MLK Statue and Velma Prove Civilization's Not Gonna Make It
The Babylon Bee Podcast talk about that crazy new MLK statue, chat with Arizona sheriff Mark Lamb about what's really going on at the border, and hang out with CJ Pearson from PragerU! Also, Velma on HBO Max is a total dumpster fire and leftists think the show is a rightwing psyop. The guys talk about the news of the week and dive into the new segments: CONSOOM, where they talk about everything they are consuming, and Mailbag, where they dive into topics that the listeners asked for! Make sure you take a minute to hear The Babylon Bee's Verse of the Week! Check out Sheriff Lamb's new book at Brave Books: https://bravebooks.us Look out for PragerU's new content creator CJ Pearson: https://www.instagram.com/thecjpearson/ https://www.prageru.com/ Do us a solid and support the companies who support us: Decaf Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decaf/id1464194373 Decaf Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/07Hr2V9QEd9COdHvMSAMuc PublicSq on Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/publicsq/id1573823343 PublicSQ on Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.publicsq.app&hl=en_US&gl=US&showAllReviews=true BetterHelp Therapy: https://www.betterhelp.com/babylonbee/ Allegiance Gold: https://allegiancegold.com/bee In the subscriber portion, CJ Pearson answers the Ten Questions and the guys read subscriber headlines and a bonus hate mail from ChatGPT!
President Biden visited the border and declared, this is fine.
We talked to an Arizona sheriff to see what the real story is.
Prager U's C.J. Pearson is here, and we're going to get to the bottom of whether Prager U is a real university.
A new statue honoring Martin Luther King has been unveiled in Boston.
And well, we have some questions.
Velma came out, and it sucks.
What is best in life?
Sizzler.
Sizzler is best in life.
I'll listen more on the Babylon Bee Podcast.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the Babylon Bee Podcast.
I'm Kyle Mann hanging out here with Adam Yinster.
And today we've got a special guest from Prager U, C.J. Pearson.
How you doing?
Doing good.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for coming out.
Yeah, thanks for being here, man.
Thank you.
It's going to be a blast.
I'm excited.
So what are you doing at Prager U right now?
You know, I transferred from the University of Alabama to Prager U. You know, doesn't have a football team, but we're working on it.
We're practicing, running some drills in the courtyard.
But it's been great.
So been working on some new projects there, working on a new show, which we're super excited to unveil soon.
But it's been great.
It's not even accredited.
It's a real party school.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like Trump University, but like prestigious, right?
Slightly more real than Trump University.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like all the hierarchy.
Like, you know, like Yale vibes.
It's like Hogwarts.
Trump University.
Yeah, but it's been great.
It's been on a show there.
Yeah, yeah.
So we're working on a show.
It's called Left versus Right.
And really the big thing there is that we want to show young people, my Generation Z, the differences between the left and the right.
I think that you see in the media this incredibly romanticized view of what the left is when that actually just isn't really true.
And so super excited to get that out soon and it's going to be great.
How old are you?
I'm 20.
Wow, wow.
Yeah.
I was going to like looking at you, I can't really tell.
Yeah.
I was saying anywhere between 15 and 30.
A wide range.
That's 20.
I believe 20.
I believe 20.
Fair enough.
Have you guys ever encountered people in your comment section that do think Prager U is some sort of real university?
I think it's probably because the quality of education you receive at Prager U is probably better than a lot of universities today.
You know, at Prager U, thankfully, unlike Stanford University, you can still say the word American and grandfather without being considered a racist, which, you know, I feel like a few years ago, no one would have ever even imagined would be a source of contention.
What were the other ones?
Brave, you can't say brave anymore.
Yeah, because you can't say field somewhere.
I saw that one this year.
It was just this.
Yeah.
Yeah, field.
Like, is like, what is it called?
The football green space?
I don't know.
Like, what do you think the origin of the field was?
Like, I don't know.
I think fields were only invented for slavery.
There was never any other type of field.
Where did you get a group of props?
Like, parcels of land.
I don't understand.
They don't understand.
They don't understand.
Well, anytime we have someone who's from Gen Z here, we just have to ask you, like, what is wrong with your generation?
And did you come out okay?
Like, I mean, what is your experience growing up in Gen Z?
Like, like TikTok?
I mean, you kind of grown up like with TikTok because that's been around five or six years now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So if you asked me if I came out okay, I think the answer is yes.
If you ask my since that question, they would disagree because they come from a family of Democrats, a family of leftists.
Well, you rebelled the other direction.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'm the only child.
So they literally had only one job and I somehow found a way to mess it up.
And so, but it's been, you know, it's been interesting.
I think that, you know, Gen Z, I think, is getting, has gotten a lot worse of a rap than I think, than we deserve at times.
I think, yeah, there are lots of people among us who are really sensitive, really cringy, and all those things.
But I also think, though, that there are some of these issues that you've seen from the left that have kind of radicalized a lot of people in my generation.
Like a lot of people in my generation hate cancel culture.
This entire idea that you can be criminalized or penalized or suffer consequences for so-called wrong think and for believing things that just a year ago would have been normal to believe.
At the University of Alabama, ironically enough, we had for the first time, I think you guys covered this, a biological male was rushing to join one of our sororities.
And I know girls who are like apolitical, didn't really like Trump or any of that, who are like, this is weird.
Like, this is a sorority.
Like, you know, like, what are we going to do?
Like, are we going to like, you know, get ready with him to go out and all those things?
It was something that they genuinely felt uncomfortable by.
And I think that like the left's increasing, you know, radicalization is going to push a lot more people in the generation away from them, which I think is long overdue and will be the thing that wakes them up.
As far as TikTok, you know, I think we all have that addiction.
I know that like I wake up in the morning and for a good hour or two, I'm just scrolling.
Don't know if that's done anything good necessarily for my IQ, but it's fun.
It's fun.
It seems to be okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but I'd be worried about the TikTok stuff.
Probably.
It's China's plot.
It's China's plot.
It just makes us question your taste, not your IQ.
Yeah.
TikTok.
There's funny videos there, man.
Oh, my God.
But I think TikTok, I'm like a conspiracy theorist on TikTok.
I think not only is China using it to take personal information, I think it's also a psyop where they're dumbing us down and making us shorter attention, trying to misplace our values and teaching us to be lazy at work.
And I feel like they want to use it to so division with like the issues like the transgender stuff and the woke teachers on TikTok.
I feel like they promote that stuff.
And you're talking about the working work ethic thing.
They'll promote those videos where people are complaining about quitting and stuff.
I feel like that's all, it's like a low-key psyop to just dumb down the American workforce.
And there's like massive, there's videos that have massive reach on there where people are talking about how, oh, you should never have kids.
Like my life is way great without kids.
And I'm like, they're pushing this so that you don't have kids.
Like it's artificially evidence of that too.
Like you look at what they're promoting in China.
Like they're promoting educational content to their children.
But here in America, you see a bunch of like e-girls twerking and only fans models.
And it's like, why are we getting that, right?
Like, why are we getting that?
I'm okay with that.
So it's like, I think there's definitely, like, I've never really thought about it that way, but I think there is like, they definitely do favor in the algorithm things that, you know, any objective person, I think, would look at and be like, this is just not good for society.
I've seen tons of quiet quitting content.
I've seen tons of things about like, oh, like when you're in your quarterly review and you're telling your boss, like, you're so excited to work there, but you've already planning on quitting or whatever.
And it's just like, and I feel genuinely bad because it's like, I have friends who aren't yet in the workforce and all of those things.
And they'll text me and they're like, hey, like, and this is literally a text I got two days ago from my friend.
She's like, you know, I just got this new job, but like, you know, my friend is having a birthday in Tampa.
Like, what do I say?
And I'm just like, and she said, well, like, at the end of the day, like, you know, Tampa will not always be there, but this job will always be.
And I got to live my best life.
It's hot girl summer.
And I'm like, well, first and foremost, it's winter.
And number two.
You're not hot.
Yeah.
Okay, fair enough.
She is.
She is.
But, you know, it's just like one of those things.
It's just like, come on.
Like, this is just not how you're going to survive in a wordplace, but that's insane.
All right.
Well, everyone, check out PragerU and keep an eye out for CJ's new show.
You can also check him out on Instagram and Twitter.
And we will have links to all of his content because he's a content creator.
We got news of the week this week.
We have a news segment called Consume, where we talk about the media we're consuming.
And we're talking to Sheriff Mark Lamb about Biden's handling of the border crisis.
Sizzler Facts, mailbag, the Babylon Bee's Bible Versus of the Week and hate mail.
So here we go.
But first, we want to remind you guys all to go to Babylon Bee Live this February, February 24th in Fort Worth, Texas.
Please go to bamalonbelive.com and get your tickets.
I believe VIP is all sold out.
They were going to try to release some more tickets.
I'm not sure if they will be available when this pops up or not.
But please join us.
We're selling out quickly and we would love to see you there.
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What's in the news this week?
So Boston put up this statue.
Well, I should say it the way it says here.
Boston decided to erect a statue in honor of MOK.
A lot of people have been criticizing this sculpture.
It doesn't look good.
It's supposed to be copied from an embrace between Dr. King and his wife, but they decided to make it without bodies or heads.
It's just the disembodied arms wrapped around one another.
And it just looks like a weird, creepy Salvador dollipum or something.
Martha Luther King did just not die for this.
Like this is just not what he died for, huh?
Like, wow.
Yeah, so it's like from a famous picture where he found out he was winning the Nobel Peace Prize and he was hugging Coretta and they just cut it out.
It's nice that it has brought people together where people, like regardless of creed or skin color, all think it looks like especially in this angle.
Yeah, that's the angle that put it up on the screen and you guys can decide what you think it looks like.
And for the record, this costs $10 million to create.
Like this is modern art today.
And I read a statement from the artist where he said the purpose of it was to de-emphasize the individual and promote the collective.
He's like, it doesn't matter that it was MLK.
It's just the embrace of everybody.
We want to embrace the all and push down the individual.
You know, I bet it will become a popular thing to see, though, because whether you're going because you like it or hate it, if I was in Boston, I would want to go see it.
I got to go see it.
And, you know, maybe you appreciate when you're there.
Maybe it looks better at it or something.
It's a meme now.
You have to go see it.
Yeah.
And it's like when they made that the monkey Jesus in Spain, you know, when that lady tried to fix the painting, like, I want to see that.
It's massive tourism.
I want to go see that.
I love Bost Restorations.
That was my favorite.
So funny.
And they actually interviewed this artist.
I think it was on CNN, and even the CNN host were asked, well, are you going to change it or redo it?
And he's like, no.
It's funny.
Well, if art is supposed to make you feel something, then I guess it was a success.
Well, Miss Universe is now owned by a trans woman.
So this person didn't win the Miss Universe.
No, this is the owner of this universe.
Biological male.
He made the statement from now on, it's going to be ran by women.
And it's a biological male.
Is this the man?
That's a man saying that.
Yes, that's the man.
That is a man.
That's him.
Just to be clear, that's a man.
Yeah.
All right.
Well.
And then there was also accusations already that this new owner rigged the winner to be from the United States.
Yeah.
The Miss USA.
Yeah.
It was rigged in her favor.
Which, you know, I feel like at the end of the day, you know, we're arguing about like it being rigged in favor of Miss USA.
It's going to be rigged in favor of men in probably like a year or so.
So it's like, yeah, you know, I feel like having transgender competitors like that, though, it's a good way to keep Trump out of the dressing room before beauty ship pageants.
You know, they'll be like, no, I don't want to go there there anymore.
Wait a minute.
Are they all are they all no, they're not.
I can't risk it.
I can't risk it.
I'm going to see some MLK statues up in there.
I want to see the MLK statue in the dressing room.
That's for sure.
And the World Economic Forum was this week.
Top executives and leaders of state flying their private jets to Davos, a Swiss ski resort, for a five-day summit on climate change.
And multiple media outlets are reporting that they are boosting the local economy of prostitution.
I did not know where that headline was going.
It's a real roller coaster.
Business booming for sex workers and Davos as prostitution rises during the World Economic Forum.
All right.
Well, they're contributing to the economy.
There's not something that they're doing.
I mean, what they always get criticized for is that they talk about all this environmental issues and then they fly in there a thousand to a rich ski resort.
Yeah.
In the frozen ski resort when we're supposed to be worried about warming.
And it's always 13 degrees, according to something I saw today.
It says as many as 100 high-end in quote prostitutes, because they have good taste in prostitutes, these rich people, have flocked to the summit.
This is nothing new.
In 2020, the Times called the summit a den of prostitution and predators.
Okay.
So Biden's competence question is classified documents scandal continues.
I don't know if that's the first time it's been questioned, but they're calling it incredibly careless.
Last week, we talked about the documents that were found on his private office at University of Pennsylvania.
And then they found documents in his garage next to that incredible Corvette.
And then a third batch of documents were found in his home.
You know, I think a lot of people are wondering.
And what's interesting about this story that I saw is that Hunter Biden was literally paying $50,000 in rent at the same piece of property.
Yeah, and he wasn't.
Doesn't he own the proper, like, isn't his name on the deed is something I heard that he actually owns the property, but he was still paying rent.
Yeah.
Like $50,000 for a house in Delaware.
To his dad, right?
It might be a way to funnel money to the big guy.
Yeah, right.
To the big guy.
Absolute insanity.
And it's like, and also, too, about this story, what's interesting is that I love how it's just like, you know, just volunteer.
They're able to just volunteer these documents.
But yeah, when it was Trump, it was like, let's send the entire brigade of FBI agents to DOJ.
And they, you know, carried out that search in that way.
But when it's Biden, it's like, oh, it's just in his garage.
It's just chilling.
No need to send anyone out there.
I also think a lot of people would it's bad that they're not handling the classified documents properly.
Yeah.
But I think a lot of people would be less concerned about it unless it's exposed that there's something really sensitive in there that could threaten national security.
I don't think anybody would care about this story as much, except that the left just made such a big deal about Trump's documents to act like it was the worst thing in the world.
Yeah.
Yeah, this story cracked me up because every morning I woke up and you pulled out the phone and it's like, oh, more documents.
They just kept fighting him at more and more places, which is just and they can't, they can't say that it's not a big deal because as you said, they spent so much time making it a big deal.
And it's just like, oh my, and it's, and it seems as if it's just like, this just seems to be a huge problem on the left when it comes to classified documents.
Like Hillary Clinton, Biden, like Barack seems to be the only person who just seemed to know how to keep some documents somewhere, like to his credit.
He's the only loser president who didn't have a lot of people.
He may not have the guts, but he didn't have the guts to steal secret documents.
It seems like he's got his head on his shoulders.
I feel like Obama would know how to handle documents.
Seemingly.
So for me.
Seemingly.
Yeah.
That's so funny.
Or just hide them real good.
It could be in my words by the next podcast.
At the rate of this is given, yeah, maybe.
Now, if Bush, if W. Bush stole any secret documents, those would be interesting.
Yeah, he's probably got some interesting stuff in there.
He's burned the UFO stuff, like he definitely took with him.
Biden spoke at MLK's church and repeated a questionable claim, as he often does, that he would go to mass early in the morning before going to the black church during the civil rights era.
So, I guess he claimed that he went to black church during the civil rights era.
Let's lay one thing to rest.
He did say not a joke, so that means it's not true.
Every time you say, I'll let you do the let's lay one thing to rest.
I may be a practicing guy.
Look, but I used to go to 7.30 Mass every morning in high school and then in college before I went to the black church.
But it's not a joke.
Andy knows that.
Can we please talk to Andy?
Yeah.
Where is Andy?
But I will say, you know, a part of me is inclined to believe him because he did say that he went to Mass before he went to the black church.
And anyone who has ever been to black church knows that if you go, if you have any plans after black church, you're not going to like it's a three-hour long endeavor.
Praise and worship is like an hour and 30 minutes.
The sermon's two hours.
And then they're always saying, oh, I'm wrapping it up.
They're never wrapping it up.
Which is why when I went to Alabama, you know, there just weren't that many black churches.
I got to go to church with my wife friends.
And it was incredible.
You know, you're in and out 30 minutes, got the express service, same word, you know, but it's just like right.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's brisk.
Get some wine and bread and get out of there.
Get some lunch after, you know, by the time you get out of black church, it's 7 p.m.
The sun's down.
What's going on?
And then it says, long time Congrens told the Washington Free Beacon at the time that they didn't recall Biden attending the church.
The revelation came about the same time Biden was forced to admit his repeated claims about being arrested with young in apartheid areas, apartheid era South Africa were also untrue.
Like the black church just doesn't remember one white guy.
I think we'd remember that.
I think you'd be able to tell.
But do we have his words he stumbled over?
Oh, did we have his happy birthday speech?
Is that in here?
Or his happy birthday song?
Let's pull it up.
I will stop.
Did you see his happy birthday song?
Oh, you have to see this.
I need to.
I think I'm going to look at it.
Yeah.
So Biden was delivering an MLK address at an event, and some of MLK's family members were there.
And it was his, I think it was his daughter-in-law or his granddaughter-in-law, married to his grandson.
It was her birthday, and her name is Andrea Andrea King.
And Biden starts singing happy birthday to her and forgets her name and just mumbles through it.
It's hilarious.
Well, look, my wife has a rule in her family.
When somebody's birthday, sing happy birthday.
Are you ready?
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, dear Dalvin.
Happy birthday two years now.
Well, and her name is Arnie.
It's not even close.
Oh, my God.
I have no idea.
Oh, my gosh.
What a guy.
What a guy.
Well, San Francisco is planning on giving $5 million to each black resident.
An advisory committee to the city of San Francisco has recommended that the city pay reparations to its black population.
The city would pay a minimum of $5 million to each qualifying black resident of the city over age 18 and commit to a 250-year program of guaranteeing $100,000 in income to low-income black residents.
The ones who are still low-income after they become millionaires.
So would you like to move to San Francisco?
I've already submitted my rental application.
I'm packed and ready to go.
I hope Pragery opens an office there.
But I think you guys should move too because I think if people can be transgender, why can't you be transracial?
And did the Rachel Dolezall thing.
Exactly that.
Exactly.
I think that's what we're going to see.
Even though that California has never owned any slaves.
Jimmy Kimmel.
Right.
Yeah.
Just everyone.
Just come.
We're all transracial.
Ted Danson did it.
It's about to be the blackest in America.
Sarah Silverman did.
Jimmy Fallon.
Yeah.
They all are owed away.
Did Fallon and Kimmel do it?
Or did I get that wrong?
No, Kimmel did it as, what's his name from the Utah Jazz, Carl Malone.
And then Jimmy Fallon did it as Chris Rock on SNL.
Oh, okay.
And yeah.
And then Ted Danson did it when he was dating Whoopi Goldberg because he thought that made him.
Well, this is one of my favorite stories of the week.
The new Velma show by Minda Kaling on HBO is a dumpster fire with 6% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
So in this show, it's pitched as a reboot origin story of the Velma character.
Now you know Scooby-Doo.
Yeah, the original.
The OG Scooby-Doo.
Okay, so I'd say the previous.
So Velma is gay, which I think they did have her be gay in some adaptations.
She always seemed like a lesbian.
And then everyone's like, okay, that's a good idea.
And then in the last Scooby-Doo movie, they made her officially a lesbian.
And our joke here was something along the ladder of like, you know, conservatives this once don't really care.
Like, this makes sense.
She's a little bit more.
We're usually opposed to this.
Yeah, Velma's gay.
This would work.
So Velma is gay and Indian.
Daphne is dealing drugs at her school, and the names of the drugs are things like the Mystery Machine and other Scooby-Doo references.
Fred is the white guy who is the punchline of all the jokes, and Shaggy is a black stoner, and Scooby does not exist in the show.
So it's meant to be the origin story of Velma Dinkley, the unsung and underappreciated brains of the Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. Gang that unmasks her complex and colorful past.
My favorite thing about this whole release and what a dumpster fire was is that a lot of leftists on Twitter were propagating a conspiracy theory that it was actually created by right-wingers to parody Velma as what the right-wing thinks the woke really are like to make leftists look bad.
Here was one tweet that was going around with 16,000 likes.
The showrunner of Velma is built a transphobe and said that you couldn't make the office today because of cancer culture.
She's a fellow reactionary.
She deliberately made Velma suck.
So the Culture War YouTubers make a million videos about it to boost its SEO.
Now, why do they think Mindy Kaling is a transphobe?
I think she retweets.
She made comments about that.
But I think she did retweet J.K. Rowling once.
Yeah.
And was it one of the transgender comments?
Oh, good for her then.
Good for Mindy Kaling.
Yeah.
So I know Mindy Kaling is a flaming liberal.
That's what surprised me because she's on the left.
But I mean, there are a lot of feminists and people on the left who don't accept the transgender nonsense.
And if you're in the comedy space, sometimes you kind of are a little reactionary.
Like, I want people to tell the jokes I want to tell and all that.
I haven't actually watched this.
Have either of you guys watched it?
I haven't watched it.
I've seen some clips, but that's it.
I was enjoying the clips that were going around and how bad they were.
Yeah.
So here's a couple of snippets from the show.
A line from Velma.
Fred's a rich white guy with a tiny dong.
Those are all white people, Daphne.
Cough.
White girl with too much money.
White girl with too much money.
And then there's a screen grab of Fred giving the Hitler salute.
At one point during the release, it was the lowest rated TV show on all time on IMDb with 1.3 stars out of 10.
I don't understand the reboot thing.
Like, if you're going to make your own show, I don't know why do you have to take this character?
It's going to have like a Scooby-Doo ending where they're like, let's see who you really are.
And they pull off Mindy Kaling's mask and Nick Fuentes or something.
Andrew Tate.
It was you all along.
I always revel a little bit in the delicious bad leftist.
It's always funny to watch the left implode.
Yeah, that's true.
And watch them just fight and turn on each other.
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Banger of the week.
We have our banger.
DOJ indicts Trump for Biden's possession of classified documents.
Probably a prophecy that will be fulfilled at some point here.
But some of our stuff bombed just as hard as Velma.
Bomb of the week.
Theologians confirm scripture 72% more powerful when read in cool foreign accent.
That one did okay on Facebook, at least.
I thought it got.
Did it?
Okay.
I saw it on there, yeah.
I feel like that's true of a lot of audiobooks and YouTube clips.
No, it's not really.
Whenever they're in British.
Have you guys heard Prince Harry's audiobook?
No.
No, I didn't plan on it.
Oh, it's absolutely awful.
I might not.
Is it fun bad?
It's, I don't know.
It's really, you got to listen to it.
Like, he goes and he's talking about there's some British word for like a penis that I had no idea existed.
Oh, yeah.
Until he was talking about he applied Elizabeth Aldenkream to his Nica or something like that, which sounded like a racial slur.
And I was like, ah, but like, no, it's just, it's the most bizarre thing in the world.
And he's just talking about like, it's just, it's rough.
You need to, you need to listen to it.
That's like the Velma show.
I kind of want to watch it just to see how bad it is.
I hate watching it.
But then I don't know if it's too bad to get through.
Yeah.
It's rough.
It's rough.
And the word was, it was Nodger.
Nodger.
Nodger.
That sounds like a word that they would use.
Yeah, it does.
Holmanj.
That's the official royal name for a penis.
Now, Harry, we only say Nodger in this house.
Yeah.
MLK statue looks like a nodger.
Big nodger.
That's a nodger.
Well, and now it is time for our most popular segment of all time, Sizzler Facts.
17 weeks ago, we debuted a new feature to the podcast called Sizzler Facts.
Here's this week's.
Chicken wings are becoming less common as a feature of Sizzler's famous salad bar, crushing the hopes of men and women alike.
However, the Sizzler in Cedar City, Utah still has chicken wings.
So get yourself over to the Sizzler in Cedar City, Utah, and tell your friends this has been Sizzler Facts.
Now it's time for the second most popular segment on our podcast, Sizzler Commons.
Sizzler Commons.
Here's a comment from Tracy Friesen.
Frasen, and she says, just want to share an odd Sizzler fact with you.
According to the American Scandal podcast, two David Koresh followers had their wedding reception at a Sizzler with Koresh in attendance.
What?
That's the best Sizzler fact we've ever had and it's not ours.
That's great.
I love David Koresh references.
We were just making Waco jokes yesterday.
I know we were.
Do you know about David Koresh?
I don't know who that is.
Oh, it's interesting.
He started this cult in Waco, Texas called the Branch Davidians in the 90s.
The show Waco won.
So, the bad part is that there were allegations that there was some sexual abuse from him towards the followers.
Yeah, yeah.
But there were also legitimate followers there.
It was just a weird religious cult.
But then the federal government tried to raid Waco.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They attacked him.
They were burning them and killing them and stuff.
Yeah.
It's insane.
But they also went to a Sizzler.
This has been Sizzler Commons.
And now it's time for weekly news with Adam Jenser.
It's time for the weekly news with Adam Jenser.
On Monday, climate change activist Greta Thunberg finally discovered an emission-free way to travel.
That's the German police carrying her away from a violent climate change protest.
First, adults stole her dreams in her childhood.
Now they're stealing her.
How dare you?
She is not going to be happy when she meets her cellmate.
Not that I've ever seen Greta Thunberg happy.
CNN is reportedly considering hiring a comedian like Trevor Noah or Bill Maher to host their primetime show, even though nothing they could possibly do will ever be funnier than what Jeffrey Toobin already did.
Kim Kardashian visited Pelican Bay State Prison to talk to inmates about their experience in solitary confinement.
They told Kim the worst part of solitary confinement is the loneliness, while the best part is we don't know who you are and never have to hear about you or your family.
On Monday, a statue was unveiled in Boston called The Embrace, which was built to honor Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife.
And all of God's children, whether they be black or white, regardless of their creed or color of their skin, agree that it looks like a penis.
Dr. King's relatives responded saying, Darn it, was that sculptor a diversity hire?
Brendan Frazier won the Critics Choice Award for Best Actor for his role in The Whale.
He also won the Panama City Beach Belly Flop Contest.
Joking aside, I haven't seen The Whale, but it does look like a phenomenal movie.
I mean, take a look at that poster.
A new study found that spending time in nature can improve mental and physical health and reduce the need for medication.
So thank you to Gavin Newsome, who tried to cure COVID by closing hiking trails, parks, and the ocean.
After the Jaguars defeated the Chargers in the third largest comeback in NFL history, quarterback Trevor Lawrence celebrated at Waffle House, where employees defeated the customers in the third largest comeback in restaurant history.
Several U.S. cities have seen an increase in sober bars, which cater to non-drinkers with alcohol-free cocktails.
Matt Gates calls it the perfect date spot for when she's not old enough to drink.
I know a lot of you Republicans still like him, but I think he did it.
And here's my evidence: look at his face.
PETA has demanded that the University of Georgia stop using a live bulldog as their football mascot.
So they had him stuffed.
That's it for weekly news.
Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and come see me live at HB Social Club in Honolulu, January 28th, and at the Looney Bin in Wichita, February 9th to 11th.
Thanks, Adam Jenser.
Now it is time for our interview with Sheriff Mark Lamb from Pinnell County, Arizona on Biden's recent visit to the border.
And now it's time for another interview on the Babylon Bee Podcast.
All right.
Thanks for coming on.
Sheriff Mark.
Thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure to be on the Babylon Bee on I, along with so many other people.
Big fan.
I don't know how you come up with satire anymore because everything seems to come through, but I'm very happy to be on today.
Thank you.
Well, it's great that you were able to take some time to come over.
I understand you guys have your hands full at the southern border.
You know, even though Biden's doing a pretty good job, would you rate him 9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10?
Somewhere in that range.
Destroying America is the litmus test, then yeah, 10 out of 10.
I think he's pretty much done just about everything that he could do.
You can speak freely and tell us how you really feel.
You don't have to be political or anything.
Don't we need migrants to work on the farms?
But who would work on the farms if we don't?
Sure, we need people to work jobs, period, whether they're migrants or American kids or anybody.
We need people to work jobs, period.
And we absolutely love immigrants.
We just have a process in place for them.
And that's all we're asking is to follow the process that it takes to come to America and legit asylum claims too, by the way.
You can't show up to five different countries before you claim asylum.
The rule is you have to claim asylum in the first country you show up to.
And I don't think most Americans understand that.
So yeah, like we're all for people coming here and working.
I know companies need it, but we want you to follow the rules just like the rest of us.
That's what this society is built on.
Yeah, where's your county?
It's situated right on the southern border.
No, we're actually between Phoenix and Tucson.
We're about 50 to 60 miles off the border.
On the south end of our county, we have a Native American reservation that actually runs into America, or excuse me, into Mexico.
And that is where the cartel pushes military-age men, camouflage clothes, carpet shoes, which is exactly what it sounds like.
They put pieces of carpet over their shoes so that we can't track them.
We can't hear them.
They've got backpacks.
And a lot of times they're bringing in drugs and they're bringing in people that we don't want in here.
Look, over the last year, there's been, I think it's over the last year, but the number is 40,000, 40,000 people have been arrested at the border that had either criminal convictions here in this country already or that were wanted by law enforcement in this country.
That is a staggering amount of number of people that we were ready that could have easily have gotten into our communities.
We have to believe that an equal number probably did.
Don't they just need a second chance?
They're just look, everybody needs a second chance in life.
There's no doubt everybody needs a second chance.
And I think like Arizona and most Americans, we believe wholeheartedly in second chances, which is why we have a process in place.
Who doesn't really need a second chance is the people we have in power right now.
Over the last two years, you had one party running the Congress, Senate, and presidency.
And so if immigration was truly was a big issue for them, they could have fixed it over the last year.
Lord knows they shoved tons of other stuff down our throats as Americans.
They could have easily have passed a they could have easily have passed legislation for immigration, but they didn't because ultimately they want a broken border.
How many migrants have you whipped?
I haven't whipped any.
You know, I laugh.
I laugh because of how they accused those guys of it.
And then it turned out to be that it wasn't true.
And now they never even come back.
They never came back and even said they were sorry.
You know, they claim that's a that's a serious claim to say, hey, these guys were whipping these migrants only to have it be not true.
So I personally have not whipped any, nor have I even had my reins on the horse on my horse close to them.
So what are the numbers at right now for the southern border?
Wasn't it like a million people last year?
And then what is it out right now for people crossing the border?
So I think the apprehensions is somewhere around 2.7 million.
You've got who knows how many gotaways.
Just in the month of December, there were 14,000 gotaways in the Tucson sector of Border Patrol, which is my sector.
In the El Paso sector, that number was at 32,000.
You could probably double or triple that of people that we don't know that didn't hit the cameras.
Nobody saw them.
Nobody chased them.
And so those are, they're not even on the Godaway list.
But there are estimates that say it's probably closer to about 5 million when you take everything into consideration over the last two years since this administration's been in there.
So, yeah, it's been a big influx of people into this country that we have no idea who they are.
And might I say, one of the big issues that I think gets overlooked in the media all the time is the economic impact this has on America.
We're in a recession right now.
Now you're letting 5 million people that are going to make money under the table.
They're going to send that money back to their respective countries and they're not going to get taxed on it.
So you're going to lose the taxing dollars for three to 5 million people.
And then that money is going to be sent back to other countries, leaving a giant hole in our economy.
So oftentimes I think that's something that's overlooked.
You talked about how many like known criminals were arrested and how many others probably got away.
You know, the economic issues.
What are the specific challenges that this kind of flood of migrants, especially illegal immigration, presents to your county and Arizona in general?
Yeah, great question.
Every day we're out there on the I-10 freeway stopping vehicles that are human load vehicles.
Look, this isn't about immigration.
This is about human trafficking and drug trafficking into America.
And so the specific challenges we face because of this border crisis is we face people being trafficked into America for to be in the sex trade.
The cartels understand how many times can you sell a pill?
One.
But how many times can you sell a woman?
Hundreds.
Same with children.
Those children are being put into the sex trade.
Men are being extorted.
So that's one issue.
And the other issue is obviously the drug issue.
Fentanyl has become the leading cause of death in America amongst Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.
Over 107,000 deaths last year, poisonings, I might add, either poisonings or what they are.
And it's going to continue to increase because of the amount of drugs we continue to seize.
It's a fraction of what's coming in here.
So that continues to probably be the major thing that issue that it poses for us in our county.
Have you talked to a lot of people that were maybe on the other side of the immigration issue and had their eyes open from some of the stuff that you've seen?
And what kind of arguments resonate with those people?
Because I know a lot of times people on the left, they'll just say, oh, this is an issue of racism or xenophobia.
Like you just don't like people from another country and you're just, you know, like a white nationalist or something.
Have you encountered those kinds of arguments?
And have you changed any hearts and minds on this issue?
Yeah, I mean, a lot of times those are ridiculous arguments.
Look, anytime that they're on the losing end of an argument because they can't provide any facts to support the open border idea or to support what this administration has done, they go to name calling.
You're a racist, you're a bigot, you're this, you're that.
And frankly, they're not down here trying to save these folks every day.
We are.
We spend our resources.
We put our lives on the line to save people that the cartels have left for dead in the desert.
People that are being trafficked that run from us at high rates of speed, putting our lives at risk when we deal with drugs that are trying to come into this country.
So yeah, you know, those are some of the arguments people make.
And I had a congresswoman I talked to one time and she says, well, what about all the good people that are trying to come into this country?
And I said, that's a great question, Congresswoman.
But my job, if I told you I had 10 people I wanted you to come over to your house and five of them were good and five of them were bad, including sex offenders, would you allow them to come into your house?
And she says, well, she was quiet.
And I said, you're quiet because the answer is no.
I said, let me take it a step further.
If I had 10 people come into your house and only one of them was bad, but he was a sex offender and you didn't know who it was, would you allow that in?
Would you allow those 10 people in your house?
She was quiet again.
I said, No, you wouldn't because you're not dumb.
And anybody with a brain knows that we cannot let people in that are going to cause harm to us.
My job as a sheriff is to stop that one bad guy, even if I have to stop 10 good people, because we already have a process in place, like I already talked about, for those good people to come to this country.
When I heard a lot of people in Los Angeles who thought the wall was racist, and then living here, I see that there are gated communities within gated communities.
So, Trump wanted to build a racist wall for $5 billion, but that was racist and that was a bad idea.
And then our Congress gave $100 billion to Ukraine to fund a war, and there was no pushback.
So, what are your thoughts?
Well, I don't know how an inanimate object can be racist.
I think it's completely impossible.
We've now seen that bridges that are too low can be racist, highways can be racist, rocks in the desert, I guess, could be racist if they sprain their ankle on the rock.
It's sheer lunacy what we hear sometimes.
And I try to bring some common sense back to it and some reality back to the situation.
This is not racist to have a wall.
I have a wall around my house.
Is it the end-all be-all?
No, somebody could probably jump over it, but is it a deterrent from people just randomly walking into my yard?
Absolutely.
And that is what the wall is designed to do.
It's designed to be a deterrent, it's designed to create choke points, places where we can put our staffing, our minimum staffing, whether it's Border Patrol, local law enforcement, to be able to stop that and thwart the bad people from coming in this country.
I think your hat is a pretty good deterrent, too.
Like, if I just saw you standing in that hat, I wouldn't go into your yard.
Yeah, I assume you'd own guns by that hat.
So, that's what would be that would be my assumption as well.
Well, your assumption would be correct, and the plurality of the word that you use would be correct as well.
My coin, my challenge coin that I have says that I believe in God, family, freedom, and guns.
So, yes, I have guns.
Would you say you have a plethora of guns?
I don't know that I could say I have a plethora of guns.
I don't have as many guns as I would like to have, but I love the three amigos reference.
Thank you.
Have you seen the three amigos, Emma?
I have.
Okay, all right, cool.
You know, uh, Governor Ron DeSantis and Governor Abbott took some criticism when they were busing migrants and flying migrants to DC and other places.
Uh, and you know, I know Biden was doing similar things where he was flying people in the middle of the night.
What's your thoughts on that whole thing?
Is that just political theater?
Does it make any kind of impact?
Is it Ron DeSantis a human trafficker?
Your thoughts?
Well, there's a lot to unpack in that question.
No, he's not a human trafficker.
Um, yes, Biden and his administration probably buses and flies out 10 times what Arizona and Texas does.
They're doing the exact same thing, sending them to communities and states all over this country.
So, they're doing it already.
Um, is it political?
Sure, I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's not, but what other way do we do the does Arizona or Texas have to get the attention of the federal government or the American people, um, other than to send these people to places that have claimed to be sanctuary cities?
I mean, I would think that you would want us on the border to send people to sanctuary cities because clearly you have resources and everything in place to accept them because you've determined your city is that.
And I think that's what they've done.
You can call it political or not, but I think that it is also political what the government is doing and there is or their lack of doing it and forcing the communities in Arizona and Texas, which are not equipped for that, to house all these people.
Think that is political in nature as well.
I know you want to mention your brave book, and I want to be you to be able to do that.
I did want to ask before we get to that, just kind of in closing, what do you think are some common sense immigration reforms and deterrence that the U.S. can implement to help solve this problem?
Because it seems insurmountable.
Well, it's not insurmountable.
First of all, we're America.
I mean, we can do a lot of things and we have done a lot of things.
Second of all, this is still the greatest country in the world.
Don't let your politicians or your media tell you otherwise.
That's why 300,000 people show up to our borders every month.
Do we have our problems?
Do we need to fix them?
Yes.
And it starts right at the southern border.
And the best and easiest thing we would do would be to go back to the Trump era policies.
We know those policies were working.
I can tell you firsthand, the statistics and what we dealt with under the last administration to this administration are starkly different, 180 different.
And so I would go back to those policies, but unfortunately, they've allowed it to get out of hand.
And so sometimes you're going to become in a little bit harder in the sense that we may have to do some border shutdowns.
But we've really got to get control of it.
What we do right now is we're mopping up the bathroom floor without turning off the tub water.
And at some point, you've got to make a determination to turn the tub water off so that we can start going to mopping it up.
The drug issues in America are not going to be solved as long as you allow drugs to come in unfettered for the most part through the southern border.
So I would say the simplest, quickest, easiest thing is to go back to the Trump era policies.
Let's start from there and start working with us, local law enforcement, so we can help you achieve that.
Got it.
Tell us about the children's book that you wrote with Brave Books.
Yeah, you know, this, look, I think we're all seeing a lot of corruption going on in this world.
And we're trying to teach our children at a younger age to be critical thinkers.
And this book, The Adventures of Seymour Clues and Mr. Mouse, The Case of the Mysterious Sea Monster, is exactly that.
It's a story of some local corruption where they're fear-mongering people.
And it takes some critical thinking on the part of Seymour Clues and Mr. Mouse to get to the bottom, to get to the truth.
And this book is designed to teach children to be critical thinkers, to find the truth, because it is out there, but it's harder to find every day that we go along in this crazy world.
And so it's just a great book for parents who are struggling to find good books that aren't pervasive and teaching our children the wrong things.
Get back to teaching children good traditional values that this country was built on.
Some of the books are about Christian values, and it's a great company that we've partnered up with, BraveBooks.com.
Go check it out.
If you subscribe today, you're going to get my book.
You're going to get Kirk Cameron's book for free.
And then you're going to be getting all the Freedom Island books that are great for your children.
It's going to teach them great things.
And this was particularly hits close to me, home to me because I had two grandchildren.
Tragically, I lost one a month ago in a car accident.
I wrote this book for them, and it means even more to me now because I lost a granddaughter.
So I hopefully you'll enjoy it.
You'll enjoy it with your grandchildren because it's a great book and teaches them good things.
I'll enjoy it with my grandchildren one day.
Someday.
I was going to say, you look, I don't have my glasses on, but you look way too young.
Well, thank you so much for coming on.
That was awesome.
Everybody, please check out the Brave book.
We're going to have a link to it in the show notes there.
And yeah, thank you so much.
That's awesome.
Thank you guys.
I appreciate your time.
And thank you for being great Americans too.
God bless you both.
God bless you.
God bless.
All right.
Well, that was great.
Thanks for coming on, Sheriff.
And now it is time for our intermission, the Babylon Bees Bible Verse of the Week.
And now it's time for the Babylon Bees Bible Verse of the Week.
Amen.
Before we introduce our next segment, we'd like to take time to be holy and consider the deep font of knowledge from the Holy Scripture.
Let us now consider our Bible verse of the week, Judges 3.22 in the King James Version.
And the haft also went in after the blade, and the fat closed upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of his belly.
And the dirt came out.
That passage and that story do always stick out in my mind when I read the Bible because it's such a violent scene.
Yeah.
This guy sneaks into this chamber where a very fat and he stabs him.
And the fat closes over the blade.
And so he stabs him, lets go, escapes.
And then nobody knows that the guy, the king died, and he's just sitting there fat and dead because the blade is hiding.
The dirt coming out.
And I think he instructed nobody to come in or something.
So he's in there for days until it starts to smell.
And then they're like, I think the king is dead.
And then, yeah.
Interesting.
So let's apply this to our lives.
As one of my old pastors would always say, where can we find Jesus in this verse?
Yeah, we're like, what is the King Ehud of your life?
What's your King Ehud is?
This is what are you all thinking?
Like, I think we need to find the fat king in our hearts and stab it.
And we need to get the dirt out of us, the sin, the sin.
Yeah, the dirt that comes out.
The proverbial sin.
Yeah.
Dirt.
And I think the dirt is like bile.
Yeah.
And in the King James, it's rendered dirt.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, this has been Bible verse of the week.
And now it's time for our new consume segment where we talk about things that we're consuming in our lives.
Hey, listeners.
If you're like me and enjoy diving into the week's top stories in U.S. politics mixed with humor and hot takes, you need to subscribe to the new DCAF podcast right now.
No topic goes untouched as hosts Mark and Taylor dive into sports, pop culture, and controversial topics, such as the most underrated and overrated television shows.
Yeah, that controversial.
You won't want to miss it.
Give it a listen.
It's quick, it's fun, and it's a great way to start your day.
Subscribe to decaf on Apple and Spotify today.
It's time to consume.
I've been reading Applied Economics by Thomas Soule, and I talked about this on the last podcast.
My first read of a Thomas Soule book.
I've never read his stuff.
I've read like essays and watched clips of his quotes, but I've never read one of his books.
I like it a lot.
I really like economic books, and this is reminding me how much I like.
This year I'm trying to do, I'm trying to rotate fiction and non-fiction.
So this is my start of the year, like reading non-fiction, and it's been really good.
I like thinking about those things, you know, and it's a good way to go on a run and you listen to it.
Listen to that kind of stuff.
I wish, you know, I don't know, like economics is so theoretical and example-driven, you know, that there's just a lot of examples of like, for instance, in this city, this happens.
And for instance, in this time, this happened.
And I really like how Sol is unafraid and unapologetic to ask any question.
He's like, why does the U.S. value more immigrants from Europe than from Mexico?
You know, and he talks about like, well, this is a skilled labor force and they're, you know, it's worthwhile to have them here.
And then the Mexico label force is more of a drain on the economy.
And he explains like the different things.
He's like, this isn't a racism thing.
I'm just explaining the economic realities.
So it's like interesting.
It's like stuff I wouldn't be allowed to say.
Is his writing very readable or is it a little dense and very readable?
See, that's what I like.
I like reading books about complex topics like that, but I feel like some authors are much better than others at making them digestible to someone who's not an expert.
Very readable, highly readable.
At least the one I like, Brandon recommended this one to me as like a readable.
It's not like a super dense topic or anything.
All of those other ones are too.
I've read basic economics by him, which is pretty readable.
That's a lot thicker, though.
That's like a big old tome, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this might be basically a distilled version of basic economics.
Probably takes the exam, like hearing you describe it, probably takes the examples that are in basic economics and just uses that to talk about the principles and stuff, which is really cool.
Wow, it's super interesting.
I also restarted Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, which is one of my favorite video games.
And I realized I didn't have any just straight up recreation time for the day.
Like I was like, I'm working out.
I'm working on the website.
I'm working on the videos.
And it's like, I get to the end of the day and I was just wandering around the house.
Like, I have nothing to do right now.
And I'm like, I'm going to restart Breath of the Wild.
Breath of the Wild 2 comes out in May, so I'm very pumped for that.
And I just, I'm trying to take it easy because I like to play video games and I like to rush them and try to finish them.
And this time I'm like, no, I'm going to like just explore the world.
What's your console?
This is on the Nintendo Switch.
What about you?
Any video games?
PlayStation guy, keep it simple, GTA, Call of Duty.
I guess that's what made me a raging right here.
Are you playing the most recent Call of Duty, like Warzone, the Warzone 2?
I'm like an oldie, like Modern Warfare 3.
Okay, like good stuff.
I love Modern Warfare 3.
That's probably one of my favorite Call of Duties, right behind the OG.
Yeah.
It's a good time.
It's a good time.
Nice.
Anytime I'm just late at night, can't sleep.
And then I'm not on TikTok, of course.
Yeah, see, that's the thing.
That's the other thing.
I found that I was spending so much time at the end of the day, like TikTok or Twitter or just browsing stuff.
And it's so like the way TikTok rewires your brain to go, three seconds of new funny video.
Yeah.
Three seconds of new funny video.
It's like, commit to reading a novel or commit to like even finishing a video game, which I know people say that melts your brain too, but it's like, I'm committing 50 hours to complete this whole storyline.
It's like a whole different way of thinking that I think is better for your brain, maybe.
Do you think that made it harder for you when you started getting back more into reading?
Like to dress your brain from like, yeah, I'm watching the video.
100%.
Yeah, this is boring.
100%.
Yeah.
Because it's like you want the instant dopamine high of like, I need something to keep me going, you know.
And I feel like I want to shift my focus to something else very quickly.
Even when I'm reading like news articles online, it's like I'll read three paragraphs and then I think, I get it.
I'm going to get it the next.
I'm also re-watching New Girl, The Sitcom.
Did you ever watch that?
I've heard it's very good.
I've only seen two episodes and I like it, but I've never watched much of that series.
This is like me and my wife always have our ongoing dumb show that we'll just sit down and watch a couple episodes of.
This is our current dumb show.
I don't know that it's great.
It's okay, but it also reminds me how much I hated this old sitcom format where it's just a bunch of like loser 30 somethings in an apartment together that are just trying to get laid all the time.
Like I'm like, how many, like every plot line in every episode is just them trying to get laid and that's like the highest thing they can achieve in life.
You're not like friends?
That's a hot take.
I never liked friends, but I've only ever watched the pilot and I didn't like the pilot.
I thought Lisa Krudreau's character was funny and I didn't care about anything else that happened in it.
Yeah, I don't, I have mixed feelings about friends.
I think it's overrated.
I don't think it's great.
I do think it revolutionized the way we think about sitcom.
So it had massive cultural influence.
And there's some funny lines.
They did a good job of like playing up each of the characters' stereotypes.
But again, if you go back and watch it, it's so vapid.
Like nobody's likable.
They all just want to get laid.
I'm like, is that the highest thing that we're calling people to?
In your 30s.
In their 30s, they're all like losers trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives.
And you're like, what is going on?
Also, on the nerdy spectrum, I had a massive board game day for my birthday on Saturday, which was a block.
How many hours did you play?
12 hours.
This was my longest.
12 hours of board game.
It was my longest single stint of playing board games ever.
We got eight games in.
And the highlight was Blood Rage.
And if you like Vikings and combat, highly recommend.
Who doesn't like Vikings and combat?
I mean, it's just, it was awesome.
We had a blast.
We had people coming in and out and great time.
Blood Rage.
When did you start?
We started at 11.45 a.m.
We finished at 11.45 p.m.
Wow.
So it was just sat there all day.
It was wonderful.
Great.
What are you guys consuming?
Don't let me monopolize the segments.
Well, my reading goals this year, I mentioned on our New Year's show, I majored in philosophy when I was in college.
And I'm starting kind of at the beginning, and I want to kind of read through all the major works.
So some of them I read years ago, or I know the ideas, but I haven't read them.
So I'm starting with Plato's Republic, and I've been reading through that.
And then I've also listened to next after Plato's Republic, I'm going to read his laws, but there's all these short dialogues he has, and I've been listening to those on audiobook.
So I've gotten through almost all the works of Plato up to the laws so far.
And it's just fascinating because it sets such a groundwork for almost everything you could ever study in philosophy.
A debate about it exists in its like nascent form somewhere in Plato's dialogues.
And it's also very interesting because it's this pre-Christian philosophy, and obviously they were pagan and they were polytheistic.
But there's a lot in those dialogues that starts pointing you towards monotheism.
And there's a lot of really interesting, like in the Phaedo where Socrates is about to die, about to drink the hemlock, up until his death, he's debating with his followers whether you can prove the immortality of the soul just purely through reason.
They're trying to get at the heart of justice in one of the books.
And they talk about in order to prove that justice is good in itself and doesn't serve you better than injustice, you would have to create this hypothetical man who is completely just, but also has a reputation for injustice so that society doesn't like him, but he still acts just.
And they literally say, well, our just man, because he had this bad reputation, would be ultimately good, but would be arrested and imprisoned and crucified.
They literally say that one of this dialogue.
So like years before Christ.
It's really interesting stuff.
Socrates doesn't have anything written, right?
So Socrates never wrote anything himself.
Plato was one of his students.
And then he has a few other students that also wrote stuff down, but Plato was the big transcriber of it.
But what's interesting is I've been reading other essays and stuff and watching YouTube videos about Plato also.
So his early works, they think was very representative of what Socrates actually believed, because all of his dialogues are between Socrates and other characters.
Then his later dialogues, they think he put Socrates in them as a character, but that's more Plato's views.
So they agreed on a lot of things, but there are some things where it more transitions to Plato's theories about the realm of the forms and these perfect ideas that exist.
And that has its roots in Socrates.
But yeah, in the early dialogues, it's most likely Socrates' actual point of view.
And then in some of the later dialogues, it's Plato projecting his ideas into that character.
So yeah, that's been very fascinating.
And then other like pop culture stuff.
I watched The Harder They Fall this week.
Have you seen that?
It's really cool.
It's a Western.
It's on Netflix, but Deion Cole is in it.
He's a comedian that I worked with at Cohen.
He's a hilarious comedian.
But this is a drama.
It's Western.
It's super violent in sort of a Quentin Tarantino style.
It's very cool.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Cool.
Nice.
Violence and philosophy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So for me, you know, it's the new year.
So I've been probably diving into a lot of like self-help books like 48 Laws of Power is always a good one that I read.
Dude, that was fantastic.
Yeah.
I feel like I read it like every year.
And then also too, Peter Teal has a really cool book that he wrote actually with Blake Masters, which I've been diving a little bit into.
And then on the TV show front, I think like all the new Transformers have been like on Netflix now.
So I've been re-watching all those, been watching that.
And then the movies, like the movies, yeah.
Shah Labov.
And then watch the new like Wednesday Adams reboot that they did, which is actually I've heard that's really good.
One of my sons, well, two of my three sons loved that, and my wife watched it and loved it.
And I haven't checked it out.
Yeah, I've heard only good things about it.
And I didn't even know that it was a remake.
I didn't watch the previous iteration of it.
You didn't know the Adams family existed?
I've heard of it, but I've never watched the show or the movie.
You just watched Wednesday not knowing it was a spin-off of Adams Family.
So yeah, it was pretty good.
But part of me is like, maybe if I watch the original, then it'll give it like Velma vibes.
But it wasn't really like a few woke lines thrown in.
It wasn't too bad on the woke front, but it wasn't anything crazy.
Yeah.
Typical TV.
All right.
Have you read Mastery, the one that's like the sequel to 48 Laws of Power?
I have that one, but I haven't read it yet.
But 48 Laws of Power, anytime anyone is planning to move to LA or get into entertainment, whether it's music or comedy or writing, I always recommend that book.
I always say that's the book to read.
Yeah.
Wow.
Okay.
I always recommend that they play Blood Rage.
All right.
Now it's time for another new segment called Mailbag.
Hey, Mr. Postman, what's in the mailbag?
We've answered mail from time to time, and we do a lot of hate mail and love mail.
But I thought it'd be nice to get some topics from our readers to discuss.
And we got some interesting mail this week.
So this is from Ava.
And she says that she's a huge fan of the podcast and the site.
And she's currently a college student at a small liberal arts Christian school in Texas studying design and advertising.
She wanted to ask to what extent we think college is a scam?
Why?
And if we think a Christian college is as much of a scam as state schools.
Plus, how do you contend with the fact that many jobs require a degree, even if it's just to prove you have the dedication to get a degree?
Just curious to hear your thoughts and my tips that you might have for a frustrated college student.
I don't know if we've ever said that college is necessarily a scam.
So I wanted to kind of correct that misperception.
I don't think we ever said college is straight up bad.
Like you went to college, I went to three years.
Yeah, my take on it has always been: I know a lot.
I have friends that think college is a scam.
I think there are some legitimate complaints about the fact that having a degree does not necessarily guarantee you a job in the same way that getting a job doesn't necessarily mean you need a degree if you've been able to learn those things through an apprenticeship or through a trade school or just through independent learning.
I think you are fully capable of studying on your own or working on your own and gaining the same skills as someone who went to college.
That said, I think there are a lot of advantages to going to college.
I do think you should just go into it with realistic expectations about, you know, I chose, for instance, to, like I said, I majored in philosophy.
I also majored in film and video because I wanted to get into comedy writing.
In my film and video classes, I, for instance, learned script writing format, which is something I still use and I kind of got the basics of it.
But looking back, I don't think that's something that would have been impossible for me to get on my own.
And the stuff that I really learned was once I got internships and started actually working in the industry.
I think I learned so much more there than I did in my classes.
And with philosophy, it was something that I just took because it interested me.
So I think college is great if you have a clear idea of what you want to do with your degree and you're studying stuff that genuinely interests you.
And then the conversation, the other question she asks, I'm sort of against jobs, maybe except in highly technical fields like medicine or engineering.
I'm kind of against the idea for certain jobs that you need a degree in order to work there because I think there's people who are fully qualified.
But I don't think college is a scam.
I do think they overcharge in many ways.
Yeah, someone who just recently left college, like I left college to come work for Prager, is that I think one of my biggest issues with the entire college industrial complex is the fact that you see college education becoming more and more expensive each year, but the actual value of that degree has not yet even increased, which I think is pretty ridiculous when you have this entire societal construct that you need to go to college to be successful.
When I think in this day and age, when education and knowledge is so democratized, like you can go on YouTube, you can go on any app and just learn, that it kind of changes that narrative in a really big way.
But I also think too is that, you know, especially as it relates to her, you're majoring in design and advertising, go make a portfolio.
I think a lot of employers want to see more of what you can actually do than what you were just being able, like were told to do in a college classroom.
And that's just kind of my experience.
I remember I was a poli-sci major at Alabama, went there for three years.
I loved Alabama, had the time of my life.
And I think that what I often tell people when I talk about it is that like, I'm glad that I went to college because of the social aspect of it.
I think it made me better in that regard.
But I think after a certain point, you have to want to actually do real work.
And I think there are a lot of people that I know who are going to probably struggle with that once graduation comes.
It's like, oh, I'm not, you know, going to a keg party this Saturday, like, you know, like there's something like that.
But I think that the biggest thing is, is that like my issue with college today is it's become less about education and more about indoctrination.
Why are we paying tens of thousands of dollars to be told that why you should hate America, why you're a racist, or why, if you're in the case of me, why you should feel victimized because of the abundance of racism that exists in America.
I think that's a lie.
And I think that people are going to college to prepare them for careers.
There is nothing about critical race theory.
There's nothing about gender theory.
There's nothing about women's studies that is going to make you a more attractive applicant in the corporate world or the design world as she's in.
Christian college is a little bit different, but I think that unfortunately, even at some Christian schools in the country here, we've seen like DEI and CRT even seep into those classrooms.
Yeah.
I mean, and I'm thinking about like, I get people that apply, you know, wanting to do graphic design for us and stuff.
And kind of what you said is right.
It's like, I'm looking at that and I'm not, I'm not really looking at, oh, you got this degree.
Like, I guess that does give you a sense, like, okay, well, they have some kind of background.
But I look at the portfolio and I'm like, oh man, these designs are great.
Or I look at them and I go, these are terrible.
You know, and then the degree thing just kind of falls by the wayside.
I mean, maybe two applicants with the exact same quality of design and one has the degree and one doesn't.
I mean, maybe it does give a little bit of an edge.
I don't know.
But yeah, I don't know.
And then with the Christian colleges, it's like pick one that is actually a Christian college.
You know, that's hard because I think with Christian colleges, it's almost like you have to judge them on a case by case.
Yeah, it does.
I think, yeah, like just like, just like, you know, secular colleges, I think there's good ones and bad ones, and there's probably some that are run more for profit and some that aren't.
But I don't know that you have as much of a problem with the woke agenda, but like you said, it does work outway into some of the Christian colleges even.
I went to the master's college, now the master's university, and it was like actually a Christian college.
Like they enforced, you know, actual, they taught actual Christian stuff.
If like sometimes there was professors who would like deviate from doctrine and they would fire them, like, you know, you're not teaching something according to our statement of faith.
And I found it was a great experience.
I had like fellow believers in the dorms alongside you.
But I also knew people that went to Christian colleges that were more wishy-washy.
And it was almost worse than if they went to a state school because their parents thought they were sending them to this safe place that was going to have other Christians.
And like there's one school that I know a lot of my friends went to and like two-thirds of them aren't Christians anymore.
I'm not saying that's the fault of that school, but it's definitely like that environment didn't help them.
So like look at Georgetown.
It's a Christian school.
It's a Jesuit university.
But there are tons of like wokeisms like pushed every single day on that campus.
And it's just like, yeah, I think you just got to look into it on a case-by-case basis.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For sure.
And I would recommend to people who are going to secular universities.
Like I went to Penn State.
You know, something I did and I'd recommend to people that even those universities have Christian organizations on campus.
You can find like-minded people there, even in that sort of culture.
And it's always good to reach out and connect with those people.
Definitely.
Here's a mailbag from Kevin Bell.
He says, I'd like to hear your thoughts on what is the best Christian cartoons, especially of the 80s and 90s.
He lists things like Veggie Tales.
Greatest Adventure Stories from the Bible, Superbook, Adventures in Odyssey, and David and Goliath.
Davy and Goliath.
What's your ranking of greatest Christian cartoons?
P.S. Maybe you should consider discussing Christian video games from the cartridge era.
I still remember playing Bible Adventures on the NES and finding it almost impossible to get Noah to pick up the pig to place on the ark.
Have you guys seen that game, Bible Adventures?
I have.
It's famously bad.
Famously bad.
Yeah.
There's like some famous videos on it.
You would have to run, it was like side-scroll 2D pixels.
Noah would like pick up the animals.
He had to chase them around, run over towards the ark, and then huck the animals onto the ark, which was wonderful.
So come a long way.
Well, you've listed all the big ones in Christian cartoons.
You know, Veggie Tales, I think, is the big one.
I don't know that there was that many.
I think all of them were just kind of really niche.
I remember Veggie Tales.
That's the only one that I recognize, actually, from that list.
I'd have to Google some of them.
Maybe we'll do a segment soon where we run down some Christian cartoons, but I can't remember too many others.
I didn't really watch any of these, but I would say my favorite Christian cartoon was probably Dino Riders because it showed that people and dinosaurs coexisted.
Amen.
Amen.
Did you see Dino Riders?
I remember that.
It was a cartoon that they made three episodes just to sell toys.
Yeah.
And it was one of the coolest shows ever.
That's amazing.
But it wasn't Christian.
I didn't think that was a Christian.
Yeah, now that you mentioned it, it could be a little bit of a chance.
I just love it.
It was a young Earth.
It was a young Earth dinosaur people war show.
Ride the dinosaur in your life.
Yeah.
That's the lesson.
Here's another one.
This says, Dear B, I've recently been mulling over films and what makes them good.
What do you think makes a film good?
More specifically, what makes the specific parts of a film, e.g. the directors or actor, good?
I'd love to hear your thoughts or any examples you think of.
Ciao, Lil Ridgy Main.
And then he says, P.S., why is Star Wars so bad?
The Last Jedi so bad.
Why is The Last Jedi so bad?
My dad disliked it.
Or no, my dad liked it.
And I have a hard time explaining why most people think it was terrible.
It is hard, I think, to explain to someone why a movie is bad if they don't get it.
It's so subjective.
Yeah.
Subjective.
I mean, for me, I always like the story the best.
So I cannot think a movie is good if the story isn't good.
Even if it's shot well, even if the acting is good, I just don't like it if it's not a good story.
And conversely, if the acting is bad or if the cinematography is bad, I still might like it if the story is good.
But I think I can appreciate each of those separate parts individually.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, like a lot of people can separate.
Like they'll go watch Avatar or Avatar 2, you know, and they're like, well, the story was garbage, but man, it was beautiful.
I have trouble doing that because I'll go and I'm like, it just annoys me so much of how bad the story is in Avatar.
Yeah.
One movie I always think of a good example of the story was great, but it was hard to like because the acting was so bad is Valerian, The City of the Thousand Planets.
Did you see that one?
It was like a sci-fi movie.
But the cast was Dane DeHaan and one of these, I don't know, one of those like model actress people.
And their performance was so, so bad, but the story was cool.
Yeah.
Yeah, it can be difficult.
Acting can make it difficult.
Yeah.
But as far as examples of what movies I think are good, one of my favorites of all time, I always love Doctor Strange Love.
I like the story.
I think it's shot well.
I'm a big Stanley Kubrick fan.
I think it is cool when, you know, a director can bring...
You asked, like, what makes, like, a director good.
I think you can bring together all those pieces, the acting, the lighting, the editing, the cinematography.
Even though you're not in charge of each of those things, you're managing all the people that are.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think I tend to think movies are good, like really high quality when I think about them for a while afterwards.
That's always a thing to be like either like a comedy movie.
It's like one I'm quoting a year later.
A drama movie.
It's one that I think about for a week and I just keep going back to thinking about some element of the story.
I feel like for me, it would probably be the actors.
Like I feel like when I am going through Netflix trying to figure out what to watch, like this is like goes back to our TikTok conversation.
I'm just like, if I am not like enthused within five minutes of the movie, then I'm like, I'm done watching this.
So it's like any movie with like Denzel Washington or like Jamie Foxx or Sandra Bullock.
I feel like those are always like the safe bets.
Quintarantino obviously has some really good ones, but yeah, like that kind of thing.
I feel like actors definitely bring a lot of life to a scribes for sure.
All right.
Cool.
Well, here's some mailbag from Renee, who says, just watched The Last Valley, 1971 with Michael Kane and Omar Sharif.
The actor playing the Catholic priest looks so much like Kyle Mann, it was distracting.
And here's a picture of someone who's supposed to look like that.
I don't know that I see it just like me.
If you made that face and wore that wig, you would.
Do you want to recreate the face?
I'm trying to.
We should have you just be that character in a random sketch.
Yeah.
That's right.
Well, this has been Mailbag.
If you want to be featured in Mailbag, please send us your questions and comments at podcast at BabylonB.com or look out for the Mailbag thread in the premium section of the website.
Well, now it's time for hate mail.
Treasure in Heaven is great, but it's not going to buy you a tank of gas.
So let's take a moment to briefly review the current state of our economy and the global effect the war between Russia and Ukraine has had.
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Or you can visit allegiancegold.com slash B. That's B-E-E.
Call 844-790-9191.
That's 844-790-9191.
Or visit allegiancegold.com slash B-E-E.
I really miss Adam Ford.
We got some hateful comments on this article.
Jesus heals the lame man by giving him dope shades and cool leather jackets.
I love that headline.
The leather jacket and the shades.
Let me see.
Mocking Our Lord is not funny.
This is from Mary Klump.
Mocking Our Lord is not funny.
Do not be deceived.
God is not mocked.
For whatever a man sows, so he shall reap.
Matt Fry says, using God's name in vain isn't funny.
I love your guys' posts, but sometimes they can be quite blasphemous.
Agree, I don't see the humor in it.
I know God has a sense of humor, but to mock the healing of the sick, it's not a joking matter.
Not a jocking matter.
That's not a jockeying matter.
He wasn't healing the sick.
He made the guy sick with those shades.
He made him totally sick.
Totally sick.
So rad.
He gave him Riz.
Do y'all know what Riz means?
No, is that a new Gen Z word?
Yes, it's a new General.
I can't use it now.
So Riz is like when you are like, when you have like pool game, when you like, when you like, you have gas, you know, like, not like literal gas.
I don't know any of the words you just said.
So it's like when you just like, if you can walk into a bar and like get a girl.
Oh, just go up and like game.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Riz is like a game.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the shades gives him Riz.
Like girls are going to be like, whoa, like Riz is there.
No, he is Riz.
The Bus and Drip gave him Riz.
Yes.
To have Riz, you have drip.
I'm going to use that.
And that drip is Bussin.
Yep.
Look at us.
Linguistic experts here.
That's great.
Okay.
Try to use Riz before my 40th birthday next week.
Yeah, the time is almost up.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, thanks for watching, everyone.
Please check out CJ's content because he is a content creator.
Instagram, Twitter, etc.
You can go find all his links and keep an eye out for the stuff that he's doing with Pregery, his university.
Yeah, thanks for being here, man.
Thanks so much for having me.
Always make sure you stick around for the subscribers.
We've got more coming at you shortly.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
Comedy, we did 10 questions with Chat GPT and it was awesome.
So now we asked ChatGPT the right hate mail for us.
Lord of the Rings.
Lord of the Rings itself is probably like 1,200 pages if you read it all.
Harry Potter vibes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's good though.
But yeah, that kind of thing.
Hey!
Oh my gosh.
Yes.
Stay tuned.
That's amazing.
This has been another edition of the Babylon Bee Podcast from the dedicated team of certified fake news journalists you can trust here at the Babylon Bee, reminding you that fake news of the people, by the people,