The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Joel Berry vs. The Founding Fathers？

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00:00:27.040 Are all men really created equal?

00:00:28.960 should this statement be the sole foundation and basis for our entire nation, these United States

00:00:35.800 of America? This conversation has been going on for quite some time, but it resurfaced in a

00:00:41.580 profound way, you could say, from a tweet by a known liberal named Joel Berry. Joel Berry tweeted

00:00:48.140 out this. He said, the main target of the post-liberal right, the new ascendant right,

00:00:52.720 whatever you want to call it, is not against the post-war consensus, but rather it's their

00:00:58.800 opposition to this sentence right here and then he has a screenshot from the declaration of

00:01:03.460 independence where he circles the sentence that all men are created equal he goes on in his tweet

00:01:09.160 by saying they think the new ascendant right they think that the founding of america was poisoned

00:01:14.620 by radical egalitarian enlightenment thinking and that it must be completely overturned their goal

00:01:21.220 is to impose hierarchies from the top down by the will of a virtuous sovereign those hierarchies

00:01:26.780 could be based on blood or birth or religion or whatever else they might cook up they never quite

00:01:31.820 give details about how all this will work skipping down a little bit in his long tweet he says you

00:01:38.480 can agree or disagree with the post-liberal right but we have to be honest this movement is

00:01:45.140 fundamentally opposed to a core tenant of the american founding it wants a different country

00:01:51.220 than the founders established this is what we're going to be addressing today in our episode

00:01:56.600 Are All Men Really Created Equal? What did the founders mean by this? Is Jefferson a credible

00:02:02.540 source for the American founding? Should we look to his words above even the words of scripture?

00:02:08.020 This is our topic for today. Tune in now.

00:02:19.580 All right, we're back. We are talking about all men being created equal. Yeah, we've all been

00:02:25.640 out and about doing various things. All three of us are back in the studio now. This is the topic

00:02:30.500 for today. What did the founders mean when they said all men are created equal? Were they right,

00:02:36.820 but meaning it in a more narrow sense in the way it's been reinterpreted today? Or did they

00:02:42.280 actually mean it in this broad sense and they were simply wrong? This is going to be the topic

00:02:47.260 of discussion. But one of the things that we wanted to use to start off this discussion is

00:02:52.980 a quote from, show me the guy, it's Jack Rakove, who was a Stanford historian and Pulitzer Prize

00:03:03.880 winner. And he is, just for the record, he's a leftist. He's a liberal. And so this is somebody,

00:03:10.260 even from the liberal side of the aisle, acknowledging that what Jefferson was writing

00:03:17.060 was not intended in the way that it's been interpreted by many in our country today.

00:03:22.620 Here's the quote. He says, when Jefferson wrote, all men are created equal in the preamble to the declaration, he was not talking about individual equality. What he really meant was that the American colonist as a people had the same rights of self-government as other peoples, and hence they could declare independence, create new governments, and assume their separate but equal station among other nations.

00:03:47.380 But after the revolution succeeded, Americans began reading that famous phrase another way.

00:03:53.800 It now became a statement of individual equality that everyone and every member of a deprived group could claim for himself or herself.

00:04:03.840 With each passing generation, our notion of who that statement covers has expanded.

00:04:10.380 Let's continue. Or is that it? That's the end of it.

00:04:12.560 Okay, that's the end of it. So let's discuss. I think he's right.

00:04:15.280 I think that what the founders had in mind was more meant to be more narrowly applied.

00:04:21.120 And at the end of the day, if if all men being equal means equal potential, I think Joel

00:04:26.660 Barry, to give him credit, you know, there's there's a sliding scale of liberalism.

00:04:30.820 There's there's the left side of the aisle and the right side.

00:04:34.100 Right.

00:04:34.240 So there's there's, you know, liberal lefts and liberal rights.

00:04:38.360 And Joel Barry would be on the right side, but he is still a liberal.

00:04:42.140 And so for him, I think he would say, well, equality isn't equity. It's not forced equality of outcome. But I think he would still hold to the idea that equality means at least equal opportunity or equal potential.

00:04:56.300 But if that is the view, in my assessment, if that's the view that we're saying, not even just among Americans, but the whole entire world, every nation on the planet, that every single out of 8.2 billion people, that they all have equal opportunity, that they all have equal potential, then I think as a nation, we are absolutely cooked.

00:05:17.300 That's my opinion.

00:05:18.280 The context here matters so much.

00:05:19.900 There's almost any statement.

00:05:21.560 If you rip it out of the context in which the original author, the original speaker intended to do,

00:05:26.760 you could do terrible things.

00:05:27.800 I think of Jesus even in John when he says,

00:05:29.920 when the resurrection comes, those who have done good will go on to the resurrection of life,

00:05:33.680 and those who have done evil on to death.

00:05:35.760 Now, the context is the rest of Scripture, the writings of St. Paul, the other things that Jesus has said.

00:05:40.600 You could take it, though, in isolation and say,

00:05:42.340 see, look, those who do good, those who behave, works righteousness, they go on to life,

00:05:47.680 and the rest go on to death.

00:05:49.100 Almost anything.

00:05:50.340 If you take it out of its context,

00:05:51.840 you can do terrible, terrible things.

00:05:54.160 And you have this guise where you're saying,

00:05:55.860 well, Jesus said it.

00:05:56.820 Well, George Washington said it.

00:05:58.040 Well, Jefferson said it.

00:05:59.300 Surely this is what they meant.

00:06:00.700 But when you zoom in, you say,

00:06:02.220 well, hang on a second.

00:06:02.960 Here's the specific thing they were responding to.

00:06:05.740 I told my son, you can have a cookie on Tuesday.

00:06:07.940 And he came up to me on Thursday and said,

00:06:09.940 but dad, you said I could have a cookie.

00:06:11.440 I did say that, but he's using it

00:06:13.060 and actually manipulating it to an end

00:06:14.580 that I don't want him to have.

00:06:16.700 When the American Revolution is going on,

00:06:18.540 when the stirrings of the Declaration of Independence are happening,

00:06:22.920 you have to remember that the French Revolution is in full swing.

00:06:25.720 And so there's certainly some influence going on there.

00:06:27.840 So you have across the pond, you have the French Revolution.

00:06:30.260 And the bent there is towards liberty, equality, and fraternity.

00:06:34.120 It's definitely the worst version of those two revolutions.

00:06:36.900 But what's going on in America is that you're looking at decades

00:06:40.100 where the American colonists have felt that the king has not been

00:06:43.520 the king that he's supposed to be to them.

00:06:45.800 They have no representation in Parliament.

00:06:47.840 So what's happening is Parliament is levying taxes, Parliament's making laws, or sometimes even Parliament will make good laws, and the king is either not letting the laws pass, what he was doing sometimes was adjourning Parliament and adjourning the legislators, so they couldn't actually go ahead and enact the rules that the colonists had wanted.

00:07:04.120 And so for decades, the colonists, very respectfully, had been appealing to King George and saying,

00:07:10.140 King, we are your subjects.

00:07:12.700 We're subjects of the crown.

00:07:14.320 And you, over and over and over and over again, have deprived us of the rights that we have as British citizens.

00:07:20.980 This is, I mean, you go back to Rome, you go back to Greece.

00:07:23.500 Being a citizen has rights to it.

00:07:25.800 But like, what is the point of being a citizen?

00:07:27.500 You could have to go fight and die for your country.

00:07:29.400 You pay taxes.

00:07:30.620 And what do you get out of it?

00:07:32.380 Nothing.

00:07:33.300 There's no point in it.

00:07:34.240 So they're saying, we're subject to the king.

00:07:36.240 We're loyal to the king.

00:07:37.400 And you are not returning to us as Englishmen the rights that we have to be represented in our own government, to make our own laws, to decide how to run our economy, to set our own tax levels.

00:07:49.060 And this builds up and this builds up.

00:07:50.940 And I'm actually going to go not to the Declaration first, but to 1774, the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress.

00:07:57.960 And I want you to notice the more narrow scope of this before we compare it in a moment to the Declaration of Independence.

00:08:03.520 So 1774, two years before 1776, the Declaration of Independence, they write this.

00:08:08.940 And this is in the resolves here of this First Continental Congress.

00:08:12.760 The inhabitants of the English colonies in North America by the immutable laws of nature,

00:08:17.320 the principles of the English Constitution and the several charters or compacts have the following rights,

00:08:22.600 life, liberty, and property.

00:08:24.260 And you're going to see this phrase show up again, but notice where they're rooting it.

00:08:27.840 Just two years prior, we're Englishmen.

00:08:30.640 We have these rights.

00:08:31.620 Wait, they don't say that the inhabitants of Haiti on the other side of the planet by immutable laws of nature and the principles of some global government.

00:08:45.540 No, that's not what they're talking about.

00:08:47.420 I'm confused. I don't see it anywhere.

00:08:48.560 Yeah, I feel like this is like at the heart of even you talk about originalism in the interpretation of the Constitution.

00:08:55.020 the famous Justice Antonin Scalia often talked about, you know, I think specifically with the

00:09:01.600 First Amendment of the Constitution where it says, you know, the state shall have no established

00:09:05.960 religion. And the heart of actually interpreting that according to the founders and the way they

00:09:13.320 intended it is going back and looking at the historical context and saying, oh, well, there

00:09:17.740 were actually constitutions at the time, state constitutions that did enforce a religion. And so

00:09:24.020 well, clearly they didn't mean what the modern liberal justice thinks they meant

00:09:28.180 because they didn't say anything about those things.

00:09:30.840 Similarly, if you talk about natural rights and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,

00:09:37.340 clearly they didn't mean what the modern liberal means when they say that

00:09:40.980 because they lived in a society of hierarchy.

00:09:44.100 You had race-based hierarchy.

00:09:45.340 You had male-privileged hierarchy.

00:09:47.420 You had property-owning men being higher in the socials.

00:09:51.820 At the time, only about 3% to 5% of British citizens could vote.

00:09:55.780 So over in Britain, there was a form of voting where you voted for your representatives.

00:10:00.500 Only 3% to 5% men.

00:10:01.560 They were restricted, depended on the province.

00:10:03.420 But you had to have certain income from like rental lands.

00:10:05.880 You had to be a certain lord. 1.00

00:10:07.440 So no women could vote whatsoever, based.

00:10:09.700 But then only about 95% of men also couldn't vote. 0.51

00:10:16.460 And none of that was like, and there's a grievance here because there's poor men working the land that don't have the right to vote.

00:10:21.820 said they never right right so so and that's a yeah exactly so that's that gives us a clue here

00:10:27.720 that they're actually not it's not a rejection of hierarchy that we're looking at here when they say

00:10:31.480 all men are created equal they're they're simply saying that men have equal claims to life liberty

00:10:37.360 and the pursuit of happiness but the way that that actually manifests in any given civilization is

00:10:41.620 going to be unequal actually because you're going to have more virtuous men higher moral character

00:10:46.200 you're going to have uh different wealth and social status and all of those things are going

00:10:49.860 to manifest in the society. So I actually think in my interpretation of all men are created equal

00:10:53.840 is that it was a very narrow, strict sense. What they were saying was we are rejecting the natural

00:11:00.220 aristocracy of Britain. We actually believe that we as men, we as the hierarchy, you could say the

00:11:08.160 higher social status men here in the English colonies, we actually find ourselves suitable

00:11:12.860 to govern ourselves. And real quick, flesh that out. When you say the natural hierarchy of Great

00:11:16.980 britain uh because we were talking about this before we started recording you're talking about

00:11:20.320 uh what's hereditary exactly this idea that like nobility hereditary titles strictly by blood

00:11:26.420 yep uh restrained very very uh clearly restrained to certain families and so you could have somebody

00:11:33.560 else outside of one of these noble families that's actually um more intelligent uh that's

00:11:39.240 actually more virtuous you know all all these ways in in every conceivable category a better

00:11:44.500 englishman a better a better churchman a better christian man but also uh strictly speaking a

00:11:51.020 better englishman um who would actually be more fit for the good of everybody including the noble

00:11:56.280 families um to to have more say in the you know in in the direction of the country uh right and

00:12:04.480 but he would be um he would be discluded from that uh by virtue of of just not being born into

00:12:12.180 one of these hereditary, you know, noble families. And that's kind of, you have to read history

00:12:16.700 within history, within the context. And that's a lot of what they were bucking up against. They

00:12:21.580 were saying, no, no, all men are created equal. We believe that we, you know, colonialists,

00:12:30.540 we have an equal right to determine the direction of these colonies here in America and what's

00:12:38.360 going on we're here and we're we've been placed here by providence we're intelligent we're virtuous

00:12:43.940 and uh and the idea that we wouldn't have a say is we think is is wrong we think that that's

00:12:50.480 actually immoral they were not they were not saying um and we think that the indigenous you

00:12:56.560 know um indian tribes um also that they should have an equal say and we think that um the black 0.57

00:13:02.260 slaves should have an equal say we think five-year-old children should have an equal say 0.75

00:13:06.100 And we think our wives should have an equal. They weren't saying that. Yeah, that's that's not the

00:13:10.040 context. Right. Yeah. And I would say, like, one of the dangers, obviously, of an aristocracy is

00:13:15.460 that it's ossification, which is to say that the men with the hereditary, I don't even know if they

00:13:21.420 would necessarily rebuke hereditary nobility. But but what had happened in Britain specifically,

00:13:27.740 they thought, was that that those people had no longer served the the good of the people. Right.

00:13:33.720 And so, and obviously in the declaration, you're, you see all of these grievances, they're listing and saying the King didn't do this. The King hasn't done 27 specific grievances, right? Like a huge list. Yeah. It's, it's, but, but then they go on to say after the grievances about toward the King, they then say, and we've even appealed to our fellow British, you know, our colleagues, so to speak in Britain, referring to the members of parliament.

00:14:00.280 And so you can think about the members of parliament being those being hereditary nobility and saying, look, look at all of the ways that we are not on equal footing with you.

00:14:09.880 Let me read that section because it's profound.

00:14:11.680 Towards the end of the declaration, they say, nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren.

00:14:16.260 They call them their brothers.

00:14:17.480 We have warned them from time to time of the attempts by their legislator to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

00:14:24.480 We've reminded them of the circumstances of our immigration settlement here.

00:14:27.700 we've appealed to their native justice and magnanimity and have conjured them by the ties

00:14:31.900 of our common kindred like our common kindred we're of you we're englishmen like you the ties

00:14:37.720 of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations that is of the king which would inevitably

00:14:42.100 interrupt our connections and correspondence profoundly said we've even appealed to the

00:14:46.520 british common people don't you see how the king is treating us yep yeah so it's yeah it's it's

00:14:53.240 but this is why it's important to actually go back because you see like a phrase like all men

00:14:58.660 are created equal this has been reinterpreted from my assessment twice in American history

00:15:03.740 once was the civil rights era where this was reinterpreted to include racial equality

00:15:07.900 and then you see that happen again with in the early 20th centuries and early 1900s with women

00:15:15.140 and the same phrase again is reinterpreted to say well actually this also extends to women

00:15:19.680 And so we just have to recognize, and Joel, you've said this before, but in some sense, we are all liberal.

00:15:26.460 Because the way that we've been educated in American history is post these reinterpretations.

00:15:32.320 And so we are clouded if we go back to the Declaration and say, this is what this phrase means.

00:15:39.100 When in reality, the definitions of the words have changed.

00:15:42.920 And in some ways, it's been done deceitfully.

00:15:46.560 They've been changed.

00:15:47.760 So we have to go around that.

00:15:50.500 We can't use that lens to interpret.

00:15:52.300 We have to go to the founders, in the time, in the place, and realize.

00:15:55.600 Authorial intent.

00:15:56.520 What do they mean?

00:15:57.000 Exactly.

00:15:57.680 It's the same thing that we do when we're exegeting scripture.

00:16:00.560 We don't exegete scripture through the lens of our modern sensibilities.

00:16:05.620 But instead, what we try to do is we, you know, it's even a part of our hermeneutic.

00:16:09.840 I mean, even somebody like John MacArthur would have argued, he would have said, you know,

00:16:13.600 there needs to be a grammatical, historical, literal hermeneutic, right? So he's going to

00:16:20.560 read certain passages in light of how the human author would have intended them, how he would

00:16:27.020 have thought, how the people, the immediate human audience that is going to be receiving these

00:16:32.360 sacred texts, how they would have understood and interpreted them. And, you know, and that's part

00:16:37.820 of the way that we interpret things. That's the way that we understand the intent, the authorial

00:16:43.200 intent, original intent of what's written is we try to put ourselves in the shoes of those who

00:16:48.460 were actually writing it and those who would have been reading it and how that it would have been

00:16:52.480 interpreted by those people at the time. Right. We have some good tweets where we'll hit here in

00:16:58.140 the second segment. There's a really good one. Yeah. Yep. But I do want to read actually the

00:17:01.320 whole context that surrounds that phrase, something Joel Berry didn't actually do. He didn't

00:17:05.000 kind of put it in where it kind of fits within the declaration and the preamble. So I'm going to read

00:17:09.780 hear the first couple paragraphs of the declaration, and then we'll go ahead and get into our second

00:17:13.700 segment. The unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America, when in the course

00:17:18.820 of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which

00:17:23.360 have connected them with one another, and to assume among the powers of earth. Listen to this,

00:17:27.080 because this is actually the first mention of equality in the declaration. To assume among

00:17:31.720 the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's

00:17:37.620 god entitle them they say a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires they kind of give

00:17:41.960 their reasons for it so right off the bat they're saying we're dissolving these political bans

00:17:45.380 and we're assuming with great britain with great britain we're assuming the separate and equal

00:17:49.860 stations that god through nature has established to us which again right there a separate nation

00:17:55.880 and we believe that we have the right to um to be a political a distinct separate political body

00:18:02.520 um a nation a country uh just like england does yep and remember britain had colonized most of

00:18:08.660 the world at this point so i don't think if you ask them and so what you mean with this is every

00:18:12.760 colony that's under british rule they should do the same thing like we want our separate and equal

00:18:16.960 station and we want ours and we want ours no they're they're saying we particular as englishmen

00:18:22.400 we're the ones that are capable of assuming because we come from the same stock we are we

00:18:27.560 are brits we are englishmen and they say we hold these truths to be self-evident so it's self-evident

00:18:33.740 that we're british men that all men are created equal i think the best way to frame it we'll get

00:18:38.420 into the second one is that all men like us are created equal and that we are endowed by our by

00:18:43.440 their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of

00:18:47.500 happiness and that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving

00:18:51.740 their just powers from the consent of the governed that whenever any form of government becomes

00:18:55.840 destructive to these ends. It is the right of the people to abolish, to alter or to abolish it.

00:19:01.240 And so this whole preamble is building up again to the grievances, 27 grievances from King George.

00:19:06.280 They're saying we're assuming these separate stations and we hold that it's self-evident

00:19:09.960 that men like us are equal and have these rights inherently. And that when a government

00:19:15.120 despotically for decades on end, taxes and usurps, they were taking American citizens

00:19:22.020 that were on trial, they were taking them overseas

00:19:24.460 to stand trial in Britain.

00:19:26.060 So they did a crime here and they were going to charge them

00:19:28.400 and they had to stand in front of a jury of Britishmen

00:19:30.840 an ocean away.

00:19:32.100 So they're transported for three months across the ocean

00:19:34.200 and it's over and over and over again,

00:19:36.040 all these grievances.

00:19:37.140 And so they say it is the right of a people

00:19:39.420 when they're capable of self-government

00:19:41.260 to take the government that's destructive to their rights

00:19:44.300 of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

00:19:46.300 and to alter or to abolish it.

00:19:48.100 Not lightly, they say not lightly, not quickly

00:19:50.220 because you could get into something worse.

00:19:52.020 But again, when it's men like us, capable of self-government, equal, forged by the same Christian religion.

00:19:58.560 I think of John Jay and the Federalist Papers, coming from the same nation, same origin, speaking the same language, worshiping the same God, shaped by the same experience.

00:20:07.180 We have these rights and we're going to take it up.

00:20:09.660 Right. And in addition to that, they also, they were not naive or entitled.

00:20:15.980 They recognized that to secure this liberty for themselves, that it was going to be costly, that they were going to have to fight for it.

00:20:24.380 So they didn't just send the Declaration of Independence as, you know, a bluff.

00:20:28.780 They sent it and they were prepared to risk life and limb in order to back it up.

00:20:33.540 They knew that it would very likely.

00:20:34.840 They pledged their sacred honor, they say.

00:20:36.380 Yes.

00:20:36.900 They knew that it would require their very lives.

00:20:40.340 They knew that it would mean war.

00:20:42.020 Their declaration of independence was a declaration of war against the crown, and they were aware of this.

00:20:49.400 And so just what you read from the Declaration of Independence, just to quote it again, that line where it says,

00:20:55.220 that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it

00:21:04.600 and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing

00:21:09.600 its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.

00:21:15.940 I look at that and I think, I mean, even if you want to broadly apply that to every single person

00:21:22.360 on the planet, you know, or all different kinds of peoples and ethnicities and national origins

00:21:29.680 within our country, the United States, well, then what that would mean is that for citizens

00:21:35.680 within the United States, that they have a right if they determine that our government,

00:21:42.100 our national government is destructive towards just ends and moral ends, then it would be their

00:21:48.640 right to alter or abolish that government. And so I guess what I would say is, okay, well then,

00:21:57.120 you know, in true Texas fashion, come and take it, you know, go ahead and, uh, go ahead and try

00:22:01.640 like, okay. So you, you're equal in the sense that, uh, and, and again, this is a broader reading

00:22:06.700 than what I think the founders intended, but even if you're going to apply it in this broad

00:22:10.820 brush, you know, manner, then, okay. Then, um, this minority group, you know, um, Indians,

00:22:16.940 you know, or Somalians or whatever, who, you know, who live in America, uh, you, you know,

00:22:21.180 Ilhan Omar and all of her cronies, you think that America is unjust and that it's unfair and all 0.76

00:22:26.400 these things great so so then you have the right to do what the um the colonists did um you have 0.98

00:22:33.060 the right to risk life and limb upon your honor to fight uh the government of the united states

00:22:39.380 and to set up your own little chat to give you reparations or something yeah whatever you know

00:22:44.020 um so so go ahead and do that um that because that's what the founders did the founders weren't

00:22:50.240 just crybabies they they actually um at the cost of their lives blood sweat and tears um they fought

00:22:57.680 for their freedom they fought for their freedom which is which is actually an indication uh that

00:23:02.960 they they found they thought they were suitable to not only uh fight for their freedom but to

00:23:08.480 then have their freedom as well right that becomes important and obviously like the historian we have

00:23:14.100 to acknowledge this the historian is right when they say that our founders were influenced by

00:23:18.700 Enlightenment thinking. Yeah, it's true. Point number one, not all of the Enlightenment was bad,

00:23:22.840 but certainly when you read this, you read this idea that the power of government is derived from

00:23:29.420 the consent of the government. This is social contract theory. This is Locke and Hobbes and

00:23:34.940 these Enlightenment thinkers. It's liberalism. Yeah. So in one sense, it is liberalism. But

00:23:39.220 the important thing to note is that even this itself is, this is built on the bedrock of English

00:23:46.060 common law. So even this isn't a universal appeal. This is an appeal to say, we live in a

00:23:53.500 civilization, in a society where this can be true. Why? Because the men are of virtue. They're of

00:23:59.600 moral character. They're of intelligence, gifting to be able to govern themselves. That is not true

00:24:05.620 everywhere in the world. And they're Christian. Yep. They're Christian men. They're moral men. 0.97

00:24:10.000 Let's close with the quote, just because it's a good reminder. This is, again, someone Stanford

00:24:14.140 historian polter prize winner listen again what he says we've gone through the declaration when

00:24:18.700 jefferson wrote all men are created equal in the preamble of the declaration he was not talking

00:24:23.460 about individual quality what he really meant was that the american colonists as a people had the

00:24:28.200 same rights of self-governance as other people and hence could declare independence great new

00:24:32.880 governments and assume they're separate and equal station among the nations i think he's completely

00:24:36.960 correct yep and that's a liberal and that's yeah yeah he's acknowledging he's like yep that's the

00:24:41.680 founding. This is the founding. Okay, let's go to our first commercial break and then we're going

00:24:44.840 to come back and read some more tweets. The danger of centralized power is often represented by the

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00:28:56.420 Okay, I want to read a tweet from Christian Hyens.

00:28:59.700 Christian Hyens actually retweeted Joel Berry and the tweet that we started off the episode with,

00:29:06.180 where Joel Berry is saying, all men are created equal.

00:29:08.740 And that means every single person has at least potential equality.

00:29:15.040 and uh and that's not just every person in our nation but that's every person in the entire

00:29:19.500 world right that's the way that joel barry interprets it and it's not just that joel barry

00:29:23.620 is interpreting that way it'd be one thing um he could have that interpretation i think it's wrong

00:29:28.260 but he could have that interpretation the biggest problem is not the way he interprets it uh but

00:29:32.200 it's the intellectual dishonesty all right so for him to say hey this is the way i interpret it and

00:29:37.860 this is the way that others have interpreted for the past few decades since the civil rights act

00:29:41.820 and it's a modern interpretation it's a very novel and very liberal interpretation and I

00:29:48.740 recognize that I am detouring from the founders that would be different right we'd be like all

00:29:53.660 right you know Joel Berry is is admitting you know I am a conservative liberal and and of a

00:30:00.060 more modern 20th century liberal framework than than the founders but that's not what he's saying

00:30:05.920 he's he's imputing that and saying my very modern interpretation of every single person on the

00:30:11.520 planet being equal is exactly what the founders meant when they talk about equality. So this is

00:30:17.580 Christian Hyens, who's retweeting Joel Berry and countering that idea. Here's the tweet.

00:30:22.220 The idea that all men are created equal is so preposterous that it hardly even merits refutation.

00:30:29.860 Every day with our own two eyes, all of us see how absurd this claim is. Some people are smarter

00:30:36.220 than others. Some are stronger. Others are taller, more beautiful, more athletic, etc. Some people

00:30:41.800 discover the theory of general relativity or Schrodinger equation, while others are incapable

00:30:49.660 of dressing themselves in the morning or tying their own shoes. The founding fathers were

00:30:55.020 categorically wrong when they wrote this line into the Declaration of Independence, and not even they

00:31:00.860 themselves believed it. It's the ultimate embodiment of liberal enlightenment thinking

00:31:06.200 that sounds wonderfully elegant and makes you feel good for even uttering it, until this claim

00:31:12.240 runs headfirst into the brick wall of reality. Now, with all that being said, I understand why

00:31:19.740 Joel, and this is not me, but Joel Berry, takes the position that he does. He believes, not without

00:31:25.440 evidence that it is dangerous to admit that no one among us is created equally. But that danger

00:31:32.800 is not hand-waved away simply by asserting something that makes you feel good while being

00:31:39.940 fundamentally false, parentheses, and which every single person alive understands to be false deep

00:31:47.120 down inside, close parentheses. All right, continuing now, it's a long tweet, almost done.

00:31:51.860 they go on and say the greater danger lies in pretending that we do not already have hierarchies

00:31:59.320 being imposed from above what do you think we have now there's an entire ruling class of liberal

00:32:05.700 elite already imposed upon us in every institution you can imagine both inside and outside of

00:32:13.440 government the very thing Joel Berry fears has already come to pass and this artificial hierarchy

00:32:20.040 crushes dissent far more ruthlessly than kings could ever imagine, right? The monarch, the king

00:32:26.880 could only dream of having the degree of power over every private citizen that our elites and

00:32:32.840 oligarchies have in America right now today. Continuing, they also wield far more power,

00:32:39.000 our current liberal elites, far more power than any king could ever wield. These are the same

00:32:44.800 people who have the power to tell us that urinals are art, that words are violence while actual

00:32:51.840 violence is the language of the oppressed, that men can become women, and that mutilating children

00:32:57.740 or killing them in the womb constitutes health care. The very tyranny that Joel Berry keeps

00:33:06.480 worrying about, the post-liberal right imposing, has already happened to us. The problem is that

00:33:13.900 this tyranny cloaks itself in the same moralistic language that Joel just accepts without any

00:33:19.960 pushback. And so he cannot condemn it as forcefully as he condemns this hypothetical

00:33:25.880 post-liberal future without admitting that there is a fatal flaw in his own ideology.

00:33:32.740 All right, that's the tweet. I think it's a banger. I retweeted it. I thought it was really

00:33:36.080 helpful. What do you guys think? Yeah, I really like it. He's kind of espousing a,

00:33:41.340 not a third way but it is a third position so we've talked about you could take the idea all

00:33:45.440 men are created equal and on its face that's preposterous that would be kind of joel's view

00:33:49.020 and we espoused a view where all men are created equal that is men like us are equal and a capable

00:33:54.020 self-governance and like us being the founders speaking of themselves and those who are part of

00:33:59.000 this european christian men were capable of self-governance right and christian here is he's

00:34:02.940 articulating a third way and there is merit to it like we have to be honest um one of the things

00:34:07.940 that makes america incredible like different countries have taken our constitution they've

00:34:11.380 modeled it i think of liberia which was a colony of freed slaves and none of them have come close

00:34:15.560 to the success that america has had and so it's tempting sometimes to say well what makes america

00:34:20.460 so great are all men are created equal and the freedoms and you know the first amendment of free

00:34:26.040 speech i actually think in many ways it was the people that have made america great there's

00:34:30.040 advantages we have as far as waterways for one an ocean separates us from people that would attack

00:34:34.700 us so there's just natural advantages we have but if we're honest it's not necessarily the words on

00:34:39.600 paper that have made america what it is although those help to some degree but it's been the people

00:34:44.660 but when the words on paper are actually becoming destructive to the end of the people saying hey

00:34:50.480 we want to be free from the tyranny of the oligarchs we want to be free from globalism we want a border

00:34:55.100 that's closed and the words that they themselves didn't even make america great in and of itself

00:34:59.780 in the first place are the the opposition are the barrier to it they're used weaponized against us

00:35:05.720 we can stand up and say hey this actually wasn't said the best way and it's being used against us

00:35:10.760 now and i think it's honoring to the fathers we have a commandment to honor our fathers and if

00:35:15.320 you are an american george washington and jefferson to a degree they are men that are owed

00:35:20.540 your respect they're owed a certain level of deference but even in that you can say and still

00:35:25.340 i think the way this is articulated here has now been weaponized they couldn't have seen it then

00:35:29.240 it's being weaponized in a way we would have never anticipated and if i was you know king

00:35:33.680 for a day and i was to rewrite it i don't think this is the way i say it i think that's a totally

00:35:37.460 valid way to approach it yeah i agree i think there's a sense in which you could recognize that

00:35:41.500 the declaration was actually a political document so that and what happens in politics there's

00:35:46.380 always a little bit of gamesmanship and and saying hey i want to appeal i want to appeal

00:35:50.560 to emotion i want to appeal to authority and there's all sorts of fallacies that that are

00:35:54.000 used in political sort of campaigns, if you will.

00:35:58.280 And I think that you could at least sympathize

00:36:00.800 with the idea that this is no different, 0.96

00:36:02.340 that them saying all men are created equal

00:36:03.840 is actually more or less an emotional appeal.

00:36:05.900 What they're saying is we're equal to you.

00:36:07.480 Exactly.

00:36:07.960 They're not thinking about Somalia 250 years later.

00:36:10.960 They're not thinking about Haiti.

00:36:12.960 All men are created equal.

00:36:14.720 What's the argument?

00:36:15.740 What are they trying to accomplish?

00:36:17.020 They're saying equal to you, Great Britain.

00:36:19.580 We are equal to you.

00:36:21.840 we're just as much fit to govern ourselves as, as being, you know, tyrannically governed

00:36:27.640 by you from the other side of the world. Yep. That's the context. Yeah. So you have like,

00:36:33.200 you have one, one, you have one hand, the idea that they actually did mean it, but they meant

00:36:37.840 it in this strict narrow sense. And that's actually the position that I think you just

00:36:41.220 articulated, but I also, also would probably go there as well. But you also have this other sense

00:36:45.740 in which like, it's completely plausible. They didn't mean it at all. And it was simply them,

00:36:49.760 them trying to appeal to the populace to the populace over in britain to say hey look we have

00:36:55.360 this grand moral vision for humanity and uh buy in because it's because it does have this allure

00:37:01.600 to it of like all men are created equal it feels egalitarian it feels it feels great um and uh and

00:37:07.040 so you i you can at least say that it's plausible but again i go back to this idea that they actually

00:37:12.660 meant it they were referring to themselves you can imagine and i think this is true um christian

00:37:17.280 Heinz actually articulates is this idea of like the post-level right or the dissident right looking

00:37:21.720 at our our leaders our quote-unquote elite and saying we're better men than them right these

00:37:26.280 men are adulterous men these men are licentious these men uh have no honor um and we look at it

00:37:32.820 and say we think we could govern ourselves better we know that to be true and so we might also have

00:37:38.540 this conception that um we as we were we could all gather in a building and we'd speak amongst

00:37:43.460 ourselves and say look men we have an equal right to to the claim of power as they do right and uh

00:37:50.360 and that in that strict narrow sense it would be true it would be true that we are equal to them

00:37:54.940 in our capability to govern ourselves right right as i was listening to the declaration this week i

00:38:00.100 listened to it a bunch of times on repeat and studying it i kind of felt the need for like a

00:38:03.660 new one you know like for for men to say hey here's the the tyranny you've subjected us to

00:38:08.320 you've brought foreigners like one of the uh one of the complaints against king george you've opened

00:38:13.260 us up to foreigners as you've refused to pass laws, refused to protect us. We could easily come 0.99

00:38:18.620 up with 27 points that our government, to your point, Antonio, has done the same thing as we as

00:38:23.140 Americans and as men could say, we have decided that this form of government has become destructive

00:38:28.560 to it ends. And we, not lightly, not candidly, we're going to take up and we're going to establish

00:38:33.640 a new form that actually is conducive to them. Yeah. You know, people like James Lindsay or

00:38:39.300 joel berry you know they use uh the phrase uh woke right and they say you know well this is just

00:38:44.240 the same as you know 2017 through 2021 uh blm you know the woke left and those kinds of things

00:38:51.200 um one of the differences is you you look at the founders and going back to what antonio said just

00:38:56.120 a moment ago um they're saying no we actually are fit we're suited we're qualified uh to govern

00:39:02.100 ourselves and we can do it in in such a way that it lends towards um the blessing and prosperity

00:39:08.060 of of us and our posterity whereas when you think of the woke left um you think of blm i think is a

00:39:14.300 great example um notice that was never even though blm was off the rocker and it completely lost

00:39:19.980 their mind even in their insanity right even at the fever pitch of of woke madness on the left

00:39:26.500 they never even dreamed of uttering such a thing they never said we want to throw off

00:39:32.000 governance and we want to be self-governed and take care of ourself never even claimed it right

00:39:39.160 because right we they know they couldn't right because you can you can look at the founders you

00:39:44.460 can look at um the colonists and and look at what they accomplished by god's providence by his grace

00:39:50.840 but also through hard work and sweat and tears they they had they had settled um a a a huge

00:39:57.940 land mass right there was still much more to be severed but these colonies had been going on for

00:40:02.420 decades at this point they had built churches and courthouses and um and enacted you know certain

00:40:08.860 laws and legislation congress right and congress and like they built civilization and and these

00:40:14.660 are just the facts i'm not trying to pick on anybody but you can read the statistics um the

00:40:18.820 average black person uh takes over the course of their life about 750 000 in um in government eight

00:40:26.000 seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars uh the average net with their taxes so you take their 0.91

00:40:30.920 taxes out of it so really they probably take more it's even more taxes bring it down that's that's

00:40:35.120 the the total amount so so paying some taxes in and then what they take out so the amount that

00:40:40.440 they take out and then subtracting what they put in it's uh three quarters of a million dollars 0.80

00:40:45.080 that's what it cost our nation for each black person on average it cost our nation um three 0.74

00:40:51.760 quarters of a million dollars. Okay. Hispanics, I believe it's like 560,000. Lower, yeah. A little 0.51

00:40:58.320 bit lower, 530 or something like that. It's about two thirds of what it costs for each

00:41:04.200 black person. So for each Hispanic living in the United States who is a citizen and getting

00:41:10.100 benefits, it costs the nation, the taxpayers, about half a million. For each white person 0.81

00:41:18.000 in the United States, it's a net positive on average of about a quarter million, about 250,000. 0.75

00:41:24.560 So each white person, and praise God that it's still about 59% majority white, because 0.76

00:41:31.860 mathematically, just looking at finances alone, we're done. We already have $35 trillion in debt. 0.75

00:41:38.820 You are absolutely done if it ever gets to the point where you have more people in the nation

00:41:44.140 taking three quarters of a million dollars and half a million dollars than the people in the

00:41:48.760 nation who are giving a quarter million dollars, right? That's just the way math works. I mean,

00:41:53.320 Dave Ramsey's, you know, like he would never like to acknowledge what I'm saying, but he would have

00:41:57.880 to admit, yeah, you would be in big trouble. So when you think of the woke left, it was never

00:42:05.400 even claimed. We feel like we're ruled by tyrants and we want to throw off that rule and be

00:42:11.660 self-governed right we have healthy families fathers who are present in the home we are tax

00:42:17.940 paying citizens who give far more than we take we're employed we're um we're we're religious

00:42:23.940 we're moral um no the demand was uh you give us three quarters of a million dollars per person

00:42:31.780 over their lifetime and we need reparations and more we need more that was the claim that was a

00:42:39.680 that is not the founder's claim and that's not the woke rights claim right so to say well there's

00:42:45.600 woke left and there's woke right and they're exactly the same it's the same picture like 0.52

00:42:48.980 that's that's absolutely ridiculous it's absolutely ridiculous um that that is not what is going on 0.85

00:42:56.400 with the ascendant right the new right the new christian right whatever you want to call it 0.98

00:42:59.620 that is not the claim that's being made today the claim that's being made today from many

00:43:04.160 on on the new right or paleo conservatives or whatever you want to call them christian

00:43:08.120 nationalists. The claim that's being made today is we are ruled by tyrants who are stealing from us,

00:43:15.000 stealing from us, oppressing us, and giving it to individuals who are not committed and not

00:43:22.860 invested in our country the way that we are. They're not actually giving back. They're not

00:43:29.540 abiding by the laws of the land. They're not upstanding citizens. And this is wrong. This is

00:43:37.400 theft. This is wrong. It's oppression. It's immoral. It's unjust. That's the claim that's

00:43:43.220 being made today. But I just, I find that interesting that, you know, you don't see

00:43:48.740 when it's like, well, you know, all men are created equal. And so, you know, so if the,

00:43:54.960 you know, the founders were able to write the Declaration of Independence and say,

00:43:58.720 you can't rule over us anymore. Notice like their claim was not, hey, King George,

00:44:04.860 we need you to send a ship that barely floats because it's loaded to the brim with gold

00:44:11.860 we king george give us stuff gold hallelujah stuff silver that's not their claim their claim

00:44:20.980 is king george don't give us anything but leave us alone leave us alone we can care for ourselves

00:44:29.360 the woke left blm they they would never even in their insanity they would never make such a claim 0.50

00:44:36.920 because they know oh no we cannot care for ourself we are not asking for self-governance

00:44:42.800 uh we are asking for stuff let's be clear stuff please yeah stuff okay so so to like no this is

00:44:49.900 not um the new right whatever you want to call it this is not wokeness this is not wokeness this is

00:44:56.160 individuals who are saying, no, we love America. We love the country. We love the founding even

00:45:03.080 of the country. We think there were faults because we're talking about, we're not talking

00:45:06.360 about the word of God. It's not, we're not talking about infallibility. We're talking about good men,

00:45:10.440 but fallible men. We think that they erred in some cases, but mostly when it comes to all men are

00:45:15.640 created equal, I think most of the guys on the new ascendant right would take the position that

00:45:19.340 you and Tony are taking and say, I don't think this was actually an L for the founders. I think

00:45:25.100 that the founders meant this in a very particular sense and it has been misinterpreted by novel you

00:45:30.820 know modern liberal you know people today I think that's how most of the new right would think some

00:45:36.700 would be more of the persuasion of no this actually was you know enlightenment thinking

00:45:42.140 that it crept in already too much and but even those guys would say yeah but 90 percent of what

00:45:48.660 the founders did was fantastic and the fact that they had a few L's well I mean most people

00:45:53.660 throughout history have lots of L's and they only had a few. So we still salute the founders and

00:45:58.540 appreciate them. Uh, but we've, we've had 250 years now to test this theory of all men being

00:46:03.980 created equal. The verdict has come back in. It is on its face, uh, false and, and, uh, we should 0.74

00:46:10.400 reject it. I noticed the arc of all the content we produce King's hall. All of it is towards

00:46:15.560 typically self-governance, running your home without help from the government, uh, being a

00:46:19.800 man it's not uh well you need to get out there and you need to get disability benefits so they

00:46:24.020 can pay your way no it's you need to go out there and be your own doctor you need to be healthy you

00:46:27.460 need to take care of yourself you need to learn finance like over and over all of our content

00:46:31.460 you need to be self-sufficient like it's not asking for the government in fact the one thing

00:46:36.160 we're asking the government to do is to take violent criminals and lock them up right which

00:46:40.900 is the government's actual job here's the thing i think a lot of people on the right uh the new

00:46:45.400 right would say you know what we would do that too right if we were allowed to yeah but but here's

00:46:50.520 the reality you know the new right we we recognize jurisdictions god assigned jurisdictions and we

00:46:55.360 know that the government um uh exclusively has been given the sword the government um is has a

00:47:02.180 monopoly on violence just violence and so we recognize that no vigil anti-ism is um is is

00:47:10.560 actually not uh biblically permissible and and so the only reason why we ask for anything the only

00:47:16.060 thing we ask we don't ask for stuff we're not asking for money the only thing that uh the new

00:47:20.640 right has asked for is for the government to do the one clear job that has been assigned to them

00:47:27.120 by god in romans 13 to the to um the state right to the civil magistrate has been assigned the

00:47:33.560 sword he's god's servant god's deacon uh to enact justice against the evildoers so that's you know

00:47:40.100 that but that you're right that's pretty much it is we're saying lock people up 0.54

00:47:43.780 who are criminals um uh defend the borders and don't let uh invaders into the country

00:47:50.340 and those who are are here and and should not be here please get them out yep and notice the left

00:47:57.400 all of their programs i'll finish with this and give it to you maybe antonio you can have the

00:48:00.740 last word uh government paid child care government pays for your child care government health care

00:48:06.480 government backed loans for housing. So they help out new, new parents. It's like you said,

00:48:12.380 with black lives matter, but even still, I mean that the Somalian that's running for mayor of

00:48:16.620 Minneapolis, he's, he's espousing these grand government programs. He's like, it shouldn't be 1.00

00:48:21.580 minimum wage so low and this or that they, they see this government that Western Christian men 0.57

00:48:27.580 built that has so much excess because it's been so successful that it's built and grounded on

00:48:32.700 biblical principles and men that worked and is so much excess all they can see is not well we can

00:48:37.540 we can make something too like this and it would flourish and do well in somalia nope nope we know

00:48:41.900 they want the stuff we want to produce give it to us hand over fist please be it health care be it

00:48:48.600 child care that's why that's why they're here disability be it welfare give us stuff right

00:48:53.780 that's why they're here that's why ilhan omar married her brother and cheated the system to 1.00

00:48:58.100 become a citizen and now you know is ruling over um americans as a somalian who doesn't even belong 0.95

00:49:03.640 here who will marry their own family members to get to america well we're so opulent that's right 0.77

00:49:07.580 and and so uh but that's but that's why they're here um if if they believe that all men were 0.91

00:49:13.600 created equal they would stay they know that somalia does not have the capacity to do what

00:49:21.940 the founders did in this country they know and i'm just going to say it because it needs to be said 0.98

00:49:27.060 somalians know that somalian people cannot achieve what has been achieved in this country

00:49:33.360 they know they can't not yet at least not yet at least not yet right if if there was a revival 0.99

00:49:39.320 they all fall in love with god and start like okay then then maybe centuries from now right

00:49:45.320 let them cook let them cook for a little while and and try not to use you know dung and things

00:49:50.040 like that in the cooking like cook in a christianly way marry outside of your family marry well yeah

00:49:55.380 exactly that's another thing people and it needs to be said people need to be aware of these things

00:49:59.700 people say why does somalians look so unique right when you think of like the um captain phillips

00:50:05.020 with tom cruise uh um not tom cruise uh tom hanks uh movie and you know that that iconic scene where

00:50:11.000 he's like he looks at uh tom hanks he's like i'm the captain now right yeah and it's like dude this

00:50:15.780 guy like looks weird like that's that's a specific head shape yeah right um and and the guy who's

00:50:21.040 running for mayor um in what city is it minneapolis minneapolis um it's like why why do

00:50:27.500 somalians look so distinct like like very unique um well you can look it up it's you know it's 0.90

00:50:34.060 because for centuries um they have been um incestual uh like it's it's inbreeding it's 0.99

00:50:41.140 centuries and centuries of inbreeding well that's not good that's that's not not just it's immoral

00:50:46.660 But the reason why, God's not arbitrary. He's not capricious. God doesn't do, you know, just randomly give us, you know, certain morals and precepts. He does, you know, he says this is right and this is wrong because it's not just what brings him glory, but it's for our benefit. It's for our good.

00:51:02.200 And the reason why inbreeding is not moral is because it's also not beneficial.

00:51:10.140 And so, again, with a country where there's, you know, millions of people, we're talking about, again, averages, generalities, per capita.

00:51:19.100 So, yes, you will always have some exceptions.

00:51:21.380 You'll have a few Somalians who are relatively bright, you know. 0.96

00:51:26.040 And then those Somalians, instead of fixing their country and saying, hey, all men are created equal, so we're equal, so let's do it here. 1.00

00:51:34.040 They know they can't. 0.97

00:51:35.240 They know they can't. 0.79

00:51:36.540 So instead, they take their best and their brightest and send them to our country to manipulate the system and play off of white guilt, because that's a lot of what it is, in order to get stuff. 0.77

00:51:48.520 And then just start importing more. 0.89

00:51:51.300 You know, they get a foothold and then import more and more people.

00:51:53.840 and now you go to minneapolis and you're in somalia and it's and it's it's wicked it's 0.93

00:52:01.000 absolutely wicked but all men are created equal if you take this in this very um you know modern

00:52:08.860 20th century liberal universal application um then that's that's what it lends towards is like 0.92

00:52:15.620 well why do you want to you know why do you want to stop the somalians from coming um they they

00:52:20.160 have just as much potential, potential equality as anyone else. And, you know, and then you have

00:52:29.180 to look at America and, you know, because Joel Berry doesn't like Ilhan Omar. And like, you know,

00:52:33.940 again, he's, Joel Berry's a liberal, but he's a liberal on the right side of the scale instead

00:52:39.540 of the left side. But so he would acknowledge Ilhan Omar is terrible. He would acknowledge that.

00:52:44.840 but but what he can't say is he can't say you know what Somalians can't be here period because 0.97

00:52:51.520 they're not suited for our country they're not suited for western civilization they're not suited

00:52:58.020 to be a part of a Christian nation they're not suited to be a part of America Somalians cannot 1.00

00:53:04.420 on in generality in general they cannot make the claim that our founders made they cannot say hey 0.96

00:53:11.920 we will be self-governed we'll take it from here king we've got this and then build the most

00:53:17.380 prosperous nation that the world has ever seen um and and until you are able to say that say

00:53:23.180 actually not all people are created equal and and we're not just rejecting equity right woke left

00:53:28.600 stuff you know equality of outcome but we're rejecting equality wholesale wholesale when it

00:53:34.940 comes to the eternal spiritual sense, I believe, as the scripture says, that God does not show

00:53:42.480 favoritism. But the implicit disclaimer for that caveat is there is no favoritism with God...among

00:53:50.080 the elect. So when it comes to Christians, eternally speaking, yes, there is an equality

00:53:57.540 in the side of God. And when it comes to one nation, assuming that you actually maintain

00:54:03.440 that nation, then yes, I also believe under the law, there should be a sense of equality and not

00:54:08.600 second class, you know, two different or three different classes of citizens where some get,

00:54:13.160 you know, these privileges and these other people are exploited and taken advantage of. So I think

00:54:18.220 under the law, in the temporal sense, within one singular nation, there should be a sense of

00:54:23.440 equality. In the eternal ultimate spiritual sense among the elect, then yes, I think in the sight of

00:54:29.500 god there is an eternal um uh equal sense of dignity and worth and these kinds of things for

00:54:34.880 for elect people christians among every tribe tongue and nation beyond that there is no equality

00:54:41.480 not just equity equal outcome but equality equal potential it's a myth it doesn't exist it's not

00:54:48.340 a thing there are are certain peoples who um again there will always be exceptions it's like

00:54:54.820 there's tons of geniuses in India. Yeah, because there's 1.3 billion people in India, right? If

00:55:01.100 you have that many people, then just by the laws of average, there are going to be some of them

00:55:05.920 that are remarkable. But you look at India per capita and compare it to America. It's not the

00:55:13.420 same. You look at Somalia or Haiti and compare it to America. It's not the same. These are not the 0.54

00:55:20.760 same people. And we have to be able to acknowledge that. A great deal of the success that God gave

00:55:27.500 in his mercy to America was, I would argue, the main factors are as follows. Number one,

00:55:32.860 providence. Providence is huge. You read the American Puritans, you read the Pilgrims,

00:55:38.540 you read Cotton Mather and all these different guys, and it's just instance after instance after

00:55:43.560 instance where in the bottom of the ninth, God does something that is legitimately miraculous.

00:55:48.860 miraculous so uh providence god's mercy um and and the people being christian okay so that's

00:55:56.200 the christian aspect god's uh unique kindness in his providence and the people being committed to

00:56:00.820 christ uh number two another uh factor and i would put this a second is the stock of the people

00:56:07.100 themselves that's what you were saying wes these are unique people right the the founders are every

00:56:13.360 single one of them is speaking multiple languages um fluent in latin uh these are you know classically

00:56:19.320 trained classically trained the these are are not just country bumpkins these guys are elite

00:56:25.420 they're incredibly virtuous intelligent moral christian men who were who did not come out of

00:56:32.900 the ether so where do you find men like that well you know where you find them you find them seated

00:56:37.600 at the precipice of a millennia of christian monarchy that's where you find them like well

00:56:44.520 how do you get men like that uh you get men like that by having a christian monarch for a thousand

00:56:50.440 years so it's like i'm all for a republic i like republics i think republics are ideal i'm i'm

00:56:57.120 actually even willing to say i think it is it is the the most preferable form of government a

00:57:02.760 constitutional republic um but you know what you got to earn it right benjamin franklin said well

00:57:08.020 you know what did you give us uh mr franklin a republic if you can keep it we lost it right the

00:57:12.720 verdict is back in we we know uh the outcome we did not keep it we lost it so how do you get it

00:57:18.220 back um well how did we get in the first place where'd you get your republic from uh well we

00:57:23.540 got the republic from a strict rule from a christian monarch over the course of a thousand

00:57:29.160 years that's where you find that's where you groom and shape over 50 subsequent generations

00:57:36.780 that's how you shape the caliber of people the stock of people that are actually capable of a 0.60

00:57:43.780 republican self-governance and we lost that how did we lose that we lost it by apostasy first

00:57:49.300 and foremost turning our backs on the lord jesus christ we took prayer out of schools we took

00:57:53.340 catechisms out of school we we watered down and lowered the bar of doctrine in our churches and

00:57:58.560 in our seminaries and all we did all these things also though we let a ton of people into the 0.94

00:58:03.840 country that were not from the founding stock people who who never came from ancestors who

00:58:10.860 were shaped over a thousand years of christian monarchy so we literally quite literally it's not

00:58:15.240 just that the people compromised but we actually changed the people we got a different people we

00:58:21.080 don't have the same percent christian literally after heart cellar in 64 you literally see the

00:58:25.940 decline yep and it's so it's like it's also white americans go down and christianity go down that's

00:58:30.220 what happened in the 60s yep so so i would say um providence and mercy of god and christian people

00:58:35.640 uh devotion to christ second uh the stock of the people that is significant third i would also say

00:58:41.820 and this is providential and god's mercy as well but um the the land the fact that we had um a

00:58:48.520 country that was very sparse and yes there were people here indigenous peoples uh but very sparse

00:58:55.020 in its population, but very large and very rich in its resources. That is also another huge factor

00:59:04.600 that we have to acknowledge when it comes to the success of America. So you take any one of those

00:59:10.260 elements out of the equation and think that what has been achieved here could be achieved somewhere 0.99

00:59:17.520 else, and you are being absolutely foolish. Do you have a distinctly committed Christian people 1.00

00:59:23.880 and god's unique providence that he wants to start a nation with them okay do you have that

00:59:30.160 number two um the stock of those people besides their christian commitment um are they highly

00:59:35.600 trained highly intelligent and highly shaped over a thousand years of christian monarchy

00:59:40.820 right the stock of the people the people themselves third did you just discover a massive

00:59:47.620 landmass with some of the richest resources in the world that is virtually unsettled and ripe

00:59:56.220 for the taking, okay? If not, if you don't have those three criteria, then guess what? It's not

01:00:03.480 going to work. You're not going to get America. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen,

01:00:08.240 and I think we have to acknowledge what happened in our nation. Its immense success is miraculous.

01:00:15.220 it is a miraculous moment in history that will not happen again there is no extra land mass

01:00:22.860 we've explored all the seas we've explored the whole face of the planet there is no hidden place

01:00:29.340 that with all these resources and we currently on the planet on planet earth we do not have

01:00:35.580 one one people anywhere whether it be in europe or asia or south america we do not have any people

01:00:43.720 currently any nation of people of the caliber of the people of england at the time of america's

01:00:49.780 founding we don't have those people point to me the country that has that level of first and

01:00:57.380 foremost commitment to christ they are christian people secondly that level of learnedness and

01:01:03.400 intelligence and uh a people that have that caliber and and heritage of of history that

01:01:11.400 there are people that have been groomed for a millennia of Christian thinking from King Alfred

01:01:17.260 and even before Constantine. We don't have it. And so the only chance we even have, and in many 0.61

01:01:24.540 ways, I'll just admit that we're cooked. America is cooked. The only chance that we have is not

01:01:32.780 doing it again. You don't just do America. That doesn't just grow on trees. The only chance that 0.64

01:01:39.040 we even have of any improvement at all is to try to recapture it we can't start over we can't we

01:01:45.960 can't go and do it again somewhere else it's recapturing and what does that involve i think

01:01:49.800 number one it involves revival and national repentance number two it involves getting all

01:01:56.840 the people out of the country that are not american they're not american you got to get back

01:02:03.360 to what are the three criteria that made america successful in the first place god's providence

01:02:09.880 his mercy towards us our commitment towards him and and a particular people of high caliber and

01:02:15.720 high stock and um the the incredible land right the geographic um natural resources that made us

01:02:22.560 so abundantly blessed and wealthy um we have the land still uh we don't have the people

01:02:28.380 and we don't have the commitment to uh to god and because we don't have the commitment to god

01:02:33.260 I don't think that we have his particular blessing like the founders did. I think God was committed

01:02:38.900 to them. I don't believe that God is blessing America in the way that he was blessing America

01:02:44.160 once upon a time because we are not committed to God. America doesn't bless God, right? God's not

01:02:48.880 blessing America in the way that he once was because America refuses to bless God. So we need

01:02:53.100 national repentance. We need to renew our covenant to the Lord, turn from our apostasy.

01:03:00.760 um we still have the land but then uh we need to get rid of a ton of people ilhan omar has to go 1.00

01:03:09.100 back the somalians have to go back the haitians have to go back nigerians have to go back a ton 1.00

01:03:15.100 of people you know ecuadorians and and people from south america have to go back they have to go back 0.95

01:03:21.540 we need to start back over with i believe heritage americans with those who actually

01:03:27.240 were a part of this American project from the beginning, or at least, you know, maybe not the

01:03:35.020 very beginning, but at least going back before the Hart-Seller Act, before the Civil Rights Act,

01:03:41.420 going back at least, I would say, you know, 50, 60, 70, 80 years. If we're not willing to do that,

01:03:48.280 and everybody will say that's extreme, this is a moderate position. It really is. If you're not

01:03:54.140 willing to do that right uh full moratorium on immigration net zero immigration and deporting i

01:04:00.520 would argue anywhere from 60 to 100 million people and then the rest who are left um national

01:04:07.320 repentance i'm talking the president comes out right like like nineveh the king comes he comes

01:04:12.220 out in sackcloth and ashes and declares a three-day fast for the entire people we are turning

01:04:18.360 to the lord and we're ripping out of the declaration of independence all men are created equal

01:04:23.660 and we're putting in there an explicit devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ.

01:04:28.020 We're going to name him in the Constitution,

01:04:30.560 name him in the Declaration of Independence.

01:04:34.240 If you're not that serious, then you just need to be honest and say,

01:04:37.980 yeah, America's done, and I want it to be done.

01:04:41.120 I don't want to save America.

01:04:42.620 And I'm perfectly content with my descendants, 0.99

01:04:47.640 My children's children being replaced, raped, killed, exploited. 0.98

01:04:57.380 And so for me, as a pastor, as a Christian, and as a father, a husband and a father, I'm not okay with that. 0.98

01:05:04.220 And I am willing to be persecuted.

01:05:06.020 I'm willing to be hated.

01:05:07.160 I'm willing to be slandered if it means standing up for my future grandchildren.

01:05:13.400 I love my grandchildren more than I care about what right-wing watch thinks about me.

01:05:20.100 And honestly, right-wing watch is actually pretty fair.

01:05:25.000 I appreciate right-wing watch, right?

01:05:26.860 They don't deceitfully clip you out of context. 0.86

01:05:29.100 So I should say I care more about my future grandchildren than I care about Christians. 1.00

01:05:34.640 Because they're actually the worst. 1.00

01:05:36.560 They're actually the cruelest in their criticisms and their deceitful ways of twisting things.

01:05:41.920 So I think that's what it takes. It takes recommitting to Christ so that God might

01:05:46.200 commit to blessing us again. And it takes getting back to heritage Americans, which means that a 1.00

01:05:53.560 lot of people who have shown up in the last 15 minutes, they actually have to go back. They 0.74

01:05:59.920 don't have to be hated. They don't have to be exploited. They don't have to be harmed. They

01:06:05.860 don't have to be hurt, but they do have to leave. They have to leave. And then we need to crack down

01:06:11.300 on crime. We need to get rid of the welfare state where we're stealing from one group of people and

01:06:19.080 giving a quarter, or I'm sorry, three quarters of a million dollars over the lifetime of another

01:06:24.420 group of people. These are the things that we need to do. And until we're ready to even talk

01:06:31.460 about these things, then we just need to admit, if we're not willing to even talk about these things,

01:06:35.600 or we're just going to lie and slander anyone who does talk about these things,

01:06:39.580 then you just need to be honest and come out and say i hate my country i hate america and i and i

01:06:46.960 want it to be destroyed i'm actually i am my highest commitment is not to christ and it's

01:06:52.940 not to christianity it is to liberalism before anything um before anything christian my first 0.66

01:07:00.840 and highest commitment is to liberalism and um and i will die on that hill and and i think that

01:07:08.680 would be that would be intellectual honesty and i would appreciate that and um and and so i think

01:07:14.100 we just need to say that you know and just say uh we are content uh with the last remnants of

01:07:20.240 blessing in america dying with us and and getting that uh because at the end of the day uh what's

01:07:25.820 most important to us is laying on our beds at night and um and going to sleep you know with

01:07:32.460 a clear conscience because we don't think we're racist that's i think that's where we're at right

01:07:37.120 now as a country i don't know um if if we're going to win uh this battle but i i am hopeful in the

01:07:42.860 sense that i think a lot of young people they actually want to fight this fight i think there's

01:07:47.520 a lot of gen z um that they're they're starting to wake up and they actually want to fight the

01:07:51.980 fight i don't know what do you guys say no i think that's really helpful i think one of the big

01:07:56.160 takeaways from what you just articulated is that um it's not really helpful to appeal to the founders

01:08:00.860 at this in this place in time because the context that they were in doesn't exist it doesn't exist

01:08:07.020 Right. And so I think that's it's grave to have to say that. But I think that's just something we have to recognize. I think Gen Z, of course, recognizes that because I've never really grown up in a time where that ever did exist. Right. But but one other thing that I realized as you were talking is like, so you have the post liberal right, but I actually think you also have the post liberal left.

01:08:25.360 And I think the only true liberals that exist anymore are on the right. They're the neocons, the people who have some of the views that Joel Berry here is articulating, which is this appeal to the civil rights and this appeal to limited government.

01:08:39.840 I don't think anyone really believes that anymore on either side of the aisle in terms of the mainstream, because it's so preposterous to believe that the idea that the government could be the same government that the founders articulated.

01:08:51.620 it only levies taxes it only enforces trade i mean that's not what the government the government we

01:08:56.900 have anymore the government's spending hundreds of billions of dollars trillions of trillions of

01:09:01.940 dollars of deficit um every year it's just not a limited government a trillion dollars every 100

01:09:07.480 days is that what is that what it is added to the debt to the debt spending more yeah yeah so it's

01:09:13.600 just like the the idea it's like it's true our founders did articulate a a liberal view or you

01:09:18.900 could call it a classically liberal view of a limited government. The government does one of

01:09:23.020 five things. You see that articulated in the preamble of the constitution, and they did emphasize

01:09:27.360 civil rights. Now it wasn't the flattened civil rights that we have today where it's like civil

01:09:31.300 rights for all people, but they did have, they did have a strong belief and articulation of,

01:09:35.940 you know, the virtuous citizens relationship to the government. But now obviously the liberal

01:09:42.080 today says, well, that's actually flattened. Everyone has that same relationship. It's equal

01:09:46.280 in all ways all people are equal in all ways so that's their view of the civil rights which is

01:09:50.580 actually a perverted view of what the founders thought but they still hold on to this idea of

01:09:54.340 limited government and so the government just left me alone um everything would be fine that

01:09:59.260 would fix all of america's issues it's nothing more than just a big government and we're spending 0.99

01:10:03.340 too much money and of course that's idiotic and incredibly out of touch and so we have to call 0.97

01:10:07.220 that out um but but going back to your point obviously we as christians we still hold this 0.99

01:10:12.080 idea of self-governance governance right and so you pointed out king's hall and there's a there's

01:10:16.580 a sense in which it's true that privately we ought to be governing ourselves well but we all recognize

01:10:21.980 here i think on the on the postal right if that's what you want to call us that that a small

01:10:26.260 government's not going to get it done it's not yep small government um i i you know that's kind of

01:10:32.180 the the common trope of you know neoconservativism and in typical fashion you know like if you'd

01:10:38.680 asked me as a young adult uh what i think i would have said the same thing i would have said you

01:10:42.360 know small government good big government bad and and that that would be the the long and short of

01:10:47.640 it that's that you know that's about as far as my thought process went um which is incredibly naive

01:10:53.780 uh what i didn't what i didn't realize is uh the reason why small government was so good

01:11:00.100 in america's founding is because um because a large government was not required you you did not

01:11:07.700 have um in in our founding you did not have um a you know just where 20 percent of the population

01:11:15.840 were thieves and murderers and rapists right you didn't you didn't have that you know and and you

01:11:21.880 also didn't have where a large swath of the population was on welfare and requiring you

01:11:27.960 know government aid you did and even our better the better part of our population is still far

01:11:32.760 less virtuous we have to admit right that gambling and pornography than than the previous generations

01:11:39.020 less virtuous and and then i would say especially right because you can find some people god fearing

01:11:44.960 salt of the earth christians who i think are um as virtuous as many of the founders and even more

01:11:51.300 virtuous in terms of their christian commitment uh their morality than some of the founders uh

01:11:56.880 looking at you benjamin franklin looking at you thomas jefferson right i mean because you know we

01:12:01.440 we do have some people it's like no this guy and morally speaking uh is actually superior to thomas

01:12:06.880 jefferson because thomas jefferson sucked right i mean like i he was he ripped out verses of the 0.92

01:12:12.420 bible benjamin franklin was a bit of a hoe you know um you know so like that i like we've got 0.96

01:12:18.260 people better than that here's what we don't have though we don't have people smarter than them 0.99

01:12:22.100 we don't we might have you know some of our population um with a higher commitment to

01:12:28.400 virtue but we don't have hardly any of our nation that is um is uniquely trained and equipped and

01:12:34.480 academic and intelligent and um is is broadly well read and all these things uh that the founders

01:12:40.880 were and so we just have to acknowledge we are are starting at a massive deficit and um and with

01:12:47.840 the lay of the land as it currently is today you don't get out of this hole if you're not willing

01:12:52.440 to do some things that are going to be viewed as extreme. I personally don't think they are

01:12:58.780 objectively extreme, but they will be called extreme. All right, that's the episode. We got

01:13:03.480 to call it quits. I hope that you've been blessed by it. And it is Friday and we will see you. I

01:13:10.320 believe we have just a couple episodes left of the Friday special, which is at 8 p.m. Central.

01:13:15.080 So that'll be tonight, 8 p.m. Central with myself and Dr. Stephen Wolf talking about Christian

01:13:19.100 nationalism, how to get the train, uh, American train back on the rails. And then, uh, other than

01:13:24.540 the Friday special, we will see you again with a live stream on Monday. We live stream three times

01:13:29.020 a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 3 PM central time. So Lord willing, we'll see you on Monday.

01:13:33.160 Uh, God bless.

The NXR Podcast - September 05, 2025

THE LIVESTREAM - Joel Berry vs. The Founding Fathers？

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