The Charlie Kirk Show - A 12 Step Guide to Breaking America’s Addiction to Fear with Mark McDonald, M.D.
Aired: 2022-08-30
Duration: 33:43


=== Facing The Addiction Of Fear (08:12) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey everybody, Dr. Mark McDonald, who is the author of Freedom from Fear, joins us.
[00:00:04]  It's a terrific conversation.
[00:00:05]  The 12 Steps to Heal Yourself from the Addiction of Fear.
[00:00:08]  Very informative and important conversation.
[00:00:11]  You can email me directly, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:14]  That is freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:17]  Support the Charlie Kirk show at charliekirk.com/slash support and get involved at Turning Point USA today at tpusa.com.
[00:00:25]  That is tpusa.com.
[00:00:28]  Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:31]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:32]  Here we go.
[00:00:33]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:35]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:00:37]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:41]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:44]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:45]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:46]  His spirit, his love of this country.
[00:00:48]  He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
[00:00:54]  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.
[00:01:03]  That's why we are here.
[00:01:06]  Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.
[00:01:15]  There's a phenomenal book out, and I mean to read it.
[00:01:18]  I've just had a very busy last week and a half.
[00:01:20]  Freedom from Fear for one of my favorite guests we have on this program.
[00:01:23]  He's very thoughtful and he gets it.
[00:01:26]  It's Dr. Mark McDonald, a 12-step guide to personal and national recovery.
[00:01:34]  I don't think 12 is a number of mistakes.
[00:01:37]  It kind of mirrors Alcoholics Anonymous, and I plan to ask him about it.
[00:01:41]  Dr. McDonald joins us now.
[00:01:43]  Welcome back to the program.
[00:01:45]  Thank you.
[00:01:45]  It's so great to be back.
[00:01:46]  And yes, you are correct.
[00:01:47]  I was inspired by and I did model the book after the 12-step program of AA.
[00:01:52]  And also in a more nuanced and subtle way, but I think one that would appeal to your listeners because they tend to follow him a lot, is Jordan B. Peterson's 12 Rules for Life.
[00:02:04]  Yeah, that number 12 is very powerful.
[00:02:06]  It's enough to get your point across, but not too comprehensive where people kind of lose focus.
[00:02:11]  Tell us about your book, Dr. McDonald.
[00:02:13]  Why did you write it?
[00:02:14]  And we'll go from there.
[00:02:16]  So the first book that I wrote in November of last year, which was United States of Fear, was a synopsis of the antecedents that led us into the pandemic of fear, into mass delusional psychosis, so that people would understand how we got here.
[00:02:30]  Because if we don't know how we got here, just like you don't know how you got sick, then you can't diagnose the problem.
[00:02:35]  You can't move forward.
[00:02:35]  You can't cure the disease.
[00:02:37]  This book, Freedom from Fear, is coming at it from a different angle.
[00:02:41]  It's okay, here we are.
[00:02:43]  What do we do about it?
[00:02:44]  Where do we go?
[00:02:45]  And more importantly, how do we get there?
[00:02:48]  What's the path?
[00:02:49]  I was speaking multiple times a week in front of live audiences and off of my computer through Zoom, all across the country in the last year, year and a half.
[00:02:57]  And the same question kept coming up.
[00:02:59]  But Dr. McDonald, I understand that we're afraid.
[00:03:02]  I understand why we're afraid.
[00:03:04]  I just don't know how we get past this.
[00:03:06]  What do I do?
[00:03:07]  What do I do for my son, my daughter?
[00:03:09]  What do I do for my family, my neighbors to get them out of this fear pandemic?
[00:03:14]  Well, I wrote a book about it and I tried to make it simple, direct, didactic, and illustrative so that every individual person, or if he knows somebody who's afraid, can overcome his or her fear.
[00:03:26]  And I also took it at a different, I'd say, different perspective than the first book, which was sort of focused on the national.
[00:03:32]  And I believe now, after being in this battle for a couple of years, that the answer, the solution is not top-down.
[00:03:37]  It's not let's reform Washington.
[00:03:39]  It's let's reform our own garden, our own backyard.
[00:03:42]  Just like Peterson said, you've got to start by making your own bed, cleaning your own house.
[00:03:46]  I firmly believe now as a psychiatrist and as a social observer of cultural trends in the country that we need as individuals to acknowledge and face our fears, to overcome them, and then from there to spread upwards and transform the nation, not top down, bottom up.
[00:04:04]  You open the book with a story about a girl that's 10 or 12 years old with a mask, and you ask her, why is she wearing the mask?
[00:04:10]  And she can't answer the question.
[00:04:12]  And you talk about how we are addicted to fear.
[00:04:14]  That's a very interesting way to put it because I don't think most people would acknowledge that.
[00:04:20]  They would say, no, no, no, I'm not addicted to fear.
[00:04:22]  I just am afraid of the right things.
[00:04:24]  But the argument that you're making, the contention is that there is a relationship between fear itself and us, as if we keep on going back to it, even though we know it is destructive.
[00:04:37]  Can you explain a little bit more about the addictive qualities?
[00:04:41]  Fear is almost alluring.
[00:04:44]  It's hard to escape the grasp of fear.
[00:04:47]  Why is that?
[00:04:48]  The reason why I chose consciously to use addiction as a metaphor and an analogy for the fear pandemic is: one, I believe it's accurate.
[00:04:58]  I do believe that people have become actually taken by fear, just like they're taken by alcohol, by gambling, by pornography, all problems that are facing our society.
[00:05:08]  Also, because I wanted to reduce the stigma.
[00:05:11]  I wanted people to not have to say, no, I'm not afraid.
[00:05:14]  I'm just doing this to stay safe.
[00:05:16]  No, you're afraid, just like you drink, just like you gamble, just like you use porn.
[00:05:20]  And AA and the 12-step program, they are not stigmatizing.
[00:05:23]  Most people in the United States know someone or they themselves have been in a 12-step program, and they understand that it's human.
[00:05:29]  It's a human foible to become addicted.
[00:05:32]  So stigma is a very important reason why I wrote the book from this framework.
[00:05:36]  But to focus more on your question specifically, why addiction?
[00:05:40]  Why is it that people derive some sense of pleasure, gratification from being addicted?
[00:05:43]  It's very simple, actually.
[00:05:45]  Addiction is a learn behavior, a learn process, often unconscious, that allows you to avoid facing a painful problem in the moment.
[00:05:55]  It's a deferral.
[00:05:57]  This is why for young people, drug addiction is so powerful and so damaging because it freezes their development.
[00:06:04]  It creates a developmental arrest.
[00:06:06]  It's not a moral issue.
[00:06:08]  It's an arrest issue because you cannot face life's problems and grow up and be mature if you are addicted.
[00:06:14]  Because every time you take a hit of that drug, or every time you express your fear by avoiding a challenge, avoiding a conversation that might be difficult, avoiding firing someone from your office, avoiding taking that trip that you know is really important for your family because you are afraid, you are deferring a more important problem that you are not facing.
[00:06:37]  You are not expressing courage.
[00:06:39]  And so addiction is kind of a cop-out really to facing life.
[00:06:45]  And when it becomes virtuous, when it becomes the altar at which we start to pray, when we start to worship fear addiction as opposed to courage, now we've really lost our way.
[00:06:58]  And we're teaching the wrong thing.
[00:07:00]  We're giving the wrong message to our children to develop an addiction into our youth generation, which is then going to grow up believing that being afraid is not bad.
[00:07:10]  It's not amoral.
[00:07:11]  It's not destructive.
[00:07:12]  It's completely natural.
[00:07:14]  And I want that message to be clear.
[00:07:16]  It is not healthy.
[00:07:17]  It is not natural.
[00:07:17]  Addiction is not good.
[00:07:18]  It is not positive.
[00:07:20]  It needs to be fought.
[00:07:21]  It needs to be fought with every breath that we have.
[00:07:25]  So talk about step one.
[00:07:26]  You say, face the mirror, admit that you are an addict.
[00:07:29]  Why is that so hard for people?
[00:07:32]  Well, that's the most difficult step because it means being honest.
[00:07:36]  It means being real.
[00:07:37]  It means accepting what is true.
[00:07:40]  And the hardest part when I work with patients is for patients to come in and actually acknowledge and agree that we're both going to start with a position of reality.
[00:07:49]  I had a woman come into my office a few months ago who was wearing a face shield, two masks, gloves, hand sanitizer everywhere.
[00:07:56]  And she said to me, shockingly, I know that I'm addicted.
[00:07:59]  I know that I'm afraid.
[00:08:01]  It doesn't help me.
[00:08:02]  It hurts me, but I just don't know how to get through it.
[00:08:05]  And I said to her, thank goodness you're the perfect patient because you've already completed step one.
[00:08:10]  You've acknowledged that you're afraid.

=== Accepting What Is True (09:20) ===

[00:08:12]  Most people have not.
[00:08:15]  And this is why I tell people when I go and talk and they say, what do I do with a friend?
[00:08:18]  What do I do with a family member who just won't listen to anything I have to say?
[00:08:22]  They argue with me constantly.
[00:08:24]  They call me a white supremacist Trump supporter on topics that have nothing to do with politics.
[00:08:28]  My answer is this.
[00:08:30]  If they haven't acknowledged that they're afraid, there's no point in talking to them.
[00:08:34]  If you have an alcoholic who hasn't acknowledged that he's a drunk, if he hasn't acknowledged that the reason why his wife left him is not because she's an idiot, but because he's actually lying sloshed every night and he lost his job and he beats her when he gets drunk.
[00:08:48]  If he hasn't acknowledged that is the problem, there's no point in taking him to AA.
[00:08:52]  No point.
[00:08:53]  He has to acknowledge that he has a problem first.
[00:08:55]  And that is so difficult because it means you then have to face the problem and face reality.
[00:08:59]  And if there's anything that we haven't done in the last two and a half years, Charlie, as Americans, it's faced reality.
[00:09:06]  I mean, and the question is, what even is reality?
[00:09:08]  And that, well, for us, it's rather evident, right?
[00:09:10]  You have your five senses, you have reason, but there is this subjective idea pathogen, a mind virus that has infected so many.
[00:09:21]  And how much of this is the subjectivist kind of curse over our land that plays into this where people just reject biological reality and every other kind of reality in front of us?
[00:09:32]  It is, in my view, a direct consequence of the bombardment, the infestation day in and day out, 24-7, of propaganda and lies coming from media through devices.
[00:09:44]  This is where it's coming from.
[00:09:46]  And this is why we have to fight back against that.
[00:09:49]  Because if we don't get a hold of the dealer of this drug, which I call the media, that is our drug dealer, then we will forever live in this matrix of subjective reality and we will not be forced to confront the actual physical tangible world, which is out there, not through our computers and our Zoom screen.
[00:10:07]  Are you like every one of us that thinks our country has gone nuts, whether it's Russia Gate market crashes or selling oil to China or this insane inflation?
[00:10:15]  Well, right now, you need a financial mind who understands your concerns, but the same time as a Christian worldview of money.
[00:10:22]  That's why you should talk to my friends at PAX Financial Group.
[00:10:25]  Look, I've given my money to PAX Financial to manage.
[00:10:27]  If it's good enough for me, I think it's good for you.
[00:10:30]  Like all of us, they have concerns, but they also have hope.
[00:10:33]  In this market, you must have a financial person who shares your hope and at the same time can help you with biblical responsible investing, B-R-I, biblical, responsible investing.
[00:10:43]  That's why I want you to text the word Charlie to 74868.
[00:10:48]  That is Charlie to 74868 to connect with my friends at the PAX Financial Group.
[00:10:53]  Biblical responsible investing.
[00:10:55]  So take out your phone.
[00:10:56]  Just text Charlie to 74868.
[00:10:58]  That's 74868.
[00:11:00]  Text Charlie to connect with my great friends at the PAX Financial Group.
[00:11:07]  Step two, don't be a sheep, reject the collective.
[00:11:11]  Dr. McDonald's, explain.
[00:11:13]  One of the biggest problems that I saw when I was in Bosnia and Macedonia and Kosovo for the last six weeks, in distinction with what's happening in the U.S., the problems that I didn't see, I should say, is that there were no sheep there.
[00:11:29]  There was no collective.
[00:11:32]  I visited a cafe in Tuzla, which is in northeast Bosnia called Sloboda.
[00:11:39]  And sloboda means freedom in Bosnian.
[00:11:42]  That's the name of their soccer team, actually.
[00:11:44]  And the cafe has been around for 25 years.
[00:11:46]  I asked people what they meant by that, and they meant we don't believe or trust in the groupthink.
[00:11:53]  We disobeyed a curfew when we were going out to the clubs, age 18, 20, 22 years old, after a couple of nights.
[00:12:00]  And we tore the tickets up when the police arrested us.
[00:12:02]  And then the tickets just disappeared, and the police never bothered to follow through after a couple of weeks.
[00:12:06]  And they shut down the curfew.
[00:12:08]  We didn't go out and wear masks.
[00:12:09]  We didn't go out and get shots because we didn't believe that what we were being told by our government was accurate and truthful and that they had our best interests at heart.
[00:12:18]  And with good reason, because the government has screwed them in the last 40 years.
[00:12:22]  Here in the United States, it's the opposite.
[00:12:25]  Rather than what they believe in, which is disobedience, non-compliance, and freedom, sloboda, we believe in obedience, compliance, following the collective order.
[00:12:39]  We don't believe in freedom anymore.
[00:12:40]  We have rejected freedom as a virtue.
[00:12:42]  Compliance has now become freedom.
[00:12:45]  It's flipped.
[00:12:46]  And this is a big, big problem, especially in the context of being afraid.
[00:12:51]  If you are both fearful and you are compliant, then you are committing suicide as an individual and as a nation.
[00:12:58]  So one of the biggest and most important steps after accepting that you're addicted to fear, in my view, in bringing back something as a sense of health, is to start challenging and rejecting the collective so-called wisdom or collective thinking, which is what has over the last two and a half years brought us to this state of near financial, political, social, and urban collapse in this country.
[00:13:21]  It's so interesting.
[00:13:23]  I mean, with Bosnia being more freedom-loving than America, you'd think that in their kind of muscle memory in their past would be to kind of bend the knee to totalitarianism, living under vast communist governments for quite some time, kind of in the Soviet bloc and under Tito.
[00:13:40]  It's just so interesting that they would actually be more kind of of the spirit of 1776 than us Americans.
[00:13:47]  Doctor, why do you think that Eastern Europe actually has a flavor for freedom more than America, which is always thought of as kind of the land of the free?
[00:13:55]  Well, one of the answers, there's probably many answers to that question, is that when I asked people in Kosovo and in Sarajevo and in Skopje, the capitals of these three republics, where do you think you get this idea in your culture, especially young people?
[00:14:10]  I asked them, where does this come from?
[00:14:13]  And most of them said the same thing.
[00:14:15]  They said, we were inspired by America.
[00:14:18]  So it wasn't just that they, as many people say, they knew oppression.
[00:14:22]  They knew community.
[00:14:23]  Absolutely true, especially the older generation, 45, 55, 65-year-old people.
[00:14:27]  But why among the youth?
[00:14:28]  Because the youth were the most passionately pro-freedom, pro-democracy I've ever seen in the world.
[00:14:32]  It's not because they grew up under freedom or they pushed back against the dictates of communism.
[00:14:39]  No, they were inspired by the West.
[00:14:41]  They were inspired by America.
[00:14:42]  They were inspired by what the U.S. used to represent, which was freedom and democracy.
[00:14:47]  And they still believe that that's what the U.S. represents because they have not traveled to the U.S. because they can't get visas, because they're not going to cross the border illegally, because they believe in the rule of law.
[00:14:57]  So they still live in the America of 20 or 30 years ago, not the America that we live in today, Charlie.
[00:15:03]  That's the reason.
[00:15:05]  It's incredible that they look at America as a beacon of freedom.
[00:15:09]  And we don't look at ourselves as a beacon of freedom anymore, where Eastern Europe actually embraces our values better than we embrace our own values.
[00:15:18]  It's just rather remarkable.
[00:15:19]  There is a very promising movement happening in Eastern Europe, not just in Bosnia, as you articulated, but Poland and many other Hungary as well.
[00:15:30]  Look, rents are going way too high.
[00:15:31]  The rent is too high.
[00:15:33]  If you're renting or a friend or family member, that is, right now is the time to make the move to homeownership.
[00:15:38]  Good buddies, Andrew Del Rey and Todd of Akian at Sierra Pacific Mortgage have helped so many people to make that leap from renting owning.
[00:15:44]  I know what you're saying, oh, Charlie, rates are too high.
[00:15:46]  Listen, you could always refinance.
[00:15:48]  The problem is, though, why are you giving all of your money to rent when you could be building equity with lots of programs that offer first-time buyers assistance with little to no down payment needed?
[00:15:59]  I encourage you to visit andrewandtodd.com right now.
[00:16:02]  They're beautiful people.
[00:16:03]  They're wonderful.
[00:16:04]  The thing I love about these guys is not about the transaction.
[00:16:07]  They're about helping you.
[00:16:08]  They just helped me through a whole problem right now.
[00:16:10]  They were amazing.
[00:16:11]  There's no one like it.
[00:16:12]  And by the way, I dealt with the banks before them.
[00:16:14]  I mean, never again.
[00:16:16]  The banks, the worst.
[00:16:18]  Andrew and Todd made the whole process seamless.
[00:16:21]  They're helping you create a plan to help you reach your goals, whether it's for today or a year from now.
[00:16:26]  With today's still historically low interest rates, it's easier than you think to become a homeowner.
[00:16:30]  I've relied on them, and producer Andrew has as well.
[00:16:33]  I highly recommend you take action right now.
[00:16:36]  I use them and you should too.
[00:16:37]  I know them personally.
[00:16:38]  They're patriots.
[00:16:38]  They're Christians.
[00:16:39]  Unlike these big woke, godless banks.
[00:16:42]  Why would you do your loans with banks who hate you?
[00:16:45]  And if you know someone who's still paying rent, tell them about Andrew and Todd.
[00:16:47]  Again, you might say, Charlie, now's the worst time to buy.
[00:16:50]  That's not true.
[00:16:51]  Okay, property values are going to go up.
[00:16:53]  And if you're renting, you're getting poorer.
[00:16:56]  So stop paying rent.
[00:16:57]  Start putting your hard-earned money into a home.
[00:16:59]  Again, there are some packages you might be available that might be available for you or no down payment.
[00:17:03]  Go to andrewandodd.com.
[00:17:05]  That is andrewandodd.com.
[00:17:06]  Tell them Charlie Kirk sent you.
[00:17:08]  They're wonderful people, enthusiastic.
[00:17:10]  They send me scripture.
[00:17:11]  They love the Lord.
[00:17:13]  They love the country.
[00:17:14]  Stop renting.
[00:17:15]  Start buying.
[00:17:16]  They're wonderful people.
[00:17:17]  AndrewandTodd.com.
[00:17:22]  Let's go to step three.
[00:17:23]  Let's try to blitz through these.
[00:17:24]  Live in the real world.
[00:17:26]  Choose reality over fantasy.
[00:17:27]  Dr. McDonald, I hear all the time on college campuses: I have my reality and my truth, and you have your reality and your truth.

=== Choosing Reality Over Fantasy (03:58) ===

[00:17:33]  There is no such thing as objective truth or absolute reality.
[00:17:36]  Your response, Dr. McDonald.
[00:17:38]  Utter nonsense.
[00:17:40]  This is why fear is such an important concept.
[00:17:43]  Still today.
[00:17:44]  What are they telling young parents with small children who decide that they want to change their pronouns and transition over to another gender?
[00:17:53]  What are the therapists and doctors saying to them?
[00:17:56]  They're saying, if you don't accept this transition, if you don't support this child's gender journey, your child will die of suicide.
[00:18:04]  And that becomes the parents' reality.
[00:18:07]  But it's not real.
[00:18:08]  It's a fantasy.
[00:18:09]  It's a lie.
[00:18:09]  It's absolutely false.
[00:18:11]  And that is actually allowing for the injury, abuse, and death of children.
[00:18:16]  This is why this is so critical.
[00:18:18]  This is not a theoretical concept.
[00:18:19]  This is happening right now.
[00:18:21]  People are not living in reality.
[00:18:23]  And if you can live in reality, you will solve about 80% of your problems and those of your family.
[00:18:30]  I totally agree with that.
[00:18:31]  And so, you know, whenever I come across a postmodernist or a post-structuralist, they say there's no such thing as absolute truth.
[00:18:37]  You can just ask them a couple questions.
[00:18:38]  Say, okay, if you have a human being that doesn't eat for 90 days, what happens?
[00:18:45]  And they'd say, well, a person will die.
[00:18:46]  Well, that's a claim of reality.
[00:18:48]  You're saying that something will happen because of something.
[00:18:51]  What happens if someone is left alone on an island?
[00:18:53]  Can that person procreate by themselves?
[00:18:56]  No.
[00:18:56]  See, now we're starting to talk about certain real, and I know this sounds insane for our audience.
[00:19:00]  Like, what are you talking about?
[00:19:01]  They teach this garbage on college campuses.
[00:19:03]  North is North.
[00:19:05]  No matter what.
[00:19:06]  And when someone said the other day, I said, Charlie, why does the transgender debate matter so much to you?
[00:19:10]  I said, what if everybody had their own definition of north?
[00:19:14]  I believe North is this way, and I believe North is that way.
[00:19:18]  You'd have a hard time orienting yourself and organizing society so you could actually live somewhere happy and enjoyable.
[00:19:23]  Okay, number four, a very interesting one.
[00:19:26]  Step four, reject narcissism.
[00:19:28]  Your fear doesn't matter to society.
[00:19:31]  What do you mean by that?
[00:19:32]  I mean that just because you think that you're a boy and you're a girl, or just because you think you're a girl and you're a boy, that the rest of the world should not honor that and should not determine that you are now the sun around which everyone else orbits.
[00:19:48]  This is a correct consequence of what we just said two minutes ago.
[00:19:52]  This idea of rejecting narcissism is so central, so profound in our society today that I cannot overstate it.
[00:20:01]  Babies are born narcissistic and they are born narcissistic because if they are not narcissistic, they will collapse from despair at the reality that they are so small and so insignificant outside of the mind of their parents.
[00:20:15]  And as they get older, they accept that they're not the center of the universe, that just because they're wet or they're crying, that the world does not come to their beckoning and call and fix their problems as they get older, that they have a role to play in the relationship between themselves and other people.
[00:20:31]  That's what it's called to be social and a social creature.
[00:20:35]  But we have a whole generation of adult Americans right now that don't accept that.
[00:20:39]  They believe that what I feel is reality.
[00:20:43]  And so that's why those two steps are so intricately linked together.
[00:20:48]  They follow one from another.
[00:20:49]  Those who are inherently narcissistic are also deniers of reality because they centralize themselves as the most important person and the most important true north in the entire world.
[00:21:00]  That has to be rejected.
[00:21:02]  Humility has to come back.
[00:21:03]  There has to be an injection of humility in our population because without it, we will continue down this insane, subjective tower of babble path for which there is no end.
[00:21:14]  And at the end, there will be no distinctions because everyone will have their own definition of language and their own definition of sex and their own definition of north.
[00:21:21]  And that is utter chaos.
[00:21:22]  A society cannot function on that.
[00:21:25]  And I just love your idea of rejecting narcissism.
[00:21:28]  I mean, when some people say, you know, some people are like, you know, I really feel anxious and depressed.

=== Humor And Mental Health (10:42) ===

[00:21:32]  And obviously you're the expert on this.
[00:21:34]  At times, not always, I say, you're probably thinking about yourself a little bit too much.
[00:21:38]  Probably think about giving or serving.
[00:21:40]  I mean, just always thinking inwardly.
[00:21:42]  It will drive you insane, actually, because you're not supposed to, you shouldn't always feel 100% good all the time.
[00:21:48]  But it's what are you doing?
[00:21:49]  Are you serving?
[00:21:50]  Are you creating?
[00:21:51]  Are you investing in yourself?
[00:21:53]  Are you flourishing?
[00:21:53]  These are more important questions.
[00:21:55]  Okay, cut off the dealer.
[00:21:56]  Eliminate media fear junkies.
[00:21:58]  I would imagine you mean CNN and all of the kind of fear artists out there.
[00:22:03]  Explain.
[00:22:04]  This is also a very important distinction between the U.S. and the Balkans.
[00:22:08]  There is no fear in the Balkans and largely, actually, to be honest, in most of Europe now, not because I think Western Europe is the thriving democratic citadel of liberty in the world, far from it.
[00:22:21]  But there's one distinction.
[00:22:23]  Most of the media in Europe is not censored and it's mostly not propaganda.
[00:22:28]  It is here in the U.S.
[00:22:30]  Now, we have extremes.
[00:22:32]  We have outliers.
[00:22:33]  We have AM Radio.
[00:22:34]  We have Charlie Kirk show.
[00:22:36]  We have Dennis Prager.
[00:22:37]  We have people who are really speaking truth.
[00:22:39]  They don't really have that kind of outlier media in Europe, but they also don't have the massive, overwhelming power of two or three media titans that are censoring all of the voices.
[00:22:51]  And this is a really important distinction.
[00:22:54]  That's why in the U.S., you have a phone in your pocket and you just get pop-ups all day long.
[00:23:00]  Yahoo News says this.
[00:23:01]  Apple News says that.
[00:23:03]  And especially young people, that's where they get most of their information.
[00:23:06]  You know where young people get their information in Sarajevo?
[00:23:08]  They get it from the local bar, coffee shop, their friends in the park.
[00:23:12]  They read newspapers.
[00:23:13]  That's a huge difference.
[00:23:15]  So if you're an alcoholic and you walk home from work every day and you pass by a bar and you say, I'm not going to drink anymore, how many nights a week are you going to wind up in that bar drunk?
[00:23:24]  You need to void the bar, walk through the park.
[00:23:28]  That's why we need to avoid the media.
[00:23:30]  I tell parents, do not give your son or child, daughter, a cell phone.
[00:23:33]  No smartphones.
[00:23:35]  You need to cut off the deal.
[00:23:36]  You need to avoid going past that junkie every day that's giving you all of those drugs.
[00:23:41]  Because if you can do that, then you create space for reality and truth and actual real truthful media sources.
[00:23:47]  You can't do that when all you hear all day long is lies and propaganda from your device.
[00:23:53]  So speaking of lies and propaganda, there is a woman by the name of Dr. Liana Wen.
[00:23:58]  I think she used to run Planned Parenthood.
[00:23:59]  I could be mistaken.
[00:24:00]  I might be mistaken or somebody else, but she definitely, she's on CNN.
[00:24:03]  She was a huge proponent of, yeah, of masking and staying at home and having children completely and totally clothed at all times.
[00:24:13]  And she didn't go as far to say this.
[00:24:15]  There was somebody else who said it on CNN where it's like, you might have to wear masks in your home.
[00:24:20]  It might have been her, but it was definitely somebody on CNN.
[00:24:22]  But now she's coming out and she's changed her tone a little bit.
[00:24:25]  I want your reaction to this, Dr. McDonald Play Cut 24.
[00:24:28]  Travel and having the right to travel interstate.
[00:24:31]  It's not a constitutional right as far as I know to board a plane.
[00:24:37]  And so saying that, if you want to stay unvaccinated, that's your choice.
[00:24:41]  But if you want to travel, you better go get that vaccine.
[00:24:44]  So this is the, that's an older clip.
[00:24:46]  She has now a new clip where she comes out where she says that masking stunted her toddler's language development and taught her an important lesson about trade-offs.
[00:24:56]  She said, I accept the risk.
[00:24:59]  And she now says that her daughter or her toddler has stunted language development.
[00:25:04]  Dr. McDonald, your reaction.
[00:25:06]  I'm actually shocked to hear that.
[00:25:08]  And I have not heard that recent clip.
[00:25:10]  I did listen many times to the previous one that you just raised.
[00:25:13]  Interestingly, Dr. Liana Wen was also prominently featured at a awards ceremony for the Pfizer Corporation, where she was actually photographed with one of their boards of directors and their C-level people because she had been paid to actually market and advertise for them.
[00:25:31]  So that already discredited her in my eyes.
[00:25:33]  That came out about a year ago.
[00:25:35]  This woman is actually literally a shill.
[00:25:37]  Why she has now come to this conclusion, I'm assuming it's sincere, I don't know, is a very powerful and I think quite interesting development because in the last year, we have now seen a 300% increase in referrals for speech and language disorders.
[00:25:58]  And in the zero to three population, there's a large percentage of American children who simply don't speak.
[00:26:04]  They have been at home with their parents wearing masks for the last two or three years since their birth, and their parents know them so well that they don't even need to talk to them.
[00:26:13]  There's a unspoken language between the child and the parent that just consists of perhaps pointing with a finger.
[00:26:19]  Now, that works as long as you stay at home indoors with your parent for the rest of your life.
[00:26:24]  But what happens if you want to leave the home?
[00:26:26]  What happens if you want to go to school, a grocery store?
[00:26:28]  What happens if you want to travel?
[00:26:29]  What happens if you want to play with friends who use words in their mouth to communicate?
[00:26:33]  And all you're doing is pointing and grunting.
[00:26:35]  Well, now you are completely ostracized from society.
[00:26:40]  You are now depressed.
[00:26:42]  You are now anxious.
[00:26:44]  You are now perhaps heading down the path of mental illness and suicidal ideation.
[00:26:48]  God knows what autism.
[00:26:50]  This consequence, which is sad but profoundly important to our children, which are, of course, our literal future, I have said for the last two years may be the only opportunity we have for a wake-up call to those who have been persuaded that the only way to deal with this pandemic, this viral pandemic, is to sit at home and be afraid and suffocate our children.
[00:27:16]  Now, they are the losers in this, obviously, the children.
[00:27:19]  But I had hoped for a long time, and maybe this is a sign of something changing, that the misguided women, and it is largely speaking women, that are pushing this narrative.
[00:27:28]  It's not men.
[00:27:29]  It's mostly women because they're hysterical.
[00:27:32]  Because in the absence of masculinity and male courage and male containment, women have lost it, especially doctors and therapists who are now pushing all these transgender surgeries.
[00:27:41]  It's all driven by women and teachers that are all women too.
[00:27:45]  If these women, these mothers, can wake up and realize the harm and the damage they've caused to their own children, then perhaps they will reform their message and they will start to preach and teach reality-based common sense and caretaking for children once again.
[00:27:59]  I can only hope.
[00:28:00]  If a society becomes too masculine, you become too aggressive and out of control.
[00:28:04]  If a society becomes too feminine, you become unstable and too emotional.
[00:28:08]  You should be able to say both those things.
[00:28:09]  They're both equally true.
[00:28:10]  And we have become an unstable, hyper-emotional society without the anchor of masculinity.
[00:28:16]  You need a balance of both.
[00:28:17]  It's how God designed our species.
[00:28:19]  Think for yourself or others will think for you.
[00:28:21]  Bro, it was the last sentence in my first book.
[00:28:24]  If you do not think for yourself, others will think for you and they will not be thinking of you.
[00:28:28]  That in a nutshell is why it's so important to think for yourself.
[00:28:31]  Because if you give away your agency of your own thought, it will be taken from you and used against you by someone with ill intent.
[00:28:40]  That was summarized rather beautifully.
[00:28:42]  That was great.
[00:28:43]  So, doctor, I want to go to number eight here: embrace adulthood.
[00:28:47]  Find a proper way to care for those you love.
[00:28:49]  Go ahead.
[00:28:51]  One of the biggest problems with adults right now is that they're not really grown.
[00:28:55]  They're not really mature.
[00:28:56]  They are narcissistic.
[00:28:58]  They are living in an altered reality, which is highly subjective and not based on what's really happening around them.
[00:29:06]  They are focused on themselves and their own careers and their own growth.
[00:29:11]  They're ignoring their children.
[00:29:13]  One of the big important points I make to my patients, and which is why I included it in this book, is that part of being an adult, part of being mature, part of being a responsible member of society, community, family, is actually learning and discovering and expressing a healthy way to love other people.
[00:29:30]  And there's a lot of elements within that that include being less narcissistic, being less selfish, being more caring, being more patient, accepting reality.
[00:29:42]  And I describe all of those subcomponents in that chapter.
[00:29:45]  But maturity and being an adult means learning how to love and care for others.
[00:29:52]  And I'll tell you what my definition of love is so that people are not misled into thinking that it's just some good state of feeling and being caring and sensitive and providing flowers.
[00:30:01]  My definition of love is very similar to that of C.S. Lewis, who says that love is nothing more than allowing and supporting the other to attain his or her full potential.
[00:30:13]  That's well said.
[00:30:14]  I want to get to the final part of the list here.
[00:30:16]  Let's go to 10: develop a sense of humor.
[00:30:18]  Why is that so important to get over fear?
[00:30:21]  When you're afraid, there is no way for you to be humorous and there is no way for you to be sexual.
[00:30:30]  This is called the CBT triangle.
[00:30:31]  It comes from cognitive behavioral therapy.
[00:30:34]  It's a model I learned 20 years ago.
[00:30:35]  You cannot occupy more than two points, two apices on the triangle at any given time.
[00:30:41]  So a lot of patients who come to me who are very, very anxious have a really hard time being sexual with their partners while they're anxious.
[00:30:49]  Understandably so.
[00:30:50]  In the same way, if you are anxious or fearful, you cannot laugh.
[00:30:56]  Now, let's just reverse it.
[00:30:58]  If you are in a state of humor, if you are laughing, if you are in a moment experiencing a perspective that is different than the one that you were just holding, that takes away the power of the fear and it takes away the anxiety.
[00:31:13]  It sucks it right out.
[00:31:15]  So I think humor is incredibly important from a psychological perspective, meaning emotional.
[00:31:21]  And it's also important from a psychological perspective intellectually because it actually provides a set of difference and a perspective that you can't get.
[00:31:31]  This is why people laugh at comedy clubs because they're surprised that they were jolted into a position that they weren't in two seconds ago and they don't know how they got there.
[00:31:38]  Very, very important.
[00:31:39]  It's something that we've lost because now we've replaced humor with mockery.
[00:31:44]  Mockery is not humor.
[00:31:46]  I'm talking about real humor.
[00:31:49]  Humor also requires not taking yourself so seriously as well.
[00:31:54]  I mean, I make some jokes on the program.
[00:31:55]  I have to say, Dr. McDonald, I get emails, like angry emails, like, how dare you make fun of this?
[00:32:00]  I'm like, geez.
[00:32:01]  I mean, you're going to have to get a little bit uncomfortable at times for humor to be able to set it.
[00:32:07]  I think it's just a broader cultural problem.
[00:32:09]  Dr. McDonald, any closing thoughts on the book as we summarize this wonderful conversation?

=== Capitalizing On Our Fear (01:28) ===

[00:32:15]  Yes.
[00:32:16]  This book is not for America at large.
[00:32:20]  It's for you.
[00:32:21]  It's for you, the individual, whether you're afraid or not.
[00:32:23]  You know someone who is.
[00:32:25]  You know someone who is addicted to fear, someone who is in a rut, in a pattern, cannot get out of it, can't be humorous, can't see reality, narcissistic, doesn't know how to love, can't drop the dealer, all of these problems, maybe can't even acknowledge that there's anxiety and persistent fear.
[00:32:40]  This book is for you because it offers a guide and a stepwise way out of this problem.
[00:32:46]  And on a national level, if we can all work towards that, then we can remove the fear, which will allow us to express courage, which will allow us to start to think rationally and reasonably.
[00:32:57]  And we can fight back against this monolith that is taking over our lives.
[00:33:02]  And I believe that it is driven not just by irrationality, not just by desire for power, but it is driven by evil.
[00:33:09]  I believe that there is a diabolical force upon us that is capitalizing on our fear.
[00:33:14]  And if we can express courage, that is the greatest antithesis and oppositional force to evil.
[00:33:20]  That's so beautifully said.
[00:33:22]  Dr. McDonald, freedom from fear.
[00:33:24]  Thank you so much.
[00:33:24]  We'll have you back on soon.
[00:33:26]  Thanks a lot.
[00:33:29]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:33:31]  Email me your thoughts as always: freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:33:34]  Thanks so much for listening.
[00:33:35]  God bless.
[00:33:39]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.