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March 12, 2023 - The Charlie Kirk Show
01:20:59
Charlie Speaks LIVE From the University of Kentucky

Enjoy Charlie's speech from the Live Free tour at the University of Kentucky, where he takes questions from conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between.  He gives an inspiring message to the young students on how to become empowered and stand defiantly against the woke mob.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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Five Things Distinguishing Left From Right 00:02:43
Hey everybody, today the Charlie Kirk Show.
My speech at the University of Kentucky.
I take some questions and it's fun.
And also, five things that distinguish the left from the right.
The wokies from the Patriots.
Thanks you'll enjoy this speech.
No advertisers, so please consider supporting us at charliekirk.com slash support.
That is charliekirk.com slash support.
Buckle up everybody.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
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.
Great to be here.
Thank you for taking time tonight.
We're going to have some fun, I hope.
And I want to thank the university for making this easy.
I don't say that about every college I visit.
And so this is great, and I appreciate it.
And I want to thank our amazing Turning Point USA leaders that helped put this all together.
They deserve a lot of credit.
And they are doing what I believe is one of the most difficult things for a young person to do in America, which is to vocally state your beliefs against what is popular and what is considered to be the prevailing kind of wisdom of the age or lack of wisdom, quite honestly.
And that's a big deal.
As young conservatives, you're basically saying, I don't care if I'm going to be smeared or slandered, if somebody's going to call me names.
I'm going to stand for what is true.
And there's a price to that.
And even here in the mostly conservative South, I'm told that there's a fair amount of liberals actually in Lexington.
Maybe not.
Maybe that's not true.
We'll find out, I guess, later tonight.
But certainly on college campuses, I bet that's true.
But it's a big deal when I see young people that are saying, I know the price, I know the cost.
And there's a great question that I always ask liberals that come to these events.
And it's just very simple, which is, is it difficult to hold the beliefs that you have?
And the answer is no.
I mean, if you are a BLM, LGBTQ activist, that's not difficult.
You're accepted by professors.
You're accepted by the administration.
You know what is difficult?
It's difficult at times to be a turning point USA leader on campus.
You're graded differently.
You're looked at differently.
Woke Distractions And The Cost Of Belief 00:06:19
You're even called names.
And therefore, the question then should be, why do you think I keep on believing in conservative ideas even though it's very difficult?
It doesn't make my life easier.
Maybe it's because there might be something to our belief system that makes me want to actually fight for it.
That I believe it so much because of what is good, true, and beautiful, and because of the facts and the evidence and the reason and the history behind it.
And so I'm super inspired by that.
I was traveling here with a friend of mine, Tom Lewis, who's here somewhere.
And I asked him the question when I ask most people before I speak, which is, hey, what do you want me to talk about?
And he said, Charlie, I think it would be helpful if you laid out the differences between the wokeys and conservatives.
The wokeys is like a catch-all term, right?
Basically, people who are, let's say, as far away from enlightenment to believe that men can become pregnant.
You know, that's kind of a catch-all term.
But I think there's really important because people say, Charlie, we are so divided in America.
I think there's some truth to that.
I think that some divisions are actually healthy to actually see where each side stands and be able to draw those lines and be able to say, you know, that actually is my viewpoint.
But there are five things that I've come with tonight that I think are really important to show the difference between what I as a conservative or we as people that believe in the natural law or people that believe in what would be considered classical conservatism versus kind of this new phenomenon of postmodernism, post-structuralism, you call it leftism or liberalism.
And the term woke, by the way, is a catch-all term.
You can like it, you cannot like it.
It actually comes from a belief that you have now been able to wake up to all the systemic injustice and oppression around you.
And now you are enlightened enough to be able to see that there is racism around everywhere and that at that moment you're woke.
I honestly think it's somewhat helpful to now have a word other than liberal or left to describe the most insane things that are happening.
I'll give you one example.
And most people don't know this.
The Toronto Raptors are a national basketball team, obviously, and they do this video for Woman's Month or Woman's Week or whatever it is, right?
And they're just kind of off-the-cuff social media video.
You've seen those kind of promo videos, and they play them kind of during halftime or, you know, during timeouts.
And, you know, they say, okay, why do you guys appreciate the women in your life?
Or why should we appreciate women?
And the players for the Raptors say, you know, oh, they're queens and they're amazing and they're the only ones that could procreate.
Oh, can't say that.
The Toronto Raptors published that video and quickly were forced to take down that video and issue a multi-paragraph apology, groveling, that's saying that this is not true.
We're going to be better.
This is so, we're really learning that the idea that only women can procreate, could you imagine the locker room after that?
The Toronto Raptors.
I mean, no better way to radicalize National Basketball Association players to being right-wingers than being like, no, no, actually, you're too dumb to think that only women can become pregnant.
And it's one thing to believe an insane thing.
That's nothing new.
What's different, though, is to force us to believe it and not be able to challenge it.
And I'm not going to put up with that, and you shouldn't either.
When this is how you know these ideas are so poisonous and awful, is that they could have let the video play.
And then why don't we hear from all the experts that could tell us that what the basketball player said was wrong, where he literally just said, they're the only ones that can procreate.
God bless them.
They're the mothers of the world.
That's not true in the world of the woke because they believe men can become pregnant and birthing people and all that sort of thing, right?
And so, and that was so offensive, they had to then use force to take it down.
And then, of course, you must then apologize.
Even though you're not sorry, that's what's so interesting: I think if you actually are sorry in life, you should apologize.
Here's a good rule for life: never apologize for if you did not do something wrong and someone is demanding an apology from you.
That's a hostage situation.
That is not necessary of an apology.
That's, I'm so, I need you to justify my weird worldview.
So, please, you know, apologize.
What did I do wrong?
Well, you hurt my feelings.
Well, okay, but I said that only women can become pregnant.
I have so many examples of this, by the way.
For example, Hershey's Chocolate in the just the last couple weeks, which is, again, not exactly I would consider to be a company at the top of the list of, you know, political activism.
But Hershey's comes out with a dude that is appropriating womanhood and is like dancing around and frolicking and says, you know, being a woman to me means this.
It's a man.
It's like a man with long hair telling us, and he's like, go buy Hershey's chocolate.
And I have a deeper theory about this that I think is really important, which is the MBA example aside, but certainly with Hershey's and definitely with the NFL and definitely with some other companies, I think these companies use the woke stuff as a way to distract us from the bad stuff these companies are actually doing.
For example, maybe it's not a good thing to give eight-year-olds chocolate and corn syrup.
But Hershey's doesn't want you talking about that because they're cool because they have men frolicking around as women.
I think the woke thing serves as almost a smokescreen and a veneer and a camouflage from us actually criticizing some of these companies and organizations from the legitimate damage they're doing to, I don't know, contribute to childhood obesity.
I mean, again, Hershey's, I love chocolate, you probably love chocolate.
But of all the things I would think that Hershey would be very worried about, I didn't think it would be their gender politics.
I just don't think they would weigh in on that.
But they do that because they think they can be immune to the pressure from the activist class if they put out those sort of weird infomercials.
The NFL is the same thing, by the way.
These nauseating end zones end racism, like all this stuff.
The NFL just doesn't want you to talk about concussions.
And I love football, by the way.
I love football.
But the NFL has covered up concussions for the last 20 years, and they act as if it's not a risk factor into playing football.
I think football is beautiful.
Reason Against Emotion In Modern Culture 00:14:58
I think we should continue it.
I think we've got to figure out a way to try to limit concussions and actually have players not be penalized for actually sitting weeks out, like Tua, you know, was totally mistreated with the Miami Dolphins this last season.
But the NFL doesn't want you talking about that because the NFL instead would say, well, we're enlightened because we have the gay flag or whatever in our end zone and we're going to end racism.
Okay.
Ending racism is a very virtuous thing, obviously, to try to do.
Probably going to take more than a decal on the back of a helmet.
How about we create good people and have kids that can read in our public schools in Baltimore?
Like, maybe that's probably more important than ending racism.
Just probably, right?
Okay, so I have five differences.
And you guys can disagree on this, but I actually think these, even if you disagree with everything I stand for and everything that we believe at Turning Point USA, I think these five differences are actually, these are facts of the distinctions between the divide, the majority divide.
Now, there are nuances here.
You might be a libertarian.
You might be a socialist.
You might be, you know, so these are general kind of categories of five things that I think that are differences between someone who thinks more on the conservative side or someone who would self-identify on the American left.
And the first of which is really important, which is, do you believe that there is or an ability to believe in absolute truth?
Do you believe that there is truth that might transcend your own opinions?
And this is a very important thing.
I'm a Christian.
I wear it on my sleeve.
I think the further we've gotten away from our Christian roots, the more unhappy, less joyful, more miserable, and violent our country has become.
It's not a popular thing to say in America, but it's true, so you could take it for whatever it's worth.
But in secular society, in the Bible, it says, very famous verse, and man did whatever is right in his own eyes, right?
Basically saying, you want moral chaos, you have subjectivity.
I'm going to do whatever I want whenever I want to do it because I'm the most important thing.
That's a very modern way to view your existence, by the way.
Very modern.
Instead, the more traditional way, which I think is more healthy and actually anchored in wisdom, is that, okay, I do exist, but I'm made in the image of a creator that is much more powerful and is actually divine and I am not.
And I should first care about my obligations and my duty and my service more so than my own personal feelings or my own personal opinions.
That's a lot more important than thinking you're the most important thing in the world.
In fact, I think it actually creates unhappier people.
I'll get to that in a second.
Is there truth?
And I'll hear all the time, people will say, Charlie, there is no such thing as absolute truth.
The only thing is your own personal perspective and/or power dynamics.
Not only is this a problem when you play it out in kind of just utilitarian ways, because eventually somebody's going to be in charge, okay?
Eventually, somebody's truth is going to reign supreme.
And history shows us that if you believe that there's no absolute truth, you're going to get a Stalin who's willing to use brutal power to eventually get to the top of that hierarchy.
And nobody wants to live in that country.
Okay?
I shouldn't say nobody.
You shouldn't want to live in that country.
Okay?
The idea of having absolute truth is basic in speech.
If you do not have agreed-upon terms or vocabulary where we can have discussion, then what exactly are how are we ever supposed to remedy our differences?
This is why I am so, at times I get accused as being obtuse, which I consider to be a compliment, so firm about language precision when it comes to sex and gender.
Because if you all of a sudden are allowing words to mean whatever those words want them to mean, then you no longer have the ability to be able to remedy your differences with somebody you disagree with.
You're talking on different planets, and boy, is that not the case in America today.
I'll give you an example.
Here's one word that means something completely different to one side than it does to the other side.
And this is sad: the word insurrection.
Okay?
For half the country, they see what happened on January 6th, and they say that is a violent overthrow of our government.
When reviewing the 45,000 hours of footage, I don't think it was a noble thing, obviously, to go smash windows and to try to harm police officers, but largely it was a bunch of buffoons that were kind of like amateurville USA that had really some planning to no planning whatsoever.
And if that's an insurrection, it's the first insurrection in American history where the guards are showing the insurrectionists around the place they're trying to take over.
Here, here's the windows, and this would that they're docents at a museum.
That's not an insurrection, that's a tour guide.
And yet they keep on repeating this in the last couple days: insurrection is that's really bad because then it dilutes the term.
I'll give you another example: racism.
Racism is real.
It is.
It's evil.
Because that means you are putting a label on somebody that they did not earn.
Something they cannot change.
Something that no matter how hard they try, they can't break outside of that label.
That is stereotyping somebody's actions and judging them and putting them in a box before they've ever, ever done something to you.
That is evil, it's wrong, it's terrible.
But however, if you say racism in America, some people on the left will say, but black people can't be racist.
This is a predominant prevailing view, or they say, well, white people are racist no matter what.
When basically the classical definition of racism is one that we should not just accept, that should be predominant, which is any person of any race could be racist at any time.
It's wrong and it's evil.
And guess what?
We're actually not that racist of a country.
We're actually the least racist country ever to exist in the history of the world.
We're actually rather decent to each other.
Considering we have every nation represented on the planet, every language spoken, we've let more people into our country than any other country ever to exist in the history of the world.
And we largely get along.
That's a big deal.
In fact, we have a supply and demand problem with racism.
That if you are a famous, soon-to-be-failed actor in Chicago, you have to fake your own hate crime.
There's so little racism that you got to go all of a sudden, put like a noose around your neck and act as if, oh my goodness, they're hunting me down in the streets and screaming, this is MAGA country.
That's how you know you don't live in a racist country.
You have to fake your own hate crimes.
And by the way, you do it really sloppily and you think people are going to believe you.
By the way, I'm from Chicago.
I knew this whole thing was BS.
As soon as I heard negative 30 degrees, you go out to Subway.
That's really weird at like 2 a.m.
Like that whole thing is really strange.
And then he says that the two people come up with MAGA hats and proclaim this is MAGA country.
And then they throw the noose around him.
And then when the police come back into his apartment, he's still wearing the noose.
And the police officer, God bless him, one of the funniest lines in the history of police body cam footage.
First thing, first thing the police officer says is, why are you still wearing the noose?
It's like it's been in, it's like been 20 minutes.
Like, I get it.
It's like, don't you think you take it off?
Like, that's, you're wearing it like it's a costume because it was a costume, okay?
So when words start to mean something that they don't actually mean, then you get into power dynamics and that's really bad.
So, but deeper than that, my challenge to you, even if you don't think there is absolute truth, I challenge you to at least entertain the idea that there is absolute truth.
Because otherwise, you actually then self-contradicting your own viewpoint, which one of my favorite dialogues I've ever had with a student is they say, Charlie, there is no such thing as absolute truth.
I say, well, is that absolutely true?
And immediately it collapses, right?
Because then you're using the paradigm that you're trying to criticize against the person that you're going.
Okay, second thing is this, which is, okay, kind of ties into this.
What matters more in trying to make difficult political decisions or difficult decisions?
Reason or emotions?
Okay, reason should always matter more than your emotions.
Your emotions are important.
Your emotions, though, can deceive you because they fluctuate.
They also are incredibly subjective.
We need to go through a political process where reason is much more important than emotion.
And emotion should not mean nothing.
When you see 5,000 people go across your southern border every single day, you should be angry about that.
When you see children that are allowed to have drag queens performed in front of them, you should be angry about that.
However, the way that we go about actually doing something should dictate and use reason.
Because reason actually tempers that emotion, and then you're able to build consensus based on that reason.
You can have agreed upon terms and agreed upon language.
I'm afraid that our politics has become way too emotive and not very logical.
And by the way, this is actually, sometimes both sides are equal opportunity offenders of this.
So there's not one side versus the other.
I get upset on both sides about this.
But largely in American life today, and especially, I think, in the viewpoint of what we call the wokeys, it is hyper-emotional and very little factual.
So for example, when I will go on a college campus and they'll say, you know, Charlie, you cannot be a black person and walk down the street without the police coming and gunning you down.
It's super frequent, it's super common.
But then you use your reason, you say, well, how common is it?
How many unarmed black men are killed by the police every single year?
And estimates, they'll say 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 50,000.
It's 18.
And that's according to the Washington Post, not exactly a right-wing outlet, okay?
18 is too much.
You go look into that.
It's actually less than that.
It's more like 10 or 11 because the way they determine it is actually really kind of sketchy.
It's like some people were trying to run over the top of the car.
They were reaching for something that could have been a weapon.
Okay, let's say that it's 15.
Out of millions of police interactions every single year, and a very, very difficult job that keeps us all safe.
Are we really supposed to disassemble modern society because of 15 examples that are very subject to error when emotions are heightened and you're in the heat of the moment?
See, that's using your reason against emotion to actually come to a conclusion.
And the summer of 2020, Floyd Apalooza, we decided to allow our emotion to literally burn down our civilization.
We should never let that happen again.
Because the reason should have been, actually, we're not a racist country.
There's no excuse for what happened in Minneapolis.
That's bad.
It's also extremely rare.
And to connect that all of a sudden to 1619 project, we're systemically racist and all that, it's just not true.
But if you don't believe in absolute truth, and that argument is not very convincing, is it?
That goes back to the first point.
Third one, this.
Victims and victors.
Look, part of the Marxist view is constantly looking at things through either race, gender, class, right?
So Marx originally was really big on class.
Actually, he said some things that were sort of true about that.
We can talk about that later.
Then gender came.
They're totally done with that one, by the way, because they can't tell you what a woman is.
But the big one that they're really driving home is race, right?
Which is constantly trying to tell people that there is something that you have a disadvantage against you, that you have a barrier, that you have a limitation based on something you can't change.
I think this is one of the most immoral and evil things that you can tell a young black person in America or a young Hispanic person or anyone in ethnic minority.
If you're telling them out of the gate that there are these boogeyman barriers that might prevent them from flourishing in success and prosperity, by definition, that student will be less likely to take a risk, to engage in self-discipline, and to try to get to a higher place of flourishing.
You're basically telling them the game is so rigged against you, the white man, the structural structure against you, that you shouldn't do that.
Instead, it should be, you know what?
You might get gypped here and there by a jerk, but we actually largely live in a decent country, and you're going to find some decent people.
And if you don't like that decent person, quit and find a decent person.
Instead, be gritty and be tough.
And if you do that, you can succeed in this country.
That's a much better message than telling everybody that they're a victim simply because of the color of their skin.
And that is a massive divide as we see manifest in our country today.
Okay, I could talk about that one forever, but I'm going to go quick.
Number four, which is probably one of my favorites, and it should be, honestly, if I was king for a day, that would be really something, I got to tell you.
If I was king for a day, I would make it a nationwide, I would make it a requirement that every class in college or high school at least debates, thinks, and reads on the topic of whether or not man is basically good or basically evil.
This is one of the most fundamental questions when you talk about politics and life.
It informs almost every other question when it comes to politics.
Now, spoiler alert: if you're a Christian, you cannot believe man is basically good.
Okay?
It's impossible.
Just a little spoiler alert.
It's incompatible.
Most of the secular world, though, believes that man is born good and corrupted by the influences outside of him.
So born perfect and corrupted by racism, corrupted by capitalism, corrupted by all the corporatism, all this stuff.
And therefore, we can't blame the human being who is flawed.
We got to change all society and that will make the world better.
I'm a parent of now a six-month-old.
I think other parents would agree.
If you want a masterclass in demonstrating human nature, have children and you'll learn human nature very quickly.
Like, I never taught you that, but that's very bad.
Stop doing that.
Like, where did you learn that?
It's because their nature, I believe, is naturally bad.
Does that mean they're all bad?
No.
There is a tension.
You do have a conscience.
In fact, in Genesis 3, not to talk too much about the Bible because some of you might find it unpersuasive, even though it built the civilization you're in, but that's a separate issue.
Cain, one of the most amazing dialogues is Cain talking to God, where God asked him, what happened to your brother?
And Cain did not immediately say, well, I murdered him, of course.
Instead, his answer, and I'm just paraphrasing from memory, it was actually somewhat defensive.
Basically, it was like, What am I, my brother's keeper?
And there's a lot of different ways to read that verse, but basically, that's it.
That's that's plain defense because I believe God did put an element of conscience in every single human being.
However, it wasn't enough.
That's why you had the Noahic covenant and eventually the laws of Israel.
And then, obviously, we believe as Christians, you know, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, to lead us towards the absolute truth.
But the point being is that I do believe there is some agency for a human being to be able to judge good and bad.
But guess what?
Fighting For Truth On The Front Line 00:10:32
What we know through human history and just raising children is that usually your nature wins out against the dialogue in your head.
So, the question should be: what do we do about it?
Try to raise good people.
Pretty simple.
Teach young people what is right or wrong and punish them when they do wrong.
Pretty simple.
Well, it's actually not that simple because civilizations have tried to figure it out for quite some time.
In fact, America was figuring it out really well when we used to have a certain model of education.
We've gotten away from that.
If people are naturally good, then you can excuse all the injustice in the world.
If people are naturally not good, then the problem is very simple: make them better, understand their nature.
You see, when a college student believes they're naturally good and they know they're not, it actually can be very tormenting to them.
Instead, we should say, Your nature is rather crummy, and if you work hard at it enough, you can actually become a pretty good person.
Instead, if you tell a 19-year-old your nature is perfect, they become an activist because they think everything wrong about the world is outside of them.
Instead, you should say the biggest problem and the biggest challenge you have every single day is the person you see in the mirror.
It's you versus you.
It's not you versus climate change.
It's not you versus systemic racism.
It's not you versus transphobia.
How about you make your bed, shave, and stop smelling like a mess before you tell me that America is systemically racist?
We used to tell our children in America, we used to tell our children, you got a lot of problems, and America is great.
Now we tell our children, America has a lot of problems, and you are great.
And the result is the most miserable, suicidal, depressed, confused generation in American history.
Because we've taught them that their past is crummy, no ability to improve their current life unless they tear everything down around them.
That creates activists and arsonists, not good people.
Okay, finally, one that I could go on for at some length here, which I think is really important, which is what is man's relationship with nature?
And this is one that is going to just be the number one issue that I don't know tonight the questions that we'll get, but I get this question probably more than anything else.
Charlie, what do you think about climate change and all this?
And I'm happy to discuss all of it, but you cannot even begin to get into that debate until you could tell me on moral terms what you believe man versus nature and how they should coexist.
I believe in a hierarchy of man of nature.
I believe nature is there for us as human beings to be able to use to put human beings first.
I do not believe we're here to worship nature.
I do not believe we are here to get some sort of, let's say, religious kick out of nature.
I think nature is made by God, who is outside of nature, for man who is above nature to be able to flourish.
Why does that matter?
Well, if you believe that nature and man are equals, or even worse, if you believe that nature is above man, well, then all of a sudden, you then have an argument to shut down industrial production, to limit human population.
You see, earth worship is nothing new.
It is coming back, though, in great, in great detail.
The question in front of us should be, and this is what I always ask of the climate change people: is would you believe the same policy prescriptions that you have to, you know, some of them, there's some nuances here, right?
But get rid of fossil fuels, you know, widespread electric vehicles, all this stuff.
Would you still believe that if you believe that human beings actually have a hierarchy over nature?
And you might say, well, that's insignificant because I want to save the environment to be able to save human beings.
Okay, so that's actually a good argument if it was true.
If you can buy, if you can get me to buy into quote-unquote scientific consensus after everything I've been told by the scientific elites over the last three years has been proven to be a synthetic, fabricated lie.
Whether it be the virus came from a bat in the Himalayan mountains and kicking me off Twitter for mentioning it, shutting down kids and putting on masks of which epidemiologically was one of the worst, stupidest things we could ever do to young teenagers, and then to force on an mRNA gene-altering shot onto a younger generation and tell them, if you don't get this, you don't go to college, you can't go to the military, you can't get a job, and then not even an apology from Fauci or Walensky or the people in charge.
Yeah, excuse me while I say, yeah, you probably haven't earned my trust the last couple years.
In fact, you've earned my distrust.
Like when you are really getting towards something, I think there actually might be an ulterior motive behind you.
So man's relationship with nature is very important, and I believe you have to be able to express that on moral terms.
Okay, I want to get to some questions, but let me close by saying this.
I know a lot of you want me to talk about what's happening in the country right now.
I kind of just did through, you know, in a separate way, obviously talking more about philosophy and all that.
But tonight, I can see that it's, you know, somewhat of a conservative audience, and I appreciate that.
If somebody comes to the line tonight and says something you disagree with or you find objectionable, please do not boo them or scorn them or say anything to them.
I spend my life getting death threats from liberals, having to have arm protection 24/7 from the left.
And the last thing I ever want is to be as nasty or disrespectful as the other side.
So tonight, if you disagree, again, you can come to the front of the line and you can ask any question you want.
You'll be given an opportunity and you'll be given a platform.
But it does take some bravery and some gusto to get up and to ask me a question, especially if it's against a view I have.
And so if that is the case, respect that.
Even if you find the proposition they are putting forward laughable or silly, respect them during the question process.
So you guys can start lining up here.
If you disagree, you go to the front of the line.
I'll just say this about the state of the country.
People say, Charlie, where do you think we're headed?
Are you optimistic?
Are you pessimistic?
Where do you think you are?
Here's what I think.
I think good people need to fight harder right now.
Okay?
I think good people need to do more to fight against what I consider to be some of the most immoral evil action we see in our country.
So again, if you have a question, comment, you can line up.
If you disagree, go to the front of the line.
And I'm going to go to they kick me off stage.
First question: How has your life shifted since being a father?
It's a great question.
So here's the best way I can describe it: BC and AD.
It's literally New Testament, Old Testament.
I actually thought to myself the other day, what was my life before I had a child?
Parents, I'm sure you could agree, right?
It all just kind of seems so silly and irrelevant.
It makes you also more paranoid for sure, especially I'm told that goes away with the second or third or fourth or fifth kid, right?
I'm told that you're like, okay, whatever, especially when they get sick, which is no fun, right?
It makes you recognize and realize that you have a specific duty that transcends your feeling.
It's one of the things that's why I'm telling young people I encourage you to get married and have children.
It's so important.
Because it's kind of irrelevant how you feel at 3 a.m.
They have to eat, and that's a duty and an obligation.
So then the service to your child matters a lot more than your own personal kind of feelings or your own desires at that moment.
And that's a very important thing and a lesson to learn over time.
And then also it radicalizes you.
It certainly has radicalized me because it really makes me have bitter contempt for somebody that would ever want to harm a child, is harming children, or wants to make the country my daughter has to grow in any less free.
So I want to win more than ever before.
Thank you.
Hello.
So I'm the president of the chapter at Moorhead State University, and we have had different events throughout the past semester, and our student government has kind of attacked us for it and tried to discriminate against us.
So what is your advice to other chapters and other conservative organizations to kind of combat this political persecution from student governments?
Yeah, that's a good question.
You have to be persistent, right?
You have to use their own rules against them.
And so that's an Alinsky rule, by the way.
Use the enemy's own rules against them, which is if they have clauses in the student constitution or in the student bylaws or the university bylaws and they're discriminating against you or they're treating you differently, then use, then throw that book at them and be like, wait a second, we're allowed to do this.
But the biggest thing I have to tell you is you have to have endurance and perseverance, right?
It is not enough just to show up and hope you're treated well.
You have to demand respectful treatment, right?
But do it respectfully and do it with integrity and do it kindly.
And at the same time, though, do not put up with them using their power against you because they don't see the world the way you do, right?
And they're strengthened numbers and strength in community.
And you also want to be annoying enough where eventually they just say yes and they make you go away.
That's actually half the battle.
Am I right for all of our turning point chapter leaders?
Right?
That's half the battle.
God bless you.
Thank you.
Hello.
So I am a self-described liberal.
And I honestly did not think that I would be so nervous, but I am.
And I wanted to kind of clear up some things.
You had said earlier that it's easy, you to ask if it's easy to hold liberals, is it easy to hold your beliefs?
And oh, it's easy because the rest of society agrees with you, yada, yada, yada.
However, that's not why I find it easy.
I was liberal before it was cool.
I find my beliefs easy to hold because I believe them in my soul.
Free Speech Limits And Liberal Hypocrisy 00:07:27
And I feel like a lot of conservatives are the same way.
Your beliefs aren't subject to acceptance or disacceptance.
Something else, and I mean, and honestly, if it were about what would be easy, would be if I wanted to make my life more comfortable, I would change and become conservative.
Because my husband has been caught up in and has changed his way of thinking to be a conservative person over the past couple of years.
Caused absolute disarray.
So, if it were something where I could just say, oh, well, you know, if you could get somebody to change their values.
Yeah, so let's try to make some progress.
What do you believe and why do you believe it?
Well, I believe actually a lot of the same things you believe, just maybe in a more broad sense.
Like, I believe in freedom.
I believe in free speech.
I believe in free speech for everybody.
I believe in freedom of expression.
If you were born with a penis and you want to wear a dress, have at it.
It's not my, it's not my life.
And I don't get to dictate to anybody else what's right or wrong.
I don't believe that man is above nature because then is man unnatural?
If man is separate from nature, is man unnatural?
Man is made in the image of the Creator.
But I do want to mention zero in on one thing here, which is so you say it's you don't care what other people do.
Just curious, do you think it should be okay for adults to perform drag performances in front of children?
It depends on the nature of the performance.
How about a sexually explicit one?
Of course not.
Okay, so we agree on that.
And by the way, most liberals don't, just so we're clear, right?
Yeah.
I know zero liberals that think that it's okay to expose children to sexually explicit stuff.
Okay, so you would be partners with me in removing child pornography from elementary schools.
Yes.
Okay.
So you're a big fan of Ron DeSantis then?
No.
Well, he did that and he was attacked by Disney and he was attacked by every major left-wing group as harsh, anti-gay, don't say gay.
He was just saying you're not allowed to put propaganda or pornography in front of kids.
I think you're actually more conservative than you are liberal, than you give yourself credit for.
No, no, no, no.
Hold your applause.
I am not because where we differ is in how we define what is profane, what is pornography.
How about oral sex to eight-year-olds?
That's probably profane, right?
Excuse me?
Yeah, exactly.
That's in textbooks across the country, including in this state, that liberals are defending as free speech.
Okay.
They're teaching eight-year-olds the most graphic sexual practices in public schools across the country.
And I get smeared, slandered, and so does the American right as somehow being anti-LGBT because I don't think a nine-year-old should be exposed to things that should be behind in the darkest depths of the human existence, right?
So I guess we agree on that.
What I'm trying to get at, though, is why you believe what you believe.
And we could spend all night doing this.
You say you believe in freedom and free speech, right?
Okay.
So which side do you think the American right or the American left currently is doing a better job of protecting the idea of freedom of speech?
Actually, they're both sucking pretty hardcore.
They're both being absolutely horrible at it.
How has the right been horrible at that?
I'm curious.
They're both being horrible in the exact same way.
And it's who are they protecting or standing up for free speech for?
Like free speech for who?
Can I ask a theoretical question?
Do you think if a liberal came to speak at University of Kentucky, they'd give an open mic like I just did to a conservative and had a discussion like this?
I certainly hope they would.
No, they wouldn't, because speech is not a left-wing value.
That's why Chuck Schumer went on the Senate floor yesterday and called for the censorship of a cable television program.
That is why they have to deploy shock troops called Antifa to go after everywhere I go.
When I go to University of California Davis next week, there has to be 120 police officers because of the threats, the violent threats of liberals that want me dead, that want to disrupt our events.
There are no right-wing hecklers that come to events like this.
Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, myself, Candace Owens need 24-7, 365 armed security to prevent ourselves from the violent threats from the left.
And so I think it's rather clear there's one side that is trying to do everything they can to shut one side up and one side that's trying to open up the marketplace of ideas.
And I think that's rather self-evident.
But I do want to thank you for coming here tonight and demonstrating.
I totally disagree with everything you just said.
I don't discount that you've received death threats or anything like that.
So how about this?
Public approval polls show that a majority of liberals do not believe the First Amendment is absolute.
What do you have to say about that?
It's, I mean, it's not absolute.
There are restrictions to the First Amendment.
Such as?
There literally are legal restrictions to it.
Outside of incitement, what would one be?
Okay.
Let's see.
Let me think back to high school civic.
Do you think hate speech should be disallowed?
Fighting words is disallowed.
Not fighting words.
I mean, it's called that, though.
No, they're very much not disallowed, actually.
They are disallowed if your speech is considered by a reasonable person to and they harm you because of what you said.
Wait, you mean hurt their feelings or physical problem?
I mean, okay.
If you intentionally provoke a person with your speech, that is not protected speech.
Yes, it is.
It actually the American Civil Liberties Union protected Nazis to be able to march in Skokie, Illinois around Holocaust survivors.
Grotesque, outrageous speech is absolutely protected by the first amount of people.
I'm saying that I can't really explain it right now, but there is a limitation on that.
Another limit is like you can't speech that like you can't yell fire in a leader.
You actually can, but that's a separate constitutional issue.
That's incitement.
That's a separate issue.
Chemical Castration And Biological Delusion 00:07:45
But thank you for being here tonight.
And I don't think we made any progress, but we certainly see where we disagree.
So, all right, next question.
Hello, my name is Jeff.
It's more of a question for me to understand your view on something.
You said that you view humans are more important than the Earth.
Yes.
What is a human without the Earth?
Or just the simple atmosphere that gives us the ability to live on Earth?
Humans could potentially exist outside of the Earth.
I mean, we've got to believe in that too.
We could colonize Mars, but obviously, in the immediate, the Earth is necessary for our survival, obviously.
Do you believe God created us somewhere else and we have come from somewhere else, or do you think He created us here?
He created us here.
On like Wednesday or something?
Well, no, God created man on what, the fifth or sixth day?
Okay.
Before He rested, if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah.
Am I right?
Yeah.
Okay.
That was all I just wanted to understand.
Okay.
Sorry.
All right.
Next question.
Yeah, sure.
Hi, Charlie.
My name's Dan.
Welcome.
I followed you for some time, and I've never heard you comment on what I was going to ask you.
There's a commentator author whom I have listened to for more than 50 years who I think is wonderful.
His name is Dr. Thomas Sowell.
He's my man.
I love something on the side.
I've never heard you comment on him, and I just wanted to see if you were a fan of his.
Yeah, I mean, I think it should be required reading in every college economics course.
The best book is Discrimination and Disparities.
It'll change your life.
And basic economics.
He wrote over 50 books.
Thomas Sowell is a black economist who was raised in New York and shatters so many of the myths that have infected our society.
Okay, thank you very much.
God bless you.
I admire him, and thank you very much.
Thank you.
By the way, if you disagree, you're allowed to go to the front.
So just keep coming.
No, no, no, not you, sir.
I'm saying in the line, if anybody disagrees, our staff will help identify it.
Okay, yes.
So you mentioned that you're fairly in line with the Bible, and I'm glad you are.
I am too.
And, you know, I think, as you know, God created a man and woman.
And so, how would you respond to someone who thinks that they're in the wrong body?
So, like, say they're male and they think they're female or want to be female.
Isn't that technically just telling God that he's wrong?
You're pretty much just beating them down.
I mean, how would you respond to someone with love and compassion?
I mean, they're in the midst of a delusion.
And people that are in the midst of a delusion need to be told the truth and need to be helped.
But if you think you're in a different biological being than you actually are, you're suffering from something.
And the American Psychiatric Association used to call this gender dysphoria.
We no longer call it that.
And so the real question should be: why is it all of a sudden the new way of treating this, which is with chemical castration and extremely expensive drugs and pediatric gender surgery, better than maybe telling a 12-year-old, hey, you're a woman, you're going through puberty.
Maybe let's have some counseling for six months or two years or three years before we, I don't know, make you go under with the knife and make you have irreversible damage.
And so everything should be done with love and compassion.
I think it's cruel and harsh and medieval to have teenagers, thousands of which every single year, have their breasts chopped off and are having mastectomies.
I had an unbelievably powerful hour-long dialogue with a D-transitioner.
By the way, we are about to see one of the saddest communities of people grow exponentially, which are D-transitioners.
And like clockwork, you get administered testosterone, you get, all of a sudden you start to feel stronger, more mental clarity, but it has a plateau effect after three or four years.
And you always think like you need more surgery and you need more surgery because if you think that's actually going to solve the problem, it probably isn't, because it's a much deeper identity problem that you're having, right?
And so the way that it was actually solved successfully by counselors across the country was through cognitive behavioral therapy and going through a process of loving on the person enough to tell them the truth that they're actually not the thing that they think that they are.
And here's the best example I have for this.
It is not loving to always give a patient what they want.
You do not give liposuction to somebody that has anorexia.
It will kill them.
I'm fat.
No, you're not actually.
You're 95 pounds and you're under a delusion where you think you're fat.
Patients want things from doctors all the time.
Gender affirming care, it's nonsense.
It's drivel.
Instead, it should be a gender factual care.
This is, by the way, I don't like the term gender.
I just, I think sex is a much better term because I think gender is actually going too far.
So I would say that you're under a delusion.
I hope you get help.
And I'm not going to pretend that you're something you're not just because of that.
Yeah, I mean, there's 72 genders now, so you can't really.
I think it's up to 100.
Could be.
Is it all right if I ask one more question?
We got a long line.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Hey, Charlie, we spoke at the event you had at the University of Vermont a couple of years ago.
So besides your organization and a few others.
Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember you.
Yeah, yeah.
You remember me?
Yeah, I do.
Great.
So besides your organization and a few others, there's no so much involvement with the younger generation coming from Republicans and the GOP.
You know where I'm going with.
Yes, that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.
While I personally feel that the Democrats and the left specifically are doing a fabulous job at getting the young ones involved and they are much better organized, why do you think that is?
And what can the Republicans and the GOP do going forward to get more engaged with the younger generation?
That's a great, great question.
Thank you.
Look, my job is hard because at the core of my message is not free stuff or blaming other people for your problems.
My job is to have you resist the temptation of human nature to sit at home all day long and do weed and blame people for their problems and get free money.
My job is actually to tell you to go do hard stuff that is infinitely more rewarding than blaming people for your problems.
And so by definition, it's harder.
By definition, I'm going to tell you, you know, get married and have kids and you won't sleep for 20 years.
Okay?
But your life will be deeper and you'll be happier.
I'm here to tell you that you should care more about your duties and your obligations than your feelings and your emotions.
That's a hard message to sell because the modern self, the way that we teach young people, is you're the most important thing.
Your feelings, your own creation of yourself.
It's garbage.
It's rubbish.
And even some conservatives don't like it when I talk like this.
And to the earlier answer, someone says, well, why do I care if a man pretends to be a woman?
I'm not here to tell you what to do.
Of course, you could do some things privately.
You could be mentally deluded.
That's not the problem.
And let's not lie to ourselves.
You know what the problem is?
They're forcing us to accommodate their own delusion.
That's what's going on.
It's not about some sort of private thing where we're going around and being like, are you actually a man?
Are you a woman?
Homeschooling To Escape Modern Selfishness 00:02:41
I don't know.
It's men who are now competing in NCAA swimming competitions and women winning them and exposing themselves to women.
And all of a sudden we're like, well, you know, that is progress because even though he has a penis and he's in a female locker room, he identifies as a woman.
Your identification means nothing.
It means nothing.
And here's it.
People say, well, Charlie, I got to pick my pronouns.
Do you get to pick your adjectives?
Do you get to pick if you're tall, skinny, rich, successful, good grades?
Or are we going to throw out all objective reality because we all of a sudden want to platform somebody's own identity crisis over what is actually materially true?
Thank you for the question.
Fair enough, man.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Hey, my question is about your kid, or not necessarily your kid, but kids in general, on your opinion about homeschooling, private school, public school.
And I asked specifically about your kid because it probably shows the most about what you actually want, you know.
Yeah, we're already homeschooling, as I like to say, right?
We're going through the Constitution ABCs.
I'll tell you, that kid is going to know Madison from Jefferson to Jay and the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers by the age of three.
I'll tell you what.
She's going to be a superstar.
We're going to homeschool as long as we can.
And if we find a really good private school, great.
But we're not going to go to government school.
It's not going to happen.
I'm not going to allow these predators to get near my daughter.
It's not going to happen.
And I know that some of you say, Charlie, oh, that's too harsh.
I love her too much to allow a government school system that has repeatedly shown me institutionally through curriculum and practice that they do not care about the innocence of children.
They're not concerned about the pursuit of beauty or virtue or goodness.
It seems as if they're much more concerned about some ideological agenda.
So that's what I'm doing personally, what you guys decide to do.
I hope it works out for you and God bless you.
And if you are homeschooling, I am a massive fan and appreciative of that.
We need to have more people homeschooling in America.
Okay.
Could I then ask, if you were to look for a private school, what would your criteria be?
Yeah.
And then if when would it be more beneficial to do like homeschooling if the mother would then stay home and not be able to work?
Sure.
Yeah, it's tough.
So private school look for classical education.
I'm sure there's a classical school in the Lexington area.
Am I right?
Classical Education And Family Reconciliation 00:04:19
Maybe not.
Maybe I hope not.
I'm sure there's one in this state somewhere.
I bet there's a bunch of them.
Classical education is the way the American founders were educated.
You could do it bibliocentric, or you could do it, which I prefer, or you could do it Greek-centric, or I guess that would be Hellenistic-centric, I guess.
I don't know if that's the right term.
But basically, classical education gets students to think very deeply about the process of exploring truth from a young age.
It is completely against industrial education, which came to really almost everybody here was probably educated industrially.
They're going to be studying Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas.
The smartest, deepest kids that I've ever met were classically educated.
And I mean, Hillsdale College is a classical education, and they've done a fabulous job of showing the world what's possible through a proper classical education.
Thank you for being here tonight.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
First of all, thanks for coming tonight.
I appreciate it.
You said earlier that we should never apologize unless we have something to apologize for.
My sister and I have grown up in a very conservative Christian environment, and that particular sister has now become very woke extremely on the matter of abortion.
We have had a minor argument, and she's decided never to speak to me or my parents again.
If I feel that I'm in the right, do I stand firm with my beliefs or do I apologize and try to save that relationship?
No, you do not apologize, but you try to reconcile.
You need to be actively trying to make sure the relationship stays alive.
But do not apologize, because an apology means that you are then admitting that you had wrongdoing.
Now, if you got heated or said something you regret, I don't know, maybe not.
No.
Then you don't have anything to apologize.
Never apologize for speaking the truth.
But you should try to reconcile.
You should have compassion.
You should have love.
But you should be actively reaching out to try to make sure the bond between your sibling remains alive, because those can go very cold and it can go years and then decades, and that is a bad thing.
I do not recommend that happens.
You can have differing views with family members and still be on talking terms.
It is a tragedy, though, and I'm sure it exists.
But 99.9% of every example that I hear to the earlier question is liberals cutting off connection with conservative family members, not conservatives cutting off connection with liberal family members.
That's just an interesting thing.
But no, if she's asking for an apology, then she's trying to take you hostage, and that's a bad thing.
But instead, you could say, you're my sister and I love you.
We see things differently.
Are you going to allow that difference in certain beliefs get between our bond as siblings?
And you have to keep on relentlessly going after that.
And I believe eventually, hopefully, you'll be able to have some sort of a firm relationship there.
And from the parent standpoint, this is one of the reasons I get so angry with modern secularism.
Honoring your mother and father is one of the most important things that a human being can do, period.
It doesn't matter if your parents were crummy or awful.
If they were legitimately abusive, you have an out.
99.9% of the people in this room did not have legitimately abusive parents.
Okay?
Just not possible.
If they were mean to you and all this, it doesn't matter.
You must honor your parents.
It's good for you.
It's good for them.
And if you cannot honor your earthly mother and father, you will not be able to honor the divine father.
Okay?
That's a separate issue.
Your parents have to go through an even, I think, harder thing.
But let me say this.
Your parents are also, I don't know if they've told you this or not, but they would rather have you and your sister on good terms than them on good terms with their daughter.
Nothing makes a parent angrier or more sad than when their kids don't talk.
It's one thing for kids to get mad at parents.
It breaks the heart of parents when their kids won't talk to each other.
You say that all throughout the Bible.
So do your best to heal that.
I hope that's helpful.
Thank you very much.
Charlie, thanks for coming out tonight.
First of all, really appreciate it.
Honoring Parents To Honor God 00:15:14
I just have a quick question for you.
The left seems really good at unification, even under their differences.
They seem to continuously win elections even as their ideas shift.
Some people that used to be Democrats may not believe this gender stuff, but still seem to vote that direction.
But sometimes it seems the Conservative Party continuously loses, even though this happens.
What do you propose the solution is?
Being conservative, what can we do as a younger generation, but also just what can the Conservative Party do in general?
This is one of the best questions I've gotten in a while because I've been thinking about this topic.
The conservative movement, and I'm guilty of this, and I'm trying to stop being guilty of it, okay?
The conservative movement is held together largely on an anti-woke coalition.
It's easy, it's unifying, it's fun.
And guess what?
It's actually true because the woke is a legitimate threat against everything we love.
But you're actually not going to be able to win hearts and minds long term unless you're able to articulate what you believe and why you believe it.
And this is why I am an enthusiast for the American founding.
I think the American founding needs to be the unifying call of the American right.
The American founding was a call into the abyss that we demand self-government.
We want strong and local.
We want families first.
We're not going to put up with the profane or the licentious.
And we are going to be able to create a project where human beings can flourish.
I want the American right to re-embrace the spirit of the American founding.
And I think that can actually unify us, not just our hatred of the woke or our fear of the woke.
That is not sustainable long term.
We will lose because they'll just metamorphosize, they'll change, they'll lie.
A movement can be against things for a short period of time, and then it's brittle and will fall apart.
You want staying power, have a goal in the distance.
And you've got to give credit, by the way, to the pro-life movement.
Look at how good the pro-life movement has been and how successful they've been because they say, we want to repeal Roe versus Wade.
And they did it.
That's what's so amazing.
I mean, they actually got it done.
And so we need to have big, far-out aspirational goals that are rooted in the one thing that unifies all of us as conservatives.
And it's not religion, even though we are largely Christian.
It is what was the promise of the American founding.
And the promise of the American founding was not a liberal promise, because actually that's what's taught in a lot of our schools.
The founders were actually liberal and they hated religion.
Not true.
They actually were faith-filled people.
55 of 56 of the signers of the Declaration were Bible-believing church-attending Christians, but they understood biblical principles and relayed them directly into the most successful, longest-lasting constitutional project in world history.
That's something I think as conservatives we should re-embrace, and that could be a vision that could keep us together the same way the left has been kept together.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Hi, Charlie.
So I'm currently a sophomore here at the University of Kentucky.
And something I feel that I have picked up on in my time here is that there seems to be a lack of enthusiasm for politics, religion.
Yep.
A plethora of things.
And so really my question is: why do you think that that is, and how might that enthusiasm be restored?
This is not a phenomenon that is just in Lexington.
It's really interesting.
Outside of a couple campuses, you know, I have visited University of California, Berkeley, and have spoken there six times now, five or six times.
And every time I go, I see a different type of student body.
And I'll be very honest, I miss what I used to see.
What I used to see when I used to go to University of California, Berkeley were students that were totally wrong, but they had energy and they were involved and they had spirit.
And some of them were rather awful, but they weren't cynical.
What bothers me in my recent visits to Berkeley is there is a kind of a malaise of cynicism.
And I'm guessing you're seeing the same thing where people are like, what does it all matter?
It doesn't impact me.
That's disturbing.
And the question you're asking is the age-old question of the philosopher, how can I get people to care about the stuff I care about?
Right?
Not an easy answer.
Events like this help, right?
Hopefully when things start to get more real, and I mean, I don't know what could be more real than your salvation, but that's my own personal opinion, right?
But you have to have ambassadors like we have at Turning Point USA that care.
If you care, you can get other people to care.
But if then you allow yourself to be impacted by the cynicism, then those ideas and those values will die.
Does that make sense?
But understand that this Gen Z, I think I said this earlier, most suicidal, alcohol-addicted, drug-addicted generation in history, incredibly cynical about all things politics, all thing government, all thing religion, least religious generation in history.
It's really sad.
And I hope you guys can tell me that the revival, I don't know if the revival is still going on here.
Praise God.
It happened right down the street.
Anyone from Asbury here?
Anybody?
Yeah, praise God.
And you guys inspired so many millions of people across the country.
I don't know if it's still going on in other places.
I love that.
I want to see more of that.
I think it's important.
But boy, if there was ever a generation that was just ripe for a legitimate revival, it would be this one.
And I hope that can happen soon.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
I was wondering, what do you think about boycotting liberal companies?
Yeah, I'm not, yeah, I'm torn on it.
Probably a good idea.
But, I mean, I'm not going to use Hershey's anytime soon, right?
I mean, that's a good example.
I do encourage people.
The only thing is, because we used to complain about boycotts all the time, but it's probably time that we use it as a tactic, right?
To just say, you know what, I'm not going to voluntarily use my dollars against my value system and my deeply held beliefs, right?
And so I would do a positive twist on it, which is try to find conservative companies that share your values.
Everybody here should have the Rumble app on your phone.
Stop using YouTube and use Rumble, as we're streaming live on YouTube, by the way.
Use Rumble.
Try to find alternatives in the parallel economy.
And let me just say this: and this is one of the things, this is one of the things I can't stand about the modern cynical attitude.
It just drives me nuts.
For every young person out there, we need a new generation of entrepreneurs now more than ever.
If you have an idea, act on that idea.
We need entrepreneurs.
We need people to take risks.
We need them more than ever, especially ones that see the world the way we do.
So, thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Hi, Charlie.
My name's Holly.
Thank you for being here.
So, I hate to like circle back because I know we already touched on this, but when you said man is above earth, is that correct?
Nature, yeah.
Nature, excuse me.
Yes.
So, I know like a big issue here in Kentucky is Rubbertown, which is located west of Louisville.
So, how can we allow people to live in cities like this?
I'm not sure if you're familiar with it.
When this is not very, can you just give me this?
Yeah, so essentially, there's industrial plants right next to neighborhoods, and cancer rates and health rates are dramatically worse here because of this.
How can we let people live in these environments if we want man to be successful and throw and grow and grow here?
Yeah, that's actually, I think we're going to agree because you're using really good facts that interest me, which is human cancer rates and human flourishing.
So, we're on the same page.
We should always put human beings first.
Where I disagree is if you came here and you said, Well, Charlie, the squirrels are suffering.
I couldn't care less about the squirrels.
I care about the humans.
And so, I think I don't know the details of the story.
I don't know if it's overblown or if it's right down the middle.
I literally don't.
And I'm going to take you at your word that it's legitimate.
Then, the policy position should always be what is best for the human being, right?
And this is something at times where conservatives are afraid to articulate it in that sense.
But let me give you an example that prompted my dialogue, which is in California, there's massive droughts, massive, massive droughts, okay?
And it could be solved in some sense if they would just open up some of the aqueducts and take some of the water actually from the Central Valley, but it might kill something called the Delta Smelt, which is a fish that no one's ever heard of and no one really cares about except radical environmentalists.
And so, that's an example of putting an animal or a creature above human beings.
Because, I mean, if you're talking about human beings being impacted, then you have my attention and my sympathy.
Do you?
I'm curious to see why government or local officials aren't taking a bigger step in acknowledging how harmful this is.
Because I know a lot of people that live in these neighborhoods can't afford to just pick up everything and move to the nice part of town.
So, why aren't we supporting them or allowing them access to cleaner air out of an industrial chemical plant?
Yeah, if I were to speculate without knowing all the details, it's probably because of some powerful people that control the local area.
I'm just speculating.
Is that probably right?
And I think that this is actually a very interesting point of agreement, which is we put human beings first, right?
And human beings, industry should serve human beings.
Human beings should not serve industry.
And as a conservative, it actually get pushback on that, right?
People say, Well, Charlie, come on, what about markets first?
I'm kind of a human beings first guy, right?
Which is markets should serve human beings, human beings should not serve markets, right?
And I'll use a separate example that I know a lot better, which is what happened in East Palestine, Ohio, is completely and totally unacceptable, right?
From the environmental toxins and from Norfolk Southern.
And so, what you'll find from me is I am a free market capitalist guy, but I'm not an automatic default cheerleader for every corporate interest.
I'm not, nor do I think you should be as a conservative.
Do I think there's sometimes more to the story?
Do I think there's nuance?
Yes.
But if we're honest with ourselves, we as conservatives don't like powerful organizations.
That's why I don't like the government very much.
And what I've learned is that some of these transnational corporations sometimes don't work any better than the government.
I don't know the specifics of your example, but you certainly think we're actually agreeing largely on a lot of things.
Yes, I think so too.
I just wanted to get your thought.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Hi, Charlie.
Thank you for being here.
My name is Tammy Nolan.
I'm from the Bellevue, Kentucky area.
My son, Caleb, was in the sixth grade in the Bellevue public school system.
He is biracial when he was told to choose his race.
Yes, by two teachers there.
And I actually took the school to court, sued them, and won.
I've now homeschooled him since that.
But my question to you is: what do we do about the teachers who they fire, and then they just put them in another school district?
There's not a lot you can do about that currently.
I mean, taking back school boards and reforming them.
I am curious: why did they even care about your kids' race in sixth grade?
Because they knew I was a big Trump fan, and we made it very well known, so they targeted him.
That's just so sick.
Sixth graders caring about their race.
Like, how about you care about telling the truth, right?
And they told him, don't come home and tell your mom, or there would be consequences.
So, of course, there were consequences because I was up there in their face.
Yeah, good for you.
By the way, we need more moms like you.
So, I mean that.
I don't have a good answer for you on what to do with relocated teachers after they do that, except that if your kid is in government schools, you have to hawk those schools, right?
Correct.
Hawk the curriculum, hawk the teachers.
And I also want to acknowledge: when I say I'm going to homeschool my kids and go to private school, not every family has the income to be able to do that, or the private schools that have the accessibility.
And so then you got to fight, which is exactly what you're doing.
Right.
And I know you were talking about the books that are to be the pornography books that are being pulled off.
They're legitimate.
You've got one of the biggest fighters right here in my country.
Moms for Liberty, God bless you.
Moms for Liberty has done that in our county.
I love it.
God bless you.
Thank you.
Hi, Charlie.
My name is David Gent.
I'm a freshman here at University of Kentucky.
And today we had somebody come and claim to be a Christian and was basically protesting homosexuality and things like that.
But along the way, what I think was maybe meant with good intention started becoming them saying to the crowd, you're going to hell and you're going to hell.
And I don't like that.
So, no, and I don't like it either.
I think it's a large misrepresentation of Christianity being based on love and things like that.
And so, how do you face tough topics like that without that do have to do with emotions?
Politics ties in with emotions.
Religion ties in with emotions.
So, how do you talk to somebody who is homosexual or something like that without offending them while still providing them with truth?
I mean, look, they're made in the image of God, and I mean this, and I don't like that language at all for a lot of reasons.
And also, it's just, I do believe in hell.
Let me be very clear.
I'm not one of those Christians, right?
But I also don't believe that anyone should go around with certainty that you know where somebody is going and their eternal destination.
I think that's really wrong.
I think that's theological hubris.
I really do.
I believe you can know your destination and what your salvation is, and then be careful when you start shouting at people.
Also, I just think it's cruel and ineffective and actually makes it harder to win people over.
And that's not exactly the way that I would do it at all.
But look, it's very simple.
I believe in the natural law, and I believe in the potential of all human beings to be able to flourish as God intended them.
And I wade into the most controversial, hardest topics.
I do my best to try to do it with some form of whimsy and grace.
Also, be blunt, though, right?
But my heart is to try to get people, and I love people, that are made in the image of the Creator to be able to live the way that I believe they're best suited to live.
And I'm afraid some people do more damage than good in that regard, based on the example that you've delivered there.
And it sounds like that got very emotional and very personal, right?
And so I don't know if that fully answers your question, but you can also see lots and lots of videos of me dealing with those kind of discussions there, right?
Yeah.
That I think are really important.
So thank you.
Hello, Charlie.
I'm Logan.
It's very nice to meet you and great to have you here.
So I'm currently a freshman at a BCTC community college here in Lexington.
And last semester, I did a final paper in my English class, and I decided to do it over election integrity.
Defending Positions In Emotional Discussions 00:08:55
And right after my professor gave me feedback, I could tell he was a liberal or whatever.
And he said those claims or whatever had been discredited.
How do you deal with a professor who has different political views so you can be on good terms with them despite that?
Did you get a good grade eventually?
I did get a great grade.
You got to fight for it, though, right?
Probably, yeah.
Yes, sir.
Good for you.
So look, you have to make a decision.
This is where my friend Ben Shapiro and I disagree, right?
So if you asked Ben Shapiro this question, Ben would say, just write what the professor wants to hear and get out of there as quickly as possible, right?
I don't hold that view.
I think you've got to tell the truth always, no matter what age or circumstance or environment that you're in.
If that means you might get a lower grade, then so be it.
If that means that you might get treated harshly, I believe the spoken truth is important for every person to do wherever they are constantly and relentlessly for the rest of their life.
I don't think there should be an on and off switch based on like, well, I want a good grade or all that.
But you must acknowledge that there will be a price and that you might not be treated fairly because of it.
But it will make you stronger.
And that's what's important.
You will become a stronger, tougher person for having to go through that.
You probably are, right?
You had to defend your position.
You had to go into that tough environment.
And this is one of my big pieces of advice for young people is seek out the hard and difficult situations.
Seek out the hard and difficult environments.
It will make you tougher.
A fragile person, which many people on the left are fragile because they never have to defend their positions, will have a much harder time surviving in this world.
God bless you.
Thank you.
I agree.
Thank you for your time.
Thanks.
Hello, Charlie.
As we become increasingly aware that wokeism is grounded in an ancient esoteric religion, in a cult, how do we prevent it from falling under the protections of the First Amendment?
As it's antithetical to humanity, as some other religions may also be?
That's a good question.
Thank you.
The issue, yeah, it's really good.
The issue is our judges are so screwed up, I could see them probably issuing some opinion.
What you mentioned is really important, which is that the elements of wokeism are very similar to river civilization paganism, right?
Whether it be earth worship or whether it be any of these different things, even from the, it's almost like pseudo-alchemy and Gnosticism.
And if you go read the original books on Gnosticism and Hermeticism, it's about how you're able to change your being based on your own will and your own feeling.
Now, 20 years ago, you guys would have laughed me offstage if I would have said that it would be the predominant view of public American life, that they could change your own existence based on your thoughts.
Now it's considered to be trans.
They're like, oh yeah, of course you could just change.
That's a Gnostic belief is what it is.
I don't know how to protect against it, except we have to defeat them.
I mean, I could see that they would have to file themselves as an official religion, which there is a threshold, thankfully, the federal government has.
It means you have to have a book, well, they have white fragility.
You have to have a leader.
Well, they have Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi and all these people.
You'd have to have religious ceremonies.
Well, they have those too.
So they actually might satisfy some of the religious requirements more easily than I think we give them credit for.
God bless you.
Thank you.
All right, the last question.
Howdy, Mr. Kirk.
My name is Ethan.
I'm a refugee from California.
I just got here maybe October.
I now live in Crab Orchard.
I saw your ad on Facebook maybe about two hours ago.
Oh, wow.
I got rid of, I fed the cows and I got in my truck and I came down here.
I love it.
I unfortunately missed the first half.
I'm kind of sad about that.
But my question is, is that I'm a second generation Korean American.
Now I'm a proud Kentucky.
My grandmother was born in North Korea.
Wow.
And she escaped to the South because of NATO forces, but mostly American, in a one-month window.
So that 30 days could have meant that I would have been there, not here.
Moved to California, my mother, and that was a, America was a passion of freedom, and it always was to our family.
I listened to you and Ben, well, I'm stuck on the 405 for many years, so it's pretty cool that I'm actually right here.
I can't believe it, right?
I had to leave California.
It got so bad.
The crime went through the roof, especially with the Black Lives Matter riots.
My neighbors were getting assaulted.
Korean friends of mine were getting attacked on the streets.
It's a big problem.
It's black on Asian crime, and no one wants to talk about it.
Yeah, really, no one wants to talk about that.
Yeah, we're supposedly part of the minority, and we completely disagree on a lot of what the left is doing.
So my question is, is what my grandmother and my mother saw in California when they came over here was no longer like that.
How do I, as an individual, help keep that from happening in Kentucky?
And how do conservatives in general keep that from happening in their own states?
That's such a good question, and I'm glad you're in Kentucky.
We need you here.
Let me mention a couple things.
You have a distant memory via your mother, you said.
Your grandmother was in North Korea?
My grandmother was born in North Korea, yes.
You have a distant memory of totalitarianism, but you also have an immediate memory of totalitarianism because you lived in California.
It was pretty bad.
And isn't it interesting that your family's history will now be two chapters of fleeing tyranny?
Fleeing North Korea and then fleeing California.
I want to avoid a third time.
Huh?
I would like to avoid a third time.
Yeah, no kidding.
I don't want to have to have you flee Kentucky.
Let me tell you some personal advice.
You need to tell your story to as many people as possible.
You need to wake up Americans to how bad things can actually get.
They have no idea, first of all, what happened or happens in North Korea, and they have no idea, largely in this, they kind of hear stories about California, about how wretched that hellscape is actually becoming.
And so personal, first-hand testimony from people like you is incredibly important.
And you showing up to this event, listening to our podcast, and supporting us is incredibly helpful and important.
But memories are critical.
This is one of the reasons why that the Chinese Communist Party has been successful is because there's no generations left in China that have memories of freedom.
Not a single person that remembers what it was like to not be under Maoist CCP reign.
And it's equally as important to have memories of how bad things can actually become.
And that's why your voice is so incredibly important because we hear from left-wing activists, oh, things can't get that bad.
It's fine.
You know, we need more government or power.
You could be a first-hand testament to that.
One thing that I have noticed is: if anyone here can think of another place that you can escape to for freedom, I'd like to know, because I think that we're it.
This is it.
You can't go anywhere else.
You got to stand and fight at some point.
And I think that point is now.
So, God bless you.
Thank you so much.
All right.
I want to wrap some things up.
Thank you guys for the great questions.
I love Kentucky.
And I was actually here two years ago right on this stage.
And it was a great event.
And this one was equally as good.
If you are young and you're conservative, please dedicate part of your life to this fight every single day.
10 minutes of listening to a podcast, five minutes of watching a YouTube video.
Make it part of your daily routine.
We need every single young person that shares our values to lean in and to do something about it.
Our country is really, no pun intended, at a turning point in more ways than one.
And again, people ask me all the time, Charlie, are you optimistic or are you pessimistic?
In fact, I had somebody come up to me the other day.
They said, Charlie, I've done everything that's been asked of me.
Everything.
I watched Tucker Carlson.
I bought the pillow.
I have done everything that has been asked of me.
By the way, promo code Kirk at mypillow.com, just so we're clear.
And I say, there's always more you can do.
And the work that Turning Point USA is doing every single day, starting chapters, fighting on campuses, is critically important.
But it's going to take every single one of you with your prayers and your action.
Good people need to do more in this dark hour.
You can always give more.
You can always push harder.
Our country needs every single one of you right now.
God bless you and God bless Kentucky.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
Thanks so much for listening and God bless.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.
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