Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 74 | Demonization of Excellence

Episode Date: February 5, 2019

We're becoming a nation that equates success, hard work, and wealth with greed, corruption, and evil. As we do, we're denigrating the American dream. Here's why that's so dumb. Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.

Hello, happy Tuesday, relatable listeners. I think that's the first time I've ever started with hello and not, hey, what's up? I realize that I say, hey, what's up every single time. I have no idea why I do that. I don't do that in real life. But I've realized it's kind of my signature. And for some reason, my brain today was like, nope, you're going to say hello. So hello, hey, what's up? Hi, guys. It's Ali. Thank you for listening to Relatable. I hope that you guys. I hope that you guys, had a great weekend. If you're anything like me, a huge football fan who knows everything about football, you had the best weekend ever preparing for the Super Bowl, watching the Super Bowl with your eyes peeled and just celebrating for hours and hours after. I mean, I'm still recovering.

If this is your first time listening to the podcast, I am joking. I know nothing about football as many times as someone has tried to explain what football is in what like a down is. I still, I just, I don't know what it is. it's kind of like math for me. It goes in one ear and out the other. And I know I'm being such a stereotype right now of girls, but I'm sorry. That's just who I am.

I don't know anything about football. I do like the environment and the atmosphere and the kind of like the spirit of football games. And so I did. I mean, I enjoyed watching it. My husband said I talked too loud the whole time because I was talking to my sister-in-law. And he said that we were being kind of aggravating. with how much we were talking. I didn't even notice. I didn't even notice that we were talking. But I guess,

yeah, I mean, I looked up after two hours and the game was over. So that makes sense. I am going to actually talk about the Super Bowl today. Don't worry. I'm not going to use any football metaphors because I think I would fall flat on my face. I am going to talk about the demonization of excellence that I think is happening in our country, particularly on the left side of the political and cultural aisle. doesn't really have that much to do with football, but I'm going to use it as an illustration or as an example, and then we're going to get into the political side of it. So for those of you ladies who are like me,

don't know a lot about the NFL, only know of Tom Brady because in high school you thought he was hot. I'm going to give you a little refresher. I'm going to give you a little brief on who he is. So obviously the Patriots one, if you didn't know that, you're like, you're worse than me. The Patriots won the Super Bowl. This is the sixth Super Bowl win for Tom Brady.

He's been to nine Super Bowls. He holds the record for a career wins, 237 I read on ESPN.com. But people hate Tom Brady. I've known that for a while. I kind of follow Barstall sports from a distance just because I think their model is interesting, not because I agree with their content or how they explain things or the language that they use. but I noticed how many people that follow them or who are a part of them, not Dave Portnoy, but other people in Barcelona hate Tom Brady, people that follow them, people just in life.

It seems like hate Tom Brady and don't want him to win. My husband is not one of those people. He has like the TB 12 book and reads from it and like even has these like pants that Tom Brady suggested that athletes wear. So he's a fan. And I've just always thought it was kind of. odd. Why? Why do people hate Tom Brady so much? So I started asking some people, really it comes down to not liking how much he wins, not liking that his life seems so perfect.

He is married to a supermodel, Jazeel. He wins so much. He says things like I am the baddest mofo on the planet. He apparently said that last month. There was also that whole deflategate thing that I remembered was from 2015. I feel like that was just yesterday. But that happened a few years ago where he and the Patriots were accused of deflating the balls to make them easier to grip. And yeah, so that happened. People didn't like it because of that. They think, you know, he's a cheater that maybe he doesn't have integrity because of that whole thing. But they also don't like him because in 2015, there was a MAGA hat in his locker. And that was caught on camera. And he apparently was a friend of Trump had played golf with him before.

There is a picture of them playing golf together. So this was a big scandalous deal. Daniel Radcliffe, you know, like Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe said just a couple weeks ago when he was in an interview with variety that, oh, the whole world is cheering against the Patriots because of that. He said, dude, take the MAGA hat out of your locker. Number one, we have no idea of Tom Brady actually supported President Trump in the election. In fact, Giselle, I'm pretty sure, came out and said, we don't support President Trump.

I'm sure Giselle isn't a conservative or a Trump supporter. So that's probably true. I have no idea if he voted for him. He wasn't outspoken about him very much in the election. He said he wasn't going to talk about politics anymore. He hasn't talked about Donald Trump since then. And he also said that he believes that the players should have a right to kneel in the NFL, during NFL,

NFL during the national anthem. And so for people to hate him because of that just doesn't make any sense. Sure, you can be jealous of him. You can be envious of his career, of his life, of his wife, whatever. But to envy his political state or to be mad at him because of his political stances,

that just doesn't make sense. If you look up Tom Brady's name on Google or on Twitter, then you will see lots of different articles about Tom Brady's privilege, about his white privilege, and you just got to roll your eyes. I mean, the man is an amazing athlete. I might not know that much about football, but I can read numbers. And I know that he holds a lot of records. And he's an incredible athlete. He's in his 40s and he wants to keep playing. I like Tom Brady just because not necessarily as a person.

I don't know him as a person, but he seems like a leader that people really respect that his teammates really look up to. He's always building his team up whenever he is talking to the press about how proud he is of his teammates. He seems like he just really loves the game of football. And you like that about people when they really love their trade and they're doing it for the love of the game or whatever industry they're in and not just for the fame, not just for the attention. I like that about him. He seems in some ways, I mean, I know he said he's the baddest mofo that's ever existed, but he seems in some ways like a really humble guy, like a down-to-earth guy who really cares about his family, cares about his wife. And there's just something to be admired about that. There's

something wholesome about that, almost nostalgic about that, even though I don't know that he's necessarily like some wholesome guy. There's just something about him that you like and you feel like represents a part of America that is admirable. But what there seems to be, I mean, this hatred of Tom Brady and hatred of people like him, it seems to echo this larger hatred of excellence that we have in our country. Now, I'm not saying that all of the hatred of Tom Brady is political or is just from people on the left. It's just an example of us hating meritocracy, us hating hard work and hating excellence in this country. And I have a better example of how that's really become endemic in our country. And it really is a trend moving from progressivism

on over. So Howard Schultz, he is the former CEO of Star, he is a billionaire he's worth 3.4 billion dollars if you haven't heard he is running for president and although he's pretty progressive he's pretty liberal he is running for president as an independent because he has called himself fiscally conservative but socially liberal i mean we know that he's socially liberal he has said that he is pro choice he's obviously on board with the lgb2 t agenda i can never say that correctly um but when it comes to uh fist issues, he is probably going to lean more conservatively. He is a self-made guy. He grew up in the projects of Brooklyn. He got a football scholarship to, what was it, northwestern, northern,

northern Michigan, I think it was. Yeah, Northern Michigan. He was the first in his family to go to college. And then he was a salesman for, I forget the company, maybe Xerox. He was a salesman. And then he went into the coffee industry. Starbucks already existed, but he basically took Starbucks over eventually and made it what it is. I mean, he's an incredible person who genuinely has worked hard for what he has done. He has earned what he has paid. And now he wants to, now he wants to run for president. Now he wants to lead a bigger so-called corporation or a bigger so-called industry, a.k. the United States of America. And he said he cannot run on the Democratic ticket, even though he's probably more Democrat than he is Republican, because he believes, like he said,

that he would have to be disingenuous. He would have to say things that he doesn't believe in his heart. He has slammed people like Acacio Cortez, like Kamala, Kamala, Kamala, I never know. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, who want to put exorbitant taxes on the rich in order to redistribute their wealth to other people to pay for whatever programs they think is going to help the country. He said, that's just not feasible. Green New Deal by Akasio-Cortez that we have talked about on previous episodes. That's just not feasible. Sorry, he thinks really one of the biggest problems is the federal deficit, which Democrats and commentators on the left have laughed at him for saying, for saying that that's the biggest problem. Of course, they think that social issues are a much

bigger problem than that or even health care coverage is a much bigger problem than that. But here's the thing. Here's why they are so scared. Well, one, they don't agree with his politics, because in order to be a Democrat, you have to be on the left on everything. You have to be Bernie Sanders left. if you're not, you're going to be left behind. I mean, you'll notice that the more conservative or the more moderate Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, if you can even believe that she's a more moderate Democrat, they don't really talk about issues very much. Now, they might say things like, oh, a wall is immoral, or they might even jump on board saying we need Medicare for all, but they're no longer the voices of the party. The far left are the voices of the party. Michael Moore, who is obviously an idiot. Like I think I can say that kind of. finally like i think that counts as biblical sass like he's just an idiot um he said that obviously everyone knows he said that acacio cortez is the voice of the democratic party okay okay that's fine that's fine that means that i and other people on the right have free reign to talk about her as much as we want to and we shouldn't be guilty for that but howard shultz is not on board with

her green new deal not on board with taxing uh the rich 70 to 90 percent is a lot of the democrats or some of the democrats are now saying but the reason why Democrats don't like this in addition to him not being far left enough is because they know that he speaks to a certain section of the electorate. They know that there's plenty of people who think that the Democratic Party has gone too far to the left who don't want to vote for Bernie Sanders, who don't want to vote for Elizabeth Warren, who don't want to vote for Kamala Harris or Casio-Cortez. She's not running for president. She's too young. But don't like the direction that the left is going. And so Tom Perez head of the DNC,

or the Democrats, instead of saying, you know, maybe we should revise some of our policy positions. Maybe we should rein it back a little bit. Maybe instead of putting Acacio Cortez and Ilhan Omar, another radical leftist at the front, at the front lines of our party, we should try to modify just a little bit. You don't hear them saying that. Instead, they say, oh, no, Howard Schultz is running for president. I mean, they're really upset over this. You should see the commentators on CNN, on MSNBC, the Washington Post. should see and hear and read what they're saying. I mean, they are angry about this. Just go on Twitter and see how many people hate that Howard Schultz is running for president. They know that he taps into the desires of a large part of the country who maybe don't care about the social issues

quite so much the way that he doesn't or they're socially liberal. They're down with gay marriage. They don't really care about all of that stuff. But they just, they also don't want to see our country go to socialism? Like he's going to tap into that. Claire McChaascal, who is actually a Democrat in Congress, she tweeted out a statistic from Pew Research that I thought was really interesting. According to Pew, 54% of Democrats think that the party should be more moderate. 54% of 40% think the party should be more liberal, which that in and of itself is like a little bit troubling. But the majority right now of Democrats or yeah, of Democrats think that the party should be more moderate. And Schultz is in a lot of ways a moderate Democrat. He would have been seen a while ago,

probably a mainstream Democrat. Remember, the word socialism 10 years ago was still a bad word, even on the left. You had people as early or as recently as last year, Nancy Pelosi and Maxie Waters saying, no, I'm not a socialist. I'm not a socialist. You had Hillary Clinton say, no, I'm not a socialist. But now they've learned to keep their mouths shut. They have learned that that's the way that the country is going. that's what millennials want, unfortunately, the majority of them. And so they're just going to be quiet on that and let people like Acacio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders just kind of lead the way. Schultz is now seen as an independent though.

He's now seen as almost a conservative just because he cares about the federal deficit, just because he doesn't want to be a socialist. He actually went so far as to say in an interview that taxing the rich is 70 to 90%, which is what is kind of being proposed. by some people in the last, some people in the Democratic Party is un-American. And he cites his own story because of that, because he is self-made. You had, he had hecklers in, I think it was in New York, yelling at him for being a billionaire on MSNBC, Joe and Mika, you know, who hosts the Morning Joe, I think it's called it.

I've honestly never watched it. But I did watch this clip where they asked Howard Chultz in an interview, so how much is a box of Cheerios? obviously trying to trap him, obviously trying to show that he is just so out of touch with reality, this billionaire. He doesn't know anything about the needs of the American people. Okay, did you ask Hillary Clinton that? She's worth tens of millions of dollars. What about Elizabeth Warren? She's also worth tens of millions of dollars. What about Nancy Pelosi? What about Bernie Sanders? I think that he has about three houses. Kamala Harris, she's made

plenty of money in her life. Why don't you ask any of them that? Do you think any of them know what it's like to struggle in America? Do you really think that? I mean, Howard Schultz knows probably better than any of them because he grew up in the projects in Brooklyn. But no, it's not okay that he made his way up. It's not okay that he actually got out of poverty, not because of government handouts,

but because of choices that he made. We're not okay with that anymore, at least not on the left. And I'm afraid that it is going to become more mainstream. Here are some examples of Ocasio-Cortez, Warren, Kamala Harris. People like that saying how bad billionaires are. So one of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's policy people, which I think she would probably agree

with this. She probably retweeted it. He said that for every billionaire or every billionaire demonstrates a failed policy, okay? Elizabeth Warren called billionaires and millionaires, freeloaders, who need to pay their fair share. Bernie Sanders said years ago that the American dream has turned into a nightmare. Bernie Sanders tweeted yesterday, instead of repealing the estate tax and giving a massive tax cut to the Walton family, aka the Walmart people, and the coax as Mitch McConnell and Trump want to do, let's substantially increase this tax on multimillionaires and billionaires and reduce wealth inequality

be in America. So here's the crazy thing. They're all talking about paying your fair share. Howard Schultz says this is un-American. They're basically demonizing excellence as we're talking about. They're demonizing the true American dream, which is pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, making good choices and being who you want to be and doing what you want to do. Here's the reality behind what they're saying. So they're saying millionaires and billionaires are freeloaders who need to pay their fair share. The implication is there that the rich are, getting by on the backs of others. They are making their money on the backs of others. And it's not fair. That they didn't actually earn what they have, that they're almost stealing it in a way. That's what you hear,

which is just crazy. So according to the Tax Foundation in 2016, the top 1% of earners, 1%. The top 1% of earners in America paid 39% of all income taxes in the United States. The top 1% the top 50% of earners, the top 50% of earners pay more than 97% of all the income taxes. 97%. That means that the bottom 50% of earners in this country are only paying 3% of all income taxes. And so we need to raise taxes on the rich. They're not paying their fair share. America has one of the most progressive tax systems in the industrialized world.

They always compare to the Norden, countries and say they're so much more progressive than we are. But as a matter of fact, Sweden has basically a flat tax rate to where if you are making about $60,000 a year, you are getting taxed about 60%. And it just kind of stays the same. We have a very progressive tax system. The rich are paying more than their fair share. They are paying almost all of the income tax in this country. So how much more, how much more do you want to tax them until it's fair? What is fair? Is it what Bernie Sanders says is fair. And here's, here's another question that we should ask. So while they hate billionaires and want to tax them into oblivion, tax them maybe up to 90%, that's what Ilhan Omar said the other day,

that, oh, you know, yeah, it's been as high as 90%. Whatever. So you want to obliterate the, the billionaires, as Accio-Cortez's policy person said, that it's all because of failed policies that billionaires even exist. Who's going to pay for your stuff? I'm just, I just, I don't get that logic. I might need someone like Bernie Sanders to explain that to me. So if you are taxing people so much to where they are no longer millionaires and billionaires, who is going to pay for your Green New Deal if you don't have billionaires anymore? I just don't get that. I mean, I guess that's what Margaret Thatcher men, when she said the problem with socialism is that pretty soon you start to run out of other

people's money. And it's just not true. We haven't seen throughout history that when people, are given wealth redistributed from people who are richer than them and have done different things than them that they actually get out of poverty because of that. I mean, even if you look at foreign aid that's given to poor countries, it doesn't help. They don't get out of poverty because of that. Just giving the money doesn't help, but foreign trade does. Foreign aid, not so much. And it's really the same thing on a domestic level. This is, we are seeing not just the demonization of excellence, but in a more specific sense, the demonization of the American dream. And the American dream being, as I've already said, that anyone can do anything.

Now, that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. It doesn't mean the obstacles don't exist. It doesn't mean that some forms of injustice don't exist. But as I heard someone say the other day, I think it was Dave Ramsey. He said, there are all kinds of isms. There are all kinds of things that you are going to come up against. There's going to be someone who doesn't like blondes. There's going to be someone who doesn't like women in general.

So they're a sexist. There's going to be someone that doesn't like that you're from Texas. They don't like your southern accent. They don't like that you say, y'all, there's going to be someone that doesn't like that you went to the University of Alabama. There's going to be someone who doesn't like the fact that you're a mom. There are going to be all kind of isms throughout your life. There are going to be all kind of prejudices throughout your life. There's no way for the government to eliminate personal prejudices, no matter how wrong they might be.

The question isn't whether or not prejudice. exist. It does because men and women are sinful. The question is, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? Are you going to ask the government to step in and help you? I mean, at this point, we've got every law on the books that makes this country as equal as it can possibly be. So what are you asking for? I mean, you have people like Bernie Sanders and Acosio Cortez saying that we need to eliminate the gender wage gap. Bernie Sanders tweeted out the other day, the for for every one dollar of a white man here's what the Asian American woman makes here's what the white woman makes here's what the black woman makes and of course it gets lower and lower I think

for Asian women's 87 cents on a dollar for white women it's 79 cents on a dollar all that stuff basically saying that we are all being crushed under the white man and the implication there is that white men are treated better and paid more than women and that's actually not true the reason why there is a wage gap and there is a wage gap. It's called the uncontrolled wage gap between men and women. In general, women do make 79 cents to every dollar a man makes. You know why? Because women choose that. They choose that when you account for all of the, all of the different factors that go into getting paid a certain level. So when you look at education, when you look at how many hours worked, when you look at full time versus part time, when you look at the choices that men and women,

men make when it comes to the workforce, when it comes to labor versus when it comes to staying home or working fewer hours, men simply in general, work harder than women do. They decide to work longer hours. They decide to make sacrifices that quite frankly, a lot of women are willing to make. That's not every single woman. But that is in general what is true. That is why in general a man makes one dollar to every, or a woman makes 79 cents to every day. dollar than a man makes. It is life choices. Even if you look at somewhere like Sweden, uh, that is seen as the most egalitarian, the most progressive, the most gender neutral country in the world, well, women are still making less than men because if you look at who takes longer

a parental leave, who decides to quit work earlier and stay home with their family, whatever it is, has taken them away from work. It's the women. It's the women, the majority of the time that tend to do that because men and women make different choices. But when it comes to the American dream, when it comes to the idea of hard work and how much you earn, any gap to the left is indicative, not of a deficit of hard work or the choices that you made, but because of some kind of injustice. And injustice must be righted by the federal government stepping in and doing something. When it's just not true, every statistic, every study shows that the way to get out of poverty is to make sure that you finish high school, then get married, then have kids. If you are going to get married and

have kids, you should finish high school first. You should get married before you have kids. That's what every study shows that you will, the majority of the time, you will stay out of poverty if you just make those extremely simple decisions. But nowadays, it's bigoted to say that the choices you make actually affect your lot in life. No, it has to be because you are a victim of your circumstances. If you are poor, you are a victim of your circumstances. It's not because of anything you ever did wrong. And look, I'm not saying people aren't born into hard times. People aren't born into really bad situations that they couldn't help, that people aren't used and abused and put down in a way that they really felt like they could never get out of their station in life. I'm not saying that bad

things don't happen and people don't fall on bad luck. And I actually do believe that the government does have a role. I believe that the government can provide relief for families, but not entitlement to families to where they are dependent on the government to ever survive and subsist. There's a difference in that. We've gone from relief what it was during the Great Depression to entitlements. And so our mentality has shifted as well. To we believe now that someone cannot get out of poverty, they cannot get out of their situation by working hard and making better choices. It has to be the government who lifts them up out of it. Democrats don't just want equal opportunity, which is part of the American dream. They want equal outcome. That's what they believe justice is. But that's just not going to happen. Because guess what? I'm probably not going to have equal outcome with the person who works harder than me and is smarter than me. Like I'm probably just not. Like they were born with a higher IQ than I was. They have a better work ethic than I do. Maybe they work longer hours than I do. Maybe they work more efficiently than I do. Maybe they made better connections in life that they didn't really have any

control over and I didn't either. Okay. That's life. That's not an injustice. There might be a gap between what that person makes and what I make and some of it might have been out of my control, but that's not injustice. That's just life. It's really funny how our generation in particular has forgotten what our parents told us that life isn't fair and how we used to just kind of like accept that. Yeah, life isn't fair. It is what you make it. Do whatever you can to be responsible and work hard and, you know, live out your potential. Things might get in your way, but it's all about overcoming those obstacles to, okay, well, if I have an obstacle, something is wrong. It's because I've been treated unfairly and I need to talk about this. It's because of sexism. It's become

because of some immutable characteristic that I have. It couldn't be because of choices. my parents, my parents taught me with, maybe you could even say indoctrinated me if you want to with this. I just, I've never been able to get past it or get it out of my head, this idea that I could do anything that I wanted to do. As far as my talents went, obviously. I was never going to probably be Beyonce. I mean, I didn't really try if we're honest, but probably not going to happen for me. But my parents taught me from a very early age, and they weren't feminist. I didn't even know what a feminist was. They just taught me in this country, if you dream big and you chase after those dreams, and it's part of God's will, you can do anything that you

want to do. Like, I just knew from an early age that anything was possible. I never doubted that. My parents gave me a lot of confidence growing up. Some of the confidence is something that I was just born with, but my parents really built a lot of confidence in me in, sorry, I just lost my voice, in affirming the things that I'm good at, being honest about the things that I'm not good at, providing opportunities for me when I needed those opportunities. And I just never doubted it. And I think part of it is because what I saw in their lives. And I think I've shared this story before. I've certainly shared it in speeches and maybe even a video that I did. I'm not, and I actually, I think I did talk about it on my podcast one time, but just in case

you don't remember, my grandmother, she was one of 13, my grandmother on my dad's side, she was one of 13, she was the oldest girl of 13, so she was the second oldest. She was the first one in her family to graduate from high school, first one in her family to graduate from college. She went on to get her master's. She was a teacher during the day while she was taking classes at night. as she grew up on a cotton farm in Louisiana. Poor is dirt. They had to make their own food. They had to make their own clothes. I mean, she really came from nothing. And there was something in her that

decided, I want more than this. I'm going to work hard. And I am going to have a different life than this. And I don't think she ever resented her parents. I don't think she ever resented her life. But there was something in her that made her decide, I'm going to finish high school. I'm going to finish college. I'm going to go on to get my master's and I'm going to work really hard. I mean, she's a woman in the 1950s going from nothing. And she worked through this entire time to make sure that she finished her education. She got married. She had four kids.

She was raising them, of course, while she was working while she was getting her master's. And my dad was passed down that hard work ethic from my grandma. And so my dad decided, of course, he was going to finish high school. he was going to work his way through college. But it took my dad 10 years to get through college while he was working full time because it wasn't an option to get into a ton of debt. He had to do what he could to make sure that he got his bachelor's degree. But he worked full time through the entirety of college because he and my mom got married when they were 19 and 20. My mom promised herself she was not going to get married or get pregnant as a teenager, something that was rare in her neck of the woods and rare in her

family, she decided I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to get pregnant as a teenager. I'm not going to get married as a teenager. So one month after she turned 20, she got married to my dad. And she finished her college career. She got her bachelor's degree. She went on to work. They had my brother when they were only 21. Like I said, my dad taking classes, working this entire time. Of course, they ended up having three kids. I came along a lot later when things weren't quite as hard. They lived in a cockroach-infested trailer with all. kinds of creatures. And there my mom still has a fear of these things called waterbugs that look a lot like cockroaches. My parents worked really hard. My dad sacrificed a lot. My mom sacrificed a lot.

Not in the exact same way that my dad is, although my parents have both worked at different periods of my life. But my mom sacrificed a lot when she could be a stay at home mom. She was a stay at home mom and she sacrificed a lot in that sense. My dad sacrificed a lot of time, a lot of energy to build a company. he did he did well he was successful it's almost like scary to say now oh yeah my parents were successful but i am proud of what my parents accomplished my mom also came from a poor family and um although she loved her parents she didn't have a great example but something in her just like something in my grandma just like something in my dad they all decided to make different choices than the people around them they took whatever they could uh from the upbringing they had whatever good they could

they held onto it and they used it to do something better. And my dad always told me that the reason I work hard, the reason I sacrifice for you guys is so I can make sure that you have a higher jumping off point than I did. I can make sure that you have an even better life and even better career than I did. And in this, in this world, when we demonize excellence, when we demonize this idea of privilege or this or of wealth or of success or of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and we insist upon the fact that it it just doesn't work.

It only works for the white man denying reality altogether. You almost feel a sense of guilt for talking about how your parents worked harder, how you worked hard. You almost want to deny the fact that you have been successful or that you've made money at all. And I simply don't think that that's right because if we're all honest with ourselves, we all want to be something. Like we all want to make something of ourselves in a certain way.

Like we all at least want to be responsible with our money. Like we all at least want to be able to provide for our kids. And if any of us had the choice between struggling from meal to meal, our kids not being able to afford shoes or know when their next meal is coming and being able to be comfortable or in a position where you can be generous with your money and provide for your family, we would probably choose the latter. And yet we've got this cognitive dissonance going on in America. where we demonize wealth.

We demonize people like Howard Schultz who have made it, who have worked hard and we say, oh, no, he's just the exception to the rule. No, actually, he's not. I mean, he is in the sense that he's a billionaire. But the American dream is not rare in this country. Now, what's rare in the world, that's why we have a million people coming to live and work here every year. That's why we give so many work visas every day in this country,

awarding them to people with a hard work ethic and who prove that they can actually contribute something. to our society. There's a reason why people all around the world come here for their education, for their medicine, and for their work to invent, to just provide for their families. America and the American dream is rare in the world, and it has contributed to more alleviation of poverty and of suffering and of mediocrity than any other force, any other force. on God's greener. And yet, and yet we want to pretend like merit doesn't exist. Like everyone is a victim of their circumstances unless they are a rich white billionaire. And of course, we don't talk

about the minorities. We don't talk about the women who have also succeeded, who have taken charge of the American dream, who have lived responsibly and their lives and have done well. We don't talk about them. We only talk about the people that have been crushed by the billionaires and the millionaires. It makes me sad because my parents are living proof of the American dream. I've always believed in it. I've always known. That's probably why I've just almost like born a fan of Ronald Reagan. I believe in a very idealistic and ideological way in the spirit of the American man and woman. I just do. I think there's something different about it. If you read about the American revolution, you see there's something different about Americans. And I believe that,

anyone, no matter what country they come from, no matter what religion they are, no matter the color of their skin, no matter what culture they are, I believe they can come here. They can adopt the American dream. They can adopt that spirit of resolve that seems so unique to Americans and they can do anything they want to do. And I want to keep it that way. That's why I don't like socialism. That's why I don't believe in it. And that's why quite frankly, even though I would never vote for Howard Schultz because he's pro choice, I am encouraged by someone like him running for president and I hope that he gains more support than the Democrats want. It gives me hope because it reminds me, okay, not everyone has gone off the deep end.

Like, not everyone is so far left that they've lost their minds. Not everyone is so open-minded that their brain has actually fallen out. Even though I don't want him to be president again because I'm not really sure about his social policies. Like, I'm just not really sure about the whole size of the government thing in the hands of Howard Schultz. I'm still encouraged by his existence. Like, I'm still encouraged that even though we might disagree on some things,

especially on social things, especially on abortion, that you believe in the American dream. That's what I'm afraid of. As I've said so many times, the differences and the disagreements between the right and the left, this country in this country are not so much complex as they are simple. They're more fundamental than they used to be. We disagree on truth.

We disagree on the American dream. We disagree on morality. Now, just a brief word on what the Bible says about this. And this is not me using the Bible to support my opinions. My opinions are always supposed to be formed by the Bible, not the other way around. And I don't want it to seem like that at all. Where I get my ideas are from the Bible. Now, I'm not calling God a Republican.

I'm not calling God a conservative. He transcends all of that. He's bigger than that. And one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. So I am not saying that he is my political mascot, but I am using the Bible as the foundation of what I believe. And I can tell you what it says about wealth. And so we can read the book of Proverbs and we know how highly God favors and how much God

prefers hard work over laziness, over apathy. Proverbs 104, a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. Now, that said, you can read the book of Proverbs and you can see that the wise man is one who is responsible, who is good with his money, who is able to provide for his family, who doesn't give in to temptation, who is not controlled by anything, by alcohol, by his money, by gambling, by anything that would take him away from the road that God has called him on. he is able to do that in submission to the Lord. He is in control of his body, his finances, and in the Christian world, this is controlled by the Holy Spirit and stays on the narrow path.

Now, the Bible also has something to say, while it says we should be good stewards of our money, we should be responsible with our money, we should do everything we can to provide for our family. It also warns against idolizing wealth. So Matthew 1924, Jesus says, again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. Why? Because of 1st Timothy 610. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. And then this one, which is just a devastating and dramatic. And I don't mean that in a pejorative way, like just a very dramatic rendering of the devastation of

idolizing wild James 5 1 through 5. Come now, you rich. Weep and how for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted in your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and you will eat your flesh like fire and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields,

which you kept back by fraud or crying out against you and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and self-indulgence. have fatten your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. And if it sounds like I was like about to cry when I was reading that, it's not. It's because my throat is really dry. You know, when you like catch that dryness in your throat and you're just about to die, that's what's happening to me right now. Anyway, so the Bible has a lot to say about idolizing wealth and putting wealth first and loving money

and desiring to be rich in your life and how that becomes. your God and how you're unable to worship God and worship money. Actually, the Bible says that. You're not able to do both. Now, this doesn't mean that you can't work hard and you can't earn money for your labor. It does mean that if you idolize this, if you put this first in your life, also if you are corrupt with your money, which we see in that James passage, that that will be your destruction, that will be your demise. You cannot serve God and money at the same time. That doesn't mean you can't make money, but it does mean you cannot serve money. There's a big difference with that. Now, the Bible is very clear about what we should do with wealth, what we should do with our money.

Money in itself is not evil, but the love of money, the idolatry of money is. So what to do with wealth, Proverbs 3, 9 through 10, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all of your produce. 2 Corinthians 9.7, each one must give as he has decided in his heart, reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. So we are to be good stewards of whatever we have, whether we have a lot or whether we have a little. It is not ours. It is the Lord's. We are to steward it according to God's word. We are to be outrageously generous with what we have and cheerfully, joyfully generous with what we have. It is not our wealth that we accumulated. It is God's wealth that through his grace he allowed us to have and therefore we give it back as he sees fit. Again,

wealth in and of itself is not a sin, is not evil. But the love, the idolatry, the hoarding, the corruption that can come with wealth, those are sense. And like I said, can be our demise. Now, it's also important to remember that God does not promise wealth. Proverbs are principles, they are not promises. So just because you work hard and just because you are responsible does not mean necessarily that you are going to become a millionaire. Life is hard. We do have trials. We do have things that come up that we didn't see. Someone in our family does fall sick.

Someone sues us and we lose all of our money. We did everything right, but we just didn't see that coming. God does not promise wealth in that he also does not say that wealth is indicative of worldly favor. There's a lot of corrupt, wealthy people. Like you cannot say that God has his blessing on El Chapo just because El Chapo has millions of dollars. it's not indicative of earthly blessing. Some of the poorest people might have, might be closer to God and might be more blessed by God's presence because they are in closer communion with God than someone who has more

money than them. John 1633, Jesus said, in the world, you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. So he says, we will have trials. We will have tribulation. Life will be hard. As Christians, we know that we're going to have to stand up for our faith. and it's going to take a significant sacrifice for that.

It's going to be difficult. We're never promised ease in this life. We're not promised happiness even, a superficial happiness. We're not promised in this life. We're promised eternal joy. We're promised eternal riches. We're promised that we will inherit God's riches in heaven.

We are not promised that we will be rich or we will be wealthy in this life. But if we are, whatever we are given, whether it's $5 or $500 million, we are to be faithful stewards of it. We are not to let it control. our lives or corrupt our hearts. So that is my comprehensive view of the demonization of excellence and how it's not only non-American, but it's not biblical to demonize excellence. To idolize excellence or to idolize the wealth that can come with excellence, absolutely. But to be an enemy of excellence

is just to be a sloth. And the Bible has a lot to say about that as well. This was a little bit of a longer podcast. Hope that you guys liked it. I hope it got you through your commute, maybe even two commutes. And I hope you have a great day. We will be back here on Thursday. And we will be talking about a very exciting subject called hipster Jesus. Okay, I'll see you guys then.