Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #678 "What I Hope My Sons Will Learn From the Life of Charlie Kirk": with Carolyn McKinney

Transcript

#678 "What I Hope My Sons Will Learn From the Life of Charlie Kirk": with Carolyn McKinney · Claymore: Become Who You Are

0:00
SPEAKER_00: They talk about white privilege or whatever, and I was like, I don't think white privilege is a thing, but I'll tell you what your privilege is.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Your privilege is that you have two married parents who will remain married for the rest of their lives.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna drive that point home.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: So I'm from Chicago, as we discussed right before we came on the show.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: And uh 80%, 80% of the minority population in Chicago in the inner city is are are born out of wedlock.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: They have no fathers in their lives.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing because we hear we need more money for education, more money for this, more money for that, white privilege, etc.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: But it's exactly what you said.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: They're fatherless boys.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Prisons are filled with fatherless boys, fatherless men.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: John Adams said it very poignantly.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: He said, Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: And then George Washington, in his farewell address, said, Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Become Who You Are podcast, a production of the John Paul Two Renewal Center.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm Jack Riggert, your host.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, for all the young people that are joining us, especially part of our apostolate called Claymore, Militas Christian, you see the big Claymore sword behind me.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: That's our logo for that.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of young guys, especially, and young girls too, but we're working mostly with young men and all the people that love them, I always like to say, including their girlfriends, etc., they're they're sensing something wrong.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: And they're stepping up to the plate, they're asking a lot of questions.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: The young people and they said they they've been really touched by the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: They're starting to really understand the spiritual warfare that we're fighting.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: And uh, I read a couple of recent articles, and I want to continue to pay tribute to Charlie Kirk.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: He he touched all of us when he was assassinated, but you also see uh the vile contempt for him and and coming on on the other side.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: So we want to explore that a little bit.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: I have with me a Carolyn McKinney.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: She's a she's a Catholic wife, mother, and a business owner.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: Very excited to have her.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: She's the author of these articles I just um referenced, one in Catholic Exchange, what I hope my sons will learn from the life of Charlie Kirk.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: And if we have time to get to it or we'll weave it in, another one for Crisis Magazine, Liberalism Died with Charlie Kirk.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: Very, very important articles.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: And thank you, Carolyn.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Great to have you uh with us today.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: And thanks for paying tribute to Charlie.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: Tell us a little bit about your impetus behind writing those articles.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for having me, Jack.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate being here.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: My impetus for writing the articles was just really how I was struck by the assassination, and it really helped me to work out all my feelings on that paper, really.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted I I have four sons and three of them.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: How many children all together?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Five.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so one girl, huh?
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Real quick, where does she fit in?
3:10
SPEAKER_00: She's number four.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: Number four, okay.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so congratulations, Carol.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: We're we're very overwhelmed, and the girls in this family are very overwhelmed, so it's her and I against the rest.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm the oldest of five boys, my poor mom.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: She still suffers with us, you know.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: I I I have to say, I am a boy mom though.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: The God made me to have sons, so um I I enjoy them so much.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Um the you know, my sons are of uh are young, young men, you know, 20, 18, and 16.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: That's our that's our apostolate just that age.
3:43
SPEAKER_02: Gen Z kind of and a little older.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: We go up into the 30s, but yeah.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: So uh so yeah, they're all Gen Z.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: And you know, they're we're shepherding them into adulthood, and it's difficult right now.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Very difficult for men, you know, especially for I mean, I think it's a little better for Catholic men because, you know, we've we've affirmed them.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: If we've affirmed their masculinity, we've taught them, you know, that it's natural and good for them to be protectors and they need to be, you know, servants of the weaker around them.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we their school teaches them chivalrous acts.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we're we're in this community that really has not warped their sense of manhood like our greater culture has.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's still a shock to them to get out into that greater culture and you know, to see how the people around them, the men around them are treated, or how they're treated by other people outside of our, you know, Catholic bubble.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And you know, they they see the media, they saw plenty of Charlie Kirk videos, they they know the politics of the age, they know all that.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted them to have a good reaction to a tragedy.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: You know, the assassination hit us all hard, and I was afraid that a lot of men who were attached to Charlie Kirk would just react in this anger and and and I I didn't want that to happen to my sons or to the other young men that I know.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think uh Carolyn, to your point, I I and I don't think it has in general.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: No.
5:23
SPEAKER_02: When I'm talking to young men, that's why I showcased this in the introduction with the spiritual warfare.
5:29
SPEAKER_02: They're starting to understand that you know the the liberal, right, attacking Charlie Kirk is really not my enemy.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: My enemy is is the enemy.
5:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, Satan is the enemy.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: And and it's you couldn't say that a decade ago.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: People would think you're off your rocker, but now they see it.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: Now they see it.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: And so I think when we when we couch at that with that spiritual battle and say, you know, this is really good versus evil, isn't it?
5:54
SPEAKER_02: And if we we just promulgate evil and violence and hit violence with violence, everybody loses, don't we, Carolyn?
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and you know, this was written just two days, well, I it was really the day after his assassination that I wrote it, and it ran two days later.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And so there was still this kind of unknown factor of how the right is going to respond.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think that I think that it was clear within a few days that the right was responding with prayer and going back to church and you know, Charlie's memorial service basically being, you know, a Protestant, you know, worship service.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: All that and and and even Erica Kirk publicly forgiving her husband's killer, like amazing.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: To me, and I had hoped in the you know, in the few days after, I had I was really hoping and praying that she was gonna do that because while it's so hard, I I can't I can't even imagine the spiritual reserves that it took to do that.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: But that is the most incredible testimony that I could think of in that moment.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, she she really demonstrated what it is to be a Christian by extending forgiveness.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, the we we all say the Lord's Prayer forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will forgive us in the same measure that we will forgive other people.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, that forgiveness that we extend is so crucial.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's not often that we give we are given opportunities to visibly show that in such a public way, and she was given this incredible opportunity that she was just able to be this witness that was amazing.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's well said.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: And when you I want to dig just a little bit more on that, when when we understand the martyrs in the church, you know, and how their blood, and Erica got that, Charlie's wife got that.
8:00
SPEAKER_02: She understood that there is going to be some good, God will take evil and turn it into good.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: You know, but but this takes a real reserve, doesn't it?
8:08
SPEAKER_02: This woman, I was amazed.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: I I didn't know who she was really.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: Two small children, Carolyn, and you just go, Oh my god, my heart.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: It's still right now when I'm speaking to you, my heart, and I've got so many feelings going on that my heart aches.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I could actually shed a tear right now when I'm talking to you.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's how deeply when I look at his picture, yeah, when I see him s you know speak in a video, I mean, it's it's very touching, isn't it?
8:35
SPEAKER_02: So thank you again for taking the time to do that because I I think this is a a time to really see the contrast that when you understand again this word spiritual warfare, but we're going someplace.
8:47
SPEAKER_02: And that's what I think Erica latched on to, don't you, that we're going someplace.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: This this life has a meaning, a purpose, and it's gonna get over.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: And if all we do is just focus on this life, we're gonna get there's gonna be vitrol and and yeah, we're taking justice in our own hands and blah blah blah blah blah.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean we're no better than the pagans if we don't actually believe in, you know, heaven after this world and and act accordingly, right?
9:15
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, really the things that I talked about in this article to my sons was highlighting all the things that I wanted them to take away from Charlie Kirk's life, right?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And the biggest one was just family, you know, like they're just there's not a lot of people getting married, there's not a lot of people having children, you know, and Charlie and Erica have been so such amazing ambassadors of like getting married young and having children and having as many children as you can.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, he had this incredible commitment to his family, and you know, you see so many video clips of him and his daughter, um, or or even his son who was even younger, um, and just how much he truly loved his kids and and put them, you know, put Erica and his kids as the first and foremost priority in his life.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it was undoubtedly true that right after God was his family in terms of importance, like he had his priorities in order, right?
10:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and what I think young people, I I think that's a great point, and I think young people are starting to understand, at least the ones we're talking to now, but but we have to proclaim this that those are not two separate issues, the love of God and the love of your neighbor, and the love, of course, uh of marriage and the family, these are linked, aren't they?
10:43
SPEAKER_02: That that, you know, first of all, I I can't give what I don't have.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: That's what we're seeing in this culture, right?
10:49
SPEAKER_02: So many children being born out of wedlock.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: So many people that don't have families.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes when I'm speaking to young people, they they didn't even have a family.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: They have no faith, but they sense something's wrong.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: So this is why your articles and what you're proclaiming here is so important that they have to step into relationships.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: Part of our apostolate is to form communities and friendships and stuff that we can talk about these things and for people that don't have families to join other uh men and women that that uh that will be become their family, you know.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: But so these are linked, aren't they?
11:22
SPEAKER_02: This this love of God.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: I can't give what I don't have, so I have to receive love and then become a person of love.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: Charlie understood that.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think he was really trying to turn around and reach those people who didn't didn't have that family life, right?
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Like for a lot of us Catholics, we're trying to conserve or preserve what we knew to be normal, you know, 50 years ago, 30 years ago.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine that that that you're right?
11:52
SPEAKER_02: How much has this changed?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, so many don't know what a stable family actually is.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I had my oldest son, he he was dating this girl for a little bit, and uh it's just somebody that he met at work who was not a Christian, and he was at their home one time and he came home just absolutely shocked.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: He's like, their mother doesn't cook dinner, they don't eat together, the the house was disorderly, the like everything about their family, and she was on their fourth marriage, you know, the there there was like met multiple stepkids in the same house.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was just it was just a disaster.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, he has such a big heart and he's like, Mom, can can I just invite her to Sunday dinner so she knows what it what an ordered family life looks like?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yes, that's fine, but you know, it it it's gonna take more than just a glance, you know, a glimpse.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: There we have a whole generation of kids that are that whose whose parents have not given them an example of stability.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: They have not given them an example of of a loving sacrificial marriage relationship.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: There's no there's no reserves for those people that those kids are gonna have to go and find that information elsewhere, right?
13:15
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have to go and adopt, you know, mentors that can help them to get a vision of what an ordered family life looks like.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Oh, what you said is so important.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: Again, I I don't want to over state this apostle, but that's exactly you just articulated perfectly why we started that.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: To to to give them a foundation in the truth and love them in the truth and and speak truth in love, bring them into a relationship, and that's what this is.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: It helps them, it helps me say disciple a young guy or a young person that I could be a woman too, but we do focus on young men.
13:51
SPEAKER_02: But but what we're finding with those young men, uh, Carolyn, and you addressed this already, is they're dating.
13:56
SPEAKER_02: They think that bringing a woman, say, home to your house and sitting down for dinner, and that woman, they get it while they're sitting there, but they have they carry so much baggage.
14:06
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and you were starting to allude to that that it's gonna take more than me trying to be kind or loving to this woman, because if I do get into a relationship with her, if I do marry her, she's gonna have to really come into a deep spiritual life.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, she won't get rid of this baggage, will she?
14:25
SPEAKER_02: She'll she'll carry it into our marriage.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, God bless those marriages because they're they can be chaotic.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: I know lots of them.
14:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:33
SPEAKER_02: Lots of them.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think too, you know, without there's no replacement for modeling behavior, right?
14:40
SPEAKER_00: That's why we as parents, we model, we model the best behavior to our children, right?
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, or that's what we're supposed to be doing.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: We'll put it that way.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, years ago I started noticing, you know, eight to ten year olds dropping F-bombs on soccer fields and knowing that it's their parents that are, you know, modeling bad behavior, right?
15:01
SPEAKER_00: We have a massive parenting problem in America, but we can talk about that another time.
15:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: But there is no replacement for modeling behavior, right?
15:10
SPEAKER_00: And and if the mo if there if you were raised without seeing modeled good behavior, you're going to need to seek out, you have to be proactive to seek out that modeling now so that you can learn and understand what the good life actually is.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And so um I I I think that a lot of these kids just have a really kind of rough road of learn of relearning b their behaviors.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: And and that takes determination and courage and uh and resolve.
15:47
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15:51
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15:57
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16:03
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16:07
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16:10
SPEAKER_02: A couple couple things to share with people.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: Love Ed.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: Love Ed is just such an important um apostolate.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: So it's in within our apostolate, the John Paul 2 Renewal Center.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: This helps parents give the talk to their children.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh we're trying to push back on all these gender ideologies and the porn culture and give the give children the uh the truth and do it through their parents, and we help them do that.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: The other one is really taken off too.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: It's Claymore, Militants Christie.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: Soldiers for Christ.
16:42
SPEAKER_02: That's where you see the sword behind me.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: That's the big sword, that's our logo for Claymore, that's a Claymore sword, and this is for young people, especially young men, Gen Z, high school all the way through, let's let's call it till they're till they're uh 30 years old or so.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: They're starting to really understand that something nefarious, very toxic, is going on in the culture.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: And so uh they're stepping into the church and we're discipling them.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: So we want to help get those the word out about those things.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: And lastly, consider uh financially supporting us.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Everything's in the show notes.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: Hey, God bless you.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: Thanks again.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: You have to you have to kind of leave your life behind like how you were raised and and embrace this entirely new paradigm.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: And so it's m it's much more than, like you said, taking her home for family dinner.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's an actual conversion in culture.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you can see how the culture takes their time.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: Like what you just said, metanoia, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_02: I have to turn.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: We all stand in a sense before that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right?
17:43
SPEAKER_02: And instead of turning away, I have to turn into to God.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: But I so much noise, so much confusion.
17:50
SPEAKER_02: And what we're talking about here is going back and laying a base, right?
17:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're actually not going back to lay a base, you're you're modeling, and then you're you're taking that on yourself.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: But there's so much noise.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: They they have to get away from the porn, they got to get away from the phones, they got to get away from all this the social media noise that they have.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: They might have to form new friendships.
18:11
SPEAKER_02: So so you're right.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: But but I think despite all that, that's what Charlie was doing.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was waking those people up, and they were moving, uh, Carolyn.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: Do your boys, like you said, they're fairly young.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: Give us the age against you said 16 and the the older ones.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: 20, 18, 16.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: So so when they have meet people outside or friends outside, what kind of conversations are they having with those with those guys?
18:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, do they have a sense that because if we don't get this turned around, it's their future, right?
18:45
SPEAKER_02: I I have eight grandchildren too, and I look at those, and and six of them are are girls, and you know, they're starting to date the older ones.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: And I know that each one of the, even if they really date some respectful guy, they have been exposed to things like hardcore porn and all these ideas, and they they have to be very strong themselves in order to maybe model what true love really is to a young guy who wants true love but doesn't know what it is.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know it's a it's a kind of sad reality that we're in right now.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, I I I will say that my kids, until they graduate high school, they don't get a lot of external, you know, one-on-one time with with others, you know, like maybe on the soccer field and uh you know they hear language, but um there's not there's not a lot of deep conversations happening with non-Christians, we'll put it that way.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: But when they now I will say that you know, my my oldest worked on a worked on a landscaping crew one summer when he was in high school.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: That was an eye-opening experience for him too, because just the lives of the men on that crew were just in such disarray and they, you know, they all had some sort of addiction.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: They it it was it was a mess.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, he really he got some exposure to the world that my others quite haven't had yet, you know.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think his his overall response has been just gratitude because he recognizes what he has been given, you know.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: And I I used to tell him, well, I still tell my kids, uh, you know, they talk about white privilege or whatever.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't think white privilege is a thing, but I'll tell you what your privilege is, your privilege is that you have to married parents who will remain married for the rest of their lives.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: I was like, that that gives you an edge over your peers in almost every category, and nobody will talk about it, but that's the truth.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: And you know, we're here for you, we're your foundation, and that's gonna make the difference in your life.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm just gonna drive that point home.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: So I'm from Chicago, as we discussed right before we came on the show, and uh 80%, 80% of the minority population in Chicago in the inner city, is are are born out of wedlock.
21:07
SPEAKER_02: They have no fathers in their lives.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing because we hear we need more money for education, more money for this, more money for that, white privilege, etc.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: But it's exactly what you said.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: They're fatherless boys.
21:19
SPEAKER_02: Prisons are filled with fatherless boys, fatherless men.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: And so you're exactly right.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: And so I think we have to keep talking about this because as much as the evil one doesn't want us to do that, he look at this is anti-human what's happening in our culture, right?
21:35
SPEAKER_02: The destruction of the child in the womb, the gender ideologies, etc.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: Well, what's the solution?
21:41
SPEAKER_02: The solution is what you just described.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: Let's not make it overly complicated, you know.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: Put a father and a mother in a home, hopefully informed by some faith, right?
21:51
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, they they're you know they're gonna run out of together.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: And so they're gonna get attacked too.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: But you're you're right.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: And so this is all reminding us what, Carolyn, to get back to what Charlie talked about, which is a foundation.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: And I want to talk a little bit about because now we have a socialist slash communist potential mayor in New York City, which is not really so far from you.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you've got to be feeling it more than we do even in Chicago, even though we have the same thing in Chicago.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: But people are looking for solutions, and they go, and I think this is where your second article in Crisis Magazine was so good, liberalism died with Charlie Kirk.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: And I like to go there just a little bit for our audience, because you know, sometimes we think this is left or right.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's either socialism, communism, or it's it's free market capitalism.
22:41
SPEAKER_02: And these young people are growing up, and what they're being told is free market capitalism is against you, and the only thing that's going to support you is Big Daddy State.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: Well, if I don't have a father or an unstable home, I may I may look at Big Daddy State and say, well, I don't care.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: I need something, and and I'll grab for that.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: But but but those aren't the two options really.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, liberalism, you know, strict liberalism, right, is you know, kind of you're you're defining as free market, right?
23:07
SPEAKER_02: Uh in you know, and free markets and stuff too.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, the liberalism in the classical sense, as in the philosophical sense, not not the way that Rush Limbaugh described Democrats, right?
23:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so let's define that for our our audience the way you're talking about it here, because it's it's gonna be it's gonna I think it's gonna be important to a point I want to make.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's there's I reference in my article this article by uh Professor Patrick Denine, who is a um who is a professor at I believe he's still at Notre Dame.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: He was at um at uh Georgetown before that.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: And are they still Catholic universities?
23:48
SPEAKER_02: Those I don't want to go, I don't want to I shouldn't go there.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
23:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: There are Catholics at those universities.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there sure are.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: We'll put it that way.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: And and he he wrote an article back in 2012.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm dating myself, but it really rocked my world.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm uh at that point in time, I'm a mom with like four little kids, and I'm still keeping my mind fresh by reading First Things and you know, Crisis Magazine and all these places.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: And he wrote this article called Unsustainable Liberalism.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: And he actually talks about how there's there was this revolution, liberalism was this revolution in thought, but it's not exactly what we think it is.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: So we associate liberalism with free markets, individual rights, that kind of thing, right?
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Private property.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Those things pre-existed, liberalism, he points out.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Those were present in like late medieval thought before the Enlightenment.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: But the big revolution in liberalism was that, first of all, base of politics is now resting upon the idea of voluntarism.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: So the, and he defines that as the free, unfettered, and autonomous choice of individuals.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And you can see kind of things, you can see the outer workings of that when uh you look at Locke, who talks about the social contract and individuals choosing their destiny, right?
25:20
SPEAKER_02: And I and I want to stop you there just just because that's the point I wanted to make for our younger audience that they don't think of it as liberals, you know, like like we're talking about here, right?
25:31
SPEAKER_02: These liberals that are socialists and comedy.
25:33
SPEAKER_02: This is not what we're talking about here.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Really, for all of American history, really, Americans have been liberal.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Americans of every stripe have been liberal.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and that's because we have this like large commitment to individual liberty and and specifically this idea of volunteerism where where we come together as a community to create our government and uh and we need to maximize our individual choices.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: But in the past 20 to 30 years, there's been this rise of the illiberal left.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's it's it's this segment of the left that is no longer committed to liberal ideas.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: And so they don't actually have this commitment to freedom, they have this commitment to a certain outcome, often authoritarian or totalitarian.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, my article is basically saying that, you know, liberalism, as Patrick Denine said, liberalism itself is unsustainable.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And he talks about how this volunteerist logic ultimately affects all relationships.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: And and it breaks down the family, it breaks down communities.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're really at the end of what he believes is the end of life for liberalism.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And what comes after liberalism, I'm not sure.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure that he's entirely sure.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: He did write a book about it, which I haven't read, but he kind of was a canary in a coal mine talking about how this, how our current situation is really the end stage of this unsustainable liberalism.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: And so we're now, you know, we have this segment, which is an unalarmingly large segment, seemingly, of the left now that is illiberal already.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: And it was really the right that was upholding these liberal values, trying to conserve what we have had in our country for, you know, many generations now.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: But when Charlie Kirk was assassinated for carrying out liberal actions, which is free speech and you know, articulating arguments and trying to convince others to his side, right?
27:57
SPEAKER_00: When he was killed for uh, you know, for carrying out liberal activities, I think the right is starting to wake up and think, why are we still upholding these things?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Why are we still playing this game when the other side isn't?
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, does that mean that a big section of the right is going to be a liberal like or abandon individual rights or you know, embrace authoritarianism?
28:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's the case.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, one of the things that I said in my article was that one of the main hallmarks, like m one of the main outer workings in my lifetime of this end-stage liberalism has been this incredible like um insistence that we are tolerant, tolerant of everything at all times, right?
28:53
SPEAKER_00: You must be tolerant of this girl who thinks he's a boy or she's a boy, and not only must you tolerate it, you must go along with we with this charade, right?
29:05
SPEAKER_00: You must tolerate, you know, this person walking in a pride parade in your community.
29:10
SPEAKER_02: You must tolerate uh story or drag story or right and exactly we speak in the public school systems here about the pornography they're showing kids.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: They have an LBGTQ cover on it, but really what they describe inside is pornography, and what we see is that the the mass effect of this is they're they're stealing the innocence of children, right?
29:34
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
29:34
SPEAKER_02: So this is devastating.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: What we're talking about here is devastating.
29:37
SPEAKER_02: And what what I think I got really out of it from a practical aspect, and I'll throw this back at you.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: So, how how did these young people that we're working with, how do they pick this up and understand this?
29:48
SPEAKER_02: Charlie was was trying to be tolerant of everybody, right?
29:51
SPEAKER_02: And and and we need to to love everybody.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: We're called to love them, and I think that's why he was so civil.
29:57
SPEAKER_02: Everybody said, How could he argue with these people or talk to And he didn't lose his temper very often.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, uh Tucker Carlson just talked about that.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: He kept losing his temper, and he goes, Oh my gosh, I'm here to speak, you know, because Charlie's not here, and I keep losing my temper.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: How did he do that?
30:12
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think he looked at them and he understood that the enemy is the enemy, that's that this is really a spiritual battle.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: And these people that he's trying to talk to have been so malformed by the culture, by their families, that you can't really reason with them.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: So what happens?
30:29
SPEAKER_02: You're trying to use read reason to bring out the truth.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: But when people are atheists, or even if they didn't choose it, right?
30:37
SPEAKER_02: I have no God, I have no formation, your reason has become very unreasonable, and it's our reason that wants to seek the truth.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: So if my reason is not working well, I'm not looking for the truth.
30:49
SPEAKER_02: Right.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: So I don't want to listen to your story.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: And so if you come out and you're telling me a story that I don't like, I'm going to assassinate you.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: And uh let me ask you this.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: So we go again, we've got the socialist, communist mayor, and people say, Well, I I guess I shouldn't vote for a communist socialist, right?
31:07
SPEAKER_02: But should I, you know, should should we just embrace liberalism?
31:12
SPEAKER_02: And you say, neither one of those is going to work ultimately.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: It's unsustainable on either side because we have to be formed underneath that.
31:21
SPEAKER_02: So here's the third option that we actually take in, let's call it Jesus Christ, huh?
31:27
SPEAKER_02: This is a Catholic Christian show, and say, you know, we have to be formed by the truth.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, God gave us reason, intellect, and free will.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: And so I have to seek the truth, and I'm then I'm free to choose, hopefully, the good.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: This is what our decision is.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: What is good, right?
31:43
SPEAKER_02: What is good for uh for the person that I see?
31:46
SPEAKER_02: In other words, if you kill babies, if you don't care about marriage in the family, is that good for us?
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Is that good for society?
31:54
SPEAKER_02: So we have to go back to your earlier points.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: What is good for a person to grow up?
31:58
SPEAKER_02: They they need a family.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: First that they need life, and then they need a family, and they have to be formed.
32:03
SPEAKER_02: It's it's our founding fathers that you mentioned in the article, said we have to be a moral and religious people, John Adams said.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: And that's what we lost.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: We we took liberalism, we took God out, faith out, the virtues out, the values out, and now we all just become greedy people trying to grab what we can, you know?
32:22
SPEAKER_02: And there you go.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're about to see that with EBT running out soon.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: But I would say that you know, most people in our country now don't realize the foundation that they were given and how far we are from that foundation.
32:34
SPEAKER_03: That's a great point you made, yeah.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: You brought up the John Adams quote, and George Washington said the same thing in his farewell address that do you have that quote in front of you?
32:43
SPEAKER_02: I I may have it if you don't, but do you have it?
32:45
SPEAKER_02: Let's let's bring that quote out, will you?
32:47
SPEAKER_02: Because this is important.
32:48
SPEAKER_02: This is George Washington, our first president.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: John Adams said it very poignantly.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: He said, Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And then George Washington in his farewell address said, Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, to our founders, virtue was if essential to the functioning of our republic.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: And even here in New Hampshire, our constitution still says that the legislature should cherish education in the virtues, and it lists some bit virtues specifically.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Like the whole purpose of compulsory education, at least in New Hampshire, was to rear the next generation in the virtues.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: It had nothing to do with reading, writing, writing, arithmetic, although it did do those things.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: But the end of education was to educate a virtuous citizenry, right?
33:52
SPEAKER_00: And we have come so far, it's 180 from that, in fact.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: They are grimming them into sexual sin, you know, and socializing them into terrible, you know, vicious behavior.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, I think most people don't realize kind of how how far we've fallen on that.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, one of the things that I said in my article, I'm not a big government solution type of gal.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think the problems to our or the solutions to our problems are really necessarily a government solution.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: Like there are some, of course, because the size of government makes it impossible to do a lot of things.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: But in terms of really fixing our problems, it's having to fix the culture.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: And that takes our hard work, right?
34:39
SPEAKER_00: It takes takes us following Jordan Peterson's advice and making our own bed and you know, really helping the people around us to see the vision of the good, the true, and the beautiful and to order their lives to God.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is this is our Christian moment.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: We need to re-evangelize our culture if we have any hope of saving it, you know.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:01
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's just a great point as we start to uh wind down here, is that you know, Plato's, you know, was in in the and the ancient Greeks understood this, that you know, this Eros, this great desire even to love and be loved, was also connected with with everything that's true, good, and beautiful, especially the beauty of love.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: If we don't get back to that, and so this even goes further, I have to get my heart back.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: At the very basis, you know, Alexander Schultz and Nitson on the gulag for eight years, and he sees all the atrocities in there, but not just perpetrated on the people that were being held there, but even amongst themselves, and even the a guard could be nice, but be kind, even in the midst of this of this terror, and other ones can just be, you know, just murderous, right?
35:48
SPEAKER_02: And and taking advantage of people, etc., etc.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: And he said at the end of the day, he understood that that every single individual human heart had a battle between good and evil.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: So we have to get our hearts back.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: We have to understand what the beauty of marriage and the family is.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's the basic building block of every civilization.
36:07
SPEAKER_02: Take that out.
36:08
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing else that's going to replace it.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: It's impossible.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: So if we always get back to that, keep life, right?
36:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, this is in in our declaration of independence that that life, liberty, right?
36:21
SPEAKER_02: And the pursuit of happiness, and and they were almost put in property in there and decided not to at the last second.
36:26
SPEAKER_02: But, anyways, you have to have life.
36:28
SPEAKER_02: So we got to support life.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: We got to support marriage and the family.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing out there, there's no institution that can replace that, Carolyn.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: And then we have to be well formed, you know, with our virtues and values.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: And where do we get those from?
36:40
SPEAKER_02: I think your article was so good in the name of Patrick Denin's article, Unsustainable Liberalism, where you said, you know, we took it for granted and then it went away.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: And that's where we're at.
36:52
SPEAKER_02: But but the young generation needs to hear what you're saying because we have to put that back.
36:57
SPEAKER_02: We have to recapture those to move forward.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like a parent would say to me, Jack, I'm just gonna allow my kid to make their own value judgments.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: I said, your kid is seven years old.
37:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't have to go to church because he's gonna create.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: I I said, we I said, did you feel that you were you were qualified to create your own value system at seven years old?
37:18
SPEAKER_02: I said, no, dude, you have to help them until it's like the Kit Ten Commandments.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: God gives you those and says, hey, here's your guidelines.
37:26
SPEAKER_02: At the end, I want a connection, an intimacy with you.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: But in the meantime, if you're not sure, don't kill anybody, don't lie, don't steal, and honor your mom and dad, right?
37:34
SPEAKER_02: And these are all good things.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: We have to get that back, don't we, Carolyn?
37:37
SPEAKER_00: That's the parenting problem I'm talking about, by the way.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it is.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: Parents are, you know, the Bible says, and a lot of people will quote this, you know, spare the rod, spoil the child, right?
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh now I'm I'm not one for corporal punishment, but but the idea is that if you don't discipline your child, they will, he or she will become, you know, something that you won't like ultimately, and something that will ultimately not be good for society.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think this also ties into fatherless homes.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, the reason so many boys uh, you know, grow up into prisons when they're fatherless is because they were not given the authority figure in the home.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think that even impacts our relationship with God.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a father in your home, 100%.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: How do you relate to God the Father in heaven?
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: And and I think just keep that thought.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: But but this is why we have to have patience with young people.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: This is why Charlie, part of the reason he had patience, because he realized that if to your point, I'm gonna just reiterate what you said because it's an important point, that if you don't have a dad, or if your dad was an alcoholic or or or right or somebody that wasn't close, this is what God the Father is like, right?
38:51
SPEAKER_02: So we have to overcome that.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: So we have to have patience, don't we, Carol, with with the people we need.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, this attack on the family is an attack on God and and his authority and his created order, you know, like this decades of smash the patriarchy, God is the patriarchy, people.
39:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, we have to realize that God is is a loving, merciful father.
39:14
SPEAKER_02: He's a Charlie Kirk type father.
39:16
SPEAKER_02: Charlie Kirk took that grace, didn't he?
39:19
SPEAKER_02: And he lived that out, like you said, you know, holding hands.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: I I still got this image in my mind with this little one-year-old boy, and and then picking up his daughter with the other hand, and you just go, Oh man, this is what our father in heaven does.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's there for you in prayer.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: Open up your hearts in prayer, open up to him.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: He wants to encounter you, and that father wants to encounter you.
39:41
SPEAKER_02: So we just have to get people there.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: Carolyn, you're such a gift.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna link your articles in the show notes.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: Can you reach out to us anytime you write another article?
39:51
SPEAKER_02: I I want to sustain these kind of conversations because they're very important right now to young people.
39:56
SPEAKER_02: Their eyes are open.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: We can't let let this die because we owe it to young people to help them as much as we can to have a love for our country, for our culture, for families, et cetera.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: If we don't if we don't give them the alternative, or if if we don't give them a vision, the alternative is going to be something that's much worse for us.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and unfortunately the good ones are going to just get caught up, right?
40:22
SPEAKER_02: If you have too many young people off the rails.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, people grab power.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: Before you know it, we're t we're totalitarians.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, we're we're tyrants, aren't we?
40:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: Hey, God bless you, Carolyn.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, everybody.
40:34
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us today.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: We'll talk to you again soon.