Is "North" Just an Opinion? LIVE from Classical Conversations with Q+A
Charlie speaks at the Classical Conversations national event at Arizona Community Church to a room full of home schooling parents, students, and their supporters. Charlie issues a full-throated defense of home schooling, explaining why an America that gets farther away from God is an America that gets farther away from its Founders, its true commission and national mission statement. How did the country become untethered from objective truth? is two and two, four? Is north just an opinion? Can men give birth? How do you commit arson to the greatest civilization ever to exist? Charlie dives into all of it and then takes a live Q+A that you can't miss. 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
|
Time
Text
Compass in the Chaos00:14:11
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country.
He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
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.
Hello, everybody.
How are you all doing?
Great to be here.
Happy Friday.
And homeschoolers, do you guys celebrate Fridays?
That's a joke.
That's a homeschooling joke, by the way.
See, Don there.
How are you doing?
Great American patriot, fellow Scotsman.
So I want to apologize in advance.
I'm a little sleep-deprived.
That's what happens when you have a newborn.
So we just welcomed New Baby into the world.
So if I miss words or don't make sense, that's why.
So I just want to say how much I appreciate the Jensen family.
They're so amazing.
They do such a fabulous job of caring about their community and caring about other people.
And introduced me to Classical Conversations, which I've always been a huge advocate for homeschooling.
And I see it exploding across the country.
And we had the head of Classical Conversations, Lee, on our show, and she did such a wonderful job of articulating everything that you are doing.
And the best way I could say this is when you get older, I think you'll realize how special it is what you actually have.
And I know you're probably tired of hearing that.
So I'm going to tell you that as someone who is not as old as your parents, that how awesome the classical conversations actually is and how rare it is and how exceptional that education actually is.
Because the vast majority of people that are even sometimes being homeschooled, but not all the time, have no comprehension of the ideas, the values that you are learning every single day through the classical method.
And it will equip you to be a complete human being, mind, body, and soul, not just one of those dimensions that kind of the government schools or all these other places are kind of putting you towards.
So I want to just talk a little bit here, then we'll do some questions.
Which, who here was there last time when we talked back in January?
Okay, awesome.
Not that many.
That's actually good.
So we'll have an opportunity to, you know, say some things for some people that haven't kind of heard some of these ideas before.
But I felt like we didn't have enough time for questions last time, so we'll do some questions there.
So I'll just kind of ask a hypothetical question.
What if, coming to this event, we all had different definitions of what North was?
I want you to think about what that would look like.
If all of us had a different definition of what North was, would we ever be able to find ourselves to events like this, go grocery shopping, be able to fly airplanes, build society?
Now, of course, all of you would say, of course not.
No, that would be silly.
It'd be foolish.
It'd be suicidal for a civilization to have your own definition of North.
Well, that's exactly what's happening right now.
Is that we're deciding to enter into the national discourse, into the philosophical paradigm, this idea of if you have your own opinion of directional objective truth.
And you could call this deconstructionism, postmodernism, post-relativism, but really the struggle of what's going on in America right now, educationally in particular, and you'll see this if any of you end up going to college or government schools, is what is truth, what is real, and what is good, what is beautiful.
Obviously, good, true, and beautiful being the three pillars of what is classical education.
But if you just kind of boil it down, what does a society look like if anyone or anyone is able to determine what is true?
You could say it's chaos, but it's worse than chaos because the chaos won't last.
Because someone who then promises order, who's not a very good person, will then bring some sort of momentary kind of calm to that.
We call that person a dictator, a tyrant, or a despot.
The point is this, is that in society today, we are telling people, young people in particular, that you can find your own truth, you can chart your own path forward, and that you, you, you, are the most important thing in the world.
And that is such garbage and nonsense to be teaching this entire generation.
It really isn't about you very much.
It's about God, it's about your family, it's about service.
And then eventually you can start worrying actually about yourself.
I believe we have, in my personal opinion, the most depressed, anxious generation in history for a lot of different reasons.
One of the reasons is we're telling the next generation to always be thinking about themselves.
It's always about themselves.
How do you feel?
Actually, it's not the most important question.
You know what the more important question is?
What are you doing for other people?
It's actually a much more important question to ask a 10-year-old than how do you feel in this particular moment?
They might be cranky, actually, because they need a Snickers, or they need a nap.
Actually, it's okay not to feel okay all the time.
The question is, what are you doing?
That's way more important than how do you feel.
We have an entire generation that is being told you're feeling how your emotion that particular moment is far more important than what you're doing.
Now, I'm not saying that feelings are always unimportant.
God gave us the ability to feel emotions.
That's incredibly important, obviously.
But the question is, is that the most important thing?
And the answer is, of course, absolutely not.
So the way we design society and the way that we have a worldview, and the question is, what is a worldview?
Is the compass of which you're going to orient all the other decisions for the rest of your life?
And so a worldview basically is the way that you're able to interpret the very confusing map of life to make a decision about every single type of issue.
Some that are controversial and some that are not so controversial.
Not controversial ones of what am I going to eat?
Am I going to exercise?
You know, more important ones, you know, am I going to marry?
Who am I going to marry?
Am I going to have children?
Or the ones that sometimes get confusing for people.
How do I stand on issues like abortion or marriage, faith?
Should I go to church?
All of this comes back to this idea of the compass.
Do you believe that there is a north?
And do you believe that north changes based on conditions?
And so if you're in the middle of a hurricane, you're in the middle of a tsunami, is it still, is North still North?
Yes.
Regardless of when people are screaming at you, regardless when people are saying things at you, what is true is always true, regardless of the conditions around you.
The world would have you believe outside of the amazing education all of you receive that things change based on circumstances.
They base, you know, truth changes based on somebody's own experience.
The danger of this, I cannot understate the danger of this.
It's really, quite honestly, satanic in nature.
But, you know, we can debate about that if you disagree, but it's just, it's just true biblically, is that what's the first thing Satan did in Genesis?
He said, did God really tell you that?
Is that really true?
Is that really the word of God?
He is the best at making you doubt what you know is true.
He says, he's an expert at it, constantly making you question.
Now, questioning can be very helpful and important, but getting your place, getting to a place where your worldview is based on doubt, that's not okay.
It's a totally different thing.
You see, it's okay to have legitimate questions.
We're going to do that in a second.
But you know what's different?
Their entire worldview is putting doubt above truth.
It's a very big difference.
Their worldview is to say, everything you've been taught is a lie.
You know what our world of view is?
I want to find out what is true.
That's a big difference.
So they're not about pursuing truth.
What do I mean by they?
You could put any label you want on that.
It could be atheist, humanist, collectivists, postmodernists, deconstructionists.
How about this?
The people who believe men can become pregnant.
Okay?
Those people.
You might say, well, Charlie, that's a fringe view.
No, it's not.
It's a view held by your White House right now.
Your White House stated policy says that we will no longer say that women can become pregnant.
They are pregnant people.
And they say, if you dare say that only women can become pregnant, that is hate speech, transphobic, all this nonsense.
So the question is, is North North, can only women become pregnant?
Yes.
So why is that we've lost our collective mind?
Two reasons.
Number one, we've become way too secular as a country.
We forgot that without God, there is no wisdom, period.
If there's only one thing you remember for the rest of your life, you could just write it down and just look at it and just say, wow, that tall guy spoke on a Friday night really fast, but I do remember he said, without God, there is no wisdom.
In fact, let me go a step further.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.
You want to know why there's no wisdom anymore in our society?
Remove God from everything.
From our colleges, our universities, our high schools, our government agencies, our bureaucracies.
We kicked God out of everything.
We're wondering why the pebble of nonsense is reigning our entire world.
And we should be unafraid to say that.
And in fact, people sometimes kind of walk around.
I don't want to offend anybody.
Listen, I believe this firmly.
You cannot be a Christian without offending somebody.
Period.
And some people, and there's a lot of people, you might disagree with that.
That's fine.
Go read in the book of Luke where Jesus said, I came here not to unite but divide.
What do you do with that verse?
The truth could be hard for people to hear.
You don't have to do it in an aggressive way or a harsh way.
I certainly struggle with that at times, honestly.
But that's okay.
But you have to tell the truth.
And when you're confronted with truth, are you going to tolerate something that you know is the opposite of what is the natural law?
So let me talk about the natural law a little bit, and then we can kind of get to some questions.
So I think, you know, someone asked me the other day, and we're going to keep this whole speech philosophical.
If you want to ask political questions, that's fine.
But I want to kind of keep it in the philosophical domain.
They said, Charlie, what is a conservative?
I don't even mean political conservative.
I mean philosophical one.
I said, it's very simple.
Acknowledging that there's a natural law designed by a creator and wanting to honor it and protect it.
It's very simple.
And they say, well, what do you mean by that?
How about this?
God created man, God created woman, and they're meant for each other and in harmony of marriage, and marriage must be defined, honored, and protected.
Pretty simple, right?
That having children is a good thing, and we should have more children in our society.
That rampant, widespread internet pornography is destroying our kids' lives.
Like, these are things that we should be willing to say.
And if it ruffles some feathers, then let's have it out, right?
Let's compare which worldview actually gets people closer towards a place of peace and communion with the divine and be able to flourish.
Now, when you ask the question of what is the natural law, there's many ways to be able to go about it, right?
Thomas Aquinas would argue that through reason, you're able to find that natural law.
But it's very simple.
Jesus told us, by your fruit, by the fruit, you will be able to measure.
Where are you, out of the secular humanist fruit?
Where do you see something that is prosperous, happy, and joyful?
The city of San Francisco?
The state of California?
Downtown New York City?
The most violent crime, widespread vagrancy, and homelessness?
Or how about you have the least married generation in history, the most depressed, anxious, medicated, alcohol-addicted generation in history?
That is the outgrowth of a compendium of these kind of secular humanist values.
So then someone says, Well, Charlie, what have you Christians done?
I don't know, built the entire civilization that you take for granted.
That's what we've done, actually.
Yeah, 55 out of 56 of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were by believing church attending Christians.
Whether it be from the Reformation of the Gutenberg press to the proliferation of human rights, common law, the idea of private property, the Magna Carta, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, fought to abolish slavery, fought a civil war against it, won two world wars.
Yeah, actually, we've done a lot.
And I'm not saying only Christians did that.
Without Christians, those things wouldn't have happened.
That's the difference.
Because you'll say, well, Charlie, there's a deist that signed it.
First of all, okay, there's one guy that we don't know if he was a Christian or not.
One person, 55 out of 56.
That's not the point.
The point is, who was the foundation, the driving force?
Who are the people that actually made the difficult, impossible, miraculous things happen?
By the fruit, you'll be able to judge them.
You'll be able to see which worldview actually gives you something that makes life beautiful and meaningful.
And that worldview needs to be the compass for the rest of your life.
And so it's very tempting for young people to say, okay, Charlie, I'm a Christian.
I graduated classical conversations.
I don't want to deal with anything on the news.
It's all too confusing.
That, in my personal opinion, is a disservice to the biblical commandment of Jeremiah 29, 7, which says, demand the peace of the, or the peace or welfare of the nation that you are in, because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.
Daniel fasted and prayed for his nation.
Esther, Mordecai, Jeremiah, Nehemiah all cared about the welfare of their nation and were willing to do something about it.
And I believe that if you are a Christian, you have the truth, you've given your life to the Lord, praise God, you have great parents, but you say, you know what, I'm not going to care about the news, I'm not going to care about the cultural stuff, I'm not going to care about the political stuff.
I believe that is a huge disservice and not being salt and light.
Now, am I saying it the most important thing?
I'm not.
But I'm saying it's pretty important and it's increasingly important.
You know why it's increasingly important?
Because they're forcing their hand.
That's why.
You know, people say all the time, they say, you know, Charlie, we have separation of church and state.
First of all, we don't.
It's not in the Constitution, not in the Federalist Papers, not in the Declaration.
It's a single letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention.
And it's actually taken out of context because it was actually Thomas Jefferson assuring the church the state wouldn't come after them.
Totally opposite, right?
He was assuring the church, don't worry, the government's not going to come after you.
Not the other way around.
But I always joke around.
I say, well, then why don't you keep the government out of the church?
After the lockdowns, you had government bureaucrats coming arresting pastors, giving fines.
So I say, what happened to that separation of church and state?
That disappeared really quickly.
And so I'll kind of conclude on that kind of theme with this, which is as Christians, we are called to a higher purpose and we are going to be judged differently as far as what we did here.
We all have eternal life once we give our life to the Lord, but you're going to have to be called to give account of what you personally did here on earth.
And you're going to say, you know what?
I didn't care at all about the civilization, the country, or the framework of any of this stuff works around.
I believe that would be a massive disservice with the truth we have, and we are the inheritors of Christians that did care.
We're the inheritors of Christians that were so incredibly deliberate and intentional.
You know why?
The founding fathers, the framers, they knew what it was like to live under tyranny.
And this is the thing, you know what actually bothers me more than Marxism and communism?
I could deal with a Marxist and a communist.
I've read all their literature.
I know all their stuff, from Rousseau to Plato to Hegel to Derrida to Foucault to Derek Bell.
I know all their, I don't want to say all this stuff, but enough to really be back and forth.
But you know what?
I respect a Marxist a lot more than someone who's apathetic.
A lot more.
Because at least the Marxist tells me they care.
The apathetic Christian drives me nuts.
It's like, oh, yeah, I have all the answers, but I don't really care about what happens around me.
From Apathy to Care00:02:41
Where in the Bible say that?
I'm not saying you have to agree with me on everything.
I'm just asking you to care a little bit.
And especially for young people out there, because cynicism and apathy is so incredibly tempting, isn't it?
I don't care.
They're all corrupt.
You're right.
Man is corrupt.
We live in a broken world.
Some churches are corrupt.
Some pastors are corrupt.
Are you going to just run to the hills and create your own commune?
Are you going to be salt and light?
Salt and light being the only two things, not the only two things, but two things that change the conditions of the environment they come in contact with.
Light makes a room brighter.
Salt makes a substance saltier.
It changes a way something is.
That's what we're called to be, not just to keep things the way they are.
And so I submit to you: look, where we're at in a country, we all have a different definition of North.
You walk down the street and someone says, well, it's my truth, and I could do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it.
Absent a biblical worldview, how on earth do you know that a line is crooked if you do not have a straight line to compare it to?
If you remove God, and let me say it even differently, if you remove Christians talking about the need for God, the entire civilization falls apart.
And I believe that's what we're living through.
Not that it's not reversible, but you see all this confusing stuff.
It's all this happening.
Like, Charlie, why is it happening?
You secularize a society, something's going to fill that void.
You make doubt more important than the pursuit of truth.
If you tell an eight-year-old you could be whatever you want to be whenever you want to be it, you're sowing that seed of social relativism, and with it, you commit arson to the entire civilization, the greatest ever to exist in the history of the world.
Okay, so let me just say this, and we'll do some questions.
For students and young people out there, I just want to encourage you guys to be lifelong learners and to really dive deep into these topics.
You're so blessed to be able to be even exposed to these ideas.
And honestly, you should thank your parents that they are making the financial sacrifice to homeschool you.
Because they very well, some parents could have gone to parent house, two parents going into the workforce or whatever.
For those of you that are homeschooled, your parents are making a decision that, and some of you maybe have one parent or the other that can afford it, that you have no idea how many emails I get for the students out here, how many emails I get of parents that wish they had the financial means to homeschool their kids.
You have no idea.
They say, Charlie, I just can't do it.
Inflation's breaking the back of our family.
We both have to work.
We have four kids.
We have to send them to private school and it's all gone woke.
And I say, do you ever think of homeschooling?
Can't do it too much.
And they might just be saying that, but the point is this.
And I'm not, everyone's circumstance is a little bit different.
The point is you're here because your parents have made that step.
And that's a very big deal.
And that will bless you for the rest of your life.
Homeschooling for Families00:06:41
Okay, let's do some questions, guys, and we'll take it from there, okay?
First, thank you very much for coming.
I'm a former CC student who has been at UC Irvine in California.
Yeah, thank you.
You probably know better than most.
But I started a podcast with one of my fellow students there, and we've been trying to reach to college students specifically, which I know you have a lot of familiarity with, given Turning Point USA and such.
And there is an apathy that's really come about in college students at large.
And so one of the things that we've been trying to address with college students is how to get them, it's kind of an infinite step from apathy to starting to care again, because in order to have them start gaining meaning by helping other people like you advocated for, they first have to go from apathy to caring again, right?
So I'm curious, because you have so much experience in this field, how have you found ways to help people go from apathy to caring?
And then for people who have just started podcast, what would you say were something, if you were to rewind, what would you have done?
Okay, so I'll answer the second question first.
Get big guests on and be relentless in trying to get them on.
It's the best way to build a podcast.
Help other people build, use other people's audience to build your audience.
It's the easiest way to build a platform.
It took us many years to build our podcast, but we're very blessed with how we've done.
And we'll talk about that later.
But would be happy to help give you advice on that.
And also do as much content as you possibly can.
Content, content, content, content.
Would you be willing to come on the podcast?
Yeah, see, that's the right question.
See?
There you go.
Yes, I'd be happy to.
There you go.
See, he's asking for the order.
So the first question.
Look, this is the question that befuddles almost every person that's trying to organize people.
So the best answer I have for this is, and you have to understand when you're trying to get people to care, you are in a different version of sales.
You're kind of a salesperson.
So you're already passing the first test.
No one wants to buy anything from anybody because you're selling something if you don't look the part.
So you look like you're wearing the suit, the whole thing, it's great.
That's the first thing, right?
The second thing is you have to have passion, okay?
No one is going to want to deal with you if you're like, you know, hey, get involved with whatever it's called thing.
And no one's going to want to do that.
You have to be so excited, so over the top, so passionate that they have to say, there's something that this guy believes.
And this has always been, you know, my big critique of some evangelist circles.
It's like, if the person you're talking about atheism is more excited about atheism than you are, then you got to get out of the evangelism business, man, right?
It's the intimacy with Christ.
It's the inerrancy of scripture.
All of a sudden, like, wow, this guy really believes it.
Like, yeah, that's actually how we're built to communicate, right?
And by the way, you go read Paul and you read the early disciples.
They got fired up if you want to persuade people of something.
It came at a great cost for all of them.
So that's the best way I could say that.
Look, it's tricky because I believe widespread apathy in our country is a strategy.
I really do.
I think they want people to be apathetic.
I say, why would they want that?
It's so much easier to control, obviously.
If you don't care, then they can do whatever they want.
You are the check and balance.
We're like, oh, the traditional branch checks the president.
No, you're the check and balance.
You showing up to a school board meeting, you showing up to a city council meeting.
That's you.
And you know what?
It's the urge, the temptation to watch Hulu or Netflix instead of caring is overwhelming.
I get it.
Stare at TikTok all day long, which the stories are sold, by the way.
Don't ever look at TikTok.
It's awful.
It's terrible.
Parents, get rid of it.
I'm not kidding.
It's soul-destroying.
I've seen it destroy people's lives.
I'm not exaggerating.
You guys can, we can talk about that more if you guys want.
But people become a lot easier to control from the top down if they don't care.
And so you have to try to break that spell of apathy, right?
Be interesting, be factually provocative at times, get their attention, be passionate.
And even that won't get everybody to care.
But it starts with the individual person.
And I'll just say this with Turning Point USA.
When we first started Turning Point USA 10 years ago, it was widespread apathy amongst donors.
No one thought we could do it except a small select group of people.
Well, we've proven the world wrong.
We're on pace for 1,000 high school chapters, 800 college chapters, right?
I mean, it's unbelievable what we're doing.
We have TPUSA Faith, Turning Point Academy.
We have a monstrosity of a digital operation, right?
We're doing three hours of radio a day.
We have events where 10,000, 15,000 people attend in massive numbers.
And now people look as if, oh, yeah, it's a certain thing.
Turning point was always there.
Like, hold on a second.
10 years ago, I used to have to try to drag people.
Like, please give us a chance to be able to spark something new in the next generation.
And so it could be done, but it's also going to take perseverance because if you give up, then everyone else you're trying to inspire will as well.
God bless you.
Thanks for being here.
And talk to Mikey about the podcast thing.
He's around somewhere.
Yeah.
Hello, I'm a Challenge A, Classical Conversations Challenge A student.
And I was wondering, who do you think will win in the 2024 election and why?
I said, if they bring up politics, I'm happy to engage.
So I think someone asked this back in January.
Boy, my memory.
There's so many events that I do.
So who do I think is going to win?
So yeah, I've said this publicly.
I'm a friend of President Trump's.
If he runs again, I'm going to back him and support him.
I could go into many reasons why.
But the best reason I have for all of you is when I give someone my word, I'm actually good for it.
I'm not a typical politician person that says one thing and does another.
But I will say this simultaneously, and we're actually hosting a series of events with him around the country.
I'm a massive Ron DeSantis fan.
I think Ron DeSantis is a fabulous leader.
I think he's incredible.
And so, look, I think that just talking politically, not on behalf of Turning Point USA, just talking personally on this, I mean, it's mission critical that the White House gets rewon.
What we are experiencing right now is a complete and total intentional destruction of the country.
And it's very, very hard to witness.
So, as someone would say, we'll see what happens.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Hi, I'm a college freshman, and I was just wondering if you could explain a little bit about the differences between conservativism, conservatism, and liberalism, because I feel like in my college classes, they're rather sympathetic to liberalism and not so much to conservatism.
And so, I wanted to get your take on that.
That's a great question.
Yes, so let me kind of give you some examples.
Destroyed by Liberalism00:15:10
I'll even go a step further and I'll say the difference between conservatism, liberalism, and leftism.
Okay, I'll even go a step further and try to give them an olive branch of which they have not earned and do not deserve.
So let's start with leftism, right?
Leftism is this kind of blanket term of a mixed mashing of bad ideas of Marxism, fascism, statism, collectivism.
They're also identity politics, diversity, equity, inclusion, postmodernism.
So let me give you a common leftist belief.
Okay?
A common leftist belief is they believe in black-only dormitories on college campuses.
Okay?
They're all across the country, by the way.
If that shocks you, listen to my podcast because that's just a little bit of what's happening.
So all across the country, they're not allowing white kids to go into certain dormitories because they have black-only dorms.
A leftist believes this is equity, right?
They think, well, we need to be able to discriminate against white people to be able to have, you know, a better society or whatever.
Okay?
So a liberal, a true liberal, would say, no, that's wrong.
That's discrimination, even though black people are actually oppressed.
Okay?
A conservative would say, no, it's wrong to discriminate, and black people are not oppressed, actually.
We live in the least racist country ever to exist in the history of the world.
The laws that are calibrated are actually written against Asians and against white people.
Stop complaining.
Stop trying to play the race card.
Let's live in a country where we stop talking about race all the time.
Does that make sense?
So you have leftism, liberalism, conservatism.
Now, that's one example, but basically what the conservative is, is the conservative is the disagreeable person at the party that rejects the entire premise.
Because guess what?
The premise is usually wrong.
Okay?
The premise of America being a racist country and all this stuff, it's just nonsense.
It's garbage.
There's no data to reflect it at all.
And when you actually dive into the police statistics, you dive into crime statistics, everything they say is a lie, right?
And you can read Heather McDonald's book, War on Cops, it will blow your mind on it.
So that's just one example.
I can give you another one, for example, right?
So I'll give you another one, which is a leftist, right, would say, or a Marxist, you know, DEI type or whatever, social revolutionary type, would say men can become pregnant.
Okay?
A liberal would say, well, maybe, but that's just your opinion, right?
A conservative would say, this is a lie, it's nonsense, and it's disdamaging to the core structure of a society to tell children something that's not true.
Does that make sense?
So a liberal would be like, well, it's your opinion.
You could believe whatever you want to believe.
A leftist would be like, no, men have become pregnant.
If you don't believe it, I'm going to fire you.
You see that difference in a leftist and a liberal?
What's the difference?
A leftist is evil.
A liberal is weak.
Big difference.
That's a very big difference.
A liberal will know what the right thing to do is.
They're just too weak to do anything about it.
A conservative is the person that comes along again, disagreeable, and says, actually, this is all crazy and wrong, and therefore we'll do something about it.
So anyway, of course, a college campus is sympathetic to the liberal point of view, obviously, because first of all, you're being probably taught by people that, how do I put this nicely?
Do I need to put this nicely?
Yeah, you're being taught by people that quite honestly live in a deranged fantasy world.
That's the nicest way I could possibly put it, okay?
Not all of them, but some of them are very miserable people.
They're godless, most of them.
And they live in the fantasy land of in the clouds and of ideas that will never materialize into actual objective reality.
And they also kind of play, they look at themselves as a part of a broader historical revolution to get kids to believe something that is completely contrary to parents' values.
A conservative is the person, as William F. Buckley would say, who stands upon history and has the courage to say no.
When you think about that, who stands upon history and is the courage to say no.
Like, actually, no, it's not a good idea to do that.
That usually doesn't work well.
That's not good.
And so also a conservative is someone who believes, this is very important, the biggest difference between the conservative and liberal base.
This is why Christians should engage in this topic.
It's a very simple question.
Do you believe human beings are fundamentally good or fundamentally bad?
It's the most important question when you ask for political philosophy.
So let me ask you guys: are human beings good or bad?
Young people?
Bad, bad.
Good answer.
Yes, you've read your Bibles.
Praise God.
The left doesn't believe that.
If you ask them, they'd say human beings are fundamentally good.
This is a Rousseauian view of humanity.
It's a romantic view where they'd say human beings are born good, and then the rest of their life they get corrupted.
As Rousseau would say, man is born free and spends the rest of his life in chains.
So it's the society that's the problem.
The other difference between the left and the right, if I could just oversimplify it, liberal conservative, again, I'm overgeneralizing, but I think everyone's bearing with me, is that generally a conservative would say, if you're in trouble, you could probably behave better.
Generally, a liberal would say, if you're in trouble, society needs to change.
That's a general truth, by the way.
Also, let me say this: is that back in conservative America, we used to tell young people, you're the problem, and America is great.
Now in liberal America, we tell young people, you're great, and America's the problem.
That's the difference.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm going to follow up with a question.
Okay.
So I know a lot of people who are very protected, a lot of my friends, and a lot of people who aren't.
At what point do you stop protecting your kids so that they're ready for the world?
Okay, so you, okay, that's a good question.
I think I understand what you're saying.
So you mean shelter.
Thank you.
Yeah, sheltering.
Okay, so that's a good question.
Okay.
So there's three types of parents.
Well, not three, but I'll kind of go through three.
There's bohemian parents.
The adults get the joke.
I had bohemian parents, by the way.
Praise God, I turned out okay.
Doors open, be home before dark-ish.
Right?
You know what I'm talking about.
I was raised like that.
I couldn't care less.
Typical baby boomer parents.
Wonderful, by the way.
If I got in trouble, you know, a ton of bricks would come down if they ever found out.
You understand what I mean, right?
So then you have helicopter parents, right?
And I'm not, some people, and then you have snowplow parents.
So helicopters, you're always over everything.
Snowplow is, I'm going to get rid of all the obstacles in front of my child so they'll never get sick, they'll never see anything bad.
Okay.
So let me start with the bohemian, okay?
Not endorsing it.
It's very risky.
But I will say this.
I will say this.
The most productive, I would say, funny, joyful people typically had bohemian parents.
It's totally Russian roulette with your child's future, by the way, okay?
No, I mean this.
You have no idea what's going to happen.
But when it works, they change the world.
Like Tucker Carlson, Dennis Prager, they all talk about how their parents were like this, okay?
And you probably all know stories like that.
But again, this is why the Irish had so many kids, right?
It's you're going to lose two to alcoholism, three to just be on the streets, and the last two will be CEOs and change the world, right?
And it's all going to work out.
You don't talk about the other five, but the two that are great are right next to Mother Mary and St. Peter, and you talk about them.
What happened to the other six?
We don't talk about them anymore, okay?
That's the O'Fallon family in every major, you know, in Chicago and Boston.
Not endorsing Bohemian, but if you could pull it off, good for you.
Helicopter is too much monitoring, too much surveilling, right?
I grew up where helicopter parenting was a thing, kind of always looking over a kid's shoulder, all of that.
Okay, that's not the worst thing, honestly, in the world.
I understand the inclination.
But the last thing, snowplow, no parent should be a snowplow parent, okay?
Let me just say a couple things.
It's okay to let your kid fail.
It's okay to let your kids see things accidentally that they identify as evil or wrong or even gross.
And I'll say that again.
It's okay for them to accidentally be exposed to something that is evil, wrong, or gross within proper paradigms.
You might say, Charlie, what about pornography, all this?
Of course, you need to put guardrails and all of that.
What do I mean?
If you're driving down the 101, are you going to make sure you put a blindfold over your 17-year-old's eyes so they don't see every billboard?
That's unrealistic.
In fact, it's wrong, and it makes them not develop the spiritual antibodies to be able to fight the viruses of sexual degeneracy or the things that they'll eventually find.
Right?
So that's a balance.
You got to pray for wisdom.
You got to be able to kind of go through all of that.
So what is the balance there?
Every child is different, right?
And you have to be able to kind of chart it this way.
I will say this, though.
Generally, as a general rule, parents are way out of whack.
Most of the time, I think parents right now have got to mostly get out of the way after they instill the values 14, 15, 16, and let kids go out and play.
I mean, I hear these stories, these kids that are these turning point leaders, 14, 15-year-olds, I'm like, well, don't you guys play outside?
They're like, well, my parents don't let me play outside because they found out that the leading cause of death in our local area was, you know, being run away.
What are you talking about?
I mean, look, I'm not trying to say you should increase the risk of tragedy for your child.
But another tragedy is not allowing your child to live.
It's not allowing your kid to leave the house as if I'm always going to be able to micromanage or helicopter everything they do.
So you got to use my favorite word, prudence.
You have to pray for God for wisdom.
That's the best advice I could give you, right?
And we generally as a country have got to get away from trying to remove the obstacles.
And by the way, just one in kind of the more, let's just say, medical world that drives me nuts.
It's okay if your child gets sick.
It's actually a good thing for them.
Like, I must vaccinate my kid against these 90 different things.
Okay, maybe, not going to tell you what to do, obviously, but you do realize that getting sick actually is a good thing for your child's long-term immune system.
It's actually very good.
And we kind of lose, like, my kid has a fever.
I have to go get the 90-second new vaccine.
Well, maybe.
It's actually stress on a human body is very good for you.
In fact, the new research shows too much comfort kills you.
And I'll go a step further.
Too much comfort, too much policing, too much snowplowing by a parent creates a miserable child.
Because they don't know how to do anything for themselves.
They don't know their path.
They don't know who they are or whose they are, right, with a relationship with the divine.
So that's my answer to that question.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm a graduated challenge student.
So glad to have you here.
My question for you is that I've noticed within a lot of Christian circles, kind of like you mentioned, the apathetic Christian, that kind of can't connect the dots between biblical truth and how we can support that in the culture in ways that do come through politically.
And even within college groups, I just see this disconnect of those who are true believers who I truly see following Christ but can't connect like, oh, I don't want to get into politics.
You know, it's all about just bringing people to Christ.
I don't want to confuse them.
And I've just kind of struggled with seeing that.
And what's the best way that you would say to kind of help people connect those dots?
Because again, most of my conservative beliefs, all of them actually, are based in my Christian worldview.
So how would you?
And yes, your conservative beliefs should be rooted in Christianity, of which they are harmonious to one another.
So, I don't know how to answer the question the best way to be able to persuade college Christians of how to care about this if they're in that way.
So, I'll try my best, but I can't tell you the best arguments.
If that is that probably helpful.
And so, again, I'll kind of go through some of these arguments, which is Jeremiah 29, 7, the Lord demands political involvement and demands cultural awareness.
Daniel fasted and prayed for his nation.
I went through some of this.
But I will say, even a step further, let's just kind of, the Lord asks us to be good stewards of all things that we receive.
And we are the recipients of this nation.
No one here in this room founded America.
You received something you did not create.
By definition, that means you are the inheritor of that thing.
And Jesus is very clear about what happens when you inherit something and you disregard it.
The parable of the talents is the most instructive teaching on this.
And so we received quite a lot.
And right now, American Christianity is hiding that talent, which is the currency, but it actually works in both ways, believe it or not, both the literal meaning of talent or the currency.
And we're hiding it under a rock.
And Jesus has some of his most harsh teaching when it comes to parable in the entire scriptures of what happens when you receive something and you don't make good on it.
You don't multiply.
You don't try to preserve or protect it.
But I will say this: that, I mean, whether it be Jesus saying, you know, do not let people go after little children or all these things, I just find it so interesting that people say it's all about the gospel.
It's all about the gospel.
And at the same time, they say they don't want to offend somebody.
And I mean this as lovingly as I possibly can.
But how on earth are you teaching the gospel without talking about eternal damnation?
And what could be more offensive than that?
That is infinitely more offensive than talking about abortion policy or talking about marriage.
You're talking about the soul of somebody in infinity, infinitum, to be tormented and in damnation.
But you don't want to offend anybody?
Well, then you're in the wrong business, man.
Because the gospel is by definition offensive to entire culture and world.
It speaks truth into a broken world.
It talks about things the culture does not like.
That there is a way.
A way.
And if you're not on the road, well, then you know exactly.
It's a narrow road, and wide is the path of destruction.
And so I would just challenge kind of the fellow Christian.
I don't know how persuasive this would be, right?
Which is, like, are you really in the business of not offending people?
They're like, well, you know, I just, it's not clear to me, you know, what the right political engagement is.
Okay, that's fair.
Let's just go to three issues I think that every Christian can agree on.
Life begins at conception and is worthy of protection, period.
It's biblical repeatedly on that topic.
Number two, God created man and woman, and we're going to stand for biological reality and not allow this transgender alphabet mafia nonsense to take over our entire country and sit idly by while biblical truth of biological reality corrodes our young people.
Not going to put up with it, I don't care what you call me, okay?
And the third thing is, the church is essential and will never be locked down again, while strip clubs, marijuana dispensaries and alcohol, alcohol places whatever you call them, you know, liquor stores, thank you remain open.
We're not going to put up with it.
And if a Christian was like well, that's not enough for For me, then you know, honestly, you got to go do your research, because those three things defined the American political conversation at moments in time.
Those three things, that God created man and woman, God created life at conception, and the church is essential.
Standing for Biological Truth00:06:07
We shut down the church while keeping strips, club trips, trip clubs open across the country.
We shut down the church but kept Home Depot open.
It was never about the virus, it was about controlling people.
And guess what?
When people aren't going to church, something fills that void.
Satan knew what he was doing.
Alcoholism went up, depression went up, porn sites nearly crashed because people couldn't get on them fast enough.
And the church, unfortunately, in my opinion, was way too willing to comply.
They say Romans 13.
They don't know Romans 13 if it hit them across the face.
Romans 13 says submit to all people and government authority.
Who's in charge in this country?
The people are in charge.
So who's submitting to who?
The mayors submit to us.
The governors submit to us.
The state reps submit to us.
And pastors are like, well, we have to submit to our government leaders.
It doesn't say that.
It says to submit those in charge.
We're in charge.
And pastors use that as a misquoted, misapplied scripture all throughout the pandemic.
Thank you.
Okay, we'll do a couple more.
Get through it as quickly as I can.
Hi, my name is Evan Lopez, and I'm a Challenge A student.
I was just wondering if there are any colleges you recommend.
Okay.
It's a great question.
I'm chuckling because, yeah, well, there are a couple, but again, this is where the parents get the pitchforks.
My thoughts on college are very well publicized.
So let me give all the possible prerequisite disclaimers, okay?
College is right for some people, but not for all people.
We have way too many people going to four-year college in our country.
Way too many people, okay?
With that being said, some of you in this room should go to four-year college.
Some of you should not go to four-year college.
You should pray about it, should talk to your parents about it, but never feel pressured that you have to go to college.
Okay?
Generally, college is a scam.
I wrote a whole book called The College Scam, actually.
You could read it.
35 pages of footnotes, brainwash your kids, bankrupt them all to get a piece of paper.
Okay, we could talk at great length about that, but here's the one that I love.
And they sponsored our stuff, and Hillsdale College is phenomenal.
They're fantastic.
Hillsdale College is terrific.
Arizona Christian does a great job in the West Valley.
They really do a nice job.
I'm in kind of including them.
Some of the Christian schools that used to be really good are slipping a little bit.
And so I'm not going to.
Liberty's still great, but they got some things that they're dealing with.
But they're still very good in Lynchburg, Virginia.
I want to give them a shout out.
But I'll stop there.
There's still some good ones.
I think there's about 15 good ones.
I can't remember them all.
Hillsdale's at the top of the list.
Hillsdale is the most similar to the education you're currently receiving.
It's the most similar.
It's the same method of learning.
It's the same curriculum base.
Hillsdale is fabulous.
And if you guys ever want to take the free online courses, we have a partnership with them.
It's charlie4hillsdale.com.
They have 32 online courses.
I've completed half of them.
They're life-changing from Churchill to Aristotle to Constitution 101.
I know some of you are probably saying, I've already taken them.
Great.
They're fabulous.
So, Hillsdale College.
God bless you.
My name is Connor.
I'm a CC Challenge 1 student.
And my question for you is: knowing the way the country is today and the things that are happening, what do you think our founding fathers would do?
They would.
No, hold on, Don.
Easy.
No, they would be impatient at this point.
You know, I will say this about, I mean, I'm a huge student of the founding, and I love it, and I think it's so special, and it's misunderstood.
I never loved the word revolution.
And I'll tell you why.
I don't think it actually captures how the founders stumbled into what founded our country.
So the French definitely had a revolution, okay?
And a revolution in modern English really kind of has this idea of seismic shift and overthrow.
Seismic shift, yes, but it really wasn't an overthrow.
In fact, if you read the Declaration of Independence, they knew what they were doing, but the spirit was like, hey, can we just separate?
Can we do this without having to fire a bullet?
And I think it's a very important thing.
And this is where people, you know, some Christian came out to me.
They said, Charlie, the founding fathers were no way they could be Christian because they sought war where peace would have done.
I said, hold on, who declared war on who?
I said, they were taxed, imprisoned against their will.
Lexington and Concord, whether it be the taking over of people's homes.
And then they did a massive plea where they basically said, when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have tied them to another, deriving from the equal power station, the laws of nature and nature is God.
It goes on to say, eventually life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness endowed by their creator.
That doesn't actually sound like a revolution.
That doesn't sound like we're declaring war on you.
That says you're morally wrong and we are impelled to a separation from you.
But they knew what it meant.
They weren't dumb, right?
They knew what was going to come next.
But if King George would have just said, you know what, fine, here's your country.
Do you think they still would have went to war?
No.
That's a very important distinction that I think people miss sometimes, right?
They say, 1776 is nothing but a violent conflict.
That's not true.
They were so meticulous about the reasons.
If you read the Declaration, it goes on forever listing how bad King George is.
And you put prisoners in our home and you moved the Capitol and you did all these different things and you don't give us representation and you put our prisoners in here.
And it's like one after the other after the other after the other.
And so at the end, they finally, you know, they know what they're doing.
They say we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
That's a battle cry, right?
They know kind of what's going to happen next.
They know they're signing a death warrant on a, you know, in a coastal town of Philadelphia with the world's greatest Navy ever.
But their heart was not for conflict.
Their heart was for self-government.
That's a very big difference.
The Cost of Screen Time00:07:10
So what would the founders be thinking right now?
Well, but, boy, I'd love to get Ben Franklin's take on what's happening now.
Yeah, they would think the same a lot of you do, which is, boy, we have a serious, serious problem right now.
And they'd also say, how did you mess this up so much?
We gave you three branches, separation of powers.
You've got this whole fourth branch of government that's unchecked, unknown, and unelected, the FBI, DOJ, CIA, all this stuff.
Who put that?
Like, did you guys not read the framework?
I think there would be a Rip Van Winkle learning curve of which would be quite comedic.
For those of you that don't know, Rip Van Winkle fell asleep for 20 years and then woke up in a world completely, totally changed.
That would be on, it would be quite even more than that for the founding fathers.
But I think the founders would give us advice to say, hey, you still have a framework.
Use it.
The other side wants you to be violent.
Stay peaceful.
And try to restore the principles and the structure of the republic.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
We'll go another 15 minutes.
Yeah.
My name is Asher, and I'm a student in Challenge One.
And my question for you was, in what way do you think social media has ruined education the most?
Yeah, so I think social media is so dangerous.
You say ruined education.
Yeah, that's a good question.
So I'll broaden it a little bit and then I'll answer that.
I am not a fan of what I consider to be the largest open-air drug experiment in human history, which is the smartphones.
And I say this to parents, and I am incredibly non-persuasive in this because almost nothing ever changes.
I do not think parents understand the neurological damage that these devices are doing.
They don't.
And why children get smartphones, and I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad, I'm telling you, it's like giving your kid heroin.
It's worse.
Go look at a brain scan of an average 17 or 18-year-old.
Neurologists cannot understand what's happening.
And the answer is nine hours of screen time of looking at highly dopamine-sensitive material.
You are destroying your brain.
And I can get into that in a little bit further.
The people that have actually, this is my favorite quote, and parents, please pray on this.
Steve Jobs didn't let his kids ever use an iPhone or an iPad, ever.
Because he knew what they were.
He knew what he was doing.
The creator of Pinterest, the people that create the Google phones, they don't let any devices in their home.
Now, why would that be?
Because they know what they're doing every single day.
These people are drug dealers.
They're not social media companies.
They're a cartel, no different than the Sinola cartel.
The only difference is that we gleefully act as if it's made our life so much better.
Okay, yeah, we get maps and we can talk all the time.
I guarantee you, if I asked all of you, 90% of you would say that it makes you more anxious, less likely to connect, makes your family discussions or dinners harder, harder to get your kids to concentrate.
These things have been abysmal, not better.
You want to see the curve of suicide, depression, anxiety, medication.
We have 6 million kids, by the way, right now on psychiatric medication under the age of 15.
6 million kids on Ritalin, Adderall, Benzodiazepans, which never should have been approved for kids ever.
Separate issue.
It goes up like a hockey stick in 2014.
I wonder what happened in 2014.
Every single kid got a smartphone, not a cell phone.
I grew up with cell phones.
Okay?
You could text three times a month and it cost you $200.
Okay?
The smartphones.
And we're going to look back.
I said this, and I, who knows who's listening, right?
We're going to look back in 20 or 30 years from now and we're going to say, what did we do?
It will be a generation that will be so severely neurologically damaged because of this.
So let me tell you why that is the case, okay?
God designed us for the wild.
He designed us to be able to survive in the forest, in the trees, and the desert.
Stimulation is something that's supposed to be rare and is something, and the reward chemical in your brain, whenever you think of reward, think of dopamine, okay?
Meaning it's trying to get you towards a reward.
It's trying to incentivize you to push further, okay?
Now, dopamine is great in some sense.
It can make you work longer hours.
It can make you complete a road trip.
It can make you dig deeper.
It can even make you try to want to court a wife, whatever it might be.
Dopamine is something God gave you to be able to pursue excellence.
What happens, though, is that you study the brains of a young child and they're given a phone.
It is highly stimulating imagery and video that is designed to prick and prod the dopaminergic circuit in your child's brain so that it destroys their ability to differentiate between reality and fiction and reward and punishment.
All day, they will see more stimulating imagery in 10 minutes than your ancestors saw in a lifetime.
And it's designed to do that.
So by the time they're 19 or 20, they're like, I'm super depressed.
No, you're not.
Your screen time is nine hours a day.
Go turn your phone off.
And by the way, study after study after study shows six days in nature, no phone, all of a sudden people report that their depression goes down 70 to 80 percent.
70 to 80 percent without antidepressants, without Adderall, just that alone.
And so, yeah, look, I'm an outspoken critic of what I consider to be, you know, these digital pacifiers, which is nothing more to, and by the way, I'm a bad offender of it, but I limit my screen time to three hours a day, which you might seem is a lot.
Average kid is nine and a half hours a day, just so you know, okay?
When I go around to campuses, kids are anywhere between 11 to 14 hours a day on their device.
It is the merging of machine and man, right?
So what's the takeaway of all that?
Parents, you know, do what you will.
My daughter, not getting a screen.
I'm telling you that.
It's going to take effort.
It's going to take work.
I know it.
Guess what?
I was raised that one.
I'm going to ask my parents what they did, right?
Books, crayons, drawing, I don't care.
I know the damage they do, right?
It's just not going to happen.
And yes, that means at dinner we might actually have to talk to our daughter, right?
Have a conversation.
You know, when I go out to eat and I see people, they're just the whole family looking at the phones.
And I say, what have we become?
So, yeah, basically, we've allowed this device to destroy almost everything in our society.
So I think that will be a happier, every person in this room could commit some of those principles to your life to be happier.
And I turn my phone off from Friday night to Saturday night.
I do a true kind of Sabbath with that, and it's made my life significantly better.
So that's a good kind of action step.
Try to do one day a week, no phone.
I highly, highly recommend it.
Okay, thank you.
Hi.
Hi, my name is Beau Shooter, and I'm eight years old, and I'm in third grade in CC, and I was going to ask you, would you like to run for president and why?
Very kind.
Competency Over Equality00:05:02
That's a kind question.
Look, I love what I get to do.
I mean that I do three hours of radio a day.
And thank you for those of you that listen to our podcast and listen to our radio program and watch us on Real America's Voice every day.
We're really honored by that.
The audience is growing like crazy.
I can't figure out why, but it's pretty awesome.
So I get to do that.
I get to run Turning Point, which I believe is one of the most important organizations in the country pushing forward these values and the work we're doing.
And so people say, you're going to run for office.
Why exactly would I want to run for office if I'm making a difference and I love what I get to do?
I get to live in paradise in Arizona.
I've never really, that's not true.
I've met a couple.
Almost every politician I've ever met is a deeply unhappy person.
Right, Don?
Yeah.
That's why I thought of you as the exception.
And that's why they had to, you know.
Yeah, there you go.
He said it.
Because he was so happy.
And so the answer is no.
I'm here to support the good guys.
Keep doing this.
But who knows what's going to happen in a different life?
We just have to make sure I have a country.
That's the most important thing.
We've got to make sure we have a country.
God bless you, man.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Jada.
I'm a Challenge 2 student.
And my question for you is, what is the difference between equity and equality?
Oh, wow, that's a great question.
Okay, so equity is a smokescreen camouflaged term that really means redistributive Marxism.
Okay, and that's really wordy.
What does that mean?
Okay, let me kind of bully it down.
So equity means taking from somebody else to give somebody who didn't earn it.
Earn is my favorite word in the English language.
People that generally are unhappy are not earning something.
Not just money, by the way, earning respect, earning somebody's time.
Earn is fulfillment.
That's why it says all throughout the scriptures, a man does not work, he does not eat.
Another way to say that is if you're not earning something, you're not going to be able to give something that is life-giving.
It's another way to word that, okay?
What is equality?
Okay, so this is a very important thing.
I'll give you actually some examples outside of the esoteric philosophical.
So, equality, as the Greeks would say at Eleutheria, is this idea of you as a species are equal under the divine?
This is very important.
Therefore, you have equal rights, but you do not have equal outcomes or equal talents, okay, or equal skills.
But you are the same type of thing.
You're a speaking being, meaning you have a mind, body, and soul, and you should be respected with that kind of, you should be respected and given that kind of intentionality because you are a human being.
So, what does that, how does that look like in practice?
That means, regardless of who you are, your right to speech, your right to own a firearm, your right to privacy is protected because of equal protection under the law.
Equity is very different, okay?
Equity would make wide-ranging, inappropriate, inaccurate assumptions and then distribute rights based on that.
For example, they would look at all economic distribution data and they'd say, wow, white people are generally wealthier than black people.
So, what we should do is we should say white people can't get as many jobs.
They shouldn't be hired in the hiring process and black people should.
That's equity.
So, they're making a discriminatory action based on an inappropriate analysis of data.
By the way, it's not even technically true if you factor in two parent households, black people actually earn more than white people if they have both a mom and dad in the home.
Okay?
White washes away a lot of those arguments.
But equity is basically using force to try to right a wrong that they think exists.
And it is spreading all across the country, whether it be in internships, jobs, college admissions.
We see the latest one at a State Street Advisors, one of the largest hiring firms, one of the largest financial firms in the country.
They say that people of color get internships first, and then white people have to go through an entire unanimous board approval before they get approved at the firm.
That's one of many examples.
I'll give you another one.
United Airlines has announced that 50% of all the new pilots they're going to hire are going to be black pilots.
Okay, I have nothing against black pilots, and I'm sure you agree.
When I'm flying in a plane, I want to make sure my pilot was hired because he scored a very high score on how to land an airplane, not because the color of his skin.
How about when you have heart surgery?
You want your heart surgeon to be hired because of equity or because of competency?
Equity is the death of competency.
You live in a very wealthy, safe society because we elevated competency over equity.
It's a very important thing.
When countries elevate the other, you're going to start to see the casualties that come from that.
So, does that make sense between equity and equality?
Where equality would be like you're all human beings, you're all treated equally, right, as far as your rights, due process.
At the same time, we're going to make decisions based on things you can change, not based on things you can't change.
And that's the final thing.
Equality makes decisions based on things that can be changed.
For example, are you showing up early to your job interview?
Are you dressed nicely?
Are you presenting yourself?
Equity Kills Competency00:03:38
Did you study?
Or is it just based solely on the color of your skin?
Equity gives a priority based on things you cannot change no matter how hard you tried.
Equality would give a preference based on effort, integrity, focus, values.
Are some people going to be more talented than others?
Of course, that's life.
But generally, we want to create a society based that empowers you where you say, hey, if you work hard and play by the rules, you're going to be able to move up in society.
Not, hey, if you have a certain skin color, you're going to be treated better.
All right, thank you.
Appreciate it.
We'll do two more, okay?
Sorry, everybody.
Two more.
Hi, my name is McKenzie.
This is my friend Abby.
She's with me.
Oh, is it a joint question then?
Yes.
All right, then you do get your question answered.
She's here for support.
We're both in challenge one.
And my question was: What would you say to a pro-abortionist if they were to tell you, you know, I believe that it is okay to abort babies because they do not have a conscience?
Oh, okay.
Got it.
Okay, so do you want to play the pro-abortion person?
Yes.
Okay.
Okay, so therefore, is it morally okay to unplug every person that currently is in a coma right now, absent major brain activity?
I mean.
Yeah, the pro-abortionist would say, ah, whatever, how you reacted.
That's the point, right?
Is that, no, that would be considered murder and not acceptable and not okay.
So then the other question is: what actually defines a human being, right?
And so we as Christians believe that we're more than reason.
It's a very important thing.
Reason is a gift from God, but it's not your entirety of your being.
I'll prove it to you.
How many times in your life have you said, I'm at a loss for words?
Have you ever had an experience where you say, I'm speechless?
Speech is reason, by the way.
Literally, in the beginning was the word, the word was God, and the word was with God.
Okay.
But there's times when your being transcends your ability to reason.
Or you say, words just can't describe.
That's all, those are all examples of what?
Your soul taking over your reason.
There's something else in you beyond your reason.
We believe as Christians, that's actually who we really are, by the way.
The mind and the body are just temporary.
We're a three-part being, the same as God is a three-part being.
But who we really are is not the body.
It's not the mind.
In certain scriptural interpretations, there is a belief in a bodily resurrection.
That's fine.
I'm not going to get into that.
But who we really are eternally is our soul.
It's our soul that will be in heaven, right?
It's not our mind, and it's not our body.
Why is that important?
That means who cares if there's not a brain wave detected?
Is there a soul?
We believe yes.
We believe the soul enters the being at conception.
The scriptures tell us that.
And also, science tells us that as well.
And so as soon as you admit that, your entire construct of how you view abortion changes.
Because if it's just reason, then yeah, okay, you could terminate the baby if there's no brain wave, but we're more than reason.
We always have been.
In fact, everyone will agree with you that you say, and this is how you know, this is how you know human beings are more than reason.
We congregate to look at sunsets.
We love looking at mountains.
Why?
We love things that are rare, exceptional, and point up.
Because deep down, we're always trying to look towards the divine.
Even an atheist loves a good walk on the beach as the sun is setting.
I don't believe in God.
Yes, you do.
You just don't want to say it.
You enjoy all the fruit of God.
It's like, I don't think he exists.
Soul at Conception00:08:59
Like, okay, then get out of Aspen.
It's like, no, you actually love things that are created.
You love objective truth and beauty and reality.
So that's what I would say to the pro-abortionist.
Thank you.
All right, the last question.
Hi, my name is Ronan.
I'm a challenge to student.
And I was wondering, so I know your views on not going to college.
For some people, let's play.
For some people.
So I play sports, and I was wondering your views on going to college to progress further in.
Yeah, look, college athletes can be immune to some of this stuff because their head is so down.
They're working so hard.
They just, it's all the other stuff is kind of noise.
So I would encourage you to talk to some athletes.
It still doesn't, it also does matter based on what school you select.
By the way, Hillsdale has all the sports, so you can still go there.
And I get a lot of college athletes messaging me, Charlie, what do I do?
Where do I go?
Look, you actually, you know, unless you believe you're going to be Olympian or a professional athlete, okay, which you might be, by the way, then use sports as a way to be able to get into the best non-woke school you possibly can most affordably if you still want to go to college and play your sport, right?
There are, I mean, there, so say you're a football, what sport is your baseball, baseball, great.
You know, Hillsdale has a baseball team, right?
Baseball actually is more widespread than football teams because it's a lower cost barrier to entry, right?
So my advice would be baseball could be, and maybe, you know, you have aspirations paying the majors, and you know, that would be awesome and it'd be amazing, but maybe not.
Maybe you're like, you know, I don't want to play in the majors.
I want to play in college or whatever it might be.
Then use the sport as a means to an end.
Does that make sense?
But if the sport is the end, then great.
That's a different calculation, right?
Than go to Ole Miss and go win a national championship because that's what they do there, right?
So if that makes sense, how you'd kind of work through that.
So, all right, thank you.
I'll take one more because they're trying to be chomping at the bit.
We have a joined question.
All right.
She wants to know what.
So I want to know what is your thoughts about the masks.
The masks?
Well, I'm not a fan of masks at all.
The part about the mask conversation that always bothered me, and this is what just so irritated me, is that for years I spoke out against the Islamic world masking their women because we called it dehumanizing and we said all these things.
And then we just kind of import that entire thing and act as if there's going to be no issue with that.
Children's speech are delayed.
We have all these other issues that have happened.
Familiarity, and Aristotle wrote significantly about this in the politics, and you guys are probably already on Aristotle, but it's like book five in the politics.
It's amazing.
He said, familiarity is the first thing a tyrant tries to destroy.
So beautiful, right?
If you think about it, familiarity breeds trust, Aristotle writes, because trust is the great antidote to tyranny.
That's such a, I mean, this guy's, obviously.
We study him for a reason.
You think about it, wow, trust between neighbors makes it less likely for a tyrant to take over.
That's so profound, right?
So if you trust your neighbor and you trust each other and you can communicate with one another and you know each other, see your face, God gave us a face for a reason.
We're made in the image of God.
God didn't give us a face as a throwaway thing.
We decide to put a piece of cloth over literally the image-bearer part of the identifying aspect of an image of God.
And we act as if, like, oh, yeah, it's the Christian thing to go wear a mask.
Like, what are you talking about?
First of all, that's not epidemiologically true.
That's not scientifically true.
That's not biologically true.
But just spiritually, do you think it's actually making us harsher or kinder as a society?
Harsher!
It's like the meanest people ever.
You know why?
Because you're anonymous.
You feel like you can get away with anything.
It stops both sides when you have to see a face.
Like, oh, wow, that's actually a human being.
The meanest people that I experienced the last two years all wear masks.
Not because they're necessarily mean people.
I think the masks made them meaner.
I really do.
I think that if you feel as if you somehow have a barrier to the other person and they do too, what will you not do?
So, not a fan.
Thank you.
Do you have a follow-up?
All right.
What also are your thoughts on the vaccination mandates?
Oh, I'm totally above vaccination.
I don't know what I did here.
Totally opposed, obviously.
My thoughts on the vaccine are pretty well published.
You guys can subscribe to my podcast here.
I mean, the fact, first of all, just for children, vaccines of COVID, the rest of the world has decided not to give COVID vaccines anymore to kids.
We're the only country that continues to do this garbage.
And again, you might think it's the greatest thing ever.
I'm not here to convince you otherwise.
Just please.
Only thing I always ask on the vaccine topic: you could be pro-vaccine, COVID vaccine, all that stuff, but please do at least an hour of listening to Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Peter McCullough before you tell me how great the vaccine is.
That's my only ask, okay?
Is just go spend an hour listening to them.
And then you can still have those opinions, okay?
Because he invented the technology to this stuff, and he's pretty well credentialed, and he has some pretty strong opinions.
And so I just borrow opinions from them and repeat them.
But the fact that we have been firing people, kicking them out of school, kicking out of police forces, kicking out of fire departments for not taking an experimental gene therapy that has been proven not to do exactly what they promised to do.
Limit infection, no, and prevent death at all costs against it.
No, it just didn't do that.
So they say it's a therapy.
Well, if it's a therapy, then I want to compare it against other therapies, okay?
How does then the mRNA gene-altering vaccine compare against ivermectin intervention, intravenous therapy, ozone therapy?
What is the average vitamin D level of someone who passes away with COVID?
Were they ever told to take a vitamin D supplement?
Where was the mask campaign to get vitamin D in the hands of people?
That alone very well could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
If your vitamin D level is above 50, you have a much better chance to be able to block and interrupt the cytokosine storm.
I could go on.
I could go into baby aspirin.
I could go into all the different stuff that has been proven to show actual interventions.
But instead, I believe pharma kind of controls a lot of part of our government.
I believe we live in a kind of pharmaceutical controlled state at this point.
If you guys disagree, that's fine.
That's okay.
I just ask you to go, you know, check out Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Malone, who I think are highly informative on this.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
He's not going to let me go, this guy.
All right, fine.
All right.
No more.
I'm sorry, my man.
You already asked when.
I'm sorry.
We're done.
Done.
All right.
Go ahead.
So, do you think that Trump should go for president?
See, I should have cut it off.
You know what I mean?
This is.
Even though people would not vote for Trump because he's Trump.
Yeah, look, I'll say this personally, again, not on behalf of Turning Point.
I'll say this.
You're right.
I do think that some people harbor a sentiment against him that will vote against him no matter what, no matter what he does.
And look, I totally agree.
He has his, let's put it this way, idiosyncrasies, okay?
He's a unique person.
But do we ever talk about his virtues ever?
And there are some.
He's a courageous man.
He is.
He loves his country.
He acts boldly.
He told people what he was going to do, and he did it.
And again, some people say, I don't like his style.
I don't like my kids watching him.
Okay.
You hired a bodyguard.
That's what you did when you hired Trump.
The door is wide open.
Your family's unprotected right now.
Bodyguards sometimes have a history, a rap sheet.
They have tattoos.
They don't talk nicely.
They don't tweet the way you would like it.
But a good bodyguard will protect your family when the bullets start flying.
And that's what he did.
He did.
And so I understand.
I understand he's gruff, rough around the edge.
Okay, whatever.
Fine.
I've heard every single thing.
You'll pause, please.
Whatever.
I'm exhausted of hearing that stuff.
But yeah, I mean, look, I think we know what we have in him.
I believe that if he ran for president, I think he could win.
I think we could get into this if you want, probably don't have the time.
2020 was a mess.
I think it was highly interfered with.
But yeah, I mean, I'm biased, but I'm biased for the country.
Like, boy, do we need someone that's going to come in and sort out this mess.
And I don't need polite.
I don't need nice.
We need a Samson.
And a Samson was willing to do the work that God's chosen people were not willing to do.
And some of you here might say, oh, I don't like him.
You know, Trump is all this stuff.
The story of Samson, if properly told to your eight-year-old, would be very difficult.
God came to Samson when he was in a prostitute's bed.
It's like the jaw of a donkey and killed a thousand Philistines.
Important enough that Paul went out of his way, because we think Paul wrote Hebrews, to put him in the hall of faith.
That's a big deal.
Trump is a Samson, in my opinion.
He's a fighter and he's good at it.
And that's what we need right now.
Okay, thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thanks so much for listening.
Everybody, email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
Thank you so much for listening.
God bless.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.