The Charlie Kirk Show - From the Archive: Charlie on Why America is the Greatest Nation in the World
Aired: 2026-05-03
Duration: 31:26


=== Fighting for the Future of America (08:37) ===

[00:00:03]  My name is Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:05]  I run the largest pro American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.
[00:00:11]  My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.
[00:00:14]  If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.
[00:00:19]  But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful.
[00:00:24]  College is a scam, everybody.
[00:00:26]  You got to stop sending your kids to college.
[00:00:27]  You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.
[00:00:31]  Go start a Turning Point USA College chapter.
[00:00:33]  Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter.
[00:00:35]  Go find out how your church can get involved.
[00:00:37]  Sign up and become an activist.
[00:00:39]  I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.
[00:00:41]  Most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same.
[00:00:45]  Here I am.
[00:00:46]  Lord, use me.
[00:00:48]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:49]  Here we go.
[00:00:56]  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.
[00:01:06]  Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at NobleGoldInvestments.com.
[00:01:13]  That is NobleGoldInvestments.com.
[00:01:18]  Thank you, everybody.
[00:01:19]  Thank you.
[00:01:20]  It's great to be here.
[00:01:21]  I have to apologize in advance.
[00:01:22]  It's been a long day.
[00:01:25]  We sat at a table there.
[00:01:26]  Was anyone there today?
[00:01:27]  We had a good time, I have to say, outside of a couple people.
[00:01:30]  But generally, I learned a lot.
[00:01:34]  One of the individuals there, she asked, she said, you actually go here to learn.
[00:01:39]  Not that I've heard anything that was totally new and profound, but I learned a lot at kind of where this generation is politically and philosophically.
[00:01:47]  And yeah, I learned a lot kind of about some of the major sticking points there.
[00:01:51]  And I do want to thank a couple people.
[00:01:53]  I want to thank the students there that were there for all two hours and were respectful.
[00:01:57]  That says a lot.
[00:01:58]  Speech is important.
[00:01:59]  In fact, without speech, all you have is power and brute force.
[00:02:02]  And so that says a lot about you.
[00:02:03]  So if you're out there and you hear that, good for you.
[00:02:06]  And then I also, I can't believe I'm doing this, but I want to thank the UT administration that.
[00:02:11]  Kind of came, it's amazing.
[00:02:13]  No, you have to be honest in life, though, right?
[00:02:14]  I'm not exactly a fan of college.
[00:02:18]  But they came in and they.
[00:02:21]  Yes, smart enough to make you attend.
[00:02:23]  Okay, so, yeah, thank you.
[00:02:28]  Imagine.
[00:02:34]  That right there is what someone who's about to lose very big acts like, let me tell you.
[00:02:41]  That was one minute and eight seconds.
[00:02:44]  That's a new record.
[00:02:53]  Here I am complimenting that everyone had a great time and trying to be magnanimous even though people said very bad things, whatever, and that happens.
[00:03:03]  You've got to love it, it's great.
[00:03:05]  Okay, where was I?
[00:03:07]  Speaking of how wonderful of a university this is, let me continue with my compliments.
[00:03:12]  No, I mean it, it's that the UT administration came in to a couple people that were trying to interrupt and play music or whatever, and they said you have to do that elsewhere.
[00:03:20]  So that allowed our discussion and our conversation to continue, and so that was very nice.
[00:03:24]  And we appreciate that.
[00:03:25]  And so there was, yeah, you could give it up for the UT administration.
[00:03:28]  They deserve credit for that.
[00:03:32]  They do.
[00:03:34]  And they had a commitment to free speech, which is very, very important.
[00:03:37]  So something that kept on coming up in our discussions today, which I found to be fascinating, not surprising, but it was fascinating to keep on hearing, which is who are you to say what is right and wrong?
[00:03:49]  And that's not a new question.
[00:03:51]  I thought that that would be probably well understood by the time you get to college, but it shouldn't be a huge shock for those of you that are.
[00:03:58]  Kind of consuming postmodern deconstructionist philosophy on an almost daily basis, which is who are you to say?
[00:04:05]  Why is your right the right?
[00:04:07]  And that really does ask the question of what is the purpose of college, right?
[00:04:10]  Where I think college should be, kind of what Hillsdale College has become, which is an exploration of the good, the true, and the beautiful, and what is right, what is good, what is, how should you as a human being properly develop?
[00:04:23]  And, you know, it was a really interesting question where they said, you know, your beliefs should not be able to be imposed on somebody else.
[00:04:30]  And that sounds really good, right?
[00:04:32]  Like, okay, yeah, your beliefs, but it's not true.
[00:04:34]  At some point, somebody's belief is going to be imposed on you.
[00:04:36]  Even the absence of a belief is somebody's belief.
[00:04:39]  So at some point, you have to come to some sort of consensus of what is good.
[00:04:42]  And they say, well, I don't think the government should be involved in any decisions.
[00:04:45]  That's a decision in and of itself.
[00:04:47]  Not to be involved is a decision.
[00:04:49]  Not to do something is actually a decision to do something, and you have to have a moral basis for that.
[00:04:54]  And so we had a very long conversation about that, and I hope that can continue in the question and answer line, of which disagreement will be invited, and you guys can have the microphone.
[00:05:02]  We'll have a back and forth.
[00:05:04]  But, you know, it kind of goes back to that question of who are you to say?
[00:05:07]  And boy, the founding fathers really thought deeply about that.
[00:05:11]  And we are the beneficiaries of framers that gave us the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world.
[00:05:17]  And I have to say, when I said that today, there were a lot of people gasping and booing, which is just such a shocking thing because that is as close to an objective fact of anything I could say here tonight that you are the beneficiaries to live in the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world.
[00:05:31]  That's a big deal.
[00:05:32]  And.
[00:05:35]  And somebody asked, and they said, Well, why?
[00:05:38]  And I said, Look, I mean, by the first of all, greatest is obviously relative.
[00:05:41]  You're judging yourself against other countries.
[00:05:43]  Are we perfect?
[00:05:43]  Of course not.
[00:05:44]  We're human beings.
[00:05:45]  We're far from perfect.
[00:05:46]  But we're the most generous country.
[00:05:48]  We're the most productive country.
[00:05:49]  We have the longest waiting list of people that want to come into our country.
[00:05:52]  Our ideals have been successfully replicated all across the planet.
[00:05:56]  We're the nation that goes and fights wars for the freedom of other people, not perfectly all the time, obviously, but has an ethic within our history and within our background.
[00:06:06]  Of something that is not an empire to try to gain lands, but in some ways something greater than yourself.
[00:06:12]  And I could go on from medical advancements to cultural impact.
[00:06:15]  There's something very special about America.
[00:06:17]  And I'm deathly afraid that we're losing it.
[00:06:20]  And not only are we afraid of losing it, I'm afraid that people want it to be lost.
[00:06:25]  And that's even more troubling to me.
[00:06:27]  And it wasn't said today, but I've heard it before when I was at Berkeley, which, don't laugh too much, you guys are right up there with Berkeley, so it's right up there.
[00:06:38]  I have to say that.
[00:06:40]  I heard some wacky stuff today, but Berkeley had some other wacky stuff.
[00:06:43]  It was right up there.
[00:06:43]  But I heard something else, which is, you know, America's the great Satan.
[00:06:47]  We want it eliminated.
[00:06:48]  It's a force of evil in the world.
[00:06:51]  And only spending an exhaustive amount of time in a lecture hall listening to someone who hates about America could you come to such a ridiculous conclusion as that.
[00:07:00]  Which, I mean, just the evidence in front of it is you look at America's greatness, which, again, I think we're losing through self inflicted decisions, and you look through our history and you look at what we've been able to accomplish.
[00:07:12]  There's just one fact that will tell you everything you need to know.
[00:07:16]  America's the only nation on the planet where even those who hate it, and they say they hate it, they refuse to leave.
[00:07:22]  And so, and people, and they say, well, you know, where am I supposed to go?
[00:07:31]  I said, I don't know, you guys talk about Denmark all the time, like Paris?
[00:07:34]  I'm not saying leave, I'm saying, why don't you?
[00:07:37]  And because I have to hear about how awful this place is, but your actions speak a lot louder than your lectures in that regard.
[00:07:44]  And that does kind of tell you something.
[00:07:46]  It kind of reminds me of all the celebrities that said they were going to leave the country.
[00:07:49]  After Donald Trump won, it's actually like, yeah, okay, you might have a problem with that, but it turns out that this place still is the best hope.
[00:07:55]  It still is the greatest nation.
[00:07:59]  Charlie had an absolutely relentless passion for learning.
[00:08:02]  I saw it up close and personal in every waking moment, every spare moment that he could.
[00:08:09]  He had a book open, he had a podcast open, he had a Hillsdale online course open.
[00:08:15]  He was always diving into new ideas, absorbing information, studying up, and sharpening his skills.
[00:08:20]  That's why I love Dr. Arne.
[00:08:22]  At Hillsdale College, they shared a deep understanding that learning is the key to shaping your character, creating courage, and changing lives.
[00:08:30]  Charlie never stopped learning, and neither should you.
[00:08:33]  Through Hillsdale's online courses, he spent time studying the classics, the American founding, and the enduring truths of the Bible.

=== Learning to Shape Your Character (09:37) ===

[00:08:40]  Now it is your turn.
[00:08:42]  With Hillsdale's free online courses, you can follow in his footsteps, learning from real professors and challenging yourself with rigorous coursework that's free and accessible to anybody who's willing to learn.
[00:08:54]  A great place to start is their brand new course on logic and rhetoric.
[00:08:58]  Learn from Hillsdale professors how to speak masterfully, make a powerful point, and see how clear thinking leads to better decision making and more effective speech.
[00:09:07]  Don't wait.
[00:09:07]  Go to charlieforhillsdale.com to enroll today.
[00:09:10]  It's completely free.
[00:09:12]  This is a real good one, by the way.
[00:09:14]  Logic and rhetoric.
[00:09:15]  Pick up the mic, carry it forward, learn like Charlie.
[00:09:19]  Start right now at charlieforhillsdale.com.
[00:09:24]  So, why?
[00:09:24]  Why is this country great?
[00:09:25]  Why have we achieved anything of value?
[00:09:28]  Well, you can ask yourself the question what is the longest lasting constitution in world history?
[00:09:33]  And you're living under it.
[00:09:34]  It's the United States Constitution.
[00:09:36]  Magna Carta is not a constitution.
[00:09:38]  The Ten Commandments is not a constitution.
[00:09:40]  Constitution is an agreement, it's a compact, it's a contract.
[00:09:43]  And they wrestled with these ideas, the framers, and boy, did they get it right.
[00:09:47]  They got some things wrong, and they can prove it along the way.
[00:09:49]  But what they got right more than anything else is the question that we spent about two hours trying to go back and forth with today.
[00:09:56]  I don't know if we ever found consensus.
[00:09:58]  But it's a very simple question what is a human being?
[00:10:01]  Is a human being a collection of cells?
[00:10:03]  Is it just kind of an accident of hundreds of millions of years of evolution?
[00:10:07]  Or is a human being more than that?
[00:10:09]  Is a human being an image bearer, has a soul, has something that is worthy of protection?
[00:10:14]  And the answer to that question can tell you directly the type of government that you think should exist.
[00:10:19]  And it said so clearly because the Declaration of Independence starts completely and totally universally.
[00:10:24]  It doesn't start specific, it gets specific.
[00:10:26]  But Thomas Jefferson writes when in the course of human events, he's talking about all time, all human beings, all people, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have tied them to another.
[00:10:35]  Deriving the separate but equal power that it goes on to equal station, it goes on to say laws of nature and nature is God.
[00:10:40]  What he's making is a moral argument that the people of this nation have something that is even greater than reason and is even greater than touch and feel in the senses.
[00:10:49]  And again, you can have your own religious views, but it's an arguable argument to say that the founders of the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world believed you had a soul, and that's a very big deal.
[00:10:58]  And if you believe you have a soul, then you must have a government that respects all human dignity, regardless of size, level of development, environment, or degree of dependency, including those in the womb or outside of the womb.
[00:11:08]  That those beings are worthy of protection.
[00:11:11]  And when you start to talk in that way, all of a sudden natural rights start to come into the picture.
[00:11:15]  You say, wow.
[00:11:16]  And obviously, they talked life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
[00:11:18]  Previously, it was life, liberty, and property from John Locke and Thomas Jefferson.
[00:11:22]  I had added the pursuit of happiness, which is you have a right to be able to live.
[00:11:25]  That's a very big deal.
[00:11:26]  And guess what?
[00:11:26]  Government does not give you those rights.
[00:11:28]  And that was the huge change, right?
[00:11:30]  Is that the government protects those rights first and foremost from government abusing those rights.
[00:11:35]  And not only were they able to tell you what a human being is, they told you how human beings acted.
[00:11:39]  And if there was kind of the bit, one of the big lies, if you will, of American progressivism is that somehow human beings change just because technology changes with it.
[00:11:47]  And that is not true.
[00:11:49]  Just because times change, human beings do not change.
[00:11:52]  We're exactly the same.
[00:11:53]  In fact, technology only makes it easier for us to do the bad stuff that would have been harder for us to do a couple hundred years ago.
[00:11:58]  Said differently, the Constitution was not written for the times, it was written to stand the test of time.
[00:12:03]  That it was an analysis of human behavior, of every civilization that ever acted before, and they had some truths in it that all of us are able to enjoy today.
[00:12:11]  The first and most obvious one is consent to the governed.
[00:12:14]  You are the sovereign in the US Constitution.
[00:12:16]  And that is so easy to take for granted.
[00:12:18]  And it only existed in a short little spurt in maybe Athenian democracy before that.
[00:12:22]  And it's a big deal they put that into place.
[00:12:25]  But it's important that it's not a democracy, though.
[00:12:27]  People say we're a democracy.
[00:12:28]  We are not a democracy.
[00:12:29]  We're a constitutional republic.
[00:12:31]  What's the difference?
[00:12:32]  In a democracy, the majority rules no matter what all the time.
[00:12:35]  And I say, well, that's the way I want it.
[00:12:37]  Well, if the majority wants something that is evil and wrong, shouldn't there be a check and balance against the majority?
[00:12:41]  Shouldn't there be a process to slow it down?
[00:12:44]  You see, a constitutional republic says there are things that are true that will always be true.
[00:12:48]  Do you notice that the preamble to the U.S. Constitution has never had to be changed?
[00:12:52]  It's because it's always been true that we do ordain these truths.
[00:12:57]  We do ordain this Constitution said differently.
[00:13:00]  And so when we kind of look at all these different things that are kind of factoring in, I think it's important to note that the posture that I encourage you to have, and we can have obvious disagreements here, we're going to get to questions early tonight because, boy, some of you guys wore me out today.
[00:13:13]  I've got to be honest.
[00:13:14]  I had three hours of radio and we were talking forever.
[00:13:17]  And Is a posture of gratitude.
[00:13:21]  One of my great complaints, I really couldn't care less about your political affiliation.
[00:13:23]  We could talk about that.
[00:13:24]  That's not why I'm here tonight.
[00:13:25]  If you want to ask me political questions, I don't care.
[00:13:27]  It's fine.
[00:13:27]  Obviously, I have strong opinions that way.
[00:13:29]  But it drives me nuts when there is a lecture of ingratitude towards America.
[00:13:35]  People that are thankful are happier.
[00:13:38]  And you have a lot to be thankful for.
[00:13:40]  And you might not be happy.
[00:13:41]  You might say, oh, look at all these injustices.
[00:13:43]  I would venture a guess there's probably half truths baked in that, and it's not as much of the injustice as you think.
[00:13:47]  But whatever, I'm sure I could agree with part of it.
[00:13:49]  But when you think about it, when you're ungrateful, you're much more likely to be a revolutionary.
[00:13:54]  When you're grateful, maybe you want to conserve that thing.
[00:13:56]  That's why I'm a conservative.
[00:13:57]  That's why a lot of you are conservatives.
[00:13:58]  You say, This is something that I actually want to protect to make sure future generations are able to live through.
[00:14:03]  Just becoming a father, I could tell you, I'm like, I want my daughter to be able to live in this nation.
[00:14:08]  I want future generations to be able to enjoy this incredible system.
[00:14:11]  And you always got to ask the question, which is replace it with what?
[00:14:15]  Replace it with what kind of experiment?
[00:14:18]  What kind of a country?
[00:14:19]  What is the solution?
[00:14:20]  What is the form of the structure of government?
[00:14:22]  And there's a reason why that Constitution has stood the test of time and the stress test at every single corner, despite opposition, foreign and domestic.
[00:14:29]  It locates the sovereignty within you.
[00:14:33]  And at the same time, the people are actually not running the administration of the government.
[00:14:37]  It excludes the sovereign from the ordinary business of the government or the ordinary operations of the government, which in some ways is a check and balance on the people, which again shows that absolute power can corrupt absolutely.
[00:14:49]  And it comes down to this fundamental question and this fundamental thing where it goes down to at some point you have to agree upon what C.S. Lewis said, which is you have to come to some consensus of the Tao or the way.
[00:15:00]  And this is what really troubles me about some of the things I heard today more than anything else.
[00:15:04]  When they say there's an unlimited amount of truths.
[00:15:08]  And I want you to understand the ramifications of what that looks like in society.
[00:15:13]  And somebody said, different cultures have different truths.
[00:15:17]  Think about that.
[00:15:18]  Different cultures can have different diets and customs and attitudes.
[00:15:22]  But is it really the case that if you believe that child sacrifice to Molech is okay, that's somehow something we should act as if that's not eternally wrong, regardless of where it happens?
[00:15:33]  No, there's eternal principles that apply to all people, regardless of where they are on the planet.
[00:15:38]  Now, are there different customs?
[00:15:39]  Of course, be respectful of them and all things, but you do look at that question.
[00:15:43]  There's an unlimited amount of truths.
[00:15:44]  Now, there could be lots of different shared experiences, but for example, if you have a car crash and there's five witnesses, everyone says, well, this happened and this happened, eventually you want to get to the truth of what ended up happening.
[00:15:55]  You want to be able to get to the consensus of the matter.
[00:15:57]  And when you design a government or you have a society and you raise a generation that says, you know what, anyone can believe whatever they want to believe about anything at any time, how on earth are you going to have a stable and civil society from that point?
[00:16:09]  If everybody had a definition of what North is, Good luck trying to orient everybody.
[00:16:16]  I want to talk to you about an issue so many Americans face, and that's health insurance.
[00:16:21]  There's an organization I really, really appreciate called Christian Healthcare Ministries.
[00:16:26]  CHM is a faith based alternative to health insurance.
[00:16:31]  And this is real stuff, folks.
[00:16:32]  Like, you got to listen in.
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[00:16:41]  You get reliable support through the giving and prayer of fellow members.
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[00:16:51]  Because they're not insurance, you get access to your preferred doctor or hospital without network restrictions.
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[00:17:12]  See why so many believers are taking a leap of faith?
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[00:17:19]  So, no, there's not an unlimited amount of truths.
[00:17:33]  I believe there's one truth, but I think that truth that we could agree tonight is rather broad.
[00:17:37]  I think that it's a road that is not too narrow and not too wide, as C.S. Lewis would say in The Abolition of Man.
[00:17:44]  It's the Tao.
[00:17:44]  It's something that says, okay, within the maxims of liberty, We can agree that separation of powers, consent to the governed, independent judiciary, private property rights, these things are important to protect.
[00:17:55]  And whenever there is a threat against those things, we're not going to put up with that.
[00:17:59]  Like, we're not going to say, you know what, yeah, maybe you could believe that you're a platypus or that you could believe that you're actually six foot eight when in reality you're not.
[00:18:08]  That your feeling is not as important as to what actual reality is happening in that exact moment.
[00:18:15]  And the consequence of this, I could tell you, will end up being two things.

=== Pausing to Admit We Were Wrong (04:34) ===

[00:18:18]  First, you get chaos, and that's bad.
[00:18:20]  And that's kind of the talking point.
[00:18:21]  If you don't have all these things, You have societal chaos.
[00:18:23]  But we never talk about what happens after that, which is then you get totalitarianism.
[00:18:28]  You see, as soon as you confuse everybody, there is no truth, you have your own truth, and you have all these different kinds of bickering tribes, eventually people are going to want order.
[00:18:37]  And that's when you get someone like Joseph Stalin that comes along.
[00:18:40]  And all they care about is power, and they're good at it.
[00:18:43]  And then all of a sudden you could throw out all the stuff I've talked about consent to the governed, separation of powers.
[00:18:47]  Chaos is a strategy towards totalitarianism.
[00:18:51]  And not everyone who's participating in it even recognizes or realizes it.
[00:18:54]  They say, oh, we're liberating groups to be able to have whatever truth they want to have under any circumstance.
[00:18:58]  Now you can have your own opinions.
[00:19:00]  But do you notice how quickly it goes from this is my truth to all of a sudden if you don't accept your truth, you're going to be penalized?
[00:19:06]  Happens very quickly.
[00:19:08]  So it's not just your truth, it's that I must now adopt that.
[00:19:11]  And whatever that kind of fiction or whatever that might be.
[00:19:14]  And so I'm very, very worried about the direction of the country currently for a variety of reasons.
[00:19:20]  And I think that the restoration has to kind of rest in all of you.
[00:19:23]  Something I wish we could have talked about more in this kind of in our time together on the quad, wherever we were, is.
[00:19:31]  Kind of what's going on generationally.
[00:19:33]  I guess you're all Gen Zers, is that right?
[00:19:35]  If you're in college.
[00:19:36]  I'm a millennial, so I have to thank you, by the way.
[00:19:39]  I have finally found a generation boomers hate more than millennials, Generation Z.
[00:19:42]  It's great.
[00:19:43]  So thank you very much.
[00:19:44]  I get to now hate on the younger generation.
[00:19:46]  It's terrific.
[00:19:47]  It's great.
[00:19:47]  For years, all those stupid millennials are the worst.
[00:19:49]  It's awful.
[00:19:51]  Now I get to do that.
[00:19:51]  It's actually quite delightful.
[00:19:55]  But let's talk seriously here.
[00:19:56]  There's two ways we could take this, and I think both have something that we can glean from it.
[00:20:03]  The first is the reality of the topic is that this is the most depressed, suicidal, alcohol addicted, and drug addicted, psychiatric drug addicted generation in history.
[00:20:12]  Most likely to kill themselves, least likely to get married, least likely to have kids, most likely to believe that there is no God, no eternity, no reason or harmony for life.
[00:20:20]  That's a very scary thing.
[00:20:22]  And for those of us that are not in Generation Z, we should press pause and take time out and say, what is going on?
[00:20:27]  That is a very troubling and sad thing.
[00:20:29]  Now, I do believe that there is a direct connection between a lot of this postmodernist garbage that a lot of you guys are going into debt for.
[00:20:36]  To learn, and the fact that all of a sudden you have something that could be best described as existential despair.
[00:20:44]  You feed a child a steady diet of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault and Herbert Marcuse without being anchored in absolute truth, or at least the kind of inquiry of such, you're going to really mess with some kids' heads.
[00:20:56]  I really believe that does not help.
[00:20:57]  But also, even deeper than that, and this is where I think some students would totally agree, especially those on the left, and some adults would say not so fast, is I think that older generations did a massive disservice to this generation.
[00:21:10]  And I don't say that lightly.
[00:21:11]  I'm not one to try to wage generational warfare.
[00:21:15]  I don't like it, but it's true.
[00:21:17]  The lockdowns will go down as one of the worst mistakes in American history where we decided to harm a generation for an awful reason.
[00:21:26]  And this generation is still trying to climb out of it.
[00:21:29]  We locked down a generation and masked them and forced mRNA gene altering technology on them by saying, maybe you'll get kicked out of school or have your entire life ruined for a virus that did not significantly threaten them.
[00:21:40]  And every single person in this room could tell you a story of someone that has been left aside.
[00:21:43]  Maybe you are one of those people, and we're here for you if you need help in any way possible, of someone that is now in a very serious mental health crisis, someone that took their life.
[00:21:52]  And I'm telling you, the lockdowns are a direct correlation to this generational carnage that a lot of young people are living through.
[00:21:59]  And a lot of adults will say, oh, young people just need to work harder.
[00:22:01]  I agree, there is a work ethic issue.
[00:22:04]  But how about we take a pause and we tell young people, like, we were wrong.
[00:22:08]  This never should have happened.
[00:22:10]  Prom and graduation, and I know a lot of you out there that are adults were against it, so I'm overly generalizing.
[00:22:22]  But the consensus of the American adults did it, it's a fact, right?
[00:22:26]  They just did.
[00:22:27]  And it was so perverse when you really think about it, which is the 15, 16, and 17 year olds that have their whole life ahead of them, they need to be locked at home so that they won't spread a virus to their grandparents.
[00:22:41]  Now, I'm not a fan, obviously, of anyone spreading viruses to anybody, but the question should have always been the kids come first.
[00:22:48]  What's right for them first?
[00:22:50]  Because now we see the result, right?

=== Giving This Generation Meaning (08:33) ===

[00:22:52]  And not to mention all of our insane fiscal policy is around this.
[00:22:56]  And I say this to conservatives all the time.
[00:22:59]  And I think that we could find some agreement with some people on the left here tonight, which is you want to know why so many people on the left, younger, that love socialism, yeah, part of it, they want free stuff and they've been indoctrinated, all that.
[00:23:09]  Obviously, that's all totally true.
[00:23:10]  I get that.
[00:23:11]  But I want you to put yourself in a young UT Austin grad's shoes for a second.
[00:23:16]  They graduated with a philosophy degree and now they have to go become a barista or whatever the career track is.
[00:23:24]  I mean, that non jokingly, right?
[00:23:26]  And they were like, wait a second, I did what I was told.
[00:23:28]  I borrowed the money, I got the piece of paper, I'm $70,000 in debt, whatever, right?
[00:23:32]  And now they go to go pay rent, and everything's twice as expensive because we decided to go print a bunch of money we didn't have.
[00:23:38]  And inflation is crushing people.
[00:23:40]  And good luck trying to buy a home if you're a young person right now, with what, 6.6% interest rates and down payments out of reach?
[00:23:48]  And this is something that some conservatives reject this argument, but just hold on, which is some people that then embrace socialist ideas, at some point you have to wonder like, man, you can blame them a little bit, but did we create the conditions where they're ready to embrace free enterprise?
[00:24:03]  And the answer is no.
[00:24:07]  Charlie had an absolutely relentless passion for learning.
[00:24:11]  I saw it up close and personal in every waking moment, every spare moment that he could.
[00:24:17]  He had a book open, he had a podcast open, he had a Hillsdale online course open.
[00:24:23]  He was always diving into new ideas, absorbing information, studying up, and sharpening his skills.
[00:24:28]  That's why I love Dr. Arne at Hillsdale College.
[00:24:31]  They shared a deep understanding that learning is the key to shaping your character, creating courage.
[00:24:38]  And changing lives.
[00:24:39]  Charlie never stopped learning, and neither should you.
[00:24:42]  Through Hillsdale's online courses, he spent time studying the classics, the American founding, and the enduring truths of the Bible.
[00:24:49]  Now it is your turn.
[00:24:51]  With Hillsdale's free online courses, you can follow in his footsteps, learning from real professors and challenging yourself with rigorous coursework that's free and accessible to anybody who's willing to learn.
[00:25:03]  A great place to start is their brand new course on logic and rhetoric.
[00:25:07]  Learn from Hillsdale professors how to speak masterfully.
[00:25:10]  Make a powerful point and see how clear thinking leads to better decision making and more effective speech.
[00:25:15]  Don't wait.
[00:25:16]  Go to charlieforhillsdale.com to enroll today.
[00:25:19]  It's completely free.
[00:25:21]  This is a real good one, by the way logic and rhetoric.
[00:25:23]  Pick up the mic, carry it forward, learn like Charlie.
[00:25:27]  Start right now at charlieforhillsdale.com.
[00:25:32]  I hear all the time, and this is probably the best argument from the left right now in America.
[00:25:36]  And since they're this is the left, they're so busy talking about stuff.
[00:25:39]  If they were smart, they would talk about this stuff, they would win everything.
[00:25:41]  But instead, they're too great talking about race all the time and defunding the police.
[00:25:44]  Men becoming pregnant.
[00:25:46]  If they were smart, they would say the very simple, which is really true, which is a 25 year old is working harder and getting poorer than any other time in American history.
[00:25:54]  That's true.
[00:25:55]  Not American history, the last 50 years.
[00:25:57]  And not only is that true, it creates a lot of anger in people, and it should, because you have a rule following generation.
[00:26:02]  That's what I call Gen Z and millennials, because they followed every single rule put in front of them, and they say, I can't afford gas, I can't afford groceries, I have to go into debt just to be able to survive.
[00:26:12]  And they want to just be preached by the older generation, like, oh, just go work harder, go apply yourself more.
[00:26:19]  You want to have a Marxist revolution on your hands?
[00:26:20]  You got to fix this really quick.
[00:26:22]  You got a bunch of young people with college degrees that don't own anything?
[00:26:26]  That's not going to end well.
[00:26:28]  You got a bunch, you know, it's a great rule for life.
[00:26:30]  People burn down Wendy's only if they don't own anything, okay?
[00:26:34]  Like the people, if you own a mortgage, you're probably less likely to go all of a sudden act in revolutionary fervor.
[00:26:39]  And I think we're on the cusp of an economic collapse in this country in more ways than one.
[00:26:43]  And again, it's not even political, it's just talking very realistically, which is do you think the hard economic left, which again, this is the great miscalculation of the American Marxists, and if there's a Marxist here tonight, I'd be happy to talk to you.
[00:26:56]  Because the Marxism, here am I giving advice to Marxists, right?
[00:26:59]  It's quite a thing.
[00:27:00]  Which is, they decided to go all in on this race Marxism garbage, which actually was the best gift for those of us that are conservatives because they decided to show their true colors that they're actually not about economics, they're about dividing people based on skin color and tribes and going against straight white men and all that sort of nonsense that they're doing.
[00:27:15]  When every single one of their arguments, like, oh, we need to confiscate wealth and all, it was all total and complete garbage, obviously, being a free enterprise guy, has kind of gone by the wayside in a way where you have a legitimate economic anxiety amongst the younger generation.
[00:27:31]  And so the question is, how are conservatives going to respond to that?
[00:27:34]  Well, I mean, I think our response needs to be, of course, rooted in market principles and rooted in consent to the governed and constitutional ideas.
[00:27:40]  But I have to even say, beyond that, it's we should also, as conservatives, be defenders and we should be pushers of things that would give this generation that currently is telling us they're in misery by every metric possible things that would give them meaning.
[00:27:54]  Make it easier to marry and have children in our country, make it easier to be able to buy a home, to have a little bit of investment in that very same American dream.
[00:28:02]  You want to de radicalize a generation?
[00:28:04]  Have them experience the same sort of growth that many of you experienced, adults in the room, in the 1980s.
[00:28:10]  Your politics get very deradicalized when you're getting wealthier and you start having kids.
[00:28:15]  You want to know why this generation has radicalized politics?
[00:28:18]  Because they're getting poor and they're not having children and not getting married.
[00:28:21]  It's the perfect kind of raw material for every single one of these awful ideas to kind of go in and metastasize.
[00:28:29]  So it kind of goes both ways.
[00:28:30]  I tell young people work harder, apply yourself more.
[00:28:33]  At the same time, as someone who's kind of a bridge between generations, being 28 years old, I think there needs to be a national recovery plan.
[00:28:39]  I don't know what that looks like.
[00:28:40]  I don't know what that means, but I've said this before.
[00:28:42]  I would much rather see money go to help kids be able to own homes and have families and send it to Ukraine.
[00:28:49]  I think that is a much more important priority for our leaders.
[00:28:56]  That's not a popular position in every room.
[00:28:58]  Obviously, it is here, but I think there's a moral obligation to defend your citizens.
[00:29:03]  But yeah, look, for those of you that are Gen Z and you're here tonight and you don't know how you stand politically welcome, by the way, we're glad you're here.
[00:29:10]  It's more important where you ask yourselves the question, how am I going to be able to live a life of contribution and meaning and purpose?
[00:29:17]  And I guess I'll close with this and we'll do some questions, which is it could be very depressing and very dark when you watch the news and all this, but I just want to be able to tell you that there is a beautiful life that is ahead of all of you.
[00:29:28]  There really is.
[00:29:29]  There are things that give your life meaning that you might be told on a daily basis you shouldn't do getting married, having children, having a job that you believe in, being able to serve your country, your church, your community, whatever those things might be.
[00:29:41]  Those are very beautiful and important things.
[00:29:44]  And so we're kind of going through this massive thing where they say, you know, we have this mental health crisis on our hands.
[00:29:49]  And I know we do.
[00:29:49]  And there's a lot of different reasons for that.
[00:29:51]  Lockdowns, as I said, contributed to it.
[00:29:52]  But what does a young person generally, if they believed everything the left told them, what are they to believe in?
[00:30:01]  Yeah, I mean, exactly.
[00:30:02]  Government.
[00:30:02]  Yeah, okay, great.
[00:30:03]  That's awfully depressing, right?
[00:30:06]  Where it's, can't we as conservatives paint a much more beautiful picture than that of safe local communities that function?
[00:30:13]  How about a future where we don't care about skin color at all?
[00:30:15]  We don't talk about it.
[00:30:21]  I think that's necessary, and I think it's very compelling.
[00:30:24]  In fact, I know it's compelling, and I think that's a lot more important for conservatives to talk about than tax cuts.
[00:30:30]  But it also goes into this, which is one of the main strategies if you get a generation to no longer believe in the history and the story of that nation, then why wouldn't they just tear it all down?
[00:30:40]  And that's one of the reasons why I'm such a defender of the American Republic and our history, which is a beautiful history.
[00:30:46]  It really is the great American story, it's a land of hope.
[00:30:50]  It's a story where you can start with absolutely nothing and you can achieve something.
[00:30:53]  I just don't mean monetarily.
[00:30:55]  It's a place of applied success and meritocracy, and we have to get it back.
[00:30:59]  And that starts here at this campus and spreading the truth and having debate and dialogue and reason and hearing each other's ideas out.
[00:31:06]  But I'll tell you right now, it's a massive crisis because I look at the next generation and I'm very afraid that we're going to be talking about a country that used to exist.
[00:31:15]  And I'm not okay with that, and that's why I'm here tonight.
[00:31:22]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.