AK47 Season 2 Episode 13: The Paul Does Rise Again!

This is an old RTV episode. It's Paul, and he's back!

Listen to it on anchor here, or wherever pods are caught!

AK47 S2E12: Joy to the World!

This is a very special episode for me (Aaron) because our guest today is the Executive Editor of The Federalist! That's right Joy Pullman! She has been my editor, mentor, and friend for the last couple of years so finally getting to speak with her was true JOY! And besides all that Joy is a pretty big deal. The Federalist has essentially become the epicenter for opinion journalism on the American right in large part because of Joy's tireless efforts to cultivate a community of writers, mostly brilliant conservative women. She's regularly a featured guest on places like NPR and Fox news. So our humble podcast is very very honored that she agreed to speak with us. 

We discuss a lot of stuff but the most important things concerned American education. Joy specializes in education journalism and has written an entire book on common core. 

Links to resources:

1. Joy's Book "Education Invasion"

2. The Federalist article on "Federal School Choice"

3. Joy's ebook "Classic Books for Ages 3-7"

4. Her appearance on Tucker Carlson

5. My all time favorite episode of The Federalist Podcast where Joy interviews Charles Murray and explains why her family left the Beltway Bubble

Listen to the episode here on Anchor.

Don’t forget we’re also on every major podcatcher.

The AK47 Podcast Season 2: Episode 11

I am doing a new series of interviews interviewing people who are Christian apologists, but not academics.  My purpose in these interviews is to encourage Christians who want to do apologetics, have apologetics ministries, or implement apologetics into their discussions with skeptics, but don't want to spend thousands of dollars of their money and years of their time on formal degrees in apologetics or other related fields.

Kyle continues his series on becoming an apologist without getting an advanced degree by interviewing Clinton Wilcox.  Clinton is a Christian, but he mostly engages in pro-life speaking and debate.  He has defended the pro-life position in both written and verbal form for years and he has done this without getting an advanced degree.  Despite this, he is very intelligent and informed on the topic.  In this interview, I ask him how he got into pro-life apologetics and how people can prepare themselves to intellectually defend the unborn without having to spend thousands of dollars and years of time getting a degree.

Listen to the episode here.

To learn how to support our podcast, click here.

Be sure to check out Aaron and Kyle's previous interview with Clinton Wilcox on pro-life arguments.

Follow Clinton on Twitter.

Find his writings and other resources at Life Training Institute and Secular Pro-Life.

Books Mentioned in the Show
1. Pro-Life Books
 - The Case for Life by Scott Klusendorf
 - Persuasive Pro-Life by Trent Horn
 - Defending Life by Francis Beckwith
 - The Ethics of Abortion by Christopher Kaczor

2. Pro-Choice Books
 - A Defense of Abortion by David Boonin
 - Arguments about Abortion by Kate Greasley
 - Abortion and Infanticide by Michael Tooley

Other Episodes in the Series

1. Sam Harper (Philochristos)

2. Evan Minton (Cerebral Faith)

3. Cameron Bertuzzi (Capturing Christianity)

4. Richard Porter

The AK47 Podcast Season 2: Episode 10

Aaron Gleason and Kyle Hendricks come back together for another B.S. episode.  We talk about our love for the new Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse movie, which recently won an Oscar.  We also talk about other films, T.V. shows, and anime.  We talk about why the new animated Spiderman was good, how it compares to the other Spiderman movies, superhero movies in general, how these movies and anime handle drama and humor, which movie had the better Kingpin, and more.  Despite talking about our favorite entertainment, we still couldn't help but get political in the second half.  We talk about critical theory, intersectionality, and racism.

Listen to the episode here.

To learn how to support our podcast, click here.

Zero Sum gains for Identity Politics

Recently Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted this out:

“The way we reject the 0-sum idea that some communities win at the cost of others is by using opportunities to address issues intersectionally - to highlight that Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all bigotry serve the same ends & that we prevent division by championing one another.”

And the question arrises: what does this even mean?

She’s responding to the recent “troubles” of the Democrats in Congress to deal with anti semitism among their members. And her answer is Intersectionality. The issue of anti semitism needs to be addressed intersectionaly according to her. 

In case readers don’t know what this funny word means it’s basically the idea that Marxism, Feminism, etc did not go far enough. Marxism was about class, feminism about gender, on and on. Intersectionality claims to be the road map, the theory of everything, that sets the various deconstructing progressive isms into their wholisticly proper context.

So Marx identified the Bourgeois as the exploiters of the proletariat. But aren’t black proletariat worse off than the white ones? What about women? What about black women proletariat? What about homosexuals? What about the underclass beneath the proletariat? What about plants? What about people that think they’re plants? 

Every identity intersects with another and by labeling them we can determine which intersections are hurting the others and which intersections are being hurt. This is what AOC is claiming as the solution to anti semitism. That would mean identifying the “semites” in their intersectional place and responding accordingly. And also identifying the place of the anti-semites in question. It almost sounds scientific, a sort of method for understanding hate crimes.

Once the various interlocutors are identified and intersected AOC, or whoever decides to be the referee, will declare the good guy and the bad guy. Of course this isn’t actually what they’re going to do right? After all she did say that this is actually the way to get rid of zero sum thinking about groups. That almost sounds like she’s a social justice free marketer! 

One of the fundamental errors of socialism, identified by Hayek and others, is the claim that wealth is a pie with a limited amount of slices. Every time someone gets a slice that means someone else loses a slice. This is why they believe wealth must be distributed by the government. It’s the only fair way for an economy to function. This is what makes Gordon Gecko, the supposed arch capitalist from Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street, a villain. He wants to distribute the wealth to himself:

“The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it. You've got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I've still got a lot to teach you.”

This isn’t a free market where wealth is created. Gecko believes economics works exactly the same way it did during Jesus’ time. In the past wealth just was property, mostly land. In the parable of the prodigal son the inheritance the prodigal recieved comes from land. Essentially for Gecko, and the socialist, wealth is something to own not create. It’s a wild Wild West where every transaction is a duel over limited resources. This is what they think the free part means in free market, not virtuous creative energy but wild selfish violence.

Unfortunately for the socialist since the time of Adam Smith it’s been pretty clear that wealth has a nearly infinite potential for growth. Wealth isn’t a pie. It’s not a set of things to be distributed in society. New wealth gets created all the time and old wealth disappears. There isn’t a physical law of the conservation of wealth, wealth gets destroyed and created all the time. This is why people who favor market solutions are usually interested in regulatory roll back. Freedom and entrepreneurship grow wealth which grows more wealth which grows more possibilities, etc.

This is also why market solutions are not great for solving every problem, because not every problem has to do with the potentially infinite creativity of market incentives. For example the environment is a limited thing. Conservationism could be aided by market solutions but destroyed areas are often beyond the scope of libertarianism, and it should be noted beyond the ability of socialism to restore. See “The Tiger” by John Vaillant for an example of how the USSR destroyed the ecology of eastern Russia. As Sir Roger Scruton has pointed out Conservatism is at least about the fact that creating something beautiful is extremely difficult and time consuming, but destroying something is easy. This is the fundamental difference between the radical and the conservative. 

In any case AOC is claiming that 0 sum thinking about racial politics is the problem. If one person gets a slice of the racial justice pie then it doesn’t starve someone else! We can all be winners in the oppression olympics if we just use the science of intersectionality! Racial oppression and identity politics are a FREE market! 

What’s ironic about this is that intersectionality is the definition of a 0 sum philosophy. For every winner there must be a loser and the intersections map out the contestants’ places. This is why AOC isn’t concerned about the anti semitism of the American left. Because Seinfeld. Because Curb your enthusiasm. Because Spielberg. Because Fiddler on the Freaking Roof! 

There’s no Palestinian sitcoms, musicals, or academy award winning directors. But THE JEWS, aka Israel, have what scientist Neil Shenvi calls hegemonic power in western culture. The intersectional power of the Shoah is wearing off for everyone except, ironically enough, George Soros. I mean even Wonder Woman is a Jew! It’s hard to feel sorry for so successful a people. 

But “feeling” sorry for someone based on their group identity is a terrible basis for defending them. Anti semitism is wrong because racism is wrong. 

This is what makes all forms of identity poltics so insidious. Richard Spencer is pro Israel because it’s Wakanda for Jews. And Spencer would love Wakanda if it were real. If you wanted a society just for the whites well it would be awesome to have a place to put all those uppity troublesome blacks. I mean if MLK and Malcom X had a Wakanda to escape to they might still be alive! 

Obviously I think Spencer is scum. All forms of identity poltics are a disaster. 

This is why Paul said in Christ all distinctions are harmonized not destroyed. Difference isn’t the problem, but making our differences everything is. Difference is the basis of familial harmony. Marital fecundity isn’t possible without difference. The Son can’t have a Father if he isn’t the Son and The Father isn’t a Father without a Son. The dividing wall being turn down between Jew and Gentile means nothing if there are no longer Jews...or Gentiles. 

As Marcus Aurelius said the obstacle is actually the way. For the Christian death is life, selflessness is the only way to save yourself, and the last shall be the first. Identity politics is the idolatry of identity. Every generation needs to struggle with this enemy. Identity politics is the basic state of man, power plays we make with each other in mercenary social contracts. Something outside the human condition is required to heal this. 

The road map of intersectionality is actually a set of directions into Hell. And there’s only one road map out of Hell. It’s a simple map. To the north there’s a crown of thorns, east and west are nail pierced hands. 

Hate Violence is a Hoax

The title of this brief post is clearly clickbait. Obviously horrible crimes have been perpetrated due to hateful motivations. But the whole idea of “hate violence” itself is philosophically troubling. 

Actress Ellen Page recently wrote a piece responding to the Jussie Smollet fiasco that included these words:

“Cruel words and laws and beliefs cause real suffering. Queerphobia/transphobia is violence perpetrated on our children, our families, our friends and neighbors and the forgotten among us who have no voice. We all have to work together to end the normalization of anti LGBTQ+ sentiment and rhetoric.”

All through Page tries to convey that homosexuals face catastrophic life threatening hatred. But this paragraph proves that her thinking isn’t really about violence or liberalism. She is being fundamentally illiberal. She wants us to believe that the non acceptance of her worldview is an act of hate violence towards her. 

This is insidious for many reasons. As a Christian the most obvious one is that to accept it would force us to be ashamed of God’s revelation. The very existence of the Bible is an act of hate violence according to Ellen Page. So when people say they’re coming for your Bibles...well some of them kind of are. The difference between what I am arguing here and some Magahat wearing vlogger is that I don’t think you have anything to fear. Not really. 

Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option” is hard to characterize because it’s really just basic Christianity. In fact it really is about as close to the Christian concept of “Social Justice” as one can find today. What passes as so called social justice today has been sucked dry of any real content by the word social. The brilliant economist FA Hayek called social a weasel word for this very reason. It sucks the life out of whatever it touches. 

But the “Benedict Option” is really just the idea that the church can fail. Not ultimately. Christ’s bride will remain as a remnant trampling over the works of the devil somewhere till the end. But in America? Great Britain? Yes the gathering of Christ’s followers could easily disappear in any country. We aren’t called to be successful. We are called to be faithful. We aren’t called to enact justice. We are called to be justice. We are called to be the Shalom within the world. 

More and more Christians are buying into the illberalism of intersectional justice. This is a philosophy of utter nonsense designed by Bourgeois elites in order to either soothe their own guilty conscience or grasp at the power of the social class that sits just above their heads. Most college professors are an example of the first and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is an example of the later. 

But no matter how we slice it intersectional justice contradicts Christ’s worldview. The apostle Paul taught us that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no man or woman. Paul being a good Jewish man didn’t think that in Christ these things were obliterated. He knew that in Christ differences were reconciled. This is the peace that the church is called to. That when we are brothers and sisters together we harmonize sex, class, race, and even religious difference. A tapestry without different threads is nothing. 

For the Marxist class justice is the obliteration of class. For the Christian it is the Samaritan taking care of a Jew. It isn’t a government policy. It is actual peace between persons. 

A murder is not more murderous if the perpetrator screams “FAG” as the knife goes in. A lynching is not worse when it’s 5 whites hanging a black. Murder is murder. 

Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan in order to make this point. That your group identity is literally nothing. The man laying in the road, beaten and bleeding, was ignored by his group. And a man from a group he was supposed to hate saved him. And the question is who was a neighbor to this man? His actual group neighbors, his fellow Jews failed him, but someone they considered to be a “faggot” or a “n word” or whatever slur you want became his true neighbor. This is the philosophy that heals the hate of identity politics. This is the philosophy that causes a Muslim in Speaker’s Corner to put his arm around the Christian he was just fiercely debating in order to rebuke a woke atheist by saying “this man believes in God, scripture, Angels, miracles, and prophets. This man is my brother.”

If Ellen Page actually cared about so called hate crimes her Op Ed would’ve been about how horrible people like Jussie Smollet, Julie Swetnick (member her?), or Nathan Philips are. It would’ve been about how the company that built Fearless Girl “agreed to pay over $5 million in settlement over gender pay discrimination, just 6 months after the installation of the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street.” 

The hypocrisy and outright lies perpetrated by these “champions” of intersectional justice expose how shallow the concept is. So Page must write about how her life is endangered by the Bible. But the Eternal Things are the only things that can create peace between persons. Virtue signaling and labeling things as hate speech cannot do this. And peace between persons and God is the only real peace there can be this side of the eschaton. 

As the Talmud says:

“Whoever destroys a single life has destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves a single life has saved the world entire.”

AK47 S2E9: The Paul will Rise Again!

This is a rehash of an old ResistanceTV episode. My (Aaron) old friend Paul and I dish out our top ten favorite board games...and so much more! The intros and outros have been preserved from the original broadcast due to the editor's laziness.

Listen to it on Anchor here.

The AK47 Podcast Season 2 Episode 8: Bring on the Bernie Bros!!!!

In this episode I (Aaron) discuss Democratic Socialism with a friend of mine who happens to be a Democratic Socialist! Hooray for Civility and freedom of thought!!! Alex (my friend) and I are political polar opposites in many ways but as you'll see genuine Conservatives and some socialists have more in common than many would like to admit. The sound isn't great but I thought it was worth it to talk to Alex in person, that's always the way I prefer to record. And AK47 would like to thank him for allowing us to record at his place and for giving us his valuable time.

The books I recommend during the discussion are:

1.  Alienated America and Obamanomics both by Tim Carney

2.  Tribe by Sebastian Junger (that may not come up in the episode, I may have recommended it to Alex before we started recording)

3. This is the most important one for this discussion: Lost Connections by Johann Hari

Also I am back on Facebook for the first time...in like 6 years, so come befriend me if you haven't already. Don't worry about befriending Kyle, he's not as naughty as I am. And definitely like and join the AK47 page and group on Facebook.

And please don't forget to give us a rating and review on the various podcasting platforms. We are on all of them!