The Destruction of an Empire and the Salvation of a Nation

What if America is following Rome's exact path to collapse? In this riveting discussion, we unravel the disturbing parallels between the Roman Empire's downfall and America's current trajectory as a global superpower.

The mechanism is startlingly simple—empires function as giant money pumps, extracting wealth from provinces until the system becomes unsustainable. Rome expanded dramatically after the Punic Wars, transforming from a small Italian state into a Mediterranean power. Similarly, America's post-WWII expansion created an imperial system that now shows dangerous signs of exhaustion.

We explore how vassal states and foreign interests infiltrate imperial politics, from ancient Judea's manipulation of Rome to modern lobbying groups shaping Washington policy. This provincial extraction game leaves imperial citizens—ordinary Americans—gradually impoverished while elites fight over diminishing resources.

Most troubling is the bargain citizens unknowingly accept: trading political sovereignty for cheap consumer goods. The Walmart economy provides affordable products while manufacturing capacity disappears and wages stagnate. Meanwhile, the definition of national identity becomes increasingly diluted, much as "Romanitas" lost meaning as Rome expanded.

The pressing question becomes whether saving the American nation requires sacrificing the American empire. A transition would mean dramatically reduced consumption and profound economic upheaval—but could potentially restore republican government and economic sovereignty. Either way, history suggests that once an imperial system begins extracting more from its core than it returns, decline becomes virtually inevitable.

Join us for this thought-provoking journey through history that may just reveal where we're headed next. How do we navigate what seems increasingly like the end of an era?

Chapters

• 1:37 Introduction and Late Start Banter
• 4:17 Rome's Fall and America's Parallel Path
• 17:13 Empire's Extraction Game
• 31:21 The Israel Factor and Imperial Politics
• 47:49 Tariffs and Economic Reality Check
• 1:13:45 Catholic Identity and Church Pressures
• 1:38:31 End Times and Generational Struggles
• 1:50:23 Personal Stories and Family Struggles
• 2:03:01 The Crisis Within Modern Catholicism

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:50

SANTE, sante AMARE MORTI NECRADAS NOS IN TE SPERA VERUS In taste fell of air.

Speaker 2: 1:23

There's something inside you it's hard to explain. I actually don't believe this. There's no way. There's no way that girl pulled that off so good Like she would have crashed. There's no way. That's not real. I don't believe it.

Speaker 3: 1:44

That's where you suspend your belief.

Speaker 2: 1:46

Yeah, that's where my disbelief it just gets cut off. There's no way she handled going up like that. No way, man, you guys are ruthless. It's going up like that no way. Um, man, you guys are ruthless. It's like if we're 30 seconds late, you guys jump down our throats, man uh, some of them were waiting.

Speaker 3: 1:59

Uh, since 1 41 pm, this comment came in.

Speaker 2: 2:03

This can only mean anthony will bring up the fact that pete heg said wants to up the defense budget to a trillion and we'll talk about how we are in the end times until rob loses. It's basically going to be the show. I mean, it's um, basically actually what happened is rob sent me a freaking awesome thread about the roman empire the other day and it's funny because it's not about the roman empire, it's about america, but it's about america?

Speaker 2: 2:28

yeah, but it's. But the way the guy goes through it, he describes how empire um, how the roman empire collapsed and what like, what it was doing towards the end of its days and just how it was overextended. But you really can't help but see the parallels of what we're doing, and rob doesn't like when I go the typological route, but I'm definitely going to. Um, yeah, there'll be quite a bit of eye rolling from rob tonight, guys everyone's wondering where nick is.

Speaker 2: 2:58

Nick is busy with finals so nick's doing finals, but I think also we haven't said it to him yet, but I love how this is how he's how he's gonna find yeah, no, no, we'll wait until we talk to him first.

Speaker 3: 3:10

No you can't stop now. Now we're going to be kicking him off. Well we'll leave you guys hanging.

Speaker 2: 3:19

We'll leave you guys hanging. We got to talk to Nick first and then we'll talk to you guys. We'll see what he says. Nick was canceled by AB. No, nick was not canceled. Nick lives matter.

Speaker 3: 3:31

No, Nick was not canceled. Nick lives matter.

Speaker 2: 3:34

Okay, so we got a few things we could talk about tonight. If you guys want us to jump right into the main topic. We can. We also got dire wolves we could talk about. We have war with Iran, which will probably tie into the other conversation.

Speaker 3: 3:50

Yeah, I'm sure we will.

Speaker 2: 3:51

We'll save that for the other conversation. Yeah, I'm sure it will. Yeah, we'll save that for the other conversation. And then we're going to talk tariffs. We're going to talk, but all this is going to tie in together, I think. I think all this will tie in together. And then we got a crazy trad who shot a priest apparently. So we don't know, we don't know the details of it yet.

Speaker 3: 4:13

Uh, but that's not gonna stop anthony folks.

Speaker 2: 4:17

No well, I have some thoughts. Uh, I doubt nick watches you could tell us. Can we talk about something interesting today? All right, all right. Well, first off, let's get to our recusin ad right yes, you're gonna make me read it again. Yeah, you gotta read it.

Speaker 2: 4:33

I, I'm gonna come up with my own copy I sent you the copy for a reason I honestly think we're better off just winging it and telling everybody just like, put the website up. And we just tell everybody buy your one at recusant, because they're the only people brave enough to support us. Like that's true, the things that we do on here, and they're the only people brave enough to support us. Like that's true, the things that we do on here, and they're the only people brave enough to support us. They are the best. They're the best wine in the world as far as I'm concerned any wine, any wine that is going to give anthony money to talk.

Speaker 2: 5:07

I just it's the best wine in the world it's more about the courage man. Like you never know what we're gonna to say on this show.

Speaker 3: 5:13

You really don't Some crazy things have come out of my mouth and they still support us.

Speaker 2: 5:18

So if you guys can go to requisitesellerscom, Use code BASED25. Code BASED25 at checkout for 10% off Should have been BASE10. We'll have to talk about that, but we don't want to confuse everybody Requiesent sellers. The wine. Anthony was drinking when he was doing donuts in a parking lot with a stolen rental car at the age of 16. I told my kids that story yesterday. It was Sunday on the way home from class.

Speaker 2: 5:47

How did they react? Oh my gosh, I don't even know how it came up, but, like I told my wife and kids that story about me pulling into the parking lot, we were talking about like how different it is now from when, when I was a kid and stuff, yeah, and I was like, yeah, I was like cops were a little different when I was younger. I pulled into the parking lot with like seven people in a four-passenger vehicle and just ripped a donut, but oh, I think it was because we were talking about the long island serial killer, that's what it was. So did you see, we did an episode a few months back on the long island, because I know a few people involved in the case and now they just put the documentary up on netflix and we were discussing that and how the cops didn't investigate. I was like like yeah, cops are a little different back then. So I think you guys have your first watch party Mile. Oh, that's awesome. Molly and I are watching together.

Speaker 3: 6:39

You guys drinking requisite cellars for your watch party? If not, you screwed up.

Speaker 2: 6:43

Yeah, did you get the prize off to the trivia winners?

Speaker 3: 6:49

Well, first off, you were supposed to send one of them yourself.

Speaker 2: 6:53

Oh, I got to send me the address. I do have the address, yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:57

Then Margo and her fiance couldn't decide on which wine they wanted, so I decided to be the nice guy and tell them I'd send them both. Pretty sure that was planned on their part.

Speaker 2: 7:07

Well, okay, Send me the other address and I'll get the rest of the problem. Also did Dinner. Well, okay, send me the other address and.

Speaker 3: 7:13

I'll get the address. I'll send you the other address.

Speaker 2: 7:15

Yeah, Also did dinner talk with your kids. Long serial killer and juvenile drunkenness.

Speaker 2: 7:19

It's a typical, typical Sunday with the abouties. All right, let's do the tweet first and then we'll get into some other stuff. Because I, I, man, I watched father Maudsley on Catholic unscripted today, like even just before we get into this, and, man, father Maudsley came out firing and it was just Catherine. Mark and Gavin weren't able to make the show, so it was just her, and she put that up on YouTube. And she put that up on youtube and I'm like, okay, so what? I think we need to at least take hours out from behind the paywall. Okay, so if you guys are not paying members on locals, we are going to remove the paywall if you guys want to watch the father maudsley interview. Um, but he, uh, he was on with katherine from catholic unscripted and it was a really good interview and they're talking about some very difficult topics and, uh, I don't know, I, I have this intuition that there's like the divide in the church is not going to be traditional nova sort of. I just think it's. It's really going to surround this topic somehow.

Speaker 3: 8:35

I don't know depending on how the geopolitics go. Yeah like, yeah, I, I just feel like things are.

Speaker 2: 8:42

I think things are going to get so bad we're going to feel compelled to say something in certain situations.

Speaker 3: 8:48

So it's. We don't want to put it on youtube, not because of if it's on youtube for members, their um algorithms are still gonna catch it still gonna catch it, you can't put it on youtube, no matter what there's.

Speaker 2: 9:03

There's things that are said in that interview that I just I mean, I'm gonna, I gotta go back with a fine-tooth comb. But there's some things that I know youtube will strike us down for, like, even if it's behind a paywall, they will. So certain phrases will trigger things that yeah, yeah, and they were a little more careful on on, uh, the episode with katherine because it was mostly about the liturgy yeah, they talk about different topics.

Speaker 2: 9:27

They're two very different conversations. Um, I think katherine covered some stuff that I wish I would have, but because she did, it's like it is what it is, and I think Rob and I tried to focus on the scriptural basis of the enmity between the older brother and the younger brother and giving up the birthright and stuff like that. But it was a good conversation. It's just a difficult one. A couple of times I carried on too long in my question and I was a little long-winded. Just forgive me for that, guys. It's like I was trying to dance around a tough topic and I was a little nervous about it and um, but it's still a very good interview. Uh, so, but all right, so let's get into the roman empire tweet.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Um, I'm not gonna I mean it's a long language, so I'm not, I'm not gonna put it up on screen there's also bad language in it, so somebody all right, so this guy wanted to um.

Speaker 3: 10:19

There are parts of it.

Speaker 2: 10:21

Um well, I'm probably one of the cutting you off so I guess I'll go through it. So all right. So this guy. He wanted to give like a synopsis of his thoughts. So he says, as many have argued over the years, and far more cogently than I, the US is an empire. It's been one for a while, but it went all in being one after World War II, with the institutions it set up. Now the dynamics of empire may seem complicated. Michael Hudson provides a good definition by saying it's a transbborder, culturally legitimized, center-periphery structure of unequal exchange economically, militarily, politically and culturally. I know you're not going to make sense of that. He gets it down easier. But well, actually the first thing he says is the White House officials saying that the post-world war ii order is over is huge right, like the acknowledgement that they're even trying to re, uh, reposition geopolitics, and saying that the narrative from world war ii or the, the, the post-war, what do you call that, the liberal?

Speaker 3: 11:31

order post-. Yeah, and really this subject, this tweet is really talking about what's called the Bretton Woods system, so it's like the post-war system of finance and trade and things like that that was set up with the IMF and things of that nature.

Speaker 2: 11:55

IMF and things of that nature. So okay, so I'll. I know that was confusing, but I'll make it simpler by using John Michael Greer's definition. It's just a giant money pump. It really is just that it has to be in order for it to function. What do I mean by that? Well, let's explore that via example the Roman Empire. So this is where he gets into. The Roman Empire, basically, like all empires, the more the Roman Empire grew, the more stuff it had to pay. We're talking administrative costs, military costs, food costs, various subsidies to various populations, etc. And because it expanded so quickly, it couldn't afford this by itself. Thus, part of the purpose of empire is to extract value and wealth via a variety of means.

Speaker 3: 12:32

In the old days this meant tribute and such, but this also means that an empire starts getting bogged down in the affairs of its vassal nations I think one thing that this tweet doesn't talk about at this point but it should, especially in relation to the us is so rome expands super quickly due to the Punic Wars against Carthage right, which were like a Mediterranean world war. I mean, it took place all over the Western Mediterranean and Rome defeats Carthage, suddenly has this empire that's much larger than the Republic, the small Italian state that existed prior.

Speaker 3: 13:15

And that small Italian. Was this under Julius Caesaresar?

Speaker 2: 13:17

though no, this was 100, 200 years before that, before before julius yes, so it defeats the gauls right right, okay, and that that exacerbates the problem.

Speaker 3: 13:25

But the problem starts with the punic wars, because rome, which was an italian, now suddenly controls the Western Mediterranean. Shortly around this time period, it also conquers Macedon, in Greece as well, but anyway. So now it's much larger, and it used to be this state of citizen soldiers, like you had a farm and you had to be an actual citizen with land to be in the army. Well, now, suddenly it's this empire that suddenly has hundreds of thousands of slaves, and the citizen soldiers working the farms are suddenly finding that they're being replaced by these huge landowners that are working the land with thousands and thousands of slaves, which is very much like giant corporations today yeah, you have america prior to the world wars, which you know is largely, you know, running, being run by small.

Speaker 3: 14:30

You know, citizens with small farms and homesteads.

Speaker 2: 14:33

Small businesses.

Speaker 3: 14:34

Small businesses and things like that. It goes through two world wars. The industry just skyrockets because of these wars. We end up now having a global reach that we never had before. Everything's being replaced by big corporations which in the 60s, start to bring in cheap labor via immigration, I mean it sounds a lot like the Roman Empire.

Speaker 2: 15:00

It's very similar yeah, but this also means the empire starts getting bogged down in the affairs of its vassal nations, for example, judea. Rome takes Judea at pros. You now have a new tax farm, more agricultural supply and land closer to the Persians Cons. You have to deal with the people of the old covenant Not only that, but also Jewish politics and their one weird god, and they refuse to worship your gods. Sometimes this means they come to you about minor issues, like a preacher that's causing issues. Why the heck do you care? He seems harmless. You just want their tax money and for there not to be any trouble. But you are the local law, so you kind of have to take a stance, and sometimes this means that you get dragged into their conflicts because guess what? You own Judea. Now You've invested in Judea. You have troops in Judea. You need to take care of Judea.

Speaker 2: 15:51

As a consequence of this, judean politics become a thing that matters back in the imperial capital. Anyone who's seen the episode of HBO's Rome featuring Herod knows exactly what I mean. This G rolls up to your office and makes you a deal. I want to take power in Judea. Help me and I'll make things easier for you and keep the Jews in line, easy tax money, and then he throws in a sweetener I'll pay you not the empire 20 000 tons of gold. So I want to pause there, for that's basically a pack. So the, the former roman empire dealing with the vassal state of judea and getting caught up in the in the politics of it. And now this preacher comes.

Speaker 2: 16:30

Now I'm going to get into the modern affairs of Judea also, but not just that. Think about all of our vassal states. Think about all the stuff we just saw with USA ID, like all of that was about the affairs and all of the American outposts that were pumping money in, dumping money into control the internal affairs, overthrow governments, throw a regime out over here that we're pumping money in, dumping money in to control the internal affairs. Overthrow governments, throw a regime out over here. All of it, because we're trying to have this very thing happen. There's 20,000 tons of gold that comes back for the elites to fight over.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Okay, so this is a critical point to get about empire, the province's periphery, have an incentive to play politics in the imperial capital to extract as much as they can from the imperial system. This changes everything. Those who kept on watching HBO's Rome know what this means in practice, suddenly that 20,000 tons of gold becomes something the empire's elites fight over. Because it's 20,000 pounds of gold, I want my cut. So now we're in this weird dynamic the empire is supposed to be drawing resources and taxes from the provinces to keep on functioning, but provincial elites are now bribing, via various means, the imperial elite to direct more imperial resources to the province. So this is what we're dealing with with APAC.

Speaker 2: 17:47

Well, I mean APAC and Europe and all of this no-transcript lobbyists to go and fight for the little cause of the stupid vassal state that america got their fingers in and they're trying to meddle in our affairs now I I found it to be. I guess we'll go through the whole thing before I give you my overall synopsis of it. But okay, so apply this across a variety of fields and areas of the empire. For example, grain. Rome is a hungry beast. She needs grain. Egypt has the best grain, the best. We need to import Egyptian grain. So we have a stake on which one of these two sits on that dumb throne.

Speaker 2: 18:55

So that's the third and cleopatra, or even luxury goods from the east, spices, silks and so forth, especially because the women just love the latest trends. This means indo med trade like indonesia mediterranean.

Speaker 2: 19:11

I guess that is no indian, oh indian mediterranean yeah okay, uh, med trade is huge and essential to the empire, even as we lose money to the ancient india. This makes egypt even more important. I could go on, but what matters is the provinces, operating under their own incentives, extract, extract resources from the empire via capital politics so the imperial politics become more contentious, while imperial citizens, not elites, are being slowly looted and need to be bribed. When you hear of bread and circuses, this is part of it. We're totally screwing you, the Roman citizens, over. But hey, cheap bread, free gladiator shows, hell yeah. This dynamic goes on until the math stops making sense and the empire collapses because everyone is trying to loot the treasury. The empire can't afford its military anymore. War bands invade and imperial citizens hate their leaders so much they can't stop that they stop caring now.

Speaker 3: 20:06

I don't know if this I think he's also well, maybe he talks about it later. But I think it's also missing a point where Rome once again going back to that large immigration after the Punic Wars, not immigration, the slaves after the Punic Wars, as you mentioned Caesar right, a few hundred years later, invades Gaul once again because he's one of the elites and he wants all the tribute and plunder, so on and so forth. He also needs, he's in huge debts to Crassus, he needs to pay Crassus back and at the same time he wants to use that plunder to pay off the Roman citizens to get their support right. So he's a real populist in that sense. But anyways, he conquers Gaul, probably kills one to two million of the gulls and the rest now are all roman slaves citizens, so on, so forth. So in the course of 250 years, you have what? What went from a small italian state with, you know, italian citizens, italian in the italic sense, not in modern in the geographical sense, in the geographical sense you have latin citizens.

Speaker 3: 21:13

now, suddenly, they're a a minority compared to the gauls, the carthaginians, the greeks, you know, all the egyptians, all of these other peoples now make up the majority of the empire and they have to start expanding. What is Roman citizenship to these new populations and what it meant to be Roman got watered down each and every time, little by little, little by little, to the point where, by the time you get to Augustus, he's trying to renew what it means to be a Roman.

Speaker 3: 21:45

Yeah, you know, and every time there's a crisis in the empire, you have an emperor that rises to try to renew what it means to be Roman, because they've lost what it means to be Roman.

Speaker 2: 21:57

Now look, this also goes into why the Roman Catholic Church is so good in those early centuries, because it adopts this Roman understanding of incorporation. Right, like it's, like it allows it's when it takes over the Greeks, it allows the Greeks to stay Greek even though they're Roman citizens. Now, right, so you kind of have like the Greek philosophical mind combined with the Roman organization system comes together to form the Roman Catholic church. I mean, it's really like the Roman Catholic Church is the Roman Empire.

Speaker 3: 22:35

It's like you had Caesar in Rome and you had all the provinces with their governors as basically bishops throughout all the provinces, and that's the model for the Catholic Church basically something interesting where it allows some sense of romanitas to survive, right in terms of, uh, its laws, its um, its ways of thinking, but yet it it integrates this romanitas into the new nations that spring forth. You know, like the franks under clovis um the angles, the uh, all these new Germanic nations that come forth, the Lombards and Italy, things Um, the church allows these nations to assume some level of of Romaneness, of Romanitas, but yet still be their own nation which is why Irish Catholicism looks different than English Catholicism, looks different than French Catholicism.

Speaker 3: 23:30

Right, but the point I'm really getting at is the roman nation was lost and it was lost forever, even like the eastern roman empire, which definitely held the most romanness of it. All. Right, they were greek, it was a greek nation with kind of a roman veneer. Um, the Roman nation, the Roman people, were gone and can never come back, even if they try to do the dire wolf thing with them. They're gone forever so that's kind of just what I wanted to get at here.

Speaker 2: 24:03

Yeah, it's still so. Okay, so, while the US empires function very much the same way, we extract a ton of resources from everyone else. Everyone else has a stake in imperial politics, including Judea. Everyone wants a cut of the action. This includes trade. Like the Roman Empire, we resort to extraction or, in our case, buying cheap stuff Like this, all this stuff with the tariffs that's going on. What it seems like to me is we've realized we've exhausted our finances out on all these outposts and vassals. Right, we were dumping. Can you imagine what Rome?

Speaker 3: 24:45

would have done if they could have gone 30 trillion denarii into debt.

Speaker 2: 24:47

That didn't exist back then. Yeah, there was no central bank to just keep printing money, right, right. But the thing is, man, when you think about the things our government spends money on, like even this, even elon going in with doge, right, he's like, oh, look at all the waste, fraud and abuse I'm finding. And it's like 30 million to lgbt studies in in syria and iraq, and it's like and they literally get this literature and they throw it in a freaking dumpster. They don't even look at it, they just come to get the money. It's all payoffs. This is all bribes.

Speaker 3: 25:19

That's all this is. It's money laundering, yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:21

It's money laundering for us to pay off certain things and we got to put a veneer on it. So we send them some booklets and stuff. They don't implement any any of these programs. It's all about paying people off. To keep the dictator in, that we want in, or the fake, you know, president, that we want in, we overthrow their governments.

Speaker 3: 25:36

This should not be discounted, by the way. No, it should be romulus and remus yeah, no, it's actually.

Speaker 2: 25:42

I think there's something very significant about it, um, and you would you just so? You see, this extraction has been going on, especially since world World War II. Right Now, to me, even the fact that they're saying this World War II, post-war world, this post-liberal world order is coming to an end and our renegotiating our stance towards Europe, our renegotiating our stance with Russia, china, all of it you and I have talked about how World War II was a myth-bearing story, like if they're going to end that era, like I don't see how they do that without giving a new myth. Yeah, I don't see how they do that without giving us a new myth.

Speaker 3: 26:38

Well, right, if I mean, since we're on the subject of Rome, rome you know and I think this is really just a human thing the human need for stories. Right, to create stories for your justifications and to figure out where you came from, things like that.

Speaker 3: 26:53

but like, so, you know, rome used the, the story of the punic wars, for a long time until eventually you had the rise of, like, the, the gracchi brothers, and then sulla and marius and things like that, and eventually rome needed a new story, you know, a new, a new myth, and then you have Caesar you know, you have Julius Caesar come and he's a member of the Julii and supposedly descended from both Venus and Aeneas, you know, through Romulus and things like that, and he goes and he conquers Gaul almost single-handedly and comes back with all this money for the people and suddenly you have this new story that that you know his nephew Octavian can use to actually move from from the Republic into the empire. So I think it's it's very common throughout history.

Speaker 2: 27:46

Yeah, I love learning Roman history with you. You're very good at this. This um so, but even look. So somebody said just remembered rob told us all to give up podcast today.

Speaker 3: 27:58

Did you listen to my morning meditation?

Speaker 2: 28:01

no, I didn't listen yet sometimes I listen before I go to bed. Sometimes I mean I I do listen, so um.

Speaker 2: 28:06

But somebody said maybe we can, maybe we can do away with some of the other world war two bits as well I know you, I know you're making a joke there, but if you understand the apocalypse this is what I was talking about with Rob and I don't know if he agrees with me on this but when you get into the apocalypse, it talks about the beast that was, was no longer, and then returns. Now that beast is Babylon. I mean it goes into with the naming of this channel, right, but rome is the new babylon, like ancient rome is the new babylon at the time. So now, if we're comparing ancient rome to modern america as a new empire, to me I can't not see the new America, the American empire, as the return of Babylon.

Speaker 2: 28:55

Well, you know, it's interesting and Judea and that outpost as the whore of Babylon.

Speaker 3: 28:59

Yeah, they've been the whore of each of the three Babylon's of each of the three Babylon's.

Speaker 2: 29:04

Right so like to me. I mean, I can't escape the significance of this and just the look what I've seen in the in the freaking white house this week alone, with netanyahu there, and even like man, I can't believe I ever watched tim pool like that guy just goes for a meeting with netanyahu, comes and tim pool mr we got to get out of the ukraine war, we americans shouldn't be going away as a libertarian, no, america should not be fighting foreign wars Comes back today after meeting with Netanyahu and makes a pitch for why war with Iran is necessary. Yeah, all of these, all of these influencers have been primed. All of them have been primed to have access to the empire, the empirical. You know the glamor of being in the empire.

Speaker 3: 29:59

This is their chance to become part of that elite that gets the gold the tribute right.

Speaker 2: 30:04

This is it Like. This is what you're seeing here, right? So all these influencers who you thought were these independent podcasters and they were doing their own thing and they were getting to the truth, man, and then they get invited into Imperial Rome.

Speaker 3: 30:17

Yeah, you have.

Speaker 2: 30:19

Libs of.

Speaker 3: 30:19

TikTok all with.

Speaker 2: 30:21

Kristi Noem. What's funny is the whole Tenet crew. It was Dave Rubin, tim Pool, all those guys now, all of a sudden, are the ones getting invited to the white house. It's almost like the doj or somebody went to them like, look, we could either press charges on you or you could be our new pitch guy for what we need to do next. I'm not saying that's what happened, but it looks an awful lot like that's what happened and I, if I like, the significance of this thread, especially to me, is that, ok, we're moving beyond the, the, the story of World War Two and the myth bearing load that that story has, even allowing guys like Daryl Cooper to start talking about how this story is a myth bearing load, like it's a myth bearing story. It is the foundation of our modern society.

Speaker 2: 31:15

Listen, if you get into listening to the Father Maudsley conversation with Catherine today, it is about the liturgy and it's about how that narrative is used against the church and the church is told the reason this event happened is because of your liturgies. It's because of your Good Friday liturgy and St John's Passion. You need to change it and they pressured and pressured them and pressured them, and then the Second Vatican Council comes and you get no sure Tata, and you get dignified and you get all these changes. And it's from these outside pressure groups, from this myth, narrative thing. It's what happens to the church. Like this is. This is the importance of this story. It's not like all of all of what I'm seeing is not about a dislike of a people, it's not about a hatred of none of it. It's all theological to me, like all of this is theological to me.

Speaker 2: 32:21

I'm looking at this from from a theological perspective and I'm saying, wow, what is happening here, like this is this is wild. They're putting pressure on the church and the church acquiesces to this and it seems like what's happening right now is not traditional versus Novus Ordo. It doesn't seem like traditional versus Novus Ordo. What I'm seeing seems like Catholic Zionism versus those who are seeing. Look, this is important. This is a very difficult topic to discuss because there's one group of people that are seeing something happening in the culture. When you see the Groypers and the Fuentes and all that stuff, there is a danger in what those guys are doing, like in the past, things like that have have aroused pogroms. You start talking about these things and it riles people up. And then the next thing you know, there's a pogrom and people get hurt. Yeah, so I understand them going. Oh man, look at the look at. The signs are here, the warnings are all here.

Speaker 3: 33:35

We need to do something about this and stop it in its tracks it's why the church, when it has, in the past, promulgated documents on on this group of people, it's been, on one hand, been to condemn their actions and ideas but, on the other hand, has always been to also protect them. I mean, you know, the, the papal states were, were a sanctuary yeah, sanctuary city where they were allowed to exist.

Speaker 2: 34:03

They couldn't have any, any positions of power. They couldn't influence the culture you were not allowed to have usury things like that but they were protected. They were safe. Yeah, sometimes that involved them paying a tribute to the pope. You know there might have been some corruption involved there I mean you gotta, you gotta pay for that protection right like that, but they were.

Speaker 2: 34:21

But that is the point, right. So I do understand where, where, where the guys like, like trent, are coming from on one in one aspect. They're seeing a lot of the noticing going on and they're like, whoa, we gotta be careful here. We don't want to see the things that have happened in the past happen again. But, on the other hand, are you actually unaware of the dangers of the thing that's actually like? It's like. It's like. Do we do we call out our own and protect and make sure our own don't get out of control? Or by doing that, are we turning a blind eye to the actual thing that's going to happen? That's my worry right now.

Speaker 2: 35:02

And, look, it's just an intuition I have, I don't know. I just kind of see this thing happening and it's all people I always liked and it's all people I grew up learning the Catholic faith from. And I'm seeing this, this split, happening and it's like this one group over here and they all seem to be saying the same thing. And then I'm starting to see like what, the reason I think what Catherine did was so incredibly courageous, like I really think what she did was so incredibly courageous, because they are pretty mainstream Catholic, unscripted Like. I mean, you have Gavin on that show. He was a former chaplain to the queen.

Speaker 2: 35:48

You had the writing for the Catholic Herald For her to come out and have that conversation like there's going to be consequences for that and she said to consequences be damned. This is. This is a conscience issue. This is not about rousing up hatred for anybody. It's a. It's a matter of theology and recognizing where we are in the story. Now, look, it does have to do with Novus Ordo versus TLM, because the Novus Ordo is very much influenced by this thing we're talking about.

Speaker 3: 36:22

It's the church's capitulation.

Speaker 2: 36:24

It is the church's capitulation to the older brother. This is the story of Cain and Abel. Guys, the older brother offers a sacrifice. God reject it and it goes to, and the younger brother is praised. That is the jews, the old covenant.

Speaker 3: 36:40

The new covenant goes to the gentiles, the older brother, to do take an offertory prayer from that rejected sacrifice and insert it into but even in the, in the bigger of the story, what does Cain do to the younger brother when that sacrifice is accepted?

Speaker 2: 36:55

Like you have to understand, this enmity is biblical, yep, and the thing that frustrates me is that the weak, Like we entered Passion Tide and Catholic Answers, is writing a defense of the older brother, and it's like I don't Passion Tide where we, where we veil our statues and crucifixes in remembrance of jesus having to hide himself from the jews it's like I'm just that I'm like I'm very confused about this, because it's a really important topic.

Speaker 2: 37:30

this is not light stuff that we're talking about, and what I'm seeing happening with this push to go to war with Iran right now on behalf of them, it's like this is serious stuff we're talking about. Going to war with Iran is not going into Iraq or Afghanistan. It's not the same thing, not even close. First off, now you're talking about who's Iran's allies? And you're talking about the BRICS nations. Right, you're talking about Russia and China. I don't know how involved they'll get.

Speaker 3: 38:09

I do think war with Iran is a lot like war with Iraq actually.

Speaker 2: 38:13

I mean in terms China.

Speaker 3: 38:14

I don't know how involved they'll get. I do think war with Iran is a lot like war with Iraq actually I mean in terms of Capabilities, yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2: 38:18

You think so?

Speaker 3: 38:19

Yeah. In relation to our capabilities yeah. If anything, I think the gulf between their capabilities and ours is probably greater now than between Iraq and ours in 2003. Maybe I just think it becomes thing a lot of complications and trump's trump well I'm up these tariffs with china and china's already pissed off well, okay, I know, but here's the thing iraq went poorly for us well, yeah, but it was also stretched out over 20 years.

Speaker 2: 38:44

But I, I think I ran as I don't know. Look, I'm I'm not gonna pretend I know geopolitics. I just don't think it will be as as, because iraq was far away, afghanistan was far away, yeah, our troops were there, but you know, we didn't have to see.

Speaker 2: 38:59

I don't think that is farther away, I know, but I don't think it will be like that. As my point I it might not. I I think it will be a much different conflict and I think it will escalate. I just think it will, just because of the times we're in. Like I, I just think it's going to escalate. I don't think it's going to be just this. Oh well, it's just like. Iran is the, it's like the uh for for Israel, it is the one they want. They've been listening to me every fricking five years. For the past 25 years I've been hearing Iran is five years away from making a nuclear weapon. Iran is five years and every five years they pull out that trope Iran is five years away from making a nuclear weapon.

Speaker 3: 39:39

It's like the whole Iraq WMD thing. Right, we were convinced that they had WMDs and we had to destroy them because they might put a chemical or biological weapon on a Scud missile and fire it.

Speaker 2: 39:50

Fire it at tel aviv yes, or they might get it into america after the terrorists. You know, look, this is all the same game, is all I'm saying, and I think the stakes are way higher, especially like so now this also gets into the tar. Like the one thing I kind of like trump, that trump is doing is the tariff thing, because this kind of gets into. Like I'm talking to my son who's 19 and it's like how the hell is this kid buying a house?

Speaker 3: 40:18

well, we should finish the thread.

Speaker 2: 40:20

Yeah, let's finish this, because I never get into that because we got to talk about the boomers and we have, like we have to. We have to talk about the boomers and the, and it wasn't like your, your parents, that did it. It was the politicians in power that did it. But the way they spent money and the way they, I mean it is a mentality that we're definitely going to talk about it is a lot of our parents too.

Speaker 3: 40:42

Oh, it is now. Are they really culpable for it? No, because they really were just living the american, what they were told was the american dream, yeah, but yeah, so we'll get into that too.

Speaker 2: 40:52

But yeah, let's finish this. Um, um, so, okay. So this includes trade. Like the roman empire, we resort to extraction, in our case, buying cheap stuff. It helps balance the books, keeps the population happy. Citizens are quite happy with affordable walmart goods that we outsource making abroad. The problem is that this is the problem. Is that this provincial? Yeah, but no, he messed the sentence up. The problem is that provincial extraction, this provincial, he wrote. Is that too many times? The problem is that this provincial extraction game, but by another name. Oh, the problem is that this is a provincial extraction game, but by another name. Oh, the problem is that this is a provincial extraction game, but by another name.

Speaker 2: 41:34

Sure, the imperial elites, the US political and financial tech class, got rich, but imperial citizens, normal Americans, gradually got poorer and the gap is now painfully bad. This is what we're going to get into. An added twist to this is that the US is nominally a republic. Republicanism only really works if economic wealth is relatively distributed. Why? Because economic elites have an incentive to use their money to capture institutions and thus make themselves richer. Think about how this applies to trade. When Walmart sells you cheap goods. You think you're getting a good deal. You're not. This is a trade. Your money makes them richer, which they use to lobby DC to keep up this dynamic. And then they use that money and regulatory capture to crush competition, kill fair trade laws, take over retail and gain more political control. In other words, you give you a worse job.

Speaker 3: 42:24

It doesn't mention that, but you're getting a worse job out of the deal too.

Speaker 2: 42:27

Well, think about what America produces. Well, think about what America produces YouTubers. What do we produce? Content creation, entertainment, like that's what we produce. Entertainment Like we don't produce anything. Homosexuality, yeah, like we produce entertainment debauchery. So look like, even when you're talking about the, the judean province, right, and everybody's like, oh well, they're, they control the banking and they control uh, they control porn and all these things like I don't care about any of that. Like don't get into debt and you won't be a slave to usury. Don't look at filth on the internet and you won't be a slave to your lust. What worries me is the influence in the church and foreign policy. Those two things do affect you, whether you allow them to or not. My liturgy is affected by this thing. I never really thought about the idea of like our liturgy. They convinced us to participate in the mockery of Jesus Christ, like it's the way Maudsley describes it.

Speaker 2: 43:46

Like with the kneeling and yeah, not just the kneeling, it's also like the crucify him. Crucify him. Like. You have to think about what, what they do on on the original good Friday, like the Sanhedrin convinces the roman soldiers to put purple on our lord and a crown of thorns and mock him. Oh, the king of the jews, the jew king, the worm king, like, think about those scenes from the passion. Like the sanhedrin convinces the roman soldiers to mock our lord, they go around and they bribe all the people of Israel to go and yell crucify him. We have no king but Caesar. And they, freaking, got into our liturgy and got us to do it. Now it's very different when the deacon does it in the sanctuary and it's a liturgical matter and it's, you know, it's very different than us all yelling crucify him, crucify and participating in the mocking of our Lord on Good Friday, like it is. It's just a different. It's a different thing, people, to do that, because when you go and see St Peter preach in Acts, he says you crucified the Son of God and you will pay for it. And they're like what can we do? He says repent and be baptized. And they have a conversion. It's like we've managed to allow the older brother to affect our liturgy and stuff. And it's an important thing.

Speaker 2: 45:26

Man Like I'm not, you know this isn't about seeing a Jew under every rock. That's not what this is. It's an important theological issue that we used to produce to these other countries. So Trump is going around saying, no, we were going to do everything we can to incentivize bringing production back to America. We need the economy to come back down to normal. Like it's all inflated nonsense. It's fake ethereal numbers. It doesn't mean anything. It's all nonsense.

Speaker 2: 46:05

Like my house, since I bought it, has doubled in price in 10 years. Like, get out of here. My house is not worth that. And because my house is worth that, because people use real estate as an investment instead of seeing real estate as, oh, this is where I live, this is. Instead of seeing real estate as, oh, this is where I live, this is my home. It's now an investment that when you retire, your house doubled in value and you could sell it and you go move somewhere out in the Midwest.

Speaker 2: 46:29

But how is my son ever going to buy a home when the median home price on Long Island is $800,000? How is a 25-year-old kid going to buy a home for $800,000? It's absurd. It old kid going to buy a home for 800 grand. That's absurd. It's never going to happen. I just don't know what, what the next generation is going to do If Trump doesn't enact these policies and kind of bring the economy like it's hope. Hopefully, what it'll do is cause deflation, because if everything crashes, like what we're talking about is like the stock market, it's just, it's like oh, you're investing well, I think it's gonna.

Speaker 3: 47:06

No, it's gonna be a lot more than just that.

Speaker 2: 47:10

Well, it is especially because there's gonna be so many pensions that crap the bed and it's gonna be one of those too big to fail type of things.

Speaker 2: 47:17

No, I think I think you're missing the big picture, though like, well, a lot of small of small businesses that are buying stuff from places to make it their tariffs are going up so much. I did see one story Some guy's buying stuff to assemble something and he had $26,000 in his cart worth of goods and with the tariffs coming in it jumped up to $300,000. And now his business is going to go out. But what do you think I'm missing?

Speaker 3: 47:41

Well, just what the thread gets to here? Like, like, we're gonna have to cut out our consumption by like 30 to 40 percent and we are gonna have to be okay with china winning for the next 100 years, basically, as we, as we, purposefully collapse this empire to try to save the nation.

Speaker 2: 48:04

That's the only way it would work. But are we willing to go through that 100-year period to do what our ancestors did and build a cathedral that doesn't get completed for 400, 500 years? Hey, let's start this project now that you, your kids, your grandkids, your great-grandkids, your great-great-great-great-great-grandkids will not see complete Right. Are we willing to do that? I don't think so.

Speaker 3: 48:30

No, and the end of the thread argues like will this work? Almost definitely not, but it's the only chance we have to save what is apparent.

Speaker 2: 48:40

So the US is on the same trajectory as other empires.

Speaker 3: 48:45

No, go to the one before it you didn't.

Speaker 2: 48:48

And then they use that money regulatory capture to crush competition, kill fair trade laws, take over retail and gain more political control. In other words, you are paying for cheap goods with your political sovereignty. You trade democracy for cheap food and goods. So the US is on the same trajectory as other empires. We're being systematically looted in a variety of ways trade remittances, dc lobbying for policies that benefit periphery states. But since we're the heart of the empire, we can't just shut it off. Shut it down, because it would be suicide. The empire would collapse, all sorts of chaos would be unleashed, china and others would make moves, and so on. We see this in the experts saying we need to do X to compete with China. They're not lying per se, but do normal people want more money to be poured into AI to compete with China, importing more Indians to work for less, letting the overall math make sense for a bit longer? So the green line goes up Again. They're not lying, but they're downplaying the costs.

Speaker 2: 49:49

At last we arrive at the heart of the matter, which is the ideological revolution driven by the national conservative movement, these various strands of nationalist, economic, populist thought and various disaffected elites, which simply is. Is the empire worth it? Their answer is an unequivocal no. This stupid damn system is not worth it. Cheap goods are not worth our republic Losing our demographic, religious, cultural homogeneity, being screwed over by uncaring elites, etc. They want the humiliation and looting to stop, because it will kill the empire, but maybe, just maybe, allow the nation to survive and recover.

Speaker 2: 50:23

I want to be explicit about what this line of thinking means. It means playing the long game. It means sacrificing today for tomorrow. Taken to an extreme, it means letting China win for the next century. Also, the US can wipe the slate clean as much as it can. This encompasses everything from getting migrants to self-deport by changing the economic incentives to applying antitrust law to break up certain big corporations, maybe restore fair trade laws, re-empower the middle class and restore a measure of Republican government.

Speaker 2: 50:52

The problem this amounts to trying to relearn how to fly while falling from a cliff. Is this really? If this really hits, it's going to impoverish the United States. We have no idea for sure how bad it will get, but it will be bad and it'll be scaring, psychological. It'll be a scary, scarring psychological shock for a nation that self-conceives as things always getting materially better. That's an important thing. Like we can. Like we perceive progress as just things getting material or better. Our technology gets better, our homes get better, we have nice stuff. It's like we live as slaves. But we have TV and Netflix. Like seriously we live as. Like you know how many fricking hours of my week is spent being a slave to a company to make somebody else rich so I could have a tv on the wall and I have two cars in the driveway and I get a weekend to go and hang out with my family and then once a year I get to go on a vacation.

Speaker 3: 51:51

like that's slavery, with like brief respites of like, and meanwhile we have all this, yet we're like the most depressed society in history because we've lost who we are.

Speaker 2: 52:05

We're spiritually impoverished in a way that's never happened in the history of the world.

Speaker 3: 52:11

I mean other than maybe, like the late Roman Empire, you know where.

Speaker 2: 52:18

The decadence was so freaking crazy that they were men dressing as women and it was like literally what we're seeing today yeah you, you see such a cultural decline right from from the high um because of the same stuff we're seeing now what am I saying? But anthony enjoys his goy tv.

Speaker 3: 52:39

Goy car, goy I do I mean, what do you want?

Speaker 2: 52:42

don't forget the goy boat yeah, no, I mean, it's just. It's just what the older generations did, and even their mentality, right, it's like I mean, if we think about, like listen, I have parents and in-laws and they live the lavish retirement lifestyle, they do like live these lavish lifestyles while their kids are scrapping to get by, and it's like, I mean, my dad is on while they're trying to convince their daughters that they have to go.

Speaker 2: 53:15

You know, work, go to work, yeah it really is insane what they've done, like, like, and I'm looking at it like I don't care if my house plummets to 10% of what I what it's worth right now. I want my son to have a future, I want my grandkids that like. What? What world are we leaving behind? I mean, it's going to be shocking. Yeah, it's going to be giving up a lot of material comfort, but it's going to be stuff we don't need anyway. Like it's all of these tariffs, if you think about it, they're on things that are. I mean, if it goes to food, that's one thing, there will be food tariffs, I guess, but for the most part it's like oh, you can't get the next iPhone 17, when for four years, anyway, like the same freaking crap or you might not be able to go to you know, walmart and buy a cheap you know 20 pair of wranglers.

Speaker 3: 54:07

But you can instead, you know, go to a place that sells jeans made here in the us for a hundred dollars and I bet you they lost last five times longer than those wranglers or whatever well, and also you'll.

Speaker 2: 54:18

You won't need six pairs of jeans anymore. You'll have one pair of jeans. You'll have one pair of jeans. Yeah, you'll have one pair of jeans, you don't need that many. So the quad father. You see, 50% of boomers have no retirement savings. Youth are finished, so, like the boomer ideology is like you work until you're 55 or 60, then you retire and then you live off of what you accumulated.

Speaker 3: 54:41

And you leave and leave nothing behind.

Speaker 2: 54:43

We have nothing behind, but what will happen now is, if you really do see the stock market crash and all this stuff happens, your boomer parents who are living on that stuff, like their retirement's gone, Like my, my, my dad's whole annuity is tied up in this stuff, like he's probably I haven't talked to him, but he's probably sick to his stomach right now. He's probably like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do?

Speaker 3: 55:04

I mean, but what's that going to do?

Speaker 1: 55:08

It's going to force multi-generational households Like he's going to have to sell his house and come live with his kids.

Speaker 3: 55:13

Right, which that's the way we're supposed to live, right.

Speaker 2: 55:17

It's like there's going to be a reorganization of the way the world works. Man, look, I don't. The thing is, if I, if that was what Trump was doing, I'm, I'm, I'm with it Like I really am, I'm, I'm down to do the a hundred year plan. My, my, my fear is they need a new myth.

Speaker 3: 55:49

And with a new myth comes a big war. But that's, that is my fear. You need a new myth.

Speaker 2: 55:53

It depends on the war right like world war one wasn't a myth-bearing war, but it's connected to world war two, so it is Like there really are the same war.

Speaker 3: 56:00

World War I happens kind of because of the century of European history and myth before it, right. But yeah, what happens after I mean World War II happens because of the you know what is done.

Speaker 2: 56:19

The Treaty of Versailles and what happens to Germany, Like those two wars, are super connected it's really the same war it's the same war. It's just like it has like a delay for 30 years or so and then it gets right back going again.

Speaker 3: 56:32

It's like um but what I mean is like yeah, I, we, I don't want to fight a a war, for you know apac over in the middle east. I'm not letting my son do that dude like.

Speaker 2: 56:48

These are my two principal concerns is my son going to be able to afford a home and is he going to get sucked into, going to get getting drafted to some freaking, pointless war for a bunch of men who are just evil?

Speaker 2: 57:01

but I mean we do have to be prepared that in dissolutions of empires there is war and violence and unrest, and if there's a power vacuum first off right, if we stop pulling out of this stuff, you got a power vacuum and other people step in and there's going to be conflict yeah, yeah and and like, if we need to fight a war for survival, that's one thing.

Speaker 3: 57:24

But yeah, I don't want anyone being sent over to the middle east to fight apex war dude.

Speaker 2: 57:31

That's what every single foreign policy thing is, though, every single one of them and to not see the typological significance of that. I'm sorry, guys, like I am worried that you have Catholics defending the wrong brother. This is the issue with bringing certain guys on certain shows and shutting other guys out of the conversation and gatekeeping that right. This is kind of what I'm talking about. It's like if you're only allowing some guys to come into the conversation, you're now getting a group that is going to be very look, influencers are a thing, right, and there's a ton of people I'm talking a lot of people who get their theology from Catholic Answers. Yep, like they do, and they trust those guys. Right, and I'm not knocking those guys, I'm saying but it's, they possibly are picking the wrong thing. Here is all I'm saying. Like, this isn't dogma what they're talking about, like they're, they're seeing. They're seeing two things happening right now. They're like we all see the AIPAC problem and all this stuff happening in the Middle East and you see, you know all of the control that that certain group of people has over different areas in society. And then you see the people that are criticizing that, and the people that are criticizing that tend to be these young Gen Z types who are anonymous online and saying some bombastic stuff, stuff that's riling people up and getting them really upset. So, as an outsider, you look in and you're like, okay, I know what, I know what's happened in the past, and especially during world war two, when all this stuff was, you know, like, that's the, that's the.

Speaker 2: 59:15

That's the reason Maudsley is talking about. What he's talking about. That's why he's saying, like, fundamentally, if the whole story is actually wrong, then what you're talking about is the people that we, like the influencers that we're talking about. Everybody kind of trusts them. Those guys are seeing a problem and they're going well, we need to calm this down so this thing doesn't happen again. But if that thing didn't actually happen the way they say it happened, it's a. It's a. It's like a a false. You know what I mean it's like. But there, like there has been violence on this issue many times throughout history, many times.

Speaker 3: 1:00:03

Like there's, there's never been. The zionist movement began due to the, the pogroms against um, against the jews that happened in what is now ukraine right, and those pogroms were real. Now were the jews blameless in them?

Speaker 2: 1:00:16

no, no, violence is never the answer to it, right.

Speaker 3: 1:00:22

No, I mean not unjust violence. You know, self-defense obviously is justified and things of that nature. But yeah, I mean, as we talked about Father Mozzie, there's just centuries and centuries of enmity here, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:00:40

Yeah, it's thousands of years, it's millennia of enmity here, you know, yeah, it's thousands of years, it's, it's, it's, it's millennia of enmity. Um and no, and, grover, I'm not even like knocking those guys, I'm telling you there's a, there's an issue here, and they're seeing it and they're going okay, this is the side. We need to get control because they're they're like all right, we need to. We need to talk about this amongst our own and make sure our own look and somebody saying um, somebody said get a life, get all. You know, you're online, getting riled up online, right, riled up online. Get a life, get married, have some kids.

Speaker 2: 1:01:08

Part of the problem here is the feminism that came in from this other group and this ideology that's made it so like there are. These young men can't get wives anymore. On top of that, technology has changed and there's a whole bunch of different reasons these young men can't get wives anymore. On top of that, technology has changed and there's a whole bunch of different reasons why young men are not getting married anymore. Now you get a bunch of young, disaffected men who find a person to blame for all of their problems, especially after a decade of them being told they're the reason for all the problems in the world. What did Molly say?

Speaker 3: 1:01:38

The first time we've ever seen on topic the whole show.

Speaker 2: 1:01:49

Yeah, but I just think that this. So when I called rob uh yesterday and just because like tuesdays or tuesdays and thursdays are always like oh, what are we going to talk about? But I called rob yesterday I said, dude, I think I want to talk about the roman, uh, roman empire america thread and I want to talk about boomers and I want to talk about and there's something I want to talk about boomers and I want to talk about, and there's something I want to talk about on on locals that I can't talk about here. Um, that goes into the pressures that men face, Like there's, there's um something. Something happened when my nephew uh stayed over my house.

Speaker 3: 1:02:16

Should we move over to?

Speaker 2: 1:02:17

locals we're going to. I'm just I'm trying to give people like an idea, something about my nephew and I, like we. I can't talk about it on youtube, but I'll explain it to you. But it goes into all of this like it does kind of have to do with this, um, and it has a lot to do with the pressures that that are on men and that we don't speak about and why suicide rates amongst men are so high. And you know, there's a lot of there's a lot that goes that this is all kind of connected. There's just one long stream of consciousness I kind of had, and me and rob talked about a little bit yesterday and he was like, yeah, that's, you know, we, if we could call each other on the phone and and and it's like seems like it's, I'm like all right, we're good here, we got, we got something, yeah, so, um, yeah, it's just this thing that is coming up between these two groups.

Speaker 2: 1:03:05

Like I'm a little afraid of what I'm seeing, because I'm afraid good Catholics that have good intentions that I know love, love, their faith might get pulled onto the wrong side of the argument on this and they're not looking at where the real danger lies, because, because it's easy to see the obnoxious people online, right Like, there's people saying some horrible things online and it's easy to go. That's clearly evil, that can't be the right side. But no, there's something devious and sin and sinister happening that doesn't have its claws out like that. That's like it's more subtle, but it's the. It's the real place where the danger lies and I feel like we're supposed to be, if, like, if there's anything involved in influence culture, like we should be. We should be talking to people about the real danger and not to get kind of pulled into the like Father Mosley was even talking about, like even the amount of pressure this group put on the church's liturgy.

Speaker 2: 1:04:07

You wonder why the trans issue exists in the world? And it's because the trans issue first existed in the church. I mean, feminism hits the church first, and when you have women in the sanctuary and you have girl altar boys, of course the world is trans. If the church can't make these fundamental distinctions between man and woman, how do you expect the world to make them? We just had Cardinal Fernandez come out and talk about the exceptions to when gender reassignment surgery is okay, and he used the same line they always use, which every parent that has a kid that's even in this thing dealing with it, goes to the doctor and the doctor says, would you rather have a dead son, or would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son? And it's like, well, in extreme cases of gender dysphoria, where suicide is an option, then it's acceptable. And it's like are we the church?

Speaker 3: 1:04:57

We're willing to let someone kill their soul so that they don't end their life.

Speaker 2: 1:05:03

The church isn't going to put themselves down on the line to speak the truth, who is going to? Isn't going to be left up to influencers. Is that really where we're at? We're going to leave it to the Protestants who have a totally disordered understanding of natural law, who don't understand any of it, who talk vile things about our lady. Like I'm I, just, it's just, I'm this.

Speaker 2: 1:05:34

This whole um, don't criticize people, because criticism isn't nice and you'll be judged for it. And it's like dude, I love you, man, but stop. Like stop, man, some things need to be talked about. I genuinely love the guy, but like come on, what are you doing, man? Like these are important, these are heavy, important topics that need to be talked about and we can't be like oh, I don't want to hurt somebody's feelings. Sometimes feelings got to get hurt when it's a serious thing. It's not gossip, you're not trashing somebody. It's like I don't want people that I care about to fall on the wrong side of this. I care about these people and I don't want them to fall on the wrong side of it.

Speaker 2: 1:06:15

And I have many good Catholic friends who love those guys and they're getting their theology from those guys. And it's like man, tim Flanders just had a guy on who was straight up saying Catholic Zionism is a good thing, saying that the people of Israel coming into the land of Israel is God's way of fulfilling the earthly promise. Not that they have dual covenant theology and they can't be saved through the old covenant, but it's a way of god filling his promise in the natural order and bringing gathering his people back to israel. And it's like, dude, you are talking about the eschaton like you are talking about the eschaton, like they're, you're, you're. This isn't and I don't understand what. And this this guy helped write the Ignatius Study Bible.

Speaker 2: 1:07:11

And then Tim Gray at the Augustan Institute is hosting a course on the Gospel of Mark and it's 83% Protestant sources. Out of 18 books, three of them are Catholic, 15 of them are Protestant. That's crazy, dude. That's what I mean. And it's like I freaking love Tim Flanders, but, dude, and it's because I know, oh man, we got to do something on the other side. I'm not going to do this over here. I'm not going to do this over here because the names start getting said and stuff. I'm just saying this is a serious topic. It's not not gossip. I'm not trying to hurt anybody's reputation. I'm just like guys this is serious stuff, man, this is just. I don't want to. Um, that's true too right. They bring their protestant stuff over and they this guy that went on with him.

Speaker 3: 1:08:01

That is actually true, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:08:02

This guy that went on with him is like I was uh, I was an evangelical, a dispensationalist. I spent time with Messianic Jews.

Speaker 3: 1:08:13

I was a Zionist and then I became Catholic and it's like dude, you're still Protestant. Yeah, it's. I just can't imagine converting to, you know, the 2 000 year old church created by christ, in thinking I need to change the church to match everything I used to believe, instead of me changing what I believe to match the church.

Speaker 2: 1:08:32

It's just like somehow me and my process we should not monetize the eschaton. I don't know what it monetizes, I don't know. I'm sorry, what were you just going to say, rob?

Speaker 3: 1:08:45

What was I saying?

Speaker 2: 1:08:46

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that to you. You like literally mid sentence.

Speaker 3: 1:08:52

Oh, imagine, thinking like your, your dispensation of those Protestant friends. No better than St John Chrysostom, you know like come on than saint john chrysostom.

Speaker 2: 1:09:04

You know like, come on, well, dude the other. The other note I threw in the notes for us was um, how going viral is actually the worst thing that can happen to a content creator, because what happens is you're, you get too big and you assume that thing is going to keep on growing and then you start trying to please a wider audience and you stop talking about um, you stop talking about things that matter, right? So like tonight's show, I mean we rarely have this few viewers. Rob is going to say we're all going to hell for not giving up you know why we have the few viewers.

Speaker 3: 1:09:38

It's because there's not a face of someone in the yeah thumbnail that we're criticizing and it's not talking about. You know, anti-protestant apologetics, like when we had when the channel, you know, doubled in three months. That's what we were doing Because of all those clips about the Christian Avengers, george janko, stuff like that, and like there was a real temptation to continue doing that sort of stuff because it got the views yeah, dude.

Speaker 2: 1:10:10

So this is kind of my like. I think people that like us would prefer this. I mean, yeah, I think there's, yeah like I think you guys would prefer this right, like me and Rob just talking like and having like a real conversation. I don't like cool, let's show a clip of this person, so like I don't know that stuff. It's cool to help growth and it's cool to get some views and stuff, but, like, I'd rather do this, like this is, I'd rather the people that, actually, as long as we mixing good interviews every once in a while, because I just mean, I just mean being us right and not like not trying to go by, like when you like those shows that that go viral, what happens is their audience expands super quick. They make a ton of money in a short period of time, so then they build a studio because they think they're going to keep growing and then people lose interest.

Speaker 3: 1:10:58

It's like the empire, the whole empire their expenses start to grow, so they have to keep and eventually it all collapses. Dude, you know who's?

Speaker 2: 1:11:06

like a, really like I. The reason that I thought of it is because of, uh, justice and big justice and aj, the costco guys, you know, you know, here comes the costco guys, yeah, so they did that thing. They went viral, they blew up, they got huge and that was their one trick and they got nothing now and nobody's watching them anymore, so they're trying to come out with a new song for the summer and it's.

Speaker 3: 1:11:33

They are very anthony coded, it's just. My point is thank you, adrian. They get, they get these huge expectations.

Speaker 2: 1:11:40

They think they're going to be social media stars and it's like I'm telling you something happened to me when I went away with my wife. I was like I don't want to be a social media star. I would rather cultivate this small audience and talk like this than try and keep trying to go viral. I don't Look if there's something interesting, we're going to put it on there, but that's not the intent.

Speaker 3: 1:12:06

I'd rather do this. I mean we, we will, we will still find something.

Speaker 2: 1:12:08

Yeah, mark, protestants every once in a while. Don't get us wrong, but all right, so we're going to go over to the other side.

Speaker 3: 1:12:12

Um, um question. I think I have a way to switch the youtube stream to members only in the middle do that because we want to try that yeah, it's not such a dangerous topic.

Speaker 2: 1:12:22

It's just a personal thing that I don't want for everyone. For everyone to say, like if you're a paying member, we know you, you like us and you care about us. Like I'll tell you that story, but I'm not going to just blurt this out for the ether yeah, um okay.

Speaker 3: 1:12:37

So yeah, let's not. This is going to take a little finagling, so no.

Speaker 2: 1:12:41

I give Rob a second Let him close here. Let's just see if we're just going to cut like so public YouTube. We will see you guys on Thursday. Thursday I invited Connor back on. I haven't seen Connor in a long time.

Speaker 2: 1:12:52

For those of you don't know we were talking about Connor McHugh from plot lines from the plot channel. He used to be on trivia all the time with us. Um, connor has, um, a condition where, uh, his arms and legs are affected. He's in a wheelchair, but he's a really good kid, um, and I miss him and I wanted to. I just shot him a text and I asked him if he'd come and hang with us for thursday. So thursday we'll have connor and I told nick to come too. Um, and maybe we'll tell you guys what. What our plan is with nick on. This means you won't be able to keep the stream video on demand.

Speaker 3: 1:13:26

Oh, no, okay yeah, never mind, then what?

Speaker 2: 1:13:29

we'll do is we'll cut the segment and we'll put it as a member segment, though yeah well, you won't be able to watch it live now, but we'll give you guys that segment as a member segment. So if you're a locals member, you'll watch it live right now. If you don't have locals and you are a youtube member, we will give you this next segment as a as a low as a youtube member.

Speaker 2: 1:13:48

Thursday will be members only for both youtube and locals yeah, and then we'll try to grab a clip or two that we could put up publicly after. But thursday shows, I think we're just going to stay as members Members and locals, I kind of like that. It's like no pressure on us and stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:14:06

Yes, Nick is coming back to the show.

Speaker 2: 1:14:08

Nick will be on Thursday. Feels like a grip now Are you sick? What the opposite of a grip. You guys have got to be kidding me. That's what we're doing. Take us over to locals. We'll see you guys on Thursday. Opposite of a grip. You guys have got to be kidding me. All right, that's what we're doing. All right, can you take us over to logos? We'll see you guys on Thursday.

Speaker 3: 1:14:24

Okay, let me just remove all this here. Remove Remove. I wish there was a better way to do this I wish there was a better way to do this.

Speaker 2: 1:14:46

Well, the thing with um, the thing with being accused of grifting for this is absurd, like people don't understand what the word grift means.

Speaker 3: 1:14:58

Your committee broad.

Speaker 2: 1:14:59

That's what grifting is, but beyond that, it's like we put so much into this freaking show, guys like if we didn't have locals paid members a lot like we couldn't do it. There's no way I could continue doing this and rob could continue doing this that first year and a half where we weren't breaking even even like in that first year it was a money dump, money dump, and the only reason we got through it is because of joe diodati.

Speaker 3: 1:15:25

Yeah, yeah, man do you remember, yes, what that was like for us?

Speaker 2: 1:15:30

me and rob put like four grand into this podcast to that date.

Speaker 3: 1:15:36

It was like we were like a year in we're talking cameras, mics, lights plus all the monthly subscriptions. We were about a year in. We're talking cameras, mics, lights plus all the monthly subscriptions Subscription things.

Speaker 2: 1:15:43

We were about four grand in and we were just like, oh, this is so bad. Joe Diodati reached out to us privately and he goes how much have you guys spent, like dude? It's like $3,500. Don't even worry. Literally within seconds, rob's PayPal account had $3,500 in it. Like I almost cried. He literally gave us the inspiration to get like. We were at the point where we're like dude, how long can we do this without making any money? And we at least got the break even at that point because of Joe. Like you talk about us like a legend on this channel. Joe Diodati is a legend on this channel.

Speaker 3: 1:16:21

Joe diodati is a legend on this channel and it's, it's it kind of sucks because it I mean not so in the middle of lent he, he's been offline for all lengths. Yeah, actually I think he did. I don't think it was exodus 90, maybe it was exodus 90 or the the 70day Septuagint, not Septuagint, but anyways he's been offline so I haven't talked to him in two months now.

Speaker 2: 1:16:46

We usually keep in touch with him on Telegram. He lives in Australia, so his time difference is crazy too. Yep.

Speaker 3: 1:16:54

He sent me cigars when Mina was born. Yeah, he's a good guy. He sent me a package too.

Speaker 2: 1:17:02

He's got a heart of gold. I mean, he really does he. He is the reason this channel exists, probably today. So, um, but yeah, this isn't a grift. This is just like, if you guys want us to do two hours, two nights a week, like we just appreciate everybody, like I don't know, but um, so the and it's also how you weed out the bad actors, like you really weed out bad actors everyone's.

Speaker 3: 1:17:28

How much was jeremiah's consultation fee? And adrian goes?

Speaker 2: 1:17:31

jeremiah's consultation was priceless no, but like, think about like you're weeding out bad actors too. Like I know I can share a personal story here and there's not just some idiot that doesn't like us looking to screw us over. You know it's like it's difficult to get to this end, and if you're paying for us, you like us so so my nephew slept over Saturday night.

Speaker 3: 1:17:54

How old is your nephew?

Speaker 2: 1:17:55

My son's age. They're born six days apart.

Speaker 3: 1:17:58

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2: 1:18:02

Okay, born six days apart. Oh wow, okay, so they're both.

Speaker 2: 1:18:03

This is, this is the brother remember me, and my brother have to go and tell my parents together, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, this is his, his son, um, but that brother is also the brother who had the heroin addiction, okay, so, um, my nephew was born and my son was born. Now, when, when the girls get pregnant, my wife and my, my brother's ex, get pregnant, yeah, everybody is happy for me and nicole and they're worried about mikey because, um, the situation with mikey and his girl was not like me and nicole. Like me and nicole have been together for a long time, like every. We were talking about getting married anyway, like we were really planning to get married. It was just like, oh, it looks like we're getting married a little sooner. You know, like that was what the situation was with me and Nicole. My brother wasn't like that Like he. He was like it was just some chick he was hanging out with and, like you know, I got her pregnant. So, um, my nephew asked, like he was like really upset, and him, my son.

Speaker 2: 1:19:08

So I leave for work at like 4 30 in the morning and I come downstairs to get my work clothes and I see my son and my nephew just like up at 4 30 in the morning and like my nephew's like choked up, what the hell? What are you guys doing up? What's going going on? And my son's like no, I'll talk to you later, I'll talk to you later about it. I'm like Okay. So my son called me later on and he was like yeah, carmine was just like really upset and like he was like wondering why his dad wasn't there for him all those years.

Speaker 2: 1:19:37

So, my brother, what happened? Was he? He, he marries the girl, and then just the pressure of life right, this is what. So this is what I talked to my son about. I'm like Nick, I'm like a lot of what goes into being a man is not really talked about much. But when you get married and you become a husband and a father, like the weight of the world is on your shoulders to keep it all together, to make sure your finances are okay, to make sure the bills are paid, to make sure everything is in order, and it's kind of like a rite of passage of becoming a man where everybody kind of respects you as a man. Now, because you have it all together, it's like I'm keeping a family together, a roof over our heads. I'm going to work every day, and for my brother I think that just got too much and he crumbled under the pressure and he's like and a lot of guys that happens to and they freaking kill themselves, like it really happens, especially because like largely, we weren't raised to be ready for it.

Speaker 2: 1:20:46

Right, so so, but for my brother I think, look, my brother was, he's my younger brother Things always kind of came easy to me, like everything kind of just came easy to me, Like I never, you know, I was a straight A student until I dropped out, Like I just hated school. But I was like a straight A student I never. My brother was like, oh, he struggled with school and stuff and um, I already, like I was already a foreman at my company at 21 years old, like I was. As soon as I started working there, I was like I jumped right to the top ranks. My brother's still. He's been there 20 years.

Speaker 2: 1:21:16

He's still not, you know, and it's like I think him kind of being in my shadow a little bit had a lot to do with that and then just the pressure of keeping it together. He just couldn't handle it and he started using drugs and then he went on like dude, I'm telling you we waiting every day to get a phone call that my brother overdosed, Like he just disappeared like from his, from his girl, from his son, from everything for like two years, maybe three, and it was at like a pivotal time in my nephew's life, and he just disappeared, like he didn't. He didn't contact anybody Like we. We were just waiting to get that phone call that he was dead, right. So then he gets it back together.

Speaker 2: 1:22:09

But even after he kind of like gets clean the the my nephew's mom doesn't want her son near him. When you can't blame her like you can't blame her. Like the kid's been missing for three years. He hasn't taken part in his son's life for three years, so so she didn't want him to see him. So there was this additional two year period of him finally getting to see his son again, right. So he does get him back around, like maybe 13. And like all of this is hidden from my nephew, he has no idea what. He just thinks his father his dad wasn't there.

Speaker 2: 1:22:38

He doesn't know. His father fell into all this stuff, you know. And then it happened to my brother again and he falls off the wagon a few years later and he has another episode where he doesn't. He disappears for a year or so. You know so.

Speaker 2: 1:22:50

But all of it, like my, my nephew was just like broken from this and he's like I don't understand, like I don't, I don't get it. My dad, just Like you, don't think about the damage the things we do in our selfish moments that are going to have on our kids. And my brother was just like when you're a drug addict, like you're a vampire, like all you care about is your next fix. But it led to a really good conversation with my son about, like the pressures of being a man. And I'm like Nick, you're going to be in this position one day you're going to get married and you're going to have kids and you're going to have that same pressure on you. Like it's not something we talk to men about that often you know, like we really don't talk to men about like there's this, like you're, you're, you're, you're supposed to be the stoic man who's got it all together and you're not, you're not nervous about anything. You're not worried about anything. Like you, just everything's fine.

Speaker 3: 1:23:45

It's your job to be that person for your wife I think what we don't tell them is, like you, you might have to look like you have it all together and be stoic and not be nervous, but you are going to be a nervous wreck all day, every day. You know, just laying awake at night wondering what little thing someone does half a world away is going to you know, screw you and your family over like it's not just that.

Speaker 2: 1:24:09

I think like I struggled with imposter syndrome for a while. What like when I first got married, like you know, like, when you feel like, like I like, especially when I first got married and I first bought my house and I was like stressed about making the mortgage payments and stuff, you know like I was like holy cow, am I really like? What did I get myself into? You know, like when I first bought my house Imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is when you feel like Did you just say imposter syndrome.

Speaker 2: 1:24:39

Imposter syndrome when you don't feel like, when you're in a role where you don't feel like you're qualified for where you, where you feel like you're just faking it till you make yeah, you're faking this image and you don't really like.

Speaker 2: 1:24:50

I think I when I first bought my house. Because when we bought my house, like I put the money down and then the house needed a ton of repairs, like a lot, and I just started dumping money into repairing things and I left myself with almost no savings and I was like all of a sudden it was like I went from having like a ton of money in the bank, living in an apartment and like being able to do whatever the hell I want to like. Oh my goodness, what did I do? I got a mortgage to pay now and I'm down to nothing in the savings.

Speaker 2: 1:25:15

It was the scariest time of my life, those first first three years of marriage, and it's like I gave off the impression I had it all together to everybody. But I mean, I had so many sleepless nights worried about money, just like oh my gosh man, what did I do? But I never let my wife onto it, I never let anybody know I was stressed like this. It's just, but it's part of the part of the stress of being a man is like I got this.

Speaker 3: 1:25:39

I was going to say I'm sure that got better, but that's never really gone fully away, has it?

Speaker 2: 1:25:45

No, no, because you're always, especially as your kids get older and you want to help them with things. And it's like, you see, other parents are able to pay for the wedding and they're able to send their kids to do this, they're able to help with that, and it's like, man, I'm a construction worker, I'm going to do the best I can, but like I'm not going to be able to, I'm not going to be able to do for my kids Well, like your average long Island parent is able to do, you know, and but like part of um, part of keeping my kids grounded has been those conversations also, though. It's like, look, you're not, your parents aren't wealthy. Like they're not, you don't have wealthy parents. Like I don't care that your friend's parents bought them a brand new car. Like I don't get.

Speaker 2: 1:26:29

Like that's not reality. You're not going to have things handed to you, you're going to have to work for things and I'm going to help you in any way I can. But like you don't have that's not going to be your life ever, so you shouldn't be feeling sorry for yourself that like, oh, my friend's got a new Mustang and I'm driving around a piece of crap, you know. It's like this is this is life man Like my dad never bought me a car, my dad never helped me with any of that and it made me go out and like work harder to get it together myself, and it's that's kind of what you have to do to the younger generation. The kids that are spoiled, I think, really are at a deficit. So as much as they think it sucks that, you know I can't just buy them things and like get whatever they want, like it's going to be good for them in the long run. They just can't see it when they're young um he's gonna make his kids scream everyone's

Speaker 2: 1:27:21

saying yeah, the imposter syndrome is eating fake spaghetti a lot of kids do put their kids I mean a lot of people do put themselves into debt for their kids because a lot of that is keeping up with the jones crap. So, like my, like the other parents will see, oh well, they're sending their kid to this college and like they're, and it's like parents will literally put themselves, they'll do the boomer thing and put themselves into crazy debt to keep up with the job. That's, I think, the biggest thing. It's not like it's not even the retirement thing about the boomers, it was the keeping up with the joneses and like having having the two cars in the driveway and, uh, not living, like not teaching the retirement thing is just a continuation of that into their old age though

Speaker 2: 1:28:04

yeah, it's like I don't know, man, like when I, when I I see um, what's wait, I didn't see the golden joke. What's golden joke, I don't know. Anthony casually ignores golden. It's hard for me to keep up with the um, uh, the locals chat because it's not like the youtube one, it's on a different screen, like right now I'm not even looking at the. I wish I could have this. I think I can actually, but it's not live like we're in stream yard. I'd have to. I'd be on a delay if I put locals on my actual. I gotta figure all all that out. Let me see, maybe I could slide this over. At least I can see better.

Speaker 3: 1:28:45

While we talk about boomers incredible.

Speaker 2: 1:28:49

I am a boomer when it comes to technology. Yeah, I, I. It was just an interesting conversation, and the other thing I wanted to talk about was so the the, the guy that tim flanders had on. He he helped this ignatius study bible, so and I saw tim is doing a couple of things with scott han right like.

Speaker 3: 1:29:16

You see what scott han's wife is doing no running for office.

Speaker 3: 1:29:23

Now it's mayor of steubenville, but well, I think local politics is local a little different, especially when you're older right and don't have your own kids in the house and stuff yeah, but still, you don't want your wife running for office man when I saw that I'm like, oh, anthony's gonna be so disappointed in dr even even the even if scott han is taking the catholic zionism side because I can't surprise you too much it does, because so much of me understanding the old Testament story of the birthright going to the younger brother is actually from Scott Hahn back in the day.

Speaker 2: 1:30:07

Nothing recent, right, all stuff from 25, 30 years ago. But like so much of understanding Jacob and Esau and Cain and Abel and even the parables, how all of the parables are about the older brother, like every one of these stories, you know, what shocked me at the Father Mosley talk was that Peter is the younger brother and Andrew is the older brother. Yeah, did you know that Andrew's the older brother and Peter is the one who gets the keys to the kingdom? That was like.

Speaker 3: 1:30:42

I was like Holy cow, that's a little bit but that's a little.

Speaker 2: 1:30:49

That's a little gem that I didn't pick up on. I never knew before that, and also that Maudsley focused on that. Yeah, yeah, yes, there were. There is that enmity between them, but there's a reconciliation and that's an important part of the story as well, and that's why it's this. None of this is about like hatred of jews or anything like that it's really about, like what, what is supposed to happen in the story?

Speaker 2: 1:31:18

and the story is there's this enmity between the older brother and the younger brother, and the older brother is going to try and kill the younger brother, just like kane did, and and that's that's what the story is like. I don't know how we, like I don't, I'm not worried about jews and banking and stuff. I'm more worried about the older brother trying to kill us. And they're doing it first, uh, spiritually, through through the liturgy and things like that. It's just it. It's just playing out the way it is. Man, I don't know, and I also don't want to harp on this. Like every single episode, it just seems to be going that way. But but I don't want to harp on this.

Speaker 3: 1:31:58

I don't even think about the Jews during the day and you know I tell like Twitter until we talk about it on here.

Speaker 2: 1:32:07

Well, that's what it is. I see it on Twitter Right, and I saw the Tim Flanders episode this morning and then I watched Christian Wagner discussing Trent Horn. So, wellrent horn just wrote the article on catholic answers about this, like this is why I'm talking about. It's not so that I just want to talk about this. It's that there's things happening and I'm and I'm like, oh man, what is going on here? Let me tell you something that, um, I'll I'll share with you guys a little something behind the scenes. Me talking with katherine bennett. Um, I hope she's okay with this. I don't think I don't um, what are you doing?

Speaker 3: 1:32:46

what are you about to do that you shouldn't?

Speaker 2: 1:32:49

well, it's just uh, dm between her and I. Yeah, you know, I guess that's a private conversation. Um, it's never stopped you before. Well, well, no, I don't, I think I, I I mean I wouldn't share it publicly, but like with you guys, it was. She was just sharing with me how, like a few years ago, she was actually in an argument with her sister and her sister doesn't even have the faith, but her sister comes, that was like part of a communist group or something, and her sister was like israel, this, israel, that.

Speaker 2: 1:33:17

And katherine was like this is anti-semitic. And then she like, slowly has been having a, like a very similar intuition to me and just kind of seeing the same things I'm seeing and I think, like, if I, I mean, I'm, I'm guessing here, this is not. She did not share this with me. I'm guessing here, this is not. She did not share this with me, I'm guessing here.

Speaker 2: 1:33:42

But it was revealing to me that she was the one that had that conversation and it wasn't the three of them. So this is purely just speculation. She did not, I promise, she did not say anything, I didn't ask anything, I didn't want to butt in there, purely speculation. But, like I thought it was very revealing that she was the only one that had that conversation and it wasn't the three of them, and I think what she did was incredibly courageous Like she got on. She's got a very normie audience and she asked him to introduce himself and right out the gate, like within the first 10 seconds, he's like well, I'm a priest who's been suspended for covid, this and that, this and that, and I think the jews are trying to destroy the liturgy like that's his opening statement. I just saw her face.

Speaker 2: 1:34:30

She's like he had this amazing reflection about our lady being the only one at the foot of the cross that really knew that it was god being killed you don't think john did well, maybe john did, but it's still like I don't know if john fully understood it yet, like because there's so many things that were revealed when the holy spirit comes to them. But peter does make the confession. You are the son of god, right? Right, yeah, I mean, it is highly likely he did but peter wasn't there.

Speaker 2: 1:35:04

John right, well, he still makes the confession in front of the other apostles, right, but like, even if it is saint john and her right, it's still like you're, you're watching, like she knows it's god on the cross. Like, yeah, it's, she knows, and she's just watching all this happen and it's like can you imagine knowing that and just having to just sit there and it's like the. The tradition especially is that mary never like uncontrollably wept. No, like she, never like. Well, and if you, if you watch the passion mel captured that really well like, mary does weep and she cries, but she's never like, she never uncontrollably weeps, because she just quietly accepts this, this, the. It's her passion as well. You know, it really is, it's her passion as well.

Speaker 3: 1:35:56

It's like there should be the passion of our lady, you know it's like I forget where I read it or where I heard it, but like somewhere that that her sorrow was enough to kill her, but god gave her the grace to yeah, live through it yeah it's like um anthony and rob, have y'all read americanism?

Speaker 2: 1:36:19

uh, the anti-christian conspiracy by five I have not. I have not, um, I know, uh, dr deep state talks about that book a lot, though. Um, see, that's the other thing. Though, right, right, like so I'll, I'll check out dr deep state and um, and I think he's got like a lot of really good points, but it's, I don't, I wouldn't, I don't think I'd want our show to ever be that every episode.

Speaker 3: 1:36:45

It would be boring. It really like.

Speaker 2: 1:36:47

I don't, I don't want it to be that every episode. I'm sure they do like a really good job with their audience and they talk about this stuff. But they talk about this stuff but like I can only take that kind of stuff in doses and I like talking about a range of things. Like I really do like that our show. It's like we can have a conversation. We don't have like a thing, you know, like Tim Gordon's got the patriarchy and that's like his thing and he's always got to talk about feminism. That's all he, all he talks about. And then it's like I like that it doesn't even necessarily have to be specifically Catholic that we're going to talk about. If there's just something interesting, we could just grab it and run with it. I kind of like that about our show. I don't ever want to be cornered in to specifically only talk about one topic. I like the flexibility we have. Your thing is shit, yeah, and the Elder Brothers get boring after a while. It's too much doom-pilling at a certain point, right.

Speaker 3: 1:37:54

Yes, we get it. They're anti-Christian.

Speaker 2: 1:37:56

Yes, we get it, I mean you can only do so much noticing before you've noticed at all. Yeah, and then like uh, daniel o'connor's got his aliens and ai thing and he's got to stay on that I can, yeah, I just can't imagine thinking about a single topic all day, every day.

Speaker 3: 1:38:14

Me neither, no matter what the?

Speaker 2: 1:38:15

topic is, except for maybe, rome, but honestly, like I was excited to talk about rome with you tonight because I knew you were going to have all those, all those tidbits, like I know I'm going to learn something and it like I, I love that we, we could bring that up and you're, you're like man you got a lot of freaking roman history memorized I don't even know as much about rome as I do about other points in history, but oh well what's your favorite? Uh well, russian you.

Speaker 3: 1:38:45

Russian history you studied right, uh, some, I mean not a ton like not super in depth depending on the era, like I know a lot well world war one in russia, I know a lot about the communist revolution and the civil war and and and all of that, but, um, I don't know a ton of like deep, deep russian history yeah, um, it's also kind of hard for rob and I to to balance friendships with people like we, like daniel o'connor, we like father modzley. They don't like each other they don't like each other.

Speaker 3: 1:39:25

Yeah, it's yeah, and I mean and then there's another priest that doesn't get along with father modzley, and I'm not gonna say who. Yeah like that was. That was hard to balance.

Speaker 2: 1:39:34

That was a hard one too so, like I have to be impartial to things like that, and it's like daniel, I don't know anything about the divine will devotion at all, like I never, never, read a single thing by by her, I don't know anything about it, so I'm not going to make a judgment based on either of your position either one.

Speaker 3: 1:39:52

Even if I make a judgment on, say, the divine will, I don't think daniel is a bad catholic for having a different opinion on it yeah so that's the other thing, like now his opinion on medjugorje maybe, but well, the so I posted the father maudsy clip and then fatty his comments.

Speaker 2: 1:40:09

Father maudsy, he called him father fraudsley because he he spoke out against the divine will devotion. It's like can't you people just have a disagreement with somebody and not hate them like I don't like all the things?

Speaker 3: 1:40:22

it's not about dogma.

Speaker 2: 1:40:23

People like come on, even even the things we're talking about, right, and I'm saying, like the catholic answers guys, I think they're taking the wrong position on this and this is a very significant issue. It's a little dislike those guys like I don't. I don't they not my enemy, I just think they're wrong. I think things are going to come to a head and I think they present a watered-down version of the faith, but I still think they are Catholics who love the Catholic faith. They're just presenting a watered-down version.

Speaker 2: 1:40:54

They're presenting the Novus Ordo Catholicism.

Speaker 3: 1:40:57

That's the thing, I think the moment is coming when they will have to make a choice and, depending on how they choose, they could become enemies.

Speaker 2: 1:41:07

Yeah, yeah, I think that's what we're, I think that's what we're heading towards. But, dude, they are presenting Novus Ordo Catholicism. Yeah, that's the thing 're presenting. No sure thought they're presenting like what? How do you? What do you say about that? I mean, it's just, it is what it is. These are, these are the representatives of it. Right, that's what these guys are. They are the, the representative they are to novus ordo catholicism. What Tim Pool was for Iran today, coming back and giving BB Netanyahu's message that's what those guys are doing for Novus Ordo Catholicism. We all grew up in that world. I'm not even judging that world. We're all from it. You just start to see the cracks in it, even if you're still stuck going to the cracks in it, as as you're, you know and even if you're still stuck going to the novus ordo, like you can still recognize the issues in it and still be stuck going to it. Father mosley made another good point about like if you, if you just unilaterally banned the novus ordo and instituted the traditional mass again, it wouldn't be good. Like you can't culture, shock people that have been in the Novus Ordo for 50 years and force them into the TLM because their bad habits will come into the TLM Like you need to have people get introduced to it slowly so that they can adjust, because if you just force them into it, all you're going to do is you're going to get those bad habits that were developed over there brought into the traditional liturgy.

Speaker 3: 1:42:42

It took me a long time to get acclimated. All the bad Novus Ordo priests in the early 70s were bad TLM priests before that. So yeah, if you make a bad Novus Ordo priest at the TLM today, he's still just going to be a bad priest. Paul's a culture shock, that's his favorite word.

Speaker 2: 1:43:06

I swear every, every message from him ends with that yeah, you'd scandalize them. Um, let's see. Yeah, that's a lot of people like they'll see. Oh man, you know what we didn't talk about, father Altman. Like Father Altman with that weird situation.

Speaker 3: 1:43:29

Don't get me started on him.

Speaker 2: 1:43:31

Like that whole weird situation where he goes and goes and so Khan celebrates a Novus Ordo with guitars and freaking.

Speaker 3: 1:43:40

People are pointing out he's not wearing the proper vestments. You're literally committing liturgical abuse in the Novus Ordo and then you come out with the tweet a day later that that tweet was crazy too, and then he writes a whole article on it. Maybe I don't?

Speaker 2: 1:43:57

Yeah, it's a whole article on it Maybe. Yeah, bobby said he wears shorts. I wear shorts. I don't know, I don't know where she saw them in shorts. I did that once In person. I'm not even gonna repeat that, tommy no, which, oh you know.

Speaker 3: 1:44:25

But uh, thomas beckett up above says I love father altman's base set of a contest con celebrated boomer masses.

Speaker 2: 1:44:31

So that's what we have to talk about right, because there's this weird segment of Santa Vicenta's Nova Zordo people.

Speaker 3: 1:44:42

They are all boomers.

Speaker 2: 1:44:44

They're all boomers. They're all boomers and they think Francis isn't the Pope, but they love the Nova Zordo. It's a really strange, it's a really strange thing.

Speaker 3: 1:44:54

Oh, mrs Casey saying the picture she saw was from the conference. You saw it live, yeah, okay, oh Mrs Casey saying the picture she saw was from the conference you saw live.

Speaker 2: 1:44:59

Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, dude, the church is wild right now. Bobby, what did Bobby say? I'm not going to repeat that.

Speaker 3: 1:45:13

Bobby, he was literally there.

Speaker 2: 1:45:28

But that that that mentality is rampant among that older segment, right like they grew up in the novus ordo, like those guys will come under and j under jp2. They're jp2 catholics. Like they're jp2 catholics who just think there's such a drastic difference between francis and john paul that they they're like this can't be. You know, because they it. It was never about like the mass.

Speaker 3: 1:45:47

For them it was just about standing against abortion and the gays like that was what it was, this thing that communists are the enemy it's like they are, but yeah, like we're the communists.

Speaker 2: 1:46:00

Now you don't do that, and at least john poe was homophobic. Like we just need. We just we just need a pope to hate the gays and we're good hate the gays but love the jews.

Speaker 3: 1:46:16

Well, what does he do with the gay jews? Well, what does he do with the gay jews?

Speaker 2: 1:46:20

there's no. Does he love them or hate them? There's such a disconnect between their head and like the reality. It's like you don't realize the gays are the jews.

Speaker 3: 1:46:27

I think they're just? How can you hate the communists when 40 of the none of them think that that's the thing.

Speaker 2: 1:46:34

It's just, man, there's a yeah well, even the assisi meetings, though. So somebody said, uh, the assisi meetings? Like I was a jp2 catholic, I never heard of the assisi meetings until taylor marshall talked about. I had no idea until I heard about yeah, exactly I never knew those happened until taylor marshall talked about them. Now, a lot of that is because I don't think I was born yet. Right when were they? In 81 or 86?.

Speaker 2: 1:47:03

Oh, so I was like four, you know, like I, I don't even I wasn't born yet at that point. Um, so yeah, like we grew up in a church where I never saw that stuff. And and like the, the media wouldn't cover it anyway. It would like the Catholic media wouldn't cover it, like EWTM would have ignored that, you know, if they were around.

Speaker 3: 1:47:22

So unless you're, unless you were reading like literally dare wanderer, which became the remnant, which was a small newspaper in Minnesota Like you, would have never heard about it.

Speaker 2: 1:47:33

Yeah, yeah, dude, you think about those guys, right, like those guys who come up up, they see all the liturgical changes. They're the ones in the basements having these latin masses taking altars from churches that are trying to destroy them and they're putting them in. They're just trying to salvage, like hotel conference rooms that must have been apocalyptic for them you, it's you.

Speaker 3: 1:47:57

You talk about this being the end times. But come on, man, like think about the same time though, rob.

Speaker 2: 1:48:02

Right, well, I know, I'm just saying but when I say end times, like I'm not giving you a four-year period where the world ends, I'm saying like this is right, because then you, then I, could prove you wrong in four years I still think we'll be a total war before trump's term is up. That you could prove me wrong on Define total war.

Speaker 3: 1:48:19

I think the world war two level levels of violence.

Speaker 2: 1:48:22

World war- two levels of hostility before Trump's term is out.

Speaker 3: 1:48:27

Do we want to put money on this? I'll put money on it. How much you want to put on it?

Speaker 2: 1:48:35

50 bucks a hundred bucks. Yeah, I'll throw a hundred on it, let's go.

Speaker 3: 1:48:41

Okay, okay, 50 bucks, 100 bucks yeah I'll throw 100 on it let's go, okay, but we gotta choose, but like I want someone else to decide if we've hit world war ii. Levels of violence yeah, all right.

Speaker 2: 1:48:49

All right, we're gonna need. The boss is 3500.

Speaker 3: 1:48:52

We gotta bet the diodati money with the hope that joe will bail. Whichever one of us is wrong, out no I'm not betting that kind of money.

Speaker 2: 1:49:02

That's crazy, that's. That's a bad game. That's like dangerous levels of gambling. I'm in for 100. Who's on my side? Let's do this who's on my?

Speaker 3: 1:49:09

side who's on robbie wants in bobby wants in.

Speaker 2: 1:49:12

Rob bobby's on my side. Who's on my side? Who's on rob's side? Just just put anthony or rob in the comments.

Speaker 3: 1:49:18

Let's say I create a pull. I don't think I can create a pull in this one sucks um, they used to sneak children.

Speaker 2: 1:49:32

Everybody's on rob's side all right we're going to war, anthony, let's do this Come on.

Speaker 3: 1:49:38

We got a few Anthony here.

Speaker 2: 1:49:40

It's so bad because those of us who think we will be, it's like you don't want to be on that one, it actually seems like a fairly even split. Yeah, all right, this is why our show works, though I agree. This is why our show works, because, agree, this is why our show works, because we disagree about this and it's funny we're laughing about the world going into chaos it's not like we're not telling you guys to go get your beeswax candles.

Speaker 3: 1:50:06

We're just, we're just you know, what's funny is anthony you're the one who thinks we're going to be in an apocalyptic, apocalyptic, world war, yet I'm the one that just got a big bag of military surplus delivered to my door today.

Speaker 2: 1:50:21

Pens, he doesn't agree with me.

Speaker 3: 1:50:23

If you guys knew the prepping, the level, of prepping rob that safe just appeared on on air, you know, three months ago.

Speaker 2: 1:50:31

It's now full of guns I told you I have you are. So if, if, crap the fan. My first shot is to my uncles in PA, but if it's like we're too bad to even go there, cause that's still pretty highly populated that area is, I'm driving to Minnesota and I'm coming to stay with you and hope like that. I have enough weapons for everyone in our we are going to hold down the fort over in Minnesota. Fight the apocalypse out in in the midwest well, it's funny.

Speaker 3: 1:51:02

So like I mean, I live in a small town and it's a fair drive to like a target or a walmart or a movie theater or whatever, but like I don't feel like I'm in like literally the middle of nowhere. But then I see something online, uh, on twitter, six months ago. That's like, if it's like this long of a drive to a city with this population, you're in this level of what the US government considers rural or whatever. And I keep going down, I keep going down. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm literally in like the most rural classification the US government has.

Speaker 2: 1:51:36

You got to think there's two options where I'm in new york right, which is prime target number one.

Speaker 3: 1:51:43

so it's like my hope is, either I'm wiped out like you, basically will have to be in pennsylvania if you're going to survive like I don't want to live through the apocalypse, like I really don't.

Speaker 2: 1:51:55

I'd rather get taken out in the blast. But if, if there's something on the east coast, even like, you got to get the hell away from the east coast, so like, even if it's washington dc, you know like you don't want to stay in new york.

Speaker 3: 1:52:06

No, I mean on fire even if it's not war like. Think of that new york blackout. How long did that go? Day and and a half.

Speaker 2: 1:52:16

Yeah, that had gone another day or two. Yeah, they say you're three days away from like without food.

Speaker 3: 1:52:26

You're three days away from mayhem yeah, you're three days away from mayhem and you're stuck on an island.

Speaker 2: 1:52:35

I talk about that with my wife all the time. It's like we are stuck on an island. There's no way out. We can take the boat and get to connecticut, but then what? You don't have a car right.

Speaker 3: 1:52:44

I mean, yeah, you're one way off. The island is literally into a worse situation yeah, you're on foot at that point yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:52:53

So I mean, if there's like riots and stuff, yeah we could go, stay on the boat, but you can't sleep on my boat like that. It's not like it's a. You know what I mean. It's not like I got a comfort line, I got a bow rider. It's a 24 foot bow. It's good to escape, but then, like I said, you get to what, connecticut, jersey, and then what?

Speaker 3: 1:53:11

You're on foot and you're just hoping it and it's. It's like what the hell do you?

Speaker 2: 1:53:19

do with that. You got to rob somebody's car. Take the boat to Canada, yeah, so it's either I get wiped out in the initial blast or I got to get the hell away from the East Coast. Man Blessing call it. Kudos will come to Anthony's rescue in the event of World War III.

Speaker 3: 1:53:36

So today I put out that tweet, that yesterday was 20 years since my confirmation and like so I asked what people who their confirmation saints were I might. I knew this was gonna happen. First person, blessed carlo well, you, son of a they were just making fun, you know I mean I've I've talked about this.

Speaker 2: 1:53:55

My parish that I went to was so modernist that they made us not pick confirmation names. They were just like you've got to use your real name. I never even knew confirmation names were a thing, until I have my reversion years later.

Speaker 3: 1:54:11

Well, my wife came into the church through RCIA. They didn't have any of them. Choose confirmation names.

Speaker 2: 1:54:21

When the hell did that start and what was the reason for it? What do they not want us researching the church? Fathers like? That's what it seems like, though don't look into any of those old saints, guys they don't want you to know anything about them I don't know I don't.

Speaker 3: 1:54:35

I don't understand it. People used to actually go by their confirmation names, my dad's name is Alan.

Speaker 2: 1:54:42

His real name is Alan Armand Abadi. I don't know what the hell Armand is, I don't know where he got it from, but his confirmation name is Anthony, so it's Alan Anthony Abadi. I'm Anthony Alan Abadi, and then I named my son Nicholas Allen. So I didn't like the name allen, because I didn't want to name my son allen.

Speaker 2: 1:55:01

I just like that name, so I named him. Nicole's dad's name is nicholas and my dad's name is alice. We named nicholas allen but, like traditionally, you're supposed to name your first born after your father your dad must be part german right yeah, his mom armand is german yeah, my yeah. Hauser is my dad's, mom's maiden name yeah, that makes sense yeah, my dad's, mom's maiden name is hauser. It's a-l-a-n, not a-l-e and not a-l-l-e-n, a-l-l-e-n, a-l-a-n. Nicholas Allen Rizzler. Rizzler.

Speaker 2: 1:55:42

Somebody wrote a tweet one time. I don't know who wrote it. It was hilarious. I'm just sitting at my desk at work right now thinking about how some kid the Rizzler makes 10,000 times more than I do. Some short fat kid named the Rizzler makes about 10 000 times what I do no, I'm not even. I'm a mutt dude like. My dad's dad is 100 italian. My mom's mom is 100. My mom's dad is 100 italian. My dad's mom is german italian mom's mom, sicilian.

Speaker 2: 1:56:19

Sicilian, by definition, is a mutt yeah, well, greek arab, but my mom, my mom's mom, is 100 irish.

Speaker 3: 1:56:31

My mom, my mom's mom, my, my grandma, pat, um, someone could be writing these down and then figure out all your possible security question answers.

Speaker 2: 1:56:42

I don't use any of that stuff, I promise. When my mom's mom, patricia, my grandfather called her Red, her nickname was Red because she had red hair. Yeah, it's like where'd it go, my? Grandfather was like hey, red Red.

Speaker 2: 1:56:55

My grandparents, my grandparents, like I remember going there and my my grandmother and my grandfather slept in separate rooms, but find it too, my whole life. My grandfather would smoke his palm oils unfiltered palm oil. Lay on his stomach with two pillows stacked and sit and watch tv with a palm oil hanging out of his mouth and he'd fall asleep. They had to get him a a fireproof carpet under his pillow because he freaking lit the house on fire like three times. My grandfather is the sickest guinea ever. He just fell asleep in his freaking palm oil. He lit the house on fire twice, oh wow.

Speaker 2: 1:57:37

That's my mom's mom. That's my mom's mom. Yeah, that's my mom's dad who now I work for his son. My uncle is my mom's son, but my dad's dad was like a freaking guy, like my dad's dad was, if you so. My dad's youngest brother killed himself when he was 17. And he left the note saying f you dad. That was the suicide note.

Speaker 2: 1:58:03

My dad's dad was like brutally abused, like he would throw the kids down the stage, through my dad, through a set of glass windows one day. So like when, when we were younger, my dad was like quick with the hands, he was just picked it up from his dad and he would hit us and then when his brother killed himself, it was like an overnight change. My dad never touched us again. Then he goes to Medjugorje. On top of it, he goes from being this quick-tempered raging.

Speaker 2: 1:58:32

My younger siblings know a different version of my dad than I know. My dad was a different guy before his brother killed himself and they went to medjugorje. He goes to medjugorje, he comes back and he's like this just gentle man playing the guitar at mass, like it's just such a bizarre change. My brother, dominic, used to run out of the house when my dad would like it, so we would get home from school. My dad would get home from work like 5 30. My brother, don, would just leave the house at five o'clock Cause he didn't want to talk to my dad, Someone goes marry couples with separate bedroom, separate beds.

Speaker 3: 1:59:06

Now you two fight about co-wife guys.

Speaker 2: 1:59:10

I don't, I don't think. I don't think me and my wife though, yeah, there's. I don't think me and my wife though, yeah, there's been a couple of times. But let me tell you something Me and my wife have had those fights. There's probably been maybe in our whole marriage. Maybe like four times we slept in separate rooms. We were fighting. She sleeps on the couch. I don't go on the couch, Not this, my bed.

Speaker 3: 1:59:30

Hold on, hold on. I have a banner.

Speaker 2: 1:59:40

Yeah, yeah, there we go, but she honestly runs out of the room because she doesn't want to even talk to me, like my wife will do silent treatment and I just want to keep fighting. She just she'll just go sleep on the couch to get away from me. But not really that I throw her out, but there was.

Speaker 3: 1:59:48

There was one time where we had some, some little argument and I went to like sit on the couch or something right. And next thing I know I'm waking up and it's the next morning and like hope's, like, are you still mad at me? I'm like what, what?

Speaker 1: 2:00:03

oh, you totally forgot. I wasn't mad at you I just.

Speaker 3: 2:00:06

I sat on the couch and fell asleep like it. I'm one of those. It takes me less than a minute to fall asleep most nights.

Speaker 2: 2:00:14

I wish, dude, I can do it in my whole freaking life I wish I could fall asleep. I know, oh my gosh man, you have no idea what the process to fall asleep is for me nightmare yeah, you're maddie's a lot like you dude, I'm like I'm wired, I'm, I can't, I I need like white noise in the background.

Speaker 2: 2:00:34

I just cannot fall asleep. I'm just so freaking, dude. You see how my brain works. My brain is just constantly turning, thinking of things. I'm just like I don't know. So, all right, we're gonna wrap this one up. We're at the two hour mark. I hope you guys enjoyed it. We had a. I think we had 100 people in the locals we did yeah, we had 100 people in locals tonight.

Speaker 2: 2:00:54

That's good, all right, we love you guys. We will see you guys on Thursday. I don't know what we're going to talk about yet. If anybody ever has show suggestion ideas, I may not listen to them, but if you guys got one because people send me stuff all the time but sometimes it's a good one I'm like, ooh, I could use this. Send me show ideas. I like it. I like hearing from you guys. I try to follow everybody back. If I'm not following you on Twitter, just let me know and I will follow you back.

Speaker 2: 2:01:18

I probably will I like to follow everybody back that watches the show.

Speaker 3: 2:01:27

I don't care if you follow me on Twitter, but if you watch the show, I try to follow you back. I've literally gotten replies like Anthony says you'd follow me back if I follow you. I'm like no, no, no. Anthony said he would. He doesn't speak for me.

Speaker 2: 2:01:43

I'm going through my replies and if anybody makes a show reference and I'm not following them, I follow them. I'm not stingy with followers, I don't care. I'm never going to be unapproachable. Alright, guys, we're going to wrap this one up. We will see you, guys, on Thursday. Take us out, rob. Thank you.