Conservatism, Inc. Continues Its Decline

[00:00:16] Speaker A: Waffling on abortion, spending billions on foreign wars, playing identity politics, defending moral evils. [00:00:24] Speaker B: The conservative establishment has little to do. [00:00:26] Speaker A: With actual conservatism these days. So what is a conservative Catholic to do? [00:00:32] Speaker B: That's what I'm going to talk about. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Today on crisis point. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, as always, please smash that like button. Subscribe to the channel, but don't hit the notify button because you have a life outside of the Internet. [00:00:46] Speaker B: Also, you can subscribe to our email newsletter. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Just go to crisismagazine.com, putting your email address, and you will get an article sent to your inbox every day, two articles a day. [00:00:58] Speaker B: You can also follow us on social. [00:00:59] Speaker A: Media rg at all the various social media channels. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Okay, so I want to talk about. [00:01:06] Speaker A: A number of things that are going on in the conservative movement, the conservative political movement, I should say, and kind of what that means for us as Catholics. As conservative Catholics, you know, what does that really mean? All this is going on? Like, do we abandon it? Do we embrace it? Do we try, try to change it? That's what I'm going to talk about today. It's a number of different topics, but they all relate to, really, the political conservative movement in America today. Just a real quick background of myself. So I became conservative in kind of a funny way, I think. So my growing up, my parents were non political. We lived conservatively in a sense. You know, the way we lived. It was pretty standard, fair suburban America upbringing. But, you know, I, conservative parents in the sense of how we, our values. But politically, we didn't talk. We didn't talk about politics. We were non political. And then the 1988 election was coming up, and I was going to turn 18 soon before that. So you can calculate how old I am by all the gray hairs on my beard or by what I just told you. And I was like, well, I got to figure out who I'm going to vote for. Am I going to vote for George Bush, hw Bush? Or am I going to vote for Michael Dukakis? And I really didn't know anything hardly. But I had a english teacher who was a liberal, and definitely, this is my senior year in high school, and she was definitely going to vote for Dukakis. And then I had friends who were conservatives said, oh, no, we should vote for Bush. And as most 18 year olds did, I went with my friends rather than with my teacher. And that's how I became a conservative, a political conservative. And it was kind of. I mean, obviously, you can tell it wasn't really that well thought out, but just, I decided to join the tribe, so to speak, decided to support conservatism, political conservatism, 100%. So, for example, when the Iraq war was started a couple years later, I was completely behind it. I was pro life for this reason. I mean, I'm very thankful, in other words, for, for this embrace the conservative movement, because it did allow me to embrace a lot of truth, a lot of things that were right. And that's how I, that's how I first became pro life. Now, as I grew in my faith. [00:03:18] Speaker B: My protestant faith, at the time, my. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Feelings on abortion became much stronger. But that's how it all started with simply being, deciding, okay, I'm a conservative, so I guess I voted for HW Bush in 88. I voted for him in 92. I did start to pretty quickly on, like, in the 1990s, start to question the conservative establishment. I just thought Bob Dole in 96 was just an abysmal candidate. I liked W. Bush more in 2000, and even in 2004, some, although I was starting to question the second Iraq war, I like Pat Buchanan. And so, like, but then 2008 with. [00:03:57] Speaker B: Ron Paul, I started to really distance. [00:04:01] Speaker A: Myself from the conservatism, inc. So to speak, and became less and less identified as a conservative as it's defined by the conservative movement, kind of. [00:04:12] Speaker B: The Republican Party and things like that. [00:04:15] Speaker A: And so that's kind of how I got to where I am today. Where I am definitely, I live. I mean, most people who are don't know me and saw how I live with, say, oh, he's definitely conservative. Obviously, I take politically conservative stances on a lot of issues. What I, you know, obviously, abortion, I'm very much, very limited government to the point that, you know, I consider myself a libertarian, free market, things like that. But I am not politically conservative as a lot of other, as a lot of people would define it as far as when it comes to foreign policy and things of that nature. So that's just kind of note. So, you know, where I'm coming from now, as I get into this criticism. [00:04:51] Speaker B: Of the conservative movement, I want to. [00:04:54] Speaker A: Address a concern I often hear from people, which is they really don't like it when I criticize, quote, unquote, our side. [00:05:04] Speaker B: It's like the initial reaction is like, for example, if I criticize Trump, well. [00:05:09] Speaker A: You want Biden to be president. [00:05:10] Speaker B: Biden's so much worse. [00:05:12] Speaker A: And it's like, it's this knee jerk. You cannot criticize your own side. And I just simply don't do that. [00:05:19] Speaker B: I don't know how else to put. [00:05:20] Speaker A: It other than say, that's just not me. I think it's ridiculous not to criticize your own side. In fact, I think somebody should be more self critical of their own side than they are the other, because the other side's obviously wrong, or else you'd be on it. I mean, just to criticize Donald Trump on something does not mean I think Joe Biden should be president or I think he's a better, he'd be a better president than Donald Trump or anything like that. [00:05:43] Speaker B: It just means that I believe in. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Principles over party, principles over even elections. I think the most important thing is our principles, because that's the only thing we have. I am just a schmo out in the middle of nowhere talking to a. [00:06:00] Speaker B: Computer right now, and I'm not meaningful. [00:06:04] Speaker A: In the political conversation, in the political machine. I have no power in Washington, DC. I have no power in Columbus, Ohio, the state capital of my state. And so why should I be completely consumed with who wins or not? All I can care about, all I can control is my own principles. So I think it's important that we're self critical of our own, of people on, quote, unquote, our side, and that we do that. So I just don't think it's, I don't have a dichotomy viewpoint, either that you're either with me or against me. You either are for Trump 100% without any exceptions, or you're for Biden, or you're 100% with the republican party or you're for the Democrats. I just think that's a ridiculous way of going about it. [00:06:47] Speaker B: I think as Catholics, we should be. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Care more about our principles, maintaining our principles of being faithful to catholic teaching and defending the rights, those who need defending, like the unborn and people like that. So another thing I want to say is criticism of conservative Inc. Is not a criticism, criticism of conservatives. [00:07:08] Speaker B: If you ask me. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Where would you rather live? In a neighborhood full of Trump voting. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Conservatives or a neighborhood of Biden voting liberals? [00:07:18] Speaker A: It's not even an option. Clearly, you'd rather live in the Trump loving conservatives. The funny thing is, most people, if you really ask them, and if you really got their honest answer to that question, they would also answer Trump loving conservatives. Even the liberals would answer that. Now, the real ideologues wouldn't want that because they can't see beyond politics. They just see, you know, okay, you vote for Trump, you're evil. But the average American who might even be liberal in their politics but doesn't make politics their religion. [00:07:46] Speaker B: They all would rather live in a. [00:07:48] Speaker A: Neighborhood of Trump loving conservatives because they know that neighborhoods can be safer. It's going to be just friendlier. It's not going to be as judgmental. I mean, that's just the way it is. And that's true whether you're white, black. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Yellow, whatever, brown, that's going to be. [00:08:03] Speaker A: The way it is. So criticisms of the conservative movement, conservatism, Inc. Whatever you want to call it, is not criticisms of individual conservatives. In fact, it's kind of saying they're. [00:08:15] Speaker B: Failing individual conservatives in what they're doing. [00:08:20] Speaker A: So that, that kind of aside, let me dig into some of the things that have been going on recently and why I think this is just a more example of why conservatism, Inc. Is declining. It's a failed project in America, in my opinion. I mean, just look at the last 60 years in America. Name me a way in which conservatism has won the cultural culture wars, has won even a battle in the culture wars. Abortion is, you know, we won. We finally defeated Roe v. Wade. But what we found is people are voting for abortion. They actually embrace abortion. That happened in Ohio, a very kind of middle of the road state. We voted for abortion on demand, basically. We've lost on abortion. We've lost on homosexuality, I mean, big time, like most people are for gay marriage, things like that. We're losing on transgenderism, although I think that battle isn't over yet. We're losing, you know, we lost Holly on Hollywood, like the movies, the values. We've lost against feminism. Lost, lost, lost. I mean, when it comes to, like, cultural battles, conservatism has lost. [00:09:28] Speaker B: And so it's a failed project. [00:09:30] Speaker A: And here are some more examples of why it's failing. [00:09:34] Speaker B: And so one recent story has to do with abortion. [00:09:39] Speaker A: You know, there was the Arizona law, the 1884, something like that law that went back into effect. The Supreme Court said, yes, it can go back into effect. And it's extreme by the standards of today. And so interesting, Carrie Lake, who came to prominence because when she ran for governor, I believe, I think she ran for governor before. Now she ran for senator. It might be the other way around. She was, she's well known because she, she disputed the election results back in 2020. She's running for Senate, I believe, now. And she's basically like, she's been very pro life, very anti abortion in the past, but she came out with, like, a little puff piece where, video, where she was like, this isn't what the people of Arizona want. And so, like, she came out, she sounded like a pro choicer. She felt like, this is a losing issue. I gotta abandon the babies, because what I need to do, more importantly, is win this election. But here's the thing. [00:10:36] Speaker B: Donald Trump also waffled on abortion big time when it was talked about a. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Federal law to ban abortions. I think after 15 weeks, he was, like, basically against the federal law. He said it should be a state's issue. But what's interesting is when Arizona came out with this, you know, the reinstate the 1884 law, he was against that, too. [00:10:59] Speaker B: It's like, wait a second, you just. [00:11:00] Speaker A: Said it should be a state's issue. Why are you now saying you don't support a state getting doing whatever they want? [00:11:06] Speaker B: If it's a state's issue, then a. [00:11:07] Speaker A: State should be able to make abortion illegal in every situation possible. And also, let's be frank, they should be able to make it legal in every situation possible. That would make it a state's issue. [00:11:19] Speaker B: So Trump clearly doesn't want to appear too anti abortion. [00:11:26] Speaker A: He wants to be a little bit more middle of the road. I'm not quite sure why he thinks that's a good political move. [00:11:31] Speaker B: Maybe it is. [00:11:32] Speaker A: I mean, the guy is a political genius. I mean, I don't doubt that. But regardless of the political calculus, the fact is that these major figures in the conservative movement are waffling an abortion. And here's the thing. [00:11:46] Speaker B: This is way it's been as long. [00:11:48] Speaker A: As I've been alive and following republican politics, you can never count on the Republican Party to defend the unborn. In fact, I believe most republican politicians, if you really got what they really believed, they wish Roe v. Wade was still in effect. They wish it hadn't been overturned, because by overturning it, what happened was now they actually have to come out in specific cases and defend the unborn. Before, when they could just punt and say, well, I can't. We can't make abortion illegal in our state because Roe v. Wade, they could just say, it's Roe v. Wade, and they could just run on that. They could run on being against abortion without ever having to worry about doing anything against abortion, because they always say, it's out of my hands, whether they were a governor or a senator or whatever. They didn't have to actually be against abortion in real life. They could be on the periphery. I could say, okay, I'm against federal funding for abortion or something like that. But that's just ridiculous. I mean, that's, that's not really against abortion, as we know. I mean, it's nice if you're against federal funding for abortion, that doesn't mean you want to protect the unborn. So I really think what this has. [00:12:52] Speaker B: Done, what the, what the Dodds decision. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Did of overturning Roe v. Wade, it. [00:12:56] Speaker B: Revealed that the republican party has never. [00:13:00] Speaker A: Been really against abortion. We've always known that, but now it's very clear. [00:13:04] Speaker B: So again, if you're, if this is conservatism, what's a conserving? [00:13:09] Speaker A: It's conserving abortion on demand and without apologies. [00:13:13] Speaker B: What's really conserving, another, another thing that. [00:13:17] Speaker A: Came up recently, just past few days, is the latest spending bills that were passed by Congress under, passed in the House under the leadership of Speaker Michael Johnson. Mike Johnson, who is the republican speaker of the House. Now, every time there is a change in leadership or some big election, I am told by all the republican hacks, okay, this is the guy we have to vote for. We have to get behind this guy because he's a true conservative. He's not going to sell us down the river. Well, what did Michael Johnson do once he became speaker of House? He sold us down the river. The funny thing is I wasn't even, like, disappointed in Johnson because this is exactly what I expected. [00:13:58] Speaker B: If you are elected speaker of the House, you have already agreed that you. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Are going to be part of the machine. [00:14:08] Speaker B: You are part of the system. [00:14:10] Speaker A: This is why a Thomas Massey will never become speaker of the House, because he won't agree to that, more than likely, because if you are speaker House, you are part of the machine. You will go along with whatever the unit party wants you to go along with, whether you're a Democrat or you're a Republican, that's what's going to happen. [00:14:25] Speaker B: And sure enough, when push came to shove, Mike Johnson folded and he, he. [00:14:34] Speaker A: Pushed through a $60 billion spending bill for Ukraine with the help of the Democrats. He did that with no actual bill for immigration reform because that's a Republican. Some Republicans, conservatives trying to say, okay. [00:14:48] Speaker B: Let'S at least have the immigration reform. [00:14:54] Speaker A: If we're going to have the, if we're going to spend all this billions of dollars to protect Ukraine's border, let's. [00:14:59] Speaker B: At least spend a couple bucks on our border. [00:15:02] Speaker A: But no, that didn't even happen. So essentially it's just more billions of dollars going to Ukraine. And this is something, when he was first up for speaker of the House that we were saying, is he going. [00:15:11] Speaker B: To spend money we don't have on. [00:15:15] Speaker A: A border that has no national interest. [00:15:17] Speaker B: For us and just basically just spend. [00:15:20] Speaker A: Away our money for Ukraine. And it's like, no, he's not going to do that. He's not going to do that. [00:15:25] Speaker B: Yes, he is going to do that. [00:15:27] Speaker A: And then the spending, I'll get to the spending actually on Israel in a second. Now, here's the thing. Trump backed this, too. This was pushed through by Trump as well. So again, this is not just like the conservative, the Mitt Romney America last division of the republican party year. [00:15:47] Speaker B: This was done with Trump's backing. [00:15:50] Speaker A: And so a very few Republicans voted against it. I'm very proud to say that my. [00:15:53] Speaker B: Own congressman, Warren Davidson, voted against it. [00:15:56] Speaker A: So that, that's great. But very few did. [00:16:00] Speaker B: There is nothing conservative, I mean, I. [00:16:03] Speaker A: Shouldn'T even have to say this. There's nothing conservative about spending billions of taxpayer dollars, more likely dollars that were just printed out of thin air. But that's also not conservative to a losing cause, let's be honest, to basically a foreign dispute that does not have a national security interest no matter what. I mean, I heard Michael Johnson say, like, if Russia rolls through, Ukraine will be next. [00:16:28] Speaker B: I mean, I mean, get a better. [00:16:31] Speaker A: Talking point from the deep state at least. Michael Johnson, I mean, if you're going to be the conservative guy there, at least ask them. Give me something better than your, your typical stupid talking points. [00:16:42] Speaker B: I mean, Russia can't even like roll over. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Like, they can't even defeat Ukraine that easily. You really think they're going to take over Europe and America next? I mean, give me a freaking break. So this is another case of just the conservative movement being worthless, that when push comes to shove, they go along with the deep state, with the machine, whatever you want to call it. They're just part of the unit party now. That gets us to the next place that we spend a bunch of money to Israel. Now, this has been in the news lately because, of course, we had the Ben Shapiro spat with Candace Owens, by the way. I just want to stop right here to say welcome to the Catholic Church. Candace OweNs, we are very happy to have you, as we're happy to have any convert. For those who don't know, she just announced yesterday that she'd been received in the catholic church. This is always wonderful news. And as I mentioned this on Twitter, but I'll say it here as well. Let's not put her up as the, as the expert on Catholicism, but also let's not tear her down if she says has some missteps about understanding Catholicism or how she presents it. Let's be gentle to our converts, whether they come to us from the right or the left or whatever. Let's be gentle to them. Give them a little space, a little bit of time, and pray for them. Because someone like Candace Owens, being a prominent figure, becoming Catholic, you know, the devil is going to attack very hard there. So let's pray for her. And also all converts, obviously, who came into church recently. But anyway, back to the point. So this is, Israel is an interesting case because even some of the most die hard conservatives who are against foreign intervention by America when it comes to Israel. They, they just remove all of their beliefs. All their conservative beliefs go out the window. And nowhere do you see this more than Ben Shapiro, of course, because they engage in pure identity politics. For all the times that they say, we don't do identity politics, you know, it's not a matter of blacks or women or whatever the case may be, they fall into it 100% lockstep when it comes to Israel. Because what they say is, if you oppose supporting Israel, if you oppose the government of the modern state of Israel, you're anti semite. I mean, this weekend I was on ax, on twitter where you'll call it basically saying that I oppose the modern state of Israel, the government of it, their decisions. I oppose their decisions. And of course, very quickly, I was called an anti semite. Now, fortunately, those terms like racist, anti semit, Semi white, supremacist, misogynist, whatever, they have less power today than they did back in the day. I know, like if, if somebody publicly called you, me, an anti semite, maybe ten years ago, I think I really would have been worried. I would have been like, oh, shoot, this is going to destroy my reputation, a career, whatever the case may be. It might lose my job, whatever. Now, we all know it's just thrown out there. But what's sad is that the right is doing it. The right is just throwing out the anti semite label, the identity politics, because. [00:19:47] Speaker B: You dare to oppose Israel. [00:19:50] Speaker A: And I just think that is just ridiculous that we're engaging in that. And we saw this with Ben Shapiro the most with daily wire. I'm going to talk about the daily wire again here in a minute. But, and basically they kicked out Candace Owens because of this, because she would not support, and she questioned the move of the, of Israel. Now, I want to bring up, actually, I saw a great comment here. I want to address it because it is from Paul. He says conservatives have supported foreign intervention since the cold War days. Why do we think conservatism is isolationist? Never has been. Well, yes and no. I will grant you that the William Buckley wing of conservatism, which really became. [00:20:36] Speaker B: The dominant wing of conservatism in the. [00:20:39] Speaker A: 19, late sixties and early seventies, has very much been interventionalist because of the Cold War. And they very much they agree. They basically admitted that we should be big government, big state when it came to, because we don't want, because we want to defeat the communists. However, there's always been a strand of the conservative movement that's been more isolationist. You know, the Pat Buchanan types. Things like that have always been there and have become much more prominent over the last 15 years. In fact, Donald Trump, part of the reason he was elected in 2016 is because of a more isolate isolationist part of conservatism, because he said, we're not going to get any new wars. I'm not going to get involved in that. Now, he didn't really govern like that, but he at least campaigned on that. Now, I also would say, I'm not necessarily talking about isolationist. I think how you defend, how do you define that? I mean, I don't think it's isolationist to say we shouldn't send $60 billion to Ukraine on top of the over $100 billion we've already sent them, even more than that, which has done nothing really to solve our problems, so to speak, over there. So I think it's a legitimate question, but I don't think it's true that conservatism has always been a pro robust foreign policy. Obviously, under somebody like Reagan, it was. But again, that was Cold War. We're not in the Cold War anymore. And so things have changed. So I think a core part of the original conservatism has been more isolationist. I mean, because that is kind of american conservatism going all the way back to George Washington. I mean, literally George Washington. Okay, so on Israel, I'm just, the identity politics is in the cancel culture. I mean, I do think it's okay if daily wire doesn't want to have Candace Owens with them anymore. They're, they are a private organization to hire, fire whoever they want to. [00:22:33] Speaker B: However, they've, I mean, somebody, Ben Schmidt. [00:22:36] Speaker A: Has literally made his career on this idea of cancel culture, that you don't get rid of people just simply because they have different thoughts than yours or they go against your, your identity group. And that's exactly then what they did. So, okay. You have a right to do that. I'm not saying it should be illegal for them to get rid of Candace Owens. However, at the same time, it's very hypocritical of them to do that based. [00:22:59] Speaker B: Upon how they came to prominence in. [00:23:02] Speaker A: The past because really, daily wire came to prominence because of Ben Shapiro, and Ben Shapiro came to prominence because of this fighting against the cancel culture. Now, speaking of Daily Wire, they got in the news again because their co founder, and I think he's their chief CEO or something like that. Jeremy boring, I'm not 100% sure if it's pronounced boring or it's b o r e I n g. So I'm just gonna pronounce it boring. And I apologize if that's wrong. You can tell I've never actually heard it said. I don't actually watch Daily wire. So I, sorry about that. So what happened over the weekend was first, Tucker Carlson, who was on the. [00:23:39] Speaker B: Joe Rogan show, and a clip went viral. [00:23:42] Speaker A: It's a three hour interview of which I'm in the middle of it right now. And it's fascinating. It's bizarre, weird, enlightening. I mean, it just is, it's worth, it's worth listening to. I'm only halfway through. I mean, it just, it's crazy. But anyway, at one point he basically condemns conservatives for justifying supporting the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan at the end of World War Two. And boy, did this cause a firestorm. So Jeremy boring said, people who deny the moon landing or suggest America is evil for its use of atomic weapons against imperial Japan or who say that George Bush was behind 911 actually hate this country. That's what he tweeted on x, posted on x, whatever you say it. [00:24:32] Speaker B: And that's quite, quite a statement. [00:24:34] Speaker A: I mean, first of all, just combining denying the moon landing and George Bush behind 911 with the morality whether or not it was evil to use atomic weapons on Japan is bizarre because those are clearly not the same thing. Those aren't equal comparisons. There. Two are historical questions, whether or not something happened or not. And one is a moral question. Nobody's denying that the US dropped these bombs. It's a moral question whether or not they should have. And so this brought the whole thing about. [00:25:10] Speaker B: Using atomic weapons on Japan. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Now, I've been involved with ongoing debate now on Twitter for the past couple days about this, but let me just. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Be clear about something the Catholic church. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Has always taught since the invention of the atomic bombs. [00:25:26] Speaker B: That is immoral, basically to use them. [00:25:29] Speaker A: Now, it's not saying it's immoral if you do a test with them or possessing them. Pope Francis kind of makes it sound like it's immoral to possess them. That's not really the church's teaching. [00:25:38] Speaker B: But basically, if you're going to drop the atomic bomb on a city, that's immoral. [00:25:45] Speaker A: I mean, there is no debate about this within Catholicism. There's debate among Catholics, but Catholic, the Catholic Church has been very clear on the, it's as clear in this teaching as it is on the immorality of abortion. [00:25:57] Speaker B: I mean, frankly, it's, it's no, it's no different. [00:26:01] Speaker A: Dissenting from this teaching is just like dissenting from the teaching against abortion. I'm sorry, it just is. Now I've seen all the defenses for it. I do think one thing that's interesting is I didn't realize this until recently, but it's a myth to say, to argue that we had to do it because otherwise we would have had to do a massive invasion that would cause millions more casualties or else Japan would never surrender. That's actually not true. It's not true. A lot of the generals and people who would have known best, Eisenhower, McCarthy, people like that, they didn't think we had to drop it. They didn't think an invasion was necessary. Now, and this is against them. This is not even part of the morality question. This is more just practically, was it really quote unquote necessary? It's never necessary to evil. But even from a strictly military standpoint, was it necessary? And it wasn't. I mean, frankly, the problem was, is that America was demanding an unconditional surrender of Japan, which is not something in historically, if you look at how wars were conducted, what would happen is two sides would fight each other, one side would start to win, would basically make it clear that we're going to win. Then they would stop, they would not go all the way to destroy the other country, and then they would basically negotiate a peace in which, yes, the losing country had to make concessions, but it wasn't like an absolute surrender. Like, you will be completely annihilated and you will lose everything you ever had. No, it was just like, okay, you're not going to, we're going to lose a little bit of this territory, maybe you're going to have to give us some money, but basically, we're not going to make you, like, overthrow your king or anything like that. That's not 20th century warfare, however, America was like, no, we want your total surrender, unconditional, no matter what. And because of that, they felt like Japan would never give that up unless they, they nuked them. Well, there's so many problems that morally, it's not even funny. But ultimately, the point is, is that the atomic bomb bombs on. [00:28:06] Speaker B: Japan were morally reprehensible. They were just morally evil. [00:28:13] Speaker A: That is just simply a statement. Now, of course, boring says America is evil for its use. [00:28:17] Speaker B: Well, what do you mean America is evil? [00:28:20] Speaker A: I didn't have anything to do with that. My parents, who were alive then, didn't have anything to do with that decision. Truman made an evil decision, and the people who supported him, that was evil to support that. But it's not like it made America itself evil. But yes, America was wrong as a country in that sense to do that. And it's just, I find it really kind of hard to believe that Catholics still support that, still give justifications, because frankly, they sound like pro abortion people. If you're defending the use of atomic weapons, dropping them in Japan, America, how it was done. So maybe you'll find you can give some example of an atomic bomb being dropped in a moral way. I don't know one, but let's just say maybe there is one. Hypothetically, we're talking about a specific example where it happened. Those were immoral. That was just intrinsically evil act that was done. And also, by the way, the other targeting of civilians, like the firebombing of Dresden, things like that, which didn't use atomic weapons, was also immoral and evil. It doesn't mean, and going back to my point early on, that doesn't mean that Germany, Nazi Germany, was good or Imperial Japan was good, just because I'm saying America did something wrong, something evil. That's just not how things work. And so when we conduct a war. [00:29:36] Speaker B: There are a lot of qualifications whether. [00:29:38] Speaker A: Or not you can actually enter into a war from just war theory, catholic just war theory. But there's also stipulations on how you conduct the war. It's not like just war theory says, okay, all the conditions apply, you can go to war now, all the rules. [00:29:52] Speaker B: Are thrown out the window. You can do whatever you want. Now, that's not catholic morality, because the fact is the catholic church recognizes that. [00:30:02] Speaker A: During war, people go crazy. We see it today in like, when we're talking about the Ukraine war or the israeli war, things like that, how logic gets thrown out the window. And it's all a matter of jingoistic. [00:30:14] Speaker B: You know, just brainwashing. [00:30:17] Speaker A: That happens. And because of that, people are going to make bad decisions. We saw it during COVID as well, people making bad moral decisions. Simply because we're, it's an emergency, it's a crisis. Yes, I do understand the irony of me saying that as the energy chief of Crisis magazine. But that being said, like, you have to keep your head even in a crisis. And hopefully we do that at Crisis magazine. By the way, how do you like that? You know, saved there. But the point is, is that you simply have to still follow basic human morality even during a war. Yes, civilians might be killed unintentionally because you just can't help that. War is hell. It does, you know, bad things happen. But actually saying, I want to kill civilians in order to bring down this country, that is immoral, and that is what they're trying to do. I mean, the head of the strategic air command, delay, I think his name was Cameron, was during world War Two in the Pacific, who actually was against using atomic bombs. [00:31:17] Speaker B: He very much targeted civilian populations on. [00:31:21] Speaker A: Purpose because he wanted to demoralize the country of Japan and to bring them to defeat. That is an immoral thing to do. But here's the thing. Conservatives to this day still defend it, and this is another weakness of the conservative movement. I mean, Matt Walsh is a good example. Matt Walsh is a Catholic. He's part of the daily wire. I like a lot of stuff he does. I mean, definitely he's got some very good, I mean, what is a woman and all that stuff. He does some great stuff. But he basically said, yeah, I don't see, um. I think it was the best thing to do in a bad situation. There's lots of a thing that conservatives sometimes be like, oh, it's a difficult situation. We weren't there hard to know all the variables. And so I think in the end, that was the right decision. Well, first of all, if you don't know all the variables, you don't know if it's the right decision. But that's ridiculous because that's the exact. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Argument, again, that pro abortionists use, like. [00:32:11] Speaker A: You don't know the situation of this poor girl, this poor 15 year old girl who's pressured by her parents, and she's got all these issues. [00:32:18] Speaker B: You don't know. [00:32:19] Speaker A: It's a complex decision. Well, I mean, we know that's a joke, that thinking, that reasoning is a joke when it comes to killing the life of an unborn child. It's also a joke when it comes to the killing of innocent japanese citizens or any citizens. We have to be as conservative, especially as Catholics. We have to be very clear about what is right and what is wrong. If we don't keep to that. [00:32:44] Speaker B: There's no point in it. [00:32:45] Speaker A: I mean, if we're going to be moral relativist, well, why not just go join the left at that point? Because that's what they've been from day one. We're not moral relevance. We stick to our principles. We stick to basic human morality. So what does it even mean anymore? I think I have a sneeze coming on, by the way. That's why my eyes are starting to water. So we'll see if I can make it through to the last few minutes of this podcast. What does it even mean to be conservative anymore? What are we conserving? The conservative movement today to me, seems. [00:33:15] Speaker B: To be we want to conserve what. [00:33:19] Speaker A: Was the way things were like five years ago. I mean, you see that with homosexuality, how so many conservatives have given in on that. I mean, you have. You have major conservative, quote unquote conservative commentary like Dave Rubin, who are actually in same sex relationships and buying babies through child trafficking. [00:33:36] Speaker B: I mean, this is. This is, you know, just unthinkable to. [00:33:39] Speaker A: Conservatives just five years ago. [00:33:41] Speaker B: Now it's accepted. [00:33:43] Speaker A: And so what should we do as Catholics? I think ultimately what we want to do is. [00:33:53] Speaker B: We want to conserve the. [00:33:54] Speaker A: True, the beautiful, and the good. [00:33:57] Speaker B: That's what we want to conserve, the true, the beautiful, and the good. [00:34:01] Speaker A: Everything else can change, can be, you know, we can adapt whatever. We can be liberal about it, whatever. But the true, the beautiful and good, that's what we want to conserve as Catholics. And so we don't want to conserve most of modern life. [00:34:14] Speaker B: I mean, like, for example, conservatives shouldn't. [00:34:17] Speaker A: Want to conserve, like some, some of these awful buildings that have been made in the last 50 years put up. The architecture is awful. We want conserve the beautiful, like things from like a thousand years ago, buildings that were made, you know, hundreds of years ago, things like that. We don't want to conserve the, you know, the way Hollywood is. We shouldn't want to burn it to the ground. I don't mean literally Google and YouTube. I mean metaphorically. Before you try to cancel my channel, we have to escape, in my opinion. [00:34:50] Speaker B: The right left paradigm, because ultimately they are meaningless. [00:34:56] Speaker A: Today. They are the same. There's very little difference between the right and the left today, in my opinion. I see very little difference in the overall movements because all the right is doing is just trying to maintain what the left was trying to do just five years ago, ten years ago, something like that. What we need to do is really stake out our own direction, our own way as Catholics. And say, this is what we're conserving, the true, the beautiful and good. Now we probably can't do that in Washington. We can't do that to state capital, but you can try to do that locally. I think that is probably the real path forward, is don't spend all your. [00:35:33] Speaker B: Energy defending these men and women in. [00:35:37] Speaker A: Washington or at your state capitol, wherever, who really are going to throw you under the bus at the first opportunity. They're not going to defend the true, the beautiful and the good if it goes against their political calculus. We, however, do want to defend the true beautiful good no matter what it means. And so we do that locally mostly. That's why, again, it goes back to we have to build communities. We have to build, you know, locally these kind of like mini societies that will then branch out and grow. And, but they take as their, as their principles, the catholic beliefs on, on all of these issues. And they are about conserving only the true, the beautiful and the good. And so I think that's kind of the path forward. I don't claim it's some great, I'm not saying this is some great movement that we can all rally behind and we'll have a big political impact. Well, I'm saying, though, it is the way we should spend our energy. [00:36:30] Speaker B: If we spent half our energy doing. [00:36:33] Speaker A: That, rather than fighting over whether or not Donald Trump really waffled on abortion or not. I think we get a lot farther long term, but we spend so much energy. I mean, I just see it every four years, particularly how incensed Catholics get to defend their guy, that, how important it is when their guy will let them down. [00:36:53] Speaker B: I guarantee it, every one of them, Donald Trump included. [00:36:56] Speaker A: And John Trump already has let us down many times. And so by spending less energy on our guy, who will let us down, why don't we instead spend that energy on building up the true, the beautiful good where we live. I think that's a lot better path forward for Catholics. Okay. Well, I'll leave it there for now. Until next time, everybody. God love.