March 15, 2019 Show with David Bahnsen on “Crisis of Responsibility” PLUS Gary DeMar on “Socialism: What Is It & What Are Its Dangers? (Exposing the Fraud of the Modern Spin on Institutionalized Theft)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania It's iron sharpens iron This is a radio platform in which pastors

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage We are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation

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To make one another wiser and better It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours

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And we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions, and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen Good Afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at iron Sharpens iron radio .com This is

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Chris Arnzen your host of iron sharpens iron radio wishing you all a happy Friday on this 15th day of March 2019 and I am thrilled to have the two guests that we are featuring today on iron sharpens iron radio

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The first is a first -time guest and the second is a frequently returning guest

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First of all, we're going to be speaking with David L Bonson and if that name sounds familiar it should because he is the son of the late

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Greg Bonson who is considered by many to be the father of presuppositional apologetics in our modern day many people even outside of Greg Bonson's theonomic and reconstructionist roots find

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Greg even today through his writings and through recordings of him to be a very chief aid in their lives as Christians in defending the faith and so I am thrilled to have

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David on today to discuss his book crisis of responsibility But then after that in the second hour, we have returning to iron sharpens iron radio

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My old friend Gary DeMar and he is going to be discussing the theme socialism What is it and what are its dangers exposing the fraud of the modern spin on?

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Institutionalized theft, but first of all, let me more formally introduce my first guest David L Bonson he is the founder and managing partner and chief investment officer of the

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Bonson group a Bicoastal private wealth management firm with offices in Newport Beach, California and New York City Managing over 1 .5

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billion in client assets David is consistently named as one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron's Forbes in the

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Financial Times He is a frequent guest on CNBC Bloomberg and Fox Business and is a regular contributor to National Review and world

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He has written his own political viewpoint blog at Bonson viewpoint comm and Bonson is spelt

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B a h n s e n Viewpoint comm for over a decade David serves on the board of directors for the

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National Review Institute King's College in New York City and as a founding trustee for Pacifica Christian High School of Orange County He is the senior fellow of economics for the

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Center for cultural leadership and a longtime Faculty member for both the Acton Institute and the

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Blackstone Fellowship of the Alliance defending freedom David is passionate about integration of faith and economics and has lectured and written for years about a theology of wealth in the marketplace

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He responds to the term Kuiperin is deeply of Tim Keller and father

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Robert Sirico and has read more systematic Theology than any other human should ever read his late father.

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Dr. Greg Bonson was a renowned Christian apologist and was David's personal hero and mentor He is the author of the book that we are discussing discussing today crisis of responsibility

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Our cultural addiction to blame and how you can cure it published by Post Hill Press And as I said earlier, it's my honor and privilege to welcome you the very first time to iron sharpens iron radio

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David L Bonson Well, it's a pleasure to be on with you And I'm gonna give our email address out right away because you can only be on with us for the first hour

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Unfortunately, hopefully we'll have you back in the future for two hours when your schedule permits But our email address if anybody wants to join us on the air with a question is

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Chris Arnzen at gmail .com See HR is a RN z en at gmail .com

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Please give us as always your first name at least your city and state of residence in your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA David Before we go into the heart of the matter of the crisis of responsibility

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When we have a first -time guest on the program It is our tradition here at iron trip and Zion radio if they are a

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Christian that is to give a summary of their salvation testimony

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Starting with the religious atmosphere you were raised in and then what kind of providential circumstances were raised up by our

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Sovereign Lord in your life To lead you to himself to save you now, obviously I already said that your dad

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Was a dr. Greg Bonson but I don't know enough about your personal family history to know if your dad was already a

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Christian when you were born and those kinds of details that I'm sure our listeners would love to hear

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So if you could give us a summary of that salvation testimony, yeah I'm happy to yeah, as you said

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I was Raised in in a Christian home. And in fact, my my now late father was

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Had already been a believer by time. I was born for Let's see about 15 years.

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And so he came to know the Lord in middle school and By 1974 he was already ordained although he was only in his mid -twenties

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He had graduated from lessons for theological seminary shortly before I was born and was preparing for a life as a

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Theologian and as a pastor and in fact was working on his doctorate in philosophy at University of Southern California when

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I was born and so that's why I was born in in the LA area and so I was raised in a covenant home and As far back as I can remember had been taught first things

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About the Lord and about the gospel as far as the age at which

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I can remember Making a profession and having a real keen understanding of my salvation

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It really was very very young and you know age four or five or right right around there

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I haven't had a period where I You know ever renounced my faith or went back.

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I've most certainly had periods of Life where I was living it more faithfully than others but that kind of covenantal

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Blessing of being raised how my father raised me has Stuck in and though my journey over the years and what

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I believe About the faith and and and how I seek to live it out as certainly

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Changed and evolved and progressed and and gone through, you know the various Stages that I suppose are necessary to go through to get to where one needs to be but one thing that hasn't ever altered is my belief in in God and in the work of his son on the cry on the cross

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Well one thing that I have been Kicking myself over for about 20 years

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Continue to occasionally pull clumps of hair out of my skull over this

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But I had the rare honor and privilege to interview your dad

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Greg Bonson in the study of Steve Schlissel at Messiah's congregation in Brooklyn and this was probably 92 or 93 1992 or 93 and I see this is even before I had my own talk show

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I didn't start my own iron sharpens iron talk show until 2005, but Steve Schlissel Said to me.

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I know you're gonna be a talk radio host one day and I want you to interview Greg Bonson and I want you to have this this tape this recording on file so you could use it as a resume

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As an inclusion in your resume for when you begin shopping around at different radio stations and so on and I had this wonderful Interview with Greg.

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I remember being utterly fascinated and Perhaps even a little star -struck

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Although I'm sure he would not appreciate being called a star, but I lost the tape

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So Even now I think a little tear is starting to form in my eye over this But hopefully some somebody somewhere found that recording and is being blessed by it today

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But In in my description of you and when I introduced you It says that you

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Respond to the term Kuyperion obviously referring to Abraham Kuyper. What about this historic figure in the faith has

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Influenced you to the point where you have an ideology that you now possess and teach and write about well, one of the one of the

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The things that I talked about when I gave a 20 -year my dad's passing address they

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They had kind of an event in Southern, California that sort of commemorated

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The 20 -year anniversary of his passing and I and I got to speak to I don't know four or five hundred people

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It's that it's on YouTube now But I was just sort of reflecting on some of the memories of my father and lessons learned and one of the things

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I talked about in that was Greg Bonson the Kuyperion and and I think that there's a shortage of people that talk about Greg Bonson the

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Calvinist and he certainly was a Calvinist and Greg Bonson the Vantillian, you know, dr.

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Vantill was his Philosophical mentor and and and my dad did become an accomplished presuppositional

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Apologist under the tutelage of dr. Vantill and indeed dr. Frame Speaking of John frame, but I don't

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I don't think people That don't know my dad would necessarily

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Talk about Bonson the Kuyperion Although it wouldn't contradict anything that they know of him.

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It wouldn't necessarily be the most intuitive Description that they would attach and I think that's unfortunate because I believe that The theology that I believe in so much that I actually think has penetrated much of mainstream

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Evangelicalism the notion of God's interest in the universe in God's Working through redemptive history here on earth

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It was not necessarily as accepted or common or popular Even 20 years ago and let alone 40 years ago it's rare these days that anybody doesn't speak that way and there's a kind of latent

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Kuyperianism in it and and so for me and the focus of my

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Mission and things I care most deeply about The the very basic concept of not only sphere sovereignty, which which

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Kuyper made Incredible Contributions to that whole subject but but more particularly the notion of Lordship of Christ and The basic appeal when we talk about God's sovereignty and various things that are important here on earth rooting it in a theology of Lordship and and that to me is the great contribution of Abraham Kuyper and It's something that I would know absolutely nothing about if it wasn't for great bond

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Now praise God and for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with Abraham Kuyper, he was a very renowned

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Dutch reformed theologian 19th century And one of the things he is known for is cobelligerence.

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Can you explain that for our audience? In terms of Kuyper's concept of cobelligerence, you know, it's funny because I don't

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I don't really think of Kuyper is sort of a Pioneering cobelligerent, so you may need to educate me a little bit here.

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Well, perhaps I was misinformed about Kuyper, but I had had the for some reason the feeling in the back of my head that he was a champion of getting people outside of their own immediate theological circles to cooperate with others on things that would help transform society as long as they didn't compromise those things that they believe and cherish like for instance, even today you might have a

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Protestants Being cobelligerent to fight against the evils of abortion alongside of our

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Roman Catholic friends, but at the same time being very diligent not to cross the lines of an unbiblical

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Realm of ecumenism where we throw aside very important things like justification by faith alone, etc

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But if anyway, if you could comment I don't know that Kuyper, I don't know that Kuyper would have at all been

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Opposed to cobelligerence. I just haven't ever heard him associated with it per se, but it certainly seems compatible

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I mean I I happen to be Overwhelming fan of the very concept of cobelligerence and and believe that in fact most

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Successful kingdom endeavors get done only with cobelligerence, but I digress

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I'm more as far as Kuyper's affiliation with that. It's I Just don't know much about it.

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But I think that I think that Kuyper's concept of you know, there's not one square inch that the

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Lord Jesus has not said mine is Is really what a lot of people have been very impacted

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Where a lot of people have been impacted by him Richard Mao wrote a biography of Kuyper a number years ago.

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That was a really Effective summary not only of people we ought to learn about the man

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Kuyper but about being able to learn about Kuyperianism and so the reason the reason to be very honest with you that I highlight my

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Kuyperianism in my biography and talk about Greg Bronson's Affection for Kuyper and the doctrines of Kuyperianism is

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I view it as a subset of Calvinism and I view it as the far far far more important aspect of Calvinism Then the one that gets all of the attention

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Which is of course the soteriology and so to the extent that we've spent a few hundred years now talking about various aspects of the five points of Calvinism and about the sovereignty of God in salvation some of the basic tenets in reformed theology

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All of which by the way are tenets that I still believe in But I think that when you talk about the

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Genevan Scholar that was John Calvin you you to to talk about The doctrine of predestination and not talk about what became the foundation off which

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Kuyperianism was built the notion of God's interest in the universe and and the manner in which

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God's sovereignty plays out through history. I think is a shame and so I am just extremely devoted in my

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Calvinism to that sort of Kuyperian strand of it and much less so these days to the soteriology and This is a fascinating title that you have here the crisis of responsibility

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Our cultural addiction to blame and how you can cure it People on both the left and the right are habitually doing this

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Perhaps I do it more than I should on this on my very own radio program here iron sharpens iron

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But I think that I try at least to Give a clarion call to those in my own theological circles to clean house as well

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I don't think that I just focus on those outside of My own sphere of fellowship.

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Well, I fellowship with a lot of different people, but I mean my specific reform Baptist Circle, I think that I Open up the doors for blame even inside my own house as it were

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But what was the catalyst that brought you to the point where you said I've just got to write this book well, the book initially was intended the very specific catalyst was the an analysis of the financial crisis of 2008 the

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Great Recession that ensued and and sort of my years of research and Dissection of the causes of the crisis in the aftermath of the crisis and and at some point in that process there was a

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Event that had tremendous effect on me personally and professionally I work in finance at the time of the crisis.

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I was a managing director at Morgan Stanley Which is you know, either the largest or second largest and investment bank on Wall Street And and so I had a number of really strong connections and and and Ramifications around what had taken place in the crisis and and it became a passion and I would guess the word obsession is probably not

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Inappropriate. Well, what happened is that I became convinced that the 75 books

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I read on the crisis were all Missing something most of them were were had nuggets of truth some more than others but that the notion of the crisis as a pure failure of policy or a pure failure of government or a pure failure of Wall Street or whatever the chosen, you know culprit may have be depending on on the political orientation of the person

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Making the accusation That there was absolutely no assessment available in the public square that put the

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The bulk of the blame for the financial crisis on Main Street And in fact, whether someone's on the right or the left what they all had in common was

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An eagerness to portray Main Street as a victim of the crisis the distinction being either that right -wing folks

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Wanted to say that either the Federal Reserve or a government housing policy Fannie Mae Something like that what caused the crisis and Main Street was the victim or the left

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Which is a more prevalent view and will certainly be the view that gets written in our grandkids history books would say that it was greed and capitalism and a lack of regulation and and Wall Street and that was the cause and Main Street the victim

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And I actually think there were tremendous failures of all of the aforementioned actors But I do not believe that Main Street was a victim of those failures.

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I think that they were best case in the most charitable reading possible a co -conspirator or co -actor in the crisis and more accurately were were

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The significant party and I could explain better what Main Street means

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In this case, but just generally speaking you probably get my drift So in the course of talking with my agent and my publisher

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We decided to expand the message of the book which at this point was really intended to be a kind of cultural indictment as to where the financial crisis came from and as things were unfolding throughout 2015 and 16 and and there became more and more discussions about where immigration policy might be to blame for the you know job prospects of certain folks in in old, you know manufacturing towns and and where China or Mexico or the media or Or a

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Wall Street or what big government there was more and more discussion obviously this kind of populist angst that was very prevalent in our society and That I felt it it dovetailed with the whole thesis of the book

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I was already writing on the financial crisis. So the book became a bit broader It maintained in fact, the longest chapter in the book is is the one dealing with the financial crisis but I expanded the message of the book to cover all these different topics and And essentially make the case that we're living in a time where individual responsibility has almost entirely

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Deteriorated and that the only thing we debate about these days is who exactly should the blame

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Be casted towards what the blame should be casted towards there's very little debate about the fact that in fact that really our problems are not our own that there is someone else out there who created it and of course what you tend to find is

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One's a selection of who do cast blame at almost entirely comes down to their own political

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Orientation and so it becomes highly tribalistic and I think is largely why we are living in such divided times politically, so that may be about the longest explanation as to what the origin and Inspiration for this book was that I've ever given but there's my answer now as far as the disintegrating responsibility amongst those of us that would profess to be conservative and they might include a spectrum of hardcore

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Republican to libertarian and things in between Those that are

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Christian those that want to see cultural transformation in addition to the salvation of individuals but those that are in horror watching as things that even liberals once would blush over are now publicly celebrating in the streets things like same -sex marriage things like The allowing a an infant to die in a shoebox after it was accidentally quote -quote born during an abortion attempt

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What how are we? failing in your Opinion in the most significant ways in the public arena in the media and other places

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Obviously, we spend a lot of time talking about as your book would lend Itself to the blame shifting and we might more typically be pointing our figure fingers at the left

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More often than we should because we need to clean house ourselves, but tell us where would you think that we're failing?

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well For one thing chapter 10 of my book really goes deep into the notion of the size of government and and I'm a political conservative and limited government advocate myself but I make the case and I think hopefully persuasively in the book that the size of government is a directly inverse

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Result of the responsibility and morality of the people that elected the government

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And I think that's one of the biggest Differences I have a lot of my conservative friends is they believe that big government is the cause of our problems and I believe big government is the result of our problems and I believe it with every ounce of breath in my body that the growth of government is a result of Individual failure the decline of mediating institutions in our society from family to church to local community schools civic organizations

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So forth and so on so the subsidiarity Doctrine that Catholics so strongly believe in the federalism concept that Constitutionalists like myself so much believe in These are the

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Maybe different terms and different context all getting to the same thing That when you strip out a bottom -up view of the civil society there is no choice, but for a large government to fill that void and that's exactly what's happened and And so then you get a vicious cycle

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Where it isn't like this big government does good things they do bad things so we choose to focus on those bad things they're doing and ignore the

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Genesis of the problem and it builds on itself and feeds on itself and you create a negative feedback loop

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But when you talk about things that we're doing And again, I understand you're the we is kind of you know nebulous and broad

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But those on the right those that would otherwise, you know, perhaps In in prior times we thought of as kind of the good guys in society

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I think one of the things that we're doing wrong is participating in this blame -casting

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We are willing to accept a narrative that again often as nuggets of truth but never is complete and and the notion that our economic fortunes and that our

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Role In the kind of fiscal health of society and our participations

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Or lack thereof of material prosperity are a byproduct of a particular policy

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Or a particular trade deal that was struck, you know 30 plus years ago or something like that Is is

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I think a dangerous view as certainly disconnected from reality But has served as a sort of enabler of All kinds of irresponsible living and I think it needs to stop.

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Yeah, it's interesting when you were talking about the The size the large size of our government rather than being a cause of our problems being a result of our problems

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I was immediately reminded of an often repeated warning to Not only the church but to the citizens of this world at large

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That I've heard by men of God preaching from pulpits who I highly Respect and esteem who have said when we look at things like same -sex marriage as being something that is going to Invoke the wrath of God rather.

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It is a sign of the wrath of God already on a nation yeah, I think I think that that's true of so many things my my

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Father preaches sermon once I don't remember the year in which he preached it But I know the date was sometime in January because it was in commemoration of the

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One of the anniversaries of the Roe v. Wade passing So it was somewhere on the third week of January and some year in the 80s

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But the title of the sermon was abortion is only the symptom and it stuck with me over the years

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I think about the underlying message of it a lot that You know, I I'm really focused on this theme about a lot of what we do in our lives ethically being

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Either the cause of a vicious cycle or the cause of a virtuous cycle, but very very rarely just being kind of a neutral stasis that usually either feeds on itself in a positive way or feeds on itself in a negative way and and the notion that we our problem was

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Fundamentally a bad law or a bad Supreme Court interpretation Rather than the kind of societal rot that had led to it

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I I think it was misguided and I think it was a wonderful sermon but but again to the point you just made has a lot of broad application and and so unfortunately, though sometimes these things that are symptomatic of Really bad things also are themselves bad things and so you you get a double whammy

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And we have to go to our first break right now If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for David L Bonson on crisis of responsibility our email address is

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Chris Arnzen at gmail .com Chris Arnzen at gmail .com as always give us at least your first name your city and state

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And your country of residence if you live outside the USA Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

30:49

Don't go away We'll be right back after these messages with David L Bonson Chris Arnzen host of iron sharpens iron radio announcing a new website with an exciting offer from world

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Welcome back This is Chris Arns and if you just tuned us in our guest today for the first hour with a little less than a half hour to go is

38:31

David L. Bonson we are addressing his book crisis of Responsibility this is a publication of Posthill Press and the subtitle is our cultural addiction to blame and how you can cure it

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Our email address is Chris Arns in a gmail .com. If you have a question and David we already have some questions waiting for you

38:51

We have John and Bangor, Maine who asked the question Your dad was most well known for his theonomic and reconstructionist views

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I was wondering if you still share them and I was also wondering if you could clear up the confusion that many have

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Who think that being a theonomist is the opposite to being a defender of small government?

39:16

That being a theonomist is the opposite of being a defender of small government. Okay Well, I mean as far as this question as to whether I share those views

39:26

This is the best thing I could say is I believe in the optimistic

39:34

Eschatology that is known as post -millennialism and I believe in it exegetically and I believe in it as compatible with the theological framework that I understand about in covenant theology and And in my understanding of history

39:53

So that eschatological view that is largely been associated reconstructionism

40:00

It back in when reconstructionism still kind of existed Is the eschatological view

40:07

I hold to the the other tenant of that presuppositional apologetics?

40:13

Is a very easy Association to claim and and understand and the ventilion

40:23

Concert I talked about earlier more of a methodology and a and a epistemology

40:30

That my father I think Is most known for so when someone says he's most known for being a theonomist.

40:38

I I don't think it's true I understand why people say it There was more more controversy

40:45

Throughout his ministry in his career in that subject But the fact of matter is when we look at the books

40:53

That have sold when I look at the letters that I've received when we look at the Tapes and DVDs and CDs and now of course, you know digital audios you could the debate he did with dr.

41:07

Stein has a Famous debate he had done with an atheist Has sold more than everything he ever did put together.

41:16

So I really think his great contribution As a

41:21

Christian intellectual was in the field of apologetics and That's certainly where I believe his legacy will be now.

41:29

He Wrote some remarkable material published a lot of works in other fields

41:35

I have my own regrets about how that emphasis played out in his life

41:42

And of course, you know, we argue kind of from silence as to maybe what would have happened

41:49

Had he lived another 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 years? because he didn't

41:56

And so it was what it was but I I really do believe my dad to have been one of the great

42:04

Apologetical minds of the 20th century. Amen. Well, that's certainly true And I know that he is the hero of my favorite apologist that is alive today.

42:13

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries I know that he holds Upholds your dad as one of his heroes of the faith, even though James is not a theonomist or Reconstructionist even though the church where he now attends or as a member is

42:30

Theonomic but the Theonomic Reformed Baptist Church but not to belabor this issue, but just to kind of get your thoughts on it from Coming from John and banger mains question.

42:43

Do you know why because it is somewhat especially on the surface a

42:49

Surprise perhaps to many that there are many theonomists who? Support libertarian candidates and it seems like a contradiction in terms almost well,

43:01

I Hope you don't get upset with me for answering your question. Honestly, sir, but This is

43:10

I guess why you had me on so I'll tell you I Don't believe that theonomy for most of our awful lot of people is

43:19

Fundamentally a theological framework. I think for an awful lot of people that I guess used to be called

43:27

Reconstructionists, I don't know if there are people who still use that that term or not I don't I'm a little out of the loop as to whether or not reconstructionism is still a thing

43:37

But I do know that a lot in that movement so to speak that would be associated with the term theonomy

43:44

I think it was always much more a sociological Intuition than it was a theological one and that is most certainly not true of Greg Bonson.

43:55

I either the guy was a Absolutely obsessive

44:02

Exegetical Theologian and I really do believe he rooted Much of his sort of political ethics and what he believed the the

44:12

Bible was teaching But when someone asked why there's such an interesting correlation between libertarianism you know anti -government there's kind of a

44:26

Sociology and a psychology if you will that is very compatible and so I Won't lie to you.

44:35

I'm not saying this as a compliment Okay, I mean this critical, but I also don't mean it universally

44:43

I don't I don't I don't by any means mean to imply that everyone who carries either of these terms

44:49

One can be fond of the term Theonomic and Not be identified as libertarian one can be libertarian and not have ever heard of theonomy, right?

45:00

Right? Oh, yeah, I know a lot of the I know a lot of libertarians Who are before?

45:05

Theonomy and reconstruction not not necessarily that they really understand it, but but they understand at least the way

45:12

It is caricatured Yeah, so so the best answer I can give and this is something that in an earlier phase of my life

45:21

I spent a lot of time thinking about a lot of times studying and analyzing But I really became convinced that a lot of people that kind of affiliated with some of these terms that were throwing around They they they had a particular

45:35

Sociology that attracted them to the movement and and so libertarianism fit into that And and that's the most charitable answer

45:45

I could probably give And by the way John and Bangor, Maine, you've won a free copy of crisis of responsibility

45:52

Thanks to the generosity of our friends at posthill press and also thanks to the generosity of cv bbs .com

45:59

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service who will be shipping it out to you at no charge to you or to orange opens on radio

46:05

But we need your full mailing address in Bangor, Maine Thanks for the excellent question We I know that we could only be on for an hour today

46:14

So I want to make sure before I take any more listener questions that you have several uninterrupted minutes

46:19

To really get to the core of what you most want to have etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about crisis of Responsibility before we have to turn the mic over to Gary DeMar in the second hour well before you get to turn the mic over to Gary DeMar Gary's a dear friend of mine and and Hopefully any listeners that start to get turned off by me will be able to Listen to the good stuff

46:48

And the headliners so to speak but the book the book is in my mind summary of a lot of things that are near and dear to my heart and and represent a kind of combination of messages that I think are

47:05

Vitally needed in in today's cultural epidemic It is not meant to be a political book.

47:12

I was very Aware of the fact that there would be some on the right that would be turned off by it

47:18

And that there would be certainly some on the left would be turned off by it, but it did receive a very broad audience

47:25

The the I did quite a few interviews on Fox News and and other major media outlets and was really

47:33

Impressed by the fact that a lot of people in a kind of broader

47:40

Either evangelical or just sort of political type audience We're really receptive to the message

47:47

But the notion of a free and virtuous society a term that I use very frequently and very fondly

47:55

Which I I reckon to be my life's calling the the work towards Such a society is one that I believe cannot happen as long as men and women of good faith goodwill are are sitting around Blame -casting for what has gone wrong and hatred of institutions the hatred of success

48:23

Successful people there's a kind of embedded covetousness in the society

48:29

That I'm not really sure The church is immune from and I'm not really sure that the right is immune from Now one of the things

48:38

I do in the book is pinpoint Kind of where I believe always went off the rails with a lot of these things

48:45

I'm very fond of Nancy Piercey's work and total truth I think was a book that helped illuminate my understanding of a lot of the timeline

48:57

Of some of these things, but my book doesn't really go into a lot of that. It really starts kind of with Just the the actual sociological data that indicates

49:08

Out of the 1960s, you know sexual revolution and so forth that we began a process by which the family unit was deteriorating in America and And with the family unit the very concept of church the very concept of strong local communities

49:29

American interest in local politics almost completely Died up which which really created an incredible vacuum for crony capitalists to come in and realize that they could use local city councils as a

49:44

Because they're what the best and brightest were no longer interested in serving in local government

49:50

It that vacuum that hole got filled by people of malintent

49:55

And and and so all this is sort of elaborated upon in the book But I guess the point

50:01

I'm making is that There's a whole lot of failures of public policy and a whole lot of failures in civil society

50:08

That have led to where I think we are right now and yet on a personal level. I didn't close with just one

50:15

Chapter of what I think some of the policy prescriptions need to be I close with two chapters one on the policy side and one intended for individuals and I've gotten an awful lot more letters and feedback and so forth about that chapter than the other about my suggestions to individuals and And so the two highlights

50:37

I'll kind of close you with that are most near and dear to my heart That I are extracted from the this sort of summary chapter of how an individual could

50:47

Pull themselves out of this crisis of responsibility One is the idea of repudiating victimhood and This is really important doing so even if one is sincerely and genuinely a victim

51:04

I don't think it's particularly impressive to exhort somebody to say hey

51:10

Who is has sort of deceived themselves into believing that they're a victim or exaggerated details of their own life?

51:17

And they're wallowing in a kind of self -pity Based on a reconstruction of events that isn't even accurate

51:24

Obviously it would be nice to see those people Pull themselves out of such a deception

51:29

But see I'm actually saying the same thing even to people who really have suffered and really have struggled and really have been mistreated and Yet are allowing those unfortunate events in their life to Ensure that they continue to stay in an atmosphere of mistreatment and misfortune so I I believe that this repudiation of victimhood is both a theological and a

52:00

Psychological need that would be transformative on a bottom -up basis in our culture and then the other

52:07

Extraction I'll make which I continue to get a lot of feedback on and continue to speak and lecture about and Unfortunately, I don't think it's enough attention.

52:17

Certainly not in church circles Is the concept of viewing ourselves as producers?

52:25

Above all else as opposed to consumers a kind of realignment that God has created us to be

52:34

In the realm of production not merely in the realm of consumption and this has profound economic

52:40

Implications and in fact in the last hundred years of economic heresy that is

52:46

Keynesianism Which was an entire economic school of thought built around the idea that human demand drives economics

52:54

And has led to all sorts of various Sometimes well intended but almost always fallacious

53:01

Understanding of economic life and behavior But it also has had tremendous existential implications

53:08

And what I mean by that is that God created us all with dignity okay, my belief about production versus consumption is entirely rooted in the doctrine of creation and I believe that First of all economically we cannot consume unless we first produce

53:26

We don't have the money to buy things unless we've produced but we also cannot consume unless someone else has produced someone else has had to have made something that we can then go buy and So you get this virtuous cycle you hear this theme

53:39

I keep coming back to that when we view ourselves as producers we are earning the capacity to go consume and Someone else's production is meeting a need that we have and and and yet at the same time

53:55

Far more important than the kind of enjoyment that comes from consumption in the production we are

54:05

Mimicking the very nature and character of God himself. We are as an image bearer of his who was of course a creator and So we're honoring that notion of which we are to be co -creators with God And stripping people of that so that they may be able to have sustenance

54:25

Unfortunately, not only has failed as a kind of democratic welfare concept it's failed

54:31

The war on poverty has not succeeded. We have not in fact made a dent in in the

54:39

The areas that we allegedly sought out to resolve But in fact we have totally stripped people of the dignity that has been bestowed upon them in the very in their very creation and I think that this mentality this mindset has profound leverage to change the world to view ourselves as producers to take seriously what that means in in cultural impact and Existential impact in what it means for our identities what it means for our own meaning what it means for our own satisfaction in life and So I am trying to take a couple of pretty broad and complicated subjects and give your listeners a five -minute summary

55:28

But those are the couple nuggets. I'll try to leave you with Great, and we have RJ in White Plains, New York Who wants to know what do you think that we can learn on both the left and right side of the aisle

55:42

From the fiasco that occurred during the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the

55:48

Supreme Court Well, you know, I wrote an article about it if you don't mind all

55:56

I'll recommend your listeners, you know go to my website to find it Rush Limbaugh Read my article on air the the next day because I it was there's a really important lesson

56:07

That needs to be learned from it. And that is the the gravity of the war that we are engaged in I think

56:14

With the the left in in in this kind of era that we live in The the idea that there's a war of ideas

56:25

One side feels one way about, you know political economy about various social applications or cultural you know

56:34

Tenants and the other side feels a different way and and yet we're just kind of sorting through exactly how civil society out function

56:44

Unfortunately, I think has become very naive. I think that the left through the

56:50

Kavanaugh matter Did us all a favor of reminding us Just what exactly we're up against that.

56:59

There is no lie. They won't tell there's no tactic that they won't implement and this is a form of cultural

57:07

Marxism that We are going to face for years to come and I do my very best.

57:14

I do not do it perfectly I fail sometimes but I try Strenuously to engage those whom

57:22

I disagree with in charity and in for in a kind of context of seriousness

57:29

I think that our public debate these days often lacks seriousness the tribalism of everything bothers me immensely but Even in this

57:40

Aspiration to be charitable. I don't think that we can lose sight of the fact that we're up against a very formidable foe and now justice

57:51

Kavanaugh was an innocent man a splendid man a

57:56

Tremendous jurist and will be a tremendous jurist on the high court for many years to come Lord willing an honorable man of faith and Was someone that represented everything the left was against and they pulled out all the stops

58:12

And I don't think we've seen nothing yet So there's my response to your listeners question, well,

58:19

I really enjoyed immensely our time together today, David I want to make sure our listeners have all of your contact information for David's website

58:27

You can go to David Bonson comm and Bonson is spelled B a h and s e n

58:33

That's David Bonson calm And if you want to find out more about posthill press who published the book that we're discussing crisis of responsibility

58:42

You could go to posthill press calm posthill press calm

58:47

And of course the vast majority of books that are addressed on iron sharpens iron radio. You can also purchase at CV BBS calm

58:55

That's the website for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CV BBS calm. Do you have any other contact information or other websites or URLs that you care to share

59:04

David? Well, I mean David Bonson calm is certainly where I kind of incubate a lot of my writing

59:10

I write articles very frequently for National Review where I'm on their board of directors a lot of my political writing

59:18

Dividend cafe calm. I write a weekly investment commentary

59:25

Economics and markets with many thousands of subscribers It's a free weekly publication for those interested in financial markets, which is actually what

59:36

I do as my life's calling So dividend cafe .com is probably the easiest website to remember and I think you've kind of covered the others

59:45

But these days with all the different social media Connectivity. It's yeah,

59:51

I'm pretty easy to find Great. Well, I hope you come back soon and often as a guest on iron sharpens iron radio

59:58

Thanks so much for having me. Have a wonderful day. Yeah Thank you, David and don't go away folks because as I said earlier

01:00:03

Gary DeMar Mutual friend of David Bonson and mine Gary DeMar is going to be our guest for the second hour if all of you who are waiting to have your questions asked and answered who are originally intending to ask

01:00:18

David a question if you could change the Question to a an area of socialism, which is our theme for the second hour socialism

01:00:27

What is it and what are its dangers exposing the fraud of the modern spin on? Institutionalized theft and that's with our guest

01:00:35

Gary DeMar Senior fellow at American vision and if you could also be patient with us because this is where we take our elongated break because grace life radio in Lake City, Florida has to Customize if you will iron sharpens iron radio to Lake City, Florida by airing their own local public service announcements and commercials while we air our global Commercials, so please take this time to write down the questions that you have for Gary DeMar on socialism and also take the time to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and Successfully patronize them.

01:01:12

We certainly depend upon the advertising dollars from our sponsors to exist So, please try to patronize them as much as you can.

01:01:19

Don't go away We'll be right back after this elongated station break with Gary DeMar of American vision on Socialism what is it and what are its dangers?

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01:10:47

.nyc Have a great day Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen and before we are joined by Gary DeMar of American Vision to discuss socialism

01:10:56

What is it and what are its dangers? We are going to just make some announcements of some upcoming events that we hope you attend

01:11:03

The first one starts tonight at 6 30 p .m And that is the conference on sanctification through suffering being sponsored by Striving for Eternity Ministries, and I hope that if you live near Freehold, New Jersey that you will make every effort to be there

01:11:20

That's tonight and tomorrow in Freehold, New Jersey at the Chinese American Bible Church of Freehold The speakers are a wonderful bunch of folks that I have interviewed on this program including

01:11:33

Justin Peters Frank Mullis Joe's wozo or swazo I should say and Colleen sharp for more details go to striving for eternity org striving for eternity org

01:11:45

Then coming up May 28th through the 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania The East Coast ministers conference of the banner of truth is being hold is being held

01:11:59

That's at the Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, May 28th through the 30th. The speakers include

01:12:04

Jeff Kingswood Terry Johnson David Vaughn, who is a reformed Baptist missionary in France Stephen J Nichols Michael Morales in Chad Vegas The theme is

01:12:13

I believe in the Holy Spirit and I intend to be there at the East Coast ministers conference of the banner of truth so please if you are

01:12:21

Intending to be there or if you do attend I would urge you to please look for me somewhere at Elizabethtown College during the conference because I would love to meet as many of our iron sharpens iron radio listeners as Possible at this event

01:12:36

May 20th May 28th. I'm sorry through the 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania for more details on the banner of truth

01:12:43

East Coast ministers conference go to banner of truth org banner of truth org click on events and scroll down scroll down to East Coast ministers conference and Then coming up December 19th and 20th in New York City I will be attending

01:13:02

God willing the foundation's conference a conference of sermon audio sermon audio calm

01:13:08

This is going to be no doubt a wonderful conference and I urge you if you intend to be there

01:13:15

I would register as quickly as possible because the venue only holds about 200 people

01:13:21

Otherwise, it would cost millions of dollars rent the facility in New York City to house more attenders or attendees than that, but The roster includes.

01:13:32

Dr. Stephen J. Lawson who you just heard recently Advertising or announcing the the

01:13:38

New Covenant Church, NYC one of the sponsors of iron sharpens iron radio Reverend Jeff Thomas is on the roster

01:13:45

Richard Caldwell jr. Reverend Armin Tomasian who I think is going to be a household name within the next decade

01:13:52

He is such a powerful and gifted young man I am confident that the most reformed folks at least will know who he is within the next 10 years

01:13:59

He's extraordinary Andrew Quigley and Paul Washer has just been added to the lineup on the roster at the foundations conference

01:14:08

So if you want to register go to the foundations conference calm the foundations conference calm a one event that I forgot to mention that is being held earlier and how could

01:14:20

I forget to mention this because I just had the Christian involved in this debate on my show yesterday

01:14:28

This is the debate that pastor Bruce Bennett is going to be having at the word of truth

01:14:34

Church in Farmingville Long Island, New York and that is going to be on Let's see.

01:14:41

It's going to be on March 30th Saturday, March 30th Bruce Bennett will be debating Matthew Luke Broderick on purgatory.

01:14:48

Is it biblical? so that's Saturday March 30th in Farmingville Long Island, New York, and if you want more information on how to attend this event go to WOT church .com

01:15:03

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01:16:15

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01:16:25

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01:16:33

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01:16:41

That's also the email address where you could send in a question to Gary DeMar on Socialism Gary DeMar received his

01:16:48

Master of Divinity degree at Reform Theological Seminary He is a senior fellow at American Vision where he served as president for 35 years

01:16:56

He's the author of countless essays news articles and more than 35 book titles

01:17:01

And he's a featured guest on nearly every major news media outlet. He is addressing socialism

01:17:07

What is it and what are its dangers exposing the fraud of the modern spin on institutionalized theft

01:17:13

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to our enterprise on radio Gary DeMar I'm doing great even better now that you're on and let's first of all hear a summary of what

01:17:25

American Vision is all about because just for the the Unlikely scenario that there is somebody listening that is unfamiliar with you.

01:17:33

You never know but let our listeners know about American Vision It was started in the late 1970s and it emphasized

01:17:41

America's Christian history Christian roots from that I did a

01:17:47

Three -volume work called God in government showing how the Bible applies to every area of life and how government

01:17:54

Isn't solely political that self that God is a governor of all things and then the most important government is self -government under God Family government church government and then finally civil government and all these governments are decentralized and limited in power and authority

01:18:13

And that's the basis that if you're going to change a society you while you have to work at the top to bring changes to the top ultimately

01:18:22

You change a society from the bottom up. So that means proclamation of the gospel transform lives

01:18:28

Self -government which then affects the family and family government which then affects the church

01:18:34

Paul says that An elder who seeks that office does a good thing, but if he can't govern his own family well there's probably likely that he isn't going to be able to govern other families in the church and That would be that would also affect the civil government.

01:18:52

You can a good person in civil government as As a handle on his own self -government self -control and his family and Business associations and Paul talks about how to be having a good reputation with those outside.

01:19:07

So we've been in the Forefront of helping Christians understand a biblical worldview how the

01:19:13

Bible applies to every area of life and giving them specifics on how to do that and I've been doing it ever since I graduated from seminary and Was that we began at American Vision in 19 1980 and We've published numerous books and I publish a daily article at American vision org and Gary DeMar calm

01:19:37

And if you go to America vision org, you can find all of my published works there that are still in print on that site

01:19:46

Great and hopefully we'll remember to announce those Websites before we go off the air again, but our theme is socialism today and This has become a core subject every single day all day long in the media because of the fact that many on the left many who are a part of the

01:20:10

Democratic Party who perhaps used to at least in public

01:20:16

Declare with shock and horror that they were not socialists that they refused to be described that way they were making accusations of slander how dare you make the

01:20:33

Insinuation that we're socialists and it was even considered a laughable thing to say

01:20:39

About those on the left and now you have people just openly embracing it to a running for president of the

01:20:45

United States Who are unashamedly? Declaring that they are democratic socialists, but can you please define for our audience?

01:20:52

What in reality is socialism? Well, Chris, that's part of the problem.

01:20:58

One of the reasons I think that the Democrats are just coming out and calling themselves socialists Is that majority of people don't have the slightest idea what socialism is and the media is always protecting the left

01:21:12

They hardly ever ever Define terms, it's just like with you know, gay rights.

01:21:19

Why did why did the homosexuals choose? Gay rights because the word gay is a is it kind of a neutral happy term?

01:21:28

There was I think it was there's a movie called the gay ranchero It was probably in the 1930s or so.

01:21:34

Well, it had nothing to do with homosexuality And I think there was another one

01:21:40

Fred Astaire was in a movie called the gay divorcee And he didn't get divorced because he was attracted to another man

01:21:48

And Dean Martin wasn't talking about a homosexual dance when he was singing.

01:21:54

That's a moron. Yeah, so it's Typical of the left they're constantly and Picking word to get it with Social Security.

01:22:04

They did it with the homosexual rights movement I did it with abortion calling it.

01:22:09

They don't want to call it to be a pro abortion. It's pro -choice This is what they do to manipulate people and then they fill those new definitions with their own their own definitional concepts and So when they say socialism most people think what socialism?

01:22:27

I mean, it sounds like being social communism sounds like being part of a community and in fact, if you go back and look at the some of the definitions of social if I picked up a couple of here a

01:22:40

Socialism is a political and economic Theory of social organization and see that's that sounds good.

01:22:47

We like social organization Which advocates that the means of production? distribution and exchange

01:22:53

Should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole And everybody, you know a lot of people and these are college kids

01:23:01

I mean and which is obvious that they're not really getting a good education on these ideas Or some of them are getting a good education on it and they want full -blown control of the economy by the state

01:23:14

That they think they're going to be in power in order to impose that authority on people

01:23:21

But when you when you get these nice definitions about the regulated by the community as a whole

01:23:28

How is that going to take place? How is the how is the the economy going to be regulated by the community as a whole

01:23:37

Somebody's going to have to be doing the regulating and of course, it's always the state that does the regulating

01:23:44

And they're going to determine how much something costs What you can uh what you can make, you know, there's these are extraneous things

01:23:53

We don't need these types of things over here. These are the only types of things that you can make This is the price that you have to charge for it, etc

01:24:02

And every and that's not what is coming across as socialism today socialism is look

01:24:08

There are lots of people in our society who have more money than they need And so what we want to do is we want to take

01:24:16

Their the what the money they really don't need so we're going to tax them at a much higher rate

01:24:22

And then we're going to redistribute that money to the rest of society And as a result of that there will be more

01:24:30

Economic equity in in our society and people say yeah, man, these guys are multi -billionaires.

01:24:35

They don't need all that money Uh, so what we need to do is we need to put people in power Who will take that money from them?

01:24:44

And then they will redistribute that money for free education free health care and anything else you can put the word

01:24:50

Free before and there are lots of people out there and say look this just makes sense People who have too much money don't really need that money.

01:24:59

Let's take it from them and give it to the rest of us and unfortunately Christians have fallen have fallen into this trap.

01:25:06

I was reading something on facebook, but Uh this christian i've known him for years. He's he's a brit and he was talking about how

01:25:14

Uh, he's a socialist And uh, you can't be a christian socialist.

01:25:19

You're violating at least two commandments the The eighth commandment thou shall not steal and the tenth commandment thou shall not covet

01:25:27

Electing people to office to take money from some people to give that money to other people is theft

01:25:34

If you and I did it we would go to jail and there are guys right now who are in who are

01:25:39

Going to prison because they stole money from other people by manipulating markets and so forth

01:25:44

But when the government does it that's okay people think that's okay. That's okay It's okay for them to do that If you and I got a group of our neighbors together

01:25:54

And decided we were going to go to the rich guy's house and take some of his stuff and sell it so we could get some better better education for our children

01:26:02

Uh, we would say well, that's not right to do that stealing. We would go to jail But if you elect people to go and do that and take from some of your neighbors to give it to your other neighbors

01:26:11

That all of a sudden becomes something that's uh is you're a benefit to society.

01:26:17

You're you're you're promoting the good of society Well, we already have a question for you.

01:26:22

We have susan margaret in dauphin county, pennsylvania who wants to know and this is a

01:26:28

Question that I think comes up a lot during the discussions on socialism at least amongst christians

01:26:36

How can you differentiate for your audience the difference between socialism and what we have as an example?

01:26:43

in the new testament in acts chapter 244 Where it is written that all those who had believed were together and had all things in common

01:26:55

Well, yeah that always those two passages in the in the book of acts come up all the time acts chapter 2 verses 44 and 45 and acts 432 and 37

01:27:07

And so they did it we as christians have everything about the christian faith in common Uh, and it wasn't that their property was in common, but they had a common

01:27:18

View of now what was happening? with new things in christ But you'll notice something about that that these early christians voluntarily

01:27:28

Sold their property and used the proceeds to help those in need neither the roman empire

01:27:34

Or the church leaders at that time had any role in the sale of the property I mean that was the the center of ananias if you you read what they said about ananias

01:27:44

So this was yours to give right? This this wasn't this wasn't uh, hey, we told you you need to do this.

01:27:51

You didn't do it You're going to be judged. It's that this was free for you to give and Free to keep the thing is he they lied about and you'll notice that this doesn't happen anywhere else

01:28:04

In scripture, there's no instructions like this anywhere in the gospels Or well either in the gospels or in the epistles

01:28:12

In fact paul takes up a collection for the jerusalem church from the saints in first corinthians 16 second corinthians 8 second corinthians 9 romans 15

01:28:25

And second corinthians 8 3 it says they gave according to their ability and beyond their ability and this is it

01:28:32

This is extremely important this next phrase of their own accord second corinthians 8 3 and if you know the history about social work you'll note that christians were at the forefront of charitable giving

01:28:48

I mean I remember when I was a young boy growing up in pittsburgh. I went to mercy hospital

01:28:55

And most hospitals today are well named after religious figures, you know saints and um, so the the the idea that There's charitable giving comes, you know directly from the bible, but it's of their own accord

01:29:11

That's way different from socialism socialism says Uh, we're going to take your stuff whether you like it or not

01:29:18

We're going to give it to other people And that is that is actually slavery when when you work and someone else

01:29:24

Benefits by their by your work, uh by the compulsion Of your work that's called slavery and that's outlawed in the bible as well

01:29:34

Well, thank you. Susan margaret. You have won a free copy of david bonson's book crisis of responsibility

01:29:40

So, please make sure you give us your full mailing address in Dauphin county pennsylvania so that cbbbs

01:29:47

Dot com can ship that out to you. And once again, we thank post hill press for their generosity in providing these copies of crisis of responsibility

01:29:56

In fact, it was my current guest gary demar's Recommendation that we interviewed david bonson during the first hour

01:30:02

So thank you, uh, susan for your your great question, and we're going to our final break right now

01:30:08

It's going to be much more brief than the last one if you have questions, I urge you to send them in immediately because We are rapidly running out of time and you do have to get online because there are a few people already waiting to have their questions asked and answered

01:30:20

But please, uh, if you intend to be a part of the program send in your question immediately to chris arnson at gmail .com

01:30:26

Chris arnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back Arriving financial is not your typical financial services provider as a membership organization

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01:31:42

I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students andy woodard serves as the pastor

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It's called new covenant church nyc. They are a reformed baptist church that meets in midtown manhattan

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You can find their service times and location on their website, which is www .ncc

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.nyc They believe in a sovereign god who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel if you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is

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01:32:21

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01:32:27

Have a great day Hi, i'm stephen limblad assistant professor of systematic theology at irbs theological seminary in mansfield, texas

01:32:38

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01:32:45

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Spread the word about firstloveradio .org So Welcome back.

01:39:59

This is chris arnzen and our guest for the following 20 minutes is gary demar And he is senior fellow at american vision.

01:40:06

We're discussing socialism what it is and what are its dangers? And if you want to send us an email our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

01:40:14

chris arnzen at gmail .com If you have a question we have ronald in eastern suffolk county long island new york who says

01:40:21

I am Constantly being infuriated by the way the media and even conservatives in the media

01:40:27

Refer to neo -nazi groups and the nazis in general as being right -wing when they are in fact left -wing

01:40:34

Don't these people read? Socialism is in the name of national socialism.

01:40:39

Can you correct our audience on this? Well, it's true. The the nazis were in fact socialist.

01:40:46

It was a state -run economy It was a state state -run war as well

01:40:51

Uh, and uh, what what the what kind of made the economy work at the time is because it was a wartime economy.

01:40:58

He was Going in debt pouring money into to industry and it looked like things were going very very well for for germany and its economy, but war oftentimes drives

01:41:12

Uh economic prosperity for a while until the war is over And uh, and then the nation gets in debt.

01:41:19

But yeah, you're right The nazi party was in fact a socialist party and your emailer is correct that Nazism is national socialism

01:41:30

And the it's what's what's fascinating about all this is that the nazis and the communists hated one another

01:41:37

Because they were vying really for the same type of ideology communism was just a more extreme version of socialism um, so Even even in our own country wars drove up our economy and that's why a lot of people today like going to wars a lot of uh, so -called neo -conservatives like war because because it it keeps industry going

01:42:02

And uh, then the back side of that though in order to keep a war going you have to spend a lot of money and get

01:42:07

Into debt and we have spent trillions of dollars since 9 11. We spent we have spent trillions of dollars um in Wartime spending and at the end the result of that is has increased our national debt tremendously

01:42:21

I think it's now 22 billion 22 trillion dollars Uh, so all you know, you carry north.

01:42:27

Dr. Gary north has a saying you can't change Just one thing There's a there are lots of things going on in our in our uh economy right now under barack obama's administration

01:42:39

You had quantitative easing they were just they don't print money anymore. That's just digits in the computer

01:42:45

They just flooded the market with fake money um, and it diluted the value of of your money because that's what that's what inflation is it's dilution of The existing money that's in the economy

01:42:57

And what happens is they just like if you add water to wine or a base metal to gold or silver

01:43:04

You you lessen the value of of the Currency and we've done that in our own country.

01:43:10

We did it with paper money We got rid of silver and gold silver back in 1963 You got rid of gold a long time during fdr's administration.

01:43:19

In fact, it was even uh illegal to own Gold, uh, they made it illegal.

01:43:24

In fact the constitution itself for states to pay their debts. They had to do it in silver or gold But there's a lot of stuff going on here, we don't have a perfect economy right now

01:43:34

We don't have a true free market economy There are elements of socialism in it It's a managed economy.

01:43:41

It's driven by debt uh, and so as well as as we're critical of socialism, we're

01:43:48

Somewhat socialist already We like free money. We like free stuff.

01:43:53

And as a result of that There's there's Reason to understand why people are attracted to more socialism because it practice because it promises free stuff

01:44:05

Yeah, and going back to the differences, uh between uh conservatism and Even it's it's just so disturbing when you see in the media conservative bible -believing christians being claimed to be

01:44:23

Closer to nazism and communism is uh One of the one of the few differences between nazism and communism and correct me if i'm wrong wasn't it really just because the national socialists uh wanted to uh instill national and ethnic pride whereas Communism at least on its face.

01:44:45

I think that they were hypocritical in this area, but they were More openly, uh, at least in their rhetoric

01:44:51

Against bigotry and ethnic divisions, which is why even in the soviet union You didn't have the the country distinctions the national distinctions of those

01:45:01

Uh countries that became absorbed into the soviet union Yeah, I mean all the particulars are that are are are helpful.

01:45:08

I think the uh, socialism is kind of one step Away from communism.

01:45:14

It's on it's on the road to communism the communists. They basically they own everything you work for the state uh

01:45:21

Socialism is more of the state managing things. It pretty much tells you um, you know what you can

01:45:30

Uh what you can buy how much you can charge for it, you know, no price gouging. We have some of that already

01:45:36

Uh, but uh, you know communism is essentially taking over everything uh, here's how uh

01:45:42

Cory robin is a professor of political science at brooklyn college And the city university of new york

01:45:50

He says what the socialist seeks is freedom. Now again, this is nomenclature.

01:45:56

This is this is giving you Nice sounding words as a cover for what this thing really is

01:46:03

When the basic needs of life compels the compels submission to the market And subjugation at work.

01:46:10

We live not in freedom, but in domination And you have to really pay attention to what he's saying here is he's saying look when you work for somebody

01:46:17

You're being dominated by your employer but under socialism You won't be subjected to your employer anymore

01:46:25

And the reason you won't be subjected to your employer anymore is because the state will be your employer

01:46:31

The state will tell the business how to run it Uh, and he goes on and he says we live not in freedom, but in domination

01:46:40

Socialists want to end the domination to establish freedom from rule by the boss From the obligation to sell for the sake of survival and people say yeah.

01:46:50

Yeah, we don't want we don't want those big corporations We don't want business telling us what to do

01:46:55

We want we want to put people in power who are learning to protect us We won't be dominated by big business anymore and so forth and so on and i'm reminded of uh, the song from the who

01:47:06

That won't get fooled again and they You know, it ends like this meet the new boss

01:47:14

Same as the old boss But the thing of it is chris, it's not the same boss

01:47:22

The free market is free because you can change your boss at will You can move you can start your own business.

01:47:28

You can improve your skills The free market is free because it's essentially let's make a deal and the socialistic

01:47:39

Process is you got to go to the state and let and let the state decide whether or not you can make a deal with Anyone and they determine the standard for what that deal is

01:47:50

And so what these people want they want to get away from the boss of the free market the free market that you know

01:47:55

They're on their cell phones and they're they're on their computers and they're pushing this app and plugging that app and Uh, you know, they're talking to people all around the world and they're connecting to people all around the world

01:48:07

Through email instant messaging facebook and so forth and so on and they're telling they're saying we need to get rid of all these capitalists

01:48:17

And they what they ought to be doing is thanking the capitalists for them being able to do what they're doing, right?

01:48:24

Socialists generally don't create anything. That's right Communists don't create their leeches

01:48:31

Yeah, but when the soviet when you think about the soviet union fell we were We were giving this idea because of the useful

01:48:39

Idiots who were coming back and say how great the soviet union was when the soviet union fell we began to see how bad things

01:48:46

Really were and uh, remember when i'm trying to think of the the the russian leader um

01:48:52

Who uh was during reagan's? That wasn't break. I think it was after reagan came here to the united states and went into one of our grocery stores

01:49:01

And he was flabbergasted If you went to the soviet union

01:49:08

You would be taken to a grocery store that they packed for just that particular visit

01:49:13

But if someone came from the soviet union over here And someone oh, you're just doing what we do in the soviet union.

01:49:19

We just stack one of our stores You pick an address. Here's a map Just put put your finger on any part of that map.

01:49:27

Let's drive there and look at a store. Well That's capitalism And I remember when the first when the first computers came out how much we put we paid 7 ,500 for a computer which did almost nothing today

01:49:41

Your cell phone or your smartphone has has apps on it That 30 years ago either didn't exist or if they did exist would cost you more than a million dollars to acquire

01:49:54

And you'd have to have equipment all over your office in order to do them You can thank a capitalist for that you can't thank a socialist

01:50:03

Because there's no incentive within socialism when the government is in control

01:50:09

Telling you what you can and what you cannot make and how much you can pay for it And what has happened to the price of computers today?

01:50:17

That they have dropped Dramatically even in a period of inflation the price of a computer today

01:50:23

Almost anyone can can purchase one and they do things far exceeding what anyone ever imagined just 10 years ago

01:50:31

Yeah, that's true uh and uh Thank you listener for the great question and you have also won a free copy of crisis of responsibility the book by our previous guest for during the first hour david l bonson

01:50:44

Who is our guest by the very strong recommendation of our current guest gary demar?

01:50:50

Make sure we have your full mailing address so that we can have that shipped out to you by cvbbs .com

01:50:57

Let's see here. We have another listener we have christopher from suffolk county long island new york and christopher says

01:51:08

Shouldn't those liberals who are enamored by the idea of socialism Take pause and realize that they are being duped because all of the figures being highlighted in the media

01:51:20

Who are pushing a socialist agenda are not even living up to the own their own ideology

01:51:26

They are millionaires and billionaires and if they really believed in what they say They could easily live on one hundred two hundred three hundred thousand dollars a year or perhaps

01:51:36

Even a half a million a year and yet they still cling on to their millions and billions and their multiple homes, etc

01:51:43

Yeah, well, let me tell you let me tell you the what that's all about um They consider themselves philosopher kings

01:51:52

Uh, they believe they're smarter than us That that believe they believe that they have a kind of a messianic task

01:52:01

Uh to change things and so as a result They are doing more stuff

01:52:06

And so while they they cry about uh carbon emissions and so forth they gallivant in their private jets around the place and they go to davos and Um, I think uh, trudeau has been flying back and forth in his jet and he's he's crying about climate change and so forth

01:52:24

That's okay. They don't see that as hypocrisy They deserve this because they're the ones who are going to they're going to they're going to make life better for all of us

01:52:33

Leonardo DiCaprio is another guy who's like that. All these guys are like it, but they would never see this as hypocrisy

01:52:40

They're smarter than us Uh, they they consume more energy than we do their and therefore they need they need more stuff in order to maintain their their blood sugar um, and so, you know

01:52:52

They don't see it as hypocrisy They they need that stuff because they're in charge We put them in charge and that's just the way it is

01:52:59

You think of you think the communists I think right now in venezuela read an article just yesterday in venezuela

01:53:06

There are People there who are in the government are eating are dining on steaks and wine and other fine foods

01:53:16

They were the ones that siphoned off the money Uh from from the from the society and they they packed themselves with the riches.

01:53:26

It's the same thing that happened with With uh castro in cuba, he died a multi -millionaire some say he actually died as a multi -billionaire

01:53:35

Because any money that came in from the former soviet union anywhere else he took for himself never gave it to the people uh, so That you we have to understand their mindset.

01:53:45

They're better than us. They deserve more than us. It's not hypocrisy They're in charge

01:53:51

Therefore they should get the limos and the private jets and the in the three different homes bernie sanders michael moore

01:53:58

And and uh, what's her name elizabeth warren? Yeah, they're they're they are multi -millionaires

01:54:04

Oh, it's amazing how many people on the left Are are multi -millionaires and they've made their money off of a capitalistic society

01:54:12

Right and obviously there's nothing wrong with being a multi -millionaire, but they are not even giving away

01:54:19

A Substantial portion of their wealth to live up to their ideology

01:54:24

They're not even helping the very poor people with their own money to the extent That their uh, their income would warrant

01:54:31

Yeah, they're they're helping they're helping poor people with our money So right exactly

01:54:38

Yeah, that's that's not called charity. That's called theft And they do and and see they're more noble than we are.

01:54:46

They're more generous Man I could hey chris, I can be generous with your money to give me this I can be generous with your money

01:54:56

Any you know Anytime you meet a liberal you always just say you say you're generous, you know

01:55:01

You're just generous with other people's money so that they can then buy votes to stay in power and then they empower themselves

01:55:08

But here's the here's the difference between even giving your money away and and people who have lots of money

01:55:14

Let's say some guy decides he wants to build a hundred million dollar home That's just terrible.

01:55:20

He should give that money away. Well, he did give his money away Someone had to build that house, right? Stop labors and so all that money a hundred million dollars didn't go to just a single person

01:55:31

It went to a whole bunch of people and that money trickled down to all the workers And then all of the companies that had you know

01:55:39

Get the wood and get the concrete and the block and the brick the electrical work the furnaces all of that stuff

01:55:47

That that but that's voluntary. That's the more free market. That's liberty in action

01:55:52

And the people down do they talk about trickle down economics? That is in fact trickle down economics

01:55:59

And there are always going to be people who are going to be richer than other people You can't make an egalitarian society

01:56:05

No way to make a egalitarian society to make everybody equally poor right and that In fact, if you go back and study the pilgrims and the works of william bradford

01:56:15

Plymouth plantation They were under obligation to have a kind of a communistic government

01:56:21

Everybody would you know would work and everybody would get the same amount of same amount of food

01:56:26

But everybody got the same amount of food There were some people who worked harder than others and there are people who decided they weren't going to work as much

01:56:33

Because they were going to get the same amount of food Well, whatever ended up happening They were starting to starve to death because the people who weren't working were benefiting from the labor of others

01:56:44

And the people who were doing all the work or work were ticked off And they finally changed it said look here's your property.

01:56:51

Here's your property you make the best of it And then you can trade and and you will and in fact the the the economy and the colony prospered after that So there's a there's a simple practical application of What the free market is in a society?

01:57:09

And it works Socialism does not work. Uh, it works and only works for a little while by force until you run out of other people's money

01:57:18

Right more More and more people get on the goal and say look I'm gonna have to work as hard I'm gonna still get a benefit in time the money starts running out and this is what happened in sweden people say sweden's as uh

01:57:31

A socialist country today. Well, it still is in some respects, but that but they they have They have a voucher system in sweden.

01:57:38

They've revamped their retirement system um In fact in some cases sweden has a better Uh free enterprise economy than than we do finland right now

01:57:50

Is is in debt because of its generous welfare program and of course high taxation

01:57:57

Eventually socialism collapses And and what do the what do the promoters of socialism decide to do?

01:58:04

Well, in many cases they decide to go to full -fledged communism by even more force

01:58:09

And then you're there you're talking about starvation like you're seeing in in venezuela yeah, there is absolute insanity on the part of those that are so vehemently opposed to trickle down economics because Who has ever been hired by a poor person who has ever been given a raise by a poor person

01:58:27

I mean these things are insane Yeah, yeah billionaires billionaires are doing any harm to me

01:58:36

You know if they're stealing from me that that's something else But some guy who's who starts a business and makes a ton of money.

01:58:45

He's not harming me Now let's say I have a business that he competes with and he does a better job than I do

01:58:52

Lowers prices and does better service. In fact, one of the companies i'm a partner in we have an email sending company

01:58:58

And we beat we no contracts uh, and You know, we delivery service and the rest of the whole deal and it says look if after a month

01:59:07

You don't like what we're doing. Yeah, you can go somewhere else And so Someone else comes in and does a better job forces me to do better in what

01:59:16

I do But if I can't compete I go out of business That's not what takes place in the socialistic society the state comes in like they did with gm and other companies

01:59:26

And props props them up, right? Well, we're out of time I wish I had another hour at least to talk with you gary and i'm looking forward to your return to iron trip design radio

01:59:34

I want to make sure our listeners have your contact information. The website is garydemar .com

01:59:39

gary d -e -m -a -r .com And I want to thank everybody who listened to this show, especially those who took the time to write in questions

01:59:48

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that jesus christ is a far greater savior than you