Episode 173 — The SPLC Tried to Destroy Him & FAILED—Now He’s Re-Building Christendom w/John Sharpe

[0:00:00] Hello and welcome to The Backlash. I'm your host, Dave J. Reilly. Thank you so much for joining us today. We've got a big show for you. We've got an amazing guest. We're going to cover a lot of ground, I think, over the next few minutes, maybe an hour, maybe longer. God knows. [0:00:16] But thank you so much for joining us. [0:00:18] Make sure that you're subscribed. [0:00:20] Before we get into all of what we're going to unpack between the USCCB's new statement on Yom Kippur [0:00:27] and what's happened to the church and the downfall of the Southern Poverty Law Center and all of that, [0:00:31] before we get into it, please make sure that you hit the like button on this video. [0:00:36] Make sure that you're following us on all of our platforms. [0:00:38] Of course, we're on X, at Real Backlash, but we're on a whole host of different platforms. [0:00:45] You can get to us at thebacklash.net. [0:00:47] That's our website. [0:00:48] All of our past episodes are there. 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[0:04:42] He's been doing this for a very long time. So please welcome to the program, John Sharp. [0:04:47] Hi, Dave. Nice of you to have me. Can you hear me all right? [0:04:50] Absolutely. You're coming in loud. [0:04:52] That's good. Okay. [0:04:52] Loud and clear. [0:04:53] You're coming in Lima Charlie as well. Good to see you. [0:04:56] Lima Charlie. I'm not a military guy. [0:05:00] That's all right. I can't resist. I can't resist. It's all so lame, but, you know, it's fun. [0:05:04] But yeah, no, so we had the opportunity to meet IRL, as the kids would say these days in real life over at the Catholic Land Movement Conference. [0:05:13] And we got to kind of reminisce about the old days. [0:05:16] Of course, we've been working our way on this program down the list of the Dirty Dozen, which was this ridiculous report drawn up by the Southern Poverty Law Center back in 2007. [0:05:30] We recently had on Brother Andre Marie. [0:05:33] I've worked at, I think, six out of 12 of the different entities listed. [0:05:40] The Society of St. Pius X, The Angelus Magazine, Culture Wars, Fidelity Press, [0:05:46] the Fatima Center, Catholic Family News. [0:05:48] So there's your six. [0:05:49] Yeah, you've got a lot of them. [0:05:51] But you have a very special place in this report, of course. [0:05:56] That's so sweet, Dave. [0:05:57] That's so nice of you. [0:05:58] They named you as the most nakedly anti-Semitic, of course, of all of these different groups. [0:06:06] And I think that nowadays everybody sees what was going on, and this has now become a badge of honor. [0:06:14] But it did lead to a lot of disruption in your life. [0:06:18] Of course, the woman responsible for this, Heidi Birich, she's now facing an indictment on several felony counts of wire fraud. [0:06:29] They were using money that they were getting from their donors to fund neo-Nazi groups like the Aryan Nations and the KKK. [0:06:37] And then, of course, they were trying to lump in traditional Catholics that believe in the reign of Christ the King. [0:06:45] They were trying to weaponize that and make us the enemy. So, John, let's let's go over this. Tell us what happened and how this all played out, because it went far beyond just this report. I think you've gotten in trouble with the Navy as well. So give us give us a rundown on that. [0:07:03] Yeah, I mean, there's a backstory, Dave, that I don't think I had a chance to tell you when we met, which is quite funny. And, you know, it's odd to say the least that there are, you know, this younger group of fans like, oh, you made the dirty dozen list. [0:07:19] because it's, you know, there's grains of truth [0:07:22] like in every hit piece. [0:07:25] And I think we have to be very candid [0:07:27] and say that the grains that are the hottest, [0:07:30] you know, or let's say the little coals rather, [0:07:32] are probably the ones that we most firmly believe [0:07:36] are the ones that most antagonize our enemies. [0:07:39] So at some point, it's pointless to say, [0:07:43] well, it's nonsense, it's a pack of lies, whatever. [0:07:45] You gotta just embrace your destiny, you know? [0:07:47] So one of the things you might want to look up if you can multitask and see in that, I don't know how much is left online, but in that larger report, the intelligence, the misnamed intelligence report, like military intelligence, ran a whole spread. [0:08:06] I think it was the winter 2006 issue. [0:08:09] And it wasn't just the Dirty Dozen list, which was a little, like almost a sidebar in the magazine. [0:08:14] Like I have a copy of the old one, the paper. [0:08:16] but there were the feature article of course was sspx because they're the biggest game in town [0:08:21] and lefebvre you know was was notorious especially with his sidekick our friend the bishop god rest [0:08:27] his soul or god rest both of their souls um who were who were you know widely known for their [0:08:33] politically incorrect views um but there were a series of articles in this in this original um [0:08:40] feature. And one of the things that's most interesting is they do this. I think it's [0:08:47] Potok, this character, Mark Potok, who's the editor, and he does this, like, here's what [0:08:51] we're focusing on this issue. And either he or Byrick starts off by saying, now, don't mistake [0:08:58] us. We don't mean in any way to impugn the sincerity or the freedom of religion or the [0:09:04] freedom of speech of the tens of thousands. I think maybe they say like one to 200,000 people [0:09:10] in the United States who submit to the authority of the church, who accept Vatican II, but have a [0:09:16] strong preference, you know, just in terms of the option they would choose for the traditional Latin [0:09:21] Mass. So right away back in 2006, and of course, they're late to the party because this has been [0:09:26] going on since the new Mass and since Vatican II, if not before, they're kind of dialing into this [0:09:32] trad ink, you know, that's the term now, this kind of mainstream establishment. I go to the Latin [0:09:37] mass on a Wednesday night every month. And, you know, I kind of like incense and Gregorian chant, [0:09:42] but otherwise I'm out of it. You know, I'm just a regular Novus Ordo Catholic. Maybe I mean, [0:09:46] well, I don't know my faith very well, but they, they, they immediately tried to focus in on [0:09:52] the people that we're after are not the people who mind their own business. Like good Americans, [0:09:57] religion doesn't affect their lives. It doesn't affect their politics. It doesn't affect how they [0:10:02] vote. It doesn't affect their view of government. It certainly doesn't affect their view of church [0:10:08] and state, sort of the essential question of what it means to be a fully traditional, [0:10:13] integral Catholic. If you prefer the Latin Mass, and it probably was Lefebvre, I don't remember [0:10:19] who said it now, but it's like, you remember this pan-religious meeting in Assisi back in the 80s, [0:10:25] 86 or 88, where all the religions were invited by John Paul to come and have their various [0:10:31] services. It was a horrible scandal. The Blessed Sacrament was removed from the tabernacle. They [0:10:36] put Buddha on the altar. It was just offensive. And all these religions, they have their side [0:10:44] chapels, right? And as long as the Latin Mass and some kind of milquetoast traditionalism is just a [0:10:51] side chapel in this meeting of world religions, no one's going to bother you. So what they did in [0:10:56] this spread was really go after in the most, frankly, sloppy and silly way. The groups that [0:11:05] they thought were really pushing this, no, Catholicism means militancy. It means getting [0:11:10] out in the public sphere, undoing, you know, to go back to the side chapel and mixing religions, [0:11:16] you know, undoing or touching, I should say, our sacred cows, abortion, contraception, divorce, [0:11:21] you know, all the kind of sexual morality issues, financial issues, interest rates, mortgage, [0:11:28] distribution of property, all the things that our enemies have been pushing in one direction [0:11:32] for centuries. [0:11:33] Those of us that want to stand up for that and say, or stand up against those things, [0:11:38] I should say, and say, we're obliged as Catholics. [0:11:41] It's not an option. [0:11:42] It's not a preference. [0:11:43] But as Catholics, we are obliged to see that the temporal world in which we live is shaped [0:11:49] according to the faith, to make it easy to practice the faith rather than to make it [0:11:53] difficult. And those were the people they were after. [0:11:58] And then just one other side note is you mentioned [0:12:01] sort of how cool it is to be on this list now. [0:12:05] You may or may not remember the name Jim Condit. Now the Condits are [0:12:08] Cincinnati. Jim was doing, he's dead now too, God rest his soul, [0:12:13] like most of my old mentors are all gone. [0:12:15] he um he had a paper called all these things in the 90s where it was just [0:12:20] violently uh supportive of father fahey and everything fahey stands for and um you know [0:12:28] later on he was doing these things where we would run radio ads in the greater cincinnati area using [0:12:34] some laws that had to give equal airtime to anyone running for public office so he would [0:12:38] you know fill out the paperwork and pay a few hundred bucks to run for congress or city council [0:12:44] or whatever it was. [0:12:45] He had no intention of getting elected, [0:12:46] but he forced the radio stations to take his ads. [0:12:49] And I've got to see if mom has some of the old recordings [0:12:52] because those radio ads were brilliant. [0:12:54] Little gong or a bell would ring. [0:12:56] And then there would be this somber voiceover, [0:12:59] something like, we have news for you. [0:13:02] The Arabs run all the major TV networks. [0:13:05] Wait, not really. [0:13:07] And just fantastic little riffs like that. [0:13:11] And when this Dirty Dozen came out, [0:13:14] you'll notice that he's not on that list. And I remember him calling me or mom and saying like, [0:13:18] what do I have to do to get on this list? Because he was, he was fearless. And I think [0:13:24] maybe that's why they didn't put him on the list. Cause they thought some of the rest of us would [0:13:27] run for cover or, you know, make some adjustments or backpedal a little bit, or, you know, go to the [0:13:32] elder brothers and beg forgiveness. But I mean, Jim was just, was, was fearless. So what, how much, [0:13:39] I mean, I could talk for two hours about just the background, let alone the fallout. So what, [0:13:43] What do you want to drill into on this? [0:13:46] Do you want to hear more? [0:13:46] I mean, there is one good anecdote about the lead up, but I'd rather you, you know, tell [0:13:50] me what you and your people would be most interested in talking about. [0:13:54] Well, I mean, I guess things have changed so much, you know, and so this list, you know, [0:14:00] the dirty dozen, this came out back in 2007. [0:14:02] Now I got, I got canceled in 17, a decade later. [0:14:06] Right. [0:14:07] And it was still like, oh, well, the local newspaper says you're a Nazi. [0:14:10] So I guess you're a Nazi. [0:14:12] it's like right what right what are you like i've known you for 10 years it's a bit shocking to wake [0:14:17] up to that in the paper isn't it you know you get out of bed think you're going to start your day [0:14:21] like normal i remember my dad one of the one of the bits of fallout was an editorial uh written [0:14:27] on on yours truly by uh someone i discovered later was a speech writer for the bush administration [0:14:34] so i thought well that's fair because those those are the i mean those were my biggest enemies at [0:14:38] the time that the bush administration with their stupid war in iraq which is just you know here we [0:14:43] are again a repeat of that right 20 years later yep and um so it was it was the right guy to send [0:14:50] after me he was he was a um a distasteful character i should say and and very similar to [0:14:55] your friend who's uh is she in jail yet or is she just indicted and out on her own [0:15:00] I think she's our own. [0:15:01] I don't know what. [0:15:02] Yeah. [0:15:04] But he wrote an article that was, it was featured in the Virginian pilot, which was [0:15:10] the sort of Norfolk, Virginia beach paper where the Navy town, you know, Southeast [0:15:13] Virginia. [0:15:14] But it was picked up by the International Herald Tribune. [0:15:18] And the headline was rank is wrong for Navy supremacists. [0:15:21] And so what our friend Mastio, Dave Mastio was his name. [0:15:25] What he was doing was basically going after the Navy. [0:15:28] and you know how they know how to pull the right levers, [0:15:31] you know, with the PR and the power structures. [0:15:34] It wasn't, you know, Sharp's awful [0:15:36] and his message is on the verge of converting millions. [0:15:39] And so we have to do something about it. [0:15:40] It was just, it was a very strategic shot to say, [0:15:44] put the Navy on notice and say, [0:15:46] how is it that this man who has these views, [0:15:49] which are according to him, [0:15:51] incompatible with, you know, public service, [0:15:53] especially service in the military, [0:15:55] how could this have gone unnoticed, [0:15:57] you know, for all this time? [0:15:58] And the real investigation shouldn't be into Sharpe's activities, but like, where are the Navy watchdogs and where are the inspectors and where are. [0:16:05] And if you play that out, of course, what he really means is like, where are the thought police? [0:16:09] You know, where where are the the watchdogs in government to make sure that you only have the most loyal sycophants and believers and Kool-Aid drinkers, you know, in public service. [0:16:19] But that's a topic for another episode because we do have a problem in the United States and in the liberal states in terms of accommodating the essence of Catholic doctrine. [0:16:31] And I'm not talking about the key tenets of revelation, you know, the Trinity, the virgin birth, all that. [0:16:38] I'm talking about the political ramifications. [0:16:40] we have a problem in terms of reconciling how one functions when one believes with with with [0:16:47] moral certitude that there are certain truths of faith which are excluded from the public sphere or [0:16:53] when they're when they're let into the public sphere it's with that caveat sign here will let [0:16:58] you in as long as you acknowledge that you're only a side chapel you know in the pantheon of world [0:17:03] religions and there's there's a tension that's it's impossible to fix you know the france went [0:17:07] through that in the 19th century. And, um, you know, we were very close to some kind of breakthrough [0:17:12] with Coughlin in the thirties, but, uh, but that's a, that's a, that's a whole other topic, [0:17:17] you know, for some other time, but, um, the, uh, but yeah, as you were saying, you know, [0:17:22] when you wake up to that, I remember my dad calling and saying, Oh, you know, I hate to say it, but [0:17:27] they got you, you know, cause he just took it at face value that was in there was true. And they, [0:17:31] and it was sensationalized and having putting words in my mouth that I didn't say and stitching [0:17:36] quotes together and excising, you know, certain things like you might talk about what you kids [0:17:42] call the JQ. And then you'll always preface that with, you know, race hatred is unacceptable. You [0:17:47] know, whether you're Catholic or just a basic, you know, natural law, decent human being, [0:17:52] nobody advocates hatred or violence or whatever. And all that's always excised, you know, and they [0:17:56] just pick the one, the one part where you delicately and you try to prudently approach [0:18:01] certain topics and then they blow it all into out of proportion so you know that was that was the [0:18:06] technique and and it's funny that this whole dirty dozen thing from the 2007 article that you put up [0:18:14] is uh it's just so shoddy and it's so um this one is byricks it has a phd i don't know if you know [0:18:21] that but i mean she was always put forward as you know like this intrepid scholarly research [0:18:26] uh person and when you're ready for like the next antidote i'll tell you anecdote antidote [0:18:31] as soon as I'm not a PhD anecdote as to where she got most of the paragraph on yours truly, [0:18:38] which is, it's funny, but it's, you know, it's good for a laugh and not much more than that. [0:18:43] This is, of course, the woman we're talking about. [0:18:46] Oh, yeah. [0:18:46] And it's funny, actually. [0:18:48] Their friends, Stopantisemitism.org is apparently throwing them under the bus now. [0:18:54] You know, it says, according to a newly unsealed DOJ indictment, [0:18:57] And SPLT Intelligence Project Director Heidi, how do you say her name? [0:19:02] Birich or Birich? [0:19:03] Birich, Birich, Birich, yeah. [0:19:04] Birich allegedly funneled $1.2 million in donor funds to a Nazi informant. [0:19:09] And, of course, that has ties here to Coeur d'Alene. [0:19:12] You know, this was the headquarters of the Aryan Nations. [0:19:15] You bet. [0:19:15] And it turns out also that she was sleeping with the guy that she was funneling the money to as well. [0:19:21] Well, that's just she was under deep cover, as they say. [0:19:25] Or covers, maybe. [0:19:26] Oh, dear God. [0:19:27] She is just, ugh. [0:19:29] And, you know, let's, now I had the pleasure of seeing her in person. [0:19:36] And I can tell you about that too, if you want. [0:19:38] Go ahead. [0:19:39] When we, you know, when it comes to that. [0:19:41] But there's a, if you saw her in person, Dave, let me put it this way. [0:19:47] You would nurture a healthy septicism about how, if sort of the romance, you know, there's always these movies about the cute Russian spy. [0:19:57] or the German blondes or whatever, and they infiltrate. [0:20:00] And there's some women who are so attractive, [0:20:03] they would exercise a lot of pull in that direction [0:20:06] and be very successful in infiltrating in that way. [0:20:12] And this woman is just not one of those types. [0:20:15] So, I mean, I don't know if these stories are overblown [0:20:18] or if this guy is just hard up for cash. [0:20:21] Again, pardon my inapposite metaphors or whatever, [0:20:24] But I mean, that picture you just had up there, you know, if the reaction is, wow, that's not a super attractive woman. [0:20:33] That is accurate. [0:20:34] That is 100 percent. [0:20:35] I'm actually going to play this clip because this might kind of tie in. [0:20:39] This was from 20, as recent as 2020. [0:20:42] She was testifying in the House, I believe it was. [0:20:48] Yes, in the House as an expert on white supremacy in the military. [0:20:54] So wait, let's let's take a listen to what she has to say here. [0:20:58] I think that there's a big problem here in trying to figure out how many investigations go on of this. [0:21:03] Who is identifying extremists? [0:21:05] How is this being reported? [0:21:06] There is supposedly a report the Pentagon does every year internally on white supremacy in the military. [0:21:11] Is that happening? [0:21:13] What is it indicating? [0:21:14] I mean, it's very hard to answer your question because there's no transparency, no data. [0:21:18] She even sounds ugly. [0:21:20] I mean, she doesn't even sound like a woman. [0:21:22] Yeah, exactly. [0:21:23] Exactly. I was going to say in this in this day and age, you know, you would think of whoever. [0:21:27] I mean, I don't know if this person got into the federal government, but I remember during COVID, there was a very unpleasant character who was like the secretary of health for Pennsylvania or something. [0:21:36] Oh, it's Rachel, right? Rachel, formerly known as formerly known as William or Bob or something. [0:21:42] It was just I mean, it's pretty sick. But so so I, you know, we're going to. [0:21:48] Oh, my Lord. I mean, but but there is there is a reminiscence there. [0:21:51] You know, you have to admit. And, you know, we're skipping around. [0:21:56] And obviously, I want to get into the meat of the ideological questions. [0:22:00] So you'll have to just stop, you know, if you get tired of the anecdotes. [0:22:03] But they're pretty funny. When I got kicked out of the Navy, well, before I got formally kicked out of the Navy, I got kicked off the ship. [0:22:11] So in the little clip you showed there, I had two things going on. [0:22:16] One was this thing called the Legion of St. Louis, which was really like two men and a dog in an email list of 100 subscribers. [0:22:23] And IHS, which is our bread and butter. [0:22:26] And of course, it's been hibernating for many years as the young whippersnapper who took over or who started an X account for us. [0:22:33] He's like, the old guy got in trouble, but we're back. [0:22:35] And like, yeah, I was busy for 20 years. [0:22:38] And as far as being back, I mean, that's all you guys to take it and run with it. [0:22:42] And I'm here to support. [0:22:43] um you were you were did i cut you off well no i mean i was just gonna say you know this is the [0:22:48] part of the story that i don't think has been really told yet uh and that i wanted to help [0:22:52] give you a platform for which was that you know you get accused by the southern poverty law center [0:22:57] you get brought in by your higher ups kicked off the boat kicked out of the navy you know disgraced [0:23:04] uh because of this you know intelligence report uh but you spent like the last 20 years fighting [0:23:11] this and came out on top. That's what I want to hear about. Yeah, I think broadly speaking, I mean, [0:23:18] thanks be to God, that's true. You know, I referred to this tension of like a serious Catholic with [0:23:23] a federal service or like, what is the Catholic position vis-a-vis the modern state? Like, [0:23:30] I don't think that's a settled question. And I think the teaching of the popes and our serious [0:23:35] integral Catholic forefathers who went through all this when the nations were breaking away [0:23:41] from Christendom saying we're going in a bad direction. I think they've already spoken to [0:23:46] this question. So leaving that aside, you know, in terms of the obvious question, like once they [0:23:50] kick you out, why do you even want to get back in? Like you want to go work with these people again? [0:23:56] But I think you have to say that, yeah, I did prevail. And I'm not going to name names here [0:24:02] because it would be tacky. [0:24:03] But in the context of another story, [0:24:08] I'll tell you regarding Heidi. [0:24:10] When I saw her face to face, [0:24:11] I saw her not through a glass darkly, [0:24:14] but in the face, which is not, [0:24:16] I wouldn't wish that on anyone. [0:24:19] One of the other, [0:24:20] a few of the other dirty dozen [0:24:22] showed up for that event. [0:24:23] I'll explain, I'll describe that later. [0:24:27] And I gotta be careful [0:24:29] because I'm gonna give some facts [0:24:30] and everyone will know who it is. [0:24:31] So if you figure it out, [0:24:32] you know, figure it out. But I got it on the phone with, we were all going to have like a meal or [0:24:37] something after this occurrence. And a bunch of them took off. Few of them stuck around. [0:24:42] It was on the phone with a couple of them as they were headed back north. And I said, hey, [0:24:46] I'm sorry, you know, we didn't get to talk because I wanted to fill you in on my Navy case and this [0:24:50] and that. And one of them said, well, you know, military members have no First Amendment rights [0:24:54] and you don't get to say whatever you want. You just have to like knuckle under and follow orders. [0:24:59] You can't criticize the war. You can't talk about the JQ. You can't this, you can't that. [0:25:04] And I got news for you. You're going to lose. I was like, OK, well, I'm certainly not hiring you to help me. [0:25:10] And, you know, the ultimate result is after, you know, I submitted these papers in 2009, end of 2009. [0:25:20] I take that back. I'm telling a falsehood, Dave, because 2009 was the triggering event. [0:25:24] And then I had three years to file. So it was 2012. By the time I put this package in. [0:25:29] That went to a body within the Navy, so still inside the executive branch. [0:25:35] My clock for suing in federal court was still ticking. [0:25:38] I won't get into all the legal mumbo-jumbo, but there's a parallel track of you can appeal to the Navy, then you can sue in court. [0:25:45] Those interact in a way, again, not worth getting into too much detail now, although it is interesting. [0:25:52] And, of course, they lost the package. [0:25:54] They sent it off for a legal opinion, but they sent it to the wrong bureau, and it disappeared, and they had to redo it again. [0:25:59] I said, okay, well, good. I wanted to make some changes. So, you know, give me another year and a half or two to work on it. At the six-year deadline, which would have been nine and six is 2015, October of 15, I filed a suit in federal court. At the same time, they've magically rediscovered the package. DOJ and the Navy reads through my federal complaint. They're like, oh, maybe we should just handle it within the Navy. [0:26:22] Now, I'm not privy to the back channel. I've seen a lot of this in having gotten into this line of work since then. I've seen a lot of and been privy to a lot of communications as to how when the federal government is sued by a plaintiff that's been aggrieved, what's the relationship between DOJ who defends the lawsuits and then the actual agency that you're suing? [0:26:46] So for me, it was me versus the Navy. You've got Navy lawyers and federal civilian employees of the Justice Department, you know, collaborating on how do we defend this suit. And I can't say what happened because I wasn't privy to, you know, the back line of communication. [0:27:02] But let's just say the Navy decided to solve the problem. [0:27:06] And so they ultimately wiped my record of the dirt that they had put in it. [0:27:12] And that's, again, all of these things are worth anecdotes that we could talk for a long time about. [0:27:17] So I'm careful about jumping around because someone listening would be like, what the hell are you talking about? [0:27:23] But they cleared all the dirt out of my record, put me back in the service, gave me the promotion to commander, [0:27:30] which I had been selected for, but was taken away. And what else? I mean, a good bit of [0:27:36] back wages, which I'm grateful for that helped by the farm here where we are. And I mean, I think [0:27:41] you have to say it was a victory. You know, there's little bits and bobs that you'll never, [0:27:45] you can't go through something like that and ever be made fully whole. Like you're never going to be [0:27:49] back as if it hadn't happened. You know, like a, like a bad leg injury, right? You can have the [0:27:54] best surgeon in the world, but you're still going to have a, you know, a tick when the, [0:27:58] when the humidity gets too high. Um, but I mean, yeah. So, so thanks be to God. And I, [0:28:04] and I think the Navy, frankly, the Navy, I wanted to turn it into a first amendment fight, [0:28:09] you know? So there's one other digression. I don't know how much you've covered this or seen [0:28:13] it, but you're, if you're familiar or your listeners are familiar with this guy, Mark Kelly, [0:28:18] the Senator from Arizona, does that name ring any bells with you at all? No, it's kind of, [0:28:23] It's a mainstream news story, but it's not necessarily something you'd pick up on for obvious reasons. [0:28:30] Mainstream federal government representative. [0:28:34] So senator from Arizona. [0:28:36] I think his politics are probably awful. [0:28:38] I mean, I'm sure we would disagree with him on most things. [0:28:41] He's a retired Navy captain. [0:28:43] He talks a lot about his heroism and all of the places he's bombed and all his aviation hours. [0:28:48] And it's all this standard, oh, look at me in the military with my badges and my uniform. [0:28:53] And I don't I just don't care for much of that, to be honest, or if any. [0:28:59] However, because of how polarized the politics are, you know, this whole left versus right thing that none of us believe in anymore, not the serious people. [0:29:08] he and a half a dozen colleagues over the last, I want to say, year or eight months that this [0:29:16] business of Hegseth and our DOD's attacks on these Venezuelan boats, that the allegations [0:29:23] are they're running drugs. And so for some reason, if you have a boat with a kilo of cocaine in it, [0:29:28] there's something in international law they discover that gives us the right to just firebomb [0:29:32] them, just blow up the boat. And then when there's one guy clinging to one piece of wreckage, [0:29:37] You can take him out with some automatic weapons fire. According to our people, that's all legal. [0:29:42] And Kelly, to his credit, along with a few colleagues, some federal government, you know, all representatives, all either congressmen or senators, did a series of commercials saying, you know, I think quite aggressively and with a certain amount of courage, you have to give them credit, saying to service members, don't follow illegal orders. [0:30:01] If you are being given illegal orders, you shouldn't follow them. And we all know, of course, you know, we could talk Nuremberg forever, right? I'm sure you've covered that. But more recently, there's the, you know, in the 60s, the whole massacre that Cy Hirsch uncovered, this Lieutenant Calley, you know, mowing down all the peasants in one of the villages in Vietnam. [0:30:23] It there's this folklore that everybody carries around that if you as a service member are ordered to do something that you know is wrong, that's blatantly wrong, that's obviously wrong. [0:30:33] You have every right to say no. And your your first defense to a charge of disobeying orders is that order was illegal. [0:30:40] For example, I command you to go to the new mass. Well, Holy Father, you know, whatever your status is, I'm not following that because it's my view is it's not a lawful order. [0:30:49] Very simple. So Kelly and his people are on these little commercials. And of course, you can do ads through social media and things now way different than it was decades ago with having to take out ads on in the middle of primetime TV, basically just saying don't follow illegal orders, follow the Constitution. [0:31:10] And that's all they say. They don't mention Trump by name. They don't mention the Venezuelan attacks on the fishing boats. They don't mention Iran. They mention nothing. They just say, don't follow illegal orders. And there was this campaign launched against him because he's a retired officer, which means he still has an official military status. He's just not on the active list. He's on the retired list like I am. [0:31:34] and Hegseth has started this process within DOD [0:31:39] to strip him of his 06, you know, full bird captain rank [0:31:43] to bust him down a few grades, claw back some of his pension, [0:31:47] slap him on the wrist, give him, [0:31:49] and I think they awarded him a letter of censure, [0:31:52] you know, which is like a naughty, naughty note in your record [0:31:55] from the Secretary of the Navy. [0:31:57] Now, Kelly sued immediately in federal court, [0:32:00] like he should have on First Amendment grounds. [0:32:02] The court pulled the letter out of his record. Now it's on appeal in the D.C. circuit. [0:32:08] But the super interesting thing about that and the relevance to connect the dots is his entire defense has been a First Amendment defense. [0:32:17] The First Amendment protects political speech. [0:32:20] And the question about whether a nation should go to war, if you read all of the case law, [0:32:25] Even though as Catholics, a lot of this is just, you know, liberals, forgive my expression for your gentle listeners, it's like liberals polishing a turd, right? [0:32:35] All the case law on freedom of speech, it just doesn't have a, it doesn't fit, you know, in a Catholic worldview, but it is what it is, right? [0:32:42] This is the landscape that we have to operate in, and even Pius X told us to operate in this, you know, on this battlefield. [0:32:49] field uh but we're constantly told military members have no freedom of speech just like my [0:32:55] colleague you know one of the other dirty maybe the dirtiest of the dozen said you're going to [0:32:59] lose because you have no freedom of speech and that's it's just not true there are restrictions [0:33:03] and there are certain uh you know caveats and and admitted limitations um if the sergeant tells you [0:33:10] charge that hill you know there's the enemy machine gun nest you can't like hold a meeting [0:33:15] You know, call like your union reps in and say, well, let's think about, you know, are we going to get a pay raise if we get shot at? [0:33:21] That kind of thing is not protected by First Amendment. [0:33:24] But that's not what we're talking about here. [0:33:26] And it's exactly it's exactly the position that I was in. [0:33:30] And I don't know. [0:33:32] You'd have to kind of parse the language of that paragraph, you know, from our friend Heidi. [0:33:37] I don't know if what had outraged the neocons the most was my promotion of Father Fahey. [0:33:44] and I think I'm sure everybody who tunes into your program, I mean, most of them have to know [0:33:48] who better know. You better know. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, so I don't know if it was that [0:33:55] because Fahey is like a, is, is a bit of a third rail. You know, if you touch Fahey, um, you either [0:34:01] get energized or you get zapped. Right. And, and, and, and nobody likes them. And in fact, [0:34:06] um, I don't know if you can see this, but I pulled, I pulled a few like visual aids off the shelf. [0:34:10] There you go. [0:34:12] That's this is an interesting one by an old and I don't know what. [0:34:15] How's the angle? [0:34:16] That's better. [0:34:17] Some some some nun who's probably about as classy as Heidi Byrick and Levine writing [0:34:24] about Coghlan and Fahey. [0:34:25] And actually, there's some great stuff in this book, letters that they were writing [0:34:28] to each other in the 30s and 40s. [0:34:30] But the narrative there is, you know, how just how despicable these two men like really [0:34:36] the Antichrist. [0:34:37] I mean, you know, Hitler's the worst. [0:34:38] Of course, nobody's ever going to deprive him of the top dog as the incarnation of evil. [0:34:43] But Fahey and Coghlan are like just neck and neck for second place. [0:34:47] So I don't know if it was Fahey that triggered all these people, because I kind of think it was the war. [0:34:53] Because the war, you're all young. [0:34:56] All your listeners are young. [0:34:58] How old were you, if you don't mind my asking, like in 2003, when the Iraq thing kicked off? [0:35:03] I was 14. [0:35:05] okay so i mean old enough to pay attention if you were paying attention i remember watching the bombs [0:35:11] drop on baghdad on live tv of course and a lot of i mean a lot of listeners i'm sure would be like [0:35:15] you know single digits or maybe like not born yet you know what i mean so hopefully we're getting at [0:35:21] the younger generation um but i can tell you that that thing on the war was was was absolutely very [0:35:28] much like 9-11 and very much like some of the world war ii controversy it was very much as much [0:35:35] a psychological operation, as far as I'm concerned, as it was a military operation. [0:35:41] Clearly, I don't think there's any doubt historically that the Israelis want to neutralize [0:35:46] their enemies in the Middle East, right? [0:35:48] There's no debating that. [0:35:52] Well, yeah, so I was going to say that dirty dozen thing, the article that you were in, [0:35:55] that was right after you published this bad boy, Neocond, right? [0:35:59] So I'm sure. [0:36:01] And, you know, this was something else. [0:36:02] And I'll one-up you with volume, too, right? I had the thing handy there, too, just so we could do the thing. There you go. [0:36:13] No, I've been reading your stuff for a while. [0:36:15] Yeah, that's a quick read, right? Just get that on your pillow or on your nightstand. [0:36:20] Well, I was going to say, you know, this is one of the things on the episode we did with Kyle Serafin a couple weeks ago. [0:36:25] You know, we kind of started digging through the FBI's dossier on radical traditional Catholic ideology. [0:36:31] And one of the things that they highlighted was a tendency towards isolationism. [0:36:38] And so, of course, yeah, they're upset that us Catholics are against these forever wars in the Middle East, that, you know, we're not going to go all in on some war that's going to help the greater Israel project. [0:36:55] You know, that is clearly a very big issue that they can't that they can't control us in that way. [0:37:02] And so it would make some sense that that was. [0:37:05] Yeah. You know, and I think the interesting thing is if you is if you unpack the logic behind all of it and connect all these dots of, you know, I mean, I unfortunately I talk I speak an anecdote, you know, so if you don't speak anecdote, you're going to need a translator because that's just it's it's it's about all I can do these days. [0:37:25] is just throw out these little vignettes. [0:37:27] But the very interesting, [0:37:31] I mean, one of the things I keep mentioning [0:37:32] is this tension. [0:37:34] This is behind our whole project at IHS [0:37:36] is what does it mean to be a Catholic [0:37:38] with the fullness of that term such that, [0:37:42] and the popes will use this phrase, [0:37:44] you're not a Catholic in public [0:37:46] and a Catholic in private, right? [0:37:48] Like you're just a Catholic. [0:37:49] It's just like being a human being. [0:37:50] You have a intellect, a will, [0:37:52] ideally two arms, two legs, et cetera. [0:37:54] And you don't change any of that basic makeup of you as a human being, as a man, depending upon what line of work you're in or where you are or whether you're at a public function or a private function or whatever. [0:38:08] I mean, you can have an official government function, but they still put up these portable latrines, right? [0:38:13] Because at the end of the day, we are who we are. [0:38:15] At our most raw and most essential, we remain who we are, right? [0:38:21] And the government, as we know, just like a corporation, it doesn't act. [0:38:24] It's not just this disembodied thing. [0:38:26] It just acts through people. [0:38:28] So you've got this problem of how a Catholic who believes with an absolute moral certainty, [0:38:37] inspired by faith, you know, this is by the grace of God, because it takes a minute for [0:38:41] it to sink in by the movement of grace. [0:38:44] But this full conviction, like Fahey says, that man is put on this earth to be united [0:38:50] with the blessed Trinity as much as possible now, and then to consummate that full unity, [0:38:55] again, by the grace and mercy of God in heaven. And if that's the destiny of man, all of social [0:39:01] life has to be shaped to preserve that and nurture it, right? And that should not be [0:39:06] controversial. But it becomes controversial when you live in a period of history that is some [0:39:14] centuries removed from the start of this experiment to make sure that that vision, [0:39:19] and I don't mind calling it an ideology. [0:39:21] A lot of people would pester us for using that term, [0:39:23] but it's just a system of ideals, right? [0:39:25] It's a Weltanschauung, as the Germans would say, [0:39:27] a worldview, right? [0:39:28] And our worldview is that that reality [0:39:31] that I just mentioned shapes everything. [0:39:33] But when you have a society come into being [0:39:38] that is not just founded on neutrality towards that idea, [0:39:41] like the SPLC saying, [0:39:44] hey, we don't object to the Latin mass [0:39:47] as long as when you come out of mass, it doesn't change how you behave. [0:39:50] We don't care at all. [0:39:52] In fact, it's probably better if you go to Latin mass, [0:39:56] just like if you're a right winger or a Republican, [0:39:59] go to an anti-abortion rally once every six years, [0:40:02] like get it all out of your system. [0:40:04] You can feel good about yourself. [0:40:06] You won't make a dent in anything real, [0:40:09] but you can say, oh yeah, I'm doing my part. [0:40:12] as long as you're in this vein of treating your activism or your ideology as just contributing [0:40:21] to the marketplace of ideas, then you're harmless, right? You're utterly neutralized. I mean, [0:40:26] the only militancy that is of any use is to go into the marketplace of ideas and say, [0:40:32] we're not competing for adherence in terms of some kind of contest. Now, we'll debate you, [0:40:37] we'll argue with you, we'll lobby, we'll do all the things that you need to do to get influence. [0:40:42] But at the end of the day, the mentality is we have the truth and it's our duty in charity as well as in justice to shape the social order to not just respect that truth, but to receive it and to have that truth permeate the social fabric. [0:40:57] So let me go back if I could interject at any time, but let's go back to this war question. [0:41:04] Yeah, because my my sense is and again, that's why I asked, you know, I hate to I hate to have had to ask the question, but I was curious about your age and listeners. [0:41:13] I mean, I forget as long in the tooth as I'm getting to be and not as old as some, I might add, how long ago some of these things are, how long ago 9-11 is and how long ago the war in Iraq is what I I mean, I lived through it. [0:41:25] I feel like it was yesterday and the whole Heidi Byrick and the dirty dozen and all that stuff. [0:41:30] It all came on the heels. And you really, there's no way for me, Dave, to adequately represent to you in a way that creates kind of the feeling of the immediate post or immediately post 9-11 world in the United States where everyone is on pins and needles. [0:41:51] The Muslims are coming to get us. [0:41:53] There's a Muslim under every, you know, if you're a Christian, check under your bed at [0:41:57] night that some guy with a scimitar and a turban is going to try to slit your throat. [0:42:01] It was ridiculous. [0:42:02] I mean, I don't believe any of that. [0:42:04] I mean, I think at this point, we have to say this will, I don't think it's going to [0:42:09] upset people anymore. [0:42:10] In the old days, it made people very upset. [0:42:11] We as Catholics have to admit that a large part of the Arab world is at least sort of [0:42:17] a tactical ally, right? [0:42:18] Because we have a common enemy and there's a lot in Islam as much as I don't support, you know, the falsity of the religion. [0:42:26] And there's certainly a lot of evil in it. [0:42:29] But there's certain things in terms of the approach to women and banking and this theological, the political theology should religion influence politics. [0:42:40] It's the wrong religion, but they get the concept correct, right? [0:42:43] There is no separation really between religion and politics. [0:42:47] So that sort of predisposition as a Catholic, you can imagine how unreceptive the rest of the world is to that right after 9-11 because the Americans and our Israeli allies and the rest of the quote-unquote civilized world is absolutely convinced that the Islamic world is just infested, if not completely chock full of blood. [0:43:17] bloodthirsty, evil terrorists who, as Bush used to say, they hate us for our freedom. [0:43:22] They're just so resentful that you can get up in the morning, drive to Walmart, buy whatever [0:43:28] brand of toilet paper and corn chips you want, check out, put it on a credit card, fly to Tahiti, [0:43:34] you know, all this, like the whole concept, they hate us for our freedom. You say, well, [0:43:38] Mr. President, what does that mean exactly? What do you mean they hate us for our freedom? [0:43:42] What part of our freedom do they hate us for? The freedom to bomb the, you know what, out of our [0:43:47] enemies, et cetera, et cetera. You could fill in all the blanks. So the atmosphere at that time [0:43:52] was, was incredible. Um, it, it gave kind of a new meaning to like the early nine 11 truthers. [0:43:59] You know, I, I, I want to just break my other arm. You know, I hurt my, this shoulder, [0:44:04] it fell out on the ice rink. Thanks to my daughter, my dear girl. Um, but I'll break [0:44:09] this other arm, patting myself on the back saying that I was thanks to Michael Hoffman, [0:44:13] who you certainly know and know of. [0:44:16] I was a 9-11 truther on 9-12. [0:44:18] You know, in the morning of 9-12, [0:44:20] I'm like, this is ridiculous. [0:44:22] And, you know, a lot of people, [0:44:23] it takes them years. [0:44:24] And I've just ran into cousins of ours [0:44:26] who are very good on the Israeli question. [0:44:28] And I said, now, are you, [0:44:29] I'm learning your lingo. [0:44:30] Are you red-pilled yet on nine? [0:44:32] You know, you're going to be like 65. [0:44:34] You're running out of time. [0:44:35] Do you really think that it was bin Laden [0:44:37] from a cave with a little remote battery-powered [0:44:39] AA batteries with the remote control? [0:44:41] And he's like, oh, I don't know. [0:44:43] I'm like, oh, come on. So let's let's you got to rein me and you're not you're not you're not ruling me with a firm hand. [0:44:51] Well, I could. I could. Yeah, we'll do it if you want. But let's let's connect the dots with the whole like this, this theological question of how can you how can you be a Catholic, fully participate in the liberal state? [0:45:05] And why was the war in Iraq central to that? [0:45:07] In my view, the war in Iraq was central. [0:45:10] And the reason why I don't think it was much of a risk, because I never had, I did not have the foggiest idea. [0:45:16] I have to be honest with you that my writing, you know, you put the books up here. [0:45:22] My name is not on the front of the book. [0:45:25] It's not in the, let's see, it's not in the, you know, this copyright page where you have the little, all the little bureaucracy of, you know, where it came from and who published. [0:45:35] but it's in relatively fine print. [0:45:39] D.L. O'Hulahan, that's my old friend Derek, [0:45:42] my Irish radical friend, co-founder of IHS, [0:45:45] and J. Forrest Sharp. [0:45:47] Now, J. Forrest Sharp, I mean, it sounded cool [0:45:49] because it was like H. Ross Perot, J. Gordon Liddy, [0:45:52] you know, all the like first initial guys. [0:45:54] But it was put in there intentionally [0:45:56] so that I could say to the Navy, [0:45:59] I have repackaged my name in a way [0:46:02] of providing that necessary distance [0:46:04] Because you, Navy, I was a public affairs officer, you know, one of the spin doctors. You don't want me saying this is Commander John Sharp disagreeing with the war, even though the legal reality is I certainly could have done that as long as I did it on my own time, not in uniform, blah, blah, blah, you know, follow these basic rules. [0:46:22] There's no rule against referring to yourself as commander the same way you could be referred to as producer Riley or Dr. Riley or whatever your title might be. [0:46:32] That's just an honorific, right? [0:46:34] It's just kind of part of who you are. [0:46:35] You meet a judge at a cocktail party, and it's like, oh, good evening, Your Honor. [0:46:38] It's not like they're on the bench. [0:46:39] They're having a bourbon. [0:46:41] So I could have done that, but I didn't. [0:46:44] I didn't have the slightest idea that anyone would care. [0:46:46] I didn't expect it to make a dent. [0:46:48] I didn't expect it to make a difference. [0:46:50] I did it as an act of, you'll think this is really melodramatic and maybe you want to give me a hug afterwards, but it was an outpouring of conscience because, to come back again to this theological question, how do Catholics interact with the modern state? [0:47:07] The Catholics, the leading Catholics at the time, our friend Novak, George Weigel, probably Robbie George, others that certainly Deal Hudson, you know, the former editor of from Fordham of Crisis. [0:47:24] the leading catholic spokesmen were saying either that all catholics have to support the war [0:47:31] or more uh with with a more sinister spin there's a word i'm looking for that i'm missing more more [0:47:38] uh uh you know like kind of burrowing underneath the surface you can fill in the blank if it comes [0:47:44] to you it'll i'll i'll think of it a half an hour from now approbation more dangerously more [0:47:49] dangerously, at least, they were arguing yet again, just like Heidi Byrick says, if you like [0:47:55] the old mess, have it in a side chapel and then come back into public life where we don't think [0:48:00] there's a true religion and there's frankly no truth and no right and wrong. That's the essence [0:48:04] of the liberal state, right? Believe whatever you want, as long as you're prepared to say, [0:48:08] yeah, but after all, it's only what I think. I'm not saying it's true, right? That's the [0:48:12] essence of the, and Americans crow about how great that is because it allows everybody to just get [0:48:18] on with the business of commerce and we don't have to haggle over ideas. [0:48:22] The same argument was made over the war, which was, if you look at the new catechism of the [0:48:30] Catholic Church, which is, broadly speaking, it restates most of the faith, but there's [0:48:35] drops of poison in it that are just way off target. [0:48:38] And one of those things is it recites the traditional just war doctrine out of maybe [0:48:47] an eight-point synopsis of what the just war teaching is. One of the points reads like a [0:48:53] truism. It's like, okay, well, you're stating the obvious. Tell me something I don't know. [0:48:57] But one of the points in there, and I forget the section number. You'll have it up in a minute [0:49:02] probably, is the question of whether or not a nation should go to war is entrusted to the [0:49:09] prudential judgment of the national authority or of the head of state or of the government or words [0:49:15] to that effect. And you ask yourself, you know, being a legal type who wasn't going to win my [0:49:23] case against the Navy, I do think all the time about these legal principles. And one of them is [0:49:29] if you legislate, in other words, if you're just writing law. And at the end of the day, the [0:49:33] catechism is a gigantic book of legislation, which is all the rules about what Catholics have to [0:49:39] believe, right? And if you're doing legislation, there's a presumption in law that the legislator [0:49:45] doesn't write a paragraph that's unnecessary. [0:49:48] If you write it down, you're writing it for a reason. [0:49:53] So that's, and if you want to zoom out just a hair, if you can, [0:49:56] I think that's excellent. [0:49:58] The evaluation of the conditions for legitimacy. [0:50:01] So to translate, the question of whether a proposed war [0:50:05] meets just war criteria belongs to the judgment of those [0:50:09] who have the care of the common good. [0:50:11] Now you could say, okay, well, of course that's true [0:50:14] because it's not like the Pope is going to launch a war. [0:50:16] The Pope's not going to call Bush and say, [0:50:18] oh, I need you to attack Northern Africa or whatever. [0:50:21] Obviously, it's the head of state of any nation [0:50:23] that's going to actually initiate the war, right? [0:50:26] So that can't be the mind of the legislator [0:50:29] because we have to presume he's not telling us [0:50:32] what we already know. [0:50:33] When he writes something down, he's writing for a reason. [0:50:37] And what is the reason? [0:50:38] The reason is when the head of state decides [0:50:42] that a war is justifiable and should be prosecuted, everyone has to just say, yes, commander in chief, [0:50:50] there's no question. So I'll tell you in this vein, and then we'll again tie it into this theme of [0:50:56] the theology of how one interacts with the modern state. Some of your older listeners or those that [0:51:03] are most well-read may remember the name Kenneth Baker, an old Jesuit, dead now, long dead, who was [0:51:10] the editor, I believe, the head of the homiletic and pastoral review, a magazine within Catholic [0:51:17] circles that was, you know, had a reputation for being kind of serious, you know, intelligent, [0:51:23] deliberate, thoughtful articles. And I ran into him at a conference featuring Joe Sobran, you know, [0:51:29] our old, our old, you know, pretty, pretty, pretty heroic commentator on our Israeli friends. [0:51:36] and I brought a truckload of neocon books with me and set up a little table because I knew one [0:51:42] of Joe's you know old uh lady friends and collaborators who would help him you know [0:51:46] promulgate his writing and his books and all that and um I hand one of them not the one you actually [0:51:52] held up neocon the first volume which is all about the just war the one I was showing was all [0:51:57] politics and law and history and intelligence and all that that's interesting but you know for the [0:52:02] Catholic, the money is in the first volume on the just war. And I show it to him. I said, [0:52:07] father, you know, I'm so-and-so commander, you know, ex-commander, retired, disgraced, [0:52:11] so-and-so, you know, I fought the Navy over the Iraq war. And he's like, oh, interesting book. [0:52:17] What's this about? And I said, well, it's about the just war doctrine, you know, your eminence. [0:52:21] And he's like, I said, interested in reviewing that for the homiletic and pastoral review? [0:52:26] Because, you know, we could certainly use a little, a few props here and there just to get [0:52:30] some of these books in circulation. She said, now, you know what, tell me, what is this again? [0:52:34] Okay, father, it's a book on the just war teaching and the war in Iraq. And he says, [0:52:40] oh, it applies the just war teaching to Iraq? Is it? Well, yes. You know, you want me to say it [0:52:46] in another language? And he says, oh, no, no, I'll have to pass on that. I said, well, okay. I mean, [0:52:52] it seems like kind of a timely thing, you know, for Catholics. What's the problem? And he's like, [0:52:58] well, just war doctrine is great, but we don't really get into the whole questions debating [0:53:03] the legitimacy of individual wars. And I said, well, what do you propose we do with the just [0:53:09] war doctrine? You wanted me to just vacuum the den with it or put it on the shelf? What the hell [0:53:16] is the point of a just war doctrine? If you, the super genius Jesuit, the old saying, you're as [0:53:21] lost as a Jesuit in Holy Week or in the just war doctrine, you tell me just war doctrine is great [0:53:28] unless it's actually applied. And let's fill in the blanks, Dave, unless it's applied to get in [0:53:34] the way of a war by a modern liberal state, which will then trigger the liberal state to say, [0:53:40] we don't want any of this kind of clerical interventionism. And you know our history, [0:53:45] and all your listeners, I'm sure do. The whole thing in the, you know, it's all very interesting [0:53:50] with the Klan and the white supremacy. And we know that by the time Bedford Forest was gone, [0:53:55] we come into the era, you know, turn of the century when the Klan is heavily penetrated, [0:54:00] if not complete creation of Masonry. It's highly bigoted towards Catholics. This is the no-nothings. [0:54:06] And, you know, you get very close to violating this constitutional provision about you can't [0:54:11] have a religious test for holding office because it was getting towards no Catholics, right? And [0:54:16] the charge against Catholics was you are loyal to a foreign head of state, which is, of course, [0:54:23] ironic, you know, if you stop and think about that, like, well, I guess we don't have to worry [0:54:28] about that rule being applied anymore. But it's, again, the incapacity of the liberal mind, [0:54:35] and when I say liberal, I don't mean lefty, you know, like a tranny or tree hugger, but I mean [0:54:39] liberal as in the classical liberal separation of church and state mind, the inability of a mind [0:54:45] that's poisoned in that way to understand that, sure, the Pope can be a prince over a piece of [0:54:50] land, and that's to make sure that there's no temporal sovereign above the Pope who surrounds [0:54:57] him with troops and says, here's the next dogma I want you to declare, right? The whole idea of [0:55:02] the temporal independence of the Pope was just to make sure he could exercise his religious [0:55:08] function properly. But when a Catholic in the United States or in France or in England or in [0:55:14] Germany or think especially of the Protestant or atheist nations says, I'm a Catholic, it means I [0:55:20] I take my religious, my spiritual, my doctrinal, my ideological marching orders from the church, [0:55:27] occasionally from the Pope, because once in a while he'll clarify a doctrinal question. [0:55:32] But the essence is being a Catholic means I have a coherent and unimpeachably solid system of ideas [0:55:40] that governs how I interact with the state. [0:55:43] But the liberal state hates that. [0:55:46] And so the liberal state has to trump up this allegation of, oh, you're like a foreign agent. [0:55:51] You know, you need to register the, you know, this Foreign Intelligence Act. [0:55:55] You know, if you go to see, if you go to confession at the Vatican, you have to go to the State Department and fill out a debriefing because you were just, you know, visiting a head of state that's, you know, hostile or at least separate from the United States. [0:56:06] And that's what the whole war game was about. [0:56:09] I don't know what the last judgment will tell us. [0:56:11] tragically, Saddam was not in a position to put up much of a fight. I say that with some reserve. [0:56:18] I'm still a retired officer. I'm not supposed to support and give comfort to the enemies of our [0:56:23] nation. But I don't know. I don't know of a case in our history where one of the things that's been [0:56:29] raised is if if if your nation commits an act that is contrary to both international law as codified, [0:56:38] in the UN Charter, and clearly contrary to the moral law, and contrary to what the old [0:56:43] thinkers would call the us gentium, the law of peoples, really, but we translate it as law of [0:56:50] nations. If your nation is violating those laws, and you say about someone on the receiving end, [0:56:56] the victim of that violation, if you say, well, I'm sorry for him, and I don't blame him for [0:57:01] defending himself, and I hope he successfully defends himself, how close do you get to violating [0:57:06] this don't give aid and comfort to the enemy right because to go back to the kelly thing which you [0:57:12] hadn't heard about in in response to these ads that kelly was running saying uh service members [0:57:18] don't obey illegal orders of course the first tweet from the from you know mr articulate there [0:57:25] in the white house was uh he should be hanged for sedition tried convicted and hanged like literally [0:57:32] unreal hodis tweeted this man should be this man should be uh executed and and um but that's the [0:57:39] you know the one great thing about our president is is there's no um there's no window dressing [0:57:45] you know the gloves are always completely off he says what he thinks and and that's just the [0:57:49] reaction of the liberal state you can't let the moral law get in the way of what the head of state [0:57:54] wants to do and that and i'm convinced that the entire catholic response the mainstream response [0:58:01] to Iraq, which was, of course, an outgrowth of the war on terror. [0:58:05] You know, it's all wrapped up in the same response to Islamic terror and all that. [0:58:09] The essence was, at the end of the day, the Catholic is free to offer his opinion to a [0:58:17] liberal, again, classical liberal head of state. [0:58:20] But the bottom line is, there's no framework that we Catholics recognize any longer where [0:58:27] the church, and again, I don't want to talk about an individual cleric, but when I say the church, [0:58:32] I mean like this established body of thought and a compelling moral doctrine that would actually [0:58:38] work to check certain kinds of behavior. There's no world that they accept anymore where that body [0:58:44] of thought incarnated by people who might do something about it can never get in the way of [0:58:49] what a liberal head of state wants to do. Because when you challenge the head of state and you say, [0:58:53] according to all these criteria the war is wrong the liberal response is well that's your opinion [0:59:00] fine i mean you're entitled to your opinion i don't care what you think you're you're welcome [0:59:04] and just like when the supreme court you know overturned the gate the uh same-sex marriage thing [0:59:10] obergville was the and i i recommend i mean it's it's it's actually good to read our case law [0:59:16] because it really gives you a sense of what's behind the scenes. [0:59:23] What's all the sausage making in the liberal mind? [0:59:27] Obergefell says clearly at the end, [0:59:31] by saying that any state that would refuse to marry a same-sex couple [0:59:35] has to strike down those laws as unconstitutional, [0:59:39] we're not saying you can't believe that gay marriage is wrong. [0:59:41] You're welcome to think that all day long. [0:59:43] That's all protected by the First Amendment. [0:59:45] by all means believe when you see two sodomites walking down the street hand in hand coming out [0:59:50] of their marriage ceremony you as an american are free to think that's disgusting just don't [0:59:55] translate your beliefs into action right right now there there is something uh that i think just hit [1:00:01] the news was that this week or this might have been from last year actually uh no this was from [1:00:07] last year uh i think it was from pentecost actually but uh the pope recently came out and and said [1:00:14] this. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. Well, that's an awful audio, but [1:00:21] he says that Jesus doesn't hear the prayers of those who wage war. Now, like, where does that [1:00:29] fit in to, I don't know, history? What about the Crusades? What about the Battle of Lepanto? What [1:00:36] about the gates of Vienna? You know, what about the Cristeros, right? I mean, like, this whole [1:00:42] thing is just like goofy, you know? Yeah. Well, look, this is, this is, this is the pincers, [1:00:49] you know, the, the sort of the great, the great military move of attacking, you know, [1:00:53] from both flanks and sort of channeling that that's why I would say that the whole, I mean, [1:00:58] if you, if you find it credible or if anybody listening finds it credible that, that this aside, [1:01:02] aside from clearly trying to get rid of Saddam as an enemy of, of the Israeli state and, and, [1:01:08] and mostly a supporter of the Palestinians, that was Saddam's big crime is that he was actually [1:01:12] supporting the Palestinians in active resistance to Israeli occupation and maintaining this notion [1:01:19] that we're not just talking about the occupied territories. We are talking about all of Palestine, [1:01:24] which was colonized by the Israelis and by the East European and Russian Jews in the 40s, [1:01:34] that the serious Arab nationalists say that this is an illegal seizure of this territory, [1:01:41] that we're not prepared to accept that. [1:01:43] And that was Saddam's position [1:01:44] and certainly Qaddafi's position. [1:01:48] So that's kind of at the cutting edge [1:01:52] of the front, [1:01:56] or like the first front in the battle. [1:01:58] But I think more subtle and more nefarious, [1:02:02] maybe that's the word I was looking for earlier. [1:02:04] I told you something would come to me. [1:02:05] I just don't know if that's what I was thinking. [1:02:07] is this very subtle undercurrent of take your beliefs, like Father Baker said to me, [1:02:17] your beliefs about the just war doctrine are great. You can cling to them, take the book, [1:02:21] put it under your pillow, hug it, worship it, genuflect to it. Just don't ever let it make a [1:02:26] dent in day-to-day business. And then that's on the one side. And then on the other side, [1:02:32] I think we have to say John Paul was critical of the war in Iraq. [1:02:37] Ratzinger probably said when he was the head of the CDF, [1:02:41] we doubt whether this war meets the just war criteria, [1:02:48] but it's always weasel words, right? [1:02:50] It's this mealy mouth, like, well, we're not sure if it meets the criteria. [1:02:55] Well, okay, normally you're not sure. [1:02:57] How does that help us? [1:02:58] Of course, nobody's sure. [1:02:59] Obviously, Bush isn't sure. [1:03:01] If he cares, he doesn't care. [1:03:02] And then meanwhile, he's surrounded by Catholic neocons saying it's none of your business. It's whatever the president wants. And and it's you know, you've probably seen this in modern politics that we integralists, you know, for lack of a better. [1:03:17] It's not my favorite term, but you guys all know what that means. [1:03:21] We're always thrown little bones. [1:03:24] And so the right gives us these bones of some kind of resistance to abortion and some lip service about gay marriage. [1:03:31] When crazy right wingers like Douglas Murray aren't saying, like, I'm an openly gay conservative, like whatever that means. [1:03:38] and it does remind me of a great line from some old English comedy that I like about, [1:03:46] well, at least the Greeks were traditional. At least before the trannies, we had good old-fashioned [1:03:53] homosexuals who you know where you stood and they just kind of left you alone. [1:03:59] But you get that from the right and then from the left, you get the anti-war. I mean, we sold [1:04:06] stacks of books to progressive Democrats and hard lefties and whatever. And in the big book, [1:04:12] one of the things we did on purpose was bring in, I mean, the leaders of the left, Noam Chomsky and [1:04:19] Naomi Klein. And I think those were like the two big names. But I mean, there's a lot of lefties [1:04:25] in this book, none of whom we agree with on basically any other subject. I mean, they tend [1:04:30] to be kind of good about Israel now, now that it's popular to lament Gaza and all that. [1:04:36] But, you know, from our own churchmen, I think it's safe to say Leo's known as a kind of [1:04:41] a liberalist. [1:04:41] And I don't keep up with politics. [1:04:43] But is that fair, Dave, to say he's, you know, he's a lefty in some ways? [1:04:49] Well, you know, it's— [1:04:50] Or is he—does he defy categorization? [1:04:53] Yeah, it depends on who you talk to, right? [1:04:55] I mean, like if you're talking to Pope Respecter on X or, you know, Christian Wagner or Pinesap or one of these guys, you know, he's like the most traditional pope ever. [1:05:05] He's super conservative. [1:05:07] And, you know, even Trump was kind of running around touting the fact that the pope's brother was into MAGA, you know, back when the coalition was going on in 2324. [1:05:18] But, you know, I think that he's liberal. [1:05:23] I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me, you know, going around blessing water and, you know, doing all of this, you know. [1:05:30] Yeah, yeah. The regular crazy stuff, which again is sad because, you know, from our, I won't say centrist because that's like sort of milquetoast between two errors. [1:05:40] But I mean, our third position where we're, you know, we transcend this stupid intellectual and political straitjacket that's been put on us for 200 years. [1:05:49] all of these values belong to us stewardship of nature care of creation all that that's all [1:05:57] that's that's our back to the land people right who who uh who maintain these resources as a [1:06:03] matter of providence which is a subset of prudence because this is something god gave to us and we [1:06:09] exercise stewardship over it and so the left has kind of hijacked a lot of that and they've also [1:06:15] hijacked the anti-war position so it's instead of um instead of getting a definitive statement [1:06:23] you know i mean in a nutshell right we could say that the just war it's a funny the whole [1:06:28] darn show now is on just war doctrine but it's a very useful it's i mean it's a really useful uh [1:06:34] uh hypothetical it's like a test case because it's one of those areas of intersection between [1:06:40] morality and the state and church, you know, as the expounder and custodian of morality [1:06:46] between church and state. It's where church and state tend to come into conflict. Because if the [1:06:52] Pope was doing his job and there was some framework, you know, where there was some [1:06:56] real collaboration between a body like the UN and the church, there would be, and in fact, [1:07:01] this was proposed to Pius IX. I'm sure you've never heard of this, but I think it's somewhere [1:07:06] in volume one, the whole backstory on this, it was proposed at the first Vatican council. [1:07:11] They didn't finish as you know, so they never got back to it, that, that there would be a, [1:07:16] uh, body of international lawyers, priests, ethicists, moral theologians, et cetera, [1:07:22] that would, that would, um, be established as an adjunct to the Vatican bureaucracy [1:07:28] strictly for the purpose of evaluating war. And the proposal was that they actually make, [1:07:34] They do the opposite of the baker, you know, just war doctrine is great as long as it's never applied. [1:07:39] And they actually apply it. [1:07:41] They actually look at individual conflicts and they collect evidence. [1:07:44] And the same way the international courts do, you know, like they're supposed to. [1:07:48] But you never get from the modern popes an unequivocal statement saying we've examined the facts and we've applied the just war doctrine to the facts, which is standard legal procedure. [1:08:00] Right. You have a set of facts. [1:08:01] Right. [1:08:01] You have some law and then you say, OK, I'm going to apply the law to the facts and get my conclusion. [1:08:06] And the conclusion is if a war is undertaken for other than strictly defensive purposes, and if the purported reason for exercising force or using force, I mean, frankly, committing purportedly lawful political violence as this act of self-defense, [1:08:26] the threat that you're anticipating has to be imminent and it has to be credible and it has [1:08:32] to be tangible and it has to literally be around the corner the missiles are in the air or their [1:08:37] satellite imagery showing that there's troops assembled on the border there has to be some [1:08:42] anticipation that there's an attack coming but john you don't get around iran is just two weeks [1:08:48] away from getting a nuclear yeah yeah and they have been since 1974 exactly exactly and you've [1:08:55] seen and you've seen the um i mean there's like memes or videos out there of every time netanyahu [1:09:01] went to the un to say they're just two weeks away and this first one starts in like 2012 or something [1:09:05] yes um so but you never you're not going to get that out of leo you're not going to get no they [1:09:10] always have to backdoor it and say well yeah of course we condemn this war because we condemn all [1:09:16] war right um and you were um let's see let me see how my math is you were 14 in 2003 so in 2000 [1:09:23] you'd have been 11 or you know plus or minus and and the great thing that you may have missed when [1:09:29] you were 11 was john paul during the jubilee year of 2000 uh announcing to the world this great [1:09:39] litany of apologies do you remember that no i so i was i was i'm a convert so i didn't even come to [1:09:45] the faith so you were like doubly out of it and i guess when i say remember just to cut you some [1:09:50] slack i mean you know does that come up or you know other people you've talked to but but there [1:09:54] there was there was a scandalous and of course our friend bishop williamson uh you know wrote [1:09:59] at length about this yes um but in effect you know and you're familiar of course with the term [1:10:05] the black legends you know that's more of a spanish thing but like all of the all of the [1:10:10] accusations that the liberals are want w-o-n-t to beat up the church with or with which the liberals [1:10:18] are want you know a preposition was no with no object is something up with which i shall not put [1:10:25] you know something like that um the liberals are want to beat up the church with certain allegations [1:10:30] uh cortez massacred all the natives in in mexico uh all of the natives were infected with uh what [1:10:38] was it smallpox or whatever they say the spaniards brought over there this purpose of colonizing the [1:10:44] new world was strictly to loot them of all the gold, the Inquisition, the anti-Semitism, [1:10:49] the blood libel. [1:10:51] Let's say, take the top 10 allegations against the church throughout history. [1:10:54] This is especially in the Hispanic world is the so-called black legend. [1:11:00] And John Paul in 2000 effectively took that as the playbook. [1:11:05] And instead of saying, that's just wrong. [1:11:07] And you people are lying about the church the way you do all the time, which is not [1:11:12] to say there aren't abuses and errors. I mean, I'll be the first one to admit that some of the [1:11:17] crusaders went way off the rails and the whole question of Constantinople and all that. I think [1:11:23] we all are agreed in admitting our faults. That's a Catholic thing to do. Nobody's going to [1:11:28] apologize for sin or for misdeeds or for error when people go off the rails. But that's not what [1:11:35] John Paul was memory and reconciliation. That's it. It's a magnificent study in acquiescence and [1:11:44] sort of accommodationism towards the liberal state. And there's a great line in there, Dave, [1:11:50] where he says, just like Baker, it's exactly like Baker right out of his book. And just war doctrine [1:11:56] is great. We just don't ever use it. John Paul says, so he had these series of apologies. They [1:12:01] were very formal and it was i mean it's sort of like a warmed over new holy week you know where [1:12:06] he's like let us stand and commemorate our fallen brethren above a moment of silence and then there's [1:12:12] little prayers and maybe they sing a song and then they move to the next thing and it's like [1:12:15] 10 or 15 of these and it's basically each black legend we're sorry cortes mowed down all the [1:12:21] indians and we're sorry we took all the gold from spain and all the people that were burned at the [1:12:25] stake we're sorry about that and we're so sorry that mary you know executed all the protestants [1:12:31] And, you know, I'm making up random scenarios because I don't know if this is in the document or not, but that's the tenor of it. [1:12:36] But the one phrase that stuck in my mind and will remain there forever is him saying for all the times that the church sanctioned the use of force in defense of the truth, we apologize. [1:12:50] Wow. [1:12:50] And so even in secular law, where there's a judge who can impose a sentence to punish a criminal, and you say the use of force, it's like, Holy Father, maybe you just got back from lunch with Father Ken Baker. [1:13:07] What is force for, if not to serve the truth? [1:13:10] Is it to serve error? [1:13:11] Do you want the Protestants in England to just rip the guts out of Catholics until they say, Uncle, I'm not a Catholic anymore? [1:13:18] What is force for? Why does force exist? Have you heard of St. Thomas, Aristotle, Solon, the great Greek legist? You're talking nonsense. What is force for? You go spank the kid not because, hey, I caught you doing something nice for your sister. Come here and get a spanking. It's insane. Who talks that way? Except these idiots who are, and again, I have a hard time. [1:13:43] we all want to be charitable, some of us more than others, and I probably need to try harder. [1:13:49] But you listen to how they talk, and it is so inane that you are very tempted to conclude you [1:13:56] almost have to. It can't be an accident because you can't really just make a sort of sloppy mistake [1:14:02] like that. It has to be part of, even if it's not right on the tip of Leo's tongue or top of [1:14:09] mind or whatever when he says he says this war is awful because we should never have any war [1:14:16] okay well what do you mean if the vatican gets invaded you don't want the italians to like go [1:14:20] around the perimeter and repel you know like like um you know that like the whole the whole history [1:14:26] of the papal states basically is trying to resist uh hostile takeover right and and uh i mean go go [1:14:33] to an a serious catholic in ireland and say like well you shouldn't be using force uh me boy it's [1:14:38] like, okay, where are you coming from? So anyway, it's, it's, we're, we're, we're all, I mean, [1:14:46] I would say we're off the subject regarding Bayrick, but the reality is I think we're right [1:14:50] on the subject because it's this kind of talk that they don't want to hear. It's this, you know, [1:14:56] it's. Well, and I was going to say, you know, and it's not just, it's, it's not just the, [1:15:02] the individual people that got condemned by the SPLC or any of that. And, you know, [1:15:07] you were talking about this idea of like tradition having its side chapel or [1:15:11] whatever. I mean, and, and I've covered this a lot on the show. [1:15:15] We're going to keep covering it and, [1:15:17] and beating the horse until it's definitely, definitely dead. But you know, [1:15:21] the same year that that dirty dozen article came out, [1:15:24] the anti-defamation league put out their own article, [1:15:28] Latin mass cause for concern. And if we, [1:15:32] If we kind of unpack and trace this all back to where it began, it really goes back to this thing that happened in the early 1920s called the Opus Sacerdotal Amici Israel, which was, according to Cardinal Raphael Mary Duval, the head of the Holy Office, a plot or a trap laid by the Jews to insinuate themselves throughout modern society [1:16:00] and seek whatever means possible to minimize the memory of their history and take advantage [1:16:05] of the goodwill of Christians, which is precisely where we are today, which is what we're seeing [1:16:12] unfold in Gaza, in Israel. And, you know, now I guess where I kind of, where I want to go with, [1:16:20] there's where I want to go with all of this. Right. Which is a lot of places probably, [1:16:24] because it's all very interesting and you could go in a million different directions. [1:16:28] And this, do you, by the way, do you have ADD or ADHD? [1:16:31] Because I do. [1:16:31] Oh, yeah. [1:16:32] I mean, my kids say I got all kinds of things. [1:16:35] ADD, ODD. [1:16:35] I mean, and I think the plague, you know, my wife says it's in what we eat. [1:16:40] But I think for us, you know, as amateur, humbly speaking, you know, at least intellectually curious people. [1:16:48] I was going to say thinkers, you know, but whatever. [1:16:50] Let's not aggrandize. [1:16:53] The world is such a mess. [1:16:54] and my old friends, my partner Derek, [1:16:57] his old friend, Roberto Fiori, [1:16:59] who was the Terza Posizione, [1:17:02] one of the early movers in his teens and 20s in Italy [1:17:06] in the 70s and 80s, [1:17:08] who was accused of the massacre [1:17:10] of blowing up the train station in Bologna, [1:17:13] which Heidi mentions in that paragraph. [1:17:16] He's like, best of friends [1:17:18] with the notorious Italian terrorist Fiori. [1:17:21] He used to say, people would be like, [1:17:24] oh, I don't even know what to do. What can we do? He's like, well, what can't you do? Like [1:17:27] when the entire world is so out of it, every direction you look, there's something to be fixed, [1:17:33] which is great in terms of an opening. But that's, at least for me, that's the ADHD, [1:17:39] because I think of, well, what about law and the war in Iraq and the Pope and this and the memory [1:17:43] and reconciliation and blah, blah, blah. And it all just, you know, it all runs together. But [1:17:47] But part of it is to deliver this message to the plebs who just have, you know, grew up in a pile of mushrooms or whatever, who are just not, you know, they're not connecting the dots, right? [1:18:00] A lot of the history is unknown to people and where the history is known. [1:18:05] You know, even in the whole discussion where you mentioned with, you know, Gaza and all that, how it's all now in the forefront. [1:18:10] um one of the things i find i don't know if you would go this far or whatever your you know that [1:18:16] your your uh your troops you know who tune into your show would say um but but it is very much [1:18:22] an open question as to the status of the israeli state it's like all the liberals can agree like [1:18:29] gaza is awful right that's like leo saying oh war is you know anytime someone gets killed it's bad [1:18:34] i agree you know my aunt died last week that was very unpleasant tragic no one likes that it's [1:18:40] We're all going to end up that way. [1:18:42] But it's probably perhaps the central most painful fact of human existence is death, right? [1:18:49] And it's a punishment, right? [1:18:51] It's this whole separation of the soul from the body thing as a result of the unfortunate direction things took in the garden. [1:19:02] But death is death, right? [1:19:03] I mean, we're all going to go. [1:19:05] And when it's over, it's over. [1:19:06] so it's very easy to pick you know to go back to the garden metaphor to me as I've been saying a [1:19:13] lot of these things Gaza Leo saying oh well we condemn all wars the right winger who says well [1:19:19] I'm against abortion and I go to that march every year and I'm not saying don't go by the way I mean [1:19:23] by all means go but then you know do something else afterwards it's all low-hanging fruit it's [1:19:29] all I'll pick something that's kind of it's popular enough and it's trendy enough it's not [1:19:35] controversial. The controversial part, to go back to what I said about Saddam earlier, is if you [1:19:42] were to get a liberal government elected in Israel and they would pull back some of the borders, [1:19:47] you've all seen the maps from 39 to 42 to 45 to 48 to 60s with six-day war and the incursions into [1:19:56] not just Gaza, but north and Lebanon and all of the occupied territories. If Israel would say, [1:20:04] okay, well, we'll just come back to our original. [1:20:06] Well, are we fine with that? [1:20:08] Do they have any particular claim on that territory? [1:20:13] Given how the territory was acquired, is that a problem? [1:20:18] Are we supposed to just say, well, look, it's kind of customary [1:20:21] because after this many decades, there's nothing you can do about it. [1:20:24] There's a big push for a two-state solution. [1:20:27] On the other hand, a number of the more radical people are considered radical. [1:20:34] I mean, even revisionist Israelis who will say, no, we don't want a two-state solution. [1:20:39] We want a one-state solution. [1:20:40] Everybody who lives their boats, everyone has to say, well, now you're into the problem of the self, whatever. [1:20:49] They say this about themselves. [1:20:50] Yet again, I'm missing another term I'm looking for. [1:20:53] Well, they don't just want that. [1:20:55] They want this. [1:20:55] They want greater Israel. [1:20:58] Well, they do. [1:20:59] They do. [1:21:00] And, you know, there's, I think, a number of reasons for that. [1:21:03] But what I was going to say is anytime there's a serious rebuttal to the one state solution where all the citizens are just treated as equal, they say, well, then this nation will lose its character as a Jewish state. [1:21:18] And you notice for all the grief that we as Catholics take in terms of you can't bring your religion into politics. [1:21:26] If you do that, you're like a fanatic Islamist. [1:21:29] Yes. [1:21:30] All real good Americans, the ones who are not in the crosshairs of Heidi Beyrich and the ADL and his other standard, the thought police and whatever, are the good Americans who say, well, I have my own views, but I don't try to impose them on the public sphere. [1:21:44] there's one place where you're [1:21:47] absolutely allowed to do that, [1:21:51] which is the Jewish state. [1:21:52] And all the mainstream media outlets [1:21:54] for decades have been saying, [1:21:57] spokesmen for the Jewish state [1:21:58] announced today that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. [1:22:00] And say, well, why is that? [1:22:01] What if after Coughlin rose to power, [1:22:05] it started being referred to [1:22:07] as the Catholic state, [1:22:08] like the most Christian kingdom [1:22:09] of his highness in Spain or whatever. [1:22:11] uh it's it's a very uh it's an interesting inconsistency let's put it that way i actually [1:22:17] i started tweeting about this um a couple days ago i was at this event this very well-to-do [1:22:24] uh gala that was going on here in coeur d'alene there's this group called the idaho family policy [1:22:30] center that like you know they like litigate stuff like guys and girls bathrooms and you know [1:22:35] the low-hanging kind of culture yeah fruit stuff yeah which isn't to say it's not worth doing i [1:22:41] I mean, it's fine. [1:22:42] Absolutely. [1:22:42] But they, you know, they get up on stage and then you see these people in the crowd that are all parroting back the same thing. [1:22:47] Oh, we want freedom of religion, freedom of religion, freedom of religion. [1:22:51] And, you know, so I started I started tweeting about this in real time as it was happening. [1:22:56] And it's like all these people that are talking about, oh, we need to we need to make sure that we have freedom of religion. [1:23:02] They all want to ban Sharia law and Islam. [1:23:06] And then you talk about that and they're like, oh, well, Islam isn't actually even a religion. [1:23:11] It's a death cult. It's this. It's fascism. It's blah, blah, blah. And it's like, you know, I've been cursed, I guess, to have enough brain cells to rub together. But it's like when you look at canon law and what the church used to teach, talking about, you know, church and state where the church is to the state what the soul is to the body, right? [1:23:32] where the church informs the state and informs the morals of the state, [1:23:37] that actually kind of looks a lot like Sharia law. [1:23:41] And so when are these evangelical Christian Zionists that are shouting death to Islam and let's ban Islam? [1:23:49] Well, they're going to turn right around and do that to Catholicism. [1:23:52] It's just a matter of time. [1:23:53] And you can look this up, Dave, since you're a whiz with the instant internet history. [1:23:59] But, and you'll have to just correct my, because this is all a little bit in the dusty old memory banks, but right after 9-11, you know, which I lived through in my old, what I've been, 30, 30 something. [1:24:12] You're not, John, you're not that old, actually. [1:24:15] Well, I'm just trying to remember what, you know, where this was, because I mean, the memories are, the memories are absolutely vivid. [1:24:20] And Andrew Sullivan, who I believe is yet another homosexual conservative. [1:24:27] many such cases was was uh and you can check this but i mean i my memory is that maybe he was a [1:24:34] national review guy but i'm not you can just look it up and you'll figure it out in a second [1:24:38] um and ironically i believe this article that i'm thinking of was in the new republic which is very [1:24:44] much a lefty thing but again i could be getting this wrong too because i just all runs together [1:24:49] as my grandmother used to say in her late 90s it's all too much um but anyway right after 9-11 [1:24:55] The point is, 9-11 was September 11th, so let's say October 1st or September 20th or whatever, he's got this column in one of the big magazines. [1:25:07] And again, you will recall, or your older people will recall, Bush got himself in trouble because he used the term crusade. [1:25:18] Supposedly, the Arabs attack us, and then he's like, we're going to launch a crusade in defense of Western democracy, freedom, McDonald's. [1:25:25] So you remember he stood on the pile of rubble in New York and he's like, the best thing [1:25:29] you can do is get out there and go shopping. [1:25:30] You know, we got to get the economy going again. [1:25:33] And the stock market had crashed and everyone's hiding under the bed. [1:25:37] And but there's this huge backlash, you know, from kind of in a certain respect, this dynamic [1:25:42] that you're referring to where everyone wants to speak out of both sides of their mouths. [1:25:46] Freedom of religion, ban this kind of religion. [1:25:48] We need this kind of religion, you know, showing that you can't evade this topic. [1:25:53] It's as Belloc said, it's the central part of the human drama. [1:25:58] All political questions have not just have theological implications, but are ultimately theological. [1:26:06] What do you believe most fundamentally? [1:26:08] That's what shapes your politics. [1:26:11] So Bush declares the crusade. [1:26:13] He gets pummeled and beat on. [1:26:15] And then he's like, oh, yeah, that's not going to go well. [1:26:18] So he backpedals from that. [1:26:19] And then Sullivan comes out and to kind of not just reinvigorate the troops, but in order very subtly. [1:26:27] And it's all so well played to recapture the narrative, the momentum of the narrative. [1:26:35] And the title of the article is, this is a religious war. [1:26:39] And you think, OK, Andy, that's an interesting one. [1:26:42] And then all you got to get into is the first two paragraphs. [1:26:45] And he says, we're not against we're not at war with Islam. [1:26:48] we're not at war with um you know i told you to take you like an instant to find it we're not at [1:26:54] war with uh this particular sect or that particular sect we're at war with fundamentalism what is [1:27:01] fundamentalism belief fundamentalism is people who have what they admit is a religious mindset [1:27:08] worldview ideology the terms we've been using and they insist that it's true like oh well i mean and [1:27:16] And I don't know if you guys talk this way anymore. [1:27:20] And when I was your age, it was all phrases like, oh, you're hiding in plain sight. [1:27:24] I mean, they don't hide what they're talking about. [1:27:27] It's not a hidden conflict. [1:27:28] It's not, you know, I'm a great one for conspiracies in the sense that people will label certain historical investigations. [1:27:36] Oh, like you're a conspiracy theorist. [1:27:37] No, I just am a historian. [1:27:39] Leave it at that. [1:27:41] But none of it's a secret. [1:27:42] the conflict, the open warfare, you know, more in terms of ideas, but backed up with force, [1:27:50] which John Paul doesn't want to believe in, has been between the Catholic worldview, [1:27:56] which was supreme, you know, until the 13th, 14th century, and the states that broke away from that, [1:28:02] who said, we don't think there's, we don't, we're not interested in absolutely kind of [1:28:07] unshakable religious truth anymore. Religious truth is going to go by the wayside. Now, [1:28:11] admittedly that was, that took centuries to work out because some of the Protestants, you know, [1:28:16] Calvinists especially were, were fierce, you know, in their, uh, heretical dogmatism, but that's kind [1:28:22] of an old habit, you know, that they're stuck with. And you get, you leave that for a century [1:28:26] or two, and then you're just left with, Hey, life is much better if we don't talk ideas and let's [1:28:32] just get on with the business and the joy of living. Um, so it's, it's, it's, it's interesting, [1:28:38] But I mean, you get these moments like that paragraph that you just highlighted there. [1:28:42] I think it's incredible. [1:28:45] You can look up since you're a super guru with all that. [1:28:49] There's one other one, Dave, that, you know, this I'm not I'm not commenting on this gentleman's ethnicity. [1:28:56] But there was an article definitely was in the New Republic, which just like Sullivan's piece came out regarding the memory and recon or sorry. [1:29:05] Solomon's piece came out about 9-11, you know, when there was this controversy about Bush using the phrase crusade. [1:29:10] When John Paul did his famous apologies, you know, we apologize for Cortes and for using force and the Inquisition and blah, blah, blah. [1:29:19] He endeared himself and he endeared and he attempted, of course, to endear the church to modern man. [1:29:25] And, of course, that's the Vatican II experiment, right? [1:29:27] If we just soften a little bit and change our style of speaking, everyone will love us again. [1:29:32] And of course it doesn't, it doesn't seem to be working. I don't know about you. It didn't [1:29:36] sort of backfired, right? No. And not only that they're, they're going for round two now there. [1:29:40] I don't know if you've been watching, but he's been doubling down. Right. Because, [1:29:44] because that's the way they roll that if, that if, uh, if it were to take a real admission of like, [1:29:49] oh, I'm sorry, I made a mistake and maybe we should go back to the old faith. It's like, [1:29:53] that's, that's too painful. Let's just double down. Um, but in terms of your, you know, [1:29:59] googling i don't know if this will come up but and i and i'm i'm gonna make it harder on you [1:30:03] because i don't even have a title but one of the mainstream opinion writers in uh the new republic [1:30:09] from around the year 2000 because it was the jubilee year when john paul did these the apologies [1:30:15] uh was weiseltier w-e-i-s-e-l-t-i-e-r or something to that effect first name leon l-e-o-n [1:30:23] and he wrote a scathing op-ed against John Paul's apologies, [1:30:29] which is kind of, I mean, frankly, I give him credit [1:30:32] because he was calling a spade a spade. [1:30:35] He basically said something along the lines of, [1:30:38] Holy Father, we're not buying it. [1:30:40] It's wonderful for you to get up and put on your sackcloth and ashes [1:30:44] and says, oh, I'm so sorry. [1:30:46] And you know what he was really talking about, right? [1:30:47] He's really saying like, oh, the church can apologize [1:30:50] for what happened in World War II [1:30:53] and how the Christians just sort of snoozed [1:30:56] through the worst tragedy in human history. [1:30:58] And you can say, oh, you know, we lament that. [1:31:01] And look, we changed our teaching. [1:31:03] We have no strategy and we have the, you know, [1:31:06] these commissions on relations between Jews and Christians. [1:31:08] And like, we're doing all this stuff to make up for it. [1:31:11] But Weiseltier said, we're not falling for it. [1:31:15] You didn't come to this point voluntarily [1:31:18] because you examined your conscience and felt guilty and said, oh, we really need to change. [1:31:22] We really need to just go back to being a side chapel, you know, in the in the group of world religions. [1:31:27] He said it was liberal, secular politics. [1:31:31] He didn't say but read between the lines backed up by force that backed you into a corner. [1:31:36] So you basically just had to surrender. [1:31:38] It was because the article is sorry. [1:31:42] It was released. [1:31:44] I told you you get it. [1:31:45] I can't get a copy of it. [1:31:47] It's not popping up, but that was the article. [1:31:49] Well, no, that's perfect. [1:31:51] You'll find it eventually. [1:31:53] But I mean, I just think reading that is so much more informative sometimes [1:31:59] than trying to make sense out of when Leo says, [1:32:02] like, oh, I'm opposed to war because I'm opposed to everything. [1:32:06] Does that count? [1:32:07] War is included in everything, so I'm opposed to that too. [1:32:10] It's like, that doesn't, thank you, I guess. [1:32:12] That doesn't help us a whole lot. [1:32:14] Well, so I guess where I wanted to go, right, back to that, you know, we've got this new audience that is becoming Catholic. [1:32:23] There have been a lot of conversions over the past couple of years. [1:32:25] They're coming into the church. [1:32:27] They're being smacked over the face with things like this, which just came out yesterday. [1:32:32] You've got Bishop Bambera coming out, you know, talking about celebrating Yom Kippur, you know, pandering. [1:32:40] And at the same time that that's happening, we've got this new consciousness, this new awareness about Israel and what's been going on there for the past 78 years. [1:32:53] And we also have this opportunity where the Southern Poverty Law Center is now gone. [1:33:00] That guardrail is gone. [1:33:02] The ADL is thoroughly discredited at this point. [1:33:07] So we have this opportunity, I think, now that we had kind of—I don't know if it was a false start. I wouldn't say that necessarily. I mean, you had Coughlin, Fahey, all these people trying to get real Catholic social teaching in there to kind of like actually drop the clutch and get the car into gear. [1:33:30] Yeah, yeah. [1:33:31] And so I think we've got this opportunity now. [1:33:33] So what would your, I guess, encouragement, what would you like to see happen? [1:33:39] Because, you know, we've got a bunch of young kids that are becoming aware of what the church actually teaches. [1:33:46] And we have a great need in society with all these liberal democracies that are failing one by one with America definitely on the list. [1:33:56] uh we are you know very very quickly uh approaching failed state status um so what what what's your [1:34:05] prescription what needs to be done what what should lay catholics be doing you know because [1:34:10] i think a lot of people are out there and they're just like you know waiting for their priest to [1:34:15] tell them to do something and it's like that's not how this works you know yeah yeah i mean i [1:34:21] think you know it's it's it's about it's going to be about as as uh as uh coherent and organized [1:34:27] and focused and narrow as the last hour or however long we've been talking because it's it's you know [1:34:33] i really do go back to fury's talking point which is when the world is completely out of line you [1:34:39] know there's like everything to be fixed but i think there's a few we have to operate within the [1:34:44] reality that that that we're in right um i i i still believe this will sound self-serving because [1:34:51] the only thing if i've done anything i'm grateful for that um i've caused a lot of trouble that's [1:34:57] for sure dave because i was told i won't go back to this point but just by way of anecdote um [1:35:03] in in uh the various dealings i had with other members of the dirty dozen [1:35:08] And one or two of them used to tell me like, oh, I'm a, it was something like you're, I can remember the quote, you're a detriment to the whole traditional movement, you know, and you need to stop. [1:35:20] I was like, stop what? Like trying to stop the war in Iraq or, and so I've just, you know, that's, I guess what I've done is just cause a lot of trouble. [1:35:32] Me too. [1:35:34] Yeah, good, good, good. [1:35:35] but I firmly believe that on the constructive side if if we and I'll give all the credit to [1:35:42] Derek my my old partner who's sort of medically retired who started this effort to get some of [1:35:49] these old books you know a good portion of which are behind me back into print is the the the ideas [1:35:58] the as Dorothy Day used to say like clarification of thought rectification of thought her partner [1:36:03] peter moran would you know do these little almost like poem length uh blurbs on some point of [1:36:09] doctrine that were that were very compelling and easy to digest you know for the for the average [1:36:14] guy who doesn't have time and miss sort of the early the early tweet if you will um but this [1:36:19] this constant rectification of ideas i think is vital because when you look around at the today's [1:36:30] circumstances, part of the paralysis is I don't even know what my ideas are. [1:36:36] You know, are we, should we just be aiming for the side chapel? [1:36:39] Is that fine? [1:36:40] Like as long as, and you know, one of the things to be quite honest, you mentioned the, you [1:36:46] know, kind of waiting for the priest to tell you what to do. [1:36:48] Part of the trouble that I caused and that I've got myself in all kinds of trouble with [1:36:52] the priests is that I was greeted with in terms of my, you know, movement I tried to start, which [1:37:00] was, as I said, it's literally a few men and a dog and an email list trying to raise the banner of [1:37:07] Fahey up the flagpole and say, men should rally to the teaching of Father Fahey as someone who [1:37:13] just took the basics of the faith, looked at the circumstances of the modern world, and then [1:37:18] produced kind of a program or a package of a coherent vision. So Fahey is our man. The [1:37:24] distributors are our men in terms of their vision of how do we solve the very conspicuous problem of [1:37:33] corporate concentration of wealth on the other side, which then inevitably leads to state [1:37:39] concentration of wealth and power because the state is either reacting to the abuses of capitalism [1:37:44] and trying to solve the problem in a big government way, [1:37:47] or more often than not, [1:37:49] and Chesterton said this 100 years ago [1:37:51] in the Outline of Sanity, [1:37:52] it just becomes this combination [1:37:54] and this collaboration between big corporate, [1:37:57] big money, and big government. [1:37:58] And of course, everybody sees that today, right? [1:38:00] So what's the Catholic response to that? [1:38:03] Well, that's the vision of distributism. [1:38:05] And we could say on the natural law level, [1:38:07] I don't mind saying that Jefferson had it [1:38:10] and the Southern Agrarians had it [1:38:11] because it's very much a natural law kind of thing. [1:38:14] But our effort was to take two or three schools of thought, if you will, sort of Fahey on the, you know, almost the cosmic, the grand scale of supernatural life and its implications for how a Catholic approaches the world in modern times. [1:38:30] Because, again, he was writing 30s, 40s, 50s. [1:38:33] The distributors tackling the question of property, you know, the very key question of economic life, because everybody needs to eat, right? [1:38:40] So you're consumed with how should this society be organized in that way. [1:38:45] The point you made, which is absolutely well taken, when a Catholic confronts society and thinks, hey, we should do something to fix it. [1:38:55] What is the, you know, prescending from this idea that the know-nothings accused loyal Catholics of being subservient to the Pope, you know, as a foreign head of state? [1:39:05] uh there's a little like with every error or every kind of mostly false allegation there's [1:39:12] always a ring of truth which is the catholics themselves the lay catholics tend because of [1:39:18] their loyalty to the church as an institution i don't mean her doctrine practice sacraments [1:39:24] the spiritual life but the the visible corporate body the political body if you will if you let me [1:39:29] use that term there tends to be this kind of like oh i'm just one of the troops and i'm sitting i'm [1:39:35] waiting for the sergeant tell me, you know, can I use the restroom? [1:39:37] Should I drive the Jeep? [1:39:38] You know, what do you want for lunch? [1:39:40] These little, like, I'm not going to move until someone commands me. [1:39:43] And that's not really the Catholic position, and it never has been. [1:39:47] And it certainly wasn't the position of Louis IX and the great, you know, Catholic lay statesman of our history. [1:39:54] But again, I think it's a symptom of modernity. [1:39:57] There's reasons I believe there's some two or three very clear historical explanations for how things got quite that bad. [1:40:05] But that was another one of our themes is lay people should get together and within their local sphere of what can be done, they should do something. [1:40:15] And fathers, you know, I hate to say this, but fathers not really in a position. [1:40:19] I mean, unless you're committing a sin or unless you're promoting some kind of doctrine that's contrary to the faith or really leading people under this umbrella of a near occasion of sin. [1:40:30] advocate charging the White House with shotguns, right? Because every year you're just going to [1:40:34] get shot and that'll be the end of it. But I certainly would advocate [1:40:38] have a candlelight vigil outside the porn shop or [1:40:43] take over your zoning board and try to regulate what [1:40:46] bad activities move into your neighborhood and a thousand things like that. [1:40:50] There's no question that the priest doesn't have to come to the meeting and [1:40:54] say, well, on behalf of St. Normally [1:40:59] snooze a lot to perish. I endorse this course of action. It's just not how it works. So there were [1:41:05] these kind of themes that we were focused on, but the bulk of the work at the beginning and how it [1:41:11] has remained, even though I've been off the grid for quite a long time, has been forming proper [1:41:17] ideas because at least the world I came from 20 plus years ago, and of course, you and I talked [1:41:24] already that this is this still seems to be the case in certain circles we couldn't even agree [1:41:29] amongst ourselves on what the right course of action is i mean i'll just give you one example [1:41:34] and i and in this case i'll name names just because it's a public work but you you you may [1:41:39] have run across in your reading and you know conversion and all that there was a pretty good [1:41:44] book against vatican ii called the great facade which was by uh chris ferrara and tom woods [1:41:50] well ferrara has stayed i think on this sort of orthodox social teaching because he's written a [1:41:57] lot about libertarianism and whatever and i think from a from a good catholic perspective i think [1:42:02] liberty the god that failed is is the uh book that he wrote on on uh you know basically the catholic [1:42:08] he wouldn't call it the third position because that's too racy for for his taste but i mean [1:42:13] basically it's good old-fashioned catholic social teaching and tom woods of course has remained [1:42:18] become even more of and has remained a fierce libertarian you know very much an american [1:42:24] um you know all government is bad in effect and the less government the better so between those [1:42:31] um and i frankly i think he's i wouldn't even call him a traditionalist anymore i think he kind of [1:42:36] repudiated the book uh years after he collaborated with ferrara to write it so my point in bringing [1:42:42] this up as one of many possible examples, amongst ourselves, we can't even agree what the Catholic [1:42:48] position is. So if someone says, I'm a distributist, many Catholics will say, oh, that's bad. That's [1:42:54] evil. That's fascist. That's socialist. That's this. That's whatever. It's like, you don't know [1:42:57] the first thing about our history, about the social teaching of the church, about the natural [1:43:03] law and questions of like the organization of the family, the economy, the state, et cetera. [1:43:08] You sometimes try to get a group of men in a parish to do something. They say, oh, we have [1:43:12] task father well no you obviously don't understand that you talk about the you know as you guys like [1:43:18] to say the jq you say well just read father fahey because he's basically sound i mean he [1:43:23] on the one hand he absolutely uh denounces condemns you know again it's just stupid to [1:43:28] have to say it because it's not it's not um it's like well yeah i'm against rape and murder and [1:43:33] all these other things i don't i don't believe in kicking the dog for no reason so he he says [1:43:38] all of the disclaimers that he's supposed to say. We're not racists in the sense of being hostile [1:43:44] to a particular race solely because of their genetics. We don't believe people should be [1:43:49] tortured, massacred, burned, killed, you know, blah, blah, blah. Okay, check all those boxes. [1:43:54] So he says all that, but then he says, let's look at the reality, which is the unfortunate, [1:44:00] however, it's God's disposition of history, right? But the unfortunate reality is, [1:44:06] As John tells us in the first chapter, our Lord came unto his own. [1:44:10] His own didn't receive him. [1:44:11] Now, some did because they were the first Christians. [1:44:13] You know, most of them were of the Old Testament religion. [1:44:17] But those that didn't became fiercely opposed to him. [1:44:20] And they said right out of St. Matthew, we will not have this man to reign over us. [1:44:25] And they still don't want him to reign over him. [1:44:26] And we're all saying like, yes, he has to reign. [1:44:29] And the modern state's like, well, he can reign over there as long as he doesn't come out of that little box we put him in. [1:44:33] And that's, I mean, it just is what it is, right? [1:44:37] It's nothing to get excited about. [1:44:39] But those, we can't even agree amongst ourselves on those issues. [1:44:45] And, you know, one of the things that was popular in that era of the great apologies [1:44:48] of the year 2000 was talking about every time there would be some criticism of how [1:44:55] have Catholics throughout history approached this question of the Old Testament people [1:45:02] who were responsible for opposing our Lord, [1:45:05] and then they all kind of dispersed for a while, [1:45:07] and then as we get into modernity, [1:45:09] and the authority of the faith and the Catholic religion [1:45:11] starts to come off or starts to be relaxed [1:45:14] as a historical and political force, [1:45:16] then they come more to the fore, [1:45:18] and what's the basic response to that? [1:45:24] In terms of this great apology era, [1:45:28] one of the things that you started to hear [1:45:30] as a way of, it's like another pseudo apology is, yeah, but Pius XII rescued so many of them. [1:45:37] And just like with Leo saying, we're opposed to all war. It's like, okay, that's, you're speaking [1:45:45] a true ism. You know, it's true what you're saying. Where I am, it's, I don't know what time [1:45:50] is it getting to be, as my old friend used to say. It's 10 minutes to eight. You know, you're [1:45:55] way past the old 78 minutes that'll fit on one CD for all the people who need a CD of this. [1:46:00] But, you know, I'll give you the truism. [1:46:04] It's September before our time changed, so the clock hasn't been turned back, and it's [1:46:10] dark outside. [1:46:11] We say, okay, well, that's great, but you're not answering the question. [1:46:14] Saying Pius XII rescued all these Jews. [1:46:16] What are you trying to say? [1:46:18] You're trying to say that, oh, well, we're trying to make up for it, all the bad stuff [1:46:22] we did in the hundred years before that. [1:46:25] bias the 12th basically fixed it all because he's like oh come here i'll you know i'll let you hide [1:46:29] in the closet and feed you meals while you wait for the nazis to you know come and go and they'll [1:46:33] never know you're here it's it's a fine statement but it's a it's a kind of cowardly failure to [1:46:40] confront the real point which is to to to uh face these questions about is the political order a [1:46:50] battleground? And are we prepared to acknowledge the reality that the most effective and persuasive [1:46:57] set of ideas, which are persuasive and inspiring enough to translate into action, kind of spontaneous [1:47:05] but organized because you're thoughtful. And when you set out to do something, you're better off, [1:47:10] as our Lord says, you don't just start building a house on some wobbly ground, you plan. So [1:47:15] organization is intrinsic to action, but it doesn't want to be stifling. It just wants to be [1:47:21] kind of this nice balance of like an organic, spontaneous discipline. You know, if I can coin [1:47:27] the contradictory term, but that's, you know, everything is like that. A pickup game out in [1:47:32] the parking lot, some sport you want to play after mass. I mean, there's got to be rules and things [1:47:36] to make that work. But the political order is this battleground of ideas and the ideas that are [1:47:43] most persuasive and gripping, you know, in terms of getting this visceral kind of response and [1:47:51] adherence, plus some organization and plus a little material support, those are the ones that are [1:47:57] going to become supreme. And it's just a historical fact that when people were convinced of the truth [1:48:03] of the Catholic faith in the ages of faith, the world was shaped that way. And as they ceased to [1:48:09] be so convinced. They let their guard down and thought it's not really worth fighting about. [1:48:14] I'm happy. It's like when someone says, you know, distributism means ownership. I mean, [1:48:19] it means that a man, his family, the small units should be owners, radically connected owners of [1:48:26] the property that they work on. And someone says, well, of course, we're all owners. I mean, [1:48:30] the homeownership statistics are, you know, and say, okay, I bought a house for $500,000. I owe [1:48:35] $4.99 in over 30 years, I'm going to pay a million and a half dollars for it. That's ownership. [1:48:40] We're fine. So I guess, I mean, hopefully you see how I'm dancing around and kind of hitting [1:48:49] at your question from all these different angles. But the position, which I guess I still have these [1:48:57] days is the ideas to me seem so vital because until you can get to a parish or a small group [1:49:06] of men where there's five of you or 10 of you or 12 of you, and you can say, okay, Israel, [1:49:13] distributism, Catholic action, war and peace, neocons, and everyone's like, oh yeah, we're all [1:49:20] wired. We're all on the same page. Until we can get where that's not debatable anymore, we're [1:49:25] going to be in real trouble because all of our experience and you said it earlier you know i i [1:49:31] just sort of make trouble you're you're just nice and you you happen to get in trouble i at least [1:49:36] admit that i make the trouble for myself um and uh but all of us who are trying to fight this one [1:49:43] man band kind of battle you know it it provokes our allies and you know former colleagues i can't [1:49:49] even wasn't even that close to them to say you're a liability to the movement it's like well why is [1:49:54] that? What are you trying to accomplish? What movement are you in charge of that I'm jeopardizing? [1:50:00] And until we have some kind of, at least a cadre, I mean, it doesn't have to be everyone, but there's [1:50:05] got to be this core that is formed where people can think very clearly and fully understand the [1:50:13] background. And I don't know, you and all the other guys that are out in this space that you [1:50:18] occupy, my hat's off to you for filling that space and for talking about these things. But I wonder, [1:50:23] from your point of view, it's a question for you now. How much room is there and should there be [1:50:29] room? I know you believe in this. I'm setting you up to give a speech, basically, for the deeper [1:50:35] formation of ideas that is, you know, listen to the podcast and someone mentions a book or someone [1:50:41] says, hey, we really need to get the ideas right on this topic. How much appetite is there out there [1:50:47] today in our current climate with the tweets and the short attention span in the video for actual [1:50:53] reading because the only reason I can decide for the fact that I'm just a windbag and I like to [1:50:58] hear myself talk the only reason I can go on and on like this Dave is because I spent the last 25 [1:51:03] years reading and I enjoy it and I don't have time as much anymore but when I can make the time and [1:51:09] go in a corner and open a book I'm like the happiest man in the world and and I think that [1:51:13] we have to kind of recover some of that because it's a bit like the guys with their obsession with [1:51:19] your mineral water that you're drinking and a certain exercise and working out and all this [1:51:24] kind of stuff people do for maintaining their bodies. But it doesn't seem like there's as much [1:51:28] energy as goes into the mind and the formation of the intellect that that's just, if we don't do [1:51:34] that, we're going to, we're going to lose, you know, forever and we're going to continue to lose. [1:51:38] So what, what, what, what would your, what's your response to that? Cause you're more in touch with [1:51:42] this current, um, you know, climate and all that than I am. Well, I, I do think that there is [1:51:49] something brewing, uh, out there right now with the rise of AI. You know, we've, we've had this [1:51:57] thing, a dead internet theory, uh, for a while now. Uh, basically it's the idea that 90% of what [1:52:04] you see online and the people that you interact, the people that you interact with online are [1:52:08] actually just bots that they're, it's just AI. You're not actually, and I get this feeling all [1:52:15] the time on X where it's like, you know, I'm arguing with somebody on X and then it's like, [1:52:19] you're not even reading the one or two sentences that I wrote, you know, you're, you're over here [1:52:26] and it's just like this rote blather that just is coming out. It's like, are you even a person? [1:52:33] And so I think that we are kind of like, and I tweeted about this a couple of weeks ago, [1:52:38] But I think that we are rapidly approaching a point in time of post a post social media age. [1:52:48] And I think that we're seeing that there's a couple of thinkers out there, not necessarily Catholic. [1:52:54] One of them is I'm going to shout him out. [1:52:56] Meta Prime. He's let me see if I can actually pull up his thing. [1:53:00] He'll appreciate it. [1:53:01] But Meta Prime has a little sub stack and, you know, Twitter and all of this. [1:53:09] He's been writing about this stuff for a while. [1:53:12] But, you know, this idea of fraternal networks and building a real social network in the real world where you can actually get other guys that want to engage in business, that want to engage in political activity. [1:53:26] and investing your time in the real world as opposed to online. [1:53:31] Because it's become very clear that online, [1:53:35] this is just kind of like a sanctioned place where you can go to blow off steam. [1:53:40] You can bitch about Israel. [1:53:41] You can talk about the Jews. [1:53:43] You can do, you know, all of this stuff. [1:53:45] And then all of a sudden that the piss and vinegar in your gut is kind of alleviated. [1:53:51] And now you want to go, you know, watch the next Marvel movie that comes out. [1:53:55] Right, right. [1:53:56] And so I think people are starting to get that idea that, hey, wait a minute, you know, this is a hamster wheel, you know, where we're complaining online. [1:54:06] And, you know, I was promised by Captive Dreamer, he's a guy on X, that, you know, if we just like tweet a lot and we complain that we can shape policy in the administration, it's like, okay, that was a lie. [1:54:19] Yeah, we're going to bring down the state. [1:54:21] That was a lie. [1:54:23] Actually, you're on a hamster wheel. [1:54:24] And so at least I hope. [1:54:27] Yeah, and it's actually counterproductive, not in the sense that, I mean, everybody enjoys a good argument or whatever, but it very much feeds into the problem, which is we're all co-opted in just feeling like, okay, you gave a speech and so now you're off duty for a while and then you get another hit of it. [1:54:48] But your day-to-day life, and it's really like another permutation of that same phenomenon of the faith not penetrating what you actually do and the decisions that you actually make. [1:54:59] And I think part of, to go off of this meta guy, I'm delighted to hear what you're saying because it's difficult to be alone and it's difficult to do it alone. [1:55:11] And temperamentally, I'm kind of a loner, you know, so I have to confess when someone's like, you're a detriment to the movement. [1:55:16] I'm like, oh, yeah, that's cool. [1:55:19] Because like what movement? [1:55:20] I mean, you people are a bunch of old women who wants to be in your stupid movement. [1:55:24] Right. [1:55:25] And I don't. [1:55:25] And again, you know, I have to watch my turn of phrase because I can get, you know, I'm told I'm getting nicer. [1:55:33] So that's a little frightening. [1:55:34] But but so, you know, it goes it goes without saying, but I'll say it. [1:55:41] I don't take away from anything good that anyone's done. [1:55:44] You know what I mean? [1:55:44] It's like the whole blind pig finds an acorn. [1:55:46] And I don't mean to say they're all blind pigs because they're much better than that. [1:55:49] You know, a lot of these people have done good work, right? [1:55:53] As far as it goes. [1:55:55] But they also, at the same time, have this kind of side gig of keeping the radicals on [1:56:01] the reservation. [1:56:02] Like, yeah, we'll talk about things that are sort of very comfortable and very nice. [1:56:06] And if someone gets too edgy, then it's like, oh, that's, you know, you've stepped outside [1:56:09] the lifelines. [1:56:10] It's like, well, aside from the First Amendment argument, which is why really, according to everyone else, I can say whatever I want. [1:56:18] But beyond that, it's like, can we actually get some serious thinking about are the half measures and just sort of the conferences and the this and that about, okay, well, you know, it's sort of we talk about these things and then it's back to business as usual. [1:56:34] Like, what are we actually, what effect do we actually propose to have? [1:56:39] And I guess I'll take the lead that you've opened up by saying, in addition to my whole sales pitch about ideas, because I believe that at the end of the day, like if you don't have the old phrase, thought precedes action, right? [1:56:52] If you're not thinking right about something, you're not going to right place. [1:56:57] But then there's got to, that has to coalesce where there's at least this core of people who are prepared to share with one another that they're all on the right side on the key questions. [1:57:09] And then I think what to do about things is driven, you know, 99% by circumstances. [1:57:14] But it's certainly much better if you can do it with someone because there's just this consolation of having a few comrades at arms where it alleviates that little nagging thought like, well, gee, maybe I'm nuts. [1:57:28] Or maybe I just, I don't know how popular this is in your age group. [1:57:34] But for the first time after many years of hearing about it, I just watched the Truman Show with Jim Carrey. [1:57:42] And it was recommended to me. [1:57:44] years do you know that you familiar with it or you know the plot great um yeah and i and literally [1:57:48] i had just seen it for some reason and it's um it's all the kind of the same thing i mean you [1:57:54] know we we go and go and go and go and go and then at some point you hope that the boat like [1:57:58] bumps into the dome and you're like wait a minute uh i thought something was fishy here um and uh [1:58:06] anyway it's it's i'm just i'm glad to hear that there's that there's there are people who are [1:58:10] talking about, let's get beyond just the sort of self-congratulatory apologetics and like get into [1:58:17] something serious because that's absolutely needed. But it's got to be an outgrowth of the ideas, [1:58:22] you know, because if we're not on the same page pulling in the same direction, it's not going to [1:58:26] work. And the best place to get the best ideas, I've got to give a plug, of course, is at IHS [1:58:33] press. What would you recommend? I mean, I've been recommending Action, Fleet of the Fields, [1:58:41] and Economics for Helen, just because I feel like ethics in the national economy is like, [1:58:47] that's probably like a tall order to start with by Henrik Pesch. But what would your book [1:58:54] recommendations be on this? I mean, one of the things that we tried to do, and as we recover [1:59:00] our momentum, God willing, will continue to try to do is to keep the purity of ideas and the [1:59:07] prominence of doctrine with the variety that caters to the temperament. So Flea to the Fields [1:59:14] is a good one because it's chapters and they're not, you know, it's what we would call in the old [1:59:20] day when people read books, it's an anthology. So each chapter is by someone else and it's kind of, [1:59:26] It's united thematically, but it's different takes and different angles. [1:59:31] And so you could pick up that book and read it one chapter in the middle and not lose anything because you're not reading it cover to cover. [1:59:38] So some people like to read that way. [1:59:40] So of the other books that are kind of crafted in that way are the Distributist Perspectives series, which my friend and colleague Derek put together. [1:59:50] He made those selections years ago, which is just a chapter or an article here and there from, you know, different journals from the 1920s, 30s. [2:00:02] You know, an old pamphlet that was that was. [2:00:05] Part 2 [2:00:05] Let's see. [2:00:08] Are we back? [2:00:09] If you can hear my voice, please press one in the chat. [2:00:17] Comment the number one if you can hear and see us. [2:00:22] Comment the number one. [2:00:23] Number one. [2:00:24] Press the number one. [2:00:27] Press the number one. [2:00:29] Ah, yes, we are back. [2:00:30] Wonderful. [2:00:30] Okay, great. [2:00:32] Sorry, you were plugging. [2:00:33] You know, this is, you know, the Mossad, NSA. [2:00:37] You know, I do have a friend at the NSA, but maybe Mossad gave us the boot. [2:00:42] But we are back. [2:00:43] Oh, there you are. [2:00:44] On the air. [2:00:45] Okay. [2:00:46] We are back. [2:00:46] But yeah, you were talking about- [2:00:47] You're okay. [2:00:47] I'm glad you're okay. [2:00:48] I was worried about you. [2:00:50] But so, sorry, where were we? [2:00:53] Fleet of the Fields, good book, distributist perspectives. [2:00:56] Yeah, I mean, the anthologies are nice because they're little vignettes. [2:00:59] You know, you can, if you want to just read 15 pages or eight pages or whatever, you can [2:01:03] do that. [2:01:03] And number two, of course, brings, you know, expands into some other, you know, maybe well-known names, but lesser known as quote unquote distributors because our position has always been that every, what's the, so, you know, I'll go out on a limb here, Dave, and say there was a phrase of Father Fahey that I quoted that got me in some trouble from Heidi in your little blurb there from the Dirty [2:01:33] dozen where father fahey at one point uses the phrase i frankly i was my history department [2:01:40] where i got in trouble for this he uses the phrase every sane thinker should be an anti-semite [2:01:45] and of course you miss you miss the larger context where he's he's you know he's referring [2:01:51] to an age-old dilemma not just on the jq and all that stuff that you know is is talked about now [2:01:58] But the general thing of if you define a word as representing some certain phenomenon and the phenomenon is distasteful, then by virtue of your definition, you force everyone to oppose the thing that you've defined. [2:02:17] Even if left undefined, there would be a lot more maneuvering room. [2:02:21] So Fahey says if anti-Semitism means race hatred and persecution of Jews for their genetics or whatever the reason, of course we all oppose that. [2:02:33] And that's the okay statement of the obvious, right? [2:02:35] It's unfortunate you have to say it, but say it because it's worth saying. [2:02:38] On the other hand, if the term anti-Semitism is used, like I'll drop another name for you. [2:02:47] It's this nice book here. [2:02:49] This should definitely be reprinted someday. [2:02:51] Anti-Semitism by Lazar, the original, surely you know this work, one of the original Zionist French from the late 1890s. [2:03:04] It's not focusing. [2:03:05] And he says in there towards the end, he says, hey, remember, this is 1890, right? [2:03:12] So you don't have World War II and the whole dilemma that arose from that period. [2:03:19] He says an anti-Semite basically is just someone who wants to restore the Christian state and who wants politics to be governed by Christian theology. [2:03:30] And so then you have to shrug and say, okay, we'll find guilty as charged, I guess. [2:03:34] could we call it something else could we call it just integralism or christ the king or back to the [2:03:39] land or distributism or whatever and it's like no you can't because you and i both know that if you [2:03:44] say integralism back to the land no foreign wars low interest rates somebody's going to be like oh [2:03:50] you're an anti-semite it's like okay like whatever fine it's just you know meaningless when it when [2:03:56] it becomes when it comes to mean everything it means nothing uh but that's what fahey says like [2:04:02] if antisemitism just means pushing forward a Christian order and wanting to keep, uh, [2:04:08] anti-Christian influence out of society, if that's antisemitic, well, I guess everybody's [2:04:12] antisemitic or should be. Right. Um, so it's, it's kind of the same, you know, just like every [2:04:19] sane thinker should be that my point in responding to your question about books is like every sane [2:04:24] person should be a distributist who wants to read, uh, not, not just wants to read in this [2:04:30] tradition, but who comes to understand, I guess this is where I was going to slightly redirect, [2:04:35] the volume two of distributist perspectives is by authors that you wouldn't label distributist. [2:04:42] We know Belloc, Chesterton, Harold Robbins, Kenrick, et cetera. But I think without my glasses on, [2:04:48] which I was told to take off because there was too much of a reflection. Dorothy Sayers in [2:04:53] particular, he's a well-known English scholar, dramatist, short story writer, et cetera. [2:04:58] and then really the rest are kind of [2:05:01] distributist-ish. [2:05:03] Jorian Jenks, he's a very interesting character. [2:05:06] Hagreen was a woodcutter [2:05:08] and a sculptor. [2:05:10] But these are people who were not [2:05:12] 100% in the Chester-Bellock line [2:05:16] but they're on the margins. [2:05:19] And the position I've come to over many years [2:05:22] you could say this about Fulton Sheen [2:05:24] in his sane period [2:05:27] You can say it about Richard Weaver, the great second generation Southern agrarian. [2:05:31] They're all distributists, whether you like it or not, because they all say that property [2:05:35] should be owned by families in small units and the families and the small communities [2:05:40] should apply their labor to the small units of property and derive their livelihood as [2:05:45] locally as possible for principally for consumption rather than packaging and marketing elsewhere. [2:05:52] And that's distributism. [2:05:54] So everybody's a distributist or should be. [2:05:55] so that's that's the where we were going with that but then there are people who enjoy you know [2:06:02] the historical monograph uh the belloc biographies are fantastic on the charles's and on and on uh [2:06:08] richel you whose whose action as you know in france in in that uh sort of post-reformation [2:06:15] period was decisive in in the way modern europe went um there the uh you know for for the people [2:06:22] who have the stomach for a long read, if you want to put the fanfani Catholicism, Protestantism, [2:06:29] and the capitalism up there, that's a decisively important book on what ultimately is the Catholic [2:06:40] attitude towards what we know as capitalism. I mean, number one, if you criticize capitalism, [2:06:46] people will usually say much like, well, Pius XII, he rescued so many Jews and the church has [2:06:52] been trying so hard and we're so sorry and all that. And frequently you'll hear people approach [2:06:57] capitalism with the same equivocation. Well, unbridled capitalism or unrestrained capitalism [2:07:05] or, you know, ruthless like buccaneer capitalism. That's all capitalism. Yeah, exactly. Right. And [2:07:11] then you say, well, what's the other kind? Like, is there a lot of capitalisms that we know where [2:07:15] it's not just make as much money as you can? And when Verizon is on the verge of taking over the [2:07:20] entire telecom market does some distributist on the board of directors say no no we need to leave [2:07:27] like sprint should have its share and there's t-mobile and we need who's who's the guy uh [2:07:32] forget the guy ryan something who does the mint ads and like we just need distributist telecom [2:07:38] you know literally there should be you know like 10 guys who do a little cell phone shop i mean [2:07:42] nobody talks that way in capitalism as if as if capitalism is fine until it becomes like abusive [2:07:50] capitalism which is like oh you mean capitalism so fan fani um again it's it's it's a longer read [2:07:59] but the and it was an italian originally so the credit goes to the translator was sheen and ward [2:08:03] published in 1934 35 36 something like that and it is the decisive work on addressing what is the [2:08:14] Catholic conception of life and is it compatible with the capitalism? [2:08:19] And Fanfani's got this great phrase, which we pulled as a quote on the back. [2:08:23] I could go on with my examples because he was in the archives in Florence, you know, [2:08:27] looking at all the guild records and the records of commerce, basically, and trying to figure [2:08:33] out what things were considered illegal, was advertising permissible, and what kind of [2:08:38] competitive techniques to undercut your economic opponents, what was allowed and what wasn't [2:08:43] allowed. And he's basically, he's kind of deriving the Catholic mentality from studying these [2:08:48] specific rules. And eventually he stops and he says, I could continue, like I could stay in the [2:08:54] archive for another two years and I could quote you another 300 examples, but I've seen enough [2:08:59] to know with certainty that I'm never going to find evidence other than to conclude that the [2:09:06] capitalistic mindset is intrinsically hostile to the Catholic worldview. [2:09:11] And if you have any, you know, add that to my list of, you know, [2:09:16] you've got your Zionist question, you know, [2:09:18] sort of the chief conflict of the new Testament, right. [2:09:22] Which we all know about distributism, Catholic action. [2:09:26] I probably mentioned, I guess, war and peace, you know, [2:09:28] as a, like a subset of that. [2:09:30] And then capitalism is sort of your other overarching big, [2:09:34] big elephant in the room regarding Catholics and their, [2:09:38] how they should think about the modern world, [2:09:41] modernity and the economy. [2:09:42] And the end of the day, [2:09:44] if some guys like, [2:09:45] yeah, [2:09:45] I don't know. [2:09:45] I'm in kind of libertarian capitalist, [2:09:47] whatever. [2:09:48] I'm a Catholic. [2:09:48] It's all perfectly compatible. [2:09:51] You say, [2:09:52] well, [2:09:52] have you read fun Fani? [2:09:53] And if he was like, [2:09:53] who's that? [2:09:54] Then like, [2:09:55] go read them and come back. [2:09:56] You know, [2:09:56] like, [2:09:56] don't talk to me until you've done your homework. [2:09:59] And that's why I was asking you, [2:10:00] I mean, [2:10:00] how do we, [2:10:01] you know, [2:10:02] on your end with, [2:10:02] the circles that you run in and the kind of, you know, the vibe that you guys have when [2:10:08] you're on your programs all the time. [2:10:10] How do we capitalize, not capitalism, but capitalize on that enthusiasm, but start to [2:10:17] build this, you know, without getting highbrow and stuffy, this intellectual culture where [2:10:22] people are prepared to take some of their precious time and get off the internet or [2:10:27] not have to go to the football game to worship, you know, the little ball and the men that [2:10:31] run around and, and to put some time into reading, you know, I, and I have run into a lot of young [2:10:37] guys now who, who seem on fire with that and who want the ideas and who want, and it's like, yeah, [2:10:43] I'm a distributist. I know, I don't know what that means, but it sounds controversial and edgy. [2:10:47] And I'm so sick of, you know, like day to day, whatever, like, tell me like, what is that? [2:10:51] And that's very encouraging to me, but, but, um, but it's, we don't want it to be like a flash in [2:10:56] the pan, you know, like a guy who starts a workout program, like what I do, I I'm great for like [2:11:00] three days and then I stop because I just get busy and doesn't force me to tears frankly even [2:11:06] though I I'm told I need to exercise so it's like but my jaw is like the muscles are perfect [2:11:11] no no so I don't know I mean that's I kind of look to you guys to to help to help take the [2:11:18] the energy you know like the Fuentes momentum and all that and say okay now that I'm all like [2:11:24] worked up and I've had like three more cups of coffee I gotta read a book like that I have you [2:11:29] You have to, because even, I don't know your experience, Dave, mine with the clergy mostly that I, and I'll be slapped in the face. [2:11:39] I mean, some of the old priests that I knew or who kicked me out of their churches were here. [2:11:42] They'd kick me in the shins again for just being so pompous and negative. [2:11:47] You know, it's too much negativity. [2:11:49] A lot of the priests, young and old, seem that they haven't read a lot. [2:11:54] And the seminaries seem to crank out. [2:11:58] They check the boxes. [2:11:59] you know canon law scripture one scripture two acts of the magisterium dogma okay you know the [2:12:06] nature of god his essence his attributes okay that's good um clearly you got to know that if [2:12:13] you're a man of the cloth but like uh you can't sort out capitalism or the war in iran or catholic [2:12:20] action or whatever this is a problem you know because people are going to look to you for [2:12:24] guidance and you're going to be like oh well you know it's fine should my kids join the military [2:12:29] They're probably going to kill Arabs who didn't do anything to them. [2:12:31] Is that a problem? [2:12:32] Oh, well, you know, patriotism, it's fine. [2:12:34] I was going to say, I just found this old gem hiding, lurking on YouTube somewhere. [2:12:42] This was one of Bishop Williamson's old classes where they went through and they did a review [2:12:49] of the Unabomber manifesto in seminary. [2:12:52] And it's like, man, this is what they should be learning in seminary. [2:12:57] Like, obviously you need to do the doctrine, the acts of the majesty. [2:13:01] You need to do all of that. [2:13:03] But also, like, you know, they're training to be shepherds, right? [2:13:08] They're training to, you know. [2:13:09] Yeah, of real people in the real world today. [2:13:12] Right. [2:13:12] People who are here today, not who were here, you know, back in the 50s or the 30s or the [2:13:17] 20s when it's just like, oh, Aunt Jenny's here with her biscuit for father, you know, [2:13:20] make his dinner. [2:13:21] And I mean, we want all of that. [2:13:23] Yeah. [2:13:23] But we want father to be like, I'm a distributist, my lad. [2:13:26] you know i mean come on no and all and look all of our heroes all the everybody going back that [2:13:33] we look up to who's who's who's uh i mean this is i'm i've been arguing against truisms all night [2:13:39] this is gonna this is a stupid thing to say everyone who's not a lay person was a priest [2:13:44] like okay yes and but i guess i'm thinking of i rattle off the names in my head mon senior juan [2:13:51] Henri de la Sue, Fahy, Coghlan, Cahill, the Jesuit, you know, the compatriot of Fahy. I mean, [2:13:59] there's so many priests, Pesh, you know, Father Pesh, Father McNabb, so many priests who were at [2:14:05] the cutting edge of this, uh, Gary Gou Lagrange, Dom Guéranger, you know, the more liturgical and [2:14:10] theological, but, but Dom Guéranger is a fantastic for social teaching because he'll, he'll, he'll [2:14:16] drop these little bombs in in in the liturgical year where you think you're reading about and then [2:14:21] at vespers you know this is the antiphon or whatever and then he's like and it shows you [2:14:26] that when the french were infested with masonry and they abandoned the monarchical idea god left [2:14:31] them to their own devices and they've been punished and i mean he just he lets it rip in [2:14:36] the liturgical year and and and and it's it's an indicator of the level of culture intellectual [2:14:43] historical doctrinal not on just the dogmatic subjects you know explain the trinity but on the [2:14:51] consequences like what are the implications of the trinity uh and and sanctifying grace for society [2:14:57] and and these men they knew it and Williamson was a you know I I mean as I told you Dave I I just [2:15:04] upset everyone I mean he and I had a little bit of a I won't say it was a horrible falling out but [2:15:10] I mean, I was very close to him for some time and he said to me, I was doing some side secret work for him. And when he let me go, he said, oh, John, you know, you're great, but I really need a more compliant layman. And I was like, well, that's good. You know, coming from you, I take that as a compliment. [2:15:27] But I was also going to say, you know, all of this that you're talking about, you know, all of this different, you know, the philosophical histories and these different writers and all, like, this is what's at stake, you know, when we're talking about traditional Catholicism. [2:15:45] It's not just the mass. It's not just the liturgy, the smells and bells. It's this like gut visceral, actually applying the Catholic social teaching to the world around us. That's what we're talking about that the church isn't doing. [2:16:05] You know, they're out here importing third worlders, you know, talking about, you know, Catholic charities and we have to embrace, you know, it's funny. [2:16:16] It's like, what about the white people that are in here suffering under usury, you know, like because what you're what you're talking about is yet another example of you. [2:16:25] you've brought up a lot of very good examples of this through the whole conversation of you. [2:16:32] It's almost, I mean, I don't think it's intentionally a tease. [2:16:36] You know, it's not like a guy who's on a diet and someone sort of wafts the pizza under his nose like, [2:16:41] oh, this looks good, doesn't it? [2:16:42] It's not that kind of a thing. [2:16:45] And I'm not sure, you know, having been in the federal government most of my life, [2:16:50] we learned this phrase of like, don't, [2:16:52] don't ever assume people are malicious until you rule out incompetence because, [2:16:57] you know, there's just, you know, and that's standard right across all walks of life. [2:17:02] And so there, there is a lot of this just fumbling. [2:17:04] I mean, even Heidi Byway, we won't do it now because we've been going for too long, [2:17:07] but if, if there's a next time we can talk about a couple of these little anecdotes, [2:17:12] you know, about her when I met her and when, or saw her, I mean, I didn't shake her hand, [2:17:17] but I mean, when I was in, I was in a room where she was giving a speech, [2:17:19] that was directed at the Dirty Dozen. [2:17:23] And some other little anecdotes like that, [2:17:26] I can tell you that are relevant. [2:17:28] But I mentioned this kind of incompetence [2:17:31] versus malice thing. [2:17:33] I mean, she's probably evil. [2:17:34] I mean, I hope like all people, [2:17:36] I mean, I hope she saves her soul. [2:17:38] So we can't say that she can't [2:17:39] because that would be to blaspheme [2:17:42] the work of providence. [2:17:44] But she was pretty sad. [2:17:47] Not what one would call a super genius with all those initials after her name. [2:17:53] What did you get from your university experience? [2:17:56] A student debt. [2:17:57] Oh, good. [2:17:57] Okay. [2:17:58] Did you learn anything? [2:17:59] What? [2:18:02] So, I mean, there's just a lot of fumbling and bumbling and whatever. [2:18:07] And then you layer malice. [2:18:08] I mean, clearly there are some super intelligent, malicious actors, the angelic evil that's behind all of it. [2:18:14] But a lot of it's just bumbling. [2:18:16] And these kind of people that you're referring to with the charity and all that, it's sad because it's yet another bait and switch where you have people with good instincts. [2:18:27] I feel like I should do something. [2:18:28] I feel like the faith should shape society. [2:18:31] I feel like as an individual person, it should move me to get out and do something. [2:18:35] I don't really know what that is. [2:18:37] So I kind of look to the clergy. [2:18:39] Well, as a Catholic, I'm told, like, go ask father or sister, you know, in her pantsuit, you know, what should I be doing? [2:18:45] and they just serve up a mess of pottage, right? [2:18:48] For the birthright. [2:18:50] The birthright is what you just mentioned, [2:18:53] this visceral, this whole tradition. [2:18:56] And I read, I think it was the whippersnapper [2:18:58] who took over the hex account who said, [2:19:00] you know, when you've bled into the soil, [2:19:02] it makes you feel a little more attached to somewhere. [2:19:06] And I feel like there's a parallel to that intellectually [2:19:11] is that when you've sweat into the soil, [2:19:16] sweat through this intellectual labor, [2:19:18] because in many ways it's as hard, [2:19:21] if not harder than physical labor, [2:19:22] but when you've put that effort into it, [2:19:26] you sort of develop this entire package of heritage [2:19:29] that it's criminal and a betrayal [2:19:33] and absolutely treacherous to abandon. [2:19:36] And people who are attracted to that [2:19:39] because they have this itch to learn something [2:19:41] and do something instead of being given that treasure, you know, that patrimony, fill in the [2:19:45] blank, you know, with synonyms, get the thesaurus out. You can find three more words for that, [2:19:50] but whatever that thing is. And that's why Belloc eventually just called it the thing. Like he would [2:19:54] say, ah, well, it's the, it's the Catholic thing. And if you're Catholic and if you're serious, [2:19:59] you know what I mean? And if you don't want to know what I mean, it means that it hasn't, [2:20:03] it hasn't sunk in yet. But for those for whom it has sunk in that Catholic thing, then they're [2:20:08] served up like okay let's stop the war in iran because this whole crusade for zionism is bad and [2:20:15] leo's like all war is bad okay well i mean that you didn't you didn't quite hit it there um i want [2:20:23] to transform the economy let's open a mission and give a guy a shirt okay um what about like [2:20:32] localism and people staying tied to their region and all that um more immigration okay you people [2:20:39] are just you know what i mean and and it's it's it's it's more tragic because they're um [2:20:46] diffusing deflating squandering the natural initiative and the natural attraction of people [2:20:52] that's and i think i surely your program and you know all your colleagues i mean you're all like [2:20:58] not right nor left people, right? [2:21:01] We're beyond the right versus left thing, [2:21:03] hopefully in this era. [2:21:05] But that's what that right and left paradigm keeps us in [2:21:08] is a conservatives like, oh, I want to be conservative. [2:21:11] Okay, well, here's your anti-abortion rally once a year. [2:21:14] Somebody who's like, I'm against the war. [2:21:16] The Democrats are like, okay, we're going to murder [2:21:20] all the babies, but we're not going to murder living people, [2:21:23] but we're not going to have any babies [2:21:25] because we're all going to marry people of our same sex. [2:21:28] You know, so you can't get one good thing without this entire mess of dross with it. [2:21:34] And it's really, we got to just, and I know most of you have, you know, and it's like [2:21:38] kind of preaching to the choir, but we have to just, we have to transcend all of that. [2:21:42] But I think we have to also be wise as serpents. [2:21:44] And so when I had you pull up or on your own initiative, you know, you pulled up the [2:21:48] Weiseltier op-ed, the Andy Sullivan piece on, you know, it is a religious war and those [2:21:55] little things. [2:21:55] We have to be prepared to fight and say, we're calling you out. [2:22:00] We've caught you red-handed. [2:22:02] You are saying openly and publicly through, let's take those two representative articles, [2:22:09] the Weiseltier and the Andy Sullivan, you are publicly saying what was said before, [2:22:15] we will not have Christ the King. [2:22:17] And it's our job to say, well, yes, we will, but to come not just with guns. [2:22:22] And, you know, I mean, there's a place for force, obviously, and, you know, revolutions and our own country is founded. [2:22:27] Our own country is soaked in blood, you know, historically. [2:22:31] But the more potent thing is the ideas, you know, that will connect with the people who are serious and then hopefully go on in this direction that you mentioned with the meta thing where guys are saying, hey, let's take the ideas and start to connect with real people. [2:22:47] Amen. [2:22:47] And there's a lot more work that needs to be done. [2:22:49] But John, I need to thank you for joining us today. [2:22:53] We're calling it. [2:22:54] It's been two and a half hours. [2:22:56] Yeah, yeah. [2:22:56] We got to run. [2:22:57] A quick chat. [2:22:57] But thank you so much. [2:22:59] Everybody, please make sure that you go visit ihspress.com. [2:23:03] Also, you can go and follow. [2:23:05] There is a new IHS Press Twitter account. [2:23:09] They're on Instagram. [2:23:11] And, you know, I'm hearing rumblings that the website's going to get overhauled, that we're going to be seeing all of this stuff. [2:23:17] Oh, that'll happen anytime. [2:23:18] Well, John, we're dusting you off. [2:23:20] We're taking you out of retirement. [2:23:22] And we're going to charge the machine. [2:23:24] Upping my wages, I hope. [2:23:25] That would be good. [2:23:26] That would be good, too. [2:23:27] Well, John, thank you again for spending and being so generous with your time. [2:23:31] Hopefully, people have got a little taste. [2:23:33] And we're definitely going to be coming back for more. [2:23:35] Okay, Dave. [2:23:36] It's a pleasure. [2:23:37] Thank you very much. [2:23:38] Thanks for your indulgence and your patience through all of it. [2:23:41] But it's good stuff. [2:23:43] You know, it has to be talked about. [2:23:46] And if it comes down to us to do it, then so be it. [2:23:48] Amen, brother. [2:23:49] All right. [2:23:50] All right. [2:23:50] God bless. [2:23:51] Yeah. [2:23:51] God bless you too. [2:23:52] Wonderful. [2:23:53] All right. [2:23:53] Well, we got to thank our wonderful sponsors for making shows like this possible where [2:23:58] we can just like go off and talk about anything. [2:24:02] But actually first, before we go off and talk about anything, I do need to mention there [2:24:07] was a couple of super chats that came in. [2:24:10] one of them from Parabolize94, who sent $5, thank you for the big super chat, [2:24:17] that there is a event coming up at the Old State Saloon on October 10th, [2:24:24] put on by the Sons of Liberty Foundation. [2:24:27] He asked if you could send a flyer and info. [2:24:29] Yes, you can. [2:24:30] You can always send me anything you like, info at thebacklash.net. [2:24:35] and if you do happen to live here in the North Idaho, Spokane, Pacific Northwest region, [2:24:43] please do reach out. Send me an email. We've got all kinds of stuff going on [2:24:46] like this coming Saturday, a bonfire. We'll all get to network with other people in the real world [2:24:53] like we were talking about. On October 3rd, the Oregon Weaving event that's going to be going on [2:24:58] with Jared Taylor, Peter Brimelow, [2:25:01] and a bunch of other guys from that realm of the world. [2:25:06] You know, so there's a lot going on. [2:25:08] So please, yes, do reach out. [2:25:10] Info at thebacklash.net. [2:25:14] And yes, thank you for the super chat. [2:25:19] I can't, it's incredible. [2:25:21] You guys have stuck with it [2:25:22] through the whole two and a half hours [2:25:24] and the Mossad taking us down. [2:25:26] So thank you all for that. [2:25:27] We've got to thank ODGG Supply. [2:25:30] You know, things are going to get crazy here in the next couple of weeks, next couple of [2:25:34] months, especially after the midterms. [2:25:36] God knows what's in store. [2:25:38] And so you're going to need to be prepared. [2:25:40] Be prepared for anything. [2:25:41] It's the old Boy Scout motto. [2:25:43] These guys have got everything that you need from blankies to bullets. [2:25:48] They've got all kinds of things that you could possibly need to be prepared. [2:25:55] Like I said, they've got Metapacks. [2:25:56] They've got sights and red dots for your guns, night vision goggles, blankets, MREs, everything that you need in an emergency. [2:26:06] And with what's going on in the Middle East, with the oil crisis that's going on, with the lack of diesel fuel that is hitting this country, the draining of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. [2:26:20] Of course, we talked about all of this with Chuck Baldwin last Thursday. [2:26:24] But you need to be prepared for anything because things are certainly going to get a lot worse in this country before they get better. [2:26:32] So please visit odggsupply.com. [2:26:35] Get yourself outfitted. [2:26:36] Get ready for anything because we are going to be hit by anything and everything. [2:26:42] That is odggsupply.com, promo code Backlash14. [2:26:48] And while you're stocking up on ammo and, you know, lead and all of that, you want to stock up on some coffee because God knows that if you're in the midst of some sort of social happening and you're going through caffeine withdrawal, that's like the worst possible thing. [2:27:06] So go to abovetimecoffee.com. Use promo code BACKLASH10. You'll get 10% off your order. And be like me. I order 10-pound bags at a time of coffee. I've got them up in my kitchen. They're huge bags of coffee. They'll last you a month, depending if you're like me, maybe a half of a month. [2:27:27] But all of their coffee is hand roasted to order. [2:27:31] They stamp the date that it was roasted on. [2:27:34] So you know that your coffee wasn't sitting in some warehouse for six months, [2:27:39] gathering mold, being eaten by bugs, you know, as opposed to eating the bugs. [2:27:46] That was funny. [2:27:48] So go to abovetimecoffee.com. [2:27:52] Use promo code Backlash10. [2:27:54] Get stocked up. [2:27:55] Get yourself a nice surplus of coffee. [2:27:57] for your house. And, you know, while we're talking about prepping, you can never have too much soap. [2:28:03] And if you use promo code for life at Idaho, tallow.com, you'll get 10% off your order. [2:28:08] Soap and skincare that won't make you gay, no endocrine disruptors. It won't disrupt your [2:28:13] testosterone production. Uh, especially if you're like, you know, a young married couple, [2:28:19] you've got all of these microplastics floating around in your brain. You want to start detoxing [2:28:25] from that, you need to start by detoxifying your soap. Most of the soap that's out there, [2:28:31] it's made by, you know, Procter & Gamble, one of these big vulture capital firms that owns [2:28:35] everything. That stuff is all a detergent. It's made with petroleum byproducts. It's got all [2:28:42] kinds of like dyes and things mixed in with it that are like really not good for you. Your skin [2:28:48] is your biggest organ. You're going in a shower. Oh, there it goes again. Well, if you can hear me, [2:28:56] whatever, man, uh, the camera's gone. This is, this is, you know, who the Mossad wants me to get [2:29:05] the heck off the air. Uh, go to Idaho, talo.com atlasbullion.com. You can get all kinds of, uh, [2:29:12] gold and silver. Uh, you don't have to rely on your savings account at the bank. You can start [2:29:18] stacking precious metals. That way, if there is a crisis, you don't have to worry about a bank run. [2:29:24] You don't have to worry about money printing. You've got real gold and silver delivered to your [2:29:30] house in a discreet package. You can sign up to stack with them on a automatic basis. They will [2:29:37] send you packages every week, every month, every two months. I'm going to mess up the algorithm. [2:29:44] them. Yeah, probably. Um, so anyway, atlasbullion.com. And of course, every purchase you make with them [2:29:50] does help keep us on the air. It helps us keep the lights on. And last but not least, of course, [2:29:55] IHS Press, get your mind right, get reading, form good ideas. And that starts by inspecting the good [2:30:04] ideas that we had from the people that came before us. GK Chesterton, Hiller Bellock, Henrik Pesch, [2:30:11] you know, all of these people [2:30:13] who's the other, Robbins, Vincent [2:30:16] Father McNabb [2:30:17] okay, so get your mind right [2:30:20] get off of the social, replace [2:30:22] an hour of doom scrolling [2:30:24] with an hour of reading every day [2:30:26] and you can do that of course [2:30:28] at IHSpress.com [2:30:30] you can't see me [2:30:31] but I am here, I promise [2:30:33] thank you for tuning in, it's been [2:30:36] a really incredible show [2:30:38] God bless all of you, we'll be back [2:30:40] on Wednesday with somebody that's also going to be talking about our health, Denise Dijon. [2:30:49] She is a healthcare professional, and she is going to tell us about why the goyslop—oops, [2:30:56] sorry, I forgot that I was broadcasting that screen. Well, now you all see how busy I am. [2:31:02] It's ridiculous. I've got something going on every day. Denise Dijon will tell us about why [2:31:08] The goyslop is slowly killing us. [2:31:10] And of course, don't forget that tomorrow night is the KCRCC meeting. [2:31:17] The Kootenai County Republican Central Committee has their monthly meeting that will be going on tomorrow night. [2:31:24] So if you are, of course, interested in getting involved in any of this local stuff that we got going on here in North Idaho, send me a DM. [2:31:31] Send me an email. [2:31:32] Info at the backlash dot net. [2:31:33] God bless all of you. [2:31:35] Have a great night. [2:31:36] And thank you for tuning in. [2:31:38] Thank you. [2:32:08] Thank you. [2:32:38] Thank you. [2:33:08] Thank you. [2:33:38] We'll be right back.