Latest / Brian Thomas / 1776 and the Spanish Inquisition - Big Picture with Jack Atherton

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1776 and the Spanish Inquisition - Big Picture with Jack Atherton · Brian Thomas

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Speaker 1: Seven six on this Wednesday morning, Dan Carroll in for
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Speaker 1: Brian Thomas. One more day for me, Harry, Jeff Walker
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Speaker 1: be here Thursday and Friday. Thank you so much for
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Speaker 1: Joe Strecker for allowing me to sit here. And I
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Speaker 1: have to admit I've been holding onto this little, this
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Speaker 1: little blurb since Monday when I knew we were going
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Speaker 1: to have our conversation with Jack Atherton. And it is this.
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Speaker 1: Popstar Madonna sixty seven years old, kicked off this year's
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Speaker 1: Pride Month by posting a video on her Instagram account.
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Speaker 1: It shows her crawling around in front of the toilet,
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Speaker 1: stating that you don't want to see my bleep as
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Speaker 1: she stuffs her breast back into her dress. She then
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Speaker 1: leans into the camera and whispers Happy Pride, before blowing
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Speaker 1: a kiss and cigarette smoke at the camera. And Jack.
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Speaker 1: All I can say is you dodged a bullet on
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Speaker 1: that one, buddy.
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Speaker 2: Those were the days. So I did better. My wife didn't,
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Speaker 2: but I did better. It's going to be back with you, Dan, Jack.
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Speaker 2: If Brian is listening at home, hang in there, buddy,
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Speaker 2: to give our pala laugh. I came up with something
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Speaker 2: I mentioned Madonna, but let's remind everybody of an old
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Speaker 2: Monty Python sketch. Dan, are you a Python fan?
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Speaker 1: I love a little Monty Python.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, A little goes a long way, But I missed them.
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Speaker 2: The boys are back in the news. We're hearing the
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Speaker 2: Iran war is a little bit like Manty Python and
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Speaker 2: the Holy Grail. The knight who loses one arm and
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Speaker 2: then the other, then both of his legs uses to
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Speaker 2: give upruting us. That's the mumma's in the I r G.
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Speaker 3: Sir.
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Speaker 2: I hope, I hope for not much longer. I hope
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Speaker 2: President Trump will realize they have to be gone. But
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Speaker 2: we've talked about that. Let's talk now about a money
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Speaker 2: Python TV sketch. A guy being given the third degree
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Speaker 2: by his wife sputters, well, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
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Speaker 2: That's when four cardinals burst in and Michael Palin yells.
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Speaker 4: Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. It's good for a laugh,
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Speaker 4: but the actual Inquisition was no joke, and thinking about
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Speaker 4: it shows what our founders really were up against in
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Speaker 4: seventeen seventy six and how today's Democrat socialists want to
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Speaker 4: take us back to Spain. The Inquisition began in the
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Speaker 4: fourteen hundreds to maintain Catholic orthodoxy. The inquisitors kicked out
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Speaker 4: Muslims and Jews. Then they tortured Christian heretics. For Monty Python,
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Speaker 4: that means making heretics sit in comfy chairs. No, not
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Speaker 4: the comfy chair.
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Speaker 2: The actual methods of torture and execution are nothing we
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Speaker 2: can talk about on morning radio. And it wasn't just Spain.
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Speaker 2: Civil wars between Catholics and Protestants throughout Europe took about
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Speaker 2: twelve million lives back when populations were much smaller. That's
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Speaker 2: why our English pilgrims fled to the New World. The
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Speaker 2: pilgrims were Protestants, but when it was the Catholics turn
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Speaker 2: to be persecuted by England's new Protestant Church, they came
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Speaker 2: here too. Lord Baltimore's chartered land was called the Maryland
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Speaker 2: Catholic Colony. The point is that religious freedom and toleration
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Speaker 2: are what America has always been about. From that followed
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Speaker 2: freedom of speech, a peaceful assembly, and all the rest
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Speaker 2: of the Bill of Rights. Unlike Europe, where most countries
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Speaker 2: had a state religion, the First Amendment explicitly outlaws the
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Speaker 2: establishment of a state religion, although this has been wrongly
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Speaker 2: interpret as you know Dan, to mean that government cannot religion. Generally,
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Speaker 2: it can't have anything to do with religion, but that's
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Speaker 2: another topic. The irony today is the followers of Karl Marx,
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Speaker 2: who said religion is the opiate of the masses. Marxists
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Speaker 2: are the biggest supporters of big government that acts like
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Speaker 2: the Spanish Inquisition. America's founders believe that individual rights and
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Speaker 2: responsibilities proceed and are the foundation of government. By sharp contrast,
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Speaker 2: big government leftists following the French writer Rousseau. I think
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Speaker 2: we're going to talk about him next week because he's
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Speaker 2: one of the founders of the left. Rousseau believed the
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Speaker 2: collective will of the state takes precedence over individual rights, speech,
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Speaker 2: and beliefs. A better writer than Rousseau, who understood this
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Speaker 2: divide better than most anyone. The Russian novelist Dostoevsky in
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Speaker 2: The Brothers Karamasov includes a parable of a Grand Inquisitor.
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Speaker 2: Brian loves this part. During the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisitor
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Speaker 2: arrests Jesus when he returns to Earth for the crime
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Speaker 2: of giving men and women too much freedom. Instead of
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Speaker 2: letting people choose sin over salvation. The Grand Inquisitor imposes authority,
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Speaker 2: a government mandate, and burns anyone who fails to follow
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Speaker 2: his dictates. Like all authoritarians stan, including today's Marxists, the
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Speaker 2: Inquisitor was right to fear Jesus. He did teach that
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Speaker 2: we have free will, and within obvious limits, must be
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Speaker 2: allowed the freedom to exercise it. For instance, the Gospel
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Speaker 2: of Matthew tells us that Jesus was tempted by Satan
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Speaker 2: to turn stones into bread and to rule all the
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Speaker 2: kingdoms of the world. But while Jesus did free some
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Speaker 2: of his followers and he did feed them, he never
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Speaker 2: sought to feed them all. Jesus did not buy their faith,
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Speaker 2: and he set the bar high. When a young man
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Speaker 2: asked how to gain eternal life, Jesus told him to
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Speaker 2: obey God's commandments, sell all he owned, and give the
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Speaker 2: proceeds to the poor. Sad and hearing this because he
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Speaker 2: was rich, the young man exercised his freedom to just
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Speaker 2: walk away. Not all of our founders were Christians. Thomas Jefferson,
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Speaker 2: the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, was a deist.
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Speaker 2: Like Spinoza, Jefferson believed God was creation. They were synonymous,
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Speaker 2: and God did not change the laws of nature to
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Speaker 2: direct man's affairs. So the Bible that Jefferson edited for
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Speaker 2: his own use leaves out miracles. However, like Jesus, Jefferson
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Speaker 2: believed in freedom, he opposed divine right monarchs like George
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Speaker 2: the Third. He opposed mandates censorship, anything that would require
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Speaker 2: us to march in lockstep, not to say, goost, even
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Speaker 2: if politicians and their paymasters are bribing us with handouts
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Speaker 2: to ruin our character and make us more dependent on
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Speaker 2: big government, because, as the Python Boys realized, when it
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Speaker 2: robs you of ambition and personal responsibility, there's nothing more
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Speaker 2: to humanizing than a handout or a do nothing government job,
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Speaker 2: or a comfy chair. Not that comfy chair.
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Speaker 1: What do you say, old friend, Well, Jack, as always,
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Speaker 1: your comments are always thought provoking, and about halfway through
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Speaker 1: your presentation there I was thinking about, well, this really
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Speaker 1: correlates to what was going on during the pandemic, and
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Speaker 1: we had such government overreach at that time, and what
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Speaker 1: was going on, Well, we had dictates from on high,
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Speaker 1: from Washington, d C. From Columbus, Ohio that you must
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Speaker 1: follow these rules that you must get tested, you must
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Speaker 1: get the vaccine, you must follow certain certain government dictates
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Speaker 1: in order to do what in order to have a job,
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Speaker 1: in order to be part of society, in order not
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Speaker 1: to be docked, in order not to be de banked
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Speaker 1: or deplatformed on social media. So I think this was
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Speaker 1: probably the clearest example that we have of a government
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Speaker 1: trying to exercise the exact same kind of powers you
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Speaker 1: lay out there when you talk about the Spanish Inquisition.
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Speaker 2: And so it's an go Aheadn's extremity, Man's extremity is
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Speaker 2: God's opportunity, and the Left changes that to man's extremity
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Speaker 2: is government's opportunity.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and and and look these to my way of thinking,
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Speaker 1: these people are still out there and they look to
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Speaker 1: increase government power at every single turn. I mean, it
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Speaker 1: was not long ago we were told what the hantavirus
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Speaker 1: was coming after us, and this may be another COVID
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Speaker 1: nineteen situation. Then we had the Ebola outbreak in Africa
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Speaker 1: or wherever the heck that was going on, and we
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Speaker 1: were told, well, that may be coming to the United States.
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Speaker 1: And I think I think the reaction of the American people,
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Speaker 1: at least to this point Jack has been to know
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Speaker 1: we're not going down that road again. I think that
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Speaker 1: memory is still fresh in the mind of the American
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Speaker 1: people that by and large we are going to stand
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Speaker 1: up to being under the thumb of this type of
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Speaker 1: government control again.
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Speaker 2: This crisis goes way beyond diseases. It all boils down
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Speaker 2: to whether you want a top down or a bottom
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Speaker 2: up government. Our founders chose the latter. But democracy requires
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Speaker 2: free and fair elections. And look what's happened in California,
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Speaker 2: just like Minnesota with Al Frank years ago, Arizona with
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Speaker 2: Katie Hobbs, the discrepancies and late ballots without any need
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Speaker 2: for id never ends until a Democrat has declared the
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Speaker 2: winner or two Democrats. In Los Angeles, as Gavin Newsom
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Speaker 2: gloated on camera, Democrats had what Greasy called a break
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Speaker 2: the glass plan. That's the phrase he used to break
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Speaker 2: the glass plan to guarantee a Republican would never win
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Speaker 2: in Los Angeles or even a peer on the November ballot.
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Speaker 2: If you're a Republican sunk in a deep blue state,
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Speaker 2: you might as well be a muddy python, dead parrot.
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Speaker 1: Jack. Yeah, you always have the best way of putting
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Speaker 1: stuff Are you going to hang around for one more segment?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely?
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Speaker 1: All right, all right, let's go ahead and get to
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Speaker 1: a quick break and we'll continue.
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Speaker 3: On Wednesday morning.
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Speaker 1: You Stryker says, this is the perfect song for Jack. Well,
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Speaker 1: I don't know about that, but it's still a great
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Speaker 1: song Jack. It's interesting. I was reading a piece where
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Speaker 1: the author quotes quote by Elena Gorkova when characterizing life
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Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union, and the quote is this. The
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Speaker 1: rules are simple. They lie to us. We know they're lying,
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Speaker 1: they know we know they are lying, but they keep
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Speaker 1: lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.
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Speaker 1: The Russians even have a word call for it. It's
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Speaker 1: called vanyo, a lie that everyone knows is a lie
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Speaker 1: but pretends otherwise. And so I think that's as a society,
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Speaker 1: and especially in politics now, and especially as it relates
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Speaker 1: to our elections these days, we know that there are
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Speaker 1: lies going on, but for some reason, we pretend otherwise,
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Speaker 1: and we just let it keep perpetuating itself.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not just the Soviet Union, and it's not
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Speaker 2: just elections. It starts as early as you can imagine.
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Speaker 2: We have public schools that pretend to teach children and
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Speaker 2: push them all the way through high school and give
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Speaker 2: them diplomas. And we don't require the kind of songs
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Speaker 2: that I like that they used to call standards. We
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Speaker 2: don't have standards and songs, and we don't have standards
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Speaker 2: in education. A lot of liing going around, a.
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Speaker 1: Lot of liing going around, And now we have the
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Speaker 1: specter of the Democrats, with more than seventy percent support,
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Speaker 1: have elected a guy who bears a Nazi tattoo on
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Speaker 1: his chest. And look, the guy wants to have a tattoo,
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Speaker 1: Fine and dandy.
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Speaker 3: I don't care.
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Speaker 1: But I think we know now that when you talk
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Speaker 1: about the lack of standards, that when it comes to
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Speaker 1: having standards, or it comes to at least trying to
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Speaker 1: seek the moral high ground on a particular issue, the
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Speaker 1: Democrats will keep trying to do that. But to any
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Speaker 1: rational way of thinking, because of this election result, I
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Speaker 1: say that they have that they've lost that ability to
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Speaker 1: seek that moral high ground when it comes to arguing
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Speaker 1: a political position.
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Speaker 2: What seventeen seventy six was all about on one level
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Speaker 2: in Philadelphia, and eleven years later in that same city
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Speaker 2: was compromise. That's a dirty word to a lot of people.
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Speaker 2: But it's what we had to do because the thirteen
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Speaker 2: colonies had very different interests. Slavery was the most obvious,
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Speaker 2: but there were many others. The little states were worried
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Speaker 2: that the big states would completely swamp them, so we
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Speaker 2: had to come up with the system at the Constitutional
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Speaker 2: Convention that everybody could accept. We've come to a point
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Speaker 2: in our country and we have to change course or
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Speaker 2: we won't have a country where it's impossible to compromise.
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Speaker 2: We can't get anything done, and it's not just as
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Speaker 2: between Republicans and Democrats. I think one of the reasons
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Speaker 2: that President Trump has been very frustrated lately, and we're
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Speaker 2: seeing it in his attitude toward Iran, is that he
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Speaker 2: feels he cannot work, he cannot get any kind of
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Speaker 2: response can work with from the establishment. Some would say
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Speaker 2: the Rhino wing of his own party. We're simply not
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Speaker 2: reaching compromises.
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Speaker 1: Well, Jack, I constantly refer to a time in America
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Speaker 1: when look, we've always had political differences, but you talk
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Speaker 1: about it compromise because I think in the end, no
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Speaker 1: matter what your political affiliation was, no matter what your idea,
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Speaker 1: ideological outlook was, in the end, we all wanted to
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Speaker 1: get to the same place. We all wanted what was
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Speaker 1: best for the country, what was best for America, because
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Speaker 1: everyone understood that the ideas behind America were worth We're
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Speaker 1: worth having and worth promoting and worth carrying on. But
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Speaker 1: I don't think we can compromise anymore, because especially the
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Speaker 1: left in this country, I don't think they want to
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Speaker 1: get to the same place as those of us on
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Speaker 1: the other side.
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Speaker 2: One of the problems is, you know, our profession, the media,
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Speaker 2: where now at a point where we left and right
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Speaker 2: separately live in hermetically sealed chambers. We're not hearing what
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Speaker 2: the other side is saying. It's a problem for the
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Speaker 2: right as well as for the left. Everybody goes to
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Speaker 2: hear themselves and their opinions confirmed affirmed by whatever their
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Speaker 2: media sources. I've done a piece for Brian about the
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Speaker 2: history of media and the fact that we used to
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Speaker 2: have what were recognized going all the way back to
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Speaker 2: eighteen hundred as left and right newspapers. But you know
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Speaker 2: what people used to do, and this was one of
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Speaker 2: the shining marks of America. We used to go to
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Speaker 2: town meetings. The great French writer not Rousseau, but Alexis
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Speaker 2: to Topeville in the eighteen thirties, wrote about the fact
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Speaker 2: that America was unique because we started out not from
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Speaker 2: the top, not from the king, not from the legislature,
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Speaker 2: but on the town meeting level. That's what the Pilgrims had.
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Speaker 2: They came up with a charter while they were still
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Speaker 2: on the boat coming to America, and that became really
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Speaker 2: one of the abiding graces of America. And people would
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Speaker 2: have to debate. Now we have candidates on the left
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Speaker 2: and the right. Candidate on the right is ahead who
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Speaker 2: won't debate one another. That does not spell any kind
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Speaker 2: of formula for eventual compromise.
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Speaker 1: All right, Jack, we'll have to leave it there. It
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Speaker 1: is time for us to go. But as always, great
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Speaker 1: to have you on, great to hear your voice. And
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Speaker 1: keep up the great work, my friend, and we'll look
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Speaker 1: forward to the next Big Picture with Jack Atherton one
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Speaker 1: week from today.
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Speaker 2: I love talking with you, Dan, but Brian, get.
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Speaker 1: Better, all right, Jack Atherton, thank you very much. Seven
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