Chad Adams fills in for Pete (12-26-24--Hour3)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] One of the reflections I saw was actually interesting where they charted various issues across the political spectrum. And it helps to explain something interesting. And it looks back at the early 2000s through now and it says, where's the political right been through that period of time? And it's pretty much the same. I mean, the exception is Trump's more socially libertarian.

[00:00:50] But by and large, the issues, the economic issues, the role of government issues, those track pretty straight line down the chart, 2008, 9, 10, through now. And if you look at the moderates, the unaffiliated voters, and you look at where they've tracked, they've tracked kind of that way, but they've moved from 2006 on down to now.

[00:01:13] They've tracked a little more left of where they started out. In other words, it wasn't a straight line, but it's kind of a slight left tilt. But the political left in this country from 2008, if you looked around 2005, 2008, the political left and the moderates were much more closely aligned.

[00:01:33] But the left has moved much further left. I mean, the transgender issue would not have been a big deal back in 2005, 2006 for the political left.

[00:01:44] The role of the border would not have been that divisive, all of these issues.

[00:01:49] So if you wonder, and I will make this assertion and absolutely believe it, if I were to say, whether you're on the left or right, who was more likely to stop being friends with someone because of their political beliefs?

[00:02:07] It's almost universal that the leftists who think they are the most tolerant, who think they are the most understanding, who think they're the most profoundly intellectual people, are not.

[00:02:22] They're the ones most likely to have cut you off. They're also the ones most likely to have suggested you need to cut off your family members, that there's no hope for them.

[00:02:31] Now, let that sink in for a minute because it illustrates a level of hypocrisy that you don't often see in such vivid and stark terms.

[00:02:41] They believe that what's happened is that the people on the right have become more ignorant over time and that they've just become – they've had a higher – they've had some kind of epiphany of human understanding that makes them better than you.

[00:02:54] And here's the – I don't know any of my right-leaning friends that have even remotely suggested that they want to cut off a family member because they have them.

[00:03:05] To them, it's more of a humorous discussion.

[00:03:07] They talk about the fact that these family members or these friends have no tolerance for them, but they don't – there's no lack of – they don't want to cut those people off.

[00:03:19] They've been cut off, but they're not the ones doing the cutting.

[00:03:22] And that's irony, isn't it?

[00:03:24] When the people who tell you they're not going to talk to you because you may have supported Trump are the ones that in the same breath will tell you that they are more tolerant.

[00:03:33] And they ain't.

[00:03:35] They aren't.

[00:03:37] That says more about their mental state than yours.

[00:03:40] And that's one of the problems.

[00:03:42] So when you look at that spectrum, Democrats have shifted sharply leftwards on cultural issue in recent years, leaving the median voter behind.

[00:03:51] And that's the Financial Times analysis of U.S. General Social Survey.

[00:03:56] Financial Times is a graphic they've got that.

[00:03:59] Average position of Americans who identify as strong Democrats and strong Republicans compared to the median voter.

[00:04:04] And Democrats have gone way to the left.

[00:04:07] I mean, they're out there on a limb.

[00:04:10] It's so bad.

[00:04:11] And if you are a Democrat and you're listening to the show, I'm not casting aspersions towards you.

[00:04:16] What I'm asking you to do is think about what I said.

[00:04:19] I'm not judging you.

[00:04:20] What I am saying is this is a good time to take stock of that and say, are you really tolerant?

[00:04:25] And if you are really tolerant, why would you have cut your friends off?

[00:04:30] You believe you're right about all these things, but you can't have a discussion without being emotional about it.

[00:04:37] I know many Christians who speak to their unchristian friends, and it's not hubris and anger and derision.

[00:04:44] And it's not that they think they're better than their friends.

[00:04:46] It's they want to share what they consider the glory of their belief system with someone.

[00:04:51] They want to share that.

[00:04:52] They want those people to be included in that.

[00:04:55] They don't want to push them away.

[00:04:58] But I guess if you're an earth-worshipping lefty that loves government and doesn't like freedom, gosh, see, that sounds judgy.

[00:05:07] It doesn't like freedom.

[00:05:08] I think the people on the left don't realize – I believe, this is my belief – that they don't realize that freedom is good.

[00:05:18] But they think that ignorant people shouldn't have freedom, that if you're educated and you're, I guess, an elite, that you should have freedom.

[00:05:26] But all these ignorant people, maybe they shouldn't have freedom.

[00:05:28] If you voted for Trump, maybe those people don't deserve freedom.

[00:05:30] Remember, there are people on the political left in the climate change movement that think that if you're a denier – and we'll talk about that term in a minute – if you're a denier, you should be in prison.

[00:05:41] They believe at the global level that the human threat to the planet is so great that people that don't buy into their narrative on the climate impacts and humans on it, that they should be allowed to imprison you and stop you.

[00:06:01] They don't want to have the debate.

[00:06:03] Time for debate is over.

[00:06:04] It's time to put some bodies in jail cells.

[00:06:08] That's the terrifying part about the way these people don't recognize.

[00:06:12] And whereas one of the great things, if they're so good, why not have those – bring the Richard Lindzen in from MIT.

[00:06:19] Let him debate.

[00:06:21] Let him debate.

[00:06:22] Let the – not Pat, Michaels who passed not too long ago.

[00:06:25] But let these people on both sides have this great debate.

[00:06:30] Let Joe Bastardi, who's a weather historian who can go back and look at storm systems over the past 100 years and show you patterns that turn – make storms stronger or less strong, looking at climate.

[00:06:41] Look at this – these weather patterns.

[00:06:43] Let's talk about that.

[00:06:45] Is it substantial?

[00:06:46] Has it changed that much?

[00:06:47] Is it – is there a – is there – could it be the sun?

[00:06:51] Could it be just changes in the earth?

[00:06:54] And if it is some man-made stuff – and I know the left – oh, yes, it is.

[00:06:58] Let's just say it is.

[00:06:59] Is it enough – is it destroying the planet?

[00:07:02] Or is a greening planet good?

[00:07:06] In other words, isn't it maybe good that we're not going to have another ice age?

[00:07:10] Because imagine if we did, for whatever reason, sunspot activity, whatever happened, because it's happened before, happened pretty recently actually when Napoleon was marching on Moscow.

[00:07:18] I mentioned that the other day.

[00:07:19] Okay, so in the early 1800s, we had a little ice.

[00:07:22] The River Timbs was frozen over.

[00:07:24] That wasn't the standard.

[00:07:25] That wasn't the norm.

[00:07:26] That was a freak of nature, horrifically cold period of time that lasted and persisted for a decade plus quite like 30, 40 years.

[00:07:35] We weren't better off then.

[00:07:37] A lot of people died because of that.

[00:07:40] But what if the earth had another one of those oscillations or the sun or whatever caused that?

[00:07:45] If that happened, we wouldn't be better off, would we?

[00:07:50] Of course we wouldn't be.

[00:07:52] So that's the most serious problem.

[00:07:55] We can't have these debates anymore because the political left has gotten so far left.

[00:07:58] They're like, oh, stop speaking to your relatives.

[00:08:01] Don't because – and you hear this.

[00:08:03] And when they espouse these views, it's sad that we can't have these conversations, isn't it?

[00:08:08] They don't want to be rational.

[00:08:10] And that's the irony of this elitism.

[00:08:13] These elite people aren't rational people anymore.

[00:08:16] It used to be.

[00:08:17] For over a month now, I have been reminding you to preserve your precious photos and slides, films, and tapes with Creative Video based in Mint Hill.

[00:08:25] These family heirlooms hold priceless stories, moments from years past that are irreplaceable.

[00:08:30] If you've thought about saving these memories before they fade away, you are not alone.

[00:08:35] This is Creative Video's busiest season.

[00:08:37] And with the holidays fast approaching, there is no better time than right now.

[00:08:41] So you need to hurry.

[00:08:42] Imagine the perfect holiday gift.

[00:08:45] Memories from past family events captured forever.

[00:08:48] Creative Video's skilled team will professionally transfer your family's stories onto easy-to-use USB drives or DVDs that won't deteriorate over time like the old photos and tapes are doing right now.

[00:08:59] Picture it.

[00:09:00] Sitting together after a holiday meal, watching these family favorites, sharing laughs, shedding a few tears, and telling the stories that make your family uniquely yours.

[00:09:10] Get your memories in now and beat the holiday rush.

[00:09:13] Visit createavideo.com to learn more.

[00:09:16] That's createavideo.com.

[00:09:19] Now, before I went to the break, it doesn't really matter because I've got all new stuff to talk about now.

[00:09:23] You're welcome to be a part of the conversation.

[00:09:25] Chad Adams sitting in for Pete Callender, News Talk 1110-993-WBT.

[00:09:28] The phone number, should you be so inclined, 704-570-1110.

[00:09:33] I do also want to mention this.

[00:09:34] Since 2020, thanks to your generosity, WBT and Moments of Hope Church have raised over $850,000 to help feed the most vulnerable kids in the Charlotte region.

[00:09:44] This year, the need is even greater, and your donations are needed to benefit Hurricane Helene Relief Work in Western North Carolina.

[00:09:50] Our goal is to raise $100,000, and every penny donated, every single penny donated, will be matched by Moments of Hope Church.

[00:09:58] Please consider a donation to cityofhopeclt.org today.

[00:10:02] That's cityofhopeclt.org.

[00:10:05] Thank you very much for all that you do to make that work.

[00:10:09] And again, very proud of WBT's work there.

[00:10:12] Now, I was just reading through some jobs data, and this is the staggering part of this jobs data.

[00:10:22] They've been down massive downward revisions of the jobs data.

[00:10:32] Remember they reported during the – that in quarter two, jobs were created.

[00:10:35] Kamala was talking about jobs being created.

[00:10:37] The Biden said, oh, look, we've created all these jobs.

[00:10:39] It turns out they revised them.

[00:10:41] That job estimate gain of 653,000 was just a total fiction.

[00:10:45] They actually lost 800,000 jobs.

[00:10:48] They had initially reported 653,000 job gains.

[00:10:54] It was actually negative.

[00:10:56] And furthermore, there was also a revision of 800,000 jobs from last year.

[00:11:01] The data was completely falsified.

[00:11:05] A complete falsification.

[00:11:07] It was – so how is – I can remember during Obama's term, they would have these great numbers, and then the actual numbers would come out, and they would be worse.

[00:11:16] All sorts of things, the economy, spending, consumer confidence, it would be worse.

[00:11:20] And then when Trump was in office – and again, this is completely my perspective on this, but I would remember they would say, oh, these numbers are going to be terrible.

[00:11:29] They're going to be terrible.

[00:11:30] And then they would be better.

[00:11:31] The actual numbers were better.

[00:11:33] But you got – in the news media cycle, you get a couple of weeks of positive when a Democrat was in there like Joe Biden and a couple weeks of negative if a Republican was in there.

[00:11:44] And this is by the same news media that are in free fall now, and then when the actual numbers would come out, nobody really paid attention because it was in the past.

[00:11:52] Oh, well, the job numbers for Trump were actually a lot better.

[00:11:55] Oh, the job numbers for Biden were actually a lot worse.

[00:11:58] But that's not the news story.

[00:11:59] Now, the people in the Twitter sphere and social media, oh, my gosh, you believe this.

[00:12:04] But that's – you're not going to hear ABC come out and say, oh, by the way, those job numbers were a complete and utter lie.

[00:12:12] And we didn't question it.

[00:12:13] We just accepted whatever they told us.

[00:12:15] And then the next question would be, if it was done to you, the next question would be, wait a minute.

[00:12:21] Why does this keep happening?

[00:12:22] Then you go back to them and say, you've done this four times now.

[00:12:26] Why are they always revised downward?

[00:12:28] What are you doing wrong that you can't read your own data?

[00:12:31] But do the news media do that?

[00:12:33] No.

[00:12:33] Does David Moore go out there and say, no, he'll accuse you of spreading rumors about eating cats, but he will not care if 800,000 American jobs didn't exist?

[00:12:46] Seems, I don't know, like it would be relevant, like it would matter, like there would be something to it.

[00:12:53] But alas, it is not true.

[00:12:56] But as I read these kind of reports, I'm – the Biden economy was not that great.

[00:13:02] It just wanted – you came out of government spending.

[00:13:04] You added another massive government spending bill.

[00:13:06] And then you thought on the heels of the COVID spending, the Inflation Reduction Act, that you were going to make things better.

[00:13:13] I don't know why.

[00:13:14] We have to go down this road all the time.

[00:13:16] It doesn't.

[00:13:17] All it did was it took inflation.

[00:13:19] And let's pretend inflation is a beautiful little fire that you're going to roast your marshmallows on.

[00:13:25] And you took five gallons of Inflation Reduction Act gasoline and you dumped it on it all at once.

[00:13:33] You get an earth-shattering kaboom that would make Marvin Martian proud, meaning all you did was set inflation on fire.

[00:13:42] And you knew it.

[00:13:43] Anybody with a modicum of economic sense knew that it was not going to reduce inflation at all.

[00:13:48] It was going to set it on steroids.

[00:13:50] And all you're doing is hurting economic productivity and growth down the road.

[00:13:54] All of this spending, all of this has got to be covered and paid for with economic activity somewhere down the road.

[00:14:00] And we just – big wheels keep on rolling, and we just push the cart.

[00:14:05] And you know what?

[00:14:05] We were pushing it downhill for many years.

[00:14:07] We're pushing it uphill now.

[00:14:08] It is a boat anchor on your kids.

[00:14:11] It's a boat anchor on those still in the workforce.

[00:14:14] And I think Americans realize that.

[00:14:16] I think there's a reality check now that you folks in D.C. have really kicked everyone's butt all the way down the road.

[00:14:25] Everyone out there that owns a company, everyone that's – well, I even think the workers get it now.

[00:14:30] The workers realize, hey, wait a minute.

[00:14:32] I got to pay for this?

[00:14:34] I owe $171,000?

[00:14:36] What are you talking about?

[00:14:37] I thought I had a debt for my mortgage.

[00:14:39] No, no, no.

[00:14:39] You have mortgage debt.

[00:14:40] You also owe your country and the spending proclivities of your friends in Congress another $171,000.

[00:14:50] And just like that, Trump's in office.

[00:14:54] So – and again, the Rand Pauls of the world were right the whole time.

[00:14:59] The Rand Pauls of the world were absolutely correct, and they have been.

[00:15:03] I mean, anybody that was trying to face the music on this stuff, they were right.

[00:15:06] And it's not going to be pretty.

[00:15:07] It's not going to be easy.

[00:15:08] It's not going to be – but we have to do it.

[00:15:11] So we will, and we shall.

[00:15:14] I'm hopeful.

[00:15:14] I'm hopeful that the next couple of election overviews will be like that.

[00:15:19] Now, I do want to get to – and I think I – well, we're going to start on this a little bit because this is part of – part of our problem is not only do we have a spending problem.

[00:15:28] For the past 50 years, we've had a subsidy problem.

[00:15:32] I would maintain – imagine – I said it earlier that one of the worst problems I've seen out there is that we – as we love to subsidize everything.

[00:15:42] We think that somehow government throwing your money at something that you chose not to do or be a part of would make a profound difference.

[00:15:51] And I've always believed – well, not always.

[00:15:53] Probably I had about 10 minutes where I didn't believe this.

[00:15:55] And I said it's worth noting because I was looking at the renewable energy stuff.

[00:15:58] We have these targets, and everything's driven by Greta Thunberg and how somehow she's miraculously more astute than the rest of the planet on this stuff.

[00:16:07] That all of these green energy subsidies and green energy everything is good and makes things better.

[00:16:13] But I would assert that renewable energy would be much further down the path of success, and it would be much cheaper, and it would accomplish far more if the government had stopped forcing it and subsidizing it.

[00:16:31] If the government had been forcing and subsidizing cell phones, imagine if you would.

[00:16:36] If they had said, we're going to subsidize cell phones, we're going to force them, we're going to make everyone want to get everyone away from the previous – the landline technology, we're going to force cell phones, we're going to make everybody have a cell phone, we're going to subsidize it.

[00:16:49] I really believe we'd still be using landlines, and we would still have a lot of bag phones.

[00:16:54] You remember those bag phones that use VHS batteries in them, the lugables?

[00:16:58] They're like three pounds.

[00:16:59] They had the green buttons, and every time you hit a button, it made a noise.

[00:17:02] The Sonny Crockett had one in his Miami Vice Daytona Ferrari or whatever.

[00:17:07] I think we wouldn't be much further down the road.

[00:17:11] So, John, welcome to the show.

[00:17:13] How are you this afternoon?

[00:17:14] What's up?

[00:17:16] Hey, Chad.

[00:17:16] Once again, hey, I appreciate your time.

[00:17:18] You were talking about economics there and throwing five gallons of gasoline on the marshmallow fire and how these people gain credibility.

[00:17:27] What I was looking to ask for you is just simple opinion.

[00:17:29] If we go back to Rush Limbaugh days, he always loved to do an intro when he talked about a guy named Robert Wright.

[00:17:37] Yes.

[00:17:38] He's still around, by the way.

[00:17:40] The lunacy that just left us would dribble.

[00:17:44] But also then we recently was given amnesty and freedom when Paul Krugman announced his retirement from the New York Times as a Nobel-Kensian economist.

[00:17:57] Yes.

[00:17:57] Why on earth, in your humble opinion, do you think these guys and others like them gain traction and are given credibility?

[00:18:35] I think it's twofold.

[00:18:37] They bestow upon people honors and privileges without accomplishment.

[00:18:43] It's the most non-free market way of doing things.

[00:18:45] So they bestow – like Krugman won a Nobel Prize too.

[00:18:49] He won a Nobel Prize in economics.

[00:18:50] He was wrong.

[00:18:51] He's been wrong for 30 years.

[00:18:53] He was wrong about government spending and debt and deficits.

[00:18:55] He was wrong, and so is Reich.

[00:18:56] Reich, by the way, Reich is advising as of one hour ago that the Democrats do not move to the center.

[00:19:03] I mean, he's been wrong for 25 years too.

[00:19:05] Krugman were crying.

[00:19:06] So he's still out there, Robert Reich.

[00:19:09] I remember that.

[00:19:09] That's a great memory there.

[00:19:11] All right.

[00:19:11] Hey, real quick.

[00:19:12] If you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000 people multiple times a day, send me an email at Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com and ask me about advertising.

[00:19:23] It's super affordable.

[00:19:25] It's baked into this podcast forever, and podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making it the best bang for your buck.

[00:19:32] Send me a message, Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com, and I can show you how it works, run the numbers with you.

[00:19:38] Again, that's Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com.

[00:19:42] I'm astounded every day that we don't have Epstein's List public yet, and I blame the media.

[00:19:47] The media should be asking that question ad nauseum until it's public, and it is amazing that it isn't public.

[00:19:54] And, you know, even the P. Diddy stuff, do you really think we'll ever know how bad it was?

[00:19:59] I want to believe we will, but I'm not sure.

[00:20:01] I mean, this whole pedo mentality of the Hollywood left while lecturing us about, you know, modesty and propriety, I mean, just is astounding.

[00:20:14] Now, looking at Krugman and Robert Reich and the rest of these Austrian economic types, you've got to realize that their mentality is this.

[00:20:23] So Austrian economics essentially asserts that governments reach a point in size where they, through their spending and borrowing, are the ones that make or break economies, that they make economies better through their spending and borrowing.

[00:20:37] And so that's kind of what we've seen at work in our country since, you know, I guess the 60s, post-Kennedy is that we just barred our way and spent our way into oblivion.

[00:20:46] And the Austrian, so Krugman wins a Nobel and Robert Reich, you know, continues to run around making assertions that are wrong.

[00:20:54] We know that that doesn't work.

[00:20:57] We know we've limped by, but to pretend that that $38 billion, here's the thing, you have to have the pretense that the $38 billion is irrelevant.

[00:21:05] You have to go through life and you have to say, you know what, all the borrowing doesn't matter.

[00:21:10] The government will never default on it, the American public.

[00:21:12] But we can just borrow forever and there are no consequences to the borrowing forever.

[00:21:16] And it's boring and it's not sexy.

[00:21:18] It's kind of like climate change.

[00:21:19] It's not a sexy topic to push back on that narrative.

[00:21:22] It's not a sexy topic to push back on government borrowing.

[00:21:25] It is – people will fall asleep.

[00:21:27] They'll run off the road.

[00:21:28] They'll turn their radios off.

[00:21:29] They'll flip to another station.

[00:21:30] They'll watch the Kardashians before they'll ever listen to something economically about this being bad.

[00:21:35] It's far sexier to say, hey, borrow another trillion and give it to a bunch of people who want to study cats on treadmills.

[00:21:41] That's cool.

[00:21:46] Whatever moonbrain crazy idea you can come up with, if you can just fund that with borrowed money, it's very news.

[00:21:53] Look at this amazing new facility where people can live suspended from tree branches and be very green.

[00:21:59] And it's all funded with some grant.

[00:22:02] And that sounds cool.

[00:22:04] The consequences are the reason.

[00:22:07] And the individual who asked earlier who had said, you know, Chad, why don't they ever do that?

[00:22:12] When John had called in and asked that, why don't we ever –

[00:22:16] why do they continue to having some kind of notoriety?

[00:22:19] Because they never have to live with consequences.

[00:22:22] One thing about a kind of a Christian conservative mentality is there are consequences to your actions.

[00:22:28] You – there are – when you do some – there are consequences.

[00:22:31] We know that even if there's not consequences here, there's consequences later on.

[00:22:34] You know, at the end of that life after their consequences.

[00:22:38] And I think the left doesn't really – they don't – the only consequential bad actors are conservatives.

[00:22:44] Because everything they want is about responsibility now from a financial standpoint and economic standpoint.

[00:22:49] You have to assume some responsibility for things that are happening in your life.

[00:22:53] Regardless of what happened to you, you can't blame everything in your life on what happened in the past.

[00:22:57] Not only that, it's even worse.

[00:22:59] You can't blame everything that's happening in your life on generational pasts.

[00:23:02] Things that happened generations and generations and generations ago.

[00:23:05] You can't.

[00:23:06] There's nothing – there's nothing of worth to you as an individual that comes from that mentality.

[00:23:12] But it sounds good to say you're a victim.

[00:23:15] You're the victim.

[00:23:16] And thus, anything that happens to you isn't really your fault.

[00:23:21] You're overweight.

[00:23:22] Not your fault.

[00:23:23] It's because of all these processed foods have been shoved down your throat and forced you to eat them.

[00:23:27] You're a violent person that steals from people.

[00:23:29] Not your fault.

[00:23:30] It's horrible things that happened to you when you were young.

[00:23:33] It's, you know, hey, you didn't get that job.

[00:23:36] Not your fault.

[00:23:37] It's because somebody with privilege moved to the front of the line.

[00:23:42] Nothing is – and again, that sounds very heartless, doesn't it?

[00:23:45] It's easy to make conservatives sound heartless.

[00:23:47] The truth of the matter is hard work, hard work.

[00:23:51] I mean, look, it's easy for me as a 50-plus-year-old dude.

[00:23:54] I can gain weight.

[00:23:55] You know how easy it is to gain weight?

[00:23:57] It's so easy you don't have to really do a whole lot.

[00:23:59] You just show up, you eat, and don't do very much.

[00:24:01] You can gain weight.

[00:24:02] It's hard work to not gain weight for some people.

[00:24:06] For a lot of people, apparently many people.

[00:24:07] I can sit there and blame the food industry.

[00:24:09] I can blame the restaurants.

[00:24:11] I can blame late-night TV.

[00:24:14] I can blame – I don't know.

[00:24:15] I saw a commercial for a fast food I want to go get.

[00:24:18] I can blame everybody.

[00:24:20] But ultimately, it's the guy that's crawling on that scale that won't put down that whatever pecan pie at Christmas.

[00:24:26] That's the guy who's to blame.

[00:24:27] It's not the pie's fault.

[00:24:31] And that's where I think our society likes these people that tell you it's not your fault.

[00:24:36] It's this confirmation by – you know what?

[00:24:39] Robert Rice says we should keep borrowing.

[00:24:40] You know what?

[00:24:41] That means I can fund all my liberal goody-two-shoe projects.

[00:24:44] And you know what?

[00:24:45] This other guy, it's not just Krugman.

[00:24:47] Robert Rice, they all say it.

[00:24:49] I'm going to fund him.

[00:24:51] And there's no consequences.

[00:24:52] Why?

[00:24:53] Because by the time I'm out of office, it won't matter.

[00:24:56] Not on me.

[00:24:57] It's on someone else's problem.

[00:25:00] But it's OPM, baby.

[00:25:01] It's other people's money.

[00:25:02] And that's the problem with all of this is it's other people's money.

[00:25:06] And it's easy to do that.

[00:25:07] But they have credibility.

[00:25:08] Obama gets a peace prize by getting elected.

[00:25:10] Looking in retrospect, I think history is not going to look favorably on Obama.

[00:25:14] He didn't make race relations better.

[00:25:16] They got worse.

[00:25:17] He didn't make the economy better.

[00:25:19] It got worse.

[00:25:19] The ACA will not be remembered as this great thing.

[00:25:22] It was a massive spending project that didn't do anything to improve health care in this country.

[00:25:27] You can say, well, 20 million people now have health care.

[00:25:29] No, they have a subsidized insurance product.

[00:25:32] They don't necessarily have better access to health care because there aren't as many access points to health care as there were.

[00:25:38] It's heavily bureaucratized.

[00:25:41] But these people are wildly popular, although I think Obama was probably the biggest loser last year.

[00:25:46] Joe, thank you for holding through the break there or right when the break started.

[00:25:50] So I appreciate you holding.

[00:25:51] Welcome to the show.

[00:25:51] Merry Christmas to you.

[00:25:53] Merry Christmas to you and a Happy New Year.

[00:25:55] And I was listening to your monologue and your talk about these desperately liberal views and what conservatives think about and how we should be and the things we should forget and let bygones be bygones.

[00:26:15] But wasn't this country started by?

[00:26:18] Wait, wait, wait.

[00:26:19] I just want to correct one thing, Joe.

[00:26:21] I didn't say let bygones be bygones.

[00:26:23] I said accepting personal responsibility and not blaming the past.

[00:26:27] The past is what it is.

[00:26:28] History records it good, bad, and indifferent and ugly.

[00:26:30] And we're a country that I've said many times we've made a lot of mistakes in this country.

[00:26:35] But keep going, though, because the rest of it I like.

[00:26:38] So keep going.

[00:26:39] Okay.

[00:26:39] Because being one whose family nor me have ever stated that we needed to blame someone else for our actions because I was raised that my helping hand was at the end of my own arm.

[00:26:52] And so with that being said, do we still believe in atonement, retribution, and the ability to be accountable?

[00:27:06] Because those that benefit from those things are contributors to the, well, let's just now hold hands.

[00:27:18] And let's don't have any sense of retribution like our ancestors in Europe because they were killing each other right and left over there.

[00:27:26] The Irish didn't like somebody and all of that.

[00:27:31] And so all of that was brought over here, and everything happened through violence.

[00:27:35] But now that the spoils have been sort of resourced out of many of the hands they originated from, now we need to hold hands.

[00:27:51] And let's just don't think about that stuff back there.

[00:27:54] Well, Joe, I think we need to learn from them.

[00:27:58] I think we all have and have learned a great deal from that.

[00:28:00] And what I'm trying to ask is, okay, all of you and I would agree that horrible things have happened at the hands of other people.

[00:28:07] They weren't you, by the way, and weren't me, by the way.

[00:28:10] But you're saying that there's some kind of generational advantage that was bestowed upon people because of the evils of the past.

[00:28:16] And I'm not trying to make fun of you.

[00:28:19] I'm trying to say is that what you're saying.

[00:28:20] Well, let's think of a couple of names.

[00:28:23] Hilton, Vanderbilt, and some of the others that utilized those things.

[00:28:31] Chase, J.P. Morgan.

[00:28:33] I don't think that they were necessarily fair in all their dealings.

[00:28:38] And generational things have been passed down.

[00:28:41] And with that being said, where's the accountability, where's the retribution, and where are the things that we as Americans, you know, we take.

[00:28:54] We don't go begging and groveling for things that were taken from us.

[00:29:00] We take back.

[00:29:01] And so where's that spirit of America?

[00:29:03] Well, I think we earn back.

[00:29:04] I think you could look at Z. Smith Reynolds as one of those with tobacco legacy.

[00:29:07] You look at Kennedy and the bootlegging.

[00:29:09] I mean, look at the Kennedy.

[00:29:11] I'm not trying to say that one's better than the other, okay?

[00:29:13] But I'm saying the Kennedys were one of those families.

[00:29:17] Even Bill Gates with the building of the Microsoft empire and what he's done since then with that money.

[00:29:21] A lot of people on the right don't like him because of the vaccine stuff and the human population stuff and the world, one world government stuff.

[00:29:28] So, you know, these are – Jeff Bezos, you would say that dude's an uber rich dude along with Elon Musk.

[00:29:34] Is it the generational wealth?

[00:29:36] Because the Vanderbilts have largely squandered that wealth.

[00:29:38] And it's – I mean, the Sears and Roebuck clan, that's gone.

[00:29:41] The Kmart clan, they're kind of – you know, it is cyclical and it doesn't seem to stick around forever.

[00:29:47] Vanderbilt's not what it was.

[00:29:48] I mean, would you agree?

[00:29:50] I would say if we just do a little bit of research, we would see that they're doing just fine.

[00:29:55] But I'm not going to cherry-pick history.

[00:29:59] What I will say –

[00:30:00] Okay. Fair point.

[00:30:00] – overall, as what you were talking about, making sure that we as those former Dixiecrats that were down here in the South and how they treated their neighbor, which wasn't very kind.

[00:30:14] Very un-Christian.

[00:30:15] Very un-Christian.

[00:30:16] And Christians.

[00:30:18] Christians in Europe brought that same bastardization of the Word of God over here to America.

[00:30:27] And now we have the fire and brimstone and how we treat people over here, and we call ourselves Christians.

[00:30:34] But there's not very nice ways.

[00:30:36] Joe, I would say this.

[00:30:38] One, I think that the treatment of Christians globally right now is in decline.

[00:30:43] You would agree if you look at the – 900,000 Christians got killed, I think, just in Syria alone the past 30 years.

[00:30:50] So in Europe right now, there certainly is a realignment taking place, a very anti-Christian movement taking place in many countries, which is creating a lot of strife over there.

[00:31:00] This is never – we are not – I have also said throughout this broad – not this particular one, but over the course of the past week that it's amazing to me we're not worse off.

[00:31:10] Because there are natural inclinations of human beings that are horrific in nature.

[00:31:14] Everyone has these, unfortunately, horrible thoughts and stuff.

[00:31:17] And I'm astounded we're not worse.

[00:31:18] Because it does take kind of a Judeo-set of values to say when you're doing right and when you're doing wrong.

[00:31:24] And we all have a personal responsibility to try to ensure that we don't do those kind of things.

[00:31:29] I think you would agree with that.

[00:31:30] It sounds like you have that same perspective.

[00:31:32] Well, I'll just leave with this, and I will say that Christians have taught the world very interesting lessons.

[00:31:41] Okay.

[00:31:42] Joe, I appreciate that.

[00:31:43] I would say that Judeo-Christian values are timeless.

[00:31:47] I think that the actions of Christians in many ways or people that proclaim that can be as horrific as any group.

[00:31:54] I mean, Jonestown Massacre was allegedly a Christian group, and that was one of the worst human tragedies.

[00:32:00] But the inherent good that is also within mankind.

[00:32:04] I mean, Christians were persecuted in the early church.

[00:32:06] I don't want to get into this.

[00:32:07] We could spend like days on this, and it would be a fascinating study.

[00:32:11] You could say the Crusades and what they happened to do over in that part of the world is a legacy that lasted and persisted to this day in the Middle East.

[00:32:18] What happened?

[00:32:19] But I digress.

[00:32:21] I still believe that those Judeo-values, the country was founded on them.

[00:32:25] It also means that we do make mistakes.

[00:32:28] There is atonement.

[00:32:29] There's a lot of personal atonement.

[00:32:31] Generational atonement is very Old Testament, the original sin.

[00:32:34] Women need to be punished for generational sin.

[00:32:36] I think the New Testament eradicated all of that.

[00:32:39] I believe that strongly, and we have an obligation to our fellow man.

[00:32:42] I think it's a lot of what Christendom is to me.

[00:32:45] It doesn't mean that humanity was perfect.

[00:32:47] It doesn't mean that sins of the past don't exist.

[00:32:49] It means that we have a personal obligation to live a life as best we can in that image.

[00:32:56] So I think Joe and I would agree on more than we disagree on.

[00:33:00] But looking backwards, history isn't pretty.

[00:33:02] And you know what?

[00:33:03] A hundred years from now, we look back on this period of history.

[00:33:05] You're still going to say it wasn't pretty, and it's unfortunate that the way we are.

[00:33:09] Now, having said that, I want to thank you for being a part of the broadcast today.

[00:33:13] There was obviously, you know, we cover a lot of territory here, and I'm very proud of it.

[00:33:16] And I did want to say, I promised this at the beginning of the show, and I don't know that I get to it because I got about a minute and a half.

[00:33:22] But there is a group of archaeologists that have recently uncovered a sarcophagus under St. Nicholas Church in Turkey that they hope to tie to St. Nicholas himself, the inspiration behind the legendary figure of Santa Claus.

[00:33:34] The church site, originally constructed in 520 A.D., was said to have been built on or near the burial site of St. Nicholas, who once served as the Bishop of Myrna, or Myra, and died in 343 A.D., which is now Demre, Turkey.

[00:33:50] The excavations of the church have been ongoing since 1989 and continued to yield new artifacts, but none has been more exciting than finding the sarcophagus in the church's two-story annex that experts believe could be that of St. Nicholas.

[00:34:04] So, I mean, it's an interesting story that happens to come out right now of all times, but we may soon know if that is true.

[00:34:12] So we'll find out.

[00:34:13] There's much more to the story, but that's the short version of it.

[00:34:16] And it seems to me that he was buried near that sacred area.

[00:34:20] The fact that we found a sarcophagus near the church, which is thought the house is due, may indicate, indeed, the area they've been searching for.

[00:34:25] This was popular.

[00:34:26] Popular Mechanics today was published.

[00:34:29] All right, that'll do it for this episode.

[00:34:31] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:34:32] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast.

[00:34:37] So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here.

[00:34:40] You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepcalendarshow.com.

[00:34:46] Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.