Gen Z Christians, College Scams, and Church Censorship—LIVE Student Q+A from Flashpoint
Charlie is LIVE from FLASHPOINT LIVE in front of a group of students doing a rapid fire Q&A all about The College Scam. Charlie lays out his argument against college, and why generally college is a bad investment in 2022 America, putting the entire industry on trial. Other questions include: How do you identify RINOs? What is driving the rise in suicide among young people? What is Charlie's advice for young people who want to get into politics and why are young conservative candidates so much more conservative? What does Charlie recommend should happen for DACA kids? How should people effectively deal with censorship? How do we remove the stigma from discussing politics among Christians? And so much more! Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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The College Scam Explained00:06:43
Hey everybody, happy Sunday.
My back and forth with students at Flashpoint Live.
I talk a lot about my book, The College Scam.
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So enjoy this conversation with a bunch of students where I take questions and we get into it.
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Buckle up.
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.
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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.
That's why we are here.
Hey, everybody.
All right.
So this is rapid fire.
So Gabe and Tyler, we over this corner of the stage.
If you've got a question, go ahead and start moving over to this area if you've got a question.
But I want to start because I just read some of the college scam.
So tell us a little bit about that.
Tell us of the origin of the college scam and give us kind of a synopsis of what it looks like.
First, honor to be here.
Thank you, everybody, for spending your time on a weekend here.
We're going to have a lot of fun.
So yeah, I have a new book that just came out last week called The College Scam.
Just getting straight to the point.
I know a lot of you are high schooler soon-to-be college students, already college students.
But look, I say in the book that we have way too many people to went to college and that, I mean, I'm sure if I asked you how many of you know people that dropped out of college, all your hands would go up.
40% of people that enroll in college drop out.
And then on top of that, 41% of people that end up graduating, if they find a job, they'll find a job in a career that doesn't require a college degree.
And so it asks the question of why are we sending so many kids to four-year college in the first place?
I'm sure a lot of you say, well, my parents are making me or it's just kind of something I was guided to do.
Well, that's not a good reason to go borrow $200,000 to go fill your head with bad ideas to learn or hate yourself, hate the country, and believe there's no God.
That's actually a scam.
And so look, some people should go to college, obviously.
Nurse, doctor, lawyer, pick the best college you can, graduate as quickly as possible.
But we need more welders, electricians, carpenters, police officers, entrepreneurs, people that work with their hands.
But there's a problem with that, which is that if you don't go to college, I didn't, you're treated as if you're not the same sort of intelligence level, the same sort of ability to have a conversation.
We look down on people that don't go to college in America.
That's wrong.
I make the argument in the book that college is making our generation more miserable, more depressed, more anxious, more medicated, more alcohol-addicted, more drug-addicted, overweight, less likely to love America.
Besides that, it's a wonderful place.
And so, yeah, I mean, look, again, there's exceptions to all of it.
I'm sure some of you have wonderful college experiences.
Some of you have terrible college experiences.
What I do in the book is I talk about the moving average, right?
I don't talk about exceptions.
I talk about generally what's happening.
And that is a general truth, is that college has ripped so many kids off and have forced you to go into so many classes you don't want to take, to go to learn from professors who hate you, to teach you things that do not matter, that are completely opposite of what it means to live a flourishing and beautiful life.
And so I said we should have enough.
I mean, we shut down industries because there are scams all the time.
We shut down Bernie Madoff.
I think that colleges need to be investigated for running a RICO operation against our nation's young people.
I believe that if we're going to do any sort of form of student loan forgiveness, we should force the college to pay for the student loan forgiveness and get rid of their massive hundreds of billions of dollars endowments.
For example, if any of you go to the UT system, you know they're sitting on $55 billion in cash called the University of Texas Investment basically called UTIMCO endowment.
Why don't they pay for your tuition for a year instead of when you have to go to UT Arlington or UT Austin?
That's not fair.
That's a moral question.
So I'm happy to dive into that more.
Books out, college scam.
I put the entire college industry on trial.
And basically what I want to do is for those of you that know college is not the right decision for you, I want to encourage you and destigmify, basically, destigmatize, I should say, this idea of not going to college.
Everyone's different.
Everyone makes their own choices, but we shouldn't look down on people just because they don't have a very expensive piece of paper.
Absolutely.
That's good.
All right, we've got some questions over here.
Ty, this was our first question.
Give me a bunch of questions.
Give me your name.
I'm Jay Gordolani from Massachusetts.
Wow.
Yeah.
What is your question, Jay Gordalani?
I've noticed it's hard to distinguish rhinos from true Republicans.
So could you talk a little bit about how to just identify rhinos quicker?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So you just have to ask the question, basically, what time is it, right?
So if people are just kind of talking as if it's still the 1980s where stock market's going up and real estate's going up and they're unwilling to talk about the real issues concretely in front of us, then I think they want to go be a politician than actually go do something as a politician.
As a general rule, I think very low of politicians, quite honestly, whenever they come on my show, we always have some fun, respectfully, but rather directly, I guess you could say.
Why we're spending $56 billion on a proxy war in Ukraine is insane to me, while our nation's young people are literally killing themselves more than any other generation in American history.
And so I'm really tired of politicians kind of giving the same one soundbite and the same things over and over again.
So there's really some simple questions you can ask politicians, which is, do you think the southern border matters more than the Ukrainian-Russian border?
And if they're unwilling to answer that question, like you're a complete waste of time, actually.
And then finally, are you willing to use political power to improve the well-being of your voters?
That's a very simple question, which is who do you serve, right?
Do you serve some sort of special interest or do you actually serve your constituency?
I'm not pro-Republican at all.
Discipline Brings True Freedom00:03:20
I'm very conservative, but I think the Republican Party does a miserable job of representing younger voters.
Happy to talk about that more if you want.
Let me ask you this, because you mentioned that this generation is killing themselves at a higher level.
What do you think the cause of that is?
There's a spiritual decay, obviously, but this is kind of where it ties into my thesis of college.
We have the least religious, least church generation, least married generation, and we're on the verge of a population collapse.
And one of the things we've done more is we've sent our most prized possession, our young people, to go to college where they encourage godlessness.
They encourage a spiritually devoid lifestyle.
Now, some people have wonderful, enriched spiritual lives if they go to college, but in general, spirituality and religion and Christianity is frowned upon on most American universities.
In fact, pleasure is the ultimate goal on most American universities.
So that's one reason.
Number two, I think phones play a huge role in it.
I call it digital heroin.
I believe our smartphone.
I think we have the largest open-air drug experiment happening in human history right now.
And most parents and adults have no idea really what they've done by deploying 250 million devices in the hands of multiple young people, what it does to dopamine reactor, serotonin, the ability for the brain to form neurologically absent immediate interventions.
I myself turn my phone off from Friday to Saturday night.
I do my best to keep my screen time to 90 minutes a day.
It'll make you happier and less anxious, by the way.
I'm telling you, just a good rule for life.
These devices are designed to make you hate yourself.
That might sound like an over-exaggeration.
There's a reason why Steve Jobs didn't allow his kids to ever look at an iPad.
He knew what it was.
The creators of these devices don't allow any of their kids to look at them.
So that's one of the other reasons.
Number two, I think we're way over-medicated in America.
We push pills on kids that do not need them.
I believe ADD and ADHD is way overdiagnosed.
In fact, I very well could have been in that pool.
Just have a lot of energy, okay?
Kids figure it out.
You don't need to give Riddle in just because he wants to sit still.
The American education system is hyper-feminine.
I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but young boys have much more difficulty sitting still.
And they may be doing things that are much more involved than just sitting and listening to a teacher kind of drone on for eight hours a day.
So we're way too medicated.
We have 6 million kids, more or less, under the age of 18 on SSRIs or benzodiazepans or on Xanax or on Ritalin, which is some very, very powerful psychiatric drugs that kids are on.
And I think that's a huge problem over-prescribing that.
And then finally, we just have a massive cultural decay happening in our country where nihilism is kind of the kind of the fruit of the season, I guess you could say.
Nihilism is the belief that there is no beauty, no goodness, no truth, only pleasure.
And I think our leaders do a very poor job of articulating that there is an amazing life ahead of young people that does require discipline.
I believe discipline actually brings you to freedom.
That's a biblical principle.
And then, yeah, finally, we have an 18-year-old generation, 18 to 22 right now, which I know some of you are, that have been able to get everything they want whenever they want it, how they want it.
We're not designed that way.
So God designed us, I believe, to be able to exist in primitive conditions, to be in nature.
That actually means some days not getting exactly what you want, how you want it.
We have an entire generation that never has to really work or apply themselves through discipline.
Leaders Fail to Articulate Hope00:11:18
And your brains aren't wired for that.
You're actually supposed to have bad days.
You're supposed to go without an immediate dopamine rush of chocolate or pornography or whatever it might be that might be giving you that rush.
You are overheating your primitive brain that God designed.
And we wonder why 20-year-olds are killing themselves more than other generations in history.
So I wish politicians would talk about this stuff instead.
They're too busy sending money to Ukraine.
Next question.
That's good.
I was personally categorized with ADHD, and teachers would go crazy on me just because I wanted to have fun in life.
So I know exactly how that means.
I'm here with Ian.
What's your question?
As a 25-year-old, what would be your advice as somebody who wants to get into politics as in running for local offices or even higher offices?
Yeah, great question.
I fully support civic engagement.
You've got to do the tough work for at least a year.
So knock on doors.
You've got to show up at the local Republican meetings.
It drives me nuts when people are like, I want to be a social media influencer.
Like, yeah, you got to go knock on 100,000 doors before I take you seriously.
You know, that's how I got, that's how I cut my teeth in politics in the suburbs of Chicago.
You want to learn a lot about yourself?
Go knock on doors for a Republican conservative in the suburbs of Chicago and have to talk to people about it.
You learn a lot about your ideas, a lot.
You're like, I want to be famous.
Like, okay, no.
I mean, you're not going to make a difference.
You'll be actually super miserable.
Like, go do the work.
And then all of a sudden, you could realize that maybe I have something to say.
I have an experience worth sharing.
So that's what I would recommend.
And then if you really want to, here's the good thing about politics and the bad thing about politics.
The good thing is politics is a pure meritocracy.
No one cares who went to college.
No one cares.
All they care about is: are you willing to do the work?
Are you willing to apply yourself?
You know, all those sorts of things.
The bad thing about politics is that it's super nasty.
It could be devoid of purpose.
And so you just got to know that kind of going in.
So just apply yourself, do the work.
That's my recommendation.
And then just be willing to say yes to whatever people need help from.
So following that up, we were at the Student Action Summit last week, and several of us said, you did a panel with a few young politicians, some folks that are running for public office now.
What do you see in them that sets them apart, that is really pushing them to be successful in their constituencies and the places where they're running?
Yeah, so there were three candidates who were brought to you by Turning Point Action.
It was Anthony Sabatini, Anna Paulina, and Caroline Levitt.
They're all in their 20s or early 30s.
Well, first, obviously they're younger, so that really interests me.
That means they're looking at data differently.
They understand the sense of urgency where we're kind of sitting on this generational time bomb, where I'm so sick and tired, no offense to anyone in the audience, of baby boomers telling young people, just work harder.
Yeah, okay, you shut down the entire country for two years and forced an experimental gene therapy called a vaccine on us.
Made us wear masks all the time.
I know everything's three times as more expensive than it was before the lockdown.
Like we're working really hard.
Actually, we're getting poorer because you decided to go print $7 trillion we don't have and then go point your finger at young people.
Like maybe you should sit this one out for maybe a couple of years.
And so, yeah, that's one thing they understand is that Anthony Sabatini, Caroline Levitt, Anna Paulina, from a conservative perspective, I think understand the generational tension that exists.
And we should have respect for our elders, of course.
With that being said, there are challenges facing this generation that humanity has never faced before.
And the answer is not the Green New Deal or open borders, whatever AOC talks about.
Answer should always point towards virtue and goodness and things that are always true.
Like getting married and having children, like going to church, like having a fulfilling relationship with your creator.
That's what excites me about those candidates, right?
They want to put their constituents first.
They're willing to talk about these generational implications.
And I just don't get that from a lot of other candidates.
They're like, well, what we need is lower taxes.
Like, okay, that's fine.
You need to make money in order for people to actually care about lower taxes.
And this generation can't pay the rent.
They can't afford Netflix or Hulu, let alone buy a second home in Lake Travis, okay?
Like, maybe we should worry about how to get this generation richer.
And that's not through the kind of what we've been doing the last couple decades.
So that's good.
Next question.
We've got a question from Christian.
Yes.
How can you have a democracy or republic without a moral society?
Or can you?
And if you can't, how do you expect to change it without the education system?
Such a smart question.
So we're not a democracy, but we do have elements of a democracy.
The difference between a democracy and a republic are super important.
People say we're a democracy.
We're not.
A democracy means by a yes or no vote, the population could take rights away from the minority.
That is not the way a republic works.
A republic is that there are things that are always true that are built into your system, built on wisdom, built on prudence, built on tradition.
For example, freedom of speech, freedom to defend yourself, freedom of privacy from the government.
A democracy, you'd be able to have an up or down vote, 51%, and say, you know what, these people shouldn't be able to talk.
So that's just a super important distinction.
But you're right.
You actually said both.
So to your credit.
We are verging on the edge of unsustainability as a civilization.
Our entire system of government was built for a moral and righteous people.
In fact, John Adams said that.
He said the Constitution was written wholly for a moral and religious people.
It's completely inadequate for the society of any other.
I'm paraphrasing the second part of the quote.
And that's really important.
So think about it.
We have a system that relies on self-government.
Hey, Lance, how are you doing?
And that without the ability for people to govern themselves, then all of a sudden you're going to want a bigger and bigger government to kind of come in and then make decisions for you.
So, for example, self-government is great if you have strong families.
So, a strong family is the greatest hedge against big government.
If you think about it, right?
Your aunt might be able to help you guys pay for rent one month, or if someone gets sick, you could take care of one another.
Disconnected, smaller families invite government into your life, right?
And so, it makes it easier all of a sudden to take your liberties away and your freedoms away.
And so, without the education system, here's what we have to do: we have to start to build new things.
That's what we're trying to do at Turning Point USA.
We're doing it at Turning Point Academy, TPUSA Faith.
You guys are doing it wonderfully here at The Bridge and at Flashpoint, which is, okay, we don't control the government schools.
We know that we're in this deficit.
Then, we have to channel our entrepreneurial creative activity to be able to build ambitious and bold and new things, which is more schools, larger families, bigger churches, more ministries.
So, this is a debate that goes on in Christian circles a lot, which is where does eschatology play a role in this?
Lance and I have had this discussion before.
Look, some people are pre-trib, some people are post-trib, right?
Some people focus on Romans 1 and they think it's all happening right now.
It might be true, right?
So, I'm pan-trib.
It's all going to pan out in the end.
But I say that jokingly by Jesus said, occupy till he comes.
And I do not think our eschatology can be an excuse not to build new, ambitious, and bold things.
In fact, the time and the hour is unknown.
Jesus is very clear about that.
In fact, he says only God knows the time or the hour.
It's a mystery.
We should look for the signs of the times as he commands us.
But I think some Christians get into this: hey, the house is on fire.
Let's get our kids out.
It's the end times, which is, well, why don't you put the fire out and go build a bigger fire-resistant house and do whatever you possibly can for right now?
It's tempting to want to run to the hills and be like, Jesus is going to zap me up soon.
You might be right, but then Jesus says, What do you want to be caught doing?
Right?
And paraphrase, that's essentially what he said: is do you want to be caught running away from the problem or leaning into the problem?
Right?
So, that's something if Christians, and my personal opinion, I think, came to kind of a peace agreement on our eschatology, which is we can have those debates.
I'm not the person to talk about that, right?
You could talk to a theologian or pastor.
The more operative question is, what do you do regardless?
Build.
You empower young people.
And if every Christian church got that mentality, we could take this country back for virtue and righteousness in one generation.
Thank you.
So, talking about, great answer.
Talking about churches and the decay of church and what that looks like, how do you think that a global pandemic for two years affected specifically Generation Z and their engagement with religious communities and specifically with Christian churches?
Such a good question.
And so, we have to talk about this properly.
So, there's a pandemic and then there's our reaction to the pandemic.
So, some people say, you know, this pandemic really hurt young people.
No, it didn't.
Actually, it's how you reacted to the pandemic that hurt young people.
We acted imprudently, we acted immaturely, we acted ahistorically in a way where all of a sudden, for the first time in human history that I can think of, the older generation decided to sacrifice the young for their own well-being.
That is so perverse, everybody.
Where it's like, let's shut down schools because they might infect grandma.
Like, okay, I don't want grandma to be infected.
Maybe they could have nine months where they just Zoom with each other.
What's more important?
Have kids go to school than shut down the entire society.
And so, what's the reaction to that?
I mean, every marker of a, let's say, society that's going in the wrong direction is up.
Every single one, I went through it.
Depression is up, psychiatric medication is up, prescriptions are up, suicide is up, violent crime is up.
And then, what are the things that we actually care about that are down?
Marriage rates are down, you know, childbirth is down, and I don't want to blame it all on the lockdowns, but it played a huge role.
What we did was the worst combination, which said, okay, we're going to lock down the entire society and then have kids stare at their screens all day long.
And then, you know what's so interesting to me, and this is completely anecdotal.
I love your guys' thoughts, is that when I go to airports, more young people are wearing masks than older people.
Is that this spirit of fear?
I don't know if you guys agree or not, but at least that's been my experience.
This spirit of fear has infected these young people.
And what's so interesting, and I'm stereotyping right now, and that's...
You shouldn't do that, but I'm going to do it anyway, which is that the type of people that are there, I'm like, you don't even love life.
Like, you hate your life and you're worried to die.
Like, how can you end up...
And again, but it's just kind of an overgeneralization, but at least when I went to Berkeley, these people are telling me through their masks, life is terrible.
It's awful.
Like, don't infect me.
Man, that's so weird, right?
And it's an idea pathogen no different than the virus itself, which is, look, life involves risk.
Okay?
Driving here is a risk.
Being around people is a risk.
You could all get a virus.
When did we ever tell a generation that you can saran wrap yourself where two masks when you shower and somehow that's going to prevent you from infection?
Look, let me be very clear.
For some people, COVID is something you should worry about, right?
And if you're super overweight and you're old and you have underlying health conditions, but then what we did was the worst possible thing, which is we suppressed all of the information on how to treat it.
And then we said, oh yeah, just go get the vaccine.
I mean, how many times is Joe Biden going to get COVID?
Like 42 times?
Well, you know, maybe this is not the best thing for it.
You get COVID twice in a week.
And by the way, all of the treatments, like, I don't know, vitamin D and a baby aspirin or ivermectin or azithromycin, which, by the way, you all know that they work because you've seen friends that actually use those interventions.
Enforcing Laws Equally Matters00:02:45
And I know I've seen it actually save people's lives completely suppressed from the top down.
So my one hope for this entire thing is that it leads to a I'll never forget moment of people that are like, you know what?
I'm going to be able to invest in self-government.
I'm not going to trust these people anymore.
But it's done unbelievable damage to this generation.
So there's one or two ways we can handle it.
It's really quick.
We can play this generation as a bunch of victims.
Like we deserve free stuff.
We're terrible.
Or we're going to say, you know what?
Now we're going to be in charge.
We want to be empowered.
We want to live a beautiful and true life and a life in pursuit of beauty and truth.
And we're going to never forget this.
And we're going to build something meaningful because of it.
So good.
You guys got a question?
I'm here with Kenneth.
Hey, so I have a question about citizenship.
For the students that are on DACA and anyone else that has come over illegally but had families or had children here, what do you recommend the path to citizenship would be?
Yeah, I'm going to say something that will be a thought crime.
None.
So I believe they should be nicely sent back to the country of origin.
And some people say that's harsh and insensitive.
Well, then what laws do you not want to currently enforce then?
The law is transparent, must be public, and it must be enforced.
They were brought, I would say, almost kidnapped across the border by people that illegally came into our country.
They knew they were breaking the law when they did that.
And so a citizenship law must be applied equally, and dare I say equitably.
And look, let me give you an example.
If someone comes from Tokyo to San Francisco and overstays their visa, do they have a moral right to stay here?
No, of course not.
We have laws.
They're well publicized.
I don't think we should have had in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.
I don't think we should have had driver's license for illegal immigrants.
And, you know, some, if I were to go to Switzerland and just say, you know, I overstay my visa and I should stay here, they'd deport you immediately.
We're the only country in the world where your location is somehow correlated with your quote-unquote citizenship.
Now, some people say, well, Charlie, how does that correlate with your Christian values, right?
Well, it's very clear that when you're designing laws around who's in your country, assimilation is operative, right?
And if you do not enforce the law equally, as it says very clearly in Leviticus, by the way, you favor no one, the rich man or the poor one, when it comes to administration of the law.
And so that's how I stand on this.
But let me say one final thing, which is that when we talk about immigration, you must always ask the question, which is, does it benefit the country at large, right?
And people will say, well, Charlie, by no fault of their own, they are here.
Okay, then you can go back and reapply for citizenship like the Vietnamese.
or the Indians or the Chinese have to do.
And so that's my position on that.
I think we've way moved the Overton window on immigration in this country to the detriment of the rule of law.
Censorship Silences Your Voice00:03:53
Thank you.
That's good.
Next question.
I actually have a question.
Oh, go ahead.
So how do you deal, or anything people should deal with censorship?
As you have all these platforms, you're speaking this stuff.
But I interviewed Dr. Stella, who came out during the pandemic, and she had the thing about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
If you post her, you get banned.
Like if you post the truth, you get banned.
So how do you, what alternative ways are there to get the message out there?
Because censorship is real.
Yeah, there's new platforms that are emerging that I think are really exciting that allow kind of free speech and discussion to happen.
But this is happening so much.
And I mean, we did this whole thing on ivermectin and we got shut down.
And look, part of it is that we have to go build new platforms, support platforms like Rumble, support all these kind of new channels.
I think it's super important.
And so Truth Social or Getter and all these other ones.
But I'll say one other thing about censorship, which is they need censorship to be able to control us.
Absent censorship, I believe 90% of their power completely deteriorates, truly.
And so it also begs the question, which is who, how afraid are they of our ideas that they have to try to go and shut us up?
By the way, it's not just on the COVID stuff, right?
It's on a multitude of other issues.
I mean, James Lindsay just got shut down from Twitter for saying, okay, groomer, right?
No, my favorite is that the Twitter account Days Against Groomers got shut down, which, by the way, you know, I fully support that movement of, you know, people in the homosexual community say, you know, we don't support grooming of children.
Twitter's like, no, there's no place for dissent.
That's interesting.
And so how do you push back against it?
You got to go to other platforms and try to navigate the rules as silly as they are.
That's good.
Next question.
Bouncing off of that.
What would you say to the censorship of everyone afraid themselves of the culture surrounding them?
Like people that aren't even on platforms like ourselves.
Sure.
Yeah, and this is something that probably applies to a lot of you in this room, which is censorship, the most cruel form of censorship happening in America is you shutting up you.
And that happens every day.
So forget Facebook, forget Google, that's all bad.
But I'm sure there's some people in this room that you're like, boy, if someone found out I was listening to this speech at my job, I would get fired.
Like just showing up to a speech or someone like, boy, if they found out I was a conservative or a Christian.
And so what I want for our nation's young people is what I have, which is I get to be the same person in public that I am in private.
You know, someone said, you know, Charlie, what are your private thoughts?
I'm like, you're hearing all of them, right?
I get to be the exact same person.
Not everyone has that ability because of the threat of termination, the threat of losing friends.
And so I believe you actually take power away from the censors.
This is one of the things why I refuse to apologize or back down unless it's something I actually did wrong, which people say all the time.
They say, you know, Charlie, do you apologize for this remark?
People are really fired up about it.
Well, no, I mean, I'm sorry to some extent that they are so weak in that way, but I'm not sorry I said it, right?
I hope they get stronger.
If I said something wrong, that I really reflect on and pray about.
But you shouldn't shut yourself up just because someone gets triggered, everybody.
You've got to stop doing that.
I don't know if you're doing that or not, but if any of you are.
And some of you, look, you have to be prudent about it, right?
Some of you are probably saying, I'd get fired from my job immediately if I said something like this.
Yeah, look, you got to put food on the table, you got to pay rent.
I understand all that.
But long term, try to find a career where you can be that person that is openly able to speak out because you will be a deeply troubled person at a fundamental level if you always have to worry about who's listening to you.
So there's plenty of jobs out there.
There's careers where you could do that.
That would be my recommendation.
So my big censorship regime I'm trying to stop is people shutting up themselves.
That's great.
That's good.
Power back to yourself.
I'm here with Andy.
And what's your question?
Christians Must Care About Politics00:04:06
So, as a young adult pastor, I want to know how to awaken my generation to make talking about politics in church not taboo, that they would much rather leave it to the government and stay neutral.
What would be your advice on that?
Yeah, it's a great question.
So I believe we as Christians are commanded to care about our political leaders and to care about politics.
It says very clearly in Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29, 7, demand the welfare of the nation that you are in because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.
That's the Lord speaking.
And also, and so some pastors will say, hey, look, we don't do politics around here.
You know, nowhere in the Bible does it say we should get involved in politics.
Well, I'll just give you that one verse.
But also, would they get rid of Daniel, Mordecai, Jeremiah, Esther, not to mention Nehemiah, all the figures of the Old Testament that try to influence secular government for God's purpose?
We are called to be counselors to the king.
And so then some people say, well, I don't do politics.
And you have to ask a question, which is, well, do you do morality?
Well, no, I don't do morality.
Okay, then you're not a pastor.
Get out of the way.
Because very clearly, the Bible talks about things that are right and that are wrong, things that are good and that are evil.
And so where does, if you expect politicians and politics to do things that are good, by what definition of good are you using?
The secular humanist definition of good, where they think it's okay to expose yourself to eight-year-old children or to chemically castrate 11-year-olds?
If not Christians, then who will influence the government?
And they say, well, you know, we all kind of have a definition of what good is.
That is rubbish.
You do not know a line is crooked if you do not have a straight line to compare it to.
The Bible is the source of all agreed-upon morality in Western civilization.
You go to any other country, go to India for an afternoon, and this idea of private property, of the weak being protected by the strong, they have no such tradition in that civilization.
Only a spoiled, privileged generation could believe that.
Well, everyone believes stuff like this.
I mean, come on, it's natural.
No, it's not.
It's not natural to say that someone with strength should go out of their way to protect someone that isn't as strong.
That is a bedrock biblical principle.
It's built into all of our laws here in Western civilization.
It's not actually in India, for example, they have an entire class called the Untouchables, of which you are allowed to not administer medical care if you don't want to.
In America, we have built in our tradition that everyone receives medical care regardless of your income level if you walk into a hospital.
Where did that law come from exactly?
And if you study biblical principles in Western civilization, you recognize that we are the recipients of Christians caring.
55 out of 56 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Bible-believing church-attending Christians.
The first great awakening led to the founding of America from Wesley to Edwards to Whitfield.
And so now we are the privileged Christians that get to say, thanks for your sacrifice, Christians that stormed Normandy Beach.
Now I'm going to choose not to care.
That is the opposite of being a good steward as Christ commands us to be.
So I would just lean right into it as a pastor.
The more controversial, the better.
I would just say, like, hey, what do you guys think about homosexuality?
What does the Bible say?
What do you guys think about transgenderism?
Always go back to the Bible as your source.
Now, let me be clear.
Politics is not the most important thing a pastor should be talking about.
I say this all the time.
The most important thing that you focus on is the gospel of Jesus Christ and getting people into heaven.
That is number one.
Now, the second most important thing, in my opinion, is to make sure you can do the first thing.
To make sure that the church never gets locked down again.
To make sure that strip clubs don't remain open, get Easter service gets deemed and demonized.
I'll give you an example of how twisted our culture is.
And if this offends somebody, you're in the right place, I guess, because you need to hear this, right?
Which is, why is it that we called Christian super spreaders when they had Easter and Pentecost, yet we can't say gay orgies are the super spreader of monkeypox in San Francisco?
Oh, we're not allowed to say that.
Like, you shut down Easter in 2020 and called past, you arrested pastors across the country, and you're now trying to lock us down for monkeypox.
Newsflash, I'm not worried about getting about getting monkeypox, okay, at all.
Canada Warns Against Gun Control00:08:14
Okay?
I'm good.
And people say, well, that's insensitive.
Okay, if you're going to gay orgies and you want to shut down our country, my patience is negative with you, actually, okay?
And we should be able to say that out loud.
And that they came and shut down the church for six to nine months and persecuting our religious freedoms, that will definitely get some conversation in your youth.
Lean in.
The Bible is clear about what is right and what is wrong.
And there might be some murkiness where people say, well, what does the Bible say about economics?
We can help you through all that.
But here's where the Bible is clear.
God created man and woman.
Life begins at conception.
And that the church is essential.
If we can't get those three things right and the church remains silent on that, then I'm afraid we don't deserve the liberty that we're the recipient of.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Next question.
Oh no, we haven't any info.
Hi, I'm from Canada.
So there's nothing like turning point, you're saying in Canada.
So how can I make a difference?
Or is there a way to make a difference?
What part of Canada are you from?
I'm from British Columbia.
Sure.
Yeah, Vancouver area.
Yeah.
Yeah, so is there a way to make a difference without becoming a social media influencer or a politician?
Yeah, look, boy, you got to get rid of Trudeau.
That guy's got to go.
I'm telling you.
I know you want to.
Canada is a, first of all, God bless you for being here.
I have such a soft spot for Canadians.
But I'll be honest, never has a polite people been treated so terribly.
Let me tell you, that's my whole kind of thesis statement.
They are the politest, nicest people on the planet that are literally running by a guy I think probably is either biologically or metaphorically connected to Castro.
I mean, it's so close what they're doing.
What they did to the truckers was so unconscionable.
So I'll get to kind of what you can do in a second, which is similar to actually my advice to some Americans.
But Canada is an unbelievably beautiful country that I actually think, and this is my current argument, I think your politeness is being taken advantage of by your leaders.
We as Americans don't actually get described as polite very often, which I'll never understand how a country so influenced by French people could be polite.
I never understood that.
Because the French are definitely not polite.
This whole thing is bizarre to me.
But I'll say this, though, that Canadians are going through this kind of, I think, reckoning moment where they're asking, what exactly kind of a country do we have?
Who's in charge of here?
So the best advice I have to you is you have to think like a dissident in your own country.
And so this is actually probably going to be one of my next books.
I don't know when, which is, we don't talk about what it means to be a dissident.
Now, guess what, Americans?
We have to think like dissidents too, because we're no longer in the majority either.
They control every major institution.
We might have more people that agree with us, but they control the FBI, Harvard, New York Times, the tech companies, the major corporations.
And so when you're a dissident, you have to always kind of just be like, how do I expand my ranks?
How do I not go to jail?
That's important, right?
As Willessa famously said, who brought down the Soviet Union in Poland, he said, we have enough martyrs.
What we need is victories.
This is what always bought to your censorship question.
When people are like, oh, they say that I can't talk about hydroxychloroquine, I'm going to do it and get banned.
That's so dumb.
Okay?
Like, okay, you know the rules.
I know the rules are silly.
Work around them, okay?
We have enough people that have been banned and censored.
We have enough martyrs for martyrs' sake, okay?
In Canada, it's going to be an uphill fight.
But I will say this: the rural parts of Canada, I think, are your best place to start.
There's so much fight left in the Canadian people.
I know it.
But here's the one thing that I would pray for and fast for, because it says in the Bible to pray and fast for your nation.
Pray for a legitimate, charismatic Canadian church hill.
You guys get one leader, you could take back that country.
Your opposition party is a joke.
I mean, they have no charisma.
I don't think very much wisdom.
If you have a legitimately magnanimous guy, maybe it's Orleary from Shark Tank.
I don't know.
He was thinking about doing it.
That government could topple.
No, no, okay.
That Trudeau's government is built on a house of cards.
And it is built largely, in my personal opinion, on the lack of an opposition party.
You get one guy or gal that really, maybe it's you, that really gets it, then I think that entire government could be taken over favorably.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Do you think Canada represents a picture of where America could be heading 10 years from now?
Like the current case America's at?
Yes, I mean, in many ways.
I mean, what they're doing to Pastor Archer Pavlovsky is unbelievable.
I don't know if you guys know about that.
They arrested that pastor on the side of the street.
That wasn't far from you, right?
Was that in Alberta or something?
I don't know where it was.
It was 17 hours.
Just a couple time zones.
So it wasn't Prince Edward Island, okay?
I know a little bit.
There's a far away.
But I will say, though, that, yes, it is the playbook they're trying to use.
What did they do?
They took over the central banks.
They unified the currency.
They literally shut down people's bank accounts if they donated to the truck or convoy, arresting pastors on the side of the street.
No place for dissent.
Thankfully, this is why all of you should give a prayer of thanks to our founding fathers.
Our Constitution is far better than the Canadian Constitution.
It has robust protections for speech.
And also, the founding fathers were so unbelievably smart, which is that our states created the federal government.
The federal government didn't create the states, which makes it harder for a federal takeover.
The Canadian model, if Ottawa says it, it basically gets applied.
Now, there's some provincial differences, but it really is kind of a one-size-fits-all top-down deal.
In America, there's a lot of nuance.
And by the way, that actually keeps us more prosperous and peaceful.
The fact that, okay, if New York wants to do something wacky, but don't bring it to Texas, that actually keeps us from actually getting to a more radical moment, if that makes sense.
But they're trying to do the opposite.
So the Canadian story is unfortunately a blueprint of what I think they're trying to bring here.
That's good.
Next question.
I'm here with Joel.
So my question is: last week, the House passed a bill basically banning all semi-automatic firearms.
And do you think that that has any chance of actually passing in the Senate?
And if so, what would be their plans to follow up?
Because you don't just disarm a populace for no reason.
I think we know why they're disarming the population.
Canadians don't have guns, and that's why they can push them around so much, right?
You have to keep it in a locker or something.
It's the craziest thing.
Now, this is not a popular argument for people to make, so I'll definitely make it because I'm not a politician.
Which is an armed citizenry is able to keep their other freedoms a lot easier than a disarmed citizenry.
Which is the Second Amendment protects all your other amendments.
Now, some people say, Charlie, what are you going to fight the government?
No, it actually prevents conflict from happening.
And I'll give you a couple examples.
And so, by the way, every founding father wrote about the Second Amendment.
They said that this is the amendment that will make the potential tyrants shake and quiver in fear of taking your liberties and freedoms away.
And by the way, do we have to look at any?
The 20th century, if properly studied, which they don't teach in our schools, is one example of the other of taking guns and firearms away and destroying a civilization or population.
And so the Second Amendment, in my personal opinion, is instrumental to all the other freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom of private property, freedom of privacy, from the government, freedom of speech, all these other things.
So we know why they're trying to disarm the population.
But think about the annexation of Hong Kong.
Okay, you might remember that a couple years ago, where the Chinese Communist Party came into Hong Kong and obliterated them altogether.
By the way, Hong Kong basically doesn't exist anymore.
It's now called the South Region of Shushen or something.
They just eliminated Hong Kong.
Very Orwellian, by the way.
They just removed all the names to it.
The CCP completely took over Hong Kong at the 100-year anniversary of the treaty of the British Empire controlling it.
Remember all those freedom fighters of Hong Kong in the streets?
Imagine if every one of those freedom fighters had an AR-15 around their back.
Not using it, but just the threat of an AR-15.
The Chinese Communist Party would not have treated it like a hostage situation like they did.
It would have been a negotiation.
You see, tyrants, they are afraid of people being able to defend themselves.
Do I have to look further than the Soviet Union or Pol Pot in Cambodia or what happened with the National Socialist Workers' Party in Germany?
The point that I'm getting at here is that if we allow them to take our guns away, then other freedoms will follow.
Uvalde Demands Political Action00:03:53
It's not a popular argument.
And by the way, the Second Amendment's not for self-defense.
It's not for hunting deer.
It's not even for riot control if something happens.
No, it is unfortunately and tragically to say out loud, but it's true.
God forbid our government tries to come after us.
You have to be able to defend yourself.
And human history shows that there's a pattern and a habit to do that.
Okay, to answer your question, no, I don't think it will pass in the Senate.
What your senator in Texas here, John Cornyn, has been doing with gun control legislation confounds me and confuses me.
I think it's a big mistake.
We all mourn for the lives lost in Uvalde, Texas.
But let me be very clear.
As many kids died in Uvalde, Texas, not because of gun laws, but unfortunately because police officers who were well trained that had the guns at their disposal did not have the courage to act.
Now, we don't know if no one would have died, but the evidence shows the hour of time that was bought for that maniac, that scum, and that villain was because of the inaction of a lot of the police officers in Uvalde, Texas.
And it's despicable and reprehensible.
So, no, I don't think it's going to pass, but we've got to keep our eyes on what Congress is trying to do.
Liberty is not safe while Congress is in session.
So, wrapping up, because we're going to get into the arena for Flashpoint Live, anything that we've got a group of really 18 to 30 year olds is the target here.
So, what is something that kind of a last word that you want them to know?
How to mobilize, how to get them involved and engaged in what's going on in our nation?
Sure, I have a podcast.
If you guys want to follow it, we do three podcasts a day, also three hours of radio day.
We work really hard on that stuff, so you guys can check it out, Charlie Kirk Show.
If you're on a college campus or in high school, get involved with Turning Point USA or TPUSA Faith.
It's tpusa.com.
And the final thing is here, for my Canadian neighbors, this will apply a little bit less to them, but I'll broaden it.
Western civilization, how about that?
Is a gift from the Lord.
There is a beautiful life ahead of all of us.
There's a fulfilling life ahead of you.
It's going to require political involvement.
It's going to require hard truths.
And by the way, I don't expect that you agree with everything I said today, but clarity is far more important than agreement, okay?
That fake agreement ruins a civilization.
Clarity is what allows a civilization to continue.
You might have disagreements.
That's beautiful.
That's what makes life rich.
If you agree with everything I said, then what would be the purpose of even having dialogue?
What I can't stand is when people act as if they agree with something when they know deep down it's not true or right.
That is actually a form of self-type.
I actually think it's a form of torture that you do to yourself, right?
Like, I'm going to force myself to believe in this stuff, even though you know it's not true.
Finally, I'll just kind of say this as marching orders, which is, I hope this speaks to somebody here, which is some of you right now need to hear this message, which is a bold move out of the current profession or school or habit that you're in to go towards something that is in the pursuit of Christ and righteousness and liberty.
If you're all of a sudden like boy, that was me.
Where if I have to be somebody different in my apartment than I am in public, then go take that step of boldness because I'm telling you, you will be a happier and more joyful person because of that.
Always put Jesus first in everything you do, and then, but do not forsake, I'm telling you, do not forsake this fight for the natural law, for the structure of government.
Don't turn your back on it.
I know it could be messy, I know it could be murky, I know it can all of a sudden be like, ah, I'm not that interested in it.
But if we don't care about this, the bad guys are going to create our country into something totally unrecognizable.
If you have questions, good, ask those questions.
If you don't have total clarity, ask people that do or that are able to kind of bring you towards that.
But that is not an excuse to be apathetic or cynical or not involved.
It's now up to us, our generation, to save this beautiful Western civilization experiment, which is led mostly because of America.
Let's stay engaged and stay involved, everybody.
God bless you guys.
Thank you so much.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email me your thoughts.
It's always freedom at charliekirk.com.
Thanks so much for listening.
God bless.
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