The Charlie Kirk Show - Ask Charlie Anything 46: 12 Republican Senators Object, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Is College Still Worth It?
Aired: 2021-01-04
Duration: 40:39

[00:00:00]  Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, Ask Me Anything Monday.
[00:00:03]  I take your questions that you guys have emailed us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:06]  We have the most comprehensive episode when it comes to Mike Pence, January 6th, objecting senators, all of it right here.
[00:00:14]  And before I go any further, if you want to win a signed copy of the MAGA Doctrine, we have a different type of giveaway this week.
[00:00:20]  Go to our YouTube channel, type in Charlie Kirk, show us your subscribe by hitting that beautiful bell on our YouTube channel.
[00:00:28]  Email it to us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:30]  We'll select a few of you to win a signed copy of the MAGA Doctrine.
[00:00:33]  But the reason we are promoting our YouTube channel is we are going to be there all week.
[00:00:39]  I'm going to be in our chair with our research open, the top guests and the entire movement analyzing, processing, and communicating what's happening in Georgia, what's happening with the election fights, what's happening January 6th, what's happening on the Senate fights, the House fights.
[00:00:54]  We are on top of this more than anyone else.
[00:00:57]  So you guys have to check out the Charlie Kirk Show YouTube where we stream live every day at 12 Eastern.
[00:01:03]  But also, we are going to be going into the wee hours of the evening covering this because this week is a massive week.
[00:01:10]  And if you guys want to say, hey, Charlie, I'm behind you.
[00:01:13]  I love what you're doing.
[00:01:14]  Thank you for that.
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[00:01:45]  It's Monday.
[00:01:46]  I take your questions.
[00:01:48]  And if you guys want me to answer any of your questions, it's freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:01:52]  This is going to be one of the most consequential weeks in American history.
[00:01:56]  And we are here for all of it.
[00:01:58]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:02:00]  Here we go.
[00:02:02]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:02:04]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:02:06]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:02:09]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:02:12]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:02:13]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:02:14]  His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
[00:02:21]  Turning point USA.
[00:02:23]  We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
[00:02:32]  That's why we are here.
[00:02:35]  Hey, everybody.
[00:02:36]  Happy Monday.
[00:02:37]  Welcome to this episode of Ask Me Anything on the Charlie Kirk Show, exclusively on the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
[00:02:44]  We are doing two hours of radio a day on radio stations across the country from Tennessee to South Carolina to Maine to Oregon to California to Hawaii to Alaska.
[00:02:55]  We are a national radio program, but we also like to do podcast exclusive content just for those of you that support us at charliekirk.com slash support.
[00:03:07]  A lot of our interviews are also exclusive here on the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
[00:03:11]  But the favorite tradition, I should say, that we have been doing for quite some time is ask me anything Mondays.
[00:03:18]  I enjoy recording them the weekend before.
[00:03:22]  I have a chance to really dive into new ideas, read a lot of your emails.
[00:03:26]  I read all the emails that you guys send us, freedom at charliekirk.com, kind of see what you're thinking, feeling, reading, processing, and try to analyze and interpret all of that.
[00:03:37]  So the way it works is if I select your question, you win a signed copy of the MAGA Doctrine.
[00:03:43]  And if you have anything you'd like to tell us or tell me, you can always email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:03:50]  I want to start with kind of a general question that we have been receiving, not one in particular, which is all around what is happening on January the 6th.
[00:04:04]  There's been a lot of questions around that.
[00:04:06]  We did some very in-depth podcasts last week on this topic, so I encourage you to check those out.
[00:04:13]  But I want to just go through it again for purposes for some people that haven't listened to this podcast.
[00:04:19]  You're listening to this one, obviously, right now, if you're hearing what I'm saying.
[00:04:22]  And you want to dive into exactly what is the significance of this week.
[00:04:26]  So let me just put it as simply and as bluntly, as plainly as possible.
[00:04:33]  This week, we will find out whether or not Joe Biden will become the next president of the United States.
[00:04:41]  January 6th is the final step before an inauguration is planned and quite honestly implemented.
[00:04:52]  January 6th is when the results from the Electoral College physically make their way to the Congress of the people of the United States in big boxes.
[00:05:07]  They are delivered physically to Congress.
[00:05:10]  They are opened.
[00:05:11]  They are counted by the President of the Senate, who is the Vice President of the United States.
[00:05:17]  That's a fun, trivial question for a lot of you.
[00:05:19]  If you're with friends and family in the coming days or weeks, say who's the president of the Senate?
[00:05:24]  Some people might say Mitch McConnell.
[00:05:26]  Some people might say, hopefully, never Chuck Schumer.
[00:05:30]  Hopefully, Georgia goes our way so we never have to say that.
[00:05:32]  But it's actually the Vice President of the United States.
[00:05:34]  Unitary executive theory teaches us that the Vice President is both the second in command of the executive branch and also the head of the United States Senate.
[00:05:47]  They open up all the results.
[00:05:49]  They are counted in a manner and fashion that is very specific, but also open for interpretation, where the president of the Senate, the vice president has a significant amount of leeway.
[00:06:01]  And then there's an opportunity to hear objections.
[00:06:05]  Once this process plays itself out, then a president is selected.
[00:06:10]  And if not, then it goes to the House of Representatives.
[00:06:15]  And the House of Representatives with each state getting one vote will vote in a manner or a fashion to select the next president of the United States.
[00:06:27]  So the Constitution says this very clearly.
[00:06:32]  Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections.
[00:06:41]  If any, every objection shall be made in writing.
[00:06:44]  Let me actually correct myself before I continue.
[00:06:47]  This is not the Constitution.
[00:06:51]  This is statute, which is interpretation of the Constitution through House and Senate rules.
[00:06:58]  And shall state clearly and concisely and without argument the ground thereof and shall be signed by at least one senator and one member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received.
[00:07:11]  When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a state shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision.
[00:07:23]  And the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, shall in like manner submit any objections to the House for its decision.
[00:07:32]  So in essence, there is a protocol for how Vice President Mike Pence has to follow this process.
[00:07:44]  The protocol and the process warrants and necessitates the allowance of objections.
[00:07:52]  Now, Nancy Pelosi famously objected to the results in 2004, which she specifically objected to the Ohio election results, where George W. Bush won Ohio.
[00:08:07]  If Ohio's electors would have been put into John Kerry's category or not awarded to any candidate, it would have went to the House and possibly John Kerry would have become president in 2004.
[00:08:21]  That's how narrow the 2004 presidential race was.
[00:08:25]  In fact, let's listen to Nancy Pelosi in 2004 objecting to the presidential results.
[00:08:32]  Play tape.
[00:08:34]  People must have confidence that every vote legally cast will be legally counted and accurately counted.
[00:08:43]  But constantly shifting vote tallies in Ohio and malfunctioning electronic machines, which may not have paper receipts, have led to additional loss of confidence by the public.
[00:08:57]  As elected officials, we have a solemn responsibility to improve our election system and its administration.
[00:09:05]  We cannot be here again four years from now discussing the failings of the 2008 election.
[00:09:13]  So if a member of the House and a member of the Senate both object in writing to the results, then a debate ensues.
[00:09:26]  Now, the breaking news over the weekend, which was quite honestly surprising to a lot of us that thought that Senate Republicans were going to follow the marching orders of Mitch McConnell, was a group of senators followed Josh Hawley's lead, including Senator Ted Cruz, Bill Haggerty of Tennessee, who has just been sworn in as a U.S. Senator, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who's terrific,
[00:09:54]  Roger Marshall of Kansas, new senator, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
[00:09:59]  I think we have a new fighting crew in the United States Senate.
[00:10:03]  Only a further argument as to why we should do everything we can to win Georgia.
[00:10:09]  Also included on the list, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun, who we have been very critical of on this program when he said good things about the insurrectionist terrorist organization BLM Incorporated, but we will say good for you, Mike Braun, for signing on to this.
[00:10:24]  Thank you.
[00:10:25]  John Kennedy from Louisiana, as well as long-serving senators, Steve Daines, a friend of mine, congratulations, Steve, on getting six more years, and Jim Inhoff in Oklahoma.
[00:10:37]  In addition, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and James Lankford of Oklahoma.
[00:10:43]  A pretty impressive list.
[00:10:45]  And we do plenty of criticizing here of Republicans on this program when Republicans do not have a backbone or a spine.
[00:10:54]  These senators deserve our appreciation and quite honestly deserve credit.
[00:11:01]  Cynthia Lummis, Roger Marshall, Bill Haggerty, Tommy Tuberville, Marsha Blackburn, John Kennedy, Steve Daines, James Lankford, Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley.
[00:11:14]  They are simply objecting and saying the claims of voter fraud are so great, the changes in the election law in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan are unconstitutional.
[00:11:28]  We will not put our name behind without substantial and significant objection to these results, something that Democrats have done multiple times before.
[00:11:40]  Now, 12 senators is a lot more than I thought we would have.
[00:11:45]  I have to say that.
[00:11:46]  A couple weeks ago, I was seeing no evidence whatsoever that any U.S. senators were going to object.
[00:11:54]  However, that is not nearly enough to give President Trump a second term.
[00:12:00]  This is significant, though, because it begins to build momentum.
[00:12:04]  Senator Mitch McConnell has already said that he does not like this objection process that is unfolding.
[00:12:10]  We have dozens of House members that will be speaking out.
[00:12:14]  Mo Brooks was leading the charge.
[00:12:16]  Matt Gates, Congressman Madison Cawthorne, the youngest person ever to be elected to the House of Representatives, Madison Cawthorne, will all be objecting on January the 6th.
[00:12:27]  So this is open to interpretation, but some readings show that per objection, there are two hours of debate that will be granted.
[00:12:36]  That debate has this following provision in the provisions of the U.S. Constitution and statutory code.
[00:12:46]  When the two houses separate to decide upon an objection that have been made to the counting of any electoral votes or votes from any state or question arising in the matter, each senator and representative may speak to such objection or question five minutes and not more than once.
[00:13:03]  But after such debate shall have lasted two hours, it shall be the duty of the presiding officer of each house to put the main question without further debate.
[00:13:13]  So there is an expediency that is built in to this process.
[00:13:19]  All the real power here is in Mike Pence's hands.
[00:13:22]  We are going to be talking about this frequently this week.
[00:13:26]  Anyone who tells you, including Mike Pence himself, that he does not have the constitutional authority to count the votes in the manner that he chooses is not looking at legal precedent.
[00:13:40]  Now, let me be very clear.
[00:13:43]  I don't like the fact that our election has now come to a pseudo-parliamentary process that involves the discretion of the Vice President of the United States while he is conflicted and involved in possibly serving another four years, including the House, including the Senate, when state certifications show a certain result.
[00:14:08]  However, this election is not like one we have ever seen with changes in state law, mail-in balloting, fraudulent claims, access to vote counting process, the amount of irregularities, the amount of data and evidence that goes to show this election was unlike anything we've seen before, goes to show that certain measures need to be taken.
[00:14:36]  49% of Americans say their top New Year's resolution is to save money in the next year.
[00:14:41]  I agree.
[00:14:42]  Well, let's get that handled right now.
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[00:15:31]  If I could give some very directly worded constructive criticism to the Trump team, on November 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, when we started to see the vote tally slowly but surely go in Joe Biden's direction in all of those states, the opening argument from President Trump and from his legal team should have been this.
[00:15:58]  We are not going to support certification via Mike Pence, who is the president of the Senate on January 6th.
[00:16:07]  Joe Biden will not reach that 270 unless the claims of this fraud and these irregularities are answered.
[00:16:14]  Boom, that should have been the opening argument.
[00:16:16]  Now, chaos and Bedlam would have unsued.
[00:16:22]  However, that opening argument would have prevented Joe Biden from ever assuming a mantle of president-elect.
[00:16:29]  Anytime anyone in the media would have challenged or pressed President Trump, he'd say, my vice president Mike Pence will do what Richard Nixon did in 1960.
[00:16:42]  He will ignore the state certification of Hawaii and either not count the votes or put them in a separate category.
[00:16:49]  Our vice president, Mike Pence, will do what Thomas Jefferson did in 1800, which is count the votes of Georgia in a manner in a fashion consistent with voter integrity.
[00:17:01]  We have precedent of Richard Nixon and Thomas Jefferson using the powers as the president of the Senate of counting or not counting votes in a way that is in the pursuit of voter integrity.
[00:17:14]  Now, let me reinforce this.
[00:17:17]  I don't like the fact that we're at this moment.
[00:17:20]  I don't like the fact that we have now reached such dire straits as a country.
[00:17:27]  I don't like the fact that we are now relying on a process that is open for constitutional interpretation.
[00:17:36]  The idea that Mike Pence can do whatever he wants to do on January the 6th, I believe is constitutional.
[00:17:43]  I also believe it's incredibly dangerous for future elections.
[00:17:47]  I don't like it.
[00:17:48]  However, if we are honest with ourselves of what we are dealing with with the American Democratic Party, of the fraud, of the amount of illegitimate ballots that have been uncovered in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona,
[00:18:04]  Wisconsin, and Michigan, that the very credible Armistad project led by the former Attorney General of Kansas Phil Klein has uncovered, then don't we have a duty and obligation to our republic and all the sacrifices that were made to hold the line and to say very clearly, we're not going to put the votes of Georgia in Donald Trump's category.
[00:18:24]  Instead, we are going to say these are polluted, poisoned, illegitimate electoral votes.
[00:18:31]  We are not going to count them in either category.
[00:18:36]  Instead, the way that this should have unfolded, which would have limited civil unrest, media backlash, and Democrat opposition, is the opening argument should have been, we will not certify.
[00:18:53]  The House should decide.
[00:18:55]  Now, some of you are probably saying, but Charlie, if the House decides, Biden will win.
[00:19:00]  No.
[00:19:01]  Every single state, as per the United States Constitution, gets a singular vote.
[00:19:07]  If Republicans voted for President Trump, there are more states that have more Republican representatives than states that have more Democrat representatives.
[00:19:19]  Therefore, the system would necessitate and warrant a Donald Trump victory.
[00:19:29]  None of this is easy, and a lot of it would have taken long-term strategic planning.
[00:19:35]  However, let me tell you, based on conversations that I've had with my sources, people that are very close to the people making these decisions and the people doing these actions, Mike Pence will allow objections during him overseeing this process as the president of the Senate.
[00:19:55]  However, Mike Pence is under the belief, which I believe is not a correct constitutional interpretation based on the 1960 precedent set by Richard Nixon, that he will do anything but fulfill what the Electoral College has decided.
[00:20:13]  Because of that, we are stuck in a situation where unless we get to 50 Republican senators or Mike Pence holds the line and refuses to count these ballots that are poisoned and polluted, we will be put in a situation where Joe Biden will become the next president of the United States.
[00:20:39]  Do I think the country is ready for a parliamentarian constitutional stress test right now?
[00:20:47]  No, I don't.
[00:20:48]  I think that it would have taken 60 days of us, including our program, doing this, of us preparing the American people for this moment.
[00:20:58]  If that would have been our opening argument in November, we could have gotten to a point now where the Democrats and the media would not have been shell-shocked by this.
[00:21:08]  But now they are using descriptors such as you are acting seditiously.
[00:21:15]  You are a traitor to the United States, is what they are saying.
[00:21:19]  Funny how they didn't call Nancy Pelosi a traitor or Maxine Waters a traitor when they objected to these results in 2004 and 2017.
[00:21:28]  This will be the largest group of senators to object to presidential election results, I think, in American history or in recent memory.
[00:21:38]  We also have the election of 1876 of President Hayes versus Samuel Tilden, where the House and the Senate refused to come to terms of the true winner.
[00:21:47]  And as the great compromise ensued, we found Reconstruction ending in the South, a very bad thing, and President Hayes, a Republican, becoming president of the United States.
[00:21:59]  There is precedent in 1800, 1876, and 1960 of Congress getting directly involved in election results.
[00:22:08]  Do I like the long-term precedent?
[00:22:11]  No.
[00:22:12]  However, the state legislatures have done nothing.
[00:22:16]  The courts have done nothing.
[00:22:20]  So what do we have left?
[00:22:22]  Do we roll over and surrender?
[00:22:24]  No.
[00:22:25]  That is not what I believe is the constitutional or the moral thing to do.
[00:22:31]  However, to make sure I set all of your expectations correctly, the likelihood of Republicans getting 50-plus votes in the Senate to object, to hold the line, the likelihood of Mike Pence not counting the votes from just the states in question is very low.
[00:22:55]  I wish that was not the case.
[00:22:57]  I'm going to be publicly encouraging the president of the Senate, Mike Pence, to not necessarily put the Georgia votes in Trump's category.
[00:23:08]  We are not asking for that.
[00:23:10]  Just to say, I took an oath to protect the United States Constitution.
[00:23:17]  I have served to protect the Constitution in the Congress as a governor and now as the vice president and the president of the Senate, and I will not certify and count the votes from states that changed their laws unconstitutionally.
[00:23:35]  This is what the United States Constitution said.
[00:23:37]  The president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and the House of Representatives, open all certificates, and the votes shall then be counted.
[00:23:44]  He can count them in any manner or fashion you want whatsoever.
[00:23:47]  It has never been challenged by the U.S. Supreme Court.
[00:23:50]  The honorable Mike Pence, a friend of mine, will disagree with that reading.
[00:23:57]  How you would explain the electoral process in 1960, I'm not totally and completely sure.
[00:24:04]  And so here's what's likely going to happen: there's a massive rally the president is having on January the 6th.
[00:24:11]  Hundreds of thousands of people will show up and rally.
[00:24:14]  There will be objections in the House, objections in the Senate.
[00:24:16]  This could go late into the wee hours of the morning, which we will be covering live on the Charlie Kirk Show YouTube channel.
[00:24:23]  So make sure you guys subscribe to that.
[00:24:25]  Make sure you check that out.
[00:24:26]  And then, likely, the president of the Senate, Mike Pence, will say, due to a lack of congressional support, the objections have failed.
[00:24:38]  The states are certified, and that will be it.
[00:24:41]  That is likely what will happen.
[00:24:43]  But let me be clear: that is not what I think should happen, and that is not what I want to have happen.
[00:24:48]  I believe the House of Representatives should decide this election.
[00:24:52]  Whatever the House would decide, so be it.
[00:24:55]  I am not of the opinion that Mike Pence should put the electoral votes from one category to the other.
[00:25:02]  I think that would be in defiance to the will of the Electoral College.
[00:25:06]  Instead, I think the President of the Senate should say, I will not accept these votes from these five states because of the unprecedented, insurmountable, historic amount of evidence that goes to show this election was tampered with significantly.
[00:25:33]  That is a different argument.
[00:25:35]  And the problem with how a lot of the people have been talking about this in Congress and in the media, the media has been allowed to frame us as if we're trying to overturn an election.
[00:25:46]  That is not true.
[00:25:47]  We're trying to get to the bottom of the election, and we want the true last line constitutionally to decide this election, the House of Representatives.
[00:25:57]  So, a lot of you guys are emailing us this.
[00:26:00]  A lot of you are asking about this.
[00:26:02]  As you're listening to this episode, 12 o'clock Eastern, every day this week, we are going to be streaming live, explaining all of this, calling out the good guys.
[00:26:11]  We're going to be doing a roll call in the U.S. Senate of who votes for this, who objects to it, who has the courage to step up, all of it.
[00:26:20]  We'll be covering all of that.
[00:26:22]  And so, please make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel.
[00:26:25]  It's one of the reasons why I'm not going to the rally on January the 6th.
[00:26:30]  Turning point action is being financially supportive of that rally.
[00:26:33]  We are sending buses, but I felt the millions of people that we reach on this podcast and on our live stream, a lot of people are going to need interpretation and analysis of exactly what is happening, what is going on.
[00:26:46]  So, that is precisely why I'm going to be behind the desk all week.
[00:26:50]  So, make sure you stay on top of that.
[00:26:52]  I pray that the results from the Electoral College in its current fashion and form are rejected, and the House gets to determine this election.
[00:27:02]  I pray that's the case.
[00:27:04]  As our great president says, we'll see what happens.
[00:27:08]  Let's get to the next question here, which actually ties nicely to our thinker.org book of the week.
[00:27:13]  Charlie, should I go to college?
[00:27:15]  I've heard you talk about this before.
[00:27:18]  Thanks so much.
[00:27:20]  Carl from Florida.
[00:27:22]  Thanks, Carl.
[00:27:23]  So there's a great book on thinker.org, and I encourage all of you guys to go to thinkr.org slash charlie.
[00:27:32]  There's a great book that's summarized there called The Case Against Education.
[00:27:35]  Pretty provocative.
[00:27:36]  Why the education system is a waste of time and money.
[00:27:39]  Now, I don't believe everything that Brian Kaplan argues about here, but I do want to say about thinker.
[00:27:44]  Thinker.org is really amazing because it gives you the capacity and the ability to distill big ideas quickly.
[00:27:53]  Some of the greatest books are on thinker.org, T-H-I-N-K-R.org.
[00:27:57]  You guys can go there at thinker.org/slash Charlie.
[00:28:00]  And if you want to learn something new every day, remember we talked about that, the importance of learning.
[00:28:06]  Thinker.org allows you to do that.
[00:28:08]  For example, they have books that you've heard of that you just might not have time to read or listen to, but you want to understand the ideas behind it, like the Federalist Papers, like How to Win Friends and Influence People, like Mere Christianity, like Live Not by Lies, like Man Search for Meaning, like intellectuals are up from slavery at thinker.org/slash Charlie, T-H-I-N-K-R.org slash Charlie.
[00:28:29]  You can listen to summaries of them in eight minutes or nine minutes or less.
[00:28:33]  So, this book, The Case Against Education, Why the Education System is a Waste of Time and Money.
[00:28:37]  It talks about that very little what students learn in school will actually ever be used on the job.
[00:28:44]  Why most teachers are people who have never left school and why we put up with it?
[00:28:49]  The author Brian Kaplan thinks this is unacceptable.
[00:28:52]  So, how can they prepare students for the real world?
[00:28:54]  One of the most interesting parts of the book is something called signaling.
[00:28:58]  It's that signaling is the explanation for the gap between education and job skills.
[00:29:03]  A part that I really enjoyed is it talks about the inflated power of a diploma and how that doesn't benefit society.
[00:29:11]  It also talks about the social returns on education are not nearly as grand as the propaganda suggests.
[00:29:17]  And finally, that there's so much waste in the education industry that everyone's afraid to say it.
[00:29:23]  The author is Brian Kaplan.
[00:29:25]  He's an economist, and he again boldly argues that the benefits of education in its current form are tremendously overrated.
[00:29:32]  And so, I've always said that we should ask high school seniors, hey, why are you going to college?
[00:29:37]  Not where are you going to college?
[00:29:40]  I believe that we are encouraging a generation to borrow money they do not have to study things that don't matter, to find jobs that don't exist.
[00:29:48]  And this book at thinker.org/slash Charlie talks just about, talks about that and more.
[00:29:53]  In fact, I'm going to do an entire podcast once all this January 6th stuff boils down and settles down, and we have an idea of where our country's headed in the next couple of weeks.
[00:30:02]  I'm going to get deeper into the college cartel, what you can do about it.
[00:30:06]  If some of you are looking for guidance or wisdom or advice, or you just say, Charlie, I want to at least send you some thoughts or ideas of where I'm going with my life.
[00:30:15]  You guys can do that at freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:30:17]  Email us your thoughts.
[00:30:18]  I want to dive into this.
[00:30:19]  But again, just to answer your question, there are great pieces of literature and wisdom behind what you should do with your life.
[00:30:28]  I will not go as far to say that college is a waste at all.
[00:30:33]  College is very good if you have a specific reason to go.
[00:30:35]  College should be about education, not accreditation.
[00:30:38]  But if you're just going to college to check a box and get a piece of paper, that is not the reason to go.
[00:30:44]  Okay, I want to get to one last question here, which is a little bit unrelated.
[00:30:48]  I got a question from Marco from Minnesota about Friedrich Nietzsche.
[00:30:54]  He said, Hey, Charlie, I'm trying to understand the ideas of Nietzsche.
[00:30:58]  My professors seem to like him.
[00:31:01]  What do you make of him?
[00:31:02]  Thanks so much.
[00:31:03]  So, look, I'm not going to be able to even unpack Nietzsche's ideas if I had an hour.
[00:31:09]  But I have got a couple emails about this and people that have been learning about it.
[00:31:13]  I encourage every single Christian out there and every single free thinker, every single conservative or American, regardless of your political or religious affiliation.
[00:31:23]  We have people of all different faiths that listen to our podcast here to at least be familiar with the writings and the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche.
[00:31:31]  He lived from 1844 to 1900.
[00:31:34]  He has been one of the most influential writers, thinkers, and philosophers that you've probably never heard of.
[00:31:40]  He was heavily influenced by Charles Darwin, who, of course, wrote The Origin of Species in 1859.
[00:31:47]  Up to his time, he was the most openly hostile critic of Christianity, even more so than Karl Marx.
[00:31:54]  Friedrich Nietzsche believed that God was a creation of the slaves to give meaning to their existence and hopes their masters will one day be punished.
[00:32:05]  Now, again, if you want to be able to debate your professors, understand where the left is coming from, it is incredibly important that you are at least somewhat aware of Friedrich Nietzsche.
[00:32:19]  He started the American atheist movement.
[00:32:22]  He was an open critic in the belief in the idea of God.
[00:32:26]  He believed that if you believe in God, that destroys your life.
[00:32:32]  He believed that morality should be about the effect on the actor, not the recipient.
[00:32:39]  He came up with this idea of the superman, that we are waiting for the Übermensch, that is a German term for the superman.
[00:32:48]  He heavily influenced fascists, including the National Socialist Workers' Party in the 1930s.
[00:32:54]  He influenced Ayn Rand, even though she hated Friedrich Nietzsche.
[00:32:59]  And he also had this idea of eternal recurrence, that we are destined to repeat this life over and over again.
[00:33:05]  I think that was probably when Friedrich Nietzsche was losing his mind later in life.
[00:33:11]  Nietzsche was heavily influential to the postmodernist garbage heap of Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault.
[00:33:20]  But more than anything else, Friedrich Nietzsche is known for two major quotes.
[00:33:24]  And you might not even know that he was responsible for this.
[00:33:28]  He's known for the quote that God is dead, and also known for the quote of whatever does not kill you makes you stronger.
[00:33:36]  Taken a little bit out of context.
[00:33:38]  Friedrich Nietzsche, there's different ways that people pronounce it, but Nietzsche or Nietzsche is the most correct or most well-known pronunciation.
[00:33:48]  But the thing that really made him well-known is this idea of the will, that the true essence of human expression is something that is supernatural called the will.
[00:33:59]  That if you do not embrace your will, the will of humanity, then you are denying the full essence of what it means to live.
[00:34:08]  It's really hard to encapsulate this in just a singular podcast, but Nietzsche was probably one of the first moral relativists ever to write.
[00:34:19]  Some people would call him nihilistic.
[00:34:22]  Some people would call him kind of the first existentialist writer.
[00:34:29]  All of these are kind of buzzwords that are thrown around.
[00:34:32]  More than anything else, Friedrich Nietzsche was a provocateur.
[00:34:36]  He didn't mean to be one, or maybe he did, but he inspired dozens and hundreds of other writers to challenge the Western tradition.
[00:34:47]  He thought that people would only believe in God to reinforce this idea of the master-slave morality.
[00:34:56]  He thought that something that is evil is a label to describe things that slaves do not like.
[00:35:03]  He thought that the slave life has no meaning.
[00:35:05]  He thought the only reason someone would remain being a slave is because they did not want to get punished by God who would then do the punishing of their masters.
[00:35:16]  He thought slaves must be cowards.
[00:35:20]  And that if you are to truly believe in the will, because there are more slaves usually than masters, rebellion would then ensue.
[00:35:31]  He thought that we must judge nations by the output, not the input.
[00:35:35]  Are you building massive, beautiful buildings?
[00:35:40]  Are you creating good music?
[00:35:43]  Now, of course, the idea of good and beautiful is something that we as Christians will chuckle at because those are inherently objective terms, something that is somewhat contradictory in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
[00:35:56]  Friedrich Nietzsche had such an impact in the 20th century, from the rise of 1930s Germany to the rise of post-modernism, post-structuralism, and eventually existentialism, he could be the equivalent of Father Abraham of the nihilistic, post-modernist American left.
[00:36:21]  He believed that every organism must maximize its own power.
[00:36:25]  Sound familiar to Jacques Derrida or Michelle Foucault?
[00:36:29]  Friedrich Nietzsche thought that each individual needs morality that fits their own life.
[00:36:35]  Sounds very New Agey or post-modernist.
[00:36:41]  Looking back at the teachings and the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, it is chilling as he concludes in one of his fictional writings that God is dead, proclaiming the death of God.
[00:36:54]  And in some ways, he was right.
[00:36:56]  He realized that Christian tradition was starting to fall, that secularism was starting to grow.
[00:37:03]  And now we are almost living in the world that he wanted, where people are arguing for their own truth, that I'm the most important person in the world.
[00:37:15]  This is embodied by a story of two people called Leopold and Loeb, two disciples of Friedrich Nietzsche, who were students at the University of Chicago.
[00:37:25]  To try to attain this idea of the Übermensch, they planned and plotted a premeditated kidnapping and murder of a 14-year-old child.
[00:37:35]  Why?
[00:37:36]  Because there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong.
[00:37:39]  And to prove this, Leopold and Loeb thought that they might be able to get to a higher level of existence by believing there is no absolute morality.
[00:37:50]  There is no acting evil.
[00:37:52]  We will become superhuman by killing someone in cold blood against this Western idea of the innocence of a 14-year-old.
[00:38:00]  They are, of course, arrested, tried, put in prison, one killed in prison, one later released in 1958.
[00:38:08]  But the chilling, dark consequences of this philosophy were kind of embodied in what was called at the time of the crime of the century.
[00:38:17]  This is a very brief overview.
[00:38:20]  We've received a couple emails about this school of thought, especially those of you that are in college that listen to our podcast.
[00:38:26]  I'm not going to be able to debunk or criticize the teachings or the writings, but I think it's fitting to end this podcast on this note.
[00:38:36]  I do not believe that God is dead, obviously, because I believe in God.
[00:38:41]  But I'm talking about more metaphorically and culturally.
[00:38:44]  I believe that the West's best days are ahead of us.
[00:38:49]  That not proclaiming the death of God, but reaffirming that because of God we exist, we have liberty in our entire civilization.
[00:39:01]  If you are wondering what drives the post-structuralist arsonist left, what drives these people, go read a little Nietzsche.
[00:39:12]  Go watch a couple lectures on him.
[00:39:14]  Dive deep into these ideas, and you'll realize that almost with evangelistic fervor, the people that we are contesting against, they're fighting for something that is rooted in nothing.
[00:39:30]  Started by a couple people that preceded him, but articulated and perfected by a cultural critic, a poet that probably had more impact on where we are today, and most people don't even know he even existed.
[00:39:47]  Friedrich Nietzsche.
[00:39:49]  I call him an evangelist for nothingness and for darkness, but someone that probably had more navigational impact on the trajectory of where we are in the West than anyone else.
[00:40:03]  Understand him, study him, especially for Christians out there, and you will be better equipped than ever to be able to win arguments and spread truth.
[00:40:14]  Thank you guys so much for listening.
[00:40:15]  We keep our eyes closely peeled on the Georgia runoff.
[00:40:19]  If you live in Georgia, you have a moral obligation to go and vote.
[00:40:23]  Get engaged and get your friends to do the same.
[00:40:26]  Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:40:29]  If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com.
[00:40:32]  And if you want to support this program, go to charliekirk.com slash support.
[00:40:37]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:40:38]  God bless.