The Eric Metaxas Show - Tim Goeglein

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

Tim Goeglein joins to talk about his new book, Stumbling Toward Utopia: How the 1960s Turned Into a National Nightmare and How We Can Revive the American Dream

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noble gold investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show. Did you like your gravy sick and rich and loaded with creamy mushrooms? If no one was looking, would you chug the whole gravy boat? Chug, Chug, Chug, Chug, Chug, stay tuned. Here comes Mr. Chugg himself, Eric Ma, Texas. Hey, folks, welcome to what we call Hour 2. I have no idea why we call it Hour 2.

It's not really an hour, and you may be listening to it first, before you listen to Hour 1. So I'm sorry, but we have to stick to, these are rules that we have. You know, they come down from above. Salem is very strict. Hour 2 comes after Hour 1. and that's how we're going to frame it. And if you don't like it, hey, what can I tell you? Okay, are you ready?

Chris, are you ready? I'm excited. We have Tim Gigline as my guest. We're going to talk about how we got here in America, how things have unraveled and why. You've got to understand these things to fix it, right? So Tim Gigline is going to be talking about his brand new book, brand new. It came out, I think, yesterday or today, either one. It's brand new.

We want it to do well. So I hope you'll listen. He's, I mean, he's amazing. We've had him on many times. I should also mention, well, yeah, we've got a lot to mention. We have tomorrow, I'm interviewing Pat Boone. I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago, and I loved it so much. I said, I just want to get Pat on again as soon as possible.

He's 90 years old. He's a genius. And you could talk to him about anything, and I do. So that's tomorrow. Tomorrow we're also going to, we're going to re-air my interview with Mel Kay. She is unbelievable. There are certain times you meet somebody and you say, you know what? Thank God for this person.

She is, I mean, a true journalist. Anyway, that's tomorrow. Speaking of amazing people, Dinesh D'Souza has a film out called Vindicating Trump. The website is vindicatingtrump.com. You can get tickets. I'm just telling people it opens up next weekend. This weekend, you're obliged to see the Reagan film if you haven't seen it. It is spectacular.

Dennis Quaid is going to get an Oscar nomination. If the world is not insane, he might not get an Oscar nomination because the world is insane. Hollywood is insane. But he deserves an Oscar nomination, absolutely. So that's the Reagan film this weekend. Next weekend, vindicating Trump, you wanted to do well. You wanted to do very well because. It's a quoting busy Phillips because, because, because it's a great film and we need to support great films.

And so that's what you have to do this weekend. See the Reagan film. Next weekend, see Vindicating Trump. You can buy tickets of vindicating Trump.com. And I'm going to say this from now till November 22nd. The Bonhofer film is coming out November 22nd. Mark your calendars now that you. are going to go to the opening weekend.

It is hugely important. If you care about America, you care about the culture, good films need to be supported the opening weekend. If you can possibly do it, please do it. We have to have a sense of duty in America. Do the right thing. We've lost a sense of duty and we kind of do what we feel like. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do.

When a great film comes out, you have a duty to support it, at least that's my opinion, and I hope you will. We should not complain about the way things are going. That's what I was going to say. A lot of the times we're talking about culture and ways to fix it, and this is how we fix it. You've got to do it one project at a time and support them when they come by. Yeah.

And by the way, I say this too. I really hope that the film, you know, it's not officially based on my book, but it's fantastic. I've seen it. I'm thrilled, thrilled. But I hope it leads people to buy my book and to read my book because there are zillions of people that have never read my book. And this film is going to peak people's interest, P-I-Q-U-E, peak people's interest in Bonhoeffer. And if you want more of Bonhofer, obviously, I hope people will go to my book.

And it's an opportunity to share your faith in a subtle way because the film is a mainstream film. It's not like a Christian film for Christians. I have no problem with those. But if you want to reach people who aren't going to go to the Christian film, you know, and if Kirk Cameron's in it or Kevin Sorbo or whatever, you know, it's aimed more at, you can sometimes bring people. But this is a film that is utterly mainstream. It was produced in Europe.

It's an independent film. All the actors, almost all the actors are Germans. So even though they speak English, they have authentic German. accent. Did you hear that? Authentic German accents. But it's a great film to mainstream film. If you were to ask Spreckin de Deutsch, the answer would be yes. Yes, yes, they do. Yeah. Why do you ask this question? Because it's the only German I know. Or why are you asking this question? You have some idea behind this question? Okay, so November 22nd is the Bonhoeffer film. I just want people to mark your calendars because it's got to open big.

It's very important. I have some inside information and it's a big deal. It's such a big deal that they made this film. I just thank God. The director is Todd Comernicki. He has been on this program. Todd Cormericki wrote the screenplay for Sully, the Clint Eastwood film. He wrote the screenplay for that Mel Gibson, Sean Penn film, The Professor and the Madman,

he's he's a Hollywood genius he's a Christian he wrote the screenplay for Bonhofer and he directed it this is a big deal and he got big deal people to act in it the more I learn about it the more amazed I am that this film got made it is a big deal and so November 22nd you've got to see it and again I want to say you know now would be a great time to buy the Bonhoffer book I always say of people, whatever you do, get the hard cover. Do not get the soft cover because it's a big book. But we're living through it right now, folks. If you hear me talk on this program and sermons that I give, we are living through the beginnings of what happened when Hitler took over. We're in that battle. And we need to understand what's at stake, where it's going. So, you know,

what can I tell you? I recommend the Bonhofer book. And you know, Chris, I think I told you this. I have hundreds of times in the last 14 years. Had people come up to me and say, I'm not a reader. I hardly read books, but I couldn't put it down. I read the whole thing. Folks, it's that fascinating of a story. It's not about me. It's the story is almost unbelievable, but it's true.

Every word is true. And so people say, oh, it reads like a novel. Well, it's not a novel. It's true. It's an actual nonfiction true story. So, anyway, so Mark, your calendar's down. for November 22nd. It is just very important.

You can actually buy tickets. If you go to the Bonhofer website, the, if you put it in Bonhofer Angel Studios or whatever, you'll get the website. But again, I share this on social media. If you're following me on X, I share this in my newsletter, Eric Mattaxas.com. I also share this, well, I share this any chance I, I can get. But I want to be clear how excited I am about the film and how important it is that as a

big opening weekend. So that's November 22nd. Please mark your calendars. And before we go, I want to mention Project 2025. You hear the Democrats demonizing Project 2025 because they're scared to death. Good. The Heritage Foundation, God bless them, are behind Project 2025 to find out what's in it. Go to 25truth.com. That's 25truth.com. Very exciting. And I want to mention our friends at the Herzog Foundation. They basically are there to help parents do homeschooling.

So if you say, I don't think I could do homeschooling, I don't know. They are there to show you that, yes, you almost certainly can do it. And by the way, all you have to do is not be a dedicated Marxist and you'll be better for your kids than whatever public school you probably send them to. So you want to go to Herzog Foundation. They are sponsors on this program. Chris de Gaul is amazing. We've had him on the program many, many times.

But the Herzog Foundation, they're there, not just for homeschooling, but quality Christ-centered K-12 education. But that's the Herzog Foundation. Check them out. I don't want to forget to mention that. If you want to find out about the Greek crews, we'll talk about that at the end of the hour today.

after we're talking to our friend, you want to go to Ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. That's Ericmataxis.com slash cruise. Check it out. Are you worried about the future of the U.S. economy? With so much uncertainty in the air, it's natural to fret about the security of your retirement savings.

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Go to Nutrametics. That's N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com. Neutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Again, Nutrametics, N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X. Nutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off. Hey there, folks. Welcome back. It's my privilege now to have a conversation with my friend Tim Gageline,

whom you know from this program. He writes many books. The new book is called Stumbling Towards Utopia. Doesn't sound good. Stumbling, Utopia. We know Utopia is never actually Utopia. Tim Gigline, welcome back. It's great to be with you, Eric.

Thanks a lot. Okay, what is the subtitle for the book? Because I think we need the clue of what you're saying in the title, Stumbling Toward Utopia. Well, the subtitle is meant to say that, though we are in a very difficult period of time, I actually am an inveterate optimist. And I believe, Eric, that despite the difficulties that American progressivism has imposed upon us, I believe that the American dream is possible. I think we could have restoration. But I think we have to better understand what the moral and social revolution of the 1960s and 70s,

actually did to our country, our culture, our civilization, and above all, my friend, to our most important institutions. So, Tim, before I forget, I want to get it clear again. The title is Stumbling Toward Utopia. What is the subtitle? The subtitle, Eric, is how the 1960s turned into a national nightmare and how to revive the American dream. Now, this is something I'm familiar with. The 1960s, the sexual revolution and much else really did destroy the fabric of this nation. We're still dealing with it or we're seeing now the really bitter fruit of it. Some of the worst of what was begun in the 60s has come to fruition now. But you said just a moment ago you are an optimist.

I mean, I want to be clear and frame things and say that I believe if we do not win this election and defeat the globalist secular left, we won't get to fight for what is right and good and true. So first, we have to win this election. But winning this election is not enough. So we have to do that. But let's talk about what happened in the 60s, because it really is the acid that has been dripping through the decades to bring us to where we are. I'd love to do that. That's the whole first part of the book, which is I asked the question, where did the social, cultural, moral revolution actually begin, whether it's law, legal, family, the sexual revolution that you said, our churches. And it turns out, Eric, that progressivism was really born with a series of very bad ideas at the turn of the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson, in fact, felt that our constitution was outdated.

a sexual radical, I believe that the natural nuclear family was a form of bad manners. The founder of the ACLU, who wrecked our law and legal institutions, was a communist. I mean, these are people who had a very proactive, big progressive agenda. It took them about 100 years, but it's really shocking the extent to which they unfortunately succeeded and how we are dealing with the way that they really inhabited and took over the most vital American institutions. It's rather extraordinary. It's interesting to me that we had a Christian consensus in the nation. Culturally speaking, we had a strong consensus that falls along biblical lines that comes out of the Christian scriptures.

It was there. but somehow the progressives, the leftists, the secularists have worked in a dedicated way to undermine that, to destroy that. And you and I know that without that you cannot have the United States of America. There's just no way you can have what we have without that consensus. Seeing that they've spent the better part of a century, at least working to undermine it, how do we get back? And there's the nutshell question. Well, I'll tell you, and this is the second part of the book, I believe we're already seeing seeds that have been planted that will, in fact, and are Eric germinating all around us. I'm rather stunned to find that in the early 1990s, for instance, there was less than 90,000 homeschoolers in our country.

Today, there's well over 3 million. Charter schools, school choice is really booming. Here in Washington last week, talk about cultural renewal. Something astonishing happened. We have the brand new World War I Memorial. And instead of a disfigured, abstract thing that you stand in front of trying to understand, it is one of the most figurative, beautiful, centrally located memorials to that really god-awful, in many ways, progressive war. So I think both in culture and in education and in plenty of other ways, we're seeing, as I say, the small views of restoration that we have not seen as a result of progressivism in many years.

And in fact, in stumbling toward utopia, one of the things I show, Eric, is that the changes in our institutions, beginning with the family and culture, these were on purpose. These were things that didn't just sort of happen or evolved. They were met to happen, and we're dealing with them now. But I think as well, there are millions of people who share our worldview and who want to begin to put the pieces back together again. I think there's actually a lot of reasons to be encouraged, even beyond politics. I mean, but I think we have to be honest at how bad it's become. In other words, to me, the only reason there's hope is because it's gotten so bad that, most of the people that have been sleepwalking and doing nothing are waking up. They're finally

waking up and they're saying, I never thought it could go here. I never thought that, you know, what starts out as this seemingly anodyne concept, oh, we're just going to have same-sex marriage. We just want people to love whom they want to love. Turns into a movement that is destroying children. It's turned into something that I think is, waking up more people every day. But the question is whether we will wake up enough in time. That's always the question for me, which is why I keep saying we're in a war, because we've never seen anything like what we're seeing.

I'm glad you said that because I think that the most important challenge we are facing has nothing to do with economics or borders as important as those issues are. We are living through a spiritual crisis, I might even say a spiritual recession of the first order. And this was also, Eric, part of progressivism's dream for America. They believe, and that's why I've titled the book, Stumbling Toward Utopia, Progressives ultimately believe, don't they, in the perfectibility of man. And we are learning over and over again that the first conservative principle says that there was only one perfect man. the Godman, Jesus Christ, that a country, culture, civilization, human beings, we are not perfect. And it's very interesting that our progressive adversaries have sought to build these kind of utopian dreams in America

and otherwise very open society. And to your second point error, they have unfortunately successfully succeeded beyond their own dreams. And that's why the counter-revolutionary, People like you and me and millions of us are addressing this head on. Well, again, it's extraordinary to think where we have come that the idea of womanhood, for example, is under attack. Nobody would dream that the feminist movement would ultimately move along the line to where they are allowing women to be erased. It's ultimately a war with God and God's creation. We're made in God's image. and it's a satanic project.

Whenever you talk about the perfectibility of man or utopia, we're talking about the Tower of Babel. We're talking about trying to reach heaven on our own strength, which is a satanic project. And that's what is behind progressivism. When you mentioned Margaret Sanger, she was at war with the American family. Absolutely.

This is, I mean, it's extraordinary that people are waking up. I don't know if you've seen Seth Gruber has made a film. the 1916 project where he outlines that. But to finally see where these things have taken us. And again, the ultimate question, Tim, is whether we're able to get out of it. Because I agree with you. I mean, I have seen – I meet homeschoolers all across the country, and I think they have been put in place by God to take over the culture.

They are just smart and socially – mature, and they seem to understand all the stuff that many generations have forgotten. So ultimately, I am hopeful, but things have gotten so bad. We're in a war, and I don't think that the left is inclined to give up. And before we go to the break, I'll just say many pastors and Christian leaders are not fighting. They are saying, well, we don't want to be divisive. We're all about the gospel. That is nonsense.

That's not what the scripture says. When we come back, I continue my conversation with Tim Gageline, the new book, Stumbling Toward Utopia. Folks, once again, My Pillow has been canceled by another box store, so they're passing an incredible offer exclusively to my listeners. The standard My Pillow retails for 4998. For a limited time, you can have one for only 1498. Do not miss out on this amazing deal while supplies last order now using promo code Eric or call 800-9783057. 800-978-3057. Promo code Eric.

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Go to noblegoldinvestments.com now, noblegoldinvestments.com. Welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Tim Gagline. It's spelled G-O-E-G-L-I-N. The new book is stumbling towards utopia. You and I, Tim, know that what happened in the 60s really was the culmination of what had been planned as you said in the early part of the 20th century,

and that we're now seeing the fruit of what happened in the 60s, and it's really horrifying. And so I guess part of what you're doing in the book is helping us understand exactly how we got here so we can go back to what God's idea is for America. You know, one of the things that I show across the chapters, whether I'm dealing with the social revolution's impact on entertainment or on education or the law or, family or marriage or parenting or the Constitution is that one of the things, Eric, that all of

progressivism has in common is conscience. And it's a total war on human conscience. And what we are seeking to do in this book, what I'm seeking to do is to uncover how we're actually to confront the dogmas of liberal secularism. The liberals and the liberals and the progressives, overwhelmingly believe that in the perfect ability of man, that you can do this in American law, that you can do this in a host of ways. And my own view, the conservative view, is that we are now the countercultural ones. We are the ones who are entering into what progressivism has given us, which is a malevolent and cancerous culture, and we are seeking to restore it.

But first, we have to really understand what they've done in our schools. For instance, I highlight in this book, John Dewey, this is a man who most Americans probably have never heard of. But this was a man early in the 20th century, as you know, Eric, who had a plan to revolutionize education in America. And unfortunately, he succeeded. In fact, beyond his wildest dreams, everything he wanted to do that culminated in the world. revolution in our classrooms in the 60s and 70s began with the ideas of John Dewey early in the 20th century. I mean, the 60s and 70s were born in a matrix of ideas that were bubbling, you know, less than 50 years before the 60s arrived. And what are some of those bad ideas? I mean,

some people know Dewey for the Dewey Decimal System in libraries, but what was at the heart of his idea of remaking American education? The very heart of John Dewey's concept of American education is that there were no longer be standards when it came to reading, writing, arithmetic. The whole concept of what we say is the purpose of school. What he wanted to do is he wanted to use the classroom as social experimentation. And he was very clear about this. He also was eager to erase out any idea of religion. You know, before the 1960s, it's hard to believe. But religion, the Judeo-Christian ethic was standard in public schools.

In fact, you know, until about 1968 or 69, you could get a pretty remarkable education in the public schools of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, etc. But it's because of John Dewey that standards and ethics, born of faith and religion, were erased out of the classroom and social engineering. was put in. And it is precisely the Dewey model that has resulted in the progressivism and the era that we are in. And where did he get his ideas from? I mean, I assume he was either a Marxist or an atheist. Where was he coming from? Most definitively. And in fact, John Dewey, Margaret Sanger, Roger Baldwin, as I mentioned in the book at length, who is the creator, the founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, they were all heavily, you know, impacted by the social and moral revolution that had already been happening in Europe in the years before. I'm particularly taken, by the way, as a person who has spent a lot of years in and around politics and public policy here in Washington, struck by President Woodrow Wilson.

I mean, this is a man who recreated the gospel of Jesus Christ into something called the social gospel to sell progressivism. And he actually said, Eric, in his earliest speeches as president, that the Constitution was outdated. He said that this was a country, and I'm paraphrasing Wilson, that this was a country of the United States of America that needed to be run by experts and not guided by its citizenry. So all of these radical ideas in all of the spaces of American life are born in relatively the same amount of time. And it all led to the 60s and 70s and what we saw in education, law, entertainment. And you mentioned it a moment ago, the church. What you just said about Woodrow Wilson, I mean, ladies and gentlemen, can you imagine a president of the United States somehow believing that the Constitution was outdated? It's really like saying, like, I think the periodic table is outdated.

I think the multiplication tables are outdated. It's so stupid that it beggars the imagination. How can someone who is in the White House not understand that you cannot have freedom and self-government without the Constitution? I mean, is it just hubris? What do you think can account for that? You know, I'll be very clear about this, if I may. He was an academic at Princeton in John's house. And he very much believed that the idea of citizen-run government was a form of bad manners.

And in fact, Eric, he was very uncomfortable with three branches of government. Woodrow Wilson was very uncomfortable with checks and balances. He favored a British-style legislative branch as dominant in all things, and that he really should be an American prime minister. I'm going to hold you on for one more segment. This is amazing stuff, folks. We're talking to Tim Gagline. The book is Stumbling Toward Utopia. Welcome back.

I'm talking to Tim Gagline. The new book is called Stumbling Toward Utopia. And what's in it is so important. I think, Tim, that Americans are waking up to what we have lost, what we are losing, and we're waking up at the last minute. I mean, it is an open question whether we can save the Republic because we've allowed it to go so far and so long. And, of course, I have been particularly disgusted with Christian leaders who have no concept of the idea that we as Christians are to fight for what is good and right and true. They act like, well, I'm not interested in that.

It's all about the gospel as though you could say, well, we don't take a position on slavery. We don't take a position on murdering the unborn. We don't take positions on that. We just want to preach the gospel. Then you think, well, what dead gospel are you preaching if you don't care about these things that God cares about? So it's been an abdication by many in the American church, many Christian leaders whose names you and I, we would call them friends. We know them. But they've said, well, I don't want to get involved in this.

And over the decades, that attitude has led us to the very precipice, to this moment now, where if we don't fight with everything we have, there's no way we can get back. It's the last exit before the toll. I wish I were exaggerating. No, may I say, I'd like to pick up on that because I write about it at length in stumbling toward utopia. You know, in the 1960s, we resulted in one of the most radical Supreme Courts in the history of the United States, probably the most radical, led by the former governor of California. Earl Warren. He wanted to be president, but he had a quick pro quo conversation with Eisenhower

that if he, Governor Warren, would not run for the presidency, and Ike won, that he would become a Supreme Court justice. Well, it turns out the Chief Justice of the United States died, and Earl Warren became Chief Justice of the United States under an Eisenhower administration. I mentioned this, Eric, in light of what he said, because the Warren court was a front-of-eastern assault on Christianity in the public square. The goal of the Warren Court was to remove all vestiges of the Judaic Christian tradition in our schools, and frankly, in much of the public square, the idea to any of our founding fathers, any of them, that we would not have been able to pray in a public school or in a government setting, would have been considered absolutely outrageous

and radical and revolutionary. And yet today, that's where we've landed. I'm really spending a lot of time in Summling Tort Utopia looking at the gigantic revolution in our law and legal system because progressivism today, not yesterday, but today, wants to, quote, end quote, reform the Constitution, reform the courts. This is a very dangerous talk.

Well, the reason is, that's dangerous is because you can't. Again, it's like saying, like, you know, I don't like the periodic table. Let's mess with it. Well, good luck. I would love to know how plausibly someone could do anything except tinker around the edges. But what we have in this country, if you don't appreciate how glorious it is, you're going to say, well, let's get rid of it. We can do better. How can you do better? What can you do better? No one has ever done better. Anytime anybody thinks that they can, you know, to use the famous phrase, Vogeline, whoever said to imminentize the eschaton, we can get to utopia.

But no one has ever done it. And any time anyone tries, to call it a disaster, it's not a mere failure. It's epic tragedy when we think about the Soviet Union, many, many decades of evil, of tyranny. The kinds of things we almost don't want to think. about many progressives in America today and many Christians are ignorant of how bad things can get. They think, oh, give us a chance. And we have seen, whether you're looking at the French revolution or the Bolshevik revolution, nightmares in history. And I think that there are many Americans that they're simply unaware that we can go through that kind of nightmare ourselves

if we continue on the path which we're on. I couldn't agree more. You know, most people don't know that the founder, Eric, of the American Civil Liberties Union, Roger Baldwin, was a communist. They don't know about the early plans, and he was very open about it, you know, to absolutely erase religion and faith from all vestiges of our public square. Most people are completely unaware of what this relatively small group of progressives wanted to achieve. By the way, I spend time in the book looking at what I call the Woodstock generation. What an absolute mess of Woodstock was. You know, this terrible hippie moment for America

that completely changed youth culture in the United States, leading directly to the frontal assault on the movies, on television, and on popular music. I have a whole section in the book on what Norman Lear imposed on American so-called sitcom and so-called family time or family hour television, you know, celebrating abortion, celebrating, you know, the transgressive. You know, this was part and parcel of what the progressive revolution wanted from its earliest start. This idea of wholesomeness, this idea of harmony or melody or balance or gravitas, the whole idea in entertainment of the beautiful, the just and the true, holding up virtue and moral excellence and pushing down vice.

I mean, it was completely reversed as a direct result of what the progressives wanted in our entertainment industry. and unfortunately it continues to power so much of Hollywood Broadway and otherwise popular entertainment. There's no doubt that that is true. I'm a really dedicated student of 20th century entertainment. And it's amazing. You can even see it in the 50s. There were many, many films. All the films with James Dean, they celebrated the rebel.

They unleashed what we're dealing with today. and it was they were always the enemies of anything that we would describe as wholesome. They mocked wholesomeness. Anybody even uses the term wholesome or honor integrity. They mocked all those things. They certainly mock the idea of virtue. And we have to get back to that, folks. There is no other way.

It's what God wants us to do. And we have to put it in God's hands, do what we can. I'm just grateful, Tim, for the book, Stumbling, toward utopia, folks, get a copy and understand what has happened, stumbling toward utopia. Tim Gaglind, thank you. Thank you, Eric. Hey, the folks.

Welcome back. Before we go for the day, Chris, do you have anything you want to share with the group? Well, I know, you know, I haven't been on a cruise in a long time, so I'm very excited to say that I will be going on this cruise next June. My wife is probably more excited than I am. I, but I don't know anything about Greece other than, It was a great musical on Broadway. You know, Greece, yeah, it was a great musical.

And the cruise is even better. We couldn't get Olivia Newton, John, because she passed away. But I got to be honest, it's going to be an amazing cruise. Greece is the word. I just came up with that as a slogan. That's pretty good. Frankie Valley, he may be performing on the cruise. Actually, probably not.

But it's exciting because I've never been on a cruise ever. So if you've never been on a cruise, you have been on cruises, right? Yeah, I've been on a Disney cruise. I've done Carnival a couple times. Before you realize that Disney were Marxists, I know, I realized that. Yeah, no, I should have known when Goofy, Chef Goofy on the ship was dressed like Che Guevaer. I should have been tipped off. Well, honestly, Disney is so wicked.

This is an opportunity for me to tell people, do not ever, ever, ever, ever, patronize anything by Disney. Folks, you're supporting the most woke corporation possibly in America. They just came out with a film. What is it, Agatha or something? It is 100% pro-witchcraft, pro-gay, trans. Like, it's the kind of thing you would make up 20 years ago. Like in the future, it is here.

So do not ever patronize anything by Disney. By God's grace, we should put them out of business. They have become one of the worst corporations in America. They were one of the best. It's heartbreaking. But this cruise is not a Disney cruise. This is a Norwegian cruise lines cruise, and it's going to be – we're going to going to go to the Greek islands.

If you want information, go to Ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. But I have to say – people always say to me, Eric, have you been to this place in Greece? Have you been to that place in Greece? I've never been anywhere in Greece except Gephalonia, Cephalonia, where my dad is. is from because, you know, it's not like we could spend our summers bopping around Greece. We would go, if we ever went to Greece, which was rare because we really couldn't afford to when I was growing up, we would go to Cephalonia. So, you know, I went there in the winter of 72, 73.

I went there finally in the summer of 84. But then after that, I've been back there regularly. And, but I've never been all these other places. So this cruise is going to take us to Crete. I am flipped out. excited about Crete because I want to see the Palace of Nossos. I'm going to be writing about it in the book that I'm working on right now

about the discovery of the Mycenaean world, Heinrich Schleiman, whatever. But the story of Crete, so we're going to be stopping in Crete. We're going to be stopping in Roads. We're going to be stopping in Volos. We're going to be stopping in Santorini. I've never been to any of these places, folks. So if you come on the cruise, you're going to be there for the first time. Maybe you've already been there.

but it's going to be my first time. So I'm just so excited to go to all these places. We're going to go to Istanbul crazy that we're going to get to see. There's so much there. We're going to get to go to Ephesus. So I'll be like lecturing and stuff and at night, but we're going to have a ton of fun. And there's every different price point, but you have to sign up as soon as possible because the company doing this is that if you don't get so on so many people,

up by a certain date, it's not happening. And I didn't know this. So we should have been talking about this, like, you know, last spring, but we just only started. So go to Ericmataxis.com slash cruise. And all the info is there. I honestly hope that tons of friends that I've made around the country will come and that will all be together. It's 10 days. It's just amazing. Yeah, there'll be some great talks in the evening. You know, people get to have some one on one time with you just around the boat. It's going to be great. It's going to be, there's no doubt. It's going to be amazing. And there's all kinds of details we can't share yet, like little fun stuff, but it's going to be kooky. And ericmetaxis.com slash cruise. All right. Thank you very much.