Speaker 1 (00:03):
Good warning.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
You're about to order the arena and join the battle
to save America with your host Sean Parnell.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Hey, everyone, welcome to Battleground Podcast. Today, we have an
absolutely incredible guest. His name is Nick Freedis. He's an
Army combat veteran. He's a Special Forces Green Beret. He's
an operator, as they're called, and we have that in common.
Nick and I both ran for Congress back in twenty twenty.

(00:40):
We met, we became friends, and since then, I mean,
he's just built this incredible platform on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
He's got an amazing.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Podcast, hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and he's really, frankly,
he's a conservative thought leader, and I'm so excited to
have him. Nick, Welcome to the podcast. I am so
grateful for your time.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
How you doing, Oh doing well, man, Thanks for having
me on.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
You're welcome.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
We were we were just you know, in the lobby
or in the studio, solving some of the problems of
the world. And I was saying to Andrew, my producer
before you logged on, that your podcast. First of all,
your studio looks fantastic, but I love the format in
your shorts. I've blown away by you know, your ability

(01:32):
to reach people through your shorts. I mean, you're like,
you're a serious YouTube influencer, which is a term I
think is vastly overused and I generally speaking don't like it.
But but I do think that what you're doing has
an impact, especially on the next generation who are going
those those kids are going to shape the future of
this country.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
So I think it's really important. No, it's you know,
we we kind of made a decision a while back.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I mean we we initially started doing kind of the
podcast and doing doing more so fun social media, and
a lot of it was related to like floor speeches
or campaign stops or things like that, and we kind
of made the conscious decision that we wanted to talk
about things on more of a cultural level.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
We didn't we didn't want to.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Make it all politics. So we have a lot of
political philosophy in there, but a lot of what we
talk about is just simple stuff, you know, being a
being a veteran, being a dad, you know, stuff like that,
and and some of us just kind of common sense,
you know, poking fun at ourselves. You know, we we homeschool,
so we've talked about that. I've talked a little bit
about homesteading. I want to call myself a home center,

(02:36):
mainly because I want to I want to give myself
that much credit right now. But we've certainly been doing
more and more with it, and I think what we
found is that one of the problems with people that
get involved in social media through politics is I think
it's all just an extension of their campaign, and nobody
wants to hear that crap, right, Like, that's Twitter, that's Facebook.

(02:58):
So if we so we we just started talking about
kind of regular things from a perspective that you know,
it's things that you and I have talked about before,
and and it seems to be resonating and that's pretty encouraging.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, what's your secret? Because before before we went live here,
I was I don't think that I could generate those
little tidbits of wisdom on in these YouTube shorts that
you do, and and do it on a consistent basis,
you know, how how do you how do you shape
what content you put out there and decide what to use?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
So some of it, I mean, honestly, I wish I
could say we had some sort of like grand long
term strategy where we've talked about so that usually it's
more like waking up in the morning getting my coffee
and either I was thinking about something the night before,
thinking about something that day, or I had some interaction
with you know, my family or or something. I will
tell you this.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
The moment you think there's nothing.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
To opine on or or talk about or consider, just
just turn on the news and there's always going to
be there's a never ending stream of stuff that either
needs to be mocked or explained.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
So I mean we try to do we try to
do like.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Once a day, that's kind of our thing, like once
a day. But really, if you can if you can
make a good if you can make what is like,
you know, a meaningful or funny or something form of
content and you can put it out on various platforms
and whatnot. But I think I think it like, for instance,
I mean, you have some incredible experiences with respect to
your military service, running for office, I mean, being an author.

(04:31):
I mean, there's so many things in there where not
to mention, like all the political stuff, right, like me
put that aside for just a second. There's so many
things that you might have you might have learned for
that or funny stories or things like that that people
would be interested in to you get just a little
bit of insight into something that maybe they've never experienced before.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Like I talked about the this is probably something you
can relate to as well.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I talked about the first job I had leaving the
military and kind of like the transition into civilian life
and like this funny little episode I got into where
you know I what I said was, I told the
guy like, Hey, I wouldn't mind doing that thing if
you really want me to, but I think there might
be a.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Better way to execute it. I said.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
What I actually said was, that's the dumbest thing I've
ever heard of in my life. And the only way
I'm doing it is if you put it in an email,
because I don't want anyone blaming me for.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
This stupid crap.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
You know, you put that out right, and there's going
to be a ton of people that are veterans that
completely relate to it, or there's gonna be other people
that just think it's funny. And so that's why I
tell people. It's like people got a lot more to
offer than they than they think they do. It just
sometimes takes a little bit of while of thinking about it, like, Okay,

(05:42):
how can I say this in a way that's going
to grab someone's attention, maybe be funny, but at the
end they're going to get something from it.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
One of the.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
Biggest, one of the biggest things you need to do,
like with any transaction. And you've run businesses, you know this,
what is the value proposition? You know someone, you're asking
for someone to give you their attention for even if
it's just for fifty seconds, you know, what do they
get out of it? And and so thinking about things
in such a way to where you could package those

(06:10):
experiences in a way that's meaningful or funny or provide
some sort of insight. And again, a lot of what
we do is not telling people you should do this.
It's more like, hey, this is my experience, this is
this is what this happened to me, this is how
I reacted, this is what I learned from it. And
I don't know, people seem to like it.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
You know.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
You know how I first stumbled across these videos because again,
like you and I met I met you on the
campaign trail, your Special Forces guy, like Army guy. That's
that's how I knew you. And I stumbled on one
of your shorts on YouTube. And by the way, I
don't know why the hello is on there. I never
really got into you, like I had a staff that
managed all that, like and now that, now that I'm
doing the podcast and stuff, I'm more involved in that

(06:49):
side of things. But but I stumbled on a video
you talk about, you know, what's the value proposition? And
so much of what my life has become is muddling
through try to trying to be a father to five kids,
and it's it's not you know, we're a blended family.
You know, I've got kids, you know, a sixteen year

(07:10):
old stepdaughter, she's my daughter, I mean sixteen, fourteen year
old son, two twelve year old daughters and a ten
year old son. But you had some video out there
about daughters and dating and stuff like that, and in.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
That that's you talk about a value proposition. Man.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
That spoke to me because my daughter, now, I mean,
she's dating and I don't. I mean, I I have
to tell you, Nick, I struggle with it, and I
and I often reflect on it and I think about
why I do and I can't quite put my finger

(07:48):
on it. But your videos help me say at least
at least at a at a bare minimum. Hey, I
ain't the only one going through this. You know, there's
no there's no field manual for how to raise kids,
you know.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
No.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, we we had we had a video on h
I think the one that really went viral for us
on our short was three things I Learned raising daughters. Yeah,
And it was just talking about you know. It started
off because when when I had a little girl, I
asked my wife, you know, okay, how do I be
a good dad? And then I asked the biggest man
whore I met in the military, like, how do I
protect her from you?

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Dude? Like this is I mean, straight.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Up buddy to buddy, operator operator, What the heck do
you say?

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Uh? So I can prepare to like say no to
you and.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Uh and and you know, he looked at me, and
it was it was weird because it was kind of
one of those things where I was quasi making a joke,
but I was also serious. And he got real quiet
and looked at me and goes, tell your daughter you
love her, because if you don't, you know, basically, someone
like me will and they'll believe him. And that hit me, man,
Like that that hit me and I and I remember thinking,

(08:54):
you know, obviously it's not enough to just say that
I love my daughter. It's it's important that I, you know,
imonstrate that with spending time with her and protecting her
and everything else.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
But I better verbalize it as well.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
And because a lot of times stuff like that will happen,
I'll go and I'll talk to my wife. I'm like,
you know, explain to me what this is like from
your perspective as a woman. And she's like, you know, look,
I love all the things that you do to provide
and help and protect our family and the whole deal,
and I appreciate all of it. But yeah, like that's great.
But if you don't say, if you don't verbalize I

(09:28):
love you to your daughter, you can't expect them to
automatically believe that. Of course he's working this hard because
he loves me. Of course he does these things because
he loves she.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Else needs to hear it.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
And that was I found that to be an incredibly
useful piece of advice because my oldest daughter's twenty, she
just got engaged.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
My youngest daughter is fifteen, and.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
So I'm right there with you on kind of those
It feels like it feels like a minefield for father
especially if it does.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
It does I mean, you know, I is it hard
for you. I mean, I'm surely it doesn't sound like
and I'm not trying to speak for you, but it
doesn't sound like it came natural to you to say, Hey, listen, kiddo,
I love you, you know, just want and I'm doing
this because here's here's the reason why I might be
a little crazier. It seems like I'm a little crazy

(10:23):
in this regard with with dating. But this is what
I'm thinking, this is where I'm coming from, And ultimately,
I love you, kiddo, and I want to protect you,
and that's that's my job. And when you're out there dating,
you almost as as a father, you know, you take
that and you outsource that protection. Still my responsibility, it's
still my job. But if they're out there together, it's

(10:45):
like at some point she's gonna have to protect herself
and you know he he obviously cares for her. So
it's it's very, very complicate. It's a tough journey for fathers.
So how did Obviously it sounds like talking to your
to your wife is so important and it's it's so
important for me too. But how did how do you
how did you have that epiphany? Because you and I
are both knuckle draggers man like, I'm an infantry guy,

(11:07):
and they like, we don't always have We don't always
have they we're not always the best and expression our
emotions like.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Typically sad, sad, and it's just sad.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
As angry you know for me, Like so it's like
it's difficult angry, Yeah, frustrated.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Confused, sad, depressed, that's all anger and then yeah I'm happy.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, no, I think.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Uh, I mean, look, I'll give my my parents got
divorced when I was three, but I still had a
great relationship with both my folks. Now I had to go,
I had to go down, and I spent the summers
with my dad in the school years with my mom,
and then you know, holidays and stuff like that. But
both of them, I think we're both of them were
good about, you know, spending time when they could. They're

(11:52):
both incredibly busy, right, they're working hard. My dad was
a homicide detective, my mom was a nurse. They were
also good I think in verbalizing saying I love you,
like not all the time, but they did it, So I.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Think part of it was.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Part of it was was my faith right and just
understanding that, you know, there's certain responsibilities that I have
as a father that are biblical and are just there
and that I'm responsible for. And then part of it
too was having those conversations with my wife and you know,
talking about what she experienced growing up, what she would
have liked to have experienced more of. I think one

(12:29):
of the biggest things that struck me when my oldest
daughter was like eleven or twelve, it was the first
time a boy kind of liked her, and we had
set up kind of I mean, we're probably pretty draconian
compared to most parents, Like we told our kids like, look,
dating is about getting married, and if you're not ready
to get married, you're not ready to date, and so
you need to hold that off. But I remember the

(12:50):
first time my oldest daughter was eleven years old, she
had a boy at school that liked her. And this
is we actually ended up homeschooling, but not to avoid
the boy. But Andy, yeah, and I remember she she
told her mother first and and her and her mom
was like, you need to go, you need to go
talk to your dad. And so she came over and

(13:12):
she kind of told me the whole deal, and I
remember saying, I'm like, I said, sweetheart, I want to
explain something to you. I said, it is perfectly natural
for you to be feeling like butterflies right now, for
you to be feeling, you know, kind of happy and
excited and like all of those emotions because this boy
has expressed that, you know, he prefers you over all
the other girls and that. And I said, you know what, sweetheart,

(13:36):
that shows great judgment on his behalf, right, That shows
great judgment that that he picked you because you are
you are incredible. I said, But you know, sweetheart, I
want you to understand that the reason why we set
up the boundaries that we do is because I want
you to have the marriage that your mommy and I have.
And one day, I totally believe God's going to bring

(13:56):
that guy for you that you are just going to
be in love with.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
I mean, he is just going to be a great guy.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
He's going to be what you're looking for in life,
and you were just going to want to spend the
rest of your life with him. And one of the
reasons why we protect you so much is because when
you when you find yourself in that moment, I don't
want you to have to explain a whole lot of
stuff that came before you met him, right. I want
you to think, how much how much will I have
to explain to this person about what I did, who

(14:22):
I did it with, and everything before I get to
that person. And it's not because you can't. I mean, look,
stuff happens, right, Stuff happens, and people have great marriages
to get through all that. But what I found was
is that the mindset I was trying to work with
my girls very very early on, was daddy does not
believe Daddy's I'm not someone that like wants to scare

(14:45):
off all your boyfriends and never want you to get married.
And you're my little girl, and that's it. No, I
want you to I want you to get married. I
want you to have kids. I want to be a grandpa,
I want to do all those things. I want you
to have an incredible marriage. I want you to have
with me and your mother had like, I want you
to have all of those things, and I want you
to trust that I do want that for you. And

(15:08):
so as time goes on, if I ever say sweetheart,
I don't think he's the one. I want you to
trust that. My only motivation is because there is one
and this guy ain't it. And what I what I
found was is that when my you know, when my
oldest daughter got older and she now she is old
enough to date, and she has a boyfriend, and he

(15:28):
was very respectful, he was a good guy. She maintained
very very strict boundaries with him, and she kind of
came to the conclusion one day that she was I
just don't know if this is going to work out.
And I was the one she was talking to about it.
I was the one that she was, well, Daddy, what
about this? What do you think about this? Well, you know, hey,
what about this?

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Or for the future.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
You know, I think our goals and you know, what
we believe might not line up as much as I
would like. And and and I remember just sitting there
talking her out with her and Okay, yeah, I think
this is good. I think you've used good reasoning here,
and and they ended up breaking up, remained friends. But
I think the work for that, if at all possible,

(16:08):
the work for that starts younger. It starts with establishing
that trust to where they know their daddy loves them absolutely,
one hundred percent know their daddy loves them. They also
know that Daddy will tell them the truth. He'll do
it in love, but he'll tell them the truth because,
let's face it, you look at everything kids are going
through right now in the mountain of crap. They are

(16:28):
being fed about the world, and not just politically, but ideologically,
identity wise everything. They're being fed so much disinformation about
the world right now and their role in it and
who they are. They need to know that there is
somebody that they can go to that is going to
give them the truth, even the hard truth at time,
but they don't mind receiving it because they know it's

(16:50):
from somebody that is entirely on their side, like their
biggest fan. And then the other thing is is they
got to be They got to know that when they
need to tell you something, you're not going to flip out.
M hm, You're not going to flip out. And and
I think that I I tried to. I tried to

(17:10):
do that for my girls, and there was times where
I think I nailed it, and there was times where
I totally failed. But I know that, I mean, one
of the one of the greatest, one of the greatest
experiences for me in my life thus far, was when
my daughter's fiancee, who I really like, great dude, great dude,
sort of guy you prayed will come along to you know.

(17:34):
And he came in, and he came and asked my permission.
But that's the thing they're not supposed to do anymore. Right,
you're supposed to right, you can ask for a blessing.
Not No, he came in, he asked for my permission.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
And he did right, looks like, That's what looks like.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
But here's the important part. He didn't just do that
because he knew it was the right thing to do.
He did it because my daughter would have asked him
if he had once he asked her to marry him.
And and that's the sort of relationship I want to
have with my girls. I want them to know that, Look,
no matter what happens, I'm going to tell you the truth,
and I'm I'm gonna give you advice based off of

(18:10):
what I think is best for you. But man, I
am on your side like you cannot even you cannot
even imagine my life for yours, sweetheart, My life for yours.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
It sounds like so much of it. I mean, obviously,
you know you said sometimes you got it right, sometimes
you didn't, And I feel like that often do you
think that it's I mean, I tend to think this,
but is it just about showing them that you love
them and that you're trying and that trust that's established
there builds the sort of relationship where they feel like

(18:43):
they can come to you and talk to you about these,
you know, what, what are personal issues? Because I agree
with you, Nick, I think that's so important. You know,
kids come home from school, they had a rough day.
You ask them what's wrong. Sometimes they tell you, sometimes
they shut down. You know, I'm good nothing happened in
those moments because I'm sure that you've had them. Are

(19:07):
you persistent or do you give them some time to
breathe or do you check in you know, after they've
had time to breathe, do you check in with them later?
What's your roles of engagement on that?

Speaker 1 (19:16):
I think it.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
I think it kind of depends. So obviously, you you'll
have times when your kids are are there and they're
they're angry and they're mad about something. You can tell
the times where they're just sad, you can tell the
times where they're they're.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
They're hurt.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
And what I try to do is make sure that
I'm aware enough of what's going on, because you know
the deal, you can get so focused on something that
your situational awareness goes goes out.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
The complete day.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
But I try to be situational awhere. Sometimes my wife
has got to be like, hey, you need to go.
This is another thing that's so important about that relationship,
right is when when you're when you have a wife
that will tell you, hey, babe, they need to talk
to you about this.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
So they really need to. They'll give you a heads
up sometimes.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
But I but I think being aware of it and engage,
like actively engaging hair are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. No, No,
seriously like are you okay? And so I think a
little bit of persistence now if they if they really
don't want to talk right now, they just got to
figure it out or whatnot. I think it's I think
it's fine to say okay, but if you need to,

(20:19):
I'm right here.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
I'm here for you. Again.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
I can't emphasize enough how much I think a lot
of this starts early on, because when when your kids
are little, they automatically come to you right, like it's
like a regular thing. You are their source to the
outside world.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
And so I think when you.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Establish that pattern early on where they know they can
come and talk to you and that you're going to
hear them, that you're really going to sit there and
listen and not just immediately start to give advice. That's
the other big lesson I've learned is you know I don't,
but before I can give advice, I got to understand again.
I'll go back to the military, right, Understand your operational environment.
How many times did we have that ham into us oversea?

(21:02):
Know your operational environment. Know your operational environment. Same thing
with kids, all right, when when when your daughter is
sitting there and she wants to talk about some especially
your daughters, they don't necessarily want you to fix something
right off the bat. They may want you to, but
they first want to feel like you really understand the
problem the way they understand the problem. You understand it
from their perspective as much as possible. And then a

(21:23):
lot of times it's helpful to ask questions instead of
if we if.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
We go in write with advice, Okay, do this, do this?
Do this, do this.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
They don't feel like you've actually gone through the process
with them of understanding the problem first, and so they
don't trust the advice as much. But when you when
you've gone through and you've asked important questions what about this?

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Okay, well did he say this? What did you say
to that? Okay? What so?

Speaker 2 (21:45):
What were you thinking when that when when that took place?
Then after a while they think like, Okay, we're engaged.
We're in this together. We're we're like, we're investigating, right,
We're investigating this and we're going to get to the
conclusion together. It's not my dad gonna tell me like, Okay,
you had to do this, you should have done this,
or why didn't you do this? Or you remember when
I told you? It's none of that. So I think

(22:05):
that does a big part of it. The other one too,
that I think is critical, and this is the part
that you struck to with like, hey, we're trying when
you set up certain rules and standards for conduct, behavior,
honesty and things like that and you fall short of it.
So you've established what the rules are and you've pointed
to this as the standard, but now you've fallen short

(22:26):
of it. And they respectfully. If they're disrespectful, I'm sorry.
I don't brook disrespect because the world doesn't brook disrespect.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
And my kids didn't understand that.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
But again, I'll remember a time when my oldest daughter
came to me and she thought I had handled something wrong.
And it turns out she was dead on right. She
was right and I was wrong. And I sat there
and I said, sweetheart, first of all, I appreciate you
bringing this to my attention. You are right, I'm wrong,
and I'm gonna go correct that. And it had to

(22:57):
do with something an interaction I had with her, her
younger brother and sister. I got mad at him because
they made a mess in the kitchen. Turns out they
were making me something.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
But she in that.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Moment, what it was is that I looked at that,
Thank God, because there's been other moments where I've been like,
I'm in charge here, but that, in that moment, I
looked at it as I've taught my daughter that there's
a standard for right and wrong. I'm also the authority
figure in this house. So what just happened was my
daughter realized that the authority figure had broken a rule,

(23:30):
had broken a standard, and now she had the courage
to come to an authority figure and respectfully ask about
it and inform me about it if I if I
just go after her right now, what I've taught her
is the rules are arbitrary, the standards are arbitrary, and
all that matters is my authority because I have the
ability to impose it. Why sure as hell don't want

(23:53):
to raise kids that do whatever authority figures tell them to,
regardless of what is right and wrong. Exactly so in
this moment, if I say you're right, I'm wrong and
I need to go correct this. I've told her that
the rules are not arbitrary because they also apply to me.
And I've also hopefully encouraged her to continue to display
courage in challenging authority respectfully.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
When it needs to be challenged.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
And I think those two things right there, really listening,
when when you're when all of your children, but specifically
talking about daughters, really listening and being willing to go
on kind of the journey to figure out what's bugging
MM why. And the second part is them understanding that
you also believe that the same rules and standards that
apply for them and for your son and the whole
deal also apply for you with respect to you know,

(24:38):
standards of morality and conduct.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
How in the hell did two combat veterans infantry guys
start talking about like, you know, the yeah, the philosophy
phrasing kids. I don't know how he got on this.
And I intended to come here to talk about, you know,
combat and stuff, but I'm so fascinated by all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
I mean, let me ask you a question.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Then, how important is it to say I'm sorry to
your children when you get it wrong?

Speaker 1 (25:14):
I think so.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
I think it's very important. I also think it's important
to acknowledge being wrong, because it's one thing to be sorry,
it's another thing to acknowledge that I was Yeah, I
was wrong on that.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
I was wrong on that.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Now again, I can't I can't stress this enough. It's
still important, but that that there has to be a
level of respect maintained. Like I see this stuff in
like you know, TV shows or whatnot where kids are
just yelling at their parents, and like I'll look over
and my kids and be like, what would happen if
you did that?

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Like, oh gosh, we destroyed, we destroyed.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
And there was there was an interesting study that was conducted.
I can't remember, I can't remember what where, what what
university did it, But they let they let kids out
to play right from like a recess or something like that.
When there was no fence. The kids all huddled together
and they didn't stray too far right. They they kind
of stayed closer together. When they went out to plant

(26:14):
an area where there was a fence, they expanded out
and they explored more. And it goes to show that
the kids are actually looking for boundaries and they want
to know that they're good boundaries and they're not arbitrary.
They're there for a reason, and they're there for their
protection because someone loves them and is caring for them.
And as the guardians of those boundaries, we are owed
a level of respect. But if you want your kids

(26:38):
to understand that the reason why the boundary exists is
not because I, as the dictator of the family, decided
that they exist, but they exist because they're true and
they're good and they're noble.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Well, then if there's a situation where you.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Violate the boundaries and they respectfully call you on it,
I think it's imporant to be like you're right, I'm wrong,
I'm sorry, I won't do that again, or or you
know you were correct, because again, I don't want my kids.
I don't want my kids to be like blind lemmings
following whatever, because there's the problem. When your kids leave

(27:10):
their house, you're not the primary authority figure anymore. Exactly,
it's the college professor, it's the boss, it's whoever else
it is. And if they haven't left your house convinced
that there's such a thing as right and wrong and
these are the standards, then it's whatever the next authority
figure tells them. And I guarantee that next authority figure
isn't going to care about them.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
As much as you do.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
God, Nick, I mean, so you've clearly thought a lot
about being a father, and I suppose, and I don't suppose,
I know goes hand in hand with being a good
husband and working on your relationship, and I'm sure you've
given a fair amount of.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Thought to that. But where does this.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Come from in you? I mean, because you told me
early that you came from a divorced home. And you know,
I my parents stayed together, uh and I had my
parents were amazing. I love them to this day. They
stayed together. But obviously I went through a divorce. Wasn't
in the cards for me, wasn't anything that I planned for.
People who are watch and subscribe to my show know

(28:18):
that I had the Oj Simpson trial of divorce trials,
so like people people know, but it's somewhere along the way,
did you make a choice?

Speaker 1 (28:29):
I mean, Nick, were you? Did you make a choice?

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Like, I don't want this life for my kids, and
I'm going to focus on what it means to be
a good husband and a good father.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
I think so Again, my parents got divorce, remarried, and
my mom got married again, then got divorced again while
I was at home, and then my dad got separated again.
And then excuse me, Tina's parents got divorced and remarried.
So both of us kind of came from this kind
of tumultuous environment where we still had we still had

(29:02):
like effective parents, right, but it certainly wasn't in the
ideal situation.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Did they get along? I mean, were they? Were they
cordial one another? Yeah? They were?

Speaker 2 (29:11):
I Mean the greatest gift that my mom and dad
gave to me after they got divorced was not using
me or my brother as ponds and battles between.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Them my mom.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
My mom actively worked to make sure that we had
a good relationship with our father. Our father actively worked
to make sure that we loved and respected our mother,
and and that was that was crucial, right, that was crucial.
The other so I think both of our experience, my
wife's and I experience with both like like, we're not
doing this. The other thing too, is like our faith
is very, very important to us. This is not something

(29:44):
that you know, we just you know, it's not cultural
Christianity in the sense that Okay, well yeah, hey we're
predominantly Christian, so we are too.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
It's like, no, it meant something to us.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
And when we when we first sat down when we
were dating, because we got married, we got married at
night teen and twenty. We sat down, I remember when
we were dating and and just started talking about what
our expectations were for marriage, like what were her expectations
of me? What were my expectations of her? And so
when we found ourselves you know, married, I mean there

(30:16):
was totally you know, ups and downs and fights and
disagreements and the whole deal. But we we did have
a baseline on what our what our standards were, and
we had a baseline of conduct for how we interacted
with each other, and there was there was certain rules
that that really helped us out with that. And then
one of the things that really struck me was this
idea that my kids are first learning My kids first

(30:42):
introduction to marriage is going to be my wife's and
I are interaction. So my son is learning how to
treat and interact with his wife, my daughter is learning
what her expectations are for a healthy relationship. And and
so that that caused me to start thinking about these
these questions and whatnot and then just just recognize it.

(31:06):
I mean, the role we play as men in society
right now is totally under attack. The role we play
as man, the role we play as husbands, the role
we play as fathers. And if there's anything if there's
any message I would give to any young man out there,
a man in general out there, is take what culture
is throwing at you right now and just trashment.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
It absolute garbage. We are made.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
We are made designed to be strong, to be confident,
to be competent, to be capable. We are designed to provide,
We are designed to protect, and you are going to
find an enormous sense of meaning and purpose and fulfilling
those roles. Regardless of what the latest trend out of
cal Berkeley is like. I couldn't care less what popular

(31:50):
culture tells me about what my responsibilities are as a man.
I'd much rather go to scripture and to thousands of
years of human history that has demonstrated that when men
step into our roles and we assume them, and we
operate in them with honor and integrity and nobility, and
yet to a certain degree a certain element of tenderness

(32:13):
toward our wife and toward our children, that is the
building block of everything else you want to solve most
of the problems going on in this country right now.
It's not going to be an election cycle. It is
going to be strong men once again reassuming and taking
pride in the position that they have as husbands and fathers.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
I totally agree and to your point about the role
of what it means to be a man under assault
in this country. I mean the data backs it up too,
if you look at even the Census Bureau from twenty nineteen. Again,
having gone through a contentious custody fight and a divorce myself,
which by the way, my kids didn't ask for that

(32:50):
they don't deserve to be in the middle of that
hated that for them. It's something like eighty percent of
divorces or custody fights end up with the mother getting
primary custom eighty percent eighty percent.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
And that's that's empirical data.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
You know, if you trust the data from this the
US government in this day and age, I don't know.
But but my point is, is it even even in
the family court system, which has the mission of best
interests of the child's first and foremost, I mean, clearly
the best answer of the child or having a loving
mother and father involved in their lives as much as

(33:28):
humanly possible, But rarely is that ever the case. And
of course you know, I'm speaking from a deeply personal
experience at least with me and my family. But kids
in homes without a permanent father presence across the board
do consistently worse in almost every aspect of society.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Without the structure of a father, they.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Leave the home, they're more they're they're not as likely
to graduate from college, They're more likely to be depressed,
They're more likely to smoke and drink heavily, they're more
likely to do drugs. The suicide rate for children without
a permanent father presence or male presence there. And look,
I'm not, I'm not. This is nothing against mothers. I

(34:13):
guess what I'm building to is that so much of
this anti narrative, this anti male narrative, has come from
you know, this movement that that women don't need men.
You know that that men are successful at the expense
of women, and vice versa, and and and this, this,

(34:34):
this discourse pits men against women in a way that
I just don't think is healthy. Because faith is very
important to me too, and I happen to believe that
we're creating in God's image to lift one another up.
Like what I need from my wife, I need it's
truly in need. I don't have it, and she brings
that into our relationship and elevates me as a man.
She makes me a better person, and I need it.

(34:56):
And I'm I suppose I'm reminded of all this nick
because it's somehow I came across a view segment where
they were saying, like these ladies were saying how they
didn't need men, you know, like, and I just thought
to myself, well, what a cavalier statement Number one, Because
I do need my wife? Like I told you, she
makes me a better person in every way, and I'd

(35:17):
like to think that I make her a better person,
you know.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
But how do you talk about this with your daughters?

Speaker 3 (35:27):
Because I've got you know, most of the time in
my house, I'm surrounded by women. Even all my pets
are women for God's sake, So like want I want
my daughters. I mean, my wife is a freaking warrior.
If she were alive during Viking times, she would be
a shield maiden. I mean, she's strong and she's fierce,
and I want that. I want that for my daughters

(35:49):
as well. But in this environment which you alluded to,
where it's almost as like women or men are getting
successful at the expense of women, which I don't believe
eve is the case, how do you do that without
How do you create a strong, fierce, independent woman at
the expense of men?

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Does that make sense? Yeah? I think that.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
I think it's about recognizing the proper again, the proper
roles that we all play within society. And it's a
lot easier for me when you have a biblical worldview
because I'm not operating enough of my authority. This isn't hey,
I conducted some research in a study, and now this
is the ideal. It's like, no, we have we have
what I believe is a divinely inspired guide that's provided

(36:32):
some good and oh, by the way, we do have
thousands of years of human history that when it's properly applied,
it seems to work really well for both parties.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
But yeah, because because to your point.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
I mean, here's the more controversial way to say this, right,
I don't understand the fourth wave feminist movement, which continually
says that that women are you know, and empowered and
can do anything and you know, wonderful, but we can't
actually define them. And oh, by the way, they've been
living under the heel of a patriot archy for all
of human civilization.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
So let me get this straight.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
If you've been living under a patriarchy for all of
human civilization, but now you're empowered at all, how did
you manage to do that? If you still believe you're
living in a patriarchy, It's because there was a lot
of men that don't want you to fail, that don't
want you to be in a bad position. It's not
because women are capable of achieving things on their own.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Steam.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
It's because it turns out that when men and women
live in a situation that is cooperative instead of competitive,
we both do better. But this fantasy land where you
know you have a very I think a smaller subset
of women that want to believe that, well, we don't
need men for anything, Well, that's really convenient as you're
sitting in a building that was probably made by men,

(37:42):
with a police force that is predominantly composed of men,
with the military protecting that's probably composed of men, with
roads that were probably built by men, driving a car
that was probably manufacturing and built by a guy. Is
this all because women can't do a lot of these things? No,
and some women do, but the vast majority don't. They
choose to do other things within society. Almost every teacher
I had was a woman, right It Like almost every

(38:05):
nurse I've ever had was a woman.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
And and so I look at there, it's like.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
It has only been, it has only been lately that
we we've tried to completely upend everything. And here's what
I find the most confusing about modern feminism is that
if a woman fully empowered with every legal right that
she currently has within the United States, which is more
legal rights than anywhere else in the world. Chooses to
be a wife and a mother, chooses to be someone

(38:32):
that manages the home, maybe educates the kid, maybe homeschools
the kids and stuff like that, and man like truly
manages that that house, the maintenance, the upkeep, the whole deal.
Like in our family, that means like we got you know,
gardens and animals and the whole deal. Like there's there's
a lot of work. Yeah, how were they treated by feminists?
Are they treated by feminists as oh? Yeah, they're not

(38:54):
treated like, oh wow, you know what, I'm so glad
that you found a place that makes you happy, that
gives you fulfillment and purpose, and that you're doing it
and you're doing an excellent job of it. That's never
the stand know, the standard is, why aren't you doing
something that a man would have done thirty years ago?
Why aren't you doing that? Why aren't you doing a
man's How is it that fourth wave feminism has adopted
this philosophy that a woman is only fully living up

(39:17):
to her potential if she's doing something that feminists perceive
as in having been male dominated previously. But that's the
only thing they give any grace to And I don't
get that. I take that back. I do get that
because I do believe that modern feminism is very hostile
toward the traditional concept of marriage or the nuclear family.

(39:38):
And it makes sense because feminism as a political movement
needs lonely, single, angry activist women. That's the foot soldiers
of their political power, and so they don't have. It's
not like they have a great incentive to create an
environment where like, okay, women, you have all kinds of

(39:58):
opportunities now, and then they choose to be Hey, I
want to I want to raise my kids, and I
want to do X, Y and Z. No, no, no, no,
we need you over here. We need you, We need
you angry, alone and mad at men, because that's how
we organize political power.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
So again, suffragette feminists totally get it right. We want
equal protection for the law. We want to be able to
please spend in the political process. We don't want opportunities
to be arbitrarily denied to us because we're women, totally
on board, totally get it modern feminism, that is not
the goal. In fact, modern modern feminists despise a homemaker,

(40:32):
conservative woman far more than they do a man who
then decides that they're going to present themselves as a.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Woman and then win swimming races.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
I know. So it's the if so many of their
world view, like much of their world view is just contradictory,
and it's like you don't get to have these things
both ways. Yet like rarely are they called out because

(41:05):
you know, frankly, you're not even allowed to say some
of this stuff anymore. I mean, you know, without being
looked down upon. I mean, like, you know, I'm sure
there'll be some people in my comments talking about how
we're misogynists and stuff like that, which.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Is just yeah, I suppose you. I suppose you're right
about that.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
I mean, I mean, do you so, how confident are
you that your children are going to leave the home
and when they are exposed to these other influential figures
in their life, college professor's bosses, whatever, How confident are
you that they're going to, you know, have this world
view that continues to be like a similar as yours,

(41:47):
Because frankly, Nick, it is I'm amazed. I mean, not
that I didn't think that you are capable of this
level of depth of thinking.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Don't take it like that I just mean like it's
it's like showed up, thought I was gonna be eating
crayons over here.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Maybe a little bit, I mean because the red one
only because only because I ate them prior to the show.
But I just, you know, I guess very rarely do
I meet someone who is in you know, infantry, special
forces type guy who is in the same place in
his life raising kids, fully committed to the process, trying
to figure it out, trying to take all of these

(42:24):
experiences in the military, which looking back are some of
the best most formative years of my life, just in
terms of developing me as a young man and as
a leader and as a soldier, and then trying to
figure out how you take all of that wisdom and
apply it to being a father and a good husband.
It's just a it's a NonStop, twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week thing for me. And you've clearly

(42:44):
spent so much time on this and you and like
when you have a bib from the biblical worldview of
the nuclear family to standards that everyone in your family
seems to clearly understand. So you've got this structure and
rules that people get. How confident are you that when

(43:06):
your kids leave the nest, that they're going to have
that same or at least similar worldview.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
So I would say I'm confident, but I'm not arrogant
about it, right, So I'm confident in the sense that
I think we continue to do I think we continue
to work through the process to make sure that they
feel they feel adequately equipped. So, to give you an idea,
both of both of my daughters love theater, so they

(43:33):
do plays, and my oldest daughter has been doing place
for gosh like seven years now. So as you can imagine,
the theater world is clearly known as being a bastion
of conservative thoughts.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
She regularly finds herself because of the work that she does,
Because of the work that she does within the theater
and whatnot, she constantly finds herself in a situation where
she's interacting with people that have a worldview that, in
many cases diametrically opposed to hers. And when she first
started doing this and whatnot, we would come home and
like we'd.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Talk about her.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
She would she would go through things and talk with it,
talk about it with me. Now, again, we homeschooled. Now,
a lot of people think that if you homeschool. That
means you don't expose your kids to anything outside of
the you know, the four walls of your house. That's
that couldn't be further from the truth.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
But what it didn't.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Mean is that we were already seen as her educators,
so she it wasn't confusing at all to come out
and ask us questions about philosophy or theology or history
or anything like that. And we we included them in
conversations when we have debates. In fact, whenever i'd hear
one of my kids, especially when they were younger, whenever
I would hear them regurgitate something that they had heard

(44:43):
me say about politics, or I'd immediately challenge them on it,
like why do you think that? Well, you know because no, no, no,
why do you think that? Well, I heard you say it.
That doesn't that okay? You know why I think it?
Why do you think it? That's what I want to know,
because that's what you're going to get asked, because again,
I don't want to train them to just regurgitate the

(45:04):
things that I think a lot of times that what
is very easy to slip into it as a parent
is that rather than teaching them critical thinking, and a
comprehensive and you know, intellectually sustainable worldview. What we actually
do is we teach them an incentive structure. So at
the top of that incentive structure is the authority figure
us and these are the things you do that make

(45:25):
us happy, and these are the things that you do
that make us mad. If you do the happy things,
you get rewarded. You don't got to understand why you're
doing the happy things. The only reason what you have
to understand is I get rewarded if I do the
things that you know makes them happy. Well again, you
go off to college and now all of a sudden,
not only has the authority figure changed, but the incentive
structure has changed. So it was really important for us

(45:45):
for our kids to understand that we believe this because
it's true. Here's the reasons why we think it's true.
Here's the reasons why we think that if you follow
the truth, it will actually provide benefits to you and
your life, with respect to your relationships, with respect to
your job, with respect to you know, whatever else you
do in life, and just basic interaction with people. And
then we challenged it. We have those moments where we

(46:06):
went back and forth, and we didn't protect them from
going into an environments where they would be challenged. And
what they ended up doing is they ended up developing
this process where they would interact and they would they
would defend what they believe to people, and they would
find different ways to do it to be more effective,
and then they would come home and talk about it
with us because it was exciting.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
We got in this conversation at theater and we talked
about X, Y and Z, and everybody was saying this,
and you know, instead of instead of responding right away,
I said, we know, I think that's interesting, but what
do you think about this? And I got them to
look at it from a different perspective. And then I
found out that three other people actually agreed with me.
So they got excited about that because they they experience,
like in the military at confidence targets. Right when you're

(46:46):
when you're training up and you're operating with with your
Iraqis or your Afghan Afghanians or whatever it is, and
you've got like a unit that isn't well trained, you
don't immediately throw them at a complex multi story hostage
rescue target. Right you go, You go with the recon right,
like you do something cheesy that they can accomplish, get
some success, and then start to feel and then they

(47:07):
want to learn more, and then they're excited about this process.
And so thus far I can say that, you know, again,
my oldest daughter's twenty. She's been in a lot of
environments where her worldview was challenged on a regular basis,
and it doesn't FaZe her. In fact, what she found
was that a lot of her most like what you

(47:27):
might consider like very woke, very liberal progressive friends, she
was the one they all came to when they wanted
sound advice. Interesting, when when they just wanted to hear
you go girls, slay queen the whole they can they
can go to anybody for that, the queen.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
My daughter, My daughter just said that two hours ago.
I was like, slay slay queen. This is how I
know you've got guess how you know you've got girls?
You got girls. But when they.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Wanted somebody who they know cared about them, because she
was always very very good making sure people knew that
she cared about them.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
This is this is a tougher part for me, right, because.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
We're more kicked down the door, flash banging the room,
and I'll show you how much I care, you know,
three round verse. But yeah, she got very good at
understanding the environment that she was in was heavily emotional,
you know, by the nature of the environment, and so
rather than just try to crush people with her ability
to argue, she really focused on making sure people understood

(48:27):
that she cared about them and that she wanted the
best for them. And then when she gave advice, it
was based off of what she generally thought was the
best advice for them, not whatever popular culture was telling
her reinforcing. And so she created this established relationship with
her friends where she was the go to person if
they wanted the hard truth, and once she had worked

(48:47):
herself into that role, it was she was providing value
to other people and it was appreciated. Not to mention
the fact that she also feels, you know, she doesn't
have mom and Dad's faith, she has hers, right, that's
her relationship with God.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
We we might have we might have.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Showed her the you know, that path, but she had
Ultimately they have to choose it, just like your son.
Ultimately we prepare them for manhood, they choose whether or
not they're going to enter it.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
I mean, so, how concerned are you about the redefining
of words? Because when you're talking about truth, you know,
we base things in truth, A part of me feels
like that word has lost all meaning. And frankly, again,
I think that's I think that's deliberate to erode people's

(49:38):
sense of north south, like what's crazy and what's not?
You know, And because because everything in this world feels
completely upside down, you know, when you can't if you
can't even define what what a woman is like, we've
got it.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
We've got real problems. And so how afraid are you
of that? How afraid? Because I mean that is what
you know.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Not to make this super political, but the left, they
are experts at taking words and deconstructing them and giving
them new meaning.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
We just did a two hour podcast on postmodernism and deconstructionism.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
So we talked about postmodernism in grad school, and I
was the only conserve. I was in a PhD program,
but I was the only conservative in all four years
of the program. And these people were obsessed with postmodernism
and not even realizing how just dangerous it is if
that's the only world view that through which you see
the world yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Well, because postmodernism though, the way I describe it as
it's like a universal solvent, where do you keep it?
Postmodernism doesn't build anything. It just critiques what already exists. Well,
if your only role in life is to critique that
which exists against some sort of utopian reality that will
never exist, your job's pretty easy. You just can't build

(50:53):
anything from that. The dumbest thing. Sorry, and this sounds
very just kind of flipping and pejorative, but the way
I feel about it, let.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Me start with this.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
The thing that deconstructionism and postmodernism got right was that
we should challenge accepted narratives. Right, And if you're questioning
that at all, think of about how you felt as
a conservative when the government decided to come in and
close down your business and tell you to wear things
and tell you to do things and everything else because
they were the science. That is a narrative you should challenge.

(51:27):
That is a narrative that you should attempt to deconstruct
in order to determine whether or not the people that
fostered that narrative have your best interest in mind, have
done the accurate research, and have made it logically an
intellectually consistent argument, or if they're potentially excuse me, they're
potentially motivated by other things, right, perfectly fine, nothing wrong
with that. Where postmodernism like totally fails is that, rather

(51:49):
than just issue like strong critiques based off of a
little bit of reasonable skepticism, they then move on to
this idea that there is no such thing as objective truth. Okay,
is that true?

Speaker 1 (52:00):
Like?

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Really, this is the part that I I this is
the part where when you look at postmodernism as an
intellectual exercise, it is rank absurdity.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
There's no such thing as truth. Okay?

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Is it true that there's no such thing as truth?

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yes, okay, I guess there is such a thing as truth.
Wait wait no, I mean no.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Oh, so what you just said was wrong and I
don't got to believe it. I don't know. Is it
true that you don't know? This is so easy to
dismantle because it's based off of a fundamental premise that
is self defeating. It doesn't make sense on its face,
and nobody, By the way, the most dedicated postmodernist on
the planet never lived a single day in their life

(52:39):
actually believing in postmodernism, because they still got up in
the morning. They still went out to their car. They
still turned the key, fully expecting, fully expecting that if
they walked the way they did yesterday, if they turned
the key the way they did yesterday, if they drove
the same route, the building would still be there. They
would go in and the people they still work. In fact,
the same jackasses actually wrote down on paper that I

(53:02):
love this.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
This is a Jacques derrative thing.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
They wrote down this idea that language has no meaning
outside of itself, and that the written word is nothing
more than an attempt for the author to impose their
worldview on you. So you should be very careful of it. Really, Jacques,
does that apply to the thing you just wrote or
is that everybody else?

Speaker 3 (53:23):
Yeah, Dridian philosophy is it's again, it's a worldview that
is wholly inconsistent with actually living in the world and
having real life existential experiences.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
I here's what I.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
Couldn't like what I was living through COVID, where they
locked down close small business, loved ones have to die alone.
I'm sorry you can't hold your newborn baby because you
know lockdown. In questioning narratives, the very people who were
pushing the trust the science narrative were likely the grad
students that were the postmodernists.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
So wrap your mind around that one.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Well, that's it, And I think to your point, it's
because it isn't about coming up with a coherent set
of values or even intellectual convictions which you can live by.
It is about the quest for power, right, postmodernism. Postmodernism
is not used to build anything. Postmodernism is a weapon.
It is a tool of aggression against every other competing

(54:20):
worldview out there, because all it is is this form
of like rank skepticism, which says, I'm going to deconstruct
everything you say because I have a right to say
that you're an oppressor and this is an oppressed and
therefore you using logic, reasons, science or any of those
other things in order to try to come to a
rational conclusion is just you using a tool of the
patriarch or to oppress people.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Now, now here's what I fsk.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
It's so unbelievably insulting and intellectually lazy. It just is
so frustrating.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
But it provides one major value proposition of the people
that apply it. It absolves them of responsibility to either come
up with something better or to actually do a on
historical comparative comparison between the different systems that were actually
supposed to be analyzing. Right, if all I have to
do is sit here and lob over, you know, bombs

(55:11):
at you, but I don't have to actually provide any
sort of insight into how things should be run, well
that's a great position to have. I mean, you're just this,
You're just the skeptic, that's all you are. You're the
you know, you're sitting on the skeptic. You're not responsible
for anything providence. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's easy to be.

(55:32):
It's easy to be the.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Critic or the skeptic without providing any real recommendations how
to build anything in the first place.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
You know well, and and also and.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
Also it doesn't in reality, but theoretically, if if you're
living in a relatively safe, prosperous and secure times like
most Americans are, most Americans are. Well, now you've just
been told that all of the rules that that governs
society with respect to what is a man?

Speaker 1 (55:57):
What does a woman? Do? We have actual roles in societ.
What is truth? What is good? What is bad?

Speaker 2 (56:02):
What are behaviors which are positive and healthy and which
ones are hedonistic and destructive. You don't get to listen
to any of that anymore. You can just you can
be as hedonistic as you want to be. You can
go out there and do whatever you want, experiment with
whatever you want. And anybody that has the audacity to
suggest to you, hey, that might not be a good idea, well,

(56:22):
now not only are they wrong, they're upholding tools of
the patriarchy. And and so it provides this this moral
clearance to do a whole bunch of things and to
recommend things that are absolutely self destructive. And the moment
the self destructive activity leads to bad results, they get
to blame everybody but themselves. That can be really real icing.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
It's it's enticing. I just I do think that it's
it's also extraordinarily dangerous in a functioning society because it
lacks Postmodernists also lack a very real sense of moral clarity.
And I had my first experience of this when I
came back from Afghanistan Nick where I was like talking

(57:06):
about the what they do to children in that country
and how they live and how barbaric they are, and
I'm like, our life is better like Western society, and
what we've built here is better than what they have there,
like women have no rights. And to the postmodernists, who
I was debating in grad school at the time, it's
like no, no, no, no, no no. Now that their

(57:28):
culture is just different, they believe different things than you.
You know, it's just this whole concept of moral relativism
erodes people's ability, especially impressionable children. You know, because we've
been talking about raising kids, especially impressiable children, about what
is good and what is evil. And I am not

(57:49):
afraid to tell my children that, hey, the American way
of life, our way of life, while not perfect, and
we are constantly trying to get better and refine our
society and be better. What are the most other places?
But the postmodernists can't do that. They can't do that
because everything is relative.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Yeah, yeah, well it's all relative until they don't want
it to be. That's that's the thing, right, every really
is like everything's relative, except of postmodernism. That's that's objectively true.
But exactly I find it. I find it interesting that
every every argument I have ever had with a postmodernist,
they will especially when they actually start to talk about
how we should organize society, because that's always problematic for

(58:29):
them the moment they start, the moment they start to create.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
Their own meta narrative.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Well, then now all of a sudden they have a
problem because they're not supposed to believe in meta narratives.
But what I have found is that they they love logic, science, facts,
and reason provided they think they have enough of it
to support their argument, and so they will rely on
all of those things in order to try to convince
you of a particular course of action. The moment you

(58:56):
counter that with superior evidence, logic, reason, argumentation, then they
go back to being postmodernists again, right, because everybody wants
to use the tools as long as they think they're
in their favor. It's just they have this backup called
postmodernism where the moment all of a sudden their arguments
fall flat, they just get to accuse you of being
part of the oppressor cloud. Of course you would say

(59:17):
that you're a white heterosexual male. What does that have
to do with the marginal tax rate? Well, you know,
if I have to explain it to you, then you know,
and the date. The real danger in that, the real
danger in that long term is that if we can't
agree to live if we can't agree to live in
peace with one another, which is to say, I'm not
going to try to impose my will on you, you don't

(59:38):
try to impose your will on me, and we will
leave the government limited to handle just very very few
things that it needs to do.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
We're not going to make it expansive. But insofar as
we do need to decide.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
What the government is going to do, there needs to
be a process that both both parties feel comfortable in
being able to review evidence, review data, and then come
to logical conclusions about courses of action and then analyzing
those courses of action in order to determine whether they
achieve the desired outcomes. Postmodernism doesn't allow for that. So
all we're left with with postmodernism. And this is going

(01:00:11):
to sound a lot like critical theory and critical race
theory and queer theory because it's all connected, it's all interconnected.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Well then what have you left me with?

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
Well, you've left me with your lived experience is supposed
to trump any sort of evidence I bring. And if
I bring anything, or if I try to, if I
try to find common ground where we can potentially come,
I'm acting like an oppressor.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
What you've just told.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Me is that there is no means for you and
I to adjudicate differences or problems, and that there's no
means where we can just leave each other alone. You
want me to do certain things, you want me to
hand over certain rights, You want to be able to
confiscate things that belong to me, and if I don't comply,
you're going to come at me with a whole lot

(01:00:55):
of force and coercion. And because we have no peaceful
means for adjudicating this, then me surrendering. What does that
leave me at? Because I'll tell you this much, I'm
not surrendering.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
And that's the real problem with with this philosophy that
has just captured so many, so many people, is that
for all their talk of of you know, tolerance and
acceptance and diversity, what it really leads to, inevitably is
violence as the only, the only final way to adjudicate problems.
And I don't want that to take you. This is

(01:01:27):
the thing so many other people talk about this very cavalierly.
You and I have been to war, We've seen what
it looks like. We don't want it in our neighborhoods.
But by the same token, don't think for a second
we're going to roll over and allow this philosophy to
to predominate and take over and destroy what I agree
with you has been the best demonstration of human history

(01:01:48):
of what a peaceful, prosperous and free society can actually
look like.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Mm hmm, man, Nick, I've had you for over an hour,
and I don't want to go. I'm in a respect
your time, but I would love to have you back
to actually talk about your military service, if that's okay
with you. I know, I know that you're like very
I know you're very, very busy. I mean, but I
went to grad school and we part of like in
a PhD. And we studied a lot of existential phenomenology

(01:02:16):
and all of these philosophers, and I could never get
on board with their worldview, not most of them, anyway,
And I just always thought it was a little bit
crazy because they all lacked a distinct sense of structure, logic, reasoning,
moral clarity, and at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Of the day prioritize self over everything else.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
And what I've learned in my life is that you
know the pathway to a meaningful life is through service
and acts of kindness to others, and that path, this
is probably simplistic, but the path, the road to unhappiness
is paved with entitlement, thinking like the world somehow owes
you something that you were here to take from other people.

(01:02:56):
And I just fundamentally disagree with that. And I think
so much of our culture when you talked about, you know,
so much of our culture just discarding it. I completely agree,
and I think for me anyway, the reason for that
is is to focus on.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Me, me, me, me, and.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
I loathe that and I don't want my kids to
to believe.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
In that trash either.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
So I I can't believe that our conversation went this way,
but I'm glad it did.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
I'm glad it did because I.

Speaker 3 (01:03:26):
Can guarantee you that there are lots of dads out there,
some of whom are combat veterans, some of whom are
police officers, firefighters, whatever, or just dads just trying to
be better dads trying to figure this out that they're
going to get something from this conversation. So Nick, thank you.
I'm really pleasure. It's great to see again. Okay, everybody

(01:03:46):
that's a rap with Nick fredis amazing show, amazing guy.
I had no idea we were going to go down
that path about talking about raising kids and what it's
like to be, you know, combat veterans and raising daughters.
It's really a strange thing taking those leadership lessons that
you learn on the battlefield and being a noncommissioned officer

(01:04:06):
an officer, and then applying them to being a father
and a family with small children, boys or girls. As challengings.
I think for it's for fathers. It's all the more
challenging when you're raising daughters because you want to make
sure that you're there for them, that you're listening, that
you're doing all the things necessary to set them up
for success in life. So unexpected path we went down,

(01:04:28):
but I was glad to have that conversation with Nick.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
As usual.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
If you like the content that you just watched or
you listen to, please make sure that you subscribe to
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I'm also available anywhere you listen to podcasts, so like, subscribe,
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(01:04:53):
helps us with all this algorithm stuff that I don't
quite understand. I'm also rolling out new T shirts on
official Sean Parnell dot com called the Battleground Apparel Company.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
You're looking at one of the shirts never Quit, Never Surrendered.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
That's the mission of this podcast, and ultimately I think
it's it should be our mission in life. But go
grab a T shirt if that's that's what you believe.
And as usual, thank you all for listening to this show,
in this podcast. God bless you all, and God bless
this amazing country that we live in.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Take care