Ep 74 | Demonization of Excellence
00:00Hello, happy Tuesday, relatable listeners. I think that's the first time I've ever started with helloand not, hey, what's up? I realize that I say, hey, what's up every single time. I have noidea 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 aboutfootball, you had the best weekend ever preparing for the Super Bowl, watching the Super Bowlwith your eyes peeled and just celebrating for hours and hours after. I mean, I'm still recovering.
00:46If this is your first time listening to the podcast, I am joking. I know nothing about footballas 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.
01:10I 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,
01:33yeah, I mean, I looked up after two hours and the game was over. So that makes sense. I am going toactually talk about the Super Bowl today. Don't worry. I'm not going to use any football metaphors becauseI think I would fall flat on my face. I am going to talk about the demonization of excellence that I thinkis 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,
02:09don'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.
02:30He'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.
03:07It 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 Bradysuggested 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.
03:36He is married to a supermodel, Jazeel. He wins so much. He says things like I am the baddest mofo onthe planet. He apparently said that last month. There was also that whole deflategate thing that Iremembered was from 2015. I feel like that was just yesterday. But that happened a few years ago wherehe 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 thatmaybe 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 afriend of Trump had played golf with him before.
04:24There 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 agowhen he was in an interview with variety that, oh, the whole world is cheering againstthe 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.
04:56I'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,
05:18NFL during the national anthem.And so for people to hate him because of thatjust 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 stateor to be mad at him because of his political stances,
05:35that just doesn't make sense.If you look up Tom Brady's name on Googleor on Twitter,then you will see lots of different articlesabout 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 readnumbers. And I know that he holds a lot of records. And he's an incredible athlete. He's in his40s and he wants to keep playing. I like Tom Brady just because not necessarily as a person.
06:06I don't know him as a person, but he seems like a leader that people really respect that his teammatesreally look up to. He's always building his team up whenever he is talking to the press about howproud he is of his teammates. He seems like he just really loves the game of football. And you like thatabout people when they really love their trade and they're doing it for the love of the game or whateverindustry 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 heseems in some ways like a really humble guy, like a down-to-earth guy who really cares abouthis family, cares about his wife. And there's just something to be admired about that. There's
06:44something wholesome about that, almost nostalgic about that, even though I don't know that he'snecessarily like some wholesome guy. There's just something about him that you like and you feellike 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 hatredof excellence that we have in our country. Now, I'm not saying that all of the hatred of Tom Bradyis 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 howthat's really become endemic in our country. And it really is a trend moving from progressivism
07:37on 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 presidentand although he's pretty progressive he's pretty liberal he is running for president as an independentbecause he has called himself fiscally conservative but socially liberal i mean we know that he'ssocially liberal he has said that he is pro choice he's obviously on board with the lgb2 tagenda i can never say that correctly um but when it comes to uh fistissues, he is probably going to lean more conservatively. He is a self-made guy. He grew up in theprojects of Brooklyn. He got a football scholarship to, what was it, northwestern, northern,
08:25northern Michigan, I think it was. Yeah, Northern Michigan. He was the first in his family to go tocollege. 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 overeventually and made it what it is. I mean, he's an incredible person who genuinely has worked hardfor what he has done. He has earned what he has paid. And now he wants to, now he wants to run forpresident. 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,
09:07that he would have to be disingenuous. He would have to say things that he doesn'tbelieve 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 richin order to redistribute their wealth to other people to pay for whatever programs they think isgoing to help the country. He said, that's just not feasible. Green New Deal by Akasio-Cortezthat we have talked about on previous episodes. That's just not feasible. Sorry, he thinks really one of thebiggest problems is the federal deficit, which Democrats and commentators on the left have laughed at himfor saying, for saying that that's the biggest problem. Of course, they think that social issues are a much
09:51bigger 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 obviouslyeveryone knows he said that acacio cortez is the voice of the democratic party okay okay that's finethat's fine that means that i and other people on the right have free reign to talk about her asmuch as we want to and we shouldn't be guilty for that but howard shultz is not on board with
11:00her green new deal not on board with taxing uh the rich 70 to 90 percent is a lot of the democrats orsome of the democrats are now saying but the reasonwhy Democrats don't like this in addition to him not being far left enough is because they knowthat he speaks to a certain section of the electorate. They know that there's plenty of peoplewho think that the Democratic Party has gone too far to the left who don't want to vote for BernieSanders, who don't want to vote for Elizabeth Warren, who don't want to vote for Kamala Harris orCasio-Cortez. She's not running for president. She's too young. But don't like the directionthat the left is going. And so Tom Perez head of the DNC,
11:39or 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 littlebit. 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 Twitterand see how many people hate that Howard Schultz is running for president. They know that he tapsinto the desires of a large part of the country who maybe don't care about the social issues
12:28quite 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 ourcountry go to socialism? Like he's going to tap into that. Claire McChaascal, who is actually a Democrat inCongress, 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 theparty 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 bemore moderate. And Schultz is in a lot of ways a moderate Democrat. He would have been seen a while ago,
13:13probably 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 andElizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders just kind of lead the way.Schultz is now seen as an independent though.
13:50He'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 billionaireon MSNBC, Joe and Mika, you know, who hosts the Morning Joe, I think it's called it.
14:26I've honestly never watched it.But I did watch this clip where they asked Howard Chultz in an interview, so how much is a boxof Cheerios?obviously trying to trap him, obviously trying to show that he is just so out of touch withreality, 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 aboutElizabeth 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
14:57plenty of money in her life. Why don't you ask any of them that? Do you think any of them knowwhat it's like to struggle in America?Do you really think that?I mean, Howard Schultz knows probably better than any of thembecause 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,
15:22but 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 becomemore 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
15:51with 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 cutto 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
16:31be 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 talkingabout. 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 thereality behind what they're saying. So they're saying millionaires and billionaires are freeloaderswho 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,
17:12which 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.
17:57They always compare to the Norden,countries and say they're so much more progressive than we are. But as a matter of fact, Sweden hasbasically a flat tax rate to where if you are making about $60,000 a year, you are getting taxedabout 60%. And it just kind of stays the same. We have a very progressive tax system. The rich are payingmore 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 Sanderssays is fair. And here's, here's another question that we should ask. So while they hate billionairesand want to tax them into oblivion, tax them maybe up to 90%, that's what Ilhan Omar said the other day,
18:41that, 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 failedpolicies that billionaires even exist. Who's going to pay for your stuff? I'm just, I just, I don't getthat 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
19:23people'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 thingsthan them that they actually get out of poverty because of that. I mean, even if you look at foreign aidthat'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 reallythe 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.
20:07Now, 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.
20:30So 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.
20:55The 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 itcan possibly be. So what are you asking for? I mean, you have people like Bernie Sanders andAcosio 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 whatthe white woman makes here's what the black woman makes and of course it gets lower and lower I think
21:37for Asian women's 87 cents on a dollar for white women it's 79 cents on a dollar all that stuffbasically saying that we are all being crushed under the white man and the implication there is thatwhite men are treated better and paid more than women and that's actually not true the reason whythere is a wage gap and there is a wage gap. It's called the uncontrolled wage gap between men andwomen. In general, women do make 79 cents to every dollar a man makes. You know why? Because womenchoose that. They choose that when you account for all of the, all of the different factors that go intogetting 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,
22:25men make when it comes to the workforce, when it comes to labor versus when it comes to staying home orworking 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 notevery single woman. But that is in general what is true. That is why in general a man makes one dollarto 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 inthe world, well, women are still making less than men because if you look at who takes longer
23:11a 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 timethat 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 surethat you finish high school, then get married, then have kids. If you are going to get married and
23:58have 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 povertyif you just make those extremely simple decisions. But nowadays, it's bigoted to say that the choicesyou make actually affect your lot in life. No, it has to be because you are a victim of yourcircumstances. If you are poor, you are a victim of your circumstances. It's not because of anythingyou ever did wrong. And look, I'm not saying people aren't born into hard times. People aren't born intoreally bad situations that they couldn't help, that people aren't used and abused and put down in a waythat they really felt like they could never get out of their station in life. I'm not saying that bad
24:42things 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 harderthan 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 moreefficiently than I do. Maybe they made better connections in life that they didn't really have any
25:52control over and I didn't either. Okay. That's life. That's not an injustice. There might be a gap betweenwhat 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 hasforgotten what our parents told us that life isn't fair and how we used to just kind of likeaccept that. Yeah, life isn't fair. It is what you make it. Do whatever you can to be responsible and workhard and, you know, live out your potential. Things might get in your way, but it's all aboutovercoming those obstacles to, okay, well, if I have an obstacle, something is wrong. It's becauseI've been treated unfairly and I need to talk about this. It's because of sexism. It's become
26:41because 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 towith this. I just, I've never been able to get past it or get it out of my head, this ideathat I could do anything that I wanted to do. As far as my talents went, obviously. I was nevergoing to probably be Beyonce. I mean, I didn't really try if we're honest, but probablynot going to happen for me. But my parents taught me from a very early age, and they weren'tfeminist. I didn't even know what a feminist was. They just taught me in this country, if you dreambig and you chase after those dreams, and it's part of God's will, you can do anything that you
27:34want 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 justborn 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 thisstory 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
28:17you 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 familyto 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
28:49decided, 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 wassomething 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.
29:22She 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 whilehe was working full time because it wasn't an option to get into a ton of debt. He had to do what he couldto make sure that he got his bachelor's degree. But he worked full time through the entirety of collegebecause he and my mom got married when they were 19 and 20. My mom promised herself she was not going toget married or get pregnant as a teenager, something that was rare in her neck of the woods and rare in her
30:01family, she decided I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to get pregnant as a teenager. I'm not going toget married as a teenager. So one month after she turned 20, she got married to my dad. And shefinished her college career. She got her bachelor's degree. She went on to work. They had my brotherwhen 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 lotlike cockroaches. My parents worked really hard. My dad sacrificed a lot. My mom sacrificed a lot.
30:45Not in the exact same way that my dad is, although my parents have both worked at different periods ofmy life. But my mom sacrificed a lot when she could be a stay at home mom. She was a stay at home momand 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 successfulbut i am proud of what my parents accomplished my mom also came from a poor family and um although sheloved her parents she didn't have a great example but something in her just like something in mygrandma just like something in my dad they all decided to make different choices than the people aroundthem they took whatever they could uh from the upbringing they had whatever good they could
31:31they 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 higherjumping 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 ofpulling yourself up by your bootstraps and we insist upon the fact that it it just doesn't work.
32:04It 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 moneyat 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.
32:33Like 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 comingand being able to be comfortable or in a position where you can be generous with your moneyand 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.
33:00We 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,
33:24awarding them to people with a hard work ethicand 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 alleviationof 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 avictim of their circumstances unless they are a rich white billionaire. And of course, we don't talk
34:11about the minorities. We don't talk about the women who have also succeeded, who have takencharge of the American dream, who have lived responsibly and their lives and have done well. We don'ttalk about them. We only talk about the people that have been crushed by the billionaires andthe millionaires. It makes me sad because my parents are living proof of the American dream. I'vealways believed in it. I've always known. That's probably why I've just almost like born a fan ofRonald Reagan. I believe in a very idealistic and ideological way in the spirit of the American man andwoman. I just do. I think there's something different about it. If you read about the Americanrevolution, you see there's something different about Americans. And I believe that,
34:54anyone, no matter what country they come from, no matter what religion they are, no matterthe color of their skin, no matter what culture they are, I believe they can come here. They canadopt the American dream. They can adopt that spirit of resolve that seems so unique to Americansand they can do anything they want to do. And I want to keep it that way. That's why I don't likesocialism. That's why I don't believe in it. And that's why quite frankly, even though I wouldnever vote for Howard Schultz because he's pro choice, I am encouraged by someone like himrunning 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.
35:32Like, 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 socialpolicies.Like, I'm just not really sure about the whole size of the government thing in the hands of HowardSchultz.I'm still encouraged by his existence.Like, I'm still encouraged that even though we might disagree on some things,
36:00especially 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.
36:22We 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.
36:47I'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 foundationof 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
37:14prefers 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 onewho 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.
37:58Now, 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 easierfor 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 themselveswith many pangs. And then this one, which is just a devastating and dramatic. And I don'tmean that in a pejorative way, like just a very dramatic rendering of the devastation of
38:42idolizing 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 youand 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,
39:03which you kept back by fraud or crying out against you and the cries of the harvestershave 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 inyour 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
39:38and 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'renot able to do both. Now, this doesn't mean that you can't work hard and you can't earn money for yourlabor. It does mean that if you idolize this, if you put this first in your life, also if you arecorrupt 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'tmake 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.
40:24Money 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 firstfruits 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 itaccording 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 thatthrough his grace he allowed us to have and therefore we give it back as he sees fit. Again,
41:12wealth 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 responsibledoes 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.
41:48Someone 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 blessedby God's presence because they are in closer communion with God than someone who has more
42:26money than them.John 1633, Jesus said, in the world, you will have tribulation, but take heart, I haveovercome 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.
42:44It'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.
42:59We 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 excellenceand how it's not only non-American, but it's not biblical to demonize excellence. To idolize excellenceor to idolize the wealth that can come with excellence, absolutely. But to be an enemy of excellence
43:29is just to be a sloth. And the Bible has a lot to say about that as well. This was a little bitof 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.
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