Charlie mines some of the most timeless wisdoms of them all, going all the way back to "Politics" by Aristotle, exposing the common sense, plainly observable truth, and ancient insights from one of the great thinkers of Western Civilization. A man literally a millennia before his time, Aristotle's keen observations about politics and the human condition serve as an ancient indictment of the Biden Administration. From school closures, walls, immigration, domestic workers, race relations and more, Aristotle proves, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Hey everybody, what if I told you there was a 2,400 year old playbook on how to defeat the left?
We go through some age-old wisdom that describes exactly what we are living through.
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Buckle up, everybody.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
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Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
Last night I was doing what most people do with their evenings that are under the age of 30.
I was reading Aristotle's politics.
Well, sort of.
I was watching my friend and very wise man, Dr. Larry Arn, talk about Aristotle.
I was just kind of going through some of the emails that you guys have sent me, freedom at charliekirk.com.
And he said something, and I had to pause and rewind it.
I guess that's the phrase, rewind it.
You go back on YouTube.
You see, I'm used to the VHS cassette tapes.
This is something that most young people have no understanding of whatsoever.
Rewinding.
You see, you used to have to have something called a VHS tape.
And there were two sides, and there was a lot of film.
And you could always tell where you were on the movie based on how much film was appropriated from the left to the right.
And you could get in a lot of trouble with home blockbuster, family video, local library, if you did not rewind it.
My production team is calling me a boomer.
Hold on.
Anyone that is age 27 to 33 knows exactly what I'm talking about right now.
It was a formative time.
At least I'm not talking about, you know, I used to listen to Walter Cronkite, okay, so I have a little bit.
So I was rewinding after Larry Arn said this.
And it was pretty incredible.
Because Aristotle, who wrote politics, literally wrote the book called Politics, 2,400 years ago, it feels like he's talking about what we're living through right now.
And so dictators, tyrants, despots act exactly the same as they did 2,400 years ago.
Exactly.
Now, this is not something they'll teach you at your university or your college.
At your college, they believe that human nature is malleable.
Say that five times in a row.
Human nature can be changed.
Human nature is nothing more than a product of the circumstances around you.
We as conservatives, hence the sweatshirt that I'm wearing that you guys can find at shop tpusa.com, we believe that human nature is naturally flawed, that human nature is a constant battle between good and evil, and that people will act in predictable patterns.
The Rassoian view, and yes, Plato had this view in some sense, and this is where Plato and Aristotle disagreed.
They thought that human beings can be improved or perfected even if certain things are changed or implemented.
Times change, but people do not.
This is why the United States Constitution is the most phenomenal breakthrough, because the U.S. Constitution was not written for the times.
It was written to stand the test of time.
So 2,400 years ago, this was written.
Dictators preserve themselves by not letting there be any schools or collegial gatherings for leisured pursuits and doing everything that will keep all people as unknown to one another as possible since familiarity breeds a greater degree of mutual trust.
Let's go over that again.
What do people that want power do?
They keep the schools closed.
They keep public gatherings shut down.
Schools are still closed in California, New York, and we've gone through an entire year of school closures and lockdowns, complete and total societal isolation.
They kept you from celebrating Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, New Year's, birthdays with your family and friends, and doing everything that will, quote, keep all people as unknown to one another as possible, since familiarity breeds a greater degree of mutual trust.
How do you degrade mutual trust?
You have everyone wear two masks everywhere.
How do you degrade a sense of familiarity?
You have everyone be 16 feet away from each other.
Not discounting that there are epidemiological reasons for social distancing.
What about the cost?
The cost is an erosion of personal trust.
I said this to my fiancé the other day.
I said, have you noticed how mean America has become?
Do you notice how nasty people are to each other?
I was in the elevator the other day, walking in.
As I'm walking in, I'm putting on my mask because I could see they were very fired up about it.
And instead of saying, hi, how are you doing?
She said, you know, you should have had your mask on as soon as the elevator doors opened.
And I said, who are you?
I just turned my back on her.
When you do not have that common sense of trust or familiarity, that's where dictators, that's where despots, that's where tyrannical leaders are able to assume ultimate control.
This paragraph here that was written 2,400 years ago sounds like something that was written yesterday by a very wise person on Twitter.
So how is it possible that something that was written so long ago applies as if we're reading it in real time?
Again, it goes back to this idea that human nature does not change, and especially the pattern of power grabbers or central planners, dictators or despots.
The treatise continues and it's just so amazing when you read this.
It just makes you shocked That not every young person in the country is exposed to this.
And I quote: Another art of the tyrant is to sow quarrels among the citizens.
Friends should be embroiled with friends, the people with the notables, and the rich with one another.
The tyrant will also impoverish his subjects.
He thus provides against the maintenance of any guard by the citizens, and the people having to keep hard at work prevented from conspiring against him.
What better way to execute a plunder of the people than have a race, class, and gender war perpetually happening, and no one actually questions who's in charge?
An art of the tyrant is to sow quarrels among the citizens.
The act of a tyrant, the act of a failed leader, and I think a little bit of Biden in this sense, but he's obviously not all there.
I think more of Whitmer, I think more of Cuomo, I think more of Newsom, I think more of Pritzker is to sow quarrels amongst the citizens.
Times change.
People do not.
So last evening, I was watching a lecture by Dr. Larry Arn, Hillsdale College, great place.
And I couldn't believe the wisdom of what he was saying.
He gave this lecture years ago.
And it was a lecture on Aristotle's book on politics, which every young person in the country should have to read before they're allowed to comment on anything political.
It should be a national law.
And he said something that was so phenomenal.
And so Aristotle wrote this in Book 5, Chapter 11.
Again, this was 2,400 years ago.
Aristotle was taught by Plato, who was taught by Socrates.
Aristotle taught Alexander the Great.
We don't talk about this enough in the conservative movement.
And I think the reason that people don't like talking about it is it gets too esoteric and too out of reach too quickly.
So let me just read this one piece again for you.
It couldn't be more real or applicable.
Dictators, dictators, preserve themselves by not letting there be any schools or any other college gatherings or collegial gatherings for leisured pursuits and doing everything that will keep all people as unknown to one another as possible since familiarity breeds a greater degree of mutual trust.
Basically, when you are familiar with one another, when you have relationships, you are less likely to be controlled by a tyrant or by a despot.
Wear two masks, walk around in fear.
It says, quote, canceling or not letting there be leisured pursuits, no boating in the state of Michigan, no family gatherings for Thanksgiving, no playing catch with your son in a public park in a constant state of fear.
And so this is a strategy that is literally as old as the written word.
2,400 years ago, they're talking about closing schools.
Why?
Maybe if schools remained open during the lockdown, the energy, the camaraderie, the relationships amongst the most ambitious, the most forward-thinking, would be challenging all of this tyranny.
But no.
If you shut people into their home, you keep masks on them, and they open up their laptop, then they'll be in a constant state of fear, which remember, we've gone over, scared people are easier to command.
Scared people are easier to control.
Dictators, tyrants, and despots use fear as a primary tool for control.
So then I had producer Connor go through some other parts of the book.
I haven't read it in quite a while.
And I just want to read this one sentence.
This basically could be the Joe Biden mission statement.
Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens and lives with them and invites them to his table.
For one of those are enemies, the citizens.
But the others, the foreigners, enter into no rivalry with him.
Open the borders.
Let everyone in.
I prefer the 100,000 people in the caravan to the 1 million blacks in Philadelphia or in Chicago.
I prefer to do business with China than do business in Cleveland, Columbus, or Cincinnati.
Then protect American manufacturing.
You see, the mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than his own citizens.
I love this next one.
A tyrant is also fond of making war in order that his subjects may have something to do and be always in want of a leader.
We're always in the midst of a crisis.
We're always in the midst of an emergency because war, chaos makes it so that his subjects may have something to do and always be in want of a leader.
How does a dictator make himself in demand?
Always have a crisis.
How do you create pent-up demand for centralized control?
Say everything's on fire, and it's an unprecedented crisis.
So I saw this story this morning, and it's not going to be on the front page of the New York Times.
In fact, it's not at the front page of the New York Times.
The New York Times is now back on covering the Chinese coronavirus at a funeral home.
It says, funeral home can't keep up as bodies roll in.
Thanks, Joe Biden.
And then Myanmar.
They're really on this Myanmar kick right now.
Front page of the Wall Street Journal today.
Paul Powell pledges steady policy as yields rise.
Federal Reserve's powell reiterated his intention to keep easy monetary policies in place or easy money policies, but provided no sign the central bank will seek to stem a recent rise in treasury yields.
That's code for we will create money endlessly and limitlessly out of thin air.
But there's a story bigger than all of that that goes to the heart of what we're living through.
It's a story that will not get press coverage, but it is a story that in itself is important, but with a broader application, it is critical to understand.
Joe Biden's Department of Justice has dismissed more than one-third of the cases against Portland's rioters.
This is the Daily Wire.
Local news reports: quote, federal prosecutors have dismissed more than one-third of cases stemming from last summer's violent protest in downtown Portland, where protesters clashed with federal agents.
Federal agents.
The network, who actually did their job, reviewed federal court records and found 31 of the 90 cases have been dismissed by the United States Department of Justice.
Some of the most serious charges dropped include four defendants charged with assaulting a federal officer, which is a felony.
All of the charges stem from Antifa rioters clashing with special agents of the federal government brought in to protect the courthouse.
You might remember this story.
The Multnomah district attorney Mike Schmidt promised that he would drop the lesser charges of the rioters.
Ultimately, there were 974 charges, cases that were brought against these rioters.
I'm not a conspiracy guy.
It's just kind of weird how this always works out, though.
Do you know how many cases were rejected?
Six, six, six.
I kid you not.
It's right here.
It's weird.
And they couldn't have added one more or one less just so that we don't have to get on that kick.
I'm not saying it, but a lot of people are saying it.
By the way, I used to love going to Portland.
That is one dark city.
That's all I got to say.
That's all I'm going to say.
68% of all referred cases.
So essentially, the message that this sends is deeper than just the outrage.
The outrage is understandable.
You riot, you burn, you attack federal agents in Portland.
You don't even go to trial.
Charges get dropped.
Is that our station in Portland?
K-G-A-L-A-M.
If you're listening, give us an email, freedom at charliekirk.com.
There are some great people in Portland.
1580 in Portland.
The message this sends, though, is that if you are a pastor in San Jose keeping your church open, we will threaten you with arrest and put $2 million of fines behind you.
Mike McClure, if you're a rioter who assaults a federal agent in Portland, we will not even press charges against you.
If you want to go sing Christian music publicly in Idaho, we will arrest you.
You remember this story?
Three arrested at Idaho church for singing an event at a singing event in Moscow, Idaho, including a pastor.
And so what this sends a message to the whole country is, if you riot, if you attack federal agents, you're going to get off.
Unless you riot and attack federal agents Around Trump imagery, then you're an insurrectionist.
My position is very clear.
Both are worthy of charges.
But the Biden Department of Justice is now choosing to not focus on anything that happened in Portland.
In fact, 68% of all referred cases dropped.
So, what does this say to the rest of us?
You say, you see, if there are rules and the punishment and the consequence is generally unknown, then you have a form of chaos.
I call this a new anarcho-fascist regime where anarchy is encouraged as long as you're advocating for the correct positions and doing what is socially acceptable.
For example, the federal government or a state government under a Democrat mayor or governor will allow you to shoot up with heroin on the side of the street.
They'll allow public nudity.
However, if you get someone's pronouns wrong in California, you could face jail time.
Pronouns, jail time.
Heroin, public benefits, and injection sites.
About a month ago, a young man who did something he probably shouldn't have done, posted a series of deceiving memes in the 2016 election, got arrested by Biden's Department of Justice.
He faces up to 10 years in prison.
They were deceptive memes.
Does it warrant a decade in prison?
Absolutely not.
He's going to go to jail.
But if you riot in Portland against federal agents, you get your freedom.
The law only works if it's accessible to everyone.
Cicero had a couple great quotes about this: Cicero being a one-year Roman consul killed right before Julius Caesar was killed.
Phenomenal, very wise man.
He said, The more laws, the less justice.
What he meant by that was that when you have so many laws on the books, so voluminous, all of the power then goes on the implementation and whomever is charged with enforcing those laws.
He had another phenomenal quote, which was, in the time of war, the law falls silent.
The left believes that they are in the middle of a mass revolution.
And you hear them say all the time, well, we have to fight for social justice, environmental justice, racial justice.
What does that mean?
Well, it's directly at odds with the biblical principle that justice should never show favor to the rich, to the poor, but instead, and we've embodied this in our imagery and the symbols of our justice system, Lady Liberty is blind.
The secular nihilist left does not believe this.
They believe justice, the role of justice, is to insert themselves to rebalance the playing field.
Therefore, the Portland rioters are actually doing something moral, regardless if they burned down half the city, if they started chazz in Seattle, if they killed a young man who still have not found out all of the details of that murder.
Who cares?
That is in the pursuit, the long march to justice.
But if you dare sing in Moscow, Idaho, we will arrest you.
If you open your church, we will arrest you.
Storm a federal courthouse, get off on all charges.
Now, I no longer have to do this theoretical thought exercise.
Imagine if 300 or 800 people with Trump flags went into a federal building.
Well, we don't have to imagine that, and we've already broken down the facts of it: of the people largely responsible for the instigation was a group of very radical, small group of people, and we've gone through all of the nuance around it.
But those people involved are not just being held accountable, but they are having the entire force of the federal government thrown at them.
Whereas the Biden Department of Justice is now basically saying, anyone involved in the racial justice protests in Portland, you're good to go, including four defendants charged with assaulting a federal officer.
And some of them were dismissed with prejudice, which means the case can never be brought back to court.
So, what is their intention here?
Their intention is to confuse you.
We don't know what laws are going to be enforced.
You don't know what justice system you're going to face.
The left commonly says we have a two-tier justice system, one for white people and for people of color.
That's a bunch of nonsense.
We have a two-tier justice system, one for allies of the left and one for adversaries of the left.
That is the two-tier justice system we have in our country.
Where if you open your church, you will be criminalized.
But if you go storm a federal courthouse in Portland, you can do as you wish.
And when people do not know the consequences of their actions and they believe that the only way that you'll be held accountable is if you have a different opinion from the predominant viewpoint, then we have lost anything resembling a justice system in our country.
I want to get to some sound here.
Let's go to Cut 61, my friend Judge Janine.
Dreams and ambitions.
We've got people being released in Portland right now who've got COVID.
Wait a minute.
You listen to me.
They've got COVID.
They've got all kinds of diseases.
They are being released into the United States.
Now, you're not going to tell me that a governor is going to shut me down and not allow me to do my job and let in illegals because we've got a heart.
Mexico wants to have a heart.
Mexico stop that.
And now Joe Biden has convinced Obrador not to stop them.
In March of 2020, hundreds of thousands of these undocumented workers were deemed essential.
Judge Janine is spot on.
And as we have gone through in great detail, 2,400 years ago, Aristotle in his book Politics, we've had some people ask about it.
What was the name of the book?
It's literally called Politics.
And Aristotle argued that politics is the ultimate form of community because it combines morality and sociability.
How do you know that you're dealing with a tyrant?
Quote: Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and he lives with them, invites them to his table.
For one are enemies, but the others enter into no rivalry with them.
So you open up the borders.
Hundreds of thousands of people are coming from Nicaragua, from Honduras, from Mexico, from El Salvador with diseases, potential dependence on the U.S. taxpayer.
It's happening at a rate we have never seen before.
One of President Trump's crowning achievements was solving the southern border crisis, working with our allies, and constructing a southern border.
While Joe Biden wants to give preference to foreigners, and it has been higher on the southern border, but it's spiking and on pace to get to its highest ever levels.
But it's the highest it's been in recent years.
Let's get to another sound here.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who should be fired, had this to say about Texas opening up their state.
Cut 71.
You don't want to pull back just now.
You want to plan that you will be able within a reasonable time to pull back, but not at a time when we have circulating variants and when you have what looks like a plateauing of the decline in the cases on a daily basis.
When people are scared, they are easier to control.
Just like 15 days to slow the spread.
You want to know why people don't trust their government?
Exhibit A as to why you don't trust the government is that guy, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has failed upwards his entire career, has never been right about anything consequential, wrong about epidemiology, wrong about social distance, wrong about masks, wrong about therapeutics, wrong about mental health consequences.
You want to know why people don't trust the government?
It's because of people like him.
But it's a strategy.
Scared people are easier to command.
And dictators, tyrants, and despots use fear as the primary tool for control.
So how does Joe Biden stay in power?
You send Fauci on the airwaves and keep you scared.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.