Tucker Carlson speaks at Cornerstone Nashville in October, 2018. Watch the full speech here: https://youtu.be/S1-ZwRZ2HGA?si=aFp-SJ0K31FZ0wRJ Follow Tucker on X: https://x.com/TuckerCarlson Text “TUCKER” to 44055 for exclusive updates! #TuckerCarlson #speech #debate #liberal #left #politics #news #lifeadvice #conservative #protest #tips #TCN #conservative
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|---|---|---|
| But the question really is, what is going on? | ||
| And it's a little bewildering for me since I have done a species of the same job for over 20 years. | ||
| You know, go on TV, debate the public policy issues. | ||
| They typically break down along left and right. | ||
| And it's been pretty straightforward. | ||
| You know, there's an argument about what the country ought to do corporately as a country. | ||
| And each side marshals evidence to support their respective cases. | ||
| I think we ought to do this. | ||
| And here's my evidence. | ||
| The other side says the same. | ||
| And viewers can decide who's got the most evidence. | ||
| This is often described as a left-right debate. | ||
| And it has been. | ||
| And now, with the temperature rising, I would argue to probably dangerous levels in Washington. | ||
| People often come up to me in airplanes and say, the partisan bitterness is so intense. | ||
| People are in their camps. | ||
| It's become tribal. | ||
| It's awful. | ||
| And of course, I agree with that completely. | ||
| But it does raise the question, what is this actually about? | ||
| And it's something that I've brooded on for the last year, year and a half, as it's gotten more intense. | ||
| And my initial assumption, as I just said, was that this was a debate over ideas. | ||
| And it's not. | ||
| It's nothing like that. | ||
| And one of the reasons that the rest of us are so unsettled by this is because we don't recognize what's actually happening. | ||
| This is a theological debate. | ||
| This is a spiritual debate. | ||
| And let me just say very clearly, it's not a debate between good and evil. | ||
| I know a lot of people on the other side, they're my neighbors. | ||
| I live in a city that voted 96% for a candidate I didn't vote for and would never vote for. | ||
| And they're good people, a lot of them. | ||
| Not all of them, but a lot of them are. | ||
| And a lot of them are my friends. | ||
| So when I'm debating someone, I don't assume that that person is a bad person because most of them aren't. | ||
| But that doesn't mean that it is not a religious debate. | ||
| That's what it is. | ||
| So my whole childhood into my adulthood, the debate was between people of faith and people of reason. | ||
| That was the way the debate was presented to us, between people who believed in God and people who believed in science. | ||
| Now, I was always more on the God side, but I acknowledge science. | ||
| That's no longer what it is. | ||
| And this came to me recently, maybe six months ago, during a debate on gender and the biological reality of gender, which is being challenged. | ||
| And let me just say at the outset that I am by temperament not a judgmental person and I actually don't care how people dress. | ||
| I hope you won't judge me for my ludicrous neckwear. | ||
| So I wasn't going into it hoping to attack anyone, but I was going into it with an assumption that I thought every person in the Western world had, which is that biology is real. | ||
| I had four children. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| And I didn't change a ton of diapers, but enough to know that biology is actually real. | ||
| Everything they told me in sixth grade turns out to be true. | ||
| We have boys and girls. | ||
| They grow up to become men and women. | ||
| This is not the product of our choice. | ||
| It's not what we want. | ||
| It's what happens organically because it is natural. | ||
| And nature, by its nature, is something over which we have no control. | ||
| We can't make the sun rise. | ||
| We can't stop the hurricanes. | ||
| We have to adjust our lives to the things we did not create and cannot control. | ||
| That is called reality. | ||
| It is as we find it. | ||
| And we are the ones who adapt. | ||
| All of a sudden, and this seems self-evident to me, that's not a political question. | ||
| By the way, if you can stop the sun from rising, go ahead and show me. | ||
| And I'll be impressed. | ||
| And you can redefine the terms of the debate. | ||
| But until you do that, I'm going to assume that we're both working off the same set of notes here called biological reality. | ||
| And in the middle of that debate, which very quickly became a non-debate, became one person talking and me staring like a golden retriever, like, well, really? | ||
| I learned that I was talking to someone who believed that he had control over nature itself. | ||
| I don't think there should be two sexes, therefore there aren't. | ||
| Now, at the level of like college dorm room theorizing, I could, you know, okay, maybe there should be more sexes. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Maybe there should be free ice cream. | ||
| I'm for that. | ||
| But there isn't. | ||
| And there aren't. | ||
| And in that moment, I realized I was not having a political conversation, I was having a theological one. | ||
| And once I began to see the world through that lens, everything made sense. | ||
| There are two camps. | ||
| They are not Republicans and Democrats. | ||
| They are not liberals and conservatives. | ||
| Those terms mean less than they have meant in my lifetime. | ||
| I couldn't exactly tell you what a conservative is on the issues. | ||
| What tax rate does a conservative support? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Is a conservative for invading Syria? | ||
| I'm not sure. | ||
| So it's actually not the root argument. | ||
| The root argument is: do you think you're in control of the universe or don't you? | ||
| That is what we're actually debating. | ||
| And it goes by various names. | ||
| There's a lot of deception that prevents us from seeing what's really being discussed. | ||
| But the truth is, the people who run most of our institutions in this country, and by the way, they're of both parties, tend to believe that they are wholly in charge. | ||
| You heard your pastor sum it up almost parenthetically, but very precisely. | ||
| God raises us from the dead. | ||
| You will die. | ||
| That's the one thing you can't control. | ||
| Doesn't matter how many boxes you check, how virtuous you are, in the end, you will lie, likely alone, terrified, and in pain, and exit this world. | ||
| That awaits all of us. | ||
| And on some level, we know that every moment of every day. | ||
| And Christians look at that, which is the basic and most painful truth of life, death, and say, I have a hope of what comes after. | ||
| That is the essence of, from my perspective, as a non-theologian talk show host, far be it from me to lecture you on theology, as an Episcopalian, it's kind of ludicrous I'm even saying this. | ||
| But that is the most basic of all truths. | ||
| And by the way, it is also the root of all anxiety. | ||
| Your anxiety, if you strip it away, if you get the onion to its core, you know you're going to die. | ||
| Only faith in God answers what happens next. | ||
| So there is the other half of our country, I wouldn't even say it's half, that looks at that and says, no, we have control of life and death. | ||
| This is really a debate about who's in charge. | ||
| It's a debate ultimately in charge. | ||
| It's a debate over power. | ||
| And the one thing that powerful people can never admit is that their power is limited. | ||
| In fact, it's harder to get them to admit that. | ||
| I'm just searching for a metaphor here. | ||
| Maybe than to get a camel through the eye of a needle. | ||
| That's what that's really about, in my opinion. | ||
| The more power you have, the harder it is for you to admit that in the end you have no power. | ||
| That is the thing they are hiding from you. | ||
| And that is the thing they will go to any length to prevent you from knowing. | ||
| That in the end, they're as sad and terrified as you are, as we all are, because that's the nature of living as a human being, with the unknown and with the powerlessness of being human and not being God. | ||
| So, look, here's the point: used to be the faithful versus the secular. | ||
| I don't know if that was ever true. | ||
| I don't think there is a secular person, period. | ||
| We are hardwired for faith, it is baked in the cake, it's who we are. | ||
| So, the question is: are you going to worship God or are you going to worship man? | ||
|
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That's the question. | |
| And so, that is the debate. | ||
| And you see it. | ||
| I mean, that is why if you look up at your screen, and I hope, though I do work in TV, I hope you don't spend too much time watching television. | ||
| Probably not so good for you. | ||
| When you look up and you see people and you think, wait, I can't tell if I agree with that person or not. | ||
| Person says he agrees with me, but I can tell he's not speaking for me. | ||
| It's because the categories have been completely shifted around. | ||
| There are people who say they're in your party, on your side, have your beliefs, and yet at the very bottom of their assumptions is the belief that they're in charge. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| This is what the debate is-I don't want to get political, but the one subject I'll mention, political subject, is abortion. | ||
| And by the way, I'm not political at home. | ||
| We don't talk politics in my house. | ||
| I never talk to my children about politics or with my wife. | ||
| The only subject that I've ever broached with my four children is the question of abortion. | ||
| Not because I wanted to, but because it's the most basic question: Do you have the power to take life? | ||
| Is it up to you to decide when life ends? | ||
| Are you God? | ||
| That's the real question behind it. | ||
| Are you God? | ||
| And I think it's pretty clear that no, you're not. | ||
| And I've been, you know, pretty hesitant about telling my kids what tax rate they should support. | ||
| I don't have any hesitance at all in telling them the truth. | ||
| You're not God. | ||
| You don't get to decide when to end life. | ||
| It's not up to you. | ||
| You weren't born with that power. | ||
| You will never have that power. | ||
| The only time you get to take life is in self-defense. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| And abortion doesn't qualify. | ||
| I think once you know that, it puts everything in perspective. | ||
| Once you know that you're not in charge, your whole worldview changes. | ||
| You're much less vulnerable to hubris, which is the great killer. | ||
| What comes before the fall? | ||
| Anyone? | ||
|
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I love that. | |
| Can I get an amen? | ||
| They don't say that in my church. | ||
| I love that. | ||
| Can I get a witness? | ||
| My whole life I've wanted to say that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You just made a dream come true for an Episcopalian boy from Washington. | ||
| That's so awesome. | ||
|
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Excuse me. | |
| Anyway, it's not a question of what specific bullet points in somebody's platform you believe or support. | ||
| I'm sure if you unfurled the Republican platform, there are things I've never heard of and don't agree with. | ||
| Same with the Democratic platform. | ||
| The only question that matters is: do you think you're God? | ||
| So I don't know. | ||
| I'm sure all my neighbors would lay down their lives for the right to have an abortion. | ||
| I don't think any of them would have an abortion or want their girls to have an abortion. | ||
| They think it's disgusting. | ||
| I don't think anybody wants to have an abortion. | ||
| I think people actually do have abortions tend to be alone and scared and poor. | ||
| They're not doing it because they want to. | ||
| They're doing it because there's no one there to support them in their decision not to. | ||
| No one thinks it's a happy thing. | ||
| So why are people willing to pound on the front doors of the Supreme Court over it? | ||
| You saw it yesterday. | ||
| Because they love abortions. | ||
| Disgusting. | ||
| No one even uses the name. | ||
| It's so disgusting. | ||
| They hide it behind euphemisms. | ||
| No. | ||
| What they're arguing for is the pretense that they're God. | ||
| We reserve the right to end life because we're in charge. | ||
| That's what they're really saying. | ||
| That's what the debate is really about. | ||
| You'll hear people say the news is full of lies. |