All Episodes
Jan. 20, 2023 - Dinesh D'Souza
48:36
RURAL CHIC Dinesh D’Souza Podcast EP500
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This episode is brought to you by my friend Rebecca Walzer, a financial expert who can help you protect your wealth.
Book your free call with her team by going to friendofdinesh.com.
That's friendofdinesh.com.
Coming up, this is the 500th episode of this podcast.
I'm going to make the case for a revival of rural America as a place where families can find economic opportunity.
A safe and clean environment and a decent sense of community.
Debbie will join me. We're going to talk about the politicization of the FBI, a new bill to limit online censorship, and the conundrum of losing weight when your body will not fully cooperate.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Show.
The times are crazy and a time of confusion, division, and lies.
We need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
What is the best kind of community to live in?
And what is the best kind of community to live in if you are a conservative or a traditionalist?
Now, when we look at places to live, typically they tend to be divided into three categories.
There is the city, there is the suburb, and there is the village.
The city, of course, is associated with these days tall buildings, urban life, urban amenities, urban jobs.
The suburbs typically are the rings that develop around the city, so they offer some of the amenities of the city, the proximity to the city, but nevertheless, the suburb is not a city per se.
Now, some suburbs, of course, become huge, and there are cities around the world that have generated suburbs so large that they are cities unto themselves.
But nevertheless, you've got the city, you've got the suburb, and then you've got the rural areas, which are Essentially the venue for small towns or villages.
Now, the city is the foundation of civilization, and the city is the place where things occurred that you couldn't find in villages.
There were no suburbs in the early modern period, and of course we had a kind of Movement of people leaving the villages and going to the cities.
They would do that in search of jobs, but they would also do that in search of the kind of urban life that was unavailable in the village.
And so there was a Almost a one-way movement toward the city.
The cities became magnetic fulcrums of attraction for people to come from the rest of the country.
And this is a development that has occurred really all over the world.
But what a very interesting situation now when two things characterize the city.
First of all, politically, cities tend to be very left-wing.
And this is especially true of places like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles.
Smaller cities tend to be somewhat less left-wing, but the larger the city, the more you can predict that the city is going to be politically captive to the left.
But with that comes high tax rates, these days high crime rates, And so cities have become less inhabitable, at least in the United States.
This is not necessarily true all over the world.
This, of course, leaves the idea of living in suburbs, and a lot of people, Debbie and I included, live in suburbs.
And suburbs are nice places to live.
They are sort of hybrid areas.
They have city benefits and amenities, but they also have land, and so you're able to kind of have the best of both worlds, so to speak.
But what are we going to do or what is to be done about the rest of America, the rural areas, the villages so-called?
Well, villages have by and large had a tough time in America in the last several decades.
They have not only found themselves being emptied out, people moving to cities, people moving to suburbs, But they've also found the jobs in those villages shrinking and decaying.
The sense of community that was once available in the small towns and villages has diminished or eroded, at least in many cases.
And so with that seems to come a decline, not only of villages, but also of conservatism.
Why? Why?
Because conservatism seems to be more attached to rural ways of life, to land, to the idea of more settled communities, to the idea of more traditional ways of living than we see at least today in American cities.
All of this is a kind of a preface to a very interesting sort of thread I saw on social media.
It's written by this guy called Adirondacker.
At least that's his Twitter name, kind of from the Adirondacks, Adirondacker.
And I want to go through the thread because it sort of lays out a potential opportunity and a way out for American rural areas.
It begins by noting America's dying hinterlands are depressing.
To some people, to me, they appear to offer the greatest opportunity ever afforded a single generation in our nation's history if we move carefully and deliberately.
Deliberately here meaning thoughtfully.
He goes on to say that village populations are aging, leaving, having fewer children, economic prospects are dim, and things seem to be crumbling.
He goes, An eventual abandonment, which has happened in some places, or a rapid buyout by financial interests that will take over this land, or try to convert homes in rural areas into rental apartments.
So in other words, to Convert the rural areas into small replicas of the city or of the suburbs, thus destroying their rural and traditional character.
But the point of this fellow Adirondacker is that there is a better way, and in the next segment I will outline what that way is.
How can you make sure you sleep like a baby in 2023?
Well, the answer is MyPillow pillows and MyPillow bedsheets.
Now, Mike Lindell is running a sale on his Giza Dream bedsheets that are as low as $29.99.
Mike promises the first night you sleep in these sheets, You're never going to want to sleep on anything else.
The Giza Dream bedsheets are made with the world's best cotton called Giza.
Its long staple cotton makes the sheets ultra soft and breathable.
The sateen weave gives them a luxurious finish.
Available in multiple colors, styles, and sizes.
Machine washable and durable.
10-year warranty. 60-day money-back guarantee.
So go ahead, call 800-876-0227.
That number again, 800-876-0227 or go to MyPillow.com to get the discount.
You need to use the promo code, which is D-I-N-E-S-H Dinesh.
I'm following a thread by a guy called Adirondacker who's talking about how rural areas and small towns can be revived.
He goes, look, there's a huge demand for this.
Why? Because number one, There is a broad sense among Americans that we need to return to old ways, that the country has sort of taken a wrong turn.
And what are old ways if not those traditional ways of how Americans used to live?
Well, those ways are preserved.
They do exist already in small towns and in villages that have a traditional character, have settled ways of life, Now, all these different places aren't identical, but that's just the point.
You've got a varied menu of traditional ways of life that are already existing in America.
And he goes, there's also a sense in America that we need affordable housing.
Well, where can you find affordable housing?
The best place is in places where land is still cheap and where you can still build or have a comfortable house.
Now, the question, of course, arises about how do we build these communities?
Adirondack goes on to say, he goes, we know progressives have their meccas.
They've got Brooklyn, they've got Oakland, they've got Seattle.
And so he goes, why don't conservatives take advantage of all the...
Small towns and villages across America, Hugo, such towns present fantastic opportunities for young conservatives and traditionalists seeking to establish some sort of a heartland.
Now, how does this work?
Well, it works, as it turns out, very much like it used to work in the old days.
He goes, the initial establishment of a mecca, and by a mecca here he means a desirable community to live, a conservative mecca as opposed to, let's say, a college town which is a progressive or a left-wing mecca.
He goes, the initial establishment of a mecca requires a glut of cheap housing, that already exists, He goes, but wait a minute.
Are the people who live in small towns going to be open to new people moving in?
His answer is yes, as long as they share the same values.
So in other words, we're talking here about immigration, not immigration to America, but immigration from places where conservatives live now, where they're perhaps not happy.
We know tons of conservatives, a bunch of our friends, who live in places where they're unhappy being.
The taxes are too high.
The crime rates are too high.
They're often talking about, I need to get out of here.
And the point is, there are lots of places in America that would welcome them.
And so, Adirondack is making the point, the first wave establishes a golden era.
In other words, the people who move need to create a sort of cool factor in the places they move to.
And how do you do that? Well, Adirondacko's point is you do it by setting up a coffee shop or you do it by setting up a bookstore or you do it by setting up environments.
That are attractive to people.
So he's talking here about college towns are a pretty good model here because they supply some cultural life, they supply music, they supply intellectual life.
So Adirondacka's point is not just, hey, let's all move to villages and small towns where there's absolutely nothing going on.
His point is, let's get some things going on.
And when you get them going on, other people go, hey, this is really cool.
Debbie and I recently visited.
What was the name of that place, honey?
Was it Magnolia?
Or was it the place where all that art was going on?
We bought some stuff for the house.
The place that does paintings.
Wimberley, it's a place in Texas.
It's like an art community, but the mood in it is traditional.
It's conservative. We found some beautiful horse paintings that we bought for the house.
So Adirondack's point is you make a place interesting, you make it attractive.
The pioneers do that.
And then a second wave begins to follow, and then pretty soon you have a critical mass, a critical mass to build a community.
He goes, we can do the same.
This is a way to reinvigorate the traditional values of the U.S. or even of Western culture at large.
Now, he goes, look, this is not to say that these traditional cultures are all identical.
And so part of moving to one of these communities is not just to bring things to them that are new, but also to learn to respect the things that are there now.
So this is a very fruitful interaction between the local kind of folk ways or community ways that are established in certain areas and And the new cool things, whether musical or artistic or whether it's a site for making movies, these are ways to revive traditional communities.
He goes, not only is this something that can happen, it's probably inevitable.
It used to be a staple in America.
And so if we believe that there is a market for small, conservative, varied, interesting, non-urban life, if this is something that young families, for example, want, then we should get about building and creating and sustaining those communities.
Debbie and I started taking Relief Factor a couple of years ago.
The difference we've seen in our joints, nothing short of amazing.
Aches and pains are basically gone thanks to this 100% drug-free solution called Relief Factor.
Relief Factor supports your body's fight against inflammation that's the source of aches and pains.
The vast majority of people who try Relief Factor order more because it works for them.
It works for Debbie. She's a true believer.
She's finally able to do all the exercises that for a long time she wasn't able to do.
It's been a real game changer for her, her aunt, other members of our family, and for many other people as well.
You too can benefit. Try it for yourself.
Order the three-week quick start for the discounted price of only $19.95.
Go to relieffactor.com or call 833-690-7246 to find out more.
That number again is 833-690-7246 or go to relieffactor.com.
You'll feel the difference.
Debbie and I are here for our weekly roundup.
And as it turns out, this is the 500th episode of the podcast, if you can believe it.
Yeah! You know, I really can't believe it.
I really can't. Because as you recall, and I always remind you, the very first week of the podcast, I thought was going to be my last.
You were continually submitting your resignation.
Oh, I was, yes, constantly.
And you wouldn't have anything.
You would not take it.
So it was like, no, no, no.
You're sticking to this.
It was your idea in the first place.
You're not going to quit on me.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. So anyway, it's been a fun 500 episodes.
And here's to...
I mean, here we are. You know, we're in year number three.
And we've gotten it down to a smooth routine.
And it's really fun because I think before this...
I would do the books, the speeches, the movies, but all of those are episodic.
They're periodic. And so I didn't have any sort of regular forum to engage with the issues of the day, bring on guests.
So... It would be kind of better to do longer reaction video clips.
But you know, people just don't have the attention span.
So it was like, you know, if they actually have like a little, you know, outlet for them to be able to hear all your different thoughts and observations and whatnot.
Then it'd be kind of cool.
So during COVID, I think COVID is exactly what we needed to get this wall rolling.
Well, before COVID, I was on the road so much that I didn't even see how a podcast like this could even be viable.
And what I've done now is I've sort of, I think, scaled back on the speaking.
So I still do it, but not as much.
It's difficult. It's a little more difficult to do now because of the daily routine of the podcast.
Hey, let's talk about, you know...
I've been talking all week about the differential treatment by the FBI of Trump on the one hand, and now they're basically letting Biden self-investigate.
Meaning, okay, you look around.
If your lawyers find any classified stuff, pass it over to us.
So... There's a blatant ideological double standard.
And here you have, you showed me this, this is a retired FBI executive and a senior executive who talks about how this politicization occurred.
So talk about that. His name is Chris, and I hope I don't botch the last names, Swecker?
Is that right? Swacker, yeah.
Swacker. And he is a retired FBI agent.
He does say that there is a huge shift ideologically in the FBI. But the interesting thing is he says that it's because of the indoctrination of kids in schools that when they graduate college, they've been primed, you know, for the leftist ideology, communist, socialist, whatever.
And so when they graduate and they go into the FBI... They're already leftists.
And so, of course, when they hear Trump is bad, people, right-wingers are bad, they're like, well, let's investigate them.
So it becomes kind of a natural component of their ideological shift because they're already primed for it.
So it was interesting that he said that.
I mean, this guy Swecker, he talks about the fact that the real shift, he says, came not under Robert Mueller, but after Mueller, right?
He says that it was Comey and it was Christopher Wray, but it wasn't even so much that Comey was very left-wing or Wray is very left-wing.
But what you're describing with regard to the younger agents is very similar to what's happened in corporations.
It's similar to what's happened in publishing houses where they now demand, don't publish this book, or this corporation now only needs to invest in projects that are climate-friendly.
Or woke.
Or woke. So it's interesting.
He says that as a result of changing the hiring requirement perspective, agents are now being selected for Now, that's interesting because to me that says that that is a change that is coming from the top down and not from the bottom up.
It's kind of like something that may be happening even in the military, where they say in the military, we no longer want people who are wildly patriotic, who are ready to give their life for their country.
That's the kind of people the military used to look for.
Let's now look for people, for example, who take a more skeptical view of US engagement in the world.
Or let's take people who simply view the military as a career, a way to move up in life the same as you would in a law firm.
And so you're going to change the complexion.
And I obviously don't mean the racial complexion.
I mean the type of person that you're going to get in the military or the FBI, the ideology, if you do that.
Right, because he goes on to say that, you know, once you're in there, you can decide that President Trump is not fit to be president, therefore, we need to go after him.
Or you can decide that domestic terrorists only exist on the right, therefore, we need to go after them.
So you pick winners and losers, and that's how you operate.
This is sometimes known as the GIGO principle, garbage in, garbage out.
Sometimes we all need a fresh start.
The phrase literally means an opportunity to begin something again.
And you know you need a fresh start in your eating habits, right?
How many times last year did you say to yourself, I need to start eating better?
Well, eating the right amount of fruits and veggies every day is almost impossible.
I have a much better, a more convenient way for you to make that fresh start with balance of nature.
Sourced from 31 whole fruits and vegetables, you'll get maximum nutrition with their star product which is this, fruits and veggies in a capsule.
Devin and I take them every day.
I want you to do so as well.
Right now, take advantage of Balance of Nature's New Year's offer.
Get $25 off plus free fiber and spice with your first preferred order of fruits and veggies when you use discount code AMERICA.
This offer can end at any time.
So act now, call 800-246-8751.
That's 800-246-8751.
Or go to balanceofnature.com.
Use discount code America.
We have been discovering through the Twitter files and other places the Broad reach of online censorship that is sometimes being driven by government agencies, by the CDC, by the FBI. And the question is, what's going to happen?
You've even asked me about, you know, is all of this just for informational purposes?
We now know what's going on, but so what?
Or will some action be taken?
And if so, by who?
Mm-hmm. Well, as it turns out, apparently the GOP-controlled House is starting to look at this.
Yes. Unfortunately, and this is why we always say that elections have consequences.
I mean, the GOP-controlled House can only do so much, right?
Because it still requires the Senate.
It still requires the President.
And they, you know, the Senate, of course, is now not controlled by the Republicans.
Or actually, it hasn't been for a while.
Do you really think Biden is going to do anything about this?
Do you think he's going to want to look into the censorship that he himself sanctioned?
Of course not. But the House at least has the power to launch investigations, to issue subpoenas, and to put out information that can lay the foundation for Action that will be taken later.
But what we do know now is that these social media companies created portals, which is a special entry points where government agencies were able to kind of weigh in and put in Ban these guys.
Restrict these guys. Take down this content.
Now, the government agencies don't control the process completely.
They're, in a sense, making recommendations, and then the private company is acting on them.
So, to me, it is not 100% clear that this is a violation of the First Amendment.
Why? Because who's taking the ultimate action?
It's the private company. So, Twitter, the old Twitter...
Or Facebook could say, well, listen, the government is only making suggestions.
We decide how to act on them.
That will be their defense.
But the very fact that you've got systematic, broad collaboration between the government and these platforms in shutting down debate and information raises the First Amendment problem.
It does. But, you know, kind of what we were talking about in the other segment about the FBI. So these big tech people are indoctrinated, right?
So they already think we're bad.
And so this doesn't take a whole lot of convincing because, hey, they're already there, you know?
All they have to do is be told by the government.
I don't even think that they think of it as a collusion.
I really don't. I think they think that they're doing the right thing.
I agree. I think they do think that.
The other thing to remember is that Twitter, Meta, and YouTube have hired a lot of CIA and FBI. Oh, of course.
So it's a kind of a...
from government agencies into these social media platforms.
And so what you have is you could have the FBI dealing with a former FBI guy who's now at Twitter.
Right.
And so they talk the same language.
They might've been buddies in the old days.
And so it's very easy for them to work together.
And I agree with you.
To them, it's not as if they say that we are going out there to shut down accurate information.
They basically take the way they see the world as reality.
Exactly. And they take the way we see the world as a perversion of reality.
So when they say they're shutting down misinformation, they genuinely believe that they are getting things right.
So this effort began after Size Up.
We've partnered with the left-leaning organizations to launch election integrity partnerships.
I mean, if that doesn't...
I mean, the language is Orwellian.
But again, you can see that they look at it as, no, we're not trying to help the Democrats.
We're not trying to shut down the Republicans.
This is not a one-party state.
No, what we're trying to do is ensure election integrity.
Right. So under the guise of election integrity, they did all this.
But interesting that they submitted tickets, right?
And these tickets were frequently resolved by taking one of these actions, okay?
So number one, banning the user from posting his or her lawful speech or deplatforming the individual entirely.
We know this happened.
We... We know people it's happened to.
Yeah, it's happened to us.
And then algorithmically restricting the reach of the speech on the platform.
So in other words, when we say we're shadow banned, that means that, like, for example, your Twitter message didn't go out to all your Twitter followers or Facebook messages.
Wasn't seen by all the fans or YouTube.
Same with YouTube, right?
And then adding other information like a warning label, we get lots of those, to the post altering users to post disfavored status.
So, this is really bad.
I mean, just... I mean, it's not just...
I mean, Debbie's pointing out it's happened to me from time to time, but it's also happened to her.
Now, you have a smaller account, but you would say on Facebook, you were...
customarily, you'd get hundreds of likes because you have, what, 5,000 friends on Facebook?
Mm-hmm. And 5,000 friends and about 5,000 followers, you know, so that's about 10,000 people that you're supposedly reaching...
But I would get like one or two likes and I noticed that it was when it was not, when it was a political post, I would get one or two likes.
When it was like a photo of our kids or our family, it was way more.
So definitely it's going on even to little people like me.
Thanks to your support, guys.
Patriot Mobile has emerged as one of the leaders in the parallel economy.
And they have big news. Patriot Mobile now offers service with all three major networks.
This means if you're with the big three and like the service but hate their values, you can access them with Patriot Mobile.
Patriot Mobile also offers a performance guarantee.
If you're not happy with your coverage, you can switch between the three major carriers for free.
Patriot Mobile is America's only Christian conservative wireless provider.
It offers nationwide coverage on the best 4G and 5G networks, so you get the same great service while supporting a company that fights to preserve our God-given rights and freedoms.
This new year, resolve to stop supporting companies that don't align with your values.
Get free activation today with the offer code Dinesh.
Patriot Mobile is a 100% U.S.-based customer service team.
Makes switching easy. Just go to patriotmobile.com slash Dinesh. That's patriotmobile, M-O-B-I-L-E dot com slash Dinesh or call 972-PATRIOT.
I've just been talking to you about Patriot Mobile.
And as it turns out, there is a remarkable news story involving the police department in Grapevine, Texas.
That refuses to take a charitable donation made by Patriot Mobile.
You have all the details. Yeah, so basically what happened is that Patriot Mobile was at an auction and they actually bought a $1,500 gift certificate for $2,575.
So this $1,500 gift certificate was a...
A fundraiser benefiting the fallen soldiers.
So they like to support our military.
They like to support our police department.
And so they thought, you know what?
Let's just have a pizza party.
Let's just donate a $1,500 pizza party to the Grapevine Police Department.
And the interesting thing is that the police department accepted the donation.
They went on social media and thanked Patriot Mobile for this donation.
Until they didn't.
Well, what happened is a bunch of leftists began to weigh in, attack the Grapevine Police Departments and basically say, why are you taking money from these horrible people, these right-wingers and so on?
And you would think the Patriot Mobile Police, sorry, the Grapevine Police Department would be like, well, they're just doing a nice gesture for us.
They're supporting us.
And of course, we're a bunch of cops who could use a slice of pizza.
But no, they kind of They did.
And I have something that some people have actually written about this.
And so this one person writes, So if I'm a conservative, which I am, and decide to donate a pizza party or such to a grapevine municipal department that is not welcomed, what if a liberal-leaning entity company decided to do the same?
You guys really stepped in it.
But, then another person said, as an actual Grapevine residence, it is clear that the Grapevine Police Department did the right thing here.
Obviously, the group donating is divisive.
Just look at the comments.
Let's all get back to celebrating Martin Luther King Day.
I wonder if that's sarcastic, though.
It could be taken two ways.
Yeah, so basically...
So unfortunately for the Grapevine Police Department, if they don't want to be political, then they shouldn't cave to political pressure, which is exactly what they did.
And I was telling Dinesh earlier this morning, the very people that pressured them are the very people that call for them to be canceled or Defund the police.
Defunded, right? So these are the people that hate you on a regular basis, and you are having to defend them all the time.
So then now you cave to them?
I mean, this is just... I mean, it puts conservatives in a very awkward position because we like to support the police.
We like to be back the blue.
I remember on January 6th, there were conservatives who were in D.C., And they were being treated very badly by the police.
And they're like, wait a minute. Why are you doing this, guys?
We're on your side.
We're law-abiding people.
We're just here to protest what we see as a stolen election.
And there's a little bit of a resonance here because you've got, again, conservatives trying to show their appreciation for the police.
The police obviously took it the right way.
And then when there was pressure, the police go, oh, no, we really don't want to be associated with you.
I'm sure the Grapevine Police Department would receive gifts from other people and be perfectly happy with it.
I don't know who is the person that pulled the plug.
I'm sure that there's a lot of police officers in the department that are really upset about this because they are conservative and they are Christian.
And Patriot Mobile is a Christian conservative company and they don't hide it.
Remember, we have always said that we might need to live in a parallel universe where we have our own conservative companies and they can have their own liberal companies, right and so here is a company that's actually doing what we've said and And this is what happens because of it So it creates an opportunity for you out there if you agree with us that this is This is kind of a bad behavior on the part of the grapevine police
Well, you know what?
Politely, in a civil way, let them know.
Just reach out to those guys and go, hey guys, this is kind of ridiculous.
Pretty much, if an organization wants to donate some meal tickets or donate some restaurant vouchers or donate some pizza, you're going to generally take it.
Unless you have a policy that we're not going to be accepting any gifts from anybody, that's understandable.
But then to single out Patriot Mobile, because why?
Because they're a conservative Christian company, because they're trying to promote conservative causes around freedom.
They're supporting you!
And so, again, this is called biting the hand that feeds you, and then you're surprised when the next time there's a controversy and conservatives are not on your side and they don't show up.
Why? Because you treat them this way.
Right. And so I wouldn't be surprised if this police department all of a sudden stopped getting donors from donating to their causes.
If you'd like to support my work, a good way to do that is to become an annual subscriber to my Locals channel.
And when you do that, you get a whole bunch of films for free.
I've now got a bunch of first-rate films up on the channel.
Each one is handpicked by me and Debbie.
These are powerful, moving films of the kind that Hollywood hardly ever makes anymore.
films like 2000 Mules, Long Road Home, which is the Johnny Cash family story, The Stoning of Soraya M, an unforgettable film starring Jim Caviezel, and Sabina, a beautifully shot film set in Nazi-dominated Romania with an unforgettable Christian message.
Many more films going up this year in 2023, my films, as well as great films by others.
And you can watch all of them just by becoming an annual subscriber to my Locals channel.
It's $50 a year.
That's less than $5 a month.
Plus, you get other exclusive content, including my live weekly Q&A. Sign up at dinesh.locals.com.
I'd love to have you along for this great ride.
Again, the website, dinesh.locals.com.
I also want to talk a little bit about our ongoing, well, should we call it our weight loss journey?
What is the right?
Maybe our weight gain journey, and then loss, and then weight gain.
I don't know. It's been quite a journey.
It is. It's been quite a journey.
Well, it was, I guess, in 2018 that we both undertook this six months.
Well, let me go back. So, when we got married in 2016, I was at a really good weight.
I really liked it. You were, too.
We looked really good.
And then, I don't know what happened after that.
I guess, you know, when they say that when you get married, you get really happy and you, like, start eating and stuff.
So, we did.
We gained a ton of weight after that.
And I remember we went to Europe to film Death of a Nation.
And I think it was when we saw ourselves on the screen or when you saw yourself on the screen, you're like, oh my goodness, we have to do something about this.
Well, part of the problem was that we were in Germany and we were in Prague and we didn't like the food at all.
So what we ended up doing, well, I do like these chocolates that you get in Europe that are called Mozart's.
And they have, I mean, they're just awesome.
Oh. You can't even generally buy them in America, but you can order them.
In any event, we ate a whole bunch of, I ate a whole bunch of Mozarts.
But I did too. But anyway, so all that to say that we came back and then we got on Weight Watchers.
And we did that for a bit, maybe three, four months.
And we lost all our weight.
We looked really good for a few years.
And then COVID hit.
Well, we're not the only ones.
Yeah, no, I know a lot of people gain weight during COVID, but also not your excuse, but my excuse is that during all this, I started going through menopause.
And I know that I've talked about this on the show, and I'm sorry for some of you that think it's TMI, but it is what it is.
And for some of us women, if you're listening and you're a woman that's my age in the 50s, I'm 57, so if you're in your Between 50 and 60, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
The same amount of food that you used to eat when you were in your 20s, 30s, 40s, you cannot eat anymore because not only will you gain weight, but you can't lose weight.
It's really tough when you are a woman, especially.
Well, I think it happens to men too, but probably to a lesser degree.
But it's true. You can't, even as a man, you can't eat in your 50s and 60s the way you ate in your 20s and 30s.
But people don't get the memo and they keep doing it.
And of course, these days in restaurants, and we've talked about this, A typical serving in a restaurant is a serving for two or three people.
And it's really hard when you go to a restaurant and they serve you all this food and then you want to eat just a quarter of it, but then you feel really bad because there's so many kids starving in the world.
Well, it's also the way we're raised.
I mean, our parents were like, clear your plate.
You can take as much as you want, but make sure that you eat it all.
And I hate leftovers.
So I don't like to leave food because then they come back and they go, would you like a box?
Would you like a box? Well, the interesting new development is we have sort of made a pact that we're undertaking a new journey.
Yeah, a new journey. And they are actually going to be sponsors of our podcast.
It's called PhD Weight Loss.
And really, the Gorkas kind of inspired us to do this.
Oh, this was really funny.
We were in Israel with Sebastian Gorka and his wife.
And they just, first of all, they reach into their wallets and they whip out before and after photos.
And of course, it's the most, they were the most, you know, here's Gorka holding his pants out to here.
And of course, the Gorkas do look good.
Yeah, they do. And they lost a bunch of weight, both of them, Katie and Seb.
Yeah. Now, our goals, I think, are in a way more modest.
I mean, I think we'd both be happy if we lost 10 pounds.
Yeah, 15-ish for me.
Maybe 20. Maybe 20 is a little too much and unrealistic.
20 is trying to take you back to when you were in your 20s.
Yeah, and that may be a little too unrealistic.
But I do remember, though, and whoever did this, you know who you are.
We took a photo and they were like, oh, you guys are great, but you could sure use to...
Stand to lose. You think you'll stand to lose 20 pounds?
We look happy, but there's probably a little too much of us looking happy.
I was like, geez, you know, I love it when, you know, people that are your fans, you know, say nice things.
I especially like when they say that I look really young.
I love that. Not when they say I look really fat.
Well, I mean, the thing is we are planning to do something about it, so...
The interesting thing with the PhD weight loss guys is they came to us and they go, hey, listen, we'd like to advertise, but would you be willing to sort of...
They didn't use the phrase be guinea pigs, but sort of, would you be willing to try the product and demonstrate its effectiveness?
To be fair, it's really difficult to be like saying that, you know, oh, you have to try PhD weight loss and you yourself are not trying it and you yourself...
Don't, haven't lost weight.
So this is kind of our approach with all ads in general.
We like to sample the products, make sure we like them.
So we're not merely reciting an ad, but rather advocating things that we like and we use.
And in this case, that provide tangible and demonstrable benefits.
So if you begin to see over time less of us on the podcast, you'll realize that we're now adopting the less is more principle advice.
And it also means that the product is working.
But in the meantime, we're going to go eat a really big sandwich.
Yeah, we haven't started it effectively yet.
So Debbie's like, what's the name of the place we're going to?
We're going to Schlotzky's. Schlotzky's.
I've never eaten in Schlotzky's, but Debbie goes, they make really good sandwiches.
I just got the craving to go to Schlotzky's.
So that's what we're going to do right after the podcast.
We're going to be Schlotzky-ing.
I'm continuing my discussion of the Galileo case, and when we left off yesterday, Galileo made an agreement with Cardinal Bellarmine to the effect that he would not publicly teach the heliocentric theory.
He would continue his experiments, but he wouldn't be a public advocate so as not to, you can say, confuse the faithful, confuse the ordinary guy.
And for years Galileo kept this pledge, but then something happened that caused him to change his mind and make what turned out to be a terrible misjudgment.
There was a new pope. Cardinal Matteo Barberini was named Pope Urban VIII. And by the way, Barberini was considered kind of a scientific progressive.
In fact, this is a guy who had fought to prevent Copernicus's work from being placed on the index of prohibited books.
He was also a fan of Galileo's.
He had written a poem in which Galileo's name was mentioned in a very positive light.
So Galileo was like, okay, all bets are off.
I don't have to be bound by my old strictures and my old conditions.
And I'm going to now write, and Galileo began to write a book for which he's now well known, called The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which was published in 1632.
Now, the problem for Galileo was he structured this book as a dialogue between a guy named...
Simplicio and Galileo himself.
And apparently Simplicio represents the Pope.
And the Pope is sort of like the dumb guy.
And the Pope in this dialogue makes dumb arguments which Galileo easily swats down.
And so the net effect of reading this book is it looks like the Pope is a fool and Galileo is the really smart guy.
Now, this was in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
In other words, the Pope himself was a sophisticated man and had his own kind of view of science, which at the first glance may sound a little bit strange, but is in fact a view held by many scientists today.
So let me describe this view.
The view is that science is not a mechanism for discovering laws of nature.
Rather, science is a mechanism for We're good to go.
So, in other words, science is useful because it helps us to make useful measurements and predictions, but these predictions are not about the world per se, as they are about our experience in the world.
Now, there are physicists today who believe that this is true, that when we perceive the world, we perceive the world through our experiences.
And so science is a record of those experiences, not necessarily of the world in itself.
In other words, not of the world as it is if there were no human beings, let's say, in it.
In any event, this was the Pope's view, and you won't be surprised to learn that the Pope was very unhappy that Galileo was portraying him as a buffoon, and he, Galileo, as being the guy who got everything right.
Now, Galileo didn't in fact get everything right.
In fact, in the dialogue concerning the two chief world systems, one of Galileo's kind of knockdown arguments in favor of the heliocentric view is the tides.
Galileo basically argues that the earth must be moving around the sun because that's how the water in the oceans gets sloshed around and that's how we get the tides.
Now, if you know anything about science, you'll realize that this argument is in fact completely wrong.
The tides have nothing to do with the Earth going around the Sun.
The tides are the result of the gravitational force of the Sun and the Moon acting together on the Earth.
That's what So Galileo is offering, in this case, a completely bogus argument.
Galileo also attacks Kepler for taking the view that planets move in elliptical orbits.
Galileo insists that planets move in purely spherical orbits.
Circular orbits, of course, we know now that Kepler was right and Galileo is wrong.
So the point I want to make is, and this is kind of how science develops, just because Galileo is a great scientist, and he is, doesn't mean he's right about everything.
In fact, some of his arguments for the heliocentric system are now known to be flatly wrong.
And at the time of Galileo, this, as I say, was an unsettled issue.
So, the fact that it isn't even so much that this was a debate between religion and science, it's a debate between competing scientific theories.
There's the geosynthetics.
The heliocentric view, which was advanced really before the medieval period, in fact before Christianity, and then there is the heliocentric view.
The heliocentric view is gathering momentum, but the point I want to make, it's not until about 50 years after Galileo that the argument for the heliocentric view is completely settled and confirmed.
And the heliocentric view is now acknowledged and known to be right, and the geocentric view is known to be wrong.
In Galileo's time, there was still an ongoing and legitimate argument about this.
And so, the trouble that Galileo gets into with the church, and I'll talk more about this later.
As I pick it up on Monday, isn't just because of the scientific theory, but is also because Galileo wanders into other thickets.
He starts talking about the correct way to interpret the Bible.
And let's agree that as a physicist or as an astronomer, this is not something that Galileo knows a whole lot about.
Subscribe to the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify.
Export Selection