All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 5, 2024 - The Charlie Kirk Show
38:39
Where Does Morality Come From? More Questions at ASU w/ George Janko
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey everybody, today we have more college conversations for you from Arizona State University with George Janko.
Become a member today, members.charliekirk.com, members.charliekirk.com, and come to AmericaFest, that's amfest.com, A-M-F-E-S-T.com, that is amfest.com, A-M-F-E-S-T.com.
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.
Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
It's where I buy all of my gold.
Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
Alright, come up to the mic.
What's your name?
No, come up to the microphone.
Calm down.
What's your name?
My name is Robert Carl Ekman.
Now, from back there, nobody can hear you.
So can you guys all talk really loud?
Can everybody hear me?
Can you hear me?
Okay.
Because literally, I was just a few back and nobody could hear anything I was saying.
Then why did you say it was BS if you couldn't hear me?
Well, I was right there when I heard you saying it.
A little bit further back, I couldn't hear you, but I got a little closer than I heard you.
Okay, so what did I say that was BS exactly?
Because you're comparing adultery, which is a conscious, immoral decision.
And Trump is an adulterer.
That's 100%.
And it is immoral.
It's proven 100%.
Gay people do not choose to be gay.
I never said that, but you choose to act on the impulse.
Why wouldn't you?
That's who you are.
Okay, but what if someone says, I just chose to cheat on my wife.
It's who I am.
I just chose to gamble the house away.
I'm a gambler.
It's just who I am.
Hold on.
I just chose to rob the bank.
It's who I am.
What's the difference?
You're talking about sexuality.
It's like, I can't choose.
I'm heterosexual.
I have no choice.
I like women.
Let's play this out.
Does a pedophile choose to act on their impulse to have sex with kids?
How?
How dare you compare gay people to pedophiles?
They're not pedophiles.
I never said that.
I'm asking a question.
First of all, pedophiles does not necessarily mean that they're doing something wrong.
If you're talking about sexual predators, that's different.
I'm asking a series of questions of whether or not behavior and impulse are two different things.
So you can have a lot of impulses.
Acting on them is far more important.
And so he asked a question of what my religion teaches.
My personal religion believes that marriage is between man and one woman, as God designed and God made male and female.
And you speak for God, I suppose.
Look, marriage equality, okay, they want to limit marriage.
Who died and made you king that you could say it's between a marriage room?
I say it's about two people who love each other.
Give me a second.
Hold on a second.
Don't interrupt me.
I say it's between.
Our way is an expansive way.
We include everybody.
Because everybody can get married.
You can get married.
You don't have to be gay.
You don't have to get gay married.
Can an adult marry a nine-year-old?
Oh, God!
Give me a f***ing break!
That's a stupid argument!
Can an adult marry a nine-year-old?
Love is love, right?
I thought you said love is love.
No, it's between two consenting adults.
Got it.
So, just want to make sure we're clear on the definition.
Can you calm down a little bit, though?
You're coming out really, really hard.
So, again, I don't speak for God.
I read what God has told us in his scriptures.
And there's a lot of scriptures.
Well, first of all, in Leviticus 18, it says a man shall not lie with another man as he does a woman.
In Genesis 1, God created man and woman and created man for woman and woman for man.
In Matthew, it's repeated by Christ our Lord that says that a man will leave his father and cling to his wife.
And so marriage is a biblical idea.
You don't have to recite the whole thing.
It doesn't matter because that's your...
Religion has nothing to do with marriage equality.
It's about equality.
It's about you marry who you love because the state, the state, it's separation of powers.
Hold on, let me talk.
You're not addressing what he asked.
He said, why do I believe it?
Because I believe the scriptures are divinely inspired.
That's it.
Okay.
So you want to make legislation because of...
We haven't even got into legislation yet.
But I am curious, though.
Where do you get your morality from?
What book?
What author?
Where do you decide what is right or wrong?
I, the Bible.
How about you?
Where do you get your morality from?
My belief in the Supreme Being.
I have a spiritual path that I've been on, and I've been on it for decades.
So where does it show that murder is wrong?
We just know it instinctively that it's wrong.
Why is it wrong?
We just know it instinctively?
The Nazis believed murder was right.
Why were they wrong?
I don't need your book to tell me it's wrong.
I just need morality based on all scripture, based on human decency.
What scripture?
But what scripture?
What book are you referencing?
If you look at all scripture from all religions, Buddhism, Quran, they all say that murder is wrong.
They all say adultery is wrong.
In the Quran, it says it's okay to murder in the name of Allah.
So are you advocating for murder?
No, actually.
What are you advocating for?
I'm not.
I... Next!
Next!
Next!
Wait a minute!
I'm trying to get to some common ground here and understand where you're coming from.
Does anybody out there believe that murder is good because it was in those older scriptures?
Yes.
Here's what I'm getting at.
If you do not have an objective standard...
That is written and agreed upon, then who is to say that murder, theft, adultery, these things are wrong?
It's not naturally built into us, is it?
Look, you could be totally atheist and know they are wrong.
It's just instinctive human nature because, hold on, the supreme being is in all of us right now.
God, or the supreme being, or the intelligent designer, whatever you want to call it, is vibrating through every single human being here and on planet Earth.
And we just know that murder is wrong, plus it's illegal, and You don't want to be murdered.
I don't want to be murdered.
But if that's the case, why is it that in Mao's China it was okay to kill 40 million people?
They're wrong.
What do you want me to say?
You're going in circles.
You're wrong by what standard?
The standard is murder is wrong.
Everybody knows it just from being instinctual.
That's actually not true.
Why does it have to be in your Bible?
For example, if everybody knows it, why is it okay that we have 1.5 million abortions every year?
Okay, that is a woman's choice to choose.
That is a life form in her body.
She can choose.
Yes, I get it.
I get it.
I am pro-life.
I am pro-life, but the woman, it's her body.
It's her life form.
That's between her and God and her family and doctors.
Hold on, but you think murder should be illegal.
Why shouldn't murder be illegal in the womb?
Because who says that it's murder?
It's a baby in the womb.
Wait, hold on.
You just said it's a baby in the womb, therefore terminating it would be murder?
Look, I agree with the premise that it is a human life in the form of development, and if you let nature take its force, it will come out as a baby and be a human being.
But that doesn't make the state—if you want to promote don't have abortions, then you go out, you use your voice, you make speeches, you build coalitions, and you do it.
But the government has to stay neutral.
But shouldn't— The government cannot invade their privacy.
And you know what the worst thing about it is?
Is the red states that do it, they torture people, they torture women by not letting them get medical care.
Should the government remain neutral on a mother being allowed to murder her two-year-old?
Yes, once it's outside, yes.
Wait, no, I said remain neutral.
No, of course not, of course not.
Because it's outside the womb.
You've got to explain to me, what is the moral difference?
What is the moral difference between a baby in the womb and outside the womb?
Why does the baby get moral worth once it gets out of the womb?
Look, I agree with you.
I agree with the premise.
It is a life form growing in there.
But then why shouldn't it be illegal?
If we have murder laws for babies outside the womb, we should have murder laws for a baby inside the womb.
It doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
What do you mean it doesn't work?
Because women have to make the choice.
Hold on.
Do murder laws work for kindergartners?
There can be some restrictions up to a certain number of weeks.
Okay?
Maybe 15, maybe 20 weeks.
I agree with that.
But until...
Okay, obviously partial birth abortion, I don't agree with that.
What happens when the power's out, your phone says no service, and the grid is down?
Do you have a backup plan?
If you don't have a satellite phone from Sat123.com, you're risking more than just missed calls.
A satellite phone from Sat123.com keeps you connected no matter what.
You can be miles from civilization or in the middle of a natural disaster, this phone works when everything else fails.
It's your lifeline when the world goes dark, and let's be real, these days anything can happen.
But with Sat123.com, you're prepared.
Sat123 is committed to American values.
They believe in reliability and quality that you can trust when it matters most.
Don't wait until it's too late.
Head on over to Sat123.com.
That is Sat123.com.
Use promo code CHARLIE for $25 off.
Protect yourself, protect your family, and stay connected with Sat123.com.
There's a lot of suffering for women if they are forced to have babies.
The suffering for the fetuses.
Yeah, but how about the suffering for the babies that are being aborted?
But hold on, you say the baby's not alive.
Not you, he did.
But again, it's okay.
The point is that here's the issue with abortion.
It's the only issue where we have a different moral framework that doesn't apply to every other part of life.
So you say everyone knows murder is wrong, yet we can't agree that we should not murder the unborn through government laws.
So if our government laws prohibit the ability to go into a school and shoot a kid, shouldn't the government laws prohibit the ability to kill the kid when it's still in utero?
Not when it comes to reproductive rights.
And I get it.
I get it.
Now, when they abort the baby, it's bad.
It's suffering for the fetus, possibly.
But wait a minute.
I don't know what the answer is.
The answer is to make it illegal the same way we've made murder illegal and slavery illegal because laws are a reflection of morality.
This is the life.
Why can't you just leave it up to women to make those moral choices?
Because it's her life form.
Because we would not leave it up to women to be able to murder their two-year-old.
Because the state has a role to protect those that can't protect themselves.
That is the fundamental reason we have government, right?
I agree.
I still think the woman has to make those choices.
And I would not be opposed to legislation that made it very clear, but what you can't do is limit healthcare.
Abortion is not healthcare.
Final question.
Oh, it's not.
One woman is dead.
Final question.
Do you think that abortion should be legal if you find out your kid has Down syndrome?
If they have Down syndrome, it depends what the doctor says.
If they're not going to survive, then they should not abort.
No, I'm saying they shouldn't abort.
They shouldn't abort it just because it has that, just because it has Down syndrome.
No.
Okay, well, it's currently legal to do that in America.
Should it be legal to terminate a baby if you find out you're having a girl but you want a boy?
No.
We have moral agreement on that, then, because that's currently also legal in America.
The debate over reproductive rights, we can have it, and we can have a federal law that we can all agree on, whether it's a 15-week or a 20-week.
Now, what do you see it as?
Zero?
Abolish all abortion, yeah.
So as soon as the baby is conceived, when it's just an egg?
By the way, you keep on calling it a baby, which I appreciate, because since you keep calling it a baby, it means that you are murdering the baby.
And again, I know George wants to get in here, which is that we call it a baby shower for a reason, not a fetus shower.
When a pregnant woman is unfortunately killed in a homicide, it's a double homicide because we recognize that as a life.
And yet with an abortion, it's just a clump of cells.
We are morally confused on this topic, and we should make abortion illegal in every circumstance.
Thank you very much.
We'll get to the next question.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
What about, I want to talk about Trump.
Yeah, no thanks.
We're good.
Get off the mic!
Get off the mic!
Thank you.
So you don't care about his gross immorality?
I mean, look, I would imagine, hold on, hold on.
So you're voting for Kamala Harris?
Absolutely.
What is Kamala Harris's, what is her greatest accomplishment?
She's a normal person with normal ideas, but she's done all kinds.
She's done great things.
So can you name one accomplishment?
Name one thing!
All the legislation, the CHIPS Act, the infrastructure bill.
Yeah, so her greatest accomplishment is what exactly?
She's had some good accomplishments.
They passed some great legislation.
Trump was in office for the first two years, full code control.
He made fun of infrastructure.
Roads and bridges were crumbling.
He was making fun of infrastructure week.
He was making fun of infrastructure week.
Two years, and he did nothing.
And he ballooned the deficit.
Yeah, so if Kamala was such a great president and she's going to do all these things- He's doing good legislation.
Why?
Again, so if she was going to fix the economy, fix the border, why hasn't she done it already?
Well, the economy is doing great.
We had a soft- Oh, it is!
Oh, come on!
Record stock market!
Give me a break.
Record stock market.
Record job growth.
Record jobs.
Manufacturing up.
Wages up.
Someone is lying to you.
They are lying to you.
How many of you guys can afford a home right now?
Nobody.
How many of you guys can afford groceries?
Oh, that was happening before her.
That's been like that for decades.
How many illegals has Kamala allowed into the country?
Illegal immigration is not the number one issue.
The number one issue is child care, health care.
No, I want a number.
I want you to guess.
How many illegals has she allowed into America?
I know it's millions, but they had a border bill.
No, no, no.
How many?
I don't know the number.
I know it's tens of millions.
Ten million people.
Okay.
Greater than 20 U.S. states.
How many children are missing in sex slavery right now because of her?
It's not specifically because of her.
320,000 kids are missing right now because of her.
Do you know that?
I thought you said the number one issue is childcare.
You care about kids?
Because of her, there are 320,000 missing kids right now in sex slavery in this country.
That is not all her fault.
And I didn't do a deep dive to find out whether or not she's responsible for all that.
All you know, she's a normal person from middle class.
She's smart.
And Trump thinks that Hannibal Lecter is a great and wonderful man.
Which McDonald's did she work at?
Who gives a s*** whether she worked at McDonald's or not?
All I know is Trump, he sat there for two hours while they...
What do you do when the Capitol's under attack?
Did you go to the dining room or did you go to the situation room?
He went to the dining room, sat there for two hours while they were attacking the Capitol.
He put Mike Pence, his vice president, in direct mortal danger at 2.24 p.m.
when he lambasted him for not breaking the law.
Nobody seems to care about that, huh?
Here's your hat.
Thank you.
We're good.
Thank you.
Everybody, no institution works harder to give young people the best education in America than my favorite college, Hillsdale College.
For 180 years now, Hillsdale's mission has been to develop the minds and improve the hearts of its students.
And today, in just 30 seconds, you can learn what that means by watching a short video at charlieforhillsdale.com.
Since 1844, Hillsdale is focused on learning, character, and faith in providing just the kind of education needed to preserve liberty.
And they extend their mission nationwide through outreach efforts like their free digest of liberty in primus.
Too many colleges and universities today indoctrinate their students to hate America.
At Hillsdale, students learn how America became the freest and most prosperous nation in history.
And at a time when so many college campuses are rent with division, Hillsdale students sign an honor code promising to respect the rights of others and rise to self-government.
Take some time to learn more about what makes Hillsdale College unique at charlieforhillsdale.com, America's greatest college.
I love Hillsdale.
Go to charlieforhillsdale.com.
How are you guys doing today?
Good, bro.
How are you doing?
I'm doing really good.
Can you guys hear me back there?
Make sure my man can hear me right here.
What's your name, Brad?
Christian.
So my question is, it's, I don't believe in systemic racism.
However, in 1960, the African Americans born out of wedlock was 15 to 20%.
And then nowadays, it's over 70%.
And the only difference from what I see is the Great Society Act that was passed, where they're giving welfare to single moms.
So to me, that is a, the only point that I've been thinking about it last night, the only point is the government stepped in and now we have 13% committing to 50. We have a whole entire thing that happened because the government stepped in and did a system program to cause that.
Have you ever seen a mother in need to feed her children?
Yep.
It's tough, yeah?
Yeah.
Would you step in and help?
Yeah, I think it's up to the churches to help out, not the government.
So question, if you have a wife and you had kids.
I do have a wife and a kid.
So God forbid something happens to you.
And you're not involved in a church, but your neighbors know that your wife needs to feed her children.
Are you going to be upset with the government stepping in to feed the children's belly?
No.
But what I'm saying is that the government stepped in, now you have over 70% born out of wedlock, and you have a huge problem.
It's more culture than it is that.
So the other thing that has changed is black culture over the last 50, 60 years has changed a lot from what it elevates and what it platforms to the musicians to the cultural figures where, and this is not my word, just check out Thomas Sowell who wrote an entire book on this.
You know Thomas Sowell?
It's phenomenal literature.
I heard you talk about it.
Yeah, so I would encourage you to look at that.
But you're right.
But the other thing I'll say is this though, is that it definitely played an impact in what you're talking about.
Huge impact.
But it wasn't only that black mothers received it.
Is that it helped destroy the white family.
So you're saying culture?
I understand what you're saying.
Yeah, because the single motherhood program that you're talking about affected all races.
It'd be one thing if it was only for black women.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, that would be systemic.
Bingo.
And it wasn't.
But you're right.
It did have a serious impact on incentivizing and subsidizing single motherhood.
But culture is the number one driver.
Thank you.
One more question.
Also, just to add on to that, I think the government should always step in to help a family out, right?
The church should do it as well.
But I don't care what religion, what race, what position you place yourself in, if you see a family in need and you do not extend your hand, you're evil to me.
And so, like, as long as that family's being fed, there's no reason why we should be debating if this child should be fed if we're giving billions of dollars to someone else.
Do you get what I'm saying here?
Yeah, but when it comes to feeding, there's no starving kids in America.
People are taking advantage.
No, there's not.
People are taking advantage of the welfare state.
They keep applying for jobs.
They're not getting a job.
Beautiful.
Let the government help them.
Let the church guide them.
All right.
Let the church bring them to a foundation of Christ.
That's what their job is.
Do you want separation of church and state?
That's it.
Help anybody in need regardless of where they come from, what they look as God, and have the church go show them who Christ is so they can live a godly life.
All right.
One last question.
One last question.
SBRs, silencers, and automatic firearms.
Should it be legal?
I think it should be legal.
You don't have to pay a tax stamp to get it.
Silencers, absolutely.
SBRs, yes.
Automatic means it should be a special license, but legal.
So it's a $200 tax stamp.
They do the same exact background check when you buy a regular firearm.
It's just paying money.
It's a little bit more extensive.
If that's the case, then I stand corrected.
But there is a technical difference between what an automatic weapon is and a semi-automatic.
You know that.
So I'd have to think more deeply about that.
Cool.
God bless.
Have a good day, guys.
Have a good one, bro.
Thank you.
All right.
Disagreements, guys, can work up.
Yeah.
There's no way you're wearing a beanie right now in this heat, my guy.
I know, I know.
That's a sacrifice for the drift.
Come on.
What's your name?
I got one.
My name is Diego.
I just want to start off by saying Jesus is King, Jesus is Lord.
Amen, amen.
I would say that I grew up in the religion, and then just recently I found my faith.
So I've been starting to read my Bible and everything like that, and in high school I think I was...
Basically just spewing everything I heard on Tucker Carlson and Fox News.
And then I wanted to base my politics off of my morals and my morals from the Bible.
So through that, I kind of came to a lot of the same things that you say and you say.
The only thing that I have a gripe with is your position on Israel and Palestine.
I think that...
Yeah, it's only the fourth question on that today.
Are you Catholic?
Yeah, I'm Catholic.
Only...
I love Catholics, but it's because we don't agree on replacement theology.
That's why.
But at the same time, I see you condemn our, especially Kamala Harris's, that's one of your big talking points, you condemn her spending on Ukraine, and yet we've spent like $100 billion more on Israel than any other Egyptian country there.
I mean, not Egyptian, in the Middle East.
And I think the only reason why we truly, or at least our politicians, truly give money there is not for the reasons that they say.
And that's my biggest gripe.
In my opinion, it's not on a moral standpoint.
We're not taking the moral good.
We're taking the strategic good, maybe, because they're our ally.
But I just am tired of the lies, and I'm tired of the lies from both.
So I just want to understand, because I feel like you're more well-read in Christianity.
So I want to understand how you came to that position on Israel and Palestine.
Well, first of all, I'd be careful calling it Palestine, because that's not a country.
It doesn't exist, right?
So that's number one.
But that's fine.
We're not going to agree on that.
Maybe we will.
But we have different theologies, so I'm not going to go too deep in that.
We believe, and I don't want to speak for George, We're good to go.
Because of faith?
Faith also, but...
But there's some archaeological evidence in the Shroud of Turim and everything like that.
More than that, but where is that usually?
Oh, that's in the Middle East.
In Israel, yeah.
So when I went to Israel, and I encourage you to go, it's not a perfect country, I'm not a defender of their government, but to be able to go to Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee, to be able to go see where Christ our Lord rose from the dead, to see the Pool of Siloam, it changed my life.
And access to these holy sites and access to these archaeological points is profoundly important for the survival of the West.
Because without them, you and I are not allowed to go visit, for example, a lot of Christian holy sites in Muslim countries.
So the one city that I'm sure you would want to visit and I would want to visit is Bethlehem, right?
The birthplace of Christ our Lord.
It's very hard for Christians to visit there because it's like 98% Muslim now and very, very dangerous.
And so the trouble is in modern Israel right now, we can visit our holy sites.
We can prove that the Bible is true.
If it was controlled by Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, I don't think we have any such guarantees.
To me, it just seems like a lot of our original arguments, like, kind of drop in almost, like, a protection of Israel.
And I've seen, like, you say in some other things, like, that in the Bible it says, like, those who stand by Israel.
Genesis 12.3, correct.
Yeah.
So – but I just believe that, like, our pro-life argument as conservative Christians shouldn't end in the womb.
I think that we should – it should – Obviously, extend in, like, childcare, obviously, like, adoption and stuff like that.
That should be a little bit easier.
But also, like, pro-life of everyone, right?
And so, I think I've seen, like, a stat recently where it's, like, more children have died in Palestine than anywhere else in the last five years.
Okay.
I mean, I think I, like, I would...
Do more research into it, but just from what I've seen, just on a surface level, it's the visceral reaction.
I can't get behind funding Netanyahu's war machine, basically, and giving him weapons on weapons.
I also think it's just a little bit contradictory that you never speak on Kamala Harris's funding of Israel, but you condemn her funding of Ukraine.
I just explained it to you, right?
Because Israel has a direct connection to our faith and the Western tradition.
Ukraine has no such connection.
Okay.
And Israel is an ally of the United States.
Ukraine is not much of an ally.
But we just disagree.
We've done Israel three times today already.
But thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
MyPillow is excited to announce their Christmas extravaganza is finally here.
Get this season's flannel sheets for as low as $59.98.
They won't last long, so get them while you can.
They're famous MySlippers.
These haven't been on sale for over a year and are regularly priced at $198.98.
But for a limited time, they're now for $59.98.
And their six-piece towel sets are back in stock with extremely limited quantities, but only $29.98.
With hundreds of MyPillow products, there's something for everyone on your Christmas list, from bathrobes, duvets, quilts, down comforters, and so much more.
Call 800-875-0425 or go to MyPillow.com, promo code Kirk, and save on all MyPillow products.
That is promo code Kirk.
Flannel sheets for as low as $59.98 with a six-piece towel set.
But that's not all.
They're extending their 60-day money-back guarantee until March 1, 2025. Plus, on all orders, $75 or more.
Go to MyPillow.com and enter promo code Kirk.
Alright, what's up?
Hey, how's it going?
I read about 75% of your book, Right Wing Revolution, that you gave out last month, about last night.
I'm a Marxist, actually.
I don't know, I don't know.
Hold on, no, what's your name?
That's more important than whether you're a Marxist.
My name is Harmon.
What?
My name is Harmon.
Harmon, okay.
By the way, give it up for him for coming up to the mic.
That's good.
Yeah, so...
I, for most of my life, was a conservative until about three years ago.
And I would say I agree with a lot of the things you have to say in your book, a lot of the problems that we're facing.
I think you are 100% correct when you say the world is going crazy right now.
But I absolutely disagree with why it's happening.
I think the problem has to...
It deals with fundamental inconsistencies within the capitalist system.
So you talk about how the traditional marriage, the traditional family is dying.
And I would say one of the reasons why is because...
When a woman doesn't go to work to take care of her family, so a mother, right?
There's no surplus value that can be exchanged for that.
Where in a capitalist system, it's much better for GDP. It's much better for growth.
If she works a job, gives money to a daycare to take care of her kid for her, right?
And then there's surplus value that can be exchanged for that.
That is a smart point.
You're right.
Thank you.
Again, do you want to keep going?
Yeah, no, no.
You can keep going.
You are pinpointing one of the two fatal flaws in the modern market system.
Yeah.
Which is that if you overly worship markets and you do not prioritize what is good, true, and beautiful, which I think you and I both agree we want strong families, which is not a Marxist belief, but that's okay.
I'm not pinpointing you on that.
I'm just saying traditional Marxism is the obliteration of the family, religion, private property, and that's not my words.
That's Marx's own words.
But I'm not ascribing you to everything you ever wrote, okay?
But you can have a Marxist critique of systems, and there are two things that we as market believers have to reconcile that are the most difficult.
Number one, which is if you are trying to maximize output, why would you not put moms in the workplace?
Exactly.
Which is not a great thing for kids and not a great thing for culture.
Number two, if profit is always good, what happens if a pharmaceutical company wants to keep you sick for the rest of your life and not heal you?
Those are two of the most difficult questions we as free market people have to reconcile with.
So I'm agreeing with you.
Thank you.
I'm glad we can agree.
So then I would say the fundamental issues with capitalism, like the fact that worker productivity since 1980 has gone up 65%, but worker compensation has only gone up about 20%.
That 40% difference, in my opinion, is we become, the less you are compensated for your labor, if you're not compensated anything, you're a slave.
And if you're compensated 100% for your labor, you're an owner.
So I think that 40% discrepancy is the extent to which we have become more slave-like, right?
And I think There isn't really anyone on the Democratic side or the Republican side who are really addressing these inherent issues with capitalism.
That's not totally true.
I know you might not be a fan of his, but J.D. Vance has done a good job of this.
He won't word it the same way that you would.
And believe it or not, Elizabeth Warren wrote an amazing book 20 years ago called The Two-Income Trap, which is what you're talking about, which is in 1985. In order for a family of four to be able to survive, it required 36 weeks of labor a year.
So that means anything over 36 weeks, you could save money, go on vacations or whatever.
There's 52 weeks a year, right?
Now it requires 57 weeks of labor a year to sustain a family of four, which means the mom has to go into the workforce.
That's a bad thing.
Now, I would argue, though, it's less about quote-unquote capitalism.
It might be a little bit of that because there's always externalities.
And it's more about how we've flooded the zone with cheap money and excess government spending and inflated asset prices over the last 10 years.
Things are so expensive that it demands and warrants more and more people to go into the workforce.
And then I would ask alternatively, as a Marxist, what system would you then propose?
So, um...
This is hard.
So one of the things that I've kind of struggled with is Marx only wrote about 50 pages of what it looks like the day after the revolution, right?
Which is, I think, one of the biggest, like, real criticisms you can have of Marx, right?
But I think...
Because it's usually a mess after the revolution.
Yeah, but I think just because I don't necessarily have that much better of a system, like, I do think what Norway does, right?
They have worker-owned companies, right?
So imagine you instead of...
We have those two.
We have Publix, for example.
We have co-ops.
There's a...
Yeah, but we don't do it nearly to the extent that these other countries do.
Well, but think about it.
If you guys get stock options at a publicly traded company, that's a worker-owned company, right?
Yeah, but you don't have a vote in it.
It's not democratic.
In these other countries, you can literally vote who you want your boss to be.
And I think that's also one of the other fundamental issues with capitalism is that, in many ways, it's a dictatorship.
You don't really have a say with who your boss is going to be or how he decides to make decisions.
Whereas with worker co-ops...
You're right.
Yeah.
I mean, there's no objection there.
I guess the question I have is this, and then is, do you think that free markets have done a good job or a bad job of increasing the standard of living for humanity the last hundred years?
I think it's complicated because you look at certain things like FDR, the New Deal.
What do you think was the highest tax bracket for the top earners in the United States?
It was like 70%.
Yeah, it was like 80% to 90%, actually.
And then that even continued into the 50s.
So I think capitalism, when there's great wealth, that can be created.
Because I do think capitalism is the most efficient system for creating stuff.
Now, I don't know if that stuff is necessarily good.
I don't really agree with how the supply chain works.
It's great at creating stuff, and we can distribute it in a more equitable way.
I find very little to disagree with you, but what I will is that Marxism is a really bad idea.
Meaning you're critiquing systems very well, but the solution of saying, which again, I'm not going to try to put words in your mouth, but saying we want to mass redistribution of wealth, restrict private property, those are really, really bad ideas.
Well, I would say people who have tried to have ideas of hyper-privatization of property, like I read Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital, right?
And he talks about how liberalized property rights are what makes countries work, right?
He tried those policies in Peru and they didn't work, right?
Whereas I would say when you have the government give military members loans for houses, right?
And you try to increase people owning things and create an ownership class.
I agree.
But that's not a Marxist idea.
That's okay.
Marxism does not believe in private property at its core, and that's okay.
So then I don't think you've read your Marx, because Marx says private property, so there's a difference between private property and personal property, right?
He said anything you find in a peasant's village is their own personal property they can keep it.
That's interesting.
I've never heard that distinction.
Can I ask one question, though?
It's not a gotcha, because it's important.
In the state of nature, do you think human beings are naturally good, bad, or neutral?
I think good, bad, and neutral don't exist outside of humanity.
I saw a video of this owl raising a clutch of her children.
It was a fun little livestream video.
One of her children died.
She ripped it apart and fed it to her other children.
I think that's pretty brutal, but I don't think I can say that's good or evil because they're animals.
Our entire concepts of what is good and what is evil is culturally defined.
Yeah, I don't believe that.
I think there's objective good or evil.
For example, I think murder is wrong regardless of your circumstance.
But morality doesn't apply to animals because they don't have reason, right?
Yeah, but I would say like even, you know, not Jesus.
Well, I guess God and Jesus are the same person.
He's ordered the death of infants before, right?
1 Samuel verse 15. He says, kill of the Amicalites.
It's a rival tribe.
Yeah, that's actually earlier than Samuel.
It's in the book of Exodus.
Well, it's 1 Samuel verse 15. No, you're right, but they're repeating the law of the Amalekites.
That's okay.
I'm not trying to quiz you on Bible trivia.
Sorry, but I'm not going to say whether that was a good or a bad thing.
But I would say your morality of how we decide whether that was good or bad is culturally defined.
It's the personal beliefs that you have.
And I think every Christian, every religious person can say that those beliefs come to them from outside themselves.
They're not reasonable.
No, I agree.
They do come outside of yourself.
I do agree.
That's correct.
But we believe that those are eternally applicable regardless, right?
So it's a transcendent order that in every tribe, every person, that it remains to be right or wrong in God's economy.
So would you say it was wrong for God to order the death of infants?
No, but we can't understand God's purposes or ways when it comes to life or death.
We cannot.
Well, then I would say I can agree with that.
Then I would say putting that morality into politics then, into policy, is wrong.
If you don't even say you understand it, then how could you put it into public?
Well, no, because we do understand God's rules for us.
We don't understand how God operates when it comes to life.
There's a lot of mystery when it comes to God.
A lot.
But there's very little mystery about what God wants out of us.
When you're a kid, do you have a good relationship with your dad?
No, my father's dead, unfortunately.
I'm sorry about that.
What about your mother?
Alive but estranged.
I did not come from the best circumstances.
Well, I apologize.
And I pray that you have an amazing family and that God makes it very for me.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
But when you have a child, and he's looking at you, and he doesn't know and understand the realms of the world, and he sees this bright light, but it's fire.
And he wants to run up to it and touch it.
Now the dad steps in and goes, no, the baby can't understand.
But if it obeys its father, it would lead itself away from danger.
And this is how we see it as Christians.
We don't ask God why.
We have no authority to ask God why.
Just like I don't look at my father and ask him.
If he says jump, I say how high.
That classifies me as a good son.
So there's a lot of things we don't understand.
That's why he says he'll give you peace above your understanding.
Because we don't even know how to comprehend it.
I think there's value in a life lived that way, but when you have a God who has said, kill these infants, kill these unarmed women, kill these unarmed children, and you say, our job is to obey this God, again, you can't rationally prove he exists.
It's a personal, spiritual experience for you to say that God exists.
I think that that's going too far.
I think we should always be asking the highest questions, the most critical of the beliefs that govern us, right?
Especially when it comes to violence.
I have an interesting question.
Your belief, if everybody believed what you believed, would the world be a better place?
Or if everyone believed that there was a God who judged them and believed the Ten Commandments, which of those would create a better world?
Yeah, so I personally believe in post-structuralism.
Personally, I think most people would be incredibly unhappy.
That's incredibly intellectually honest.
But don't you agree that, therefore, what you might believe would create a lot of chaos in the world?
Yeah, so then I had to, with myself, come to the conclusion, do I want to believe what's good, or do I want to believe what's true?
What's good?
We believe that both of those things are the same.
Yeah, exactly, but I disagree, right?
I understand.
Yeah, so, like, I believe, like, do you guys believe in, like, a literalist interpretation of the flood?
Yes.
So, like, in my opinion— Well, we actually have evidence of it, but yeah.
I would say it's a little absurd, in my opinion, from a rational perspective to say that the Gila monster, which lives only in southern Arizona, only lives in 100-plus temperatures, somehow crossed the land bridge from Turkey.
So it went from Turkey through China, crossed the land bridge in the Ice Age, and came all the way down to Arizona to the only place where its fossils exist.
I think you're overthinking it a little bit.
That's okay, though.
But again, I want to get the next question.
You're coming at it from a good place.
But here's my one.
Post-structuralism is misery.
Yeah, I agree.
But it's not true.
And I hope one day that I could plant a seed that, this is what I'll say, is that the devil, which you may or may not believe in, exists to try to get you to question and deconstruct everything in a place of constant confusion and chaos.
And my hope for you is that you can get back into a place of order.
That's all.
Do you believe in a god by any chance?
No, I personally don't.
But I'm open to it.
I just want to say, I think it's crazy that we were able to agree on certain aspects of Marxism.
I was so ready for debate, and I'm super happy that you were able to do that.
On a Marxist critique, but not an application.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
▲
Export Selection