Peace vs. Big Government - In The Tank #507

Just because a war is abroad—and between countries other than your own—doesn’t mean it won’t have impacts at home. In the USA, history shows that U.S. intervention in foreign wars increases federal intervention in our everyday lives; constant involvement in wars has led to much of the creeping expansion of our government over time. The whole world seems to be watching as Trump attempts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. We’ll talk about why it’s good for domestic freedom that Trump is resisting getting the U.S. directly into the war.

On UNHINGED, Loudoun County schools are once again in the news—this time for suspending boys who complained about a girl in their locker room. Also, bank executives are beginning to point the finger at the Obama and Biden administrations for debanking conservatives, and some college students have apparently been exaggerating their progressive bona fides to keep attention off themselves in school.

The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, and S.T. Karnick will discuss all of this and more on Episode #507 of the In The Tank Podcast. Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET every Friday on YouTube and Rumble and jump into the live chat!

VISIT OUR SPONSOR, Advisor Metals: https://climaterealismshow.com/metals

Episode Transcript

Linea Lueken (00:03):
Alright. We are now live. Welcome to the show,
everyone. American history hasshown that just because a war is
foreign doesn't mean it won'thave impacts on your life here
when our government getsinvolved over there. Trump seems
to understand this, which is whyhe's trying hard to broker peace
between Ukraine and Russia.
Two boys were suspended from aLoudoun County school, yes, that

(00:24):
one, for complaining about agirl in their locker room. And
banking executives are nowsaying that they were pressured
to debank conservatives by theObama Obama and Biden
administrations. And it appearsthat some students at
universities feel the need toexaggerate their liberalism on
campus in order to avoid beingtargeted, which is a surprise to
nobody. But it's interestingthat we're doing studies about

(00:45):
it now. We are going to talkabout all of this and more in
episode 507 of the In the Tankpodcast.

(01:26):
Alright. Welcome to the In theTank podcast, everyone. I am
Lynea Luken, your host. We alsohave Jim Lakeley, vice president
of the Heartland Institute, andwe have Sam Karnik, senior
fellow at the HeartlandInstitute. Now, guys, to open up
here, we usually do a littlechitchat at the top of the
video.
I wanna get your thoughts onthis. What do you think about
changing In The Tank's name toIn The Now since everybody is

(01:50):
rebranding at the moment?

S.T. Karnick (01:54):
That's perfect. We'll have to change our
ideology, I suppose.

Linea Lueken (01:58):
Yeah. No.

Jim Lakely (01:59):
We are. Oh, for people who are wondering what
that what that reference was inMirth, it was that. You may have
seen it this week that MSNBC,they're being they're being sold
off by Comcast NBC. In fact,Comcast is selling off a lot of
their cable properties. MSNBC isprobably the least attractive
one.
So they are going to be cuttingall ties to NBC News, including

(02:23):
the NBC name, and so they'rechanging their name to MS Now,
which it could be BS Now becausethat's what it is currently. So
I don't know why they don'tchange it to that, but it's,
yeah, quite humorous. And wewere kicking this around in the
in in chats here at the Harlissthis week. And I don't know. I

(02:44):
put the over under on the k onthe channel as it will now
exist.
And MS now was gonna stand formy source news opinion and the
world. So great. That's really,really super clever. I don't
even I think AI could definitelycome up with something better
than that and certainlysomething better than their

(03:04):
logo. But, I give that networkat most eighteen months of
survival before they finallyjust pull the plug on the whole
thing, once it's once it'sseparated from NBC.

S.T. Karnick (03:14):
It really is interesting how NBC is trying to
get rid of the stink of MSNBCbecause that's what this amounts
to. They're going to get rid ofthe NBC, connection to a lot of
other networks as well, CNBC.And I think they have a few a
few others. I I don't I don'tthink they have bravo, but, you
know, something like that, E orBravo. And they're trying to get

(03:38):
rid of these connections andmake themselves into a more
coherent kind of name brand thatwill go under as well.

Linea Lueken (03:51):
Yeah. And people are not too happy about Cracker
Barrels rebranding either. A lotof jokes to be made about that
one. I think I'll leave it tothe audience to make those.
Let's see.
Do you guys remember when theychanged the spelling of the
SciFi channel's name? Yeah. Andhow stupid and lame that was?

Jim Lakely (04:09):
Yeah. From All

Linea Lueken (04:10):
of this

Jim Lakely (04:10):
is Yeah. From s c I f I to s y f y. Yeah. One of the
worst in the history.

Linea Lueken (04:19):
Minimalism is a scourge. Alright. Anyway, before
we get started, guys, if youwant to support the show, you
can go toheartland.org/inthetank and
donate there. Please also clickthe thumbs up to like the video,
and remember that sharing italso helps break through some of
that suppression that YouTubehas on us. Even just leaving a
comment helps us too.
If you're an audio listener, youcan help us out by leaving a

(04:40):
nice review on whatever platformyou're using. Alright. So let's
get right into it with unhinged.Jim? Wow.
Alright. Great job. Thank youvery much.

Jim Lakely (05:03):
We finally got to use my drop for for Unhinged
this week. I'm so so happy.

Linea Lueken (05:08):
Alright. So there are some boy students who have
been suspended over a girl beingin their locker room. This is
once again at the Loudoun CountySchool District. It's amazing
that they keep popping up on thesame kind of issue track. If you
remember that awful story from awhile back, the same district
kept the sexual assault of agirl secret in order to protect

(05:32):
their transgender bathroompolicy.
Well, here they are at it again.From ABC seven news, Loudoun
County Public Schools willsuspend two boys who attend
Stonebridge High School becausetheir interactions with a female
student who identifies as maleand chooses to use the boys
locker room at school. Earlierthis year, seven news reporter

(05:53):
Nick Minnick was the first toreport that LCPS launched a
title nine investigation intothe students after they were
recorded on video asking whythere was a girl in the boys'
locker room. It's it's importantto note that the person filming
in the locker room was the girlwho was a girl who identified as

(06:15):
a boy, and the boys were not toopleased with her entering the
bathroom. So anyway, the boyswere hit with sex based
harassment and discriminationclaims, which are going to go on
their permanent school records.
One of the kids was, you know,his parents went as far as to
take him out of school. So thisstuff is just crazy. And it's

(06:35):
crazy too that the same schooldistrict seems to be sticking to
this even though they got somuch backlash over the previous
incident. Jim, will they learn?

Jim Lakely (06:50):
Yeah. I mean, Loudoun kept had this happen in
in Northern Virginia of allplaces after radical school
district policies in LoudounCounty basically delivering the
governorship to a republican inthe last election is is quite
something. You know, it's it'sfunny if a you know, not to be

(07:11):
well, I will just come out andsay it. This would be different,
I suppose, or maybe people wouldperceive it as differently if a
female felt uncomfortable withbiological males being in their
private spaces. But here it is,boys being uncomfortable with
girls being in their privatespaces, biological girls, and

(07:36):
that's a real thing.
Look. When is this the fact thatthis is even happening in in
schools to adolescents, and thishas been going on for years. I
mean, that this trend, thismania is fading, but it's as
this story shows, it's notcompletely gone. These are these
wacky, radical adults who areput in charge of our children in

(07:59):
public schools and in all publicspaces, really, Have they
forgotten what it's like to bean awkward, you know, adolescent
and teenager? How whether you'rea boy or a girl, if you're the
between the ages of 12 and 17,that you just feel really weird
and and your hormones are areare racing and you're very
emotional and you have you know,you're not a confident person

(08:23):
for the most part.
Even the even the most popularkid in school, when you were in
school, had these same issuesand hang ups and did not want
all of these things wereuncomfortable. The fact that we
have to do this now, we have tostop policies like this or that
parents have to fight for therights of their children to not
be in the same spaces, you know,either in bathrooms or locker

(08:47):
rooms with people of theopposite sex and, you know, not
gender, but sex is insane.Donnie and I have talked about
this, who who guest hosted forfor last week. We talked about
this in the office a lot, andit's that, you know, things are
going back to normal. Thenormies are taking back over the

(09:08):
world and our politics and ourculture.
And another way to look at it isthat nature is healing itself.
That the only way these things,these radical policies are
sustainable is if these radicalleftists remain in power, but
more than that, that normiesfeel feel like they can't fight

(09:28):
it because they can't win,because they think they don't
have any power. What we'relearning over the last just
gosh. The election was not evena year ago. What we're learning
over just the last severalmonths is that the power of the
majority, not to oppress, youknow, smaller groups of the
minority, but just to enforcetraditional social norms that

(09:48):
exist for reasons, for reallygood reasons, That that power
exists, and we're finally seeingit exercise.
And it's a very good thing.Shame on this story even showing
up in Loudoun County of all.

Linea Lueken (10:04):
Absolutely. And, Sam, do you have anything that
you wanted to throw in on ourunhinged segment today? Or it is
this subject actually relates towhat we're gonna talk about last
today. So we will kind of loopback to it. But what you got?

S.T. Karnick (10:19):
Jim did a great job of sort of characterizing
the situation. I would just saythat one thing that's really
important to recognize here isthat this is a government
organization. These schools arerun by the government, and so
they feel that they can dowhatever they want. And that's
the real problem. We've we'vedefinitely have to get school

(10:42):
choice in this country, and theTrump administration has made
some moves in that direction,but it's basically gotta happen
on the state level.
We we're having success allacross the country in getting
more school choice. But the thenumber of of, the numbers of
children that that are beingable to take advantage, of the,

(11:04):
the options is not as high as itneeds to be. Honestly, we really
need to get rid of thegovernment schools altogether in
my view. All schools should beindependently, managed and
owned. And, if you if thegovernment is going to put money

(11:25):
into them, it should be bygiving it to the the parents to
bring to a school and then leaveit alone.
We're going to see in all theissues, today that it's they all
seem to empower the government,and it's always used in a
corrupt way. So this they'retrying to make young men and

(11:47):
young women feel powerless. Andin the case of these two boys,
it's that sent a message toeverybody.

Jim Lakely (12:00):
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Linea Lueken (13:30):
Okay. So the yeah. No. And you're absolutely right
there. And you guys, we aregoing to do something to our
audience here.
We're gonna do something alittle bit different this week.
We are going to hit the maintopic first to see how that goes
for a time. So I don't know ifyou can hear me when I'm not on

(13:52):
screen. What we are going to belooking at is how war leads to
government overreach. Last weekand into this week, most of you
guys know, Trump met withUkraine President Zelenskyy and
Russian President Putin to tryto begin negotiations to end the
war.
He also met with other Europeanleaders in a way that was very

(14:15):
funny, I thought, to solidifyhis position with all of them.
It was pretty amazing allaround. Zelensky actually wore a
suit this time, and Putin wastreated to a vaguely threatening
bomber flyby. So that was prettyfun. The epic times put together
a good article on takeaways fromthe meetings, which I definitely

(14:36):
recommend.
I think it's just titled sixtakeaways from the Trump Putin
Zelensky meeting. So the firsthighlight that that epic looks
at is Trump said The UnitedStates would help Europe with
security guarantees for Ukraine.The exact nature of the security
guarantees remains open, but theTrump administration offered

(14:57):
some clues that met with apositive perception from
Europeans. Article five likeprotections might have to be
achieved alongside a promise tokeep Ukraine out of NATO itself.
Ukraine's interest in joiningthe organization is what drove
Russian concerns ahead of itsinvasion by the neighboring
country.
So the meeting was certainlyfriendlier than the last time

(15:19):
Zelensky was in the Oval Office.Epic Times also says that there
might not be any prerequisiteceasefire for the peace deal,
and that there might be someterritory swaps involved. But
the Ukraine And Russian Waritself is not really the main
point of this segment that we'rediscussing today here. The main

(15:40):
point is why for domesticbenefit, this thing should end
and that The United Statesshould be getting out of it
entirely as soon as possible. SoSam, you brought an article to
our attention from theIndependent, which was really
good.
It was it's called How WarAmplified Federal Power in the
Twentieth Century. I'm justgonna read a little bit more and

(16:00):
then I'll hand it to you, Sam.And that article opens with,
after surveying the Westernworld in the past six centuries,
Bruce Porter concluded agovernment at war is a
juggernaut of centralizationdetermined to crush any internal
opposition that impedes themobilization of militarily vital
resources. This centralizingtendency of war has made the

(16:22):
rise of the state throughoutmuch of history a disaster for
human liberty and rights. As acause of the development of big
government in The United States,however, war seldom receives its
due.
So now this being a HeartlandInstitute podcast, I am
absolutely sure that we couldall take the entire hour talking
about Woodrow Wilson alone. Butwe don't have time for that. So,

(16:47):
Sam, what would your elevatorpitch be on this concept here?

S.T. Karnick (16:52):
I love the way you put that question. Well, my
elevator pitch would be that italmost seems sometimes that the
purpose of war is to expandgovernment. Because the outcomes
of wars, especially wars thatThe United States has been
involved in over the pastcentury or so, are always
ambiguous at best, if not justbasically disastrous. But the

(17:16):
real outcome of war that ispermanent, that does last, is
the expansion of government. Andas our viewers will know from
history, but also if you take alook at that article at
Independent Institute, you'llsee that after World War I,
well, leading up to World War I,the progressive movement had not

(17:38):
actually made that much progressin centralizing government in
The United States and andcreating an expertocracy.
But by in World War one, theythey did that, But then they got
voted out of office because ofall the horrible things that had
occurred during that time. Andthe Republicans came in and the

(18:02):
great president Warren G.Harding actually solved a
horrific depression that lastedonly a few months, by cutting
federal spending radically andand, eliminating federal debt.
So, what what happened then wasthat a lot of those things went

(18:22):
away. But then we had another,disaster, which was the, stock
market crash, which would waswould have been easy easy to
fix.
But instead, what they the thegovernment used this expansive
approach again. Same thingduring World War two. Same thing
during the Cold War. Same thingright up through to the the the

(18:44):
Patriot Act in the Iraq War andAfghanistan War. So all this
that's been going on, the onething that you get is the
expansion of government.
Now did any of these wars reallywork out the way they were
supposed to? The Great War slashWorld War one ended up bringing
on a depression in The UnitedStates and and much of the rest

(19:05):
of the world and brought onWorld War II. There's simply no
question about that. So that wasa catastrophe. World War II went
right into the Cold War.
The Cold War went right intofinally the dissolution of the
Soviet Union. But one wonders ifthat would have happened faster

(19:26):
if The United States had beenmore diligent in building our
own economy and building ourown, respect for individual
rights. So again, now thePatriot Act, what a horrible,
horrible thing that was. So yousee that war just expands
government. That's the one thingit does effectively.

(19:48):
The rest of it, all all thesewars are supposed to end all
wars or at least end, bringpeace to a certain region or or
or something of the sort. Trumphas the right idea in saying,
let's just stop these darn warsin the first place.

Linea Lueken (20:01):
Yeah. And I imagine, you know, we don't even
kind of the the standardapproach to this discussion is
to go all the way back to atleast World War one, if not
earlier. I mean, governmentexpansion happened during the
civil war. It happened duringthe war of eighteen twelve, but
those were at least local. But Iimagine that you can make the
point well enough just lookingat the global war on terror.

(20:21):
Right? I mean, Jim, what you'restill muted, but I saw you
making I saw you making eyebrowmotions.

Jim Lakely (20:32):
Yeah. Yeah. I tend to I tend to wear my my thoughts
on my face. Guilty as a guard.Good.
I also wanna apologize to the tothe audience, especially those
watching on on YouTube. Andy,our producer, is out on special
assignment on for AI purposesand myself, I screwed it up.

(20:53):
It's So on it's on me. Julie'sback there helping us out and
I'm not making it easy on her byscrewing things up. So, anyway,
putting that aside.
Sam, as you were talking, I wasactually thinking about how war
expands government. I mean,that's the thing right there on
the sidebar. What was the tax ontelephones that Americans were
paying a hundred and twentyyears after the Mexican was that

(21:15):
the Mexican American war? It wassupposed to finance?

S.T. Karnick (21:19):
I think it's the Spanish American war.

Jim Lakely (21:21):
Spanish American war. Right. Right. Think we only
stopped paying yeah. We onlystopped paying a special tax to
fund the Spanish American war,like, in 2012 or something like
that.
It was it was absurd. And thenyeah. And you rightly point out
the, you know, in World War oneor or, Lynea, you did, pointed

(21:41):
out in World War one that, youknow, Woodrow Wilson's
disastrous progressive,presidency is where we got some
of the worst reforms in thehistory of this country. Without
question, the worst reforms inthe history of this country was
the earliest early twentiethcentury progressive movement
from which we're still notrecovering. There's still so

(22:03):
many policies instituted morethan one hundred and twenty
years ago that were trapped thenand are even worse now,
including the income tax.
We had to get that. And I thinkthat might have been related to
World War One. Right? So

Linea Lueken (22:16):
Yeah. And the Independent Institute points it
out that, you know, prior toWoodrow Wilson, something like
ninety nine percent of theAmerican population was not in
the, like, population of peoplewho had to pay any income tax.
There was some income tax, butit was on people who are making

(22:38):
like a half a million dollars ayear or something like that. And
it was capped at 6% orsomething. And nobody else had
to pay any income tax at all.
So while that might not be fair,you know, it's not equitable,
but it's at least not thebehemoth that we have today.
Right?

Jim Lakely (22:57):
Yeah. And and for for sure. And it's it's like,
look, this is the nature ofgovernment. Once you you know,
it's the cliche about the noseunder the or the camel's nose
under the the tent flap. They'llnever leave.
That that's why we at the HarlemInstitute fight for smaller
government and more individualliberty, and it's a constant
battle that will outliveeverybody on and listening to

(23:18):
this podcast, I'm afraid,because that is the nature of
government is to grab power andto suppress and, frankly,
enslave the people to serve thestate. That is the nature of
government no matter and that'swhy the constitution was written
as it was. That is exactly whatthe founding fathers and the
framers of the constitution weredoing their best to put off as

(23:40):
long as possible. Theyunderstood a lot better than
modern man does what the natureof government is. Their most of
their experience, of course, wasthrough monarchies, tyranny
through monarchy, throughinherited power.
But the principle of thatdoesn't change because we live
in so called democracies. Youknow, what what is the name of

(24:03):
North Korea's? What's NorthKorea's real name? The
Democratic Republic Of NorthKorea. And I believe most of the
most tyrannical states acrossthe world have the word
democratic in it somewhere.
So the nature of governmentpower and its abuse and
suppression and, you know,tyrannical control of the people

(24:25):
is constant and and and alwaysthere no matter how free a form
of government you may have.Again, that's why the
constitution was written as itwas. I actually have always long
thought that I didn't think, youknow, George Washington, James
Madison, Thomas Jefferson, therest of the founding fathers. I
don't think that any of thembelieve that they were creating

(24:45):
a permanent state of liberty,that the that the country they
were creating would last as longas the Roman Empire. They were
practical and wise men.
They were just trying to dotheir best to have liberty last
as long as it could. You know,maybe in their dreams that it
would it would last forever orlast gosh. I would imagine

(25:06):
Benton Franklin especially, youknow, the one of the older and
wisest of all of the foundingfathers, you know, that famous
quote, it could be apocryphal,but, you know, he walked out of
the constitutional conventionand an old woman on the street
says, you know, well, what kindof government do we have, mister
Franklin? He goes, a republic ifyou can keep it. I would think
Ben Franklin would be the mostsurprised that we've lasted.

(25:29):
Now it'll be 250 next year. Hewould probably have been the
most surprised. And so but justone last point, you know, we can
move on from this. But talkingabout how war abroad expands
government and and expandedgovernment always leads to less
individual liberty and lessfreedom for everybody, economic

(25:50):
freedom, personal freedom, andall the rest. As you mentioned,
Lynne, the war on terror.
We have entire departments inthe government now because of
because two airplanes flew intothe World Trade Center and
another one into the Pentagon,and then another was taken down
in a field in Pennsylvania. TheDepartment of Homeland Security
would not exist. I was readingan article. Tulsi Gabbard this

(26:14):
week, she's getting she getsblack for everything she does.
But she's apparently going tolay off and dismiss 40% of the
intelligence community under herunder her authority as the
director of nationalintelligence.
People are like, oh my god, 40%.We can't we're just gonna be
attacked again or, you know,it's disaster. Most of the
people that she's getting rid ofare redundant. Like, there are

(26:37):
the the number of intelligenceagencies we have in this
country, who, by the way, arenot supposed to be collecting
intelligence on you and me, onAmerican citizens, but they do
this anyway because they haveused their power because, of
course, they do. You know, she'sa lot of the stuff that these
intelligence agencies areinvestigating and keeping an eye
on are done by, like, fivedifferent, quote, unquote,

(26:58):
intelligence agencies in thefederal government.
And a lot of this expansion hashappened since 09/11. So, yes, a
war abroad may not seemimportant to your liberty, but
as history shows, a war abroadis can affect your liberty a lot
and almost always does and inalmost always in a way that
takes it away from

Linea Lueken (27:17):
you. Well, it's funny.

S.T. Karnick (27:18):
Wanna add. I just wanna add that those
intelligence agencies lied to usrepeatedly for the past half
dozen years. They actually liedto us repeatedly for a dozen
years before that and a dozenyears before that. They've been
lying to the American peoplesince their inception. And the
the only way to stop that is toshrink them and kill them and

(27:43):
get rid of them.
This is this is this is they'rethey're used more to keep the
American people in line than todo anything to other countries.
And it is absolutely disgusting.And Ben Franklin would if he
were to see our country todayand say, oh, yeah, I see you're
still called The United StatesOf America. That's a good one.

Linea Lueken (28:05):
Right. Well, and it's funny, too, because
nowadays it's a good point thatyou brought up about how people
panic when you talk about, likeremoving some of the things that
we didn't have for the first 200of the country's existence. And
we're just fine without. Andit's not because some brand new
technology just came about orit's not because the threat of
jihad is more than everdifferent. But we were just

(28:29):
celebrating.
What was it? Two weeks ago thatwe don't have to take our shoes
off in the airport anymore.Isn't that just kind of sad? You
used to be able to walk right upto the gate without having a
ticket and to welcome people offthe plane and stuff. I was
really little when that was athing.
But, you know, that was it'scrazy what we get used to. And

(28:53):
then when they offer to givesome of that freedom back, even
if it's something as tiny asleaving your shoes on. People
are like, but what about shoebombs?

S.T. Karnick (29:03):
There's never One been shoe

Jim Lakely (29:05):
guy failed at a shoe bomb and then millions of people
for, well, for twenty years haveto take their freaking shoes off
going through a metal detector.It's absurd. I always I kind of
I smile, Riley, and a tearstarts to form on my face when I
watch a sitcom or a show fromthe 1990s where people are

(29:26):
actually escorting their familymembers to the gate and wave
goodbye because I remember doingthat as a kid and now that you
can't do that anymore. And so,you know, there's like that meme
that goes around, look what theytook from us. And one of the
things they took from us wastraveling like human beings and
not like cattle.
Well, there's A a

S.T. Karnick (29:44):
quick point. Isn't all this sort of S E X freedom
that we are supposedly have andlike in Loudoun County, for
example, isn't that perhaps justa way of redefining freedom so
that we can be utterly unfree inevery single way, but feel like,

(30:04):
well, I can always take drugsand become a transsexual if I
want. That's, well, I'm free.

Linea Lueken (30:11):
Well, and I wanted to read another part from this
independent article here thatsays he points out, so
authorities resorted to a vastsystem of controls and market
interventions. This is for WorldWar Two to get resources without
having to bid them away fromcompeting buyers in free
markets. They fixed prices anddirectly allocated physical and

(30:33):
human resources, establishingofficial priorities,
prohibitions and set asides andration the civilian consumer
goods in short supply. The warplanners steered raw materials,
intermediate goods, and finishedproducts into the uses they
valued most. Markets no longerfunction freely.
In many areas, they did notfunction at all. And it and it

(30:54):
continues, you know, awful humanrights, you know, abuses in The
United States, like Japaneseinternment, the arrest of
conscientious objectors, allsorts of stuff. And federal tax
revenues went up and stayed upforever and they have continued
to climb since then. So, yeah,it's And don't never forget

S.T. Karnick (31:17):
the borrowing. Don't forget the borrowing. That
has gone up faster thanrevenues. It went up by
something like 20 times afterone of these wars. The borrowing
went up 20 times.
Revenues went up like four timesand borrowing went up 20 times,
2000%.

Linea Lueken (31:38):
Although I will say you sent another like a
stubs a substack post too thatpoints out how Europe. I'm sorry
to our European viewers, butit's kind of true that Europe is
like an American vassal stateand has been. And I will say
that it was pretty funny to seeall of those European leaders
sitting there in front of Trump,who they all despise at the

(32:01):
resolute desk, like kids calledto the principal's office on on
this whole issue. And Trump'strying to end this war. You
know, all these differentEuropean nations have been
begging for us to put boots onthe ground or to send more money
or to send more resources.
And Trump's like, look, we'resending resources whether we

(32:22):
want to or not. But we're notputting boots on the ground. And
we are going to try to end thisthing however it takes. And a
lot of these leaders are justkinda like stomping their feet a
little bit over it as they sitin their chairs there.

S.T. Karnick (32:40):
I thought that was a great image. And it showed
that America, we're getting backon track as as you both alluded
to earlier. We're getting backon track. There's a long way to
go. A long, long, long, long,long way to go.
But the fact that we have apresident who can sit there at
his desk and have all the thepresidents of other countries

(33:00):
and and the EU sitting in frontof him and and have to listen to
what he says. Well, we're thebiggest. We're the best. We
should act like it.

Linea Lueken (33:10):
Well, it's it's kind of crazy because this is a
very different strategy than anyother president has had. I mean,
we've had presidents try to, youknow, have buy or trilateral,
you know, peace brokerages andstuff in the past, but nothing
quite like Trump just coming inand saying, you know what? Let's
just not have this war anymore.We're just gonna end this thing

(33:32):
right now. And we're, you know,without pledging all sorts of
stuff to it to the extent thatprevious wars have.
Yeah, it's fascinating. AsArchie's mom comments there,
loved seeing Ursula squirm.Yeah, Diane, they all got called
into the principal's office.Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

(33:53):
And Chris, again, that couldhave been Camilla sitting there.
Kamala. Kamala. However we wantto pronounce your name.

Jim Lakely (34:01):
It's yeah. Well, I mean, people people don't wanna
believe it, especially neverTrumpers and radical leftists.
But Donald Trump hates war. Youknow, it is indisputable fact
that we didn't get into any newwars in in Donald Trump's first
term. And I think you may notlike it when Donald Trump says

(34:25):
it, but Russia invaded Ukraineunder Joe Biden's watch because
he perceived correctly that JoeBiden and his administration
were weak and that they wouldnot do anything to stop him and
that it was worth the risk.
Now you may discount him sayingthis, but Vladimir Putin said
the same thing, I read at leasta smidge of. He says, no. I

(34:48):
wouldn't have invaded Ukraine ifTrump was president. Now that
may that has many layers to it.Like, for instance, Trump may
have talked to him a little bitand actually tried diplomacy.
But these the left, which usedto be they were the antiwar
party. You know, from thenineteen sixties on, it was
peace, man, and it was no nowar, you know, against Vietnam.

(35:13):
When I was in college and we inthe first Gulf War, it was all
the hippies and leftists out onthe out on the green at the
University of Pittsburgh, youknow, protesting against the war
in Iraq, and it was the samething with George w Bush. The
global left all over the streetsprotesting against George Bush,
burning him in effigy, and allthis stuff is some kind of war
monk. But now they're againstDonald Trump because he's for

(35:37):
peace, and it it is everythinghas just turned on its head.
But Yeah. What if what if thatwas Kamala in that in the Oval
Office Center now? Do you thinkall those people are gonna show
up in forty eight hours becauseKamala Harris gets on the horn
and says, we gotta end this warin Iraq in in Ukraine right now.
And I just met with Putin, andwe've got this thing all lined
up. It's now or never.

(36:00):
The contemporary legacy mediawill not report this accurately.
And in fact, it might even takea second generation of
historians to look back on thisproperly without the the taint
of Trump derangement syndromeburrowing into their stupid
skulls. But Donald Trump will godown as a historic president in

(36:21):
many, many ways. I think one ofhis legacies is going to be,
obviously, as the peacemakingpresident and also the one that
finally got Europe to starttaking care of itself again
instead of depending on Americanmoney and might for every single
thing that might prop up intheir own continent. Again,
Donald Trump ripped by thelegacy media and the left for

(36:42):
what?
For making NATO adhere to theobligations of the NATO treaty
and spending enough on their owndefense so that we don't have to
pay for everything. Oh my gosh.What a horrible thing. Donald
Trump made them do that. Nobodyelse did, and Biden certainly
wasn't going to do it either.
In the long run, this the reasonwhy all of those leaders I'm
sorry, Sam. I keep going on.You'll get your chance in a

(37:04):
minute. But the reason why thatphotograph of all those leaders
sitting around in tables likeit's an ordinary conference, an
impromptu conference, at at anybusiness in America is that,
they know, one, who the big dogon the world stage is. That's
the man sitting alone at behindthe desk.
And number two, they realizethat, with that power, they can

(37:28):
either be a friend or they canbe an annoyance or they can be a
foe. And they all chose thefirst one. And I would just make
one more observation. There wasa conspicuously missing world
leader in that photograph. Doesanyone wanna guess who that
leader is and what importantally of The United States he is
from?

(37:50):
Mark Carney of Canada

Linea Lueken (37:51):
was

Jim Lakely (37:52):
absent from that meeting. Canada is a NATO
member, And Donald Trump said,you know what? You're such a
clown. You're only gonna messthings up. I'll brief you.
I'll have some of my guys, maybethird level intel guys brief you
later. You're irrelevant. Sothat that's one of the biggest
power plays I've seen apresident do maybe ever since

(38:13):
Reagan and Reykjavik, I think.That was one of the biggest
presidential power moves we'llever see.

Linea Lueken (38:17):
Yeah. Trump is definitely not messing around on
this one.

S.T. Karnick (38:20):
The Democrat Party has long characterized itself as
as anti war, and you rightlypoint out that that was the
characterization in the nineteensixties. But it was, Woodrow
Wilson who was eager to get usinto war. It was, Franklin
Roosevelt who possiblymanipulated us into getting into
the second world war. It wasKennedy who got us into Vietnam

(38:45):
and Johnson who expanded itgrossly and Nixon who stopped
it. Nixon being a republican.
Now since, since the the Reaganyears, Republicans have been as
responsible for, starting warsas Democrats, unfortunately. We

(39:06):
have truly had a uni unipartysince then. That said, Trump has
gone back to the greatertradition of the American right,
which is peace and prosperityand individual rights. And those
all go together. And so I thinkthat what we're seeing here is a

(39:26):
restoration of, the Americanway.
And Trump is doing this in amultitude of ways. And one of
the most important though, andand the the lesson we take from
this, is that war is a tool ofthe state to grow, its power.
And Trump is fighting backagainst that. We we will all

(39:49):
benefit greatly from this andhistory. I don't believe in that
being on the right side ofhistory nonsense.
What I do believe it's being onthe right side of things. And
Trump is, I believe. Andhistorians are going to
recognize that this was anextraordinary time. We lived in
an extraordinary time in 2020through 2024. This is a good

(40:15):
one.
That was a bad one. And as Isaid before, there's a lot of
work to do, but at least we havesomebody trying to do it. And
yes, what he did to Kearney washilarious.

Linea Lueken (40:30):
Well, I'm glad that we did this first because
actually a lot of this stuffkind of transitions into much of
what we're also talking about.So we have all this uni party
stuff going on for years. Weknow that during even during
Obama's or during Trump's lastterm, there were kind of rumors

(40:52):
about debanking going on ofconservatives and banking
executives. Banking executivesare now blaming Obama and Biden
for debanking conservatives. Sowe have this from Fox Business.
Bank executives blow the whistleon how Obama and Biden admins

(41:14):
pressured them to debankconservatives. Funny how they
wait until now when Trumpadministration is going, you
know, kind of hardcore versuslast time. Right? In the wake of
President Donald Trump'sexecutive order outlawing
debanking, major bank executivestold Fox News Digital that they
were under pressure by the Obamaand Biden administrations to

(41:35):
deny services to individuals andbusinesses for political
reasons. Those pressures werevery, very real.
When your regulator gives you asuggestion, it's not a
suggestion. It's an order, asenior banking executive told
Fox News Digital. Fox News spokewith two executives at leading
US banks who asked to remainanonymous, fearing reprisals. I

(41:56):
still kind of think that thatshould be this kind of thing for
news should be like maybeillegal or something. I don't
really know.
It's getting really annoying. Idon't think I've seen a major
article come out in years withsources listed. It's getting out
of control. Anyway, according toone executive, banks were
pressured to deny services tocertain industries as part of

(42:17):
Operation Chokepoint andChokepoint two point o. House
Oversight Committee report foundthat Operation Chokepoint was a
DOJ task force whose aim was tochoke out legal companies
disfavored by the Obamaadministration.
They worked with bank regulatorsto label certain industries,
including firearm sales as highrisk. This is why a lot of FFL

(42:39):
holding businesses like firearmsbusinesses have a hard time
getting payment processors towork with them. So the first
banking executive said thatwhile regulators may have good
intentions, their worldviewswill inevitably influence their
decisions and that there arereal reasons to think this would
there were politicalconsiderations. Rather than get

(43:00):
on the wrong side of theregulators, banks would
preemptively refuse to takecertain clients. So, Jim, do you
think that this is all like a100% just government's fault?
Or are banks also doing a littleCYA as the Trump administration
begins to investigate Biden andObama's administrations?

Jim Lakely (43:23):
I don't wanna be put in a position to be empathizing
with global banking executives.However, a part of me and I try
to look at things fairly and tryto put yourself in their
position. What would you do ifthe federal government, the

(43:44):
president of The United Statesbacked up by intel committees
and who knows what they have onme says, look, you can play ball
with us, which is we're gonnatry to do something illegal. We
wouldn't be able to do this asthe government. But we have
these industries and theseindividuals that we don't like,
and we want to destroy them,their industries, and also ruin

(44:08):
lives of individual people.
Now you can debank them, andhere's a list of excuses you can
use to end their ability toparticipate in the financial
system of The United States andthe world. Or I could just pick
up the phone to whateverwhatever half dozen, at least,
regulatory agencies affect yourindustry and put you out of

(44:30):
business. So what is it goingbe, Guy? Are you going to help
us out here and make sure that,you know, firearms companies
can't you know, can't get, getfinancial services? Are you
going to help us out here andmake sure that John Eastman, a
once know, a person who had alot of respect still has mine as

(44:52):
an attorney, but he defendedTrump and his his fake, you
know, stone election narrative.
So you're gonna ruin you you youbetter ruin him or we're gonna
ruin you. So, you know, again, II don't wanna be in the position
of defending the honor of bankexecutives, but put in that

(45:14):
position, they really gave themno choice. And that this what it
it really, really annoys me. Ifyou listen again to the legacy
media, they will tell you tothis day that Barack Obama's
presidency was scandal free. Wehad never had a scandal free
presidency that went on for twoterms until that guy was

(45:36):
president underneath me, BarackObama.
But with but the of course, thetruth of this is that all of
this started happening underBarack Obama that the left's the
left's routine exercise of theirpower is to punish their
enemies. It's like, Don, one ofthe top three on the list. What
is the use of having all of thispower if you can't crush your

(45:59):
enemies with it? It's not it itwhere's the fun in that? So this
this is not being reported.
You might notice that this storywas from Fox Business. You will
not see this discussed on theSunday on the network Sunday
morning chat shows. But this,along with many other things
that we're discovering, finally,a lot of truth is coming out

(46:20):
thanks to Donald Trump and hisappointment, his appointments to
keep positions in governmentlike Tulsi Gabbard, like, like
Hosh Patel at FBI, and all ofthese agencies where their
mission now is to expose theabuse of power against you and
me, the American people thathave been going on since way
back in the Barack Obamaadministration, all of these

(46:42):
things are that they thoughtwould be swept under the rug or
would never be exposed are nowbeing exposed. And the the fact
of the matter is this is anegregious and criminal abuse of
power. Criminal abuse of power.
Now it is great that, maybepeople more people are now aware
of this. A lot of these storiesactually, those of us who don't

(47:04):
read and depend on legacy mediato keep us informed have known
about these things for a verylong time. It is really nice to
actually see the actualdocuments and proof of what we'd
already what are we we'd alreadyknown what was happening. But
all of this is great. I don'twanna see a bunch of
congressional hearings on this.
I wanna see indictments, and Iwanna see people have to lawyer
up, and I wanna see people injail. Because if you do not jail

(47:27):
these criminals who have usedtheir power to punish their
political enemies, we will justget more of it in the future.

Linea Lueken (47:34):
Yeah. And you're absolutely right about that, g,
but I do wanna be the bad copfor a second on the banks.

Jim Lakely (47:41):
Okay. Go ahead.

Linea Lueken (47:42):
Why now? Why now? Why not during the last Trump
administration when certainlyhis regulators were not going
and telling them to cut offfirearm companies or to cut off
oil and gas companies? They wereaggressively pursuing ESG stuff
during Trump's lastadministration. So why now all
of a sudden are the banks like,oh, we were victims the whole

(48:04):
time and Trump came and savedus?

S.T. Karnick (48:08):
I think this goes back to your first question. And
I'll say, I think it was 100%the government. 100% the
government. They use theirleverage whatever ends they
desire. And that's all there isto it.
As Jim said, he was very righton this, these businesses, they

(48:30):
didn't have any choice. Theycould pretend that they did, but
you know, or we could pretendthat they did. Free marketers
could say, oh, it's a freemarket, but it wasn't. And now,
yes, they did give into ESG andDEI and the like, and that's
contemptible. But the debankingspecifically debanking, that was

(48:53):
a government scheme brought upunder the administration of
president Barack Obama, whoseadministration was scandal free
because the press covered up allthe scandals and the
intelligence agencies likewise.
So when we talk about debanking,we also need to look at at

(49:15):
Russiagate, which is an absoluteit's it's the the the biggest
part of it that they wouldactually destroy try to destroy
a presidential candidate in thatway and then destroy a
subsequent presidency. And sothis is this is outrageous. This
is way bigger than Watergate.It's absolutely, horrific. But

(49:35):
the so let me just get in alittle brief, description of how
this debanking worked.
What they would do is they wouldsay, as Jim alluded to this,
that we have reputational riskwith you. What that means is
it's bad press. You're gettingbad press. And so that's a

(49:56):
reputational risk. We we run therisk of losing money on you.
But the bad press was comingfrom a a collaboration between
the government and the media. Soit was a complete government run
scam from beginning to end. Andsince Trump has now, you know,

(50:18):
started working against that,it's all gone away. Now the
thing is, don't know if in 2017through 2020, especially early
on in the Trump administration,there was an awareness of just
how deep all this went and howunnatural and unmarket it really

(50:39):
was. That this wasn't businessesdeciding things on their own.
That this was just a governmentrun scheme from the beginning.
So there is that. And thenthere's also the fact of
Russiagate which hamstrung theTrump administration from doing
its job in so many areas. So tome, this is a 100% government

(51:02):
problem. And it's great to seethat it's finally coming out.
And what we need though is forall of these scandals to be
exposed to the light of day. Nowthe mainstream press, they're
not going to cover it, but it'sall out there. It's on Twitter.
It's on all kinds ofpublications. It's on Substack.

(51:22):
So the truth is getting outthere and the truth will get out
there. And so let's just makesure that we all recognize what
the truth is and that we standbehind it. And the fact is that
probably I would say the mostcorrupt president of our time is
Barack Obama. Barack Obama isthe most corrupt. And I would

(51:47):
also add that it was BarackObama and, the European Union
who created the mess in Ukraineand started that war.
Russia didn't. Obama and the EUand and NATO put all the
conditions together to make thatwar happen. So pretty much

(52:08):
everything that's wrong with theworld, Obamacare, everything
that's wrong. Look at anythingthat's wrong. Go back to 2009 to
2017, 2017, and you'll find thesource there.

Jim Lakely (52:27):
It was Joe Biden who said, you know, I wouldn't be so
troubled by a little minorexcursion of Russia into
Ukraine. You know, people forgetthat he's made that.

Linea Lueken (52:37):
Excursion. My dog strongly disagrees with this.
Okay.

Jim Lakely (52:44):
Your dog is outraged. We have a good doggy
rant.

Linea Lueken (52:48):
She cannot believe it. All right. So yeah, I'm
sorry about that, you guys.Hopefully it's not too bad. Hang
on just

S.T. Karnick (53:05):
Was that just the end of that David Bowie song
where he yells shut up?

Linea Lueken (53:10):
Yeah, pretty much.

S.T. Karnick (53:12):
Playing his guitar loudly.

Linea Lueken (53:13):
No, she's ticked off that somebody is daring to
deliver mail to the front door.So anyway, so our final segment
here, guys, that I just want toget to briefly because I think
it's really interesting and itactually ties back into unhinged
a bit. College students arefaking progressive beliefs to
get by. This is not somethingthat's surprising. We've always

(53:35):
known this.
The Hill reports on a study thatcame out from Northwestern,
which asked students a varietyof questions. I'm fairly
confident that this articlewritten by these college
professors got a lot of helpfrom chat GPT. Don't ask me why,
but it's got my antennas up andwe're going to play a game soon.

(53:56):
The audience is going to lovewhat we're going to do in coming
weeks here. But anyway, one ofthe questions asked of students
was, have you ever pretended tohold more progressive views than
you truly endorse to succeedsocially or academically?
88% of respondents said yes. Theresearchers said that they were
shocked by that result. And theyargue that this isn't just an

(54:19):
annoying thing that studentshave to put their heads down and
commit to for a couple of yearsto get through their classes so
they can get out of there. Itactually turns out that doing
this over and over againactually changes the way that
your brain works. So in public,they say students echoed
expected progressive narratives.
In private, their views weremore complex. Eighty seven

(54:41):
percent identified asexclusively heterosexual. So
this is tying into the genderidentity question, which is one
of the specific areas that theylooked at because it's
political, but it's notnecessarily explicitly
political. So 87% identified asexclusively heterosexual and
supported a binary model ofgender. Only 9% expressed even

(55:06):
partial openness to the genderfluid concept, And just 7%
embrace the idea of gender as abroad spectrum.
Most of those belong to activistorganizations on campus. So
perhaps the most telling of all77% said that they disagreed
with the idea that genderidentity should override

(55:26):
biological sex and domains likesports, healthcare or public
data. But they said they wouldnever voice that disagreement
allowed. The researchers wrotethat early or late adolescence
and early adulthood representingnarrow and non replicable
developmental window. Duringthis stage, individuals begin
the lifelong work of integratingpersonal experience with

(55:47):
inherited values, forming thefoundations of moral reasoning,
internal coherence and emotionalresilience.
But when belief is prescriptive,an ideological divergence is
treated as a social risk, theintegrative process stalls
Rather than forging a durablesense of self through trial,
error and reflection, studentslearn to compartmentalize.

(56:10):
Publicly, they conform.Privately, they question, but
often in isolation. And thissplit between their outer
presentation and innerconviction not only fragments
identity, but actually arrestsits development. So it's
actually this really struck mereading this because it's
actually no wonder, you know,totalitarians around the world

(56:34):
and across history have knownthis intuitively without needing
a study.
That's why they make you saystuff that you know, that they
know, that you know is false.This is something that's been
remarked on for more than a 100at least, I would say. And so
the idea that, well, it's okay.These students are just putting
their heads down. They'repretending to be progressives in

(56:56):
school.
But when they get into the realworld, they can shed all that
nonsense. Of course, thatdoesn't continue if you go into,
you know, the corporate world,you still have to keep your head
down. But the idea that itactually impacts the way that
you think and perceive yourselflater on in life, if you do
that, is reallyrecontextualizing to me because

(57:17):
I had a lot of well meaningconservatives give the advice to
tell the professors what theywant to hear and keep your head
down and say stuff that you knowisn't true. So this is just
fascinating. I'd love to get youguys your thoughts on it.

S.T. Karnick (57:33):
Let me go first and then Jim can do a rant. All
right. No, I think it's reallyimportant here that to
understand what's going on.George Orwell's great book,
1984, a central element of it isthe the effort of the
government, the totalitariangovernment, to get the, Winston
Smith, the the protagonist, toagree that two plus two equals

(57:56):
five. And that's what this is.
They say the craziest things,the most bizarre things, and
say, okay, there's no such thingas a man or a woman. There's no
such thing as a boy or a girl.Say it. Say it. Say it.
And you say, well, you know,kinda no, kinda yes. And then

(58:18):
what they do is they are Thewhole effort is what one of the
researchers said, They aresanctioning self abandonment.
The colleges and universitiesare doing this. I wouldn't say
they're sanctioning it. They'reforcing it.
They're requiring selfabandonment because their point
is if you are a heterosexual orif you are a Caucasian or if you

(58:44):
are an Asian, for example, thenyou are not as important as
other people. You are not asimportant and you better get
used to that. And we saw thatwith who's that woman who
recently was, Joy Reid. Sherecently went on a crazy rant

(59:06):
saying that basically whitepeople are evil and that they
that that white people andheterosexuals must be pushed
down. And we need and and theythey do nothing creative.
They've they've accomplishednothing in the world. This is
all self abandonment pushed onpeople so that they won't

(59:26):
accomplish things. And so thatpeople who do not accomplish
things will feel equal to thembecause nobody's accomplishing
anything. And so this is anintent of making everybody
equal, equally degraded byforcing them to say two plus two

(59:47):
equals five in a variety ofdifferent ways. This is flat out
totalitarianism.
And one reason it isparticularly monstrous as the
very fine scholars who put thisstudy together have pointed out
that this is being done to youngpeople. This isn't Winston

(01:00:10):
Smith, an adult, who's alreadyhad some chance to develop his
mind. This is trying to grabpeople before they can even
develop any kind of personalstrength. And it is so foul and
contemptible. It is absolutelymind blowing.

Jim Lakely (01:00:31):
Yeah. I mean, Lynne, I looked up that, it's a quote
famous quote by AlexanderSochelnietzen. We actually have
a picture of him at our officesat the Heartland Institute. And
here's here's the quote, whichis really funny, if not so
tragic and apt and true for histime living under the, the
tyranny of the Soviet Union. Weknow that they are lying.

(01:00:54):
They know that they are lying.They even know that we know they
are lying. We also know thatthey know, we know they are
lying too. They, of course, knowthat we certainly know. They
know.
We know they are lying too aswell, but they are still lying.
In our country, the lie hasbecome not just moral category,
but the pillar industry of thiscountry. I think you can

(01:01:16):
probably say something verysimilar, if not say it is 100%
apt, to the world we have had toendure basically from 2015 or
'16 or so until 2020 until theNovember election of twenty
twenty four. So, basically,entire decade in which to to

(01:01:36):
keep your friends, to make it sothat, you know, your cousin your
cousin Sharon will come toThanksgiving. We we have to tell
ourselves, believe, and mouthlies that we don't believe.
I always think about JK Rowling,who I would disagree with. She's
a leftist. I disagree with heron probably 99% of the things

(01:02:00):
that she believes are true andgood for society, but she had
the gall as a feminist to say,no, actually. Trans women aren't
women. They are biological maleswho wish to present and live
their lives as if they werewomen.

(01:02:20):
That is 100% true. And it seemedthe entire culture, including
the actors that she mademultigenerational millionaires
by cast by having them cast inher Harry Potter movies, The
entire culture, not just in TheUK, but the world, tried to
cancel her. Now she's amultibillionaire, so she has

(01:02:42):
what they call f u money. Itdoesn't matter what you do to
me. I will still be rich.
But to have most people on andher defenders online were
conservatives and people on theright. In fact, prominent
conservatives. Think she wasactually annoyed that arch
conservative Matt

S.T. Karnick (01:03:03):
Walsh

Jim Lakely (01:03:03):
was one of her most prominent public defenders. She
was not happy with that. But shesaid, I guess I got to take what
I could get. And the point herethat these people who did the
study make is that, yes, at thatage, as a high school student,
as a young college student,being forced basically to

(01:03:25):
publicly say what you don'treally believe does have an
insidious, nefarious negativeeffect on your brain and the way
you may think. I went throughcollege.
I went to the University ofPittsburgh from 1988 to 1992. I
might as well have gone tocollege in the nineteenth

(01:03:46):
century compared to collegetoday and, you know, the way
kids think about age and allthat stuff. But even then, you
know, obviously the campusenvironment in the 80s and 90s
was leftist. You know, it was, Igot a B in a public speaking
class and I know why I got it.It wasn't that I was bad at
public speaking.
It was because I advocated everytime for the conservative

(01:04:08):
argument and my professor verymuch, actually the TA, the young
TA didn't like that very much.But I got through my college
experience with my wits about meand my values intact because I
was able to say what I thoughteven if I disagreed with the,
you know, with the consensus,you know, leftist liberal, we

(01:04:29):
didn't really think about it inas leftist back then, but just
the liberal mindset of the ofthe of academia. I was able to
get through because I was ableto express myself. I'd never
shied away from that. But you'rea young person on a college
campus today.
If you want to have any sociallife, you're going to have to
mouth, you know, liberalshibboleths. If, you know, if

(01:04:51):
you want to pass your classes,you're going to have to toe the
party line. I think I just cameacross a chart like this the
other day. I think it was 99% ofthe faculty in Harvard's
sociology department wereregistered Democrats. And then
they went through the entire IvyLeague.

(01:05:11):
I think the lowest percentage ofregistered democrats in in
liberal arts studies among thetop 12 universities, the lowest
number was, like, 89%. So, youknow, good luck getting through
college or getting a date or,you know, whatever if you don't
just mouth these lines. Now onelast thing I I thought was was

(01:05:35):
interesting was that you said itsays here in the hill that the
the the dissonance shows upeverywhere. You you mentioned
this, Linea. Seventy eightpercent of students told they
self censor on their beliefssurrounding gender identity and
even their own gender identity.
I think what's kind of funny islike this idea. You see these
charts too, you know, the ideathat the Gen Z and, I guess, Gen

(01:05:57):
Alpha, you know, like, 233%identify themselves as not
hetero, you know, like, as somesort of, you know, either bi or
non nonconforming and all thisstuff. I don't know. Do do any
of you guys really believe thatone third of the rising
generation in around thiscountry or just even to say in

(01:06:18):
The United States, not aroundthe world, are actually gender
nonconforming that they don'treally consider themselves a
heterosexual human being? Idon't believe that.
I believe actually some of thisperformative virtue signaling
that they talk about here whenit comes to identity is that
it's cool. And, you know, gosh,maybe your your options are a
lot more open if you are not ifyou are nonbinary and if you,

(01:06:41):
you know, will will do whatever.But, you know, we've
incentivized these sorts ofthings, not just not just, like,
the sensitive I should say thisthe right way. It's not only
dangerous to say what you reallythink. It's actually
advantageous to say things youdon't believe because you get
rewarded by it.
You know, you're not gonna get afast track to graduate school if

(01:07:02):
you're a white heterosexual man.But if you're a, you know, non
binary, non gender conformingone, you got a little better
chance to get the goodies thatyou need in those sorts of
circles. So, like Donnie DonnieKendall and I talked about the
other day, nature is healing. Ithink you're going see a lot
fewer of these stories. And andthat's to the good because if

(01:07:25):
you don't have freedom ofthought, if there are grave
career consequences to being anormal human being, then we are
in big, big trouble as acountry.
But I I really do think natureis healing and the normies are
on the ascendancy. Thank god.

S.T. Karnick (01:07:41):
But it is critical to tear down the government
initiatives that are doing allthis. And one of the things that
Trump is doing is sort ofundermining the higher
education, their money, theirtheir how they get their money.
So he's undermining their theirsecurity and saying, you know,

(01:08:04):
if you want if you want thismoney, you better play ball. So
we have to that's you have towin on the political side in
order for anything good tohappen. We always say, oh, we
need to fix the culture.
Well, the way to fix the cultureis to fix the political side of
things so that, people are freeto do things that aren't harming

(01:08:26):
one another. And they're free tosay what they want and believe
what they want. And then asThomas Jefferson pointed out,
the best ideas will win.

Linea Lueken (01:08:35):
Yeah. And I would add too, I know it's well
meaning just get your degree andget out kind of advice because
that's the advice that I got.And I did not listen to it
because I felt like it was wellmeaning but misinformed on the
problem. And I think that thisstudy and studies like it kind
of reconfirm my belief in that.But if you have to our audience,

(01:08:57):
if you have young people incollege and they ask you, well,
I'm right wing.
I don't know what to do. Don'ttell them to lie. Do not
instruct them to lie. You don'thave to tell them like, you
should join College Republicansand be all outspoken and, you
know, causing problems on campusor whatever. Like, you don't
have to tell them that.
But please, goodness gracious, Iwish conservatives would stop

(01:09:18):
telling students to, you know,tell the teachers what they want
to hear. You might get a badcouple of bad grades. You might,
you know, miss a class orwhatever, but someone's gotta
you gotta break the cycle. Wecan't keep doing this. There's a
perception on campus thateveryone agrees with this stuff
because everyone's keeping theirhead down.

Jim Lakely (01:09:40):
Yeah. You know, this kinda relates to it. I've seen
stories this week about how theDemocratic Party is in a bit of
a panic because Gen z is provenfrom the last presidential
election. Gen z and now risingGen Alpha, I guess, the one
behind them, are not registeringas Democrats anymore. And in
fact, you know, they're they'rethey're gonna be called the base

(01:10:01):
generations because they are notgonna put up with this nonsense
anymore.
And that's see, that's thething. See, look. The harmless
two, we're a libertarian freemarket think tank. We believe in
individual liberty. We believein persuasion, not force.
And, you know, it's taken a longtime, but I think, you know, the
left may, if they have anyintrospection, are gonna look

(01:10:22):
back at the way they havebehaved over the last twenty
years, but especially the lastdecade. And they're going to
learn the hard way that force isnot as good as persuasion. And
in fact, the reason why they arealways forcing their values upon
every institution that they getcontrol over is because they
know persuasion doesn't work.But, you know, frankly, unless

(01:10:43):
you have guns or you run asociety like Alexander
Soszynitsyn was stuck in, forceis not going to last long term.
In America, that's still thecase.
And because you have not beenable to persuade the majority of
Amer not even a significantminority of Americans about all
the crazy stuff that you believein, you've had to force it upon

(01:11:04):
them. You've had to force itupon them by by threatening
social acceptance, sometimesthreatening their very jobs,
debanking them if they don'tenforce ESG. But that's what
makes me so hopeful about thefuture is because although it
has been nothing but force bythe left for the last decade

(01:11:25):
especially, it's coming apartbecause nobody really believes
this, because you have notpersuaded them. You have tried
to force it upon them and thatcomes from your arrogance and
your hubris and frankly yourclosed mind And it's starting to
come apart. And I think ashopefully, if Gen, you know, Gen

(01:11:45):
Z and Gen Alpha really are thebase generations, it may it
thank pray to God that it willbe a very, very long time until
the left once again achievesthis kind of cultural and
political dominance.

Linea Lueken (01:12:00):
Well, I think that's a great way to close out
the show. Thank you guys somuch. That is all the time we
have, unfortunately. Thanks,everyone, for your attention to
these matters. We are live everyweek on Thursdays at noon
central on Rumble, Twitter,YouTube, and Facebook.
Jim, what have you got for usthis week?

Jim Lakely (01:12:19):
We are going to be on this very channel tomorrow at
the very same time, 1PM easternwith the Climate Realism Show.
Lanea and I will be switchingchairs and it's going to be a
fantastic show. And our guest isgoing to be Matt Wylicki, who is
a fantastic realist and a realscientist who's a climate
realist who has escaped academiaand is now doing some fantastic

(01:12:41):
work on the climate. And he'sgonna be our featured guest
tomorrow. I hope you can dothat.
Sam?

S.T. Karnick (01:12:47):
Yep. Go to heartland.org for great
information andstkarnik.substack.com.

Linea Lueken (01:12:54):
Alrighty. For audio listeners, please rate us
well in whatever service you'reusing and leave a review. Thank
you so much to all of our usualpanelists, and thank you to all
of our viewers. We will see youagain next week.