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Charlie Kirk on the Crisis of Courage and Self-Censorship Destroying America
Charlie Kirk confronts a truth most Americans are too afraid to admit: the greatest form of censorship isn't coming from big tech or the media—it's coming from within. In this compelling address, Kirk challenges audiences to examine their own complicity in the self-censorship epidemic sweeping across workplaces, campuses, and dinner tables. Drawing on insights from George S. Patton and Aristotle, he argues that courage is the foundational virtue holding all others in place, and that America is living on borrowed time, coasting on the courage of the Greatest Generation. Kirk connects the dots between the decline of Christianity, the rise of wokeism, and the chaos that precedes totalitarianism. He calls for an end to spectator conservatism and demands that every American become the same person in public that they are in private.
The Crisis of Courage in America
There is a crisis of courage in our country. The number one form of censorship in America is not big tech censorship—it's self-censorship. It's shutting yourself up. Not talking about politics at the meal because you don't want to lose friends. Not telling your neighbors what you think. I get it. You live good lives. I understand what people say about you matters. Should it?
I understand that how many Instagram likes you get is incredibly important. No, I do. I get it. You can be a lot of things, but if you are not courageous, they're all very brittle. You could be smart. You can be creative. You can be funny. You can be successful. You can be charming.
George S. Patton, one of the greatest men ever to live, famously said that moral courage is the most necessary yet absent characteristic in men. Aristotle famously said, "Without courage, there is no other virtue." That it is the virtue that holds all the other ones in place.
What Is Courage?
What is courage? I ask this to younger audiences a lot and they kind of stumble around by using the word in the definition. That's okay. It's not their fault. We don't teach children what courage is. Courage, simply defined, is doing the right thing or the good thing when the outcome is uncertain. It's that simple. When there's an unknown after the action.
You think about it. If you know how things are going to work out, that's not very courageous, right? Like buying a cheeseburger at McDonald's—you know how it's going to work. You're going to get it and you're going to gain weight. It's not that big of a deal.
Living on Borrowed Courage
We are living on the coattails of the greatest generation's courage. Let me say that again. We are living on the coattails of the greatest generation's courage.
And that gift that the greatest generation gave us—my grandfather who served in World War II, Erika's grandfather who served in World War II—who stepped up and gave everything for a good beyond anything imaginable to save the planet from unspeakable evil and tyranny on two fronts, sacrificing our own manufacturing base, metal, might, all of it. Sending our own sons across the world, many of whom never to return again.
We are living on their coattails, and that time is running out. And it wasn't just the war effort. It's what they did after. What did they do after? They made a decision that they're going to commit to getting married and having children. They made a decision that they were going to build strong communities and reinvest in America.
How Does One Become Courageous?
It's a really interesting question, right? It's one I've actually wrestled with a lot. And so I've realized that there is a courage crisis in our country largely because we have a lot to lose. You see, revolutions tend to work with people that don't have a lot. Material stuff. I'm talking about friends, relationships, connections.
So you just have to ask yourself, does that matter more than pursuing the truth with courage? And if so, so be it. Now, some people say, "Charlie, I'm going to lose my job." You might. You're right. You might lose your job. Make a decision. That's it. Maybe it's the right decision. Maybe it's the wrong decision. "I'm going to lose my friends." Yes, you will. But you'll make new ones. A lot of them.
If you're really wrestling with this and this is speaking to you, just list the courageous people that you've seen in your life, that you see in history, and you write them down and you ask yourself the question: Do I want to be more like them?
The Moral Imperative of Free Speech
If a country does not have a shared language, culture, or history, it's going to stop being a country and it will just be a temporary colony where you make a bunch of money and you lose any sense of congruency and any sense of familiarity with your fellow countrymen.
We love free speech in the conservative movement, right? But if you don't share a language with your fellow countrymen, how can you express and share ideas? So, we talk about speech, but let's talk about the moral imperative of speech. Why do we like freedom of speech? We like freedom of speech because it's the best way that we can govern ourselves without actually having to get to physical conflict.
Dialogue, which comes from the Greek word through reason, through thinking, is what makes us different in the West than almost any other country around the world. Our capacity to say, you know what, debate me. Come up and tell me why your ideas are better.
Self-Censorship: The Greatest Threat
But all of a sudden, if speech is disappearing, which it is in our country, then all of a sudden you're more likely to self-segregate from a certain conversation or shut yourself up. So, we talk about censorship a lot in the conservative movement. Do you know what the number one form of censorship is in the country? It's not from Google. It's not from social media. It's self-censorship.
The point is, how many people here self-censor your views because you're afraid of losing a job, getting kicked out of fraternity, getting kicked out of a sorority, or having your friends call you the r-word. The answer is almost every single person in this room, whether your hands go up or not.
That form of self-censorship is such an unbelievably dangerous trend that's happening in our country. And what does that result in? That results in half the country voluntarily saying that they don't even want to care about what we think, that they care nothing more than a power struggle of controlling our entire country.
The Danger of Unlimited Truths
Somebody said, you know, different cultures have different truths. Are there different customs? Of course, be respectful of them and all things, but you do look at that question. There's an unlimited amount of truths. Now, there could be lots of different shared experiences, but for example, if you have a car crash and there's five witnesses, everyone said, "Well, this happened and this happened." Eventually, you want to get to the truth of what ended up happening. You want to be able to get to the consensus of the matter.
And when you design a government or you have a society and you raise a generation that says, you know what, anyone can believe whatever they want to believe about anything at any time, how on earth are you going to have a stable and civil society from that point? If everybody had a different definition of what north is, good luck trying to orient everybody.
So, no, there's not an unlimited amount of truths. I believe there's one truth, but I think that truth that we could agree tonight is rather broad. I think that it's a road that is not too narrow and not too wide as C.S. Lewis would say in The Abolition of Man. It's the Tao. It's something that says okay, within the maxims of liberty we can agree that separation of powers, consent of the governed, independent judiciary, private property rights, these things are important to protect. And whenever there is a threat against those things, we're not going to put up with them.
We're not going to say, you know what, yeah, maybe you could believe that you're a platypus or that you could believe that you're actually 6'8" when in reality you're not. That your feeling is not as important as to what actual reality is happening in that exact moment.
Chaos as a Strategy Toward Totalitarianism
And the consequence of this, I could tell you, will end up being two things. First, you get chaos, and that's bad. And that's kind of the talking point. If you don't have all these things, you have societal chaos. But we never talk about what happens after that, which is then you get totalitarianism.
You see, as soon as you confuse everybody—there is no truth, you have your own truth, and you have all these different kind of bickering tribes—eventually people are going to want order. And that's when you get someone like Joseph Stalin that comes along. And all they care about is power, and they're good at it. And then all of a sudden, you could throw out all the stuff I've talked about: consent of the governed, separation of powers. Chaos is a strategy towards totalitarianism.
And not everyone who's participating in it even recognizes or realizes it. They say, "Oh, we're liberating groups to be able to have whatever truth they want to have under any circumstance." Now, you can have your own opinions. But, you know, do you notice how quickly it goes from "this is my truth" to all of a sudden if you don't accept your truth, you're going to be penalized? Happens very quickly. So, it's not just your truth. It's that I must now adopt that. And whatever that kind of fiction or whatever that might be.
The Problem with Self-Love Culture
The fascination with loving yourself is gnostic narcissism. You should have respect for yourself, not love for yourself. I read these self-help phrases sometimes where they say, "My imperfections make me perfect." Like that's the silliest—I mean, if you actually go through Pinterest and you read some of this stuff. Instead it should be: I'm not all who I could possibly be. Maybe it should be a challenge to oneself, not a non-stop romantic love campaign with yourself.
In fact, I think it creates more misery and more depression the more people think that they're in a romantic relationship with themselves. You should have respect for yourself, but you should have respect enough to say that I could be more than I am today and I'm going to delay my own immediate gratification.
Let me be clear. There's a lot of good people that are into the self-help, self-love thing. I hope it works for you. I have seen it do great damage to a lot of young people. I'm going to tell you why. When I was in seventh grade, I saw a sign that was posted all throughout our school and it said, "You are perfect the way you are." And I asked my teacher then I said, "Then why am I in school?"
Why would you go to school if you are perfect the way you are? Instead, it should be: you have great potential. It's a much better message to tell a young person because as soon as you say you're perfect the way they are, they know they're not. They put more pressure on themselves. They're harder on themselves. Instead, it should be a pursuit and a journey towards development that I am not there, but I'm going to keep on trying to either lose weight or improve my diet, stop lying, get better friends, and then maybe I can be a better version of myself.
The West was built on that. The West was not built by a bunch of people on the Mayflower Compact saying, "I'm in deep love with myself." The Declaration of Independence was not signed by 56 people that were into self-love. It was signed by people who love their family and love their country. I encourage you to do the same.
The Death of Christianity and the Rise of Wokeism
I just sat down with Bill Maher. I don't know if you guys saw it or not. If not, I encourage you to look at it. It's a good conversation. Bill Maher is not a Christian. If you don't know that, he's very much not a Christian. He is an atheist. And maybe we'll have some atheists here tonight. And remember, without God, there would be no atheist. Remember that.
He treated me very well to his credit. We just dialogued a lot. He was smoking pot the whole time, which may or may not have impacted me. Don't do pot. By the way, I've never done marijuana in my life. I encourage you not to do it. Every—like I've my whole life I've talked against marijuana about how it makes you not as sharp as you could be. Totally true. By the way, like 100% right. Be very careful if you use pot if you go on a podcast with Bill Maher. I actually didn't do it, but the secondhand—that secondhand high might be a real thing.
Anyway, we talked a lot about not just Christianity, which again, this is coming after Easter, but what I wish we would have spent more time on is the importance for a society to have an agreed upon moral structure. That if you do not have a religious basis, specifically a Christian one, for your society, something else is going to replace it.
And this is where the political meets the spiritual and the political meets the religious. When you become less religious, which this generation is—Gen Z is becoming less and less religious than their parents' generation—then you have a gaping sized hole in your heart and something must fill it. And out of the lack of Christianity is where we get wokeism.
The Consequences of Moral Confusion
Understand that it's easy to attack wokeism. This idea that men can give birth and all this nonsense that I'm sure we'll have some wonderful people talk about tonight. Maybe not. It's easy to say, "Well, Charlie, you know, separation church and state." We could talk about that tonight. Of course, there should be some separation, some distinction. But do we have separation of morality and state?
And when you no longer have a bedrock upon agreed moral structure for your society, then people are going to be in moral confusion. And that is when you start to see widespread transgenderism for our youth or men in female sports. Because if you do not have an agreed upon thing of what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, what is just, what is unjust, what is holy, what is profane.
And so when you see something as asinine as this idea that biological men should be able to compete in female sports—890 medals by the way have been stolen from women because biological men decided to play in that sport and we have to accommodate that. And this is a massive problem that is an outgrowth of the death of Christianity.
What Happens When Society Gets Too Secular
What happens when a society gets too secular? Now why does that matter to everyone in this room? It should break you out of your comfort zone to know that it actually does impact you and your children and your grandchildren. If a society becomes less religious, if a society becomes less Christian, if a society becomes less grounded to our foundational roots, be very careful what will actually replace it.
And so, as we start to see many in the younger generation say, "I have no religious affiliation," they're actually lying to you. They're saying that they have no traditional religious affiliation. Something is their god. They are worshiping something and to worship is what you are aiming at.
But if you say, "Well, I'm not religious. I just want to aim at whatever I want to aim at." Oh, be very careful. What does that mean? Does that mean you're going to be the god of the flesh? The god of trying to get as drunk as I possibly can? And just a little bit of a warning, that is a miserable way to live. You know plenty of people probably that are in that cycle, that endless downturn, that downward spiral of "I'm just going to do whatever the flesh tells me to do whenever I want to do it." Be very cautious with that.
Instead, we believe a better way to live as conservatives and Christians is one that we want to glorify God in everything that we do in all that we do. And that includes, by the way, political matters.
The Western Tradition and Universal Human Equality
You might say, "Charlie, how does this inform your politics?" Well, the Western tradition is what we are trying to fight for. The Western tradition is one that recognizes universal human equality. So, think about how fundamental this is. You cannot get to this idea that all humans are created equal without a belief in a divine.
If you just have reason and you believe in atheism, you cannot resolutely and objectively say that murder is wrong. You could say murder might hurt people. You could say murder might not feel good, but you can't say murder is wrong because you have to eventually appeal to a moral standard above you.
And so we see this playing out in so many different dimensions of the West. And my call to all of you that are Christians or center-right or conservatives: understand the consequence of where this leads. At first it will just be wokeism and secularism. It will be the craziest ideas imaginable because the woke movement, whatever it ends up calling itself in the future, mimics religious maxims.
It will have whether it be the worship of nature or earth worshiping or the cult of anti-racism or this idea that the religion of scientism. Remember we went to that entire thing that you must trust the experts and trust the scientists at all points. At some level, we as human beings desire to be connected to something greater.
My contention is there's nothing greater than actually being connected to what built this place in the first place. And we open it up for liberals or leftists or atheists: You tell us what ultimate authority should be. Now, politically, we believe the Constitution should be ultimate authority. But out of the Constitution are all biblical truths. These are things that we find in the Bible. All men being created equal, that you have a right to free expression, that you have a right to be able to worship your creator, that we're not going to do it by force, but you have to do it with your own agency. These ideas were grown out of the biblical worldview that many, many people take for granted.
No More Spectator Conservatism
Every major institution you have trusted to self-correct the trajectory of America has largely failed us. The media, academia, corporations. So now it's like, all right, every organization that was supposed to be doing what they were supposed to be doing while I was building my business and while I was building my family has basically betrayed us. It's now on us. I'm going to show up to the school board meeting.
And this is the sort of mindset that needs to start to set in, which is no more spectator conservatism. No more watching from afar and just hoping it gets better.
End Cancel Culture by Refusing to Participate
And I'll give you a great example of this. People say, "Well, Charlie, what's one way that I—that one thing that we can improve upon?" I can't stand the term cancel culture. I don't know about you. It drives me nuts. I can't stand it. But it's true. It's a real thing. But all of us participate in cancel culture, whether we know it or not, in two ways. We shut ourselves up or we're okay when all of a sudden someone we know or someone in our circle gets canceled because of a racist text message that gets resurrected and we all sit idly by because we don't want the sword of Damocles to be dropped on us.
Let's start with the first thing. Every single person needs to be the same person in public that they are in private starting tonight. Every single person here tonight can no longer shut themselves up because of the tyranny, the mockery, the threats, or the ridicule that might come your way because you might get discovered to be a conservative.
We need to say, you know what, you might fire me. You might no longer be my friend. I don't care. This is what I believe. It's that simple. I don't care.
And we allow our decency to turn into apathy and silence. We don't want to be, you know, disorderly. We don't want to offend people. Well, I can tell you right now that the tyranny of self-censorship is a much bigger threat than even the censorship of tech companies and other people shutting us up. The threat of people shutting themselves up—I'm going to shut up me. Big problem and it's happening a lot.
Video Transcript
0:00
There is a crisis of courage in our
0:01
country. The number one form of
0:04
censorship in America is not big tech
0:07
censorship. It's self censorship.
0:11
[applause]
0:13
It's shutting yourself up.
0:17
I'm not going to talk about politics at
0:18
the meal. I don't want to lose these
0:21
friends. I'm not going to tell my
0:23
neighbors what I think. I get it. You
0:26
live good lives. I get it. I understand
0:31
what people say about you matters.
0:34
Should it?
0:37
I understand
0:39
that
0:40
how many Instagram likes you get is
0:43
incredibly important.
0:46
No, I do. I get it. You can be a lot of
0:49
things, but if you are not courageous,
0:52
they're all very brittle.
0:54
You could be smart.
0:56
You can be creative. You can be funny.
0:59
You can be successful. You can be
1:01
charming.
1:03
George S. Patton, one of the greatest
1:04
men ever to live, famously said that
1:06
moral courage is the most necessary yet
1:09
absent characteristic in men.
1:12
Aristotle famously said, "Without
1:14
courage, there is no other virtue." That
1:15
it is the virtue that holds all the
1:17
other ones in place.
1:20
And so, what is courage? I ask this to
1:22
younger audiences a lot and they kind of
1:24
stumble around by using the word in the
1:26
definition. That's okay. It's not their
1:27
faults. We don't teach children what
1:28
courage is. Courage, simply defined, is
1:31
doing the right thing or the good thing
1:34
when the outcome is uncertain.
1:36
It's that simple. When there's an
1:38
unknown after the action.
1:40
You think about it. If you know how
1:41
things are going to work out, that's not
1:42
very courageous, right? Like buying a
1:44
cheeseburger at McDonald's is not
1:46
exactly, you know, how it's going to
1:46
work. You're going to get it and you're
1:47
going to gain weight. Like it's not that
1:48
big of a deal, right?
1:50
We are living on the coattails
1:54
of the greatest generation's courage.
1:57
Let me say that again.
2:00
We are living on the coattails of the
2:03
greatest generation's courage.
2:06
And that gift that the greatest
2:09
generation gave us, my grandfather who
2:11
served in World War II, Erica's
2:13
grandfather who served in World War II,
2:15
who stepped up and gave everything for a
2:17
good beyond anything imaginable to save
2:19
the planet from unspeakable evil and
2:21
tyranny on two fronts, sacrificing our
2:24
own manufacturing base, metal, might all
2:27
of it. Sending our own sons h all across
2:30
the world, many of whom never to return
2:31
again.
2:33
We are living on their coattails. and
2:35
that time is running out. And it wasn't
2:37
just I want to be very clear. It wasn't
2:39
just the war effort. It's what they did
2:41
after. What did they do after? They made
2:43
a decision that they're going to commit
2:46
to getting married and having children.
2:47
They made a decision that they were
2:49
going to build strong communities and
2:51
reinvest in America. How how how does
2:53
one become courageous? It's a really
2:56
interesting question, right? It's one
2:57
I've actually wrestled with a lot. And
3:00
so I've realized that there is a courage
3:02
crisis in our country largely because we
3:05
have a lot to lose. You see, revolutions
3:08
tend to work with people that don't have
3:09
a lot. You think about it, right?
3:12
Material stuff. I'm talking about
3:14
friends, relationships, connections.
3:16
So you just have to ask yourself, does
3:19
that matter more than pursuing the truth
3:21
with courage? And if so, so be it. Now,
3:24
some people say, "Charlie, I'm going to
3:25
lose my job." You might. You're right.
3:29
You might lose your job.
3:32
Make a decision. That's it. Maybe it's
3:34
the right decision. Maybe it's the wrong
3:35
decision. I'm going to lose my friends.
3:37
Yes, you will. But you'll make new ones.
3:40
A lot of them. If you're really
3:41
wrestling with this and this is speaking
3:43
to you, just list the courageous people
3:45
that you've seen in your life that you
3:47
see in history and you write them down
3:50
and you ask yourself the question,
3:53
do I want to be more like them? If a
3:55
country does not have a shared language,
3:57
culture, or history, it's going to stop
3:59
being a country and it will just be a
4:01
temporary colony where you make a bunch
4:02
of money and you lose any sense of
4:06
congruency and any sense of familiarity
4:08
with your fellow countrymen. So, we love
4:11
free speech in the conservative
4:12
movement, right? But if you don't share
4:15
a language with your fellow countrymen,
4:16
how can you express and share ideas? So,
4:20
we talk about speech, but let's talk
4:21
about the moral imperative of speech.
4:23
Why do we like freedom of speech? We
4:25
like freedom of speech because it's the
4:27
best way that we can govern ourselves
4:30
without actually having to get to
4:32
physical conflict. Dialogue, which comes
4:34
from the Greek word through reason,
4:37
through thinking
4:38
is what makes us different in the west
4:42
than almost any other country around the
4:44
world. Our capacity to say, you know
4:45
what, debate me. Come up and tell me why
4:48
your ideas are better. But all of a
4:50
sudden, if speech is disappearing, which
4:53
it is in our country, then all of a
4:54
sudden you're more likely to
4:57
self-segregate from a certain
4:58
conversation or shut yourself up. So, we
5:01
talk about censorship a lot in the
5:03
conservative movement. Do you know what
5:04
the number one form of censorship is in
5:06
the country? It's not from Google. It's
5:08
not from social media. And I'm going to
5:10
get to that. It's self censorship.
5:12
The point is, how many people, and you
5:14
don't have to raise your hands, how many
5:16
people here self censor your views
5:18
because you're afraid of losing a job,
5:20
getting kicked out of fraternity,
5:21
getting kicked out of a sorority, or
5:23
having your friends call you the rword.
5:25
The answer is almost every single person
5:27
in this room, whether your hands go up
5:28
or not. That form of selfcensorship
5:31
is a such an unbelievably dangerous
5:33
trend that's happening in our country.
5:35
And what does that result in? That
5:36
results in half the country voluntarily
5:39
saying that they don't even want to care
5:41
about what we think that they care
5:43
nothing more than a power struggle of
5:46
controlling our entire country. You
5:48
know, somebody said, you know, different
5:49
cultures have different truths. Are
5:51
there different customs? Of course, be
5:52
respectful of them and all things, but
5:54
you do look at that question. There's an
5:56
unlimited amount of truths. Now, there
5:57
could be there could be lots of
5:58
different shared experiences, but for
6:00
example, if you have a car crash and you
6:02
know there's five witnesses, everyone
6:03
said, "Well, this happened and this
6:03
happened." Eventually, you want to get
6:05
to the truth of what ended up happening.
6:07
You want to be able to get to the
6:08
consensus of the matter. And when you
6:09
design a government or you have a
6:11
society and you raise a generation that
6:13
says, you know what, anyone can believe
6:15
whatever they want to believe about
6:16
anything at any time, how on earth are
6:19
you going to have a stable and civil
6:20
society from that point? If everybody
6:22
had a definition of what north is, good
6:24
luck trying to orient everybody.
6:26
So, no, there's not unlimited amount of
6:28
truths. I believe there's one truth, but
6:30
I think that truth that we could agree
6:32
tonight is rather broad. I think that
6:33
it's a road that is not too narrow and
6:35
not too not too wide as CS Lewis would
6:38
say in the abolition of man. It's the
6:40
Dao. It's something that says okay
6:42
within the maxims of liberty we can
6:44
agree that separation of powers, consent
6:46
to the governed, independent judiciary,
6:47
private property rights, these things
6:49
are important to protect. And whenever
6:51
there is a threat against those things,
6:53
we're not going to put up with them.
6:55
like we're not going to all we're not
6:56
going to say, you know what, yeah, maybe
6:57
you could believe that you're a platypus
6:59
or that you could believe that you're
7:01
actually 6'8" when in reality you're
7:03
not. That your your feeling is not as
7:06
important as to what actual reality is
7:09
happening in that exact moment. And the
7:11
consequence of this, I could tell you,
7:13
will end up being two things. First, you
7:14
get chaos, and that's bad. And that's
7:16
kind of the talking point. If you don't
7:17
have all these things, you have societal
7:19
chaos. But we never talk about what
7:20
happens after that, which is then you
7:22
get totalitarianism.
7:24
You see, as soon as you confuse
7:27
everybody, there is no truth. You have
7:28
your own truth, and you have all these
7:29
different kind of bickering tribes,
7:31
eventually people are going to want
7:32
order. And that's when you get someone
7:34
like Joseph Stalin that comes along. And
7:36
all they care about is power, and
7:37
they're good at it. And then all of a
7:39
sudden, you could throw out all the
7:40
stuff I've talked about, consent to the
7:41
govern, separation of powers, chaos is a
7:44
strategy towards totalitarianism.
7:47
And not everyone who's participating it
7:48
even recognizes or realizing it. They
7:50
say, "Oh, we're we're liberating groups
7:51
to be able to have whatever truth they
7:53
want to have under any circumstance."
7:54
Now, you can have your own opinions.
7:55
But, you know, do you notice how quickly
7:57
it goes from this is my truth to all of
7:59
a sudden if you don't accept your truth,
8:00
you're going to be penalized. Happens
8:03
very quickly. So, it's not just your
8:05
truth. It's that I must now adopt that.
8:07
And whatever that kind of fiction or
8:09
whatever that might be, the fascination
8:11
with loving yourself is is gnostic
8:14
narcissism. You should have respect for
8:16
yourself, not love for yourself. I read
8:18
these I read these self-help, you know,
8:21
phrases sometimes where they say um the
8:25
my imperfections make me perfect. Like
8:27
that's the silliest. I mean, if you
8:29
actually go through Pinterest and you
8:30
read some of this stuff, instead it
8:32
should be I'm not all who I could
8:33
possibly be. Maybe it should be a
8:36
challenge to oneself, not a non-stop
8:38
romantic love campaign with yourself. In
8:40
fact, I think it creates more misery and
8:43
more depression the more people think
8:45
that they're in a romantic relationship
8:47
with themselves. You should have respect
8:49
for yourself, but you should have
8:50
respect enough to say that I could be
8:53
more than I am today and I'm going to
8:55
delay my own immediate gratification.
8:57
Let me be clear. There's a lot of good
8:59
people that are into the self-help,
9:01
self-love thing. I hope it works for
9:03
you. I have seen it do great damage to a
9:06
lot of young people. I'm going to tell
9:07
you why. When I was in seventh grade, I
9:10
saw a sign that was posted all
9:12
throughout our school and it said, "You
9:14
are perfect the way you are." And I
9:17
asked my teacher then I said, 'Then why
9:18
am I in school?
9:22
Why would you go to school if you are
9:23
the perfect perfect the way you are?
9:25
Instead, it should be you have great
9:26
potential.
9:28
It's a much much better message to tell
9:30
a young person because as soon as you
9:33
say you're perfect the way they are,
9:34
they know they're not. They put more
9:36
pressure on themselves. they're harder
9:38
on themselves. Instead, it should be a
9:40
pursuit and a journey towards
9:42
development that I am not there, but I'm
9:44
going to keep on trying to either lose
9:46
weight or improve my diet, stop lying,
9:48
get better friends, and then maybe I can
9:50
be a better version of myself. The West
9:52
was built on that. The West was not
9:54
built by a bunch of people on the
9:56
Mayflower Compact saying, "I'm in deep
9:58
love with myself."
10:00
The Declaration of Independence was not
10:02
signed by 56 people that were into
10:04
self-love.
10:06
It was signed by people who love their
10:08
family and love their country. I
10:10
encourage you to do the same. I just
10:11
recently sat down with Bill Maher. I
10:13
don't know if you guys saw it or not. If
10:14
not, I encourage you to look at it. It's
10:15
a good conversation. Bill Maher is not a
10:17
Christian. If you don't know that, um,
10:18
he's very much not a Christian. He is an
10:20
atheist. And maybe we'll have some
10:21
atheists here tonight. And remember,
10:23
without God, there would be no atheist.
10:24
Remember that. So,
10:27
and I sat down with it was kind of
10:28
interesting. And he treated me very well
10:30
to his credit. Um, he we just dialogued
10:33
a lot. He was smoking pot the whole
10:35
time, which may or may not have impacted
10:36
me. Um, don't poop. By the way, I've
10:39
never done marijuana in my life. I
10:41
encourage you not to do it. Every t like
10:42
I've my whole life I've talked against
10:44
marijuana about how it like makes you
10:46
not as sharp as you could be. Totally
10:48
true. By the way, like 100% right. Be
10:49
very careful if you use pod if you go on
10:51
a podcast with Bill Maher. Um, I
10:53
actually didn't do it, but the second
10:54
hand that secondhand high might be a
10:56
real thing. Anyway, we talked a lot
10:58
about not just Christianity, which
11:00
again, this is coming after Easter, but
11:02
what I wish we would have spent more
11:03
time on is the importance for a society
11:05
to have an agreed upon moral structure.
11:08
That if you do not have a religious
11:10
basis, specifically a Christian one, for
11:12
your society, something else is going to
11:13
replace it. And this is where the
11:16
political meets the spiritual and the
11:17
political meets the religious. When you
11:19
become less religious, which this
11:21
generation is, Gen Z is becoming less
11:23
and less religious than their parents'
11:25
generation, then you have a gaping sized
11:28
hole in your heart and something must
11:29
fill it. And out of the lack of
11:31
Christianity is where we get wokeism.
11:33
Understand that it's easy to attack
11:35
wokeism. This idea that men can give
11:37
birth and you all this nonsense that I'm
11:38
sure we'll have some wonderful people
11:40
talk about tonight. Maybe not. It's easy
11:42
to say, "Well, Charlie, you know,
11:43
separation church and state, we could
11:44
talk about tonight. Of course, there
11:45
should be some separation, some
11:46
distinction. But do we have separation?
11:48
a morality in state. And when you no
11:49
longer have a bedrock upon agreed moral
11:52
structure for your society, then people
11:54
are going to be in moral confusion. And
11:56
that is when you start to see widespread
11:57
transgenderism for our youth or men and
11:59
female sports. Because if you do not
12:01
have an agreed upon thing of what is
12:03
right, what is wrong, what is good, what
12:04
is evil, what is just, what is unjust,
12:06
what is holy, what is profane. And so
12:07
when you see something as asinine as
12:10
this idea that biological men should be
12:12
able to compete in female sports, 890
12:15
medals by the way have been stolen from
12:17
women because biological men decided to
12:20
play in that sport and we have to
12:21
accommodate that. And this this is a
12:23
this is a massive problem that is an
12:25
outgrowth of the death of Christianity.
12:27
What happens when a society gets too
12:29
secular? Now why does that matter to
12:31
everyone in this room? It should break
12:32
you out of your comfort zone to know
12:35
that it actually does impact you and
12:37
your children and your grandchildren. If
12:38
a society becomes less religious, if a
12:41
society becomes less Christian, if a
12:43
society becomes less grounded to our
12:46
foundational roots, be very careful what
12:48
will actually replace it. And so, as we
12:50
start to see many in the younger
12:52
generation say, "I have no religious
12:54
affiliation." They're actually lying to
12:56
you. They're saying that they have no
12:58
traditional religious affiliation.
13:00
something is their god. They are
13:02
worshiping something and to worship is
13:05
what you are aiming at. But if you say,
13:06
"Well, I'm not religious. I just want to
13:08
aim at whatever I want to aim at." Oh,
13:10
be very careful. What does that mean? Is
13:11
that mean you're going to be the god of
13:13
the flesh? The god of trying to get as
13:15
drunk as I possibly can. And just a
13:16
little bit of a warning, that is a
13:18
miserable way to live. You know, plenty
13:20
of people probably that are in that
13:21
cycle, that endless downturn, that down
13:25
spiral of I'm just going to do whatever
13:27
the flesh tells me to do whenever I want
13:28
to do it. be very cautious with that.
13:31
Instead, we believe a better way to live
13:33
as conservatives and of Christians is
13:35
one that we want to glorify God in
13:37
everything that we do in all that we do.
13:39
And that includes, by the way, political
13:41
matters. You might be say, Charlie, how
13:42
does this inform your politics? Well,
13:44
the Western tradition is what we are
13:45
trying to fight for. The Western
13:46
tradition is one that recognizes
13:48
universal human equality. So, think
13:50
about how fundamental this is. You
13:52
cannot get to this idea that all humans
13:54
are created equal without a belief in a
13:57
divine. If you just have reason and you
13:59
believe in atheism, you cannot
14:01
resolutely and objectively say that
14:03
murder is wrong. You could say murder
14:05
might hurt people. You could say murder
14:07
might not feel good, but you can't say
14:09
murder is wrong because you're you have
14:10
to eventually appeal to a moral standard
14:13
above you. And so we see this playing
14:16
out in so many different dimensions of
14:18
the West. And my call to all of you that
14:20
are Christians or center right or
14:22
conservatives, understand the
14:24
consequence of where this leads. it at
14:26
first it will just be wokeism and
14:28
secularism. It will be the craziest
14:29
ideas imaginable because the woke
14:31
movement whatever it ends up calling
14:33
itself in the future it mimics religious
14:36
maxims. It will have whether it be the
14:39
worship of nature or earth worshiping or
14:41
the cult of anti-racism or this idea
14:45
that the religion of scientism. Remember
14:47
we went to that entire thing that you
14:48
must trust the experts and trust the
14:50
scientists at all point. At some at some
14:53
level, we as human beings desire to be
14:56
connected to something greater. My
14:58
contention is there's nothing greater
15:00
than actually being connected to what
15:02
built this place in the first place. And
15:04
we open it up for liberals or leftists
15:07
or atheists. You tell us what ultimate
15:10
authority should be. Now, politically,
15:11
we believe the constitution should be
15:13
ultimate authority. But out of the
15:15
constitution are all biblical truths.
15:17
These are things that we find in the
15:18
Bible. All men being created equal. that
15:20
you have a right to free expression,
15:22
that you have a right to be able to
15:23
worship your creator, that we're not
15:25
going to do it by force, but you have to
15:26
do it with your own agency. These ideas
15:28
were grown out of the biblical worldview
15:32
that many, many people take for granted.
15:34
Every major institution you have trusted
15:35
to self-correct the trajectory of
15:38
America has largely failed us. The
15:40
media, academia, corporations. So now
15:44
it's like, all right, every organization
15:45
that was supposed to be doing what they
15:47
were supposed to be doing while I was
15:48
building my business and while I was
15:50
building my family has basically
15:51
betrayed us. It's now on us. I'm going
15:53
to show up to the schoolboard meeting.
15:55
And this is the sort of mindset that
15:56
needs to start to set in, which is no
15:59
more spectator conservatism. No more wa
16:01
watching from afar and just hoping it
16:04
gets better. And
16:10
and I'll give you a great example of
16:11
this. People say, "Well, Charlie, what's
16:13
one way that I that one thing that we
16:15
can improve upon?" I can't stand the
16:16
term cancel culture. I don't know about
16:17
you. It drives me nuts. I can't stand.
16:19
But it's true. It's a real thing. But
16:20
all of us participate in cancel culture,
16:22
whether we know it or not, in two ways.
16:24
We shut ourselves up or we're okay when
16:26
all of a sudden someone we know or
16:27
someone in our circle gets canceled
16:29
because of racist text message that gets
16:30
resurrected and we all sit idly by
16:32
because we don't want the sword of
16:33
damicles to be dropped on us. Let's
16:35
start with the first thing. Every single
16:37
person needs needs to be the same person
16:39
in public that they are in private
16:40
starting tonight. Every single person
16:42
here tonight can no longer shut
16:44
themselves up because of the tyranny,
16:46
the mockery, the threats, or the
16:47
ridicule that might come your way
16:49
because you might get discovered to be a
16:51
conservative. We need to say, you know
16:52
what, you might fire me. You might no
16:54
longer be my friend. I don't care. This
16:55
is what I believe. It's that simple. I
16:57
don't care.
16:59
And
17:01
we allow
17:03
our decency to turn into apathy and
17:06
silence. We don't want to be, you know,
17:08
disorderly. We don't want to offend
17:11
people. Well, I can tell you right now
17:14
that the tyranny of selfcensorship is a
17:17
much bigger threat than even the
17:18
censorship of tech companies and other
17:20
people shutting us up. The threat of
17:22
people shutting themsel like I'm going
17:23
to shut up me. Big problem and it's
17:26
happening a lot. the
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