Tucker Carlson recognizes that it's a spiritual battle now
"...what you’re watching is not a political movement. It’s evil."
I should preface this by saying, I am not a regular watcher of Tucker Carlson. I am sure some of you are, you think you know the man very well. I do not, I just occasionally see clips from him, but those clips do usually impress me.
For example, below is a widely shared clip of Carlson speaking at a Heritage Foundation event a few days ago. (Ah, I went to a few of those in undergrad, I did, when our debates were about missile defense, and not about whether women exist.) The embedding seems to be a little wonky here (so let me also link the video just in case), but the transcription which follows starts around the 10:53 mark. Please watch and/or read as you’d like.
Transcription:
It might be time to reassess the terms we use to describe what we’re watching. When I started at Heritage the assumption was - and this is a very Anglo-American assumption - that the debates we’re having are kind of rational debates about the way to get to mutually agreed upon outcomes. So we all want the country to be more prosperous and free, and for people to be less oppressed or whatever. So we’re going to argue about tax rates. And I think higher tax cuts gets us there, I’m a Keynesian, and you disagree, you’re an Austrian, whatever. But the objective is the same. And so we write our papers, and they write their papers, and may the best papers win.
I don’t think that’s what we’re watching now at all. I don’t think we’re watching a debate about how to get to the best outcome. I think that’s completely wrong. And I’ve come to this conclusion… and I should say at the outset that I’m an Episcopalian, so don’t take any theological advice from me, I don’t have any… I grew up in the shallowest faith tradition that’s ever been invented. It’s not even a Christian religion at this point, I say with shame. But, I’m just saying this as an observer of what’s going on, there is no way to assess, say, the transgenderist movement with that mindset. Policy papers don’t account for it, at all. If you have people who are saying, “I have an idea, let’s castrate the next generation, let’s sexually mutilate children,” I’m sorry, that’s not a political debate. What? That has nothing to do with politics. What’s the outcome we’re desiring here? An androgynous population, is that really, are we arguing for that? I don’t think anyone could defend that as a positive outcome.
But the weight of the government and a lot of corporate interests are behind that. Well, what is that? Well, it’s irrational. If you say, well, you know, “I think abortion is always bad”, “well I think it’s sometimes necessary”, well that’s a debate I’m familiar with. But if you’re telling me that abortion is a positive good, what are you saying? Well, you’re arguing for child sacrifice. Obviously. That’s not about, “well, you know, a teen girl gets pregnant, what do we do about that, and victims of rape”, you know, I get it. Of course I understand that, and I have compassion for everyone involved. But when the Treasury secretary stands up and says, “you know what you can do to help the economy? Get an abortion.” Well that’s like an Aztec principle, actually. There’s not a society in history that didn’t practice human sacrifice. Not one, I checked. Even the Scandinavians, I’m ashamed to say. It wasn’t just the Mesoamericans, it was everybody. So that’s what that is. Well what’s the point of child sacrifice? Well there’s no policy goal entwined with that. No, that’s a theological phenomenon.
And that’s kind of the point I’m making. None of this makes sense in conventional political terms. When people, or crowds of people, or the largest crowd of people at all which is the federal government, the largest organization in human history, decide that the goal is to destroy things, destruction for its own sake, hey let’s tear it down, what you’re watching is not a political movement. It’s evil.
So if you want to assess - and I’ll put it in non-specific theological terms, and just say - if you want to know what’s evil and what’s good, what are the characteristics of those? And by the way, I think the Athenians would have agreed with this, this is not just a Christian notion, this is kind of a widely agreed upon understanding of good and evil, what are its products, what do these two conditions produce? Well, good is characterized by… Order. Calmness - tranquility, peace, whatever you want to call it, lack of conflict. Cleanliness - cleanliness is next to godliness, it’s true, it is. And evil is characterized by their opposites - violence, hate, disorder, division, disorganization, and filth. So if you are all-in on the things that produce the latter basket of outcomes, what you’re really advocating for is evil. That’s just true. I’m not calling for a religious war, far from it. I’m merely calling for an acknowledgement of what we’re watching. And I’m certainly not backing the Republican party, I mean, blech, I’m not making a partisan point at all. I’m just noting what’s super obvious.
Like, those of us who are in our mid-50s are caught in the past in the way that we think about this. One side is like “no no, I’ve got this idea, and we’ve got this idea, and let’s have a debate about our ideas” - they don’t want a debate. Those ideas will not produce outcomes that any rational person would want under any circumstances. Those are manifestations of some larger force acting upon us. It’s just so obvious! It’s completely obvious.
And I think… two things. One, we should say that, and stop engaging in these totally fraudulent debates where we are using the terms that we used in 1991 when I started at Heritage, as if maybe I could just win the debate if I marshalled more facts. I’ve tried that, doesn’t work. And two, maybe we should all take just like ten minutes a day to say a prayer about it. I’m serious. Like, why not? And I’m saying that to you not as some kind of evangelist, I’m literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian, the Samaritans of our time. I’m coming to you from the most humble and lowly theological position you can, I’m literally an Episcopalian. And even I have concluded it might be worth taking just ten minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will.
There you go.
You hesitate to say anything after that, lest you detract from his message, but let me just write a couple of quick comments.
One, it did remind me of an article one of you passed along to me two years ago now, Self-correcting, 'negative feedback' systems don't apply when demons are running the world. When leaders (and other people) are taking pleasure in destruction, noticing that their policies are breaking things doesn’t make them stop. They are happy they are breaking things. Breaking things is the goal.1
To give you an example that seems entirely unspiritual but which, I think, is still part of the larger battle, there has been some chatter lately that recently announced changes2 to home loan rates will tend to punish people with average to above-average credit who have saved up a decent chunk of money for a downpayment… in other words, many of the people who behaved most responsibly of all. Well, in demon-world, disincentivizing responsible behavior is not an unfortunate side effect of policy. It’s part of the goal. Evil loves inversion, evil wants to punish the responsible and reward the irresponsible.
Two, to say something obvious to anyone who spends anytime on social media… yeah, they don’t care about your argument. In fact, they don’t even care about their argument. They will happily contradict themselves (“my body my choice!”, “vaccination or the camp for them!”). This is not a movement that cares about reason, rationality, or truth.
And three, I did appreciate the point that, “I’m in my mid-50s, people my age are inclined to think about the world like it’s still the 1990s.” I said this before, but I do think this is why many older Christians, good men and women, sometimes badly analyze and respond to the situation we are now in. What do you mean the CDC is dishonest and untrustworthy? What do you mean the talking box in the room just lies about everything? Trump is despicable, but Biden is a moderate Democrat, it’ll be just like a new Clinton term, that wasn’t so bad! That’s just not our country anymore.
THE END
PS, Spring!
Unrelated, but enjoyable, photo from a walk around the neighborhood yesterday. Good day.
It is also a question whether there is an inherent defect of modern democracies here. So I break stuff, so people leave my state, so increasingly the people left here are those with an irrational fanatic devotion to me and my breaking of stuff. So that’s good for me as a leader, right?
Also, when the president of the US can, by himself, decide upon changes to your next home loan, remind me what form of government we have again? Is that the sort of thing that usually happens in a free-market republic?
Pray we must.
How can this FHA fee change not be considered a tax? If it is a tax, then that can only be levied by Congress. This matter is a perfect example, perhaps THE perfect example, of administrative tyranny.
I'm in my late 50's. I get it. I think those of us that watched the hippies while we were young, get it. Many of the hippies that are still with us, don't. Many are encouraging the movement as are many of their grandchildren. Prayer is key to defeating the enemy.