Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 558 | Based Debate: Libertarian vs. Social Conservative | Guest: Brad Polumbo

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

Today we're talking to Brad Polumbo, a libertarian journalist who recently started the website BASEDPolitics, a news site dedicated to covering stories from a liberty-first mindset. Brad opposes "big government" conservatives, and despite the threat that the woke Left poses to our country, he warns against using state power for short-term wins against the Left. We discuss what the moral foundation of the Right is, or should be, and where we have very strong agreements on some issues of liberty. We also talk about some of our disagreements on when it's time to involve the government to solve problems. Lastly, we get into some of the moral background behind conservative and libertarian philosophies and where our theological and agnostic viewpoints converge and diverge. ---- Today's Sponsors: ExpressVPN helps you browse more anonymously: it's easy to use & works on all devices! Secure your online activity today by visiting ExpressVPN.com/ALLIE & get an extra 3 months free! CBDistillery is a source you can trust for safe, effective & natural CBD products. You never need a prescription at CBDistillery.com! Use promo code 'LOVE' for 20% off. Paint Your Life helps you give a meaningful gift - get a professional, hand-painted portrait created from any photo at a truly affordable price & within 2 weeks! Text 'RELATABLE' to 64-000 & celebrate the moments that matter most. --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV

or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers better than organic chicken and craft beef shipped right to your front door. Good Ranchers.com slash All right. Today we are talking to Brad Palumbo. He is a libertarian. And he has a very different perspective on things as a conservative than I do. And a lot of social conservatives do. He would call himself socially moderate or maybe even socially liberal. So we disagree on quite a few things.

And we might even disagree really on the future of the GOP. Like what should the Republican Party look like? What role does the government play, if any, in the future of conservatism? What does it even mean to be a conservative? And so we're going to debate and discuss some of those things. It's going to be a very respectful conversation. I really hope that you appreciate it and learn from it. And so without further ado, here is Brad Palumbo.

Brad, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do? Absolutely. My name is Brad Palumbo. I'm a libertarian conservative journalist and content creator and the co-founder of based politics, a new multimedia hub that we think. We're actually off to a great start, but we're publishing articles, TikToks, YouTube videos, that kind of thing.

So it's kind of similar to what you do at the, blaze, but a little different. Yeah. And you got a little bit of pushback. And I think you were probably expecting this when you first came out with this name, Baste Politics, because what you mean by Baste is not what a lot of conservatives mean by Baste. So can you talk about that distinction a little bit? Yeah. So Baste has become a very online conservative term for things that people think are the opposite of cringe that are like very rooted in values or on point. And it has become popular in what I would call like the nationalist faction of the GOP or of the right. People who are okay with some forms of big government are more skeptical of capitalism and free markets,

are more concerned with what they would call the common good than individual liberty. But it didn't start there. The term actually started in the black community. And it also is used by a lot of people outside of that faction now, including in more liberty or freedom or freedom. sections of the right. And so part of what we want to do is my co-founder, Hannah Cox, and I are people who believe in somewhat more traditionally, classically conservative values, like free markets, like constitutionalism, like limited and restrained government. And so we're hoping to kind of rebrand. And we did know that

would come with pushback because what we think is based is those values, right? The kind of things that Ronald Reagan cared about, not the things that some of these more fringe kind of nationalist next generation leaders would have you believe are based. I think one of the biggest disagreements that we probably have is what is the foundation of conservatism? What is the moral foundation of conservatism? Which I don't, I think the people that you're talking about are typically Catholic, and I'm not Catholic. And so there are probably a lot of theological and maybe even political disagreements that I would have with some of the people that you were talking about, although I do think I agree with them when it comes to like what is conservatism fundamentally and what is needed to be preserved

if we want all of these other things like a free market, like capitalism, like more restrained government, smaller government. And I would argue that the theological foundation provided by Christianity, the definition of family and marriage provided by Christianity is actually necessary for conservatism as a philosophy to take hold and to influence our policies. That is what I would consider, and I'm not saying at all, that I'm the arbiter of what is based. But when I think of based, I think of those nuclear family-centric, even just in a general sense, Christian theological foundation of conservatism. That's what I think of when I think of based. But I don't think that you and I are coming from the same position on that at all.

No, but I will make a distinguishment here that I don't claim to speak for social conservatism. I don't claim to be a social conservative. I would say I'm socially moderate. I'm not religious. I'm gay. But I'm also not like woke or with the far left on any of these issues. So I would describe myself as socially center right, but I don't claim to speak for social conservatism. But political conservatism in American history, especially in recent decades, has in many ways been about more than social conservatism, right? Fusionism was also about the Constitution and free markets and individual liberty was Ronald Reagan, who said the heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. Now, obviously, conservatism is not the

same thing as all-out libertarianism. But I think the things that we need to conserve are the classically liberal institutions that keep us free. I mean, nothing has been better for religious conservatives and social conservatives and people like me than the first amendment that protects our right to free speech, our freedom of religion, our freedom of conscience, all of those things that are a bulwark against, whether it's woke oppression or oppression from the other side, that's the things that we need to preserve. And what my concern with be kind of, like you talked about, they tend to be Catholic, but the nationalist types, the post-liberals, some of them would call themselves,

is that they would undercut things like the First Amendment in the pursuit of like short-term victories against wokeness or whatever. But in doing so, they actually gut the system that has kept us free. And that system is what I think we need to conserve. I think that the argument would probably be that there have always been, limits on the First Amendment. There have always been limits on free speech. The question is who gets to decide what those limits are? And thus far, it has been, or at least recently, I won't think thus far, but recently it has been leftist ideologues, whereas people on the right would say,

okay, well, if someone's going to limit free speech, then the right should be in charge. Conservatives should be in charge of what those limitations are if there are going to be limitations. And you can argue that the limitations should be very, very small. But who gets to say what those limitations are? It seems like, at least in the public sphere, if not legally, the left seems to be the ones to say, well, this is what you can and cannot say. And so I think the people on the right, perhaps, that you're talking about would say, well, okay, fine. If we're going to have restrictions, if we're going to have, you know, changing definitions, then the right needs to be on the front lines of pushing back against that using whatever tools possible.

But that last sentence that you just said is where that becomes an issue for me, using whatever tools possible. I'll just give you an example who I think we both know and who's a nice guy. Josh Hammer, the opinion editor at Newsweek. Yeah, love Josh Hammer. Just had him on the podcast. Right. And I'm not saying anything against him personally,

but he tweeted something that I think gives us a good example of what you're talking about. He was very upset by Apple unveiling a pregnant man emoji. And he, in his response, criticizing it, said, the government needs to use state action to crush wokeness. Now, look, a pregnant man emoji is very stupid. It's very silly. I'm not here to defend that. But the idea that that requires us to then go and use state action to crush ideas.

Wokeness is an idea. It's an ideology is very disturbing to me. And it seems like we are because guess what? Social conservatives are not a majority in this country necessarily. Religious people are decreasing less of a majority. And so if you want to start using this state, which is different from private sector censorship, which I object to, but it's fundamentally different to have the government throw you in jail or lock you up than it is to have Spotify ban you. It's fundamentally different.

Both can be problematic, right? But when you are willing to concede that the government can squash bad ideas, I think that's very dangerous. is. I mean, conservatives know that the fallacy behind this logic of, well, when we are in charge, it will be different. When our team has the power, it'll be different. Socialism will work this time because it'll be our version with our people in charge. We know that that doesn't work. And so I'm worried to see this logic developing on some corners of the right that the way to fight wokeness is to basically start using leftist tactics and empowering the government. I mean, the average federal bureaucrat has the politics of Elizabeth Warren.

So the idea that by growing the government and giving it more expansions and invasions of our liberty, we're going to be able to push, you know, conservative or just moderate values, to me it doesn't make any sense at all. And part of what we want to do at base politics is to amplify a different vision. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality.

We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. I think that the argument is that classical liberalism, doesn't seem to have this same power to push back against wokeism, which really is so much

more than just like a counterpart to classical liberalism. It truly is a religion in itself. And it, of course, is willing to use whatever tool possible, including the power of the government, no matter how totalitarian, in order to achieve its goals. And I think the argument from the conservative side would be, okay, rather than just saying, okay, well, we're not going to, we're not going to be like you, which I totally, I totally hear what you're saying. I 100% hear what you're saying. And I would say that typically and naturally, my sympathies lie with what you're saying, although, although it does seem like classical liberalism trying to compete against the power of wokeness that is so institutionalized. It's just not a fair match. And so I just wonder, like,

okay, if it's not the power of the government, if you're not harrow. the powers that already exist in the advancement of what you see to be good and right and true, which I think is contradictory to wokeness, then how do you push back against this institutionalized woke wokeness, which like I said, is harnessing all of the powers that exist to absolutely crush dissent and everything that we hold dear? Yeah, look, like I said, I'm no friend of wokeness. I'm not going to spend a second trying to defend that or anything. But I will say this argument from certain corners of the right that you're doing, I think, an excellent job of articulating.

To me, it also sounds like something I hear from people on the left when it comes to guns. They say, well, people are being killed with guns. I'm like, okay, yes, that's true. That's bad. And they say, here are our policy solutions. And I say, well, those are all bad. They don't make sense. They won't work.

And they'll disarm law-abiding people. And they say, well, we have to do something. And I say, well, no, we don't. Because if the options are only bad, you're actually better off doing nothing. but we don't have to do nothing. I will say that. One of the most effective ways that we have to combat, like, wokeness, which is really like left-wing illiberalism,

the desire to, like, crush the Christian Baker and everything that I know you're very familiar with, right, is actually what something President Trump did that was very traditionalist and not a new kind of conservatism, which was put originalist judges on the bench. I mean, this Supreme Court just struck down Biden's Vax mandate. It's going to strike down affirmative action, I believe. it may, and I know this is very important to you, chip away at or get rid of Roe entirely.

So I think that that traditional legal conservative movement was committed to the Constitution, to all of these things we're talking about that they're saying aren't good enough. And the victory of that movement is now defending us and giving us our most legitimate way to fight back. And people in the right are winning on a lot of these things in the courts and in the legal system. I mean, the First Amendment has done more to protect religious freedom and Christian groups on campuses and so many other things over the last 30, 40 years, then we could possibly know. But if we undermined it in the short-term pursuit of, say, like, prohibiting Apple from having stupid emojis. And the emoji is actually funny to me, by the way, because it's mostly going to be used, I think, to make jokes about how full people are or how fat they are once they've eaten a huge meal. But I agree, right?

It's a stupid idea. But if we undermine something like that to go and shut down Apple's ability to have emojis we don't like, I think it's just really short-sighted. Well, I'd be interested to know what Josh would say to that because, as you know, he's a brilliant person who I guarantee really thought about his position. And so it would be fascinating actually to hear you guys debate and discuss this issue because you were both very smart. I think you're both very grounded in what you believe. And I think everyone would benefit from that conversation. because, of course, I am coming from this from a moral perspective in that I don't just disagree politically with, I'm talking about the hard left.

I'm not just talking about, okay, do you think that we should have different border policy or do you think that maybe we should have more government welfare programs? That kind of stuff, I think, can all be debated. But I truly do see the kind of left-wing ideology that seems to be parasitical in nature and seems to want to suck the life out of everything that is good and right and true. I do see it as a huge threat. And so I will say, even as someone who I would say mostly agrees with a lot of what you're saying, I do also find myself very sympathetic to the other side of this argument saying,

look, it's not enough just to say, oh, we're not like them. We're not going to use the power of the government when we have the chance to. or we're not going to push back institutionally on these things. I don't know. There's just something about Drag Queen Story Hour that I guess makes me want to use the power of the government to do something about it more than I originally maybe would have, you know, thought I had in me a few years ago. The moral rot just kind of incenses me.

I'm certainly not an anarchist, right? So if you can convince me that something is like literally harmful to children or child abuse or something. I'm not here saying, well, we should just let that be legal and it's the fruits of liberty. But it's a different question when it comes to kinds of speech. And also, I would just go back to what is the solution? Well, I do have one solution, sort of, that I could offer. And I would just say, like, over the last two years, I think, if anything, we've seen why the liberty element of conservatism is so important. I mean, people's livelihoods were made illegal by the government. They were confined to their homes. People have had their lives crushed by the state over the last two years in a million different ways. Their fundamental individual rights, like the, I'm pro-vax anti-mandate, right? Your right to bodily autonomy has been crushed or attempted to be by the government. So I think we've seen really up close and personal the perils of big government.

And what has made someone like Ron DeSantis such a good governor? It's actually liberty-based governance, right? We're not locking you down. We're keeping our schools open. You can wear a mask if you want to. You can take the vaccine if you want to. It's all about like letting people be free. But he is also using his power to try to restrict the power of corporations from doing things that we on the right see as oppressive.

Like he's trying to harness BigTac. He's trying to harness or at least at one point was trying to harness company's ability to, you know, require the vaccine and masks and things like that. I'm not sure if that actually was instituted. But I think that's what a lot of people on the right see is that, yes, okay, as you said, it's fundamentally different if a business discriminates against someone. Well, it is fundamentally different, but it can still be almost as consequential. For example, if someone is totally de-platformed and they have no way to, you know, make money, it's not the same thing as going to jail, but it is still extremely consequential. And so I think that there are people on the right who are saying,

okay, look at Ron DeSantis. He is using his power to try to hold back the oppressiveness of corporations because he sees that the unfettered growth of any bureaucratic system, whether it's the government or a private entity, a company, can still trample upon people's liberty. And so I would actually argue that people are pointing to Ron DeSantis to make a different point than the one that you're making. Yes, it's rooted in liberty. But, But it's also rooted in the realization that companies can trample upon someone's liberty, not in the same way that a government can, but in a similar fashion. So he is, Pat, he's kind of appeasing both crowds right now.

He's doing a lot of stuff like what I pointed to that is liberty-oriented conservatism. And then you're absolutely right. On big tech and a few other things, he's doing some stuff that the common good conservatives and nationalist love. But what I would point out to you, and that's where I do disagree with DeSantis, I'm not a total DeSantis Simp. But on big tech, for example, he's introduced these bills that were his attempt to use the state government to fight against wokeness and these big tech censorship. They all have been struck down by the courts. They're not implemented. They're not achieving anything. He tried to

find tech companies if they didn't platform politicians they disagreed with. That's just like a First Amendment non-starter. So it ended up mostly being a cultural signaling effort, I guess, but the actual legislation, it didn't accomplish anything. So I think if any, You're totally right. Nationalists and people on the right who want common good conservatism do point to DeSantis. But the core things that he's done that have been so important are liberty oriented. And then the areas where he has kind of tried this other tact haven't really worked, in my opinion. One thing I want to talk to you about is that you say nationalists and I'm just assuming I'm picking up that you don't agree with nationalism, which I don't know if that's necessarily war. what these people mean when they say based. It seems more like they're talking about social conservatism. Although I will say, I do think that there is a strain of nationalism. And this is something, honestly, that I've just started to learn about in the past couple of years.

You seem to be saying nationalism in a derogatory way. And so I'm curious your thoughts on it. Well, I think we have to define nationalism. I'm using, I would kind of combine the right into two factions. On one hand, you have people like Rand Paul and Mike Lange. Lee. That's my kind of GOP. Free market capitalists, limited government people, but they're not like total libertarians and socially liberal or anything. But then you also have Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton and J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson and those types of people. And that's who I'm talking

about when I'm talking about nationalist. It's just hard to find a great word to put on them. So I'm not trying to use that as a pejorative, though I am using it to distinguish what I don't agree with. Because nationalism, like, I'm a patriot. I love America. I think our country's great. That's not what I mean by nationalism. What I mean is kind of a right-wing big government-friendly ideology that's rooted in a different form of the collective, right, the common good, using the state to fight for our interests rather than decentralizing. I mean, one of the best things we could do to solve a lot of these problems would be to go to federalism. And honestly, like, take a lot of these debates out of the national level and let Florida be Florida and California be California.

Now, California isn't content with that, and that's our part of the problem. But right now, neither are many Republicans and many conservatives. They also want to dictate how California can live. And I think that in that way, we've gotten away from that principle that could be a salvation for this, because right now I'm really concerned about the direction of our country. It's ripping it up. We're ripping apart at the seams. We're fighting each other more than ever. And I think that what we need is a different vision. Also young people on the right do tend to be more liberty oriented, more socially moderate. Yet we still need to kind of convince them that they should favor the constitution, limited government, capitalism, not socialism. And I don't think that either Donald Trump's brand of conservatism or a super hardcore socially conservative nationalism can really take.

that fight into the next generation, which is part of what we want to do with base politics. Going back to nationalism, I wouldn't say necessarily that how you defined it is the real definition of nationalism, which is the belief in nation states. Like I believe that America in her traditions and her customs and her foundation is good. I don't want it to be France. I don't want France to be America. And I would say the opposite of a nationalist is is not, you know, a small government libertarian necessarily, but is really an imperialist. You know, you talked about the importance of federalism that we shouldn't want California to be Florida. Well, a nationalist also says, well, I don't want France to be America or I don't want, you know, Mexico to be America. I'm not going

to impose American values on all of these countries around the world in the name of liberty, but really, it doesn't tend to accomplish that. It tends to accomplish just a lot of chaos and havoc, I think, and we're seeing it right now. So I think a nationalist would say that I am for our nation first. I want to prioritize the interests of our people first. That doesn't mean that we hate immigrants. It doesn't mean that we hate other countries. But we want to maintain the sovereignty of our country, the strength of our borders.

We want our country to be a place where the American family can thrive. And so, yes, we do believe maybe in enacting policies that, you know, encourage the formation of the family or whatever it is that help, you know, a working class family be able to survive and thrive. I don't even know of that, though. That latter part is a part of nationalism. But it is about national interest and putting the interests of your country first. It's not about denigrating other countries, but it is about your own nation sovereignty.

It's about the importance of nation states. in actually believing in a form of anti-imperialism. And I would say that's very conservative. So I guess I just don't understand really using nationalists as like this derogatory term. Well, so the way you just described it, I agree with most of that, right? I believe in America first foreign policy like Donald Trump said. I'm all about that. So maybe we don't want to use the word nationalist.

I guess we can use the word populist. I mean, all I'm trying to do is put a label on the type of people that are on the right that want to. Big government conservatives. Right. Big government conservatives. So I don't, I'm not super dedicated to the word nationalist. Some of them use that to describe themselves. So I'm not trying to fight over one label or anything.

And I'm also not trying to like use it as a pejorative. I'm just trying to differentiate the groups and factions to show what I am and what I'm not and what I think is right and what I think is. But I am actually, and this is a point of agreement between some of these people and folks like myself and Hannah base politics is I am about the American interests on the international stage. And I'm not about neoconservatism or spreading democracy or invading the globe or any of those things. So maybe that's one area where we can agree on what is base. I do think that that is an area of agreement for the most part when it comes to foreign policy between libertarians and maybe what you would call nationalist populists, the populism,

that it sounds like you really don't, that you really don't agree with. I do think that that is actually a very important commonality between the two because then you can say, okay, we agree on this outside stuff. Now let's come together and talk about what policies we think are good. Because I also think we have the same goal. Like I get, I'm guessing that you want the American family to thrive. I'm guessing that you want a thriving working. class. You want there to be lots of jobs. You want people to be able to provide for their family on maybe one income and a lot of the problems that we see in wokeness like we agree on. So really the question is how. How do we combat those things? And I think your answer to that is basically

you fight bad ideas with good ideas. You don't use the power of the government to push back, correct? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And so let's talk a little bit about some of those ideas and maybe where we disagree, because I am a social conservative, and I hold the view that social conservatism is actually necessary. And actually that just not that everyone believes in Christian theology, but having the Judeo-Christian foundation is the foundation of conservatism and our lawmaking in the United States is actually necessary for all of the other conservative policies that you and I agree on when it comes to the free market and things like that. But you disagree. So can you talk about your perspective on the why?

Like, why do you believe in the First Amendment, not just from the pragmatic point of view, but like why do you believe that human beings have rights that governments should respect? Well, for me, free speech is a human right. And so is freedom of religion. Where do human rights come from? Well, that's a very deep question. And that's what I want to know. That's what I really want to know from my friends who are.

I'm not an atheist. I'm an agnostic. And my answer would be, like, I don't know. I don't claim to have the deep philosophical answers to everything. And what I would say about whether, it really depends what you mean by Judeo-Christian values. Obviously, that's a big answer. I believe that a lot of the things, you know, into America's foundation, that includes a lot of Christian ideals, are good and should be preserved. But my fundamental value, one of them, is tolerance, not in the woke sense, but in the sense of living side by side, getting along, even

though we don't agree. So for, like, I'll give you an example on my podcast. I had Jack Phillips on, right? I'm an agnostic gay person. He is obviously a Christian, a social conservative, who doesn't support gay marriage, wouldn't bake a gay wedding cake. We had a long conversation, very friendly. He is all about, you know, just doing his own thing. I don't want to force him to bend to my will. And all I ask is that he doesn't do things like, you know, anti-sodomy laws, right? Or outlawing gay marriage. these kinds of things that then are using the state to infringe on other people and in promote your own values, I think we all need to live side by side. He needs to have his religious freedom and his free speech and I won't infringe it. And we can all share a society even though we have

deeply held disagreements. That's what's always been beautiful about America. Yeah, I wonder, there are a couple questions that I have. Like, what is the limitation? Because obviously, as you said, you're not an anarchist. And so there are some things that should actually be illegal. And so like when it comes to, for example, hormone treatment for children, I think that that should be illegal. But what would be your take on that if your idea is that we should just kind of, you know, live and let live? Well, the difference is live and let live applies to consensual adults, not children. So I actually agree with you. I have a lot of compassion for kids that experienced gender dysphoria, but I think they can't consent to medical, life-altering medical

treatments. So I think maybe starting at the age of 16 or 18, they should be able to do that, but I agree with you that they can't consent to something like that. I mean, even as a gay person, right? Like, I remember having feelings or confusion as early as five, but I couldn't have defined my sexuality or made any life-altering choices or a child doesn't even understand. and what the concept of sex in terms of gender and sex even means. So how they could make irreparable, irreversible medical decisions on it, I agree with you.

But that's something where I view the same way I'm pro-life, perhaps not quite as far as maybe someone like you, but I'm generally pro-life because I view it as a violation of interpersonal rights. And that's the difference is I'm all about individual liberty. But individual liberty does not include the ability to infringe on someone else's rights. And I think that one of the reasons, though, why classical liberalism is seen as maybe just not a formidable foe against the leftist ideology that we see today is because it very often stops at kind of where you stopped. Why? Why do we have human rights? Like, why do we respect free speech?

Why do we respect freedom of religion? For me, it's rooted in who made us. It's rooted in this idea that there's a transcendent moral lawgiver. Because there's a transcendent moral lawgiver, there is no earthly authority that can then supersede it. The government doesn't give or take away my rights. God did that. And therefore, I have innate rights that cannot be arbitrarily taken away. And I think that wokeism in its own way, leftism is also a religion. It's, ideas about human nature and where we come from and where human beings are going and what are rights versus privilege, it is rooted in a long philosophical ideological history that is very religious in nature. And it's almost really a theological discussion that we are having. Like, what are humans? Why are we valuable? Where does that value come from? Is it possible to change from a man to a woman? What are children? Why do parents have rights? Like, what is the family? All of these are theological questions. And I would say that that is one issue that I typically have with like with libertarians and agnostic and atheist libertarians when you're talking about these issues is that you talk about them from a pragmatic point of view, which of course is important.

But the why you kind of just you can't answer. And that is one reason why I think ultimately the form of classical liberalism that we are seeing espoused by by you, even though I think that you're a wonderful person, it just, it doesn't. hold up. It doesn't hold up to the theological battle that we are seeing waged on the left, in my opinion. Yeah, look, I understand what you're saying. I think I don't have the answer for, you know, what are human beings, where do our rights come from? But I think what's great about America is that everybody can decide these deep moral questions for themselves, a Muslim person and you. But we can't really, because you can't have a society where we are all our own gods. Like, we all have to agree, right? Okay. You believe in religious freedom, right?

We believe in a religious freedom. We believe in religious freedom. But don't we all have to agree? Like, okay, this is just the bare minimum. I'm not saying, okay, you have to agree with all of my different theology in order for us to function in society. You and I definitely agree on that. And thankfully, or else, you know, the Catholic nationalist that you were talking about, they don't agree with me on a lot of the theological stuff either. So that would be a problem. But when it comes to like the foundation of like what laws should we pass and why. People say a lot, you can't legislate morality. But of course you can. Of course you do. the law against murder is legislating morality and it speaks to what we think about human beings. Why is it bad to kill someone? So like my thing is why? Don't we all need to kind of agree on the why behind why we're here and what morality is for us to function? To me, that is why we are so polarized. But I think, well, we do have to legislate morality. It's interpersonal morality that we have to legislate.

And I agree that we need a shared understanding there. It's individuals who I think should be able to make their own choices about their lives, consensual adults, and live side by side very differently. But when it comes, we need to agree on basic human dignity, human rights, the sovereignty of a human being as an individual, American principles like free speech. These are the things we have to agree on. And I agree it's very concerning. People on the left don't agree on. So there is some borderline consensus. But I don't think it has to be religious, although maybe that's where it stems from for a lot of people.

I think we just have to agree on this. For example, I'm very pro-immigration, right? Very pro-immigration. But I don't think we should have immigration for people that reject all of our values, right? And so I think people who want to come and live in a pluralistic, tolerant, free society with religious freedom and free speech and a constrained federal government, that's what we should all need to have to agree on in order to live side by side. But I don't think we have to all share even the same religious orientation, let alone the details, which you're not saying, because America, we've always lived with atheists and

agnostics and Christians and Jews. And that's part of what makes us great. I think it's just, I think I want us to at least be able to acknowledge the foundation of like where liberty comes from, where rights come from. And my argument would be, at least on the conservative side, that understanding that foundation of where a rights come from, like why we don't believe in the unfettered power of the government, that that, in my opinion, is also going to lead us to have certain social views that I think are integral to conservatism. Like you talk about, okay, yes, we're legislating interpersonal morality, but not individual morality. And, you know,

know, to an extent I think that that is probably true, except then I think about, okay, but the individual turns into the interpersonal so quickly. Like if you're talking about someone like Leah Thomas, who, okay, you could just say that that is a person, you know, doing what they want to do, live in their truth, whatever. Well, that individual decision to try to present as a woman is now affecting other people. So is there a place for the state to come in and say, no, you can't do that. I would say, I would say yes, but I'm afraid you would say, no. There's no place for the states to come in because that's just an individual moral

decision that they're making. I'm only vaguely familiar. What is Leah Thomas's sports competition in? Is that Olympic or college? This is swimming. So UPenn, he's at UPenn. He swam as a collegiate swimmer and now swims. on the women's team.

For the Olympics? No, I'm sorry. No, just you Penn. Just University of Pennsylvania. Yeah. Is that a private school or a public school? I guess it's a public school. I'm not sure.

I don't know if you all know it's public or private, but. Yeah, I guess that would. Regardless, I just don't think men should be able to compete against women. What I would say is that if a private university wants to have what I consider to be unscientific or foolish rule, about sports, like you're saying, like a biological male could compete with women swimming. I think they should be able to do that. I think at a public school, you have things like Title IX and equal access and anti-discrimination laws that would, I think, if interpreted correctly,

prohibit that kind of thing because it's a form of discrimination against women. But, I mean, for this person to want to just live their life, how they see fit in general, as an adult, I have no problem with. Yeah, I guess my question is, when it becomes, because that's the whole thing that we have really had that we've really seen since a sense of Bergerfeld is that the individual, what we were told, okay, this is just individual. This is two people. They want to get married. And that's that. And all the conservative Christians were like, this is a slippery slope. There's going to be a baker one day who was forced to bow down to the sexual revolution. And we were all told, no, no, no, no, that's not going to happen. These are just people who want to live and let live. The personal becomes interpersonal really quickly. And so like, my question is like when does the government step in? Because as you just mentioned, like Jack Phillips's rights were trampled upon in the name of tolerance, in the name of what I call, you know, the sexual and moral revolution, which has gone really quickly over the past five to 10 years. And I think we're seeing it even more so when it comes to the transgender issue. Like, do I have a

right to be in a bathroom with only women or do I not? To me, the state has a role to play there. I think it depends what that bathroom is, where it's located, what law it's bound by. And I think we also, you're absolutely right. It's tricky to draw a line between personal and interpersonal. But you could flip this and make left-wing arguments like your free speech isn't personal. It affects other people. It affects other people's safety. And I think this just becomes a very, your religion affects my mental health because it stigmatizes me in society.

I don't believe that, to be clear. But what I'm saying is it is a slippery slope, but what I'm saying is we have to draw it firmly at interpersonal, right? Abortion is interpersonal. It's one human ending the life of another. Me slapping someone is interpersonal. But you actually believe that abortion is okay sometimes, right? No, but I'm generally pro-life.

What does that mean? I don't. It means that I would favor certain exceptions. Okay. So you do believe that it's okay to take an innocent person's life sometimes. So where do you, why like does that apply to other things? Like, is that your principle? I mean, I'm like, I agree with pro-life positions in like 98% of cases. And I think almost all abortions should be outlawed. So I don't, I mean, and it's also, I will say this. It's not really like one of my issues that I'm, I don't talk about. I don't advocate about it. I mean, I'm all happily discuss my views on it. But it's not something where I'm trying to shape the conversation one way or another. or am particularly involved or researched or passionate. Well, I'm just trying to figure out with libertarians, like, what is the line? What is the line between personal and interpersonal?

Like, I'm against abortion in all circumstances because I believe that taking an innocent life is wrong in all circumstances. And so, like, I kind of draw that line kind of clearly. And I don't know actually the answer, though, in all circumstances, to be totally fair. Like, what is the line between personal and interpersonal? Where does the state step in? I guess I'm just trying to understand from the more libertarian or classical liberal standpoint, like where the line is drawn.

But I want to go back to something you said a minute ago, and I think you're right that after a Bergerfell, the kind of LGBT left and social left, they went in a very illiberal direction and started targeting people. But I would also say that in many ways that has vindicated our classically liberal structures, Jack Phillips won at the Supreme Court. And also, bestiality isn't legalized. Polygamy isn't legalized. A lot of the slippery slope arguments that were made against gay marriage haven't come true.

I would say that. Bergerfell was almost seven years ago. So barely. Now, I'm not saying that gay marriage and bestiality are the same thing. I'm not making that argument. I'm just saying that it's, you know, I don't think when a Bergerfell happened that we would have thought that we would be having a conversation. about whether a man can truly become a woman.

I do think that it's fair to say that, wow, that was a huge change. It should have been decided, I think, on the legislative level. You probably agree with that when it comes to the states. And, wow, that has changed so much. And I would say it's gone beyond even the wildest slippery slope dreams of conservative Christians when you're talking about, you know, men being in women's locker rooms and things like that. But that has nothing to do with gay marriage. Gay and trans are fundamentally distinct concepts and communities. Well, I would say, I would say, yes, that is true. But wouldn't you say that the LGBTQ leftist

activist wing has worked very hard to conflate those two things and has really tried to make it this homogenous group that says, you know, if you are opposed to so-called trans rights, then you're, you know, opposed to the LGBTQ movement in general. And so it's almost hard to distinguish between the two now because organizations like the ACLU have made them completely conflated. Yeah, but I've spent a lot of time criticizing and pushing back on that attempt to do so because you're right they've done that. I don't think conservatives should buy into that, though,

or accept that as a premise because sexual orientation and gender identity or biological sex are completely distinct things. And I think that we have different, I'll just say this. And I'm not, I'm not someone who I don't believe in being anti-trans in terms of any, like, hatred or animus. I have compassion for these people. But I definitely hold a lot of views that the left-wing LGBT activists would consider anti-trans.

And so does almost every young conservative I know. But most of them are totally cool with gay people, fine with gay marriage, whatever. that is a very real thing in society, a lot of people make a distinction between LGBT and the rest of the alphabet where it starts to get off the reservation. Yeah. And we've had a lot of people, I think almost all women actually that we've had on who hold that same position, especially in the UK, and have really organized to kind of push back against that because they see it as a diminishment of what they have fought for as well and even a diminishment of the definition of what, you know, is meant by being a homosexual.

And so we've talked to a lot of people that are on the same page there. Of course, I do believe in the encouragement of the natural family. There are different ethical issues that, again, this is like where the personal and interpersonal, they just become so intricately interwoven that it's difficult to distinguish. which like I think that the fertility industry when it comes to the redefinition of marriage and reproduction is like a huge ethical issue that we don't want to talk about and we don't want to get involved in because it feels politically incorrect. You're going to be called homophobic.

If you talk about some of, you know, the issues with sperm donation and egg donation and surrogacy and things like that, I would say that that is something that is also taken off since a Bergerfell that, you know, it does require conservatives to make a position on because, again, it asked that question, like, where is the line? What is a right? What is a privilege? And do the definitions of marriage and procreation and all of those things really matter? As a conservative, I think we still have to conserve the most fundamental tenets of those things. And I just see the effort to try to, like, detach social conservatism from the rest of conservatism very, very difficult. when it comes to things like, you know, the definition of the family and things like that.

Well, I don't know about detach as much as I think make room for it to coexist with other visions because like I'm all about very pro adoption for gay parents. I think gay parents can and have raised tons of happy and healthy, successful children. There's lots of studies on that. I agree with you. There are some ethical issues about surrogacy, about creating, you know, a lab, right, a new life. But I, Those also apply to straight. Yes, I was about to say that I also have the same position when it comes to straight couples doing the same thing. So I don't know if we necessarily, I don't really view that as a gay or anti-gay issue. It's like kind of surrogacy is its own thing that I will say I'm not super knowledgeable about or into.

It was just an example of how the personal becomes interpersonal really quickly. And also, like, if you have the position, a lot of conservatives do and think this is integral to conservatism that all children have a right to a mother and a father that's also a debate to be had that I really think that we need to have between people like you who are more socially moderate and people like me who are socially conservative, maybe not today. But I think, honestly, it goes back to kind of what we were talking about in the beginning. Just fundamentally, our two sides within conservatism, I think need to decide if we agree like on basic. principles of conservatism or if we're totally just missing each other. Does that make sense? Well, and I think that historically, you know, 10 years ago in the Tea Party, right, social conservatives like yourself or like Glenn Beck, right, we had overlap with libertarians like Rand Paul because we all agreed on these basic first premises. The problem is that these new people in the right,

we can call them populists, we can call them nationalist or whatever, when they say actually big government is good. When they say, actually, we need to tear up the First Amendment and go after woke people, they're breaking with those principles that allowed us to be part of a coalition and to have our shared principles. So I still share those principles. I haven't moved. I don't think people like Rand Paul have moved. Some people, the Josh Holley's of the world, they do see things differently and they have moved. Yeah, it's super interesting discussion to have because, like, I do. I agree with you on so much. I think that if we were to line up our views on things, even if the why underneath them weren't the same, I think that we do agree on a lot of principles. I do think that there should be

more debate, though, because to me, really, the debate between the people that you're calling kind of like populace and you, and I'm somewhere within there, is really about the role of the government, but also these social issues and the why underneath the social issues. And I just just think it's, I just think it's a worthy debate. And I think the younger generation coming up, I don't think that we can just say, well, they're going to be socially liberal or socially moderate. I think that we need to present them with both sides of the coin. And I think that they need to see those kind of healthy discussions and debates because there's a lot to think about. There's a lot to think about within the different factions of conservatism. Do you agree?

Yeah, certainly. I do. Yeah. Okay. Well, where can people follow you and read more about you know, what you're doing. Yeah, so head to baste dash politics.com or just search based politics wherever you listen to your podcast to check out the new project with me and Hannah Cox. We're also on social media everywhere. And with that, I hope people will check it out. If you're interested in the future of the right, whether you're a libertarian, whether you're a conservative, I mean, that is we're going to be pushing back on the left, advocating for our vision of what the right should look like. And so we're going to be having this debate, and these are really important conversations.

So thanks for having me and let's keep doing it. Yeah, they really are. And I will definitely be following because I do like I just find myself more sympathetic to like Tucker Carlson, conservatism nowadays. And honestly, and not to just keep extending this conversation, but I've seen a shift, not just in me and the people I know, but a lot of conservatives online. Maybe it was after George Floyd. I'm not really sure.

But there's been a tipping point for a lot of people over the past couple. of years. And I think the reason why you're important and your voice is important and what you're doing is important is because at the very least, it causes me to think about, well, why have I moved kind of in that direction? And am I still staying true to the principles that I actually believe in as a conservative? So I do appreciate your voice and your perspective. And I think these discussions are really important. So thank you. Thank you. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Alley, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself.

On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this Steve Day show right here on Blaze TV, or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.