An Honest Conversation with a Christian Nationalist - Andrew Wilson

21:11Industrialization conquered that. Starvation's gone. Where is it? You know, I've told, I've heard liberals, they've said to me, there's people starving right now. where in my nation where i'll go feed them right now guarantee you i'll have a meal arranged by this afternoon if you could show me a person's actually starving in the united states they can't because they're not we've conquered it these are concrete issues like so what are you bitching are you just bitching that this guy makes way more money than this guy it's like what's the complaint you know that's achievable that that sort of dream's achievable now to people that never used to be possible.

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22:27Francis Foster:The link is in the description or go to reachumi.com. Get UMI on your phone before your next trip. You'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner. I think it also plays into the fact that this generation, particularly for example in the UK is going to be the first generation to not do as well as their parents. And the things that they were promised, you go to college, you get a good job, you're going to be able to have a house, a family. For a lot of these people, they come out and they've graduated college, they're in enormous amounts of debt, and they're looking and they're seeing, well, the life that my parents had, I am not going to have.

23:04And I think there's a great deal of anger, of resentment and frustration because of that. And I think people reach for an ideology such as communism in the desperate hope that it's going to somehow make everything better. I don't agree with it, but I think that's the argument. Well, I think it's more complex than that.

23:23Francis Foster:So maybe we're having this conversation the wrong way around. Why do you think there's been a rise of radical leftism and particularly the appeal of communism now, as you do see with some young audience fans. Because of the moral loading of the term Nazi, fascist, and other things like this, it's pure panic-mongering. The idea is that you need to move towards this shielding ideology because the Nazis are coming, the stormtroopers are coming. Oh, so you mean like since 2016, basically, I mean, they did it before as well, but the far left has been calling the right Nazis, and you think people are going for communism because it's the ideology that can protect you against that?

24:02that's that's communism socialism these are the the so it's a winner takes all like i said it's it's a race to power for which ideology gets power is it going to be the christian nationalists going to be the socialists going to be guys in new york like uh momdi or mamadi what is his name communist mom donnie yeah um who gets it which ideology gets it uh i mean right now the ideology which has been kind of traditionally getting it is the status quo ideology. Well, that's changing. That's been changing since Trump. Like, I don't know who our future presidents are going to be, but they're not going to have the same ideologies that they held for the last 40 or 50 years.

24:44That's not where we're heading. So which ideology gets it?

24:47Francis Foster:But that doesn't, I mean, I agree with what you're saying, except the one thing we started this with, which is the appeal of communism is to push back against the Nazis, right? But why wouldn't you just, I don't know, why wouldn't the ideology be like we're against Nazism or we're for liberal democracy? But that's exactly how it's pushed. What do the Antifa, anti-fascist people in both our nations say? They say just that. This is about our republic. But they are communists. This is about our democracy. Yes, they are. But this is about our democracy. This is about our freedom of speech, our freedom of assembly.

25:25This is about stopping Nazis and stopping fascists and stopping due, you know, or allowing for due process. They literally market it the exact way you just said. So when you say, why don't they say that we're just anti-Nazi and pro-democracy or pro-Republicanism? That's exactly how they market it.

25:42Francis Foster:No, because I guess the reason I'm saying is, like, I would say I am anti-Nazi and pro-democracy, right? And I am. I'm also not a communist. So why is communism the appealing version of those statements? Well, this is a worldview issue. So do you think that you think a Nazi is the same thing a leftist thinks a Nazi is? No, no. Because a leftist thinks you're a Nazi. Well, I know what words mean. But this is the problem is like, I know what words mean, right? So I know that Nazis exist. And by the way, there are some Nazis on the right, including in the US, and you can see them, right? But I also know what a Nazi is and therefore someone who has right-wing or centrist opinions like me is not a Nazi But words do mean different things depending on worldview They do if you are a post-modernist they do not just a post-modernist So if you look at definitions of words you agree they have multitudes of definitions, right?

26:37Well, those are applying often to the distinctions in worldview when I say spiritual as a Christian I'm looking at that from a Christian view, right? If you say spiritual as a Buddhist, are we saying the same thing?

26:49Francis Foster:I actually think in a way you probably are, but the structure that underpins that is different. But you're trying to point at the same thing, which is whatever it is that is greater than human beings somewhere. And I'm pointing to the sky because that's kind of how people visualize it. But the way we view epistemology, ontology, cosmology, everything is going to be completely different. So when we say that word, we may be pointing to a concept which is similar, but we're actually pointing at something which is different. But what progressives do, and this is really worth discussing, I think, is what they do is they...

27:21Francis Foster:If I say the word cabbage, there's a hundred types of cabbage, but you know what I'm talking about, right? And what a progressive will do in a debate, as you referenced, is they'll pretend they don't know what a cabbage is. Yeah, that's equivocation. Right. So the fallacy, debating with progressives, I've been doing it for years and years. The number one fallacy run into with them, fallacious form of argumentation is equivocation. They use the ambiguity of a word to switch between its meaning depending on which one serves them best at the time. Yeah. Which is why you have to pin them down on semantics immediately, because if you don't, they'll spend an entire debate session or conversation using equivocation to move between meanings in an ambiguous way.

28:02so that they never really have to give an accounting for the things that they actually think because those things are abhorrent. I do agree with that. I also understand, though, that meanings of words are going to change with worldview. From the progressive worldview, you are a Nazi. Because I don't agree with them. I wish more people would accept, well, it's not just because you don't agree with them. It's because from that frame, from that worldview, they're going to perceive you as being a white nationalist. You're a person who thinks that white people are above other people.

28:34Francis Foster:Why? Because you're arguing against mass migration. And the only reason you would do that is because you want to see more white people. But I'm an immigrant myself. It doesn't matter. Well, but no, it does matter though, because that doesn't make any logical sense. Doesn't have to. Worldviews don't have to make logical sense, but they are the prism in which we interpret the world. And so every debate that you have and every conversation you have, I wish more people would go in them understanding this concept. Worldview is what shapes your interpretation of all of reality around you. It shapes the meaning of words, how you interpret them, what people mean by the things they say, and what they don't mean by the things they say.

29:11The reason I think I got very popular on the right is because one of the things I've always done is sit down and make my opposition actually explain what they mean and why they mean it before I will ever even dive into a conversation with them. And the reason for that is because I want to know what their worldview is. What is it that you're interpreting different here than me? And that's where you start to actually have a debate about. Debates are about worldviews. Conversations are about worldviews, right? If we have completely different understandings of our interpretation, how do we even speak?

29:48But there's also a level of deception we're talking about here because if you take an ideology like Nazism, there's tenets to it. And if you then go, well, you're a Nazi, but then you don't obey or follow any of the tenets, then that is fundamentally illogical. I've had multiple debates with people on whether or not Donald Trump's a fascist, okay, from their worldview. See, it's simple. All you have to do is you take the historic prism of what fascism is. They'll admit, clearly he doesn't meet that. But he meets certain tenets, which we can say have overlap with fascism enough that they reach like a fascist minimum.

30:25Well, what the hell does that mean? Well, it just means that interpretively, from their kind of stance-dependent view, right, which means I made it up, this arbitrary metric, he meets it, therefore he is it. Now, unless you have some grounding, which is objective, how do you argue with that? Well, you really can't because what most political debating is is it's taking a fact and then it's arguing about your feelings over that fact. That's 90 % of what a political debate is. Here's a fact and now let's argue our vibes. So unless there's some objective grounding that you have to tell them that they're wrong, right, it's actually very difficult to get the upper hand in a vibes debate, isn't it?

31:09So you really have to bring it back to not just facts but foundation. They don't have any. they're more this is why i hate them because they're morally corrupt uh ambiguous no morality having scumbags and that's what they want to do they want to take a fact and argue their vibes about the fact but when you get to their foundations what is their foundation they don't have any their entire foundation is there are no moral facts so that's the case how can you do anything immoral if there's no moral facts how you can't you can't ever do anything immoral if We don't believe there's no moral facts.

31:43Francis Foster:But they believe that we are, with all our different perspectives, because we have different perspectives on things, you and I, certainly. They believe that we are immoral. So they must have some kind of morality. Stance-dependent morality. Meaning, what's the difference between that and your morality? Because you would say your morality comes from God or the Bible? Sure. There's two kinds of foundations for how it is that you can interpret morality. There may be more, but there's usually going to be two. Is morality real or not? If it's not real, then you're an anti-realist, let's say. If it is real, then you're not.

32:21When I say real here, I'm saying this is a universal fact, that this is a moral fact. Now, the left and progressives and atheists and secularists, they don't generally believe in those moral facts. They think that morality is a social construction that we make up, then it's societally dependent there is no overwhelmed there is no overarching like moral facts the religious say that there are that God gave us moral facts then these are the moral ways in which you have to live your life and so they're willing to enforce that they're willing to enforce those moral facts and said because for them not to do that is immoral right allowing my society to run around do immoral things obviously I want to curtail that the other side thinks that that's totalitarian though, right?

33:08That's the worldview divide. So the question is, how can you tell a person, how do you tell destiny that it's immoral that he sucked 50 dicks? How do you do that? If it's the case that that's not a moral fact, how? Well, he can't. And that's where they live.

33:26Francis Foster:Well, his sucking of dicks is irrelevant to me personally. He's perfectly entitled to suck as many dicks as he wants. I encourage him to do more. Yeah, but why? Why is it that this idea of like only fans hookers and homosexual marriage and stuff like this why is that stuff stuff we have to deal with again what like why why isn't it well see we see what i mean though like even that question why isn't it it's like that's not given an accounting for a world view that's asking me to give an accounting for it is yeah but the thing you're insisting that there is a world view that's correct sure right and therefore it's up to you to articulate why sure sure but when you say why isn't it it's a genuine question i'm trying to probe your world and i'm gonna i'm gonna walk you through it if there are no moral facts because i said so that's why and that's the failure of uh left-wing and progressive anti-realists if there are no moral facts and you ask me why why it is that i should enforce my world view because i want to and you there's no way for you to ever object against that any objection you have which is stance dependent, which it will be, this is going to be the same objection that I give you, which is stance dependent.

34:39So which one of us is right?

34:41Francis Foster:Well, that's why we have elections, so that that is adjudicated and then legislated on, right? Because ultimately there's philosophy and then there's politics, right? So you might philosophically believe that homosexuality is wrong, but at a level of society, we can have a vote and it may turn out that the majority of the country doesn't agree with you. But do you agree with me that your morality cannot come from the majority? Because if it does, all you're doing is doing the exact same thing. You're just saying, hey, now the majority says there are no moral facts or only moral facts come from the majority.

35:14Well, sure. If that was the case and we could have slavery and that would be moral simply because the majority said it was.

35:19Francis Foster:And at one point it was, right? And those people believed than God way more than we do. Well, yes. They did, right? Well, this is true. But the thing is, is like, that's the idea of presentism. The whole world always believed in that. Just like the whole world usually didn't entertain things like race mixing, though they had no conceptualization of race. They thought of things in a tribal way. Yeah. But they didn't do that either. Like, that was one of the things the United States always gets shit because in the, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s, especially heading into World War II, post-World War I, well, you know, there was a lot of segregation with black people.

36:00Well, that was global, though. That was global. You know, everyone was racist then. Like everybody. Sure, sure, sure. And so you're looking at this through the prism of, you know, presentism and the reason that that's kind of...

36:14Francis Foster:Come back to the Destiny Suck and Dick's point because it's important, obviously. Right? Right. Why is it that you think he shouldn't suck dicks? Because I said so. But that's fair enough. Right. But then the question is, are you seeking to convert your philosophical view into political reality? Why shouldn't I? I suppose that's a fair question, actually. Yeah. Why shouldn't I? Well, I guess it's a question of what happens when the majority of the public vote for somebody who doesn't. Now we're just outsourcing our morality again to the populace. But see, there's laws that I don't agree with. Right.

36:49Francis Foster:And there's laws that don't exist that I think should exist. But I accept that the majority of the country in which I live doesn't agree with me. And that is a kind of compromise we all have to make at some level, right? Why do we have to make that compromise? Because we want to live in a society of other people who have different views. But now we're moving into the right reduction. And so I guess maybe this is where I wanted to get to in the conversation. If there aren't any moral facts, and I just say because I said so, and you say, well, that's fair enough. right because that's all we're just all of us are just doing because i said so i guess um all of us are entitled to a view yeah i don't want democracy because i said so i want fascism because i said so i want a new hitler because i said so right let's say that if you can't point at that and say that that's wrong right there's some objective appeal to a standard for why that's really immoral and you shouldn't do it, then what happens is erosion.

37:44And the reason that erosion happens is because everything becomes permitted. So an example of this, I was told with gay marriage that it's still a big deal. It's just like heterosexual people getting married. Well, OK, well, what's the argument against three men or four men getting married and then adopting a child? There really isn't one. You can't really be consistent and be against that. Like, where's the consistency issue? You can say, well, it's the outcomes. It's like, well, can you prove the outcomes will always be bad? No? Or can you prove that if there's two straight people who are heterosexuals who are from vastly different backgrounds, they could have really bad outcomes statistically, too.

38:26We wouldn't prevent them from having a kid. It's like, what's stopping 10 men from getting married and adopting a kid? Nothing. Nothing's preventing that. And by the way, it's happening now. Now you see men getting married in threes and fours, and you see polygamy coming back in a big way. You see birth rate collapses. Like, these are real issues in society.

38:47Francis Foster:I mean, in fairness, I don't think birth rate collapses has to do with 10 men getting married to each other, right? No, it has to do, but it has to do with another issue, which is women, if you want to get women pregnant, you have a small window, and it's best to do it in their 20s. And what we do is we tell women to defer their best childbearing years to go to college during those years, which is insane. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. I don't know why you would take the opposite sex who has the most limited window for childbirth for healthy babies and tell them to squander all of that.

39:21Especially because they end up at college running the cock carousel often and things like this. And it's like, it's just not good for society. But kind of back to what I was saying, when we were getting to the idea of moral facts, this erosion begins, always begins with the idea of, well, you can't really make a case. Like I don't believe in your stupid objective morals. I don't believe in any of this. So you can't really tell me that being a hooker is wrong. You can't really tell me doing this is wrong. You can't really tell me doing that is wrong. And so if you come to me and you say gays should be allowed to get married, and I just to ask you back, why can't three of them get married?

39:58What's your answer to that? What is it?

40:02Francis Foster:I have people in my life who depend on me. Most of you listening do too. And if you're honest with yourself, you've probably had that moment where you think, what happens to them if I'm not around tomorrow? It's not a fun question, but ignoring it does not make it go away. This is why I think today's sponsor is worth paying attention to. Through Ethos, you apply in minutes, receive a quote instantly and get same day coverage. No medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions. The whole process is 100 % online and you can get up to$3 million in coverage with some policies starting as low as$30 a month.

40:37Francis Foster:Ethos has 4.8 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot with over 4 ,000 reviews. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash trigger. That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash trigger. Application times vary. Rates may vary. Why can't three of them get married? What's your answer to that? What is it? I don't have one. Yeah, exactly. So what's preventing it? Nothing. Nothing. And so then it just, you see society become more and more and more absurd over time. Why is it important? What happens when three gays get married? Well, individually, perhaps nothing.

41:20Like on an isolated... Like what happens when one Muslim gets imported to the UK?

41:25Francis Foster:Nothing. Well, it depends what he does. Exactly. But now what happens when 50 ,000 of them get imported to the UK? Well, now something. And it's the same thing when it comes to the importance of moral character inside of a nation is the exact same way. Well, to clarify, So when you have, I mean, we have, I think, four million Muslims in the UK. Over one majority are perfectly good people. But when you have a large Muslim population, what we've discovered is you have a smaller percentage of extremists and Islamists, right? What happens when gays get married? What is the Islamist version of homosexuality?

42:00So what happens is if you're going to say three men can get married, then you need to be able to say one man can marry three women.

42:07Francis Foster:Why? Because, tell me, what argument could you possibly have against it if you allow one and not the other? What? I suppose if you start unpicking laws like that, you'd probably unpick most laws, right? Yeah. On that basis. It would erode the moral character of the very thing you're trying to preserve, which is your culture. But your whole culture is founded on Christian ethics. And so if you say, when you ask individually, what's wrong with three guys getting married? Maybe I could say, maybe the effect is so minimalistic. Who cares, right? But that's not the point. The point is that if you let three men get married, then you have to let one man marry three women.

42:43Why wouldn't you? What would be the consistent argument between the two?

42:47Francis Foster:That's a pain in the ass, man, having three wives. Maybe, but the thing is, is like, how would polygamy... So what's your answer to all those questions? Your answer is God said, this is right, this is wrong, therefore that's how we know what's right and wrong, basically. Well, I would say something more important, which is that Christian ethics, even if you don't believe it, let's say, I'm not a Christian, I don't believe in any of that nonsense. What you should believe, though, is in outcomes. And the outcomes of Christian ethics, even on secular society, are the best outcomes. So if that's the case, that's the case I would make for why I think Christians should be in charge of basically everything, is that the outcomes are still going to be best for even the people who aren't Christians.

43:28Now, maybe they don't like that, but so what? But I don't like their view either. And I think Christians should be in charge. And they have no objection because they have no moral facts. So who cares? It comes down to, like you said, at the very beginning of the conversation, we'll circle it all the way back, comes down to who has the force. Well, it's going to be the ideology in charge who has the force. So is it going to be mine? Or is it going to be yours? It's going to be the commies. Who's it going to be? And that's what I think the state of actual world affairs and politics is now. It's like a race to the top.

43:58Who gets there first? I don't know if it's depressing. Like, it's almost like, may the best man win, right? May the best ideology win. I don't know if it's depressing.

44:08Francis Foster:Do you not think all government is fundamentally, even in dictatorships, is about power sharing? What you're talking about is dominance by one group over everybody else. Because we've got a better view, right? Yeah. That's what's depressing to me. Why is that depressing? Because, like I say, in most societies, there's a recognition. It might be tribal societies. There's the Pashtuns and the blah, blah, blahs, right? The countries that do well are the countries where those different interests are regulated through some kind of peacemaking mechanism at the level of politics. That's what politics is for, really, right?

44:43Francis Foster:Whereas the country... Well, it doesn't need to be exclusionary, though. Just because one particular ideology holds the brackets of most of the power doesn't mean that it has to be exclusive or that it can't in some way accommodate other sections of society. Well, how are you going to accommodate the population of San Francisco when you're in charge? Well, I mean, tell me, how would San Francisco, like, die off if you stop letting gays get married there? It's not going to. I mean, that's all they do, from what I could tell when we're in San Francisco. They don't get married there. They just do a lot of gay shit there, right?

45:16But they're not... I didn't observe that directly. yeah but marriage but marriage is not the big thing in san francisco but let's see what i'm

45:24Francis Foster:saying yeah but i can point to in because you would outlaw homosexuality sure well i've no i would outlaw homosexual marriage but no homo but isn't homosexuality wrong also sure it's immoral so why wouldn't you out you don't need to necessarily always place a law in against something which is immoral it's not always conducive to the society to do that that's fair So, for instance, I would say for homosexuality, you're not going to jail, right? None of this type of thing. But there doesn't need to be any glorification, right? You're not going to get married. Nobody's going to bust in your bedroom and tell you what's what, right?

45:57But there's not going to be any rainbow flags in the White House either. There's not going to be any pro-gay government propaganda anywhere. Does that not go against the First Amendment? Well, I think that that would be the most important aspect of the First Amendment, to say that the government's not going to propagandize towards one ideology or the other. Isn't that the whole point of secularism? The second they put the rainbow flags up on the White House... What about Christian? Yeah. What about it?

46:20Francis Foster:Should that be in public communication? Well, so in this particular case, I do think it should be, yes. But you just said the First Amendment is about non-propaganda. Right. Well, his argument to me is, wouldn't it be against the First Amendment to outlaw rainbow flags, right? And I say, no, that wouldn't be against the First Amendment. That would be more in line with the First Amendment. wouldn't it be compliant with the first amendment to outline crucifix you wouldn't necessarily need to even promote crosses or crucifixes but what you could do is you could promote things like value structures so let me give you an example of this um you're driving down the street you look over to the right and there's billboards you've seen this a million times right um what if the billboards had things like family right mom and it showed a mommy and a daddy and the kids right And yeah, exactly.

47:11And the push was towards the ideas of normalcy. The push was towards the idea of this is what we want to see in society. What if tax breaks went to married people, right? What if we drastically increase this to the point like some Eastern European countries have done, which has helped their birth rates, where it's like, okay, you have three kids, you don't have to pay taxes anymore.

47:34Francis Foster:Oh, sign me up for that. But you don't have to be Christian to pursue that. You could be a secularist politician and promote all those things. Sure. But under a secular view, why do we need to have a domestic increased population anyway? They can just import who they want. And that's what they did in your country. That's what they do in my country. I can give you lots of secular arguments for why having a bigger population is better and having more children is better. Yeah, but why not import it? Why not import it? Because you get issues with integration, cultural compatibility. Unless you import so many of them that the original culture is replaced.

48:10Francis Foster:Well, you don't know who you're importing. And also, you know, the argument for tradition, it's actually one of the interesting differences. I mean, we had Dr. David Starkey explain this to her. I don't remember if it was on our show or not. The difference between American conservatism and British conservatism is British conservatism is about tradition and history, whereas American conservatism is about religion and value. So you could argue for the preservation of a society or the multiplication of an existing culture through time from a non-religious point of view, which is like what we have is good by definition, a priori, because that's what it is.

48:46Francis Foster:It's our country. It's our society. We want to make more of that. So it's good because it's good? It's good because we are already here, right? It's good because where we are as a product of where we've come from and where we are, we like ourselves, right? But then you can't argue against mass migration because what you're saying is just a tautology. This is good because it's good. This is good because we've been given... Okay, if my dad gives me a watch, right? It's not necessarily the watch and its unique qualities that make it special. It's the fact that I got it from my dad. So the culture that we got from our ancestors is worth valuing because we got it from our ancestors because it's where we've come to as a civilization.

49:27But that's, again, a tautology. Why? Because what you're saying is, because I got this from my ancestors, it's good. What makes that good? Because I got that from my ancestors.

49:36Francis Foster:Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. And that's tautology. So what you're doing is you're pointing to the identification of the thing as being the thing, right? Which makes the thing the thing. I get what you're saying, but I think you're missing my point. So then I say, well, mass migration is good. Why is it good? Well, because it's good. No, but I think what I'm saying is, if you take the watch example that I gave you, my dad gave me a watch, right? There is a sentimental value to that. Why is that? Well, it's connected to the passing down from generation to generation. Why is that important?

50:03Francis Foster:Well, it's kind of, I mean, you might not agree with this, but from an evolutionary perspective, the point of life is to recreate itself. And you'd probably say that's tautology if the point of something is to be more. Well, no, that, I mean, from, again, so now we're getting a worldview, right? I totally agree with you. The primary edict from an evolutionary standpoint is reproduction. Right. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. So that's why mass immigration is not good, because you're not reproducing your culture, you're bringing in a foreign culture. Why can't you reproduce your culture with mass migration?

50:31Francis Foster:Because it doesn't work in practice, clearly. Let me give you the counter. Let me give you the counter. Okay. Are the people that you're importing generally more or less traditional than you? Traditional to their tradition, yes. Okay. Do their women get pregnant younger than your women? Yes. Well, then that seems like it's really good for reproduction. of their culture, not of ours. Well, it's culture. If they don't integrate into our culture, they're not reproducing our culture. But you want to reproduce your genetics, right? From an evolutionary perspective. Why can't you do it with them? Because culture matters.

51:06Okay, right. And our culture is better. But you said the primary edict's reproduction, not reproduction of culture.

51:13Francis Foster:No, but it's like saying, you said the primary edict's reproduction, so why didn't you adopt kids? Well, no, I want to have my own kids. That's what I'm saying. But that would be reproduction. You reproducing your genes. You adopting kids, not you reproducing your genes. It's not reproducing. Just like Massive Grace. But culture itself, the idea of it, it's an externalized philosophical concept, or it's a concept of the mind. Yes. Right? You would agree with that? Sure. You're not reproducing that. You're reproducing your genes. That would be the evolutionary view. Sure. And so what the evolutionist progressives would say is, like, this is the best way for you to reproduce your genes.

51:47because you can bring in a bunch of women who you can breed with younger, so they're going to have more of your children.

51:52Francis Foster:But that isn't what's happening. You're important people who bring their own culture with their own family structure, and they are producing that culture. Look, I'm not arguing this, right? I'm 100 ,000 % with you. If I were in charge, if I was king of the UK tomorrow, monarch tomorrow, I would close the gates of immigration immediately and give Tommy Robinson a badge and be like, good job, man. You did the best you could with what you had. But the thing is, is like, I guess what I'm getting at, before we get into too many reductios, I'm just trying to point this out. That what you're arguing, you see how what we just did is we took a fact and we're like vibing over it.

52:28But now I've introduced some philosophy to it. And so now I'm asking about the grounding. What is the grounding? What is the thing under the pillar?

52:35Francis Foster:I think actually we were both talking about the philosophy. Your argument is from a secular perspective or from a perspective that's not aligned with yours, you can't argue against mass immigration. I thought I gave you some pretty compelling arguments from a secular perspective against mass immigration. Look, you can argue it. Okay, what I'm saying to you is that if everything that you're arguing is just coming from a me perspective, all morality is just dependent on stance, then even if these people are doing something you consider dumb, it's not immoral. How could it be immoral or how could it be wrong for them to do that?

53:12How? and this is a question when you reduce to to the ethical purview i realized long time ago christians can basically do whatever the we want to uh secular atheists progressives because what happens to treating others as you would like to be treated well so that's so you're gonna bank on the benevolence of my view no no no that's the following no but then no no but i should because you're a christian right so if you're gonna bank on the benevolence of my view are you seeding that my view is the right one? Because if it's not... No, but I'm saying benevolence is an inherent part of being a Christian.

53:45So, but if you have a foundation of just stance dependence for all of your moral claims, right, then even if I violated this and was a complete hypocrite and actually just verbally just paid it lip service for the purpose of controlling your mind, you can't tell me why that's wrong. You can't really point to it and be like, that's immoral, because there are no moral facts. Yeah. But, okay, but that being the case, but what we're talking about is you're saying that you want your ideology to dominate. Yes. Effectively. Yes. Is that a Christian way of doing things? Yes. Why? Well, I mean, if we want to look back through human history, we can start with a Byzantine Empire, if you want to.

54:26No, but when - Massive, massive Orthodox Empire. We can talk about the naming of kings by God himself. We can dive right into the lineage of the King of Kings, if you want to. The thing is, is that I'm not out here advocating for a monarch. What I'm saying is that society is better off dominated by Christians than dominated by non-Christians. And if you can point to me as a society where that's not true, I'm all ears. Yeah. And what do you mean by dominated? Because a lot of people hear that word and go, whoa, that sounds authoritarian. The social political climate. Well, there is some authoritarianism to it, I suppose.

54:58But I just think there's authoritarianism to each ideology which exists, including liberal ideologies. Just authoritarianism now by direct democracy. You know, it's like, I suppose Christians might come in and say some things that are pretty controversial. They might be like, no, gays can't get married. Prostitution's illegal. No more pornography. Right? Blasphemy. Ah, let's be a little more chill on that. Right? Maybe they'll put in some things like that. Tell me how society's worse. Like, how's society worse because 18-year-olds can't show their asshole on OnlyFans? Like, I honestly want to hear, how's it worse?

55:31Like, it seems to me like by every metric, it's way better. Right? and the people who argue against it are like well we don't want totalitarianism that's totalitarianism i'll tell you what i saw as totalitarianism was covet checkpoints that potential vaccine mandates uh communications going through facebook and the government to identify people who wouldn't wear their mask that seems like a lot more of this totalitarianism fascism thing than like oh you know you sorry you're 18 you can't put your asshole all over the internet sorry it's like what we're at some point maybe we can introduce rationality back into the uh the scheme here right it's like it's not you do whatever the fuck you want or it's totalitarianism that's not how it works it works like this we're a nation of laws and laws are governed by ethics like it or not all laws are informed by a person's ethical worldview which ethical worldview you want to make the laws the people want to put want 18 year old girls put their assholes on OnlyFans or the people who don't.

56:33Which ones would you prefer make the laws of your nation? But that is not just quite a simplistic way of looking at, for instance, if you look at literature. Yeah. We had Christians silence, well, saying certain books shouldn't be published. For instance, Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence, a classic of a classic of English literature. They didn't want that to be published. They were boulderizing Shakespeare. But surely you're a freedom of speech guy, aren't you? I mean, to an extent, there's no... So here's my view on rights. What is a right? Let's start with that. What is it?

57:09Francis Foster:You tell us. Well, it's a social construction that we made the fuck up. That's what a right is. If it's something else other than that, tell me what it is. Where is it? I can't see it, touch it, taste it, smell it. So it's the social construction that you have a right not to be forced to wear a mask? Yeah. What else would it be? Okay, fine. Yeah. So where is this going? What's your argument? Well, the argument is just like, rights are made up. Here's what's actually true. What's actually true is you have a right to do whatever you can do within the purview of force, and that's it. You have rights because people use force to ensure that you have rights.

57:47The second people don't ensure that there's force used so that you have rights, you don't have them anymore. But the secularists, or in this case, not really the secularists, but the atheist mind or the non-religious mind, they can't ground rights in anything. They made them up. So they don't come from God. They just made them up. So what they're saying is that we just make this shit up and somehow we're just all going to adhere to it, even though there's no overarching real moral duty to do so. Where does it come from? Nowhere. So rights don't even exist. you can't again can't taste them can't touch them can't smell them right they're just products of the mind but come back to me about the dh lawrence boulderizing shakespeare point yeah and you clutched your heart as if you were clutching pearls in a kind of mocking way which is interesting why do you feel that who gives a shit i give a shit well okay great ground it ground why i shouldn't outlaw that book why is it immoral for me to do that because you are american you believe in the in the first amendment you believe in freedom of speech so you're going to appeal you're going to appeal to my moral so from your view your view why is it immoral for me to do that why why is it immoral for you to do that yeah because i believe the artistic creation is how is one of the ways that the human being expresses itself makes sense to me you notice how you caveat of that with I believe well I don't believe that now what now where are we well that's why we have democracy so we can adjudicate it so again now we're just back to out so as long as I can democratically convince enough people to outlaw that book

59:29Francis Foster:Well, I get it. But that's kind of unavoidable, isn't it? Like if you live in a society where 99 out of 100 people believe that something should be X and you believe Y, I mean, logically speaking, you're going to end up in a society that outlaws X. You would end up in a society which outlawed X, but that doesn't mean that's right. No, I agree. Or wrong, right? But then ultimately you have a choice of whether you choose to live in that society or not, right? To an extent. Yeah. I mean, to some extent, maybe you have some control over that. But I guess the point I'm making to you is not that I would outlaw this book, right?

1:00:02The point that I'm making to you is that you don't have any justification for me not to. Like, who cares? Oh, you believe that? So? I believe different. Now, what's the media, you know, like, what is the threshold breaker? Well, now we're just going to appeal to a majority again. Well, if that's the case, then if I appeal to the majority to outlaw the book, bye-bye book.

1:00:20Francis Foster:Andrew, I'm not trying to argue with you for the sake of argument. It's a really enjoyable conversation, actually. I appreciate the way that you stay calm and on the point, but I'm not clear what point you're trying to make here, particularly with this Shakespeare thing. Rights or force? That's my point. No, I agree with you on that. Ultimately, in practice, that is what happens. But what are you trying to say? It's not ultimately in practice what happens even. It's even philosophically the case from the non-Christian view. When you say things like, don't you appeal to the First Amendment or this right?

1:00:50That's what I'm getting at. Don't you appeal to this right? this right we need to have the adult conversation doesn't even exist it's just the social construction that we made up and it was pinned on a piece of paper and we pretend that it's um that it's something we actually adhere to um but it's really not well violate it constantly i don't care well

1:01:12Francis Foster:you argue about and that's why you have a judiciary system to adjudicate whether you are right but i mean it's not just some random people wrote it down it's the founders of your country wrote it down because they were trying to set a set of rules for this society to operate by in order to fulfill what they thought would be a vision of a new country that would be a good one. One thing that doesn't get talked about enough is how demanding modern diets can be on digestion, especially if you're eating higher protein meals. So I've started using Mass Zymes by BioOptimizers, a full-spectrum digestive enzyme formula designed to support how your body breaks down food.

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1:04:02The founders, what they wrote down was based on a massive compromise because beforehand they had the Articles of Confederation. And the Articles of Confederation made each little kind of state, which wasn't a state even really then, their own nations. And it didn't work out very well because they couldn't regulate trade or raise armies or things like this. So what they did via the compromise was they had a 10th Amendment. Now, the 10th Amendment says that all the rights that are not given to the federal government are given to the states prospectively. And at our founding, almost every single state had a state religion.

1:04:35Almost all of them.

1:04:36Francis Foster:Well, of course, and they were religious people. And they continued to have them, I mean, clear up until there was an interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which was widely viewed as being unconstitutional to this day. States were always allowed to have their own religion and put in their own religious practices. and those practices were to be adhered to if you wanted to hold office, if you wanted to swear oaths, if you wanted to do things like this. That was part and parcel of American society in the way that we did things. Now, that has changed as progressives have kind of demonized the whole idea that, well, that's against the First Amendment.

1:05:14And it's like, well, no, it ain't. And it was part of the initial compromise anyway. When we're talking about the idea of rights, to get this back to the idea of rights, right why is it that states don't have the right to do that well it's because there's an interpretation of an amendment and then they said well you no longer have the right to have your own religions inside of these states that's what they did i was like and who has the force they do so everything really comes down when you're talking about rights to the ideas of force and the reason that that's so important to understand is because this republic when we moved it towards direct democracy the reason that that's going to fail is because people don't understand this concept that that rights only exist as some kind of like bizarre social construct if they're not grounded in god how does a secular society uphold rights how but how do you uphold your right not to have

1:06:13Francis Foster:to wear a mask in the middle of a pandemic through scripture or god you don't you would still utilize it through force. The scripture doesn't prevent you from utilizing force. Christian, with this idea of like Christian pacifism and Christians being pussies, I don't know where that came from. Britain, I think. Boy, that was never. And so what about the teachings of Jesus Christ? Which ones? Which ones do you want to dive into? Well, I was raised as Catholic, so I'm not as well versed in scripture as you. When he was on the cross, forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do. Of course. And you should forgive people.

1:06:45I absolutely agree with that. I may forgive a man who attempted to rape my wife but I'm going to kill him in the attempt right like I don't what which things contradictory here it's like I can forgive my enemies that doesn't mean I need to let them crush me I can forgive people who have done me wrong doesn't mean I need to let them do me more wrong I can forgive people for doing horrible acts against me it doesn't mean I need to continue to let them do horrible acts against me Christian ethics has been wildly wildly bastardized by progressive leftists as being some kind of like hippie religion it is definitely not and never has been and i don't know where that came from yes it's true the teachings of jesus christ are very heavy on loving your neighbor and understanding forgiveness and understanding the mode of sin and that most people are going to engage in sin so we need the forgiveness of jesus christ for that that's true but it's not a pacifistic religion and it never has been a pacifist jesus told one of his disciples to sell a cloak and buy a sword but these were not pacifists jesus ran money changers out of a temple with a braided cord that he made out of leather and whipped them out of the temple.

1:07:51So I don't know where the idea of pacifism came from. He called them serpents. He called people serpents whitewashed tombs. He called them all sorts of names. These were killable offenses in his day. I don't know enough about scripture to challenge you, but it's interesting what you said. But what I wanted to get back to, so this idea of bolderizing Shakespeare, cancelling books, etc. I guess for me, now thinking about it, is the reason that it's not good is that you begin to silence ideas. And what Christianity did, and not solely Christianity, but other religions did, is it silenced scientists and people making breakthrough in the scientific fields.

1:08:27And I guess the ultimate example is people be worrying that essentially in schools is we'd be back to teaching creationism. For example, if certain Christians were in charge. and presenting creationism as fact. Why couldn't you just have a compromise there where you said, okay, you can learn either or you can learn neither? That should be up to the parents, don't you think? The education standards for their kids. Why should that be up to the state? Do you think the state should have control over that? Or do you think the parents should? So if the parents say, yeah, you know, I don't really want them to learn evolution.

1:09:01Why can't they opt them out? Because evolution has been proven to be scientifically correct. That's not your business. what people do with their kids' education. It's their business, right? Okay, well, then why can't I raise my child to be a jihadist? So you're going to raise your kid to blow people up? No, but why not? I mean, if you say it's not your business, then it's not your business. Yeah, well, I mean, can you stop parents from raising their kids to be a jihadist? You can. How? Well, you can make sure that within the confines of a school that they're not learning it. We have had schools in the UK where people have been, there's misvalues and those schools have been closed down.

1:09:39Okay, so why is it in school that you're supposed to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and you're supposed to learn science as well, right? Yeah. Okay. So you're saying, well, this is a scientific fact, so kids need to learn it, right? Yeah. Okay. So parents say, well, I dispute this fact, right? I'm not going to teach my kid evolution. How does that hamstring the kid exactly? Like, what about that's going to hamstring the child? What's going to happen? Well, maybe they want to be a scientist. Maybe the way that they see the world, you're actually taking out a fundamental part of their understanding of the world and how it works.

1:10:14That's a strictly materialistic view, and it's silly. What about the ideas of metaphysical accounting, accounting for metaphysical things, like the laws that are immaterial, laws of logic, things like this? I think they should be taught in school as well. I don't understand. They're not proven facts. Even though you believe in them, they're not proven facts, but you still want them taught in school yeah okay so the bible's not a proven fact do you want that taught in school yeah i believe you should learn the bible as part of part as part of religious studies education well that's fantastic great okay here's my compromise because now i tell you what you can teach evolution or or you can teach uh creationism or you can teach both and parents can have them have the kids uh do both or do neither which is exactly what i said before you say same thing they should teach both no no no no that's not what i was saying i was saying that you should teach you should teach evolution because it has been scientifically proven but you should also teach the bible and you say this is what christians believe and it's up to you whether you believe it or not okay so then i don't understand why so let me ask you it a different way um is it the case that if you're a religious Christian, that your kids should have to sit through sex education hearing about homosexual sex.

1:11:34They should have to hearing about homosexual sex. No, they shouldn't. But I believe that... Why not?

1:11:39Francis Foster:Why not? Hold on, let me finish. I think the point, there's an important distinction here between different types of sex education. Showing kids porn, as some of your schools do, shouldn't happen irrespective of whether it's sexual, homosexual, whatever, straight, whatever. Yep, so that's an important distinction. Well, you have to show them porn. Like, I remember when I went through sex ed, they definitely showed the naked human body, walked through, showed you these are what breasts are, these are what ovaries are, this is what this is, this is what this is, this is where babies come from. Didn't appear overtly.

1:12:09It wasn't pornographic. Right. Right? You do the same exact thing with homosexuality, right? But do you think that religious fundamentalists should be able to opt their kids out of that? I don't believe that we should be teaching. I think sex ed should be about pro-Critus. I think sex ed should primarily be about safety, actually. That's it? Primarily be about safety and also about how the biological functions work when you have children, etc. So you don't want to talk in school at all? Well, sex ed. Yes. You do? Yes, I do. Okay, great. So then why do you want the parents' ability to tell their teachers, hey, I want to opt my kid out of this?

1:12:50If you're going to be talking about gay sex, you're going to be talking about this, you're going to be talking about that. I want to opt them out of that. Right. I wouldn't be talking. I don't think you should include gay sex in the curriculum. Why, though? Why? Yeah. Because I believe. Why? Because I believe that it actually could offend religious minorities. Oh. Okay. Just like creationism. Right. No, not like creationism. Not like Darwin. No, but when you have evolutionary, that is a scientific fact. That is a scientific.

1:13:19Francis Foster:I actually wouldn't go quite that far. It's a scientific theory that's currently accepted. But look, it's actually - The distinction between theory and fact, I mean - Well, this is actually, I mean, it's interesting because just so, all of this will get condensed into clips on the internet where it's like, this person destroyed that person, which is really not the angle of conversation for us. Yeah. Really trying to explore the arguments. I mean, I would say a stronger version of your argument is, should parents be able to opt their children out of being taught that climate change is real, right?

1:13:50Francis Foster:You can say that? that's where you're going to get someone like francis or me to go yeah i think they should be able to opt out of that right even though that's the scientifically accepted consensus well i'm not here for destruction no no none of us all but let me come back to a point that i think francis made that you haven't addressed which i think is a strong argument what about the jihadi thing like should devout muslim families be able to create schools according to this devolvement of religion to the states or whatever, where they teach that particular worldview. No. Because? Because I believe in Christian ethics as the dominant force in society.

1:14:25And since that's the case, I would tailor laws towards Christian ethics being the dominant force in society.

1:14:31Francis Foster:So there would be no schools that taught anything except Christian ethics? No, it wouldn't be that they would teach nothing but Christian ethics, but we could definitely tailor laws against jihadist ethics or definitely tailor laws against even importing Muslims at all. What the hell are we importing Muslims here for anyway? We don't need them here. Never needed them here. Diversity is our strength. Has not been a strength having Muslims here. The idea that we can't tailor or craft legislation and laws around the things that our children learn, or at least what you can opt into and out of, let's just say for consistency's sake, sure, you could teach your kid, I guess, theoretically to be a jihadist, and there's nothing I can do about it, and there's nothing a secondary state can do about it either, except not let them come in.

1:15:14And then it's really hard to train your kid to be a jihadist, right? Because you're not here.

1:15:18Francis Foster:Well, so from a policy level, this is kind of ultimately comes back to the final question, I suppose, of what is... Do you call yourself a Christian nationalist? Is that your... I would say Christian populist. Christian nationalism is often conflated with forms of ethno-nationalism. And people do use it as a cloak for ethno-nationalism. I would fall more in line with what's called cultural nationalism. You guys, I think, from watching your content, would fall more in line with civic nationalism. So cultural nationalism is talking about the glue which holds cultures together. And the ethno-nationalists obviously believe that's your race, right?

1:15:59Obviously, I think that race is not enough to hold a nation together. There has to be some kind of cultural glue, you know, and that usually comes from religion. So all the laws that I can see seem to be informed by ethics, and those ethics seem to almost universally be informed by Christianity.

1:16:15Francis Foster:So you would support mass migration from Christian countries? No. Why not? Well, I don't understand. I want my domestic population to grow. So if I want to tailor the best outcomes for my society, then I want my domestic population to grow. I want those families to be very happy. I want them to have the biggest slice of that American dream, right? Because I'm Christian, but also a nationalist. So, the idea here is nation first. Me importing a bunch of people from other countries, not putting my nation first, putting their nation first. So, my list of priorities would be God, nation, right? Or I'm sorry, God, family, nation.

1:16:55So, culture and borders are very important for the nation.

1:16:59Francis Foster:And so, you're not a Christian nationalists, cultural nationalists. So describe to me the America that you want. What does it look like? What are the... You mean by tomorrow? Well... Let's say I was king tomorrow. Well... You seemed very keen on this idea, which I'm sure you're excited about. What I mean is, ultimately, you want to transform America into something that it used to be or that you'd like it to be or whatever. Let's not argue about that. Yeah, sure. Okay. Let's just say you want America to be a certain way. Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. What does it look like once you've got to that destination, once you've got to that perfect America which represents your values as someone who's really interested in Christianity being the dominant force in society?

1:17:43Francis Foster:What can you do? How is it different from what we have to do? So while I would say that there's, this is a bit of hypothetical utopianism, as long as you're granting me that this is a bit of hypothetical utopianism. So, let's say I was King Wilson tomorrow. I'm King Andrew Wilson, and my decrees and edicts go out to all of the land. First thing, mass migration, that's gone immediately. Next thing is focusing on domestic birth rates and domestic birth policies and trying to move America back to a one-income family. The best way to do that is to prioritize from the government level down that women do not defer their childbearing years for college, right?

1:18:22But rather, you offer massive incentives to families for them to get married younger, right? Stay at home, have babies with their husband. And if you contract them from the workforce, wages are going to necessarily skyrocket. The second you begin contracting women from the workforce, wages are going to shoot through the roof, especially if you're not filling those roles with migrants. So those would be some of the very first policies that I would put in place. I'd also ban porn. I'd ban gay marriage. I'd put in some kinds of laws which had dominion over the airwaves when it came to degeneracy, right?

1:18:58Meaning, I don't think you should turn on Fox or, you know, like Channel 32 and see naked women. I don't think that that's good for the public. I don't think it's particularly useful. I would probably outlaw smartphones or put age restrictions on smartphones probably until you were like 18 years old, there would be some pretty restrictive things that I would put in place, but it would also maximize human ethical flourishing, right? The idea here is like, why do kids need to be looking at smartphones and training their brain towards smartphones? It's been terrible for them.

1:19:32Francis Foster:We just recorded an episode on it. Well, several actually. So I agree with you on that. And is it important to you that that outcome has arrived that democratically, that you persuade half the country that this is the way to be? So ultimately, the views of what's best for the nation, that's what's going to be first and foremost in my brain, right? Yes, the religious aspect, it's always going to be God first, but from the things that I can do something about, it's going to be from the national level. The nation that we have is a checks and balance-based republic. So obviously I'm going to work within the confines of that in order to make as many compelling and convincing arguments and as many compelling and convincing things I can possibly do to move people towards this view.

1:20:23But remember, the problem with democracy, the big hole in it, is you can democratically remove it. So you can vote out democracy. It's built right into democracy to be able to do that. and the most American thing you can do is to remove amendments and put in new amendments. We do it all the time, right?

1:20:41Francis Foster:And is that what you'd prefer? You don't want America to be a direct democracy? No. What would you like it to be? I would like it to be what it used to be at the beginning, which is a stakeholder democracy at the very least. What does that mean? It means you're either going to have like one household voting, right? So that we're not dividing husbands and wives because that's really stupid. or it means that you're going to have to have some kind of stake in property or perhaps four years of unpaid public service before you can vote. There has to be some skin in the game, in other words. I'd also raise the voting age probably to 25, right?

1:21:17Would women be allowed to vote? I mean, yeah, to at least the degree that men are, but I don't want men to vote for the most part either.

1:21:26Francis Foster:I don't think it's a great idea. But it would be equal between men and women in your view, really? It doesn't sound like it. What do you mean? Well, what I mean is it sort of sounds like, forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this genuinely, you'd like people to get married and to vote as a household, which I imagine would kind of mean the head of the family, which is the husband, would tend to decide that. And if a woman isn't married, presumably she wouldn't be getting a vote partly for that reason. Is that fair? Sure. Okay. Yeah, what's wrong with that system? Sounds great. I'm just interested in explaining.

1:21:56Francis Foster:Well, it sounds great to you. I'm just interested in... The thing is, it's really hard. It's really difficult. People think of things like, what's the argument against this? This is an immutable character. How could you argue that women shouldn't be able to vote or that men shouldn't be able to vote? It's like, well, at our founding, they couldn't. Women could not vote. Well, at your founding, as you've said yourself, you had slavery, right? So things do change over time. Sure. But the thing is, it's like - Sometimes in a good direction. sure and sometimes in a bad direction absolutely so the thing is is like the the idea that they had there was that most men couldn't vote there was no universal suffrage for men including slaves right for the most part were men um and women couldn't vote because most people weren't allowed to vote now women the arguments against women voting are pretty simple and it was the idea is land holdership and force right can women utilize force in order to maintain land the answer is no Generally, that takes men.

1:22:57So the biggest, like the, if you're looking at feminism, for instance, you had the anti-suffragettes and then the suffragettes. But the anti-suffragettes arguments were way better. The argument was pretty simple. It just worked like this. You cannot erode or get rid of the patriarchy because you always have to appeal to it for your rights. And that's a fundamental truth. And since that's a fundamental truth, I've never seen a great reason why women should be able to vote. because they can vote to send men to war that they themselves do not have to go fight. They are not beholden to the draft. Only men are.

1:23:31And they can say, well, you're not beholden to the draft, perhaps because you're too old for it. But you were beholden to the draft when you were not too old for it. So your time could have come.

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1:24:42Francis Foster:Because your conversations stay on your device, nor corporation or government can spy on you or use your data for profit. You get the power of modern AI without handing over your private thoughts. Venice was founded by Eric Vahiz, a longtime privacy advocate. So privacy here is not a marketing add-on. It's the point. If you want AI without surveillance or ideological guardrails, go to venice.ai slash trigonometry or click the link in the description. Use our code trigger to get 20 % off a pro plan. That site again is venice.ai slash trigonometry. Could you not flip this argument the other way around and say men are able to vote on things that affect women that don't affect men?

1:25:22Francis Foster:Right. Well, all kinds of things. For example, their right to vote, I mean, among other things. But, you know, things to do with sexual health, abortion, all kinds of things, right? Well, I don't understand. Abortion does have to do with men. Okay, fine. I mean, it does, but it has more to do with women because it affects them more directly. But lots of other things. I mean, men could pass a law that women have to wear a headscarf, for example, right? So our votes affect each other. That's not an argument to deny the other sex the vote. Oh, I don't understand. Like, your argument is women can vote to send men to war.

1:25:58No, my argument is, it's called forced doctrine. My argument reduces to this. if you always have to appeal to one sex for your rights right then why are you why are you being imbued with the responsibility of that at all because women have to appeal to men for their rights and anytime men want to take rights away from women they can't like that and there's not a damn thing women can do about it and if you want proof of that let me show you half the world anytime collectively men say women have no rights they don't have any and that's that and there's not a damn thing that they can do about it.

1:26:34So the idea that they can erode the patriarchy or remove the patriarchy or in some way get away from the patriarchy to be strong, independent women is nonsense. They're just always appealing to the benevolence of men. Always. And so I don't even understand what the purpose is of the vote for women. What is it? We can literally, via force, take it whenever we want anyway. way. What is the point here?

1:27:01Francis Foster:Well, I would imagine the point is to include the voice of half the population, which is naturally set on different priorities to those of men. And since we live in a society which is half female, it would be worthwhile to include their perspective in how we make decisions. Why does voting... Because it affects them as much as affects us. Have you... Let me ask you a question. Are you aware that in the United States, we abolish alcohol? For a period of time. I've seen some movies about how that went. who got who got that amendment passed i don't know women okay oh no no if you want to have an argument about our disagreements with how women choose to vote no no no there's not much wouldn't vote oh i see that's what that's what you're saying okay they couldn't vote but but they still got that amendment passed okay the idea that women did not have influence or do not have influence or or don't have moral influence on society because they can't vote is stupid so what's wrong with formalizing that in the form of a vote.

1:27:59Well, I just told you the very idea that women, well, like, let's start with this. Do you want women to be able to get drafted in the military?

1:28:12Francis Foster:I personally don't, no. Why? Why? Because I've never really thought about it, but it's just an instinctive reaction, actually. I'd have to think about the exact reason, but I just don't think combat is what men do, I guess. It's a very simplistic way of saying it. And there'll be women who can kick your ass, and there are women like that. Sure. Great. But not generally. I am not against women serving in the military, if that's what they choose to do. Yeah, but what about the draft, though? But I don't think they should be compelled to, no. But men should? I think in some circumstances, yes. Like when the survival of the country is at stake.

1:28:54So women get a privilege men don't get. Sure. Men get certain privileges. So why do they have equal rights? No, what privileges? Name a single privilege men get that women don't have access to. You mean legislative? Anything. Like literally anything. In life. Yeah, any aspect, whether it be governmental, social, women have all the privilege. All the privilege. Oh, yeah. Hey, when the Titanic goes down, who gets on the lifeboat?

1:29:19Francis Foster:Yeah, yeah, but that's a very narrow context. or who dies in childbirth right like coming come on this we're different and almost no women die in childbirth anymore some still do sure but i mean some people die just like i mean there's probably more women that die in childbirth in america than people who die on the titanic in the modern yeah childbirth avoidable you just don't have don't have sex right no but what i'm saying is there are outcomes that are better for men in life and for women and that's a fundamental difference between men and women. Yeah, I understand, but I'm talking about privilege.

1:29:53What are any, can you give me any privilege at all that men have that women don't? Whereas I can give you tons of privileges that women have that men don't. That's what I'm asking.

1:30:07Francis Foster:Privilege, well, I mean, the privilege concept outside the legislative framework is a difficult one. Even inside of it. I'm asking for both, either any, in fact.

1:30:20Francis Foster:I don't have the data on all this stuff, but I would assume there are contexts in which men are more likely to be employed for a certain thing because they're more likely to be perceived as authoritative, as leaders, things like that. Although that has changed with the kind of work agenda over the last 10 years. And it works both ways. For instance, preschool teachers, I would assume that people would vastly prefer that their kid go to a woman, right? So it seems like that privilege is striped across the board. So, like, what is the... Why is it that women get all of the equality, right, but also get all the privilege?

1:30:54That doesn't seem right to me. That seems like it's backwards. So, like, what... I'm still waiting to hear from anybody ever what are these privileges men have over women versus what women have over men. So, if you can go and you can be drafted, you can be sent off to war, right, and women can't, but they can vote to send you off to war, how is that not something which fundamentally needs to be addressed immediately? That seems to me like it's completely lopsided and it's giving one class of people a significant privilege over another.

1:31:28Francis Foster:So if we allowed women to be drafted, you'd be happy with them having the war? Well, see, now we come into pragmatic problems, though. The reason that you said earlier, I'm against women being drafted, is because they can't really serve in combat roles, only in support roles. which draftees of men would have to serve in combat roles. The reason women don't do well in combat roles is because, well, driving tanks is hard work. It takes muscles, and you've got to run the shells, and you have to carry hundreds of pounds of equipment with you, and you have to do all of this type of thing. And generally speaking, women aren't equipped for it, which is why we've never had a female Navy SEAL to date, even though they've been trying for like 25 years.

1:32:05They still haven't had a single one. They can't do the job. Now, what people always do is point to outliers. right well some women can do it that's true some can't but in general they can't i guess but when you vote for a government you don't vote whether to go for war or not it's the government makes the decision there's plenty of people who voted for donald trump and are absolutely disgusted that he's started a war with iran i thought government was forced we are agreed on that right government's force like ultimately that's what it reduces to so you say you're voting, you're voting for force and you're voting for force use.

1:32:43Why does the United States have a massive military? Well, because we're going to use it. That's why we're going to use it. Why do we have a draft? Well, because we're going to use that too and have used it. And so the thing is, is that a lot of what we're voting on is force. We want to, we're trying to protect our nation from all foreign threats, right? That's why we have this massive military. That's why we have a draft. That's why we have the potential for mass combat. That's why we entered into World War II, right it's why we entered in there was a draft in and we're going into draft at some point again likely it's it's more likely than not at some point yeah we're going to do it so the thing is it's like why do women get exempt from that and if it's the case that you don't want them exempt from that why is it that they don't go right to the front lines then and battle it out like draftees have to at least the potential to well that's a fundamental privilege that is not being addressed right and yet women have the vote doesn't seem like they care too much about men's rights even though we're supposed to care about theirs seems like they have a lot of privilege in society is that fair andrew i think a lot of women care about men's rights actually look there's there's this there's the vocal minority which say that they don't and they hate men and we know those type of women let's be honest a lot of women care about men's rights they do give us give me like three of the most prominent ones you can think of who care about men's rights uh well i'm trying to think now but i mean we've had feminists on the show who are feminists like

1:34:08Francis Foster:Louise Perry for example, they're different type of feminists to the idiots that you'd be spending your time arguing with, but the people who have a very sensible view of these things. There are lots of people like that. By the way, coming back, not to change the subject, but coming back to your point, I mean, one of the things that doesn't make a lot of sense to me is, for example, yes, it's true, men serve in combat roles and women don't, but women bear children and men don't. And there's a huge disadvantage in all sorts of societal outcomes from a materialistic career perspective to spending the time to bear the child and then to nurture that child right so uh what like what well that's backwards no no hold on yeah the the gender pay gap discussion which is kind of stupid in a lot of areas is actually a reflection of the fact that there is a motherhood gap in lifetime earnings which is if you're a woman who bears children and take more time off and then you take time off then over the course of your life less over time yeah you will earn less.

1:35:06Francis Foster:So that would be one disadvantage that I could give you where women contribute a different thing. So you might say, well, men get drafted, women carry children. It's not a disadvantage. What do you mean? Oh, no. Oh, they have to stay at home and raise their kids. Oh, ah. But what? Where's the disadvantage again? The man's in the... Oh, no. The men get drafted. Where's the disadvantage? They die. Okay. They get shot in the face. Yes. And women earn less money over the course of their lives and have to carry a thing. No, they earn more. That is a risk to their life potentially. What they have instead is they now don't have to pay for daycare and they can depend on somebody else's income, which is taking care of them.

1:35:41Oh, that's terrible. Oh my God. You get to stay at home and you don't have to do anything except raise your kid. Wow. And by the way, they're putting their kids on a bus almost every morning to go to a public school. They don't even have them for eight hours out of the day most of the time. So like, how is this the most incredibly difficult job ever or in some way requires them to have, that's, they're the ones who are privileged. You know, there's an old comedian who made this joke, and I agree with it. Any job you can do in your pajamas can't be that hard.

1:36:08Francis Foster:Bill Burr, favorite comedian of ours. Okay, it can't be that hard. He was joking, though, knowing Bill. And now that he's married with kids, I think his perspective has changed some more. But I guess, you know... I'm married with kids. Right. I mean, you watched your wife carry the baby or babies inside her for nine months. Like, that's a big deal. Sure. So I guess that, to me, would be one example versus the hypothetical risk of 175. It's a privilege. In a two-income household, it's a privilege that women get to stay at home. It's a privilege. But we're not talking about staying at home. We're talking about carrying the child.

1:36:43Francis Foster:Yeah, but carrying... The child has to be raised. And most women in America then go back to work. Yeah. At a disadvantage, as we just established. Well, that's not a disadvantage, though, right? They don't have to have children. You have to go out for a draft. Well, women do have to have children for our society to reproduce. Well, they're not. So... Well, I mean, they are. I mean, they're definitely not. Your wife is, my wife is. Yeah, but what's the birth rate? We're under replacement levels. I know, but you're talking about a side argument. What I'm saying is in a society that wants to reproduce, men have to go to war and women have to bear the children.

1:37:17Francis Foster:That's true. And so why don't we just say, well, the men go to war, the women have children, that's why they both have the same. When are they going to start having the children part of this? I mean, my wife's doing it. Yeah, but I mean - Your wife's doing it, so shouldn't they have the right to go? Men... You're not fucking fighting war, are you? Men... Well, here's... Nor am I. But is there the potential for that through the draft? Well, like, just the potential for them to have children. You say they're not. Well, I could say you're not being drafted. Same thing. No. You can't... There is no equivalency, and I can point out the distinction.

1:37:48Francis Foster:Yeah, the compulsion thing. The compulsion, yes. But for a society to work, men have to go to war and women have to have kids. I agree, but you need to get to the they're having kids part before you can tell me that there's some equivalency to men being drafted because they're not having kids. And you're not being drafted. But I can be compelled because I've signed up for the draft. Where have they signed up to have kids? I think this is a splitting hairs argument. I think it's not. I think that the idea that my children can be drafted or I could be drafted even at my age because perhaps I have knowledge which would be useful to the United States military.

1:38:24They could do it in five seconds. They could bring me on. in Ukraine they draft 60 year old men okay if they need you they're going to take you and you can peel potatoes or whatever it is they need right women do not have to do that they do not have to sign up for selective service they're not compelled and will never be compelled it's asymmetrical in that way they can avoid pregnancy though right and if you're saying that they have a duty to have children I'm not saying they have a duty but you have a duty to go fight a war if you get drafted correct and this is fair how? where do we get to the fairness?

1:38:54Francis Foster:Well, not everything has to look exactly symmetrical, but your argument initially was, where's the privilege that men enjoy and women don't? Well, I would argue in a function in society where we want to reproduce, women end up with the burden of childbearing and childrearing in a way that men don't. I think it's a fairly simple and obvious argument, right? And yet they're privileged when it comes to custody and divorces. They're privileged when it comes to child support. They're privileged when it comes to alimony. They're privileged when it comes to all of these things. They have every advantage when it comes to having the child.

1:39:28And so it's like, no.

1:39:29Francis Foster:It's a different argument. What I'm saying is the burden of bearing the child is uniquely with women in the same way that the burden of fighting in war is uniquely with men. So it's an ontological argument. The nature of women is to have children. The nature of men is to go to war. Right, and so. Then the woman needs to be fulfilling her nature then, right? Well, my woman is, and so is yours, right? Yes, but most women are. I would insist for my woman to have the right to vote on that basis, that she's contributing, frankly, at this point, way more than I am. Drafting is collective, right? Yeah.

1:39:59So then the duty is collective? Yeah. Then why isn't childbirth?

1:40:07Francis Foster:I don't understand. You're saying for women to have the right to vote, they must have a duty to bear children. Yeah. Well, if you're saying that there's a duty for men to go to war, and you're saying that the reason that they do is because that's their ontological nature, and the ontological nature of women is to have children. Okay, I can concede that argument, but we just ran into a problem then because if one is collective and then the other is collective, why do I have to fulfill my duty, but they don't have to fulfill theirs? Well, I never said that. I thought it was a collective duty for women to have children.

1:40:35But it's a collective duty for men to go, well, then again, that sounds like privilege.

1:40:40Francis Foster:Well, in the same way that fire safety in your own house is a personal thing that you do, but if there's a fire in the neighborhood, it's the collective duty of the neighbors to get together and try and put it out, right? Do you go to jail if you don't do that? Yeah. Look, I agree with you. The compulsion element is different, but not everything is exactly the same. I'm not even asking... Like, I agree with you, getting drafted and having babies is different. We can agree with that, right? Both important though, right? Both important. But the idea here that we are talking about, which should be equal, is the idea of duty if we're talking about the compelling of you if your country drafted you even if you're in terrible shape and they told you look we're in a collective war effort and we need you and you're going to come in here and just cook food because our soldiers need food right are you going to go do it i've got to voluntarily to be honest but yeah you would do it i wouldn't be very useful but yeah now terrible cook now you're you're compelled to do that right And part of your duty and honor is that you have to go do it.

1:41:42Sure. I agree with this, okay? But if we have a compelling duty that men have an ontological function, only men can do this, therefore they should. Why does that duty not apply the other way? That to me is inconsistent and it's a hole in the worldview. It makes no sense to me.

1:41:57Francis Foster:I agree with you it's inconsistent, but that's because the acts are not equivalent. Like not everything is the same. I think in order for the defense of the realm, so to speak, you'll have to compel all the men to fight in certain very rare those men come from women right so then one duty is being fulfilled i'm i'm all with you in terms of we need a higher birth rate i just don't think duty is the way to get there anyway we've wait couldn't you just i'll just wrap yeah yeah it's just it's a time thing when you say duty yeah can't you instill the ideas of duty and honor even absent legislation through propaganda things like that yeah those are the routes that I would be more apt to move towards?

1:42:40Francis Foster:Well, yeah. To be honest with you, man, this is the thing is like, actually, a lot of this discourse, I think, is misguided because the vast majority of women actually do want to have kids, but there are circumstances in their life which make them less likely to do so. I agree. And so if we, I mean, you made this point yourself. There are countries, they're not having as many results as people would like to think, unfortunately, places like Hungary. But I think the way to get people to have more kids is to get obstacles out of their way, not to compel them through the draft system. Like, oh, here's your ticket.

1:43:12Francis Foster:Have two kids. You know what I mean? I don't think that's going to work. But it seems we agree on that. Anyway, Andrew, it's been great having you on. You too, guys. I really appreciate the combo. You know, and it's actually interesting because, like, obviously there's areas of disagreement. But it's just fascinating to me that it's so much easier to have a conversation from a place of complete disagreement with someone on the right than with someone who's progressive. Well, that's because I think that this comes down a lot of times to being good faith. Right. I want to know your view. Yeah. And I truly believe that you want to know mine.

1:43:46Yeah, we do. And so the reason that this, what we just did right now, I guarantee you much of it's going to go viral and this type of thing isn't just because you have a huge channel and we both have big audiences, but it's also because people just saw a discussion that seemed real. Right. Well, it was real. And that it seemed like we were trying to get at each other's views. Yeah. Try to understand them. And we're not killing each other. No. Right. So it's like, maybe we can start there.

1:44:12Francis Foster:I think that's a great place to start. Yeah. And, you know, and it just frustrates me because I would love, you know, I raised this right at the beginning with you, which is, isn't there a center left sensible part of society? And I truly, this may be an article of faith on my part, but I truly believe lots of people like that exist. But where is their champion? Where is their champion? Because what we see now is people who can't have the, like, there will be lots of people who watch your views on this, particularly outside the US where a kind of more crystal ethics-based worldview is more common, who will be horrified by what you said, right?

1:44:51Francis Foster:They will be completely horrified. But we explored that and we got to the bottom of what you believe, right? And you're entitled to believe what you believe. Other people are entitled to not agree. But if there was a progressive sitting in our seat, or even in your seat, we'd never even get to what the views were. and that to me is so frustrating well yeah it's a it's a fundamental it's a fundamental dishonest like i said at the very beginning i hate the left and it's there is a fundamental there there is a fundamental dishonesty that comes with their anti-realism views on morality that makes me sick to my stomach and the thing is it's like look maybe i don't get everything i want maybe i get 30 % or 20 % of what I want.

1:45:36Maybe you get 80%, right? At least I'm getting, we're getting to something. Yeah. We're getting to something. We're addressing something. These people, you can't even address it. Well, because why? Well, because it's unprecedented, it says meth jaw. Oh, it's unprecedented. But everything's unprecedented, right? Destinine is meth jaw. These people live in ambiguity. And so that's why you can't ever get to anything. Everything's equivocation, it's ambiguity. They never want to pin down their actual positions and then when you get to their actual positions they know that they're untenable so they just obfuscate away from them and they move on to other things you can say you can all disagree with everything I just said here you can't say that's not reasoned out yeah you can't say there's no logic to it you can't say that I didn't really sit and have a good think before I came to these views you can say that about progressives though Andrew thank you for

1:46:26Francis Foster:the discussion what is the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we should be. We're not talking about the birth rate enough. That's the critical view and component which keeps all of humanity and society going. And if you look at projections for humanity in the next 200 years, it doesn't look good. And ultimately, as a Christian, first and foremost, I am the ultimate humanist. I want to see human beings and more of them all over this planet, having more babies and families and all that good, wonderful stuff. So I think that that's the thing we should focus on more than anything else.

1:47:03Francis Foster:All right, head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where Andrew is going to answer your questions. After years of speaking with and debating people of opposing beliefs and values, what's something you've changed your mind on regarding your own beliefs and values as a result of these discussions?

1:47:31We'll be right back.