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July 12, 2023 - Louder with Crowder
01:06:01
Become a Warrior | Ash Wednesday with John Lovell | Louder with Crowder
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🎵 You're a strange animal, that's what I know 🎵 🎵 You're a strange animal, I've got to follow 🎵
🎵 I'm a misbehaviorist 🎵 🎵 I'm a misbehaviorist 🎵
Welcome to the latest installment of Ash Wednesday.
Yeah, Kuza, we have the cigar fan on, right?
Okay, otherwise we're all going to die.
But you know what?
We will be prepared for death, because our guest here today, his new book, if you see it right there, I think it just released yesterday, The Warrior Poet Way.
You probably just know him as The Warrior Poet.
Yes.
Which is two, two, I mean it's two names, but really, I guess we could just call him the warrior.
I guess that's taken by the ultimate warrior.
Mr. Poet.
But, uh, he has the website, um, warriorpoetsupplyco.com, you know, we'll put all the links there, but I just wanted to talk with him.
Mr., uh, Mr. Poet, but I'll just go with Mr. Do you prefer John Lovell, John Warrior, John Poet?
Normally I go by John, but you said THE Warrior Poet with just such emphasis.
I really like that.
I'd like a harder THE and maybe a pause.
Like the ultimate warrior poet.
Where nightmares are the best part of my day!
John's good, man.
John, thanks for being here, brother.
Thanks for having me, man.
And hopefully you like that cigar.
I'm not a sponsor, but you can go grab these at Cigars Daily.
That's the Bellas Artes.
And we were just talking about this.
So look, for people who don't know, tell folks, what is a warrior poet?
Tell them what you're about.
I ran into you.
I saw some of your videos a long time ago with my friend Mark Ripoteau.
Or, of course, he was making fun of you, as he does with everyone, giving you a tough time, and he's done so with me.
And then saw some of your videos discussing guns and then podcasts regarding faith, and it kind of all came together.
But explain for people who may not know.
Sure, pretty simple.
It's somebody who lives for higher purpose, and they're ready to sacrifice in the defense of others.
So that's the big kind of banner.
They're lovers and defenders of truth.
And you can take the warrior part a little bit metaphorically if you wanted to, but I do think there should be some physical element as well of, you know, we're protectors of people.
So that's kind of the banner, and all kinds of creeds can crush in under that.
And you focus a lot on sort of masculinity, and we'll get to that.
Can a woman be a warrior poet?
Yes.
You just can't be a man.
Okay.
Well, that's gonna rub some people the wrong way.
Yes, I know.
They need to be rubbed that way.
Yes, exactly.
Just getting mad all the time by all the things you can't say.
I'm like, I'm going to say whatever I want, though.
So I don't think I'm mischaracterizing you.
Obviously a Christian.
I mean, you've been a missionary.
Right.
And I don't think I'm mischaracterizing you in saying conservative, more right-leaning.
Is that okay?
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, I don't know, because sometimes people are like, well, I don't want labels and firearms, all this.
You know, you've talked about sort of being, I don't want to say combat-ready, conflict-ready.
Right.
And I'm sure right away, sort of dealing with this, cutting it off at the pass, you'll have some people say, well, how can he be a Christian and leading young men as young Christians?
And be all pro-gun and the tattoos that you got.
Right, and so I think it's just... They say it that way.
I think what they have built in their head is a caricature of Christianity, but not the real piece.
If you lean into the Bible, you realize, man, the heart of God is one of a warrior.
He's a protector of the innocent.
And real love protects.
Right.
Now sometimes you're to turn the other cheek, like somebody says, like, I don't like your face, you know, and there's one of those interchanges.
Not somebody, most buddy with me.
Half of the internet really hates your face, Stephen.
The other half... That's fair.
I don't even look in the mirror, I just, I hate half my face.
When I look in the mirror it's like the face-off cover.
I just do the one side.
Right.
Yeah.
So, real love protects.
It'd be an evil, terrible thing.
Somebody breaks in your house, and they want to hurt your loved ones, and you could do something about it, but you're like, no!
Go nuts!
Jesus is okay with this!
I'm like, no!
There's a time to heal and a time to kill, you know?
And so there is a time for both actions, and so he's built some people to be physical protectors, and that is a good Yeah.
And so, in Jesus as well, Jesus is a warrior.
He is the commander of the Lord's army, as seen in Revelation 19, with a sharp double-edged sword to strike down the nations, not win a tickle fight, you know?
And so, he put his armor and sword aside to come to earth on a hostage rescue mission.
Right.
But now, back in glory, he's wielding double sword again, and when he comes back, it isn't to die and save the world, it's to deliver it.
And so they don't recognize, no, Jesus is a warrior.
He just gave you a glimpse of something different on a very narrow mission to save us.
Interesting way to put it.
Kind of a hostage crisis.
That's what it was.
Because I've always said, if ever I'm held hostage, I do not want to hear a woman on that megaphone.
Because it could get emotionally escalatory.
I'm gonna kill them all.
I won't just kill them.
I don't even like them.
I don't care.
No, I'm gonna die.
But that goes back to the idea.
I know you've talked about this and you've referenced Jordan Peterson in the past.
He's been a longtime friend of mine.
The idea of bridled strength.
You know, there's no virtue in being weak and saying, well, see, I don't use it.
It's really easy to say, well, I don't want to fight.
Well, it's because you can't.
Yeah.
Right.
Turning the other cheek means you have a cheek to turn.
Right.
And I think that's a big, I don't want to misrepresent, but I think, or would you say that's why you focus on that idea of sort of masculine strength combined with, of course, humility, because it's something that's maybe been lost a little bit or the church has been done a disservice and being overly feminized in the modern era sometimes.
Yeah, I think so.
I think the greatest man was Jesus, who's the perfect picture of bridled strength.
Right.
A dude who can endure the worst.
Sorry, I just felt immediately bad calling Jesus a dude.
It's okay.
Jesus abides.
He does.
Amen.
Endured absolutely one of the worst Uh, tortures known to man and crucified and yet not, not crying out.
Yeah.
Not crying out.
Gerald, would you cry out a little bit?
I would absolutely cry out.
I've done some research into what it means to be scourged.
Yeah.
The, the lashes and how they dig into your flesh and tear them off and then get down into the, the body.
Like basically it's just like having the back removed off of you.
To give you an idea.
I would have cried out.
I would have cried out too.
Two maybe?
Maybe you would have gotten to two.
The temple curtain would have been torn when they gave me vinegar.
I'm like, what the heck?
Vinegar?
Vinegar?
And I don't know where this sponge has been.
My last drink.
Yeah, my last drink.
I mean, even prisoners get a last meal.
I could have even made the wine.
Just bring me water.
I would not have been very tolerant.
But you know, this brings me to something.
I've talked about this in the past, and sometimes Christians disagree with me on this.
And I'm curious to hear your take.
You used to disagree with me on this.
On what?
You're about to find out.
You talk about Jesus, yeah, he was crucified, and I once had a pastor say, what's the opposite of love?
And it's one of those things, like a trick question, no matter, like, well, I guess it's hate.
He said, no, no, it's fear.
We fear what we hate, we hate what we fear.
And I said, well, hold on a second, that implies that fear is evil.
Yeah.
Jesus had to have lived with fear because he would have had to experience human emotion.
You look at him in the garden saying, like, if there's any other way, and he faced it anyway.
It's not having your actions dictated by fear.
Now, some people have argued with me, and I could be wrong, saying, no, Jesus would have never been afraid.
Yeah.
Um, where do you line up on that?
I would say I don't think Jesus was ever afraid.
I don't think that's a, uh, necessarily an emotion that humans have to exhibit.
So, for instance, a terrible... Well, there's a feeling versus a... exhibiting would be a behavior.
I mean, he sweat blood, which he was stressed.
Yeah, at least stress.
That was before they had the mushroom adaptogen coffee.
It was at least, I really would rather not be tortured, but I don't know that I would go as far to say fear.
Maybe I should say the human element of being repelled from discomfort, but understanding he would have to go to it anyway.
Maybe the idea of discomfort, because if he didn't experience discomfort, then none of it means anything.
Yeah, I mean, I believe that God became a man and he was actually fully man.
Right.
At that point.
He was fully God as well.
It's the hypostatic union.
And so that's what I think.
And so whatever humans got to do.
I don't know a single man who's never been afraid.
But I've never known a single man that could go sinless either.
I would actually make the argument that the Garden of Gethsemane experience was not so much about the physical, even though the physical was a major part of it, it was about the, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
The time where God looks down and no longer sees his son and having the first time in all of existence broken connection.
That maybe would be the biggest... I guess if there's a point at which you could say, was Jesus afraid?
I think it would be on the cross in that moment where he's for the first time ever separated from God.
But I don't know if... I understand what you're saying about afraid.
No, and I... You're trying to define it.
I agree with where you're going.
Yes, and I didn't want to... I didn't mean to start a theological debate right off the bat, because I think we agree on 99% C.
But I say because there are a lot of pastors sometimes who don't do what you do, and they say, you know, be not afraid.
It's like, hold on a second, the reason that we're called to, for the same reason that we're called to, you know, not have premarital sex, for the same reason we're called to, it's hard to be not afraid.
In other words, as human beings, our instinct is to be afraid, and I think sometimes that's undersold to Christians.
Like, if you trust in the Lord, you won't be afraid.
No, that is the struggle, and that's why we have to trust.
In God.
And I always felt, as someone who has always lived my life very fearfully, you know, before grappling tournaments, before live appearances, you said you like public speaking.
I hate it.
Really?
I have horrible stage fright.
You're great at it, man!
I've always had stage fright.
Every time.
But I've always felt the need to try and get past it, and sometimes I felt like pastors were missing that.
I was like, there must be something wrong with me, because I'm often afraid, but I try and get over it.
Right.
Through God.
I'm not saying Jesus was a scaredy cat.
Yeah.
That he ran away?
Whatever.
Well, he came back the very next three days.
After we're done, I'm going to jump in the comments.
Yeah.
He wasn't afraid of cats, Stephen.
I'm already all over you.
All over it.
Well, what does it mean, I guess, to be a warrior?
And you've talked about this, and I have a quote that I find interesting that may not be historically accurate, but the relevance, I think, applies.
You say, a whole man is not part warrior, part poet.
He's all warrior and all poet.
The idea that anything else is incomplete.
First off, I think it's, you know, how do you balance the two?
But I also think this is important because I do think that you touch on this and people will misrepresent you.
They'll try and say, this is this false Christianity, machismo, which go watch his stuff, you know, Warrior Poet.
You can search it on YouTube.
They might not find you.
Go follow him on Twitter.
We'll have the links.
The idea of a man being a jock or being an artist, that's a very new, it's almost 80s teen rom-coms.
It used to be.
You know, Abe Lincoln was a wrestler and he wept.
I mean, Jesus was a powerful man and he wept with his friends and he loved.
You were considered an incomplete man if you didn't have all of these facets.
And you talk about all of them, but a lot of times people focus on just warrior.
Right.
Yeah, I think a warrior should really love the people that he's trying to protect.
Otherwise, you spend your time trying to protect those you love, and you end up being such a brute.
You're insufferable to live with, and you're going to lose the thing that you protect.
And I think the poet understands a little bit better of how to Actually, hey, say something that doesn't, you know, make your kids hit the roof and, you know, you can get along with the missus and whatnot.
And so I think there's different aspects that absolutely need to be present for us to be able to just do life well.
Of most of the dudes that I know that were in special operations of any kind, most of them, you know, their families fell apart.
They're just kind of brutes.
It's hard to turn it off.
It's hard to turn it off.
And so I think we need to be able to be strong, tough men.
And we also need to be able to be gentle and kind and romantic and emotionally available for our kids.
And I think that's part of masculinity.
I was eating at a restaurant recently with my whole family and my, you know, my wife and I were talking.
About something that made my boys go of like, ugh, yuck, romance-y stuff.
I'm like, son, it's half of being a man.
Yeah.
It's half of being a man.
Plus, when you grow up, you're gonna like what it leads to.
That's right!
Hey, there's some perks.
That's in the Bible, too!
Hey, Brutes, there's some perks to romance.
Yes.
She cares a little less about your deadlift.
Though, hey, deadlifts are cool.
She cares a little less about your deadlift and more about you being nice.
Right.
So I think that's a... Well, I don't think she cares about you being nice.
I think she cares about you respecting her.
Sure.
Yeah, because some people will, you know, the comment section right away.
First off, people are going to argue that you don't have to do deadlifts, sir.
You can do Romanian deadlifts.
I don't really care.
I know.
But on the nice thing, I think, you know, it's more about respect and obviously loving your wife, loving your family as Christ loved the church.
You know, nice.
I mean, Hitler was nice to some people.
Not the Jews, obviously.
But the point is, nice is something easier to fake than actually And, you know, nice can be a flatterer.
It'd be very nice for me to tell you exactly what you wanted to hear.
Right.
But I think love always speaks the truth.
You can't divorce love and truth.
And the moment you do, love becomes an absolute fraud.
And so I may tell you something that's not nice, but it's true.
Now, maybe I'm being kind, but not nice.
I'm not just saying stuff, and I think it is below a real man to just say the nice thing.
But my wife, even more than respect, she wants to, you know, she wants the sweet stuff, you know, the pillow talk stuff as well.
Love and truth, right?
Obviously, you don't want to You can, there's a lot of people in Christianity and the Christian world who are right.
Yeah.
They have truth on their side.
Right.
But they don't have any love.
Right.
And so, and Paul talks to us about this, like it doesn't matter if you don't have love, you're missing the point on all of these things and so it's not received.
And so you can be nice all day long to somebody, but without the truth, It still doesn't mean anything, so I think people really— I think we've gone for the other way, though, I would say.
We've gone for the other way where a lot of churches are about—because, you know, they need to pass an offering plate—about nice, right?
You're incentivized to not focus on discomfort.
And we've done that as a society.
For example, I think one of the worst hijackings that you've seen from—and conservatives and Christians will do this and say, well, you know, you can identify however you want to identify if you're an adult, but—and then they draw the line with kids.
Like, well, hold on a second.
You're not drawing the line at truth because you think people will think that you're not nice.
I don't think there's anything unkind in telling someone, hold on a second, I understand that you feel a certain way, but you're not a, I love you, but you're not a woman.
And to go out and to tell other people that they're a woman, that's not nice because you're going to harm other people.
That truth has to be that dividing line, and sometimes we bend it in the church.
No, it's 100%.
So his thing is warrior-poet, right?
And I want to know where you got that, and I'll get to that in a second, but it's also love and truth.
It's not 50-50.
He watched the film Warrior and was reading Robert Frost.
There you go, yeah, exactly.
I have an idea of where maybe... You've been reading my diary?
How could you possibly know?
Who is this guy?
How could you possibly have known that?
I'm one of the great cat burglars of the world.
Your researchers need praises.
Fantastic.
That was spectacular.
I do my homework.
You have to have both truth and love.
It's 100% of each, right?
It's 100% warrior, 100% poet, right?
Like you talked about in your book.
But I think the place where the warrior-poet thing... Are you a Mel Gibson fan, by chance?
I like some of the movies he's made.
I like his voicemails.
That took me a moment.
That's because they're not directed at you.
I think Mel Gibson has made some fantastic movies.
He has.
Okay, so did you like Braveheart?
Yes.
Are you familiar with the end of Braveheart?
They fought like warrior poets.
There you go!
Is that where you got the name from?
I have no idea.
Oh, come on!
I have no idea what you're talking about.
I've never seen Braveheart.
Zero idea.
Oh, come on.
I skipped that one part.
You did?
Completely original.
No, I ripped it off, bro.
No, that's not even... Why are you calling me off on the... Yeah, I ripped it off.
It's okay, I ripped off your diary.
Respect, in fact.
I actually thought it was really cool, because I always loved that line, they fought like warrior poets, and I was like, well, that's great.
I don't know what the poet part meant, but they mooned people and then won.
Well, Warrior Poets is a freedom fighter.
It's somebody who is moved by virtue to risk life and limb for others.
And that's what we're all about.
Now, the other part, society, came from Dead Poets Society.
Oh, okay, yeah.
And so, between the two, Warrior Poets Society.
So, oh captain, my captain!
There we go.
Is Dead Poets, is that Kevin Kline or is that Robin Williams?
Robin Williams.
Robin Williams.
And then, what's, oh, Dead Presidents Club, right?
With the... It's totally a different society.
I just always get them confused.
They're both boarding schools.
There's one with Kevin Kline that's a boarding school.
But the point remains, let me ask you this, because a lot of people watching, right, aren't necessarily military.
People reading your book, you know, the Warrior Poet Way, they're not necessarily involved in day-to-day conflict.
So how would this teaching, you know, apply to them?
The idea of fighting for what?
Well, I mean, you don't have to be in the military to be involved in conflict.
Conflict has found us.
There's no hiding from it.
It's in your workplaces, it's at your own family reunions, which have been divided for years where, you know, of like wherever you fall on COVID or whatever, you can't even talk to these family members anymore and sexuality and The fight is at our doorstep for truth, and we just need men with backbones that love people enough to actually say, I'm not moving, I'm not self-censoring, I'm going to say the truth, and if you don't like it, then I am deeply upset by that, because I love you, you know, family, but I'm going to tell the truth, as Martin Luther would say, peace if possible, but the truth at all costs, because love cannot stand on lies.
Right.
And so, you know, anywhere that there's a conflict.
I also carry concealed every day of my life because there's a bunch of mental unhealthy people out there that want to shoot people up.
And the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
So if something goes down when I'm playing zone, this is my area.
I'm going to be ready to defend.
I'm going to be ready to protect.
And so, you know, I have to join the military to be able to be one of those silent guardians out there.
One of these warrior poets ready to protect.
The innocent and so do your part to stand for truth in your speech in your workplaces it's gonna freedom at this point we're so late in the game freedom is going to cost everyone something personally.
Yeah.
Now and so that's this that's the fight.
I think we're talking about protecting the innocent right now we are definitely At a tipping point society where that would include all children.
And I don't just mean the gender reassignment surgeries and the puberty blockers and those laws, though that is the most severe manifestation.
I mean the idea that our children, they have access to a digital town square, very different from a public town square, that may be completely devoid of truth, and that's by design.
And you can't combat that, for example the big tech censorship, with just being, just being nice.
Right.
Truth has to cut through, and that means there is absolutely a fight.
I mean, there's a fight in informational warfare right now that is, and for crying out loud, our kids were locked up and they weren't going to school.
We have the highest depression rates that we've seen in a long time.
Substance abuse rates in teenagers never seen before.
We did this to our kids.
And that in itself is a war, a figurative war.
I think so too.
One wonderful thing that happened during the lockdown, and it's hard to even say, oh wait, something happened that was good to be, yeah, a lot of folks found out what was happening in government schools and they pulled the plug and they got their kids back.
Who knows how many generations will be rescued because of that one simple thing.
The homeschooling movement has exploded.
Now I'm speaking at homeschooling conferences and dads are now joining in to help raise these kids and educate the kids, and you're seeing a bit of a ground-swelling movement where mom and dad's working together to actually educate and to make kids strong, ready for a world breaking at the seams.
Well, I've always thought it was very important, and when I was raised in Canada, I knew one kid ever who was homeschooled.
It was a very weird thing.
I don't know exactly what the laws are, but I know in a lot of other European countries and in Canada, specifically where I was, Quebec, they're far more stringent on homeschooling.
And I think maybe, yeah, with COVID, we learned that you're more capable of doing it than ever.
They were basically doing homeschooling, but with a public school teacher and a blue chain gang haircut.
I hear it and immediately it just upsets me of like, what do you mean they're, you know, allowing you to educate your own kids?
These don't belong to the government.
What kind of Marxism is this?
You're not allowed to teach your kids what you want?
You must send them to the government and the government will tell them what?
It is ludicrous to me that homeschooling wouldn't just be a complete open door without any restrictions.
Well, that's where they start from the premise of they're all of our kids.
Nope, they're not.
They're just my kids.
They're not yours.
They are mine alone.
I'm a big fan of the homeschooling thing, but I think, kind of to Stephen's point, they were weird for a long time.
No, it was a weird situation because there was only one kid.
His name was Simon.
He ate his own boogers.
There were a lot of homeschool kids a while back.
When I was growing up, I graduated in 1998 from high school.
I didn't experience any of this stuff that I remember in school, right?
None of this stuff that's going on right now.
So I understand the move towards it.
And I understand like what you're saying, technology had to spring forward quite a bit to make sure that we made it accessible for people to be able to do homeschooling.
Yeah.
Right.
And you know, with zoom and all this stuff that kind of was there, but then really kind of blew up, I, it was the people were a little bit more weird.
They were not as adjusted in society.
They hadn't been socialized quite as much.
Right now that's going away with all of the different ways that people are socialized and it's the kids that go to school that they maybe run with their kids for a minute and then friends but then they come home and they're on Facebook they're on well maybe not Facebook anymore the kids are on something else they're not on Instagram they're on something they're doing something else that's not connected to the outside world right they're just isolating by themselves we would come home and go play That's where we got most of the socialization from.
But you didn't experience it because you were a bully, Baby Huey.
I was a bully.
You were bigger than all the other kids who were like, I had a great time in school.
First and second grade.
Right, because you beat the crap out of everybody.
I never beat the crap out of anybody.
I just was playing rough.
And it was early on.
That's exactly what a bully would say.
I was a foot tall.
Exactly.
Thank you.
See?
Thank you.
At least we have a warrior poet to stand up to.
Hey, how dare you, sir?
I came to my come to Jesus moment in third grade when I accidentally heard a kid who had just returned from knee surgery and I didn't know it and I ran up behind him and kicked him.
In his knee.
And he's not a bully.
I disabuse you of your notion.
Yes, not anymore.
You were a bully.
Up until third grade.
Well, yeah, you didn't know.
I was a nice bully.
What?
What?
I'm trying to give you the out to move on.
I'm a nice bully.
Just let it go.
You're now not a bully.
So I was a nice kid who was bigger and I abused my biggerness.
I never beat anybody up or pinned them against lockers or ran with a crew that would push down the little kids that couldn't defend themselves.
It was just that when it came to sports, I was going to assert myself and I didn't care if you liked it.
Well this brings me to another... So I was bullied a lot in school.
Now keep in mind...
You know, I was raised in French Canada, where we don't have conservatives, we have liberals and liberal separatists.
And there's a very strong anti-American sentiment, an undercurrent with a lot of sort of liberal Canadians.
And my dad always wanted me to be very proud of being American and kind of learn where I came from.
So, I was very often at odds.
I mean, it was more acceptable to preach the ideas of socialism, which Quebec is, or communism in class, than the idea that, hey, America isn't such a bad country.
Now, I wasn't a physically strong kid like you, so I fought back with my mouth, you know, making fun of whatever it is, teasing, and then, of course, I would inevitably get my ass kicked.
But I really wish, you know, that I had, and this goes back to the idea of bridled strength, I didn't know how to defend myself.
And I remember my dad wanted me to learn how to defend myself as a kid because he knew that I was bullied.
And at that point in time, you know, it was karate and kung fu and all the stuff that doesn't work, you know, the McDojo stuff.
And he saw the early UFC.
He said, there's this guy, Hoyce Gracie.
I'm going to send you down to this place.
They're teaching jujitsu at the community center.
Well, it was the same guy who taught me karate, and it was Aikikai Jiu-Jitsu-Do, and he made me buy Chinese slippers.
So he wasn't really teaching Jiu-Jitsu.
And he actually admonished my brother and I for wrestling in class.
He's like, we don't do that.
Get in line.
But I think it would have changed.
We got to celebrate that punctuation.
That was really fun.
So I had good Kiai.
It comes from your diaphragm.
You've got to breathe from down here.
But now with twins, I'm not going to force them into any sport.
Right.
But they have to get the blue belt in jiu-jitsu.
Because I feel like if I would have had that tool, I would have been able to de-escalate.
I wouldn't have been nearly as fearful if I knew that if push came to shove, that I could have defended myself.
And it changes who you are.
And as a kid, being so afraid, not knowing that I could ultimately take care of that if it came to it, definitely forced me to live in a lot more fear than in my later years at 18, 19.
Yeah, I like that idea.
Make our boys strong and able to protect.
That's part of why we've been given strength is to be able to protect.
Right.
That's good.
But the same applies to conceal carry like you've talked about.
The same applies to being capable, right?
Is having that along, it has to come with a strong moral fiber, a backbone.
It really does make, that's the only way I think to make good men.
I think you're right, absolutely.
And you talk about it so much.
Do you feel like this is a message that isn't heard enough a lot out there and that's why you've kind of made it your raison d'etre?
Yeah, I see a lot of encouragement for women to be strong and bold, but you don't really see the same for men.
Right.
And that is unforgivable.
Well, I think that, yeah, women, when you say it this way, often women Feminism is lauded culturally.
Right.
And traditional masculinity is treated punitively by mandate.
And by that I mean actual, like you even talked about Good Samaritan laws recently.
No good deed goes unpunished, depending on the state that you're in.
That's a traditionally masculine trait.
I'm not talking about being a bully.
I'm talking about protecting the innocent.
Zero tolerance policies in school.
If a kid is being bullied, if you do anything at all where I was raised, you could be getting punched in the face, and if you shove the bully off, you both go into suspension.
So there are punitive damages sometimes levied on men for doing what men have done since the beginning of time, whereas everything feminine, even if it's masculine femininity, Is that something that you feel has a lot of young men confused and is ultimately worse for women?
Right.
And you brought up the idea of government schools feminizing men, your young boys as well.
So it basically stops that pursuit of being able to be strong.
And men need those kind of killer instincts.
It's going to help them in every single area of their life of, hey, Push comes to shove if you have to physically protect that you're ready to do that.
It's also going to give, it'll spill over into confidence.
I think you were alluding to this as well, so that you can be strong with your words and you can be a safe guardian of truth knowing that if like, oh, if this goes to blow, oh, I'm good with that too.
Like in Good Will Hunting, when he just totally undoes this dude intellectually and he's like, but then if you want to step outside.
Why don't we go ahead and do that?
How do you like them apples?
And I'm like, yeah!
I was like, either one of like... Except Matt Damon's 5'2", but the point remains.
Shut up!
I mean, he's tiny.
You can fit him in your back pocket.
Very good.
He's maybe slightly taller than Anderson Cooper, but no, I understand exactly what you're talking about.
Men should be strong in every area of their life, and that's socially and intellectually and mentally and physically.
All of it goes into the strength of a man.
So if you are just absolute jacked muscle head with traps, can you guys put traps on me in post?
How does this work on the show?
We could.
With yourself, it might look weird.
Yeah.
Touché.
Anyway, you can have some just jacked muscle head and then you cut him off in traffic and he just loses his mind.
Well, this is a weak person.
That's an unbalanced person.
Yeah, this is... your anger is so easily upset by somebody you don't even know.
Your sports team loses and you are crestfallen.
You can't handle that these... Your family hides for a week.
Yeah, absolutely.
To give you time for the next week to maybe get a win.
Yeah, or you're weak morally.
Usually when I say weak men, I don't mean your squat is very low.
Usually I mean, no, you're morally weak.
That means when push comes to shove, you'll stab your best buddy in the back out of fear or to get ahead.
That's a weak man.
Most politicians weak men and it doesn't mean they're not capable of damage
it doesn't mean they're not ambitious it doesn't mean they're cutthroat it
means that they don't have the moral fortitude the character to be able to
stand for the right thing they'll change what they believe on the polls
and they don't believe Jack except more power more money for me and less
for the people you're honoring gracing themselves to people who they know
They'll never leave you.
Why can't they just leave me alone?
kind of the ultimate lie, right? It's a lie straight from the pit of hell.
You said you would kill me last, right? You'll see a lot of people even, you see
it from churches, you see it from people on the right with Facebook, say okay
we'll play ball with Facebook and not talk about whatever it is or then we'll
do it with YouTube, okay we'll do it and then all of a sudden you're on an island
and it's, look, the answer from tyrants is always more.
Right. They'll never live and let live. No. They'll never leave you. Why can't they
just leave me alone? Because that's not what tyrants do. No.
They will find you.
I do think there's hope amidst this sociological fog.
The weakening of masculinity of people have been pushed to the brink and then some and people are waking up.
And I think cowardice has spread under our rulers for far too long.
And I personally, I deeply miss courage.
If I can find a dude that just has, I mean, just, just show me a little bit of backbone, a little bit of character and stand your ground.
And I'm like, I will follow that guy.
And so it turns out cowardice does spread, but so does courage.
And people are waking up and men are standing up tall with their shoulders back.
Right.
Well, the one thing that I hope is that you're right.
We are seeing that change a little bit right now, but these things tend to overcorrect, right?
You tend to kind of suppress this so much and there's an overcorrection for it.
It's like, that's, I think that's one of the things that we're fighting against.
It's like, no, return it to its proper place.
That's right.
It doesn't need to go over the top to kind of counterbalance.
It just needs to go back to its proper place.
And that's really my point in the warrior-poet way, is I want to avoid the historical errors of penduluming back and forth to these extremes.
I'm like, no, no, no.
A warrior can get you through a war, but a poet can live well in peace.
And oftentimes military guys, good at war, suck at life.
You know, you're good at one of the others.
It's silly to even cite, but remember in one of the Batman movies, I forget which one it was.
Could be.
He could be going to Batman and Robin.
Careful, tread carefully.
Commissioner Gordon is up on stage.
He's giving a speech and they say, you know, we got plans to replace him.
I'm like, well, he's a war hero.
I'm like, yeah, but it's peacetime.
And so that's the general idea.
The Dark Knight.
That's an acceptable one.
There you go.
If you were going to Batman forever, I bet you this interview would go that way.
Dark Knight!
It's just all caps over and down.
It might be Dark Knight Rises, but no, that's absolutely true.
Now, I do think there does need to be some grace for For both sides.
In other words, don't expect a poet to be a full-blown warrior.
And I do think that sometimes, having been around these people who have been in a concussive environment in war, it's like, look, they can't just shut it off.
Sometimes we don't do a good job of bringing them back into the fold.
And there's a quote, you've heard the quote, jack of all trades, master of none.
Right.
There's some debate as to the origin.
I don't know if this actually comes from Benjamin Franklin, but it was used at one point that a man should be a jack of all trades and a master of none.
One, meaning you should be capable in all areas, but you should have an area that you've mastered, an area of expertise.
And is that sort of maybe the archetype that you see, like a warrior, poet, all these, but some people are more warrior and some people are more poet?
Yeah, I trend more lion and I have to work more on being a lamb.
You should be both, you should be.
Warrior and poet, I gravitate more toward warrior.
And so I have to, through great conscious effort, really cultivate those poet aspects of it.
It's going to allow all my relationships to be intact.
It's going to keep my staff from rage quitting on me in a year.
I'm like, this guy sucks!
Too much warrior, not enough poet right here.
And so I think everyone is naturally predisposed to the other.
It's just simply, it's not okay to not cultivate the parts that you are weak at.
Right.
It's going to wreck your life.
But when being part of a team is probably recognizing and lending your area of expertise, which is like, I'm probably a little more warrior.
I'm probably a little more poet when you're talking about serving your community sometimes, recognizing your skill set too.
Right.
So, for instance, the warrior, you know, say you're in some debate, the warrior needs to understand how to season his speech with salt at certain moments, to be able to not offend somebody necessarily, of like, I'm not afraid to offend somebody, but I recognize that offended brother is more unyielding than a fortified city, and therefore there's a time to just be like, nope, this is truth, suck it up, buttercup, and there's another time to say, okay, This is wrong.
I can gain more traction in persuading them if I come at them like a brother, shoulder to shoulder.
And that's all I'm really driving at here, is there's a way that a warrior can become far more poetic in those moments, and it's a good thing.
And whereas a poet will naturally be like, oh, I don't want to offend anyone, I don't want to say anything.
I'm like, well, then you're ceding the battleground to evil forces.
Which we've been doing for quite a while.
And it's not okay.
I think maybe a big difference there, as far as when the role is appropriate, is the ability to identify evil.
You know, I've talked about this, like we do Change My Minds, where the vast majority of them are incredibly civil and productive, and then you get some that aren't, because there's a matching of it.
There are some people whose minds won't be changed, and that's when it occasionally becomes a debate.
Like, there was a girl one time who showed up, and she was very aggressive.
It was a pro-life change of mind.
She said, well, I had an abortion, and everything else that day had been mostly civil.
And this, I still would say, but I said, and when did you have this abortion?
I said, well, I'm going to tell you, you're going to meet that child in heaven one day, and you're going to see his eye color.
And you're going to know what his name was.
And she got, and people got really upset.
I mean, the death threats that I got, she came on the show the next week and she had changed her point of view on abortion, which wasn't nice.
But again, it wasn't about her.
I didn't feel that I was looking into the face of someone evil, but I could see this baggage of evil and from people around her going like this.
I have to recognize the difference here.
I'm not going to be able to do it with just the Socratic method.
And sometimes that is, I think, a very valuable skill set is recognizing the minds you can change or people who've been influenced by evil versus those who perpetuate evil on others.
And that's where you put your warrior hat on.
That's right.
I think in a public debate, it far more yields itself to, like, no, crush these terrible arguments, which are actually doing incredible damage of like, oh, no, no, it's minor attracted part.
No, no, no.
It's evil, sick, twisted pedophilia.
And if you engage in a hint of it, let's lock you up forever and throw away the key, you sick, twisted, evil individual.
Like, I'm not going to entertain that.
You're going to sound more warrior in those words.
It's coming out of like, holy cow, it'd be wildly evil for someone to sit back and let that go.
You can't capitulate to that.
As if we're supposed to respect all viewpoints.
No cannibalism.
That's fine.
I respect your view.
I don't respect that viewpoint.
That's a terrible viewpoint.
How dare you?
What about in an air disaster?
Yeah.
In a what?
Air disaster.
Yeah, in the Andes.
Yeah, it seems that's for most of the cannibalism is in the Andes.
You know, I knew a bully would figure out a way.
It wasn't enough for me to pick people up.
I want to eat their flesh.
Come up with a scenario where I can... It's a famous example.
No, I think it's important because I think a lot of people here will agree with it and then go, okay, what's the road... and when I say roadmap, I mean map, not minor attracted persons.
That's why I also don't like it.
We already have the word Matt Bean something.
The roadmap, like with raising kids, you know, parents will be concerned.
Wait, how do I, because they'll say, I want to make sure that my children, both men and
women, but particularly with young men, because men are more capable of damage in a lot of
ways.
I want them to be strong, but how do I know that I ensure that doesn't turn them into
a bully?
Because we've all seen that happen sometimes too.
Well, one great thing is, is I think it's actually quite easy to pass along as long
as you exhibit that you can teach what you know, but you can only replicate who you are.
And if you're a bully, no matter what you teach your kids, you're probably going to
make bullies.
But if you're actually, you know, a, a strong.
Yet, gentle man, you should have both.
Your kids are going to see that, and they're going to naturally see when daddy flips the switch.
Right.
So the big idea with me and my boys is I think ISIS should fear me.
The Taliban should fear me.
But my kids don't.
You know, they pull no punches in our wrestle matches.
They know they can attack daddy full force and they don't have to worry about my temper
flaring up or me throwing them through a wall or something.
No, like, I love my boys and they feel that safety.
And they know I'm dangerous, but they know I'm not dangerous to them.
And so I think if you are those things, if you are a warrior poet, you can't help but
You can't screw it up.
Before, obviously, you coined the phrase warrior poet.
My dad was that way.
And I would say, too, when I was young, he would probably say that he had, you know, probably didn't have his temper completely under control.
Certainly never dangerous, but he was always so loving.
In other words, my dad would discipline us where we feared the repercussions.
But he's still one of my best friends.
I mean, the three people you met here today, like my best friends, are still.
Johnny Boy, who you met out there, I've known since I was 12, a year old for 15 years, and
my dad.
Yeah.
And, and I consider that one of my life's greatest blessings.
But I watched my dad.
He was very, very close with my brother and I. Awesome.
More so than other dads, but then I also saw him get into some scuffles, or I guess skirmishes.
Never anything very violent, but guys who would maybe do something inappropriate with my mom.
I'll tell some stories, because I don't know what I am allowed to discuss, but never anything violent or criminal, but I also noticed that my friend's dads Had a healthy respect of him and and I always saw that as
something that I wanted to emulate when I got to an age Where kids like I told my dad to go screw himself because I
can kick his ass and I was like I don't have that luxury
And so he was able to raise me, you know, for a longer period of time.
Yeah.
As opposed to, oh, 15, went through a growth spurt, bye, do what you want.
Right.
And I'm really grateful for that.
I also want, you mentioned wrestling.
Okay.
Again, the book is The Warrior Poet Way.
Tell us a story you talk about in your book.
And I think this is indicative of kind of what we're talking about here.
Tony Lopez.
Oh.
The story in there.
I don't want to talk about Tony.
I recovered.
Everyone's going to love this because everyone knows a Tony Lopez.
Was he your bully?
No, he was not.
No, he was not.
So I was an all-state wrestler.
I was a good wrestler.
Which state?
Georgia.
I was all caught up in it.
It was like Utah or Wyoming.
It's not Iowa or Pennsylvania, but we'll allow it.
Sorry, never mind.
Wrong state.
Next question.
What is it?
New Mexico?
No, that's all state is.
For people who don't know, that's very, very high level.
So you're good.
I am good.
In other words, you walk into most rooms and you are going to be one of, if not the top dog.
At my school, I was the school's wrestler.
That's what I was known for.
And so I was very good.
Tony was the girls' soccer coach at my high school.
I already don't like the description, but I know how the story ends, so I have grace for Mr. Lopez.
I knew that he was all martial arts whatever, and I kind of looked down on it a little bit as a little just... I'm like, I don't know, I was like...
He wasn't like this specimen figure, just maybe a tiny on the portly side.
He's gonna watch this, find me, and beat the crap out of me all over again.
We just spoiled the story!
Yeah, I'm trying to do the thing!
But anyway, he had all kinds of black belts and whatnot, but he showed up at our wrestling practice for the day.
Middle-aged man, nothing fancy to look at, and he was gonna be my sparring partner.
And I'm like, alright, I'm gonna try not to break this old man.
Right.
And so we start doing, you know, just basic warm-up drills and whatnot.
And I'm like, man, this guy can really move.
And he's just chatting, being real nice, just chatting while we're doing this stuff.
And finally, we start actually wrestling.
And at this point, I'm getting upset because I can tell this guy just moves so smooth and swiftly.
It's not like fighting anybody else.
On the wrestling mat, of like, this guy, there's something different about the way this guy moves.
Then I'm just, I held nothing back.
I went all out.
And he doesn't realize that we're in a serious, you know, battle of Olympia.
He's, he has no idea.
You know, I got the rage vein in my neck.
And he's just, while pleasantly speaking to me, you know, while this... Oh, that makes it, that makes it so much worse.
I thought I was the most dangerous man in the room, and I wasn't.
you're like, oh please stop, just put me unconscious and be more gracious.
So I talk about this in the book of, I thought I was the most dangerous man in the room,
and I wasn't. And so what I learned as part of being the most dangerous man in the room
is actually humility. It's the very center of morality, the very center of Christian morality.
If pride is the center of Christian immorality, it is the ultimate anti-God thought, pride, then humility is the ultimate center of all morality.
And that note, not me, but God.
And so that for me taught me one of the most moral, biggest moral lessons of my life as well.
I just happen to have my ego, so...
I had a similar experience, except I will say I'm probably the opposite of you in that I was bad at everything growing up, so I had horrible self-esteem.
I remember seeing a homeless guy outside of Ogilvie's, and I might not have told the story, where I said, that's going to be me.
People walked by, and I was like, I'm not good.
I wasn't artistic.
I wasn't intelligent.
I was a very late bloomer.
I couldn't do sports.
I remember thinking, I have no discernible skill set.
Uh, so I always went into everything scared and I found sort of my niche later in life, what I was good at, you know, no one knew that you could make a living doing this or I didn't know what jujitsu was where I kind of found my sport later on, not a world beater, but it was pretty good.
Yeah.
And, um, there was a guy, I hope he doesn't mind me saying his name, uh, because it was after this that I found out he was also a believer.
His name is Fabricio Medici.
So Fabricio, if you see this, hi, thank you.
He was, and I trained in jiu-jitsu and judo in Montreal, but like with an unofficial club.
I was in New York, working at Fox News for four and a half years, and I hated my life.
I just, I just, cause you know, you appear four or five times a week, what do you do with the rest of your time?
Write an article.
And I was kind of locked down exclusively from doing a whole
lot else.
So my drug became training.
And I did jiu-jitsu like seven times a week, plus weight training.
I did do privates where it's just, everything went into it.
I turned my joints into a fine powder.
But this guy Fabricio Medici, he was high level.
I think he won, I think he might've won like a silver at Browns, you know?
And he would tell you, he didn't have the greatest wrestling, so he, but he was a really good coach.
And small guy, maybe 145.
And I didn't think by any means that I was going to, but he said like, come give me more intensity, more
intensity it's okay, so get me an instructor.
And then it was like walking into a closet full of You know, he just like, butterfly hook, and grabbing the collar, and I just remember feeling like Pinocchio, and completely helpless.
And then afterwards, we were sitting there, and I assumed, you know, every Brazilian who I had known was Catholic, and you know, I would say very carnal, if you see Carnival, very sexual people.
But he was a really straight-laced guy, and I said something in the car, he was driving me back, which he didn't have to do.
He said, well, you know, we're all waiting for the same time when you come back.
I said, wait, what?
He said, what'd you say?
Did we just become best friends?
I said, wait, are you saying who I think you're saying?
You mean Jesus?
I said, yeah.
I was like, I had no idea.
I don't talk about it too much with my students.
And then we talked and I found out he was a good Christian guy.
He was a great instructor and everyone wanted to train with this guy, even though he was a killer.
He could lay you down and put you in a spot where it's almost more humbling because you're like, he's doing this easily.
And I learned early on, I was very fortunate to have a really good instructor.
If I didn't, my gosh, my path would have been different.
So he was my Tony Lopez.
It's funny how common it is for the most dangerous men alive are humble and unassuming and extremely nice guys.
It's, you know, the lower level guys who get some measure of skill and it's, you know, Bravado, I always want to say vibrato, and that's a difference.
It's a vocal thing.
Although they can be cocky SOBs too, if they have a perfect falsetto.
I'm so sick of bullying us with your strange stuff.
Les Miserables, Eddie Redmayne, Empty Chairs, every note was vibrato.
It was amazing.
I'm like, come on man, spread it around a bit.
Leave some talent for the rest of us.
Yeah, incredible, but some of the most dangerous men on the planet, and I've met all kinds of them, and all the different special operations that I've worked with, usually very humble, unassuming dudes that can take you apart.
Well you have those humbling experiences.
You guys just described yours and I think that's a challenge for guys is if they don't have one of those humbling experiences, they end up thinking that they can kind of do whatever they want, say whatever they want until they run to that wall eventually, because eventually you will.
That's why physical activity, like I think you said, we're not talking about being the most macho guy, but it does matter because it is something quantifiable tangible.
In other words, you can't move that weight on that barbell.
You can't pin this guy, or whatever it is, you can't throw that football.
That measurable progress, for me, I don't think there's a way for young men to develop self-esteem any other way outside of becoming excellent at something.
I think suffering produces character and there's no shortcut.
Yeah.
You want to be a good man?
Well then you've got to be, you've got to suffer.
Right.
And there's just, suffering produces character and perseverance, endurance, and so there's no shortcut.
Yeah, but what would you say, let me ask you this, because there are a lot of people, and I agree with a lot of what he says, like for example, Andrew Tate talks about math, and I think he's right in a lot of what he says as far as, you know, young men are hurting and they need to be told not to be hyperly emotional, but to be disciplined in regulating their emotions.
There are things that he says that are right, and then there are things that he does that kind of do as I say, not as I do.
But people say it's a men's rights thing, and we've been doing this on the show since Cassie J back in 2015-16.
Young men who are hurting their suffering, but they feel as though they're suffering with no end in sight, right?
No kind of redemption.
That's what a lot of young men feel, where they're browbeaten for being men, and then they're not as good at being women, and they're just checking out of the dating pool.
Forty-something percent of young men don't want to get married, and sixty-something percent of young women say there aren't men worth marrying.
Do you see that as a reason that maybe sometimes people like the Andrew Taits of the world, that's why young men tend to gravitate toward them and get maybe a piece of the puzzle but miss another component?
Yeah, so I haven't followed Tate for long.
I tried, and then I said something he didn't like, and he blocked me on Twitter.
Yeah.
Anyway, he mentioned somewhere, though, that, hey, to talk with me, if you give $50,000 to a charity of your choice, then I'll tell you, like, I will take him up on that.
So I would love to talk with Andrew Tate on masculinity in a forum like this.
Now, I'll donate the 50 grand to a charity of my choice.
That's okay.
I'll show it all up, but I would love to talk to him about that.
I think you'd probably agree on more than you disagree, and then that last stretch.
But that last stretch is really pernicious.
It's a really big deal, because he is Yeah, we agree on some big pieces of, hey, self-accountability and be strong and tell the truth, and I love all that stuff that he puts out.
But if humility is the center, Of morality, you know, and I think that it is, and that's part of being, you know, you can't hold together deep relationships over long periods of time without a measure of humility.
You become unsufferable, and he's leading folks to be consummately arrogant and prideful.
No one's accusing him of being humble.
And I think that is really, really bad.
He's serving up a beautiful steak mash, but to have a beautiful meal with a little arsenic in there.
And it's deadly.
And so I do not want young men emulating all of Tate.
There's some pieces there, but you could go other places and get the full thing as well.
I like some of the things he says, but holy smokes, that is a dangerous path and it's going to destroy your relationships or destroy the things that matter the most to you.
And you'll end up with flashy cars, maybe, and a lot of money, and you're going to die alone and miserable.
That's what I think.
Right.
Because that was going to be my next question.
Some young people are at a stage where they think Fame, flashy cars, they think those are things that I want.
It's fool's gold.
It's fool's gold.
Whatever celebrity that you can achieve, whatever riches are filled with untold amounts of poverty.
There's something so much better.
Andrew Tate will never know the depth Uh, that I've experienced in my joy with my 16-year-old bride and my kids.
He'll never get a taste of that.
He doesn't have the relational character and the humility to be able to pull it off.
He'll never know what he's missing.
Or maybe he doesn't have it now.
We don't know.
I always tell people, we never, and I'm not just talking about, but in general with young people who go like, I say, look, you don't know how this story ends.
How many times have you been in the worst spot and then it completely changes?
I mean, how many times have you known people who've been diagnosed, you know, terminally ill and it doesn't happen?
And it does happen sometimes, but the truth is you don't know how the story ends, so you have to behave and exercise in your day-to-day.
Treat it as though it can turn around and you'll still be around for that.
And I think, yeah, those are kind of, you can't really live that way if you're looking at riches of the now.
Right.
And maybe he'll have that humbling experience, but the problem is that I think some of it is also, you know, he has a persona, which has been, you know, which is something that he needs to needs to do.
Like there are people out there sometimes where it's, you know, Muhammad Ali was friends with a lot of the guys who would trash talk.
Part of it is the entertainment side of it.
So you don't know how much of it is a disagreement versus, you know, kind of a path to.
Yeah, I mean, when you look at kind of how Andrew lives his life and the things that he has and kind of what he espouses, like, if there is that moment where there's a humbling experience, it's going to cost him a lot more.
Because he's gone so far in the direction of what would appear not to be a humble existence or a humble life.
Right.
And so the fall has to be greater necessarily at those heights.
Yeah, and Tate gets to live however he wants.
I don't feel the impulse to adjust him or fix him.
It's all the young men that are looking For emulation.
And I'm like, guys, I get you see some of the strengths in what he's saying, but what you don't realize is there's a bridge out ahead.
Right.
And if you follow him, you're going to drive over it.
He is tempting you with fool's gold.
Right.
So be dangerous.
And yes, he's doing some really good stuff out there.
So I don't want to take away from that.
No, no, I agree with you.
And I think a big part of it is it highlights the, to me, it reflects the disservice of the church.
That it's done to a lot of young men.
Because a lot of young men are not taught, they're taught to suppress their masculine tendencies, period.
I mean, people think most pastors are men, but if you look at Board of Elders and influence in the church and the way that they conduct a lot of, even Sunday school, it's not designed, we often complain about public school, if you look at the way that often churches will do Sunday school or daycare, it's still designed for young girls.
And I know that a lot of young men who are Christians feel, in a pragmatic level, they'll say, yeah, but Okay, I get half of this message, and then I'm constantly wrong for the way that I am.
And so they look out there and say, hey, look, these relationships are broken.
The male-female dynamic is broken.
And it has not been fixed for a lot of young people.
I'm telling you this, I get feedback in the church.
They often leave the young Christian singles group feeling more hopeless than they went in.
Yeah.
And so they gravitate towards... It's not just Andrew.
I use him as an example.
He's the most sort of notable example.
But there are a lot of people out there who discuss this right now.
A lot of young men are suffering with feeling like there's no end in sight.
Right.
And I hope they can find, obviously, some answers.
All the answers are in, not to disparage your book, but, you know, the Bible, that book, but this book can help be a guidebook.
So, the Warrior Poets say it's not a Christian movement, it's actually a secular one.
Right.
Everybody's welcome.
I happen to be a Christian.
I've got some biographical stuff in there as well, so you're gonna hear from me, and I'm gonna say my thing, but a lot of folks in our society, they're not Christian.
Some are atheists, or agnostic, or Hindu-Buddhist, or, you know, all kinds at New Age, which is, you know, most everybody.
It's like, I don't like the title!
I'm like, that's so New Age of you to even say.
But I'll definitely plug Bible in the book.
It is such a shame that there's a disconnect in what some churches teach and then what really gritty first century Christianity looked like.
These men led the greatest revolution Uh, that the world has ever seen.
Literally, Jesus had split time in two.
2,023 years ago with his birth.
And so it's like, holy cow, and they couldn't be bullied.
They knew truth.
They loved people.
They served them.
They lived off the land and they're getting scourged and beat with rods and stoned and thrown out of like, do you know the type of character and strength That you've got to have to do.
This stuff really happened.
This was incredibly strong men in every area.
They were bright.
They were, you know, gritty and tough.
And so, it is a shame that we so poorly emulate that today.
Now, I'll also say, as a caveat, that it is true it's easy to find churches with weak-feet pastors.
It's unforgivable.
I mean, forgivable, but, you know, it's a terrible They're not exactly accusing Jesus of being the demonic fit, but it's just crappy.
It's really, really bad, but I'll also say some of the greatest, strongest men I know occupy pulpits and are vibrant members of the Church.
And it may not be that the Church is broke, it's just you've got to find the right one.
And there may be this amazing family of faith that's the healthiest, brightest, most creative, strongest people I know are Christians living and breathing in the Church.
Yeah, but it's that Christians a lot of times in churches want it to be perfect.
In practice, it's messy.
Like you said, these are gritty, tough people that are out there in the first century church taking this message to the masses.
It wasn't perfect.
It was a very messy situation.
I think today's church, unfortunately, they have a blind spot.
And what I mean by that is, And I understand it, but we have people who will watch our show.
We have a lot of pastors who will watch our show and go like, you know, I don't tell people in the congregation, but I tune in and I watch your show.
I go, great, you have a Netflix membership?
You have to hide that from them?
Because we occasionally have, you know, we have people, by the way, on this show who aren't necessarily Christians, and the show, you know, I always say it's a PG-13+, but I'll also have Christians, and Gerald knows this, who will reach out and say, That was the first time I had any idea the books that were in my kid's school.
And I go, you mean the porn?
And I'm saying this even right now.
You mean the one where there's a picture of the kid jerking off in the picture?
Because your pastor said, there's evil in the world!
Show the picture that your kids are seeing of a young boy masturbating.
There can't be this disconnect of, ah, Netflix, and we kind of have this one portion of the world.
And then when we speak Christian, this is the first time we'll have people who say, we are flawed, we are Christians, but look, this is the world that you are living in.
And I always tell people this is not a show meant for kids.
It's meant for adults so they can protect.
And I always say this, protect and inform their children.
But that is a disservice if people are in the church and they're shocked at what we show them that their kids are already reading.
And I don't know that today's church is There are some.
And that's what I want to speak to.
Yes, there are some.
But even then, it's like there's general evil and then there's this specific prescription for good, but people aren't really faced with the evil.
That's not condoning of it, but people need to know the books their kids are reading.
People need to know the drag shows that are taking place in the library.
So they go and they see it on Twitter, but it never makes its way into a sermon.
Where I think it's, are the kids gone at Sunday school?
This is today's Sodom and Gomorrah.
That might breed a few more warrior poets, I think.
I think you're right.
We canceled Netflix the moment Cuties was released.
Myself too.
Gone forever now!
Canceled Disney, I don't know, it was like a grab bag of like eight things that pissed us off.
It's Disney, Hulu, and ESPN.
Hulu we had, it was like a free whatever thing deal we had, and it was the commercials that came on.
Yep.
That were so outrageous.
Gone!
Free?
Nope!
Too expensive for us for this service.
And so we've just been, you know, relaxing.
I'm boycotting so many companies, as I'll put my money where my mouth is, was something that was really upsetting to me.
We moved, so we live way out in the country without postal delivery and trash pickup.
We live out in the sticks.
Does Amazon Prime deliver?
Um, sometimes.
Okay.
Sometimes.
Depends.
Amazon's like, well where is this?
Amazon can barely pull this off.
What's the heat index?
Amazon can barely pull this off.
But we were going to a church, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and then a few days later, Sunday, and the pastor said nothing.
Really?
Nothing.
Said zero.
Did you leave?
Yeah, we left.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We left.
I've had an experience like that.
And I say this because, by the way, there's a pastor who I love, a guy named Pastor Jerry.
Old man.
Older man.
Sorry, Pastor Jay, but you are older.
Older than what?
Bald.
You know, sorry, Pastor Jay, but you are bald.
Would seem demure.
And I always say, actually, I gave him this lever action rifle because it was the only thing he could hit the broad side of a barn with because he loved going to the range with me and he, you know, loved watching the old, the rifleman.
But this is a guy who in his church, a small area in northern Michigan with 40 people, he didn't care.
The overarching sort of, it wasn't a denomination with the umbrella of his church, so I don't want to name it.
They were saying, well, you maybe don't want to talk about these things.
He said, I don't care.
That to me, again, I don't know what the guy can deadlift, probably nothing.
That's a man.
That's a man who's not afraid to lead by example.
That's great.
And I would never feel the need to walk out of his church, even if he's remaining silent.
I know it's because he's picking his spots.
That's right.
But I've never left, and that's why I think sometimes people get this misconstrued because, you know, you're a fit guy, you're a young guy, we're having a cigar, but the truth is we're talking about men who serve their communities, lead their communities, and care about them, and are willing to protect them.
And I think it's an important message, and I hope there are more guys.
We're going to go to Mug Club here in a little bit.
I wanted to ask you before we go, And by the way, the book is, it's the Warrior Poet Way or the Warrior Poet's Way?
The Warrior Poet Way.
Okay, and where can they get the book?
Everywhere books are sold, but if you go to thewarriorpoetway.com, that's the landing page for it.
Does that mean it's still in the like three remaining Barnes and Nobles?
If they're out there?
There's four.
I don't know.
Most bookstores have very few books.
It's all like games and Harry Potter craft.
And you know, if like, it's just like, I can't find any of the books I like here.
It's just, they'll have a few classics, but it's kind of like the well-known classics and nothing else.
And then there's these weird categories I don't even know about.
Like, you know, Japanese comic book things.
There'd be a massive section.
And then, like, philosophy.
It's like, nothing.
It's like LGBTQAIP children's books.
And you're like, you guys got Steinbeck?
Anything?
No?
War and Peace?
Art Twain?
All right.
I guess it's just the comic book sh!t for me.
Is it Pistol 3 Class?
Uh, that you, that you, uh, teach or take part in?
Yeah, so we teach pistol rifle classes around the country.
Okay, because I was reading your book, I'm trying to remember the... It's pistol, pistol three is what I thought.
Yeah, I know three gun is different, and you talk about an exercise that you do, which, uh, at first glance could seem a little weird, so I'd like for you to explain it to people, because it was interesting to me, um, well explain what it is, where you have people basically... Sure, so we want people to be better protectors, uh, and you're carrying guns, the only way to get good at gunfighting is to gunfight.
That's it.
So you learn draw, stroke, fundamentals.
You do all that jazz.
You learn how to shoot and stuff.
That's kind of like hitting a heavy bag, but at some point you got to put on spats or you got to put on pads and spar.
So you make them shoot each other.
We make them shoot each other.
In not deadly places.
With training munition.
Oh, well, see.
See the bully again.
I was ready for this.
You're like, can I shoot them and then do something?
You're like, all right, don't move until bang.
Oh.
And he would cheat.
He would put a dummy round in their gun.
Yeah, exactly.
Ever seen The Crow?
Oh, yeah.
This went dark.
Steven Seagal predicted it.
He said it was time to protect.
I've seen parts of The Crow.
I don't remember it very well.
It's okay.
Anyway, in Pistol 3, when people are just being introduced into force-on-force engagement, their heart rates up because these little munitions, I mean, it's like getting hit by a wasp.
You know, it is not a fun thing.
So their heart rates are up and what I do is I want to teach not just the fighting and mechanics and the tactics.
I want to do some stress inoculation training, which means the big thing is you got to be able to master that fear.
I want you calm as a cucumber when the world is falling apart, right?
And so what I'll do is I'll take two dudes.
I'll put you face to face.
You'll reach out hands so that you're both touching fingertips and I'll just hold y'all right there.
They're just holding fingertip to fingertip.
And I just let them wait there for a while.
Partially because it's good to let them sit in that horrible moment of anticipation and try to master fear and make a plan.
And another part because I'm a terrible human being and I think it's really funny.
That's the warrior less the poet.
I said I follow Jesus.
I didn't say I was anything like him.
It's a process.
Pistol 3 may change one day.
I wouldn't hold your breath.
This is what I do.
It works wonderfully.
And then on my command of fight, do whatever you think is best.
And so dudes will go for it.
Disarm, which we've taught them, or they'll break contact and shoot, or they'll just draw and go for it.
No Rexquando-isms here.
Figure it out.
And you see really quickly all the things you thought would work well in your keyboard commando way.
Right.
And then you're like, that didn't work at all.
I'm like, yes, I know.
Right.
I told you.
But I had a 45 and here's a 380.
It didn't have a 4.
Nope, that's not it.
It is not the size of the bullet.
It is the placement of the round for sure.
Though we would all agree, 22, not the ideal defense round.
Though it is the most lethal caliber, I believe, in America.
Well, that's because it's very common.
It's ubiquitous.
But it's also terrible in that a 22 will enter your body and ping-pong around.
Oh no, don't do that.
It'll tumble, but it won't bounce.
We just did it with guns in gear, where we went through and he was like, it'll tumble, but it doesn't bounce around.
Right, but some folks will get hit here and it comes out here.
No one wants to be shot with anything.
Yeah, but it's awful.
And so they're treating this and then you have a massive internal hemorrhage that they didn't know about and it was enclosed.
And so anyway, people die from 22s.
Yes, exactly.
Nine millimeter is really the caliber that won.
Right.
Yeah, that would make sense.
That's the one, everyone's carrying nine.
Yeah, and there are different choices, but it's one of those things that's like, look, if it's something that's adequate and you can fire it effectively, people get really off on the minutiae.
And often I find people who get really off on the minutiae, these are people who aren't really interested in the macro improvements that are necessary, like you're talking about.
It's like, if it doesn't start with a four, then you might as well just be carrying a fly swatter.
It's like, great, maybe you should lose 200 pounds at 420.
It happens all the time, right?
It's about being a jack-of-all-trades and at least a master of one, being both a warrior and a poet.
We're going to go to Mug Club wherever books are sold, and you can follow, of course, Jon on Twitter, Instagram.
If you're watching right now on Rumble, this is July.
I know it's often dead for news, but hit the like button.
You can click this button below and you can continue to watch on Mug Club, or maybe we'll just talk about I don't know.
We'll talk about fighting stuff and deadlifts.
I have an idea.
Oh, you have an idea?
Yeah.
Does it involve you hitting somebody?
He doesn't deserve it.
It involves you guys.
I don't like where it's going.
It's going to involve someone else being hurt, not him.
The bully.
That's fair.
Click the button.
Rumble.
Thank you, YouTube.
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