Pints With Aquinas - Faith, Fatherhood, and Building a Stronger Marriage (Nick Freitas)

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

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Don't call me a hero, I'm not a hero. I did my job. I was a green, I think I was a green braid that did my job and I did it well enough to where the guys who served with me wouldn't mind serving with me again. That, that's all the compliment I need. I'm not a hero. The reason why I say this is because I know people who are

and I would never put myself in that category. Tell me about a hero. Oh my gosh, guys that. All right. Oh yeah. You let me know when we're good? Good to have you. Great to be on.

Yeah, this is wonderful. People are pumped. Oh, I'm glad. Yeah, they're really pumped. I'm like, yeah, I got this guy, Nick Freitas, and everyone's so pumped. I'm glad to have you. I was looking at your Instagram videos and my wife and I were just, you're hilarious. Oh, thank you.

You're the real gift. So thanks for coming all the way here. Oh, it really is my pleasure. Yeah. Now, there's probably most people who know who you are, but the way here. Oh it really is my pleasure. Yeah. Now there's probably most people know who you are but a brief introduction. Oh okay well my name is Nick Freitas, I'm married to my wife Tina, I have three kids Lily, Luke and Allie. My wife and I were high school sweethearts, at least our senior year. She foolishly dated somebody else the first three years mainly because she's way out of my league but But in a graduating class of 27,

I managed to convince her that I was a good option, which was a good thing. Cause if she had seen the rest of the world, there's no way she would have picked me. But anyway, so we got married shortly out of high school. Nice, that's the way to do it. Yeah, yeah, 19 and 20. Good for you.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of getting married young. I mean, marry the right person, but yeah, yeah But I was in the military served in the 82nd Airborne Division 25th Infantry Division And then when 9-eleven kicked off I volunteered to go SF So that's Army Special Forces kind of better known as Green Berets What makes Green Berets different than say SEALs or Rangers or Delta is we focus a lot on unconventional warfare and counterinsurgency So the opening days of Afghanistan were kind of textbook SF mission and then fighting back al-Qaeda in places like Iraq and whatnot was also kind of the other side of the unconventional warfare component with the counterinsurgency piece. So I was in SF, did a couple tours over in Iraq, got out in 2009,

and then got involved in politics for some crazy reason. How did that happen? So my mom had been involved in politics when I was younger. And so I had always been interested in it and interested, especially the kind of political philosophy side. People get interested in politics for different reasons. Right? Some people love the campaigning. Some people love the policy.

Some people love the electoral politics. I got very frustrated when I, when I decided to get out of the military at 11 years, which was a little bit strange, right? You do 11. It's like, why don't you just go through, get your retirement? I got really frustrated on my second tour in Iraq because we had a very good tour, very successful tour. And this one conventional army commander essentially kicked us out of his battle space.

And the reason why is because we ended up getting a very, very high level target, like kind of classic era, top 10 target. And he wasn't a part of the mission. So it was in his battle space, but it wasn't with his unit. And it wasn't that we tried to exclude them. It was kind of a target of opportunity that just came up. We weren't anticipating it. We just showed up to a place, started getting shot at and then responded, but he kicked us out and we really couldn't do anything about it.

And so we get back to the States, and my Sergeant Major was a really good guy, his name was Jerry. He comes over, he goes, "'Why are you getting out at 11 years?' He goes, "'You're about to be a team sergeant,' which was my goal. I wanted to be a team sergeant.

And he goes, and I explained it to him. I said, we went over there, we had a great tour, and we got kicked out of Battlespace. Why are we doing this?' And he goes, and I explained it to him. I said, we went over there, we had a great tour and we got kicked out of battle. So I said, why are we doing this? And he goes, well, that's crap. You stay in, you gain rank, you fix the problem. I said, Jerry, you're a sergeant major. How many problems have you been able to fix?

And after a couple of choice expletives, he admitted that that was a good point. I said, the problem is not guys in uniforms. The problem is guys in suits. It's guys in DC. I said, I'm gonna try to go influence that. So I moved to Virginia and started getting involved in state politics and got asked to run for office.

I wisely said no the first time. But the second time I ran and won, and I've been in the Virginia General Assembly for the last 10 years doing that. And over the course of doing that, started to get more involved in social media. I actually saw it as a great platform to avoid the mainstream media

because I noticed that every time, almost every single time, a reporter would come up to me and ask me a question about something I said, a bill I carried or whatnot. Every time, I would either get misquoted, misrepresented, taken out of context. And the breaking point for me was in 2018,

I gave a floor speech on the second amendment and it was shortly after the Parkland shooting. And I get done with this seven minute speech where I laid out what I thought was a fairly comprehensive argument for why we believe the second amendment was important. And this reporter comes up to me and goes, did you just claim that abortion causes mass shootings?

And I said, how, how did you get that out of what I said? Well, you said that I said, if we want to address crime problems, we should start to look at the reason why most of our prison population comes from fatherless homes. And then I attributed it to several different factors, but at no point did I say mass shootings equals this. That was the headline.

You're kidding. That was the headline. So I took the speech, I put it on social media, and across, not just on my page obviously, but across all platforms, that thing ended up getting close to 100 million views. Wow. And that's where I realized, oh, I don't need these guys.

In fact, I shouldn't give them my time because they will only, they will use me talking to them as a way to pretend that they're being objective or that they're getting in, you know. So anyways, all of that to explain, that's how I started getting more involved in social media as well as I saw it as a major tool in politics to be able to talk directly

to people as opposed talk directly to people as opposed to having to go through the filter of the media. So that's a once over the world. Wow, that's amazing. And your thoughts on Trump's upcoming presidency, his re-election? It's pretty wild. Yeah. So to give everyone kind of an idea of where I come from, you know, on my political philosophy, I have an idea of where I come from, on my political philosophy. I mean, I'm an elected Republican, but I've always been kind of on a,

I don't wanna call it the fringe of the Republican party, but I've always been on this element that was very Liberty oriented. So I ended up voting no a lot, a lot more than even your typical Republican, because I think the government should be incredibly limited, very, very small, and allow people to live their lives. But you have to take responsibility for your actions. So when Trump first ran, I was not a fan. I was not a fan. I was a Rand Paul guy. That's who I

wanted to win in 2016. When he got the nomination, I voted for him. But I was still really skeptical. I voted for him, but I was still really skeptical. This year, I was enthusiastic. And the reason why is not because I agree with him on everything and morally we have some differences. Life is a huge issue for me. And so I take some issues with the president on life. But he understands, I think perhaps more than any president in my lifetime, the enormous threat to freedom that an ever expanding federal bureaucracy creates.

Because bureaucracies take on a life of their own, they take on interests of their own, and they almost always grow at the expense of individual liberty, property rights, free markets, and that's what we've seen happen. He's the first guy I've seen that has not only pledged to do something about it, but has surrounded himself with the right people to actually do something about it. And so for that reason, I was not only enthusiastic this year, I am incredibly excited about what can be done

during this next. Did you think he was gonna win? I am incredibly excited about what can be done during this next. Did you think he was gonna win? I did, I did. We started doing analysis back in March, and at that point I said, yeah, and then it was still Trump versus Biden. And it was funny, myself, my co-host Christian Heinz, and my wife are all on our podcast making the argument,. And in March, I made everyone make ridiculous predictions.

I said, you got to make a ridiculous prediction. Mine was that he would trumpet win 30% of the black male vote. I think he got 24. My wife's was Biden will not be the candidate. And Christian and I both, and Christian's very good at this. Very good. We're both like, no, it's too late. They can't trade them out at this late in the game. She was right. But in March, we both thought that,

election held today, he's gonna win. And certainly toward the end there, it became pretty evident that, no, he's got the groundswell of support. And so yeah, I was not surprised that he won. I was surprised by how overwhelmingly he won. Do you think this time around he's going to be a lot more ruthless with who he cans and who he hires?

Yes, he needs to be. The biggest mistake that he made in his first term was going in there and he wanted to be ... I think he had, and again I obviously don't speak for him, but I think he had two lines of thought. I think the first line of again, I obviously don't speak for him, but I think he had two lines of thought. I think the first line of thought was, Trump understands business, he understands negotiation, but politics is very, very different from the business world.

And so I think he wanted, I think he felt like he needed people that understood that world to be able to effectively operate. And then I think he was also trying to build bridges with elements within the party that were very skeptical of him. And so he wanted to kind of bring everyone in together and try to work the way he would in the business.

The problem was, is the guys that he picked that understand how DC worked, like how DC works because it's not just one side of the aisle, the other, there's a, there's an element within politics that they like the status quo. They understand the rules of how the status quo works and they will fight like hell to protect that status quo. Now he's going into it realizing, okay, those guys were not my friends. They don't want the same things that I want

that the people who voted for me want. And so now he's surrounding himself with people like Thomas Massey, right? JD Vance. I just heard Joel Salatin, who's like a hero of mine is going to be going, I think over to USDA, you know, we talked about RFK jr. For the FDA, like these are the things where it's like, yeah, he got it. You need, you need people who know how the system works, but who want to do to the system, the same thing you want to do to the system.

And so I do think it'll be different this time. I love Australia, but there is definitely this government overreach as I would perceive it now having lived in America for so long Yeah I won't mention the comedians name but a very popular conservative comedian who's a friend of mine just texted me and said he's been banned from coming to Australia to perform and he actually had to go and Contact the FBI and have an interview with them To try to go and be in Australia, because they're talking about this apparent religious extremism.

So there's that. And they talk about being ideologically captured today. And it feels like most of the streams of media in Australia, not all, but the vast majority are singing from the same sheet of music. Whereas in America, you do have these powerful, you know, Daily Wire and now and now rogan and these other people are able to reach the masses and my fear was it if kamala. Was elected that it was possible the government would cramp maybe come down on absolutely these these outlets absolutely to the point where we're all just. Kind of alienated nostrils size 10 to give you an idea the doJ right now has launched one of its largest investigations of the year against SpaceX, so Elon Musk.

And why have they done that? Well, because they're claiming that he has engaged in discrimination with respect to the hiring of asylum seekers. But here's the problem. SpaceX is covered under ITARS, which is an international agreement with respect to arms manufacturing. So the way that the rule works is that if you're covered under ITARS, you can't, not anybody can just work for you and you can't export certain technologies

because there's restrictions on it based off of their ability to be weaponized. So one federal law says you can't discriminate against asylum seekers, but the other federal law says you're not allowed to hire anybody unless they're permanent residents. So how is he supposed to do that? Right?

Now the DOJ is not doing this because they consider Elon Musk's lack of hiring asylum seekers to be a grave and dangerous threat to the United States. They're doing it to send Elon Musk a message that if you mess with the beast, the beast will come after you. Leviathan doesn't like it when you poke it. And that's what they're doing. That's why in a lot of these areas, this is one of the reasons why such a massive

federal bureaucracy is a problem. It's not because a Harris administration would have gotten up and said, okay, we're repealing the First Amendment. They wouldn't have done that. Because their people rely on the First Amendment. No, what they would have done is they would have selectively chose who to prosecute, who to target through the IRS, which laws do selectively apply whenever

it's suited their purposes, and they'd eventually run you out of business or you would get in line and do what you were told. And that's exactly what they would have done to him because they're already doing it to him. How are they doing that? Not just to him, but to say Christians in general, because there's some people who say that Christians, this is all fear-mongering to say that the government was going to come against them. Well, again, it's not as if I think a Harris administration would have been running around throwing Christians in the back of paddy wagons, right?

That's not it. But would they have, for instance, if you had a pastor get up and say, hey, I think you need to vote Republican because, you Republican because they're more pro-life. Well, Democrat churches do that all the time, right? All the time. And they never fall under any of the legislation that was passed during the Johnson administration that says that you can lose your tax exempt status.

Well, now they could have selectively applied it. Like, okay, we're gonna start prosecuting those people. And again, they would have said, we're just following the law. Yeah, yeah. So, and you look at the language coming out of Walls and Harris when they were talking about these massive media companies that have all this power

and are not properly regulated. Okay, yeah, how do you think that regulation would have been written? Do you think that regulation would have gone to punish a YouTube or a meta that typically does what they want? Or do you think it would have punished an X, which tends to allow a free flow environment? That's, that's the biggest, that's the biggest thing that's frustrating about all this.

When Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into X, did he go and kick off all of the liberals? Did he go and kick off all of the leftists? Did he start censoring? No. He provided a loving level playing field. He said, we're not going to engage in censorship. That's what they hate. It's not that they were, it's not that they had their rights infringed or no, no, no. They just now had to plan an environment where nobody was tipping the scales in their favor. And to them, that feels like discrimination. And that's, that's the danger of where we're at right now. It's wild to think that there are people who legitimately think that they're going to be rounded up

because they're gay or lesbian or something. You're seeing people talk about this online, on Reddit. It's funny actually, but it's also concerning. Like what are you listening to? They're listening to mainstream media. Not just mainstream media. If you look where a lot of this stems from, it's within higher ed.

To some degree Hollywood as well, but definitely within the higher ed. I just did a Reddit, or excuse me, I just did a post on X last night. I couldn't help myself. I did a, you know, hi, I'm from the informal Trump transition team. And for all of you panicking Reddit users,

I just want to assure you that none of you are going to be rounded up. You're still allowed to hate Trump, me, your parents, everyone ignoring you on Tinder, right? Nobody's going to, you know, imprison you for this. But it's, there's a reason why this is for For instance, Senator Mamie Locke in the Commonwealth of Virginia, she's my colleague in the other house, she got up there and described this election

as a Barabbas moment, that essentially the American public chose, you know, Barabbas over Jesus. So Kamala Harris was the Jesus in this scenario, and Trump was Barabbas. And then she went on to say that, you know, we have to fight, get back against this reign of terror. And she blocked me immediately because I responded and said, maybe is the reign of terror in the room with us right now? Like,

where do you see the reign of terror? But they need it. Right. And, and I'm not, please understand, I'm not talking about all Democrats and I'm certainly not talking about all liberals, but when you talk about leftism, which is different. How would you distinguish that? So a liberal in my mind is someone that still believes in things like objective reality, objective truth,

and objective morality. Now they may have a different perspective than I do on those things. But you can argue with them. You can argue with those, well because they still respect things like the laws of logic. Right. When I talk about the law of identity, the law of excluded middle,

the law of non-contradiction. They don't think these things are racist. They don't think it's an evil plot by the patriarchy, right? Designed in ancient Greece, right? They don't think that. And so we will sit there and we will bring empirical data to the table and we will look at it, we will analyze it. And we may come to different conclusions,

but they never come to the conclusion that logic is evil. A leftist is someone that is rooted in this new way of thinking, which is, first of all, it's informed very heavily by Karl Marx, as far as a potential end state, this idea that disparities can be explained because of oppression. So it's very much focused in the critical theory view

of the world and a lot of that is like Herbert Marcuse out of the Frankfurt School. So I want you to combine Marxism with critical theory, that's oppressor-oppressed dynamic, which is also rooted in Marx, combined with things like postmodernism and deconstructionism. Because postmodernism got rid of the whole idea

there is no grand narrative, which is kind of funny. There is no grand narrative except for the grand narrative that there is no grand narrative. But it's the idea that there is no objective truth. There's just perspective. Well, if there's just perspective does, how do you know which perspective wins? Well, you can claim democracy, or you can claim the perspective of the oppressed is morally superior to the perspective of the oppressor So when the oppressor comes forward and says well, okay

Here's all the empirical data and here's the reason why this is a better course of action. Oh, of course, you'd say that You're a white male. Of course, you'd say that you're a Christian. Of course, you'd say that you're an oppressor So you're already in a moral disadvantage as a result just by by virtue of your skin color, your faith, your economic status, whatever it is. So a leftist is someone that views the world within that dynamic. They honestly believe that disparities are best explained through bigotry, discrimination, and the only way that you're going to eradicate that

is that you have to use overwhelming government force in order to correct for it, in order to achieve equity. Okay. Well, how do you, again, how do you do that when we don't agree? Well, the moment you don't agree, you're an oppressor. I'm an oppressed. I have the moral high ground. My lived experience, my life narrative trumps, whatever logic or empirical data you bring. And the moment you question that, that becomes evidence that you're an oppressor. That's a leftist.

Wow. I can't... What's funny is this moral system, since it can't be based on objective moral facts because you would need something to undergird that, is just free-floating, yeah, free-floating claims to moral facts that have no basis. Well, this is and that's exactly why it's firm, you know, or feet firmly planted in mid-air. Yeah, yeah. That's why contradictions don't work.

And this is one of the things that always frustrates both, you know, people that are more conservative or libertarian and even people that are liberal, like Bill Maher is a good example of this. This is why all of those people get frustrated when they're talking to a leftist. Now, if you agree with the leftist on a particular thing, maybe you agree on criminal justice reform, you can have a good conversation. In fact, they'll even appeal to empiricism, they'll even appeal to logic. But the moment it doesn't support their argument, now all of a sudden you go back into the suppressor mode and you're the bad guy. And so what needs to be understood is

contradictions don't work against them in their mind. A contradiction is just evidence that once again you're an oppressor. And that's why the same people, we have this in Virginia, the same woman who carried a bill to protect moth larvae also was fighting for a bill that was going to allow abortion up to the point of birth with no exceptions.

No exceptions. And for anyone that tells me I'm not right on this, go look at the committee testimony. It took place, I think it was in, gosh, I think it was in, gosh, I think it was in 2019, it was in 20, no, maybe it was 2018. But there it was, Todd Gilbert was the committee chairman, Kathy Tran was the delegate, Todd Gilbert asked,

so under your bill, a woman could request an abortion all the way up to the point of birth. She's like, well, we don't think that would happen. Okay, I understand that you don't think it would happen. I want to know what is legally permissible. And he goes, he goes, okay, let me give you a scenario. She's on the table. She's dilating. Can she have an abortion? And Kathy Tran said, yes, we're not making it up. Right. But all of that to say that,

you know, again, she saw no contradiction between a bill to protect legally protect moth larva and another bill to openly allow for the destruction of innocent human life in the womb all the way up to month nine. That wasn't a contradiction to her. And even if it was, it doesn't matter because this is about women's health and this is about protecting, you know, the animal kingdom. Yeah. Yeah, I think a pretty airtight case against abortion is it's always wrong to kill innocent

human beings and abortion kills innocent human beings. Therefore abortion is always wrong. Always wrong. So to disavow me of that conclusion, you have to take issue with one of the premises. Are you going to say that what has a human mother and father isn't a human being? A human mother and a human father? Are you going to say it's not always wrong to kill innocent people? You've got to pick one. Well I love I love when they the terminology they use. This is about reproductive rights. Oh oh it is. What's being reproduced?

Right, if it's just about reproductive rights, well then what's being reproduced? If it was moths that have a chance. Right, one of the most interesting responses I got on X lately was I was talking about how the only freedom the left seems to wanna protect is the freedom to kill your offspring in the womb. And this guy responds, he goes, "'Abortion an issue to me, but it kept coming up in this election cycle so much that finally I had to explain it. I had to explain what it was to my

kids. He goes, and that changed me because you can imagine how that conversation went, right? You mean all of us that had all of us that have had a kid between the ages of like five and nine, kid between the ages of like five and nine. Mommy, daddy, what's an abortion? Oh well it's women's healthcare. What does that mean? Well it's- It can terminate a pregnancy. Yeah, yeah. What does that mean? What does that mean? Well okay, you know how when there's a baby in mommy's belly, yeah.

Well it goes away. How? Right? None of the slick marketing works when you actually have to break it down. This is like the emperor has new clothes. It's the child asking innocent questions. We're insane. This is what happens when man becomes dominated by his passions and passion overrules reason. And we're all capable of this. Whenever we sin, we act in this way. We're idiots, which is actually a good argument I think for original sin yeah explain to Australians who I love and M1 the importance of the Second Amendment because not just Australia but European nations as well a lot of the news that we get funneled comes from leftist media in the States.

And so there are a lot of really good willed Australians who all they see about America is school shootings and crazy people. And they just think this is insane. Ban guns. Yeah. What's the argument? So I'm going to start off with something Thomas soul said, and Thomas soul is one of my most favorite contemporary thinkers.

He said, part of the problem with politics is that politicians like to talk about things in the terms of solutions when in reality what they're actually doing is engaging in trade-offs. What I think everyone needs to understand about the Second Amendment is it is an informed trade-off. If you're gonna have more guns in society, then yes, you potentially increase the possibility

of more gun violence. Okay. Let's just acknowledge that that's, that's a, that's a possibility. However, not just a possibility, a probability, it's highly probable. If you have more guns, there will be more gun shootings and more innocent people

dead, isn't it? I'll actually get to that because that's not necessarily true. It's not necessarily true. It depends on the conditions So for instance private gun ownership in Maoist China was very very low They had a lot of gun violence it comprised of the government killing their citizens Right. So now does that get counted as gun violence statistics, right? It all just depends, right? It depends on who's counting and what they what they're actually looking for. Do you believe that human beings have an inherent right to be able to provide for their own self-defense?

Yes. I think they do. Who would say they don't? Well, anybody who says they don't or or do people just sort of imbibe the idea that the government ought to protect them? They definitely do that. But it's also a question to what degree does that mean that every citizen should be able to own a nuclear warhead? Right?

Like most people would say no. But should they be able to have basic tools to be able to provide for their own defense? If you look at the second amendment and you look at the way it's worded, and this is very important to understand because you need to understand that the second amendment was written into the constitution shortly after the colonies had just won a war against the you know arguably the most powerful military in the world at that time and they had done so through a very limited continental army and a malicious system. Most of the United States was based on its security was based off of a malicious system. So the way the second amendment is written is a well regulated militia being

necessary for the security of a free state comma, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Now a lot of times people say, ah, see, they were talking about a well regulated militia. This was an issue of national security. That's what they wanted. If that's what they wanted, they would have worded it differently. because when they said the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed They're doing a couple things there They're stating that this is an individual right and the reason why they believed it was an individual right is because and you can see This in the writing

They believe that free people had two obligations. The first obligation was to themselves I believe that free people had two obligations. The first obligation was to themselves. They have an obligation to provide for their own security because the government can never be ultimately responsible for your security, right? They just can't. There's actually only one scenario where the government is legally responsible

for your security and it's in prison. You as a private citizen, the government has no legal obligation to protect you. They have a legal obligation to enforce the law, but not to protect you. Secondly, the founders were absolutely committed to the idea that free people only remain free if they have the ability to fight against tyranny, to include tyranny put upon them by their own government. I mean, again, they had just fought a war

against their own government. The original purpose of the Continental Congress when it formed was not independence. It was to put together something like the Olive Branch Petition, which they were appealing a redress of grievances to the king. They wanted what they believed were their rights as natural born English citizens.

When the king rejected that and essentially doubled down, then you saw a much more massive comprehensive call for independence. So the idea was is that in order for free people to remain free, they have to have the basic means to be able to protect themselves, not just from criminals, not just from foreign invaders, but from their own government. Now, I think a lot of people believe that sounds kind of ridiculous.

Like, do you really think you need to protect yourself from your own government? Not only that, but they'll say, what chance do you possibly have today? I'll answer both of those. So to the first one, I would have to say that, I think a lot of people, we live in a, you know, post-enlightenment society, and it's this idea that idea that well, of course we've matured past all of

this. All of the greatest atrocities, tyrannies, fascism, communism, all of that happened in post enlightenment societies. So this idea that we're just so much more enlightened than all of the generations that came before us is fundamentally absurd. Human nature has a very, very common thread in there. And what industrialization and technology and all have done is it allows for the best of it to manifest and the worst of it to manifest. So yes, you still need the ability to be able to resist your own government.

Secondly, anybody that wants to sit there, I find it fascinating that Joe Biden looked into the camera and said, you're really gonna take on the military. You need nuclear weapons and F-16s to do that. Is that what the Taliban needed? Because last time I checked, we just fought a 20 year war to replace the Taliban with the Taliban and left them with more military equipment

than they had when this whole thing started. So you're telling me the Taliban could pull it off, but 300 million gun-owning Americans couldn't? No. Yes, we would stand a chance. We would absolutely stand a chance. You certainly said a better chance. Oh my gosh, not to mention the fact that there's this idea in the mind, having served 11 years,

having been, and I was combat arms the entire time. I was a paratrooper, I was a light infantryman, I was a green beret. If all of a sudden the president of the United States said, Nick, we need you to go into Virginia and start confiscating the guns of private citizens. I'd be like, I'll get right on that. You know, that wouldn't have happened.

But, so I think it's important to understand that we, that is so ingrained in our culture, and it was done very, very intentionally. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't things that we can't do to obviously try to protect kids, to punish people who do engage in violent acts with the misuse of firearms. But to us, it seems absurd that if one person punish people who do engage in violent acts with the misuse of firearms.

But to us it seems absurd that if one person violates their right to keep and bear arms, that the solution is to strip a bunch of people that didn't violate the rights of their right to keep and bear arms. If that's all this is, it's not a right, it's a privilege that's handed to us by Governor. If somebody walks into a burning building and falsely shouts fire, we don't strip the free speech rights of everybody who didn't walk into a building and shout fire. This is one of the things that needs to be understood is that any government that convinces you that the only way to keep you safe is to strip you of inalienable rights

because someone else violated theirs, you're setting yourself up to be ruled. You're not a citizen, you're a subject and I'm not going to be a subject. So in the United States, it really comes down to this. They can pass whatever laws they want, but there are certain lines that if they're crossed, people are going to resist. And part of the reason why they don't cross those lines is because even they know we have the ability to resist

and we're not giving it up. Is there a line? Should people be able to have tanks? Oh gosh. And if not, why not? And I think that is the question. I mean, when I think of this second amendment, there's some people who say, yeah.

Yeah, I tend to think that. Private citizens have troops. I haven't thought of troops, but I mean, that makes sense. Yeah, why can't private citizens have tanks? I mean, obviously there would be limits on, you can't just drive a private tank down the road and destroy the road and the whole thing. You can't destroy other people's property.

But let's look at it. I think you could have a broad robust debate on what qualifies, but I think we can at least admit that when the founders wrote the second amendment, it's not that they weren't aware that technology would change. It's not that they weren't aware that technology would change. It's not that they weren't aware that things would develop.

They knew all of that. Freedom of the press doesn't mean you only get a quill pin and an ink thing. It doesn't mean that you only get the sort of papers that were available back in the 1700s. It was a general principle that was being discussed. Well, when you look at the arms that were necessary

for a militia, right, you look at the weapons that would typically be acceptable to any light infantry unit. That's typically the stuff that I think that they were trying to cover down on. And again, we can have a more robust debate, but right now, there isn't a big push to allow Americans to have their own tanks.

Right now, it's just about allowing Americans to have semi-automatic rifles. So, you know, I think at the very least, we should all be able to agree that that's reasonable and certainly covered under the Second Amendment. What would be a weapon that you would think would be reasonable for somebody to wish to be banned? Oh, I mean, if you're talking about maybe like, you know, missiles, rocket launchers and things like that, I would certainly understand. I guess I'm just trying to wonder, I'm trying to figure out where that line is.

And if you say someone shouldn't be able to own an automatic rifle or something and you're okay with that debate and say, well, someone can be reasonable to want to ban those. I want to know why. Well, and I think what it comes down to is, um, what I would like first and foremost is to just have an honest debate on why the second amendment exists. Because the argument I get from the left is,

they're not sitting here having a discussion about, okay, what is the range of what's covered? They don't think any of it should be there. I guarantee you the vast majority of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, if they could fundamentally alter or even get rid of the second amendment, they would do it tomorrow. So rather than,

in my opinion, rather than talk about which weapons, can we first talk about what's the reason? Why do we actually have it? Cause it isn't hunting. I'm so tired of hearing, you don't need that to hunt. And if the second amendment was about hunting, that would be a really good argument, but it's not. I want to tell you about Hello, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world. It's outstanding. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free. That's like a lot of time. You can decide whether

it's useful to you or not, whether it's helpful. If you don't like it, you can always quit. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. I use it. My family uses it. It's fantastic. There are over 10,000 audio guided prayers, meditations and music, including my lo-fi. Hello has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries. It helps you pray, helps you meditate, helps you sleep better. It helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer. There's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through it all. Just go check it out. Hello.com. The link is in the description below. It even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you could play little Bible stories for them at night. It'll help them pray. Fantastic. Hello. Dot com slash Matt Fradd. What was your time like when you were deployed? How did that change you? What kind of stress

did that put on your marriage? Presumably you were gone for months at a time. Oh yeah. The longest I think I was ever gone. And you know, special forces, one of the things that was nice about it is we typically, in many cases we had smaller deployments. And sometimes that's because the rotation schedule was a little bit more intense than than say conventional army unit or a conventional military unit. So a conventional unit might deploy for 12 to 15 months whereas an SF unit might deploy for you know seven and nine. Okay. The difference was when the conventional unit got back usually they had a little bit more downtime or a little more time in deployments. That wasn't always the case, but sometimes.

Whereas SF units or other special operations units were going maybe three months, back three months, back three months, or I would get home from Iraq, immediately go to a school, then I would go over to Bangladesh and train the Bangladeshi border guards or the Korean special missions group or whatever it was, because special forces have geographical areas and we do a lot of work with foreign militaries.

Everything SF does is by, through, and with indigenous forces. And so even when we weren't deployed in combat, we still had a geographical region that we were responsible for. And so it did. It created a lot of stress. Now, thankfully, I married a woman that, one, knew I was going to the military and two, we had a, we have a biblical worldview with respect to marriage. And so when we got married, there was, there was no, for us, it was both as like we burned

the ships as they say, right? There is no exit strategy. It's it's you and me forever. And and we fostered that attitude. And one of the things I always say that I'm incredibly grateful for is every time I came home from a long deployment, my wife was happy to see me, my kids were happy to see me.

At no point did my wife become, there were definitely moments where she got frustrated, but at no point did she ever get bitter and at no point did she ever display any animosity toward me in front of my children. And so the result was is that when I got home, I felt welcomed home. I wasn't the, I wasn't the absentee father. I was the, I was the warrior that had protected my family and they were so happy to see daddy again. And that was because of my wife. Um,

so a lot of times people will say, how do you make it work? And, you know, again, marrying for values is absolutely critical. And that's what we did. We married for values, we married for shared faith, and we built everything else on top of that. And we've made mistakes,

and we've made really good decisions, but ultimately we never questioned where our identity was because it was always first and foremost in Christ. And then our identity in our marriage is that we are a marriage couple. It's yes, Nick and Tina are individual people, but we are one unit. We are one flesh. And so, um, it helps us in it to realize that if I abandoned my bride and children, I will have to answer before almighty God on judgment day. Yeah. Yeah. That my allegiance is to him and his will primarily, even before I love her. His will is the reason I have to love her.

I told this to my, when my son-in-law, my now son-in-law, um, came in and asked permission, uh, for my daughter's hand. People get mad now when you say that. She's not your property. No, she's not my property. He still has to ask permission. Why? Because he is taking over a sacred responsibility that has been my job since that little girl came into existence.

And yet you will ask my permission because I get to have a say in whether or not you are ready for this responsibility. How well did you know this fella? Very well. We got a church with their family for gosh, over a decade. They had dated for a year.

Great guy. It is such a blessing to be able to say, I love my son-in-law. But- Was he nervous asking you? Yeah. Or did you know him well enough? We knew well enough.

He was still nervous. He was still, well, he was still nervous because as much as I liked him, I think he knew I'd say no if I didn't think they were ready. And, uh, one of the things I told him was I said, if you don't love Jesus more than my daughter, you will never be able to love my daughter the way that she requires and the way that she deserves from you. And he really demonstrated that he understood that, that he properly understood what his role was

to be a leader within his household. Which is a good thing too, because we raised a very, very strong, very, very strong capable daughter, right? Because that's what we wanted. We wanted to raise a Proverbs 31 woman. And one of the things we'd always told our daughter is that you are not going to,

you are not going to be happy with any man that you don't have an immense amount of respect for, um, both with their character and their, their capability. This reminds me of something Jordan Peterson said that I thought was fantastic. He said, you know, what kind of, what, what do you want from a wife? He's like, what do you want her just to sprinkle rose petals in front of you and patch on the back until you're a good boy? It's like, OK, yeah, sure.

I'd like that for a few months. Or do you want a woman who doesn't just see you, but sees the you that you can become? Yes. Even that. Oh, my gosh. You have wonderful. There is a there's kind of a flippant statement that men civilized the wild and wild and women civilized men. OK. When we were at live action with, uh, uh,

you know, Lila Rose and, uh, so Lila Rose, great, wonderful person, live action, great organization. But one of the things I was talking about there is I was saying, you know, to the young women in the room and said, it is not your job to turn us into good men, but you will be shocked at what a critical role you play in that process. Nothing outside of my gratitude for Christ's sacrifice for me, because you can't earn that. You can only allow the gratitude to push you to do good things. But outside of my gratitude for that, the most powerful thing in my life, and really the physical manifestation, the day-to-day physical manifestation of my gratitude

and my desire to want to be a better man is there in my wife and children. It's one of the reasons why I think God created marriage and why it's so important and why it's a reflection of his relationship with the church is that idea of, this is a woman that I want to live, I want to be the man she thinks I am. I want to be the man she thinks I am. And so, yeah. Yeah. I think what's going to be tough, I haven't had to go through this yet because my daughters are still somewhat young, is there's so much I've learned in 18 years of marriage. So many ways I've matured.

There were so many ways I look back on our early years and I see how I acted immaturely, stupidly, but I needed marriage to help grow me up a little. I wish I was growing up more, but I kind of needed those experiences. So it must be tough to have a fellow sit in front of you and ask you, can I have your blessing to marry your daughter when he's he's got a lot of growing to do. He can't know it all. And if he, if he thought he knew it all, that would be a sign that he didn't. Yes. So this is why, this is why, excuse me,

that statement you have to love Jesus more than my daughter is so important. Because if I believe, if I believe that you believe that, then I'm very comfortable with you figuring out the rest. I can tell you right now after having observed my, my daughter and her boyfriend, because whenever they hang out, I was usually, it was either our house or was it his parents' house who were also just wonderful people. I love, I love my in-laws. Um, I'm sitting there and I'm kind of giggling with Tina. I'm like,

I know exactly where they're going to butt heads. I know exactly where they're going to butt heads. She is, she is very go with the flow and a little bit more spontaneous and that creative side, she's a theater kid, the whole deal, right? He is very much structure, order, the whole deal. And I'm looking at this going,

I know where it's going to butt heads, right? I know. And it's like, oh, well, how do you help prepare for that? It's like, well, are there values aligned? Yeah, they'll figure it out. Because the other part of this is that I can, I can predict certain things and I can look at it certain ways, but they have to figure out what works for them. And I can't, is that hard as a father to kind of keep the hands, hands off and the advice out?

No, because, because here's what ends up happening. We told our kids, it's like, you know, she's my first born, you know, baby girl, right? Like she's always going to be my baby girl. But she knows, because I told her the moment she got married, I said, sweetheart, if things ever got like bad, or like if things ever moved outside of that, you know, biblical, biblical, yeah. Oh, I would come and get you. That's it. It's like daddy will kill for you. That's like, there's no question. But that's not that I don't think that's ever going to happen with this guy because he's a great guy. You picked well. Um, but if there's ever something where you need to talk, you need to ask a question, my commitment now is not to just you,

it is to your marriage. And you can be confident that if you come to me with something, if you ever need to come to me with something, just to ask a question, because we really encourage our kids, if you guys have a problem, you figure it out. Don't be pulling everybody into your guys', you figure it out.

It's the same philosophy with the government, right? Yeah, you figure it out. You can figure it out. Yeah, but there were times like, hey dad, can I pick your brain to see if I can understand this better or can I handle this better or whatnot? And so to the extent that we've ever had conversations,

that's usually what it's about. She's like, hey dad, what would be the best way for me to do this? What would be my best way to do that? And it's always about how do I be a do I be a better wife? Right. Um, and so we've had those conversations, but it's always from that perspective is how do we make the marriage better? But I, I remember we were, we were all kind of joking about the structure versus go with the flow.

And I was like, you know, we're explaining like those both, those, those features have no inherent moral connotation in and of themselves. It requires context and action to determine whether or not it was a positive manifestation or a negative one. Go with the flow is great when all of a sudden something changes and you've got to figure out a go. Great! Go with the flow is not great when you really should have scheduled things and you didn't. So the positive manifestation with you guys as a couple is you're gonna pull him more over on the go with the flow

on the things where you, hey, you need to adapt and overcome. And he's gonna pull you more over when it comes to, you need to also be disciplined and structured, right? So you have the possibility of negative manifest, he can be too rigid, you can be too in the wind. So understand that and now focus on the positive manifestation. And that's how you get a strong marriage. That's how both of you become better for the relationship.

So it's an exciting thing. It's an exciting thing to work out. It's not a, it's not a problem you got to figure out. No, it's, it's an exciting challenge where both of you have the opportunity to become better. Mason- Yeah, I love what you said there. That's the advice my wife always gives to young women who are just getting married or engaged. She'll say to them, when you have a problem with him, talk to a girlfriend who's going

to take his side. Kline Yes. Yeah. Mason- There's nothing so unattractive as to hear women complain about their husbands or to have husbands speak disrespectfully of their wives. In fact, that's just a great sign that I'm okay not being your friend. Yes. To have a man speak poorly of his wife.

Yeah. That's one thing. He's frustrated and he slips up, but it's like, it's just unacceptable. It's team you guys against the world. Yeah. Oh, like two of our greatest friends on the planet, Nate and Susie. Um, and part of the reasons why we're great friends is that if, if Nate and I ever need to, Nate and I can always keep each other accountable.

We can be honest with one another because we know that the friendship's strong and Susie and Tina can do the same thing. We have some other, we have really great friends within our life group, but I'm using this as an example. But that is one of the things, it's like we can share, we can share like funny frustrations and stereotypical jokes. That's funny. It's stuff that you would say right there in front of your wife is kind of like a dig.

Because that kind of like playful sarcasm, provided that there's nothing underneath it that's like seriously, you know, you don't do that stuff. But the funny stuff, like for instance, Tina and me, the problem Tina and I have is both of us are go with the flow. So neither of us are bringing structure to this. We're like, ah, we'll figure it out. But yeah, having, having friends like that,

where you know that they have, they have the same commitment with respect to their faith. They have the same commitment with respect to what marriage is supposed to look like. And so being able to say, man, how do I, how do I negotiate this? So the question is, is are you asking questions or talking about things from the genuine perspective of how do I be a better husband or how do I be a better wife? And are you surrounding yourself with people that are with you on that mission? Yeah, it's a game changer. I was arguing with my wife recently and it started

to get a little heated. So I went for a walk around the block and I called a very good friend of mine, Father Jason, and I was on my way back and I'm like, all right, well, thanks for the chat. I'm going to go try to be nice to my wife. And he's like, you better be, I'm going to come in there and kick your ass. She's beautiful. All right. That's who you want.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and can I, can I say this? I find this interesting, especially within Catholicism, right? Because you call a father, well, okay, a lot of most of them, now some of them have been married before and then they go into that course of life later, but many of them haven't been. It's like, well, what kind of advice can they give? It's like, this is what is so beautiful about

scripture, is that if you follow scripture, now again, I'm not claiming that scripture gives you all the answers in the sense that it'll tell you how to fix your car, right? Obviously not. But when you have someone that has learned it in scripture and has really like prayed and has that relationship with the Holy Spirit and they can give excellent advice. Yeah, you don't have to be a horse to be a veterinarian.

Yes, yeah, it is. It's because I will see people now where there's this over, there's this thing where people, you know, what's your degree in that or what you're, it's like, I almost trust you less if you have a degree these days. But no, but there's, there's something to be said about being able to fully grasp and apply fundamental truths And to be able to apply those and when they are fundamental truths, they're useful Regardless of how long you've been married 25 years. Praise God. Yeah. Yeah, I just celebrated 18 years Yeah, what kind of what have you learned? Oh gosh, so

My wife and I both came from broken homes. So my, my parents divorced, remarried, divorced again. Her parents divorced, remarried. And so it was interesting when we started dating in high school and we started talking about marriage, we were very adamant about, you know, the reason why I say this is because a lot of times when people hear that we got married at 19 and 20 and we were married 25 years, the thing I get a lot is you're lucky. Am I now blessed?

Yes. Lucky is a, lucky is an excuse for losers. That's what it is. When people say you're lucky, oftentimes, not always, Sometimes they just use it as a colloquialism. A lot of times what they're doing though is they're, they're making an excuse for themselves. And I don't mean to be harsh, but it is what it is. Um, one of the things I learned is that certain things that we did before we got married were incredibly helpful and formative. Not everything, but for instance,

we talked about expectations. I think that was critical. I think there's a lot of expectations that remain unspoken, and an unspoken expectation is an unrealistic one, in many cases. So the first thing that we settled is where we were in our faith. What do you believe? And so many people say, well, if you really love someone, that doesn't matter.

Yes, it does. It is the foundation of your entire worldview. It is where you will go when you try to figure out the answers to the most important existential questions throughout your life, whether it be marriage, raising kids, roles and responsibilities. If you do not have the same firm foundation within your faith, you are setting yourself up for failure because you're not just marrying this person to have a good time or because you have shared interests. You're about to build something that is honestly the cornerstone of all of society and you want to build it correctly. So the

foundation is the most important. When we'd established that we had that same foundation, that same commitment, the next thing we started talking about is what do you expect out of your husband? What do you expect out of your, your, uh, wife and be honest, be honest, because the last thing that you want to do, the last thing that you want to do is try to play this game where it's like, okay, what's the right answer? The right answer is the truth. Now, it may be that you want something or you expect something that you shouldn't or that's wrong. And the standard for that is going back to your faith. Is that a biblical, is that a biblically justifiable expectation? If it is, well then, and if it is, and it doesn't match up with the other person

Great. Thank God you figured out right away that you guys are destined to be really good friends Just not a married couple because if God is calling one part if God is calling both people to like really really focus on a particular career path he has for them and That career path maybe doesn't include children, but one of you desperately wants children and feels like, great, that doesn't mean one person is deficient and you're good. It might just mean that God is calling them toward one thing and calling you toward another thing. And what you guys found was similar interests, maybe similar character, but you're going to be really good friends. You're going to be really good friends. And now you can

part ways as friends. It's another reason why you shouldn't get physical early on in a relationship. Save the physical stuff for when you get married. Anyway, that aside. So we went through and we actually talked about, I mean, we got detailed, like, do you want to have pets? I'm like, oh yeah, I'm allergic to cats.

That's a good thing for her to know, because if she just loved cats, right, and really, really wanted to have a cat, but I'm allergic to cats, was that something she, is that a deal breaker? I mean, hopefully not, because if she just loved cats, right, and really, really wanted to have a cat, but I'm allergic to cats. Was that something she is that a deal breaker? I mean, hopefully not. Right. Because you see the point, right? Who's going to do the dishes? Who's going to do domestic chores? Who's going to do outside chores? One of the most important conversations that we had is what are,

what are our X, what are our expectations for living standards once we start having kids? Are both of us going to work out? Tina's whole thing was I want to work until we have kids. When we have kids, I don't want our income to be determined on two incomes. I want to be able to survive on one. I said, great. I thought that's a good expectation. I would like that arrangement as well. But then I went back and said, but you're going to have to modify your expectations on what kind of lifestyle we can afford to have on one income. And

she's like, absolutely. See verbalizing that is so important because you can say all day long, well I don't want to have to keep going to work once we have kids. Okay, but do you expect the same lifestyle? Or do you make adaptations to the lifestyle? And a lot of times just verbalizing things like that, it puts you in line, it puts your expectations in line, so now you're both working toward the same goal. So we did that very early on. Now, so many of our expectations changed.

How many kids we were gonna have, how many animals we were gonna have. There was no conversation where we ended up with goats, peacocks, chickens, pigs, and yet it happened. Just like cats. Yeah, but actually cats now too. Come on. Cats, I got two. Why? Because I had a little girl and she wants cats. But anyways, that is so important and it is a fun conversation to have with somebody when you're starting

to seriously consider marriage, which is something, which again, the whole purpose of dating is marriage, but that expectation was good. The next thing I learned inside the marriage, um, was one when we were both very, very passionate people and we both liked to debate, we like to argue this whole, yo, we don't talk about religion or politics, whatever. And we are both very, very confident that we are correct. We got in a fight. We got in, and when I say a fight, I mean, you know, we were arguing. And she looks at me and she goes, I need you to talk to me like I'm the woman you

love. And something clicked for me for that. I was like, we both grew up in broken homes. Um, she actually saw a lot more arguments than I did. Arguments meant leaving. Now she's willing to have the argument, but I need to, I need to assure her, I need to assure her that this is not, we're good. We're good. We're going to figure this out because at the end of this, we're going to be better. I'm not trying to defeat you in the argument. You're not trying to defeat me in the argument. We're trying to get to a common understanding.

So we're better after it. I got two things going on in my head. One of them, I got a friend of mine, big guy, whenever him and his wife get into these arguments that start to go sour. He pulls the back of his pants down so his fat hairy ass is showing up, but he does it in a way that she can't tell and they're still arguing and then he'll just turn around and they both laugh. That's one way to do it. But the other thing, the more serious thing is I love that what you said there because I think in a day and age where we're very confused as society as to what a man is, a woman is, what marriage is, what gender

roles might look like. The temptation is perhaps to swing in the complete opposite direction where we become too rigid and expect things of the woman, say in regards to her temperament or to expect things of the man. And then you'll find some people who are maybe more flagmatic in nature who say you should never fight. It it's easy for you to say. Yeah. But, you know, so my wife and I are both very passionate, like you and your wife, it sounds. And she's more choleric than I am, if you know that language, more kind of hardheaded. So like one thing I've had to come to realize is she will apologize for what she just did. But I need to give her at least 10 minutes.

And I don't always do that. Sometimes I'm like, don't always do that. Sometimes I'm like, don't ever do that to me again. Like I'll get a bit too much. But what I've realized is, you know, okay, you got to accept and love her temperament and realize, give her the space to then come back. Cause then you, yeah.

Well, but it is important. So to that point, her statement to me was, you need to talk to me like I'm the woman that you love. My statement back to her was, you need to talk to me like I'm the woman that you love. My statement back to her was I am not responsible for understanding what you met. I'm only responsible for reasonably interpreting what you said. And she was, and what it caused her to, because she is also very like, boom, like she'll fight back. So what it caused me to do is use words that, you know, I can make my argument but reinforce

that we're a team. She also needs, she doesn't get to just flip off and say whatever she wants to me. She also needs to make sure that she can be properly understood in what she's doing. So she's also not causing offense. And the other big thing that we both both have agreed on is that you know It's not that feelings don't matter. There's more coffee. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Thanks. It's not that feelings don't matter It's not that feelings don't matter, but they don't trump reality They don't they don't trump facts now. You got to make sure that the facts you think are facts are actually facts

Yeah, sometimes guys. Yeah. Well, I mean, the other thing is feelings feel so real. They may as well be. So if you're a fan, not saying they Trump facts, but if you feel legitimately offended by something you thought I did, then you are as offended as if I had have done that wrong thing. Yeah, there's a reality that has to be addressed. It has to be addressed. But ultimately, if I didn't do that thing,

you feel, I'm not responsible for what I did in your dreams. Like every husband has felt this. Whatever I did in your dreams, I did not do in real life. So I'm not responsible for that. And so, and that was, that's something too that I'm truly blessed with with my wife, is a lot of times, she will now preempt it sometimes. She'll come back to me and she's like,

babe, I'm just, I'm feeling off today and it is my fault. And so if she goes, I am really, she goes, I recognize it and I'm trying to correct it. But if for some reason I feel I sound short or what, and I want you to know it isn't you, I'm just dealing with this thing over here. Wives, can I tell you something? Do you know how much your husband appreciates that? The moment my wife tells me, baby, I'm just letting you know right now, if I seem short or whatnot, it is not your fault. It is me. I'm just apologizing. You know what I'm doing for the rest of the day, baby, what can I get you? Do you need me to run this store? Do you want something? Can I, can I get,

let me go, let me get some medicine. Let me give you some coffee. But I immediately went into, I need, I need to protect my. Yeah. Right. That very easily could have been, you know, me doing the dishes, not right, right? Me not loading the dishwasher, right. And getting in trouble when I'm like, what the hell? I'm loading the dishwasher. Now that's really good. Especially if you have a wife who suffers well, like my wife experiences a lot of health issues and she suffers well, like heroically, she doesn't whine, she doesn't complain. But sometimes I forget that she's walking around in constant pain. And so if she like maybe snaps a little and I got to realize, okay, don't come down. So when she says to me,

I'm sorry, I'm just so hungry. Like my wife's hungry. Everyone get out of the way, feed that woman steak. Well, and I think it's, again, this is one of those things where you see this modern movement, especially with kind of in the feminist circles where, you know, it's just trashing men all the time or he should just know, all right, well, enjoy your sucky life because he doesn't. And it's not because he doesn't care. It's because it doesn't occur to him. Just like men also need to understand that when women are, like for instance, men will come men will complain sometimes about you get in a fight and she's bringing up things, you know, two years ago or whatever it is.

Women have this unique ability for recall because they attach feelings to those memories. And so when they get that feeling again, it's now hardwired into all of the other things that made them feel that particular way. That's actually an asset, right? The same thing where women will pick up on like micro signals with respect to body language and things like that. That's that's a biological response based off the fact that they are typically physically more vulnerable. Right. And what I've learned is to really,

really trust my wife's discernment on things. So I can remember, I think it was about year seven of our marriage, she said, I don't know about this, but I don't like it. And I'm like, okay, can you give me a reason? I'm analytical. Can you give me a reason? Where's the data? Where's the logical argument? Baby, I don't know.

There's just something off. Okay. Well, honey, that's great. When you actually have something that you can present to me, please let me know and I will, but I'm not going to." Man, did I regret that. In my arrogance, I'm looking at my wife as being emotional. No. My wife had keyed in on something and she hadn't quite...

She perceived it but couldn't articulate it. Perceived but couldn't quite articulate it just yet, but she was right. And what I've learned is 99% of the time when she says that, dude, you better pay attention man because especially if your wife is a praying wife, if she's, uh, you know, I don't like talking about intuition, discernment, man, that's an asset, right? God designed her to pick up on things that you might not be picking up on. Yeah. And so realize it for what it is.

Yes, it can be irritating when it's used against you, right? But it's also a tremendous asset. And the things I advise wives on is like, I know you wish he would just understand, but the earlier on in your marriage that you actually verbalize what's going on and you tell him and you help him create those patterns in his own mind, now he has the data he needs.

And he's far more likely to just understand because you told him, you helped him understand. No, I love it when my wife brings needs to me because now I have an objective that I can crush. Something I'm trying to do more and more is ask her each day, like, what can I do today to make your life better? Just one thing, what's something I could do? And then you give it to me like, got it. I've got my mission. Oh, it's, it's, I did this, um, I did this real a while back, um, because I was doing a podcast with Misha Tate. Misha Tate was a, a Bantam, she was a, yeah, Bantam weight

UFC champion. Uh, so she's a phenomenal fighter, phenomenal fighter. She's still fighting, like two kids, she's still fighting. I hate that so much. I hate it. Do you hate that? To see women in a ring beating the shit out of each other and we clap and celebrate it like this could possibly be a good thing? Here's what it is. Like I like UFC. I have a hard time watching women fight. Right, and I think you're right too, and I think any pressure you feel to disagree with it is coming from the outside. Well, here's where I'll disagree. All right. Here's where I'll disagree. I do believe that within society, men should take on the, they should take on the primary responsible for protection and provision. I've also been to societies where women had to fight. And so I realize it's sport,

I realize it's different. I'm not telling you to change what you think about this. I think I disagree with UFC in general, which is influencing how I feel about women fighting. So if I'm against men beating the shit out of each other for sport and money and fame, I don't think those are legitimate reasons to inflict serious physical pain upon another person. I think there can be legitimate reasons, obviously. If I'm against that, I'm certainly against these beautiful women who have children and want to nurture them to be punched in the face. I just think it's disgusting. I asked Misha what that was like. Her father was a Green Beret. I was like, I can't imagine watching my daughter do it. And she was,

she was going through and explaining she's got an interesting story. Um, and, and I really appreciate me. I think Misha's is an incredible person. Sorry, continue. What I wanted to bring up is that in the middle of me talking about like husband's this and husband that, and we should she looks at me and the first time I'd ever been asked this on a podcast, she was, but what do men need? And I was like.

Your shoulders dropped. I was just like, thank you for asking that. Cause we don't get asked it anymore. It's as if what we need doesn't matter. Now, thankfully my wife's never been that way, but culturally that is very much the case. And whenever men talk about what they need, it's like, Oh, boo hoo. And I said, look, I think there's,

and this is tying into what we were talking about before. I said, look, I think there's if I, if I had to narrow it down, cause I wasn't expecting the question, there's four things. Um, we want to be respected. And what respect to us means is that we are admired for our character and our capabilities, like our competence. That's what we're admired for. We want to be appreciated.

And what appreciated means is acknowledgement for the sacrifices that we make to protect and provide. When my wife looks at me and says, oh man, when my wife looks at me and says, you make me feel safe, I can go a year. I can go a year on that compliment feel safe. I can go a year. I can go a year on that compliment, right? I can go a year on that compliment.

So we want to be desired and desired doesn't just mean you're willing, right? Desired means you're excited about it. And because women, honest talk here, because women are the gatekeepers for sex. When you have a wife that takes that part of your marriage seriously, not just as something that's done, but seriously, she takes ownership of it. Oh my gosh, like we just feel incredibly desired. We just feel like, you know, our wife loves us. Our wife wants us. Like that's, that's incredible to us. I said, and the final thing is love. We want to be loved.

I mean, scripture talks about, you know, know, wives respect your husbands and men love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it. Love for a man, I said love for a man is really, I was thinking about this, it's really tied to loyalty. When we know, like we are so we are so keyed in to see our value on what we can provide. But if you want to make a man feel loved, it's him knowing that you will stick with us even when it gets bad. Because if I'm protecting, if I'm providing,

if I'm meeting your emotional needs, your physical needs, I'm doing all those stuff, okay, you love me. But what happens if something happened and I couldn't not, not I was lazy, not I, not I was unfaithful. Not what happened if something I get in a car accident, I get shot overseas. I get, when you know your wife would be there with you and still love you and be proud of you. Oh man, you feel loved. You make a man.

And I always say this, I know not every man is worth the effort, but when you, when you find a good one and you make him feel respected, appreciated, desired and loved, that man won't just die for you. That man will spend a good part of his life trying to make your life, everything you want it to be. And, and he will, and he will thank you for the privilege of it. Um, so no, I'm, I'm there with you, man. My wife lets me know what I can. I love that you came up with those four things on the spot with that woman.

Well, I think I came up with three and I had to think about it later. I got to go back and watch the interview because I was pretty much on that. But I was thinking about like, how do I, especially when I do short form content, it's like, man, how do I pack this into 90 seconds? But yeah, I really, I really started, somebody went into the comments. They said, the last thing I would say is peace. We, we, we, we do like it when a, when a wife provides peace within the household. I think that's true. I think that's true. I know that when we started having kids and my wife, um, my wife really took over management of the home.

What I always tell people is that wasn't daycare and facilities management. Um, my wife really took over management of the home. What I always tell people is that wasn't daycare and facilities management. My wife manufactured and maintained an environment, an entire environment, and she created an environment so wonderful. I would fight. I'd give anything to protect it. I know it's cliche, but she made a house, a home. Yeah. She, she created an environment that I wanted to dedicate my life to protecting,

protecting and providing for. And probably even, even more incredible is that if you ask, I have a 21 year old, a 19 year old and a 16 year old, you ask any of them, what do you want to do? They have certain professional goals and whatnot, but almost immediately out of their mouth, they want to get married and they want to have kids. It's cause she, they see the joy of your wife. Because she created an environment they want to replicate for their own families. My oldest son said to my youngest daughter recently, you'd make a great flight attendant. And out of nowhere, she's like,

no way, I'm going to be too busy having babies. We didn't have to coach her to say that. No one guilted her into saying that. It's just this deep desire of her heart. That's really beautiful. Yeah, it's funny. My wife was on a week retreat recently and my kids. I mean, they they survived. Yeah. But they barely ate. I was just going by Kroger and buying him trays of sushi. Like, is that enough? What else do you need? I don't know. What do kids like food?

You want that to have my wife come back? And it's like, oh, thank goodness. We managed, but it's better with you here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're blessed, man. I, I, I dunno. I am very grateful for my wife. I, this is something I've, yeah, yeah, I'm very grateful. She is, she, she's a very good woman. I wrote to my, some people in Australia recently and they were like, I don't know if America's

ever been great to begin with. So not all Australians think this, but this one. So I sent them like a long list of all the inventions that they can be thankful for, which came from America. And then lastly, I'm like Cameron Maider, my wife, you know, you guys gave me her. Thanks man. Appreciate it. Yeah.

Yeah. That's good. What advice do you have? I mean, I guess you've already said it, but, you know, it's funny, like when I all those things about being very specific about what you want, yeah, how helpful that is. And if you can't agree, then you've just made a very good friend. I think that's excellent advice. I just don't know if I I, I just fell so hard for her.

I just thought she was the best. And so by that point I was all in. Well, but here's the great part, right? Is the, the values are non-negotiable. That's what I would say. The faith was non-negotiable. I was not going to marry a non-Christian. I just wasn't because it wouldn't have been good

for either of us. I'm not going to be unequivocally yoked, right? So I'm going to marry a Christian. Yeah. That's true. That's true. There was definitely non-negotiables, things that have happened. But most everything else was not a deal breaker, was a preference. But the problem is that we either treat preferences like deal breakers or they don't matter. We treat them like they don't exist. And you know, I was, I'll give me an example of this. Um, and this'll, whenever I talk about this,

half the audience loves the first part almost as much as they hate the second part. Let's do it. So talking to guys, talking to men about what your responsibility is, uh, as a husband and whatnot. And one of the things I talk about is I said, you know, the dad bot is not a thing. It's just not, um, you have an obligation to stay fit and healthy for your wife. And they're like, well, you know, I'm like, well, you know, no, no, no,

I'm not, I'm not saying you gotta be a bodybuilder. I'm not saying you gotta be, you know, an MMH. I'm not saying any of that. I'm not saying you've got to be a Donis. I'm not saying any of that. What I'm saying is, is that your job is to protect and provide and oh, by the way, you're the last guy on the planet she gets to sleep with. Like you're it. So stay fit for your wife. Don't do, don't do, you don't have to be doing unreasonable things, but do reasonable things. Just stay fit and stay healthy for your wife. And the way I put it is this, because it's like we always get into the discussion of, well, they should, shouldn't they just love me?

Yes. If when you make a commitment, you love that person for life. That's the, you're, you're obligated at this point. You've made a choice. Like you love that person for life. You're obligated at this point. You've made a choice. You love that person for life. And as long as the fundamentals are correct, right? Like we're talking about character and all this, this would be good, yeah. But there's two versions of you. There's a version of you that is a really good person,

but you're not everything you could be in the various areas. And part of that's fitness. Part of that might be intellect, right? There's things that you can improve. And then there's another version of you where you are staying fit. You are staying up on reading and developing your mind and things like that.

It is not unreasonable for your wife to prefer this version. Now she's gonna stick with you either way, right? She loves you. She loves you and she fundamentally loves you and that doesn't change, right? But is it not reasonable for her to prefer the version of you, the reasonable version of you, that is fully capable of achieving these things? Yeah. Good. Then go achieve those things, man. Go achieve those things because you're gonna be better for it. She's gonna be happier. You're gonna be happier.'re going to be able to protect and provide better. So go do it. Right.

Go do it. Wives, same thing. That's the part where I say, you know, everybody loves the wives. Love it. When I talk about men do this and then, and the guys are like, why are we always getting beat up on it? And then I'm like, Oh, and wives do the same thing. That's like, Oh, well now we're no, no, there's, there's again, same thing. It's like, Oh, well now we're no, no, there's, there's again, nothing. And I mean this very sincerely. Nothing can happen to my wife. Nothing can do where it will,

it will fundamentally change the fact that I love her. I'm attracted to her and I'm with her for life. That's it. That's it. There's, there's no, it's not a possibility. People, well what about the, it isn't a possibility. Why? Because I've decided it isn't. Isn't that an enormous amount of power? We act like all these things just happen to us. This is an area of my life, things don't just happen.

I've made a decision, I love this woman, I'm attracted to this woman, I desire this woman, and it's this woman to the exclusion of all others forever, the end, period. That's it. So that's a wonderful thing. And she's done the same for me. But I know I can be better in certain areas. That's not a dig on me.

That's an opportunity. That's another goal I get to fight for. That's another thing I get to achieve. That's another thing I get to do that she gets to be proud of and appreciate and get to have. So go do it. It's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. Because we're never going to be perfect. We're never going to be the idealized version. But we're always made better for seeking it out, especially through our relationship with God. Yeah. And so... No, 100%. I think there's two reasons that women react negatively to that.

One is from feminism that tells women that their husbands should have no requirements of them, which is evil. Piss off, feminism. The other, I think, is more legitimate, whereas I speak to a lot of women who grew up with eating disorders. Oh my gosh, yeah. They view their bodies in certain ways. They're the ones who have to give birth not you and me

Yeah, and so there's all sorts of things that take place after that but no a hundred percent Oh, no, I agree the well the other thing to social media social media has been horrible I social media and porn porn is a virus porn is a disease. It's just in the Yeah, it's um There's an incredible amount of pressure on women, uh, to, to, um, attain. I think increasingly on men, would you agree? I think when I was a teenager, I didn't feel it. Maybe you did because you were in the military, but I never felt the kind of pressure that I'm seeing today. Young fellas seem to be feeling. I, I, I can definitely see where it's yes. I do.

To look like the Andrew Tate or whatever. And I don't, I don't think it's that so much. I think the thing that is frustrating man is the things like you got to be six, five. Oh yeah. That's 0.2% of the population. Right. Like don't talk to me about things that are unattainable, right? Like that's, that's depressing unattainable, unattainable goals are depressing.

Yeah. Well, and that is what I think a lot of women would say was foisted upon them when they were kids. Oh yeah, absolutely. Maybe it's a good analogy. This is why I always try to be, because I've seen, I've seen people talk about this before in a way that really infuriates women and for good reason, because it is the, it is the unrealistic expectation of, you know, whatever.

That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm talking about the boundaries of the reasonable. Yes. Um, and not even so much as like, again, this is the part, I almost equate it. Um, I almost equate it to salvation. I can't earn my salvation. Um, that was already done for me. So I, but I do do things that have gratitude for my salvation, right? That, that's the, the, the renewing of the mind that Paul talks about in Romans,

it's the sanctification process. Um, it's, it's the, it's the idea of because there has been a change in me that manifests itself in the fruits of the spirit and those positive things. But none of those things I do earns me my salvation. Right. Husbands and wives, I think need to be committed to one another. Now this is, I understand that there's, there's issues of infidelity, abuse, and one that even scripture allows for, but between husbands and wives and in otherwise, you know, good sound merit. So we, we got all the caveats out of the way. Um, my wife can't lose my love, right? She can't lose my love. And I don't have, I don't, this is,

this is the most important part. It's not about me creating this expectation of my mind that my wife has to achieve this. And it's not about her creating an expectation in her mind that my husband has to achieve this. It's, I already know I have her love. So why wouldn't I want to do the things that I know, please her, right? Like that's all this is. It's, it's not about, it's not about creating new expectations and then being bitter when they're not

met. It's about saying, I love this woman and I want to do things that I know, please her. I know, please her. I know please her. And I think that's the proper mindset for husbands and wives to look at what are the areas in my life that I know please my spouse that I can develop. And the frustrating thing I think for husbands and wives, especially as time goes on, is you move from kind of the hot, heavy, romantic, exciting into the more comfortable, stable growth, mentoring with other couples or your kids or things like that. And that's a natural progression. But I also think it's important that there are,

I don't, that's not like a decline, right? It's different stages. But by the same token, I don't think, I don't think that excitement and passion and desire is supposed to go away. No. You just have to be a little bit more deliberate in how you, how you set up the conditions for it. And that's different things, right? Women have certain responsibilities

in order to foster that, and so do men. Like the thing is, the thing I've learned, again, going back to things I've learned being married for 25 years, um, as, as my wife likes to say, um, you know, making love starts in the morning and that doesn't mean, Hey, we wake up. And like, when she first said that, I'm like, cool, I'm not doing anything. And he's like, no, it's, it's about, um, again, the, the other common phrase here, men are microwaves, women are ovens, right?

We're gonna need the preheat, right? But here's what I've noticed. When I wake up in the morning and I'm thinking about like, I'm, you know, I'm going to create conditions that I know my wife likes that my wife loved. And what it is is she's feeling, she's feeling she's feeling supported she's feeling you know all that and so I'm creating these conditions I'm playing an active role I think what happens you get to a certain stage where things don't sync up because of schedules it's work it's kids and stuff like that and so I think being more deliberate in that but but a part of that is again the reason why this all

ties back to the mindset that I'm talking about is I want to, because I love my wife, I want to find the ways that I can do and that I can constantly improve. And I don't want her to ever think that we've just gotten to a point in our marriage where we're really good roommates. Yeah. You said I'll take each other for granted. Yeah. Or, you know, Hey, it's a, you know, no, I am grateful. I am grateful that you were going to be here no matter what. And now let me show you how grateful I am. Right. hey, it's, you know, no, I am grateful. I am grateful that you are gonna be here no matter what. And now let me show you how grateful I am, right?

I think that's a far healthier mindset to carry on throughout your marriage. You mentioned pornography. I've written and spoken a lot about this, but I would love to get your advice to, especially the young men. I know young women struggle with pornography as well, but predominantly it is more men.

It's marketed toward men. So I heard recently is that orthodox priest. I've been watching on YouTube named father Moses. He put it really well. He said, pornography is a self-imposed shaming ritual. Yeah. Yeah. It's a mind trap for men that makes them increasingly pathetic. I think we want to do two things. We want to shame pornography and point it in all of its disgustingness, you know, at the same time, loving the men who've been raised in a pornified culture or the women

who are exposed to it young. So give us advice to young men, especially who are watching pornography right now. And maybe they don't know if they should stop. Maybe they do. So pornography is appealing to pornography is attempting to appeal to something that God put in you that is good and noble And it is attempting to pervert it for profit and exploitation Josh Brome We had him on the show he's in ministry now he was in live-action he was in the porn industry for six years and

You know got out got got saved, has an incredible wife and family now and one of the big things he does in his ministry is really expose what actually goes on, what's happening. Here's what I would say, the positive thing, what the porn industry is appealing to is your desire for sex. God put that there. The desire for sex is something that God put there for a purpose. And here's the great news. It's awesome. Oh my gosh. Like it, I,

yeah, five out of five would recommend, right? But it's awesome within a framework, just like pretty much everything is awesome within a frame. Everything that is supposed to be awesome is awesome with a framework and then either harmful or even deadly outside of that framework. And so whenever you see this attempt to pervert something that has a good and noble and beautiful and wonderful and pleasurable experience, understand that the more you indulge in that, the more you are actually preventing yourself from being able to experience the genuine article.

And so this ends up becoming in some ways a game of, and anybody in business will tell you that one of the biggest keys to economic success is delayed gratification. It's the same thing with this. So what I would tell young men is you have been deliberately targeted. I'm going to use the word because I

think it's appropriate. It's satanic. This isn't just, no, it's evil because the more, the more men can be turned into the most pathetic, weak, self-indulgent version of themselves, the easier it is to destroy the family and therefore society. Young men are, you guys aren't just nice to have. You're absolutely essential to society.

We need you to be strong, we need you to be noble, we need you to be honorable, we need you to be good husbands, we need you to be good fathers. This is not, we don't, it wouldn't be nice if you were those things. We absolutely desperately need you to be those things and there is a reason why there is a concerted effort to try to get you to trade everything associated

with being that with this weak, version of yourselves. You are not targeted because you're weak, you're targeted because of the potential you have. If you can start to look at it, that's exactly what this is, a concerted effort. That doesn't mean that everybody involved in the porn industry has this grandiose doctor evil plan of destroying society It means that regardless of what their intention is That's what ends up happening and some people do have that objective and realize the power of using that industry to achieve it And so you need to see it as that's what it is

Is that this is a concerted effort to make you weak and pathetic and you are not those things you were not Created to be those things You were created to be strong. You were created to lead. You were created to be intellectually powerful. You were created to be physically, but you were created for these things. And anything that stands in the way of you doing that for some sort of cheap dopamine hit is a distraction from your mission for your life. That's the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is, and again, and I'm not sitting here telling you, I've never seen porn, right?

What I'm saying is that there's another side of this that's even darker and that's the exploitive side that takes place. You are not going to find a lot of women in the porn industry that don't have horrible relationships with their father. You're not going to find a lot of women in the porn industry that don't have horrible relationships with their father. You're not going to find a lot of women in the porn industry that haven't been sexually abused usually at a very young age. You're not going to find a lot of people in the porn industry or you will find an ever increasing amount of people within the porn industry that are not there voluntarily.

And so anytime you indulge in it, it's not just about something making you weaker and pathetic. It's also about contributing to something else that is hurting women. And I fully believe that one of my jobs, one of my jobs on this earth, one of the jobs of masculinity is to foster and create an environment where femininity can flourish. And so part of rejecting this over here is recognizing the poison that it is for you and the exploitive nature of what it is for them. And we don't do that.

We don't poison ourselves. We don't exploit women. That's not what men do. So start looking at it with the absolute disdain it deserves. And that will that will help keep you from indulging in it. Because again, it's marketed to appeal to something that is supposed to be there, but it's perverting it. So that's what I would say is that don't let the,

also don't let the shame of past participation convince you that this is just the way it is now. You can reject it. One of the most wonderful things about Christian doctrine is the concept of repentance. Repentance is not, oh I'm sorry, repentance is I recognize that this was evil and I'm now turning away from it to something better. I'm not just turning away from it to nothingness, I'm turning away to something better. One of the things I try to teach my kids, both within their physical relationships, but also with respect to what they view. And I haven't

always been great at this. There's been times where I've been watching shows and I've been like, yeah, we need to turn this off or are you know what? We should have to watch that. Like I, so please understand this is not me on a high horse saying, Oh, I've done this perfectly. No, it's you on the battlefield encouraging your brothers. Yes. Like there's no shame in being hit in battle. Yes. There is shame in turning around and abandoning your brothers on the field. Yes. Well, and, and people ask me, how did you,

how did you convince, especially in an era that is, is especially driven women toward this idea that they can immediately go on Instagram, post a photo of themselves and get thousands, if not millions of people giving them instant feedback about their physical nature. And they're like, how did, why didn't that happen with your kids? Cause I have, I have a very beautiful 21 year old daughter, very beautiful 16 year old daughter, who was about to turn 17. So why don't they do that?

Why isn't that been a thing? It's part of it was the environment that we kept them in, but, and, and, and why, why haven't you had a problem with your son going out and trying to sew his wild oats or anything else? I said, well, first of all, the rules applied for my son and my daughters. I cannot stand, I cannot stand it when men tell their daughters, you better be home by 10, you better do this and then treat their sons like boys will be boys. Nope. Well, they will, but men will be men. Yes. Yes. If it's a rule, then it's a rule for both. Right. Right. Otherwise it's arbitrary or sexist even. So it was a rule for both because this

is about honor. But the biggest thing that I told both of them, whether it was about things like with pornography or whether it was about physical relationships outside of marriage, one day you are going to find the person that God has for you. One day you are going to find someone that you just changes your entire world. It's going to be, I don't even know how to explain it, but when you feel it, you'll know. You feel it, you'll know. And it's going to be someone that they are just a godly man or a godly woman. And this is the person that you are going to build a life with, build a relationship, have kids with. Here's what I want you to do. Here's what I want you to ask yourself.

How much do you want to have to explain to them? What do you want to have to sit across the table from that one point before you guys say I do and say, hey, I love you and I'm sorry, but this and this and this and this and this. How much of that do you want to have? Because if you're just telling your kids or if you're just telling someone don't do this,

but you're not actually telling them what you get on the other side of not doing that, then yeah, you're giving them a lot of stuff to, you're giving them a lot of stuff to look away from, but you're not giving them something to look toward. Mason- And to your point earlier, thank you by the way. That was so inspiring and I really appreciate your words of wisdom. I think like what you were getting at earlier though, this is not merely a matter of delayed gratification as if to say, sacrifice looking at porn now and then later on it'll be good.

What you're saying is it will rob you of your masculinity. Pornography will emasculate you. If the ideal man is Christ and it is who says this is my body given up for you, the flip of that is this is your body taken by me. And I just missed the point. And so like right now is a time you could be happy. Pornography would have you have that be robbed from you. Yeah, well, I'll put it a little bit more frankly, because I've got I got married at 19. I've only ever been with my wife.

I served in special forces. Yeah. Tell me about that. So tell me, I mean, I began asking that earlier. I didn't want to pry too much. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about that. So tell me, I mean, I began asking that earlier. I didn't want to pry too much. Yeah. There's a very different culture around sex and special forces and it's a lot of what you'd expect, right? It's, it's a bunch of, you know, reasonably fit guys, pretty confident in who they are going around to a lot of foreign countries with beautiful women that throw themselves at you. Also probably in high stress environments. Yes. Yeah. You know,

high stress environments, violent, yeah, you know, high stress environments, violent environments, the whole deal. And then you come out of that and it's, so you can imagine that there's a lot of temptation thrown at, you know, guys in those environments. And guys used to, you know, tease me about that. It was, you know, having only been with one woman, my wife and the whole deal.

And who would you take your socks off? And we know all the jokes that you would expect from guys making jokes. But it's funny, when someone talks about casual sex, I'm like, that must suck. I've never had casual sex in my life. I've only had awesome sex with the woman I love, respect, and admire and who feels the same way about me. So you can keep your mediocre sex.

I'm just going to keep the awesome stuff and I'll never forget a buddy of mine who was a pretty big player, pretty big player. Um, one night Tommy's like, you know, you know, we all wish we had what you have. I'm like, yeah, no, that's why it doesn't bug me when you tease me. It's actually a little sad. Um, and that's, and that's what I would, again, that's what I, the delayed gratification is exactly what you were saying. That was the point I was trying to make through that is that the reason why you're not doing,

the reason why you're not having a bunch of premarital sex or any premarital sex, the reason why you're not sleeping around, the reason why you're not watching porn, the reason why you're not doing any of that is because just as you, and if guys are being honest, just as you want your wife to save herself for you, she wants that from you.

And I don't care what anybody tells you. The way I word it is, um, promiscuity may impact men and women differently, but it's immoral for both and it's detrimental for both. I cannot, I've seen, I've seen the guys who were good looking guys and beautiful women. I'm like, dude, just no. I can understand that that might seem exciting. I can understand that she's pretty. I can understand all of that. But man, there's nothing to that. There's no substance there. That is it. That is a cheap dopamine hit. That's what that is. Right. You, there's no way that can ever possibly compare to what I get to have

with the woman I love, the woman I adore, right? Nothing. And the more you do that, the more you run the risk of never being able to have that with somebody. I'm not saying it can't happen, right? Again, I believe in repentance. I believe in restoration. But man, don't set yourself up for failure. Mason Harkness I know you said that these fellows were making fun of you in good fun,

right? They weren't being cruel, but how many of them, if they were, would be laughing now, seeing you with a beautiful wife who loves you with children. Oh, no. Well, that's what I said. My buddy, even back then, like, we wish you had... Yeah, you start acting like that now, your life doesn't have a good trajectory. No. You're establishing patterns of behavior and habits, and men imprint, like, our early sexual experiences, we imprint on that, and that forms a framework

for our expectations going forward. And that's another reason, that's something too, that I emphasize the young men and young women, one of the reasons why you don't get physical early on within a relationship is because the physical nature of a relationship will cover up a multitude of red flags. Especially for guys, I will watch guys be like, well, you know, I had no idea.

Like, yeah, the reason why you had no idea is because you wanted to have sex with her. And so you were doing that, and then you ended up getting married, and then you never had any conversations about values, you never had conversations about expectations. And it turns out you guys are not compatible to wanna, I love it when people talk about like

How do you know if you're sexually compatible? Like are you serious? I can I just promise you something? I'm willing to make this as a promise right you absolutely love respect and adore that woman you get married with similar with with the same like faith structure and value The sexual compatibility is really easy to figure out. Yeah, like Instantaneous right like it is it is really easy to figure out. Like instantaneous, right? Like it is not hard to figure out. So don't let anybody try to convince you with some sort of like pseudo scientific sounding argument.

But that's the point, right? Like if you're saving it for that environment, because the other thing that's, I believe this, the other thing that's truly necessary for your wife or for a woman to truly appreciate and enjoy that activity to its fullest. They have to feel safe in that environment. That's the word. So they have to feel safe. So if they know that you're committed to it,

here's the way I like to put it. My wife never has to wonder if I'm, my wife never has to wonder if I'm imagining a different experience with somebody else. She never has to wonder if I'm imagining a different experience with somebody else. She never has to wonder that that was a, that was an incredible gift I got to give my wife, right? That's an incredible gift you get to give your wife. So give it to her, make sure she can have that gift. She never has to wonder if you're now, if you've already done this, that's where repentance comes in. Not, oh,

in my wild date. No, no, no. In your days where you screwed up in your days, were you doing the wrong thing. Not the good old days. That's another thing I hate is when people talk about, oh, live a little before you settle down. Dude, I did not get married to settle down. I got married to have an adventure with the woman I loved. And I didn't want to delay that adventure.

So anyway, I know I kind of, I did the Trump thing, I weaved it all in. It's a weave. It was excellent. I remember, unfortunately, as a 17 year old, me and my mates would go to the big city in Adelaide and we'd sneak into strip clubs and they often wouldn't check our ID. And a friend of mine, I won't say his name, but he'd never come with us. Yeah. And it always threatened us as it ought to have, um, we worried that he thought he was better than us and he was, and probably should have just claimed that. Yeah. But I remember us maybe asking that one day, like, what's your problem? Like you think you're better than us. And I think he said, if my memory serves,

no, I just, I just don't think it's manly to have to pay a woman money to pretend to like you. Dang. Oh, that's hard to recover from that. Yeah. Great comeback. Yeah. Yeah. Piss off. Yeah. Great comeback. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is funny. Uh, the amount of defensive advertising that's required in the quote unquote, and here's an example of the defensive advertising adult industry. Yeah. This is where adults congregate, gentlemen's club. This is where the gentlemen's congregate.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, I always, and I always want to look, I always want to emphasize this. There's things I did right, right? Having only other been with my wife is something I did right. Yeah. That doesn't mean, I didn't, that doesn't mean I didn't find myself in bars

I shouldn't have been in, right? It doesn't mean I didn't find, now again, always remain faithful to my wife and everything like that. But I look back on things on either things I watched or stuff where it's like, I failed. Yeah, yeah. I failed. And again, that's the point where it's,

because the other side of this is when a man is trying to be a good man and he fails, there will always be that feeling of, well, you screwed up now. No, no, no, no. That again, you repent, you move on because I love the way you put it. This isn't a, this is a battle. This is a constant battle.

You're getting shot at it. Sometimes you're going to get hit and sometimes you're going to get hit because you didn't, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and you should have adjusted. So learn from it, adjust. And then the other thing I would say is help the men coming behind you avoid the same minds, avoid the same baited ambushes. Help them avoid it. Be the sort of man that can help them navigate them

through that so they make better decisions and we get further. Because this is one of the things that's kind of exciting about all this, right? When you look at biblical history and you realize that you get to be a part of this process of taking information from a previous generation and then passing it on to future

ones. Um, every once in a while I'll have a, you know, I will discuss rules that I've had for my kids and people like, did you have that rule going up? Like when I was a latchkey kid, I don't have that rule. Well, do you think that's hypocritical? I don't care. Next. What do you mean you don't care. I'm like, I don't care. I don't care. It's actually not at all hypocritical. It's misunderstanding the word anyway. Yeah. It's not hypocritical. Cause it's not me continuing to do something. It's, it's, it's not hypocritical, but two, it's not unreasonable. Here's what I've never understand is when,

when I will watch a parent say, well, I did that as a kid. Was it good for you? No. Then don't let them do it. Like that's, you're not giving them the same, I don't want my kids to have the same exact, that's why my wife and I stayed married. I didn't want my kids to have the exact same experience I had growing up, right? Now my parents were still great parents. I love my parents.

But this is part of the process is like, no, my job is to, my job is not to shelter my kids from all of reality. My job is to, my job is not to shelter my kids from all of reality. My job is to shepherd them through it to a point to where they can safely negotiate it without my presence. And so I don't prevent them from getting bruises, right? They're going to fall down. They're going to bump up.

I'm going to tell them to get back up. I'm going to tell them to suck it up and move on and hey, this is part of life. But I am there to help them prevent getting scars. Right up to that point where now they can do it and they can start off at a better point than I started off. And that's, that's part of it. That's something exciting, right? That's something exciting. You get to be part of a legacy and that's, yeah. Yeah. Um, how did you become a Christian? So I was, I was raised in the church. Um,

and so I was always, um, the church was a regular part of growing up, it was part of the culture of my family, however. Did you grow up in Virginia or? No, no, Northern California. Okay. Northern California and Northern and Southern because when my parents got divorced, my dad moved down to, my dad was in Southern California, he was LAPD, he got remarried, actually converted to Catholicism, my mom was, you know, so I went to a Protestant church when I was in, for the school year when I was up with my mom and I went to mass occasionally

when I was down in Southern California. And so it was always a part. And the fact that there was a God and the story of scripture always made sense to me. But I will say that I grew up in kind of a, what I almost felt at times, and I went to a Christian middle school and high school, at times I almost felt like kind of an emotional faith.

It was, I don't know. There wasn't a lot of hard challenging of things, but I always liked debate. So it was one of those things where, okay, I had accepted Christ as my savior. I believed that was true. So I felt secure in that, but it didn't have a, it wasn't having a major impact on my life. Like as soon as I got into the military, yes, I was a Christian.

And yes, there were, there were things that my commitment to Christianity would keep me from doing. But there was other things I indulged in just like my buddies, right? Like, you know, getting drunk or whatever else. And then two, three things happened. Yeah. Four, four things happened. So I was in special forces. So at this point I've been married for about seven years. I was in special forces. So at this point I've been married for about seven years.

I was in special forces and the first thing was I, the first thing was, is we were talking to my wife and I were talking about, we really need to be going back to church. We really need to get back into going to church and my three year old daughter said, what's church? And I was like, I would go into that failing. I I'm failing my neighbor, my neighbor, Anthony Brown, my neighbor, Anthony Brown, total man's man, total man's man, but very, you know, committed in his faith, constantly invited us to church. He's like, Hey man, not pressuring you. We're going to church. You want to come with us? You can go.

That was it. That was it. That was the, that was the full apologetic. There was this other guy, can't even remember his name now, but we were going through the 18 Fox course, the special forces intelligence sergeants course. And this guy was a very, very bold advocate for his faith, not arrogant, but bold and unapologetic. And I ended up getting in debates with other members of the class on his side. I would back him up and he would,

I remember when he looked at me he goes, have you ever studied Christian apologetics? I'm like, I don't know what that means. And he gave me some people to start reading. And the thing that clicked there, so with Anthony, so with my daughter it was, you have responsibility as a father that you're failing, which means you also have a responsibility as a husband

that you haven't been fully living up to. With Anthony, it was, this guy's a man's man and he's a guy I respect as a man, and he's taking his family to church. Why am I not taking my family to church? That's a part of being a man. And then this guy in the 18 Fox course brought the intellectual component into it,

which is incredibly important because Christianity is about a relationship with God. Relationships with God are not, any relationship that you have that has any meaning has an emotional component to it, but it also has an intellectual component to it. That's reasonable. Exactly. If you have the intellectual without the emotional, then this is an exercise in philosophy.

If you have the emotional without the intellectual, then you're treating God like a fad diet. Like as long as it works for me, as long as it makes me happy, then it's useful in the moment it doesn't. But when you combine that emotional, and it's right there in scripture, right? Love the Lord your God with all of your heart,

your mind, your spirit, right? It's like all of that, all of you needs to be invested in it. And the moment it started to be, it was like, I'm getting this now, I'm getting this now. And then I had a team leader in special forces, Ryan Neenaber, Ryan Neenaber. And Ryan kind of embodied all of this. Ryan was the guy that he could fight, he could think, he was humble,

but he was very competent. So, so, and he was married and you know, he was, they were in the process of actually looking to adopt at that time. Now they have four kids, but it was all those things where it's like, you know, that, that your, your duty to your wife and children, the duty to be a man, the duty to be not just strong but wise, and intellectually competent and capable. And then just this whole manifestation and this one team leader who, you know, was again kind of encompassing all those aspects.

And all of that really, really got me back into exploring my faith and the way that it's meant to be, which is a relationship. And so that was formative for me. And I really got into studying apologetics. And again, it is, and it's funny, because when I say relationship, I mean that in the realest sense of the word,

that there are times where I feel really close, and there's times where I feel farther away, but I never doubt that I'm in a relationship. It's the same thing with my identity. I feel like the whole country is going through an identity crisis right now, because everyone senses that there's something missing, but they're trying to replace it with something

that cannot fully encompass who they really are. But when you find your identity in Christ, do bad things happen? Yes. I've lost friends in combat. I've had to spend months away from, I miss my youngest daughter, other than her birth, I missed her first everything. Missed her first everything. We've had to move, we've had stress, you know, our families have had all that. first everything we've had to move. We've had stress that, you know, our families have had for all that. And yet I've never questioned my identity. And so fully embracing both, both your identity and Christ and that then the relationship that actually comes

with that doesn't mean there won't be struggles. Again, you're getting, sometimes you're gonna feel really close and you're gonna feel far away. Yeah. But man, when you never question it, you always know where you, you always know what you're supposed to do to get back. So yeah, I don't know if that answers the question. Yeah, I asked you how you became a Christian. I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography. It is called strive21.com slash Matt. You go there right now or if you text STRIVE to 66866, we'll send you the link. It's 100% free and it's a course I've created to help men to give them the tools to overcome pornography.

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So there are fads within diets and we're always learning. And, but I don't think that means just because we're changing from time to time, what we think is best that we're not making actual progress. It's clearly a better thing for you to eat whole foods, say, than crap like high fructose colon syrup stuff and trans fats. Here's the point I want to make is that it seems to me today that among conservatives, Christ is a fad. I don't mean he's not also true, but it's my fear that some people are gravitating, not even a fear. I see this as a real opportunity, I suppose I should say. They're gravitating

towards Christian language and a belief in God. And I really want it to be more than a fad, though, because I know it is more than a fad. We saw the fad take place in 2006 with atheism. That seemed cool and novel and new. Now it just turned out that that was a fad take place in 2006 with atheism that seemed cool and novel and new. Now it just turned out that that was a fad and false. Christianity is, it seems to me in some sense, I wonder if you agree with me, a fad and true. You know, I had Jordan Peterson sitting in your seat and he said to me, essentially, that Joe Rogan's becoming a Christian now. No, he's not, actually. He's not at all. No. Dawkins becoming a Christian now. No, he's not actually, he's not at all. And from what I can tell, you aren't either, right,

to Jordan, respectfully. Yeah, yeah. So what do you think about that, and how do we help people who are looking at Christianity as a fad see that relationship that Christ wants for us, the truth of Christianity? Richard Dawkins recently said, oh no, no, I want to live in a Christian culture. And everyone was like, come again?

What's that again? Head of the new atheists? Like you want to live in a Christian culture? Oh yes, yes, I love the beautiful cathedrals and I like a lot of the moral precepts and I like a lot of the underlying conditions in which, you know, cultural Christian and that's the problem is that I see people that want to look at it as I want the, I want the cultural benefits of objective morality and objective truth. And I want there to be a general belief and understanding of these things.

But then I want to be the complete master of my own life. And so I'm going to call myself a Christian because I want to associate myself with either A, the opposite of whatever this woke crap is, or because we have similar values. I was actually talking to Michaela Peterson on her show and she was talking about how she really has been diving back into her faith. How her mother has really been diving back into Catholicism.

And she was talking about my father has always had a respect for it. And I said, I have a great deal of respect for your father, but I don't believe in this because it's a noble myth. I don't believe in this because I, Oh, well, you know, it creates good, it's a necessary component, which good creates good cultural outcomes. I believe in this because it's true. And that's a very, very different thing. So if this is something that you're...

No, don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled that people are exploring it. But genuinely explore it as the truth. Not just as, I like some of these cultural... I like some of the values and so I'm going to take part of it. Like don't embrace it because it seems to you a middle finger against the work. Yes. If you want to say Christ is king, I'm going to agree with you, but it needs to begin with your individual repentance. Yes.

If you're saying Christ is king as a middle finger to other people, but you're not actually on your knees, weeping in repentance for your own wretchedness and accepting his salvation, then don't say Christ is King. Yeah, because you don't really believe it. Because if Christ is King, that comes with implications. So I guess I'll go this. I am thrilled for the increased interest. I'm a little bit concerned and I say this with the utmost respect for Jordan Peterson. I'd love to talk to him sometime.

I find him fascinating and I find his intellect to just be incredible. I've never seen a guy be able to, or I should say this, I've seen very, very few people that have the ability to take complex concepts and principles and make good historical connections and arrive at elements of truth, which I think are fundamental and good. I'm a little bit worried that we're going to start seeing this manifestation of something that calls itself Christianity, which in reality is nothing more than a kind of a vague philosophical commitment to values.

And Christianity is a first and foremost, a commitment to God. It's a commitment to Christ. It's a commitment to the beginning of knowledge. The beginning of wisdom starts with the fear of God. And that's, that's not poetic language. It's a fear of God. And that's, that's not poetic language. It's a statement of fact. Um, so I, that's the only part that concerns me is that I think people are starting and a good friend of mine, um, John level, um,

brought this up too. And he was like a great deal of respect for Jordan Peterson. He's not a Bible teacher. Um, he may, he may be able to come up with some interesting, um, concepts and ideas around it, but I've, I've gotten very, very uncomfortable with the, oh yes, the parable of this, just like this over here in this mythology or this over here in this faith. No, no, no, no. I don't know if you saw Babylon B had an article where they said Jordan Peterson

entertains every possible reading of a particular verse except for the one intended. Yeah. And again, I think some of the conclusions he draws about scripture are correct and useful. I think other ones are not. I think other ones, the point has been missed pretty significantly. I think that's part of the problem when you read scripture from the mindset of the noble myth as opposed to a genuine inquiry and is this true? But again, having said that, my concern is that it could lead people toward this version of Christianity. And we've seen this before with the Joel Osteen's of the world and stuff like that. We've, we've seen this before where it's, it's over here. You have the motivational speaker, you know, dressing themself up as a,

as a pastor. Yeah. The same thing can happen with the philosopher. That's interesting. I, cause I was just thinking this through on the spot and I didn't realize that you had the same kind of real as yeah, you were seeing that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and again, there's, there's a part, there's a battle going on.

There's, there's always a spiritual battle going on. And I, when, and there's, there can't be, there can't be any doubt that both sides want Jordan Peterson. I mean, God has designed that none should perish, right? But there can be no question that both sides see the tremendous value that Jordan Peterson could bring to this. And again, this is not about me wanting him for my side. What it is is I want everyone to come to what I honestly believe is the truth.

And I would love to have an advocate for the truth like Jordan Peterson. Yeah. And I mean, sometimes we can want two things. Like sometimes I think it's helpful for a Christian to realize that, OK, maybe I'm objectifying Peterson here. Maybe I just do want the big kid on campus to be on my team. But two things can be true at once.

You can acknowledge that, maybe more immature desire, and then also desire his wellbeing. Oh yeah, first and foremost, I mean, well again, that's our mandate, right? Is when you genuinely appreciate what Christ did, and can I say this? Yes. There's so much I talk about where I will have,

especially, it's usually men. Nick, I love what you say about politics. I love what you say about philosophy. I love what you say about logic. I love what you say about being a father and a husband. You can just leave out all the God stuff? No. Like I literally can't because what you're asking me to do is tell me the story while denying the author. Build me a tower without a foundation. Yeah, I can't do it. Like everything I say, everything I say is

worthless apart from a foundational truth which in fact makes it true. This is what it is. I can't separate the two. I can't separate the two. And the most important thing to understand about this, because so many people look at this as, oh, woo woo, flying spaghetti monster and whatnot. No, it makes sense.

Do you believe that there's such a thing as truth? Do you believe that there's such a thing as love? Do you believe that there's such a thing as love? Do you believe that there's such a thing as justice? Okay. How do you get any of those things without a moral lawgiver? How do any of those things spring out of a series of purposeless forces that started with a random explosion out of nothing that then created everything you don't get love justice and and and Truth in any sort of like real objective sense. You don't. That needs a creator, not an accident. And then once you have it, then you have to face the problem of why is there evil? How do you quantify

evil? Okay, well, evil is that which stands against God. Evil is that which stands what God has set up. It stands up against what God has set as true. The opposite of that is evil. Now here's the question. Have we committed acts of evil? Yes. All of us. Not just the Hitlers of the world.

All of us have rejected that. Okay? So you tell me, how do you get, how do you get a loving God and how does he reconcile himself with a creation that has rejected him? Because here's the other thing, because they'll say, well, why did he create a creation that could reject him? Ah, that's an excellent question. Do you value your freedom? Because if the answer is yes, and I haven't met an atheist yet that doesn't value their freedom, freedom means that you had to be created in such a way to where you could choose to do the opposite of what God instructed you to do.

Which is interesting because the only way for love and justice to also exist is for you to have the ability to reject love and justice. You have to have the ability to reject it. So God afforded you that. He afforded you that within his creation. Now, he's still sovereign, but he afforded you this realm of choice where you could choose to reject him. Why? Because it was the only reality where I believe love could have existed as well, because mandatory love is not love. So he creates you this environment where he says, look, I love you, I want a relationship with you. Here's the just thing to do. Don't do the unjust.

And then we choose to do it. And then we get mad at God. So the moment we want to play God, we get mad with God with the results of playing God. But we want our freedom. Don't take that away. If you take our freedom away, we're just a robot. All right, so now you're mad at the God who created you in an environment where love can actually exist, where justice could actually exist, and where you had the freedom to be able to reject those things because that's the environment where love can exist.

So how do you get reconciliation? If God is love and God is just, he can't just come in and say, ah never mind, that's not justice. You would be furious. You would be furious if somebody hurts somebody you love and a judge said, well, you know what, it doesn't really matter. That's not justice. So what is the one way that a loving God can maintain justice while providing for reconciliation? He has to become the perfect sacrifice in order to satisfy justice while maintaining love. That's the story of Christ. If you want to intellectually understand how these things can coexist and how redemption is possible while

maintaining justice, while maintaining that intellectual honesty of love and justice. This is it. This is it. And so I look at people that try to try to create this out like it's some sort of fairy tale or some sort of like oh my gosh if this is a fairy tale created by man I don't know why we created it this way. No, this makes perfect sense when trying to intellectually consistently make sense of the world we see around us while striving for love and justice. That's the part where I look at it when people try to treat it like it's some sort of, I don't know, cosmic Santa Claus, or just it's a faith for weak people that just are trying to explain difficult things

in life. It's like, no, that is such an elegant way to actually make sense of what we actually see going on in the world, and how do we maintain these things. Mason- Yeah, well said. It's also a genetic fallacy, isn't it? I mean, the sword cuts both ways. If you want to look at me with pity and say, I'm just trying to understand an irrational world and this brings me comfort. Okay, like the same thing can be said of you. You would like to live in a world where there's no moral responsibility for you. Is that a good argument? No, it's not. Why? Well, because it's a genetic fallacy. You're arguing against what I believe based on how it originated. And as a friend of mine, Trent Horn said, you know, if you say to a Christian, well, the only reason you're a Christian is because you were raised in a

Christian family. He'll say, all right, well, the only reason you're an atheist is because you were raised in Portland on a vegan diet and your brain didn't have the right nutrient nutrients for you to John Lennox did that to somebody in a debate. Oh really? Oh my gosh. It was incredible. Um, the, the, I think it was, I'm almost positive. It was John Lennox. You know, I'm talking about the English mathematician. Is he a mathematician? Yeah. I can't remember. I don't know. I mean, if you do physics, you do a lot of math, right? But, um, John Lennox was sitting there. I can't remember. Well, I don't know. I know he teaches math. Look, if you do physics, you do a lot of math, right? But John Lennox was sitting there.

I can't remember who the atheist was, but the atheist made the argument. He goes, well, of course. John just told you he was raised in a Christian home. He was raised with a Christian influence. And that explains. And then John gets up and he goes, he's just explained this.

He goes, were your parents Christian? Well, no, they were atheist. Oh, okay. And it was amazing. There was another debate I saw once between, or that I listened to once, between Greg Bonson and Gordon Stein, I think his name was. And Gordon Stein had made the, he was making a materialistic argument that, and he looks at Greg Bonson, he goes, is God, so let me give you a little bit of background. Gordon Stein had made the argument that God didn't exist because it was essentially a violation of the laws of logic when we look at a materialistic universe. And so that was Gordon Stein's

fundamental argument. The belief in God was essentially kind of a fairy tale because it worked outside the boundaries of the laws of logic, the scientific method and things of that nature. And so on cross-examination, he asked Greg Bonson, he was his god material or immaterial? Immaterial. What is immaterial? That which doesn't spread across space or time. And he goes, do you believe in anything else

that fits that description? And Greg Bonson goes, yes, the laws of logic, right? So the very thing Gordon Stein was utilizing to now utilizing to try to disprove God didn't meet his own criteria. And that's, that's a common mistake that atheists fundamentally run into time and time again. And so there's always, there's always this thin intellectual veneer covering up either really bad argumentation or a lot of pain. That one of the, one of the biggest, one of my biggest

failures as a Christian, especially when it comes to the application of apologetics, like, oh my gosh, I'll always, I always beg forgiveness for this. I was new to apologetics and I was feeling very, very salty. Very, very arrogant. Because I was just destroying these guys that thought they, I mean, they were gonna mock me, they were gonna mock my God, I'll show them. And this one guy and I were arguing about whether or not God existed and he goes,

do you believe if someone commits suicide, they go to hell? And I said, this is something of a category area because it has no bearing on whether or not God exists if they do or if they don't yeah has nothing to do yeah the actual argument that we're discussing right now so this is a red herring so why don't you stay on topic and I and I get I got him I was right I was right it was completely superfluous to the fundamental issue of whether or not God exists. So like I win Somebody said later like do you know why he asked that? No His wife committed suicide. Oh

So at a moment Where I had an opportunity to say Why do you ask that? opportunity to say, why do you ask that? And then do what first Peter 3 15 commands me to do which is always to first sanctify Christ in my heart and then always be Ready to give a response for the hope that is in me but to do so with gentleness and respect now instead I wanted to win an argument. Yeah, so yeah, no, that's I'm sorry to hear that. May the Lord use it to his glory and for this man's salvation nonetheless

Yeah, first Peter 3 15 is excellent because there's like three I'm sorry to hear that. May the Lord use it to his glory and for this man's salvation nonetheless. Yeah, 1 Peter 3.15 is excellent because there's like three fundamental steps, it seems to me, that we have to keep in mind as you say, in your hearts, reverence Christ as Lord. Right? So this is the primary thing. And then always be ready to give a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that's in you. Good. And then do it with gentleness and reverence. I remember once I was getting into a back and forth with this Protestant fella at a bookstore in Ireland and we were disagreeing about something and you know, his verses and my verses and my verses were versing his verses and his, you know, we're going back and forth. And at this one point, I said to him, well, what about this? And he just said, I had never thought of that. Would you mind if I spent some time in the word and got back to you?

And I was like, yeah, sure. Yeah, that's fine. Do that. Yeah. I had such respect for him. Yeah. I came back a few days later and he showed me why I was wrong, according to him. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it. We often think that when we acknowledge our ignorance, that it will be a sign that we're wrong. But it's actually,

if you do it with humility, it's a, it's a great sign of just that. Humility. It shows I'm not just about trying to beat you in an argument. I actually want to know what the truth is so I can be more faithful to God. Oh, that is, no, it's such a, well, and, and one, one of the things I've learned being a parent was that it is, it is quite possible that one of the most important things you will ever do for your children is admit when you're wrong, when they call you on it. It sucks. It does. Totally sucks. But yeah,

I had this, I have this one story I always share a lot, but I'd love to hear it if you want to share it. It was, you know, obviously we had taught our kids in the faith. And one of the fundamental elements of teaching your kids a Christian worldview is the idea that there is such a thing as objective truth and objective morality. And it's not up. It's not based off of your individual preferences or, or ability to impose your will. They are true no matter what, because God says they're true. So if you teach your kids that and you teach them moral rules,

and then you fall short of those moral rules, what, what do you do in that moment? And unfortunately, and I get it, because I've been there, right? where a lot of parents are like, this is my house, these are my rules. So I come home from work one day, I'm really stressed out, and I walk in and my two youngest kids, Luke and Allie are in there, and they're doing something in the kitchen,

and I don't know what they were cooking, but it looked like a bomb, it looked like a bomb. And I was already stressed, and I have this thing where I get stressed, and when things are out of order or whatnot, it just exacerbates it. And so I come in, I'm like, what are you guys doing? And before they can answer, it's like, clean this up right.

I don't wanna hear it, clean this up right now, get to your rooms. Like, this is ridiculous, I can't believe this. Go upstairs. Lily, who at the time was, I think around 14, waited a couple of minutes, smart kid. stairs. Lily, who at the time was, I think, I think around 14, um, waited a couple of minutes. Smart kid knocks on my door. Daddy, can I talk to you for a moment? Yeah, honey, go ahead. It comes in. Yeah. What is it? And she was daddy. I don't think you handled that well.

Now every ounce of my being is like, Oh, Oh, why sage please 14 year old daughter who is completely dependent on me for entire existence. Tell me how you would have handled it better. That's what I wanted to say. And I, I, I don't know why, but in that moment, because there's been other times where I did not respond well, but I don't know why in that moment I kind of felt like God was saying, this is going to be a formative moment.

It was like, okay, honey, why do you think that? And she goes, the reason why Luke and Ali were in the kitchen is because they got permission from mommy to make something for you. And they were very excited about doing so. And now they're both in their rooms and they're too scared to tell you. And I'm like, Oh, I'm such a jerk. Oh my God. I'm such a jerk. But,

but it was almost like in that moment God was also saying it's not good enough to just say you're sorry. And, and so I said, um, so I gathered kind of my composure, the embarrassment of being wrong. Right. Because you have a natural authority of your children and there's this lie that if you admit that you're wrong, you're somehow. Yes. And I said, and I remember being very deliberate because I felt led to be deliberate in this

way. Like I, please understand I'm giving myself no credit. Yeah. I said, Lily,. I'm giving myself no credit. Yeah. I said, Lily, you were right and I am wrong. I said, I'm going to go apologize to them, but I want you to know I am proud of you for bringing this to my attention because it was, it was, it was almost like God was like pushing me in that moment saying this is

formative because you have taught her that right and wrong is objective. And if you, if you now get mad at her for, for applying the very standard that you've taught her to apply, she will start to believe that the rules are arbitrary based off of who's in power and what happens when you're not in power. What happens when it's the college professor? What happens when it's the friend group? What happens when it's the friend group?

What happens when it's the singer? What happens when it's the boss? You know, you haven't given her, you will not have given her a framework based on me and my truth, what you will have given her is you will have given her a framework that says, do what authority tells you to do. Yeah.

Man made authority. And um, and I, and I've, I've since become convinced that going back to the story that you were telling when you can tell somebody, oh, that's a good point. And when you can acknowledge it, don't look at it as a sign of weakness. Look at it as a sign of, of reinforcing to the other person that when they make a good argument, when they make a sound argument, when they use scripture to justify it, you respect that.

And you'll go back and research it. And if they're right, if they're wrong, come back and say, hey, I disagree. Or if you're just not sure, what about this? Because what it does is it reinforces that yes, you and I both live in a world where we respect biblical truth. That's a world where you can peacefully disagree. That's a world where you can civilly discuss. That's a world where you can peacefully disagree. That's a world

where you can civilly discuss. That's a world where both of you can become better from the exchange. That's a world where both of you are better off, regardless of how the conversation, who was right and who was wrong. Right? That's the sort of world you want to live in. That's the sort of world you want to foster. And sometimes the acknowledgement that you were wrong at a particular moment not only allows for you to become wiser in the process, but for you to encourage the sort of discourse, behavior, and commitment to truth that allows for more of that to be able to take place. And so I've tried to make

myself more disciplined in recognizing those moments for what they are and realizing that sometimes the admission of incorrect data or being wrong is actually an incredible opportunity, as long as you don't let your pride get in the way. That's such a helpful story. Thank you. My wife and I, from the very beginning, we served as missionaries in Canada and in Ireland and on this particular missionary team. We were taught, because we were living in close proximity with each other, that if I

had hurt you, if I'd done something that was disrespectful or what have you, the way to resolve it was very specific. It was, you might say to me, hey, look, when you did this, it seemed to me, yada yada, so you're trying to clarify. And if I'm in the wrong, I say, you're right, please forgive me. And the response is, I forgive you.

It's fine, because it's actually not fine. That's why I'm asking you to forgive me. And that's something my wife and I do frequently, weekly probably at least. And then with our kids as well. Please forgive me. And maybe you're not ready to forgive me right now and that's okay. How did that work with other adults?

Because it can become very easy to be like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, sure, please forgive me. How did that work as something that was done, especially when you didn't agree with their analysis? Well, if I didn't agree with their analysis, we would continue to discuss. Maybe you did misinterpret it. And then, yeah, I guess we would try to resolve it that way. And because we were both of goodwill,

maybe the best I can say is, I'm really sorry that you interpreted that way. I can see why you'd be frustrated with me if you thought I did that. You just got to trust me that that wasn't my intention. And so then I'm not, I'm not apologizing about having done anything wrong. So here's the reason why I asked this because I think this is, this is the thing that, um,

it is wonderful in an environment where somebody can say, Hey, you did this and you can look at it and be like, you know what? You're right. Will you forgive me? Yes, I forgive you. Great. Resolve. How did it work when it was like, hey, you did this? I'm like, look, I'm sorry, I don't agree with your interpretation on this. Were you still able to get resolution?

That's a good question. I don't remember not having resolution. Again, it was within the context of a team of 12 missionaries who were giving up their year to proclaim Christ to teenagers throughout Canada and then Ireland. So I think we were of goodwill. So I would imagine if memory serves, the closest to that would have been something like, yeah, that's not what I meant. Maybe I could have phrased it correctly, right?

So you try to concede what you can, but you don't lie and you don't, you don't say, sorry, please forgive me if you didn't do anything wrong. And the other person would, and because again, similar mission, similar worldview. Yeah. And, and so you, you could have, cause that's, that's always the thing I've wondered about. I think the things, I think sometimes people are in order to maintain peace. Yes. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Will you forgive me as opposed to saying, no, I don't agree. That took me a while. I think there was this false part of me that

tried to seem humble. I wanted you to think I was humble. So if you were upset with me about something, I would very quickly show you how humble I was by asking your forgiveness. And after a while, I realized what I was doing. It was actually an act of pride on my part because it was important for me that you saw me as some sort of, you know. Yeah, and some people do it for conflict avoidance. Right, like I don't wanna be, it's funny, people have this natural, people seem to think

that I really, really enjoy conflict. I mean, you were a green beret, you go into politics, you're constantly debating. Sometimes I do, I'm not going to pretend that I don't, but I don't like it nearly as much as people think I do. A lot of times I engage in conflict because I think it's necessary, not because it's how I really want to spend my days. But I've caught myself at times where it's like, okay, I'm just going to try to maintain the peace here or I don't want to start another fight. Like I got too many fights. I don't want to start another one. But I've always, I've always, that's, that's to me is kind of the, um,

I don't know what you want to call it. That thing you search for that is difficult to attain that, that environment, that, that relationship with people where someone can bring a conflict and you can say, look, I disagree. And I had something like this happen recently with someone I really care about. And I was like, I am sorry,

I am genuinely trying to see this from your perspective. I don't agree with your analysis. I mean, I love you to death, but I don't agree with your analysis on this. And it's still not resolved. And. And, and there's a, there's a, there's a part of me that it's almost like, should I have like, no, no, no. It needs to, and it's almost like the, if it takes a little bit longer for the wound to heal properly, that's better.

But man, that's, that's difficult. You know what else is difficult within marriage and raising children is Suppose your spouse or your child does something for which they ought to apologize Yeah, and then you because you're an idiot not you me. Yeah, react Yeah, like an idiot and then it becomes about me being the idiot and now I am like, okay Well, I need to hold you account for this, but I just acted like a big an idiot, which is a great reason not to do that. Yeah. So I'm sorry for this, but also, and then that's a, that's a fun thing. Oh yeah. I've never done that. No. Your wife's watching. I've done that all the time.

Yeah. I think another thing for fathers, it's hard for us to realize that, especially, I mean, you're a very big man with a beard, you know, I know I'm a lot bigger than my children. And we often forget that when we're disciplining our children to come in and be like, put that down, go. So, so many times I'm like, why would you shout at me? I didn't shout at you, I raised my voice. Yeah, yeah, no, that's.

But to realize how we look to our little kids. Oh yeah, yeah, no, I, yeah, it's, it's tough when that was interesting when you like come back from combat. And I remember one time we were driving down the road and I had been used to driving in Iraq and I had been, I had run the 50 cal, right? So I was either driving or I'd run the 50 cal. Okay.

And if you got too close to us in Iraq, it's not like we put bolts to the windshield automatically, right? No. We're not savages. But it was, there was a, there was an escalation of force. Now, thankfully I never had to like shoot anybody in a car that was driving towards, they got off the road quick enough and things like that. But there was hardly a day we went out that I wasn't throwing 50 caliber rounds off to the side of the road to signify to a driver that was clearly not paying attention, that they were about two seconds away

from losing all of their tomorrows. Because that's just how it had to be, because vehicle-borne IEDs were a big deal, and that was how they would take out American troops, as you know, suicide cars or whatever it was. So for six months I'm running a 50-cal or I've got my 9-millimeter or I've got, you know, pin flares or I've got rocks and it's just like get out of our way. And I get back home and I'm not even thinking about it and my wife, my mother, and two of my kids were in the car and we're driving,

we're driving on this road and this guy cuts me off. And before I catch myself, a flurry of expletives that you will find nowhere in scripture. And I am parked and I am outside the car yelling. And, and then all of a sudden it was like, I get back in and Tina's like, you okay? Like, I'm sorry. My mom's like, it's okay.

It's okay. I'm like, no, no, no. And I was, I'm sorry. It's just like something. And it's not like I had some, it's like a horrible flashback or something. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to make this out worse than it was it was just that I remember being so Offended that this guy would cut me. Oh, it was just like a you run

Okay, my bad but yeah, it was it was that moment where he just I flipped the switch into something else and It got better quick, but yeah. What do you wish that civilians knew about those who have just come back from battle? For the first fall. Oh gosh. How do I put this? We uh, in society in general right now, we have a problem with focusing too much on trauma. Everything's trauma. Combat can obviously be traumatic, but we even have too much emphasis on, on veteran trauma as well. We treat every experience as if it's the, some catastrophic, traumatic event.

I did two combat tours. I did not experience one thing that I would classify as some sort of grandiose traumatic event that the environment, I just said that wasn't an overall traumatic. What it was, is I was in a mindset that I've got to protect and this guy just put my family, this guy just put us in danger and so I've got to protect. And I was just in a, I was just in a heightened level just kind a heightened level, just kind of instinctually, because this happened like two days after I got back off the plane from Iraq.

So I would say that to some degree, understanding the people that have gone to combat, there's a couple of different definitions of that. There's people that went to combat and literally stayed on a forward operating base the entire time where they had a Cinnabon, a Pizza Hut, and Salsa Night. Okay, that having been in a combat zone doesn't mean you saw a lot of combat.

All right you have guys like me I went over a hundred separate combat operations we rolled up some between two tours we probably rolled up some of the neighborhood of 38 high value targets. But there was only one time in that entire time that I really felt like my life was like no kidding I'm about to die. Yeah, right Then there was guys that were fighting in urban combat scenarios in Fallujah or Mosul where every day was a potential life or death Situation those are these are three very very different combat experiences, and I think it's important to recognize that Now I Don't think we should I don't think we should be going around like bubble wrapping the entire

world for veterans because I actually don't think that's good for us. I don't think it's good for us to constantly be treating us like victims. Like, oh, you're a victim of war. No, I went through a lot of training, a lot of volunteer training. You don't get drafted in the army anymore, right? I volunteered for airborne, I volunteered for ranger, I volunteered for sniper, I volunteered for seer, I volunteered for special forces qualification course, I volunteered, volunteered, volunteered, volunteered. As soon as I found out we were going to war, I volunteered for that, right? So I'm not a victim and neither were my buddies.

So instead of treating us like, oh my gosh, you're a victim and I've got to, I've got to treat like, how about we just treat it with a certain degree of respect that we understand that you did something dangerous and you did something difficult for the things and the people that you love. That's worthy of respect. Don't call me a hero. I'm not a hero. Right. I did my job. I was a green, I think I was a green braid that did my job and I did it well enough to where the guys who served with me, wouldn't mind serving with me again. That, that's all the compliment I need. I'm not a hero.

The reason why I say this is because I know people who are and I would never put myself in that category. Tell me about a hero. Oh my gosh. Guys that, guys that like lost limbs in combat and continue to carry on and do their job. Guys that, um, um, guys that went into scenarios where, you know, running gun battles, um, through urban areas where in circumstances where nobody would have, nobody would have blamed them if they

wanted to like hold them place, reinforcements come up, but instead they, they push through Guys that that went out into harm's way in order to rescue a child So I know heroes. I know heroes And I hope should I hope if I had ever been put in a situation where I had to do something heroic I would but I never felt like I was I was put in dangerous situations and I felt like I executed that I Feel like I executed my duties appropriately and effectively. But it didn't require heroism. It required me to do the job I signed up to do.

And so let's just let's separate duty from above and beyond the call of duty. So that's what I would say. First of is like let's treat that with the general respect that it deserves without either elevating it to a level that it does not require, no denigrating it to a level of victimhood. And then when somebody has truly engaged in heroic activity, let's hold that on the pedestal for which it genuinely deserves. But as far as understanding how a lot of times combat veterans, especially those that were in sustained combat operations, which is actually fewer than you might think out of the totality of people that served. Just understand that they're

going to have probably a heightened level of awareness. You know, that doesn't mean you need to adjust. Like I saw these things for a while. It's like, Oh, don't do fireworks. It's okay. Yeah. If you got a veteran that has asked you not to do that because they had an incredibly traumatic experience and their entire unit was blown up, okay, but I think most of us fought so that we could actually come back to the sort of America that we want to live in, not one that was bubble wrapped for us. I think that's what it is. I think treating them with honor is appropriate, not victim, not pity. Oh my gosh, do not treat me with pity.

Don't treat me with pity. I don't want it. I don't want it. All right, but honor, I think that's the way to, I think that's the best way to show, demonstrate respect. And then in so far as veterans are entitled to the various services that they need in order to get medical assistance and things like that,

they should have that. Thankfully, I think one of the things that we've realized is that the counseling for veterans has been horrible in many respects. Not at all, but in many respects because it has been counseling treating them like victims or like they were broken. You actually want to know somebody that I think has done a really good job for veterans, really Randy Couture, so MMA guy, but he's a veteran and every Friday, I think it's Extreme Couture in Vegas, he has a bunch of guys come,

it's not just veterans, sometimes it's law enforcement, sometimes it's athletes that have been, gotten hurt and have their entire future destroyed and stuff like that. He'll have a bunch of those guys come on Friday and they all show up to the mats and they roll, they spar. And then they sit around and they talk. And I think that's an important thing

that needs to be understand. I think about men in general, I think it also maybe applies at a different level to men that were in occupations that were by definition violent. Is when you asked me how I became a Christian, I said, Anthony Brown was a man I admired as a man. That's important for us.

I'm not spilling my heart to somebody that has no idea what it was like to do what I did, but I find another veteran, we go onto the mat, we roll around a little bit, we spar a little bit, we work up, we fight a little bit, and sit down and be like, yeah, man, I was just thinking up, you know, we fight a little bit. I sit down and be like, yeah, man, I was just thinking about, you know, Dejan or I was just thinking about, you know,

Chris or I was just, and that's, now we can have that conversation. Now that we can have that, we can have that conversation in a room of mutual respect. And I'm glad to see that there are veterans that are stepping up into that role and providing that. Because that's what we need. We don't need a,

I'm not saying it's, there are different situations where it's appropriate to cry. But a lot of times we don't need a good cry as much as we need a good friend. Yeah. Yeah. I remember a couple of years ago, maybe you do too, seeing the military.

Sorry, one other thing. A good friend and a good mission. You want to help a veteran get back on track? Give us another worthy mission that we can do. Like our life was around, our life was built around this idea of regardless of what you think about us foreign policy on that objective, I had their back, they had my back, we were going to go get bad men, good men, we're going to go stop bad men. We come home, all of a sudden that mission is gone.

Give us another one. Give us another one. Because it motivates us. And a lot of times it'll pull us out of it'll pull us out of that funk, it'll pull us out of that depression. We want to be needed. We want to be needed. So sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Mason Hickman No, thank you for saying that.

A couple of years ago I saw advertisements for the Russian military and I don't know what the other one was, China maybe, and they showed the American one. I don't know how much of this is an exaggeration. How much has DEI and woke doctrine infiltrated the US military and what is the future? It's bad. It has infiltrated significantly because I was so disappointed. I thought we would actually have a... So when you talk about flag officers, those are generals. And all of the flag officers that we have right now, we've been at war for 20 years. So all of our flag officers, this is a unique opportunity. This is, we have another time where all of our flag officers grew up as, you know, company

grade and field grade officers. So like, first lieutenant, second lieutenant, first lieutenant, captain, major lieutenant colonel, right? Those are the ranks where you were really going out and like leading men, leading combat. I mean, once you get a brigade, sure, division, then not so much. I mean, you're at a point where you're just,

you're a lot more farther away removed from it. So you had all these guys that you, in a 20 year period, you had somebody that served as a company commander, where those guys are doing something, they're moving troops around the battlefield, all the way up into a flag officer, potentially. So I'm thinking, all right, great, we're gonna have a group of flag officers that know what it's like to deal

with this stupid bureaucracy, and they're gonna wanna change it and make it more efficient and more effective. And lo and behold behold the wrong political regime will promote the wrong political officers and so you had guys like General Milley who I'm sorry I just don't have anything nice to say so I won't say anything else other than I'm glad he's gone but these guys realize that with these guys realize that there was a political infrastructure there that wanted to push all this crap and they were the more than happy to oblige if it meant that they

could, you know, get into positions of authority, not to mention the fact that we have such an emphasis on continuing education. So we're sending field grade officers, you know, majors, lieutenant colonels, colonels, or captains even were sent in to go get their masters from universities that are steeped in this stuff. And so we're taking them out of the culture of the military, which is based off of very objective standards because I don't care what your theory is. If the whole platoon got wiped out, your theory sucks, dude.

I don't care what the professor says. And you're moving into the university, with theory, one of the things Thomas Sowell talks about in intellectuals and society is that you have this whole group of individuals that get paid very, very good salaries in order to theorize about the world. And when those theories get put into practice

and they fail miserably, they get tenure. They don't get fired, they get promoted. Oh, it wasn't executed properly. Oh, okay. So you're putting them in this environment where so much of higher education has just become leftist indoctrination, and then you're proving them back in

in order to do, oh, this is how we're gonna instruct at West Point now. So it has worked its way in. I think when you get into kind of lower ranks and the NCO Corps, you still have a lot of dedication to, we have a job to do and if we don't do it right, people get killed. So that's a nice idea, but whatever. But the problem is, is that when you start punishing people, if they don't regurgitate the propaganda, well then they leave and now you're left with whoever's willing to absorb and apply the propaganda. So I

think it's been a difficult time for a lot of guys in the military. The good news is we're about to have an administration that is all about getting back to the primary purpose of the United States military, which is to be really really good at killing people and breaking things. That's the reality. No, we don't want to kill people and break things, but oftentimes the way that you prevent people from killing your people and breaking your things

is you get really good at killing people and breaking things, and they start to think to themselves, gosh, I don't know that we want to kill those people or break those things, because otherwise these guys are going to show up and they're a lot better at it than we are. So that's what we need to get back to. And I think that's what this administration will do. Amazing. Men, do you feel stuck in old idols or burdened by the pharaohs of our time? Do you know that you're capable of so much more than you're giving today. Exodus 90 is the number one freedom app to help you become the man you were created to be.

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Oh, yeah, I will. Yeah, honestly, if you want to. I use coffee mugs from time to time. That's kind of a shock. It's a great mug. You'll get these interviews one week before they hit YouTube. You'll get exclusive streams from me. You'll get courses that we have experts put together, little master classes like people from Joseph Pierce on the Lord of the Rings, Ed Faizer on Aquinas's Five Ways. You'll get to ask our guest questions. But more importantly, you get to support the work of the show.

So thank you very much, matfrad.locals.com. That's a great photo I took of you today. Look at that. You got to send that to your wife. Just send it to your wife and say, you're welcome. Hey baby. All right. Now I haven't, I haven't looked at these questions ahead of time. So here we go.

Christopher says we have been removing God from our lives for decades. And finally at the precipice of hell, we invoked God for this election and he spared us just from just comeuppance. Given this reprieve, how do we practically bring God back into our country and avoid returning to evil? Oh, that's a great question. How much time do we got? And I'm not even sure if I'm totally qualified.

So I will give you my I will give you my opinion, which combined with $6 will get you a coffee. I think part of the problem is, is that the church has surrendered far too much to government and we've been doing it for well over a hundred years now where, where the church has increasingly said it's the government's job. You actually saw this with like the social gospel, especially in the progressive era in the early 20th century in the United States. So instead of the church looking at itself as fulfilling a primary responsibility to do things like

the provision for widows and orphans, hospitals, education, or allowing the institutions that we do run to be infiltrated and essentially secularized as such a greater, where they bear no resemblance to the original mission of, of, um, not only providing goods and services that were necessary, providing charity, but combining that with the gospel. Um, so now we're in an issue where we've created a great deal of dependency upon government and government is run by man and man has an insatiable lust for power and glory. So I think the first thing that we need to understand is that elections can provide to some degree a reprieve but all it does is provide a

space for us to once again recognize our responsibility outside of the government apparatus. So for instance if you have a church building, you have a school, right? If you have, uh, if you have resources and, and look, I love resources for evangelism. I love the fact that we go overseas and provide assistance. I think we should absolutely should. But if you're neglecting the problem down the street in order to prioritize the problem 3000 miles away, I'm going to ask you to pray really hard about that and see if maybe you should do both or maybe you should reevaluate because I got news for you.

If we lose it here, there will be nothing going 3000 miles away. And so I think first and foremost, it's about reclaiming education. If you were sending your child, I don't, if you are, if you were attempting to educate your child in the faith and the proper application of what that means across their entire life, not just a theological conviction but a genuine relationship and the way that impacts every decision that you make, if you're really trying to do that and then you're sending them off to a school which is not only not reinforcing it but directly contradicting it.

Because you're too busy talking about Twitter on who the next president should be, I'm going to tell you, I think you're neglecting the most important component, the most important place where you have influence, for one for which you have minimal influence. So my advice would be this. Please engage in politics. We desperately need people of faith to engage in politics in order to put government within its proper role and place. I don't wanna capture all these bureaucratic agencies and then just put them with more Christians in there.

I wanna get rid of the bureaucratic agencies. I wanna get rid of that instrument of power that inevitably gets used against us so that we can once again, reclaim the proper role and jurisdiction of the family, the church, the community, outside of the government. So what you have right here is a very, very brief reprieve. And hopefully we will see a, hopefully we will see a drastic decline in federal bureaucracy.

But the problems that those federal bureaucracy, that bureaucracy was created to address real-world problems, I think it exacerbates them. But let's say you get rid of the exacerbation. Good, that's part of the strategy, but how are you addressing the problems? Now if the church falls into that role, if we, if as husbands and fathers and wives and mothers, we say, you know what, I can certainly delegate some of the authority for, you know what, I can certainly delegate some of the authority for educating my children, but I can never delegate the responsibility. It's ultimately mine, and I want my children to see me as their primary educator.

And so I will selectively use other people in order to help me in that process of educating my child, but I'm never going to just pass it off as if it's somebody else's responsibility. And I'm sure as heck not going to pass off to a secular institution, which hates what I believe I'm gonna I'm gonna reclaim this area of my life That's step one The next step out from there is what can your church do to start to fulfill the really genuine roles and needs within a society? when somebody When somebody is desperately looking for an

option because they want to raise their kids with good morals and a good education but they can't find one in their community or they can't afford the ones that currently exist, what is the church doing in order to provide potential alternatives for that? What are we doing to meet that need? Because when the church meets the need, God gets the glory. When the government meets the need, politicians get the glory. We do government meets the need, politicians get the glory. We do not want a society with politicians getting more glory. So that's the part that I think we need to see this as, is a tremendous opportunity for the church to reclaim those

areas which rightfully belong to our jurisdiction and to do a better job of covering down on those needs than the government ever could. Because ultimately what's gonna happen is two things. One, when your needs are being met by someone in your community, you don't feel entitlement, you feel gratitude. And when God is getting the glory for that service, it's causing people to look in the right direction for their source of strength and support.

Because that support comes with a desire to, if you need to repent from something that you're doing wrong, repentance, right? But also the idea to reciprocate, to now give back into that community. So that's what we need. We need the church to use this time to fulfill its proper role because the problems are not going away. So where are people going to look for their source of solace and support in the midst of those problems? So that's that's what we have. That's how I think we we we need a cultural shift, not just a political one.

Joe Connolly says any advice for becoming active in local government or where to start? Or his next question is where to start for homesteading. So two different questions. Choose which one you want. homesteading. So two different questions. Choose which one you want. Sure. Well for the homesteading one, looking at organizations like Homesteaders of America, Joel Saliton, Justin Rhodes and Abundance Plus. Another good one would be Roots in Refuge. If you're on the west coast, Melissa K. Norris. So these are all great people to kind of look at as references for homesteading. And again, homesteading, some people have this vision of homesteading as if I'm a prepper in my underground bunker.

There's some of that, and they're awesome, they're great to talk to. But a lot of it is just about finding like-minded people and creating a little bit more resilience. I love the homesteader community, because with few exceptions, you will never find people that are more encouraging, that can't wait to share both their successes and their failures and want

you to succeed. And so I would really look at maybe going to the Homesteaders of America conference which happens every October in Virginia. Melissa Canor is does another big conference I think over and sometimes I think it's either in Idaho or Washington State but there's some great places to look. When it comes to getting involved with local politics or local government, what I would say there is, you know, I got involved by going to my local committee. So I went to a local committee for the party

that I belong to, and I said, how do I help? And I think that's important. So many people show up with how do I lead? Like, you just got here, dude. Right, do some work in the trenches. Here's what you will find very quickly. If you're someone that's willing to do work in the trenches, they will ask you to lead very quickly.

So go get involved with your local committee. And the reason why, some people say, well why don't I just run for officer? Why does it have to be partisan? You have to first answer the question of, why are you getting involved in politics? If you're getting involved in politics to just solve problems,

okay, what's your framework for solving problems? What do you see as the proper role of government? I will have people come to me all the time going, how could you vote no on that bill? So you don't think this is a problem? Oh no, I think it's a problem. It's not the government's problem. Right, that's fundamental.

So many people just automatically, once people get into government, they have this idea that I'm a hammer, everything's a nail. The first question I ask is why is the government trying to address this? And oh by the way, is this problem actually a problem because of the last problem the government

was trying to solve? So that's why I say it's you don't need to be partisan, but you need to understand why you're there and what your purpose is and then find like-minded people to work with and then you can start off with everything from running for local office or maybe even serving like on the planning and zoning commission or things like that, but first and foremost figure out what you're there to do. And, um, and, and, you know, then, then you can start to look at, what are the proper ways to, in order to facilitate that?

But I would argue do some work in the trenches and you'll be asked to lead sooner than you probably think. And on Elson says, Nick, you have some phenomenal one liner videos and witty content in general. Do you come up with all of it on your own or do you employ slash enslave joking your family into contributing? Oh, I'll tell you what, you be a husband or a father long enough, the content will write itself. So yeah, no, we, you know, I'll just come up with some, but a lot of it is just kind of observing things or thinking about ways and it's funny.

All of my family, we are very fluent in sarcasm. I was raised by a homicide detective and a nurse. There's a lot of sarcasm in those professions, a lot of gallows humor. And then we raised our kids to be, you know, I think, look, I think sarcasm is a biblical trait. Nobody can listen to Elijah talking to the 400 prophets of Baal without realizing that sarcasm is a biblical attribute we've used appropriately.

So it provides a lot of content. And again, with the world being kind of crazy, if I'm ever wondering what to talk about on any particular day, watching the news for about four minutes will do it. But yeah, that's kind of, that's good. Do you know, I know you're Protestant, but do you know what a Swiss guard is? Those fellows at the Vatican. Yeah. One of my supporters is a Swiss guard. Oh wow. That's awesome. His name is Marcus. His question is, maybe it's too late, but it's not how to court a woman today. Oh,

so here's what I think is interesting. Um, I actually think the fundamentals have remained the same if you want The kind of woman that you want to marry So here's what I'll say the first question that should be asked is not where are the women I want the first question should be Thinking to yourself who is the sort of person I want to build a family with, then looking yourself in the mirror and going, am I the sort of man that would attract that woman? Um, now here's, here's the answer you should come up with. You're a Swiss God. So yeah,

Swiss guard you're off to a good start. I'm going to say right now, especially if you're looking for a nice Catholic girl. But I would say, I think there's, there's five aspects. There's the spiritual, the intellectual, the emotional, the physical, and the professional. The spiritual is your relationship with God. Are you, are you in a, because think about it, when you were talking about finding a girl,

we should be talking about finding a wife. So if I'm looking at that mindset, I'm gonna have to, you're gonna have to be the spiritual leader of your household. Are you in a position to be able to fill that now? You're never gonna feel totally perfectly ready, but are you seeking that out? Are you seeking out the relationship first, you know? You seek that righteousness first the kingdom of God first and then all these other things will be added unto you, right? So focus on the spiritual when I talk about the emotional what I talk about is do you have your emotions under control?

Are you are you are you someone that studies that studies how to effectively interact with other people, how to have a conversation, how to pick up on things? Not just verbal communication, but nonverbal communication, right? But a lot of it has to do with self-control. The intellectual is fairly obvious, right? Are you so, and I don't just mean developing, like reading a lot of books, although that's certainly a part of it, but you know wit and sarcasm and dialogue and things like that is important. How do you, how to think critically about something, how to think critically about something without denying the emotional, but

understanding how it plays into the process, right? Emotions are an invitation to thought. So if something impacts you emotionally, it's about being able to then say, okay, how do I properly understand this so I can address it? When it comes to the physical, again, Swiss Guard, you're probably doing the right thing. But again, I think when we talk about a man being able to protect and provide, the physical is a part of that because if you're healthy, you're probably in a better position able to protect and provide. The physical is a part of that because if you're healthy, you're probably in a better position to be able to provide. Also, God forbid you should ever have to fight someone one day to be able to defend the people

that you care about. You want to be able to be in a reasonable position to be able to do that. I think that's important. And then the professional is, do I have marketable skill sets to be able to provide? And I love, again, we look at Christ had 33 years on earth, and most of that was as a carpenter. So there is an element of developing those marketable skill sets because they're not only going to be used to provide for your family, but you'll be shocked too on how they can also be used to be able to provide and to speak life into other people's

when they need you, right? So those five categories developing along that. And then here's what you do. Look, I'm a dude. I wanted a hot girl, right? Like I wanted a looker, right? But I wanted someone that shared my values. So the pool of women that you're looking for starts with the ones

that share your faith nowhere else, right? So no, there are not four billion in the world, four billion women in the world for you. There are the people that share your faith. And so as you are constantly developing along those lines to be the sort of man that God created you to be, that he commands us to be, you're then going into the environment where people share your values because that's the pool of people where I think you're going to find the person that you're going to be married to and build a family with. So I think if you have that right mindset, that's all important. Now again, I want to be a little bit more specific here because all that was very general.

How do you court? The reason why I say start off with all of that and then, and then find the values. My wife saw something in me before I ever saw it. And then as I got to know her, I learned how to court her. So depending on the woman, it's going to be different, right? But so we fostered a relationship. You can't know how to court an imaginary woman. We, we, I mean, there's obviously things that you can do that are romantic or things that are kind or whatnot. And there are universals, right? But if you're a man of integrity and competence, I guarantee you women are going to be attracted to it. Then as you develop, then as you find that woman, because you're in that place now

where you have shared values and you start to learn that, okay, yeah, this is, I wanna further this conversation. As you get to know her, you learn how to court her. And so I think the courting is, there's general principles, but if you really wanna be successful, I think it's unique to the woman. I think a lot of people give advice based off of hookup culture.

I think we need to be looking more on what makes for a good marriage and getting to know someone intellectually is going to give you the insight that you need to really speak in a romantic nature in a way that she will receive it and appreciate it. So I think so much of what we've said today goes across all stages of courtship and that is the woman needs to feel safe. And if you're just meeting a woman in a coffee shop, what that means is you need to make her not feel awkward. You know, you need to feel comfortable. How do you act in a way that other people feel comfortable?

Well, and let's say this too, though. I don't know if you've ever seen the, uh, this guy, can't remember if you've ever seen the channel home math, no, not a Christian, but he has some pretty good insights with respect to kind of how man, how men look at women and how women look at men. And it turns out women have a much more complex system for grading us than we have for grading them. I see. And the way he describes it, he calls it the bad boy metrics and the investment metrics

or the nice guy metrics. Oh, is this that YouTube clip with the whiteboard? Yes. And then a woman did a counterpart to that, which wasn't as good, but that one was incredible. Yes. And excuse me, I had my wife, good Christian woman watching that. She goes, wow. Yeah. Excuse me. I had my wife good Christian woman watching then she goes wow. Yeah, he's so and what he calls bad boy I

What it is is it's the it's the competence. It says there's a certain degree of danger. So Let me put it this way a weak man is incapable of making a woman feel safe My wife knows I'm dangerous, just never toward her. So you're a Swiss guard. Yeah. You, you have the capability of being dangerous. Right? So what I would say is a woman is first and foremost attracted to, um, your, your competence, your character, uh, there's obviously physical attributes that, you know, again, men and women, we'd, we'd, we'd, we appreciate the aesthetic, right? But when a woman kind of naturally sees you as competent,

capable, with good character, but also she knows that you could, you were someone that she knows could handle themselves, like in an altercation or whatnot. That's when all of a sudden all the investment in time and the romance and all these other things I think factor in more heavily. And so I think there's an element of, so what I say is yes, you want to make her feel safe, but you don't, the problem

with modern feminism movies, they've told men that women feel safer when men are weaker. Not only do women not feel safer like that, they're not attracted to it, and they're not actually safer. But again, that's why I would say, that was a really long, elaborate thing, but I hope it was comprehensive. This is a beautiful question, I don't wanna say this lady's name because it's quite vulnerable.

She says, how do I balance supporting my husband caring for himself and asking for help when I need it? My husband is a law enforcement officer and the stress drain is real He's mid-30s and already has to supplement with testosterone. Yeah, I know military men understand the drain on adrenals I want to support him and be understanding and there are times. I feel like I need to ask him to step up. Oh Okay That's a that's a great question

Okay. Um, that's a, that's a great question. And you're right. It's a lot of the, a lot of the guys that ended up dealing with like, uh, what they call TRT testosterone replacement therapy, which I think is good stuff provided it's used appropriately. A lot of it ends up being law enforcement and military because when you're constantly put in high stress situations and then you don't sleep, you don't actually have the ability to replenish testosterone to the same degree that you are.

And that ends up impacting muscle growth and health and sleep and stress management and all of it. So here's what I would say. Um, there may be things that your husband needs to do in that environment to be able to manage that, you know, uh, better with respect to sleep and things like that, but specifically from the spectrum of how is you as a wife can support him and then also encourage him in the things that you need as well. First and foremost, going back to those levels of respect, appreciation, desire, and love,

when your husband knows that you genuinely respect him for his capability, his competence, his character. That's important. When my wife tells somebody else that one of the things she admires about me is my character or something I did or whatever it was, I store that away and that is like mana, right? When it comes to appreciation, my wife, every once in a while will stop. She'll like deliberately stop me, like look me in the eye, get my attention. She goes, I need you to know you do a good job

providing for our family. Oh man, like I get choked up just thinking about that. Right? Like let me punch something. Yeah, it's like, ah, right? So, but when she, or when she says, like every once in a while we'll like watch a movie or something and something will happen in there and she'll look at me and she goes

she'll pause it she goes I need you to know you always make me feel safe like at that point I just I just have this it makes me want to protect her more right it makes me want to it makes me want to do more how do I do more to make you feel that way again the desire to for a man in a stressful situation, that the intimate component of your marriage is really important. And then the love is the loyalty piece, right? It's like, if he knows that you got his back,

even when he's stressed out and whatnot, and you're like, baby, I know this is really hard for you, and I just need you to know I'm so proud of you, and I am with you. And when we feel that loyalty, it's like, okay, I'm secure in this. Um, when my wife wants me to get up or do this, so I'll give you an example. I used to smoke my pipe a lot. I used to smoke a pipe.

My grandpa smoked a pipe and I loved it. It was not only the, the aroma of it, it was not only kind of the stress relief of it, but it was a way that I almost felt like I connected with my grandfather who passed away, and it was very, very important to me growing up. Like it was a very instrumental part of growing up. And so there was this, all these connections wrapped up in me smoking my pipe, but I was doing it too much. And then her father died and he smoked a lot and,

and Tina came to me and she was baby. I know this is a lot to ask. I know you enjoy this. I realize all that and I realize what a sacrifice this is, but please, I need you, I need you to stop this. It's just, and I did. And every once in a while she will, she will go back. She goes, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that you did that for me. And so anytime I even think about like, man, I really want my pipe.

And it's almost like she intuitively knows like, I really, I can't say how much I appreciate it. Like there's another year I can do this. So I think one of the things is, um, obviously I, and I don't like to, I'm trying not to use the word nag because for women they're like, well, wait a second, if I've asked you three times to do it and you still haven't done it, what am I supposed to do in order to get you to do it? But I think there's, I think there's ways that you can do it. Or again, when my wife approaches me and she goes, baby, I know you've been really busy

and I know you've been working really hard. I really need your help with this thing. I just, I can't, I can't do it myself and I need you. Can you help me with this? And I don't, I don't hear why aren't you doing your job? Why aren't you helping me? You're failing. What I'm hearing is my wife needs me and I'm going to fix this problem. And so she's, she's prepping me by putting me in the right mindset to protect her or to do something in order to help her not telling me that I'm failing as a man or as a husband. And when you can tap into that part of your husband's brain, he's far more likely,

I'm not saying it's gonna work perfectly every time, I'm saying you're far more likely to get the result that you want. And then when you do it and you're like, oh baby, thank you so much for that or whatnot, or there's some way that you reciprocate. One of the things my wife has learned about me, she will ask me, hey babe, can I make you a sandwich?

The answer will almost always be no, because I feel like I'm putting her out. But if she makes me a sandwich, I'm like, oh, that was awesome, right? And so she's just kind of learned. So now she's just like, I made you a sandwich, right? And I'm like, oh, that's awesome. Right? And so she just kind of learns. So now she's just like, I made you a sandwich. Right? And I'm like, oh, that's awesome.

She's anticipating my needs. So I would say this, if you tap into that part of your husband's brain where he's not feeling like he's failing in doing something, but you just really appreciate, and you need him to do this, but then you're also on the other side of it supporting him by kind of anticipating his needs. And that's things, some of it can be

verbal affirmation Some of it can be like food or making something for it. Sometimes look sometimes it's sex. All right, it's amazing What what that what that helps with the man? Sometimes it's calm things when my when my wife Like she'll just Like if I'm sitting there and I'm having a hard time sleeping and she just comes over and she'll just like slowly kind of do that on my back or just like, you know, kind of massage my head or something like that, I'm out in like 15 minutes. So some of it's, you know, it can be unique to your husband as a physical touch, as a

words of affirmation, but I will say that I think there's an element of all that so Tapping to that side of your husband's brain and then Work on work on anticipating his needs in such a way to where he's not having to ask for it and feel like he's putting you out And those two things combined I think create create the best environment possible for both of you to get what you need from each other Excellent quick question from Tim. How many mugs do you own? Oh gosh. I think it's probably, probably in the 50s. Wow.

At this point. Yeah. Where do you keep them all? Yeah, my wife reminds me of how much of a cabinet space we're taking up. I think we're actually, she's finally, my wife is very handy and she's like, I'm building you a mug wall.

So they have these walls, so that's become kind of a thing for me. So I will probably in my new studio have a mug wall where people will get to see all the mugs. Garrett says, has he ever considered becoming Catholic, looked into it or what's holding him back if this gets covered in the actual talk, no worry, yeah, so.

Yeah. Have you? I have. In fact, there was a time where Tina actually, both of us were raised Protestant. I had a little bit more exposure. Actually, my wife was originally raised Mormon. And she actually requested to be excommunicated when they became Christians.

I know some people will look at that and take issue with me making a distinction there, but I think it's an appropriate distinction. So both of us have been Protestant. I grew up going to Catholic mass occasionally. It's interesting because I went to a Christian school which used Bob Jones University textbooks. Bob Jones is not a fan of Catholicism. And I was the Protestant kid defending the Catholics in my school. And it's funny, my

chief of staff in the General Assembly, Gina, she's Catholic. And so we always joke that every session we refight the Reformation. And I refer to her as my favorite papist. And it is, it's one of those things where I've always, and I know people view this kind of differently, I've always viewed the fundamental being the commitment to Christ. And so I don't see Catholics as my enemies or my opponents. But no, I have considered it. As far as the things that have held me back, that's a good question. RUQUAIT, Catholics tend to look at Protestants and go, where is everything? Protestants tend to look at Catholics and go, why so much stuff?

Yeah. So yeah, is there one thing that I get that would prevent me? Or another question, another way of putting it, which might be a little bit more positive, is what is it within Catholic, let's say devotionals or doctrine, are you willing to accept as a Protestant or would be open to while remaining a Protestant? I don't. Oh, well, I think there's a, um, so for instance, well for instance, well let's take some of the sacraments, or communion.

I've never had a problem with the Catholic interpretation of it. There have been questions, I've had questions before with respect to the role of the saints within Catholicism, and I've questioned before, you know, again, I don't subscribe to the notion that, oh, the Catholics prayed a Mary instead of Jesus. It's like, I think I have a better understanding of the role that the saints play as, you know, intercessors and things of that, things of that degree. There's still areas where I guess I'm. There were I can't remember which council it was.

I do take issue with the idea that if because this is the part where I'm getting in trouble because I didn't show prepared to listen to this. I've been a fan of Greg Bonson. Greg Bonson, he's what you call a covenantial apologist or a presuppositional apologist. So I've always been interested in elements of the Dutch Reformed, school of Cornelius van Til and whatnot. And there were, there were concerns there with respect to, um, certain councils that had declared, you know, what is that anathema, um, you know, elements outside of the Catholic church that I felt it's like,

are we really going to declare that like you're going to hell? Um, or, or like, is that really heresy or, or is it a reasonable difference of opinion with respect to scriptural interpretation? Now, there are elements within Christianity I think are absolutely non-negotiable. Trinity, Jesus Christ being the propitiation, I am the way, the truth, and the life,

no one comes to follow but through me. These are all the non-negotiables. And so I do believe that there are non-negotiables which form the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, which departed from our heresies. There are other things I think that we can reasonably disagree on. What is it, for instance, the gifts of the Spirit? You know, what does speaking in tongues mean? What's a proper interpretation of that? What are the utterances versus the speaking in the tongues? Like, so I don't know. I guess I've been,

I guess I've always felt secure enough in my relationship with Christ as a Protestant, that I haven't felt the need to adopt Catholicism. Yeah. But I don't have animosity toward Catholicism. In fact, there was one, the time where we came the closest to potentially considering it is when we saw

a lot of the Protestant denominations, just abandoning core doctrinal components with respect to marriage, uh, with respect to gender identity, um, there, on some level there is a reason why every single Protestant denomination of which I am aware has had a split and there are, so now you have two different versions of the Episcopal church, two different diversions of the Lutheran church, two different versions of the Presbyterians,

two different versions of the Methodists. Um, and half of Protestantism right now is engaging in open rebellion and heresy. And, and so that's, I certainly look at that and it gives me pause. So I know that's probably not a very satisfactory answer. It's an honest answer. I mean, I think what's so important is that Protestants and Catholics, if we could look at each other as brothers who are trying to be more faithful to Christ than we currently are. So as opposed to, let me show you why you're wrong. It's like, hey, I think Christ is calling us to this.

Yeah. And I think that that spirit just, first of all, I think it's more helpful. I think when you come at somebody with your elbows up ready to show why you're superior, but have you ever changed your mind? Cause someone was like a jerk. Yeah.

That rarely happens. So anyway. Well, like I said, Gina and I have, we have really good discussions on that. And the reason why we have the really good discussions on it is because we don't see each other as opponents. She's my sister in Christ. I'm her brother in Christ. And so we have really interesting conversations. Um, but that's, yeah, that's probably the best answer I could I could give it that. Have you heard of Dr. Peter Kreft? Oh, yeah. He's worth looking at.

Yes. I signed a book for me here. I'm trying to see if he's good. I first ran into Peter Kreft through Veritas. And it was a it was a it was a discussion he gave where I think he was taking the, was he Socrates or Aristotle? Probably Socrates. I think it was Socrates. There's a book here, what would Socrates say?

He often does the Socratic dialogues. So it was the Socratic dialogues with the modern and he played the role of Socrates, it was basically, it was a series of questions or skepticisms of Christianity and of God and of the objective moral reality. And I always thought, like Peter Kreff's, it was one of the most brilliant discussions I heard on it, but I went to the Veritas Forum, and I've probably listened to that, gosh, three,

it's been years, but I probably listened to that four or five times. And I used to send it to people, but I always thought he gave a very well-reasoned apologetic. So yeah. He's been on the show about four times now. Oh no, I've listened to him before. I'm a fan of the show.

Thank you. He has this line which you may have heard. He says, when a maniac is at the door, feuding brothers reconcile. And with all that's coming against us today, it doesn't mean that our differences aren't important, that we shouldn't seek to clarify them, but there's so much we can do together

as we figure these things out. I earnestly believe, as we figure these things out. I earnestly believe, I earnestly believe that I'm going to see Catholic brothers and sisters in heaven, provided that we're all, again, committed to those core doctrines, with core doctrines of the faith,

which again, me, I constantly go back to the concept of the Trinity, to the concept of the Trinity or the reality of the Trinity. And, and I think so much of the question comes down to who do you say Jesus is? Who do you say that I am? Um, and that acknowledgement that he is the only way to the father. Um, those are, those are always the core things I look for. Well, I wasn't going to do this and I don't mean any offense by it.

I hope you don't see it that way. But let me give you this rosary. Oh, thank you. Look how masculine this rosary is. It is. You've got Saint Michael, you've got Paracord, and if you don't want it, you can give it to Gina. Oh, no, no.

I consider it an honor. It was funny, I was recently in Jerusalem, and I got a rosary for Gina there, and I got one for myself as well. But thank you very much. This has been terrific. You're very good. You're very articulate.

You do a really good job of crystallizing your thoughts and saying them well. So thank you for benefiting all of our listeners today. Well, I try to. Thank you. And where can people follow you, learn about you? We made it fairly easy. Nick J. Freitas will pretty much take you to every social media page that we are on, and we're on most of the platforms.

We also have two shows that we do. One is called The Why Minutes, which are like three to four minute episodes, which are usually discussing kind of an economic, philosophical, or political principle. And then we have our podcast, Making the Argument, which is myself, my wife, and my co-host, Christian, who's a very dear friend. And those are usually a lot longer. We do like hour and a half, two hour episodes, and everything from current events,

but we'll also talk about a lot of cultural issues. I will say this, the focus, and my business partner, Nick Hamilton, who makes all the trains run on time, is a great guy. When we set out all of our social media platform, our object was always we needed to make sure that we were bringing glory to God in what we do. And I hope we do that. I know there's sometimes, sometimes we could do it better. But that is the objective. And so if that's something that you're interested in, we have a community through that as well. And we're

trying to build that. So yeah. I hope to see that pine to the corner. Stine on one of your Instagram. Absolutely. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you