Dating, DEI, and Dope

Conversations That Matter

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00:18

And we are live on the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. And well, you did it.

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You did it, audience. You made me have to watch part of a dating show, which is not what

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I wanted to do with my day at all, but I did it. I took the bullet for you. I watched an episode or a big chunk of an episode of Provo's Most Eligible, which is apparently a

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Mormon dating show that takes place in Salt Lake City. And it doesn't even have a lot of subscribers.

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I don't know who's funding it. I don't know who's behind it. They only have 23 ,000 subscribers on YouTube, which means they might have elsewhere on social media, a big following.

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Who knows? Maybe it's not YouTube that's their bread and butter, but they have received quite the boost the last few days on X because of the clip that you just saw, which has become quite the hot topic, quite the controversy.

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I actually put a tweet out there this morning asking, why is this becoming a fault line in the culture war?

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It's just kind of an odd, dumb, silly, I don't know, frivolous dating show, right?

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But there's more to it than meets the eye. So we'll talk about that as the show unfolds.

01:35

There's a lot of stuff actually we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about what's happening at the Smithsonian. We're going to talk about what's happening with DEI.

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It's not going away. I know a lot of people think that Trump's in office. It's all done. That era is a bygone era.

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Not so fast. Not so fast on that either. We're going to talk about, let's see, what else?

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Man, we've got a bunch of stuff. We're going to talk about marijuana legalization. The state I live in legalized marijuana for recreational use quite some time ago, and the results are coming in now.

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How did the experiment work? And it shouldn't be a surprise for people who live in other states that were pioneers in this.

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There's some negatives, and we'll talk about that a little bit, and a number of other things. So we're going to end the podcast,

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I think, with a broader discussion about Gen Z dating, marriage, and you can ask me questions about that if you think

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I might have something to share. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on dating at 36 years old.

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That is obviously something I've been through. I'm married. I have a child now.

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I did have to go through that, but it was at a slightly different time. I'm a millennial, and I understand things have changed.

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I do interact with Gen Z guys. I care about a lot of Gen Z guys. I know that the dating game, they don't even call it dating.

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I know that trying to find someone as a potential spouse has changed, but I think there's some timeless principles, and I think the

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Bible gives us some really good direction on what to do, and there's a lot of people right now wondering what to do, and if we're going to save our civilization, and that's how important this is, we need to know what to do right now.

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I think there's a lot of guys and gals who are either ignorant or just having a hard time, so we're going to talk about all of that as the podcast unfolds.

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I do need to mention before I get too far, though, that I will be speaking in Ohio in about two weeks, if I can pull it up on the screen here.

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If you go to my website, that's probably the easiest place to get all these speaking engagements pulled up.

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Go to johnharrismedia .com and then go to speaking, but August 28th through 30th,

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I'm going to be at the World Right in Front of You Conference in Batavia, Ohio. You can click there, and it'll take you to the link, and you can sign up.

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There's a great lineup of speakers. Michael Foster is going to be there, William Wolfe, Ryan Denton, Keith Foskey, Jake Mentzel.

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I would like to actually share a post that Michael Foster put out there earlier this year because it's going to relate to the discussion we have today.

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If you've never heard of Michael, this post is going to give you a good idea as to the kind of insight that he has.

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I think it'd be well with your time. If you're in Ohio, if you're in the Kentucky area, come on out, see us, and we'll have a really good time.

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I'm going to be talking about, just so you know, give you a little preview about counterfeit virtues. I talk a lot about virtue, and it's something that I want to learn more and more about.

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I don't know that you can ever learn exhaustively everything about virtue and what it is. Studying the life of Christ is probably the best way that you can learn about virtue.

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There are counterfeit virtues. I was somewhat confronted with this when

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I was reading James chapter 3, especially the quality of selfish ambition, which is mentioned twice there.

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This got me thinking about it, that there is ambition that's good, and then there's selfish ambition, which is the wisdom of the world.

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It's earthly. It's demonic. That's a really vast difference, and it doesn't seem on the surface like it's a vast difference.

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I started thinking about it and realized in my own life, in ministry settings especially, I have seen guys who get into ministry.

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They talk well. They look the part. They deceive people, frankly.

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It's because they are actors, because they have counterfeit virtues. They've learned to project what looks like a virtue, and it's actually not.

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This is something that we're going to have to learn in the years ahead of us to distinguish between.

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Part of the reason I say that is because I think it will get harder as people are able to curate an image of themselves using technology more.

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The more our lives are online, the more there are filters and ways to show people only what you want them to see.

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The less we do hospitality in the house, which is fading, we need to put our foot down and say no to that, by the way.

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We need to be doing hospitality. We need to be in people's homes. We need to have people in our homes, but the more that fades and the more our social activities are mediated online, the more opportunity there is for counterfeit virtue.

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We're going to talk about that. Things like even how edginess is not bravery.

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It looks like bravery sometimes. How do you tell the difference? That's what my talk is hopefully going to be focused on.

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I haven't actually written the talk yet, but I've been thinking about it an awful lot. That's coming up.

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Let's see. What else? Oh, the Men's Retreat. Yes, Music and Masculinity.

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You can go to the website. The link is actually in the info section for this video.

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If you're watching, check that out. It's going to be a great time. We've got a great lineup of speakers. We're going to have some campfire songs and all of that.

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You're going to learn a lot about hymnology and just tradition in general. The main thing isn't even the topic to me so much as just the quality of the fellowship.

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The food, the facilities are incredible. You're just going to have a lot of time.

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If you want to be by yourself with the Lord outside, you can do that. It's some of the most pristine, fresh air you'll ever breathe in the

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Adirondack Mountains. You can fellowship with other people. There'll be plenty of opportunities for that. It's a great time for men to get together.

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All the men who come out every year have a great time. We added an extra day. If you want to stay an extra day, you have an option.

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There's two tracks. Check it out. We're only charging cost. No one's making any money off of it. It is a necessary thing in our minds because we want to see men get together and be encouraged.

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Check that out, musicinmasculinity .com. The comments for the video are already starting to come in.

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I haven't really said anything yet except I just played a clip. Cosmic Treason says, in all caps, men don't care about how much you love to travel.

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It doesn't make you attractive. In smaller case, in fact, what it does is throw up a red flag that she is frivolous and craves expensive entertainment.

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I don't know, to be honest with you. I see that take a lot. I saw a lot of people saying that. I'm not so certain about that, especially after I looked at the actual show.

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Maybe people who are just judging it off the clip, that might be the conclusion they come to. Everyone's trying to come up with a reason.

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Why was she not attractive to any of the guys sitting there? Is it the guys?

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Are they the losers? Is it their problem? She's a catch and they can't see it. Or is it that she's just not attractive?

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Her advertising is not going to sell to any guy who wants anything meaningful, at least, who's serious.

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Those are the two sides. I'll show you some tweets from the two sides and give you my rundown on how

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I think through this. It almost seems like I am subverting my own platform because this is

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Conversations That Matter. I cannot believe I just played you a clip from a dating show. When we get the bird's eye view that there's a lot of angst and anger and emotion and high, strong opinions about dating and the prospects and all of that whole discussion,

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I think it'll make sense why I ended up doing this. I did not wake up thinking I would do that, but as I saw the comments online,

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I said, you know what? I got to do it. We're going to talk about it. Let's start here. Do I want to do the dating stuff first?

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Everyone's already... Anyway, I think you guys want to... Yeah. Thanks, Cosmic. Conversations That Kind of Matter.

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That's what we are now. I think we're going to do the dating stuff first. I was going to save it to the end, but man,

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I think we're going to do it. Let's do it. Let's talk about the dating game out there, if you want to call it that,

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I suppose. Maybe not the best word for it. I'm going to start out with this Michael Foster post. If you like which

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I'm reading, then you might want to consider coming to the conference in Batavia. Michael says this, and this is from a few months ago,

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I think. He posted this. It's May. He said, Jack Reacher won't ask girls to dance.

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So sad. I've had a front row seat to the social breakdown hitting our young people. You can see it in a lot of places, but one of the clearest examples came from a mom in our church who's helped run a homeschool prom for several years.

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She told me something recently that I've been stewing on. When we first got involved, it was normal for boys to ask girls to dance, especially during the snowball dances, where the

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DJ tells you to rotate partners every 30 seconds. That's the whole point. Go find someone new, talk, move, risk a little awkwardness.

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But this year, the boys wouldn't do it. They stood around, clumped up with friends, goofed off, and refused to initiate.

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Some danced with each other, ironically, of course. Meanwhile, the girls were standing around the edge of the dance floor waiting.

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Eventually, they gave up and started dragging each other onto the floor. Some even went over and tried to coax the guys to come out.

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It didn't work. There were two girls for every guy. The DJ repeatedly re -explained the rules and purpose.

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Didn't matter. Nothing changed. He was baffled by it. It didn't used to be like this. The next day, one of the mom's younger daughters said something that sums it all up.

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I'm graduating, and I've never danced with a guy. Contrast that with her older sister, who just seven or eight years ago came home from prom having danced with seven or eight different young men in one evening.

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Something's shifted. It's not just social anxiety or awkwardness. It's paralysis. It's absence, and yeah, it's unsettling.

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Same trend was the focus of a recent video from Charisma on Command titled, The Shift in Masculinity is

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Scary. It used the Reacher series on Amazon Prime as a cultural case study. Reacher is a walking male power fantasy.

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Big, competent, calm under pressure, lethal in a fight. Yet, in the modern adaption, he is oddly passive with women.

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He never initiates anything romantic. In fact, the women have to do it all but throw themselves at him just to get a kiss.

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This isn't how Reacher was written in the books, and it's not how male leads used to behave.

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Go back and watch The Girl Next Door or Casino Royale. Whatever flaws these movies had, the men at least wanted something, and they acted on it.

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Desire was visible, rejection was possible, and risk was part of the reward. That's what's missing now, initiative.

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Reacher has been reimagined into a man who wins without waiting. He gets the girl without having to pursue her.

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There's no risk, no rejection, no emotional vulnerability. He's strong in every area except the one that requires personal agency.

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The problem is it's not just fiction. The video rightly points out that more and more young men are living like this is real life.

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They aren't avoiding women because they're ascetic or holy. They're avoiding women because they're afraid.

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Afraid of rejection, afraid of misreading a situation, afraid of being embarrassed, cancelled, or misunderstood.

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Instead, they scroll, they lift, they build, they wait. They distract endlessly preparing for a moment they never plan to seize.

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I thought it was overstated, but I digress. It's not that they don't want anything.

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It's that they've lost touch with how to act on what they want. They've been taught to suppress desire instead of disciplining it.

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They've learned that passivity feels safer than pursuit. I used to think this was mainly a problem in my own circles.

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I've harped plenty on the socially stunted sons of reformed households, the boys who can quote theologians from memory but can't make eye contact.

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Let's be honest. This isn't a reform problem. It's a cultural one. We're producing our own brand of it.

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A lot of young men today have rightly rejected the old just be yourself lie and embrace the call to improve yourself.

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That's a good shift. You see more of them focusing on and personal discipline, but that growth often stalls out when it comes to relationships, especially with women.

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They've learned how to level up but not how to move towards someone. They're told to develop themselves but warned off pursuit, so they become hesitant, uncertain, stuck.

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What's needed now is the courage to carry that same sense of purpose into the social realm to risk, initiate, and act with clarity and resolve, even when the outcome isn't guaranteed.

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Maybe we need to say this to our sons directly. If you like her, ask. If you want something, step up.

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If you get rejected, survive it. But don't stand on the edge of the dance floor waiting for someone else to make the first move.

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Okay. That is a sobering read. I read it a few months ago and just thought it was profound.

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It resonated with what I've seen. It is a great read.

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I think the polling that I'm going to show you reflects what was described in this particular post.

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I think there's a sensitivity to blaming men. I think that's an obvious problem that we've had for years, is thinking men are the problems, women aren't.

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That's clearly true. That's a problem, that narrative. Men are not the problems.

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Women are not the problems. This isn't a boy versus girl thing. There's something deeper than all of that that's going on.

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I do think, in fact, I have it on my desk. I thought

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I had it on my desk. I don't know where it went. I have Washington's Rules of Civility. I must have put it on the bookshelf.

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Usually, it's on my desk. I think what's happened is the rules for social engagement between two different sexes have been eroded to the point that men especially don't know what to do.

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Because they're the initiators, because they're expected to be the ones to make the first move and to facilitate social engagements traditionally, they are up a river.

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They don't know what to do. There's a lot of ignorance. It's a big dilemma.

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It's a big problem. There's so many different models out there. Even ones that claim to be biblical.

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I was just with someone over the weekend who we were talking, and I think she was making some good points about how, quote, unquote, purity culture may have contributed to some of this, like the

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Josh Harris, I Kissed Dating Goodbye stuff, because that was a reaction to recreational dating.

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You had recreational dating. Before that, you would have had a form of courtship where you were forced more or less to have barriers.

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You would have a room or a front porch, let's say, on a swing or something.

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You'd have had a place, a parlor, to talk to a girl, and you were supervised. It was safe.

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The girl felt safe, and you could actually get to know her, which was necessary if you were going to marry this person.

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That's how our society has done it for a long time. You do have some agency in this. You are free to reject someone if you're a girl, and you're free to initiate with someone if you're a guy.

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There are friends, and there are, most importantly, parents and then social leaders. That's all broken down.

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The automobile probably contributed to some of this. You could go off with a girl and elude detection and all of that, and that became the recreational dating scene in the youth culture of the 50s and 60s.

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Then you had a backlash against it in certain Christian circles with the courtship model. I don't have time to really give a full, detailed critique of that, but I think if there was one problem that stands out to me, it was that there was a lot of pressure on relationships very initially.

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I felt that myself because I was somewhat influenced by some of that. I think my own distinct personality cuts against that grain just naturally.

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I guess this is important for people who just want to know how I did things. I read all those books.

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I gleaned what I could because there are some to glean from those, but I also basically dated.

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Yes, I would ask the permission of the father when it got to a point where I thought it was getting serious and it could potentially be heading towards a marriage when it wasn't just in a group setting, when it was more exclusive,

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I would say. That's when I would start thinking about that. I should probably talk to the father.

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I took some things from it, but I was also pretty motivated that once I knew what

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I wanted, I pursued it. What happened though with the courtship thing, and I got into trouble a little bit because I took some of this probably from it, was you're putting a pressure on the relationship very initially into the relationship.

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Let's say if I felt that this was a good thing to be exclusive and to get serious. Let's say the girl didn't feel that way yet, which that's a typical scenario, by the way.

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It's not always that way, but typically it's the guy knows what he wants, girl doesn't. At least where I come from, how

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I grew up, that's how a lot of my friends were. It can be daunting if a guy is not exactly proposing marriage, but he sort of is.

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He's saying I want a serious relationship that could lead towards marriage. It takes the levity and the fun in getting to know each other out of it.

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It puts a strain on the relationship perhaps that could make or break it at an early stage. Anyway, I say all that to lead to this.

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I made a post. Oh, did I not pull it up? I thought

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I pulled it up. Oh, no. Let me see if I... I guess I didn't. Okay. Well, we're going to talk about...

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Oh, no, I did. Here it is. Here it is. You can see it. I made a post earlier in the week. It didn't get viral or anything, but I did have a few people ask me about one of the things

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I said. I said, if you're a young man and you want an edge, guard your time. You'll only be young once.

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Invest your energy into long -term changes. Careful of screen time. Love your people. Spend time in chat groups and more time with the people around you.

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Cultivate real lasting relationships. Save your money. Don't blow down expensive hobbies, elaborate food, or unnecessary education expenses.

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Learn a trade. Then pursue higher education if you're going to do it. Have something to fall back on. Know God.

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With the time you have, get to know God in a deeper way before the stresses of life overcrowd your resources. It will help you resist temptation and stand secure.

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Then I said, date broadly. Get to know as many girls as you can. Understand who you would want as a good wife as soon as you know that's the one.

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Don't keep her on a string. I got a little bit of pushback for that. John, that's worldly. Don't talk about that.

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Dating is not the Christian way or something. I'm going to double down, maybe triple down on this. I say that for a reason.

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I say that because of what I just read. I'm not saying do recreational dating where the whole goal, let's say, is just to have fun.

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You're not thinking beyond that. I think in the back of everyone's mind as they're you should be open.

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You're doing this. You're engaging with this person because you are creating the environment and having the experiences that are necessary to determine whether this is the kind of person you want raising your children.

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That's what dating should be. The end is marriage and glorifying

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God in that, raising up kids in the nurture and admonition of Lord. The end is not the fun you're having in the moment.

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Dating should be more than just having fun too. It should be doing voluntary projects and working.

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You should see each other in as many environments as you can, in my opinion, as long as the appropriate environments. You should be around as many people as you can that you trust that have good advice and know you.

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You should date broadly. You should get to know a wide range of people. The reason I say it is because I definitely noticed this trend where guys, and that's more,

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I mean, I know girls too, but I'm more familiar with guys. Guys are mediating things through screens.

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They're exactly what that Michael Foster post depicted. They don't know what to do or they're afraid to do it.

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They're afraid of the awkwardness. They're afraid of the social ostracization. That cannot be underplayed because with the way social media is now,

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I mean, you could do something. I mean, look at this late girl, Riley. She probably never thought that she was going to be on the fault line for a culture war controversy.

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We'll get back to that video in a moment. There's a very high incentive not to get involved in things that could potentially make you look awkward.

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There's cameras everywhere. You don't even know who's recording. That's intimidating for guys and gals, but for guys,

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I think, because they're the ones that traditionally, and I think by God's design, are to take the initiative.

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Christ pursued the church. It creates a hard situation to jumpstart in.

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I think if you do it more, if you date more, you get practice.

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You start to learn what girls are like. If you don't know that, you start to learn how to treat a girl. You learn things like chivalry.

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That's why I was going to reference George Washington rules of civility because it has a lot of good things. Some of them are outdated, but there's a lot.

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I mean, think about this. How many guys still open doors for women? How many guys even know what side of the street, what part of the sidewalk to walk on, street side or business side, when they're walking with a girl?

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How many guys know how to just talk to a girl in a respectful way that's not weird and creepy, but is also,

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I mean, this is a scary thing. How many guys know how to compliment a girl? This is something that now some guys get in trouble for.

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They've been hammered so much by the Me Too people, they're afraid of even noticing a girl's beauty. They're not even trying to do a quote unquote catcall or something dirty or anything like that.

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To even notice that a girl might look good, they're afraid they're going to be accused of something.

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They don't do it. Then it creates a breakdown. There's natural things. There's also social things that we've developed that are actually really good that we're just forsaking.

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It has a social cost. The social cost is less marriages, less children.

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It's the demise of your civilization. Civilizations that have competing mechanisms for fostering relationships that lead to children, like Muslim societies where it's arranged, they're going to out -compete.

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There's no question about it. Of course, they're going to out -compete because they have a system that actually works for the end of producing marriages and children.

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We're losing that, and we need to get it back. We're going to talk a little bit about that, how to get it back. I said

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I would come back to the video. I want to share this, and then we're going to play another video from Lyla Rose.

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That's not it. What did I want to show you? This. We'll go back to this one.

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Here's some screen captures I have. Reactions to the video you saw at the beginning with Riley.

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These are ones that got a lot of traction. Then there was a reaction to this that got 10 ,000 likes.

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I shouldn't have showed this. I was going to censor this, and I totally forgot.

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I need to apologize to you all. I was going to She wants to have a sexual relationship with multiple guys.

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That's the idea. Apparently, the only thing they have to go on is the fact that she said that she wants to travel.

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I wish I could show you this stuff. I'm kicking myself for not censoring it, but I'm not going to show you stuff that I think should be censored.

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Anyway, this guy named Lewis Henley. I want to have a lot of people have a sexual relationship with me and then settle down.

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That's what he's hearing as he's hearing Riley just say that she likes to travel and wants a travel buddy who is going to be emotionally intimate with her and that kind of thing.

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There's an account called Brotherhood that says feminism has been dominant for so long that women her age never once considered what they bring to the table.

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The idea that they shouldn't get exactly what they want from top -tier men, it's never occurred to her to change.

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That's such an interesting thing to read into that short clip. Psychoanalyzing her to that extent.

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There are some short clips you can tell things from, but that did not jump out at me from the clip.

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Another one. I love when travel um man okay so uh crass crass language and this got a lot of traction too.

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I love when people who are loose get humbled. The reality is nobody cares when you've traveled.

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All men here is how many different guys you've had an inappropriate relationship with in different states and countries.

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So that's one end of the spectrum on X. These are guys who man there's like this is over the top like crazy in my mind like how are you getting this from that like I understand okay travel can be expensive um now that the first thing

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I thought was well maybe she's rich. You might be marrying into a rich family, but I didn't see any comment that said that.

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I was like okay I guess that possibility isn't there. The comments were you're going to be in debt.

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Okay I understand that by the way like there's a lot of horror stories of guys who end up marrying someone who couldn't control their credit card and yes

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I know guys that marry girls who should have taken a financial class before probably getting married.

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Okay I can see travel can be expensive. Now I'd love to travel. I know how to do it for inexpensively.

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I know people who travel and actually have less lavish lifestyles because they save to travel.

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They're not doing fast food all the time. They're eating. They only take what they need.

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They shop at the perimeters of the store. I mean there's kind of like a whole lifestyle, but they love to have experiences. They love to travel.

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So I don't automatically assume that, but I can understand people who do. So that's a legitimate

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I suppose concern you'd want to explore more, but here's the thing. I looked at the show right on the show.

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Here's a few things you might not know if you've seen this clip and that's all you've seen. Riley was the first one to so actually

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I should probably back up. It's a dating game show where you have a veil or a curtain. Guys can't see girls.

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Girls can't see guys and it's in Utah and they're all complaining about how hard it is in Utah. The dating scene is just so hard.

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Well people in Utah actually get married earlier so it's funny. The dating scene is just so hard though and they're trying to match them up so they can't see each other.

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So all the comments about her looks and all that irrelevant. They can't see her um and she is the first one to go up which matches her what she says about herself.

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She's adventurous. She just jumps on up there and they say who's going to be the first to describe herself and the way it works is you narrow down.

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So as you hear someone you raise your hand basically and say I want to date her and that's your shot if you're a guy.

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So when you're the first one and you have a room full of guys and they're this is the first time this is the first girl they're hearing from there's already a disincentive to pick that girl because you don't know what's going to come next and if there's anything

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I learned about Gen Z and Millennials too it's it's very hard to nail down dates and times and because you might have something else that comes up right so so she so that could be a big part of the reason she wasn't picked just that dynamic.

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No one that I saw online is commenting on that but that's probably a big part of it. But guys here guys are making faces they were doing that the whole time with all the other girls too

31:17

I got guys a very dramatic guys some of them not all of them and they no one ends up picking her so it's it's kind of embarrassing for her but she she did something the way she handled it in the show is kind of mature she's uh saying yeah it's kind of tough not to be picked but you know

31:34

I'm glad I went out there kind of thing and that is the spirit honestly but uh people were saying guys were saying that um the ones who have made better points than just she's must be a loose woman uh were saying well she's look what she's saying about herself she wants a guy who's going to be an appendage to her a travel buddy you know who wants that and I think it's also important to point out the show itself is a dating show it's supposed to be the kinds of things you would talk about on a first date it's supposed to lead to potentially marriage that's baked in already they know why they're there it's not casual in the course of going to church or going out to a business or something or you're not in the gym you're not like you're this is uh a show that has a purpose already and it is to pursue a relationship so that's already baked in what kinds of things do you talk about on your first date

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I was thinking about this I wanted a girl who liked to travel so I you may

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I already have sympathies when a girl likes to travel because I dated girls who didn't really care for that as much or didn't know about it and I love to travel so not expensively but I do want someone who wants to go share other new experiences who's not just just a homebody so I you know

32:58

I don't see that as a big inhibitor um I I would be

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I don't like sharks so scuba diving not really probably the thing I'm going to want to do uh but I probably wouldn't date someone like that just because I know this sounds superficial but I don't know if I put myself in the shoes of the guys there

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I mean I wouldn't be on a show like that anyway but I don't know like just uh it's more of a preference something about her voice you know and I'm not expecting her though in that scenario to spill her guts out about every of her hopes and dreams and desires in every way like it's already assumed that this is what the intent is that you're gonna probably get married or possibly get married you're pursuing a relationship you might date and go in that direction these are

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Mormons so that's already an expectation and you're probably just gonna try to keep it light and that's what she did it's the long walks at the beach thing so that's that's how

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I do it I don't think it's a big deal but I do see how some guys could look at some of the the comments she says and at least say they're yellow flags okay yellow flag travel could be yellow flag agreed it could be you would just need to know more right going to Australia that is pretty expensive so maybe yellow maybe red maybe red but it's just you don't have enough info but there's there's obviously this struck a nerve there's a or if they haven't been burned they have friends who have and they just they they see this is bad deal bad deal so that's that's the dynamic that I see out there with that and I have some thoughts but I wanted to play this

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Lila Rose video because my thoughts are related to this one too so I'm gonna play this and then there's guys you guys are opinionated even in this chat about this um all right

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I wanted to show one more thing okay I'm gonna play this Lila Rose video but first I wanted to can I show this to you nope I can't

34:56

I don't think because I think it's got stuff I wanted to edit out too yeah it's got some dirty stuff okay so here's the other end of the spectrum ready uh

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Hannah Cox women think being active and adventurous will make men want them in reality the current generation of young men are at home addicted to porn and video games and don't have the money for fun hobbies or adventure

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I recently talked about how international travel has become female coded and why you can tell by their faces they know they can't keep up with her even before she starts talking about themed parties right yeah that was the other thing the theme parties thing

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I probably would have been out at that point like yeah I'm not gonna do the theme parties thing sorry I mean it's nothing wrong with it it's just not

35:34

I don't I think it's I don't know not me so Hannah Cox who's a commentator on social media she is saying the guys are losers essentially all right uh the free feminist says some men claim they only want to date a high value woman but then they meet one and they reject her and then wonder why they're single and they're idiotic so there you go uh and then

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Tyler uh and these are all comments that got a lot of traction it says everyone is missing the point here the guys aren't passing her up because she's not fun or interesting it's because she's not and I'll substitute here sexually alluring well of course they can't see her so that's just an ignorant comment so um those are your options right those are your those are the extreme ends of like the guys are all losers they're just the guys are all terrible and they're passing up this great opportunity and then on the other extreme uh the girl is a sexually loose woman clearly because she likes to travel and you're sitting there like why can't we be normal like like why why can't it just be like things are usually awkward the first time you talk to a girl or a guy and having environments to facilitate that might even be a good thing and maybe don't read into everything someone says initially when they're trying to give a little bit about themselves

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I don't know it's just to me as one of the dumbest controversies but but in another sense it's not done because behind it is something else there's an iceberg underneath all right so that's why

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I want to talk about this Lila Rose video and I know I'll get to your comments just hang with me guys I'll talk about father

37:12

Mike Schmitz I showed him to a girlfriend who's not Catholic she's like wins mass what about the man needing sex that's just a cultural narrative that basically says men are like animals and they have to be able to do this sexual thing otherwise they're going to go crazy and the reality is there's a whole vocations that are celibate and these are virile men men's men some of the most masculine men

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I know are priests we need food we need air to breathe we don't need sex it's a gift of coming together and it's designed to bring life into the world

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I think the sexiest thing about a guy is like their self -control and my husband has amazing self -control so after baby number four when we started practicing

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NFP it was like we couldn't do it sometimes when we wanted to and that kind of made things a little steamier like not gonna lie it's hard on him too don't get me wrong people will say well oh do you just do other things for your husband okay all right well um

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NFP is natural family planning and yes there's for Protestants especially there's plenty to pick through there uh

38:08

I I don't know where do we start we're not going to pick through all of it but um there was sort of a similar reaction to this can

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I show this one I think I can show this one even though I didn't edit it all right so let me pull this up on the screen for y 'all all right so no that's not what

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I wanted to show you let's go to this one so accompanying this was a uh a post by is it

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Lila I'm gonna say Lila Lila Rose I never really followed her I actually kind of thought she was woke back in the day because she in 2020 was putting out some woke stuff but anyway she's a pro -life activist and she has this whole post about how men don't need sex

38:54

Paul writes in first corinthians she quotes first corinthians 7 I want you to be free from anxieties the unmarried man is anxious about the things of the lord how to please the lord but the married man is anxious about the worldly things how to please his wife and is interested his interests are divided

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I say this for your own benefit to secure your undivided devotion to the lord okay it also says that if you burn get married though so so I don't think it's wise to frame it as yeah sure it's not a need in the sense of uh comparing it to food or water you're not going to die which is what she was trying to say but it is part of how god naturally designed people men and women it is part is a function that god gave us and it is a very important function that propagates the human race and also binds us to each other and and so I the way it's framed in that clip probably not the most helpful thing but she like if you're trying to give people uh

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I guess advice on whether or not to choose between celibacy and and being sexually active that's not the most helpful video but what she is saying in effect without using priests as the example that is true technically right you don't actually need to and there is something important to be said there that men can't have self -control okay uh it is better to get married than to burn very true but you also need to uh flee youthful lust you also need to not take part in even jesus said looking at lust at looking at a woman with lust um it doesn't matter how minor the infraction is it's forbidden so to say to view it this way if you're if you're in the lust battle let's say that actually is an important truth to know it's like I don't actually need this for survival it might feel that way at times but I don't so I want to put things in perspective a little bit like they could be talking in a context where that actually makes sense but yes if you're trying to talk about uh the how important celibacy is and maybe like you should choose it no not helpful at all and there's plenty of other things catholic things that that aren't helpful there and weird stuff too like uh it women should not like if you're going to be talking about a priest in those terms like oh the priest is just so cute and handsome and uh but guys you better not think that sex is uh is something that's needed or whatever it just comes across as somewhat hypocritical we'll put it that way all right so that being said there were some reactions to this men don't need sex women don't need emotional validation or cuddles you aren't going to die without them right here's another one this is the face of the long house it's this girl on the podcast saying self -control these are all posts that got traction men need sex period this lady is retarded okay do you think any single man would want to be married to these women would they want to be married at all if this is the experience they're selling this is the uh branding crisis that christianity is facing now in the west being lectured by these women on on sex feels the same as being lectured by elizabeth warren on privilege well if all you're hearing is that you don't need sex to live you're not really being lectured i don't think which i think is the direction they wanted to go to probably encourage guys that you know you you can be a godly faithful man and you don't have to fall to sexual indiscretion and that kind of thing they added some things in there that did not help but i wouldn't lose my mind over it okay it's it's not like a big thing and there it's catholic doctrine that they're putting out there and yes catholic doctrine that i do believe has led to a church abuse crisis i mean and i'm not laughing about the crisis just the the way that uh some catholics don't seem to think that that's connected it's like i don't know you you forbid celibacy and then you're surprised that priests end up doing things that are in their minds fulfilling those urges outside of the boundaries of marriage so um so here's the big picture okay and we man we're already like 43 minutes into this you can't believe it i got so many more things to talk about it'll be a long way today guys the to me the long and short of it is we are living in the ruins and things like those videos touch a nerve the protestia tweet from last week that i talked about they touch a nerve because of some major cultural damage that we have to get out from under if we're going to save our civilization like i said you already have the fact that the social barriers between men and women that were designed to protect them that was designed to facilitate the kinds of relationships that led to marriage and children those have broken down men are uncertain the initiators of society are uncertain what to do and yet they have at their disposal at their fingertips unlimited sexually graphic content and it does rewire their brain it does make them think about girls differently there is also and i'm thinking about men more here there's also an assumption that a lot of guys have that they are victims that all these things and to a certain extent they are uh they they've grown up into a world not of their choosing but i would like to say this is the world god did choose for you so in his providence this is where you are and you got to man up and deal with it every situation has its challenges this is one of the challenges of living in this period you didn't choose it but you were born into it and it's your you have the ruins that feminism essentially has created around you more women are getting into professional roles more women are going to college and graduating with higher degrees women are also think sometimes highly of themselves and they aren't satisfied with someone who doesn't meet a certain threshold sometimes it's valid there's there's people in my audience who say i can't find a who's mature and i believe them i believe them uh yeah i mean i can see how that could be a potential issue you you gotta submit to the guy that you're gonna marry right but there's also a lot of people in the world that uh and in the church who just they're aiming for something they're waiting around aiming for something that may never come both guys and girls but when girls do this when they pass on guys then it creates a situation where guys are like why bother okay so i understand this i get it i think i get it at least i understand uh that facilitating relationships through a screen when most of it is so focused for guys on how a girl looks you don't ever get the chance to develop anything else and so this leaves out some girls who they get upset they get they feel overlooked but guys are uh guys it trains them to not take initiative to be used to these really high barriers that prevent embarrassment and all the rest and so they end up not actually going and meeting real life women they don't know how to talk to them like the example from michael michael foster all of this is that stuff you chose you're a gen z guy listening but it is where you're born question is what do you do what do you do with what you have that's the only that's really question that matters to me in all of this i don't care about the the ridiculous drama online i don't care about the blood sport that you know it's guys fault it's girls fault it's this it's that the question is is our civilization going to survive that's kind of an open question right now and yes immigration is part of this but it really does depend a lot of it depends on whether we're actually going to get married and have kids and then train those kids up to be productive members of society to pass on what they've been given that's what's at stake that's what i see the he -man woman haters club is not going to save the west and and yes it very well maybe the feminist club that has and that doesn't mean women by the way there's plenty of men in the feminist club but the feminist club has done its damage but the he -man woman and haters club the andrew tates of the world um even you know the nick fuentes is of the world even the um the the podcasters who are middle age and i just learned the word incel recently i didn't know about that but they're in cells and they this is just like they're not they don't have the aspiration they're putting their time into other things but they're not putting it into the one thing that'll keep your civilization going that's not going to save the west that's not the right reaction the right reaction isn't even to blame women it's it's a whole matrix of modernistic ideology sinful modernistic ideologies that have gotten us to this point um it's to pick up your bible maybe pick up pick up george washington's rules of civility maybe uh if you have to go get counsel from your pastor get counsel from your pastor if you don't know how to talk to girls you start doing it you only get good by doing it right that's why i said date broadly not so you have serious relationships with all these girls no it's so that you can on the first date hopefully it's not a serious thing maybe it is depending on the circumstance some of them with my wife mine kind of was but uh but i've dated girls who i it's not serious on the first date i just get to know them they're not an alien they're not out to just you know they're not these tricksters there could be girls who are manipulative sure but it's not girls themselves intrinsic to who they are is not a trickster who's just going to take all your money and take pleasure from you and leave you high and dry there's girls like that the proverb seven woman does exist i wrote a whole song about it uh you can go to this is my album driving down a mountain route i have a whole song i wrote about that but that's not intrinsic to who a woman is it's not fundamental to her identity it's not ontologically what a woman is and i'm getting the impression there's some guys who seem to think that like like and what that leads to honestly is more exploitation more pornography it does not lead to productive things it just leads women when their when your value is is reduced to virginity or your value is just reduced to i'm not saying that's not important at all i'm just saying if if everything comes down to that or everything comes down to whether or not you're just going to be submissive to a guy women are called to be submissive in scripture but that's not everything that there is to a woman and you know if it disqualifies a girl here's what i see here's what i see this is a good i just had this so i kind of tweeted it i guess last night we had the pertestia tweet right which says basically a girl with a past who's repentant and a christian is better to marry than someone who's basically not a christian who's a virgin people lost their mind all that okay then we had the the lila rose thing and people are like how dare she men men need sex okay uh and then we had this thing with this riley girl in the mormon dating show and you know she's not a prospect because clearly she wants to travel which apparently means to some that she's sexually loose in these three scenarios there is a group of guys now i'm not saying there's not good takes there's guys that have good takes there's guys who are sharp there's but there is a group of guys and it is who seem to think like there is something owed to them like i'm owed a virgin so therefore you know don't jam this down no one's jamming anything down anyone's throat but it's like don't don't jam this down my throat don't force this decision on me i'm owed a virgin don't say that i need to date someone who has a past um and then there's the attitude of you know don't tell me that i don't need sex i got news for you once you get married there's gonna be times especially after your wife has a baby you're not gonna be having a lot of that every guy knows that so i'm just saying there's gonna be periods of time if you're especially if you're in the military or you have a profession that requires you to travel or be away from home you do have to have self -control okay so it's not always owed to you yes it is the natural thing it is a part of a duty it is a an instinct that god has given it is good it is beautiful in the right context but it is not something that 24 7 is at your beck and call regardless of circumstance and then this one is kind of like i deserve a girl who doesn't isn't going to travel i guess who doesn't have aspirations beyond the domestic sphere kind of thing i know the proverbs 31 woman has some everything's focused on her house and all of that but her aspirations like her activity goes well beyond the domestic sphere it's for the purpose of enriching though the domestic sphere you know she uh her ships travel to far places and uh i don't i'm trying to remember how the phrasing goes like whether she travels or it's the ships that she the merchants but she's she's engaged in business and that kind of thing so i guess my encouragement is like don't go from zero to 100 in 0 .2

52:46

seconds be open to whatever god has for you and everyone's got a different circumstance it may be you're the 35 year old who it hasn't happened and maybe it's the it could be the single mom who's recently who's been converted in the last few years and maybe i'm not saying that that's the that's the ideal prospect i'm just saying that maybe who god's has for you it may be the girl who is a homeschool girl who's been sheltered who is a virgin and you are going to marry her and all her activity everything is with you she only knows you and that's such a blessing but you know maybe she's infertile or something i mean there's so many different scenarios that life throws at you and depending on your circumstance only god and you and the people around you who know you are going to be able to know what that looks like i think it's important to maintain real connections for that purpose so you can have those outside opinions but it it may be that there's a period of time in the relationship with your wife that you're not going to be you're going to be separated so you can't have that kind of a relationship you know it may be that it's the girl who she wants to travel and you don't want that but you never let it get past the first conversation you give up because that was enough at the start when maybe if you kept talking you'd find out that this is a humble person that's open to changing how they think about things we need that kind of maturity that kind of patience that long suffering we need a return to actual chivalry graciousness treating women like the weaker vessel that they are you know when i was you know 15 16 and i was starting to be attracted to girls and wanting to date girls in that time period i remember there you had guys who uh were very into the locker room talk right and i mean i've worked with guys like that for most of my adult life uh i've worked in shop i've worked in carpentry and that kind of stuff so i know i know what guys say i know i've been in all kinds of blue collar professions and you know it struck me as kind of like rap music or you know hip -hop it's reducing girls down to like a very pornographic way of looking at women that they're their body parts they're physical they're this and it's what they can do for me right and christ gave himself for the church when you marry someone you are sacrificing your life it's not a one -way street it's not just what they do for you and and you know what you want out of it you're giving yourself to them and you're not it says even in first corinthians you're not supposed to deprive one another it's not just her and you it's also you and her and so you're supposed to lead you're supposed to care for but that's the example you're given it's a mystery because it parallels christ in the church you're the one that initiates as a guy you're the one that pursues you're the one that sacrifices for her yes she sacrifices too she submits to your headship but be someone worthy of that submission right just like she should be someone that's worthy of your sacrifice guys do want respect uh girls do want love i mean these are these are just true things about how guys and girls are so that's my advice get to learn those things if you don't know those things learn those things and be gracious don't start throwing names out there that i won't even talk i won't even say the words on the podcast because it's just too we're not going to bring that locker room talk here but don't just refer to women the way that hip -hop artists refer to women don't think of them in that way they are precious even if they've done things that are that are wrong and evil uh yes there are there are there is a class of women proverb seven women you can create a category right there that are to be avoided that are evil all of that but it's not all women so be encouraged to you can do this you can get married you can date and in that spirit i do want to let you know oh i was going to pull it up i don't think i pulled it up but there you can find it let me see if you can google it there is a reform singles mixer that's what it's called and it's at reformation shell shelbyville reformation church in shelbyville kentucky and it's coming up and if i google it it looks like i'm getting one for march i know one's coming up though so uh yeah if you go to their church this is the best thing i can probably tell you if you find reformation church of shelbyville there's only one of them reach out to them they'll give you more information and maybe go to a mixer event like that where you actually can get to know physical people flesh and blood real women if you're a woman you can get to know real men i'm not saying you're gonna meet the dream boat of your wildest dreams that the prince charming or you know the the best girl ever who's just marks you know checks off all the boxes um you may end up marrying someone who doesn't check off every box but it's good to get involved in those kinds of things i think more pastors should be aware this is the plight that gen z is in and and there's a lot of gen z guys who really do feel kicked to the curb and they're some of them are bitter some of them are coming off of bad habits they're reducing women down to things that aren't appropriate women are precious i have a daughter now i feel that way even more and there's also women who are just a they've been given it they've had it easy their whole life and they've been told they're the little princess and they're and they're spoiled brats and then pastors you can help sometimes that rejection that that dating and getting the rejection is the maturity you need it may be god's tool for your sanctification and so that's my encouragement get out there and get married and have some kids stop sitting on the sidelines and i know it gets discouraging i know if you're someone who has you say john i have tried and it hasn't worked out don't i wouldn't give up on it unless you think you have the gift of singleness which is a whole nother podcast all right i think that's all i wanted to say it's an hour in uh let's get to some comments on that and then we'll see i gotta talk about this other stuff because i advertised it would right so um stormy squad says i'm a dude and i've worn myself out there and gotten rejected every time but no one has ever told me it was the woman's fault yeah you know i'm sorry stormy squad i don't know what your situation is sometimes it's the girls just passing up the guys i think this goes both ways to be quite honest with you and i i think a few years ago i would have leaned more towards it's like feminism has affected women so much that it's that's the driving thing that probably still is the driving thing but i i am seeing this he -man woman haters club backlash that i'm like oh don't don't get if you get into like the red -pilled manosphere too deep and stuff you get into some weird weird places and and frankly some very unusual kind of pagan right ideas about the nature of men and women that aren't even biblical so just be very careful about that stuff let the bible be your guide and i know it gets discouraging i know um you know it sometimes you just want to give up on those things because you're emotionally it can be taxing but it's a big world out there and there's a lot of people in it and um i wouldn't give up i think that's that's one of the it's one of the main things that god has it's not the only one but it's one of the main things god has uh in a natural state given to people so most people are going to get married or want to get married desire to get married and that's a good thing um he who finds a wife finds a good thing you have to find it takes some work all right let's see what other people are saying here dr bob says this mom has no idea the legal consequences that a failed proposal can incur for a young man rejection can lead to arrest feminism has done this oh i'm not sure what story he's talking about there must be a story in the chat that i'm not aware of uh okay yep young men can can get hurt and i think young i think men and and women but men in particular are with the dysfunction that young people are coming from they're more fragile than and so it is hard but there's only one way to build that endurance you know it's hard when you run the first time you build it up i had to go through rejections before i found my wife and there there were times i thought maybe i'll be single the rest of my life i think that's like every every guy who's trying you know i i did get on dating apps for about three months three of them and just to see what that was like just to try i mean i was in an area that was new york's not an easy area and that's where i was through most of the time well not the whole time it's also in california i was also in north carolina but for for most of the time and i ended up marrying a girl from new york uh new york has a lot of career women believe me if you're sitting in iowa and you're talking about the feminists way ahead of you pal like i i know i know i thought i had to physically move to find anyone that what didn't have that mindset so believe me it's and i understand what getting rejected is um i think it's important though i don't just let the initial conversation be the thing you could find red flags that drive you away but be careful of just giving up so easily there's a lot of ignorance out there ignorance can be fixed by the way with humility someone who's humble and teachable that spirit is worth more than so many other things guys so many other things okay the younger guys uh watched men my age be punished for not being passive they are wise enough to run for their own lives cosmic treason says statistics man says it probably varies from case to case it's simplistic to point to one factor is the only cause yeah i agree that's in most cases it's not usually just one thing 47 years ago when i wanted to get married i told my parents to go get me a wife you could do that certain cultures are more amenable to that than others uh read your bible or go back 200 years before this idiotic romantics infected everything fair enough i do think parents if you have it is a problem for gen z a lot of the parents aren't even there they're not in the picture that's not an option j jr so i understand a lot of the solutions i think that older people see that it's not the world that younger people are in and that's one of them but to your point if you do have parents like that thank god for them and definitely involve them in that process i don't think i would make them you know just hey choose one for me i think i would uh i mean i don't have time to get into that i i don't think it's a wise thing in our context necessarily but it depends where you are there might be contexts where that makes sense i guess coming from another culture or something involve them though that wisdom is the important part that's the biblical principle all right let's see okay recent clip of charlie kirk by two young guys and shares that a man should pay for the date it was really good on this topic too seeing the other iced coffee podcaster guys reaction well of course men should pay for the date i know that's lost now and there's girls who would think oh that's you know that's wrong for a man to pay for the date uh no no that's actually part of the provider role and you're it's a reflection of that you're testing out is this person going to be a provider uh globally young women are increasingly becoming more leftist insane and men slightly more conservative the gulf is widening jr says um yeah there is a gulf widening i i think they're going to the right would be a better way look at it conservative i'm not sure conservative in like a paleo conservative sense i think the jury's still out on what's going to happen what in the world javier says right response ministries has a good take on women essentially they are npcs which means you have to lead them work on your ability to be competent leader uh isn't npc isn't that that person that's like a blank slate in those memes yeah non because what does it mean i forgot what it means it's a internet slang though i'm pretty sure it's the people who have to be programmed like they don't have any kind of someone in the chat tell me what that means again i forgot if that's what it means then i i don't think that's accurate no like women definitely have they're not blank slates they're not just waiting to be programmed okay a lot of opinions about this uh nailed it stormy men don't care about women's self -perceived status riley was showing that she lacks self -awareness and doesn't see men as people with their own minds what how did she doesn't see man i don't even know what to say about that like where do you i don't know how you get from what she said to that necessarily she doesn't see men as people she doesn't see men as people with with their own minds i don't know man i maybe clarify if i'm not getting your take right there cosmic i just don't get that she she could i think lacking self -awareness yes that's part of like dating though with especially when you're not used to it uh she's also the first one to go remember that so it's awkward that's how it is but i i do think that she thinks they're people and they have minds she's trying to to she's probably hoping that there's a guy out there who also likes to travel who likes adventure who she could be with they'll have something in common shared interests are kind of important guys not gonna lie that's kind of a deal in this whole thing you do need to i'm not saying you can't have a marriage without it but it really does help the marriage when you have shared interests you know when you both enjoy sports and you can watch it together it's kind of good when you both enjoy the same activities uh it builds a so i don't know okay um stormy squad if adventure buddy meant let's go get slushies and go for a little drive in the countryside i'm down not going to australia i don't know i'd love to go to australia i don't know about you that's kind of one of the things that's been on my list for a while australia i want to visit all the places in the anglosphere we're gonna south africa good australia okay canada's kind of like maybe maybe we'll go to alberta and uh we'll go to great britain it's actually more important to me than going to israel to be honest with you it's i i'd rather i know it's the bible it's biblical land and all this but i kind of want to go to great britain so yeah if a girl jumped up there and said i want to go to great britain i like to travel that would kind of be like oh i'd like to go to great britain too that would be fun but if someone said they didn't want to go to great britain i wouldn't i don't know this is common sense stuff right i'll tell you john 75 of women on dating apps have travel in their interests it's like long walks on the beach that's the that's what they uh everyone had on their dating apps when i was uh in my late teenage years everyone liked long walks on the beach it's like people think it's attractive it makes here's the thing about travel okay it's like having a degree right someone who's been all over europe let's say he's backpacked europe but they don't have a college degree it's like they have one it's kind of comparable in in a certain sense because you can actually hobnob with elites and talk about these places that they've only been uh you have cross -cultural experiences which actually do mature you generally uh you you have to you're forced into awkward scenarios where you have to understand protocol and respect and i actually think it's a good thing when someone has cross -cultural experiences if it has led them to greater maturity not just for their own sake but if it leads them to greater maturity which oftentimes it can uh be normal on the internet how dare you yeah i know i know i'm asking too much all right i am trying to get through all these comments and then we'll move on to some other stuff here dr bob didn't get married until i was 30 lots of not great girls in evangelical churches growing up found a girl who wanted marriage and she made it clear she wanted me we're awaiting boy three congratulations dr bob love to hear these kinds of stories and i can relate to that to some extent i can join the stream late says t james boone don't know all you've covered but i do feel sorry for girls she's been taught the wrong things about how to attract how to have an attractive personality i think that's just par for the course that's what i want young guys to also realize you're not going into a perfect situation don't expect a don't expect you're always going to be able to find a girl who has been shielded from the depravity out there who also is knows what her role is and how to talk to guys and how to present herself you probably don't have that like it there's gonna have to be some grace and there's gonna have to be some getting beyond that first hurdle and assessing what the person's virtue and character character is the big thing here what's their character they humble are they teachable uh do they what do they want out of life do they realize how maybe if they're really all about travel right do they realize how that they can't be all about that because they have to actually have a husband and do they see how that conflicts potentially you know you have to ask those questions you have to get involved with someone it takes i know it's icky but you have to get involved to see those things the snap judgment thing isn't always going to tell you and nita smith says i'm finally expecting our first grandchild my children uh two of which are married are in their early 30s okay cosmic trees and clarified um she isn't able to conceive that others have different thoughts from her so she's offering them what she wants okay i think i see what's more you're saying that she's okay so she's expecting people are going to be attracted to the same thing she's attracted to i think it's just a normal human tendency to be honest with you it i don't i wouldn't read like so much into that maybe you're not so i i won't say you are i want to i don't want to read into you potentially reading it but i think i i would have done the same thing though i'm sure i did the same thing like just this is i mean i knew that girls didn't like necessarily guns and military stuff like i did so i didn't talk about that right i tried not to but i would talk about things like music or you know interests like travel places i've been actually that's the number one thing i probably talk about with people is travel if i meet them initially if i because i've been to a lot of places domestically especially so i've been to 49 states um north dakota is the only one i haven't been to and it's been that way for well over a decade so i've i just need to go to north dakota but i've just traveled a lot domestically so if i meet someone from another part of the country that's generally what we talk about and i can have a conversation and it really breaks the ice i think travel's good for that so i don't know like that's what do i have to bring except for the things that i know about i could ask people questions but when you're under the pressure of which is what she was under you have to present something about yourself so people know who you are and what you're like i probably would talk about travel too all right uh jr says from experience i dated a few women with pasts in dating they would have all been nightmares to marry because of these pasts that could be true i wish elders would have pointed this out more to me and not downplayed it well i here's here's the dividing line to me okay if a girl has a past and this goes for guys too it's like girls aren't the only ones with past obviously i i think it's actually uh the stats i saw last guys in gen z there's more of them who were not virgins and girls but let's say either either gender they have a past the question is is it actually a past or is it going to be a present in a future and the only way you can determine that is by spending some time getting to know them if it's not obvious initially and seeing again where their virtue is where their character is where's their heart are they teachable are they humble do they bend to the word of god they bend to spiritual authority do they make decisions watch their actions that would show that they have departed from their past that's all you can do and there are women who have made very lovely brides that's kind of an archetype actually that like the male who kind of the male redeemer the prince charming who kind of like takes a girl uh who has this and uh doesn't hold it against her and she's you know she has that humble spirit and she and it can definitely work out and i've seen it work out sometimes it's a nightmare so that girl never moved on from the past that past was actually a care it was a character quality that she had innately in her and it would have continued so that's what you have to figure out the past itself really isn't the issue so much as where's her heart at now scripture requires a man uh must have been married to hold any office in the church it also says they ought to put nothing on their head while praying okay i don't have time to get into it i don't think i agree with that interpretation but um i understand why people say that right because the husband of one wife children who are believing in that kind of thing one says don't send your kids to dei public schools that's the best advice we give to parents yes that probably homeschooling helps all right let's get move on to some other things now that i think i probably spent enough time on that and i hope that was helpful that's the only reason i did this it's not to get in any of the the drama out there because i i think it's very silly the drama itself on the surface but i i think behind it though there are people who are stuck and if any of this resonated and you want to get unstuck i mean you can always reach out to me dms i can put you i can depending on your circumstance maybe point you to some resources but i don't want to see people stuck because um i care about you but i in the audience but i also want to see civilization continue and we're just not going to if we don't get married and have kids and it's going to require reevaluate for some of us reevaluating standards and trying to conform them to biblical standards and and figuring out what's actually negotiable what's not all of that all right well uh let's talk about dei shall we that sounds like a good topic to uh go to um i did have some some poll numbers i'm going to share with you about gen z but i think i'm not going to do that now uh i have a story from the new york post from july 12th that is the headline is single gen z romantics giving up on dating as loneliness epidemic spirals so if you want to know more about the loneliness epidemic and how gen z has given up on dating you can go look that up for yourself but we need to make sure that we don't give up on however whatever mechanism you use we're not giving up on marriage and finding a wife he finds a way finds a good thing all right we are off to the races on dei so let's do it so fox news put this out not too long ago a new report warns that red states are quietly adopting liberal policies including dei mandates esg and investing and gender ideology even under republican leadership due to deep -rooted influence from national bureaucratic organizations the state leadership institute a group focused on state -level policy reform argues there's a shadow government with unelected national associations that are embedding progressive ideologies into state bureaucracies regardless of what the voters do conservative leaders are fond of declaring victory they win elections pass legislation appoint agency heads with great fanfare yet on issue after issue the administration the administrative state trudges forward in open defiance of their mandate enforcing equity initiatives embedding climate policy and advancing bureaucratic priorities the report claims that dozens of well -funded national associations often branded as non -partisan or professional groups are responsible for this shadow governance these organizations set policy frameworks distribute federal funding and provide best practices groups named in the report include the national association of state treasurers national association of medicaid directors national association of state boards of education you would never suspect right these organizations are agenda driven and i think that's one of the things conservatives can learn from pick kind of a boring name and you know they do they fly under the radar every single one of these associations pushes dei well this guy named let's see noah wall sorry not well noah wall he said that he examined 23 of the largest associations for the report and found widespread adoption of progressive agendas all right anything else in this so there's a little more specifics that's what i'm looking for so this is from the national association of medicaid directors and they're one of the examples of this uh the i think it's the president of the organization said our goal is to gather resources to support our fellow treasurers we plan to send out survey to gather information on dei initiatives in the different states um all right okay so this is deborah goldberg a massachusetts state treasurer okay so this particular individual shared how her state prioritized hiring a diverse workforce and how it benefited the treasury workforce by starting with diverse transition team and utilizing more extensive outreach we found that an exceptional talent pool began applying for positions in our various offices and over the years we have seen how diversity benefits and enriches our team treasury workforce she wrote we truly pride ourselves in promoting dei within our office even though we are the most diverse office in the massachusetts state government uh we do not arrest our okay there's just specifics given in this and places you can look for more of this and it kind of highlights something that i've talked about i've said i don't know how many times after 2020 when the headlines receded and social justice wasn't in the streets we were in the drilling down phase and we still are it hasn't gone away it's still out there and it's in bureaucracies it's embedded all the people who work for these bureaucracies didn't go away they weren't all fired usaid didn't take care of all of them a lot of these are embedded in other institutions or in state governments it's not even just the federal government so this is something that requires extensive work still rooting it out this is why organizations like center for baptist leadership and the southern baptist convention are important because they're keeping that pressure on they're constantly they're detecting it where it comes up because it may not be making the headlines but it's still there and the people who believe these things haven't gone away so just a reminder of that it's sometimes i think it's important to remind ourselves that is still a threat and it does play into even the topic we were talking about before a little bit when you have dei policies ensuring that minorities and women are still getting more favorable positions and it's driving men towards blue -collar jobs that aren't as prestigious and don't carry as much authority there's a tendency to put women in positions of leadership and that leadership they're they're going to learn all these skills and and you know formulas and all the rest well guys who aren't in those positions are working for the man and they're in more blue -collar roles etc uh it i'm not saying they can't be leaders they very well can be but it it doesn't give them the same kind of training and practice every day and it does create a disjointedness and it's not good for society it's not natural it's artificial it's ideology it's ideological and we need to stop so uh even just getting rid of that i think would help things like dating and marriage to be quite honest with you uh women depending on husbands who have the leadership skills and are taking cultural leadership as well as leadership in the home that that alone would probably do wonders but we have artificial forces preventing that or at least making it harder more difficult all right data shows marijuana legalization negatively impacts states who would have thunk it i was 16 and i was in a speech class my first i was one of those homeschoolers that went to community college early it was my first class was speech class and we had this debate on marijuana legalization and wouldn't you know it i was the only one in the entire class that didn't think it should be legalized recreationally and of course the libertarians and stuff you know i i was familiar with the arguments i'll say uh government should be out of that that's something that's new hemp used to be you could do whatever you wanted with hemp i get it i do get it i think it's circumstantial though and that's what conservatives that's how a conservative has to think what is if people can't govern themselves what is the social cost of allowing something that is a vice and in this case it is a it's not it's different than alcohol in the sense that alcohol has all these kinds of uses that are not related to getting uh getting high whereas marijuana that's intrinsically if you're using it recreationally that is what you are doing and it is also it is a health problem and long term it does give make you more susceptible to schizophrenia and all these other diagnoses obviously there's cbd oils and that kind of stuff that are different and there's medicinal uses and i understand i'm not getting all that but the social cost in our current environment i just thought that's it's not going to be good and i i think we're somewhat vindicated here so this is from new york families says this summer a survey showed that marijuana use by adults in new york increased by almost 16 percent in the two years following legalization more than two million adult new yorkers reported using the drug and trust me you smell it now all kinds of places you didn't used to in july charles fain layman at the wall street journal wrote a piece entitled legal marijuana's disastrous legacy in it layman noted that marijuana legalization leads to higher rates of marijuana addiction more arrests and lower property values in a community furthermore layman asserted that pot use is correlated with iq loss schizophrenia heart attack strokes and lung disease layman even mentioned the unappetizing so this is this is a problem and some of the stats in this report are just kind of damning their marijuana use is up especially with gen z especially with gen z their alcohol is on the decline marijuana is on the incline 19 to 30 year olds 42 percent use cannabis 42 of 19 to 30 year olds that's up from 28 in 2012 that's crazy 10 use it daily teen use um it stopped declining in the state of washington the data that we have for washington it was declining now it's not workplace drug tests 7 .3

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percent of post -accident tests positive for marijuana so yes people are getting and driving and they're getting their cars high it is causing accidents that's double the 2012 rate it's higher in legalized states 10 percent of new users develop cannabis use disorder 30 percent of current users show signs in denmark 25 to 30 percent of schizophrenia cases in young adults are linked to cannabis um the average smoker is two percent two times more likely and heavy users are four times more likely to develop schizophrenia in canada emergency room visits for cannabis induced psychosis doubled post legalization especially in 19 to 24 year olds i mean it just gets worse and worse and worse it's gumming up the hospitals it's it's a pregnancy risk it actually uh creates an incentive for violence i mean this is the thing that you've always heard is that uh and people i know who have smoked it and so forth are like oh no it just chills you it just relaxes you right but if you regularly use it it starts changing you and the 2018 study uh says that regular use leads to more abuse or at least it's correlated there's a uk study that says cannabis use is linked to nine times increase in violence offending now you could say correlation isn't causation it's just the kind of people that abuse happen to smoke well maybe that's also the argument against it homelessness uh correlated there it's just it's not good so and this is interesting too tax revenue 2023 3 .8

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billion across 24 states so 160 million um is the state average for uh tax revenue from marijuana it's a seven percent drop though there has been a seven percent drop in alcohol and tobacco taxes reduce so it reduces the net gain uh to uh less so so basically this the study's saying that this it's not even proven that this is actually going to in the long term help your state with more revenue because there's a social cost associated with it but also there's these other vices that people are replacing marijuana with that were taxed before okay so that's what i wanted to uh say about marijuana now i'm not you know like biblical law i understand i'm not one of these guys that's like an absolutist on it i i just think circumstantially we have a problem and this i think also this is this may even be related to that first story we were talking about with people feeling awkward in the dating game and don't know how to go from a to b if you're smoking that kind of stuff it is going to lead to many it's going to munchies it's going to lead potentially to a weight gain it's going that wasn't part of the study but my own personal observations i suppose uh not every case is like that but you're not going to be as an attractive person you are going to be less ambitious you are going to waste more time it's just not good guys you're you're you know i don't think people in this audience are probably the prime people that are smoking marijuana but socially we were right the social conservatives were right on this issue once again jerry fallwell and the religious right were all correct and there's no one to give them an award but they they knew what was up and they don't get the credit for it okay uh the religion of americanism i'm going to skip that there's a really good article on the abeville institute website called the religion of americanism i would just commend to you someone asked me is the christian nationalist movement just yankee nationalism i've been reading the federalist papers and uh the short answer is yes sort of there's different versions but i think if you read that short piece for religion of americanism you will know uh what that's talking about what um the kind of nationalism that i do not care for i believe nations exist but there is a consolidation a centralization uh a divine mission from on high to conform the world as sort of a northeastern imperial spirit that is very negative and yes i think there are some christian nationalist types who do buy into some of that all right uh last thing i wanted to just highlight for you all is the smithsonian the smithsonian i have said that i think the cultural issues are really important probably more important than some of the other even financial fiscal issues we gotta know who we are and one of the encouraging things i like to end on an up note is trump trump administration is going to examine the smithsonian and it's um now victor davis hansen to me is probably one of the people who buys into the religion of americanism he's a proposition nation guy but uh he he at least him and i would probably both uh be very in agreement that the smithsonian is pushing leftism and ripping on america and so he has a piece on this which is really good uh that shows this is what the smithsonian is promoting um let's see what examples he gives that might be good to highlight promoting homosexuality and maligning the american flag at the smithsonian so um yeah that's great you got a pride progress progress flag that greets american history museum visitors yeah nothing says america like that right so they're great at the lgbt flag but then when they get to the u .s