing, I hope to be a grandfather. And unless something changes,

01:00:21 with the will of the people in Western nations

01:00:25 and a real act and revival and work of God.

01:00:30 My grandchildren, it makes me sad

01:00:34 to think that everyone else, all their neighbors, 1.00

01:00:38 I mean, even now, most of my neighbors are either Hindu

01:00:40 or they're Pakistani, they're Muslim.

01:00:45 It's rare when we go for a family walk

01:00:48 and we see another white family. 0.69

01:00:51 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 and my grandchildren have nothing like this is they don't have anywhere else to go they don't

01:01:19 have another home this was the only home they ever had they're a minority in their own home

01:01:23 that their fathers actually built and uh and their minority have no say so they don't they

01:01:30 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 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 One of my prayers is I just hope that Westerners will listen and wake up and stop hating their

01:01:52 future grandchildren. Don't hate your kids. And don't hate your fathers. It's a hatred of your

01:01:58 fathers. And it's like despising of the past and despairing for the future. Whereas the only way

01:02:06 that we can move forward is honor for the past and hope for the future. Honor the past, hope for

01:02:12 the future versus despising the past and despairing of the future. And yeah, but if we continue to

01:02:20 believe all these lies that have been said about, you know, all the founders were terrible,

01:02:25 oppressive people and this, that, and the other, like every nation has that history. Every nation

01:02:30 can look back to the 1800s and find political leaders in their nation that were 10 times worse

01:02:35 than George Washington or anything like that. And yet they don't, other people don't hate their

01:02:39 nation they love their nation they're proud of it they're proud of it because it's theirs and

01:02:45 we're the only ones who actually have a better history a more moral history and and yet somehow

01:02:51 are just completely ashamed and so yeah it's just yeah it's not viable i think going forward like i

01:02:58 emphasize like the psychological aspect of it a lot and and i think what people need to do and

01:03:05 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 the mind that like when you and i talk about this we can talk about it very comfortable because we've

01:03:15 essentially desensitized ourselves to what we're socialized into which is to avoid these kind of

01:03:21 conversations right like the idea of talking about white people and saying something good about them

01:03:26 uh feels uncomfortable to people psychologically they say wait a second stop stop stop it's in

01:03:32 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 like just you like the you and you and your spouse and you talk about this you're in your

01:03:43 own kitchen by yourself and you start talking quietly you're looking over your shoulder there's

01:03:47 no one in the room but you you know that but you start talking quietly well i'll tell you why

01:03:51 because your wife might call the elders well yeah yeah that's true and turn you in for church

01:03:56 discipline yeah but barring that though you're both on the same page there still is that tendency

01:04:02 to do that. And whenever you have that tendency to do that, you need to check yourself

01:04:11 and do a self-assessment and criticize your own habits of your mind and get rid of that stuff.

01:04:20 And that includes all that. It's not until you get freed from that habit of the mind that's

01:04:28 been that's not the call of conscience to go towards what is good that is your mind having

01:04:35 been shaped by socialization to not think in certain ways right by the way to not think in

01:04:42 ways that everyone else but you can actually think and say and and do all they do anything they want

01:04:47 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 discovered probably about

01:04:55 15 years ago, and it was

01:04:57 a slow process of being able to

01:04:59 desensitize yourself from these

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

01:05:05 The only thing

01:05:05 I would warn people is there

01:05:07 is something that can

01:05:09 arise from that. If you start

01:05:11 hating other groups,

01:05:14 if you start degrading,

01:05:15 preference for your own does not

01:05:17 necessitate hatred of others.

01:05:19 I don't mean hatred as a left-wing term.

01:05:21 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 a left-wing term, but it's appropriate dehumanize. So if you, if you're, uh, like, don't, you know,

01:05:35 the, you see memes going around of like blacks being like monkeys or something like that. Like 0.95

01:05:39 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 you've desensitized your conscience. Like that's gone too far.

01:05:50 That's not desensitizing.

01:05:52 That's searing.

01:05:52 You've seared your conscience.

01:05:53 Yeah, exactly.

01:05:54 So there is that.

01:05:55 But in everything that's good, there's always a possibility of abuse.

01:05:58 Yeah.

01:05:58 So don't put up a guardrail that makes you nationally suicidal or makes you self-degrading

01:06:06 or self-demeaning.

01:06:08 Don't take that away, but retain that natural guardrail, which is to prevent you from sin.

01:06:15 But at this point, there's actually, I would say we're psychologically engineered to sin against ourselves.

01:06:22 Yes.

01:06:23 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 Well said. Very well said.

01:06:31 So next episode, did you ever watch the movie Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio?

01:06:36 So dream within a dream.

01:06:38 Sometimes with these long form conversations with our special show that's multiple parts,

01:06:42 sometimes you have to do a series within a series.

01:06:44 Yeah.

01:06:45 And so this is what I'm thinking is, you know, this is episode three now and we're answering

01:06:52 the question, what is a nation or at least trying to, that's our goal.

01:06:55 And so I'm thinking, you know, this is a 10 part series at large and I'm thinking series,

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

01:07:02 I think we need a two parter on what is a nation.

01:07:05 Okay.

01:07:05 Yeah.

01:07:05 So what we've hit so far is, and it's not like we didn't cover any ground.

01:07:09 This was, I think this is gold.

01:07:11 This was a great episode.

01:07:12 I hope our listeners have enjoyed it.

01:07:14 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 episode, um, of what is a nation, the series within a series is, um, home in history that,

01:07:26 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 next, um, episode is, uh, again, like kind of a part two on what is a nation. And I have six

01:07:39 components all start with the letter L. And I got these from my friend, Michael Belch,

01:07:44 who sent you actually a part of his rough draft with the book and might get a blurb from you.

01:07:50 Well, we'll get a blurb, but-

01:07:51 We'll get a blurb, great. Get an endorsement for that. But he's going to be publishing it soon,

01:07:56 either with us, with Right Response, or we might publish through New Christendom Press,

01:08:00 and they've expressed interest. But his whole book, you wrote The Case for Christian Nationalism,

01:08:06 I mean, his is called The Biblical Case for Nations.

01:08:08 But it's basically answering that question,

01:08:10 what is a nation?

01:08:11 And he came up with six L's,

01:08:14 and it's land, lineage, language, laws, loves, and liturgy.

01:08:22 Land, lineage, language, laws, loves, and liturgy.

01:08:29 And so in our next episode,

01:08:30 we've kind of been talking about land and lineage

01:08:33 in a lot of ways, family, home, heritage, history. But then to go beyond that and talk about

01:08:40 commonality with liturgy, worship, that there's a shared sense of worship and that a nation really 0.99

01:08:48 can't survive with all these different religions, you know, where none of them is, it's one thing 0.99

01:08:54 to tolerate other religions as minority representation, but to say that every religion 0.97

01:08:59 is equal and none of them get any preference, or if anything, all the other religions, the false

01:09:04 religions from foreign people who've immigrated in, that they get the preference. And the dominant 0.97

01:09:09 religion, Christianity, becomes the butt of every joke and gets the least. That's just not, again, 0.94

01:09:14 viable. So I would love to, in the next episode, talk about those four L's, land, lineage, laws, 0.90

01:09:21 loves language and and liturgy and i think that um because nationhood uh it is more than land and

01:09:30 lineage particular people particular place um but it's it's not less it is that and i think that's

01:09:37 what we first established and we can get into that a little bit more but um it's it's never

01:09:42 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 you can add those other components without going full boomer into propositional nationhood so

01:09:52 That's it.

01:09:52 All right.

01:09:53 Thanks for tuning in.

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The NXR Podcast - July 19, 2025

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

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