All Episodes
Previous Next
March 17, 2023 - Dinesh D'Souza
51:05
CROSSING THE LINE Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep539
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This episode is brought to you by my friend Rebecca Walser, 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.
An announcement before I tell you what's coming up, and that is that Debbie and I are on vacation next week, so we'll be out Monday through Friday.
My daughter, Danielle D'Souza Gill, will be sitting in for me.
So the podcast is going to continue as normal.
Please listen and watch.
And by the way, if you're Watching now on Apple or Spotify or Google, hit the subscribe button.
Or even if you're watching on Rumble, make sure you hit the Rumble subscribe button.
I'd really appreciate it.
I'm going to talk today about how, really why Biden is snubbing his own climate change allies and approving a large drilling project in Alaska.
Author Michael Foley joins me.
We're going to talk about his book.
It's called Dining with the Saints.
It provides the inside scoop on St. Patrick's Day.
Check out my green today.
And Debbie's going to join me.
We're going to talk about a bunch of issues, including how the Red Cross is mapping out routes for illegals to cross the southern border.
This is The Dinesh D'Souza Show.
The times are crazy. In a time of confusion, division, and lies, we need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
Somewhat surprisingly, Joe Biden has approved a massive drilling project in Alaska.
This project allows the oil company called ConocoPhillips to go ahead with a...
It's actually a project, a 30-year project of drilling, and it's called the Willow Project.
And it's giving the climate change people and the environmentalist people a real heart attack, which is a good thing.
It's a good thing in the sense that they don't know what to make of it.
They are, quote, deeply disappointed in the actions of Biden.
They're claiming that he made assurances to them that this sort of thing would not happen, but it is happening.
And by the way, it comes on the heels of Biden signing a bill that knocks out the rewrite of the DC Criminal Code.
So this is sort of the second turncoat-ish act by Biden from the point of view of the left.
And the question I want to look at is, why did he do it?
Now, a few details.
This is a drilling project that will produce 576 million barrels of oil.
So it's a big deal. And of course, here's Anne Alexander from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
This would be an enormous carbon bomb.
It's the single largest project currently proposed on federal lands because it involves three separate drilling sites.
Now, the Willow project had been green-lighted, had been cleared by the Trump administration, and then Biden came back, came in and stopped it.
And so it was kind of halted in its tracks.
But now Biden has to explain why he is essentially giving a clearance to a Trump-approved project.
And he says, well, we negotiated with ConocoPhillips.
They've agreed to back off of some leases on federal land in an area, apparently, of Alaska that is home to caribou and other wildlife.
So this is apparently the concession made by ConocoPhillips.
Yeah, we'll take this massive drilling project, but we'll give up this thing over here.
And the left, of course, sees right through it, and they're not exactly appeased.
So there's a Sunrise Movement director, Varshini Prakash, who says that this abandons the millions of young people who came together to demand he stop the project.
But this is a project that has enormous benefits.
In fact, one of the champions of the project, not totally surprising, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Now, none of us, me certainly, but I don't think you either, major fans of Murkowski.
But Murkowski's right on this.
And I think she also recognizes it's very good for Alaska.
She goes, Willow is finally approved.
And we can almost literally feel Alaska's future brightening.
We are now on the cusp of creating thousands of new jobs, generating billions of dollars in new revenue, improving quality of life on the North Slope and across the state, and adding vital energy to fuel the nation and the world.
Now obviously it's the last part of that that's the most important, which is that this is going to be something that makes a difference.
Now, the United States has plenty of energy.
As we can see, we have a lot of oil, we have a lot of natural gas, and we have huge reserves that are not being fully tapped.
And so what's happened is that, as in so many other cases, the Biden administration has been holding us back by failing to deploy resources that are available.
I mean, we've got cops, but we don't send them out into crime-ridden neighborhoods, at least with the authority to be able to stop the crime.
We have a border, and we have the resources and a border patrol to protect it, but we don't deploy them.
We have natural gas, but we don't use it.
We don't actually go get it, even though we have the companies that are ready to drill for it, the customers ready to buy it.
Nevertheless, it's all stopped because of climate change.
It's all stopped because of these environmental groups.
I think that what happened here is that Biden realized that politically, he's going into rough waters, rough economic waters in which the stock market has been plummeting, the economy is stalled, inflation is stubbornly holding at 6%.
There are supply chain shortages all over the country.
So people are really feeling it every which way.
And everyone's feeling it.
I mean, it doesn't matter if you're a middle class guy, an upper middle class guy, a rich guy.
You're getting whacked one way or the other by Biden policies.
I think Biden realized, listen, if I'm going to try to even maintain halfway respectable approval ratings, If I'm going to try to set myself up to try to run again, I frankly can't see how a guy like this can even run again.
But nevertheless, if that's what he's scheming to do, I think he decided that on this one, he's going to have to go against the left.
We all know our digital privacy is under attack.
Big tech steals your private information, pictures, chat, and email.
This is all very bad.
So is there a better way?
Well, there is.
Secure, which is spelled S-E-K-U-R, offers secure instant messaging and email hosted in Switzerland without using any of the big tech platforms and using Swiss privacy laws, which are the strictest in the world.
Debbie and I signed up for Secure.
We're using it, we love it.
It's great stuff.
Secure's proprietary technology allows you to communicate privately without fear of spying from big tech companies, your email provider, or hackers.
Use Secure to chat or email with everyone, including non-Secure users, thanks to Secure's unique features called Secure Send and Chat by Invite.
Secure is an email and messaging application that guarantees your privacy.
Go to secure.com, that's S-E-K-U-R.com.
Use promo code Dinesh to get 25% off for the next 24 months.
Again, it's secure, S-E-K-U-R dot com.
Debbie and I are here for our Friday Roundup and we are...
We look very St.
Patrick-y. I was going to pinch you, but you wore green, so I don't have to.
Right. No, exactly.
And the other thing I want to point out is that Debbie went to the hairdresser yesterday and walked in and I had to do like a bit of a double take because, well, you didn't go blonde, but you went blonde highlights.
So I had a little bit of highlights going and she asked me if I wanted to up the ante and I said, sure.
But I went from like a 2 to like a 10.
So, very highlight-y.
And then, of course, you know, just getting ready for our beach vacation.
And so I want to get, like now I want to go get a spray tan.
But maybe I should hold off on the spray tan just not to look too, you know...
You mean the contrast with the tan and with the blonde hair?
Yeah. It'll remind me of the old days when I used to put sun in my hair when I was in high school and fry out in the sun with the foil and the oil.
I'm sure that all of the ladies that were 80s teenagers will totally know what I'm talking about.
Well, Debbie used to tell me she used to lie out on the foam.
No, it was on foil with baby oil.
And just fry, you know, because the foil would kind of like, you know, get the sunlight to just really penetrate.
Debbie has an aunt who is a dermatologist who finally said, what are you doing?
Stop this right away because you're going to regret this as you get older, unfortunately.
And you did. She did save my skin, yes, because I wore sunblock.
Debbie showed me this article on the Red Cross, and it's a little disturbing.
The Red Cross has guides...
For U.S.-bound migrants that have maps of the border, resources along the journey, lists of things to do when you encounter dangers along the highway.
And it even goes to the extent of telling people, like, bring your contraceptives with you.
In necessary cases, Red Cross clinics and medical brigades will give them to you for free.
So this appears to be like a how to be an illegal manual.
Yeah. Well, that's disturbing, too, the contraceptives.
I mean, are they saying that they're going to get raped along the way, so they may as well bring...
Well, either that or, hey, listen, if you want to...
I mean, who knows what they're saying.
They appear to be just trying to make life easy and show people where to go.
I mean, this is almost like a, you know, I mean, to the degree that crossing the border is an illegal act.
This is, to me, no different than how to rob a bank.
Yeah, no. Right? Yeah.
So, and these packets apparently come, they're stamped with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the American Red Cross.
So they show you, what do they show you?
Hotels and clinics and shelters.
They have clearly defined lines that take you to various parts of El Paso, Texas, Nogales, Arizona.
I lived close to Nogales.
McAllen, Texas. And so, and evidently all of this is also being funded by the U.S. government.
Right? By the Biden administration.
Big shocker. Big shocker. So the Red Cross apparently is part, gets grants from FEMA, the Federal Emergency.
So what FEMA says, and again, this is all, you know, put into the garb of humanitarian, well, you know, these guys are coming anyway, so we've got to make sure they don't starve or, you know.
Well, you know, when we drive to the valley and we see those big tubs of water.
Yeah, that's right. That say agua.
Yeah. You know, and so you're like thinking, hmm, why would they have that on the side there of the, you know, of the King Ranch, which is like total desolation.
There's nothing there. Right.
But they have these big tubs.
Why? Because they're expecting for these illegals to walk through there and, oh, you know, they need water.
So there's agua.
You know, why else would it say agua instead of water?
I mean, you know...
So the American Red Cross is tasked by the Biden administration to support these migrants and help them to get to be processed for a court date.
And I'm looking at some of the images of these maps, which are very detailed.
I mean, look at all the stuff that they show you, all the stopovers that you can do.
And, you know, it also shows you that they know how dangerous this is.
Apparently, some of the maps talk about migrants who are coming through Central America.
They're going through Panama's Darien Gap.
There have been all these migrant deaths.
My cousin talked about the Darien.
You know, he said that a lot of Venezuelans have died crossing the Darien.
So, it's very dangerous.
The document provides guidance on navigating the desert and jumping on the top of cargo trains which are called apparently La Bestia or the Beast.
And these are trains that go north through Mexico.
And apparently these trains get full so that people then start hanging out of the train, standing on top of the trains.
This, by the way, is familiar to me from India.
But the Red Cross is pointing that temperatures can be extreme, also points out that, you know, there are branches, electric cables and tunnels that can hit you if you're hanging out or sitting on top of a train.
Now look, some of this is basically ways to preserve your life, but what I find disturbing is that this is...
Now the Red Cross says that this is not an encouragement.
The International Committee of the Red Cross does not prevent nor does it encourage migration, and I think that's really the key issue.
Yeah, but you know, they've been woke before.
You know that. Yeah, yeah.
So I think the Red Cross is a bit of a left-wing organization, it seems.
This is a case where I think they're encouraging illegality while...
Taking refuge in the pretense that, listen, we're the Red Cross, we're here for first aid and medical aid.
But we've got to keep these sorts of things in mind when we give to the Red Cross.
I've always thought the Red Cross, the Salvation, these are the safest organizations to give to because what they're doing is manifestly good.
But sometimes when I look at things like this, I say to myself, you know, I'm not so sure.
Want to get rid of all your aches and pains?
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 totally gone thanks to this 100% drug-free solution called Relief Factor.
Now, Relief Factor works by supporting 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.
Debbie's a true believer. She can now do the exercises that for several years she couldn't do.
Relief Factor's been a real game changer for her, her aunt.
We had it here in the studio and Mike's like, let me try it.
He's like, wow, this stuff really works.
You can see. Try it for yourself.
Order the three-week quick start for the discounted price of only $19.95.
Go to relieffactor.com or call the new number 800-4-RELIEF to find out more about this offer.
That number again, 800-4-RELIEF. Or go to relieffactor.com.
You'll feel the difference.
Debbie and I are continuing our Friday Roundup and our discussion of the southern border.
Now, there's this interesting article about these three women from Texas.
They're Mexican-Americans.
They crossed the border, I guess, three weeks ago.
Mm-hmm. And they haven't been heard from.
Gone. Now, normally I would not cover the story maybe, but what happened is this comes right on the heels of the kidnapping and then murder of a couple of Americans in Mexico.
So something is going on here, something that's not entirely new, but something that may be new in its scales.
Well, okay, so just to clarify, there have been over 500 American citizens lost in Mexico in the last several years.
500. So there have been a lot.
Not to mention, over 100,000 Mexican citizens that are kidnapped from We're good to go.
But it's terrorizing American citizens from wanting to travel to Mexico.
These women, I have to point out, are Mexican nationals.
So they are Mexican citizens.
But they lived in America.
They lived in Texas, in the valley.
And apparently they were going to go to a flea market to sell some things.
And... It's about a three-hour drive from Perlitas, where they originated from, a small border city near McAllen.
And they had to cross, obviously, you know, cross the border.
And then three hours into Mexico, into the heart of Mexico there, and they disappeared.
The husband of one of the women...
Was trying to reach them, couldn't.
And they have not been heard of or seen since then.
And these are older women.
These are 48, 49, 53-year-old women.
So they're not young women.
You would think that they would not be the type of women that the cartel would want to kidnap.
So I just think that the cartels don't really care what the age or the ethnicity of the women are.
It's been rumored that only Anglo citizens are ever really looked for, and the FBI puts out a reward for information.
I don't know about this in this case with these women, but according to the families, nobody really cares.
I mean, this is a case where I have to say, and by and large, these developing countries, India being a perfect example, people go missing all the time.
And the only people who care are your own family, because the government could care less.
Well, yeah, we'll, you know, fill out a form, give it to us, we'll take a look, but they don't actually go looking for these people.
And sometimes they never turn up again.
In fact, if you look Think about the premise of movies that we've seen where a guy falls asleep on a train, ends up in a different place, and his whole life is different as a result because the truth of it is there's no system of retrieval.
I think one of the things about American exceptionalism, things that make America different, is that Americans care.
And so if you're an American national, you go to Croatia, you don't come back, you expect the government to go looking for you.
You expect the U.S. to have a follow-up in which they're going to try to find out what happened to you.
Yeah. And I think it's part of the diminution of American exceptionalism that we're now seeing this happen to Americans.
And you can see, look at Biden's reaction to people left behind in Afghanistan.
Hey, call the State Department.
We may or may not answer the phone.
Send us an email. We may or may not open up our email.
Americans in Mexico, the same thing.
Well, and I want to also call attention to a bigger problem that, you know, it could be that this phenomenon of missing people, you But these cartels terrorize people.
And if we aim to dissolve that, to solve the problem of cartels, we will solve a lot of problems, not just disappearances of people, but we will really put...
Almost, I would say, an end to illegal immigration because a lot of people are coming from Mexico because they are terrified of these cartels.
So they want to get into America to get away from them, right?
And the cartels use them as human trafficking shields, right?
To bring in cocaine or bring in fentanyl.
And so this problem would be solved.
The other problem that would be solved is the fentanyl crisis.
You know, I talked to you this morning about how we were up in arms when the Islamic radicals killed over 3,000 of our American citizens.
But why aren't we doing the same thing for the fentanyl crisis that has been perpetrated and caused by these cartels?
We've lost over 100,000 American citizens due to fentanyl poisoning.
Right. I mean, this is the peculiarity of human psychology.
You have a single attack on 9-11, 3,000 Americans, and massive changes in our society, massive deployments against this threat.
But when you have a creeping crisis that has gained momentum and taken, like you say, 33 times the number of lives...
Only now, almost belatedly, we're waking up to this problem.
But I mean, really, I think that taking that, it will solve all these problems.
It'll solve the disappearance problems, the terrorizing of citizen problems, the fentanyl problems, and the illegal immigration problems.
But are politicians willing to take them on?
Right. And so far, neither even Republicans haven't.
You mentioned, hey, listen, even under Trump, even under George W. Bush, we didn't see a whole lot of direct action.
You might have seen some sealing of the border, but no direct action against these bad guys.
But that direct action, I think what you're trying to say, is going to have benefits that reverberate far and wide.
That's right. This is not a loan and you don't have to pay it back.
The program is complicated, but nobody knows more about it than the CPAs and tax experts at covidtaxrelief.org.
You pay nothing up front.
They do all the work and share a percentage of the cash that they get you.
Businesses of all types, including nonprofits and churches, can qualify, including those who took PPP loans, even if you had increases in sales.
You did the tough thing for your employees during COVID. Let covidtaxrelief.org help you We've been talking in the last couple of segments about aliens, and the aliens we're talking about, we've been talking about our Illegal aliens coming across the border, facilitated by the Red Cross.
And then we were talking about the Americans also disappearing across the border in Mexico.
We now want to talk about a different kind of alien because Debbie spotted this in the New York Post.
I just want to read the headline because it gives you pause.
I think it's fair to say that this is not a headline.
Well, maybe it's a headline you would have seen in a tabloid.
But you wouldn't expect to see this headline in a normal newspaper.
Pentagon officials suggest...
Alien mothership in our solar system could send mini probes to Earth.
Wow. So now we're talking about space aliens.
Not illegal aliens, but space aliens.
And you were reading me.
Just read a couple of the lines in here because it really makes you step back and ask, do we have to now...
Consider the idea that there are other living creatures, aliens, and creatures with some sophistication, because the implication of the article is they're checking us out.
They're sending out these probes that are trying to detect life here.
So there are smart aliens looking to see if there's anybody else out there.
Right. So the Pentagon official said in a draft document last week that aliens could be visiting our solar system and releasing smaller probes like missions conducted by NASA when studying other planets.
But I did ask you the question of how does this, you know, kind of like...
I read with biblical teaching because I, as you know, do not believe in aliens.
There are a lot of people that do, and they say that there are abductions, alien abductions, and all those things.
I don't believe in any of that, but primarily because of my biblical beliefs.
So I was asking you, how do they coincide?
I mean, how do you... I mean, honestly, my view on aliens is to keep an open mind.
I mean, I'm sort of agnostic on the issue of aliens because, first of all, we have a universe that's unimaginably big.
Our levels of knowledge about it are unbelievably small.
We seem to know a lot about the universe, about black holes and things like that.
But about the existence of other creatures in this vast universe, we know nothing.
Now, here's kind of my take on the Bible.
That the Bible is God's account of His relationship to a special set of creatures that God has created, which is to say, not just man, all the creatures on earth, but obviously including man.
And man is given a special place.
And Jesus, of course, came down and died for mankind.
Now, you have to realize the Bible doesn't go beyond that.
But you can't say, I don't believe it because I don't see it in the Bible.
Because then you're forced into, I don't believe in dinosaurs because I don't see dinosaurs in the Bible.
The Bible doesn't talk about all these other planets and galaxies and other types of Milky Way, so I don't believe in those either.
The Bible isn't A comprehensive list of all the things that exist.
It describes something very particular.
And it could be, I mean, it's possible that there are other beings that God made in other ways that relate to Him or don't relate to Him in other ways.
So in other words, I'm not saying that they have their own Bible.
That's going too far. But I think you know what I'm saying.
That could be a movie. Yeah.
Actually, really, we're going to talk...
You can just imagine E.T. reading his own scripture.
We're going to talk about Oscar aliens, another form of aliens, right?
The Hollywood people.
But no, to be funny, I guess.
Well, there's a prominent Harvard scholar involved in this.
So this is not something that is...
I think what's happened is that the Pentagon has recorded in recent years a number of these...
Unexplained objects. And, you know, usually when someone goes, I'm visited by aliens or I saw a UFO, what they mean is I was like drinking outside my house and, you know, me and my neighbor, we thought we saw something and, you know, it really looked...
We've watched those mystery shows where even the police department knows about it.
That's right. That's right. But here, I think what we're talking about is this.
When you spot an object in the sky, let's just say an object traveling across the landscape, you expect it to emit fire.
Why? Because what's moving it?
It's a meteor. It's a comet.
It's something that is being powered by an original explosion, typically out of a star.
And what I find interesting about the stuff you were reading me kind of on the way over to the podcast is that these objects don't have that.
They're moving, but they don't appear to have any kind of mechanism.
Totally. Or tail. And so you have two people, which is Sean Cook-Patrick, the director of the Pentagon's, quote, all domain anomaly resolution office.
Wow, I didn't know they had that.
And Abram Loeb, the chairman of Harvard University's astronomy department.
So these guys are looking at this stuff and trying to make sense of it.
And they go, listen, they're not saying it is.
They're not saying that these are for sure aliens.
They're saying it could be. And they're saying that we need to keep an open mind about it.
Yeah, and look at this photo. We're looking at a photo, a video screenshot that shows an unexplained aerial object observed by the U.S. military.
So, I mean, that's a little creepy.
And we're not talking about an object that's like six inches long.
We're talking about large, moving, unexplained objects in the sky that are not just moving of their own.
This is not a case where nothing is affecting the object and it's just moving the way that things move in space.
This appears to be powered by something, but there's no tail, there's no fire coming out of it.
So, I guess what the Pentagon is saying is we've got to keep an open mind on this topic and I'm inclined to agree.
Thanks for watching.
We all need to get smart about investing.
My dad was not a believer in the stock market.
He was a put your money in the bank kind of guy.
I discovered in the early 1990s that investing in the stock market can make a lot of sense if you're in it for the long term.
The problem is look at the market today.
We're in a rocky economy with a lot of craziness and domestic policy, a lot of instability abroad.
There's always the risk of a black swan event, a single event that comes out of nowhere and basically cripples your savings.
So how do we take advantage of the upside of the market and protect ourselves against the downside?
Some really good guidance here.
Now, I've had Rebecca Walzer, my friend, on the podcast before.
In fact, the last time she was on, she was warning about some of the things that we see happening today.
She's a tax attorney and wealth strategist with her MBA from the London School of Economics.
Rebecca and her team can help to protect your wealth during these unprecedented times.
So go to friendofdinesh.com, book your complimentary introductory call today to see if you qualify.
Again, that's friendofdinesh.com.
We now want to turn to a third type of alien.
Debbie and I have been talking about illegal aliens, space aliens, and now we want to talk about the aliens who live in Hollywood.
What should we call them?
Maybe the mutant aliens?
The freak aliens?
Yeah, kind of like that movie, The Hills Have Eyes, kind of like creepy like that.
There are some very creepy people in Hollywood, and the sad thing about it is these creepy people put on a show.
It's called the Oscars.
In which the creepy people all get kind of dolled up or dressed up with designer outfits to camouflage really their souls.
And they show up and they act like they're the greatest people in the world.
It's all about self-congratulations.
It's so strange because, I mean, both of us came of age at a time where we watched this kind of stuff.
You know, it's really interesting you mention that because I was trying to remember when the last time I saw the Oscars...
It had to have been before I gave my life to Christ.
And I just feel like I cannot watch something like that anymore.
It's so unpure and so like, it really does creep me out.
Yeah, it's not, you know, I think if you had asked me 20 years ago, I'd have used the phrase so immoral, so relativistic in its ethics, but it's not.
It's actively immoral.
And there's almost a kind of aroma of Satanism about the whole thing.
Yeah, yeah. When we were in Israel, we had that feeling of being in almost a, well, it's what the Bible calls the gates of hell.
And I think you made the point, which I think is really powerful, that the gates of hell in America is in part Hollywood.
It's not the only venue, but the gates of hell, so to speak, have a different face.
In ancient times, they were the worship of Pan and Dionysus and pagan gods and people did blood sacrifices and human sacrifices.
And I think some form of that is going on even today.
Yeah. And Hollywood epitomizes it.
Now, this Oscars apparently had a slight notch up in viewership.
A three-year high.
But the catch is, it's still one of the lowest rated ever.
People are tuning out.
People are tuning out. And that's a good thing.
It's a great thing. But you know what?
Unfortunately, I think...
I think it said that 18.7 million people watched the 2023 Oscars, which is really a kind of like...
I just don't even...
I can't even imagine that 18 million people are that interested in this kind of...
Well, they're not really interested in the movies themselves because I'll talk in a minute about that.
But I mean, why are they interested in the stars and the glamour?
For the same reason that they buy tabloids.
I mean, it is a spectacle.
You take people who are attractive people.
You put, you know, $500,000 necklaces on them and jewelry.
You then create a whole beautiful set and drama.
You have Jimmy Kimmel or whoever it was that was the emcee.
I think it was true. You create a dog and pony show and people go, wow, because they feel like that is so glamorous compared to my mundane life.
And so this is, I mean, I think this is the garb that...
Evil always puts on a garb that says, listen, I can offer you something more beautiful, more tempting, more appealing.
Because if it didn't... Yeah, that's true.
Well, you know, to be honest, we do the red carpet thing.
We do the red carpet thing, but we also make good movies.
And what these guys do, look at this.
This is the movie that won Best Picture.
It's called Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.
And really, the way to describe the movie is it's a sort of theater of the absurd.
You've got rocks that have consciousness and apparently can speak.
The movie was made, by the way, by two guys who, before this, made a movie called Swiss Army Man.
And the guy was asked, how do you describe this movie?
He goes, it's a feature film about a farting corpse.
Oh my goodness. So this is not even, I mean, normally, like we can chuckle, but this is just nihilism.
And by nihilism, what I mean is this is the product of liberalism.
Liberalism and progressivism, if you follow that road, it leads to nihilism.
And nihilism is self-destruction, despair, the affirmation.
It's not just nothing, because nothing means you don't have the Oscars.
You don't make a movie. It's nothingness.
It's the affirmation of nothingness.
And she's the only one who can save the day.
I mean, you know, I can see that there are people who go...
And this won best picture? This won seven Oscars.
It won seven Oscars, including best picture, best this, best this, best that.
And there's an interview with the guys who make this, and they're super dumb.
They're not even thinking about...
They're not even saying, well, listen, according to modern physics, there's a possibility of other universes.
This is what this guy goes. The Internet has started to create these alternative universes.
Mm-hmm. So you basically have some kind of oriental kid who's like, the internet has created multiple universes.
Let me make a movie about it.
It's going to be so cool. I think that this movie was trying to grapple.
So they're calling it an absurdist movie.
And then this is the director talking.
He goes, as they were making the movie, quote, we realized we should be saying something meaningful because this stuff takes a lot of effort.
Another way of putting it is saying, we have to make a movie.
It's a lot of work.
We need to kind of say something in this movie.
I have one word for it.
Absurd. It's trash.
This is something I can't watch.
I suppose I would if you paid me enough to offer a critique, but I'm not going to.
You're tough. I'm not going to be checking this one out because I think it's just going to be...
I'm just going to be losing neurons and IQ points really, really fast.
Just when you thought things couldn't get any better with MyPillow, Mike Lindell and MyPillow have launched MyPillow Mattress Topper 2.0.
The new three-inch MyPillow Mattress Topper is made up of three unique layers.
Layer one, MyPillow patented foam, which provides superior support and durability.
Layer 2 transitional foam which provides optimal comfort, evenly distributes body weight and helps to relieve pressure points and Layer 3 the cover made from a special material to keep your body temperature regulated through the night. This MyPillow mattress topper is washable and dryable made in the USA, comes with a 10-year warranty and a 60-day money-back guarantee. The incredible 3-inch mattress topper is as low as $219.59 with promo code Dinesh.
So go ahead, call now, 800-876-0227.
Again, that number, 800-876-0227.
Or go to MyPillow.com.
Make sure to use the promo code, which is D-I-N-E-S-H, Dinesh.
Guys, I'm happy to welcome back to the podcast someone you've met before, Dr.
Michael Foley.
He's a theologian, professor of patristics in the Great Text Program at Baylor University, professor of theology at the Aquinas Institute.
But I love these titles of his books, Drinking with the Saints, Drinking with Saint Nick.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity.
We're going to talk about his book called Dining with the Saints.
I think a very appropriate topic on St.
Patrick's Day. Dr.
Foley, thanks for joining me.
Great to have you.
I think you can see I've got the appropriate...
I don't know if this is the right shade of green, but as you can imagine, I'm not really...
Well, I'm not Irish. I guess I could...
Maybe I should change D'Souza to Osouza.
Osouza! I could then play...
Maybe I identify as Irish.
These days we're allowed to do that sort of thing.
Talk to me about St.
Patrick's Day. It's a day I didn't have any knowledge of before I came to the United States.
And who was this guy?
Was St. Patrick the guy who evangelized Ireland?
Is he what brought these crazy Irish people into the folds of Christianity?
Couldn't have been an easy task.
And did he use some large buckets of alcohol to get the job done?
Well, he was a real person, and you're absolutely right.
He was the person who brought the faith to Ireland.
There was an earlier missionary, actually, who tried and ran from the place screaming.
The Irish were such a hard nut to crack.
But he got a commission from the Pope to bring the faith to Ireland.
And... By all historical accounts, he did.
He almost single-handedly, within his own lifetime, turned an entire island from being Druids, which is a very dark and sinister religion, into Christians.
So it really is a singular accomplishment.
Isn't it remarkable when you look at the fact that St.
Patrick does that in Ireland, and then over the centuries the Irish and the Italians come to America, the Irish a lot of them in the 19th century in the wake of the potato famines, and then the American Catholic Church Becomes a kind of an Irish church and an Italian church and even today in ethnic neighborhoods around Chicago, you have the Irish neighborhoods, the ethnic.
So the stamp of this man, St.
Patrick, can still be seen not just in that world but right over here.
Oh, absolutely. And it is that Irish diaspora that actually made St.
Patrick's Day the rowdy feast that we know of today.
Historically, St. Patrick's Day in Ireland was not an occasion for drunkenness.
It was a holy day of obligation.
Up until very recently in the Republic of Ireland, on St.
Patrick's Day, the pubs are closed.
In order for people to spend time with their families.
The Irish-American experience on the other hand has been quite different.
Now, you make a point in your book, Dining with the Saints, which you've co-authored with, well, it looks like with an award-winning TV chef, Father Leo Patalinghug.
But, you know, there's a strain of Christianity that says, oh, you know, food and drink and all this stuff is a little alien to the Bible.
Now, those very same people then, you know, come out of the wedding feast at Cana and Jesus seems to be having celebrations.
So, I want you to talk about, well, the phrase you use is the theology of food and drink, because it seems to me like that on the scales of things, you're kind of pro a good hearty meal.
You don't seem to think there's anything wrong with it, and you think, in fact, it's a very Christian thing to do.
Why? I absolutely do.
It's funny we're talking about this.
This also happens to be the season of Lent, which is a season of fasting, but But yes, there should be a cycle of feasting and fasting.
And the two of them together actually keep you sort of unbalanced.
If you've feasted every single day, then that might be a little too much.
But to have high holidays where you really do have the great wedding feast of the Lamb type celebrations, that absolutely is consistent with the Christian faith.
Paul says, when you eat and drink, eat and drink to the glory of God.
You can eat and drink to the glory of God.
You know, it's funny these days when you say things like fasting, you have secular people who give you such a funny look as if to say that this is some unbelievably bizarre thing that you are talking about.
Debbie and I currently, we're doing this sort of diet program with a company called PhD Weight Loss.
Wait a minute. We are mortifying our body, obviously, for the purposes of health and trying to improve the way we look because I have a podcast.
I got to look good. My point being that when you do similar deprivations for spiritual reasons, people act like there's something wacky about that, but there's nothing wacky about that as long as you are trying to tend the body and the soul.
You're absolutely right.
And one of the ironies is that the Catholic Church got rid of its mandatory Lenten fast in the 1960s.
And today, most talk about fasting is actually in secular circles who are rediscovering the goodness of fasting.
If you Google fasting, I bet you anything the adjective that will appear the most before it is intermittent.
Intermittent fasting is now this huge craze where you have this kind of narrow eating window during the day.
And honestly, it resembles the Lenten fast.
It's astonishing how similar it is to the traditional Western fast.
I'm glancing over your book, and one of the things, it's actually making me a little hungry.
You talk about, listen to this, honey, a trend-worthy burnt cheesecake to honor Ignatius of Loyola, onion soup for the soul, Italian potato frittata and arasto, inspired by the saints of Assisi, and then macerated strawberries and whipped cream to be added to barbecue blue cheeseburgers.
Yeah, no, we can't. Debbie goes, right now we can't do any of that.
So we have an imposed Lenten deprivation, but apparently our fast will take us to a point called maintenance.
And then we are going to have to dig right back into your book and fish out these recipes and start making some hearty feasts.
Guys, the book is called Dining with the Saints.
I've been talking to Dr.
Michael Foley, who's a theologian, teamed up with a chef.
This sounds like something you really got to check out.
Dr. Foley, thanks so much for joining me.
Well, thank you so much. Thanks for having me on and happy St.
Patrick's Day. As part of a wider discussion of Christian apologetics, I've been discussing in the last couple of days Immanuel Kant and the limits of human reason.
And I mentioned yesterday that Kant makes an important distinction between things as they are in themselves.
This is what Kant calls the noumenon.
And things as they appear to us, which is the phenomenon or phenomena.
Now, when I talk about the limitations of our senses, some people wrongly understand me to be saying that our senses aren't perfect.
In fact, this is sort of how Ayn Rand misunderstood Immanuel Kant.
She goes, he's saying our senses aren't reliable.
And that is not actually what Kant is saying.
Kant knows full well that if you take a stick and you put it in water, it's going to appear bent.
Or if you see something from a distance, you can have a sort of illusion about it.
You think you see an oasis, but there's no oasis.
Our senses are in that sense limited, they're imperfect, they sometimes perceive things wrongly, there are optical illusions and so on.
This is really not what Kant is getting at.
He's talking about the inherent limits of our senses that arise out of being the kind of instruments that they are.
What Kant is saying is that we can't automatically assume that our experience of reality is the same as reality itself.
Reality remains permanently hidden to us and all that we have is our experience of it.
So think of it this way.
If you think that it's obvious that our experience of reality is the same as reality, I ask you this question.
How would you know that?
Normally, if I were to ask you to compare two things and you say A is like B, you need A and you need B. And then you can look at the two and see if they match up.
If I do a drawing, for example, let's say I do a sketch of Debbie and I go, this is really Debbie.
Here she is. And I come to you and I go, it's obviously Debbie.
You have a way to check. You say, okay, Debbie, step forward.
Let me look at the painting.
Let me look at the sketch. Let me look at Debbie.
Well, yeah, pretty good.
This looks like Debbie. So you have the painting, the sketch, and you have Debbie, and therefore you can say that one thing is like the other.
But what Kant is saying is, now let's take our experience of reality.
Here's my experience of a pen, or here's my experience of this studio.
And I want to compare that now to the studio as it exists apart from my experience of it.
How do we do that? And Kant says, we can't do that.
We only have our experience.
I have my experience. You have your experience.
Now you can say, wait a minute, Kant.
How is it the case that when we both look out at the sky, we both see the same sun?
How is it that when we look out of the window, we both see the same tree, huh?
It's not all in our mind.
The tree really is out there.
But Kant's point is, no.
We obviously have the same experience because we have the same perceptual apparatus.
You have a nervous system and a pair of eyes.
I have a nervous system and a pair of eyes.
So we both see the same thing.
But the fact that we see the same thing doesn't mean that we see the same thing somehow outside our experience.
It is inside of our experience in both cases.
So... What are we trying to say here?
What we're really saying is that we don't have a way, ever, to get to things as they really are.
This is really Kant's point.
We only have a way of access to our experiences of the world.
And everything that we call science, everything that we call the empirical world, Kant says, is not the world out there of which we have no knowledge.
But rather, it is our experience of the experiential world.
That is what we call the empirical world.
And so we have here a major job for science to do.
And what is the job of science?
To study the empirical world.
But what is the empirical world?
Not some world in and of itself, but the world as it is experienced by us as human beings.
This is the point. Kant takes, if you will, reality and he tucks it into the only place that you can tuck it, which is our perceptual experience of it.
So Kant is not degrading science.
He is simply saying science is a study of the world of phenomena.
It is not a study of the noumena.
It is a study only of the phenomenal or experiential world.
So what then is the noumenal world?
Well, the noumenal world, in a sense, is outside the reach of human knowledge.
And yet Kant is not denying the existence of the noumenal world.
Kant is not a skeptic and he's not like Berkeley where he says that the phenomena is kind of all we have.
We have our experiences and that's it.
Kant says there has to be a noumenal world because our experiences, he acknowledges, are experiences of something.
So there is something, there is some noumenon that gives rise to a phenomenon.
The phenomenon is the thing that we experience.
But Kant says that the noumenon is something that we will never, as long as we remain human, as long as we remain the kind of beings we are.
And by the way, extending our lives using technological devices to improve the perception of our senses, being able to hear things and sound frequencies that we can't normally hear, none of this fundamentally changes Kant's point,
which is that as long as we are human and we have eyes to see and ears to hear and And the sense of touch, that creates a limit on what we can see and hear and what we can know.
And those limits are permanent and ineradicable.
Subscribe to the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify.
▲
Export Selection