The True Meaning of Freedom in Society

In this episode, we delve into the true meaning of freedom, its biblical and American foundations, and how misunderstandings are fueling societal issues like violence, political unrest, and cultural conflicts. Join us for a thoughtful conversation on how virtue, self-control, and family are essential to preserving freedom.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Politics for Happy People. So glad that you have decided to join us once again. We are going to discuss the Tyler Robinson trial and the preliminary hearings around that and eventually have a conversation about freedom because we're still kind of wallowing, or wallowing is the wrong word. We're still basking. Basking. Thank you, Ashley, for fixing that for me. In the celebration of 250 years of America, and and we continue to reflect on all that that means. Are you? Well I am.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

It's totally different screen versus real life, Joseph.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

It is the 21st century, right? So and for those of you who are watching, you will see that I am uh not in Raleigh today. I'm in fact on the other coast, in the desert on the other coast in Las Vegas, uh where we are recording from today. Um because I'm about to do some fun personal stuff. And so I am excited about that. But yeah, there's a there's a lot to discuss in the world, and and one of the things that uh kind of has people's attention is this uh is the Tyler Robinson um trial, and people probably know that Tyler Robinson is the man who has been accused, he is still just accused, and so I guess we can continue to refer to him that way, as uh as Charlie Kirk's uh a murderer. That's what he's being accused of. The prosecutor in Utah has said he will seek the death penalty. Um and the preliminary hearings that are happening, and for those who aren't that familiar with criminal trials, and hopefully that's all of you, um, because being being part of a criminal trial at any end was not a good experience for you. But what happens is he he's going to stand trial, but before that there's a uh a series of motions that will take place about what evidence is admissible, what evidence is not admissible, things like that. And that and that's kind of where this the status of this is. So they are in court, but this is not in fact a trial, but it is the first opportunity for Tyler Robinson uh to be in court with the family of Charlie Kirk, and that includes his parents, that includes Erica. Um and Ashley, is it awful of me that now every time I think about Erica, I also think about Candace Owens?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Oh gosh. Well, I don't think it's awful. I think it it makes sense given, I mean, I was thinking about this the other day, all that's happened since Charlie Kirk was killed, and all of the fights and conspiracies over, you know, why he was killed and who was involved. I mean, it has been wild. Um but I do, I will say, I've I have I need to do more of this, but I've been praying for Erica in the family this week because it must be such a terrible time. I mean, and yeah, not only did she lose her husband, but I I mean it seems like it's just been terrible since then with all of the drama that's been surrounding this.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

And that that is kind of what I'm thinking about because the the internet has legitimately gone looney tunes over this and all of the attempts to explain that, oh, this is really some conspiracy, and of course it now has to be a Jewish conspiracy because all Jews, all conspiracies are Jewish, it seems, these days. And and the the creative theories that people are coming up with to try to explain why it is not what it seems to be. Truly bizarre. Like, truly bizarre. Truly bizarre. And and and, you know, there's a lot about this that I don't know, and there's been all this kind of like JFK style ballistics, you know, angles of shooters, and bullets don't do that, and where's the casing, and and I I've heard some of this stuff. The idea that this is a conspiracy, you want to know how I know for sure it is not, and and I won't even entertain somebody who wants to bring that silliness to me, is that Tyler Robinson was turned in by his parents. No parent turns their kid in as a way of like covering for somebody else, some Jewish conspiracy. Just like leave me with that nonsense. And and and truly it is tragic for Tyler Robinson's family. But the the internet's attempt to make this more than than what it very clearly is, and we'll talk about what it very clearly is in a moment and in all of the evidence for that. But um I just hope those who are maybe you know cynical about what the mainstream narrative is, so they're always looking for an alternative explanation, you know, sometimes things are as they appear to be, and this is one of those cases.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, this is this is the inheritance that we have gotten from years of people feeling lied to by the mainstream media and not knowing who to trust. It's created this uh chaotic environment where uh people are are making wild claims and uh people are following them and and believing them because they don't know where to look or or who to trust.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

Yeah, but it's a thing to talk about, and people are of course talking about it, and one of those is Megan Kelly. And and we have a clip here, and there's a couple things that she said here that I want to comment. So, Eli, I think you have this for us. Um, if you could throw that up, let's let's listen to Megan Kelly on her show talk about this.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Robinson, why did I do it? Roommate, yeah. Robinson, I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. I just had like this is the piece of this that always gets me. Because if the if Tyler Robinson shot Charlie because of the trans thing, and Tyler was having an affair with a trans furry person, I I can't help but feel I don't know if the word is responsible, but I got a lot of emotions around it.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

Because let's pause it right there because actually I want I want to deal with the first part there, and it got cut off a little bit, but I think we understand what it was. She was reading a quote um from an interview of Tyler Robinson where he talked about the fact that about why he did this. And and and the statement there was, I just got tired of his hate. How do you react to that when when you basically see him saying Tyler Robinson saying that Charlie Kirk was so hateful that this is what I felt like needed to be done?

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Well, what he means by hate is that Charlie disagreed. That is what he's interpreting as hate, that he did not agree that a man can become a woman. Or a woman become can become a man, and spoke out against the harms of that, especially for children. Um and by that I mean attempting to change your body to the opposite gender, be it through medication or surgery or even minor things like social attempts to transition. Um that these things are not good for people, that you can never change your gender. Saying things like that is what he is calling hate.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

And he's not the only one, and I think that's that that's an important point to understand here. In in his own words, he's basically saying, I had to stop the hate. Well, what is the hate? And as you just pointed out, the hate is the fact that he had a difference of opinion. And the I hate has been treated this way so frequently where you know, if you say men are not women, that is hate. Cats are not dogs. Well, a lot of us like would think about those statements as that is a maybe we have a difference of opinion about a fact, but saying men are not women, men cannot become women, need not be hateful. But for a significant percentage of the population, there is no interpretation of that statement other than hate and malice. You clearly don't want me to be happy. Maybe you even want me dead if you deny that boys can become girls. Do you think, Ashley, anybody is going to learn from this? Because there's going to be a lot more that's going to happen. I doubt Tyler Robinson will ever stand trial. So he's not going to like give testaments and uh statements in that way, but the things that he said in interviews will ultimately come out. Um do you think this outcome moves the needle for anybody to reevaluate what we think hate is and how we talk about it?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

When you say this outcome, do you mean Charlie's murder?

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Yes. Yes. When when you hear Charlie Shooter say, I shot him because he had so much hate, i.e., he said things that I didn't like, does that incentivize anybody to say, hey, maybe we should think and speak differently about what hate is so we stop shooting people over differences of opinion that we consider to be necessarily hateful?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

So this is what I think it is. You've got people on the left and you've got people on the right that disagree about some very fundamental things, definitional things, like what is marriage, what is a man, what is a woman. And you have a very small number of people, and they could be on the left or the right, that are unstable, and take these disagreements and use them as an excuse to do something completely unhinged and violent. The problem is on the left, they have made it the narrative that if you don't agree, you are hateful. And so that has created this environment where these people who are unhinged genuinely have taken in this argument that anyone who doesn't agree with us is hateful, and they it has become their rationale to do something violent and unhinged. And so I do think that that narrative that has been shaped by the left, that the right is bigot, they are they are bigots, they are hateful, they are intolerant. I do think the environment that they've they have created has caused this problem. And if the right was doing that, that would be the case as well. And and that is very problematic and results in cases like this, albeit not super common. I don't think there are a ton of leftists out there shooting people, but it does happen. I mean, we have school shootings that are correct. We have we have multiple school shootings now that have been perpetrated by someone who identifies as transgender and even said, I'm doing this because you know, this religious school didn't accept me.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Yeah. The the trans shooter phenomenon is a real one that did not exist ten years ago because the whole, you know, 10 years ago, the whole trans movement thing wasn't an idea at all. But you talk about the people who are unhinged, and yes, thankfully, mercifully, it is a relatively small number of the population. But I do think that there's a lot of people who are not unhinged, who use the language that end up motivating the people who are unhinged. Because all of the left, the the number the number of leftists who refer to things that you and I say and believe as hateful is much, much larger than the number of people who go shoot somebody over it, thankfully.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

But that's what I mean when I say this is the narrative that they've created and it's fueling violence.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Agreed. Agreed. And so do you think seeing that connection made by the person who actually pulled the trigger changes anybody's behavior?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

No.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

I don't. But what does, if anything? I mean, uh does this in vi what is it that brings, you know, looking into the future, what makes this environment different? Because, you know, I mean, you know, there were canings of members of Congress over slavery, right? It's not like political violence is a brand new thing. It's actually a pretty old thing. Um, and and and I think the thing that makes it remarkable for us is because we went through a a period of time where that generally was not where we resorted to when we were frustrated over political differences. So maybe we're just like returning to the mean as a civilization, um, where it just becomes more normal.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

I actually think this is a good time, Joseph, to watch the second half of that clip because I think it contains the answer to the question that you're asking.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Okay, let's do that. I went and I saw this is like a year prior to, if not more, the one I mentioned, where Charlie wanted me to talk about, and once again, similar to with the Epstein thing in Pam Bondi, he wanted me to talk about the trans thing on his show. And he said, Can you can you please I'm gonna ask you questions about it, can you please explain to our audience why it's a thing and what why it's a big deal? And he wasn't yet at the point where he felt comfortable talking about it himself. And he told me that his sister, um, who didn't share exactly the same politics as Charlie, had been listening to our show on that issue, and that we were starting to persuade her on this, you know, that it was wrong what was happening in girls' sports, and that was wrong what was happening in women's spaces and so on. And Charlie wasn't yet out there on this issue, and I I can't help but feel some sort of like responsibility in getting Charlie talking about it more. And this is my own private stuff to work out, but I'm just sharing it with you because he did start talking about it more. He started talking about it a lot more, and Charlie appears to have made the fatal mistake of talking about it to young people on college campuses where it would get into the ear of someone like Tyler Robinson.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Ashley, what's the solution there?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I think we need to talk about it. I think a whole lot of people need to talk about what is happening in our culture and to not be afraid to say, yeah, I don't believe a man can become a woman. Yes, I don't believe that a woman can become a man. I don't believe there was any mistake when God made you. And let's talk about the data of the complications that occur when you try to medically or surgically transition, the long-term permanent complications that happen to your body, you know, the urinary incontinence, uh, potential higher risk for cancer, the infertility, all of these problems that happen when you attempt to do this. Sustained, respectful, calm conversation. We've got to go forward with that. And I completely understand, I mean, this clip got me when I saw it. I completely understand that feeling of, oh, I'm not gonna talk about that, you know, because it's such a sensitive cultural topic that it's just, you know, it's just easier. It's just easier to keep conversation to polite, uncontroversial things. But the problem it with that is that then we are in a situation where lunacy takes over. And so we need a whole lot more people willing to have these conversations in a respectful and calm uh way with the people in their lives.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Ashley, it's interesting as you say that, and I because from my kind of activist perch corner of the world, and I've been in this space for a very long time, I can get the sense that it's all anybody ever talks about. And so for you to kind of say, well, the the way we solve this problem is for more people to talk about it, I mean, maybe that is my algorithm and it is my, you know, just kind of the world that I that I live in. And admittedly, my world is not normal relative to other people's, and I and I understand that. But do you really think there is still significant hesitation in the general public for people who would share our position on the merits, boys can't become girls, who are afraid to actually say that? Is that still a real thing?

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah, I I absolutely think so. It I just I think that there's this feeling that it's just sort of not polite conversation. Like if you're at a you know, a dinner party or you know, you're hanging out with friends, most of my friends would avoid this, I think. And of course, that's only I mean, that's gonna be a skewed perspective because I, you know, only travel in certain circles and don't we all have friends. Well, I don't have you know hundreds of thousands of friends, but I yeah, I do. I do think that it's easier for the media to shape the narrative. And frankly, yeah, Joseph, you are kind of in that media world. You're consuming it, you're producing it, you know, we have this podcast, all this. Um, I think they're shaping the narrative, be it left or right. And but but people like normal, your average person um is not talking about it or maybe even thinking about it as much as they should be. And I do think that's the solution. And I think um we need to learn how to have those discussions within society in a healthy way, because frankly, a lot of times the way it plays out on the media, it's just not helpful.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Yeah. Of course, I'm a fan of people saying true things and have the having the courage not to self-censor. I think that's a really important survival skill for us as individuals, so that we're not just, you know, held hostage to the perceived reaction of the people around us, so we need to just never say what we actually think. That being said, even if we all develop that skill, I'm not at all confident that the attitude on the left, because you know, we talk about the silos that we have, they have their own silos. And I think they only affirm each other in this idea that everybody who disagrees with us is a terrible person and must be defeated by any means necessary. I don't know that even, you know, a greater drumbeat of truth from gracious, kind, smart, intelligent people changes that at all. I just don't, I don't know what it is yet, because it just seems like it's it's being fertilized with such intensity within that kind of left-wing activist ecosystem. And we've seen recently that it's not moderating, right? Everything that's happening in in the in the democratic political space is the communists are now defeating the progressives, like the out and out like communists. They're not even hiding it anymore. And people like Chuck Schumer are very concerned because he's like a radical right-winger in the new Democrat Party, right? That's just so I don't know. I mean, I I want to think that this is gonna go better, and I want to think that being kind to your neighbor and being courageous and and creating these plausibility structures where leftists are just like surrounded by people who all deny that boys can become girls, so they're just forced to admit that, yeah, I guess you can't be you don't have to be crazy and maniacal to believe that. I'd like to think that that was possible. I just I don't know. I've absent a like move of the Holy Spirit in people's hearts, I don't know what changes that.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

I think the story that if you don't go along with every part of the LGBTQ plus revolution, if you don't go along with that, you're hateful. I think that has kept a lot of people silenced because they they don't want the social backlash or potentially the backlash at work, the economic repercussive economic repercussions that could happen from that. I think some people are also just confused and actually do think, oh, if I don't affirm you, I'm not accepting you and I am, you know, that's wrong. Um I I I I think that's that's a thing as well. And and so, yeah, I I do stick by my hypothesis though, that I I think we just have need to have more and more conversations, calm, rational, brave conversations about this topic and win people over to our position. And I do think it's working. I mean, even when we look at the private spaces issue, women's private spaces in North Carolina, we're trying to protect the private spaces, bathrooms, locker rooms from the men coming in. The poll data says that 61% of people agree that that should be done. Okay, that was not the case a decade ago.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

True. Yeah. Yeah, you can move opinions and and and the in the middle is moving, especially on all these.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

But once the argument doesn't work anymore, Joseph, they have to abandon it. That's the point I'm making. You're asking me Well if it doesn't have cultural sway, then yeah, they do if they want to have power.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

Well the y well and and that's it's an interesting I I just I don't feel like I've seen any evidence from that on the left that even as you know have you seen there is no LGB without the T and all of this discussion over there about do we cut the T loose and all this kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

I mean I do think the left is uh scrambling a little bit and trying to figure out okay where do we go from here? Evidently they think going more radical is a good idea, uh both, you know, with the communist stuff and with the LGBT stuff. But I I don't think they're in lockstep about that. I think they're trying to figure out because they have lost a lot of cultural sway on these issues, and people are becoming more and more willing to talk about why they don't agree. And there are less, I think, social consequences for doing so. And it's amazing to me that Charlie Kirk, there was a time when Charlie Kirk didn't want to talk about this issue. And there's no judgment in that. I completely understand that. It's been hard even for me to talk about this issue, to become a person who publicly comments on these issues. It's not easy. You have to, you do have to be brave. Um, so but it's amazing to me that he he had to get over that hump at one point. Um, and it's just it's kind of encouraging because I see him as so bold. And and even he, you know, he had to to have courage. And that that's what courage is, right? You you step up and you do it, even though it's kind of scary.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Yeah. That that that's right. And and it should be comforting to people uh to know that the the people who are out there perceiving doing things that we all perceive to be very courageous and bold and risky, had to go through their own journey of um counting the cost and accepting the cost and saying, you know, I'm just I'm gonna do it despite the risks, um, because truth is that important and and needs to be communicated. You know, and and again, to to wrap up the conversation about whether we can actually r reduce I don't know that it matters if we eliminate violence in that all that way, because you know, the truth between or the conflict between truth and lies has been happening since the third chapter of Genesis. It's manifested itself in different ways. It's not going away. It does not depend on us being nice, right? You don't resolve the conflict because you're kind enough. That's not the nature of spiritual wars. And certainly Charlie experienced the consequences of that in ways that most of us will not be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

I would totally push back on that claim, though.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

What part?

SPEAKER_00 24:51

The kind that the kindness, I mean, I do think in scripture it says we do need to uh correct in gentleness. I do think it matters.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

It can moderate, it cannot eliminate. Yeah, I mean, kindness will make your life easier, it will not eliminate all your problems. So maybe that was maybe that was the the point I did not make well. I'm encouraging everybody to be kind, but do not expect that because you are kind there will no longer be any conflict.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

That that is my point there, right? It's that even if you do it well, and Jesus did it perfectly. What happened to Jesus, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Yeah, you can be the kindest, most loving person ever, and they still and they still want to kill you. Exactly. Yeah, that's true. But we are called to that. That's the standard that we're called to is kindness. I mean, it's in scriptures, God's kindness leads us to repentance, and that's what we're after, right? We don't want to destroy these people. We want them to see the truth.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Correct. Correct. Yes. But so that that's the kind of tension that we as ambassadors for Christ, as Christians, like trying to say true things in a hostile environment, is we recognize there's going to be a cost, and that c that cost, we we cannot, the risk cannot be eliminated if we're gonna be active in the in the conflict between truth and lies. We can make it harder on ourselves than it needs to be, but it cannot be uh eliminated. But Ashley, there was something else in this that I I wanna I want to talk about because kind of on the heels of the Fourth of July, this this comment that that Tyler Robinson made about, oh, I have to, you know, I have to kill Charlie Kirk because I'm tired of all the hate. And and and that represents a um a belief system, I think, on the left about what America is, what freedom is. And we hear this a lot because it's it's kind of ironic now that you have like the entire Pride Month, which leads right up to the 4th of July, right? And everything's about freedom, freedom, freedom, pride, pride, pride, you know, yay, freedom. And I think it we need to pause in this moment and have a conversation about what freedom is actually for. Um, in in an American sense, historically, in a biblical sense, what is freedom for? And and and how are we being encouraged to understand freedom? Because I think Tyler Robinson sees freedom, his version of freedom, that led him to do what he's doing, and I think that motivates a lot of the left, just in general terms today, their understanding of freedom is I can do whatever I want whenever I want to do it. That's why America is why.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

So they take from the Declaration of Independence, for example, the right to pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you know? Well, this makes me happy. So and I have freedom, so I'm gonna go do this. And you telling me that it's wrong or I can't do it, or uh trying to make it illegal, you know, for the men to play in the women's sports or go in their bathrooms, uh, that's that's hate because you're impeding my right to pursue what I perceive as the good life and what I perceive as happiness. That's the that's the mind frame that they are coming from.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

Yes, and and I think that it's a it's appealing, it is pervasive, and we need to understand the challenge in that. Not that we don't believe in personal liberties, because we do. But what is the good of freedom? And and I believe that the good of freedom in an American from the American perspective is freedom is not the goal of America. Goodness is the goal of America, human flourishing was the goal of America, and of course preserving the rights that God gave us as individuals, which will which will lead to that. Freedom, so greater civil liberties, is the way to accomplish that goal for individuals. But what we are seeing in all sorts of ways right now is that if we see freedom not as a way to live out our God-given purpose for our lives, but freedom as the means by which we have permission to do whatever we want, it becomes deeply, deeply destructive. And I think that is part of what the trans movement is is dealing with, is their understanding of freedom allows things that the founders would never imagine and are in fact deeply destructive. And if we embrace that understanding of freedom as the the ability to do whatever I want to serve myself, um, freedom can actually become suicidal.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah. I think what our founders had in mind with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights primarily was freedom from government oppression. And now it's taken as freedom to live the way that I want and never hear that you disagree or think it's wrong.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Right. And and let's put this in a in a biblical sense as well, right? Galatians 5 actually talks about this, where Paul says that we have been called to liberty, like freedom in Christ, but don't use liberty for occasion to the flesh, but to love and serve one another. And that absolutely is the biblical way to think about it. And it and because it is the biblical way, and because how much that influenced our founders, they had this same kind of ethos where the purpose of our freedom is not to serve ourselves, but is to serve our family, to serve our nations, to serve our neighbors, in living for other people without and and live for other people in accordance with our own our our own conscience, without the government interfering and micromanaging every decision that people make. And uh the challenges that we are now beginning to experience as a culture because we I think fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of freedom in our own lives personally and civilizationally is a lot of people doing destructive things and claiming they have the right to do destructive things, and that just can't go well long term.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

You just made an argument for the biblical definition of freedom, but what if we're talking to people who aren't yet convinced uh that Jesus is the Son of God who came to save them from their sins and reconcile them to God? Well I how do we how do we explain what freedom is to someone who is completely outside of that framework and the moment you quote a Bible verse to them, they're gone. You've lost them.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Our founders talked about ordered liberty is a is a term that they that they use very often. And it's liberty, but it is ordered, right? Because pure liberty, pure freedom, however you want to think about those things, basically gives you the French Revolution. And there's been a lot said about the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution, because what we were looking for is ordered liberty, where you are free, but you are controlled. And what were you controlled by? You were controlled by yourself, by your sense of virtue. And Osgennes has done a lot of writing on this idea of the golden triangle of freedom, where he says that religion, morality, and religious liberty all have to exist together. And they're the golden triangle of freedom because religious freedom produces religion, which produces virtue, and virtue produces religious freedom. So these things are all kind of symbiotically related. And we understand anybody who's been with a child understands. And I say this to my kids all the time, as parents, like I want you to be free to make your own choices, but if you make really destructive choices, you can't be free to make your own choices, right? So the way I've distilled that is you will either control yourself or someone else is going to control you. And that's true of my children as they have been growing, and it is true of a country as we grow. If we cannot control ourselves by being virtuous, by having self-control, by independently being able to know the difference between what is helpful and what is destructive, then somebody's gonna have to intervene. Because if everybody is given the opportunity to do exactly what they want, that's when they go and that's why all the razors are locked up at Walmart and the batteries are locked up at Walgreens, right? Because people cannot be trusted to make good choices anymore. Everything gets locked up. The government now has to say, hey, we're gonna restrain you, we're gonna give you curfews, right? You have no more freedom because we can't trust you with it. And so somebody has to control you because you can't control yourself. And I think that reality is intuitive, and now a lot of people are living through that. So you don't have to go to Galatians 5 and say, hey, it's for freedom. The crisis makes us free, but not to serve ourselves, to love and serve, you know, one another, right? That's the biblical explanation of this. But as with all of Scripture, the reality of it becomes self-evident in the way we live our lives. And I think it's pretty clear that unvirtuous people who have license to do anything that they want will cause great harm and that will destroy your town. And so I don't think you have to be, you know, to share our theology to believe that.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

I agree. I mean, God has created the world in such a way that we have his written word, but we see these principles play out in real life. And, you know, we're all made in his image and have intuitions and understandings about these things, right and wrong and morality, and what's good and what's not good doesn't mean that we act appropriately on that. Um, many times we don't. We also have sin, but we do have uh a reality that God has given us that very much demonstrates uh his his uh his character and his uh design for his creation. There's another thing about this uh freedom topic that I wanted to bring up, and I'm not sure if you've heard about this or or thought about this much, but I did see an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal several weeks back, and in it uh someone was making the argument that religious freedom means the freedom to not be evangelized. Like I only have religious freedom if I never have to hear your religious gobbledygoop ever, and you're violating my right to religious freedom if you come and share the gospel with me. And evidently, this argument, I was talking to someone and they told me this argument has gained very much more esteem in Europe than it here than it has here already. Uh, but that's really, I mean, that's super upsetting to me because as we know, we've been given the great commission. I mean, Jesus has commanded believers to spread the gospel, to spread the good news, not only to our neighbors, but also to the nations. And here we have some people arguing that religious freedom means I am free to never hear what you have to say. And that is something that we would have to, as Christians, we would have to, you know, if that was the interpretation of the law, that we would have to completely like, we're not following that law. Like this goes against every fiber of my being.

SPEAKER_03 36:36

This is the attitude, actually, behind safe spaces on college campuses. It's the attitude behind pronoun policies where you must use certain words to refer to somebody else. And I would venture to say the person making who wrote that editorial making this argument considers themselves to be a very tolerant person, right? They would use that word, but what they don't want to do is tolerate things they don't like. Um it is it is not reasonable, in my judgment, to believe that my freedom of religion, my freedom to exercise my religion as I wish, means I don't have to be exposed to anybody else's ideas ever. Um what it means, the freedom, you know, our First Amendment, and that's that's our context, of course, the Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. My right to the free exercise of my religion means I can say what I think, I can worship how I want, I can decline to say things I don't think, and I can decline to participate in things that violate my conscience, and I think violate my oaths to God. I have the right to make those decisions for myself. It does not mean I never get to be exposed. I I am protected by the government from somebody else's expression of their side the of their ideas. It's the opposite of a pluralistic society, it's the opposite of intellectual freedom, where um ostensibly this author would um would call the government to create some co some kind of penalty should she be um exposed to somebody else's religious ideas. And um I think it's self-evidently silly. I have heard it before. I mean, you know, safe spaces on campuses. I I have a right never to hear an idea I d I disagree with. Um that's not reasonable to me. And maybe that's too dismissive, but I think it's easily dismissed.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

So I think we wanted to close on a story about freedom gone awry. And you brought this to my attention this week, Joseph.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

The local one. Speaking of the 4th of July, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Yeah, well, it is local, but uh evidently it's a national trend. Teen takeovers in cities. It happened over the 4th of July here in Raleigh that thousands and thousands of teens gathered together, they organized on social media to meet up, and this uh mass of teenagers turned violent.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

Yeah. Um, can we bring in a resident teen for this very quickly? He's not actually a teen. Eli on a teen. Are you there, Eli?

SPEAKER_00 39:26

He's a lot closer than we are, Joseph.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

But he's on a teen. He could almost be my child. But Eli, you have been a an ankle biter more recently than we have.

unknown 39:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

Eli is our producer. Eli is our podcast producer.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

If you don't know that yet, we're lurking in the background always. He's always there. Sometimes go to Eli because we need insight on things like teen takeovers. Is this something that you know about, perhaps maybe have participated in?

SPEAKER_04 39:59

Uh I know about it. I've never participated in a teen takeover.

SPEAKER_03 40:04

How how would you describe those for our for old people?

SPEAKER_04 40:08

I would I would describe it as uh pure mob mentality. There's no other reason to gather in a group that big if you don't want to do something stupid.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Um and is the is is that like an acknowledged like, hey, we want to just go be destructive and have so many people that they can't stop us?

SPEAKER_04 40:27

Is that absolutely absolutely I don't I don't see any other um reason they would have a teen takeover besides uh for that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

I think I need to see the so there are being these teen takeovers are being organized on TikTok and and social media. I think I would need to see, I haven't seen the content that is put being pushed that's it like what are the motivations of these teens coming together?

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Is it to be rowdy, presumably, and let's not bury the lead real quickly because people are being shot at these events. Yes. And and so um the the one that we're referring to that happened in Raleigh over the fourth, apparently 8,000 teens, police made 29 arrests, recovered 11 guns, uh, secured a custody order for a 16-year-old on felony, riot, and firearm charges. Uh, more than half the teams involved, teens involved in altercations traveled from outside the city. So this was like a major conversion. I think they were organized on social media. Um the teen and and some bystander got shot. Um, fortunately not murdered to uh uh so nobody died that I that I know of. But certainly not productive behavior. Is this just like you know, teens fighting back against the man? Or is this just like, hey, that sounds fun, we got nothing better to do?

SPEAKER_04 41:51

Yeah, I think idleness leads to sin. So I think so many people, so many of these people have nothing else better to do, so therefore they're just gonna go do whatever, and that whatever will always lead to sin, I believe. Especially in a group that large.

SPEAKER_03 42:07

Yeah, in a group that large that isn't intended on in intending to do something constructive. I mean, I I think it's inevitable. And and to the kind of thesis of the show today, what is freedom for? Is it for the ability to pick your own gender? And that's kind of the the Tyler Robinson sense of freedom and a lot of people on the left, or is it for the freedom to be able to gather in large groups whenever you want? Because this is so destructive and has to be disincentivized, what's now being discussed in Raleigh is a curfew, right? To the point of control yourself or somebody else will control you. Raleigh might now get a curfew for everybody under the age of 18.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Well, what else can you do if there are, you know, social media organized mass gatherings of teens? Like you have to do something to stop that, you know?

SPEAKER_03 42:58

Um and so somebody does something stupid, and as a result of that, everybody loses their freedom. A bunch of people can't stop stealing the razors, and now all of us have to wander around the store for 30 minutes looking for a clerk who will open the case so we can buy the thing that we need, right? Because when a handful of people do bad things, it ruins life for everyone. That's true. That's what I think. Rant over, maybe. Eli, how do you think this should be handled for teenagers? Yeah. Um how do you stop it?

SPEAKER_04 43:31

Yeah, I mean, my initial reaction is for uh better parenting, but I think that's gotta be it, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:38

That's gotta be the answer. Apparently in Washington, DC, uh federal prosecutors are calling for prosecuting the teen's parents.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. There's I I don't know if there's an easy solution. I mean, it I I would hate to have a curfew and and then yeah, like you said, everyone else can no longer enjoy their freedom because there is some some teenagers that that wanted to go be rowdy, you know. So I I don't I don't know the uh solution. I think it's it's difficult. What do you think, Joseph?

SPEAKER_03 44:08

Well, the I I I mean, solutions are always harder, right? I mean it it's much easier to avoid a problem than to solve a problem. And the the way we avoid this is present fathers, parents who care, who discipline, who aren't trying to be buddies with their kids, but teaching them the right thing to do, teaching them consequences, and so that they know better. I mean, but once this problem has metastasized to this degree, fixing it's a problem, right? This is this is not have a it did not have a slow uh it did not have a quick cause, and it's not gonna have a quick solution. And that that's what I'm nervous about here. But I just want us to understand what is happening in the big picture. We were becoming less virtuous. By virtue of being less virtuous, we are less self-controlled. And when you have a s a whole culture that is not self-controlled, somebody has to control you, and it's always gonna be the government, and that means we all lose our freedom. Why? Because we wanted to exercise all of our freedoms in a way that was unhealthy. So it's all of the yay, freedom people, I get to do whatever I want that are ultimately gonna cost us all of our freedom.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Yeah, and for me, the thread, the story here is it's the story of broken families. You know, uh these teens, if they had parents, I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but in general, I don't think a crazy teen mob is going to happen if parents are doing their jobs and they are imposing appropriate boundaries around their children and teaching them right from wrong and all of that. And honestly, that's so many of the people who get wrapped up in this transgender movement, that's their story as well. They came from a broken home, there was abuse, there was hurt, all of this, they get wrapped up in this. And so, yeah, the thread for me in many ways is going back to basic things, the structure of the family, the goodness and um primacy of the family for solving so many of our problems that we have in society. And then um government doesn't have to take our freedoms.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Yeah. And and, you know, to make one more connection between those two anecdotes of teen mobs, uh teen takeovers, and then the trans thing, in in what you find in both cases is absent parents and the internet takes over and fills the gap. That's right. Because all of the teen takeovers organized on social media, all of the trans stuff, it's kids who get basically parented by YouTube or TikTok, and whatever algorithm becomes present there. So when the vacuum is created, it gets filled by something on the internet, and very, very often that goes in a bad place. So, moms and dads, you matter. Work really hard, be virtuous, it's the only way to save our freedom. That's what I think we've learned today. Friends, thank you for joining us today on Politics for Happy People. If you've enjoyed the show, share it with a friend because they might as well. Quick reminder that there are new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Like and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. We'll see you then.