Knowledge Fight - #1026: Tucker, The Man And His Utopia

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

In this installment, Dan and Jordan decide to make it a Tucker Week as they discuss his recent interview with a Christian Nationalist trying to start a church in the middle of nowhere.

Music It's time to pray. I have great respect for knowledge fight. Knowledge fight. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys saying we are the bad guys. Knowledge fight. Dan and Jordan. Knowledge fight. I need, I need money. Andy and Kansas. Andy and, Andy and, stop it.

Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, you're on the air, thanks for holding me. Hello, Alex, I'm Andy and I'm a fan of Andy and Kansas. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray.

Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Andy and, it's time to pray. Andy and Kansas, Andy and, Knowledge Fight, I'm Dan. I'm Jordan. We're a couple dudes that like to sit around, worship with the altar of Selene, and talk a little bit about Alex Jones. Oh, indeed we are, Dan. I'm Dan. I'm Jordan. We're a couple dudes like to sit around worship with the altar of Celine and talk a little bit about Alex Jones. Oh indeed we are Dan. Jordan. Dan. Jordan. Quick question for you. What's up? What's your bright spot today buddy? My bright spot Jordan is we were talking off air the other day about how I Have not felt grabbed by a video game

Yes in a bit like I enjoyed Assassin's Creed for a bit But then it became a little bit of like it's a little drudgery sure kind of the same a lot of stuff totally get it I fucked around and tried out this game called the blueprints, okay, and Man, it got it hooks. It looks in me, but bad. What's it do? I don't even want to explain much because there's a lot of mystery involved in a lot of exploration and puzzle. First person? Yeah, yeah. It's hit me in a way that a game hasn't like it's scratched a mist type itch. Okay. Alright. Like that's a deep itch. That is a deep itch. Like way down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll get its hooks in you. Yeah and so I really enjoy it. Yeah, it's a lot of down. Yeah, yeah, that'll get its hooks in you. Yeah, and so I really enjoyed

It's it's a lot of fun nice. Yeah, that's awesome I beat it yeah, and I still I'm gonna keep playing it because there's still more stuff to uncover of course and what? Have you and that's a you know that's great. That's fantastic. I enjoy it. That's fantastic Yeah, what's your bright spot my bright spot is actually also video game related. Okay, I finished Assassin's Creed congratulations Beat it I put a lot more time into it than you did and I Really kind of took my time going through all the nooks and crannies sure and then I did what I do With those types of games is like I I like, oh well, okay, I'll beat

the main storyline. I know there's more stuff, but right now I feel like now's a good time to beat the main storyline. And then I beat it and then I just, I'm done. It was like, it was amazing how, how like the ending was that great. And then I was just like, I never need to open this again. I've done it happened in an instant. Yeah. I think a lot of it, a lot of games a lot of games like that you end up it's just like I got to clean up some stuff if I if I want to. Yeah. But once the other main quest over is okay. I did it. I'm happy for you. I'm happy to be done with it. How without giving away too much I guess. How was the end? Satisfying? Um, it was... it was, uh... I would say that from a storytelling standpoint, it was very

lazy and terrible. But, it's very satisfying to kill slave owners. Sure. It's hard not to argue with that, right? Yeah. How much of that unsatisfying end to the story, do you think, has to do with, like, choice? Because there are some branching this there are some branched paths and stuff No, okay, none that you you cannot influence what I'm talking about Yeah There's a lot of really interesting things that you can influence. I mean we've had we've seen some differences There's all that stuff. But yeah, they as far as I'm aware the ending that

Yeah, that's a story telling. Yeah. Oh no. Oh, well, what you gonna do? Hey, that's great Check out blueprints exactly. It's good. That's my next plan So Jordan today we have an episode to go over. All right, and I went a little bit off of what my expectations Were okay on this episode. I called a little bit of a late audible and I have another Tucker episode. Oh God, oh no. It's Tucker Week. Oh no.

Yeah, whatever. Tucker Hewitt Edward. Yes, T. Hewitt Everett Carlson. Yeah, he sucks. And I just started listening to some more episodes of his show. And I'm like, this is, we gotta talk about this. Why not? So we're gonna talk about him hanging out with a Christian nationalist preacher.

Fun! And we'll get down to that in a minute, but first let's say hello to some new wonks. Ooh, that's a great idea. So first, my pet rats definitely love it when I shout, rat alert! Thank you so much, you're now a policy wonk. I'm a policy wonk. Thank you very much! Thank you!

Next, if you've been in an accident where the intro to a Wesley Willis song turned out to be the Macarena, you may be entitled to compensation. Thank you so much, you're now a policy wonk. I'm a policy wonk. Thank you very much. Thank you! And I'm a policy wonk, you are now a policy wonk. I'm a policy wonk.

Thank you very much! Thank you. And we have a technical credit in the mix are now a policy wonk. I'm a policy wonk. Thank you very much. Thank you. And we have a techie credit in the mix, Jordan. So thank you so much to Buttons arrived on my birthday and overshadowed my partner's Lego gift. Thank you so much. You are now a techie credit. I'm a policy wonk.

Four stars. Go home, give them a hug and tell her you're brilliant. Someone sodomite sent me a bucket of poop. Daddy shark. Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp. Jar Jar Binks has a Caribbean black accent. He's a loser, little, little kitty baby. I don't want to hate black people. I renounce Jesus Christ. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Sneaky ass button arrival. That's brutal. That's

nobody's fault, but I would still be pissed off if I had gotten somebody a really nice Lego set and then they're like, look at these butt, fuck you, man. It's not your fault, but fuck you. Yeah, those Legos aren't glow in the dark. No, they're not. No, no. But you know what? I went now and I got them for you and that's why you don't care. Isn't that it? Because I was the one who got them for you. I spend a lot of time scrolling through Lego sets and staring at them and being like, I don't have anywhere to put that. I'm not going to get that. I don't know why I want to get it. I want to build it, but I can't.

I feel like that's what some people do with yachts. Like they look at yachts that they'll never be able to afford to be. But that one's too small for me. It's like, oh, there's a Lego set of the Thanos Infinity Gauntlet. I don't know if I've actually even seen that movie. I don't care, but it looks pretty cool and I'd like to build it. Probably will.

So this guy, Tucker. Tucker and this fucking guy. He, on April Fool's Day, released an episode, like a fucking April Fool, interviewing this guy named Andrew Isker. Okay. And he is a Christian nationalist fella. Sure.

Who has some maybe not great opinions about a fair amount of things. Wow, that'll happen. And has been in the news a bit recently because he's starting a church in the middle of nowhere. Okay, now I'm listening. Starting a community, a church-based community in the middle of nowhere. Okay, now I'm listening. Starting a community, a church-based community in the middle of nowhere.

I like it. So Tucker has him on, I guess, to promote this. And here's where we start off. Okay. So Andrew, thank you for doing this. So you're so controversial. I love that. God, I hate him. Yeah, a married man with six kids who pays his taxes. You're so controversial. I love that. God, I hate him. Yeah, a married man with six kids who pays his taxes.

You're so controversial. Controversial would be not paying your credit card bill and putting the banks out of business, convincing other people to do the same. What are you talking about? Forcing the US government to pay attention to its own citizens. You're doing none of that. So as far as I'm concerned, you're a non-controversial law-abiding man. But you are doing one thing that's pretty wild, which is participating in the building

of a new town. It sounds almost like a Christian utopian experiment in Tennessee, but I don't really know. Can you tell me what it is and why you're doing it? Yeah, so it's not quite that. It's not the Oneida community? Yeah, we're not building some kind of Anabaptist community. Okay, you're not the Oneida community? Yeah, yeah, we're not building, you know, some kind of Anabaptist community. Okay, you're not the Shakers. No.

Cold open. Getting used to that. That's a lot of fun. I was listening to this and I'm like, this is crazy. As a like a premise, an introduction. I, you know, I guess if you want to go and start a church in the middle of nowhere, good luck. That's Utah. That's why we have Utah, so go for it. It just seems a little strange that this rises to the level of Tucker Carlson show guest. It really is wild because the first thing I can think of is just being like, all right, we have Joseph Smith and he's got some really interesting ideas about these tablets he has and he's moving into the woods. I don't know why you're so controversial.

Yeah, that seems crazy. You found him in the woods, we're going to move to the woods and that's it. I don't know why everybody's mad. Yeah. People are just all, oh, ugh, leftists. What they need to do is pay their taxes. Or pay their credit card bills. Or not!

Yeah. So, Tucker, oh, called him Alex. Tucker, he plays this game when he introduces guests sometimes, like this guy, Andrew Iskir. I don't know why this guy is so controversial. What are people even thinking? He's just a guy trying to create a fundamentalist religious separatist community. It's not like he didn't pay his credit card bill or something. It's a fun game that he plays where he takes a criticism that someone he's interviewing

has received and then he acts incredulous about it before moving on and pretending that that point has been invalidated. He does this because he knows that if he were to dip into these specific reasons people think Andrew is a bit controversial, it would be a little harder to defend. Andrew is an open Christian nationalist, and is very opposed to things like universal rights and the democratic system. Like most religious extremists, Andrew is fully aware that given a choice, very few people would want to live in the rigid, religiously doctrinaire world he wants to create.

He knows that his side would never be able to get their way through popular support, and I'm certain that he knows this because he said exactly that on an episode of his podcast from 2023. We don't have political power. That's the thing. I saw after Tuesday, there were all sorts of guys who were like, how many elections have Christian nationalists won? Like, when are they going to win anything? I don't care about Christian nationalism until they actually accomplish something. And it's like, that take is really stupid. And I've seen people say that and it makes me lose a lot of respect for them and like their thinking because it's like, the goal is not to like have this electoral majority and try to produce what we want, a Christian America, through the ballot box. That's not going to happen.

That's foolish. And like you look at Ohio, a red state that overwhelmingly votes to enshrine baby murder in its constitution this last election because America's not there. They're not ready for it anymore. They're not ready to baby murder anymore. They're ready to have like seventh laws. Right. All these things to think about in terms of like a conceptual framework. Right. What would it look like when we have political power? All right, so you set your eye on the goal and then you backtrack to, okay,

how do we get from where we are today, no political power at all, to that, right? What steps do you have to take? What direction do you go? It's not a question of, oh, here's the blueprint to win elections, right? That's stupid. It's more about retraining

the mind of Christian Americans to think within this framework, rather than think within, well, we're in this secular liberal society and that's just the way it is, and we'll try to have moral Christian candidates in the GOP and that'll take things further. To project that whole kind of thinking and thinking. No, we want a Christian American one day. Yeah. So I've listened to a little bit of his show and I'll say that despite my strong disagreement with Andrew about just about everything, he doesn't really mince words too much like on the actual show. Like, it's pretty clear. Yeah.

He's not making any act about how he wants the US to be a Christian theocracy, about how people following other religions is heretical and how this is kind of an ethnic thing. But he also really doesn't want to talk about that. Right. The part to... he doesn't want to get into the specifics about that the ethnic part. Odd how that works I thought the way that his co-host put it on this same episode of his podcast was pretty cute Okay, I agree. I don't think you can get away from the ethnic aspect of things. I'm not an ethnic Essentialist where someone has to be of a certain ethnicity to have you know a full standing in society

So I'm not an essentialist, but I don't think you can get away, I don't think you can separate it completely. I think there are relations, coincidences, and correspondences there that we need to talk about. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. So I felt like that characterized the vibe that I got off these guys.

They're racists and they know it. They just don't think that being racist is bad, and they've intellectualized their position enough that I suspect they don't Identify their position with bigotry and hatred. It's somehow ascended. Well, I mean What's interesting is that they seem to have weaponized two things They've weaponized the slippery slope argument like you can't be like hey It's a slippery slope to listen to this guy because his explicit goal is to slippery slope us into where he wants us to go. Right? So you can't say like it's a slippery slope. That's his goal. Yeah. Right. And then he, uh, uh, I guess weaponized. There are some good ones. Argument. Like I'm

a, I'm an ethnic, I'm not an ethnic essentialist, which is like, see, I'm not a racist. There are people who only like white people. I acknowledge that there's like five or six good black people, so there you go. I'm not a racist. It's essential. They're essentialists. Yeah. Yeah.

Listening to their show is a strange kind of experience where it's refreshing on the one hand, because they don't hide some of their very objectionable political beliefs, but on the other hand, there is still a similarity to a lot of the other tiptoe bullshit that you hear from these kinds of shows. I'm not an ethnic essentialist, but there's an ethnic component to my conception of Christian nationalism that you can't escape is a ridiculous statement to make, unless you're just doing

a half-assed job of trying to cover up the fact that ethnic essentialism is pretty important to you, and you just recognize that most people don't like that. So I listened to a bit more of their show, and I got a pretty good sense that they don't like Jewish people much. They use the term, quote, the Jewish question a couple times, which is a bad sign. I didn't listen to a ton of their episodes, but I did listen to one where they interview a World War II revisionist guy about how great Charles Lindbergh is.

So that was that that's cool stuff. Great. But it did seem like they weren't in the storm front sort of anti Semitic camp. But I found an article in Mother Jones that helped me get a better picture of where this guy is at. Apparently in 2023, he tweeted quote, I don't hate Jews. Their religion is literally blasphemous and anti-Christian. You cannot be a Christian without recognizing this.

I don't buy the whole not being motivated by hate thing, but having listened to his show, I'm willing to believe that Andrew believes that about himself. He has a political and social view that's indistinguishable from a neo-Nazi, but he's definitely not one. It's just a coincidence that his religious beliefs line up that way. So I think that that's probably the story that's going on internally, and I think he believes it. Yeah, that sounds true. This dude sucks, but as far as I'm concerned, I just have a fundamental difference of opinion

that debate and reason aren't going to solve. On a very simple level, he just doesn't believe that some people are as much of humans as he is, and he deserves more rights than them. He's a Christian nationalist, but it's also not about Christianity. And I know that because he says it himself. Uh oh. Well, it goes to the question too, CJ, of if all eight billion people or six of the eight billion people on planet earth say Christ is the Lord, does that mean they could become Americans?

Right? Right. Right. No. No. Christian nationalism isn't about Christianity, clearly, because if three quarters of the world joined together in forming a Christian state, that wouldn't be acceptable to Andrew. This isn't about Christianity, it's about domination, and Christianity is the vehicle

that Andrew and his ilk have chosen to enable that domination. He knows that the US wouldn't vote to submit itself to his particular version of cultural dominance, so he's decided to do the thing that so many religious zealots and profiteers have done before him. He's starting a church-slash-planned community in the middle of nowhere, and Tucker Carlson has invited him onto the show to promote it while pretending that he has no idea why anyone would think this guy's controversial. It's bullshit.

Ugh, I mean, okay. I'm actually pro him forming a community in the middle of nowhere, so long as it also can't contact anybody or affect anybody else in any way well I guess if a bunch of racists want to get together and live in a hole. I'm not mad about that I did unfortunately learn that the plots of land do have internet connectivity So that's what the problem is memes coming out of that's the problem They say they want a separatist community But what they want is a bunch of them together so they can fight people better. And also water provided by the city and electricity that's cool.

So the issue that I have and why I decided to do an episode here is that like, this is kind of wild for someone in Tucker Carlson's ostensible media position to be like whitewashing a dude who's going to start a Christian nationalist church in the middle of nowhere as part of a strategy that is essentially like, wow, we can't ever electorally win power. Of course not. So we're going to just create these enclaves. But I honestly didn't know if that would have been all that interesting. But there's a secondary dynamic to this that I think is, it's important to keep track of. This is not all

ideological. There's an ideological aspect to this, but some of it is also a business thing. And so the name of this business comes up that's behind all of this. Great, good stuff. So it's a company town and a religious town. Great, good stuff, good stuff. Yeah, it's a company, you know, Ridge Runner is purchasing land

and sort of facilitating a lot of things. Like you're familiar with the big sort where people are leaving, you know, blue states to go to red states and things like that. Where it's along those lines where people are leaving. Like I left Minnesota, a very blue state. Everyone's now familiar with our governor in that state, Tim Walz. Don't hire him to babysit. No, I would not. He would be to babysit. No, I would not.

He would be the last person. Yes, I think so. Ha ha ha ha. So it feels like it might be time for these guys to give up on their fears about Tim Walz. I mean, it's past the exploration date. It feels that way. In that clip, Andrew is beginning to lay out the structure of this plan to form a religious community in rural Tennessee.

A company called Ridge Runner bought a 448 acre plot of land, which they intend to develop into plots that they can sell to people wanting to escape from secular society. Ridge Runner has bought up multiple such plots around the Highland Rim area of Kentucky and Tennessee with the goal of creating a bunch of communities that can be used to create a parallel economy and culture to the evil world outside. Good stuff. Ridge Runner was founded by a guy named Josh Abatoy, who's a managing director with an anti-woke venture capital firm called New Founding.

He helped create their capital fund, which aims to invest in businesses that skew far to the right politically, Christian and very importantly are into cryptocurrencies. Great. Good stuff. According to Forbes, billionaire dipshit and past Rogan guest Mark Andreessen signed on as a limited partner and provided them with a nice chunk of change. And it appears that he isn't the only Silicon Valley type who they're working with.

Good stuff. Good stuff. It's a smart move and a pivot for these type of oligarchs to make since they never really cared about liberal social values to begin with. And they're bringing about a power structure that will have contempt for the idea of regulation and consumer protections. It works all to their advantage. It's always a good idea to have a castle with serfs on it.

Yeah. Workers' rights are antithetical to... Don't even say those words. Yeah. Workers' rights are antithetical to... Don't even say those words. Right. So anyway, this Christian nationalist venture capitalist firm with billionaire Silicon Valley backing is behind this ridge runner company that's going to sell Christian nationalists plots of land that they can create their own compounds on, presumably aligning with each other and using cryptocurrencies. I would assume so, yeah. As their website says, quote, we welcome and encourage the adoption of Bitcoin and other

disruptive technologies that can, at their best, promote economic sovereignty. This is a marriage of Christian fundamentalism and tech bro bullshit. One of their recent projects, the Bend at Cumberland River, which is in Kentucky, it started selling lots at least a year ago and they currently have six sold out of 50. I'm not a real estate guy, but that doesn't sound very good. It sounds like there's a bit of a low organic demand to this. Andrew Isker is a pastor and he's announced his plan to buy a plot in their Tennessee development to build a church.

It's all good stuff and he and Tucker definitely don't feel the need to talk about how he's not Randy Weaver Within five minutes of this interview started stuff. Definitely not Randy Weaver, but great great cool. Not Ruby Ridge. It's Ridge runner I I feel very strongly about this for all of the Snaky oiliness of what's going on right now If I was going to talk to somebody who I ideologically despised, who wanted to buy one of these,

I would be torn between two things. One, you are obviously getting scammed. And I don't like you, so go get scammed. Screw you, I don't give a shit. Right? Or two, I don't care if we disagree on something, this is a scam, They're scamming you. Maybe you believe in God and more power to you, but you're getting scammed.

What do I do here? Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't care. Sure, I don't care either. I think that it's interesting to understand and see this happening. But yeah, I don't have any feelings about telling people to not get involved with this very clear scam. I mean, if you buy one of these, you're getting scammed.

Unless you're quite rich. Unless you're quite rich. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah. Because it's just land. You have to build a house on it. So that's on top of whatever you're paying for the land. And then you also, unless you're buying it outright, you're going to owe a ton of money to the venture capital firm that owns all the land that you're buying it outright, you're going to owe a ton of money to the venture

capital firm that owns all the land that you're buying it from. And they're going to be so kind. Yeah. And like, you get behind in your payments because you're living in the middle of nowhere and there's no jobs in theory. Oh, do they foreclose on you? Yes, they absolutely do. Maybe.

Yep, yep. They remove everything and they own it now. Yeah. Yeah So I think I think that there is like a little bit of a yeah I guess he I see what you're doing here. You're stealing souls. Is that what you're doing? You're stealing souls for God for God my bad my bad. Yeah. Yeah, so you I mean it's it's honestly Beyond all that stuff. It's perfect because yeah, you can just like get your friends together and go live in the woods that stuff it's perfect because yeah you can just like get your friends together and go live in the woods of course yeah I mean yeah everybody should do it and so it's it's a platform to to be able to you know draw all of your your friends

together it's like well we can kind of live anywhere why don't we why don't we all live in the same kind of place and bring our families bring our businesses and and build things together. So it's... I bet you'll find out there are reasons. Drawing people that are spread out all throughout the country and can leave these places that are not great, living in large cities or suburbs where it's totally disconnected and and you have really isolated alienated from from normal life and you can you can have the American small town experience once again

So sad to hear you say that about Minnesota as a Scandinavian I always thought of it was told it was like where all the Swedes are and it's kind of you know Lots of Saunas and you know, red-cheeked children and it's kind of you know lots of saunas and you know red cheek children and it's clean and reasonable Yeah, not not the case anymore. Why did you leave there? Um, you know for us it was Are you from there from there? Yep born and raised in in Wasikam, Minnesota. My my children were the sixth generation of our family that lived in that town gosh and In the town in that town. Yeah in the town of Waseca. Are your ancestors buried there?

Yes, there's six generations that are buried there even one of my own my own children that passed That you know all they're like will you be moving them to Tennessee a couple blocks away from the cemetery where all of all my ancestors were Buried oh gosh. Yeah, that's very heavy Yes, so heavy so heavy Tucker is gonna be seriously focused on this six generations of his family living in the town thing I'm surprised made me realize that in his interview with Alex that we just covered He said he didn't want to leave the United States because his ancestors are buried here. I thought that was just kind of an expression, but I think he was being a bit more literal. My family moved around a bunch when I was growing up, so maybe I just can't relate to this, but I don't care where bones are.

I absolutely could not give less of a shit where bones are. Yeah. This mentality that you and your friends can just up and move to the middle of Tennessee is a little disconnected from most people's reality. For instance, you can't just do that if you rely on a job that isn't something that you can do remotely. You can work from home out there because the government they hate so much is set up electricity and internet access to these plots of land, but if you have to go into a physical workplace, rural Tennessee might be a long commute from where you need to go. It's rough. This would be tough for working people to pull off.

And that's kind of because the idea, I think, is to move Silicon Valley type people out into the woods. Naturally. And create what you exactly what you said, company towns in these little pockets and people who can just work online and shit. There's no intention of building a factory or a mine or something. Right. No, I mean, here's the problem with this, and this is something that I think is distinctly

American. Every few years, somebody comes up with this brand new idea to do exactly this again. It happens all the time. And at no point in time does everybody go like, hey, how is it going that? Nope. It's always, we're going to do it right this time. I've never heard anybody not go like, yeah, but we're going to do it right this time. And like, hey, well, we've got a couple of hundred years that says you're not. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's the unfortunate cycle that we, especially with tech innovation, we seem to be trapped in. It's like we're recreating network television

on streaming shit. By just walking around. We finally figured it out. By standing still, we've gone everywhere. Right. And with ride share stuff, we're eventually recreating public transit. Holy shit, how did we not think of this?

A bus could carry all these people at once. Right. And it just feels really fucking sad. And that's what this feels like to me in a lot of ways. But I do relate to the desire to go to the woods. I ask you this question. Has anybody said Tucker's name backwards three times I mean I relate to the desire to go to the woods. I ask you this question. Mm-hmm has anybody Said Tucker's name backwards three times to his face. Mm-hmm

Do you think he disappears cuz I feel like he does after I heard that that laugh. Yeah I was like maybe maybe that's what we're missing Is it and nobody expects it because nobody's like ah fairies are real, but he is right That's how we get rid of him. Maybe that that was part of the demon attack Yeah, maybe someone said his name backwards three times Arthur Conan Doyle saw Tucker Carlson, and that's why Houdini hated him That's the truth so Someone else who's hated yeah Tim Walls yeah, but I guess He was really behind why Andrew had to leave Minnesota. Is he? He made it

intolerable. Brutal. It was, you know, 20 after the 2022 election, where the Democrats took control of the the state Senate finally, and Tim Walz could do whatever he wanted to do. The first thing he passed was in the wake of the Dove's decision, full abortion allowance even up to birth. There were the stories during the election about even post-birth abortions that took place in Minnesota. I went to the state capitol and spoke to the first committee when that bill was being heard. And I mean, maybe later your guys can pull up that video. But I just went there and said, like, hey, you think you won an election. You think you can do this and just murder children. But God is not mocked.

Like, he's going to come with vengeance about what you're doing. Do you mean tiny-dick God? Consequences. Yeah, like all these 60 you know, 60 year old liberal ladies senators here looking at me scoffing at me and just staring daggers at me and hating what I'm saying. How dare he cut this? There are lots of lots of luck to them. Good luck. So this isn't true.

For one thing, it's completely false that Tim Walz made it legal to kill babies after they're born in Minnesota. It would be very strange for him to do. 2022. However, I do have to give Andrew credit and there is some truth to what he's saying. And that is that the first bill the Minnesota State Senate passed in their 2023 session was SF1, the Protect Reproductive Options Act. This bill just states that Minnesotans have a fundamental right to use or refuse reproductive health care and that lower

Government bodies were prohibited from making any more restrictive rules than what the state had set forth sure Andrew is fucking lying about this. Yep, and as I recall that's a sin. Hmm, so he should probably pray about it I feel like you're mocking God buddy. I know I'm mocking him. No, he is a God's representative, so to mock him is to mock God. This is like somebody saying that maybe these plots of land are a scam. How dare you? How dare you? Get thee behind me and buy a plot of land over there. Right. I did actually look at some of the land. Yeah The day we're both like well, I mean yeah, but you're just the taxes are so low There's just you can't not live there. Honestly. There was a small part of me that's like, all right y'all want this I'll come like I Want to live in the woods? I'll come be a pain in the ass to you

You literally cannot refuse to accept because I'm not a Christian. It's against the law. It is against the law. But I was like, that's not worth a fucking headache. Set up a big Cthulhu statue in the middle of their Christian town. Why are you, Dan Friesen, why are you doing this? Uh, because I'm kind of an asshole. Yeah, I was bored. I was bored. So I was doing this podcast and I did a stray episode. Shit got out of hand. That's what that's what's happening here. This is what happens when things get out of hand. Yeah. Yeah, so There's that was the first bill. Yes, and then there was a second bill

That was like I really really got to get out of here. Amazing. And this is nuts The second bill that they passed and these are the first two legislative priorities that they had. The second one was a trans rights bill which allowed the state to take your child out of their custody or your parents custody. Sounds true. If you oppose. Probably shouldn't ask any more questions. And my oldest child is 12. A minor child. Minor child. Yeah, my oldest son He's 12 years old

He has autism we homeschool all the rest of our children But we don't have the the resources to be able to to educate him with his autism And so he goes to who helps you and I'm well aware especially if you see the things that happened in 2020, 2021, all of the activism, trans stuff in the schools, right, all the Libs of TikTok kind of stuff, that the majority of like trans children are on the autism spectrum, right? These children are targeted, right? And I'm thinking, okay, he doesn't talk about school, just talk about home at school.

He categorizes all of his life. He just won't do it. So I would have no way of knowing like what is going on there. They could be putting him in a dress and calling him a girl name. And I would have no idea. And then when I find out and I oppose it, right, boom. CPS comes, takes him out of our custody He's gone there you go, and they can so that's when you go Randy Weaver at that point

I mean yeah for sure, and you don't want to go Randy with her like it didn't end well for Andy Weaver No, just don't for anybody. No take it off the table. Yeah, I don't want to go down that road I don't know don't make the road exists, and so it's like we need to we need to get out of here There's no run cannot trust the you know the whole system. So it's like we need to we need to get out of here. There's no cannot trust the The whole system yet, so I have pulled up the Senate's files sure from that session Yeah, where there was the reproductive health care bill There was the first bill that got passed yeah, and the second bill they passed was SF to which made allocations How do you know it was the second bill they passed?

The number two was a dead giveaway. Oh, interesting. All right, all right. And the date, time stamps and everything. All right, okay. I'm just checking. I got to ask these questions to follow up. The administrative record.

Yeah, okay. This was a bill that made allocations for the paid family and medical leave insurance program. So I guess he's sinning again by lying. Well, I mean, two is a very subjective number. Sure. So there were a number of other bills like child tax credits, price gouging prohibitions, and down payment assistance funds for first generation home buyers. But if you keep going down SF-23 addresses prohibiting conversion therapy with children and vulnerable adults.

Conversion therapy is cruel and I feel like it's on par with psychological torture, so prohibiting it is a good idea by my count. However, this bill doesn't even prohibit conversion therapy. All it does is prohibit licensed medical practitioners and mental health professionals from engaging in it, and it prohibits payment for conversion therapy to be covered by medical assistance programs. It's not illegal to subject your kids to this kind of treatment but Minnesota regulates medical licensing and the state Senate is of the opinion that it's not professionally appropriate for doctors to do that shit. For the sake of completeness the bill also prohibits

people from advertising conversion therapy services that quote use or employ any fraud, false pretense, false promise, false guarantee, misrepresentation, false or misleading statements, or deceptive practice by advertising or otherwise offering conversion therapy services that could be reasonably interpreted or inferred as representing homosexuality as a mental disease, disorder or illness, or guaranteed to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. Sure. This one's really about consumer protections, and it was amending language in a completely separate part of the Minnesota state code

that had to do with fraud and advertising. Yeah. Nothing about this even comes close to involving child protective services. But the way Andrew was telling this story is fascinating. He's terrified of something that he's made up in his head. Protective Services. But the way Andrew was telling this story is fascinating. He's terrified of something that he's made up in his head. The possibility that his fears could be true. It's giving him so much pain that he needs to flee from society in order to alleviate

that fear. He has no reason to think anyone at his school is trying to influence his kid at all. He has no reason to think that nothing has happened. It is all in his head. He has no reason to think that. Nothing has happened. It is all in his head. This also just doesn't make sense. Like he has a bunch of kids and he can afford to homeschool all but one of them.

So that one has to go to public school. How does it become more affordable to homeschool this kid when you pack up your family and take out a mortgage on a plot of land and set out to build a church? Moving to Tennessee doesn't sound like a solution to any of the problems that Andrew pretends to be struggling with. Well, if I understand correctly, I believe his point is that because the child has autism,

he does not have the resources to educate a child with autism. So he takes advantage of the publicly available... Oh, he probably shouldn't be okay with that at all, right? Well, he clearly isn't. Yeah, yeah, seems like, yeah. He's not at peace with this. I mean, it is like, it's not like he's made it up by himself, you know?

Like these- No, the Libs of TikTok stuff clearly plays an influence. Even the way you describe that too, of like, oh, this stuff could happen, you know, the libs of TikTok stuff. Like you're describing a thing that you could go to and talk to the people and listen to the people. Yeah, you're describing falling into a hysteria. Right.

But through the lens of somebody who is absolutely nowhere near this place. Like you live there. Yep. Just go talk to them and be like, hey, are you going to do this? No? Cool. You live in a fairly small town. How about this?

Ask them to write something right out. If I put your kid in a dress, then I won't take them away from you and then sign it. There's 400 kids that go to the school in his town. Like, it's not a big school. Insane. Yeah. This is insane behavior. So I'm not a psychologist,

but it feels like Ander's kid going to public school represents a loss of control that he feels over his child, and that feeling was entirely intolerable for him. His mind was just a swirling mass of dumb shit he saw on social media that he was supposed to be afraid of, and a lot of that has been about demonizing trans people for the last few years. That's been a huge piece of right-wing media. Libs of TikTok shit. It kind of feels like Andrew felt that strain of impending individuation that his kid was going to experience out in the real

world and he couldn't handle it. And what better way to swing the pendulum back the other direction really hard than by taking your family out to the woods to start a Christian nationalist compound that's totally not Randy Weaver like, although it is called Ridge Runner, Ruby Ridge. Sure. A little close. And we've referenced Randy Weaver as being an option. You don't want to go that.

You don't want to go. we don't go nobody wants that option So we're not going to take it off the table. Yeah, that would be crazy. Yeah, we always need to be able to go Weaver Yeah, well, I mean it's just something that is inevitable at a certain point like but then just go full Weaver now Yeah, just go do it. So I think that his reasoning for leaving doesn't make sense. Nope. Tim Walls did not make baby killing legal. Probably not.

And that bill that has to do with state funding and licensing of people who engage in conversion therapy has nothing to do with the CPS coming and taking his kids away. Yeah. So that's all kind of dumb. I mean the irony of that is that the law that they wrote is explicitly about not being able to kidnap your children and torture them into saying the things you want to hear. And that is what he interprets as them wanting to kidnap his children. It all makes sense. Makes perfect sense to me.

And like he's just, you know, he's just afraid that they're going to come and snatch his kid. Of course. They could, they could steal him from us, right? This could happen. I don't want to be the- As opposed to kidnapping him because we paid for that. I don't want to go through the legal battles and do all those fights.

I want my son. I don't, I don't want to live in a place where that's even conceivable that that could happen to you. It's insane. And so it was at that moment, I'm like, we need to get out of this state. This is not a place where I can raise my children. And I'm thinking like long-term, right?

We've been in this place for six generations, but it's a wonderful town, amazing place. I mean, it's home. I love the people there. And many of them are gonna be watching this and You must know all of them From from my youth small town six generations And children hated when I would go to the store because it would take

You know an hour to get a thing of milk because I just stop and talk to people I've known my whole life Oh, I love that and And it's a wonderful play. Like it's hard to leave that right because it's you know it. You're familiar with everything and all the people and just the way of life. I love that. So which is it? Are the teachers at your kid's school secretly trying to turn him trans or do you know everyone in your town and they're all so wonderful?

Right. Seems like it's not possible for both of these things to Be true it would be very difficult for that to be true Andrew said that he's from was Sika which is a town of about 9,200 people with one elementary school that has about 400 students at it This can't be a wonderful town that he's so sad to leave and he stops and talks to everybody But also one where the schools are indoctrinating all the kids. Yeah, this is fucking stupid. Yeah, this isn't the faculty no Starring usher. I thought Elijah Wood was in that one. He might be I think it was Devon saw off

Maybe might have been around that time. I think that's a heart net vehicle Josh Jackson, maybe Josh Jackson. Hmm. We got a lot of names. All right. I'm only sure of usher Understood correctly what Andrew is saying is that that Wasika was a wonderful town and the people there were really nice. His family had lived there for six generations, but when he sent his kid to public school, he got so freaked out that he had to start a church in the woods. What I'm saying is that based on his telling of the story, I don't think a lot of this has anything to do with his son.

This is all about Andrew. And now, because it's fun, I looked up the lunch menu at that school in Waseca. Fine. And I wanted to get your order. Do you mean the lunch menu that turns you gay? It might. Yeah. So I actually have to get your order. Okay. For the there's some options. There are not options. There are. What? When did this happen? I don't know, I assume some of it has to do with like maybe dietary restrictions or something. Oh, okay, that's fair. I didn't have that growing up. There's no school today.

School's out. Okay, so I can't have anything today. Yeah, but last Thursday, you could get chicken strips or hot dog on a bun. Which way are you going? School-wise, you always go with the chicken strips. You can't trust the hot dog in a bun from a school. Yeah Yeah, I think I'm with you now, and I think I would want two hot dogs if I'm gonna have a hot dog as a Entree I'm on your team there. Yeah one hot dog is not enough not enough. Yeah, we're from Chicago

What if you get fucked over though, and you only get like two chicken strips? That's not enough either yeah, but two chicken strips is something you can handle. One hot dog makes you thirst for another hot dog. They also have sides and stuff. So the sides are all pretty uniform. All right. This is just the main is really what you had a choice over. I gotcha. So on Friday, the choices were cheese quesadilla or sloppy Joe. Ooh, you know what? There is a nostalgic part of me that says sloppy Joe, but then there's nostalgic part of me that says sloppy Joe But then there's the part of me that has a clear-eyed memory that says avoid the sloppy Joe at all costs

Mm-hmm, and so that is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go with the cheese quesadilla. Okay. I'm gonna go sloppy Joe You're gonna go sloppy Joe? Yeah, you're gonna make a mistake. Yep Well, it's I feel like when you have a chance to do a Hail Mary you do it And if you you, the legend lives on if you catch it. If you catch fire, you catch fire. So these are all like kind of normal and they make sense. But then this Tuesday, just a couple days ago,

the options, crazy. Shrimp poppers. What? Or quote unquote yogurt basket. I don't even know what that is. I am confused as to why not even just name it mystery box. Like, I guess yogurt basket is slightly more descriptive, but ultimately I think it's the same. I think if you just said yogurts, it would make sense.

That would make sense. The basket is... What does the basket have to do with it? It introduces questions. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But are you gonna take that or shrimp poppers? I mean, I don't know.

Yogurt by itself is already practically expired, so you can't go super bad with yogurt, right? Or is that how it works? I have no idea. It's not. Okay. Well, then I guess I'll go with yogurt anyways. I'm gonna go with yogurt too. I think it's gonna be an unsatisfying meal, but there's no fucking way. I'm trusting shrimp properties from an elementary school

Unreasonable yeah, I'm not taking seafood I mean, I guess if you're Minnesota no no no Midwest seafood at school. There's no shrimp that you're ice-fishing Absolutely there are no shrimps. Yeah So anyway that was fun that you're ice fishing. Yeah, absolutely. Out of the lakes. Absolutely. There are no shrimps. Yeah. So anyway, that was fun. Yeah. Back to these dumb assholes.

Great. Why do you think so that the three, I mean, I have my own theories, but you've lived it much more personally than I have. How is it, has he? You tell me, why do you think states like Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, California, have gone to a place that I think by any objective global standard, there's no country in the world that would nod and say that's okay except maybe the UK.

How did they get there? I think, I mean for all of them, the political power was captured by the left, political and cultural power. I mean, I went to college in Minnesota in the early 2000s, and you could see the seeds of all of these things beginning to form. And so all of the institutions were captured. And especially culturally in Minnesota, people are very nice. It's not not a miss Minnesota nice is very real and Right the the ethos is if you don't have anything nice to say right don't say anything at all Which I just swim completely against that tide

Not to point to genetics, but it's real it's you know Germans. It's Scandinavians Norwegians We've got good stuff ends good start. It's like these are gentle, non-confrontational people. You gentle? Hey! Yeah, they're very kind, people that are to a fault, unwilling to give offense. Yes. And very, very tolerant of other people. And have stolen half the land on the earth. Right.

So you can have... So they take our best qualities and subvert them against us. Yes. Stole the land on the earth. So it's pretty hard to be more explicit than that. All of these Nordic groups that Tucker considers white are gentle, inherently decent people who just have that decency used against them. Stole half the land on the earth.

This is a very old white supremacist talking point. There's literally zero chance that Tucker doesn't understand exactly what he's doing. Cannot. And what he's... he's slippery sloping whatever audience He has to the much faster slippery slope that Andrew represents ethnic essentialism if you will yeah Yeah, but hey, we don't want to talk about that. That's not important. That's well. That's that's slippery slope number four Yeah, all right We're at we're explicitly at regular slippery right now right and then we'll get down to Sabbath laws

Oh, Sabbath laws is gonna be a real bitch of you if you're starting up here at the top of the slope you're really gonna Be pissed off Scandinavians are cool Takes you all the way down to I can't wear what ever mmm crazy, so yeah, man White people are just too cool I've I've often thought that. Yeah. Tolerant, some might say, to the level of defenselessness. You know what? Here's what I'll say.

I'll say, too cool to have, period. Let's get them out of here. Get out of here! Tucker talks here a little bit about the defenselessness of tolerance. No, it does. I mean, I come from a family like that, with some of them have strong views, but they would never impose their views on you under any circumstances. They're just not in them.

It's a very specific Northern European culture where they just don't want to get in your face. Never. But it leaves them defenseless a little bit, I think. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, maybe I'm unique, you know, maybe my personality type is such that I just, I can't do that. I can't see, like, evil stuff happening, taking place,

and not say something about it. This is insane. Like, how could we, I mean just think a hundred years ago and that's sort of, you know, my book is, right, if you go back a hundred years and you think about your great-great-grandfather and you told him, hey, they're going to take little kids and little boys and remove their genitals and turn them into girls, right, are you okay with that? Do you think that's all right? Like what would they do if that was even proposed? Like they unix and I was filing dynasty. Yes, we have that Yeah, we're bringing that back and they would go insane They would they would they would fight they become violent if if that were happening and and we're like well

You know, I I really want to keep my job. So I'll put the I'll put the pronouns in my email signature and on my LinkedIn you know I'll just use yeah did you hear that at the end there Tucker's I have contempt for them yep dark yep yep yep so I get the point that Andrew is trying to make about culture shock but this whole go back a hundred years thing is fucking hacky go back to 1925 and explain your love of Elon Musk without referencing space rockets, electric cars, memes, ketamine, or social media. See how well you can explain all that dumb shit. Yeah. So a fun exercise might be to go back

to 1925 and see if your definition of white bears any resemblance to your great grandfathers. They might have different answers about which groups are included. No. Ironically, Tucker brought up the Finns and this dude is from Minnesota, so it's worth mentioning the 1907 Finnish immigrant labor strike on the Oliver Iron Mine Company. About 16,000 workers struck when demands for better working conditions in the mines were ignored and that went on for about two months before strikebreakers were brought in in order to squash shit. This was one of the early instances of a large-scale organized strike, and it shook the bosses

a little bit, a bit in terms of like anti-Fin sentiment that began to be disseminated out into the public, motivated largely from resentment over their involvement in union organizing right from a Minnesota public radio article quote After the 1907 strike they tried to make the fins be seen as Asians There was an Asian Exclusion Act and if the fins could be seen as Asians they could get kicked out of the country Hmm the next year a group of Finnish immigrants were attempting to become naturalized citizens Which was something that was only available to white immigrants. It was argued that the Finns were Mongolians, so they didn't apply. I like that.

I like that. But a judge ended up deciding that they were white enough. I like a judge being able to decide that. That's all of that is A plus stuff. That didn't sway the public though, And people from Finland were still routinely called China Swedes in Minnesota after this. It was a real thing. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

But sometimes, sometimes, listen, all racism fundamentally is ridiculous. It's nonsensical and it's childish behavior. But sometimes whenever they get too far childish where you're like, come on, you gotta know that China's Swedes doesn't make any goddamn sense. Come on! It makes enough sense for demonizing

and mobilizing the population against these people who are involved in trying to get workers' rights. You know, it's so strange how regularly you can go back and you can look at rich people who are suddenly fomenting racial violence. Isn't that crazy? It's weird. It's so strange how regularly you can go back and you can look at rich people who are suddenly fomenting racial violence Yeah, isn't that crazy? It's weird. It's crazy So yeah, maybe your great-grandfather might think that trans people are weird But he might also be really confused by Tucker talking so highly of these dirty fins. Mmm time

It's tricky that way time is a bitch. Don't go back Yeah, I don't think I don't think that you're making any kind of real valid point with hey the things of today would Confuse the people of the past precisely. Yeah, nobody should go back Nobody even if you think you're going back to meet your progressive hero. Don't don't go back There's shit that you don't know at best. It's gonna be confusing. Yeah, so Tucker Tucker talks a little bit about how maybe all these people who have different opinions than him are into the devil. That sounds true.

So, my theory is that those are the most secular states. Yeah. And Maine is another one of the most secular states, unfortunately. And those trends are rising there as well. To Tennessee. And there's something about, you know, lots of left-wing ideas that are liberal ideas or socialist ideas that like, well, I don't disagree with all of them, honestly, but some of them I did, a lot of them I really disagree with. Yeah. But the transgender thing, the abortion thing,

human sacrifice, and turning your children to eunuchs, those are so clearly expressions of cultish religion, of pagan religion, that like I can't turn away. I'm like, the Canaanites did this. I know what's going on here. This is not... You claim you're secular. You're not secular at all. These are religious rituals. That's the way it feels to me. Yes. Absolutely. So on one level, this is stupid. But on a deeper level, it's very stupid. And it's very stupid.

And it's also partially an act. Tucker knows that no one supports access to reproductive health care because they love sacrificing babies. He knows that access to birth control and abortion have granted women a giant level of autonomy in their own lives. And he understands the people who advocate for reproductive health care support that end goal. He strongly opposes that end goal and it's easier to pretend that he's fighting against child

sacrifices than it is to argue against women being able to choose if they want to carry through a pregnancy at the expense of their education, career, all sorts of other you know variables. Similarly, he knows that no one is trying to turn your kids trans or gay He's against people creating and accepting safe places for LGBTQ youth because he believes that if they're deprived of any validation They'll be cis and hetero eventually like God intended them to be These are two particular hot-button issues for him right now, and this is where the act part of this comes in button issues for him right now, and this is where the act part of this comes in. He's pretending like these two issues are the biggest concerns and obsessions of the leftists, like it's a part of a demonic religion, but he's failing to take into consideration

as his own part in this. The right-wing media has chosen these two issues as huge rallying points for their politics, so they're attacking LGBTQ rights and access to reproductive health care super aggressively as a cornerstone of their ideology. Their attacks are what is prompting people to stand up for these issues, and Tucker understands that dynamic fully well. He's just pretending not to. Tucker and his ilk can play this game about almost anything, and it's super easy.

They can advocate for the rounding up and removal of immigrants who are here legally, and then when people are upset about it, he gets to pretend that these people are so weird. Isn't it suspicious how much they want to keep immigrants here? They must be up to something. It's probably because that they're secretly using them to win votes illegally but you know. There's truly only one way to defeat this demonic cultish behavior and that is to move to a religious work camp in the middle of nowhere Tennessee. I think that's the only way to combat- A Silicon Valley aligned capital of venture funds owned.

Absolutely. Because you hate cultish behavior. Because you don't want any kind of cultish bullshit messing up your totally normal sane rational choices Yeah, yeah, it's the only answer. It's obvious to me So they get to talking about atheists sure those dumb-dumbs Yeah with their I don't know what else what else are they also guilty of in their world? They might not exist Tucker I like that Tucker does say at one point, have you ever even met one? I love it. Great. Good stuff. But they're talking about the pillars of the

atheist communities, like Christopher Hitchens. I'm sorry, they've never met one, but also they know the pillars of the community are? In the past. They're used to be atheists. Not anymore. Because the demons and stuff. No, you're right. You're right. You're right. All right, but today like James Lindsay is is one of those types He's James Lindsay. He's a he is a This this atheist atheist guy that opposed wokeness and things like that but once Wants just a free liberal society like it's 1995. Yeah. Yeah, I'm wants just a free liberal society like it's 1995. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm all for a free liberal society. It's just that there isn't one. Either you're moving quickly toward... I mean, I will never give up my views of... I will never stop being liberal on the most basic level, which is I actually don't want to control you or your beliefs because I don't think you're a slave. I think you're a human being because God

made you absolutely that's my view unless you're gay I don't want to break down people's doors to make sure they're adhering to unless you're gay I hate that however it you're either moving toward order or you're moving toward chaos you're moving toward you know a society rooted in some sort of transcendent belief or you're moving toward traniism, which is another transcendent belief. It's like you pick a religion. Yeah, it's not whether but which.

There will be one and that's part of it. Yeah, I don't know if people can hear themselves sometimes. I'm not convinced by Tucker's non-committal interest in liberalism that I think he very much would like to break down your door until he had a lip. I mean, not everybody's door, but if you're doing something that he thinks is evil, he's got to do something or else society is going to be destroyed. Obviously. He should have every reason to know that the person he's talking to is not a big fan of

ideas like freedom or liberalism. So he doesn't need to do this wishy washy bullshit. But I do think it's fun that he has to qualify every fucking statement that is like, you know, I believe that everybody should be able to live however they want. However? I mean, you're going backwards or forwards, baby. I do love a complete negation of any ideology whatsoever. Like, hey, listen, I believe that people should be allowed to do what they're doing, but you're

either moving towards order or away from order, so in that concept, I'm gonna get rid of all non-white people. Sorry, I don't wanna tell anybody how to live, but you're moving towards order or away from order and having all of those other people is away from order, so there's nothing I can do, yay, yay, yay! I believe that everybody should have the right to live exactly how they want to live.

People have self-determinism and they have a right a fundamental right as humans in order to choose I agree their lifestyle and also I think that religious doctrine that I subscribe to yeah should guide all Yeah, well, but what if I don't? Good luck. I feel like you just negated the first part of your statement. Oh, did I? I don't know. What you gonna do? Yep, how about mad for some zin or the fuck tobacco pouches? Isn't that a good time to smoke some? Yeah, so this atheism that happened. Sure It had the unfortunate effect of ushering in demons that'll happen because Christianity went on a little bit of a decline and that

Left us open to demons. Is that how that works? I think so. Oh the new atheism all those things they broke down You know Christian morays and and and and Christian, you know, just cultural Christianity that was and Christian, just cultural Christianity that was imbued all throughout the American public life takes all of that down, but then there's a vacuum and that vacuum gets filled up and what's it been filled up with? Insane stuff like this, child sacrifice, all of it. Sounds true. It is a new religion. It isn't a question of like, well, we're just going to have pluralism or we're not going

to have any dominant religion. It's, no, there will be one. There will be a God that you serve and the one that we are serving now is some kind of demon. Well, I think that so much better put than I could have formulated that. But yes, exactly, perfectly put, exactly. You're going to worship something and now we're worshiping something really, really dark as a society. But it's particularly pronounced in the states that have abandoned Christianity the most aggressively and just

Come up with this new pagan religion, so it all makes sense really Let me ask you a question mm-hmm in this conception of religion and Celestiality if you will Are we doing Highlander is that what's going on here? of religion and celestiality, if you will. Are we doing Highlander? Is that what's going on here? How? Well, I mean, there can be only one. Do we have gods fighting each other?

Or are we always in a religious battle for dominance? Is the Bible and Christianity, which? Yeah, all the things it says but who cares is it about winning? See, here's how I kind of look at it. Mm-hmm I'm making up this metaphor as I go along. So forgive me if this couldn't put it better than that. Okay I think that the way you look at it is like parents of Teenagers, okay, so the parents are God. All right. They own the house. Sure. They are going to get their way under my house under my rules. Right. Yeah.

But if the parents are away, like Christianity is on the decline, sure. Those kids might have a party in the house. That makes perfect sense. That's the demons coming in. That makes perfect sense. Right. The demons taking control of the house right now They might run amok and destroy a bunch of shit in the house sure but the parents still own the house Right and it's just a question of like how much are they gonna mess up right like how much destruction are these demons gonna cause? They're not other gods right or anything right right yeah, so I understand I Understand would metaphors go one way to explain something what I don't understand is when metaphors go the opposite direction

You know where you're like no you've made up a whole religion out of the metaphor and not the thing that you're trying to explain Mm-hmm you know what I'm saying kind of yeah. Yeah. That's no good. It's bad. Nah, it's not. Backwards thinking. Yeah. Also, demons aren't real. Well, sure. Yeah.

I'm wondering, now, because people have been very unhappy with me whenever I said the book is very important. Well, actually, that's- That's my question here. Where is this coming from? Well, but that you when you're talking about people getting mad at you about saying that the book is important You're talking about people who believe themselves to be Christians, right? And don't believe certain things that are in the book, right in the bible, right?

um, and and One of the reasons that this guy stuck out to me is kind of interesting Is because he has the same perspective as you yes And one of the reasons that this guy stuck out to me as kind of interesting is because he has the same perspective as you. Yes, except for he puts things in the Bible that are not there, which I find interesting. Well, I think some of that could be a matter of interpretation of what he thinks some things in the Bible mean, which is a form of putting things into it. Yeah.

I'm interested in which... Was it the letter to the Thessalonians where it was like, hey man, if you aren't constantly on this, demons are wrecking your shit. And if there's an atheism rise, clearly that means that there's a commensurate demon rise along with it. Everybody knows that. Well, I think that relates to Alex's idea of the hedge of protection is kept up by prayer warriors or whatever the fuck. Right. Right. Right. So I, I, but he talks about that in this next clip where the, uh,

how he is just going from the book. Sounds true. And so I felt like maybe this could win win you over. Might. You know, overall, right? The people, you know, in, in Minnesota, right? They don't, they're not used to the kind of preaching that I do, the kind of Christianity that I have where it's like, I know I believe the Bible, like God is real, and he has spoken, he's revealed himself to us in the Bible, and therefore I believe all of it. And I'm not embarrassed by any of it. I'm not going like tiptoe around the things that might be controversial if anything, I'm gonna lean into those things and And like Jesus said and that's that runs totally against the evangelical Christian ethos in

America today, it's That it's it's all, you need to be nice, you need to, you know, make Jesus very inoffensive to people, and that's how you bring people into your church. So I'll say I'm not an evangelical. I've always liked the evangelicals, I've always defended them. I'm very sympathetic as an uneven, I'm not even exactly sure what an evangelical is. It seems more like a cultural descriptor, but I'm completely opposed to abortion. So that has been, for me, the reason that I've always defended them. But I always thought that the evangelicals were really forthright about their faith,

another thing that I liked, and were way more on the kind of fire and brimstone side, which I'm for, by the way. But you're saying that they're not um that that was certainly you look at like you know the 80s and even in the early 90s like you have the moral majority where they very much were that kind of fire and brimstone and they've they've been vindicated by everything that has happened I say I'd say, that's hilarious. Lent is here. The day before Easter, the 40 days,

and it's a unique chance to get closer to God. That's the point of it. Oh my God, no, you're fucking with me. You're fucking with me. That is not real. Oh, that's real. That is unreal. That is too real.

That is crazy. Yeah, there's an app for a prayer that he cuts into print. That is fucking insane. That is insane on all of the levels that the book has ever spoken about yeah to do that the double the back wall baby that's like a but it's also like Eva like like I agree with all of those motions that you just made and the words I feel like I just watched seven I feel like I watched Tony Hawk hit the 720 for the first time all over in the 900

Yes, that's what I was saying. Yeah, and it's like come on man. Seven apologies apologies. I was I was This was back before the 900 was a number No, it does feel like you guys hit all of it. Yeah, you hit all of it at the same five seconds Yeah, and it somehow elevated even further by how bad the edit into the commercial is like it's clunky it's Unsophisticated it's lazy. It doesn't care how on the nose it is It feels it feels like Joel Schumacher directed it like this is starship troopers levels of like we're being as Obvious as we can about how this is insane

Yeah, yeah, and I think that a prayer app I don't know why you need it number one and number two It seems like it's a bad idea for the paranoid type of Christian that Tucker seems to have in his audience Like you download this app and now the devil has a handy little list of all the real Christians You know next thing you know you're going to a FEMA camp. You know like that's yeah, this is stupid If you were going to like say that Whatever whomever was was proven right Jerry Falwell if you will I Whatever whomever was was proven right Jerry Falwell if you will I

Can't imagine Rereading the left-behind novels if they were set because again the left-behind novels are set in the apocalypse Which could happen at any time and as we know did not happen at that time No, so now we're wrestling with the concept of a biblical apocalypse happening concurrently with prayer apps It does not get more obvious Who's knocking who's getting left behind? Yeah, but I got the prayer app that was a trap A trap. Sorry. Right? Yeah. How could that not be a trap? Hey, you got a prayer app. I got all your information. I sold it to my Silicon Valley friends who own this compound in the middle of Kentucky.

The concept of a several thousand year old religion being like, well, obviously we need apps. Yeah. Amazing. There's an app for that. There's an app for it. For your soul. You know what? I think that one of the essential things to about like the history of religion Yeah, the especially in Christianity. Yeah, the progression has been about access to the divine Right not being kept in the priests, right? You know the the every one he sees all the all 90 whatever of them Yeah The theses, all 90 whatever of them, yeah. That's a huge part of Christian tradition. Big deal.

And I think the idea of injecting an app into your relationship with God as opposed to it being a direct one-to-one, I think that that's actually regressive. It's about as far away as you can get. Yes. But again, it's this melding of the religious fundamentalist ideology with tech bro bullshit Yep, and I think that Tucker is right at this like weird crossroads nailing it of that and I think that this episode is so Illustrative of a lot of that it makes if it if that's what we're witnessing It does make everything make way more sense

Because if you don't if you don't see that those two Because I mean before now I honestly didn't think it was possible for those two to overlap But clearly I am the fool. I don't think it's possible for them to overlap for long. That's probably a better. Yeah Yeah, I think that they're like what is what is it? Fuck okay, so I was listening to That this guy Andrew podcast. Yeah, and one of the terms that really like stuck out to me that gets used a couple times Is they refer to groups that that are with them as co-belligerent? Great. Yeah, and so like there's this idea of we're in this battle and like yeah

I don't like these these milk toast Christians or whatever But they're co-belligerent against the devil mm-hmm and so I think that they can think of Silicon Valley and venture capital firms and stuff like that as co-belligerent Why and vice versa yeah? And I don't think that that that that can last long long but you remember you remember when you were growing up and you And I assume everybody gets there, but maybe I'm wrong You know you're growing up in the church and everybody's talking to you and then you get to the question where you're like Okay, but what if you've never heard about Jesus?

Do you still get to go to heaven or not and they all go like bad? You know whatever made-up answer you want to. I like to imagine that 10 years from now they're like, but what about people who don't have the app? Do they still get to go to heaven? I use an Android. Oh no, the green bubble. The mark of the beast. Does God get the green bubble?

The green bubble is the mark of the beast. Brutal. You have to have blue. I've been sure. I don't know. Fine, whatever. So something that I think is also pretty well Illustrated by this episode is the way that this guy his presentation is a lot of like

evangelicals are Soft yeah, they're weak. Yeah, they're they're like Last year's model. Mmm. Okay. I believe is is the way that he's trying to sell and I think it's because He wants to get them insecure. Right? He wants people who are like in that evangelical wave that got swept up in Trump fanaticism to like feel like, Oh, no, I gotta I gotta go farther. I got right. You know, right. It's kind of a marketing tactic. I gotta go farther. I gotta go, you know. Right, right, right. It's kind of a marketing tactic. I gotta up my subscription to get the same quality of belief. Yeah, because I'm not a real Cutco salesperson unless I have the big box.

Right, I need Jesus Plus. That's what we're talking about here. Yeah, so he talks about that a little bit. Okay. But throughout the 90s and early 2000s, they really changed course, right, as the cultural trajectory is changing. They adopted, you know, very secret sensitive movement where it's like, well, people are... What did you call it? Secret sensitive movement is...

What does that mean? It was, right, the big movement in evangelicalism in the 90s and early 2000s, where we're gonna make it as easy as possible for people to come into the church and believe in Jesus. And so we're not gonna focus on things that might offend them. We're not gonna focus on sin and repentance and things like that. We're just, just come on in and have a good time and know that you're welcome here. Right. Well, come as you are. We'll meet you halfway. Like that. That was more or less the. Why do you think they did that?

I think, you know, a friend of mine, I think I could call him a friend, Aaron Wren, he's written about this, like, neutral world or negative world, neutral world, positive world, where, you know, in the 70s and 80s, Christianity is generally understood culturally as a positive thing. Like if you said, oh, I go to church, I'm a Christian, I go to that church, people think, oh, that's a good guy. He's an upstanding, decent person. But by the mid 90s, it was sort of neutral, right?

It was sort of, well, that's just a cool thing that you do, right? Just like collecting stamps or building model trains or being part of the Lions Club. But by the, you know, by the Obama years, by like 2015, you're in negative world, where if you're an evangelical Christian, you are suspect, you're probably a Nazi, you're probably a bigot, you're probably a white supremacist. Well, that's the attitude If the shoe you poshest estate for the one millionth time the Nazis were not Christians They were not Christians, but they love to throw those things around it Yeah, more Christians were killed by the Nazis than any other group, just a fact. So anyway, no, the Nazis were not Christians. I have to say that.

Good to make, you know, because they'll clip this and they'll say, oh, Andrew Iskra is saying that the Christians are Nazis. Yikes. So I think that the evangelical church took on some of that more accepting attitude for the same reason like that the Catholic Church eased up a little bit in the 70s. Attendance was down, so they were willing to make a deal. There was probably a bit of a burnout in the wake of the Satanic Panic apprehending literally zero demons, and the Church probably felt the need to be a little more positive and more inclusive or else people weren't going to show up and that means no tithes.

It's a good marketing strategy to be a little bit more welcoming. Like, yeah, Starbucks had sofas. Yeah, I mean, cause during the Inquisition, you know, you caught just about everybody, cause you just made it up, right? But then during the Satanic Panic, you can't just catch people where it's not the 1600s anymore they did try yeah they did try and the reason that it wasn't as effective is because you couldn't just you can't just grab people yeah it's against the law stuff and all that like it yeah it didn't work as well it's a lot easier to get confessions out of people when you can torture them you it just is and crazy and i think that that like sort of image rehab is something that the church felt the need to go through sure sure

And like getting with the times because otherwise people were just gonna Gravitate away from it isn't a nice little up and down further and closer away from the Inquisition That's just the story of religion. Yeah So it's a little strange how Tucker will scream about how it's wrong for people to say that the Nazis were Christians But I wonder if he devotes as much energy to rebutting the claim that Nazis are socialists, which is constant in his world. When Tucker says that more Christians were killed by Nazis than any other group, he's including people like Soviet soldiers?

This kind of framing is something that you see a lot with crypto neo-Nazi types, because it's meant to dilute the audience's image of what the Holocaust was. Christians were the real victims, you see? He knows exactly what he's doing. You wouldn't deploy this kind of rhetoric unless you're really trying to encourage a certain way of thinking. Yeah, yeah. I'm a big fan of numerical-based genocide arguments.

Like nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. I'm a big fan of numerical based genocide arguments like no no no no no no I know that he specifically Intended to do that one, but the rest of it. That's more people so it doesn't count the Nazis killed more Christians You don't see us complaining about it. I say Yeah, absolutely while discussing the jq. Yeah Completely unironically you seem cool. Yeah, yeah Not confused Nazis at all. Yeah. I don't think it's confusion. Wow, that's fair. I mean, I agree with you in the sense that they don't believe they're confused. Yes. But I do think that

the brain can't process all of this information without spectacular confusion. Yeah. But I think that think that this you know this guy has some points like in terms of his understanding of Some dynamics of Christianity in the church sure like I don't think he's wrong. I think that there was a softening of Christianity especially evangelical Christianity over this time period that he's talking about and then I think that the brand became pretty bad over this time period that he's talking about. And then I think that the brand became pretty bad through the Iraq War and into Tea Party, Obama years.

Like I think that it did become more toxic and being a part of the evangelical church went from maybe a positive way back to a neutral to a negative. People were a little bit sus on it. So I don't wanna, you know, I listen to a lot of people who are just like, all you're saying is detached

from any semblance of reality. And at least that kind of like, ah, that thought makes sense. You know, I wonder how much that means anything to me. Probably not. Not in the sense that I'm I'm saying that I mean more like They softened their image, but the fundament has remained the same Obviously because here we are. Mm-hmm, right? Well, like there was a deliberate softening of the image that is identical to his

slippery slope plan. Right. So, would you describe it as an actual softening or as a bullshittery? I think that it's like a, well, I don't want to call it like a disease because I don't know if I want to... Feel free. It's a disease that went dormant then. Sure. Okay. It's like the John Birch Society in Conservative politics, right, you know, like it didn't actually go away

Right went dormant and then resurged right the softening of the image was on top maybe the whole thing wasn't like This right Like this wasn't what Christianity was the whole time sure as the image was softening sure But the potential for this to resurge was there is it? Because here's about because I truly believe this it is Incumbent upon these people to then admit that they were lying right you'd think which is a sin I mean, it seems like it's one of the things that they should

really have to repent for yeah because that's what they believe yeah but that was before that's a good point if God hasn't God doesn't have continuity time me real baby yeah that's fair so he talks a little bit more about this the softening of evangelical Christianity sure so Tim Keller is in New York City and he tries to adapt Christianity to your upper middle

class, striver people in New York City, to make it easy for them to come to church. So he wouldn't ever talk about homosexuality or if he did, it would be, well, that's not so good for human flourishing, but we're not really going to talk about that too much. There's the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greer, you know, famously said in a sermon, well, the Bible just whispers about sexual sin, but it shouts about financial sin or greed, right? So they want to downplay- But it shouts about both of them.

It does. And the two are connected, right? If you're greedy for money, you're also going to be lusting after the flesh. Like the two go hand in hand. And so, but it's to downplay things that the culture does not want to hear, right? Because you'll be branded as a bigot, as intolerant, as a bad person if you're just like, well, this is what the Bible says, like this, you know, fornicators, adulterers, sodomites, they will not inherit the kingdom of God, right? If you say, yes, I agree with that,

well, you're a bad person, right? You're you're you are outside of Polite society if you say those things and you can reject it You can reject Christianity itself and you're certainly welcome to in this country and in all countries actually But well, it doesn't just say this parenthetically No, it's like included in a sidebar. It says it again and again and again in the church I grew up and they're like, There are only four times where you know in the scriptures where people you know where Christian were homosexualities attacked And it's like since no one ever read it in my church no But like I read finally read it what the hell why not read it and I did and

And I've never been Anti-gay or anything like that, but by the end I was like, oh, there's a really clear message from like the Hebrew scriptures all the way through the Christian to the New Testament. And like again and again. Is that what you call it? You know, again, you don't have to believe it, but if you're a believing Christian, it's not whispered at all.

Yeah, you do. Shout it! You do have to believe it if you're a believing Christian, it's not whispered at all. Yeah, you do have to believe it if you're a Christian. Exactly. But if you claim that this is the Bible, that God spoke in this, right? Yeah, so, yeah, I guess the temperature is shifting over to this. I can see that. I feel like years ago when we were doing this podcast, it was like, hey, it's very clear that attacks on trans people are going on in an effort to push towards the same sort of treatment

being given to anybody, any gay person. No, everybody listened. Well, I think a lot of people were very keenly aware of this. And you had dipshits like Tucker and Alex being like, listened well I think a lot of people were very keenly aware of this and you know you had dipshits like Tucker and and Alex being like no no no it's totally different right I'm totally cool with gay people right except I'm lying well I mean it is it is something that I think I don't think it's unreasonable

and in fact I think it was very reasonable for people to behave within that time period as though they were talking to people in good faith. Yeah. And so if you if I were talking to them and I said don't do that it's a slippery slope towards them being like we're Nazis now then they could be like no that unreasonable. I'm gonna take them at face value, right? But now you can't, you can't do that. It's on you now to say that they are a slippery slope machine that makes slippery slopes as argument factories. Yeah, that's what they do.

Yeah, yeah, and that's one of the things that I found most interesting about this fella is that I think he is a little more good faith in some ways than a lot of the people that I generally listen to. I agree. But he is also still deeply manipulative and trying to slippery slope things. It's such a different sort of balance of that. Like, Tucker is deeply, deeply bad-faked

in everything that he's doing here. Absolutely. And everything that he does on his show in general. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. This guy's weird. It's wild. Yeah.

He'll be having a good time in the woods. I mean, listen, as somebody who grew up in a place of people doing basically that, not gonna work. Not gonna work. Doesn't last. So again, this like, I love liberalism, but it's the same thing he's doing here. Like I was never against gay people, but it's very fucking clear from the Bible that in order to be Christian, you must stamp this out.

Or else, it's part of society going backwards. Totally. I'm totally fine with everybody making their own choices, except I get to determine what women wear when they go outside and they can't be anywhere near another man without me next to them. That's unreasonable. Everybody's free. And Jewish people?

Gotta go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't even know what that word means. Yeah. So they talk a little bit about atheism some more. Tucker tells not any specific stories but reflects on getting drunk with Christopher Hitchens. Fun. I mean, that'd be fun. And then suggests that you can't really be atheist. Fair. Just to go back to the atheist for a second What do they make of this like it just I understand certainly understand being agnostic like I don't know, you know

I get it. Yeah, I can see why someone would have that view for sure. Yeah Um, I think that's a pretty normal, you know place to be I think it's wrong, but I don't think it's crazy Yeah, but to be an atheist to have determined that there is no God, like what do you make of the things you see around you? Have you never held someone's hand while he dies? Like what do you think that is? You've never felt anything that is clearly outside of what science describes? How determined are you to ignore your life?

That you become an atheist. Like, what is that? Do you know any? I think it's important to hear clips like this to have a reminder that Tucker has to think he's talking to idiots. His big slam dunk on atheists is, haven't you ever felt something that seems like it's outside of science? One of the reasons this is so dumb is because Tucker isn't a brain scientist and he can't

honestly answer the question, have you ever experienced something that science definitely can't explain? Because he has no idea. Have you not seen the lightning? It comes from the sky and it's made of magic. What are you talking about? As long as you know nothing about science, science can't explain anything. When is this ever not applicable?

Yeah, at what point in human history have you ever been haven't you ever seen the sky? Yeah, like what are you talking about? I definitely am 100% on board that there's some things that science can't explain as we understand it Yeah, that doesn't mean that the explanation eventually won't be available the things science can't explain fuck me up I don't like any of that shit doesn't mean that the next explanation eventually won't be available. The things science can't explain fuck me up. I don't like any of that shit. Yeah, because like a whole lot of like really mystical shit and stuff that feels like entirely otherworldly and shit

can be explained by some pretty simple chemicals that we just don't care to learn about that much. Sorry, there's a lot. So I don't know. I think this is really stupid and Tucker isn't that... I don't think he's that stupid I think that's a that reflects a hatred of his audience. I mean it is it is like using evidence like

Oh, I meant to call my mom the other day and as I picked up the phone she was dialing. Mm-hmm Haven't you ever seen magic? You know like buddy. I don't it's fine fine Haven't you ever held someone's hand while they're dying? I've got a I'm working on a riff on Pascal's wager. All right I'm gonna call it Holmes's wager and that's I will bet you everything that there is no God if there is a God I'll shit in his mouth and go to hell Mmm, that's my wager. Okay Okay, that's interesting.

Yep. What do I have to do? Nothing, everybody just makes the bet on their own. Oh. Nah. Okay, I'm out. Okay, fine, that's fair. I don't wanna shit in someone's mouth.

I'm gonna win. So, Tucker, I think he's getting a little heady. Uh-huh. Because he's talking about these invalidations of atheism. Sure. And he goes off on a little bit of an ethics terror. I think this is just so stupid. Right, so there are very few people, especially now, that are like, no, I'm an atheist.

There definitely is no God. OK, well then why is murder wrong? Yeah. Yeah, exactly So like the people you were saying were atheists like they ever some of them are smart I assume yeah Yeah, I remember I remember watching, you know Previous guest of yours actually the man who trained me in ministry Doug Wilson. Yeah Debate wonderful man, Christopher Hitchens. Yeah, right. Oh, yes, and

They they had that discussion right and it was it was shocking to watch Hitchens say well It's you know, it's common human experience, solidarity with mankind. That's why I think murder is wrong. And of course, Doug says to him, well, if you saw someone being murdered on the street, you think that's bad, right? Well, why? And he goes into his whole spiel.

And he's like, well, what if it's a pregnant woman and her baby's murdered? You you would just say well, no, no, you need to have a medical license for that to kill that Wouldn't go down that road This is some piss poor ethics talk and again it relies heavily on Tucker being confident that the audience that's listening is very dumb Yep His reliance on his god saying that murder is wrong is just as valid as me making up a God who says that murder is good. When you hinge an entire ethical framework on my God said so, you're making your beliefs more arbitrary, not less.

This is like freshman year philosophy stuff. Like, if your definition of what is right and wrong comes down to what God says, then why did God say X is right and Y is wrong? Is the thing right or wrong solely based on whether God says it is or not? If so, then your morality is just based on your belief about a deity's preference. If not, then there has to be an external code of morality that exists even above God. And you're following God's rules because you believe that God's a good interpreter of these sets of rules. Neither of these is a good stopping point,

which is why it's generally good to have a sense of morality that takes things at least a step or two deeper than God said so. Sure. It's fucking stupid. Mm-hmm. This is a dull argument that they're engaged in, and I can see why Hitchens wouldn't really be interested in taking these points seriously As for the port about abortion if I saw someone who wasn't a doctor performing an abortion on an unwitting person on the street That would be concerning. Hmm. I think that in his stupidity He's not realizing that there are a bunch of variables in these two situations that make them not analogous at all There's a surprising number of things that in in his conception, could probably just be solved

with somebody going, like, hey, bud, what are you up to? You wanna explain? You need a drink. How's things going? Going great. Yeah. Good luck with the church. Oh, boy.

So, they talk a little bit more about morality here. And I think that, again, this is just convoluted shit. It's wrong! Well, and you can see why. Okay, why? Yeah, you can see why it's breaking down, though, today. Under the weight of its own silliness. Yeah, yeah.

It creates this vacuum, and it's being replaced by something. So all of the moralistic energy is still there and now it's gone to To things like transgenderism abortion You know Gaza, whatever like it goes it goes to all of those routes. It goes to you know BLM and and rioting And and so it's highly religious in us. Yeah, it's in us. We can't get away from The conviction the true conviction that some things are right and some things are wrong. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's fundamentally human Absolutely. So but an atheist would have to by definition be utterly not non-judgmental about everything like on this you would think they should be but

They're the most judgmental people. It's unbelievable. I mean, Christopher at dinner was always lecturing about the Kurds. And I'm nothing against the Kurds. I ran into them in Iraq. I can imagine that conversation. In Iraq, I did notice that. But he was so, I mean, again, I'm not against the Kurds. You know, I'm not an expert in Kurdishness. But he, man, he would like lay down his life for the Kurds.

I remember thinking, what is this? And it was the need to sort of find a good guy and a bad guy and put yourself on the good guy's side. Yeah. Oh, like God. So if I understand the argument correctly, they're saying that humans have an inherent need to judge things and take on the air of moral superiority through that. People like Tucker and Andrew are good and smart because they've outsourced this task

to God, and because they pretend to follow God's judgments, they get to take on a real air of moral superiority. Conversely, in the absence of God, people like Christopher Hitchens have to find other things to find moral purpose in, like advocating for the Kurds. Because they sought out moral actions and didn't just say, I'm doing this because God said so, they don't deserve to feel any air of real moral superiority like Tucker does. So while we're on the subject, back in the period of 2006 to 2011, Tucker used to be an occasional guest on Bubba the Love Sponges radio show.

And in one of those appearances, he said, quote "'Iraq is a crappy place filled with a bunch of semi-literate primitive monkeys.'" Whatcha gonna do? So maybe his take on the Kurds I'm not gonna listen to entirely. Also, there's no reason to conclude that not believing in a God makes you non-judgmental. Like, it's almost such an incoherent argument

that I don't even know how you would approach it like Well, I mean I suppose I suppose you would approach it from the Calvinist direction Right and you would simply say that any sin is an equal sin in its affront to God, which is what matters So murder if you like, yeah, absolutely is bad But murder is no better or worse than any other sin because the only thing that matters is the affront to God right the accounting Of those affronts. Yeah, absolutely and even then because that's already predetermined by God it doesn't even really matter Whether or not you murder somebody or not what matters is what happens at the very end? Yeah, yeah

But I hear what you're saying. Sure. But I think that- Well, I'm not saying that. That's Calvin. No, but I get what you're citing. Sure. Gotcha.

Yeah. But I think that what Tucker is talking about is kind of like judgment in terms of like being rude. You know? Right. Atheists are so judgmental. Yeah. It's not about like this is a greater sin than that or anything.

It's like Christopher Hitchens is on his high horse about the Kurds. Where does he get off? He doesn't even believe in God. I don't think you're wrong. I just, I don't know, I'm flummoxed by these these dumb-dumbs. They... for... for all the arguments that they make, they claim to have studied a lot, right?

But the arguments betray a lack of said study. Yeah, or there's some amount of study and a willful rejection of the things you would have learned through that study in order to appeal to people who know very little and are easily distracted by jangling keys. I mean, it's a it's a disinterest in something that I do think is incredibly interesting and has a large amount of literature, the arguments over all of this stuff just through the Bible alone.

But to ignore all of that and go, well then what's wrong with murder? Fuck you! Right. And I cannot stress enough how anybody who's had a undergraduate philosophy class would have had these conversations at great length. And both of these guys said they went to college.

Yeah, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, please don't ever make me go back there. Yeah. So, Andrew had a church in Minnesota. Yeah, so yeah, please don't ever make me go back there. Yeah so Andrew had a church in Minnesota. Yeah, and then he decided to go to To Tennessee to do to do this stuff. No golden tablets necessary No, and he had to say goodbye to that old congregation bummer to tell them What he was going off? Okay, and and I I just told them that, you know, I have to leave Minnesota. There is, there's a place for me there in

Tennessee and it's ultimately, you know, what is best for my family's future, right? There's a place where my children, you you know can grow up because part of it too is Isn't just the things that that we're leaving, you know, the political cultural things that we're leaving in Minnesota But it's also you know over all the things that have been done to the Midwest to to everywhere where My children grow up and where my children grow up and if they want to have a career and a life and a family and a success of their own, there just isn't much for them in a small town Midwest. And so they'll all just fly the coop.

This is what happened when I graduated from high school. Most of the people that I grew up with they all they all left they went to the Twin Cities they went to other other cities for work and for for careers and and so that that same thing was likely going to happen with with my children and I look at and I think well my family's been here for six generations and whether it's going to end here, right and I Want I want to be in a place where we can continue that where we can be rooted where my children have the ability to stay in a place and and so so many so many friends are coming to The Tennessee where we are They're bringing businesses there and

once you build things at scale like the more stuff you're able to do, the more businesses you're able to have, the more opportunity is for young people. And so, right, if my children want to stay where we are and continue that on generation after generation, like we actually will be able to do that, right? That's, it isn't, it wasn't so much just, okay, we need to leave Minnesota, but it's also we're being drawn to a place for a particular reason. The Tennessee dream. There's a future there.

Yeah, yeah. The hope of refugees from time immemorial. Yeah. So earlier the argument was that Andrew had a weird fantasy about what he imagined was going on at the public school and he didn't want the state to tell him he can't put his kid in conversion therapy so they had to get out of Minnesota. Now I guess this has turned into a gold rush narrative. It's a little different.

I understand that maybe employment prospects were tough in Waseca, but you have to understand that they aren't going to be better off in the middle of nowhere. The place that they're ending up in is located a little ways outside of a town that's one tenth of Wasika's size. I get that the pitch here is basically that Silicon Valley type jobs can be relocated to a cheap place in the middle of nowhere and venture capital firms can create little company towns, but it's not going to fly. You might notice that all of these people who are like relocating to Texas, like Elon and Rogan

They aren't going to the middle of nowhere in Texas They're going to Austin because that's a city that has the infrastructure and all the other amenities you need to accommodate large Businesses like Tesla or Rogan's media and supplement operation. Yep. The story Andrew is telling here is a farce He says that he's going to this new place because it's a chance for his children to have roots, but he's leaving a place where they already have deep roots and this history of six generations. None of the points he's making line up together or make sense, which leads me to a strong suspicion that this really is mostly about control, and it even makes sense that there would be this obsession with like the roots stuff,

It even makes sense that there would be this obsession with like the roots stuff, but he wants to control even that. He wants to break from the roots that he had so he can be in control of the beginning of these roots. Yeah. He's creating a new family legacy while mythologizing the one that he has rejected by leaving Minnesota. Yeah. And it's pretty fucked up. I think he's a weird guy Yeah, you know I

Think when I was growing up because this is what this was you know it's always what to think about the children Oh think about the children. What are we gonna think about the children right and so the parents in these kinds of communities? want to create a world for their kids that kind of allows them to grow up still believing the same stuff. With their worldview imposed and non-threatened. And because if you control the environment, it won't feel like imposition, it'll just be the way that you grew up. I feel like that made more sense like 500 years ago, whenever the next 100 years would seem almost identical

to the 100 years previous to that. Now, the idea of molding your child's growth five years from now is absurd. It's just absurd. You have no idea what it's going to look like. You have no fucking clue. And then 10 years from that, whenever they're actually making strong decisions

about their own moral character from within, what is 10 years gonna look like with computers? Yeah, the level of control you would need to exert over some child in order to maintain that box. Absurd. It's, in the modern world, it seems very crazy. some child in order to maintain that box. absurd. In the modern world it's very, it seems very crazy. But you know, God bless him for trying. I suppose.

I don't think God's doing that, but I suppose we all should hope. Yeah. I think you move your kids out to the middle of nowhere to start a church. I think you might make them more likely to leave. That does tend to be the case. Yeah, that does tend to be the case. This one sounds like a dud. So Tucker is a bit of a racist and an ethnic essentialist.

I think I would call him. Well, don't use those words. He's a ethnic city essentialist. Oh, he thinks of towns by their by their ethnicity. Oh my god. Christian's bill your state. Yes. And all of it. And every bit of it. And it's so telling when you go to the Twin Cities, I think of them as Protestant and Catholic. Yeah. Yeah. I think of them as Scandinavian in Minneapolis and Irish. Yeah. And others in St. Paul. But both of them,

especially St. Paul, just littered with churches and schools and it's just like the infrastructure of those cities was built by Christians. And so it's a little bit crazy that first of all it's been taken over by people who have made a point to stick a finger in the eye of Christians to make it impossible for them to live there. It's like you're being driven out of your own homeland, sixth generation. That's true. That's what happened with my wife is from St. Paul. Her father's side of the family is Polish Catholic. I went to St. Casimir's Church.

Exactly. That's exactly in my mind what I think of. In the neighborhood that they were in, it was all Polish people, but now it's all Hmong. Right? Everywhere. It's all Hmong and Somali, and everyone there just left over the last two or three generations. What happens to their churches and parochial schools? Well, St. Casimir's Church is there, but it's largely empty. We went there for a funeral a couple years ago, but there's... I mean, people still there, but it's largely empty. We went there for a funeral a couple years ago, but there's... People still attended, but it's not like it was.

Most of the parishes there have shut down, the church schools have shut down, and they've moved out to the suburbs. And so that was a Polish neighborhood. It was this ethnic enclave. If I could just say, showing myself to be an ethnic nationalist, they're just like some of the greatest people I've ever met. I don't think I've ever met. I have to say they married one. Yeah, I just think they're great people. I don't know, I've met many I don't like, but to Salt of the Earth, smart, hardworking, serious about faith and family, yeah, great

people. I doubt it was an improvement, the change to St. Paul. In hard-working Serious about faith and family. Yeah, great people. Yeah Um, I doubt it was an improvement the change to st paul. In fact, it wasn't i've been no it's um Okay I've got to fix. Yeah, I fixed it. Okay, I figured it out. All right I don't think it's possible for us to talk These people out of thinking segregation is a great idea. No, no I don't think so either. It's not possible. No.

So, here's what we do. We solve things the American way. Reality TV show. One house, segregation. The other house, desegregation. Who lasts? We do it for a hundred years, right? Whoever does best gets the country.

I think it's a bad idea. We can set up rooting sides, you know, I think it'd be great. I think it's a bad idea, but I think that it's a good punt. Because by the time there's an answer, we'll all be dead. That's the idea. So... But what the point is, it'll keep the segregationists focused on the show. Instead of trying to make everything so goddamn segregated

That's my that my yeah, that's 4d chess, baby. Yep. That's the idea See, I was a racist shit. Yeah. Here's the issue like I don't think it matters To like say that this is racist shit. No. They know. They're aware of this. He said ethnic nationalist. They just don't think it's bad. No. Yeah. We have now reached a point in the conversation where it is... Like we just don't believe basic concepts in common.

Oh, you just pro-segregation. Yeah. Yeah. I mean... At very least, differential levels of rights among different populations. No. No. At very least Differential levels of rights Among different population. No, no at very least no because because this is the conversation that they're doing again It is slippery slope on purpose. So it is never going to be just that I is always going to be the next step on top of that. I totally agree with you

I'm sorry for getting very aggressive about I totally I totally agree with you and it's a good point. It is just the like, you know, analytically from what they're saying, that's the least you could expect. No, no, no, totally. That's, that's, no, you're totally right. And that's, but that's their trick. Pretending it's anything more benign than that is absurd. You're pro segregation. Fine. We're done talking. I'm anti-segregate. I guess that's just how this works. But the idea that there is more to talk about is their trick, not mine. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the problem that evangelicals have, according to this fella, is that they just haven't been taught the Bible. Sounds true to me. And then Tucker reveals that he hasn't, he

doesn't have much familiar. You know, many evangelical people have not been taught really any Bible or theology at all. And you see this in like surveys, like the Barna group does surveys and right what people believe about different things. And, and they haven't been taught any Bible, they don't they don't know it. And so then when the Liberals says, well, the Bible condemns eating shellfish and pork, and in the same way it condemns homosexuality, so what do you have to say about that? And they have no idea how to explain that, what that is about. And their faith is shaken. God didn't destroy two cities with sulfur and fire because people are eating pork. Sorry

You destroy them because they tried to Commit gay rape on an angel. Yeah. Yeah, and they did well the sin of that's not why I in hospitality No, it wasn't. Well, I mean I guess gay rape. Yeah The least hospitable you can do it if you want gay rape. Yeah, I mean, the least hospitable thing you can do. I mean, just read it if you want. It's like, it's pretty out there. Yeah, it's like, well, yeah, the least hospitable thing you could do to a guest is to anally rape them. Yeah, so all the men of the town came out. They demanded. Yeah, we need to know these angels to have sex with these angels. And then lots like, I've got some daughters in here, take them. Yeah, it's kind of takes a lot off my Christmas card list Saying something like that, but whatever he does that it's in Genesis and they're like no we want to rape the dudes like It's these are not euphemisms. So straightforward. Yeah. Yeah, I mean actually I just read Genesis 19 to my children and there were some questions It was funny I read that a couple years ago for the first time.

Really? A couple years ago for the first time. Yeah. How about that? That's weird. That is wild. I think that in the same way that like, you know, I mentioned that like sort of some mystical experiences can be easily explained by brain chemicals that you just willingly

or unknowingly don't know anything about. The Bible says a bunch of shit that's mind blowing if you've never cared to read it. All kinds of shit in there. You know what? It's been around for several thousand years. It's not surprising to me the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I knew that as a kid. Yeah You know, I mean, I think they they mock it but I think it's bullshit like you don't expect it Like why do you listen to a fucking PhD in butterflies?

You're not gonna read Butterfly shit. You're like I trust you you have a PhD of butterflies If the priest guy says that the Bible says this, the idea is you're supposed to be able to trust him. That's what the Bible's for, right? You know, you shouldn't have to read it. Sure. You shouldn't.

Well, here's... That was their argument. But here's where it breaks down. Is that it's such a fundamental... Like we talked about earlier, the progression of Christianity is this breaking down of the barriers between the divine and the individual. Because you can't trust them. Clearly. But there's more power in that than butterflies.

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. History has shown. And that's where they miscalculated. That is the problem. Because the true power. Butterflies. Mothra. Always been that is the problem the true power butterflies Mothra always been that way We need to call upon mother to fairies. I know they look like children. We need to take out Here my call

So Tucker You know he knows that they're gonna go out to the rural areas. Sure. And he's like, plant some wood, get some trees going. Okay. Yeah, sure. Are you putting in evergreens, please? Oh, I think everything. Yeah.

I mean, there's pines. Yeah, there's trees. Please don't neglect the pine. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know it's a fast growing tree, relatively speaking, but it's beautiful. It's the answer. And cedars, if you can, if you have water.

Yeah, I don't, if you have water. Yeah, I don't know if we'll be able, I mean there are some cedars. Okay, okay, since you're a preacher and an Old Testament scholar, what was the inside of the temple clad with? Cedar, yeah, from Lebanon. Exactly.

Yeah, nailed it. Nailed it himself said cedar. That's right, yeah. An accident? He was pretty specific about it. Yeah, it smells great. Maybe there's a reason my sauna has cedar on the inside. That's right.

I always tell my kids that. Just think of it like the temple. It's my cedar church. That's right. No sacrifices, however. Well, here's something you may not have known. This network almost didn't exist. Trademark issue almost prevented us from launching by blocking us from using the name TCN.

Now, a company called the American Country Network owned the rights to that trademark and we were not sure if they would give them up. Looking back American Country Network could have demanded a lot of money they could have held us up a gunpoint in exchange for the name TCN and a lot of businesses would have done that. Instead I have to do this ad. They were incredibly nice. They were so nice I have to do this ad. For free! Right away I did this ad. For free! This ad. Quick! Right away I did this ad.

This is not your average company at all. These are really, really nice people. And we're glad this happened because it let us get to know the American Country Network. It turns out it's a great place. Its leaders are excellent people of the same values that we do and we think that you do. American Country Network is a family-friendly consumer Christian group bringing the best country music to millions of households across the country and it's growing fast fuck off with this folksy bullshit God will not be boxed in I

Love this like this presentation that he thinks he's fooling anybody that it's like these are such nice people I just decided to do this ad read. I couldn't stop myself from doing this ad read. I tried. I looked in the mirror three times and I said, no! And then I just kept saying the ad read. It's so funny. It's like, what world do you think people don't understand that this is a contract? I mean, I just, I don't know. I don't know.

I feel like the appropriate response to somebody that blatantly trying to rip me off. Mm-hmm. I feel like there's like, that's crazy. I want to slap you. Like, no! Well, like, it just makes me think of the, when I went to the show in Pennsylvania, the sponsors all doing a little bit of time up top. Of course. One of them being for like a weird sleep syrup or something like that. It's like, that's just what this is. It's just a syrup that shares our values about sleep.

Right. And also Christian nationalism. Yeah, and they gave me a bunch of money and so they're gonna talk before my thing. But it was God money. It's cool, it's all cool. And I really just wanted them here because they're's cool. It's all cool. And I really just wanted them here because they're good people. They are great people. Yeah, granted

they sponsored this. We negotiated things and signed a contract. Yeah. So if one last clip here and it's because at the towards the end of this, well, I will say I probably would have cut out some more clips, but I decided to leave a lot of the theological alone because I don't really care. No. Like, I don't want to argue with someone about what their religious tenets are. I think it's funny a lot of the times when Alex has his misrepresentations of religion. They're delightful and weird. But that's more about it being him.

I don't really care precisely what this guy believes about various scriptures sure so I didn't I didn't farm those fields who gives a shit um and the end is a bit of a plug for the plots of land I mean it's, it's just, it's just so amazing. It's so amazing how well capitalism has just conquered it and they just let it go. Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. It's genuinely amazing. Yeah. Do you think? I don't know. I mean, I wonder if this is too conspiratorial of a thought and that is that you know like Mark Andreessen Put money into the company that owned like the venture capital Group yeah that owns the company that has this big plot of land Yeah, this guy is going on Tucker's show Tucker knows Mark Andreessen. Yep, like is this connected? Do they connect like I don't I don't think

it has to be. I don't think it's necessary. No, but it certainly looks kind of like it. It could be not above board. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's all it's a hard world to live in where conspiracy is one thing. But at the same time, when a small group of people set out to accomplish a thing and then accomplish it I understand that that is that is a conspiracy But it's just like what we would regularly call a small group of people accomplishing a thing Yeah, you know and then it's also hard for me to think about this outside of like its Advertising use in as much as like okay You've got this Christian nationalist guy who said a bunch of really dumb bad shit in the past

Yep Who announces that he's going to start a church on a plot of land that this Christian nationalist anti woke venture capitalist Group has bought that's courting bad publicity I mean that's courting coverage in the media about like oh look at these Nazis going out to the woods and Then you get to play victim sure you get to be like oh look at the system demonizing us sure This is why you need to buy a plot of land well out here. That's how the real Noah's Ark nailed it Yeah, it feels a little bit like that, but I can't tell how much of that is me Just like it would make sense if that's what this is yeah, I mean

That is kind of the thing, you know? The guy who set out to build the real Noah's Ark wasn't courting negative publicity, but I mean, I'm assuming that he had to know that people were gonna be like, now you can see, you can't fit everybody in there, you know? But he wasn't selling berths on the Ark. He wasn't selling rooms on there. That's true

Well, you selling tours on a fictional boat Was he that's what the real Noah's ark was for I think you meant the real Noah's ark like not the real real Noah's No, no, that's true Noah was not selling He was he was frankly he was giving that shit away. No, I had no capitalist Whereas this one has deep one very much so yeah, so anyway Here's just a little he actually even refers to this as like a real estate venture Wow and So it just talks about that a little bit here

the people that I that I I've spoken to the people I've met in the town are Are very you know, they're they're like like very enthusiastic Actually that yeah, especially when they see you know see the things that I do see the podcast I do or various things Like oh like you're not at all like the TV man said you are. And of course, these are people that, you know, that we've been describing like they don't trust the media, they don't trust journalists. So they're already they're already distrusting of that. Like, oh, it just seems like you really like Donald

Trump and the United States and Americans and the Constitution and our freedoms and like you seem like a just normal, you know, conservative kind of guy. And I'm like, yeah, I am. That's I'm an open open book. Like there's no, you know, what you see is what you get. What I what I believe until later honestly believe until later. So people are very, have been very, very kind. But the state legislature hasn't tried to message your zoning permits or anything like that. No, and the thing is, the company itself is not saying, well this is a community, like that would violate the Fair Housing Act, right, to say this is a

Christian only community. It's just that my church is allowed to build a church there. Right. There's no law against that at all. And, and I can, I can call up friends and say, Hey, you want to move here and be part of our thing that what are they got going on? Like, oh, the cost of living is extremely low. It's real good. So yeah, they're just selling, they're trying to sell plots of land on this thing. It's very overt. And I think you're a little too aware of, hey, this is Christians only, but we can't legally say that.

I found another interview with the guy who runs the venture capital group, the Ruby Ridge Rider, or whatever the fuck. What is it called? Ridge? Ridge, oh no, actually now I can't, Ridge Rider, Ridge Runner, Ridge Runner. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that guy has a very similar kind of thing of like, you know, I can't say that it's Christians only, that would be illegal, but we're building a church there And I hope that sends the message. Yeah So that's cute. That's very cute and what you see is what you get. Yeah as illustrated by the winking Way that he's expressing this. Yeah, I mean the irony of what they're doing and what he's saying is that it's like it's very similar to segregation busing. Like most schools that were the most segregated, like most areas that were segregated remain so.

Most schools that were segregated remain so because they stopped busing. Like the only way to really force desegregation is to force desegregation. Because otherwise you can say like, hey, you can't explicitly say you can't buy here But also you can segregate your school as long as everybody's white. Mm-hmm. You know, it's fucked up Yeah, there are there are workarounds There are workarounds and that's clearly a big part of what this is got a bus So the I think that if I were rich Satanist, I would buy a plot Absolutely. Yeah, 100% I I would I would challenge

Them a little bit. Oh, and I would build a church there too or something like that. Totally And then see what happened just to fuck with them. I mean, it's it's like the it's like the people What was it the Ten Commandments and then right next to that with is a statue of the devil where it's like the people, what was it, the Ten Commandments, and then right next to that was the Statue of the Devil, where it's like, well, I'm mad at one of those, and it's like, yes, but that's the point, you understand? You understand the point I'm making is that you can't. Yeah, if I had money to burn, that would be something that I would probably do

just to fuck with them. Well, you can't do this, aha, but that's the point. Yeah, I'm too busy and can't afford it, so I'll pass on this troll operation. Just decorate Halloween. So fucked up every year, yeah. Yeah. Oh.

You know what I would do? What would you do? Dark Easter. Ha ha ha ha! Oh my god. That would be amazing. Yeah. That would be three upside down crosses on your yard?

Maybe not that. Maybe not too far. Yeah, no Thinking of like like a bunny Scary the bunny from Monty Python You went a little you went a little off. I want real dark Easter. That's apologies. Yeah So I think that look hey, it's Tucker week. It is. We're not abandoning Alex or anything like that, but I felt the spirit get in me that I wanted to talk a little more about Tucker.

And I think that this episode was really helpful in illuminating some of this point that I think is going to be important to keep in mind. The synergy of like really, really bad ideology and rebranding of Silicon Valley tech billionaire bullshit. Yep. And it's it's almost perfectly encapsulated by this guest and the way Tucker is strategically presenting it. Yeah.

And also look, I want to say I don't think I've seen you laugh as much as when, like, this episode you've been laughing. It's been very funny. I don't know if it's come across on the mic, but there's been a lot of you being very amused by the bullshit these people are saying. It's very bullshitty. I have to admit. It's I'm I'm not missing. I feel like maybe we were in Not we Alex has been in a fucking rut in his bullshit heck man absolutely and I feel like since Haven't been

Consequences for murdering Jean Hackman. I felt a little bit of a I need to take a break and this has been perfect Yeah, it's been a perfect week of not doing Alex Yeah, and we can move on my birthday is next week And I was kind of considering a gift to myself being I don't even talk about Alex until I'm 41 amazing I was thinking about that, but then that's all next week, and that might be too long. Hmm. I don't know. We'll see We'll play it by ear anything could happen, but too long. I don't know. We'll see. We'll play it by ear. Anything could happen. But seriously, this Tucker guy, what a dick. Wild. We'll be back with another episode to learn

about something. But until then, we have a website. Indeed we do. It's knowledgefight.com. Yep. We'll be back. But until then, I'm Neo. I'm Leo. I'm DZX Clark. I am the mysterious professor. Woo! Yeah! Woo! Yeah! Woo! And now here comes the sex robots. Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. Thanks for holding. mysterious professor.