crashingthunder

More Messed Up Than a Soup Sandwich #HardToWatch

The Tucker Carlson Encounter: Pedro Israel Orta Encounter https://tuckercarlson.com/the-tucker-carlson-encounter-pedro-israel-orta/ • Published Apr 13, 2024 READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] If you're a middle aged person in the United States, you probably grew up thinking of American federal Intel agencies and law enforcement agencies like the FBI as basically good institutions and the people who criticize them as fundamentally anti-American. Why would you be criticizing the CIA, for example, when the CIA protects us from foreign enemies and brings vitally needed intelligence to the people who make our policies? Of course. So if you're against CIA and against FBI, you're probably against the United States. And then a lot of things happen that may have started to change your mind, maybe slowly at first. 911 the consolidation, the streamlining and the massive enlargement of these agencies because we needed to do that to protect ourselves. They became a lot more powerful than they had been before. 911 but maybe you weren't paying attention. But by the time we got to 2016, and it was very clear that the CIA, for example, was not just aimed outward at our enemies, but aimed inward at our citizens. That may have changed your mind pretty completely and forever, and for good reason. She is not a force for democracy, at this point at all. In fact, you can't have a democracy in a country where some of the biggest decisions are made by unelected federal employees in an agency whose budget you're not allowed to know in secrecy, no democracy possible in a country like that. So the CIA, well, it clearly performs services that are needed is also a force for evil in this country. There's no other way to say it, but what exactly does that mean? What does the CIA do? What does it look like if you work there, what's the vantage from inside? Well, it might be worth talking to someone who's experienced that for almost 20 years. And today we are. Pedro Israel Auta is a retired CIA officer, done a lot of other things, too. His family came here fleeing tyranny in Cuba. So he went into government service with the highest possible ideals and hopes and exited with something else. He's the author of the book The Broken Whistle A Deep State Run Amuck, and we're happy to have him with us today. Thank you so much for coming, I appreciate it. Pedro Israel Orta [00:02:02] Thank you, Tucker, for this opportunity. Tucker [00:02:04] Oh my gosh, of course. So I thought it might just be interesting to hear your story. Like how did you wind up at CIA? Where are you from? What were your assumptions going in? Pedro Israel Orta [00:02:13] I managed to finish my university studies a little late in life, early 30s, and I study international relations, political science. I've always been interested in all matters related to defense intelligence. Yes, to foreign policy. Growing up in Miami in the 70s, the 80s, you know, the Sandinistas, the contra wars. Tucker [00:02:34] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:02:34] So, so forth. So when I graduated from FIU, Florida International University, while there, I was recruited by the CIA. Tucker [00:02:43] I'm sure to ask you about what were you doing before then? Why did you take till your 30s to graduate college? Pedro Israel Orta [00:02:48] I had to work my way in Miami. I mean, my family came from Cuba with basically nothing. They started from zero. So my parents didn't have the money means to send me to college. So I ended up going into the workforce, working in the Miami business field. And after so many years of work, and it was hard work being an outdoor salesperson, knocking on doors, doing perishable commodities, grocery products, I worked a lot of hours. It was. Yeah. I managed to get my Associate of Arts degree, by graduated high school 85. Got my Associate of Arts degree, 1989. But from 89 to 96, it was just a lot of hard work. So I finally I was able to do a massive change in my life. I basically said I cannot continue going down this route of outdoor sales. So I went into the indoor sales field with a job that was near the university. So I would go into work early in the morning like 7 a.m. and get out of work like 4 p.m., run to the university, take classes from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. I did that for three years. Finally got my Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude graduate, political science, international relations. And that's how it all started with CIA. Tucker [00:04:01] That's the most virtuous possible path, obviously. How were you recruited by CIA? How does that work? Pedro Israel Orta [00:04:07] They would have events at the universities. Staff officers would come down to the university, make a presentation. In this particular case, I was the director of intelligence. Yes, or intelligence analysis. So basically you hear the presentation, you sign up to be interviewed. And I went to an interview. I impressed the two individuals. And, you know, within two weeks I had basically a conditional offer to be a graduate fellow pending the background investigation. So that process took like seven months. I finally received the offer to yes, we you've been accepted. You can come in as a graduate fellow. So at that point in time, I've moved up to D.C. I'm currently going to George Washington University to study for a master of Arts and Security Policy Studies. And I same scenario. It's basically working almost full time at 1.40 hours a week, then 32 hours a week, and then back to 40 hours a week, and going basically to graduate school on a full time basis to earn my Master of Arts and Security policy studies and converted that graduate fellow into a full time CIA staff officer position. Tucker [00:05:18] So what did you do for CIA? Pedro Israel Orta [00:05:21] I started working in the analysis field as a certified career analyst, program analyst, where I was trained to do analysis, and I was basically the lead analyst doing counter drug analysis for Central America and the Caribbean. And I did that for almost four years. Tucker [00:05:36] And pardon my ignorance. What does that consist of? What's your day look like? What do you do at work? Pedro Israel Orta [00:05:42] This particular time it was right immediately after post 9/11. Can you imagine Caribbean, Central America was really not a priority? No. So, I mean, our our intelligence sources, information coming in was sparse, so I had to use a lot of my business skills networking, working with DEA, the Department of State, different offices to find additional sources of information, to supplant that with whatever we were getting from traditional sources. Yes. And it was just a lot of kind of research and investigatory type skills, trying to just find pieces of information to find out what exactly is going on with the drug trafficking in Central America and the Caribbean. And we would take all that information and turn it into a finished intelligence product to inform senior executives such as, you know, cabinet secretaries, the president himself, the president's daily brief. And it's just a daily routine of just lots of reading, lots of research, phone calls, having meetings, just constantly. Tucker [00:06:46] So you're trying to figure out how narcotics are coming in the United States, and you know who's doing this? It's how are they doing it? Pedro Israel Orta [00:06:55] Who's doing it, how they're doing it, where they're going. We're looking at, okay, what were the trafficking lines? Yeah. Where are traffickers basically going with their drugs? I mean, back back then during this particular time, from early 2000, the Pacific coast was big. So there were a lot of boats leaving the west coast of, upper South America, kind of the Colombian Pacific coast. Yes. Going up to Central American to Mexico. But at the same time, during that time, we still had some drug trafficking in the Eastern Caribbean, and also the Canada, the Caribbean side of Central America. And we were constantly just monitoring, trying to determine exactly when and where and who, what, when so forth, to be able to inform so that they can take it into, you know, actionable intelligence for, interdiction operations or for that matter, for the president and his cabinet secretaries to use to as leverage with different nations in Central America, Mexico, so forth. Tucker [00:07:55] Wow. So you do that for four years. What do you do next? Pedro Israel Orta [00:07:58] Well, what happened then was I had enough of the analysis branch. Yeah. I mean, I had worked out door sales. You know, I'm kind of I like the business, the network gain, the people contact. Yeah. Being glued on a computer screen for so long. Yes. Just like I had enough. Yeah. Especially after going to school for three years at FIU, two years at George Washington. So I volunteered to go to Iraq. I back then we had the the Iraq War, 2003, 2004. So at that point in time, it's like this is a great opportunity for me to serve my country, you know, do good. I know I can go out there and serve our interest. So I went out, once known as a short term TDY and, managed to turn that into a full time position out there. And I did two years in Iraq for two years. We did take breaks. They gave us typically three week breaks three times a year. So that kind of broke it up. But we would work 2 or 3, four months about a day off constantly 80 hours a week. Plus I was actually on call 24 seven. I went out there and I worked in in the capacity where I work with senior station leadership, working with senior military officials and other government agencies, doing a lot of liaison work, basically representing the CIA to these other entities and these other entities representing them to the CIA. A lot of deconfliction making sure we're not crossing paths, making sure that our operations are not basically overlapping each other, working on life and death issues. You know, if somebody lives is in danger, immediately call the military, get a quick response team out there to rescue people. Many different little things. Tucker [00:09:36] How big was the CIA presence in Iraq when you were there? Pedro Israel Orta [00:09:39] Well, that I can't discuss, but it was a huge footprint, that huge, huge footprint. I mean, it's significant. It was probably the largest station in the world that point. And probably not only that, but yeah, it was the largest at that point. Tucker [00:09:53] And it wasn't just gathering intelligence or conflicting with other federal agencies. It's also. Taking more active role. Correct? Pedro Israel Orta [00:10:01] Well, back back then, during the early 2000 era in Iraq, 2004 2006, you had the Shia uprising and you still had the Sunnis who were rebelling against the US invasion. So we were basically being attacked by two different sides on the West. The Sunnis were trying to destabilize and Anbar and not allow, you know, the coalition forces to establish a fully functioning democracy in Iraq and then Baghdad and other areas. You had the Shias who were trying to finally, for the first time, implant their will in the government because they had been repressed for so many years. And keep in mind you now had also the Kurds on the north. So you had a balancing act of balancing the Kurds, the Shias in the Sunnis. And it was it was a disastrous situation. Yeah. It was essentially a no win situation. And it was obvious to everyone that the Shias will win the presidential elections and even the parliament. But thankfully, the Kurds were strong enough to offer enough of a counterbalance, and all government operations in the country had to deal with all three of those counterinsurgency operations against the Sunnis. You know, counterinsurgency to a degree, against the Shias, all the political, you know, factions and the managing the Kurds, keeping the Kurds happy because the Kurds wanted to pull out and form their own country. Tucker [00:11:27] Of course they did, and they effectively did anyway. Right. But, so you were there for four years. Pedro Israel Orta [00:11:33] I was in Iraq for two years, rather. Yeah. At that point in time, after Iraq, I managed to get another assignment that would give me the Department of Operations, Operations Officer Certification course. So I went back to CIA headquarters to night and day difference between working in Baghdad and going back to CIA headquarters. I mean, it's just a bureaucracy, a monstrous ocracy. And, you know, it was a rough time for me trying to make that transition because unfortunately, I got myself into a situation where I wasn't a chosen officer to fill that position. It was because one of my former supervisors kind of forced that position on some of the decision makers, so they were trying to get me to pull out of that job, but I managed to stay and complete the training. And after that, seven, nine months back at CIA headquarters, deployed back to the field in a country that I cannot name, where in the name I name it fictitious, named Kamino. And I was basically back in the thick of things, doing a lot of the counterterrorism, counterinsurgency operations in this particular case, working with host country entities, basically targeting targeting the bad guys. Tucker [00:12:52] So what went wrong? That sounds like an interesting job. Pedro Israel Orta [00:12:57] Well, CIA is a big bureaucracy, that this started one phase of, blowing the whistle. Eventually, what happened in that station with me, that some of the managers in that station, it in order to be a little bit comical, I named them basically Moe, Larry and Curly. Yeah, because it was just that comical. It's a matter of fact. I named the station Potemkin station because, I mean, in contrast to Baghdad Station, this was an amateur division, and I had a stellar work history. By the time I got to this station, I had I had lost track had been five exceptional performance awards, four of them in Iraq, one in the counter drug work that I, I got promoted while I was I was in this country. They wanted me to extend for a fourth year, and eventually they found somebody else that they wanted to put in my position. So they were trying to get me to cancel my third year extension. And when I refused to cancel that, they started cooking up a plot to basically denigrate my character, my work, and essentially they basically forced me out. But the thing about this is that in this process, you know, I blow the whistle on abuses of authority, girls, mismanagement, significant EEO issues. And sadly, you know, I found out the hard way that the inspector general, the equal Employment opportunity, they really don't care. They're basically don't go in like the cleanup crew to cover it all up, sweep it up. And that's what happened in my case. But, you know, I, I fought in this particular case because I had a pregnant fiancee daughter yet to be born, and I was fighting for the future of my marriage and my, my daughter. So I had no choice to stand up to this tyranny. I mean, these were tyrannical tactics that they used to force me out of a job that, you know, sadly, the reality is it cost. The CIA. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more than a million to train me and deploy me and keep me there. So, I mean, there were defrauding the government of money just by kicking me out. So one man fighting against the system. Forget it. You know, I obviously lost that battle. But I was able to from there, go to Afghanistan. And I went to Afghanistan in January of 2010, which was right after the coast suicide bombing attack. Tucker [00:15:29] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:15:30] And as a counterintelligence referent, it was a critical position I would have in combating additional threats to ensure that our operations would be safe from potential suicide bombers, among other threats. And I managed to do very well in that year in Afghanistan, you know, got great performance appraisals. And, I was a die analyst still on paper, despite having director of operations certifications, having done director of operations work in Iraq and in this other country named Kamino. So by the time I left Afghanistan in early 2011, I was still analyst looking to transition to director of operations. And I managed to land a job with the Information Operations Center doing technical targeting that I began in basically the spring of 2011. And this just takes off and goes at different what. Tucker [00:16:25] Is tactical targeting? Pedro Israel Orta [00:16:27] Technical targeting comprises different facets. We were doing basically looking at digital data to look for terrorist, what they were doing online in order to be able to find them so that we can interdict them. I did that countering terrorism in the Middle East. Basically the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, the Horn of Africa. Tucker [00:16:53] Wow. So how did your opinion of CIA change while you were there? Like, by this point, you realize maybe they're not helping the United States. Pedro Israel Orta [00:17:03] Well. I realized that when I worked in Baghdad in 2004, 2006, I worked for a lot of the older managers that came in and probably the 80s and the 90s. And I noticed that they had a lot of skilled and capable leaders. Some of these were former police officers, former military, former businessmen. They came into the agency with a lot of experience. Post 911. Fast forward into 2010. Now I'm beginning to work with a lot younger officers who had no life experiences. It came fresh out of college and there were remarkable differences between both generations. And it would all come to a crash in the climax further down the road. Post Afghanistan post headquarters. When I went back out to Afghanistan, when I went back out to Afghanistan in 2014, now I find myself as a deputy chief of base. Which I am entrusted with a significant position. Our number one priority is keep our officers safe. And in this particular case, we're there to fight a war. I mean, that's what we're doing in Afghanistan. Now I'm working for a new set of managers who are at the base. The chief of base. And for that matter, even some of the lower level managers at the Kabul station who really were not cut up to the job of being in Afghanistan and these kind of wars. And unfortunately, office politics, vindictiveness, abusing the position for your own gain became a prevalent issue. And in this particular case, I find myself in a very, very hard position. I'm working for a very nice lady who I respected, who had her skills and capabilities, but she was not cut out for this job. Couldn't handle the dirt, the grime, the noise, the isolation, the long hours, the rockets landing on top of you, out of nowhere at no time. And it would be basically awakened. There's a rocket, you know, inbound. Kaboom. You know, jump off your bed and go find out what's going on. She couldn't handle that. And sadly, one of the most distressing things for her is, as a mother of three, she felt, you know, like she was neglecting her sons back home. Tucker [00:19:25] Well, she was. Pedro Israel Orta [00:19:27] As she was. And unfortunately, in this particular case, her motive for being there was to make some extra money to pay for one of her son's colleges and at the same time, to be able to change her retirement plan at the CIA. If you work five years overseas. Tucker [00:19:41] That's what she was doing in a war zone. Pedro Israel Orta [00:19:42] Yeah, sadly, I saw this too often. So that this goes back to your question as far as good and bad people. Yes. It's a bureaucracy first and foremost. Tucker [00:19:53] So it's sort of like the DMV with guns that it's you're making it sound. I mean, if that doesn't, that's not the profile of the CIA operations officer, I imagine. Pedro Israel Orta [00:20:03] Well, you know, have you remember Afghanistan 2010? I, I work for a chief of base, a deputy chief of base. One of these guys was just really gung ho tip of the spear. Let's go fight this war. Let's go win. You know, let's take back the territory. And now I'm working for the Shake and Bake tour. You know, cooking and baking tours, adopting Santa tours. But the worst part about it was we were going out of the base at night for, yoga classes at a time of increased rocket attacks. Tucker [00:20:31] Yoga class? Pedro Israel Orta [00:20:32] Yeah. And on top of that, we were going out of the base during peak times of indirect fire for food without a necessity to do so. And in one of those instances, you know, on the way back, one of the routes we took ten minutes later, a rocket impacted right over the site. We drove over for food. Eventually I had to do something about this. I mean, my training, you know, years of having worked in a war zone, six plus years. By the time I've got to Afghanistan, you know, I knew what to do, what not to do. But even more importantly, from CIA headquarters, when they sent us out to the field in the war zone, they put us through a very sophisticated, detailed vetting process that includes meeting with every senior leader. And they gave us guidance on telling us exactly what to do. So she was doing everything we were told not to do. So. I knew she wouldn't get it. She wouldn't understand it. I raised it with, psychological officer. Regional psychological officer that came to the base, told them, in reality, he should have done something about it, but he didn't. He basically washed his hands up and told me, you go talk to your supervisor above her. So eventually I had to talk to him. This individual did not like at all. Everything I said, nothing was done about it except potentially tell her. So at that point in time, it kind of soured the relationship. But we were still working together. But the situation eventually just blew up, literally. Like if a rocket would have landed with an incident between a younger officer and an older officer. And that's a long story. But the short part of it is the younger officer was treated as an adopted son, spoiled and baby by the chief of base, which created the hostile environment, taking advantage of the older officer, which the chief of base really didn't care for this older officer. I mean, she basically said you'd take care of him. So they had a spat and I spoke up to her. I said, look, you know, this situation has been in the coming for a long time, which I actually warned you about a couple of weeks ago. And instead of trying to resolve things locally, I told her we can fix this here in the base. She chose to escalate and take it to Kabul, lying against this older officer, accusing him of having drawn a weapon. So now you've got this other supervisor in Kabul trying to investigate, you know, something that never happened, and the supervisor in Kabul was trying to basically coerce, manipulate me to take punitive actions against this other officer. I couldn't do that. I had to speak the truth. So I spoke to truth. And the next thing I know is I'm the one who says, this. Tucker [00:23:13] Does not sound like a very impressive organization to me. At least. You imagine in your mind that the CIA, you know, whatever its purposes or goal, it's corrupt. Obviously it's against democracy, but it's least kind of like they're swashbucklers or something. These sound like Department of Transportation lifers to me. Pedro Israel Orta [00:23:32] Well, it gets worse when they basically they at this point in time, you know, we had a three week break. I had to speed up my three week break. On my way out, I have a video teleconference with the chief of station, the deputy chief of station chief of resources, Derek Kabul, and I go over all these issues. I sent him all the materials and I sent all the materials to the Equal Employment Opportunity Officer. The last words from the chief of Station was, just go home, take your break. We'll sort this all out and we'll get back to you. I'm back home within a week. I'm called and I'm told, please come to this headquarters on such and such a date, such a such a time. You know, I never got a call from the EEO officer. Except a few hours before I'm supposed to meet headquarters. I make it to CIA headquarters, I meet with the EEO officer. Doesn't want to hear anything about what was happening in that base. He basically said, what EEO issues? Just just just completely just doesn't want to hear anything. As if he never read my materials or if he basically shredded them. Well, I go to the meeting. In the meeting with the senior officers, I'm told I would not be going back to Afghanistan, that I can apply for any job I want. And, well, I went back to see the EEO officer. The EO officer had the audacity to tell me it was a good thing you got fired. You can reinvent yourself. Yeah. Now I'm left outside. I have access to nothing. I couldn't take all the documentation that prove my claims because they were classified, and it would have had classified markings. We used, you know, fictitious names. We operational things for communications. So I had no proof, but I knew exactly where the proof could be found. So the next thing I find myself is trying to find somebody at CIA who would help. And the reality is that nobody wanted to help. They wanted to just cover it up. You know, the first line was EEO useless. I had to contact the director of National Intelligence and tell them about the situation there, EO office. And they gave me a number of the grievance officer who handles these things for the director of operations. When I finally set up a meeting with him, this guy is like, well, this is a hot potato. Just throw it away. Go talk to the EEO officer. Another EEO officer. By that time, I had reached out to the inspector general, and at that point in time, when I went to the inspector general in early April, that would have been a whistleblower allegation of reprisal by law. They were required to, within 14 days, determine whether there was a potential reprisal or not. And open an investigation that required constant collaboration between both of us where the in 90 days, they would tell me whether or not they had finished their investigation. If not, they will continue for 60 days until no more than 240 days to complete it. None of that was done. I met once with the I.G. They wanted nothing to do with it. They said this is an EEO issue and it continues to go downhill. It continues to go. Tucker [00:26:51] Worse around this time that you're wrangling with the inspector general in the, you know, office at CIA and all that. Do you start to notice a political change at CIA? What were the politics of your fellow officers? Pedro Israel Orta [00:27:06] By that time, Brennan had been the director for some time. And Brennan was John Brennan was a very strong director that brought his people in and posed his will. And it is this was CIA in 2015. I mean, by that time, you got to also understand that we're dealing with, I mean, look at the politics. United States, 93 to 2001. You had Clinton as president. Yes. Where he's putting his people in. Okay. You know, George Bush, president from 2001 to 2009, is just a small fraction of time compared to now having Obama 2009 through 2017. So you're looking at a Democratic president with Democratic operatives, you know, pretty much getting into these high level government positions. And I noticed that the Democratic operatives, in some cases were much stronger. And the Republicans, the Republicans, in my opinion, were very weak leaders. I mean, look at Porter Goss. Porter Goss didn't even last anything. The CIA pretty much kicked him out. You know, post Brennan I mean, Pompeo came in and he basically just continued Brennan's, CIA, of course. And on top of that, he picked Gina Haspel to be his deputy. Well, I. Tucker [00:28:24] Think that probably Mike Pompeo, on a deep level, agrees with John Brennan on most things. Pedro Israel Orta [00:28:32] What what I saw in part of how my story develops eventually, with all this fiasco of the IG's EO, everything failing me, I would end up blowing the whistle on the broken whistle, hence the title The Broken Whistle. Because not not only is the ability for you as an intelligence community official to blow the whistle broken it more so is they know it's broken and they don't care that it's broken and they will use the system to crush you. Yes. So I had to basically run out of CIA from just a bureaucratic beating and bullying that I took from all these different offices, and I took shelter in the office of the Inspector general for the intelligence community, in what is known as a joint duty assignment, a JDA. And I'm there and I get put on a team that does basically inter-agency type evaluations, inspections for the IG. And we start working on an evaluation on whistleblower protections, where we're evaluating the enforcement of Presidential Policy Directive 19, which was put in place by President Obama and Brennan. Clapper and every other agency had had to certify to the president that they had policies and procedures in place that followed the rules, the laws, the standards to investigate whistleblower reprisals. Well, we find out that, yeah, there's pretty ink on paper. That's about it. I mean, unenforceable not only that, the IG's really weren't following the letter of the law in some cases, didn't have any interest to follow the letter of the law. And in one instance, we had somebody basically just plotting to not even enforce these protections. So the protections that I had as a whistleblower didn't exist. And it's just not me alone. I mean, there were others around my same time that had blown the whistle on the broken whistle and on other matters, and they receive reprisals. I write about them in my book. John Reidy, Daniel P Meyer and Robert Cage, Jonathan Kaplan. Some of their stories are in the book. The point is, I had to blow the whistle on the broken whistle. So I escalated after I got sent back to CIA. When I went back to CIA, basically IG kicked me out. They said it was a conflict of interest for me to work for them, working on whistleblower evaluation when I was a whistleblower alleging reprisal when an attorney filed the lawsuit. Mind you, there were other whistleblowers inside the IG at the time. So I go back to CIA, and at that point in time, I literally landed back at CIA two years to the day when I first went back from Afghanistan. It's like if I was going back into the pit of hell, as I call it, for round two with the. Devils, and they will turn into round three with the devils, because I went back and endured the same exact thing, but actually worse at this point in time. I took it to the IG himself, Wayne Stone, the acting IG for the IG. I used the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act procedure to report a lot of these issues. As far as what I went through in Afghanistan about the whistle being broken and other matters, and they did nothing with my disclosures. Now I'm getting nowhere, not finding any jobs. I was basically blackballed. Jobs were being re advertised. I was qualified to do. I was applying for, and they wouldn't even tell me. No, I was basically left to fend for myself. Tucker [00:32:07] But were you still a federal employee at this point? Pedro Israel Orta [00:32:09] I was still a federal employee working for the CIA. You know, I had a temporary job, but I had to find a permanent job, and that required me to apply for these jobs and interview for some of these jobs. And without getting too down in the weeds, basically the process was stacked against me because you have to essentially try to find jobs that are within your career service or that are career enhancing for them to be able to potentially offer you these jobs. And I was applying for jobs I was well qualified to do, had proven I can do. And we're actually within my career field. And they were still telling me no and re advertising them. So getting nowhere I blow the whistle to Mike Pompeo's number three, his handpicked chief operations officer Brian Ballatore. At that point in time, immediately they issue an anti-harassment policy, sent out an email and they tell me, basically, go talk to the IG. The IG is investigating. We want nothing to do with this. Let the IG do their job. So basically, Mike Pompeo and his number three wash their hands of it and let the bureaucracy handle this. Tucker [00:33:19] So you're working at CIA during the Trump election. What was the view of that within the CIA? What do people think of Trump at CIA? Pedro Israel Orta [00:33:30] Well, at that time, I was actually at the office of Inspector General for the intelligence Community. Tucker [00:33:34] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:33:35] Or what I found interesting was that we were in a satellite building that every government building usually has a picture of the president, the vice president. In this particular case, I don't know how many months it took him to eventually put the picture of the president, the vice president, up on the wall, as if they didn't even want to recognize him as the president or the vice president. It could be that there was no official portrait for the president of vice president. But regardless, they should have immediately tried to put a picture up there. Tucker [00:34:09] Did you ever hear people talk about Trump or the election when you worked at CIA? Pedro Israel Orta [00:34:16] Some employees liked him, some didn't like him. It was depending on who we're talking about, right? I mean, to a degree, the problem that we have with CIA is the headquarters side CIA has overseas, obviously, as everybody knows. Yeah, but the majority of the officers work in the Washington, DC area and in that Washington, DC area. Going back to the politics of, you know, all the Democratic administration has become predominantly liberal. You can look at, the voting records, for Fairfax County, Arlington County, Loudoun County. And you'll notice that, you know, up until about 2008, those counties were predominantly red, you know, very Republican. Then all of a sudden they turn into, blue, very, Democratic. Same reflection with CIA. A lot of these younger people coming in have been more, more liberal, more democratically inclined. So if a lot of people didn't like Trump, I mean, it got so bad in one of my offices that one of the leaders actually spoke out and said, look, we have to respect the chain of command. If you if you find yourself mentally distressed because Trump won the presidency, go seek some psychological help that actually did happen. Tucker [00:35:37] Why did that supervisor have to say that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:35:40] Because as federal employees. Tucker [00:35:42] Well, I understand why legally he had to say that we- Pedro Israel Orta [00:35:44] Work for the president. Tucker [00:35:46] Of course you have to. Right. Pedro Israel Orta [00:35:47] And, you know, whether we agree with the president or not, we're there to basically serve the president. Tucker [00:35:53] But we're people at the office. The Intel office getting hysterical about Trump is that. Pedro Israel Orta [00:35:58] I think some of their emotions were flared up. Tucker [00:36:01] And did you see any of that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:36:02] I personally did not witness any of that. Yeah. Yeah. But but apparently some people were really just very, upset about it. Tucker [00:36:10] So looking back, and now that we know that the CIA had a role, a big role in the 2020 election, you know, trying to hide information from voters, etc., does that support. Prize. You. Pedro Israel Orta [00:36:28] Given that the history of the Democratic Party and their operatives like Brennan and so forth. Not at all. That, I mean. Tucker [00:36:38] That's illegal. They're not allowed to do that. Pedro Israel Orta [00:36:41] It's illegal. But but this goes to a core and key critical issue. They just can't handle power. The amount of power that you can have in some of these secretive agencies is so much that some people just can't handle it, and it basically corrupts them. It gets to the point that they almost lose their conscience. I mean, when you've got so much power that you can just upend somebody's life, you have got to find a balance to be able to keep your conscience. And I have found officers or senior leaders who basically have become so desensitized through the years that it's almost as if they lose their conscience and they can no longer see right or wrong. And it's like, it's my way or the highway. Tucker [00:37:25] So you saw that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:37:26] Yeah. Tucker [00:37:28] What kind of power does the CIA have? What power are you talking about? Pedro Israel Orta [00:37:30] Well, I mean, finding war life and death decisions. Yeah. Technical targeting. I had to get it right. Or somebody could have a real bad day. Yeah. Tucker [00:37:41] This is tactical, tactical targeting of people who are going to be killed. Yeah. Pedro Israel Orta [00:37:45] Potentially. Yeah. Potentially. Yeah. No, I mean, we're talking about, you know, we're doing counterterrorism operations and we're doing things that, you know, death and life situations at hand. On top of that, you know, the personnel matters. I mean, they're like any organization metrics becomes a problem when you start getting focused on the wrong metrics. Tucker [00:38:08] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:38:08] You could end up sacrificing your your conscience, your your your your morals, your ethics. You know, it's like, what are we doing here? Why are we doing something? Are we trying just to pad the numbers like we have X amount of intelligence reports? We have X amount of operations. What are we doing? Because if you're just trying to do activities so you can create a metric, you potentially could put lives in danger. I mean, in Afghanistan, there were a lot of operations out there being done, some of it driven by metrics, some of it driven by threats, like, yeah, it's legitimate operation, a legitimate target. There's something that needs to be done where in some cases, you know, somebody just wants to create a metric just to pad the numbers. Yes. I mean, sadly, it does happen everywhere, but but in the case of national security or where lives are at stake, I mean, you got to find the right balance. So it's like, wait a minute, you stop. You know, this is not about metrics. This is about human lives. Tucker [00:39:01] We don't want to kill people just to reach a target. Pedro Israel Orta [00:39:04] Yeah. Or, you know, collateral damage. Personnel resources had to CIA. Tucker [00:39:09] Did you ever to your point, which is such an interesting and wise one, I think. But the power corrupts, of course. But did you ever hear anybody say, you know, maybe we shouldn't be killing this person, or I feel bad about killing that person. Did you ever hear that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:39:24] I mean, one time I was working in one office, and somebody walked in. Hey, did we kill somebody today? I mean, some people just can handle this kind of stuff. Tucker [00:39:35] How did the person say it? Pedro Israel Orta [00:39:37] Yeah, literally just laughing. Tucker [00:39:38] Laughing? Yeah. You shouldn't laugh about killing people, though, right? Pedro Israel Orta [00:39:43] Absolutely not. I mean, absolutely not. I mean, if we're doing something that means life or death, whether employees. I mean, look, look, let's go back to Khost for a moment. What happened in Khost? They put a woman in Khost who did not have the operational experiences to handle that base or what they were doing. And this is all out in Britain and books and newspaper articles. Her father in law posts are going out there. This is clearly documented. Her motive for being out there was to get her five years overseas so she can change her, basically. Pension plan. Wrong motive again. And in the process of being in charge of that base, some decisions were made there in order to protect her because she can't answer for her actions and she's dead. You know, they basically didn't fault necessarily anybody. And they kind of just passed the blame throughout different actors. But part of it was the actual decision made on that day of allowing an unvetted contact who was not a source, who had never been really met by US intelligence to go into the base to a welcoming committee. Tucker [00:40:58] And that person was a suicide bomber. Pedro Israel Orta [00:40:59] That's a suicide bomber. So I know. Tucker [00:41:01] The woman who made that decision shouldn't have been in a position of authority in the first place. Pedro Israel Orta [00:41:06] Not that specific position. Tucker [00:41:08] Yeah. How many died do you remember in that bombing? Pedro Israel Orta [00:41:12] Seven counting hurt. And some additional people were also injured. But that was a fatal mistake through just we're getting into basically metrics die and you know office politics which sadly happens at CIA like any other organization. Tucker [00:41:31] But when you die at work when you were there. Pedro Israel Orta [00:41:33] Absolutely. I mean, look, look at this woman and the other woman at the chief of base where I was working at. I mean, they're trying to put a woman in a position just to have a woman. I'm not against women having positions. It's matter of fact, I work with a lot of women managers at CIA who were phenomenal, some of them, and actually in operations when I was in Iraq, we had a stellar woman doing some. Based management out in one of the bases. And she was outstanding. And she rose up the ranks and became a leader at the CIA. So, yes, by all means, they are qualified women. But just just to find, someone, whether a woman or a man. Well, in the case of, this other station I call Potemkin station in this country named in the book, I mean, Moe, Larry, curly. The same thing apply with men. We had basically men put in position that were not. The best qualified for those position and actually caused a lot of problems in that station. Tucker [00:42:31] Why were they put there? Pedro Israel Orta [00:42:33] Office politics. You know, basically they know somebody and somebody who knows them, you know, puts them in that position. Tucker [00:42:39] It doesn't sound like a meritocracy at all. Pedro Israel Orta [00:42:41] It it's a lot of nepotism. It's who you know. It happens in every organization. But when we're talking about CIA and death and life matters, you know, employees lives like Khost or, you know, the lives of potentially who, you know, could potentially run into problems with with whatever, you know, is done. You know, you got to make sure you have capable leaders. Tucker [00:43:04] So let me just end with a question that you probably can answer. What do you do about it? How do you CIA has all this power? You've said its budget is secret. Its activities are heavily secret. Not all, but a lot of secret. They're having all this power. It's clearly not helping the United States in the ways that it should be. What do you. How do you fix it? Pedro Israel Orta [00:43:25] Well, go back to the church. Pike committees. Yes. The Rockefeller Commission. The reality is that what we're seeing today is not new. This happened in the 50s and the 60s. 70s. What changed was the oversight mechanisms that were put in place. House permanent select committee of intelligence. Senate. Select committee of intelligence. When these commissions, we're doing oversight the CIA and a lot of abuses were reined in. But what has happened through time is these two committees have failed to do their due diligence and do oversight. It's almost as if they work for the CIA and basically do the CIA's bidding. As I found out as a whistleblower. Don't you dare go to Congress and blow the whistle. Because the reality is they're not there to defend you. They're there to defend the CIA and cover up for the CIA, which is what I have encountered. So how do we fix this? We may need another church committee, and we may need somehow to redo some of our intelligence agencies. Potentially. You know, certainly one thing that needs to be done is top down review what we're doing, what we're not doing, what should be done, what should not be done, where is there redundancy? Where are we failing in personnel matters? Where are we failing in following metrics instead of really activities we should be funneling and funding? Tucker [00:44:52] But I wonder, oh, I agree with all of that. But I wonder if Congress can't even for CIA to release the Kennedy assassination documents 61 years later, which they have not thousands of documents are still holding. Congress has not been able to do anything about that in 60 years. So maybe CIA is so much more powerful than Congress that a congressional hearing or committee won't make a difference. Pedro Israel Orta [00:45:14] Well, the reality is, you're right. CIA and many executive branch governments are actually even stronger than the president himself. Many times these agencies will obstruct presidential policies or for that matter, don't even disclose everything to presidents. So we go back to your point. What do we do here? We are going to have to do a top down review. Another church like committee with power. And we're going to need outsiders like has been done in the past with other committees, potentially get get some high profile lawyers like Alan Dershowitz, Jonathan Turley, you know, interpreters like Elon Musk and so forth. Do a real deep dive. And Congress is going to have to commit to follow those directives that are issued. Tucker [00:45:59] Do you think members of Congress, committee chairmen are being blackmailed by CIA? Pedro Israel Orta [00:46:04] Well, actually, there's one way that they do blackmail, security clearances who issue security clearances for a lot of these staffers, you know, the congressmen, senators, House of Representatives, they have a clearance. But if you're a staffer, your clearance at times will run through CIA, NSA. So for the CIA, even although Office of Personnel Management does the security clearance, they get input from these other three letter agencies so they can literally stop anyone from having a clearance if they want to. So that's one means and one way that they can actually control Congress. Tucker [00:46:41] So if you're if you're a senator but your staff can't get clearances, then really, you know, you don't have the time to read all the stuff. Pedro Israel Orta [00:46:50] You know, who does the work at Congress? It's the staffers, of course, staffers. I mean, a lot of these senators in this House of representative members do very little work. They're basically dependent upon their staffers to do all the research, and they're bidding for them. All the bills, really, to a degree, are written by all these staffers. So if the security clearance of these staffers is controlled by the CIA, the intelligence community, they certainly can manipulate Congress members to ensure that only select people get those clearances. Tucker [00:47:18] And they do. Pedro Israel Orta [00:47:19] That, and they do. Tucker [00:47:24] I mean, if members of the Intel community are breaking federal law to spy on Americans without a warrant. And, why is no one ever held accountable for that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:47:37] The oversight mechanism is Congress. And if they fail to do something about it, they will get away with it. And then we get into a vicious cycle where, oh, I got away with doing this, doing that, breaking this law. So they continue doing it and it just continues to spiral downward to a point where it can become more graver and the infractions even larger. And what happens? There's another dimension to it is the ability of people to speak up is completely diminished spiral of silence, because the cost of speaking up is too high. Tucker [00:48:12] Yes. Pedro Israel Orta [00:48:12] Where? I mean, look at the case of, Drake and Snowden. Drake blew the whistle using the disclosure mechanisms in place, and they came after him, accused him of leaking national security data, and actually tried to prosecute him. He pled guilty to some minor things, but they basically tore his life apart. Snowden comes in, and he essentially makes similar, like, disclosures publicly. Because he knew the system would crush him. He could not trust this system at all. And the point here is. Tucker [00:48:51] You worked there when Snowden did that? Pedro Israel Orta [00:48:53] Yes. Tucker [00:48:54] What was the reaction? The internal. Pedro Israel Orta [00:48:56] I mean, internally, I mean, there was six significant damage to national security was done from the perspective of some of these collection programs. Some of these collection programs are actually good for our benefit when we use them right to target, you know, terrorists and adversaries. But when people can't handle the power given to them and start abusing these powers to target political adversaries, now you got a problem. But but this gets to another point, too. How do we get here? Well, post 911, we gave these agencies vast powers. And what has happened is they have flipped a switch on these vast powers to use them against political adversaries. Yes, through the predicate of counterintelligence or counterterrorism authorities. If, for example, you or I were seen as a potential, Russian asset of some type, they can turn these authorities against us on the flip of a switch legally to, begin to investigate us and eavesdrop on us. And that's that's no secret that information is out there, and that's how it's done. Tucker [00:50:05] Amazing. Amazing. I appreciate you're spending all this time and telling us what it's like to actually work there. The broken whistle. A deep state run amuck. Pedro Israel Orta. Thank you, thank you. Pedro Israel Orta [00:50:17] Tucker. God bless you. Tucker [00:50:18] God bless.

Digital Warriors Are Ready

Stop WWIII by Dubconscious from their album Word Of Life Dubconscious — Word of Life https://dubconscious20.bandcamp.com/ Word Of Life, released May 12, 2004

Pastor Doug Wilson is the Christian nationalist they warned you about. Published Apr 15, 2024 READ THE TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] So if you're Joe Biden standing for reelection at the age of 81, the obvious question is what exactly are you going to run on? You're not going to run on the state of the economy. You're not going to run on the state of the world, which is increasingly chaotic. You're not going to run on lengthening life expectancy, because actually life expectancy is declining in the United States under his watch. So what are you going to run on? Well, are you going to run against. And the main thing Biden is going to run against is Christianity running against Christianity. He's already put people in prison for praying. So it's not a stretch. But of course, you're not going to say I'm running against Christianity, the world's largest religion. You're going to say I'm running against something called Christian nationalism, which is a way of making traditional Christianity seem like a threat to the country rather than the principle upon which it was founded. So that is their plan. They can running at something called Christian nationalism, and in this they have the full cooperation of Hollywood and the media outlets, which are whipping up the population to a frenzy over this threat called Christian nationalism. Well, most of us, even those of us who pay some attention, aren't really sure what Christian nationalism is. Is it a product of what it sounds like, which is some branding meeting in the basement of the DNC, designed to make Christians seem really scary if they believe in God? Maybe we decided we would ask the person most closely identified with that phrase Christian nationalism. He's one of the rare American Christian pastors who is willing to engage on questions of culture and politics, and for that, he has taken a lot of grief. But we are honored to have him. His name is Doug Wilson. He's the pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. He is the author of several books, including a book called Mere Christendom: The Case for Bringing Christianity Back into Modern Culture. And Pastor Wilson joins us now. Thank you very much. Doug Wilson [00:01:42] Honored to be here. Thank you. Tucker [00:01:44] So I'm since there was not a post, I'm sincerely confused by the phrase Christian nationalism, which seems like an attack on Christianity to me. What is it to the extent you understand it? And are you a Christian nationalist? Doug Wilson [00:01:57] So I'm willing to be a Christian nationalist because. I prefer that phrase to the phrase I usually get called... Tucker [00:02:05] So what do you get? Doug Wilson [00:02:07] White supremacist. Doug Wilson [00:02:09] Slave advocate. Oh, you know, racist, you know, all the neo-fascist, so the the, the left really does hate Christianity. Yes. And, with the phrase Christian nationalism, even the part of it that's coming from the left trying to wrap that around our necks, that's something I think I can explain. I can say, yeah. Yes, but. And then explain it to inside of two minutes. Tucker [00:02:34] I mean, I stand before you and thank you for doing that. And I will listen rapidly because I really want to know. But just to clarify the terms, is that a phrase that you or people with your beliefs came up with, or was that a phrase that was leveled against you? Doug Wilson [00:02:46] Well, both. Cannon, Cannon Press, located in Moscow, Idaho, has a streaming service called Cannon Plus can can press published The case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolf. So that was our embrace of the term. Okay. And Stephen Wolf, he wrote a defense, a scholarly defense of the whole thing, the history of the whole thing. So we embraced it to that extent. But then on MSNBC, just a few weeks ago, there was one of the talking heads there that said, anybody who believes that rights come from God and not from Congress and not from the Supreme Court is a Christian nationalist. Right. So anybody who, you know, making Thomas Jefferson right, right. A Christian nationalist endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. So anybody who believes that on the according to the left, is a Christian nationalist and there is, a developed set of arguments in defense of that phrase that can be, I think, pointed out in short order. You can't there's no you, trying to defend other things they call you. It's like putting lipstick on a pig. It's just you're not. It's not going to be a thing. Tucker [00:03:58] No. Doug Wilson [00:03:59] All right. But this is something that people can say, oh, I love my nation, and I'm a Christian. Why can't these. Tucker [00:04:06] Well, that's how I feel about it, right? I don't know what it is. So how would you define it? Doug Wilson [00:04:10] So, it's, I think very simple. If there is no God above the society, if there's no God above the state, take got away. Yes. The state is God. Doug Wilson [00:04:22] Okay. If there is no God above the state, the state is God. The state becomes God and it assumes the prerogatives of deity. Try, you know, cameras at every, at every intersection, aping omniscience. Yes. Omnipresence. In Big Brothers, watching you. Tucker [00:04:40] Control of your mind. Doug Wilson [00:04:41] Control of your mind. They want to control absolutely everything, every keystroke. They want to control everything because they're aspiring to deity. The reason they're aspiring to deity is because they don't recognize any god above them. Okay, now this is where everybody I think I'd be with, most people would be with me. A. To that point, all conservative, believing Christian. Tucker [00:05:02] For the state is not. Doug Wilson [00:05:03] God. The state is not God. Yes. Okay. And the early Christians were persecuted not because they worship Jesus, but because they would not worship Caesar. All right. The whole issue of Christians being thrown to the lions had to do with who they wouldn't worship, not who they would. Right. Oh, okay. The Romans were more than happy to add Jesus to the pantheon. Yes, exactly. Okay. But the claims of Christ are exclusive. And Christians would not, recognize Caesar as Lord. Jesus is Lord is the fundamental Christian confession. So most Christians are with you right up to that point. But then the immediate comeback question from our antagonists would be, okay, if you want to have a God above the state, smart Alec. Which God? Okay. And that lands you right in the middle of theological debate, which is the last place in the world a lot of people want to be, for sure. Okay. The. Is it Allah? Is it Shiva, the god of destruction? Is it, the Unitarian god? Is it the Christian god? What do you. You know what God is? Tucker [00:06:05] It is that the Satan of the church of Satan? Doug Wilson [00:06:07] Right. And incidentally, if I could put here, our current rulers don't believe in God, but they do believe in the devil, right? All right. And and their belief in the devil is why they want to ascend the size of the North. They want to be be as the Most High. That was the initial temptation. In the garden. You shall be God. Okay. So our current rulers are are very ambitious, and they want to aspire to that height. We don't want to resist them in the name of Christ, because we don't want to launch another series of interminable religious wars, right? Okay. We. Because we don't want the Muslims fighting with the Jews fighting with the Christians fighting with, you know, all of that. All right. So that's that's the most reasonable question when they say which God, the Christian. And here's the answer to your question. The Christian nationalist is the one who's willing to answer that question. And speaking into the microphone, the true God, the living God, the one who exists. Yes. Not not the one, not the God on our money, you know. Now, if there's a corrective, there's God on our money used to be the Christian God, because that was put there when there was a robust Christian consensus in this country. All right. So we had an informal, informal establishment at the founding of the United States, where the religious differences that we were willing to acknowledge and work with were the differences between Baptists and Presbyterians and Anglicans. It was not the difference between Muslims and Hindus, and it wasn't the whole entire landscape because, all law and this is the next, principle. All law is imposed morality. Tucker [00:07:55] By definition. Doug Wilson [00:07:56] By definition, it's not whether but which it's not. It's not whether you're imposing morality, it's which morality you're imposing. Okay. And if someone says, well, this is going you're going to wind up imposing morality. I say, well, yeah, that's what law is, right? You can't have a structured order in society without the imposition of morality laws. Judgment. Right. But then that leads to the question at which morality, every, every moral system, arises out of the worship of a god. All right. So in Saudi Arabia you're going to get a moral system that is distinctly different than a moral system that arose out of a country with a Christian history. And yes, census. All right. So the the God you worship, this is a principle, you see all through the, through the entire Bible. And that is you become like what you worship. People begin to be conformed to the image of what they consider to be the highest good. You become like what you worship in Psalm 115. It says, they make idols. They that have eyes and see, not ears, but they hear not noses, but they smell not. And then it says, those that make them are like unto them. You become like what you worship. All right. So if you, if you worship a God who is, Allah does not reveal himself. He reveals his will. He's a God of power, coercion, force. All right. That's why Muslim societies are the way they are. Because you become like what you worship. The Christian heritage has, unlike anything else in human history, has a balance of form and freedom, structure and liberty together. Okay. That, I believe, is the unique contribution of Christian theology. We worship. We worship God who is one God. Christians are monotheists. Who is Triune father, son, and Holy Spirit. And so when you're tackling the ancient philosophical problem of the one and the many, what's what is ultimate diversity? Like Heraclitus thought, you can't step into the same river twice. History is just ten tons of confetti dumped into a tornado. Yes. That's chaos, that's Heraclitus. Then there's Parmenides. Everything's frozen. Everything's a big unit, right? Monism or chaos? World is king. If you're Heraclitus. Parmenides. Everything's frozen and stuck. And they wrestled with this for centuries. And then the Christians came along and the history of ideas. And you Christians, what is ultimate, the one or the many? And the Christian said, yes. Yes. And Christians have room, have mental space, have theological space for, ultimate unity and ultimate division. The fellowship between the three persons of the Trinity. And we become like what we worship. And so, consequently, Christians are the ones who can respect order and form and structure. We we like order, and we love liberty. Well, where does that come from? Right. There's there's a certain kind of person who loves liberty, and they just want to do whatever they want to do. And no one can tell me what to do about anything. Tucker [00:11:16] Libertine. Doug Wilson [00:11:17] Libertine. And then there's the person who wants structure. They want to live in a tyrannical North Korea type of thing where every move is dictated. Yes. Right. They want structure, structure, structure. The Christian faith provides the balance between form and freedom. And this is something that has been discussed for decades in the modern setting. Frances Schaefer, the late Frances Schaefer was really good at spelling this out. We we want form and freedom together so that when when we say Christian nationalism, there are only three ways of basic ways of organizing human society. There's tribalism, there's nationalism, and then there's globalism. I don't want globalism. I don't want to eat bugs, okay? I don't want tribalism because nobody wants to live in a failed state. Somalia with warlords? No, but no, nobody wants to live in Thunderdome. Okay. So I don't want tribalism and I don't want globalism. And we have a national structure now. Okay. So as a Christian, I would like that national structure to conform to the things that God wants and not the things that man wants. That's Christian nationalism. Tucker [00:12:29] But may I ask? Of course I yes, I agree vehemently with everything you said. Let me pose the maybe two problems that people might have hearing the phrase Christian nationalism. The first most obvious is, well, what if I'm not Christian, right? How do I fit into that? Doug Wilson [00:12:42] All right. You would probably you would fit in better then you're fitting in now. Well, okay. One of the things that a nonbeliever. Basically, I trust the Christians. This is I'm speaking historically. I trust the Christians to take better care of a secularists liberty than I trust the secularists to take care of money. Speaker 3 [00:13:05] Nicely put. Doug Wilson [00:13:07] Okay, I think we're I think we're. Tucker [00:13:08] You have the last 2000 years to to back you up on that. Doug Wilson [00:13:11] Correct. And that's not to say that there weren't warts and sins and blemishes in Christian history. There really, there really were. But you take the worst, you know, they take the worst of the worst in Christian history. Something like the Spanish Inquisition, right? Okay. Some terrible, terrible thing, which I'm not carrying water for at all. Terrible thing. But the Spanish Inquisition killed a few thousand people over a few centuries. That was Stalin on a slow afternoon. The commies have killed 100 million people in the last century or so. All right. Tens of millions of people, and and yet they go on serenely, as though their copybook is not blotted and ours is all right. How long have they been dining out on the Salem witch trials or on the the Spanish Inquisition, or this the Fourth Crusade or, you know, different things like that? Yeah, those those were horrific, evil, bad things. But the Christian, theologian, the Christian preacher has a book of God's revelation with which to condemn these things. We can say that's inconsistent. That's that's not what God wants. Yeah. And we should conform to what God wants. That's Christian nationalism. All right. So Christian nationalism doesn't mean disobeying God's will in the name of Jesus. Christian nationalism means conforming what we're doing to God's revealed will in the name of Jesus. It means obeying him, not disobeying him. Tucker [00:14:42] So Christian nationalism does not imply forced conversion. Doug Wilson [00:14:46] It does not. Tucker [00:14:46] Or a reduction in the rights of non-Christians? Doug Wilson [00:14:49] No, it's an expansion of the rights of non-Christians. Right? I believe I believe an average my my standard joke, picked up somewhere is if I were if I were president and what a glorious three days that would be, we'd get we would get a lot done in those days. But if I were in control of this, I believe the average nonbeliever would not know what to do with all the additional liberty he would have. I believe. Tucker [00:15:17] Can you give me an example of the liberties non-Christians would gain under such a structure? Doug Wilson [00:15:21] How many of our chains have we gotten used to? Right? Too many. So that one of the common things that the people who are trying to scare people with Christian nationalism, like we're going to go back to The Handmaid's Tale type of thing, are trying to spook us with that sort of thing. And they say we need to keep the government out of our bedrooms, keep the government out of the bedroom. Well, I had the privilege a number of years ago building my own house, and I know exactly how many screws the government required to be in the sheetrock in my bedroom, how big the windows had to be for egress in my bedroom, how thick the sheetrock had to be in my bedroom. The. What do you mean, keep the government out of my bedroom? I can't remove the mattress tag from the, from the mattress because the government is in my bedroom. Literally. Right. So the so one of the things that would happen is that you would have a great deal more practical liberty, as opposed to the kind of liberty that the leftists want you to have. The kind of liberties that you can exercise in a six by a prison cell. You can read porn in a prison cell. Right? You can have dope smuggled into you in a prison cell. You can get high in a prison cell. You can you can be in war. Tucker [00:16:37] But may I ask, though? I mean, there's no question that the right, as a general, broadly speaking, offers a vision of greater personal liberty than the left is totalitarian. I think that's pretty clear. But why? What about Christianity would inspire you to offer more liberty as opposed to, like, your dedication to Hayek? Okay, but why Christianity? Doug Wilson [00:17:00] I'm a biblical absolutist. Some people would call me a fundamentalist. Like, I take everything in the Bible literally, which when Jesus says, I'm the door, you don't look for a doorknob. You don't have to go lie down in green pastures to be a good Christian. So I don't take the Bible literally. I take the Bible naturally. The way it presents itself to be taken. Poetry is poetry. Vision is vision. History is history. And. But I'm a biblical absolutist. So what the Bible says, I just take to the bank and I have a very dim view of human wisdom. All right. We are a piece of work. The human race is messed up. All right. And so consequently, I only want to allow coercion, which is what this the magistrate does. I only want to allow coercion if there is black letter biblical justification for it. Okay. It's sort of like a. I don't have a problem, prosecuting rapists because I can show you in the Bible where that should be done. I don't have a problem prosecuting murderers, because I can show you in the Bible that this is something that God entrusted to the magistrate to do, to enforce, to keep order by punishing rape and and murder and that. Yes. So on. I don't I can't find anything in the Bible that allows the government to dictate the temperature of the water that comes out of showerhead in my bathroom. Consequently, the government has no business doing that. It's none of their business. They have no authorization. Right. So we have gotten, they. William F Buckley once joked that a liberal is someone who reaches into your shower and adjust the temperature for you. They they know better. Of course, Thomas Soul's great book, The Vision of the anointed, is. I think the subtitle, something like self-congratulation as the Basis of Public Policy. And that's the way it goes. They feel serenely above it all, and they want to boss everybody around. I don't want to boss anybody around unless I have authorization in the book from from the Lord. And and and you look at the Ten Commandments. If you could fit the Ten Commandments on a postcard, and then you could fit the Old Testament in one volume on the shelf, go to the local library and ask to look at the the code for your state. Shelf after shelf. Right. The Federal Register of Laws. Shelf after shelf after shelf. All right. That kind of tyranny. All right. Somebody has a website, I think, called three felonies a day. The average American is guilty of trespassing. They can always get use for something. Of course. Right. Because they've got so many rules that you're always transgressing. And then when they decide to pull the switch, they can just come scoop you up and take you off. Right. And make it happen. In a in a biblical law order, you have ten commandments, and then you have the commentary on those ten commandments, which would be the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament. And if it's not there, right. If, if, if someone says, we need to prosecute this guy for hate crimes, right. As a and I say, oh, as opposed to the normal, ordinary love crimes. What what are you talking about? Why why are you punishing him for an attitude? Right. You have no. You have no authorization. You can. You can, hit it. Get. You can get him for taking the guy's bicycle or smashing in his windows. You can. You've got authorization biblically to punish the wrongdoer. That's Romans 13. The God gives the sword to the magistrate to reward the righteous and punish the wrong to her. But then the Bible defines what is that? Wrongdoing and certain things. People think that if it's in the Bible, it we can enforce it. Well, no. In the Bible, there's a difference between sins and crimes. Right. A crime is something that the Bible identifies as evil. And there's a civil penalty attached. But in the Ten Commandments, the 10th commandment, covetousness, there's there's no penalty attached. I don't want covetousness. Police. I don't want lust. Police. I don't want there's there's no penalty attached. I have no authorization to arrest someone for looking longingly through a catalog too long. That's a that's beyond our capacity. So we we should have nothing to do with that. And and you find that if you were strict with this, you're going to you're going to find, there's a wonderful title of a book, The Emergence of Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World. And it's a history of the Protestant Reformation and how a lot of our, practical, substantive liberties grew out of certain theological assumptions that, that were established and reaffirmed, some inherited from the Middle Ages and some, established a new and some some established at that time. So people think that, Christians are going to bring in this Handmaid's Tale hellhole sort of thing. But there was in 1892, there was a Supreme Court decision. And it was exquisitely named Holy Trinity versus the United States of America. And it was the Holy Trinity was the name of a church. And Congress had passed a law forbidding, merchants, contractors to import a bunch of foreign labor, pay for their passage and then release them into the country. So it was there was a law against paying for the passage of a foreign laborer. And that was meant for these big construction projects. Well, a church, I think, in New York named Holy Trinity, called a British minister to be their new, pastor. And they paid for his passage over. And so, of course, some zealous prosecutor. Charge you know when after them over this affront to to the laws of the United States and the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and it was Holy Trinity versus the United States of America. The chief justice was a man named Brewer at the time. This was 1892. And in 1892 they handled the case itself in a commonsense way, deciding for the church. Look, you know, I wasn't talking about that. They did. And then Brewer said, and while we're on the subject, let's take this opportunity to remind everybody that the United States is a Christian country. Okay. And then he went through the history of the United States, the fundamental orders of Connecticut, the founding documents. Just walk through. He was historically literate. And he said definitively in this Supreme Court decision, the United States is a Christian country. Now, the thing I want is to be living in 1893. That's what that's what I want. In terms of the judicial setup, I don't want, to capture this. The the bad guys Orwellian apparatus that they're setting up and then turn it to Christian ends. I don't I don't want to butt into their lives the way they want to, but into everybody's life. Tucker [00:24:16] Well, that's for sure. And, I mean, what you're describing is a country that, as it has become less Christian, has become more authoritarian. Correct, right. And that's obvious and demonstrable. But but for saying what you just said, you will be and have already been by Russell Moore, most recently in Christianity Today, described as a theocratic. And what you just described will be called theocracy. Right. How is what you just described different from theocracy? Doug Wilson [00:24:41] Okay. What what people when people say, Russell Moore said aspiring theocratic. He didn't think I'd made it yet, but he he said that I wanted to a deep in the dark recesses of my heart. I wanted to be a theocratic. The here's the difference between this is what they're thinking of when they think of theocracy. They're thinking of ecclesia ocracy. Right. Tucker [00:25:06] They're thought by priests. Doug Wilson [00:25:07] Rule by clerics, rule by priests. Okay. And they're thinking of something like Iran, right? With a bunch of reformed, weird beards, issuing dicked, they are doing their thing. They they're thinking of a cabal of, clerics and holy men and shamans and whatever, issuing decrees on the basis of a religion that the populace doesn't accept. And, and we just jam it down their throats. Well, we don't jam things down people's throats. That's what they do. That's what they're doing now. Okay? That what they. When when ro was first established, there were most of the states had laws restricting abortion. They jammed their, ungodly dictate down everybody's throat, in the Obergefell decision. What they did is they jammed it down his throat. They said, this is what we must progress waits for. No, man. We're not. We're going to do it. Do it now. Tucker [00:26:04] Sure, California passed a referendum restricting marriage to a man and a woman, and it was overturned. So much for democracy, right? Doug Wilson [00:26:11] So, we are not wanting to, on the basis of some clerical decision, have the clerics rule and decide, like in Iran, only a Christian. We don't want the Christian ayatollahs doing that sort of thing. That's what most people think. What most people call a theocracy is actually an ecclesia ocracy. Okay. Christian. The historic Christian doctrine is when people say, well, Pastor Wilson, you need to affirm that the separation of church and state. This is sort of thing. It makes me want to dance in place because Christians invented the doctrine of separation of church and state. That's our doctrine. That's that is something that came from us. We're the ones who developed it. And separation of church and state is crucial because there are two governing institutions. The church governs men in a certain sphere, and the state governs men in a certain sphere because they're both forms of government. You can keep them separate. You can keep the apples and oranges separate into bowls on the counter because they're both fruit. Right. But what when when people say separation of church and state and they mean separation of God and state, separation of morality and state, separation of ultimate truth, claims and state? I would say stop, wait, wait just a minute. Are you really telling me that you want to live in a state that is utterly disconnected from morality? Is that what you want? Is where the you protest and your protest is a moral one. And they say, well, we we believe in the separation of morality and state. Tucker [00:27:54] But as you noted at the outset, that's that's a nonsensical proposition that has never existed and can't exist. Doug Wilson [00:27:58] I know, because all moralities arise out of a moral consensus, of course. Okay. Which is, overwhelmingly religious. So consequently, you can separate church and state, but you can't separate ultimate truth claims and state. It cannot be done. Every people needs to know who they are. They need to know what they are. They need to know where they came from. They need to know how we're supposed to behave on the way. Those are basic theological. Tucker [00:28:25] I don't think any honest, rational person would disagree with what you just said. That all laws are judgments about how people should live in their moral judgments, and that there's going to be a system for deciding what's right and wrong, because there always is. And it's going to be if it's Marxism or Christianity, one scholar, a superior. I guess the question, though, is how do you affect or bring back such a system in a country that has no working majority of anything? Doug Wilson [00:28:54] Yeah. So when you have a cacophony of, laws, it reflects the cacophony of opinions among the people. And, and this is where unbridled immigration comes into the picture. You can't just import floods and floods of people with different assumptions about everything into one spot and say, play nice children. Societies have to function on the basis of a shared moral consensus. Exactly. Okay. If there isn't a shared moral consensus, then you're what you're going to get is anarchy and disruption. . Tucker [00:29:35] Wait a second. I have read, many Episcopal bishops and Russell Moore, not to be the pun poor Russell Moore, who's living in agony already, but, say, make the claim that it is anti-Christian. If you don't let anyone who wants to move your society move here. Doug Wilson [00:29:51] Right? That's like saying to a godly, sweet Christian couple who has three foster children and they're taking good care for kids of their own. They've taken in three foster children, and they're taking good care of them. And then you show up one day with a short bus with 28 new foster children, and you say, we're depositing them here, and we wait, wait, the couple says we didn't sign up for that many. What kind of non-Christian attitude is that refusing to take these 28 new foster children? The dad who was taking care of good care of three foster children is should be able to say, look, I'm taking care three and I think I'm doing a good job taking care three but if you drop off 28 more, I'm not going to be taking good care of anybody. It's going to swamp the system, right? You can't say, we need to kick the doors open wide in the name of hospitality without the capacity to process them. You have to assimilate them, right? And it's got to be orderly. So if people say, do I object to immigration? Of course not. I object to anarchy. I object to chaos. So I object to the lawlessness that's operating on the southern border. Orderly immigration. I'm all about, all about that. And that would be wonderful. Tucker [00:31:11] I'm sorry I've sidetracked you. I had to ask you, but. But you were in the process before I interrupted you of answering the question. How do you go back to a system based on Christian assumptions in a country that's no longer Christian? Doug Wilson [00:31:24] What you do, and this is this is you invite a preacher under your show, you're going to get get some preaching. Tucker [00:31:31] Hope so. Doug Wilson [00:31:32] All right. So there's no way there's no way to do it outside of God raising up preachers who preach a hot gospel and church planting. There's there's no way to do this politically. Tucker [00:31:44] And you got to make the country Christian again. Doug Wilson [00:31:46] That's right. Basically, we're in such a mess that there is no political solution. All right. We're we're beyond hope. There is no political solution. The next election, however happy it might make us for ten minutes, is not going to fix everything. Tucker [00:32:01] That's right. Doug Wilson [00:32:01] Okay. Our disease is radical, and it's spiritual. We've got a we've got a radical leprosy. And, the United States needs to repent, of its sin, to use an old fashioned term. We need to repent of our sins, our arrogance, and turn back to God. That's what. That's what is necessary. And we need preachers who are willing to tell them to do that, to proclaim that this is what you must do and they must not do it in terms of law, like thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt. The law condemns, but the gospel liberates. So the law brings in judgment the law. Well, the law makes us aware of the rich young ruler. Is made aware of his lack, is made aware of his sinfulness by the law. And then you turn to Christ. And what Christ offers is full, free forgiveness. But forgiveness. With him now in charge. So forgiveness. It's not what Bonhoeffer would call cheap grace. It is a radical death, burial and resurrection. All right, so this is what the Easter season is all about. Death, burial and resurrection. And the Bible tells us that when we look to Christ, we are crucified with in in faith, we're crucified with him, we're buried with him, and we rise again from the dead with him, and we ascend into the heavenly places with him that we are. We are made participants of the virtue of Christ by by virtue of his death, burial, and resurrection. So America needs Jesus. America doesn't need to turn over a new leaf. America needs a new life. And and new life is only given on God's terms as the sheer grace of God. It's got. That's how it's got to be. And so what we need is preachers. Christian preachers who will stop being ashamed of the name of Jesus and preach the gospel and preach the gospel as though it's supposed to spread out, into the streets after the service. So too many churches are Jesus boxes where where you go in and you have your meeting with the with Jesus in your box, and then you go out and live pretty much like everybody else. You try to keep your nose a little bit cleaner than the average guy, but you still fit right in out there. But the claims of Christ are total, and the things that the thing that we try to emphasize in our, our ministry is all of Christ for all of life. I'm fond of saying theology needs to come out at your fingertips. Whatever it is you take in theologically needs to be enacted and done. And if theology comes at your fingertips, and if preachers are preaching the gospel and there's a great religious reformation and revival, then and I'm seeing some stirrings of. Tucker [00:34:49] This, I am too- Doug Wilson [00:34:50] Okay. So I'm not beyond hope, but I'm beyond political hope. There is no political solution, no political hope. But that doesn't mean that there's no hope. So in the. I can point to two. Great. The Reformation and the great Protestant Reformation would be one. And then the Evangelical awakening in the 18th century in England was another one. Yes. According to, I think prudent observers, England was headed for their own version of the French Revolution. Things were awful in the the spiritual condition of the country was, in tatters and in ruins. We sometimes think of the Victorians, 19th century Englishmen, as the, as the buttoned up tight, but the previous century that were anything but buttoned up tight. They were lewd, lascivious, immoral, oppressive. And the, they were they were headed for revolution. The the working man there was downtrodden and oppressed, and it was really, really bad. And the Wesley's and George Whitefield revival preachers, I think, were the gods instrument for saving England from their French Revolution. That's the kind of thing we need. We need God. Tucker [00:36:05] I think we're headed towards something. I would say a French Revolution. But do you think we're headed towards some sort of catastrophe? Doug Wilson [00:36:13] Yes, I believe yes. I believe that, apart from repentance, deep repentance, I believe that we're headed for real, real chaos. I think that the future is not going to be evenly catastrophic all over. Right. But I believe it's going to be bumpy, bumpy and chaotic. Chaotic and places and violent and bloody in places. I and I believe that the only thing that's going to head that off is preachers who stop being ashamed of their religion. Tucker [00:36:43] But there are only like three of them in the whole country. Like, how can that happen? Doug Wilson [00:36:46] Yeah, there are maybe maybe five. Tucker [00:36:50] Why are there so few? Doug Wilson [00:36:51] Well, there there are so few. There's two things, Elijah and a moment of despondency said I'm the only one left, and. And they're trying to kill me. And God says, well, now I've reserved 7000 who've not bowed the knee to bail. So I believe that there are thousands of faithful preachers. One of the things that happens is that, the media, which is in the tank for the devil, doesn't cover that sort of thing. There could be lots of faithful ministries. I believe there are thousands of them. But they don't get coverage and they don't get highlighted. They don't get reported. You remember the Tiananmen Square, protests? Tucker [00:37:35] Tank Man. Doug Wilson [00:37:36] Tank man. Right? But you remember all the reporting on how many thousands of baptisms happened in the square? Tucker [00:37:42] No. Doug Wilson [00:37:43] Thousands of Baptist, Christian baptisms. Christian baptisms in the square. Tiananmen square. And. And our media turned it into a great high five moment for Jeffersonian democracy. And that element was there. Okay. But there was a hard Christian element right at the center of that. Tucker [00:38:03] I've never heard that in my life. Doug Wilson [00:38:04] Okay. Thousands of baptisms in the square in Tiananmen Square. Now, the thing that, and it's that sort of thing that you could have something similar happened here. And is MSM going to report on CBS going to report on it? No, they are they are combatants. They are referees in the basketball game who are dribbling and shooting with the other team. Tucker [00:38:26] Me, I have so many questions. A couple quick ones in, in throughout the Old Testament, maybe even in the new nations are punished for their sins. Not just individuals, but nations. Corporate right? The nation. Does that still happen? Do you believe? And second, you've made reference a couple of times to America's America, not just Americans, but America as a nation. Its need to repent of it since what sins? Doug Wilson [00:38:53] Okay, so yes, God still judges nations. Nations. God still judges God test. God is the sovereign of all the earth. He still does, right? Wickedness still offends him. And, of. Tucker [00:39:06] But maybe a lot of Protestants, or maybe just me, think of that as taking place just on an individual level. Doug Wilson [00:39:13] I think that, there's a there's a good book called The Civil Wars Theological Crisis by Mark Nowell, who said that the idea that God judges corporately is an idea that for Americans died with the American Civil War because both sides were Christian, professed faith in the Christian God. Both sides were praying for victory, and both sides concluded after the war. Well, that did a lot of good. What what was the what was the meaning of that? Right? Yes. So we became, after in the aftermath of the war between the States, we became sort of agnostic on whether God ever take sides or intervenes on behalf of, righteousness or unrighteousness in a particular nation. But I believe he does. So I believe that if our nation were destroyed for our arrogance and conceit by fireballs from heaven, you know, if if God were to do that, it would be not unjust. It would be a just judgment. We we have been arrogant in the extreme, and I would say the central arrogance there's there's fruits of this arrogance downstream, the 60 million children who are aborted, the the various things that we do, the going around the world preaching at people, how to get their life together. Tucker [00:40:32] Threatening them, killing them when. Doug Wilson [00:40:33] We don't know how to live our lives. All of that. That's the fruit of the central sin. The central sin is secularism. The the secularism is that we can we can live decent, orderly lives without Christ. We don't need God in order. We don't need God in order to live. Placidly, the way we did in the Eisenhower years with black and white sitcoms where father knows best. And, you know, we can we can do that. And I'd say, yeah. Okay. How's it going? We. The grand secular experiment is now at a point where they don't know what a girl is. That's because secularism is not a biologist, right? They they can't tell you what a girl is. They can't tell you what a human being is. And if you if they can't tell you what a human being is, how can they tell you what human rights are? Well, they they can't and they and more more than that, they don't want to because because they want to move us around as though we are just, pieces on the board that they, you know, to, to, to gratify their whims and their theories. So secularism is the idea that we can establish agnosticism or atheism as the official faith of the country and govern ourselves decently without reference to God. That is radically false. We can't do. Tucker [00:41:55] It has ever been achieved anywhere in. Doug Wilson [00:41:57] History that you're aware. No. And and here's the another mistake that and you alluded to this the crossover between individuals and countries. So we all know atheist. You know, there's an atheist friend or an atheist neighbor who's a sweet guy, and you wouldn't mind him taking in your mail when you go on vacation and and you don't think his atheism is going to make him run over and burn down your house as soon as you're around the corner? Right. He. Because he's he's a nice guy. There are nice guy atheists here and there throughout, believing countries, but there has never been an atheist country that wasn't a hell. Okay. That's because man is collectively consistent. Individually, we have the capacity to be inconsistent. Tucker [00:42:47] Yes. Doug Wilson [00:42:47] Okay. Individually, someone might have been brought up and gone to Sunday school, been taught not to steal and not to attend. But then he loses his faith in college. But he keeps all the apparatus of his upbringing, right? He still wants to be a good citizen. He drives on the right side of the road. He he, you know, he does all he he does all those things because individuals have the ability to be inconsistent. But when godless types are running the show and they are making all the decisions and they don't answer to God at all, the countries that they rule are always hell holes. Always. Tucker [00:43:27] So secularism is the sin and that gives rise. You've used the word arrogance 2 or 3 times, right? We describe with that. What do you think that arrogance is? Doug Wilson [00:43:37] Yeah. The arrogance is things that like, we can come in and take your children away, but you didn't use the right pronoun. Tucker [00:43:44] But, but but but I mean, be more precise. Why does secular secular ism, do you believe, lead to arrogance? Doug Wilson [00:43:51] Yeah. Because I if I'm in charge of everybody and I believe I answer to no one, there is no judgment there. You know, just imagine there's no heaven. Yeah. No hell below us. Above us. Only sky. Just imagine that. And above Buchenwald. Only sky. Above Auschwitz only sky. The universe doesn't care. Okay. The universe doesn't care if I'm in charge, if I have political power, if I'm Mao. And I know that power grows out of the barrel of a gun. And there, there's no one above me that I'm ever going to answer to. If that's my framework, I have absolutely no reason not to do whatever I please. That's right. There's no accountability. And that's what secularism leads to. That's at least of necessity. And this is why, in the old order, in the, in the Christian order, it used to be laws against taking testimony in court from people who wouldn't take an oath in the name of God. You couldn't you couldn't testify in court if you didn't believe in a final judgment. Tucker [00:44:58] Because there will be no constraint on your lying. Doug Wilson [00:45:01] No reason to not lie. Tucker [00:45:02] So what? You know, it's possible that you've got very far out threatening views, but, that you haven't expressed yet. But. And I'll ask you if you did. Yeah, but. Doug Wilson [00:45:12] Oh, no. Everything's. I'm. I'm in the middle of the road. Extremists are to my right and left. Tucker [00:45:17] You are kind of in the middle of the road, at least in what you've said so far. From a Christian perspective, you're not. You don't convert anyone by force. You want people to have more freedom to make their own decisions about what they believe, right, and how they want to live. You're against arrogance and hurting people. I mean, these are not crazy views. So why are you so hated by so. Well, obviously by the left, but also by a lot of Christian leaders don't like you and are always attacking you. What is that? Doug Wilson [00:45:44] Well, some, the left hates what I'm talking about. I think because I'm about to touch the thing with a needle. I'm about to. I'm going for the sore spot. The sore spot is the secular. This radical disease of secularism. They want to continue to govern their affairs without any kind of accountability. Yes. Oh, yeah. They want they want to be left alone as they are running the show, and they will give the treatment to anybody who crosses them. All right. Right. You've gotten the treatment before I get the treatment. Yeah. They they know how to rough somebody up. Okay. And there are Christians who distance themselves from me because I see that. Right. Tucker [00:46:25] But. Right. But if they're if they're self-described Christians, again, I don't want to use his name once again, but the guy who edits Christianity Today is fixated on you. David French is a New York Times columnist who calls himself a Christian. And they really go out of their way to attack you. What? Why? Doug Wilson [00:46:43] Well. Tucker [00:46:44] Basically, your theology doesn't sound so different from, like, kind of conventional Christian theology, as I understand it. Right. Doug Wilson [00:46:50] Here's the this is the I think the distinction. I mean, it. Tucker [00:46:56] Okay. You know, that there's that. Doug Wilson [00:46:58] Okay. What? We ought to acknowledge God, and I mean that we really should. Right. So there's a difference between that and wanting a place at the table. Yeah. So, David, David, David French and Russell Moore and people like that, what they want to do is they want they want to operate to operate in the secular republic. And they want a place at the table. Okay? They want a place at the table. They want to be treated with respect. And in return, they say, we will treat all opposing views with respect. And what we ask is you treat us with respect and we would like a place at the table, please. Now, I, I don't I don't have any illusions about this. When we're all rounded up and taken off in cattle cars to the camps, David French and Russell Moore are going to be in the next car over there. Right. They the. Tucker [00:47:46] I think they'll be guarding you. Doug Wilson [00:47:48] Well, I think the left hates its tools. Tucker [00:47:52] Yes, well, that is true. Doug Wilson [00:47:53] Okay. And I believe that let's let's say David French and Russell Moore are to take the most charitable take on it. They would be tools. Tucker [00:48:04] Oh, they're definitely tools. Doug Wilson [00:48:05] Yeah. Okay. And and the tools, the left breaks them and throws them away when they're done with them. And right now. But the what is the use of the tool? The tool is to say, hey, we will give you we will give you respect. You're the kind of Christian who could write, get an article accepted by The Atlantic. You're the kind of Christian who could write for the New York Times. You're the kind of Christian who who does that as opposed to these extreme guys out here. But the extreme guys are saying things like, well, let's love God and love our neighbor and build a Christian community and worship God faithfully. And with that, what's what's radical about this? Well, we actually believe all of it. We believe that Christ really is Lord of everything, and we should live and pray and love as though we believe. We actually believe that and that. That takes us back to the earlier point. To confess that Jesus is Lord is to confess that Caesar isn't. Right. That's the issue. Going back to the early, Christians would not worship Caesar, and I'm not going to worship the state. Right. If the if there is no God over the state, the state becomes God and they proclaim themselves God. I'm going to be like Nebuchadnezzar. Like Daniel's three friends who refused to be Shadrach. And I've got a grandson named Shadrach. That's. So. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So, we want to pass that legacy on that, refusing to bow down. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said to the king, Our God is able to deliver us. But whether he does or not, we fear him and not you. And that's the thing. That's the challenge that the secular state cannot abide. Another great Thomas Soul quote. I'll paraphrase it. He said. It's amazing how much panic can be thrown among, people by the behavior. One honest man. It's true, right? One honest man can throw people into a state of consternation and panic. Because you're willing to say, look, this is the way it is. We need to love. God hates in. Tucker [00:50:11] That's that's. Boy, that is the truest thing. So let me give you this the the the sincerity test or the ultimate test. Okay. And I'm asking this on the basis of the following assumption that people, particularly preachers, ought to have lives that reflect what they what they preach. You know, that you can judge the tree by their fruits. So how many children do you have? Doug Wilson [00:50:32] I've got three children. Tucker [00:50:33] How many grandchildren do you have? Doug Wilson [00:50:35] 18 grandchildren and two great grandchildren just lately arrived. Tucker [00:50:40] So 23 descendants, plus your wife, right? How many of those 23 are Christians? Doug Wilson [00:50:45] All of them. Tucker [00:50:46] All of them? Doug Wilson [00:50:47] All of them. Tucker [00:50:48] How often do you see them? Doug Wilson [00:50:50] On average weekly, if not more. We they all live in Moscow. Some of my grandkids are studying, right out of. Tucker [00:50:59] But they all live near you. Doug Wilson [00:51:00] They all live live in Moscow. They're all centered out of Moscow. And the ones who are studying, away are likely to wind up back in Moscow. We have a Sabbath dinner every Saturday night to kick off the Lord's Day, to prepare for worship in the morning. Family does. Our family does. The extended family. So all, all of us gather for a Sabbath dinner and then extended family, some Shirttail relatives and any company that is in town. So on a weekly basis, there's like 50 or 50. Tucker [00:51:32] Or at dinner. Doug Wilson [00:51:33] A dinner. And so we have this Sabbath dinner and we begin with prayer. I ask some catechism questions of the grandkids. We sing and then we have a meal together. So. Tucker [00:51:48] How did you do? How did you pull that off? Doug Wilson [00:51:50] Well, we didn't, the Lord has been very, very kind to us, but the in first Timothy three and in Titus one, Paul says if a man doesn't manage his family. Yes. Well, how can he manage the household of God? How can how can he, work in the household of God if his own family's not in order? Tucker [00:52:10] So that is the I mean, you just cited the verses. It's obviously part of Christian teaching theology, right? Teaching, but it also comports with common sense. It's obvious. Why do but that is not the rule in Christian churches, right? Preacher's kid is an epithet for a reason. Doug Wilson [00:52:28] Right? Picks for a reason and makes missionary kids the same. Tucker [00:52:34] SR. But why isn't that? I don't know if enforced is the word, but even acknowledged as a really important principle. If I'm going to follow you, I have to see as the leader of my congregation or my spiritual guide, then I have to see that the people in your care, your family, have respect for you and love for you and are listening to you like that seems so obvious to me. Doug Wilson [00:52:54] Do your children love God like you do? Yeah, right. And one of the reasons why. Tucker [00:52:59] Do we give up on that standard? Tucker [00:53:18] Your kids are screwed up, too. Yeah. Doug Wilson [00:53:20] Yeah. Our Johnny is not not the top of the line, but at least he's better than the preacher's kid. Or he's in the same league as the preacher's kid. So, there's a difference between Christian forgiveness and cutting slack, right? Right. So we have confused the one with the other and began cutting slack where we ought to have been forgiving. So we have, we're Presbyterian. We're, our churches, Presbyterian. We're not not lesbian. We're Presbyterian. We're the kind of Presbyterians who believe the Bible- Tucker [00:53:55] Branches. Doug Wilson [00:53:56] Are correct. So, yeah. So they're, and we're in another denomination. Crack. And we are. That means the Greek word for elder is presbyter. Us. That's where Presbyterian comes from. And we have a body of elders that govern our local church. And we have the standard, family in order for the elders of the church. And, and one of the things we ask an elder who's coming on to serve is if, one of your kids, if there's a wobble develops, will you bring it up to us so that we don't have to chase you? We have given leaves of absence, to an elder. Why don't you take a leave of absence from elder duties for six months so you can pay attention to your kids. So you can. Yes. So you can shepherd your family first? Yes. All right. So shepherd your family first. And by God's grace. That's a standard that we have been, pursuing for years now. Tucker [00:54:53] Does it work? Doug Wilson [00:54:55] Yes. We have a body of elders whose kids walk with God, whose kids love God. And if. And if, you know, a child rebelled, and walked away, that elder would resign from the elder board because we hold. That's the teaching. Tucker [00:55:14] Yeah. If your own kids don't believe you, why should I? Doug Wilson [00:55:17] Now, at the same time, I don't want to water this down. I want to say we believe that we're evaluating character, not counting rocks. Right. So let's say let's say you had an elder who had four kids of his own, and they're all walking with God. And and then his brother, who was an atheist, got killed in a car wreck, and they adopted a 12 year old girl. Tucker [00:55:38] I get it. Doug Wilson [00:55:38] Right. You say? Okay, I'm trying. Tucker [00:55:40] To assess it on the merits. Doug Wilson [00:55:41] You assess it on a case by case basis, but as a general pattern and a general rule. The, I wrote a book on this called The Neglected Qualification. Tucker [00:55:53] I didn't even know that when I asked you. Doug Wilson [00:55:55] So, yes, I think that this matters. And I believe that it's, Christianity I when I said theology flows at your fingertips, it's supposed to flow out first to the people who know you best. People in your household, the people in your family. Tucker [00:56:14] I just can't tell you how much I agree with that more than anything. Thank you for saying it. So I just want to end with your vision of where we're going, and I think you have probably disarmed your critics by saying, as you did, very clearly, I'm not calling for a political solution to this. The country itself has to change and be right. Worthy of of living the way that you hope that it does. What are the but and then you said, well, but I see signs of that happening. What are they? Doug Wilson [00:56:43] Right. So I've been talking about these things in varying to varying degrees, for 30 to 40 years, and I can see the difference between how this message resonates now versus how it resonated with Christians 30 years ago. Okay. So there are a lot of hungry Christians who were awakened, not woke, but awakened. Yes, by the Covid fiasco. And their their pastors flaked their. Tucker [00:57:20] Such a disgraceful way. Doug Wilson [00:57:22] And they the state said your services are not, essential, but shops are and abortion clinics are and pornography shops are. But church is not a- Tucker [00:57:32] Christian leaders who are afraid to die themselves. Doug Wilson [00:57:35] Yeah. It was not. Tucker [00:57:36] What was that? If you're a Christian leader and you're afraid to die, maybe you're not telling the truth about what you believe, right? There's not a whole religion about this, right? Doug Wilson [00:57:42] It was a God says. It says in Hebrews that God shakes down that God sends an earthquake. He shakes things so that that which cannot be shaken may remain. So there's a pressure test or a there was a crisis. Yes. It happened a couple of years ago and 2 to 3 years ago now. And in that crisis, it revealed the instability and the frailty of a lot of evangelical Christian leadership. Yes. And it awakened in a bunch of Christians a hunger for the kind of leadership that was now apparent. They didn't have. Right. And so we we have seen our influence, grow and explode. There's been a refugee column of sorts, a massive influx of people moving to Moscow, Idaho, for the last couple of years. And we, we've it's hard to keep up with it. There was a long stretch where every week at church, I'd meet somebody new and they say, well, we're here now. And, that people are hungry, hungry, hungry for someone to speak the word of God. This is this is what God would have us do. So the people are hungry for it in a way that I've never seen before. And I hear from friends around the country similar, similar sorts of stories. And there were a number of, men who didn't fold John MacArthur in California being the most notable, of them. And those pastors who didn't capitulate, who didn't bend, have seen explosive growth. And, and growth is not its own justification. Right? Cancer grows. Morning glory grows. But in this setting, people who love Jesus, being attracted to people who are willing to proclaim the name of Jesus, whatever the state says about it is, I think, nothing but a good sign. Tucker [00:59:39] So it sounds like you feel hopeful or, I don't. Doug Wilson [00:59:43] Know, very. I'm very hopeful. Tucker [00:59:47] I mean, what do you think? And this is my last question. Like what is going on in the world? It, it. And I know that everybody famously feels like they're in the middle of some historical reset, and it's the fall of Rome or the end of times or whatever, but this doesn't feel like a normal moment. Doug Wilson [01:00:04] No, it's not a normal moment. The one of the reasons this is a sort of a practical, pragmatic, almost carnal observation. But I'm hopeful because in the long run, stupidity never works. Tucker [01:00:16] Yeah. Doug Wilson [01:00:16] It, you can you can proclaim all you want, but you can't make the world be a you have to live in the world God actually made. You don't. You don't get to live in the world of your own imagining. You have to live in the world that God made, not the world that you want to make. And consequently, you have to obey its rules. Tucker [01:00:36] Yes. You call it natural law. Doug Wilson [01:00:38] Yeah. I saw a great T-shirt once. Gravity. It's not just a good idea. It's. It's the law. Tucker [01:00:45] I swear. Doug Wilson [01:00:46] So, so with all this, I'm hopeful because I believed the promises of Psalms, the promises of Isaiah, the promises of, given to Abraham through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I believe that God's plans for this world are for good, not evil. I believe that God sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, not to not to attempt to save the world. Jesus didn't come to give saving the world the old college try. The, the most famous verse in the Bible, John 316, is followed by God did not. 317 For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. So Jesus is not only the offer to answer that will be rejected. Jesus is the answer that will be accepted. So consequently, we this is, another, rabbit rabbit trail. But, our eschatology, our view of the wild things is what's called post millennial, which is we have a very optimistic view of the future. We believe that the gospel is going to continue to grow and expand. The church is going to be victorious. The Great Commission is going to be fulfilled, and we win. We win. And then the Lord comes back. So, and that doesn't mean, we win the game, and it's got four quarters, and we're ten minutes into the first quarter. Right? And the first quarter can go badly. Well, while we're learning, learning how to play the game, learning what to do and not to. But you know, it's you can't take the microcosm and expand out from that. You might have a soldier pinned down by enemy fire on Normandy Beach, and he he knows his missions to get to the top of the next ridge, and he can't even get out from behind the sand dune. He could be mightily discouraged because of his position, while at the same moment General Eisenhower is looking at the map with satisfaction. Right. Tucker [01:02:54] Yes. All right, so we're- Doug Wilson [01:02:55] Zoom out. Zoom out. Take the long view. What's what's human history like? How how long do we have left? I don't believe the world is going to end in the next generation. I believe that, the Christian church is going to. The prophet Habakkuk says the earth will be full of the glory, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. So we have we have great hope that the gospel in its potency is going to be proclaimed and is going to take root and flourish. So, we might lose our lives. You know, you can lose your life in a winning battle, right? A soldier on the winning side can, lose in his little segment. But that's all right, because Christ is Lord. Tucker [01:03:46] Are you afraid of anything? Ha, ha. That is the best place to start. We sit on my way. The one person I really don't trust is me. Doug Wilson [01:03:57] Yeah. Yeah, so, basically, I'm one of the one of my prayers. Don't screw up. No, don't screw up. Right. Yeah. Because basically, that's. There's a great story where, Chesterton was asked, along with a bunch of other men, to submit an essay on what's wrong with the world. You know, they were running a series in the newspaper. What's wrong with the world? And Chesterton wrote a two word essay. It was I am. Tucker [01:04:28] That is wisdom. How do you how does one get an invite to your 50 man Sabbath dinner? Doug Wilson [01:04:33] One chats with me after the show. You'd be most you'd be most welcome anytime. Tucker [01:04:39] I'm definitely going to do that. Pastor Wilson, thank you so much for spending all this time. Doug Wilson [01:04:43] Oh, happy to do it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Tucker [01:04:45] Thank you.

The Greatest Show On Earth _ #RePost For New Frens all credit goes to original poster Derek J and producer -RE-post for helping others

people are starting to notice the lies. The vibe is changing fast. Tucker Carlson Uncensored: People Are Waking Up Here’s the bright side of a dark time people are starting to notice the lies. The vibe is changing fast. TRANSCRIPT Tucker [00:00:00] The news is so grim at this point, you almost don't want to turn on your phone in the morning. It's just piece after unremitting piece, suggesting that Western civilization is crumbling and collapsing all around us. Followed by typically a summary piece confirming that in fact it is collapsing all around us. So it is against that grim landscape that we read a piece the other day that was just the opposite. It was hopeful and smart and beautifully expressed in. A couple of people sent it to us. It was written by a man called Santiago Pliego, and it's written on a Substack, and the piece is called The Vibe Shift. And the thesis essentially, is that people are starting to notice that things are a mess. And the main thing that's amiss is the gap between the reality that they observe and the version of reality presented them by the government, the media, the experts. And this is good. It is long overdue that people are starting to see glimpses of reality. Here's a paragraph from the piece that kind of sums up the idea very nicely. And we're quoting, "The vibe shift I'm talking about is the speaking of previously unspeakable truths, the noticing of previously suppressed facts. I'm talking about the feel you get when the walls of propaganda and bureaucracy start to move as you push. The very visible dust kicked up in the air as experts and fact checkers scramble to hold on to decaying institutions. The cautious but electric rush of energy when dictatorial edifices designed to stifle innovation, enterprise and thought are exposed or toppled." As we said, so nicely expressed, beautifully written. Santiago Pliego is the venture director at New Founding, and we're honored to have him join us now. Santiago, thank you for joining us. Thank you for writing this piece, which absolutely made my morning. And it really was the one, the one bright spot in my, news consumption last week. Why did you write this piece? What moved you to do it? Santiago Pliego [00:02:02] Sure. Thanks for having me. Why I wrote it is because I think, a lot of people are noticing the life shift, and I'd been kind of keeping tabs on it with my friends and my colleagues for, you know, let's say nine months or so, a little bit over that, but especially in the last nine months. Not a day goes by that we don't have a conversation where or see something online, or read a piece or see a crossover of people that we would have never expected to see kind of together. And that that would have been sort of inconceivable five years ago, even a year and a half ago. And, my friends and I sort of started file this way in a mental folder called The Life Shift. And I think a lot of people are sensing that things are changing. Sure, the stakes are high and getting higher. I think the pressure will continue to come. And we'll not relent. But that's cost a lot of people, especially young people, young guys especially, to kind of wake up and decide that they're not going to go along with this anymore, that the world is built and designed in a certain way, and that they're ready to return to reality. Tucker [00:03:11] You said that people are coming together in unexpected ways. I see that in my own life as I send warm text to Naomi Wolf, who I love. I never thought I'd be doing that in this lifetime. But tell us what you mean when you say that. Santiago Pliego [00:03:27] Yeah. So there are there's a pressure that is applied equally to groups of people, regardless of sort of the camp or the community you might be a part of. If you are a normal family and you just want to send your kids to a school where they won't get fed, you know, ideology, or if you're building AI tools and want them to be regulated, or if you just want to, be able to speak your mind, or if you want to be able to vote, without interference or whatever, all of those people, are now facing the same pressure to kind of decelerate, stagnate, to ossify into a bureaucratic monolith. And so I think these groups what's interesting about that, but one of the interesting things about the vibe shift is that all of these groups that we're, usually not used to working together or seeing each other as co belligerents in a cultural fight are finding each other and are saying, hey, you have useful things that that we can use over here, and we have useful things and task ideas that you can use over here. And that's creating, again, this pressure, this monolithic pressure, bureaucratic pressure top down across a variety of different groups and circles, whether you're in Silicon Valley or just a normal American family or in the Midwest or in you, doesn't matter. Everybody is facing this kind of existential pressure, and that's causing a lot of these groups to look for co belligerents to look for allies. And that's creating really interesting crossovers, people that you would not think, would be working together or reading each other or boosting each other's content or, or interacting with one another are all of a sudden coming together in ways that, that are exciting. Tucker [00:05:09] So that does seem like the threat. I mean, if if I'm the head bureaucrat trying to create this new system of mediocrity and stagnation with myself at the top really is its sole beneficiary. The last thing I want is for the people I've worked so hard to divide, to find each other and unite against me. So what do I mean? Like, what's the response going to be? Santiago Pliego [00:05:32] I think the response is going to be increased pressure in some ways. But and this is why I talk about this in the piece, an important part of the life shift, maybe not its sole cause, but certainly an important piece of the enabling of the live shift was, was Elon Musk buying Twitter and turning it into X? There was it's hard to overstate without kind of signing up sounding hyperbolic, but, these groups that I'm talking about, disparate groups that are now finding themselves working together, where by design, algorithmically or otherwise unable to find each other, even, you know, as early as 18 months ago, and you couldn't you couldn't talk online, you couldn't find other people who thought like you or even wanted to ask the same questions, as you. And it made very it made it very difficult, very isolating to, to, a very sort of isolating dynamic from people to, to be online and to find co belligerence and others who share their, their mind, their values. I think that pressure will continue to escalate. But Elon has kind of taken an important piece of the puzzle, of the bureaucrats puzzle out completely topple that sort of Jenga tower and enabled for a new dynamic online for people to interact and meet each other in ways that that really does threaten that that monolithic power structure. Tucker [00:06:55] So you make it sound so simple, and maybe it is. So all you needed to do as an individual was to notice the distance between what they were telling you and what was clearly true, and then you just needed a place to talk to other people who'd notice the same thing. Santiago Pliego [00:07:10] There is something simple about it. Yes. I think it's precisely because so simple that there was so much pressure exerted on, certainly Twitter, but other tools that are still under the regime control. And I think it's, it's why Musk coming in, gutting 90% of X and restoring it kind of in, in, in a path towards truth and, and a free speech that. A relatively simple act. It was not a simple act. It was a takeover, but a relatively simple, singular act. Unlocks a mass amount of opportunity across, communities, across people to communicate, interact and organize again in ways that were just not allowed 18 months ago, algorithmically, policy wise or, for a variety of different other ways. Tucker [00:08:04] Well, and speaking of noticing things, why did you notice this or decide to focus on it when a lot of other notices out there are wholly focused on the downside and on the destruction of the civilization, etc.? But you saw you saw light instead of darkness. What, how and why? Santiago Pliego [00:08:23] The how and whys. This is my job. This is what we do, a new founding. So we, help the builders that want to build a positive alternative vision for the country. These are, people who are building new companies, new institutions who want to work with each other, who want to, got kind of craft a new path forward. And we realize that. Yes, as you as you said in the opening monologue, things are bleak, things are dark. Increasingly pressure grows. But we needed a positive vision. And people are drawn to a positive vision. It's important to know the stakes of the game. It's important to know, that, that things are challenging and difficult. But people are drawn and rally around a positive vision. And I started to notice this. My job as an investor backing, different people and companies. I started to notice that young guys in particular were done pretending. They were done pretending with, kind of the lies of liberal modernity. And they were crafting, or charting a different course. These young guys in particular, building cool companies that we wanted to invest in or we were interacting with, like, by virtue of the circles that I, that I'm in, startups and such. But there was something very distinct about this new kind of founder. If you, you know, your listeners or you if I say, imagine a startup founder in 2000, in the 2010s and Silicon Valley, what do you think of, you know, a geeky guy maybe weighs 150 pounds who was building some kind of productivity tool. He lives in the sort of neutral world where he doesn't want to rock the boat building. He thinks it's a political, an apolitical endeavor. And he wants to keep his head down because he wants to go public at some point and make, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. So why why rock the boat, right? That's not the world we live in anymore. And young guys, the young guys I'm seeing building very interesting companies, building incredible technologies, building new institutions. Our guys who are explicitly pro-america, explicitly pro-family, values Christian religious. They're the opposite, the antithesis of the again, the sort of picture of the 20 tens startup Silicon Valley founder. And that that caught my eye. I said, why is this happening? Why is it that these young guys are making, are taking very big swings their companies are building are also not just productivity software or something to make your HR overlords more productive. They're building very difficult companies, companies that, there's a friend of mine who, name is Augustus. He's building a company called Rainmaker. He sends drones up to the clouds, and he's seeding clouds in California and other places where it doesn't usually rain to make it rain where it doesn't. And, you know, we think, oh, the drought, the drought in California can't be fixed. It's just that it's just there to stay. And Augustus is thinking, no, it's not there to stay. Why can't we just will it differently? Why can we just disrupt that, world? He's a young guy. He's a Christian. He has a particular vision about the world, that he is excited to build and willing to existence. And so by virtue of spending time with these guys and, my, my job is to kind of pay attention to to where the builders are going, I started to notice. And what it gives me hope is that I think, again, as the pressure increases, as the bureaucracy gets worse, as die and east, you know, all this nonsense grows. The best people of our generation, like those who are the most competent, the most courageous, the most ready to build, are ready to opt out of those monolithic systems and build a different future, a positive, exciting future. And those are the people that I'm paying attention, and those are the people that I want to help. Tucker [00:12:13] So it sounds like you're in a good mood most days. Santiago Pliego [00:12:16] Yes, definitely in a good mood. And don't get me wrong, I know, I know how it is out there, but as I say in the piece, the vibe shift is, looking at the world around us, refusing to take the black pill and choosing to build instead. That's a that's an important piece of the life shift. And yes, it puts me in a good mood when I when I see other guys building. Great. You know, positive things. Tucker [00:12:39] Amazing. I mean, I have to say, we're talking off air. I'm on the more anti-technology Ted Kaczynski wing of things. But it was the technology that allowed me to read this. And I think you were saying you put this up on a Substack with no subscribers. Santiago Pliego [00:12:54] No subscribers? Yeah, I pitched it to another, publication, and they didn't have the bandwidth to run it. So I built a I literally just put open a new Substack, hit publish. I spent a couple of hours writing this piece. I didn't want it to go to waste. And then, you know, let it sit for, for a bit, and then, you reached out. Tucker [00:13:14] Amazing, amazing. Santiago Pliego [00:13:15] But yes, the point here with technology and how I see it being useful again, generally, I, I'm cautious. I'm, I'm very excited about technology. But I do think there's a moral component. I don't see technology or building companies as an apolitical or neutral endeavor. I think there's nothing more political than building a large company or a disruptive technology, but especially in times like this, where institutions that I mean, think about this way, Harvard has been around for, what, almost 400 years? Google, almost a $2 trillion market cap, both seemingly institutions that are here to stay permanently forever. They're never going away. Right. And yet, in the last few months, Harvard has been toppling and shaking. What's with the cladding and all the all the great work that Chris Rufo did and then Google Gemini or Google with with the recent shenanigans with Google Gemini, these again, seemingly permanent, unmovable sort of institutions are now up for grabs and the spaces they dominate, I think, are up for grabs over the next decade, if not sooner. And so the right guys, building the right companies, the right guys, building the right institutions, the right ambitious, excellent, institutions grounded in reality. The right technologies can really disrupt. There's a once in a lifetime opportunity now to disrupt the status quo. I think of technology as a non coercive lever. It's about building the future. You have a vision of the future that you want to willing to existence. You get a bunch of guys together, you raise some capital and you say, let's build a different, better future. And right now there are categories, critical categories in our society that are up for grabs. And we want the right guys, to build and disrupt those. Tucker [00:15:04] Amazing. Well, thank you for reminding us of that, particularly those of us with dark Scandinavian souls that not all is lost and that God's at work too. And good things happen as well as bad. And the future is not settled. So thank you. And your piece did all of that for me. Thanks. Santiago Pliego [00:15:20] Absolutely. Thank you for it. And great to meet you.

Ed Dowd Drops Disturbing Reality_ “The protocols in 2020 were designed to kill people...

VAXX3D II

OANN-EPA Announces National Drinking Water Standard For 'Forever Chemicals' -recorded Brave 2024-04-11