#17 - What is a Political Conservative? Ft. Classical Conservative Josh Lewis

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 conservative is consistently paranoid, if you will, 2 00:00:06,080 --> 00:00:07,080 maybe that's putting too strongly, 3 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:12,080 but bothered by the capacity for civilization to go awry. 4 00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:16,760 It is a worldview that allows a person to put 5 00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:18,680 a multitude of things in their life 6 00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:20,400 in an appropriate hierarchy. 7 00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:24,240 Congress is broken, and there's a number of interesting 8 00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:26,520 ideas or suggestions to how we might fix that 9 00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:29,840 or address that, and I'm for kind of an experimentation. 10 00:00:29,840 --> 00:00:32,200 Some of them are kind of radical, like maybe remove 11 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:33,640 the cap on the House of Representatives 12 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:35,240 rather than limit it to the 435, 13 00:00:35,240 --> 00:00:36,840 we can make it thousands and thousands 14 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:39,240 so that the odds of you personally knowing 15 00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:41,280 your representative increases. 16 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:43,360 Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. 17 00:00:43,360 --> 00:00:44,800 My name is Rodel Lewis. 18 00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:49,000 I am the host of the Purple Political Podcast. 19 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:51,960 Podcasts focus on discussions, solutions, 20 00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:53,920 maybe debates in there, who knows, 21 00:00:53,920 --> 00:00:57,480 but for the most part, I ain't swayed by political bias, 22 00:00:57,480 --> 00:00:59,360 I ain't swayed by the political toxicity 23 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:01,160 or the social toxicity. 24 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:03,680 I'm just here to find good conversations, 25 00:01:03,680 --> 00:01:08,480 find solutions, and not fettered by other people's opinions. 26 00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:10,000 We focus on the facts. 27 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:11,840 Feel me? 28 00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:13,560 Today is gonna be very interesting episode. 29 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:15,640 This will be episode number 17, 30 00:01:15,640 --> 00:01:19,280 as we're gonna be talking about what is a conservative 31 00:01:19,280 --> 00:01:23,240 and does the United States need conservatives? 32 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:24,800 And this is gonna come from the point of view 33 00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:26,920 of a conservative himself. 34 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:29,840 I am not conservative, obviously, 35 00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:32,080 but I know quite a bit from that side. 36 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:34,400 So it's gonna be very interesting. 37 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:35,720 I'm gonna ask a couple of questions. 38 00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:36,960 We're gonna really dive into 39 00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:39,440 what it really means to be a conservative. 40 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:42,480 All right, now before we dive into the meat and potatoes 41 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:44,880 of today's episode and my guest, 42 00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:48,280 I'm going to review, or I'm gonna go over the review, 43 00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:50,960 that we got from the podcast. 44 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:55,360 So every episode, every guest episode, so to speak, 45 00:01:55,360 --> 00:01:58,760 I do plan to bring more content coming soon. 46 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:01,040 Every guest episode, I'm gonna reveal a review, 47 00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:04,560 so leave a review to get shouted out on podcasts. 48 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:06,040 This review said, 49 00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:09,040 I found this podcast very educational. 50 00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:12,040 I find a revolting how the states and our government 51 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,640 reallocate funds from our taxes 52 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:17,720 to fund projects the public is unaware of. 53 00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:19,400 While listening to the latest episode, 54 00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:20,920 I found out that in Texas, 55 00:02:20,920 --> 00:02:25,340 families are charged nearly $410,000 in taxes, 56 00:02:25,340 --> 00:02:29,120 for education, just for the state to reclaim that money 57 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:32,720 and not use it for improving the education system. 58 00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:34,160 It's a fraud. 59 00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:37,760 What happened to no taxation without representation? 60 00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:39,960 We need a political reform of values 61 00:02:39,960 --> 00:02:42,560 and the government and state officials 62 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:46,460 need to be reeducated on what the word integrity means. 63 00:02:46,460 --> 00:02:47,620 They give you a being a voice 64 00:02:47,620 --> 00:02:49,660 that shares multiple perspectives. 65 00:02:49,660 --> 00:02:51,200 That is what we're here to do. 66 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:52,520 I believe that was that episode. 67 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:54,520 I don't know if it was one of the pilot episodes 68 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:56,000 on the other name of the podcast, 69 00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:57,920 but I believe that was one of the episodes 70 00:02:57,920 --> 00:03:01,680 where I had a former Democratic electee 71 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:03,720 come on and talk about Texas politics. 72 00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:05,760 And I think we talked about the education system. 73 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:06,880 A very good episode. 74 00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:08,280 Highly recommend checking that out. 75 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:23,000 ["The 76 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:29,840 Foundation is for the 77 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:30,840 best"] 78 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:31,840 Absolutely. 79 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:32,840 Thanks for having me on. 80 00:03:32,840 --> 00:03:34,760 I look forward to a great conversation and great discussion. 81 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:36,320 I am the founder, as it were, 82 00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:37,480 of Saving Elephants. 83 00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:41,120 That's a podcast, a blog, a social media platform 84 00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:44,480 that is interested in introducing my generation, 85 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:46,600 presumably yours millennials, 86 00:03:46,600 --> 00:03:47,600 to conservatism, 87 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:49,280 to the intellectual tradition of conservatism 88 00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:50,440 in the United States 89 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:52,280 and trying to show why it still holds value 90 00:03:52,280 --> 00:03:57,800 for younger Americans and the name itself play saving elephants is a play on word and that it is 91 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:02,520 a recognition that the direction the republican party and for the most part large lost the right 92 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:09,560 in the United States have gone in recent years is problematic and is likely not going to end well 93 00:04:09,560 --> 00:04:13,720 and so it's almost a calling back to an older version of some of these understandings. 94 00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:20,200 All right excellent very interesting for the most part I've talked to a lot of different people 95 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:24,440 I thought the liberals the talk of democrat republicans conservatives libertarians 96 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:30,280 the people who identify as nothing and the people like myself that's pretty much in the middle for 97 00:04:30,280 --> 00:04:37,400 any kind of topical discussion so today I want to talk about what is a conservative and does the 98 00:04:37,400 --> 00:04:42,600 United States need conservatives so let's write up your alley of course so first thing I want to 99 00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:48,920 kind of really dive into is how did you become a conservative or and why both it's hard for me to 100 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:53,560 trace the moment I identified as a conservative say it's probably fair to say I grew up in a 101 00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:59,640 relatively conservative family background structure and never really moved from that I would like 102 00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:05,080 to think that I've deepened my understanding of what that means and in my earlier years I've 103 00:05:05,080 --> 00:05:12,520 always been interested in politics and although I don't share this basic mindset now I got a lot 104 00:05:12,520 --> 00:05:20,280 of my start by listening to talk radio back in the day it's way more flamboyant way more antagonistic 105 00:05:20,280 --> 00:05:25,000 needlessly so in my personal opinion than what conservatism should be but it nonetheless got 106 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:32,520 me interested in politics and I so I think maybe it's fair to say I've my disposition has always 107 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:38,760 been a conservative outlook over the years I've kind of added the political philosophy on top of 108 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:45,640 that conservative disposition if you will all right all right fair enough I get what you mean 109 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:51,960 for the most part you kind of have a framework of values and then kind of aligned to an ideology 110 00:05:51,960 --> 00:05:59,000 so to speak a very similar in a sense I was definitely all over the place because obviously 111 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:05,080 growing up the being a black man the you're automatically put in the democrat liberal kind 112 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:11,080 of section the left section and then obviously I family that's religious so that's very much more 113 00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:17,320 of the right section and then I went to a liberal arts college so more liberal stuff and then I went 114 00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:23,720 to the military some more red stuff so I was getting basically everything every opinion from both 115 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:32,360 sides until I kind of grew up and kind of found my core beliefs I found that yeah I'm kind of 116 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:37,640 more just in the middle some people I agree some here some here but I don't agree totally with 117 00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:45,000 everything everybody says so I definitely understand where you're coming from can you explain what it 118 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:53,000 means to be a conservative I don't know maybe I can try and give it a fair shake that is a 119 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:58,680 surprisingly difficult thing to explain but I will give us some frameworks that maybe we could work 120 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:04,040 with and let me start off very briefly with a caveat being if you were to get another guest on 121 00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:08,680 that goes by the label conservative their politics may differ greatly from mine I'm under no delusion 122 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:13,800 that I'm representative say of the entire right sometimes these days if you say someone is very 123 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:20,520 conservative what that actually means is an adherence or an affinity say to Donald Trump or 124 00:07:20,520 --> 00:07:24,520 the some specific leader that's not what I necessarily mean by conservative now you could 125 00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:31,960 like Donald Trump you could vote for him and be conservative but it's not just that when I say 126 00:07:31,960 --> 00:07:38,280 conservative I earlier I think that's the that's where it starts the conservative philosopher 127 00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:44,440 sir Roger screwed and put it best he says conservatism begins with this idea or notion that all 128 00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:50,360 reasonable people share which is that good things in this life are easily destroyed but they're not 129 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:55,800 easily created and so at root what a conservative is is someone who says what are the good things 130 00:07:55,800 --> 00:08:01,560 in life that are easy to destroy but they're not easy to create that we need to conserve and so 131 00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:09,960 for that reason a conservative begins with gratitude as a founding ethos or emotion or overriding 132 00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:13,960 principles throughout life what are we grateful for we start with that and then how do we build off 133 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:18,520 of that and and it might be easiest to think of that in juxtaposition with the left oftentimes 134 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:22,920 the progressives their notion is not to begin with gratitude rather it's to begin with a sense of 135 00:08:22,920 --> 00:08:28,600 justice what is right what is wrong how do we pursue what is right neither of these incidentally are 136 00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:34,840 bad these are both very good virtues but the conservatist's first inclination is to start with 137 00:08:34,840 --> 00:08:41,240 what do we have that we should be grateful for and how do we build from that okay all right um 138 00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:48,040 for the most part i can definitely can see what you mean in terms of like kind of the lining with 139 00:08:48,680 --> 00:08:54,440 specific figures such as trump you know the the tag conservative very much i mean they kind of 140 00:08:55,320 --> 00:09:00,680 put all these tags all together with conservative right republican 141 00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:07,560 basically all those people they they kind of put them all in the same basket for the most part 142 00:09:07,560 --> 00:09:15,640 um in terms of conservative when it comes down to i always assumed that was more so the aspect of 143 00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:20,840 you know like you said and i had a great discussion with someone before regarding 144 00:09:21,720 --> 00:09:29,480 conservative liberalism and from the explanation i got it was more so that the conservatives tend to 145 00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:37,080 want to keep the things the way they are in terms of like you kind of said in terms of what they deem 146 00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:44,200 is right you know kind of making sure we're not going too far into some crazy land and all that 147 00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:51,720 stuff now you could definitely see that the the reaction from the conservatives nowadays because 148 00:09:51,720 --> 00:09:58,600 of like the new things with like you know the lgbtq for example and not want to strain for 149 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:03,080 not want to strain from that and the religion people strain from religion all that stuff 150 00:10:03,640 --> 00:10:09,320 so when it comes down to it people tend to say that conservatives or i've heard people say stuff 151 00:10:09,320 --> 00:10:16,920 like conservatives are uh afraid of progression afraid of uh progressing with the time unwilling 152 00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:22,680 to do that and make it and they end up getting the slurs or getting the tags of a your races your 153 00:10:22,680 --> 00:10:27,320 homophobic all that stuff so what do you say to these people who believe that conservatives are 154 00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:32,920 not able to kind of progress with current generation moving forward and just want to go back in the 155 00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:39,880 old days where you know everything was ran by old white men is that they say so well that that's a 156 00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:45,720 big topic and um obviously there are some that would go by the label conservative that i don't 157 00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:50,680 know that that would be an unfair criticism of them uh as i mentioned earlier it's a it's a 158 00:10:50,680 --> 00:10:58,520 gratitude for something that we have to hold on to that naturally can lead to a fear of the of 159 00:10:58,520 --> 00:11:04,040 the unknown or an adherence to the status quo now sometimes the status quo needs to be changed 160 00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:09,960 so a conservative ought not to be an individual who simply stands against all change they also 161 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:15,560 ought not to be a person who simply wants to return us to some sort of an imagined past there 162 00:11:15,560 --> 00:11:19,800 are various forms of conservatism you mentioned religious you know cultural conservatives those 163 00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:26,360 that trying to conserve some form of uh american judaeo christianity heritage say or maybe trying 164 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:32,760 to conserve a sense of the culture wars of you know this is the good old uh american values and we 165 00:11:32,760 --> 00:11:36,600 ought not to have these radical wokas agendas come in here and upset the apple cart if you will 166 00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:42,120 maybe conservatives trying to conserve some sort of an economic order capitalism for instance 167 00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:47,080 and and all of these can fit within conservatism i really think the broadest understanding and not 168 00:11:47,080 --> 00:11:50,760 all conservatives would agree with us but the majority would is really what we're trying to 169 00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:55,960 conserve is the founding tradition that that we were given from the founding fathers of the birth 170 00:11:55,960 --> 00:12:04,520 of the nation and kind of this continuing project of uh moving toward a more perfect union um through 171 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:11,160 a uh a system of a all-called ordered liberty say that being said i do want to answer your question 172 00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:15,560 more direct because this is sort of an argument with in conservatism is okay well our conservatives 173 00:12:15,560 --> 00:12:19,640 nothing more than someone who just wants to apply to breaks or someone who's just you know the old 174 00:12:19,640 --> 00:12:25,400 guy shouting at the kids get off my lawn i just want to let's take us all back to the 1950s um 175 00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:30,680 and i think that if all conservatives is a disposition then yes there's a good danger 176 00:12:30,680 --> 00:12:37,400 becomes that so it has to be more it has to be some sort of a what is our in goal what what is our 177 00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:44,760 uh maybe i won't say in goal what is our vision for what we what kind of a nation we want 178 00:12:44,760 --> 00:12:52,280 and what do we conserve in order to hold on to those things that can build toward that sort of a nation 179 00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:58,040 um and i do apologize your question is so broad i'm having a hard i feel like i'm not really 180 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:01,640 answering it because there's so many pieces i could get to do you want to clarify is there 181 00:13:01,640 --> 00:13:08,200 a more specific part of this that uh that i could answer for you so i think we'll be able to break it 182 00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:12,920 down as we continue discussion that i have a couple more more direct questions in terms of 183 00:13:12,920 --> 00:13:20,280 conservatism because it is a very very uh broad question and very big topical discussion right 184 00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:25,800 there so before i dive into conservatism a little bit more and get your feedback from me i just want 185 00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:32,120 to ask your general opinions about what do you think about liberals and what do you think about 186 00:13:32,120 --> 00:13:41,240 moderates well i i'm probably fighting a losing battle here but when i say liberal i tend to mean 187 00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:45,480 classical liberal in other words an individual who is uh thomas jefferson for instance would be a 188 00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:53,800 classical liberal one who holds liberty as an orienting virtue in society oftentimes when we 189 00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:58,600 say liberal these days what we really mean is the political left or progressives right those who see 190 00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:05,000 a role for a um a more aggressive state to do good in the lives of of the citizens 191 00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:11,000 um so maybe maybe for that you know if we're using that paradigm maybe i could call liberals the 192 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:19,800 moderates and progressives what you mean by liberal um i i think weirdly conservatism is trying to 193 00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:26,040 conserve liberalism in other words is trying to conserve those things that give us liberty and so 194 00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:31,080 i i don't want to whitewash this answer as if hey we all agree on things clearly we don't 195 00:14:31,800 --> 00:14:37,320 but i think that there is some sort of a common kinship between conservatives and liberals in 196 00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:42,360 the sense that the disagreement is not so much on the question of liberty ought there to be or 197 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:47,240 ought there not to be but rather how do we define liberty how do we defend liberty where does liberty 198 00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:53,960 come from what is the proper response to the tug of war between liberty and order say a conservative 199 00:14:53,960 --> 00:15:01,000 sees our liberty as an inheritance something that grew gradually over time through multiple generations 200 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:06,520 of change and not something strictly that is brought about by principles in other words we 201 00:15:06,520 --> 00:15:12,280 don't simply say we have a right to be free say we don't have a right to free speech and therefore 202 00:15:12,280 --> 00:15:15,480 that's all we need is just to write it down we have a right to free speech the conservatives 203 00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:20,360 well that's cool and all but it's way more important that we have a society that respects 204 00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:27,320 the right to free speech rather than that we just demand it say and so it's that sort of an 205 00:15:27,320 --> 00:15:35,160 understanding is that a conservative is consistently paranoid if you will uh maybe that's putting too 206 00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:43,240 strongly but bothered by the capacity for civilization to go awry the capacity for us civilized people 207 00:15:43,240 --> 00:15:49,080 to become barbarians to return to our pre-civilized roots and that is very necessary in a free society 208 00:15:49,080 --> 00:15:54,680 to have intermediary institutions like the church like local organizations like the family that 209 00:15:54,680 --> 00:16:02,440 temper our desire so that we can live in a free society and the more we ignore that at our peril 210 00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:07,720 eventually freedom doesn't work anymore eventually we are no longer free because then we become 211 00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:14,200 enslaved in a sense to our own passions okay well what about the people who kind of 212 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:19,720 temper from the progressives and the conservatives and right in the middle what do you think about 213 00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:30,280 those people what you're calling a moderate i'm assuming yeah i think moderation can be viewed 214 00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:36,120 on two different planes and so it depends on what we mean by a moderate if by a moderate somebody says 215 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:43,880 i don't agree with the people that storm the capital on january the sixth i also don't agree 216 00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:49,880 with the people that were riding in the streets in 2020 right so if we take some extreme examples 217 00:16:49,880 --> 00:16:55,560 between the left and the right then i'm a moderate so far as i can tell if what we mean by moderate 218 00:16:55,560 --> 00:17:01,160 is that i don't agree with an individual who elected to congress say is literally using their 219 00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:06,760 position to undermine the opposition they have nothing of value to offer they're just trying 220 00:17:06,760 --> 00:17:10,360 to score points for their team and trying to enact you know the phrase on the right is often 221 00:17:10,360 --> 00:17:15,560 we're trying to get liberal tears there's nothing of value we're giving we're just it's almost as if 222 00:17:15,560 --> 00:17:19,800 inflicting pain on the other side is its own value and that could be very benign it could even be funny 223 00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:24,040 it could be something we might agree is entertaining and not all that harmful or could actually be violent 224 00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:29,160 and suddenly we might agree is no we can't have it by that definition i'm call me a moderate i'm 225 00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:34,360 someone who wants to stand between those two however oftentimes moderate means a 226 00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:43,560 almost a picking and choosing of um ideological presuppositions if you will um that that there's a 227 00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:49,080 there's a notion that somehow by arriving at the middle of all policy decisions or by arriving at 228 00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:54,760 the middle of all ideologies or all political philosophies that that is the straight and narrow 229 00:17:55,400 --> 00:18:00,680 and i think that sometimes it makes sense to be a radical in those moments i i think if we're 230 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:08,920 if we're american circa 1860s say i don't want to be a moderate on the question of slavery 231 00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:13,000 there are certain things that it doesn't make sense to approach from moderation 232 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:20,200 okay yeah i think you said very interesting things there and i do believe i do agree with uh some 233 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:26,280 the sentiments you brought up that in those situations where there is an extreme circumstance 234 00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:34,120 then yeah i i definitely agree that a radical uh movement is necessary um in those situations 235 00:18:34,120 --> 00:18:39,240 and for the most part i would agree in terms of the your kind of definition of moderate in terms of 236 00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:49,000 of picking and choosing um i don't necessarily think well will you look at the brand grand brush 237 00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:55,400 of moderates for the most part they tech they mostly align with the side but they don't want 238 00:18:55,400 --> 00:19:01,080 to identify with that side i think it's very hard to identify as moderate for most people 239 00:19:01,080 --> 00:19:06,520 because you're either have if you have some type of religious or military background you are 240 00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:13,080 leaning conservative whether you like it or not and then if you are definitely more of the lgbtq 241 00:19:13,080 --> 00:19:19,480 or big time in times of liberal studies or the arts for example or big into social justice you're 242 00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:26,840 definitely leaning more into like the progress of liberal side right um and those people who try to 243 00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:32,920 identify as moderate won't be able to kind of articulate why they're a moderate because their 244 00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:38,600 foundation is one way or the other that's why i think if you're going to identify as moderate you 245 00:19:38,600 --> 00:19:44,520 have to have a logical basis that kind of differentiate yourself from those two kind of sides 246 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:51,320 which is you know it's hard to do with all the noise all over the place even your friends and 247 00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:57,000 family members can be noise in terms of trying to lean you one way or the other uh so i definitely 248 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:03,560 think it's very hard to be be a moderate but i do think it's possible you know i even myself um so 249 00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:10,520 with that said i want to dive into conservative conservatism a little deeper first things first 250 00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:19,640 could you give a pro and a con of being conservative and then my second question follow 251 00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:27,240 up that i'll tell you now a pro and con of current conservatives of the people in the united states 252 00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:33,160 so being a conservative and then the people that are conservatives right now pro pro and con for both 253 00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:40,040 that's a really good question and i might have to think about that for just a second 254 00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:46,520 i think the pro for being a conservative at least the sort of conservatism i hope to advance and 255 00:20:46,520 --> 00:20:54,840 argue for is that it is it is a worldview that allows a person to put a multitude of things in 256 00:20:54,840 --> 00:21:00,120 their life in an inappropriate hierarchy that it doesn't elevate politics as the most central 257 00:21:00,120 --> 00:21:03,640 thing in our lives so when i say conservative i'm not talking obviously i'm a conservative 258 00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:08,120 politically but it has to infiltrate more than just that it's an orientation of my life it's 259 00:21:08,120 --> 00:21:13,480 it's sort of an anchoring of how important our politics and at what point do they need to take 260 00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:19,720 a backseat to something else and and how do i orient my life in a manner that is as i said earlier 261 00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:25,640 trying to conserve the good things that i was given that's more than political that's my family 262 00:21:25,640 --> 00:21:31,160 that's my faith that's the things i see in my life that i value that i didn't create them thank god 263 00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:36,280 i've got them and i'm going to do what i can to hang on to them that would be the positive i do 264 00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:43,640 think that there is a i don't know if this is fair to call it a con but i'll throw in this 265 00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:49,800 category i think that conservatism necessitates a certain level of sobriety and this is oftentimes 266 00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:54,680 why you will see younger people tend to be more left and as they age generally speaking they tend 267 00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:59,160 to become more conservative sometimes that's because we get old and contankerous and you know 268 00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:03,960 to hell with everybody and that's you know more conservative kind of hard hearted attitude 269 00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:07,720 but sometimes what that means is there's a certain amount of sobriety necessary 270 00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:13,800 that conservatism means you're having to give up on certain almost more utopian or optimistic views 271 00:22:13,800 --> 00:22:19,640 of how the world could be and you're having to accept you know this isn't perfection this is not 272 00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:26,840 paradise this will never be paradise every action politically speaking could have an opposite and 273 00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:32,840 equal reaction that there are trade-offs there's no such thing as pure solutions to our problems 274 00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:38,600 but every and we can advance the ball further i'm not arguing against progress it's just it's a 275 00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:48,600 sort of a pessimistic view about the possibility of us truly advancing as a species because who 276 00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:52,120 you and i are right now is not that much different than who we would have been 277 00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:57,560 2 000 years ago we're the same basic stuff we just happen to live in a different civilization 278 00:22:57,560 --> 00:23:01,080 that's in that's imprinted on our brains a different story that allows us to live in a 279 00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:09,240 civilized world and so that necessitates or can become a very dour very downcast look at reality 280 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:15,880 it's it can be buoyed by things like hope by things like gratitude but it can become a more 281 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:21,960 difficult view because you are of necessity saying that this is this might be wrong this might be 282 00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:30,440 unjust but our capacity as humans to truly bring about justice is limited okay okay what about the 283 00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:38,120 second question to pro and con for conservative conservatives today in the United States are 284 00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:46,200 are you talking about like the politicians or just the general us a general of people like your 285 00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:49,560 general depiction of conservatives throughout the united states 286 00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:56,440 it depends on how we're defining conservative i'll start with a con on this one if if by 287 00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:04,120 conservative we mean those who those who were taken i don't want to say radical because that 288 00:24:04,120 --> 00:24:09,240 would be the opposite those who the view i mentioned earlier that i said if by moderate you mean one 289 00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:15,160 who does not try to inflict liberal tears say if that's what we mean by conservative then it is a 290 00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:20,600 very unhealthy impulse it is very destructive it it leads to things like january the sixth and 291 00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:24,760 honestly if that had never happened it leads to individuals in their own hearts and minds 292 00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:31,960 behaving as if half of this country are somehow not real americans and that they don't count in 293 00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:35,960 some sense that we're not they're not part of a unified whole that we just happen to have very 294 00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:40,920 deep-seated disagreements with but they're just not worthy if you will uh and that in effect what 295 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:45,480 we're not trying to do is conserve the good or let me rephrase that we are trying to conserve the 296 00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:51,320 good but it's almost a nois arc situation we're trying to build our own arc to get our own people 297 00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:57,960 inside while everybody else is left out in the cold and and i think conversely conservatism 298 00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:03,640 in the positive sense for the people can be just the opposite of that which is the american project 299 00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:10,040 has to be a franchisement and and in franchisement for everyone um that if we have large swaths of 300 00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:14,360 the population that don't see themselves as part of this a greater american project that's a problem 301 00:25:14,360 --> 00:25:20,120 not only for them but it is for us too and we need to work to find a way to make bridges across 302 00:25:20,120 --> 00:25:23,480 not necessarily that we would agree because we're never going to live in a world in which we all 303 00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:29,080 agree about everything but that we don't have large pox of population that dislike the situation 304 00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:33,000 so much that they just want to tear apart the institutions as they exist and they don't see 305 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:40,840 any hope in reform did i answer your question i feel like i may not have completely grasped 306 00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:45,720 it so i i'll give it another try if you feel like that was an unsatisfactory answer no i definitely 307 00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:51,480 understood where you're coming from and i want to touch base on that answer again um because i want 308 00:25:51,480 --> 00:26:00,440 to follow up on another point but we're also pro pro you have a pro of current conservatives in 309 00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:07,240 united states like the current elected officials is that what we're or thought leaders or how do 310 00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:12,760 you mean i'm mostly when i'm when i'm talking about the conservatives um i'm talking about the 311 00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:16,600 general depiction of conservatives because you mentioned a lot because you're you when you 312 00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:22,520 mentioned the general depiction of liberals you basically classify them as progressive not the 313 00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:30,520 current kind of notion of or the classic notion of liberals so kind of same way what was your 314 00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:36,280 a pro of the general depiction of conservatives as of right now in the united states i would think 315 00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:41,080 the pro is that it is a this might sound like an odd one but conservatives historically speaking 316 00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:47,240 way more than the left in in my view at least from my perspective spend a lot of time fighting each 317 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:53,000 other spend a lot of time trying to define what what is the good what is liberty how do we secure 318 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:58,040 liberty what are our um what are our higher principles are we just trying to slow the car 319 00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:03,640 down are we trying to put it in a particular direction and if so what how do we orient ourselves 320 00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:08,760 against the left for those who would not want to see the car go that direction and and so i think 321 00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:14,040 that tradition has continued on to this day now it's a little muddier than maybe it once was 322 00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:21,560 and um i think sometimes if you read the conservative intellectuals of old they had far better versions 323 00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:26,600 of the arguments we're currently having um but those arguments are still ongoing and i think 324 00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:33,720 that sort of tension within a movement allows for through process of time the betterment of that 325 00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:39,080 movement that it often comes up with better responses of the problems we're facing because it's not 326 00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:44,760 blindly adhering to sort of a lockstep uniform view of how the world ought to be 327 00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:54,840 okay so i want to follow up on on the on the current conservative point a little bit right 328 00:27:54,840 --> 00:28:00,360 so you mentioned a lot of there in regards to conservatives and how they should be versus 329 00:28:00,360 --> 00:28:09,000 how they are as of right now and my question to you is in terms of conservatives do you what do you 330 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:17,640 think about this aspect of currently it's unfortunate but it's definitely the truth in terms of general 331 00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:27,320 depiction anytime someone who is adamantly racist adamantly homophobic transphobic etc etc 332 00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:37,240 they are always bunched into the conservative aisle always right and for the most part it's not just 333 00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:42,600 like some random liberals and left lefties that are always doing this because you know they do that 334 00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:49,080 all the time but these people are identifying as conservatives as well the people who are adamantly 335 00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:57,720 racist adamantly homophobic adamantly transphobic and it i can even say this from experience because 336 00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:05,000 i make a lot of middle content right so i come through different situations based on what i 337 00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:10,360 think logically makes sense and i try to use facts and i really try to use emotion when i'm depicting 338 00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:15,160 when i'm depicting but and the same for the other side they're just as annoying we're 339 00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:23,000 crying this but in terms of the the conservatives i will have these you know people come in i say 340 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:28,040 something even though i try to advocate for both sides they hear something they get triggered 341 00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:33,160 it's obvious that you know they are homophobic it's obvious they're transphobic but they're calling 342 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:39,800 themselves conservatives so what do you say what do you think about these people who for the most 343 00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:45,800 part are kind of making the connotation of conservative very negative nowadays so what do you 344 00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:50,440 think about that well that that's a good question i'm glad you brought it up that's that again is 345 00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:55,800 another big issue that i will likely give an unsatisfactory answer for but i'll do my best 346 00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:03,720 i think as a general rule there was nothing innately about conservatism that necessarily leads to 347 00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:10,200 racism or homophobia conversely as a general rule your observation is correct i don't know that i go 348 00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:14,600 so far as to say all or you know such a vast majority that doesn't even make sense to talk 349 00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:21,640 about the minority but i i'm perfectly comfortable saying most racist most homophobics would identify 350 00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:27,160 themselves if not outright conservative at least on the political right or at least it's far rarer 351 00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:32,840 to see that on the left there are some complex reasons for that some of the things that i 352 00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:37,400 don't see as a reason for that some of it is historical some of it is by nature of what 353 00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:43,960 conservatism is trying to do is to conserve something i think sometimes individuals who as 354 00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:48,280 i was mentioning earlier sometimes people can conserve the wrong thing sometimes people can 355 00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:52,360 take conservatism to mean we need to roll the clocks back to some preconceived era in which 356 00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:57,720 things were right with the world and that doesn't always mean but it can mean a time in which 357 00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:02,680 but a bluntly white america was essentially running the show right that it that was far less diverse 358 00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:07,960 of the culture um not necessarily in terms of just sheer numbers although that was true but in 359 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:14,600 terms of who had the political and social and cultural power within the united states if you 360 00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,760 look at conservatism from a historical perspective and there are a number of people who did this 361 00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:24,760 matthew conneti and his book uh the right um george nashen his book the history of the 362 00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:30,280 intellectual conservative movement uh know your enemies which is a podcast interestingly enough 363 00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:34,360 that takes a view of conservatism from a very left perspective but nonetheless gives it a 364 00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:40,360 first shake they all have to contend with this issue in this question to what degree does racism 365 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:46,520 play a role in the broader conservative movement over the past century say and all three of these 366 00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:52,040 groups organizations or books or individuals say it's complicated now if you come from the left's 367 00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:59,240 perspective there is a tendency to say racism is the natural end point of conservatism but someone 368 00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:04,440 like say a donald trump and i'm not necessarily saying trump is like the arch type racist but 369 00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:09,560 trump is what you get when you push conservatism to his extreme if you come out from somebody like 370 00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:14,600 conneti and and nasha's perspective who themselves are conservative they say no no no those elements 371 00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:20,200 have always been there it's sort of a populist um nativism if you will within the conservative 372 00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:25,880 movement is sort of an overall feeling and what is necessary therefore is for intellectuals and 373 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:33,000 leaders and political uh political organizational leaders say to channel that energy in a direction 374 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:39,960 that is not racist in a direction that is far more interested in viewing the higher principles of 375 00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:44,520 what it means to be human and not necessarily what it means to be our particular skin colors 376 00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:51,240 and in certain eras we have seen um leaders such as uh more say like the ronald reagan 377 00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,600 aspect of it who have come to the fore and and have led us more in that direction and other 378 00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:58,520 areas we've seen uh the more odious elements again i'm not trying to call donald trump the 379 00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:04,600 arch type racist but trump say um uh george wallis although he wasn't necessarily on the right um 380 00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:10,360 to a certain degree patrick bucanon some of those who would channel that energy in a in a 381 00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:15,000 in a more destructive direction this is a big topic and there's a lot more i could say here i 382 00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:19,960 don't want to just i don't i want to get on a soapbox about it um but this is certainly a con 383 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,480 it's in conservatism there's certainly something conservatives have had to deal with and it's 384 00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:28,920 something that is a younger conservative i've often said if conservatism survives it's going 385 00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:34,200 to have to deal with this issue head on uh because the reality is the united states is becoming 386 00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:39,000 increasingly diverse not only in terms of population but just in terms of its outlook 387 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:45,800 that it is less and less and less thank goodness tolerated to have bigoted ideas about people 388 00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:52,440 of other skin colors and if there is a political movement that is in any way entangled with that 389 00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:57,960 they aren't going to survive much longer as the younger generations become older say and the 390 00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:02,760 older generations die off um so this is a real problem it's something i don't have a simple 391 00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:09,160 whole solution for uh and it is something that is again i don't want to say unique to the right 392 00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:13,320 because if you go back if you go back into history there have been plenty of instances in which the 393 00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:20,280 left uh especially the progressive era i mean we're just outright racist talk about woodrow 394 00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:27,160 wilson or some of the southern democrats of that era would would um would make the racist today 395 00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:31,560 blush if you will um but this is certainly a problem currently on the right and it doesn't 396 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:40,440 need to be dealt with all right so yeah i mean the liberal stuff i very much agree the big point 397 00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:48,520 here to really focus on is like the vocal radical minority is so loud that they are 398 00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:57,320 seen to be representing the side that they are a part of and the liberal left has that problem 399 00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:04,120 we already know what the the wokeies all that stuff so the the liberal left has their problems and 400 00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:07,640 i'll definitely have a podcast episode very similar this where we talk about that when in 401 00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:17,320 terms of the conservatives my question following up that is if the assumption by many leftists 402 00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:26,120 is conservatives are races homophobic all the other stuff and the potential assumption 403 00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:33,880 from even some moderates also align very much to that conclusion and not only that you know that 404 00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:42,040 there are those people in the organization what is the point of stake conservative and not 405 00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:51,000 moving on to a more a different type of political ideology well i i think that if we 406 00:35:51,000 --> 00:36:00,120 it and maybe it's not possible but if we could remove for a moment the question of race and 407 00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:07,960 racism from our minds conservatism is a coherent political orientation um 408 00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:16,920 that it would be unrealistic say to ask a conservative to adopt a completely different 409 00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:21,480 political orientation that's out of alignment with their values and with their worldview um 410 00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:29,160 it might be realistic to say what is it about conservatism that allows for racism to fester 411 00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,720 and is there something unique about it and how could we address that in a manner that 412 00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:42,360 that that eradicates those elements that being said i also recognize that we live in a political 413 00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:47,960 reality in which this isn't exactly a parallel but i'll just throw it out there as an example 414 00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:56,040 i could i could adopt the idea that anyone who was on the left and question the value of capitalism 415 00:36:56,040 --> 00:37:01,960 was a hardcore socialist i could find some label to give them i could say that anyone who was even 416 00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:09,560 remotely supportive of lgbtq um rights was a radical wokas liberal and and i could shackle 417 00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:16,440 someone with a label and never really listen to the full uh never really understand what they are 418 00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:22,520 who they are what they actually believe and funnel my view of them through this very narrow lens of 419 00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:28,520 everything can simply be explained by this very odious view that they have that i stand against 420 00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:32,280 and i think sometimes i can be a danger on the left and as you point out sometimes even within 421 00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:38,600 moderates i'm not denying that these people exist on the right but i think there's a real danger in 422 00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:45,160 broad brushing it and saying everything they do can be explained through this as i said earlier 423 00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:50,520 look i am not a trump supporter by any stretch i didn't vote for the guy i pray that god he 424 00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,720 does not get back in the white house for a whole host of reasons that could take me a solid hour 425 00:37:53,720 --> 00:37:59,080 to get through um but i also know people that voted for donald trump and love him dearly and i 426 00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:05,880 have no reason to believe they're racist and i think there is a tendency to say the only reason 427 00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:12,440 a person would do x is because of this terrible thing that they must believe and i don't think 428 00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:20,920 there is nearly as many um what do we end up with 40 50 60 million i don't think we have that many 429 00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:25,640 tens of millions of americans whose sole writing purpose and voting for particular political candidate 430 00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:31,960 was the racial uh motivation say i think there i think it's more complicated that's certainly in 431 00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:38,360 the mix but it's not the only a driving factor and so i'm trying to be careful to recognize the 432 00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:47,000 warts on my side while also not uh framing this in such a way that it explains more than what it 433 00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:57,560 actually does okay i do i do hear you saying um and i i have a final kind of very big question 434 00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:04,360 i'm gonna say for the end uh and this is a sentiment that i've talked about before and i'm 435 00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:12,600 curious to hear your feedback on it but moving on to the next question in your words and in a 436 00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:18,120 uh if you want to do like a bullet point frame or whatever you want to uh kind of narrative 437 00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:25,720 narration of it what makes being a conservative you may have already said this i'm gonna ask it 438 00:39:25,720 --> 00:39:31,800 what makes being a conservative better than being a liberal or a moderate in your opinion 439 00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:39,160 i and and you're probably right i've answered so many words but um that's a good question uh 440 00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:47,240 and i think um there could be you had a yeah if you had to like give a concrete answer for 441 00:39:47,240 --> 00:39:52,600 for that i think it almost in repeating what we kind of started off with i think in the moment 442 00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:58,120 we live in the society we live i think the greatest danger is speed i think the greatest 443 00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:03,480 danger the way we live is the rate at which we change and i don't mean the last 20 years i mean 444 00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:11,320 the last 200 plus years say that humanity has seen such advancement um you know there's as 445 00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:17,000 often said the automobile and contraceptions were two inventions that changed how humans behave 446 00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:25,800 with each other more than any political program anyone has ever come up with and the conservative 447 00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:30,440 is always concerned about well there's you know we we have developed slowly over time through 448 00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:36,280 centuries if not millennia we have developed custom and tradition and the way we do life 449 00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:41,400 and when you uproot one generation from the next very bad things can happen and so i think the 450 00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:48,920 moment we're in calls for above all else not a stopping of progress but a recognition that 451 00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:55,560 progress can bring with it danger and therefore we need to while embracing the progress be very 452 00:40:55,560 --> 00:41:00,840 cautious about what the unintended consequences could be and that's a very very broad answer 453 00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:04,360 because i could obviously go out in 10 000 different directions but i think that would be my overall 454 00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:11,720 argument for why i think conservatism is a healthier and a more uh civilization stabilizing 455 00:41:11,720 --> 00:41:17,240 say movement than progressivism or even moderation is that we are really living in it in a transitory 456 00:41:17,240 --> 00:41:24,360 time period where people are unmoored or we're very alienated from each other and that we need to be 457 00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:30,440 with all our might trying to find ways to conserve the things that tether us to this uh to the society 458 00:41:30,440 --> 00:41:37,000 we have while we enjoy the progress rather than letting that progress destroy us very interesting 459 00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:43,880 i do think that we are definitely accelerating in terms of our progress at a faster pace than ever 460 00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:48,520 and obviously that's very much in due to the introduction of the internet and its ability 461 00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:53,160 to constantly input more and more information out there and then all the other technology now 462 00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:57,240 ai is going to throw in out there so we're progressing very very far um have you ever 463 00:41:57,240 --> 00:42:08,440 heard of like the the saying that humans are terrible at mitigating and preventing issues 464 00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:14,520 but in terms of adaptation we excel at it so we're all we saying but that makes sense yeah 465 00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:21,720 yeah i don't think it's the same but i have the the sentiment is there right so at the end of the 466 00:42:21,720 --> 00:42:29,480 day humans will continuously progress more and more farther and farther faster and faster 467 00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:35,000 we're gonna have mistakes very similar i've talked about this before the internet and social media 468 00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:42,760 it was revolutionary in bringing people together shrinking the planet basically giving you more 469 00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:50,120 information about things that you've ever uh could know as an individual just a normal person on the 470 00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:56,840 street um the issue that people didn't probably didn't realize i wouldn't imagine someone realizes 471 00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:03,800 when they created the internet is that the stuff you mentioned isolation because of it of people 472 00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:13,640 being isolated from one another losing the people skills so to speak so the next uh progression we 473 00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:21,000 have to make there is adapting to this issue and finding solutions my thing is one education has to 474 00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:26,200 be a very essential part to this we have to educate people better i think our education system is very 475 00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:34,680 inefficient um second thing is the next generation of parents such as myself we know how the internet 476 00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:41,560 works now so people like me and even my friends we know yeah we're not going to just let our kid 477 00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:45,800 just be on the internet and social media all the time we know how problematic that can be 478 00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:54,040 so the teachings will follow after the experience and then after that people will be able to potentially 479 00:43:54,040 --> 00:44:00,200 if the if the teachings get uh normalized in terms of united states culture that a teacher 480 00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:04,520 kid how to handle social media and technology then it will be less and less of an issue of 481 00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:10,280 moving down the line right so i think for the most part a lot of these problems are definitely 482 00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:16,520 problems and we should definitely find ways to fix it and i think humans as humans we can now i do 483 00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:25,080 think there may be a problem in the future that is so bad that we ain't going to be able to adapt to 484 00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:30,680 it you know we see you know for example let's throw out the extreme example with the ai stuff 485 00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:37,640 if the terminator happens then we're screwed so you know i do think people overreact in terms of 486 00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:44,600 ai and its current process but if ai ever takes a certain step too far and that may be really bad 487 00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:48,920 so we always have to pay attention to that so there are definitely things out there like that for 488 00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:56,120 sure i do but in general i do think humanities adaptation capabilities are very much there 489 00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:04,200 um so my next question do you mind if i respond to that right quick yeah in terms of work 490 00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:10,920 because excellent points and i am i agree humans as a species we're really good at adapting 491 00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:16,200 that takes us a long time and if we think of the you know a prior era in our nation that's 492 00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:19,880 somewhat similar to what we're going through today is at the dawn of the industrial revolution 493 00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:26,760 sort of the gilded age right where um there's this mass in-creating productivity and the capacity to do 494 00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:32,200 so turns out living in that era was terrible even though i don't think i've yet to hear anybody 495 00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,640 make the argument why we should go back to a pre-industrial age you know and very few people 496 00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:39,400 talk about you know the real problem is when we invented indoor plumbing you know that's when 497 00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:43,240 everything went wrong now there's a lot of inventions we have a very grateful for but the 498 00:45:43,240 --> 00:45:48,520 reality is not only was it very unsettling for the individual but then come the you know the 19th 499 00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:55,080 century we killed i think i've got i think we through more fair murdered more people on the 500 00:45:55,080 --> 00:46:00,360 planet than the previous 2000 years combined using these new tools at our disposal i mean there's 501 00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:06,040 some pretty terrible things we did to each other and so i do think humans adapt but i think most 502 00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:12,200 of the time it comes through multiple generations and so i i am hopeful in the long term but as i 503 00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:16,920 often say you and i might not get to see the long term and sometimes what we have to do is we have 504 00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:21,640 to have sort of a a broader view of things stretching back maybe even thousands of years of saying this 505 00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:28,440 is what purpose and hope and uh and my uh meaning in life is that gets me through this very turbulent 506 00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:34,360 time yeah i definitely think that they're like i said there are things out there then that 507 00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:40,360 relying on adaptation is not good enough i definitely agree to that point i mean one thing 508 00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:46,280 that we have to i mean one thing that we constantly have to be aware of is how we use nuclear weapons 509 00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:53,320 for example like you mentioned how our current uh how the technology we created in that age killed 510 00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:59,560 so many people well now with the current kind of tensions in the in the world right now we always 511 00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:06,440 have to be aware of not this total line before we basically end all of humanity and so there there 512 00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:12,760 are definitely things that we need to put more care than others um the the question at the end 513 00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:19,640 of the day are what issues are those issues that we need to put care in and i think for the most 514 00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:28,040 part in terms of the current politics most of the topical issues are not those type of you know 515 00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:34,280 situation they focus on things that deem very um hey there's more important things that we could 516 00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:40,120 be talking about for example right um right now everybody's just talking about trump's indictment 517 00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:48,440 so uh but i definitely you know i definitely get what you're saying so to kind of touch pass on uh 518 00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:56,920 conservative on conservatives again what do what issues do you believe or what are the top let's 519 00:47:56,920 --> 00:48:06,680 say three issues that conservatives advocate for in your opinion do you mean that i would like for 520 00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:14,520 conservatives to advocate for or or the okay well um so i'll give a a mixture of maybe policy and 521 00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:22,440 on policy i would say in my view chief among them is the culture war but not the way it's 522 00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:29,720 currently being fought when i say culture war i mean if you go back to say uh circa 1940s what 523 00:48:29,720 --> 00:48:35,640 exactly was it that allowed for a scenario in which so many men in the united states would 524 00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,720 storm the beach of normity knowing they're likely going to be given their lives like what kind of 525 00:48:39,720 --> 00:48:46,840 virtue allowed for that to exist what sort of a society allowed for that sirens call of freedom 526 00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:51,720 and liberty say that they would literally willingly give their lives for something like that and i 527 00:48:51,720 --> 00:48:59,000 think a culture has to be healthy before we can ever have any sort of political policy solutions 528 00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:05,960 that is going to hope to advance the ball at all uh a a culture that is healthy can weather 529 00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:11,320 something like COVID-19 a culture that is weak cannot and eventually one of those crises is 530 00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:15,720 going to bring the entire society down if the culture becomes weak enough we end up just eating 531 00:49:15,720 --> 00:49:19,800 each other so that's maybe first and foremost i will be the first to admit as a conservative there 532 00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:26,200 are very few policy solutions to what else a culture so this almost always has to take place 533 00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:31,480 on an individual or local level and within the human heart so that that's number one in in my view 534 00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:38,680 uh number two i would say i may be kind of old school uh at heart with us but it's it's the 535 00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:44,360 mounting debt in the united states and it's our inability to rein that in and i i really i think 536 00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:50,840 we have gone so long in this country with with being able to live off the borrowed steam of of 537 00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:56,600 literally borrowed uh you know taxes would be paid back at some point i don't think that means 538 00:49:56,600 --> 00:50:02,280 there's necessarily a cataclysmic or apocalyptic future but i think what that means is more and 539 00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:07,560 more and more it's going to limit our ability to have choices and it's going to limit the things we 540 00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:12,360 can put money into both in an individual level and even federal funding level and and i think that 541 00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:18,040 an inability to rein that in control um it does two things one is it just from a financial 542 00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:24,680 perspective is destructive but second i think it's at heart it shows an inability to live within 543 00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:31,560 our means and that that said that's not a the soul of the nations that rot if we can't just 544 00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:38,280 come to terms with that um that's a very broad issue off obviously uh third i think that congress 545 00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:44,040 is broken and there's a number of interesting ideas or suggestions as to how we might fix that or 546 00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:48,920 address that and i you know i'm for kind of an experimentation some of them kind of radical like 547 00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:53,160 maybe remove the cap on the house of representatives rather than limit it to the 435 we can make it 548 00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:58,520 thousands and thousands so that the odds of you personally knowing your representative increases 549 00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:02,520 it would make it harder to gerrymandering because there would be so many of them 550 00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:07,960 odd idea interesting i think and these there's gonna sound kind of weird i think taking television 551 00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:12,200 out of united states congress would be a move in the right direction not taking the journalist out 552 00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:16,840 they could be there we could hear audio maybe we could hear obviously written examples of the words 553 00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:21,400 but turning it less into a performative platform where they're all up there on stage 554 00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:26,440 basically running for president if we're being honest and instead actually governing actually 555 00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:31,400 legislating actually doing the job they were sent there to do uh there's any number of reforms from 556 00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:37,320 how we finance things to how people are elected do how uh structurally it works within the chambers 557 00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:41,160 of congress once they're there that's a big subject obviously hundreds of thousands of 558 00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:45,960 suggestions we uh that could be thrown out there but those would be the big three i think our culture 559 00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:53,080 has to heal i think we need to get our debt under control and i think congress needs to be mended 560 00:51:53,080 --> 00:52:02,360 because it's currently broken and not functioning uh very interesting my i have a my question 561 00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:10,680 in terms of the third one is in changing the government isn't that more of a progressive idea 562 00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:19,560 it can be it it can be that's that's a very good question and and so it's a let me put this way um 563 00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:27,080 it is progressive in the sense that if we're changing the structure of something this is 564 00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:31,640 edmund burk who i can serve myself to be a burkian conservative he was not against change 565 00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:35,240 what he said was we need to recognize the difference between reform and the radical 566 00:52:35,240 --> 00:52:41,240 alterization are we changing something to protect the integrity of the institution or are we changing 567 00:52:41,240 --> 00:52:46,120 in such a manner that you no longer recognize the existence of the institution so for example when 568 00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:50,840 i mentioned removing the cap of number of representatives that's a radical change but 569 00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:55,640 the reality is the founding fathers didn't put that cap there i think they'd be surprised to know 570 00:52:55,640 --> 00:53:00,040 we have a you know that it's basically by order of the fire marshal how many people are allowed to 571 00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:06,440 be in congress and not by the original allotment that they had um maybe a better example this is 572 00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:10,360 actually one that drives me nuts because we constantly argue about the filibuster should we 573 00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:15,240 keep it or get rid of it uh the the editorialist george will have the best suggestion i thought 574 00:53:15,240 --> 00:53:20,760 which is his was like neither go back to the way it originally worked which was that if a senator 575 00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:26,040 wanted to filibuster something he had to physically show up in the senate chambers and he could not 576 00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:33,080 stop talking and second it shut down the entire senate no other business could take place which 577 00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:40,920 basically meant that if a minority felt extremely strongly about a central issue they could halt 578 00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:46,040 it but they had to pick and choose because there was a cost to filibustering they couldn't just 579 00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:50,520 say i threatened to filibuster that therefore we can't talk about anymore you need your 66 votes 580 00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:55,880 i don't want to get too far off in the weeds but i guess i'm saying there are changes 581 00:53:55,880 --> 00:54:00,840 that are more reform in nature that get us back to the original intent of what the institution was 582 00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:07,960 there are other changes that try to circumvent in my view uh human nature and and are more 583 00:54:07,960 --> 00:54:15,480 destructive to the institution all right all right very interesting so my next question here 584 00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:22,280 and this is probably the last two questions okay is in terms of the three issues that you 585 00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:31,640 advocated for is it possible and if it is possible how are conservatives able to work with liberals 586 00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:37,560 and maybe moderates you can throw them in there to solve these issues can you is there a way to 587 00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:43,400 compromise or is there a way to find a solution with liberals to do this i would say on the first 588 00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:49,720 solution that the one about culture um it's tough because there are fundamental disagreements between 589 00:54:49,720 --> 00:54:53,560 the left and the right over what our culture should look like and where we gather strength from 590 00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:59,160 that being said there is enough commonality here that yeah heck yeah we could get started 591 00:54:59,160 --> 00:55:04,360 number one let's stop trying to own each other let's stop trying to embarrass each other let's 592 00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:09,000 stop pretending as if that's somehow making anybody's life better uh and number two let's 593 00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:14,200 find those central values we do agree on as far as i can tell the majority of the left 594 00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:20,040 does believe the family needs to be strong and intact uh it does believe communities need to be 595 00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:25,800 cohesive and not at each other's throats and i think there's enough inroads there that we could 596 00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:31,480 find ways to build communities and quite frankly as i said earlier it doesn't have to be policy 597 00:55:31,480 --> 00:55:37,640 heck being a Boy Scout leader does more good than you enacting some loss and everybody has to behave 598 00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:43,720 right um in terms of debt yes that one's gonna be tough and i really wonder if people are age and 599 00:55:43,720 --> 00:55:48,360 younger are going to tackle this differently uh because the i hope this isn't the case but the 600 00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:54,200 it might be that when we have to start paying things when we start living off the borrowed 601 00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:59,080 steam that we might very quickly find ways to work together this can be challenging though because 602 00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:03,400 often if you hear we're going to reduce the debt from the left they talk about military spending 603 00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:07,480 from the right they talk about entitlements and i'm open to a conversation about both 604 00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:14,600 uh but i i think that's that's sort of where that gets hung up and so there is a potential for 605 00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:19,480 progression and to be honest with you i really think the debt issue is very closely tied to the 606 00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:25,160 third one the idea of uh congressional reform and i do think that there's area for some common 607 00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:31,480 ground between there um maybe not super common but i think that there could be some very modest 608 00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:35,240 steps forward like i mentioned and this is a radical i'm not saying this is going to change the 609 00:56:35,240 --> 00:56:40,120 world but getting rid of tv say in the senate chambers that's not a conservative or a liberal 610 00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:45,000 idea that's just an idea and some conservatives and liberals are all for it and some aren't 611 00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,640 but it's it's those sorts of things that we could find some common ground 612 00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:53,880 all right excellent excellent um from what it sounds like i definitely think there there are 613 00:56:55,480 --> 00:57:01,880 commonalities like you said that can be uh met in regards to a lot of the things that you 614 00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:07,960 were mentioned in terms of the three issues they referring to um culture one is definitely going 615 00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:12,600 to be difficult as you can say but i think for the most part the general agreement is that there 616 00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:19,400 needs to be a family and family needs to care for one another um barring out the radicals from 617 00:57:19,400 --> 00:57:25,480 either side i think for the most part most the general uh people know the importance of family 618 00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:33,320 so with that said definitely could be bridging a bridging of gap regarding that but yeah the 619 00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:37,800 spent the debt situation will be definitely tough you know even with stuff like student loans and 620 00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:44,360 everything you know more liberals and i amen i have student loans too so you know a lot of us 621 00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:51,720 want us to get this debt away but we realize the the uh importance of getting rid of our massive 622 00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:57,560 debt as a country uh the congress one will be interesting though it really really depends on 623 00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:04,600 how much people actually pay attention to what's going on in congress and i think probably more 624 00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:08,840 conservatives pay attention to liberals in general in terms of the congress but that's a very 625 00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:15,080 interesting topic so my final question like i said this is the one i was gonna say for last 626 00:58:15,080 --> 00:58:28,440 is why do you believe or is it possible for uh in terms of a person to be able to advocate for 627 00:58:28,440 --> 00:58:36,440 their political ideology and statement without the titles for example conservative liberal 628 00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:43,400 progressive moderate republican democrat are these titles even necessary and if getting rid of 629 00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:49,160 these titles were to happen would that be beneficial in terms of the dialogue and the discussion 630 00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:57,480 is it possible yes um or let me rephrase that is it possible to operate without the titles 631 00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:02,120 absolutely i could have said probably everything i just said to you and taken out the word conservative 632 00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:05,880 right we're talking about gratitude we're talking about debt we're talking about culture 633 00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:10,280 all of these words don't need something like conservative liberal and interjected there 634 00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:15,720 um these titles can of course be a handicap because you could have another air quotes 635 00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:19,800 conservative on this show and they're gonna sound nothing like me and they're gonna be talking about 636 00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:23,960 when they say culture wars they literally do mean owning the libs when they say conservative they 637 00:59:23,960 --> 00:59:29,720 literally do mean putting our faith in donald trump say um i i think sometimes i'm a little stubborn 638 00:59:29,720 --> 00:59:36,600 because i am insistent no this is what conservative conservatism actually means and it's been hijacked 639 00:59:36,600 --> 00:59:41,720 by other figures i think the term i'd heard i like better actually is classical conservatism 640 00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:47,320 trying to distinguish it between just the um political orientation if you will all of that 641 00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:54,520 being said i don't um i don't think humans are ever going to be able to adapt that fully we and 642 00:59:54,520 --> 01:00:00,200 this you take this out of politics put it anywhere we generalize everything it's just how our brains 643 01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:05,320 work and we can work against it and we can enjoy nuance and we can try to see what's best in each 644 01:00:05,320 --> 01:00:09,720 other but i think at the end of the day we're not going to be able to completely get rid of this 645 01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:15,480 as i often say i don't like the paradigm of the left versus right because i don't know if you're 646 01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:18,200 familiar with this or not do you know where that comes from by the way the left and the right 647 01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:26,200 historical context it literally has to do with whether or not when you're in the french national 648 01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:33,080 assembly you set the king louis left or right and if you were to his left it meant you wanted 649 01:00:33,080 --> 01:00:38,040 a liberal system in which the king was more a figurehead and it was it was more like a 650 01:00:38,040 --> 01:00:42,760 parliamentary system the ramping and if you were to his right you're a monarchist now i don't know 651 01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:48,920 about you but i don't have a huge opinion on whether or not we should be a french monarchy or 652 01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:54,680 or classical liberal society what the heck that has to do with american politics i don't know but 653 01:00:54,680 --> 01:00:59,960 we adopted that system in a sense and so a lot of our a lot of what we've been talking about it's 654 01:00:59,960 --> 01:01:04,920 almost impossible to squeeze this into this left right sliding scale as if everything could be 655 01:01:04,920 --> 01:01:10,440 understood in that paradigm that being said i use the phrase left and right because we immediately 656 01:01:10,440 --> 01:01:18,840 have some general notion of what we we mean by that so i'm i'm i'm four people diving into the 657 01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:22,520 nuance of the terms they mean i'm four people saying i'm a conservative i'm gonna find out what 658 01:01:22,520 --> 01:01:26,840 that means and maybe they find out oh i'm not a conservative that's not what that word i that's 659 01:01:26,840 --> 01:01:30,920 not what i thought that word man i guess i'm this other thing but i don't think we're ever going to 660 01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:38,280 eradicate this because that's just what humans do yeah unfortunately i agree um in terms of the 661 01:01:39,400 --> 01:01:46,120 kind of titles although i i do think all of these titles are useless and inefficient um i 662 01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:53,080 like i've said before i like to focus on the the topic at hand the the discussion what is actually 663 01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:58,680 being said i don't really care about your political ideology or where your stance is in terms of the 664 01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:05,320 left or right but unfortunately you know when i put out content there when i say something that's 665 01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:11,880 advocating that a a if they're adult they can do whatever they want in terms of transitioning 666 01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:20,280 people call me uh uh a lefty and then if i go like hey i don't want to get get away give away 667 01:02:20,280 --> 01:02:26,760 all the guns people call me a righty so i was like i don't identify the either of those things to be 668 01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:34,760 honest so it's unfortunate but people are so quick to assume things and put you in that general 669 01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:41,960 category and then automatically once they put you in that category anything you say after after that 670 01:02:41,960 --> 01:02:49,400 is going to be fallen on deaf ears and that is the most that's the worst part about it is that the 671 01:02:50,680 --> 01:02:57,880 either side will have such a negative and toxic viewpoint of the other side that they won't even 672 01:02:57,880 --> 01:03:02,600 engage in with anything they are saying and sometimes it's warranted because sometimes 673 01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:09,480 the other side is you know just saying a bunch of nonsense but most of the time in terms of the 674 01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:16,680 topic i can if you have just an echo chamber from either side then there's really no solution 675 01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:23,400 that's going to be found in terms of the issues that's going on the important it's always better 676 01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:28,680 even though i have the issue with the left and right all this it will always be better to have 677 01:03:28,680 --> 01:03:34,680 sides competing than one echo chamber because we all know if there's just one party ruling everything 678 01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:44,200 that's always a recipe for disaster every single time so that that is all we got for today's episode 679 01:03:44,200 --> 01:03:49,960 and talking about what is a conservative and its importance in the united states and in society 680 01:03:49,960 --> 01:03:54,760 do you have any final words before we wrap things up i will i'll just say i enjoyed the 681 01:03:54,760 --> 01:04:00,680 conversation and thank you for asking me questions that made me think i appreciate that yeah no 682 01:04:00,680 --> 01:04:05,800 problem no problem got your information of course you can check all his stuff out it's on the website 683 01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:13,080 www.thetrnwithrtlfaith.com or rate this podcast five stars so you can get your review shadowed 684 01:04:13,080 --> 01:04:19,000 out in every uh the next podcast episode appreciate everybody listening watching appreciate you 685 01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:34,920 josh for coming on and having the conversation of course you all have a good one take care and peace