TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Civilization: Understand Those Upon Whom Your Life Depends
Date: 09/13/24 Length: 01:00:35
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, Happy Warriors and thank you so much for being part of the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi reveal how the world really works. Thank you for helping to promote the show and getting it around. Thank you for subscribing to the podcast, if you've already done that, and if you haven't well, then please do take care of that as soon as you possibly can, and remember that what we talk about on the show is trying to bear in mind that the more that things change, the more we need to depend on those things that never change. And something that never changes. For me is my enthusiasm for puzzles, paradoxes and mysteries, and I'll tell you why it is, because resolving them helps me get better at understanding how the world really works. There was a wonderful British writer called GK Chesterton, and one of the things that he's known for is a wonderful book in which which he called Why I am a Catholic. And in that book, there's a paragraph that I copied out and and kept on my wall. And here it is. I want to read it you in the matter of reforming things as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle, a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case, a certain institutional law, let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, I don't see the use of this. Let's clear it away, to which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer, if you do not see the use of it, I certainly will not let you clear it away. Go away and think, and then when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it. What a terrific point before you banish traditions, before you get away and throw out customs and traditions and and common practices. And before you do that, stop and ask yourself, what purpose did they serve? Why were they put in place in the first place? How did they come about? So that's GK Chesterton, the other part of his writing that I absolutely enjoy so much are his father brown stories.
Daniel Lapin 3:19
Father Brown is a Roman Catholic, a fictional Roman Catholic priest, but he's also a an amateur detective. And GK Chesterton wrote 53 short stories about Father Brown and how he solved mysteries. And I enjoy them because Father Brown understands not just the body but also the soul. He understands not just the physical, but also the spiritual. And so many mysteries about human behavior require us to understand it require us to understand the spiritual side, and that is why, in our book, The Holistic You integrating the 5fs of your life. The 5fs are not just the tangible, physical ones like family and finance and fitness and friendships, but it's also faith, and that doesn't necessarily mean only faith in God, but it is the ability to see and understand things that are not visible, things that are intangible, the spiritual side of life and understanding human motivation, understanding why people make the choices they make and make the decisions they make, one really needs a clear understanding of the spiritual and so what Father Brown through its he. Creator GK Chesterton brings to the table is something that he has that the usual detectives do not. Is this understanding of a spiritual reality which very often drives people's decisions and allows him to get a very good sense of what the criminal is trying to do and ultimately, who the criminal is. And so some of the puzzles that I enjoy thinking about are, for instance, why is it that the same people in general who oppose executing murderers are very much also in favor of abortion rights taking the life of an unborn baby. How do those things go together? What's the motivation? What's going on in somebody's mind.
Daniel Lapin 6:04
And before I go on to give you some of the other mysteries that can really be quite baffling, but which I will resolve during the course of today's podcast, I wanted to tell you about number one, I wanted to tell you about subscribing. And number two, I wanted to encourage you to if you are not yet a member of our Happy Warrior community, I want to encourage you to please become a member of the Happy Warrior community. And in order to express my appreciation to you for joining us, I have started providing a special bonus to the podcast, additional information that is not available to the general public, but which is available to the Happy Warrior community. And lastly, I want to mention that you know, particularly at this time, we're all finding ourselves in discussions, sometimes debates, sometimes even arguments with family members, with friends, with co workers, because the election is coming up very soon. It is now the middle of of September, and it's only it's a matter of weeks, really, until America goes to the polls to elect its new president. So there's a lot of talking, a lot of conversation, and you presumably have some clear thinking on where you stand and what you would like to see in America, and who among the candidates is most likely to move in the right direction and perhaps least likely to do damage, but it's a little hard sometimes to explain why that is to friends, relatives, co workers and so what we have done is we've been put on special sale to make it available to you instantly by you can download it immediately. Is quite a number of resources that provide what I think of as the political perspective. Now you will remember that politics is not something external. It always bothers me when rabbis or pastors say, Oh, I don't talk about politics. Look, politics is the practical application of your most deeply held values. When you say, Oh, I don't talk about politics, what you really saying is, I'm frightened of offending people. I'm going to suppress who I really am, and I'm going to withhold my authentic opinions, because I don't want to offend those with different opinions.
Daniel Lapin 9:17
Politics is real, and so, for instance, we have available on a very special discounted price, the Tower of Power, which is a discussion of the 11th chapter of Genesis, the story of the Tower of Babel. What's it doing there? And how astounding it is to discover that socialism was not invented by Karl Marx. Socialism wasn't even invented by the Jacobins of the French Revolution. No. Socialism is a dark desire, deeply implied. Wanted in the hearts and minds and souls of human beings. God put it there. It's a turn to the dark side, but it is there awaiting the misstep of the perplexed and so the story of the Tower of Power? Yeah, it turns out that the roots of socialism lie right there in the Bible. It's part of understanding human nature. There's something about that in the hearts of everybody, to the extent that government is largely made up of people who have figured out how to live on the sweat of other men's work. That's really what it is. You get to tax other people. You get to vote yourself lavish payments, generous pension plans and unmentionable benefits without limit. It's wonderful. No wonder the size of government has grown. No wonder, no wonder, the proportion of the American population that is employed by government keeps growing and growing and growing. Who would not want a job in government? Whether or not you deliver work doesn't matter. You cannot be fired. It's great. It's a real it's a delight. It's comfortable to live on the work of other people, that desire has been around since the dawn of humanity, and it's explained in the Tower of Power. So when you talk to friends or relatives about the distribution programs of government, when you talk about how covid was a means of taking money from the productive and distributing it to distributing it to the unproductive. When you discover that the whole pharma industry and so much more in government is really there for the purpose of allowing a privileged elite to live on the backs of others. Much of the world of academia is like that. Much of the world of public education is like that. But learning the underlying principles, understanding the realities Behind The Headlines make it far easier for you to speak persuasively when you discuss these matters with friends and relatives. So there they are on the website. Go along to the store. So the website you surely know by now, right? Rabbi, Daniel lapin.com l, a, p, i n, Rabbi. Daniel lapin.com and you will see what's what is up there on sale, special offer, and you'll discover it's things like the Tower of Power. It's things like the America's real war book, and it's things like The Gathering Storm, discovering how sexual concupiscence, sexual weakness and sexual indulgence plays its role in the decline of a great civilization. What that's doing all of that and so all of these things enable you not only to gain clarity as to the fundamental unchangeables In your belief system, but they also enable you to do far better in conversations with others. So some of the perplexing paradoxes in human behavior, and particularly in the decisions and choices people make. They want electric cars because they've been persuaded that somehow electricity just shows up. I really am persuaded that large numbers of people who are ideologically committed to electrical cars actually think that electricity just appears. I am certain that most enthusiasts ideologues of electrical cause have no idea that the majority of the electricity that powers their cause is generated from natural gas and coal, things they call fossil fuels, things that I call. God given fuels. But in spite of all that, these same people who are eager to have everything switched to electricity and to have no god given fuels burned, but they won't allow nuclear power, it makes no sense. Makes absolutely no sense when you when you think about it, you look into it, in the last 75 years, more people have died installing solar panels than have died from nuclear power plant accidents. It's a perfectly safe technology. And as a matter of fact, if you listen to the way that climate ideologues speak about nuclear power and then go back to read, you can do it online. Read what the same people their progenitors said, When coal started becoming a regularly used commodity, you will see, particularly in England, they published all kinds of monographs and articles and letters saying how dangerous coal was and that coal shouldn't be allowed and shouldn't be used, and they sound exactly like today's anti nuclear activists, but it makes no sense if you want electricity without burning God given fuels like coal and natural gas, Well then you must go to nuclear, because you do not have to be a rocket scientist to be able to discover that solar and wind are not doing it and won't do it. There are intrinsic limitations. That's a reality. So I so that's again one, one has to try and understand that that, to me, is a mystery. Okay, they don't want any god given fuels burnt. Okay, fine. They're making an argument for carbon in spite of the fact that more carbon in the atmosphere means things grow better and makes it easier and easier to feed the population, but no nuclear power at all. What's that all about? And again, when we solve this mystery, that will become clear, or how about the sad Swedish sycophant Greta Thunberg, who is devoted to stopping climate change, but oddly enough, in the last few months, she has become equally committed to hating on Israel. Why? What's that about? You know, even if you are somebody who is completely convinced that ease Israel is the most evil country on Earth. But if your primary mission, if what you're known for, and what you raise money for, is to fight climate change, why would you divert your efforts and diffuse your energies jumping to hating on Israel? What's that got to do with one another? And again, this is a perplexing problem, but one which I your rabbi. Yes, I'm able to solve for you. They want women to choose. Women's choice is the most important thing. Women must choose. They mustn't be forced into things, but they get very upset if a woman chooses marriage and family. So what is it? Do you believe in women's choice? Or is it that you only believe in women's choice if women choose the way you want them to choose? What's that all about?
Daniel Lapin 19:14
They insist. They still insist that overpopulation is the problem, when in reality, it's the reverse, as anybody who is willing to have an open enough mind to actually research it will find out for themselves. Okay, so in order to understand all this, we need to know what a culture is and what a civilization is and what is the difference between them. Now I have to confess that there are no absolute definitions about culture and civilization, academics and pseudo academics and philosophers and intellectuals and pseudo. Intellectuals have argued about this for a long time. Look, it's not like the boiling point of water. Boiling Point of point of water is 100 degrees Celsius, and if you rise in altitude, where the lower where the air pressure diminishes, well, the boiling point of water will drop in temperature. These are agreed upon facts, their definitions that everybody understands, or the definition of the power, the extent of the force of gravity, and again, it's defined as the product of mass one and mass two multiplied by a gravitational constant, divided by the distance between the two masses squared. But M 1m 2k divided by, shall we say, s squared. It's a definition. It's clear. There's nobody. Nobody disagrees that's that's clear. But the definition of a civilization is a lot harder to do. Definition of a culture a lot harder. So for me, just me, your rabbi. For me, a culture is any group of people organized in some way, and according to some spiritual schematic, even if it's nothing more than, Hey guys, we're related, let's make a tribe. Okay, that's a culture all the way to the boating culture among the liver boards on dock sea in anacorders Marina in Washington, there's a culture there among among the guys who live on their boats, on their dock. A civilization, however, civilization, I think, is a lot more complex. I think a civilization is a group of people who possess some true knowledge of how the world really works and who have set up systems of cooperation, such as communication and protocols and incentives and laws and so on, in order for the group to overcome the challenges of life in ways beyond what any individual, or, for that matter, any tribe, could possibly do. You probably often hear me quote Joseph Daniel Unwin, a remarkable Oxford University sociologist of the 20th century. And he speaks about how in the world today, there could be as many as 5000 cultures, but there are far fewer civilizations. And to make it clear, the Aztecs and the Zulus and the Vikings and contemporary Somali pirates may be cultures, but they certainly are not civilizations. So why is that? Well, because a civilization has five things going for it, and again, this is not, according to any university sociology department or according to any notable philosophers, this is my working definition of a civilization, and that is that it must have all of the following five things. Number one, a stable system of money and an appreciation of economic enterprise that extends all the way to understanding that making dot making money is not morally reprehensible, that our desire for money, and it's a strong desire, but it's, it's a desire that, in many ways, is is strongest, because it is a desire that, unlike Other appetites we have that are impacted to some extent by how much we indulge. For instance, if you eat a lot, then you want food less than you did while you were hungry. Another bodily appetite works exactly in the reverse, but money is the only appetite that works, regardless of whether we have a lot or a little. You have a little, you still want money. You have got a lot, you still want more money. That's how we are created. Obviously, it is incumbent upon us to place the appropriate controls on all our appetites in. Desires, including money. But it is in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, that we discover that economic enterprise and the use of money and that and the making of money is good and positive because it encourages human interaction, and it is an institutionalized way of us helping one another. All of us get the things we need. So I'll give you the things you need in exchange for money, as long as you'll accept that money back when I need some of the things that you make. And that's an abbreviated explanation of what an economic system is, and it is in the Hebrew Bible that we find hundreds and hundreds of verses devoted to how human beings interact economically that is a very essential part of civilization. If a culture worked on barter and never acquired money. Well, then it's not a civilization. I was right to call it a culture because of the the the role that money plays. As part of that whole idea is understanding that the earth is here for human beings, that we human beings are not interlopers on the earth, and we're not here to protect the Earth at the expense of human beings. Obviously, we can't destroy that's for certain. But using animals for medical research, as long as you minimize the pain inflicted on the animal, absolutely, it's not a question about it. Everything on the planet is here for humans, human beings. We're the only creatures on the planet that make use of an external energy source, right? It's completely different with all animals, their energy derives from what enters their mouths, in some cases, their skin, if they lie in the sun. But human beings are the only creatures that use God given energy like coal and petroleum and nuclear power for the purpose of expanding our ability to survive and live on the earth in order to be able to devote more of our time and attention to understanding the spiritual and getting to Know God. So if a society doesn't have money, it's not a civilization. Number two, another part of civilization is marriage and family. Definition of marriage? Well, it's when a man and a woman establish an exclusive relationship in which they share bank accounts and beds, they it's it's money and sexual and it is exclusive, and they are devoted to one another and to the children that they raise. That is an absolute fundamental requirement of civilization, the one of the reasons I am so fascinated by the work of Joseph Daniel Unwin, and fortunately, he wrote a lot, is because he agrees with me. Well, not with me. He agrees with the source of civilization, the Bible and and in fact that he is, he is very, very explicit about this in in ways that are really quite remarkable. He speaks about the effect of sexual constraints and how those constraints produce
Daniel Lapin 29:00
the civilization or contribute to it. And conversely, he explained so beautiful how increased sexual license and concupiscence always leads to the collapse of a culture. And here's the interesting thing he said, and this, I very much like the way he put it, and that is that it takes three generations, because the first generation is who held to the standards is still around, and so it exerts as a small restraint on their children, on the next generation. But by the time we come to the grandchildren, the third generation, the elder generation, is no longer around. The second generation is without the roots that established the principles practiced by the first generation. And so the third generation is available to run wild and run wild. Does. And the culture or the civilization or the society begins, it's a very serious and very rapid deterioration. So, yes, for a civilization to exist and to prosper and to endure, marriage and family are an essential part. If you see Marriage and Family declining in that society, you should know that you are watching the sad signs of impending extinction. And number three, all right, we've looked at economics. We've looked at marriage. The third requirement of a civilization is a balance between individual and community. So paying taxes is a community is a community requirement. When taxes go too high, then community is taking precedence over individual. If there is a refusal to execute a murderer, it's placing individual over community, because what happens then is they the the murder victim is no longer around, and the only person standing in front of you is the murderer, and he puts on his best Sunday suit, and he puts on a pair of fake glasses to make him look intellectual, and he stands in front of the court, and the court can't bring him, bring itself to give importance to the rights of the community, and all they see are the rights of the individual, and they start looking for excuses. It's his background. It's his poverty, whatever it is. And so execution and capital punishment begins to vanish, and again, a sad sign of extinction, impending expansion of that society. And number four, violence is not a virtue. Now, again, biblical, you know the they are. There are verses and verses and verses in the Hebrew Scripture talking about the punishment to be imposed upon somebody who uses violence and and it's it is seen as a virtue in barbaric groups and barbaric cultures and barbaric societies, very much so it is. And so for a civilization to exist, prosper and endure, there must be an ability to understand that ballots are better than bullets, provided those elections are fair and true. But the idea that violence is okay and that a society loses the ability to punish violence, and again, sad to say, that is a symptom of a society's impending extinction when violence is left unpunished. That is a problem. I must tell you. Most Amazing, this is relevant. Yeah, it is relevant. An amazing conversation. I found myself in the city of Baltimore. And there's a part of Baltimore where the African American population lives in right next to the Jewish population and and, you know, by and large, by and large, pretty much all, okay, there is a measure of crime and and it is not Jewish accountants mugging people by hitting them on their heads with their briefcases. But I found myself in a conversation at a gas station with a black teenager, very intelligent looking guy. He just had intelligent eyes and and as I engaged him in conversation, it turned out to be to be very interesting. And I asked him a number of things. Asked him if you want to ask me anything. And one of the things I said to him is, what most surprises you about the Jews who live right over here? You know, in you know, you live on this block, they live on the next block. What surprises you most? And he, he put his hand up to his head, and sort of, you know, you know that sort of action we sometimes unconsciously make where you are, you rub your forehead or you scratch your hair, sort of in deep thought. Anyway, it didn't take more than a second or two, and he only said, you want to know what surprises me about you Jews? And I said, Yeah. He said, You don't know how to fight. You just don't know how to fight. None of you know how to fight. I. He said, You know, we sometimes end up we have fights with Jewish kids, and he said, they don't know what they're doing. I thought, this is fascinating. I can't say, you know, I wasn't completely proud about it, but I do understand, as the heirs of 1000s of years of Bible based civilized thinking. It is true that Jews have astute violence. It doesn't mean we can't learn how to fight. It doesn't mean that some of us haven't. And you probably have heard me talking about the fact that when our son wanted to take up judo, i i discouraged him. None. This is not what you think. This is not me eschewing violence. On the contrary, I encouraged him to take up boxing, and the reason was that in much of the the judo in that is taught, a lot of it is focused on sort of minimizing contact. And the fact is that if you ever are going to need to fight. You kind of need to know what it's like to take a blow to the face. You kind of need to know the feeling of utter, complete windedness, the idea that you'll never be able to get another breath of air into your body after your hit just above your stomach. And so we and we said to our son, we'd love for you to take up a martial activity, but we would like to recommend boxing rather than judo, and we will get you the best boxing instructor in Seattle, which is near where we were living at the time, and we did. We found Bob Jarvis, and I've spoken about him in the past, but I want to tell you more about Bob Jarvis in the bonus podcast, because Bob Jarvis was minus an arm and a leg, and yet, he was the finest boxing instructor in the entire Pacific Northwest, maybe the West Coast, and we got him to take on our son, and our son learned to box. And yes, it does make a very real difference, but I want to tell you about this, because it's a remarkable story of human indomitability. So in, in the in the in the bonus part of the podcast, which is for all you lovely happy warrior community members, I love you guys and gals and and we've got that waiting for you. It's, it's a great story, but he was our son's boxing instructor, and so, at any rate, yes, the people in Israel, people who came to Israel, they came from, you know, from places in Eastern Europe and places, civilized places. And they were, they were Jews. They didn't know how to fight. They learned pretty quickly, though, didn't they? So that's four, right? I spoke about the economic system. Marriage and Family is number two. Number three, is balancing individual and community. These are the definitions or how you know, if you've got a civilization rather than a than a culture. Number four, violence is not a virtue. And number five, God is higher than government.
Daniel Lapin 38:59
There's got to be something higher than government, or else you have a tyranny. For heaven's sake, we're seeing that. And so if you start off with something, imagine what the US founders tried to do. They tried to make the people higher than the government. They tried to make the idea that it's a government of the people by the people. It's the idea that government works for you, not that you work for government. And that's what they tried to do. And it lasted for a very long time. One of the great, great mayors of New York, and he was LaGuardia, and he it's a famous account, it happened more than once, where he walked into a government office, a city office of the city of which he was mayor in New York, and this was an office that serves the public. And he saw a city of. Employee being less than fully courteous to a member of the public. And in one case, he saw that a city worker was wearing his hat while talking to the member of the public, and he knocked knocked her off the guy's head with his stick because he was so emphatic. You work for these people. Don't you dare act arrogant towards them. Take off your hat and show respect to members of the public. They are your employers. This was Fiorello La Guardia, remarkable. This is how it used to be. And for a long time in the United States of America, there was something higher than government, namely, citizens. But you see that passed away, that vanished, and anybody today who has tried to get the attention of a government worker with very few exceptions. You know, my most recent exception was employees on Amtrak. I took a train. I had a speech in New York, and instead of flying, I took a train. Was very it was, it was surprisingly pleasant. But what struck me was the the the the goodness of the employees, and it makes a huge difference. So,when that goes, when the idea that citizens are over government goes, you got a tyranny, and the only thing that can keep it operating is when God is over government, when the big G of God is more important than the little g of government, when God is seen as the source of real abundance and government has extremely limited functions, as the founders dreamed. Well, then that can work. And so this idea that God is higher than government that worked in America, and it made America the greatest engine of prosperity and freedom that the world has ever seen. Think about it, but using my five measures of civilization suggests, well, it suggests that it started to go downhill, the signs of impending extinction, and the idea that God is higher than government, coupled with number one, the economic Enterprise, makes it clear that science and development and technology are part of God's plans for human development, and that's always been the case. So right now it's building small size nuclear power stations, but that's exactly the same as discovering the wheel and building a wagon to carry firewood to a fire, a fire making of, yeah, that was technology. And you think today no technology is that marvelous little device in your pocket called a cell phone. How amazing that is. And it is amazing when you think that it's not that long ago that there was no radio there was no radio communication. In the middle of the 19th century, we got the telegraph, which means with wires, but the idea that you can speak to someone, not only anywhere on Earth, but even on the moon by means of radio waves. 1850 was not known. 1870 wasn't known. Oh, you know, there was work was being done on it. But Marconi in the last few years of the 20th century, excuse me, the last few years of the 19th century, in the 1890s Marconi is making progress, and with great, great achievement, with lots and lots of hard work, Marconi managed to send a message, a radio message, for a mile and a half, and at that time, one of the greatest Scientific authorities You know how people say, follow the science when it says what they wanted to say. One of the greatest scientific authorities was a scientist in a very decorated scientist in England called lodge Oliver Lodge. He had stated unequivocally that, by its very nature, the longest range that a radio message can possibly go is one and a half miles. And so if Marconi was an ordinary guy, he would have said, Look, Anthony Fauci told I don't mean Anthony Fauci, I mean Oliver Lodge told me that this is what the sign says. And there's no point in me carrying on trying to figure it out. But. Because it's got a limit of an of a mile and a half. Well, it didn't take long before Marconi had pushed it to 10 miles, and then 20, and then the by the time 1912, came along and the Titanic sank. The radio operator on the Titanic was not an employee of the White Star Line. He wasn't on the crew of the Titanic. He was an employer, employee of the Marconi radio system. I'm, I'm 95% sure what I just told you. I'm it's going back in my memory, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct. And so in that short space of time, you know, from 1890 to 1912 radio transmissions across the Atlantic are working. That's technology. And now here we are, you know, a little more than 100 years later. And look what radio is today. This. This is technology. And if you like your cell phone, you should like nuclear power. And if you believe in science, you should remember that the secret of science is replicability and challenging. When Fauci you said this is established science, or when climate propaganda tell you, this is established. Don't you believe it? They are lying for their own purposes, which almost inevitably have to do with attempts to try and live comfortably on the sweat of your brow. Yes, in my view, much of the climate activism is a cash redistribution scheme. It's a way, why? What am I crazy? No, I'm not crazy. It's very real, because in order to make people willing to make sacrifices and to pay higher taxes, they've got to be inspired by a great and noble cause like saving the planet. Now you're talking, you think about, you know, how insane it is that people put up with stupid shower heads that send out a dribble of water. You know, insane it is that people put up with toilets that flush with about three cups of water that you got to flush twice. You know how crazy it is that in many states of the United States, people are willing to go to the market bringing their own bags, because somehow you are saving the planet by allowing the supermarket not to give you a bag to carry your groceries home in. Do you know how crazy it is to spend hundreds of dollars a night for a hotel and not have them change your linen or change the towels, because by not laundering the towel and by having you reuse it. Do you know what it's like taking a shower and drying yourself with a wet towel? But you should do that because it saves the planet, and yes, higher taxes. Sure. Look at what people in California are paying for electricity because it's to save the planet. And a lot of that is sheer tax, because the government needs money to save the planet. Oh, yeah, right, I get it. And so all of these things are present in a civilization. And when you see these five things vanishing, then you know that the civilization is on its way out. And where does all this come from? Like I told you, each of these five things is rooted in Scripture, rooted in the Bible, even the inspired founders of the United States of America who came up with the separation of powers and who'd Where do you think they got that from? Where do you think they got the idea from that
Daniel Lapin 48:51
there's a legislature to create laws, and there's a judiciary to enforce the laws, and there is a president, an executive to be in charge of it all. Where do you think that came from? If you haven't seen this yet, and I hope you already own a copy of our recommended Bible. If not, you know where to go. Rabbi Daniel lapin.com, and get yourself a copy of our recommended Bible while you're there, make sure you are a member of the happy warriors community at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com and you might also want to take a look at the resources that are on sale that will help you frame and persuade in the arguments and discussions we're all having over the next few weeks. Where did the founders get that idea from? Take a look at Isaiah, Book of Isaiah, chapter 33 verse 22 Isaiah, 3322 you're going to be astounded honestly. And by the way, I don't care if you're religious or not, that's not the issue. The issue is to be open minded. And here's what the verse says exactly. I'm translating it from the Hebrew for the Lord is our. Judge. That's the judiciary. The Lord is our law giver. That's the legislature. The Lord is our king, that's the executive. He will save us. In the final analysis, God is over government, but as human beings, we can try and replicate God's three part role. He's our judge, he's our lawgiver, he's our King. Yeah, that's right. As human beings, we should try and replicate that governmental system, and we set up a judiciary and a legislature and an executive, all in Isaiah. 3322 social justice. You know what? Whenever you see the word social in front of the word justice, a prefix like that is a reliable sign of danger. It's like when they took away geography and replaced it with social studies. Why? Because it's easier to teach and harder to judge a teacher by because geography requires facts. Social studies can be whatever the teacher wants it to be. And sure enough, there is no standardization social studies today. Is this today, Omar, when you see the word social, you know in front of study, it's bad, as a matter of fact, when you see studies in academia, it's bad because there's no mathematics studies, there's just mathematics. There's no physics studies, there's no biology studies, it's just biology, but there's gender studies and racial Studies and Social Studies, yeah, bad sign when you've got these additional little words put in there, social justice, no. The Bible says just justice. As soon as you put that prefix social on, it's now undefined. It's loose, it's flexible, and it's a doorway to tyranny, because government can decide that justice is anything that government wants it to be. For instance, on this question I mentioned earlier, capital punishment. People hate that, but they love abortion well, because having abandoned the five principles of civilization, they're not in favor of family, and they are not in favor of the biblical principle that the murderer must be executed. It couldn't be clearer in the Bible, murderer should be executed. And there it is. Since they hate these foundational principles of civilization, they turn it on its head. They are in favor of taking the life of an unborn baby, but they're not in favor of taking the life of a convicted murderer. Yeah, that's that's exactly what happens when you scrap the principles of civilization downhill. It starts going like a big snowball, gathering speed as it goes. How about they love electric cars, but they don't like God given fuels like coal or or, or oil, or, or, pardon me, nuclear or natural gas. But they love that. But no nuclear, absolutely not. Technological development is bad. They really they don't want technological development in the area of energy. Why? Deep down, I'm not saying every anti nuclear activist has sat down and figured this out, but you can figure it out, and that is that is one of the things that makes humans unique, foundational to a secular, anti biblical, anti civilizational worldview, is the idea that We are nothing but sophisticated animals, and deep down, deep down on a level, seeking philosophical consistency, woke activists do not want us to use energy, not nuclear, not coal, not oil, not natural gas, only something that doesn't really exist, wind and solar, which will never do the job and has huge problems associated with it. I'm sorry about the birds that are killed with windmills. I really am. But nobody matters. Doesn't matter because all they want to do is take away the idea of human beings using energy. It's part of what makes us different from animals. And why does that sad Swedish sycophant Greta Thunberg, who should be working on stopping climate change, but she diffuses her energies and deflects her attention to hate on Israel. What's that about? Well, because at its root, this is a war on civilization. That's what it is.
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So and civilization, as I've tried to indicate, seeing these five foundational principles of civilization and how they all flow to human. Vanity from a biblical origin. Yeah, of course, she hates on Israel. Israel stands for civilization and its enemies stand for barbarism, an example of which we saw so clearly nearly a year ago, on October the seventh, 2023 that was barbarism against civilization. And yes, sad Swedish sycophant Greta Thunberg is in favor of barbarism rather than civilization, and you've got to hate Israel, because Israel is living evidence that God and the Bible are real, because there's no other way to explain so much that's going on the climate change ideology. And I use the word ideology or propaganda because it's the right word, right I want you to think about this. When was the last time anybody tried to force you to accept that the Earth is round? When is the last time somebody told you you are a round earth denier? Because the word deniers acquired such negative characteristics from the phrase Holocaust denial? So when was the last time somebody tried to force you to believe that the Earth is round it is, if you want to believe it is. That's great. If you're in that job and you want to believe it isn't good luck to you. Nobody cares. When is the last time anybody tried to force you to accept the gravitational formula? You got it look. You got to believe in it. When was the last time anybody forced you to believe that the gravitational formula is m, 1m, 2k, divided by s squared. I want you to believe that. And if you don't, you're a gravitational denier. No, nobody cares. What do they care about? Climate change, covid. You know what? Evolution? You know why? Because those are all propaganda, not science. They may be, but if you prohibit questioning, then it isn't science. If you are forced to accept it, and your questioning can ruin your career, as it has for so many scientists, then that's not science. And so you just got to realize climate change, yeah, it's not a science. Absolutely not. Yeah, they want women to choose, but they get upset if women choose marriage and family. They insist overpopulation is a problem when it's the reverse. Yeah, exactly because civilization emphasizes marriage and family, it sees that abundance comes from God and the God given human ingenuity that makes things that we run short of no longer relevant, like whale oil or copper, because we don't run copper wires for telephones anymore. And so, yeah, God given, ingenuity takes away shortage. Population isn't the problem. And so if you are opposed to civilization, then you want women to choose career over marriage and child rearing. Sure you do. Why has no politician ever committed himself to what would be the highest ever tax rate come what may? Wouldn't it be nice to hear a politician say, We assure you we will, no matter what happens, we will never raise taxes above 17% of your income, you know, or whatever it
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is going to be, because doing so would be immoral. We'll never do that. You citizens can rest assured, but you know that from the language politicians use when they call a tax cut, giving you back that means they assume that all your money is theirs because you are an animal working for the zookeeper or the farmer. No cows ever said to the farmer, let's discuss how much of our milk you're taking, no everything, and that's deep down what government philosophically believes about tax as well. That's right, so that is really the story of civilization, my dear happy warriors. And I am thrilled and delighted you could be with us the website Rabbi Daniel lapin.com, and make sure you hear the bonus audio, the bonus podcast for Happy Warrior members, which will tell you a whole lot more and and you will be. Really astonished. I will tell you not only about Bob Jarvis, but also about some other individuals who achieve greatness in ways that, if we but know it, are open to each and every one of us. So until our next show, until our next podcast, next week, I am your rabbi wishing you a wonderful week of climbing upwards and onwards in your family and your faith, your finances, your fitness and your friendships. God bless you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
