Latest / The Stan R. Mitchell Show / Debunking the myth that NATO and the US provoked Russia into invading Ukraine

Transcript

Debunking the myth that NATO and the US provoked Russia into invading Ukraine · The Stan R. Mitchell Show

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, welcome to the view from the front.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Stan and I'm thrilled you all have joined me.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: As a reminder, I have timestamps for every topic that we're covering in this episode.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's a piece of news you wanna jump to,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: or maybe later you wanna share that with a friend,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: you can easily find that segment in the timestamps and let your friend know.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or even better, help me out and share it on social media.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And with that out of the way, let's get started.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: What is going on, everyone?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining us.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have so much.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Really, this show is going to be pretty epic, I think.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've been looking at the outline of it, and so I think you're going to really enjoy it.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to start with a segment called Russia is Doomed, and it's a really good, informative piece.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start with sharing that.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'm going to jump to sharing...
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: There was a viral video that just went nuts on X,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: or what used to be Twitter.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it had 45 million views.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: 45 million views by the earlier part of today.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm recording this on Wednesday.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's according to the person that gives this really condensed argument.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's how the U.S.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: and NATO provoked war in Ukraine.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And again, 45 million people watched this.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's way more than typically watch any cable news channel, whether it's Fox, CNN, MSNBC, any of those.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Probably more than 60 minutes, 48 hours, all those, Dateline, 45 million views.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And because, in my view, it's not accurate, I want to play the video, let you hear it.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I want to provide the counterpoint so that we can at least provide a balanced view,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: if not knock down some of these claims that are being made.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then we've got some other good stuff in the show, just depending on how much time we have.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then as bait toward the end, I'll just straight up call it bait.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to throw some bait all the way in.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: At the very end, when I talk about God's... I'm going to throw some bait in there.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you stick around for that, I am going to share a war story, if you will.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Back when Stan was 19 years old in Albania back in 1997.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell you about the night...
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: That young 19-year-old Stan basically came as close as he could come to shooting a
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: man with an AK-47,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: who was actually a,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: frankly,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: idiot bodyguard for an ambassador for another country.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: But how close Stan came to potentially having his life completely turned upside down,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: possibly ruined,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: who knows.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But it is a story, and I think it's worth sticking around for.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've never shared it on a podcast.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I always thought I would, if I was ever famous, share it in a memoir or something.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But let's just talk about it tonight.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll put that at the end of the show.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a good show, as usual.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: As I said earlier, there will be timestamps if you want to jump around.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump to that first section that I teased a second ago.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to share this because,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: frankly,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: there is,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I guess,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: some deep-seated hostility and anger that I have for Russia for all the damage
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: they've done to Ukraine the past couple of years,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: not to mention the other countries they've invaded in the past couple of decades.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, this is a... The guy named and begins the report that he has by saying Russia is doomed.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's some great numbers.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably the best compressed summary of the population woes that Russia faces and how dire they are.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, of course, they're only getting worse.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so...
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've read that in numerous articles,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: and I may have mentioned it a year or so ago,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: but this is a very,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: like I said,
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: very well done,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: very condensed summary of just what a fiasco Russia is facing as far as in regards
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: to their economy and
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: and their population, and how there's really not much Russia can do about this.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And since I'm a little frustrated about the situation between Russia and Ukraine,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: and since I'm not super happy that...
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: The new administration is already talking to Vladimir Putin,
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: and they may be trying to negotiate giving away quite a good chunk of,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to say quite a bit,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: but at least a good chunk of Ukraine's land.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want to play this clip, so maybe that is just me being a little petty, maybe.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm being a little petty, but...
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I just... People see Russia as this superpower.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's true, they have lots of nuclear weapons and all that stuff.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that they don't.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But their military is weak.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they already had, even before this war...
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: inside Ukraine, this most recent invasion, their economy was the size of Italy's.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: They just have a huge land mass.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: But their population isn't even as large as most people think.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like 100 plus million.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so they... I think it's because we were all raised in the Cold War.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: We just have this image of Russia as this invincible...
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: foe as this very scary peer country that's almost like equal to us.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just not true.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even close to being true, actually.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to play this clip called Russia is Doomed.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have a link to it if you want to go see the original source.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's done just very well, very well done by an army veteran who's over on TikTok.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty good size audience over there because he's putting out great stuff like this.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So go check them out.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribe if you wish.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And just sit back.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got some popcorn, you're probably going to want to eat it on this because Russia is doomed.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: So Russia is doomed,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: and there is nothing Vladimir Putin,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: the Kremlin,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: or really anybody can do to stop what is about to happen to Russia.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: A few weeks ago,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Russia released its birth rate numbers for the first half of 2024,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov lamented how low they had gotten.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: This was a rare display of frustration out of a Kremlin that generally likes to
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: present themselves as having all situations under control.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: Russia's population is currently 143 million.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: It will never be higher.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, it is 5 million lower now than it was 30 years ago.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And this decline will continue for at least 75 years until they stabilize sometime after the year 2100.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: And Russia's decline rate was originally based on the assumption of them
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: maintaining 1.5 births per woman for the next few decades.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Now, side note, to merely maintain a population, a country must maintain 2.1 births per woman.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Russia in the first half of 2024
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: hit 1.4 births per woman, lower than what was anticipated.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Based on that,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Russia is going to lose 400,000 people per year every year until the year 2100 for
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: a total of 31 million people.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: That is like losing all of the people in the state of Texas and never getting their productivity,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: their taxes,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: or their ingenuity back ever again.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: And this number,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: where in the year 2100 Russia's population is merely 112 million,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: this assumes they stop the war in Ukraine right now and don't start any future wars.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: But it gets worse.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: Russia's retirement age is 65 for men and 60 for women.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: So just for averages sake, we'll call it 63.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: As of right now, 20 percent of Russia's population is over 63.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: In 10 years, that number will grow to 28 percent.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: It will be those that are in the 16 to 62 working age group that will support those elderly,
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: but also they will be supporting children,
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: which makes up 17%.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: So to put it plainly,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: in 2035 out of 100 Russians,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: 55 will be working and their income and taxes will go to support the other 45,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: whether it is the 17 children or the 28 elderly.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: side note number two here,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: the people Putin is content on getting killed in the war in Ukraine is actually
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: that 16 to 62 population.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: So throw that into the non-working populace pile who will need support from the working populace.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be about a half a million wounded soldiers.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And again, that is if the war ended right now.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: This also assumes a perfect populace where everyone is productive.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Problem is 15% of 16 to 62 year olds in Russia are drug and alcohol abusers.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: 1% of Russians are HIV positive and their outlook is much worse than Western nations.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: In the US, HIV is less than half of that at 0.4%.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: but with better health care so hiv positive americans can remain more productive
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: longer into their lives so given all of this russia faces a one worker supporting
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: more than one elderly child in 2035 and this assumes there are no stay-at-home moms
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: or stay-at-home dads this assumes there are no full-time students this assumes that
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: unemployment is zero percent and even so every single worker russia will have will
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: support at least one non-working russia full-time this is called the dependency
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: ratio and when
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: When that ratio drops below 50%, as it will in Russia, it is a disaster.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: And this isn't in the distant future.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: This problem starts in two years and gets worse over the following eight years.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: With fewer workers,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Russia's GDP growth will likely stagnate or decline,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: as economic output is closely tied to the size of the labor force,
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: even in modern countries with modern innovation.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's no surprise that in 2035,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: the top three economies in the world will also be the top three populations.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, the U.S.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: will still be number one.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Businesses will clamor for labor and that'll drive up wages,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: potentially leading to inflation,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: especially if productivity does not increase to offset the labor shortages,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: which it won't because labor demand will be so massive that why would anyone want
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: to work hard?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: You can get a job doing anything and you'll get paid well to do it.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: This also means why innovate?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Military research and development will suffer.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, hell, military ranks themselves will suffer.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: And as their GDP drops below that of Spain's or becoming roughly the same size as Florida's,
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: you'll see Russia's influence disappear.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: And there is nothing they can do about it.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, of course, they invaded Ukraine now.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: They saw this coming.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Russia's not stupid.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: And Putin needed two things.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: He needed a distraction in the present and he needed a way to secure his legacy for
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: the future before he is remembered as the president that ushered in Russia's doom.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to move now to that video that I mentioned in the intro.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: what I'm about to play is grossly oversimplified,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: much of it false or exaggerated,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: parts of it just completely untrue.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to play it because it is so convincing that it's spreading like wildfire.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a short argument that basically argues that America and NATO provoked Russia into invading Ukraine.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said in the intro, you know, it's approaching like 50 million views.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just on X slash Twitter alone.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's also on YouTube and other places.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows what the true number of views are.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So because it's...
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: expanded and because it has been seen by so many people and because it's so
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: inaccurate i want to play it and i want to debunk it using some facts from a
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: counterpoint all of these facts are available on the web and it's interesting when
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: you hear this when you hear his side it sounds compelling but it's kind of like
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: someone that goes through
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: an ugly divorce or something and you rewrite history so that your side is just
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: completely the,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: your side is the sane side and anyone hearing it is like,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Holy cow.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then I understand why you,
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: left your wife and four kids with no notice and drove to California with a 22 year old.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they've somehow just created this insane story that,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: that somehow will justify sending 100,000 troops into Ukraine on the third invasion
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: and spinning it like that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to hear that when you hear this argument.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: This comes from a professor named Jeffrey Sachs.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going to play it.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: But again, everything you're about to hear is...
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Grossly inaccurate, false, misleading, not real close to the truth.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as we're done playing it,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to share the counterpoints that are far more accurate and that will immediately,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: as you hear it,
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: it's like someone saying...
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: that someone rigged not just one NFL game,
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: but like an entire season so that some team ended in a Super Bowl.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they have these like certain flags that were thrown.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this one, you know, this happened in this game.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then, oh, that other opponent, like his quarterback, had a dislocated shoulder that one game.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was this and there was that.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they create this incredibly misleading situation.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: almost like just a like a movie almost of of what happened and it's it's possible
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: to do that but that doesn't mean it's the actual truth so let's play it and then
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: let's actually talk about what happened because this this these falsehoods need to
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: be stopped
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: Let me just explain in two minutes the Ukraine war.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: This is not an attack by Putin on Ukraine in the way that we are told every day.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: This started in 1990.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: James Baker III, our Secretary of State, said to Mikhail Gorbachev, NATO will not move one inch eastward.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: If you agree to German unification, the U.S.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: then cheated on this already starting in 1994,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_03: when Clinton signed off on a plan to expand NATO all the way to Ukraine.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: This is when the so-called neocons took power.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_03: The expansion of NATO started in 1999 with Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: Then the U.S.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: led the bombing of Serbia in 1999.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: That was a use of NATO to bomb a European capital, Belgrade, 78 straight days to break the conflict.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: country apart.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: The Russians didn't like that very much.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: But even Putin started out pro-European,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: pro-American,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: actually asked maybe we should join NATO when there was still the idea of some kind
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: of mutually respectful relationship.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: 9-11 came, then came Afghanistan, and the Russians said, yeah, we'll support you.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: We understand to root out terror.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: In 2002, the United States unilaterally walked out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: What it did was trigger the U.S.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: putting in missile systems in Eastern Europe that Russia views as a dire direct
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: threat to national security by making possible a decapitation strike of missiles
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: that are a few minutes away from Moscow.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: In 2004,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: 2005,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: we engaged in a soft regime change operation in Ukraine,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: the so-called first color revolution.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: But in 2009,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yanukovych won the election and he became president in 2010 on the basis of
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: neutrality for Ukraine.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: So in February 22nd,
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: 2014, the United States participated actively in the overthrow of Yanukovych.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: They intercepted a really ugly call between Victoria Nuland and the U.S.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: ambassador to Ukraine, Jeffrey Piot, who was a senior State Department official till today.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: And they talked about regime change.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: So they made the new government.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: The U.S.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: then said, OK, now NATO is really going to enlarge.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: And Putin kept saying, stop.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: You promised no NATO enlargement.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: more countries in the not one inch eastward.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: On December 15th, 2021, Putin put on the table a draft Russia-US security agreement.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: The basis of it is no NATO enlargement.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: The special military operation started, and five days later, Zelensky says, okay, okay, neutrality.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then the United States and Britain said, no way.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: You guys fight on.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: We got your back.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: We don't have your front.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: You're all going to die.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: But we got your back.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's 600,000 deaths now of Ukrainians since Boris Johnson flew to Kiev to tell them to be brave.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely ghastly.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: We have to understand we're not dealing with, as we're told every day, with this madman like Hitler.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: This is complete bogus, fake history that is a purely PR narrative of the U.S.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: government.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: We're playing games here.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: So, God forbid, a nuclear power comes at us.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what's going to happen.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: But we came at them.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I warned you that it was a lot.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just take it from the beginning to the end with some counterpoints.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll say before I start that this was shared by Elon Musk on X slash Twitter.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Elon has 200 million followers.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as he so often does, he will share something that...
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Half the time, he's not even sure if it's accurate or not.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he just shares things to get people,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: just talking and it's just kind of all funny to him.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it's pretty irresponsible.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's me putting it as nicely as possible.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he shared this by just saying interesting.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't fact check it.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: With all the resources he has, all the friends, he didn't send it to anyone and say, hey, is this true?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why has no one talked about this?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why has this been a secret for two years?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: None of that.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: No,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: he just shot it right off into the web and created,
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: really,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: it's sad,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: but created some falsehoods for millions of Americans today.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, this hurts the Ukrainian people and it hurts those who are fighting for democracy.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very frustrating.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to take it point by point.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I am about to say can easily be found on the web.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: You could take any point from that video I just played, put in, you know, 1994, look it up.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there are tons of people on X and Twitter who have done this, who have links from archives, etc.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So everything I'm about to share is easily, easily found.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: found on the web you just check the year 2008 did this happen to 2012 did that
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: happen blah blah very easy to find this information but the problem is is that this
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: very concise video has gone viral and most americans are too lazy to research it
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: however the very brilliant ian bremer political scientist he's an author he's
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: involved in a
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And very, very smart guy.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Been doing this for many decades.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Although he probably doesn't want to say he's been doing it for many decades.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because that might give away his age.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I highly respect his work.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he very quickly shared an article as a counterpoint.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because that video was going so viral that...
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: He has basically done the work that you could do yourself with tons of links in his article.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: So a huge shout out to him for putting this out there.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what's kind of frustrating is that this article is from May 31st, 2023.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it was written like a year ago.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess this Jeffrey Sachs video had just probably been shared some back then
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: because he counters everything in the video.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess it had just gone viral again.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then Elon Musk shared it.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so yet again, with a new administration coming in, it's just spreading like a wildfire.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll put the link to this article in the details or in the episode notes so you
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: can look at it for more details.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So again, Ian Bremmer, I'm quoting from his article heavily, but all of this can be found.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's just Ian Bremmer saved both me and you a ton of work.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what he says.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, he does say that he's known Jeffrey Sachs for 25 years.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: He actually says a solid 25 years.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he says that,
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: unfortunately,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: the claims in the video are morally challenged and factually wrong,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: and that they are not fringe views.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he shares some of the big-name people who believe those views,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: who include Tucker Carlson,
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Pope Francis,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Elon Musk,
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: and then another person or two named.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he says this kind of background that this...
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Putin apologia,
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: as he calls it,
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: has taken root in China and other places on both the right and the left in America.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: So far-left progressives believe some of this stuff,
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: and they don't like the defense industrial complex anyway.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, of course, the far-right, who are...
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: an increasingly isolationist strain,
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: that has been going,
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: this message has been spreading like wildfire over there as well.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go through the assertions as Ian Brimmer debunks them one by one.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Ian Bremmer begins by knocking down the first claim by Sachs that relates to the
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: fact that,
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: according to the claim,
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: the U.S.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: provoked Russia through its intention to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia so that
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: NATO could surround Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO countries.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And according to Sachs, this betrayed a promise that was allegedly made in 1990 by U.S.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: officials to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the promise, according to Sachs, was that NATO would never expand eastward.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ian Bremmer says there are several issues to unpack here.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: First,
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: he says it was a myth that the last Soviet president was guaranteed a permanent
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: buffer zone between Europe and Russia back in 1990.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: He cites declassified transcripts that show that both Gorbachev and other Soviet officials,
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: they never even raised the prospect of NATO growing.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And even Gorbachev himself has denied that the West ever committed to anything
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: about NATO expansion except inside Germany.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, Ian Bremmer points out, NATO cannot unilaterally expand.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It just can't.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a defensive alliance.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Also, he points out that for decades it has been reluctant to do so.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there were Central and Eastern European states,
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: or countries you could say,
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: that were a part of the Soviet Union in the past,
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: that had their independence,
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: and they were afraid of Russia.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: They are the ones who asked NATO to help them be protected from Russian aggression.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And initially, NATO had objections.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: NATO did not want to expand because there are risks to expansion.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, this wasn't NATO saying, let's push further east.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's push east.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get closer to Russia.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened at all.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: The NATO enlargement,
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: as Ian Bremmer writes,
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: was actively sought by Eastern European countries,
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: and they had to actively convince NATO members,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: all of whom lived in complete safety far to the west,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: to accept these countries that were closer to the Russian border,
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: these countries that had mostly Soviet-block weapons.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Their weapons systems weren't even aligned with NATO, so there would be logistics issues.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it would increase the risk if any of these countries were brought into this
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: defensive alliance that at some point NATO might have to intervene to help defend
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: smaller countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: So they had no close eastern ties to or western ties to Europe and America.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: So NATO had very little incentive to even want to do this.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Even crazier,
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: as these countries were almost hesitantly allowed in,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: NATO deployed almost no combat forces onto the territory of these new members.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they definitely deployed no nuclear weapons.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: So this is from 1997 to 2014,
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: in that almost 15,
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: almost 20 years period,
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: NATO wasn't pushing troops into these countries.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: NATO and the West has been increasingly disarming until Russia launched this
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: massive war,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: this massive provocation.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So this was, this was, it's just a complete spinning of what actually happened.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Russia had absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ian Brimmer even brings the receipts and says and has a link to where Putin himself
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: in an interview expressed no concerns about NATO enlargement in 2002 when the
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: process was being discussed and underway.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Putin wasn't even worried about it in 2002.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: He moves on to talk about NATO membership for Ukraine.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he describes how it was never a realistic prospect for Ukraine at all.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about back in 2008 when Ukraine applied for a NATO membership action plans,
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: NATO members rejected the application.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: In 2014...
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was absolutely just completely shut down because Russia invaded and NATO did not
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: want to go to war with Russia.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then further from 2014 to 2022,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: NATO did not want Ukraine to join NATO because there was a war going on.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: NATO did not want to be dragged into it.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: ian bremer doesn't stop there though he goes on to say and this is why he's a much
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: better writer than me he says putin's beef with ukraine has never been about nato
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: quote encirclement and he he cites his proof as evidenced by putin's and i love
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: this word muted reaction to the baltic's uh
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: accession into nato in 2004 and even in finland's uh accession into nato in uh just
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: last uh in 2023 last year so putin had no problem with that any of that so it's
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: never been about ukraine and as he has or never been about nato and as ian bremer
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: says it's always been about ukrainian sovereignty and we know this because of the
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Putin invaded because he doesn't think Ukraine is a legitimate country he doesn't
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: think it has a right to exist separate from Russia he has said this time and time
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: and time again that's why he invaded it's pretty simple
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to spend much more time on this,
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: but because Sax made some really crazy claims,
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: I do feel like I have to address just a couple of other points that Sax made in
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: that video.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: But again,
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: if you want to get into the weeds,
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: if you're debating this with a friend or something,
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: all of the links are in the episode notes.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: All of this stuff is not hidden.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even hard to find.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: But let's take first the claim that the U.S.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: and the CIA orchestrated this coup that destabilized Ukraine and led to these invasions.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: As Ian Bremmer points out, the U.S.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: did not orchestrate the Euromaiden protests going all the way back into 2014.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: What actually happened is that the president at the time,
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yanukovych,
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: he had refused to sign an EU-Ukraine agreement.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: This had passed through the Ukrainian parliament with a large majority.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: It enjoyed huge support across the population, but the president, Yanukovych,
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: He was under pressure from Moscow, who was under the reign of, guess who, Vladimir Putin.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: So Putin pressures Yanukovych not to sign it.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: This had nothing to do with the U.S.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: It had nothing to do with NATO, nothing to do with anything.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: These protests organically start.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: The participation was mostly students.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: But Yanukovych overreacted, so he ordered the police to start beating these peaceful protesters.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: He passed some dictatorship laws.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: He curtailed freedom of the press and assembly.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: And as he did that, every action he took, the demonstrations grew.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Every action led to larger protests.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you go back and look at the stories from the time,
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: just like any time there's instability,
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: the State Department and the United States puts out these really boring statements like,
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: we want peace,
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: we want stability,
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: we want safety for the protesters,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: but we just need the country to,
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: they're the most passive statements ever.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's the way our government is.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: We are very... I don't know the right way to say it.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like risk.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're risk-averse.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, Yanukovych just kept increasingly becoming more aggressive toward these protesters.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: As Ian Bremmer said, the United States, as part of some coup attempt...
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: The United States, this is so ridiculous if you really think about this.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: We did not force Yanukovych to have his military and police forces shoot protesters.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: More than a hundred of them were killed in something that ended up being called the
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: revolution of dignity.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't the United States.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: How would we have done that?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't have asked him to do that.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't have had troops put in there.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's crazy.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: He overreacted and he started shooting people.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens when you start shooting protesters?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, usually it leads to civil war.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's exactly what happened.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: So back to the bigger point.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yanukovych was pressured by Putin and Russia to keep him from pulling away from the EU,
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: which the country wanted to do.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why did it want to do that?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because the EU is very prosperous.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: The EU has freedom.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Russia is a cold country.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not exactly prospering.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: It makes absolutely perfect sense for a country to want to pull away from an
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: aggressive neighbor that doesn't have free speech,
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: that regularly rounds people up and throws them in prison,
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: No trial needed.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, why do you think they wanted to be a part of the EU?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's just common sense.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Quit looking for some conspiracy when there's no conspiracy there.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then,
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: when all was said and done,
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: of course the United States couldn't have been involved in this because there was a
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: peaceful vote to oust Yanukovych,
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: two-thirds of the Ukrainian parliament.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: They threw him out on his duff.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, I mean, you gotta really...
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: really stretch your imagination to think that the United States and the CIA played
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: some big role in that.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: this is the same CIA that couldn't even deal with Cuba,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: which is like,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: what,
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: 100 miles south of Florida?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we couldn't even deal with Cuba.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: The Bay of Pigs invasion was a complete joke.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: We can all make tons of, find tons of examples of complete incompetence.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a stretch to try to pull together some really minute data points to say that the U.S.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: orchestrated all this.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: There is one thing Ian Bremmer agrees with Sachs about, and that is that when Yanukovych fled...
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: When he was overthrown by his own people through protests and the parliament voting
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: him out,
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: that is when,
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: and this is back in 2014,
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: that's when Russia sent the little green men to take control of Donbass.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: They illegally annexed Crimea with the Crimean Peninsula,
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: literally the most strategic,
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: most important part of Ukraine as far as their naval power and the strategic
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: positioning of that country.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you recall,
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: they were called little green men because Russia basically sent in troops without patches.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And all of the Western media was like, well, who are these troops there?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Putin's just laughing about it all.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And since we had sent contractors into Afghanistan and Iraq...
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Putin's like, well, you can't control where contractors go.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're just contractors.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: So no one would say there were Russian troops, which they were clearly Russian troops.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the first invasion of Ukraine.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was back in 2014.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it had nothing to do with NATO expansion.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: It had to do with Putin's right hand man inside Ukraine.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ukraine could no longer control the place,
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: and the country was increasingly moving toward the West and the European Union,
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: where they saw far brighter prospects of economic growth.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this all boils down to.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: But again, you don't have to take my word for it.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have the article in the episode notes.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of links.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it'll be one of those deals.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you just go click a few of those links, check anything I've just said.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Check anything Ian Bremmer said.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like unraveling the story of that divorced dude who moved to California.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you just start to realize, wow, all this stuff that I was just being told...
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: are either gross oversimplification, they're falsehoods, or just outright misstatements.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll see very quickly that that nice little speech by Sachs seems convincing,
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: but you just have to start pulling on the threads a little bit,
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: and you'll see that it's not quite accurate.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: So let's move away from that topic to what the election of Trump means for Ukraine.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: There have been a lot of meetings this past week or so in Europe between various leaders.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they clearly understand that with Trump taking office,
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: the guarantees of security,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: some of the stability that may have been seen in the past...
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those things are going to change, and Europe is quickly waking up to that.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are videos online of the French president meeting with others saying,
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: we've got to take our own security serious.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are lots of articles out there about what this could mean for Ukraine.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to share,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: before I talk a bit about it,
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to share one clip from President Zelensky because it's just an amazing clip.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's an epic clip that it's classic President Zelensky.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let me share that first and then we'll talk for a moment.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: President Zelensky, thank you so much.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Before you go, if you want to share, what keeps you going?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever feel defeated?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: I have a lot of power.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: But even feeling strong and have a lot of energy,
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: it doesn't mean that we want to fight all our life because the price is high,
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: like I said,
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_03: because the world takes the best of us,
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: the best heroes,
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: the best men,
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: women,
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: children.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: But we are not ready to give our freedom to this
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: Terrorist Putin.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's why we are fighting.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: President Zelensky, thank you so much for your time this morning.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: We really appreciate it.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I love President Zelensky.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: He just tells it the way it is.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny,
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: I follow lots of Ukrainian accounts with folks who have just endured unbelievable
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: amounts of
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: pain and and fear and real loss and in ukraine we we debate in the west you know
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: silly stuff like did the u.s provoke this which is absurd or is the u.s are we part
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: of some vast plan to make ukraine just keep fighting and thousands of them are
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: dying but i'm telling you if you get on social media and you follow people in
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: ukraine
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't conversations like that.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're not encouraging them to fight.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: They want to fight.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: They have lost so many people.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: They have had millions flee the country.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: They have been fighting Russia going back to 2014.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think we can fully understand.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't like us sending a very small percentage of troops like we did to Afghanistan, less than 1%.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very distant war.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And though that war lasted 20 years, America mostly forgot about it.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: The war in Ukraine has never...
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: stopped being on the front pages.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's never been more than a few days where there haven't been air alerts,
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: air sirens absolutely just waking everyone up,
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: blowing super loud,
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: and people having to get up and go down to an air raid shelter or take the risk.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Think of how many apartment buildings have been hit.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hospitals.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: Russia has targeted civilian infrastructure.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to kill innocent people as part of a terror campaign to make Ukraine submit.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: And just like we've seen this happen in history before.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just like in the Battle of Britain,
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: when Germany thought it could bomb London and make the British people give up.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not what happens.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you kill people, you infuriate them.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: You have people make vows to avenge their deaths.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so this entire thing about Russia, it's only made Ukraine stronger.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the craziest part...
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: I will give Russia this.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the polls going way back to like 2014 when that revolution happened,
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Ukraine used to have close ties to Russia.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no doubt that about 40% of the country or so probably was okay with being a part of Russia.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: They were close ties.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are people who live in Ukraine whose families live in Russia.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: But as Russia has acted without any restraint and committed so many war crimes,
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: as the Russian soldiers have raped women and
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: as they have taken kids away to be re-educated,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: as they have attacked civilian infrastructure time and again,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: as their conscripts have stolen everything from washers and dryers to just taking
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: loot out of homes.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Putin is...
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Russia, you all did this.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're the one that made Ukraine willing to absolutely fight to the last drop of blood.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: You all did this.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: When you invaded Ukraine, Zelensky, he didn't even have a beard.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: He was a former acting actor, comedian.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: who did not seem very certain when the invasion happened.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: We tried to literally provide transportation to get him out of there.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: We thought he'd run just like every other leader has run from everywhere to
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Afghanistan or wherever when their country was about to fall.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: And no...
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: There was something in him and there was something in the Ukrainian people.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so he asked for more ammunition, not a ride.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: And ever since that day, Ukraine has fought its guts out against a larger foe.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they have won time and time again in battles they should not have won.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just get very frustrated when people say,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: the United States is encouraging it or we're causing this war,
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: this or that.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, come on.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Go talk to some people there.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can talk to them online.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them if we're the one provoking this war.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them if we're the ones that are encouraging them to fight.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's probably barely a family there that hasn't lost someone or doesn't have a
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: nephew or niece or brother or son or daughter or husband or wife or someone who
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: isn't serving on the front lines.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's just absurd to act like we're the ones...
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: prolonging this war that's crazy now the ukrainians have suffered so much i think
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: they're increasingly getting closer to perhaps not taking back all their land or
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: being willing to give up some of it but that's their decision but for a long time
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: at least the first year of the war like i said this past six months or a year might
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: have changed a bit
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the first year, they were going to fight back for every inch of Ukrainian land.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were not willing to give up even an inch of it,
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: despite being against a power that's about four times their size.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's how adamant they were.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that wasn't the United States saying, oh, this is a chance to get them to fight.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, this was...
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: their decision it's their identity they are the ones who have been wronged they
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: just want assistance in trying to repel a very large aggressive foe that fights
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: with no regard to protecting civilians or following any kind of rules whether it's
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: blowing up a dam or
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: or attacking, like I said, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the real truth.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's been happening.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's just been a lot of Russian disinformation that has spread a bunch of
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: falsehoods and lies that have unfortunately convinced some Americans that it's some
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: kind of gray situation or that maybe we played a role in it or this or that.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the case.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Just do a little research.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see what I'm saying is absolutely true.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why, even though,
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: President Trump and many on the right with oscillation tendencies have wanted to
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: pull back across the world a large percentage of Republicans the entire time.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Ukraine is the one unifying force where it doesn't matter if you're someone on the
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: left and you're a Democrat or you're on the right and you're a Republican.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone can see right and wrong.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone can see a large aggressor country invading a smaller one.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone can see these air attacks.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's very black and white.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Russia, the one thing that Russia's been good at is trying to make it gray with disinformation.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to spend much time on any social media to watch horrific videos and
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: even recently Russians executing Ukrainian soldiers.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can look at videos of Ukrainian soldiers who have been part of these prisoner
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: exchanges and how starved they look.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is 2024.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Russia doesn't have food to feed these poor men and women.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is crazy, the way they treat these prisoners.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is not an equal situation of two countries fighting a typical war.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Russia is acting horrendously, and Ukraine has shown unbelievable restraint.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: They treat the Russian prisoners well.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even a similar situation.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why both left and right has rallied around Ukraine,
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: because it's a very black and white situation.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there should be no confusion in America about which side you should be on.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, man, I just listened to that section I just recorded.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you want to get me fired up.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: You get me talking about Ukraine.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's partly...
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because of all those horrible things that are happening there,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: but it's also because I know China is watching,
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: and I know that there are potentially a lot of people in Taiwan,
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: and there are millions in Taiwan,
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: and there are millions of others in the Pacific,
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: smaller countries,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: that china is watching what russia is doing and if russia succeeds in this china is
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: going to follow suit they're already trying to intimidate and bully and so that's
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: why i get fired up it's like i just see what's going to happen and it's just it's
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: really sad
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: I did forget to mention one other thing in that decently long rant just then,
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: which is that one analyst I saw really made a point that...
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the percentages are on this,
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: and it might be low,
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: 20%,
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: 30%,
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: but they also might be stronger than we think.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: But he made a good point in that Putin may have...
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: also miscalculated,
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: not just when it comes to Ukraine,
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: but when it comes to Europe and the United States.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what the person was referring to is,
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: as I said earlier,
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: there's been a lot of articles about Europe is finally getting serious about
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: building up its military because they don't know what Trump will or won't do.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: And as these governments begin to take it serious, this analyst put out the point, there is a chance...
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Again,
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: there is a chance,
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: and I could send you some links of some comments of some European leaders,
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes a little further down than the top president,
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: but we'll say members of parliaments and various congressional authorities over there,
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: that are increasingly talking about the potential of not only building up their own military,
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: but actually building
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: beginning to send military forces into Ukraine because they see what Russia is doing.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: They see that Russia is building up its military capacity and that Putin is looking beyond Ukraine.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they know that if America steps back under President Trump and there's no peace
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: deal done,
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: Europe...
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: This analyst threw out the point.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to quote the person, but they said Putin may have miscalculated because...
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: There is a chance that the EU is suddenly going to take serious their defense and
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: that they may start sending forces in to Ukraine.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because literally North Korea has sent troops to Ukraine.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: if you're a European country and you've seen China align itself with Russia and you
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: see North Korea and Iran align itself with Russia and you now see North Korea
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: sending 10,000 troops to fight in a European country,
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: do you not think you take that serious?
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I laugh when people are like,
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: President Biden's going to get us into World War III,
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: this or that.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Weakness only incites further provocation.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: We've looked weak this entire time,
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: and that's why there's now North Korean troops fighting against Ukraine.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: So at some point, you've got to you've got to stand up and say, no, we're done.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're you guys want to start throwing blows.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to throw blows.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so you'll start to see increasingly,
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: European countries talk about helping Ukraine close down its airspace and possibly sending.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think initially it'll probably be European troops in the more safer parts of
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ukraine so that other Ukrainian troops that are currently,
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: you
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: move more aggressively toward the front.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: And these European countries can help defend the airspace,
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: which would allow Ukraine to move some of its air defenses closer to the front.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you're going to increasingly start seeing this because if the U.S.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: pulls back,
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: there's a chance Putin has miscalculated and the Europeans are finally going to
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: seriously pull together and start to try to end this war their way as well.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know President Trump says he'll have a peace plan within 24 hours.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm skeptical of that,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: but you'll see that Europe,
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: there's a good chance that they're going to start taking this serious,
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: and they know how close this war is to their borders,
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: and they're not going to let it continue to devolve or expand in some kind of
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: negative way that's going to affect them.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's too close to them.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: They've been reading the news for two years way closer than we have over here in the United States.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just a short, brief summary or analysis of what might happen with the election of Trump.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: there's a chance that Europe's going to really start stepping up and taking their
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: defense far more seriously.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, appreciate you guys hanging with me.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to talk about faith for a moment.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to be real with you guys.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit more real than I typically am.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to back it up just a bit.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do a quick summary on something.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then, as I said earlier, if you hang with me, you're going to hear a pretty cool war story.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's going to be worth sticking around for a moment.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: But if you back up a bit...
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Way back in the day, a couple years ago, when Stan started this podcast.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: When he started it.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Way back in the day.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is before I'd restarted my faith journey.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I won't lie, guys.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: The...
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I started this podcast was I thought it would be a good platform to help
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: me sell more books,
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: to connect with more folks in the military.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I started this podcast as part of a desire to be more successful.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the honest truth.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: And looking back now,
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: I realize that it was a desire for all the things of the world,
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: a desire to be great,
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: a desire for fame,
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: a desire for riches.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted it all.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm ashamed to admit it.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: But those are the facts.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you recall way back, I've always had a heart for helping people.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in those first episodes two plus years ago,
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would have episodes,
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: I would,
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: at the end of each show,
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: I called it like motivation and encouragement or something like that.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I would have,
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: typical motivational quotes like,
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even remember what they were,
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: just various things about trying to work hard and being great and
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: All that stuff.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was just typical motivation.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: The same stuff that I used to just feed on.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people still feed on.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a place for that stuff.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: But that's how I started the show.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I would include some...
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: I guess you might call it self-help or positive thinking stuff in there.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: But as you guys know, as I restarted my faith journey, a lot of that stuff just seemed shallow.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: It seemed vain.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: It seemed... I don't even know.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, honestly, I just got to where I was like, this isn't even the truth anymore.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't... I lived my life chasing this stuff.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've written 12 books.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: I worked my tail off.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: I started a company from scratch.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ran it for nine years.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: skipping vacations ruining family relationships i chased all the stuff that you're
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: gonna see on tiktok and everywhere else i chased that stuff i chased money i know
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: what that's like i know how much sleep i lost i know how hard i worked and i'm
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: gonna tell you i had some success there you know and i could i could brag about
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: things i was the youngest uh
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: with the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was the youngest member on their board ever.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I had these, like, accolades.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, man, I'm like... I started that paper when I was 27.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there were these things.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, oh, this is part of my...
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: part of my, you know, story.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: This will,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: one of these days in 50 years when,
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: people are writing about me or whatever,
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: they'll be like,
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: man,
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: this guy Stan started a paper from scratch and this and that.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it was all about Stan.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: You guys,
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've shared some of this stuff before and those,
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: those are the hard realities that I'm ashamed to admit,
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: but I chased ambition.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: I chased all that stuff.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so once I closed that newspaper, that's when I really moved into being a full-time author and
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I've worked as hard as I could.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I had some success.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have sold 70,000 books.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've written 12 of them.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it was like never enough.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's never enough.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're chasing that out there, you're going to learn at some point that like it's never enough.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: And there were times where I had good money coming in and there were times where
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: the sales would drop and I would be absolutely just panicked and scared and anxious,
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: unable to sleep,
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: worried about it.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just think, well, I just got to work harder.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I did.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's what a lot of dudes do for sure, but I'm sure a lot of women do that too.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you just rely on yourself.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: I did that.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we fast forward a bit.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: I restart my faith journey.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: My mom gets cancer.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: Go through that fight with her before she passes.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: And initially, as I went through that cleansing process of returning to my faith and seeing just how...
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: shallow my life was and how i was chasing just the wrong things initially and it
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: took some wrestling but i was like okay god i'm gonna i'm done writing i'll stop
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: the podcast i was just doing that for myself i wanted power i wanted i wanted you
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: know emails from people and comments and clout on social media i wanted all those
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_00: things and i realize now that was wrong i'll give it up
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: But it's funny,
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: because about that time,
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: my pastor had given a number of sermons about the gifts that we had.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I went from this mentality of, you know, I'm just going to be a nobody.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll clean toilets at the church.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do whatever.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to stick out.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want any kind of profile.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'll get off social media.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my life is entirely going to be used serving God.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny,
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: as my pastor was sharing these sermons about using your gifts and this and that,
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: I felt more and more that it was like the devil was like,
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: get off social media.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, don't stop the podcast.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ever write another book.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do any of that.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: And at first, in my mind, I was like, I'm giving this up for God, blah, blah, blah.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it was hard to give up.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I started to hear God's voice through my pastor like, wait, how many people do we know?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not that the pastor was saying this,
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: but it started really hitting deep that I'm like,
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: God has given me gifts.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many people do you know that can write books?
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is a gift from God.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is not me.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is a weird talent that I have that people hate writing,
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: people hate trying to do the things that an author does,
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: and to me it's not even work.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even honestly hard.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a gift.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a gift from God.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with a podcast.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a speech impediment in elementary school,
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: so initially it was like,
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get over this speech impediment.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want to...
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing it not only for the platform,
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: but I was like,
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: if I'm going to be great,
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to learn to speak.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can't just be a writer.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a pretty decent or gifted or talented writer.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: That was all gifts from God, but I've got to do it.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_00: But as I started doing podcasting, podcasting becomes a power thing.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes an addictive thing.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I got decent at it.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm decent at it.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think the numbers show I'm decent at it.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I think that's a gift from God.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was going to give that up, but it was almost like God just kind of had this smile.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, oh, no.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, young man.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to use that for the kingdom as well.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I realized over time that I just needed to refocus what I was doing and use
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: them all for the glory of God.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I've been trying to do ever since.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_00: So as you longtime listeners know, I dropped the motivational stuff at the end.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: I started sharing scripture each week and I had the mea culpa episode some time ago
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: where I was like,
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to stop sharing stuff that's just motivation or whatever.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: because I no longer believe in it.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: I no longer believe it's healthy and I can't share stuff that's basically poison
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: because I've injected that poison for much of my adult life and I'm not going to
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: share that kind of stuff.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to share what matters, which was the Bible.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I've been sharing ever since.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we fast forward to today and a couple of weeks ago.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: There was a pastor that visited our church and just gave just a very powerful, very moving sermon.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as he was sharing it,
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: man,
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: some of it just hit me so,
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: so powerfully that I was like,
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: I need to share this on my podcast.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to email this pastor.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've never met in my life.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: and just see if he will let me use parts of his sermon.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he very quickly replied, said I could, granted permission, so I appreciate him doing that.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to change the back of it just a bit,
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: but I want to share some points from his sermon,
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: because A,
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: I felt led to do it,
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_00: and B,
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've not been totally honest with you guys.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is...
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just haven't been totally honest with you all because I've been doing this kind
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: of light approach of let's just back into this or I'll just throw a few seeds out
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: and I'll probably still do that in the future.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it hit me that it's like,
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: there are some people listening,
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: many of whom email me and that we've kind of just beat around the bush.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's time that I just be more honest because if you care about someone...
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you care about someone, you're honest.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I haven't been completely honest.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: So let's be honest here.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're being honest, it is no accident that you're listening to me right now.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's no accident that God made me the way that I am.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: That he made a young insecure guy that was bullied a lot have a desire to serve in the Marines.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: That I'd love my country so much that I'd want to put out a weekly defense news podcast.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: That I'd have some kind of desire to try to unify the country.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's no accident that I returned to my faith when I did.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's no accident that God has shown me that I'm going to take this show and try to use it for His glory.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_00: That I'll try to reach those who don't know Him through these episodes.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: That I will try to reach people who have no hope anymore.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: on a weekly basis through this little bitty show that's kind of grown a bit.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so here we are.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's no accident that I'm speaking to you right now.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's no accident that you're listening right now.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the first thing you got to wrap your arms around is we're here right now for a reason.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: And as this pastor said a couple of weeks ago, his name's Pastor Rock Collins.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put a link in the episode notes to him and his page, and he's written a book.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we live, he said it so well.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Rock Collins said, we live in a world that knows about God, but that doesn't mean they know God.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way I was.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: I knew God.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: I knew about God.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely even believed in God.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as a young man, I had accepted God, but I had strayed mightily.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: But...
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a world where people know about God, but they don't know God.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_00: And those are two different things.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I have,
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: as I said earlier,
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have not been honest with you guys because the reality is that we all need to
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: know God.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know God, there are consequences to that.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I'm going to be honest, then I have to say that.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is, is that we're all going to pass and die at some point in our lives.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, we're going to stand before God.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I like what Pastor Rock Collins said.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: that a lot of people try to manufacture ways to stand in front of God,
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: to be able to say,
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: we're good,
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: we gave to the poor,
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: we tipped extra to the server at that restaurant we ate at.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if you read the Bible, it's very clear that you cannot earn righteousness.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely not something you can earn.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he said something funny.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: He said, you know, some people say, well, I'm not into religion, not into that religion stuff.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he laughed and said, well, I'm not either.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he's into relationship.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was really well said.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's about a relationship with God.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to, you know, a lot of people doubt God.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people doubt the Bible.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people doubt the idea that there was a Jesus Christ that was literally the Son of God.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they like to question the Bible.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it's worth noting that just a few quick little points,
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: and we're moving into some of just the notes I had,
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: so if this isn't any good,
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: don't blame Pastor Rock Collins.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is, is that when this poor, single, unmarried...
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know, teacher was crucified, his disciples fled.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: These men who had seen miracles,
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_00: who had lived with him,
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_00: who had before that point believed that he was the son of God,
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: they became very human,
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: very mortal.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: They fled.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: They
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: Peter, one of his strongest disciples, denied him three times.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter had literally walked on water.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: He had been a part of that miracle.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: So think about walking on water,
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: seeing miracles,
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: seeing people healed,
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_00: seeing people brought back to life,
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: but having so much fear of the Roman authorities and the religious authorities that
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: that you're like, well, you know, the guy died.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he wasn't.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: That can't be true, can it?
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe I was just kind of
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was somehow just, I don't know what I saw or what, but it just doesn't make sense now.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: It can't be true.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so imagine that, being a called disciple and fleeing.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what they did.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: They all did.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: But something changed, and this is where the story gets crazy.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because after Jesus is resurrected,
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_00: he returns to earth and he appears in front of a number of people,
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: including these disciples.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: They see the scars, the holes in his, the wounds in his hands and in his side and in his feet.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: They spend time with him.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in a 40 day period, Jesus lives on this earth with them and with a number of people.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually 500 people.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so these people who believed him before he was crucified,
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: then doubted him,
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_00: then once again witnessed him,
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_00: become absolute staunch believers.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_00: They become warriors for Christ.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_00: These same people would go on to live in almost poverty.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_00: They give up all desire for the things of the world, and they spread the word of God.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_00: against tremendous odds, tremendous odds.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_00: Many of them obviously are tortured, imprisoned, stoned, crucified themselves.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: They die spreading the word,
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: but it spreads like wildfire because 500 people had witnessed this living being
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: that they had all seen killed.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: a body that was guarded by Roman soldiers, that an angel comes down and runs off those soldiers.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the more that the religious authorities try to put down this crazy,
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_00: wildfire-spreading new religion,
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_00: the faster it goes.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_00: One of the lead people who didn't believe it,
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: who tried to put it down,
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: who had persecuted the church to no end,
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_00: his name was Saul.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he was going to persecute even more of the believers of this new way,
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: as it was called at the time,
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: when he was struck down by light,
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: blinded,
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: and had his own meeting with God.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was on the road to Damascus,
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_00: and then Saul would end up going by the name Paul and would become one of the
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_00: greatest apostles of the way,
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: of the way that would eventually be known as Christianity,
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: that would spread across the Roman Empire at such a pace that it's still
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: mind-boggling how it happened.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: So what I want you to think about for a moment is, what if it's true?
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: What if it's true that God really did send His Son down to earth,
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_00: that He lived here,
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_00: He showed people how to live,
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was going through a little fake trial,
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: crucified,
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_00: He asked God to forgive the people doing it,
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_00: to forgive them of their sins,
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_00: for they knew not what they did.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: What if it's true?
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: What if it's true that all of those men who died after that
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: All they had to do was make up lies.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_00: All they had to do was say, oh, there really wasn't a Jesus that was crucified or we hid the body.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_00: All they had to do was deny God and they would have been spared their lives.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And yet by the dozens,
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: by over a number of decades,
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_00: by the hundreds,
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_00: people refused to deny what they knew was the truth.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to ask yourself, why?
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_00: What would cause men to do that?
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Men and women.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what would cause people to do that?
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you give up everything in this world, your only life, to die for something unless it was true?
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make sense unless it is true.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_00: It just does not make sense.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to tell you my war story in a second.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I just want to say you need to find out if it's true.
• 1:10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're skeptical, there's a couple of ways you can do it.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of you don't want to visit a church, so I've got a couple of alternative methods for you.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Option one is, I've mentioned this before, I do every week, read the Bible some.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to the New Testament, first four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot read those books.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to describe.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you read those books,
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: you can just tell that that is not a story written by normal humans,
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_00: by someone who's going to make up some story.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is...
• 1:11:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's an authority and there is... The stories are just so crazy.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I say this as a writer.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many times where I'm like,
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: boy,
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: it'd be simpler if this had happened or if I would have done this or that.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_00: If I was literally trying to just trick people, I might have done some things differently.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to read them because it is...
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_00: After all, think of this.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: If there's nothing to them, there's nothing to fear.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_00: If they're all fake, just read the first four and you can say, hey, I did Stan's experiment.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing to them.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was a waste of time.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there is no God.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_00: No big deal.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that's what will happen if you actually read those four.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Those four books,
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee you,
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: if you read them,
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to start feeling something,
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_00: and you're going to start seeing some things.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also another option, because I know that not everyone wants to read.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I've said before, you can find the Bible online.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't own one, you can read it on your phone.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are apps.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_00: There are tons of places you can read these four books.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can also read the book that follows it,
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_00: which is the book of Acts,
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_00: which talks about the early church and how it was persecuted and how the religious
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_00: and Roman authorities tried to put it down and what those people went through.
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is a, it'll just tear your heart apart reading about what these folks died for.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes you wonder why would, why would these people die for something unless it was true?
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the second option I wanted to mention is
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_00: is if you're like, I think Stan's full of it.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing to this.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing to it back then, 2,000 years ago.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing to it now.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just ask God to reveal himself to you.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I dare you to do that.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Come up with whatever challenge you want.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can...
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_00: It really can be anything.
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can say, hey, I want XYZ friend who I haven't talked to in four years to call me.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: That person calls me the next day or calls me at a certain time or whatever.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_00: That would that would not be a coincidence.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_00: That would not be something that I could easily blow off.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, seek and you shall find.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you ask God to reveal himself, I believe in God enough to know he will do so.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it, heard it.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many stories of that out there.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the funny thing is,
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_00: is I know if you're listening to me right now,
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know God is real because it's in your conscience.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can feel it.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can see it.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can't even look out at the mountains or the woods.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can't even look at the earth.
• 1:14:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can't.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Something created all of this.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's a guilt you feel at times.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a conscience.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason we're different than animals.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many ways that God reveals himself.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: But if you doubt those ways, I challenge you to say, God, reveal yourself.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you come up with whatever challenge you want.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just give him a shot.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: See how that goes.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the two ways that I wanted to mention.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Neither of which,
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_00: this is probably,
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want anyone to think that this is what Pastor Rock Collins said.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't the case.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, the end of it is just me.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think you should read the four books.
• 1:15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_00: No matter your age, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow.
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't know God,
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_00: and,
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: there's a reason Christianity is the largest religion in the world.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_00: 2.4 billion people.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that would be a lot of people who were wrong.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_00: 2.4 billion.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Islam is the next one.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's at 1.9 billion.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting thing about Islam, it came 600 years after Christianity.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_00: The other interesting thing is that even in Islam,
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_00: They see Jesus as a very important religious figure, a prophet, a messenger of God.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't see him as divine or someone to be worshipped.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_00: But even they, 600 years later, were talking about this guy, Jesus.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_00: These are just things to consider.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: The world has been trying to stop Christianity since it began 2,000 years ago.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the world can't stop it.
• 1:16:08
  SPEAKER_00: It just kind of makes you wonder why.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I promised you a war story, so I want to talk about the power of God.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Two quick stories.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_00: First involves little old Stan when he was 13 years old.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was in a church and under some pressure from some folks that were unfortunately...
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they thought they were trying to help me get saved, but I'd already been saved.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to imagine this.
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_00: What would give a 13-year-old boy who's a people pleaser, who's been bullied, who actually loves God...
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_00: What would give a 13-year-old boy who almost has no confidence,
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_00: very insecure,
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_00: what would give a 13-year-old boy the kind of power and courage to tell a pastor
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_00: that he was wrong?
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_00: To not just go along with the easy thing and just pretend to get saved again, go through the motions.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: What would give a young boy that kind of power?
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't many things.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know of any.
• 1:17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've lived it, so the only thing I can tell you is the power of God.
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_00: God told me not to do it,
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_00: to stand up to a pastor,
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_00: to stand up to a man who had been my pastor for almost 10 years.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was a World War II vet.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I would have taken a bullet for him,
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_00: and up until the point when I knew he was wrong,
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would have done anything for that guy.
• 1:17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But what would give a young boy that kind of power?
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's only one answer that I'm aware of, and that's God.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: There was no doubt in my mind that God told me not to do what that pastor wanted me
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_00: to do,
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_00: which he wanted me to go to the altar and get saved.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_00: He said, God spoke to me.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And at first,
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_00: like any 13-year-old who's been spoken to someone by a man of authority who you
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_00: look up to,
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_00: who you had never known to tell a lie,
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I cried.
• 1:18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I cried for about two seconds.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I believed him for about two seconds.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I almost went along with it.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And something in me...
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Something in me, and I believe it was God, said, do not do it.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do not make a mockery of my name.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: You are saved.
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do not go down to that altar again.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And because I had unbelievable reverence for God and also fear,
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_00: I truly believed if I had done it,
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_00: lightning would have come through that church and hit me.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_00: There was nothing that could have dragged me down to that altar.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I stood up to him and said,
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can't,
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_00: even looking back now,
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm such a people pleaser now that if a boss or a pastor or someone tells me something,
• 1:18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just not good at standing up to people.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just be honest.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like conflict.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_00: I generally, I just don't like conflict.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And even if someone's wrong sometimes,
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_00: unless it's just a really serious principled thing,
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just kind of go along to get along.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like conflict.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_00: But a little 13-year-old Stan stood up to a pastor, and there's no doubt in my mind, that was God.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a powerful thing that happened in my life.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was, and it unfortunately led to lots of
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I guess we could call it forging because I went through a number of things through
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_00: the years that followed where the other members in the church,
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_00: including my grandfather,
• 1:19:42
  SPEAKER_00: were trying to get me to get saved.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the easy thing to do would have been just to fake it.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I was not lost and I would not disobey my God.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would not go along to get along when it came to that.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first story I wanted to share.
• 1:20:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I promised you guys a war story.
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about...
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just what happened back in 1997 in Albania.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've told you guys before, my platoon went in there.
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_00: We were part of a 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.
• 1:20:18
  SPEAKER_00: 1997, the country of Albania has fallen into insurrection and civil war.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's destabilized.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_00: A bunch of cops had gotten shot.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't enough money to pay the troops, so the troops went home.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_00: People were getting weapons.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of armories were overrun.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Some cops started getting shot.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_00: They raised the pay of cops up to like 300% above what it was,
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_00: but it still was too dangerous,
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_00: so all the cops went home.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can imagine a country with no cops and no army, that's pretty much anarchy.
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So none of this would have probably have mattered,
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_00: except there were about 900 Americans and at least 150 or so European citizens in
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_00: there of NATO-friendly countries that needed to be evacuated.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we were the closest force they sent in the Marines.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_00: 19-year-old Stan's part of that group.
• 1:21:11
  SPEAKER_00: We secure the State Department compound.
• 1:21:13
  SPEAKER_00: We secure the embassy so that no one could come through those lines and get to our people.
• 1:21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And from those two locations,
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_00: we started bringing in Americans and people from Italy,
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Spain,
• 1:21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Germany,
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_00: France,
• 1:21:28
  SPEAKER_00: etc.,
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_00: allied countries.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_00: brought up through checkpoints and flew them out so we were just I was just an
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_00: infantryman I was just a grunt just a guy on the front line just one of many trying
• 1:21:41
  SPEAKER_00: to it was cold scared wet just sent there to do a job but there was a moment that
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_00: was stands out far more than the others as I've said before there were many moments
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_00: of boredom just standing in mud wondering what we were doing there but there were
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_00: other there were some scary moments and you know
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's the way anything is in a situation like that.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of boredom and some absolute adrenaline rushes of complete fear.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_00: But there was one night, and I'm sharing this because I think God was with me.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was on one of the checkpoints.
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_00: We were in a sandbag bunker.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't think he'd mind me saying his name.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Carson.
• 1:22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Lives up in Ohio.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Good dude.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we're just watching our post,
• 1:22:28
  SPEAKER_00: making sure no vehicles come down that road,
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_00: approach the embassy,
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_00: and lo and behold,
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_00: a vehicle does.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a turn before the area that we would typically engage.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's about 50 yards away.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And a dude is getting out of it.
• 1:22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is 1997.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Night vision is not something.
• 1:22:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's probably like 2 in the morning.
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone has night vision.
• 1:22:52
  SPEAKER_00: We had one pair of night vision between us and two rifles.
• 1:22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And at first I was looking through the night vision and I tell Carson that he's getting out of the car.
• 1:23:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's reaching in.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell what he's getting.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking through the night vision.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then it seems pretty clear he's getting a weapon.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I had been the team leader, and I was a pretty good shot.
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And for whatever reason, I said, hey, you take the NVGs, I'll take the rifle.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just tell me when he turns the weapon toward us.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_00: So at this point, he's just what appears to be, he's definitely civilian clothes, civilian car.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_00: He is an armed occupant.
• 1:23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget, this is when life slows down.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_00: The guy's reaching in the back seat.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can just see him through a little bit of ambient light from the stars and the clouds.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_00: It had been raining.
• 1:23:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was somewhat dark.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_00: But there were some lights in the embassy and, you know, we're in the middle of their capital city.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_00: But still pretty dark.
• 1:23:53
  SPEAKER_00: We have iron sights.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking through iron sights.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's about 50 yards.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was an expert shot.
• 1:23:58
  SPEAKER_00: 50 yards is nothing.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget,
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_00: as he's reaching in,
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_00: pulling out that weapon,
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_00: moving the M16 from safe to fire,
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_00: watching him,
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_00: putting my finger on the trigger,
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_00: which is something Marines never do unless you intend to shoot.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the safety rules.
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I will never forget how calm I was.
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a guy, I used to deer hunt.
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I would get so rattled when I was deer hunting.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'd start breathing hard, you know, trying to control my breath, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I was as calm that night as I have ever been.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget,
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_00: he was standing in front of that car,
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_00: by the side of that car is a white car,
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_00: but behind him was a brick wall.
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they had taught us in the Marines that when a target is silhouetted against the bricks,
• 1:24:53
  SPEAKER_00: you can't really see the target because of how the eyes are made up and how our
• 1:24:57
  SPEAKER_00: cones and the eyes collect light.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you can see the silhouette by basically looking at the bricks.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can see where the shadow is.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget,
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_00: as Carson's like,
• 1:25:09
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 1:25:09
  SPEAKER_00: he's pulling out a gun,
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_00: definitely a gun,
• 1:25:12
  SPEAKER_00: and he's starting to turn towards us.
• 1:25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And our rules of engagement were,
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_00: if anyone with a weapon moves the weapon toward you,
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_00: you have the right to defend yourself.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And more than just the right, you were supposed to.
• 1:25:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if he's got a gun, we don't want him firing at us or anyone in the embassy.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he's turning with this weapon from reaching in the back.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I am literally taking up, slacking a trigger.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you've fired many weapons, you know where the breaking point is.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'd fired like 2,000 rounds before that.
• 1:25:44
  SPEAKER_00: We had done a ton of training.
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that rifle so well.
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking up slack and a trigger.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole time I'm like not even I'm amazed at how calm I am.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember thinking this is so different than like deer hunting because this is
• 1:26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm about to take a man's life and it's not even it's it's nothing.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's nothing.
• 1:26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, well, I guess he picked the wrong guy to spin around on.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I hear running from behind us.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And as this guy's literally my entire life in a millisecond, the guy's basically turning toward us.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm basically starting to pull the trigger.
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_00: The rifle is, I mean, I'm on a sandbags.
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to miss a shot.
• 1:26:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a thousand,
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_00: unless lightning comes down and hits the rifle,
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_00: this guy is as close to death as he can possibly be.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_00: But there's running coming up behind us and we heard, you know, I don't remember what the guy said.
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was our lieutenant, either Mitchell or hey guys or something.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was so focused on that shot.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I just heard the running, but I refused to, you know, in my mind, I'm like that.
• 1:26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever's running up behind us has no idea that someone's got a weapon out there
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm just focused on taking this shot.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And in that millisecond,
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_00: somehow the lieutenant made it there just in time to scream,
• 1:27:07
  SPEAKER_00: don't shoot,
• 1:27:07
  SPEAKER_00: don't shoot.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, of course, I take my finger off the trigger, raise the barrel.
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it turned out the dude was a bodyguard for an ambassador.
• 1:27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he was a visiting ambassador.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_00: I never got the full story.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was just a dumb grunt on the front line.
• 1:27:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I have always thought about how God had to have been with me that night.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_00: to not make me you know to not be scared to be so in control of the situation to be
• 1:27:37
  SPEAKER_00: so in control to say hey carson you take the night vision i'll take the rifle i
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_00: don't know if he was scared i don't even know why he agreed to that honestly i
• 1:27:45
  SPEAKER_00: should ask him sometime i guess but he let me do it and i just i always think about
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_00: had i taken that shot what would have happened
• 1:27:57
  SPEAKER_00: What would have the command done?
• 1:27:59
  SPEAKER_00: How would that have played on CNN?
• 1:28:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those are the things that you really think about.
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_00: How would I have dealt with that guilt once it came out that,
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 1:28:06
  SPEAKER_00: that wasn't someone trying to kill you guys.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that was a guard.
• 1:28:11
  SPEAKER_00: He was just, he took the wrong turn, was on the wrong world.
• 1:28:15
  SPEAKER_00: What if the lieutenant hadn't arrived, I mean, in the millisecond that he did?
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a hinge point in life.
• 1:28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about things like that sometimes.
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mainly share all that because I think God was with me when I was 13.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think God was with me when I was in Albania at the age of 19.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think God is with me right now.
• 1:28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think God is with you right now.
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_00: I share all that because I think if you're listening to this, I don't think it's an accident.
• 1:28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't.
• 1:28:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's an accident.
• 1:28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think life comes down to certain important points of your life.
• 1:28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is the first time you've ever even listened to the podcast.
• 1:29:00
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be kind of crazy, wouldn't it?
• 1:29:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you're sitting here listening to me and you're like, man...
• 1:29:05
  SPEAKER_00: What if Stan is right?
• 1:29:08
  SPEAKER_00: What if more than two billion people are right?
• 1:29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, two billion living.
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know how many Christians there have been.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_00: What if there have been a lot of people die to keep that Bible getting passed down
• 1:29:19
  SPEAKER_00: from generation to generation?
• 1:29:22
  SPEAKER_00: There have been a lot of Protestants die,
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_00: with conflict with the Catholic Church to get a Bible and a version that you can
• 1:29:29
  SPEAKER_00: even read.
• 1:29:29
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people, a lot of people convinced that God is real, and they were willing to pay the price.
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And now you're here, and you're listening to me, and maybe, just maybe,
• 1:29:44
  SPEAKER_00: You feel something.
• 1:29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 1:29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 1:29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it's like.
• 1:29:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it's like.
• 1:29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know in your mind, you know it's not an accident you're listening.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there have been a number of things that led up to this point right now.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you, it's 12.30 a.m.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_00: here.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_00: I should have had the podcast done forever ago.
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_00: I nearly didn't record it tonight.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was supposed to have originally been recorded last week.
• 1:30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Rock Collins can confirm that.
• 1:30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Originally, I told him it would be aired on that night, but the election changed that.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so this has already been canceled once.
• 1:30:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's being recorded now.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_00: I nearly didn't record it tonight, but it's happening right now.
• 1:30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't think it's an accident that you're hearing this.
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hope, just hope,
• 1:30:32
  SPEAKER_00: that I've planted some seeds in you I hope God's talking to you right now honestly
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I dare say he probably is but I hope that you will begin to seek out God because
• 1:30:46
  SPEAKER_00: he's waiting for you
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's waiting for you.
• 1:30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he's put little old Stan out here on the airwaves.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_00: He put Pastor Rock Collins there two weeks ago.
• 1:31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Before that,
• 1:31:01
  SPEAKER_00: he made Stan this guy who thought he'd just launch a podcast so he could get rich
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_00: and famous.
• 1:31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And before that,
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_00: he made him write a lot of books,
• 1:31:12
  SPEAKER_00: made him do all these things,
• 1:31:13
  SPEAKER_00: and then at the same time took away that desire for all of that
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_00: complete, false, just everything that is fake about this world that we all run from.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_00: None of us like to talk about death.
• 1:31:26
  SPEAKER_00: We literally run from it.
• 1:31:28
  SPEAKER_00: We stay distracted on phones.
• 1:31:30
  SPEAKER_00: We stay...
• 1:31:33
  SPEAKER_00: We run 100 miles an hour between job, family stuff, etc., etc.
• 1:31:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is, one of these days we're going to stand before God.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_00: maybe we're lucky or unlucky enough to get all the years to where you're in
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_00: assisted living,
• 1:31:49
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe at that point you're like,
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 1:31:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've got no friends left,
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_00: my family barely comes and visits,
• 1:31:53
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe I need to knock the dust off this Bible and see if there's a God there.
• 1:31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And some people do that.
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And some people are lucky enough to do that.
• 1:32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are a lot of people that aren't even lucky enough to get to that point.
• 1:32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're only promised today.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're only promised literally this moment.
• 1:32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even when Stan was back in the day studying Chan Buddhism when I thought that was the answer.
• 1:32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was about mindfulness and living in the moment.
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, Chan Buddhism ain't the answer either.
• 1:32:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's a God, and there's this moment.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm hoping that you will seek Him.
• 1:32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's reading the Bible some,
• 1:32:35
  SPEAKER_00: whether that's challenging Him to reveal Himself somehow,
• 1:32:39
  SPEAKER_00: whether visiting a church,
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_00: if there's one near you,
• 1:32:42
  SPEAKER_00: you'll be stunned how nice people actually are there.
• 1:32:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I hope some of this has spoken to you in some way.
• 1:32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to be honest with y'all.
• 1:32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've been beating around the bush a lot for two years.
• 1:32:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to, with ever how much time we have in life, to have not been honest with someone.
• 1:33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Especially, I care about a lot of you guys out there.
• 1:33:03
  SPEAKER_00: I hear from you on a pretty regular basis.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, a good friend will tell another friend an uncomfortable thing.
• 1:33:13
  SPEAKER_00: An uncomfortable truth.
• 1:33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't like conflict.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I felt like that tonight we needed to be real.
• 1:33:21
  SPEAKER_00: We needed to be more real than just reading a few scriptures and kind of dancing
• 1:33:25
  SPEAKER_00: around an uncomfortable thing,
• 1:33:28
  SPEAKER_00: talking about God.
• 1:33:30
  SPEAKER_00: needed to be real.
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Stan decided it was time to get real.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like God told me to.
• 1:33:38
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, if you got any questions, send me an email.
• 1:33:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you have no one you can reach out to, I don't get that many emails.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't know the answer, if you have a question about the Bible or faith or any of that stuff...
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I probably either know the answer,
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_00: can find the answer,
• 1:33:54
  SPEAKER_00: or I can reach out to one of like a half dozen pastors and get you an answer.
• 1:33:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can email me.
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not some scary dude.
• 1:34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just little old Stan who does a podcast once a week that you listen to time after time.
• 1:34:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I really do hope that you make the right decision,
• 1:34:13
  SPEAKER_00: that you feel something,
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_00: that you move toward God.
• 1:34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think for someone out there,
• 1:34:19
  SPEAKER_00: you never know,
• 1:34:20
  SPEAKER_00: this could be one of those hinge points of your life.
• 1:34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And God does give us free will.
• 1:34:26
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to listen.
• 1:34:26
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to believe.
• 1:34:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can doubt God.
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there's obviously no pressure.
• 1:34:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're not even in church right now.
• 1:34:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can change the channel.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's pretty easy to tune all this out.
• 1:34:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm hoping, hoping, hoping, hoping and praying that maybe you felt something.
• 1:34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 1:34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, I hope you pursue it.
• 1:34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry to get deep on you guys, but I felt that was important.
• 1:35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll see you guys next week.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Again,
• 1:35:03
  SPEAKER_00: if you have any questions,
• 1:35:04
  SPEAKER_00: send me an email or check out the Bible,
• 1:35:09
  SPEAKER_00: visit a church,
• 1:35:11
  SPEAKER_00: or if you're really feeling crazy,
• 1:35:13
  SPEAKER_00: if you really think there's no way it's true,
• 1:35:16
  SPEAKER_00: just ask God to reveal himself.
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, and if he does, send me an email because I want to hear about that.
• 1:35:23
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely want to hear about that.
• 1:35:26
  SPEAKER_00: My email is in the episode notes, but I will say it to you now if you want to write it down.
• 1:35:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is authorstanrmitchellatyahoo.com.
• 1:35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Again, authorstanrmitchellatyahoo.com.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Send me a line.
• 1:35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to talking with you.
• 1:35:46
  SPEAKER_00: If sending me an email is too bold or something you want to not do, but you are kind of interested...
• 1:35:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can find more resources in the episode notes.
• 1:35:56
  SPEAKER_00: I literally started several weeks ago.
• 1:35:59
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's been more than a month now.
• 1:36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Back in September, so a couple months ago.
• 1:36:04
  SPEAKER_00: A podcast called The Search for God.
• 1:36:06
  SPEAKER_00: I talk way more about God and faith things and that than I do on here.
• 1:36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Although tonight was a little bit of an aberration.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you can find some stuff there.
• 1:36:16
  SPEAKER_00: But...
• 1:36:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can send an email.
• 1:36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not scary.
• 1:36:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be waiting to hear from you.
• 1:36:21
  SPEAKER_00: You guys have a good week.
• 1:36:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'll catch you next Thursday.