Best of The Program | Guests: Ken Paxton & Stephen Kent | 11/8/21

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Here's the podcast.

You're listening to

the best of the Glenbeck program.

Where did I put that baby?

Oh, I remember.

I gave it to the U.S.

government to hold.

I'm sure it's going to be fine.

Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

My name is Glenn Beck.

Stu Bergeer is my executive producer.

And joining me now is my best friend from all these many years, Pat Gray.

Hello, Pat.

Hello, Glenn.

I'm so excited to be here today.

Are you?

I am.

I am.

It's hard to know what to start with.

It is.

I mean, I did find her diary underneath a tree.

And

I started reading about me.

But you found out it wasn't you.

But then it wasn't me.

In this case, it is him.

So that's going to be interesting to follow.

Well, nobody will cover it.

Yeah, nobody will cover it.

Nobody.

Nobody will cover it.

It's incredible.

The work that Project Veritas does, and sometimes it's pretty staggering, pretty stunning

revelations.

Like this one, and then nobody picks it up.

Nobody picks it up.

If Project Veritas were on the left, they'd won Pulitzer every year.

Oh, yeah.

Every year.

No question.

Well, in this case, though, they didn't even run the story.

They didn't run the story.

So they couldn't get credit for it.

Now, the accusation, and it's not a clear accusation by mainstream media, but the accusation is that before

they turned it over to law enforcement, they leaked it to another conservative site that did publicly.

BuzzFeed?

Oh, no, wait.

No, that's not conservatives.

No,

that would be totally okay if it was BuzzFeed.

Yeah.

No, they don't specifically say that, but that's the tone of the reporting.

Okay, but

why is the FBI involved in finding a diary?

If your daughter's diary is missing, I don't think the FBI,

the FBI isn't even anybody, anybody that I know doesn't say.

Did you call the FBI?

My daughter loses her stuff all the time.

Can I call the FBI to help find it?

I mean, what's in there?

Other than really damning stuff.

Yeah, I mean,

I guess in theory, you could say, right, it was right before an election, and it was

someone trying to manipulate a federal election.

Is that their justification for this?

I mean, I don't see what the.

It's a stretch.

Depends on what else it is to come up.

What is it now?

I mean, they're trying to affect a federal election.

Really?

Like,

that hasn't been done.

I mean, that's the, you want to talk about a pot calling the kettle black.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, yeah.

I'm not saying these are good arguments.

I'm trying to come up with some justification as to how this could even be related to the FBI.

I mean, like, you know, someone steals something, even if, again, that's not what we believe happened.

It was in theory left behind in a room that she was in.

And it does sort of confirm the existence of the diary of

Ashley Biden's diary, doesn't it?

You're not sending the FBI in if it hasn't, there's no validity to the story.

Right.

Now, it doesn't necessarily confirm the contents of it.

No, of course not.

No, but it does

not believe that those

content is probably accurate.

Yeah, if it's filled with recipes, I don't think the FBI is going after it.

No, the White House isn't going for it anymore.

Unless the recipes are delicious.

Yeah, that's true.

Maybe they stole the Colonel's secret recipe.

So

here's what Jonathan Turley said over the weekend.

What was the context for the diary's loss?

Did Ashley Biden leave her diary in a room or was it stolen?

Two, what is the alleged federal crime and what is the precedent for a major federal investigation over the alleged theft of a diary?

What precautions were taken by the Biden administration in light of the claimed media status of the targeted individuals?

Why was there a delay in this action being taken if the alleged theft occurred a year ago?

Has this been under investigation for a year and did the White House request the intervention of the FBI?

Listen to what he says.

Regardless of how one feels feels about Project Veritas, there should be calls from media outlets for some answers on these basic questions.

Likewise, Congress should be seeking answers as part of its oversight responsibility.

Neither one of those will happen.

Neither one of those will happen.

This is a grand abuse of power, and it just shows again

where the FBI

stands.

And

this is them, so you know, going after journalists that didn't publish the story

and gave the diary, they say, to law enforcement.

It also kind of gives you an idea, maybe,

of why Ashley Biden is sort of the forgotten, the ignored, the hidden Biden.

He never talks about her.

You ever hear about it?

I couldn't have picked her out of a lineup before this story broke.

I have no idea what she looks like.

And you never hear from her.

You never hear him talk of her.

It's always Bo and Hunter that he speaks of.

Entries in the diary include the author revealing she believes she was sexually molested as a child and shared, quote, probably not appropriate showers with my dad.

Some of the detail, the author's drug use, the crumbling marriage with multiple affairs, along with entries showing the family fears of a potential scandal due to her brother's new home, and those show a deep resentment for her father due to his money control and emotional manipulation.

Can you imagine if that was,

I mean, that's what they say the Trump children were.

Oh,

they're just in it for the money, and they're just being manipulated, and he's manipulating them, and they're all manipulating everything.

That's exactly what's going on here.

And you have it in the writings of Hunter Biden, And now we're not supposed to believe a diary that came out a year ago

that the federal government is now breaking down doors in the middle of the night to gather anything about the diary?

Wow.

I mean, again, this is the failed state.

This is the action of a failed state.

This is a banana republic.

Did you hear about flying the 70 planes into Florida in the middle of the night?

I don't think so.

Yeah.

It was found out this weekend that Biden has been flying 70,

70 planes full of people from the border into Florida without any authorities in Florida being letting them that it was happening.

They're just dumping these people into Florida.

Wow.

I mean.

Are they paying them the $450,000 each as well?

I hope so.

I do too.

I hope they got a nice place out there.

Can we play that again?

If you happen to be watching us, take a minute and really watch his face because it's worse when you see it than when you hear it.

This is a very unstable moment.

Watch this.

You said last week that this report about migrant families at the border getting payments was garbage.

No, I didn't say that.

You said straight, you said everybody coming across the border gets $500,000, $450,000.

So the number was what you got to print.

The number I wasn't for granted.

Now, here's the thing.

If, in fact, because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration,

you coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child,

you lost your child, he's gone,

you deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance.

What that will be, I have no idea.

That is a terrifying

homicidal in one second.

Yes.

It's disturbing.

It's really disturbing.

Really disturbing.

I don't know if he's off his medication or if there's a medication with a side effect that makes you a little bit more.

Because that's what it seems like.

Yeah.

I mean, it seems like

either you are not in control of your emotions or you're on some medicine that does the same thing.

Yeah.

Makes you really irritable.

How unsightly is that for the president of the United States to show that kind of anger, that

that kind of emotion, just for no apparent reason?

Lost your child.

Lost your child.

Wow.

And well, and I don't think it's because of no reason, right?

He's pissed off.

He got caught.

It's not pissed off about the child being lost.

That's not anger because he's upset.

Oh, gosh,

these children were lost.

He's pissed off because

he was embarrassed.

He came out and he tried to deny it and then he got caught.

His own administration had to admit that

they were doing this.

And now he's down to, well, it wasn't $450,000.

It was $449,500.

Can I get some ridiculous?

Can I offer a third explanation for this?

I think that

they all buy into this crap.

I think he absolutely buys into all of this.

And he sees

no one around him.

He's not exposed to anyone in his life that is disagreeing with what they're saying.

And so they're all sitting in a room and nobody says, what about the kids that were separated

from

Obama or the ones that you have separated now?

Or what about the reason they were separated was because they couldn't prove that that was their parent or a relative.

Yes.

And so they were held until a relative could show up.

And the relative took them.

But we were trying to protect the child because it might have been a

sex trafficker.

Okay.

Nobody is saying that to them.

And so they're sitting in a room and they get more and more angry because everybody's pouring fuel on exactly the same fire.

Nobody's there saying, well, wait a minute, hold it just a second.

That doesn't make any sense.

They're all just saying, and they lost their child.

There are people around him that know that's bull crap.

Why deny it initially then?

If you're

thought he could get away with the number thing.

I think you were right.

I think you were right.

It's amazing.

He just thought.

Because, I mean, why hide it if you're that viscerally

in favor of these people getting paid?

Because I think.

He just realizes the politics of it, basically.

I think he.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe.

I was going to say, I think he knows the situation that they're in, but I don't think so.

I mean, look at what they've done in the last week.

They had the election six days ago and got their heads handed to them.

And in those days, since then, they have passed the mandate.

They have...

Full speed ahead.

Full speed ahead.

They've done this.

They've passed the not the reconciliation bill, but the infrastructure bill.

They just passed it over the weekend.

And they're going to pass the other one, too.

Do you think so?

I do.

Yeah.

I think they will.

They can.

The House is out this week, but I'll bet you next week they're right back on it.

Bet they

I'm telling you, you should call your congressmen and tell them

if they vote for any spending bill, infrastructure, anything, if they vote for any of these bills, you have a very long memory and you will work to overturn their seat and give it to somebody who will stand against this.

I think this is a really dangerous place for the

republic to be in.

And

I don't mean violence.

I just mean they have completely detached.

You know, they have.

The federal court put a stay on the mandate.

I'll bet you they don't care.

I bet you they just keep going.

Yeah, that's my guess, too.

I mean, what law restrains these people?

It doesn't seem like there's a law that will restrain them.

And I think giving, you know, $400,000 to people who came across our border, listen to what he just said.

If you came over the border and you lost your child, you get a payout.

$100,000?

$250,000.

You know what $250,000 means to somebody who is living in poverty

in Mexico or Guatemala?

It changes their life.

It changes their life.

You're not going to file?

Of course you are.

You're not going to come for the lottery.

Maybe you win.

This is a nightmare, a nightmare.

And think about it with the shoe on the other foot.

Americans sneaking into Mexico or Guatemala and then demanding a payment once you're caught and you've been inconvenienced at the border.

Now I want to be made a rich person.

I want a million dollars for my family, which is the payout that you could get for per family.

It's unthinkable.

It is.

We are approaching some sort of a line where the American people are going to stand.

I think

Republican, Independent, and some Democrat are going to start standing up and going, nope, no more.

No more.

I mean, the Bubba effect is not going to happen just in one community.

I think the Bubba effect is going to happen

in a lot of this country.

A lot of this country where people will just stand up and say, I'm not going to comply.

I won't do it.

I won't do it.

You're out of control.

You're giving people who come across our border money and

you're not helping any of us.

You're putting me out of business.

No, thank you.

I want no part of it.

So I am trying to eat healthier and I am.

But the thing is, I don't like healthy food.

I don't like any of it.

You've heard of a fat suit, right?

I mean, there's got to be, when are we getting a skinny suit?

Something that will make me look skinny because I just want treats all the time.

I grew up in a bakery for the love of Pete.

The bad news is no skinny suit is coming.

You actually have to do the work, blah, blah, blah.

That's why I am eating Built Bars.

It satisfies my sweet tooth, but it's a protein bar, but not like, you know, that's like eating stuff at the bottom of my chalkboard, usually.

This is 100% real chocolate.

It's low carb, low sugar.

If I'm eating a protein bar as a treat, come on, you gotta know it's good.

And I am.

Mint brownie, cookies, and cream, the new flavors that are coming out all the time, they're fantastic.

Go to builtbar.com and use the promo code Beck15 for 15% off your order.

Your mouth is going to water just looking at them.

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This is the best of the Glenn Beck program, and we really want to thank you for listening.

So, as we told you last week,

there were several states that took action against this mandate.

The rule applies to just 84.2 million workers and

another 1.9 private sector, according to OSHA.

But we had Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah.

The AGs got together and they put together a legal brief and filed it against the Biden administration, and it won over the weekend.

There is a stay on this order, and Ken Paxton is here to tell us all about it.

Hi, Ken.

Good morning, Glenn.

Hope you're doing well.

Thank you very much.

Ken is the Attorney General for the great state of Texas.

Tell me what happened.

So, as you said,

it was a pretty well-organized deal.

It's not just those five states you mentioned, but there are other states suing as well.

We've obviously been talking about this since the day that Joe Biden told us that he was going to do it.

And it's odd that he told us he was going to do it it because a few months earlier he had said it would never happen and the federal government did not have the authority to do it.

He was right the future.

Oh, shoot, you're breaking it.

He doesn't have the right to do it.

Okay.

And they know because

there's no place for this in the Constitution unless you start to twist the idea that OSHA has complete control over everything in the workforce, right?

That's correct.

And not only do they not have the authority, but the president doesn't have the constitutional authority to give them that authority.

I'm not even sure Congress would have the authority to do that, but clearly OSHA has not been given that authority by Congress.

So they say they have control of everything in a workplace that makes people unsafe.

I mean,

OSHA's directive is so broad that you could say that they have

the legal authority.

Couldn't you?

I actually, no, I think they've been given authority over substances, concinogens, toxic materials, but they've never been given authority to deal with communicable diseases.

That's the CDC.

And even the CDC doesn't have the authority to mandate vaccines.

As a matter of fact, this has happened in the past.

They were asked to implement at some point in our history

a vaccine mandate, and they said it was better to do voluntary, not

mandatory.

So we have the CDC also making a ruling that, you know,

don't worry about it.

Don't worry about paying, you know, for

your monthly rent or your mortgages.

And

I think it was the Supreme Court or was it a federal court that said,

no, you don't have the authority to do that.

But the Biden administration is still doing it.

Correct?

Did we lose him?

Oh, there you are.

Ken, are you there?

Hey.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm here.

Sorry about that.

Yeah.

And you were right about that.

It was the Supreme Court that stopped that from staying in place, another illegal implementation by the Biden administration.

So

they've just continued to do it.

What gives you any feeling that they are going to listen to the ⁇ I think it was the Fifth Circuit Court this weekend that said this is federal overreach.

It has grave constitutional consequences, I think is what the judge said.

What makes you think they're going to stop?

Well, look,

if we get a ruling, it's one thing for them to not follow federal immigration law and not proactively do what they're doing.

But

if we have a stay and ultimately a victory, then I think Americans will just say, look, the court has ruled that the president can't force me.

He never had the authority to force me.

And now a court has ruled, a federal court has ruled that he doesn't have that authority.

I think it'll give the American people some security and some confidence that they can ignore this and not worry about it.

We are increasingly looking like a failed banana republic.

We have an administration that is

knowingly

twisting knobs and turning levers right now.

And they know they can't get things through Congress, so they're just doing

things through like OSHA and the CDC.

And they seem to be ignoring things.

The FBI is off the rails

and

it's just the states now that stand in the way.

Are you convinced we have enough states and enough

momentum to be able to

stop this?

You know, I think you and I have talked about this before.

I know we have.

I see something really good happening among the states.

It seemed like when Joe Biden was first elected, it was Texas and a few other states out fighting this.

This mandate has motivated almost every Republican state, which is half the country, to do something about it, to fight back.

And that's really the key to our survival.

It's got to be Texas and the rest of the country saying, no, we're not going to put up with this because if we let it go, we really will be a banana republic.

We really will have no control over our elected officials.

And we'll have an out-of-control president who just dictates to us what he wants us to do.

Let me change the subject

just a bit.

There's a couple of other stories that have come up, and I'd just like your read on this.

The FBI rated

Project Veritas, the writers,

of some of the news that comes out of Project Veritas.

You can like them or hate them, but they are doing journalism.

You may not like it, but that's what they're doing.

Over a year ago, there was a missing Biden diary from

his daughter, and in it, she claims that

she was

a sexual assault victim from somebody in her family.

She talks about having to take showers with her father.

Then they go into the money stuff that sounds very much like Hunter Biden.

Project Veritas never printed these stories.

It was leaked

to another outlet that

did do the stories.

They instead turned that diary over to police because they couldn't verify that it was hers and they just wanted to get it to the hands of the police.

The FBI, a year later, broke down the doors on Saturday morning of Project Veritas writers and were searching for anything related to that diary.

Now, I don't know what federal crime someone is committing with

a diary, even if

I called you, Ken, and said, hey, my daughter left her diary someplace and somebody took it, are you going to get the state troopers out to look for my daughter's diary?

Absolutely not.

This is the Biden administration using law enforcement, the FBI included, to do their bidding, to do their political bidding.

And it's creating a real lack of credibility with federal law enforcement when you see things just like this.

So you see the FBI being used to investigate parents who dare to speak out

at public school meetings.

So this is, and we certainly saw this during the Trump administration, but now the Biden administration is perfecting this and using law enforcement to punish people and to go after people that they don't agree with.

And I think this is another example.

I know Eric O'Keefe, he's an amazing guy.

He's done some amazing things.

And what they're doing here

is very reminiscent of what would happen in Germany to you back in the 30s and what happened in Russia and China.

It is terrifying.

Are our states going to stand against when it gets ⁇ I mean, when you're breaking down the doors of writers over a diary

that is in question,

I mean, the assault on the First Amendment and a free press is pretty obvious.

Are our states going to stand?

You know what?

I sure hope so.

We were standing up for the Biden administration now, but I think there's a lot of fear, even among Republicans.

Like, if I stand up, they'll come after me.

And that's the reality of where we are at now.

So I think the truth is, if we don't stand up now, we will see our freedoms eroded.

We'll see law enforcement used for political purposes more and more, which they're already doing.

And look, if they're willing to investigate parents and they're willing to do things like this, we can't know where they'll stop.

And so if we don't think, if we don't stop them now, if we don't speak out now, if all Americans don't speak out now, we're going to pay the price with more and more of this, and it's going to get worse.

Can I ask you one more question?

I don't know if you've been following the Rittenhouse trial at all,

but the prosecution, the prosecution brought a couple of people up.

Let's go to, can we play Sat 1 real quick for him?

The media's response to Yunkins' victory is literally...

Not that, please.

Sot 1 of Rittenhouse.

When I turned around, Rosenbaum was right there in front of my face, yelling and screaming.

And I would say, dude, back up.

Just chill.

I don't know what your problem is.

And he goes, you know what?

If I catch any of you guys alone tonight, I'm going to kill you.

And he said that to you.

Correct.

Did he say that to the defendant as well?

No, the defendant was there.

So yes.

Another person, play SOT 3, please.

Another person for the prosecution said this.

I kind of caught up to them.

I was running a bit faster.

And so at the time, initially, I was probably 30 feet back when the first, when everybody first started running.

But then by the time I arrived in the lot, I was 15 feet.

And you continue to be behind Mr.

Rosenbaum at the time that the defendant shot and killed him, correct?

I did alter my trajectory a little bit when I saw Mr.

Rittenhouse turn around and saw Mr.

Rosenbaum

lunging for the front portion of the rifle.

Lunging for the rifle.

How did this case make this into a courtroom when that's the prosecution's witnesses?

You know, again, it's shocking.

The abuse right now with

law enforcement, with the Department of Justice, with just law enforcement in general by the Biden administration and

other elected officials is scary.

And it's scary even in my state where local officials use politics more than the law.

So the rule of law is becoming a thing of the past.

And that's why I think it's so critical that we cannot let anything pass, whether it's the FBI investigating parents or the FBI investigating Eric O'Keefe and Project Veritas.

If we're not speaking out now, I'm telling you, I think it could be too late down the road.

Thank you very much.

Anything that the people can do to help our AGs?

I would say don't be afraid to speak out at work.

Don't be afraid to speak out in your community.

We all need to speak out now.

It's not a time to be timid.

Again, it'll be too late if we're not willing to stand up now.

Thank you so much.

Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of the Great State of Texas.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

I want you to know, you might be getting up today and you might be thinking, what the hell have I done with my life?

I mean,

I don't really have a future.

I want you to feel better because I'm going to introduce you to Stephen Kent.

He is a guy who has focused, I believe, his entire life on Star Wars.

And, I mean, knows it, knows everything about it, everything about it.

And he has been able to eke out a career uh a good one a good one seems to be doing really well good one but american dream is alive yeah

you really have i mean you've taken this and you've taken the star wars mythology and and um

all of the imagery and you can so easily

learn lessons from today and politics and everything else from star wars now you have a new book how the force can fix the world

Oh, yeah.

We thought it should be How the Force Could Fix America.

And then I went into one of those editorial meetings with your publisher, and they're like, But what about the world?

Guys, I think this is shooting a little bit too big right out of the gate.

But yeah, you know, everything that we face, I think, particularly like in the West and American society that we see breaking, whether it be sort of democratic norms, enmity towards our neighbors, political polarization, these are trends happening all across the world.

So let's take:

did you see the, did you see the woman, I think it was on CNN,

who said,

these, these women in Virginia, they're just disgusting and stupid.

I'd like to know how can I connect with them?

And I think by not saying the first part of that question is probably the answer.

Yeah, something like that.

I was actually looking at that this morning, and it's one of those case in points for how when you watch a lot of Star Wars you see a lot of weird connections that I think other people would not otherwise see.

This woman, Amy Sensiskind, she said, I join others in being dismayed and disgusted by these women.

She's talking about Virginia's, Virginia voters.

I don't know how to reach non-college educated white women.

The women I can connect with and influence are college educated white women.

I'm open to suggestions, she says.

Well, I'm glad.

You know, the book, chapter one, deals with Star Wars and the virtue of humility, which is this thing which I think is hard to find in today's culture, whether it be like Facebook serving us up exactly what we want to see all the time, Twitter echo chambers and us talking to only our own people.

But then I was actually thinking, so what's the Star Wars analogy here?

And it actually is Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace, everyone's favorite movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well received.

No, I mean, so there's this great story in there where the planet New Brunswick.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, let me.

May I guess?

Y'all, please.

That woman should have never been created.

Is that the lesson?

That's the lesson I get from episode one.

Ah, yes.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the kind of enmity we're trying to wipe away from our society.

No,

it's all about the Gungans, right?

So the Gungens, these incredibly annoying fish hybrids that live on the planet of Naboo.

How does Queen Amidala in that movie repel the trade federation who have invaded that planet in that movie?

She doesn't go to the gunguns and say, I know y'all are fish.

I know you're kind of disgusting and you smell bad, but we've all been invaded by these droid armies.

I really would like your help if you can find time from being uncivil scolds.

That's not what she does.

The woman takes a knee and says, we beg of your help.

We respect the mutual greatness of our societies.

We need you in this moment.

That's not a direct quote.

But wait.

Didn't they give birth to Jarjar Binks?

They did.

They did.

Someone who it's easy to hold contempt for.

Again, the one thing that you learn.

Don't make this episode.

The subtext of the movie matters a whole lot.

There's this interesting line when she goes to the Gungans for help to get this thing in this moment.

Boston asked the guy who heads up the Gungans.

I'm not going to say anything Gungan speak, but in the King's English here.

He says, you said

you greater than the Gungans?

I like this.

Maybe we can be friends.

He only hated the Naboo and Queen Amidala because he thought the Naboo thought they were better than them.

And that was why he was willing to let them die in that movie and be ruled by the droids until she expressed that, no, we don't think you're great.

We're greater than you.

We need your help.

There's a lesson to be learned in that for all of us, how we are trying to relate to people who we want to join us in coalition and politics.

It's all about contempt.

Do you remember Anderson Cooper after the January 6th riot, you know, whatever you want to call it, when he mentioned that all the people involved in the Capital Storming event were going to be going back to Olive Garden and the Holiday Inn with this sort of sneer, you know, like, oh man, these normal people going to Olive Garden, the greatest restaurant in America with a white tablecloth that normal people go to to feel like they're having a nice dinner with their families and feel good about themselves.

I spent the majority of my 20s going to that restaurant because I barely had any money in my bank account.

And I wanted to take my daughter and my wife to a nice place where someone took our order and a white tablecloth meal.

Olive Garden was that place.

Yeah, I used to go to Olive Garden all the time until I married an Italian.

Right.

Yeah, now she won't even let me live.

She still has to go every Father's Day because I want the infinite breadstone.

So, can I go back to something you said?

What was that quote that you said in the King's English?

Could you get that again?

Yeah, I mean, so boss Nass says to them, You su no thinking you saw greater than the gungins?

We saw this.

Maybe we can be friends.

So, my question is,

did anyone think you would have a success in life?

You memorized that.

I mean, there's got to be somebody in your life that went, son, son.

There's something wrong with me.

I remember when I first started the Beltway Banthos podcast, which you both of you have been a guest on.

And it's great.

It is really good.

I'm giving you a hard time.

You're complicit in what has happened to me.

But I remember my dad gave me a pat on the shoulder over dinner.

He's like, son, don't let this become a distraction.

Five years later, it's all I do.

So here we are.

Good for you.

Sorry, dad.

Sorry, dad.

So

I think of the one quote that I remember from, I don't know, episode.

One of the first three.

This is the way a Republic ends, or this is the way freedom dies, something like that.

With thunderous applause.

Correct.

I think of that all the time.

What do you look at and say,

this is the Star Wars story happening right now?

Yeah.

So, I mean, it has to be popular consent for things that take away your freedoms.

I think my sort of waking up moment as a political person was, of course, the post-9-11 era, the Patriot Act, and, you know, the government being willing to just take everything that can get with the popular consent of the people who want to be safe.

We all understand that.

And we're all looking at the pandemic very much the same way.

This is never going to end.

They're going to take, take, take, as long as there are people saying, please keep us safe.

We never want to be in harm's way.

That's real.

And I love that line a lot.

But one thing that I also go to is in episode two, Padme and Anakin are having their little date in the field on the boo.

It's an awful scene.

It's horrible.

It's really fast forwarded through that.

It's really like one of the one of the worst acted scenes in the movie, but it's really important.

And for this reason, Anakin and Padme are talking about politics and how it should work.

And she says, what kind of system would you like?

And Anakin says, I want a system where the politicians sit down and discuss what's in the best interest of the people, and then they do it.

And she says, well, that's what we already do.

But the trouble is people don't agree.

He says, well, they should be made to.

Who's going to make them?

You?

Not me, someone wise.

Right there is the totalitarian instinct that a lot of us have.

A lot of us have little dormant totalitarian tendencies that we say no to because we believe in liberty.

We believe in it despite the things that we want to control.

So can you tell me, and this is an honest question, by the way, that's a hundred times more than I took out of that scene.

Just what you just said.

I think it's the most important one.

It's weird.

I remember once you said it, I remembered that that too.

I blocked it from my memory because all of those are so bad.

But,

you know,

this is an honest question.

How can the people who are writing and filming these damn things not

understand

the point?

Because they always think it's about the other people out there who don't see the world they do.

They're always looking at their movies and going, yeah, we love freedom, but those other people don't.

We have a special knack for putting masks on people that we don't see the world the same as or who we don't agree with and cartoonizing their points of view.

And in Star Wars, you see this in every single movie.

Bad guys wearing masks and then heroes who have the task of trying to see past them and know that there is a person under there, whether it be cute boy Kyle O'Rin or Darth Vader.

Like it is the call of heroes to try to rise to the occasion on that, unmask people and treat them like people.

So what I got from that is that Fauci is a Sith Lord.

It's hard.

It is hard not to.

It is hard not to.

And it's kind of one of those things.

It's just like when the guy is given sort of the mandate to rule, keep everybody safe, and you just see no

inkling of a possibility that this guy is going to let it go.

Like it's going to be the forever pandemic, endemic.

And what does that mean for the public health establishment that they're always going to be around?

You saw what they did last year where they got rid of eviction moratoriums?

The CDC getting involved in housing?

It's incredibly egregious.

And we cannot just like sit back and applaud that they're going to do this.

Nobody elected them to do anything like that.

They're giving away our freedoms step by step.

Eventually, we're going to have to accept reasonable risk and get back to life.

The name of the book is How the Force Can Fix the World.

There is one thing that I've always appreciated from you is.

Only one?

Don't push me.

No,

the fact that you can take lessons from popular culture, because Stu and I were talking about this earlier today.

Everything is gone.

If it wasn't for podcasts and honestly talk radio and up to a point Fox News, this country would be over because there would be no opposition to any of it.

There'd be no opposition in the mainstream.

But we've lost our churches, we've lost our schools, we've lost many of our organizations.

The Boy Scouts are doing, you know, there's a, there's a, for equity and justice, there's now a patch for it.

So we've lost everything.

But there are a few stories that still teach truth, and Star Wars is one of them.

It's four generations of truth in that story, just the longing for freedom and the tension between wanting order and then wanting to breathe free.

That's what this story has always been.

And it's something that I'm encouraged by because even when we know that like the left-wing, right, meddles in popular culture, they meddle in Star Wars too, just like they meddle in everything.

The message has still kind of always been the same, which is that if you give away too much, you're never going to live free.

And there's going to be people who rise together to stop it.

And I think some of the details, we get really too hung up on those.

And Star Wars is this story that as everything that we share together starts to crumble around us, I'm not suggesting we replace the Bible, but if you come at somebody with like Bible verses, first thing, they're not going to be listening to you if they're not a person of faith.

But why don't you talk to them about the idea?

I don't think this is a perfect script.

I mean, this teaches the scriptures, just not in script.

This is the message.

Yoda could be Jesus.

I mean, he could.

In many ways, he teaches exactly the same things.

And that chapter I told you about with like humility and just taking a knee before someone that you need their help.

The whole chapter ties the Phantom Menace to Matthew 18.

The idea that we need to be as children if we are to be true followers of Christ.

And that requires us to be humble and know that we need help from others.

The name of the book is How the Force Can Fix the World by Stephen Kent.

It's available everywhere.

We have Stephen Kent in How the Force Can Fix the World.

I'd love to have you back.

You're really a fascinating guy.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-liter jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.