Is Jesus A Socialist? Heated DEBATE With Michael Knowles

When we want to talk as Christians, we have to learn to stop talking in secular categories and definitions of words and understand things like freedom and property and rights Christianly. We know definitively that the Lord Jesus was not a socialist because he was successful at feeding people. I don't know a single socialist that thinks that people can't own things. There's a big difference between owning a toothbrush and owning the factory that makes the toothbrushes. It's not a guy who needs to brush his teeth, it's a guy who wants to swipe a whole handful so he can go resell it at a bodega or a flea market. There it is. You guys always hate on poor people, man. As socialists take over the Democrat Party and keep winning these primaries and now very likely might be in some of the biggest offices in government after the midterm elections, the Democrats are doing something all different than they previously have. In years past, they have run against Christianity. They have run against those Bible-thumping bitter clingers. They've derided Christians. This year, though, they're trying something a little different. They're trying to run on Christianity or rather run on socialism as Christianity. You're seeing this from AOC, Abdul Al-Sayed, of course, James Talleriko. So listen, I'm not a theologian. I'm but a humble cigar salesman. So I've brought in some gentlemen who can help me parse this question. Is our Lord a socialist? Does Christianity demand socialism to help me understand it? I have Pastor Doug Wilson, whom I just saw, not that long ago, out there in Moscow, Idaho. Returning to the show, we have Father Gerald Murray. We have Colton Barnaby, who is a Philadelphia-based writer, raised in a oneness, holiness, pentacostal, family, third-gen preacher's kid, attended Oral Roberts University. And we have also returning to the show, Brian Recker. Brian Recker, who was on bar fight and who wrote a book about how hell doesn't exist. A book that I enjoyed reading, though don't enjoy generally and don't agree with, but it was a good experience to read it and talk to him. So anyway, gentlemen, you all have very different views on this. Can we begin before I speak to any of you with this clip from James Talleriko, James Talleriko, who's campaigned on God being non-binary. James Talleriko said he's learned more about his faith from Muslims than from Christians. But he says he's a Christian and he says that our Lord is a socialist. It's very strange, every time I think about it, that the most popular figure in our country, particularly on the conservative right, is this socialist anarchist from ancient Palestine. Socialist anarchist from ancient Palestine. Quite a description of our Lord. I will allow my macro snapping papus tendencies to win out in this conversation by turning first to father Murray. Father is our Lord a socialist. Certainly not. That's a mischaracterization and it's a fast-style attempt to use Christianity to endure some movement, which basically denies the freedom of individuals. It puts them at the behest of the government and it makes all of their work not their own. It makes it simply earning money in order to hand over to somebody else who decide what he's going to do with it. So, no, Jesus certainly is not a socialist. That's a false characterization. Okay, Doug, let's get a little ecumenical, cross-religious dialogue going here. I know you have many disputes with the Catholic faith. However, on this question, when it comes to the supposed socialism of Christ, where do you stand? I stand right with what you just heard. That's simple enough. You know, right? Pithy into the point. Colton is Jesus a socialist. Yeah, I'm actually to, you know, the surprise of a lot of people going to agree with my dear brothers here. Jesus was not a socialist. It's a bit an acronymistic to say something like that, right? The kingdom of God is not socialism. It's bigger and it's actually far more radical than any economic system we're ever going to come up with. I think there are forms of socialism that Christians should reject. Like when socialism becomes totalitarian or treats people as expendable or makes atheism a requirement. The church has been right to do that in the past, but it's a big tradition. And I think there's a lot about our Lord and what he teaches and what he commands of us and how to live, that aligns in ways with something like socialism or forms of socialism that exist certainly. Okay. Well, all right. That's a 50/50. We'll delve into some of the particulars of that in a second. But first, I assume Brian, you know, we seem to have a quorum here and we use consensus. So obviously you would agree that it is completely insane and an acronymistic and absurd to call Christ a socialist, right? I would say that Jesus was not a socialist then, but he probably would be now. And I think that Christians now should be socialists because Jesus' message was the kingdom of God, which is not just a message that puts a demand on individual hearts. It's a call to build the world that works for the least of these. This is not just a spiritual message. It had material implications rooted in the Jubilee, which was a law that demanded the redistribution of wealth specifically provide for vulnerable people. And so based on that, I do believe that Jesus would be building the kind of community that today would have him labeled as a Marxist and kicked out of Doug's church. Okay. So that's a more, it's a subtler take than I was expecting from you, Brian. But it's a good one. So you say no. It's absurd. It's an acronymistic to call Jesus a socialist. He was not a socialist, but now he would be. Now, of course, using the conditional when we're talking about the resurrected son of God, the word eternally begotten of the father seems a little strange to me because he is, you know, God in the burning bush says I am that I am and Christ says before Abraham was I am. But I guess it leads to this question, which is you say Jesus was one thing, but now he would be a different thing. So does God change? No, I was simply referring to the fact that socialism in many ways is a historical progression reacting to capitalism and capitalism did not exist at the time what existed at the time where patron client relationships and an empire under Caesar's control. And Jesus absolutely critiqued that empire and critiqued all domination systems and invited his followers to experience a countercultural radically egalitarian community. Which again, would not have been labeled socialism then because socialism did not exist. But today in our world, I think socialism is a good approximation for the kind of thing that we should be striving for. A world that doesn't just work for the top 1% does not just work for people that already have the power does not just perpetuate the status quo, but actually works for the poor, the vulnerable, the people that are being cast out. Well, it's a fair sided with. It's a fair point that capitalism even is a kind of a new thing. Capitalism is a term actually promoted by Karl Marx himself. So yeah, okay, that's kind of new. But father, I seem to recall many, many popes saying that socialism is evil, saying that it is a wicked confederacy that seeks to steal the very gospel itself. That was either one of the pious's or Leo the 13th Leo the 13th wrote about this a great length. We know that even the kind of liberal Pope John the 23rd said that a Christian cannot subscribe even to a moderate form of socialism. So to Brian's point that the economy has changed the political structures have changed and so now a Christian must respond to new needs and new political economy by embracing socialism. Were the popes wrong? No, the post for writing and it's a bad answer and you know to say that in America, the poor aren't taking taken care of is ridiculous. If you want to find a place where the poor are not being taken care of, go to North Korea and Cuba, two of the prime examples of socialist countries on the planet. And of course, why is socialism wrong? Because God created man free and freedom includes the ability to use your energy and your intelligence to produce gain and benefits. So whether it's farming or writing books or serving a tables, you get paid for that. Whose money is that? It belongs to the person who earns it. The government has no right and Jesus never said the government has a right to compel you to hand over all your earnings. So that the government can dole it out according to what they think is the right thing. So socialism is a is basically a parody of Christianity Christianity is based on voluntary charity. Man, you give money according to your conscience and according, of course, to the message of Christ, which is to take care of the poor. It's not where the government comes in and says, you're evil because you earn too much. We're going to make you good by taking it away. Yeah, the church takes 10% and the mob takes 10% and the government takes 40% or 50% sometimes. It seems like something is a little bit out of whack. Obviously, you have seen the rise of socialism though. In some evangelical churches, you've seen a little bit of an embrace of a kind of, it's gone a little bit squishy. The mainline Protestant churches have really given over to a lot of leftism and I'm very sorry to say there are a lot of lay Catholics and maybe even some Catholic bishops who are a little bit too friendly. It seems to me with socialism. Doug, what's your perspective from Idaho? My perspective is the central duty of the church in this hour is to fight the commies and it's not because compassion, generosity, open handedness are wrong. They're obviously Christian. Basically, an overflow of generosity and James tells us that pure and undefiled religion is to visit the widow and the orphan in their affliction. So, Christian. should be very much about ministering to the downtrodden. But that is, as the father said, that is a voluntary thing. It needs to be a gift. It's not to be coerced out of you at the point of a gun. So if the government comes to you and says, this is for the kids, let me take your stuff, that kind of coercion is necessary in the socialist system. And in a Christian system, it's going to be voluntary and it's going to be encouraged and it's going to be blessed. A number of years ago, Arthur Brooks wrote a great book called Who Really Cares? And he went into this, a state-by-state analysis of private donations, everything from reading to kids at the library, to blood donations, to philanthropic donations, to find out which state was the most generous state in the union. And the answer, surprisingly to many, was Mississippi. Mississippi was number one, not so surprising to people of my mind. Numbers 49 and 50 were Massachusetts and Connecticut. If you are relying on the government to do your loving for you, you're going to get the kind of love that you get at the DMV. Yeah, you hear these guys like Abdul El-Sahead or Talarico or even the more radical DSA candidates who are running right now. And what they'll say is, look man, we just want to give people health care. What's wrong with you right-wing Christians? We just want to give people health care. And they don't mention that, you know, they want to impose radical social engineering, they want to trans the kids, they want to take away property. You look at even Scott Galloway, who's a left-wing business professor. Scott Galloway, who supported Zoraan Mamdani in New York, Zoraan Mamdani, the socialist, he comes and he says, we're going to have a Pietta tear tax. We're only going to tax the very wealthiest on their second or third homes. And then Scott Galloway found himself the victim of this because Mamdani turned from just looking at 31,000 people. He was going to tax to almost a million New Yorkers. And then he docks them. At a time of rising political violence, he gave out these people's addresses. Clearly, there was something a little bit darker than just giving health care to the poor. So to Colton and Brian, you know, obviously to Doug's point, there are a lot of ways to help the poor and church does a lot of it. Why do we need some government bureaucrat to go out, especially when he's going to go docks people and impose a lot of radical social policy? Well, I'll simply say that when Jesus, the kingdom of God again, that's the Basilia of God or the Empire of God. This is a political notion that Jesus was talking about. And in Matthew 25, this commonly cited passage where Jesus gives us the most explicit description of how God judges, something that many people miss is that it's not just individuals that are gathered. It's actually nations that are gathered for judgment. And the criteria by which the nations, in other words, the communities that we create, the criteria by which they're judged is how well they treated the hungry, the sick, the poor, the stranger, and the imprisoned. Nations are judged, in other words, by how well they care for the most vulnerable. And despite 2000 years of work on meeting those criteria, our so-called Christian country still fails on most of those counts. We have the highest child poverty rates in the developed world. In terms of strangers welcoming, we have ice-putting non-violent criminals in detention centers surrounded by alligators. We do take more immigrants in any other country in the history of the world, and we've been doing it for decades. We have mass incarceration, and we imprison more people than any country, including China. But there's nothing wrong with the prison of criminals, though. Is there? Jesus called us to not simply believe in him in our hearts, but to build a world that works for the poor. And that's really what Christian socialists want. Yes, Christian charity is so important. But we didn't, Jesus was not calling for the poor to be cared for here and there by individual acts of charity, but by the way that we structure our society. Okay, but a few points on there because you bring up a lot of important points. You mentioned one, you compare American prisons to Chinese prisons, China, which in prisons hold races of people, ethnic communities, but also a lot of political dissidents. Here in America, we tend to just imprison criminals, and we don't imprison nearly enough of them. And I don't think there's anything in the New Testament that says that we're not allowed to imprison criminals. I seem to recall St. Paul saying that the civil authority does not bear the sword in vain, and in fact that the civil authority is appointed by God. Then to your point on the political communities being judged, you know, I don't recall our Lord saying that you will have rendered unto you according to your nation's policies. I think it's according to your works, right? I mean, and even further than that, you say that the kingdom of God is a political concept. But what does Christ say? He says, "My kingdom is of this world"? Is that what he says or did? He says, "My kingdom is and of the community or my kingdom is not of this world." Very commonly misunderstood passage. When Jesus said the kingdom is not of this world, he didn't mean it was ethereal and spiritual. He meant that it doesn't derive its values from this world of empire, which is one empire after another. In Jesus' day, it was Caesar. But before that, it had been Alexander the Great. There was one beast after another rising up out of the sea, and they all have the same agenda, domination. An agenda we see still carried out today by Christian nationalists who look a lot more like Caesar's beasts than they look like Jesus' human kingdom, which served the vulnerable. And so what I was simply saying, I'm not going to get into argument about incarceration, etc. The simple point is that Jesus was talking about structural issues, not just personal charity. The reality is that personal charity is not enough to feed all of our children. And what my question would be for Doug and Father Murray is that do you believe that a child deserves to eat, even if their parent cannot afford groceries? Well, since you name-checked the Christian nationalist on the panel first, Mr. Beast, Doug Wilson, Doug, do you want to starve children? Actually, I'm against starving children. I'll put it this way. First, it may be surprising, but I do agree when Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world, it doesn't mean that it has no this implications or ramifications for this world. It just means the seat of authority is from the right hand of the God the Father in heaven instead of Rome or London or New York or D.C. So I agree that I'm fond of saying theology comes at your fingertips. And whatever it is that's coming at your fingertips represents your theology. And we ought not to let children starve, but that there's a key issue here. Jesus says that he's going to judge the nations and individuals not by their rhetoric but by the effect, not by the rhetoric. Many will say, "Lord, Lord, didn't we do this and didn't we talk to good game?" But the Lord is not going to judge us by our words and our protestations. He's going to judge us by the actual impact that it has. And I'd like to just reinforce, I don't want my health care or the health care of any child in America to be run by the Department of Motor Vehicles. I don't want bureaucrats in charge of everybody's cancer treatment. I don't want bureaucrats saying, "Well, you can come in for your second checkup in six months." Basically, the issue is what is the quality? What is the standard of living? What is the life expectancy? How much good are you actually doing? But with that said, I think that we all need to be willing to surrender the whole thing. Our political apparatus and our individual behavior up to the Lord to have him judge and have him examine. I think we need to do better, but I don't think we need to do better than North Korea because we already are. I don't think we need to do better than Colton or you on North Korean? Are you on the side of North Korea or on the side of God? No, sorry. I did not mean to interrupt brother Doug here. I was moved with Holy Unction at something he said. We're doing a lot of interesting stuff and I'm going to be honest. I expected some more sophisticated arguments here than what I was hearing from my sophomore conservative friends at Oral Roberts University in 2008. Of course, there are so many things to react to. Of course, there are a number of popes who have condemned socialism as such, but we have to discuss what we actually mean by socialism. Because like I said before, it's a broad tradition that entails a lot of different things. You get a group of socialists into the room. They're going to disagree with each other more of a him and only then me and Doug are going to disagree with each other. But we also have Pope Paul the sex saying that socialism travels under different names and Christians have to be able to make distinctions. We have Pope John Paul II who says that we have to allow for public and collective ownership and that the socialization of some means of production can't be out rule. Here's what I think we have to understand. Before Christianity ever had to consider anything like capitalism or socialism, it already had a way of thinking about economic life. The earth belongs to God. And what we possess is something that we are responsible for using rightly and the needs of other people place real claims on us. So remind me, what does acts for actually say, right? Does Luke say that the church protected its accumulated wealth and told the poor to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps? Or does it say that no one claimed private ownership of any possessions and that everything they owned was held in common and that the proceeds were discontinued each has any need? Hold on. One second. And later in Acts 11, when the church sends economic relief, right? And for it tells us that it was distributed to each as they have need, in Acts 11, it tells us that they contributed according to their ability. So from according to their ability to each according to their need, sounds pretty dang familiar to me, right? I think it's pretty obvious. I just want to head off. I know you're going to say that Acts was voluntary. Fine, right? Common ownership and distribution, according to the need, are still though clearly compatible with Christianity. Not legally compelled for the Christian does not mean morally optional. And I was of the understanding that we were here to discuss whether or not Christianity is compatible or socialism is compatible within Christianity. And in a democratic republic, we have the ability to pass laws that not everyone might like. But if we decide that we want to have some collective ownership of certain industries and we want to have a health care that's cuts out the middle man, the mob that's coming in to take the extra cut off the top, that if we're going to invest in public infrastructure and private industry, that the private companies we gave that money to, the taxpayer money to, don't get just to privatize all of the gains, we should get a share in that. We have to remember who is stealing from who? Yeah, who's stealing from who, Doug? Don't you know you're supposed to be a socialist? So yeah, I'm not supposed to be a socialist. And I want to remind our friend that in between Acts 4 and Acts 11 is Acts 5. And Ananias and Sapphira conspired to lie about how much they were donating and they both fall down dead as a result of that lie. But when Peter is talking to Ananias, he says, wasn't the land yours already? Wasn't it yours to keep her to sell? And after you had sold it, wasn't it, wasn't the money yours to dispose of as you saw fit? Acts 5 is in between Acts 4 and Acts 11. It's not me saying it was a voluntary contribution. It's Acts saying it was a voluntary contribution. So when we take up a collection at our church, it comes from everyone. It people are to overflow with generosity. And once it is donated freely, once it's given freely, yeah, that is common property. That's something that the church uses to minister to the poor, to minister to the downtrodden. But it is not coerced. It is not me coming to somebody else. >> I'm curious, does Doug believe that the Jubilee laws were coercive? >> Would you say that? >> The Jubilee laws were not a redistribution plan. The Jubilee's were a law that required a prohibition of a permanent alienation of private property. In other words, the Jubilee laws caused everything. >> Did they retire the redistribution of private property at every 50 years? Were people who claimed things as their own required to relinquish those things? >> It required that all property sold was essentially a lease. And the lease had a time limit on it. So it was not taking property from Naboth and Naboth's vineyard and giving it to Ahab. What it was was the participation of private property. Here's the key thing. >> What was the moral purpose behind that law? Doug already said that you wouldn't be permanently alienated from private property. >> So you said there would not be a massive gap in law? >> Doug, let me finish this point. When you have in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5, the prohibition of adultery that presupposes the institution of marriage. If there is no such thing as marriage, there's no such thing as adultery. In the prohibition in the Ten Commandments of theft, thou shalt not steal. Both again, in Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20, the prohibition of theft presupposes the institution of private property. Moreover, in Israel, that was the institution of private property was ironclad. In other words, if you were a landowner, you couldn't sell it permanently. >> No, I know JP2 was name checked here as a supposed communist. So I want to bring Father Murray in on this because last I checked, St. John Paul II was one of the great men who defeated the Soviet Union. Was he secretly a red without us understanding it? >> No, that's a falsification of history. In fact, ask the people of Poland what they happy under communism or what they have now. Of course, they're happy what they have now. They have freedom. They can leave their country. They can put money in the bank. They can buy things. They can travel. All of that was denied by communism. And I want to go back to this question of private property in the rest. Remember the parable Jesus told about the landowner who went out at the first hour and hired workers and then at the third, the ninth, all the way up to 5 p.m. And then he paid them all the same wage. And the people worked all day said, well, we thought we'd get more. And what did demand say? Am I not free to do with my money as I see fit? And in the parable Jesus, that man that landowner represents God the Father. And that's God the Father giving his grace as he sees fit to people who do his will. So no, it's very, very true that there's a caricature which basically says, since God owns everything, nobody can own anything. But that's not the way God set up the world. He put Adam and Eve and he told them, be fruitful and multiply, have dominion over the earth. And dominion means that you work and gain the benefit of your work so you can support yourself and your dependence. And socialism, by the way, makes everybody a dependent of the government. Just ask the people of Cuba. But it's curious when people say, well, socialism is something that really incarnates Christianity. Socialism has destroyed Cuba. Cuba was a Christian country. They shut down the churches. They deprived people of religious freedom. And they impoverished everybody. And as regards this country, not achieving its goal as a Christian inspired nation to take care of the poor, where do the poor travel from to get here from everywhere? You don't have poor people traveling to Cuba or North Korea. They traveled in the United States. And that is because we do have one of the most active charitable institutions in the world among hospitals, schools and all the rest. So, belittling the United States because we believe in free property and we believe in the free market by saying, well, you're not taking care of the poor, it doesn't hold up under analysis. This free market point is important because I saw Colton was laughing there after he had invoked JP too as the socialist. But I seem to recall from a little known work called Chintesimus Anus, which was an encyclical of John Paul II written on the 100th anniversary of Ray Room Novarum by Leo the 13th, which establishes Catholic social teaching. I seem to recall John Paul II saying that the free market is the most efficient way to allocate goods around an economy. And while there are some goods and resources that are not solvent, that are not marketable, that where in some cases we need to bring people into the market economy. And we do have obligations to our neighbors because of the universal destination of goods. Nevertheless, there is such a thing as a right to private property. Doug makes a good point that the very prohibition on theft presupposes a right to private property. And it seems to me that JP too would not be the best example to point to for socialism. He would not be for specific forms of socialism certainly. Right? And we should all reject some aspects of some socialist projects. But because, because Socialism has never been tried, I assume. Yeah, it's just neither as true capital is. And that's what they tell me every time I critique it. I'm not a capitalist of Adam Smith. Yeah, and I'm not a socialist. I'm a Christian. We're talking about Socialism. But Pope John Paul II said that the only legitimate title to the possession. Well, first, he said that that labor should always have priority over capital. And that the only legitimate title to possession, whether private or public collective ownership, is that they should serve labor and that we can't exclude socialization under suitable conditions of certain means of production. I'm not inventing these quotes. He said that the position of rigid capitalism continues to remain unacceptable. And that the exclusive right to private ownership of the means of production is an untouchable dogma of economic life, right? That he defended that. He believed that, but he said merely converting the means of production into state property is by no means an equivalent to socializing that property. So what we have to understand is he's not writing off all forms of collective ownership, of worker-owned companies. I do want to get at this point of when we talk about ownership and we talk about, who owns what? And so interesting, the parables and the scriptures that my other panel is here are using because a lot of them are the ones that I would go to. But when I look at Gregory the great, he says that when we furnish the destitute with any necessity, we render to them what is their own. We don't bestow upon them what is ours. We pay a debt of justice rather than a act of mercy. I want to stop you right there because it's a very good point that you're hitting on. Yes, when you render to the destitute, when you render to the man whose family is starving, a loaf of bread, you're giving to him something that would be his. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas in the Sumitheologi brings up this very point. He says, is I'm, I'm giving a precept of the law. The starving man who's trying to feed his family. Does he commit theft when he takes a loaf of bread? And the answer that Thomas comes to is no, he does not commit theft. Because of, all of our goods ultimately do come from God and we do have obligations one to another. And so, ah, Ahm's giving in the case of someone who is destitute would be, would be a precept. And he does not actually commit theft. theft. However, he doesn't say that you have to give that guy a favor, he doesn't say you have to give that guy a nice lavish apartment in New York. He doesn't say that you have to give that guy all the money out of father jerry's or Doug's piggy bank here. What he's pointing to is yes, we have to balance human dignity on the one hand, which is real. That's why we're going to prioritize labor over money that's sitting in a bank. But likewise, we can't damage human dignity or insult human dignity by depriving people of their property, depriving people ultimately of their freedom, and coercing them into some system run by czar mom Donnie, go to puretalk.com/nolls. As America approaches, it's 250th anniversary. There's a lot of discussion about patriotism, national identity, and what kind of country we want to be. But patriotism is more than fireworks, flags, and speeches. It is also about how we treat the people who volunteer to serve this country. So today, I'm especially proud to tell you about something pure talk is doing. Puretalk and its customers are working to raise $250,000 for America's warrior partnership. An organization focused on preventing veteran suicide and helping veterans navigate the challenges that often come after military service, housing, transportation, counseling, access to VA benefits, the practical support that helps veterans regain stability and move forward. 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Those specific examples, those are not Detroit was not a socialist, was not, was not a socialist project. It's ridiculous, right? It is. The completion of liberal capitalist, neoliberal capitalist policies with socialism is silly on its face. We haven't, we haven't talked as Christians. We have to learn to stop talking in secular categories and definitions of words and understand things like freedom and property and rights, Christianly. It, me, I'm always going back to the church fathers to give me guidance on how to understand the scriptures. I think of Simeon the New Theologian who says that the things of this world were made for all of us to have in common. But listen to this. My opponents would normally point to his covetousness, like Michael, what you just did there. You know, reducing it to, uh, giving everybody a laugh at your apartment and providing the needs that people have. He says that covetousness came in like a tyrant and divided up what God gave to everyone. And then he goes further. He says that even if the wealthy eventually gives some of it back or all of it back to the poor, that it doesn't suddenly make them merciful. But instead they owe repentance for all time to their brothers that were deprived of what have should been theirs. The church father's soul is over and over again, right? Uh, what belongs to God and you don't see any covetousness trusted with it to be able to give to those who need it. And when we hold it in ourselves, we're not just violating God's law and some abstract way. We're actually putting ourselves in our mortal souls in danger, like the rich man stepping over Lazarus. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Do you not see any covetousness in the socialist politicians and the many socialist activists who are openly campaigning on eating the rich and taking all of their money for themselves? You know, you know, you know, you know, to come into a common accusation, but I'm Brian, right. All of the rich is money keeping it for themselves. I don't know. Um, I don't need a OC, uh, uh, uh, a blue L.S.I. I think they're, I think their campaign has their fundamental, my, yeah. These are people who want people to have their fundamental human needs met. I don't know a lot of socialist and I don't know anybody who's envious of Elon Musk. I don't know any that want people to have yachts or mansions. They want people to have health care. They want people to have affordable housing. They want people to not be drowning in medical debt. And this for me as a question here is based in my belief that people are made in the image of God. And as a result of them being made in the image of God, they do deserve that. Yeah, father and father, why do you want to deprive people of health care and their basic needs? No, no. Well, you want to talk about health care? Let's go to the fraud in Minnesota. What are the people who stole from the government, dude? They bought yachts and apartments. They send money overseas. Are you kidding me? That's not so. No, I'm not saying that. I think it makes a lot of sense. When the government opens up an unlimited credit line and never checks on what's being taken out, that's when socialism realizes for these people their desire to get what they could never afford if they worked at their normal jobs. So they buy houses, they buy yachts, and they go build houses overseas. That socialism leads to criminality. We know that the government steals from the people, then the people steal from the government. Yes. The social effect of socialism is very important, Brian. Well, I think a lot, the word theft is getting thrown around a lot. Doug brought up the Ten Commandments. He said that, oh, it presupposes just like adultery or adultery presupposes the reality of marriage. That the prohibition of theft presupposes personal property. This is a really elementary school version of theft that we're talking about that doesn't reckon with what the Bible actually says about theft or what Christian history has said. Colton has given a lot of great quotes. Well, let me just give them a look. I can use a specific example to clarify this. On the point of toothbrushes, there's a state assemblyman in New York. She's a socialist. Her name escapes me. I was talking about her on the show today. She is running specifically on the supposed right of people to steal toothbrushes and toothpaste from CVS because this is a basic need. And you might point out that there is Medicaid, there are food pantries, there are a myriad charitable organizations that would happily give these people toothbrushes. But instead they go into CVS and Walgreens, which is why we can't get any of our products now, because they're all behind Plexiglas. So that would be an example. You want a specific example. That is a socialist candidate who is running specifically on the supposed right of people in the street to steal toothbrushes from stores. Ryan, you think that's okay? I can't speak to that specific example because I don't know what that person has said. But what I will say is that our meager welfare state puts so many barriers in between people and their basic human needs that I can understand why people might be unable to access those needs. The reality is, when somebody needs to access a basic human need, that is not theft. St. Basil the Great said when someone strips a man out of his clothes, we call him a thief, the bread in your hoard belongs to the hungry. The cloak in your wardrobe belongs to the naked, the shoes you let rot belong to the barefoot, the money in your vaults belong to the destitute. And so I wonder what St. Basil would say to Elon Musk, a trillionaire while people are starving. And listen, I was raised with his thought, I was an independent and fundamental Baptist who grew up homeschooled listening to Rush Limbaugh for social studies. I read his books. What I was ingrained with the belief that not just socialists, but Democrats were evil and demonic, but I became a socialist because of Jesus, much like other people. For instance, Tommy Douglas, who was a Christian socialist and his socialism was downstream from his Christianity and his desire to see Jesus have his way in people's life is what caused him to roll out North America's first universal healthcare system in Saskatchewan, which was so popular that it was ultimately established throughout Canada. And now Canada is killing 5% of its population every year through the medical system. No, even the conservative in Canada, even the conservatives in Canada do not want to roll out back their single payer health care system. In fact, in 2004, Tommy Douglas was voted the most popular Canadian over every prime minister and even over Wayne Gretzky because of the success of his universal healthcare program, which is a socialized program. The reality is, and I'm done, one more sentence, socialist projects, and this is the truth, they have produced durable and popular outcomes when they have been implemented democratically. Neither of us are calling for violent revolution, but through democratic processes, people do deserve to have their basic human needs met, and that is the kind of socialism that we want. Doug, the democratic process can include three coyotes in a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. Of course. That's the democratic process, and yeah, that's the democratic process. There's no one who wants to remove the right to vote and women in America. So I'm not sure that you have all to say about democracy actually. Does the vaunted Canadian healthcare system include the euthanasia? It does, right? It involves like killing a lot of its citizens. Killing people. It does, right? Okay. I can't decide the point. Okay, then let's decide the point. That's the point. This is an Canadian healthcare system. It's the triumph of socialism. The Canadian healthcare system is murdering 5% of the population. The Canadian healthcare system saved my mom when she had cancer twice, whereas in the United States, she wouldn't have got access to the care she needed because it wasn't covered under most of the healthcare here. So from around the world, what's in this world? When people from around the world need it. High quality healthcare. They go to Canada or the United States. Let me tell you, that's the best doctors in the world. Oh, do you go to a doctor when you need medical care? I wish I could pay less for medical care than Americans and that is a fact. They pay less for medical care and yet they have longer life expectancies. So we can debate and through the democratic process, we could decide whether money goes for use the nature or not. That has absolutely nothing to do with socialists. We don't have to decide. That has absolutely nothing to do with socialism. No, it does. It does because what you've done is you've transferred the locus of decision-making, right? So who do you think should have it only man, only white men like you, Doug? No, no, no, not at all. I'm the one that wants to remove the locus of decision-making away from democratic the citizenry to include female. Right. Why are you making it racial and sexual? I would love to deprive white men like you of making any of these political decisions. So I don't think it comes down to race or sex. Right. And what you're talking about is you want to repeal the 19th amendment. You're you're changing the subject. Yeah, we can get into the 19th amendment later, but I'm specifically talking about repealing your right to vote, Brian. That is a totally second thing. Like I said, your aunt's eyes on the right. Stop it. Go on. Get out of here. Come on. Doug, were you had a were you finishing your point? Yeah, the the thing that I want to emphasize is the word coercion. All right. You have to understand that when you draw a line somewhere between this ownership of a toothbrush and the ownership of a toothbrush factory, I want to know where that line is. I want to know who draws the line. I want to know what the enforcement mechanism is for the enforcement of that line. So if I if I earn money, you sound kind of like a rich man, a little bit worried that his barns are being encroached upon. God can God can encroach on them all he wants. He says, you fool. This night your life is required of you. I believe that we should live Koram dayo. And I believe that we should be generous and open handed. I believe that we should be ministering to the poor. I hold all those things. The issue is not do we take care of the poor? It's not whether we care about widows and orphans. That really is true religion. That really is. So the issue is what is the most effective mechanism that ministers to them actually and that doesn't trample all over the rights and the freedoms of the people who are the source of the wealth that is being given. So the there's a difference between there's two kinds of rights. If I say if I believe as I do that you have the right to free speech. The only thing I have to do to honor your right to free speech is leave you alone. Okay that's the only thing I have to do is leave you alone. But if you have the right to a free dental care and I'm a dentist what you have done if you have the right basically any right creates obligations on others. Your right to free speech creates an obligation on the part of others to let you say your peace. Your right to free dental care obligates dentists to work under coercion in order to supply you. No it doesn't. That's absurd. So my goal is still to be paid out of the common purse. It's ridiculous. Michael admitted earlier that people deserve to be fed and that it actually would not be stealing for someone to steal a loaf of bread. Does that mean that a baker is then being stolen from and that his labor is meant? Well, no, but what's very important that the important context there though is yes in very limited circumstances and circumstances of destitution. There is a preceptive bombsgiving absolutely and citizens do have mutual obligations one to another. I totally agree with this which is why I'm curious about Catholic social teaching which I think Colton made a very good point is not purely capitalistic and it's not certainly not socialistic. It has this kind of middle ground because even you know dug to your point on free speech. It's true that you're right to free speech mostly just requires me to not interrupt you. But there is a little more to it in the First Amendment which is if someone's engaging in fraud that requires a justice system to stop that because fraud undermines free speech or obscenity you know that appeals to the Prairie and Interest that undermines the rational basis of free speech. So I'm interested in this kind of third way beyond libertarianism and communism which I guess does bring us to Catholic social teaching where father this has really come up in some conversations on the right on post liberalism, on integralism, on thisism, on thatism, all of these obscure political monarchers being the right wing version of gender pronouns. But I think to Colton's point and to Doug's for that matter but not to Brian's. But to Doug and Colton's there is a kind of political implication from the gospel. You know we are told to do certain things. There is an interaction between the religious authority and the state. In the Catholic church that's been through going back to at least Pope Gilesius the First and Emperor Anastasia's. So what is the way? You know statistically we can point out as Doug is alluding to Christians give way more to charity than socialists do. It's not even close. No one actually disputes that. So there's something about Christianity is impelling giving and charity. But what is the political role, the role of the state in securing those rights and that human dignity? Well the Gleening laws for example, the Gleening laws would be a good example of a political construct that allows the poor to go out into the fields and Gleet. Right. Well the you know the political responsibility in order to fulfill God's will is that there be just laws which are applied evenly and that the right to private property is respected and that we are conscious of our obligation to help those who are dependent. So parents have to take care of their children if the house feed and close them. People who are in equivalent situations, people who are ill can take care of themselves. It's up to society to do that. So yeah there's no absolute individuality expressed in Catholic social teaching. But what we don't have is a coercive system in which the government decides how much you can keep, how much you have to give away and that you cannot be owning the means of production that you're simply you know acting on behalf of the government. That's not the way it's conceived. And you know again back to let's you know if I can go back to the toothbrush you know the objections may we can own a toothbrush fine but you can't own a factory with there are no toothbrush factories they're going to be no toothbrushes. And the people stealing toothbrushes by the way in New York it's not a guy who needs to brush his teeth. It's a guy who wants to swipe a whole handful so he can go resell it at a bodega or a flea market. Yeah. You know if you read the New York Post you can learn a lot about the application of social teaching in the real world because what we have here is a criminal enterprise on the part of some to take money when they know there's no consequences to it. And that's you know the catheter says you have to be law abiding just laws have to be obeyed and that's a compliment to the fact you also have to be charitable to those who are in need. Amen. I did not expect Father Marie to to make what I was about to say to strengthen my argument by giving me that data point I hadn't considered that they're not just stealing the teeth toothbrushes to use it which would be less of an urgent need but they're stealing it so that they can sell it at a bodega or a flea market and make money. I'm not sure if you guys are aware of this but toothbrush resales from a handful of toothbrushes at Walgreens. Is it going to buy you a whole lot? That sounds like to me like somebody who's stealing to buy drugs to provide for a very present and urgent need probably hold on hold on. I'm going to let you finish. Colton. I'm going to let you finish but I just have to do you think the guy who is going into Walgreens and swiping a bunch of toothbrushes in Deodorant to resell at a bodega you think he's doing that to buy some bread for his starving kid or do you think he's doing that because he's a dirty rotten criminal bum and he's going to go buy drugs with the 20 bucks that he gets from selling the toothbrush. What do you think is more like hate on poor people, man? Yeah, I don't hate on anyone but I don't approve of criminals and I think we should prosecute them. Yeah. When someone is actually desperate. What I do is call me to speak about them. You need more proximity to the poor Michael. I have a lot of proximity to the poor and I love that very much. They're literally selling toothbrushes in the street is someone that we should draw near to and we can encounter the face of that. Sure. This is a simple question and I think we should care for criminals too but this is a simple question. It's a yes or no from both of you guys on the left side of this panel. Do you think the guy who is stealing the toothbrushes from CVS and selling them to a bodega? Do you think that guy is taking that money to go get bread to give to his wife and children or do you think he's doing it for less wholesome reasons and activities? What do you think? You had a gun to your head. You didn't phrase it as a yes or no question but I'll say no. He's not he's not doing it. Probably to go by drugs as somebody who grew up in Kensington. Not drugs. You think he's doing it to buy bread for his family? Come on. Probably and let me explain why I think that. Right. As somebody who grew up in Kensington, one of the worst drug neighborhoods in the country, doing ministry for my father and grandfather pastor of church there for the last 67 years that burned down last year pray for them. There's a lot easier ways to make money if you want to go cop something real quick and I'm not going to mention what they are here rather than going and running a whole operation. Sounds a little different to me. Here's what I want to say. We are forgetting and drifting off course, we're talking about is this specific socialist policy, the best way to do this. Christosum, John Christosum tells us not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from whom, from them, and to pride them of life. The goods we possess are what? Not ours, but theirs. And as you already said, Michael, St. Thomas Aquinas lays it out pretty clearly in cases of need. And here's a direct quote. All things are common property, so that there would seem to be no sin in taking another's property for need has made it common. It is not theft properly speaking to take secretly and use another's property in case of extreme need. And I think that we have a lot of extreme need and just one more point because it's probably my last time I get to talk. Let me just finish this last point. Earlier somebody made a point about, you know, I think it was Father Murray who I disrespectfully spoke over earlier and I genuinely when I was apologizing, I wasn't being sarcastic. It made the point that if you want to look at a country that's thriving, you look at America right where people aren't very poor. And if you want to look, he said North Korea, hilarious example. But the truth is, if you want to look at the countries where the where people are struggling the most, we live in the imperial court. So to compare the quality of the lives of people here, which is not as good as it could be, to the lives of the people in the resource which rich nations in the global south that we are using brutal imperialist techniques to extract that money using soft power like the IMF and the World Bank to put them in handcuffs and shackles that way by the way, we're actually creating religious persecution there by creating such insane scarcity that we're now pitting Muslims and Christians and Christians are now being persecuted because of all of that. You know, Muslims and Christians have been, we've been fighting for a while. The Muslims have been persecuting us for about 1400 years. I don't. I don't think that's anybody out of some vague thing. There's always a specific materialist reason that we can track through and understand what's going on. Hold on. Well, that's a very interesting point. What was the material reason for which the Muslims invaded into to goll and made it to Poitier 150 miles from Paris? What was the material reason that the Ottoman Turks tried to invade at the Battle of Lapanto or once again at the siege of Vienna in 1683? Was this caused by the IMF? Yes. I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry, but I have a hard out. It's been great talking to y'all. Thank you. You know, whenever you bring up the Battle of Lapanto, the Protestant has to get out. Good to see you, Doug. Thank you very much. I know. Thanks. Sorry. Good to see you. On this point, hold on. You say it's all driven by just material need. How do you explain those great movements of history? Do you think it's because Charlemagne or Charles Martel was a little too heavy-handed with his economic policy in North Africa or something? Well, I'll have to get into the research on that. You're asking me to pull some historical analysis or something I'm not prepared to talk about. Light them up in the comments, ladies and gentlemen. You guys go to the research chat, tell them what we think. But I can tell you why it's happening right now in countries like Nigeria, and I've already stated those reasons, but my point is to say that if a question is whether or not there are forms of socialism or aspects of socialism that are compatible with Christianity, certainly Acts 4 shows us that that is the case. And regardless of how the state decides to live, Christians are called to live in a way that we can't support policies that are contrary to how we're called to live as citizens of the colony of heaven on earth who are here to establish and make known the kingdom of God. I think every act of wealth redistribution brought by Christians is a sacramental moment of healing. It's a moment of that already not yet breaking into our reality. Oh, please. Can I respond to that? Please. When Fidel Castro nationalized all foreign entities and took away people's bank accounts and caused the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, that was an example according to you of a Christian redistribution of wealth. No, I didn't say that. I said every example of Christians redistributing wealth right out of our commitments and beliefs. I mean, if we want to impose those states on their own terms, that doesn't answer the question that we're debating. Right. We're not talking about this. You brought up Cuba and how great Cuba is and now it's got great healthcare and all the rest of it. You brought up that they produce the best doctors in the world, which is, they don't produce the best doctors in the world. That's nonsense. That's propaganda. Yeah. What they do is they produce slave doctors, they send, they send to foreign countries and then the salaries are paid to the government and those doctors get a hand, you know, a little pittance. Many of them try to defect, but they don't because their families are back in Cuba. That's part of the socialist mythology. Whenever you talk about socialism and reality and then you tell me, oh, by the way, that's not what I'm talking about. No, that's what I'm talking about. You've been talking about the history of psychology, though. I want to talk about the capitalist mythology and the capitalist propaganda because the reality is that in our country, there's a kind of a theft that we're not talking about. A lot of been thrown around about theft and there's this obvious theft, right? Stealing a toothbrush from CVS. But the largest theft in this country by far statistically is wage theft. That is 15 million to 50, or sorry, 15 billion to 50 billion every year, which vastly outpaces the whole world of theft. No, not at all. From corporations and companies. No, by corporations, but most of the wage theft is by capitalism. No, no, but I just want to clarify, I'm sort of agreeing with you. The wage theft that you're talking about, the problem of wage theft is usually perpetrated against illegal aliens because there are more vulnerable population and it's easier to defraud them of their wages. That's the point you're making. I think. Well, that is one kind, certainly, but there's a problem. Okay. And deport the illegal aliens and we've solved the problem. Not at all, because actually not only that, but if you just look at worker compensation, so the theft, that's just what's actually illegal theft. But in terms of what's actually moral, if you look at since the 80s till now, worker compensation has only grown 26% while CEO compensation has grown over 1,000%, and productivity has grown over 80%. And so up until the 80s. Sounds like CEOs are doing a good job. A productivity is not far up. Well done. No, the workers are doing a good job. One of the great differences, I think, between people like myself and Colton and people like Doug and Father Murray, is that we actually believe that the workers are the engine of wealth. Not just one guy at the top of a hierarchy, some brilliant Elon Musk figure that's producing all of this. It's actually the workers who create wealth. And yet they often do not share. Why? Because they're the results of that labor. Well, you just said they did share because their wages went up 26%. Sorry, Father. No, no, no, no, no, because they're actually waiting up over 80%. Why do you want 1980? Up until 1980. Nice and bright. Yeah, Father, Father, yeah. Yeah. Why does it all work? I'll ask it, then I'll answer it, then I'll let you comment. Why does Elon Musk have workers? Because Elon Musk came up with an idea for a product that people wanted to buy, and he was able to finance him to get other people to support him. And then he produced many, many companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people. And people are happy about that. The workers in particular happy because before they came, before Musk showed up and did all this, they weren't working for him. Workers, bosses, they go together to produce wealth for the people who started Tesla. Well, production is a solution to poverty. And that's a very Christian way. St. Paul said, if you do not work, you do not eat. That has an equalia today. He has workers because he inherited vast amounts of money and capital, but gets capital under capitalism in a feedback loop that had an idea that he could sell to other people. That's why he made money. Yeah, people squandered generational wealth all the time. I mean, that's a much more of a story than a guy becoming a trillionaire. Yeah, I think that example was weak, Brian, because I am concerned about the stalling out of lower middle class and middle class wages. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, that are not attributable to Elon Musk. But I'm concerned about that obviously, but your example, I think, is pretty weak because you say, you know, the real grave injustice is that since the 80s, workers are only making 26% more than they used to and you say, well, okay, maybe they should make 30% more, but like they did get a raise. It's like, that's something I would tell you. I think it's a pretty weak example. We have to leave it there because we've gone way, way over time. But I am grateful to all of you, Colton, very nice to meet you and welcome you onto the show. Where can people follow you? Can you follow me at Colton Barnaby on Instagram and TikTok, The Kensington Cone on Substack and Colton Barnaby One on YouTube? Okay. Brian, I have an embarrassing confession to make, which is because I was reading your book about how hell doesn't exist, even though it does exist. But I was reading it and it ended up, I ended up having it on my nightstand for like six months. And if anybody walked into my home, they would get very wrong impressions of my views. But wonderful to see you again. Thank you for coming on. And Father Murray, sorry, before I let you go, Brian, where can people follow you? At B E Racker on Instagram is the best place to find me, also beloved with Brian Racker on Substack. Okay. Go follow him there. And then Father Murray, thank you for being correct and just coming on and bringing a correct perspective into this panel. People can find you all over like TV, but where can people follow you if they like? Yeah. So a Royal Grande, the prayerful posse, that's a weak league podcast I do. And then I write comments for the Catholic thing, the Catholic thing, dot org. So go follow that one, most of all. Okay. Wonderful to see you guys. All if you good to see you, please do it out in the comments. We'll see you next time.