Claymore: Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Claymore: Become Who You Are
#702 Claymore And The Call To Truth: Gen Z, Faith, Nation, And Fighting A Culture Of Lies
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A new name, a sharper mission, and a bold claim: the path back to national sanity runs through a return to truth about the human person. We open by sharing why our show now carries the Claymore banner and how the apostolate is walking with Gen Z men who sense, deep in their hearts, that life must be more than slogans, screens, and shifting rules. That instinct becomes our guiding thread as we tackle the breakdown of shared reality—from pandemic coercion to identity fragmentation—and the quiet ways language was bent until law and culture lost their grip on what is true.
With researcher and crime investigator Tom Hampson, we map how a country once united by a creed and a moral vocabulary drifted into regulatory sprawl, selective enforcement, and competing tribes. We move beyond abstractions to the human cost: tradesmen taxed for dysfunction, kids catechized by confusion, and churches tempted to replace clear teaching with a compassion that dissolves justice. We draw on Scripture, natural law, and John Paul II’s theology of the body to argue that the deepest desires of the heart—love, meaning, and truth—can only flourish when anchored to reality as God made it.
Join us, share this with someone who needs a clear path, and subscribe so you don’t miss the follow-up deep dive into the Claymore Apostolate. Your voice matters!
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Welcome to the Claymore Become Who You Are Podcast. I'm Jack Riggers, your host. Thanks for joining us. Did you notice anything there? Become Who You Are is now Claymore Become Who You Are. And why is that? It's a shift that we will continue to do, which focuses on Gen Z, especially the young men of that generation who were meeting in increasing numbers. And the podcast itself will be supporting the Claymore Apostolate. You see the sword big sword behind me? That's our logo for the Claymore Apostolate that we launched last year to support these young Gen Z men. You know, it's very exciting. And and this apostolate is really growing rapidly. So watch for our upcoming podcast that will explain it in more depth and make sure that you listen and join us if you can. It's not a time commitment. Time is almost nothing. And you get excited by the possibilities to change the culture that and help these young men understand what's going on in their lives to see the culture for what it is. A very exciting time. And if we don't do this, we're we're going to lose our nation here and especially this younger generation. It's really unjust what's happening to them. So the good news is we're meeting and journeying with these young men who are an inspiration to all of us. These young men, despite growing up in a very distorted, toxic, and evil, yes, evil culture that John Paul II termed the culture of death, they're refusing to fall for the lie and accept abortion, gender ideologies, and these corrupt politicians who want to codify all of these sins into law. And despite all of that that's going on in this toxic culture they they grew up in, they're waking up and saying, ooh, something in my heart's telling me there's got to be something more. They feel it and they're asking, what is the truth of things? So despite growing up in a society that's repeatedly lied to them about the very basics, the meaning of marriage between a man and a woman, what family is, what authentic love is, what's the true meaning of sex and sexuality, and so much more. Despite receiving an education in lies and deceits, especially in the public school systems, that has literally robbed them of their innocence, distorted their immoral imaginations, exposing them in the culture and also in the schools to pornography, drag queen story hours, pride parades. Yet despite all this, and the odds are totally stacked against them, they're hearing the voice of Saint Catherine of Siena calling out, Become who you are, who God created to be, and you will light the world on fire. They're hearing the voice of Saint Athanasius, an early church father and a doctor of the church, reminding them that the Son of God became man so that they might become like God. You know, it's a wild guess, but I bet that most of the culture is just a little bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints were always pointing us to and what these young men are discovering in their own hearts. Yet John Paul II said for all of us, there's an echo of this story, this divine life that we're created for, inscribed in each human heart. And if we put on the proper lens, if we get in touch with the echo within us in such a way, we'll have that aha moment. That's the genius of John Paul II, especially as communicated through his theology of the body. That story is not just about more information. You can Google information. This is the DNA that resides within us because we're created in the Imago Day in the image and likeness of God. Another way to say this is that the deepest burning, yearning desires of our hearts to love and be loved, to know the truth, combined with our life experiences of what we've seen already, it comes in contact with the gospel in such a way that we have that aha moment. The moment where when our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today. Who am I? What's my identity? What's the meaning and purpose of my life? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness here on earth and love that satisfies forever? So many questions came in uh in the last few weeks about what's happening to our country. So I asked Tom Hampson to come on, and we're just gonna speak the truth to these to these young guys and to all of us that that want to get this um get this right. What is happening to our country? You know, this is a spiritual battle. Uh, we'll unpack some of this today and share this with people. Subscribe, hit the like button. We're we're we're doing this for young people, we're we're doing it for all of us. And if we don't get this right, things are gonna change very, very rapidly, aren't they, in our country? I think we all have a sense of this. Hey, God bless you. Buckle up for today's episode. Since COVID, we've entered a time in history like no other, certainly like no other in the United States. We understood this by what Jesus called in the Gospel of Matthew, reading the signs of the times. And I was astonished by this. The so-called governments of the Democratic West so quickly forced tyrannical lockdowns, forced citizens to cover their face, and make a sign, a sacrifice to the rulers of this present darkness by forcing them to take a jab that neither prevented infection or transmission, and so was no vaccine at all. But if you take it, you can go about your life. If you don't, you're gonna be marked as a leper and kept away from the rest of society. You'll no longer be able to work, to receive medical treatment, and your voice will be silenced. Of course, this was built upon a pre-existing culture of death that we already had entered into in the West: abortion, gender ideologies, euthanasia, accepting that same-sex couples could create designer babies using IVF and surrogacy. And there's more. The neo-Marxists, who are atheists, of course, came into this and just simply extended the Marxist playbook, originally based on economic warfare, business owners against the workers. Even the original Marxists saw that this wasn't working well and attacked marriage in the family, allowing an easy divorce, abortion, and then once women went out to work, the government can then set up a daycare, a school system that can then indoctrinate the kids. I have family members on social media who condemn today the work of ICE agents and stand behind the protesters attacking them. I said to one of them, just would you stop, please, the naive childish games. You know, this is no this is no game to play. Pick a side and realize that your way of life is about to change. It's either going to be order or chaos, culture of life or a culture of anti-human death. Marxism, neo-Marxism, or freedom. In Deuteronomy 30, Moses said, Choose life that you and your offspring may live. That's where we're at today. This is your choice. Jesus said in John 10, 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but I came that you may have life and have it abundantly. This is your choice. What are the T and the Q and L B G T Q gender ideologies that you accept and make so prevalent on social media? One says, like the jab, kneel down and accept the lie that you can change your sex, and then you can be accepted in society. You won't be censored. The Q says, join the anti-human revolution, all tradition, what's true, good, and beautiful is flipped on its head. Both the T and the Q come from, of course, from Genesis 3, where Satan said to Eve, did God say that you will die if you eat the apple? You won't die. In fact, you'll be like gods, being able to say what is good and choose what is evil, to call evil good and good evil. You'll have the power for that. Finally, Jesus said that your father is Satan. He's a liar and a father of lies from the very beginning. He's called diabolical from the Greek diablos, meaning slander. It's taking language and querying it, the kind that twists, accuses, splits what is meant to be whole. Its roots threaten and poison human hearts, human culture, and finally will take down and destroy our nation. Tom Hampson, as usual, did an incredible job on research, and his last article outlines this. And Tom, you did a great job with this from the beginning. I almost want you to read your article. I in fact, if you don't mind, maybe you can read the first couple paragraphs of that because people need to wake up, Tom. I I'm tired of talking to these really naive young people who have families of their own and don't realize what we're bringing, what we're reigning on this culture. They can't read the signs of the times, Tom.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, it's good to be here. Um see Plurbus Plurus from many, many more is what the name of it is. The United States is in the process of unmaking itself. We're not being invaded or facing financial collapse. What's happening is far more insidious. Before our eyes, a deliberate, systematic severance from reality, both reality God created and the reality our founders created in principle two hundred and fifty years ago is underway. The city on a hill is not being assaulted from the outside so much as being dismantled from the inside, stone by stone, founding principle by founding principle. For most of our history, America was not unified by blood, location, or tribe, but by a shared creed and a common identity. Eplurbus unum out of many one has been our motto. Different regions, cultures, denominations, ethnicities, but they were expected to be woven into a single fabric, bound by the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and a widely shared moral vocabulary that took both virtue and vice seriously. Today that unity is dissolving. The we is being replaced by a proliferation of smaller, sharper identities, race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, victim class, each competing for recognition, privilege, and power. The shift has this shift has consequences. And that's true. Even biblically, I uh led a Curseil weekend one time, and the theme of the weekend was that they may all be one. This was Jesus' final pray, prayer for us, is that we all may be one. And that's the way the United States started. We were one nation. Eisenhower added in in the Pledge of Allegiance, one nation under God. And that's always been that way, though. Under God was always implied because we are a nation that has been given its rights and its responsibilities from God. And the government has always been there to protect those rights. It's completely reversed today. Even the churches have fallen into this. They've included in their hiring practices and their attempts to get uh congregations this idea of diversity, equity, inclusion. That we're we have multiple different cultures and identities, and and this is the way it should always be. That's not the way it was under Jesus. It wasn't the way it's been under the United States, but it's the way we are becoming, and that is a danger to us. Uh Ian Hershey Ali has talked about this. She's a Muslim, converted to a Christian. Amazing.
SPEAKER_00:She's an amazing woman.
SPEAKER_02:She has observed uh from from her perspective that this this is uh an effort to divide us, separate us, and to and to allow us to become subjected to communism. It's really a uh uh she she characterized this as a com effort by the communist movement to conquer the West. And I think that's probably true. But we're doing it to ourselves as well.
SPEAKER_00:You know, when you read the signs of the times, Bishop Fulton Sheen said in in in when I was in high school, said that of the twenty-two major civilizations that ever existed in recorded history, nineteen of those came unraveled and destroyed from the inside. And this is your point. It came from the inside. We lost our moral ground, our moral base, and the and the country was weakened. People again forget what and I just want to reiterate what you said, Tom. First of all, um, you know, we we are one nation under God. You think about the United States. There's no other country that has every single nationality, every race, every religion is in it because of those foundational principles that you outlined. Once you take those away, once you you you you lose order, and this is what we're seeing in Minneapolis, once you lose order, once you allow, and you say, well, why do they allow these illegals in? To destroy that fabric that you just outlined. In other words, if we inject enough people that don't believe what we believe, one nation under God, uh, you know, that this this fabric that brings us all together, all these diverse people, diverse cultures that can live together and build up not only a nation, but the strongest, most powerful, richest nation in history. You know, this is God ordained. There's only one power that can hold that many people together. You know, you even put two or three tribes, you know, different cultures in a nation, and they all fight. They all kill each other. But here in the United States, how people don't realize this naive family member of mine, Tom, does not realize that the glue who hold holds this all together is that we have to have a transcendent truth, don't we? Something that transcends human beings. Otherwise, it's just moral relativism.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, if you don't believe in if you don't believe that there's a uh there's a divine law out there, then then you are your own law. You become your own uh judge of the law. I've written several articles that that uh talk about how the actual law has been subverted by the um the regulatory law, that there's been there has been not just subverted by it, it's been completely reversed by regulations. And this is happening all over the over, and uh laws are not being enforced. Uh I'll give you an example on on the food pantry issue, which is a simple thing and it's uh it's a issue of compassion. We have a law that uh the these uh the federal food program was set up to serve the poor, the needy, the people that that are most in need of food to keep them from starving to death or from being hungry. That law has been subverted by regulation so that even somebody who's in the middle class is eligible to receive free food from the government through these food pantries that are out there. And there's a there was a steady movement toward this. Additionally, we have a law that people who are here illegally are not supposed to benefit from any set federal program. Well, there's been regulations that have been adopted to make it illegal to ask somebody's immigration status. So it it basically becomes you can't you can't enforce the law. And so this this this sort of uh institutionalized lawlessness has come even to the point here in Illinois where a few years ago, I think it was three years ago, there was a a gun battle in the parking garage across the street from the criminal courts building in Chicago. I mean, a gun battle between six different guys. Scores of rounds of ammunition were fired back and forth, willy-nilly. I mean, there's just nobody got killed, nobody got hurt by the grace of God. But the the and and they had it all on camera. They knew who the people were. Every one of them was a had been a convicted felon in illegal possession of a gun. And the state's attorney at the time declined to bring any charges against them because on the basis that it was mutual combat. Well, this is what this is insane. You have you have people engaging in actual gun battles on the streets of Chicago, right across the street from the criminal court, and you're not going to enforce the law on that. So it's no wonder that you see things up in Minnesota where you got the the entire government up there is refusing to help support ICE in the removal of people who are dangerous criminals. They're actually thwarting the efforts. The government is thwarting the efforts of the federal government. Yeah. This is this is not good.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's not good. And you create again, this is the man of lawlessness. You know, uh St. John talks about. He said sin is lawlessness. When you when you inject sin, I can call good evil and evil good, it becomes lawlessness. Order goes away, justice goes away. This has real practical implications for these young guys that we're working with. When they go out to get a job and they're working, some of them are working, you know, construction, say, you know, you know, new jobs or doing an apprenticeship. It's a plumber, let's call it. Anything. They're working hard and they're seeing their money confiscated by higher and higher taxes, and then those taxes, which is bad enough, and then those taxes are given to the Somalis up in Minnesota, to the tune of over$9 billion. That was and now I say, okay, I am working my butt off, and my c my money is being involuntarily confiscated by the government, who now gives it to not only illegals, but to criminals to steal it and and and use it for nefarious purposes. And and the people in bed with them in power, don't forget uh the the same people that were forcing the lockdowns during COVID, the masks, the jabs. Tom, remember when they would lock down the law-abiding citizens, couldn't come out of their house, but the violent, the BLM, the Antifa, were allowed to go on the street with those horns, right, with those megaphones, blasting all through the night, talking about how they're going to take down and and they actually did burn businesses. And the guy that's a police station down, they burned a courthouse. Tom, the guy that owned the businesses was not allowed to come out of his house to defend his own business, and these are the same people in charge today. Why would it be any different?
SPEAKER_02:Well, because it's the they're you know, they are protected class, they're a special class. This is what this uh, you know, this uh uh e pluribus pluris is is describing, that we are becoming a nation that's broken apart, uh that there are special classes of people in Somali up in uh Minnesota. The Somalis not only are protected class themselves, but they are serving a protected class. So you don't dare look at them, you don't dare um examine whether or not what they're the services they're providing are are real, because then that would be something that would be considered uh a racist act. Uh checking up on them, not trusting them, is obviously a racist act, which is insane.
SPEAKER_00:And now, Tom, I I would ask why can that this young person and my family, this person that stands up for these protesters, I don't know if they're just naive, but I but I suspect it's way more than that. When you do not have God in your own heart, in your own life, you have to bring these things up because you wrote in there the decline of Christianity. So these people can no longer read the signs of their times. Tom, they're wrapped up in this emotion and they're just given this propaganda, and they become uh lemmings that just follow this destruction. Men cannot get pregnant, you wrote, despite the medical and biological fact that only human beings with female reproductive anatomy can give birth to a child. If I no longer believe that, because I'm told that a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man, what have I become tired? And then then you say that a slogan masquerades a scientific discovery. Now it's anti-science. It's not true. Everybody knows it's not true. You say what changed is not the body, the biology, the science, but the language. We've just simply abused the language. And when you no longer can see, when you no longer can read the signs of the times, you don't realize that it's really the man of lawlessness following the diabolical, again, into what? Into slander, into lies.
SPEAKER_02:Part of that is because of our um compassion. As Christians, we're supposed to be compassionate toward people. Somebody that was born a man and thinks he's a woman, then you got to be compassionate, show compassion for him. But as I write here, genuine compassion is a Christian virtue, but detached from truth and justice, compassion becomes an acid that dissolves the rule of law itself. And that's not just the rule of man's law, but the rule of God's law becomes is dissolved by the very compassion that we're supposed to exhibit to other people. Because it's misplaced. We can't allow compassion to be driven solely by our feelings. It has to be driven by truth and justice. Otherwise, it's it's not real compassion. It's false compassion.
SPEAKER_00:And it's cruelty. It's like love and lust. It's cruelty. When you see the detransitioners, like Chloe Cole, saying that all of this compassion, you know, put her on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, may have caused infertility. Certainly mutilated her body by cutting off her breast as a young girl. This is cruelty. This is insanity. You know, it's a twisting and distortion. People are really getting hurt. When you say uh to same-sex couples, we're compassionate, and and these two men should have a baby. You know, it's impossible for them to have a baby, right? So they go out and buy a baby. Now, the compassionate side never sees, without the Christian eyes again, to see the child. We also see the child. And that child taken, you see this over and over again. My heart, really, my heart goes it aches and my stomach gets sick. I see a baby taken from its actual mother's womb, taken into another room. They just clean it, clean this little child off, wrap it in a blanket, and hand it to two big hairy men, and they have what? They have just separated a child from their mother forever, Tom. Forever. This is this is cruelty. And and the last thing I'll say is to leave a confused person that thinks they're in the wrong body, and and to leave them there and to affirm that this is this is insanity. This is leaving them in mental illness. It's cruelty.
SPEAKER_02:I can understand the desire of same-sex couples to have children. I think we're all we all innately want to reproduce ourselves, to have have children. It uh really is a fulfillment of our life in in many ways to to raise children. It's uh certainly a gift from God to have children and to raise them. Those drives should put them on a course of making their desires right with God's will. In other words, they their desires should be conformed to what God designed them to be.
SPEAKER_00:Tot to again. We get back to reality. Those two men cannot reproduce somebody else. So when you talk about this, here's here's here's what my compassionate family member doesn't understand is that this goes against nature's laws. It's impossible for two men to bring forth a child, it's impossible for two women to be bring forth a child, it's impossible for a man to become a woman, a woman to become a man. And so when you step away from reality, from truth, I mean, what is happening to us? And then say, hey guys, maybe you should step back and see your bodies can't reproduce. You're trying to do something that's leaving you in a brokenness already, and so you're perpetuate that lie, and who gets hurt? The baby, the child that's being brought in. And again, your heart has to go out not only to two men that want to have a baby, but how about the baby itself? This is what Christianity does. It looks at the whole picture and says, hey, there's also cruelty being pushed down on a child, and this is unjust. This is not just.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, I there's a there's been many uh testimonies by children raised in same-sex couple households or even in opposite sex households where they are LGBT. Moira Grayland was is one of them whose mother and father were LGBT. I don't know how they ever came together. I guess they were bees instead of L's and G's, but it was it was a perverted lifestyle that she describes being raised in, and that she's still suffering the consequences of it today.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, how about how about a bee, right? Bise bisexual. Well, again, if you go back to nature's laws and the way in natural law and and revealed, certainly divine revealed law, we would say that it doesn't matter if you're if you're a bee, because if I'm married, right? If I'm married, then I'm married. And that's it. I'm done. It doesn't matter if I have attraction to my neighbor that's a woman or my neighbor that's a man, I'm supposed to stay in my marriage and raise my kids. And so it doesn't matter. But once you throw this away, now, ooh, I just had this happen this weekend. A person came up to me and was talking to me about this couple that was getting divorced. And she said, Jack, what should I tell this person? Because the man is they're in their 40s, and the man has decided that he's attracted to men now. Now they have children. Now that you know this isn't the only case. You and I have talked about this for a long time. So he's gonna leave his wife and go into a gay lifestyle. Well, I tell you what, you know, there that when my wife and I and I were going through some tough times in our marriage, I thought about leaving my wife for another woman. But I, you know, you don't do those things, right? You stay in your in your marriage. So I don't care if you're a bee or not. If you're married, dude, then stay married. And I know this time and time again. You know, Jack, I have to live out my real truth. I said, dude, your real truth is you're married and live with that. But again, Tom, to your earlier point, when you throw out truth, when when law becomes twisted and distorted, nobody follows the law anymore, right? Why do I have to follow the law?
SPEAKER_02:Well, see, that's that's the whole thing, even the acceptance of LGBTQ. Most major denominations of the church today have accepted it. Again, that's a falling away from what the truth is, because out of compassion, it is corroding uh our our whole way of life. It's corroding the church, it's corroding our culture. The United States is falling apart because of it.
SPEAKER_00:It's a false compassion, obviously. Because if this naive family member of mine goes through if everything she wants, which is she she accepts the gender ideology, abortion is a right, euthanasia, a person should be able to kill themselves, uh, you know, whatever. And she's gonna see the destruction of our whole country and that young family that she's raising. There will be no nation that's gonna bring you an abundant opportunity. We are gonna be, at best, just another third world nation where everybody's scrambling around to eat. Order is becoming disorder. We're seeing this in front of our eyes, Tom. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is the battle going on today. Either we restore order, and the only way to get that is to is to bring this order into our own hearts. You know, it always starts in the individual human heart.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, it's it's really happened before with Rome. Rome was a nation that was built on many different cultures, but they all prided themselves of being a Roman citizen. And then when things started to deteriorate, it was the the whole place began to fragment back into their ethnic identities rather than being a Roman identity. And in uh and that's happening in the United States right now, that we we can see this happening. But the difference between Rome and us is that Rome had had rights and and laws that were created by government. Our government, unlike any that's ever existed before, is supposed to be subservient to a divine law, to God. That we are our government is there to protect the rights that we've been given by God. And part of that protection is to create laws that that protect you and me from being exploited by other people. That's the only purpose of government is to satisfy the needs of our divine rights. And it's just become so distorted. People today, if you ask somebody, says where do our laws come from, they'll say our legislators create them. Well, yeah, they create these laws, but they are supposed to be subject to a greater law. Yeah. And nobody sees that in the world.
SPEAKER_00:Look what happens when you take it out. We now have a Supreme Court justice that cannot define a man or a woman making your laws. We have people that are actively pro-abortion, pro-same-sex couples adopting surrogate children, and making it into law. So here's a point I think everybody should remember. What you just said is we are the only nation, Tom, in history that did exactly what you said, which is we have a divine law above the human laws that we're making. And those human laws that we do have flow down to us from this divine law. So this is important because when I said in the opening that something different is happening that never happened in human history before, especially in in the United States. We're seeing a decoupling of that divine law to the extent that chaos is here. Chaos is coming. So this is the difference. How could this be different than Rome, etc.? What you just stated it. We were always based on divine law. This is what made us, again, the most prosperous, the most just country. You know, with all the sins and everything, we get that. We should be picking ourselves up and establishing those just laws. This is different. And the second thing that you just said is that the churches have been compromised. So this is another thing. We we have no divine law coming in, and the churches themselves, uh, Pope Paul VI said uh back in the 60s and early 70s, that the smoke of Satan has entered the church. So we're seeing this attack in the church. We're seeing the attack then in the country created in the image and likeness of of God in the beginning. And so this is what's different, Tom. This is this unraveling, if it happens, which it seems to be uh happening, certainly we see this all over the world. You know, in all of Western civilization, this isn't just the United States. The everything's coming unraveled. It's a very interesting time to be alive. And this is not a conspiracy theory or or made to frighten people, but we have to wake up.
SPEAKER_02:No, it's these these elements have have been have taken over the church, the adherence to the DEI principles, but the toxic compassion that has really taken over our churches, the acceptance of the LGBT lifestyles is normal, we can't allow this kind of behavior to be acceptable. The church just isn't doing its job. You know, I've I've written uh in a couple articles that if our revolution, which we celebrate 250 years this year, were dependent on the churches today as it was back in in 1776, we would still be under Britain rule. There's there's nobody that speaks out. Uh I uh there was a law that was passed a couple of years ago that allowed a 12-year-old to get get an abortion without anybody, without even notifying parents or judges, they could do it just on their own, walk into an abortion clinic and get get an abortion. I I didn't find a single um article, a single uh person in the clergy who came out strongly against that law when it was passed, when it was when it was adopted. Not one. Now, how is that possible? This is one of the oldest prohibitions that that we know of, the D D DAC case talked uh about the the opposition to abortion back in like 100 BC or something, you know. Uh I don't understand how the church cannot take up the cause and things even so obvious as that. But they're no, it's true.
SPEAKER_00:It's true. So as I think about this family member of mine, and there's there's many of them actually, uh unfortunately, you have to step back, and it's not all their fault. You know, you and I have talked about this many times that you know, parents did not pass this down to their kids, the clergy, the churches did not pass this down to the kids and the families. So where did the kids pick this up? They picked it up in a corrupt school system. So, in defense of these young people, this is again why we have Claymore, Tom, is to work with these young people and and just bring them back into the truth of things. They're actually waking up these young men, they don't always identify all the things we're talking about, so that's why these podcasts are important, so that they we can walk them back into the truth, you know, because they feel it. They they feel something wrong, they don't know what it is. So we have to make this explicit to them. You know, as as your article says toward the end here, the city on the hill is not yet rubble. Its lights still shine, however, dimly in countless families, congregations, and communities that stubbornly cling to the truth, honor their oaths, and fear God more than man. Yet the foundations are being chipped away, the hill is eroding beneath us, and below the hill is not a serene valley, it's a swamp ruled by raw power, rife with tribal conflict, and the home of manufactured realities where the strongest win and the weaker suffer. If we don't return to reality as God made it, law towards our founders framed it, anchored in fixed truths about man, God, and justice, we will continue to drift, and a nation that drifts long enough, do not simply correct uh course, they break apart. This is true, Tom.
SPEAKER_02:Right, it is. It's uh it's uh there's no there's no other alternative. We can't keep on this path and and expect to survive as a nation. It's gonna it we are going to self-destruct. And I don't know how long it's gonna take. Might might happen very quickly. Some nations, when they begin to crumble, crumble rapidly, just it it accelerates. And I think it's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's what we're seeing now, Tom. You're exactly right. You know, this has been going on for a long time, uh, and you see it. And and when you read the signs of the times, this has already happened in in Europe. Europe has already done this. And so maybe this is a good way to go out today, Tom, is to remind these young people and these young family members of ours that when you stand up for against us trying to take out illegal uh immigrants, especially the ones that have committed crime, but look to Europe, look at the UK, look to Germany, look what happened with Biden's open, and we're here because of Biden's open uh border policy, and right? I mean, why are we in this predicament? But but here's the the point I want to make, Tom. By flooding these nations, UK again, Germany, we see what's happening to them, by flooding them, what it what is the purpose, the diabolical purpose behind that is to take down all of the foundational aspects of our nation. In other words, if we dilute the people that that actually believe in this one nation under God that's held up, if we dilute that with people that don't believe that, and they come in and and and bring in a new culture, this is querying, this is the cue out of the LBGTQ, cueing all the the traditions, the everything that we stood for, everything that we believe has now become unraveled. And uh, and that's why you're seeing it accelerate.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and you see this in the in the history books too. There's a relentless criticism of the history of the United States as being as being an oppressive uh power, that even in uh internationally that we are we are arrogant and we've uh you know thrown our weight around and we've we've injured the entire world because of the way we've been. The United States is the first country to go to to to uh uh go anywhere there's been a disaster, that we provide assistance. We very often when there's when there's a power outage along the coast somewhere, it's gonna be a U.S. aircraft carrier that's gonna show up there and provide power for whole towns to operate basic services. It's just unbelievable how we've been slandered in the on the international stage.
SPEAKER_00:I will say this, Tom, is that the lat and our country was like this, and we're the most generous country. We all know this in the world, in the history of the world. But here's what happened. With Obama, and it wasn't just started with Obama, these, you know, these these cracks had already been coming in, like I said, in the in even before the 60s, you know, that you know, Satan had already entered the church. You know, we had we had uh the what we call the deep state. It's individual human hearts that didn't get into power and political power. So let me just say this, because I agree with what you said, but but more recently in history with the Biden administration and Obama administration, we were pushing these gender ideologies, abortion, the trans ideologies, the COVID stuff we went along with all over the world. There's somebody I know that said that he came from Papua New Guinea, a Christian nation, and he said that America took its power and started to hang the LBGTQ flags on the embassies and stuff, and we could not do anything. We as a people because the government, the government wanted to, but they couldn't say anything because of the power of the United States. So we are a force for good when our hearts are aligned with the good. Right. But when we don't, we can use that power. Look at how many trans uh soldiers do we have. You're right.
SPEAKER_02:I forgot about that.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02:I try to put that out of my mind, some of these things.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so so it is. We could be a force for good.
SPEAKER_02:But see, that's what they're saying. But what these people who have been criticizing the United States are saying that it's only by putting rainbow flags on the embassy and things like that, that's where we're turning around when when I see this as being something that's that's uh you know an extension of the crumbling of our nation.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. That's exactly what it is. Again, when when we got away from those foundational truths, what is the reality of things? And then we say to other countries, kill your children and uh kill your old people, trance your children, you know, and then and then bow down to the jab, bow down to putting masks on our faces, and and so we no longer become human beings, our human dignity is stripped away, and just kneel, kneel before. Before the power. Well, who's the power? It's it's really Satan and all the men who have cooperated with him to bring this into the world. This is really the sign of the times, Tom. I i I think we're saying it as plain as could be, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Well, except the thing is that the people of the church can stand up and and turn this around. There really is that they're not we're not dependent on the government to do this. I think the real um change is going to happen within the churches, and I think it's the people of the church have to have to be the church and speak out. They have to can't can't wait for somebody else to do it. There's nobody else around.
SPEAKER_00:No, and there's no knight in shining armor, either in the political sphere or in the churches. You know, to your point, what's going to happen is a de-u-centralization of this. That it's going to be all of the laity with getting their human heart back, with all of the good pastors and the good priests that are going to bring this sacramental, this prayer order back, and so unite with the good pastors, the good priests, with the laity itself. This is going to be the millions and millions. This is a great time, Tom, because it's a revival.
SPEAKER_02:We really we are either going to get underweight. We're either going to destroy ourselves or we're going to revive God's law.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. There's no idea. This is eternal consequences. When I stand up for abortion and LBGTQ and the mutilation of children and taking a child away from a mother and this whole breakdown of our moral uh uh foundation and our culture, this is eternal consequences. Our life is short, Tom. Right. Well, I I lived most of mine already, and I look back, and every time I went off the range in my own life, I caused destruction in my own families with my own children. And if if I don't start looking forward and starting to re you know, to to to to to get down on my knees and ask for forgiveness and do the right thing, that has eternal consequences.
SPEAKER_02:Well, just this year, uh this last year, it's been the first time in history that uh less than half of the population in the United States has been part of any organized religious group. Um and that's that's not good. You know, when we were founded, it was the vast majority of people, 90% plus, were part of a were part of a church of some kind.
SPEAKER_00:Can't we see that in our own families, Tom? When I look at my own family, I think, wow, I don't I don't know too many young people that are actually going to to church on a regular basis, that are reading scripture, that are getting down on their knees and praying. Now, the good news is, again, we are meeting these young men. Now, I don't know, Tom, you know, how what the percentage. I'm sure it's less than half of them, but it's the ones we meet are waking up for sure. They're the ones that voted for Trump. Not that Trump is Jesus Christ, is not a savior, but somebody who stood up and said, okay, what is the truth of things? What is the truth of things? He saw the global elites taking power. He saw the illegal immigration coming in, he knew what was going to happen. He has good instincts. And look at the amount of evil being pushed on this guy, I I can't believe that he still stands. And uh, but he does somehow. That's why I think he's God ordained. And God has used I think so too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:God has used He may not he may not be a real spiritual person, but uh I think you should put him there for a reason why.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's my point. God has used men throughout history to bring his plan back, and uh, but the rest of us got to be praying.
SPEAKER_02:And uh He's protecting us, He's giving us a chance to to recover um our our spirituality. And I as for the number of people that are belong belong to an organized religious group, I and part of it I hope it's because so many religious organizations have become entirely corrupt, that they're they're on the wrong course, they're really teaching the gospel that isn't in the Bible. That that is uh it's a false gospel is being taught. So I'm hoping that if we get some churches and some other Christians begin to to speak the truth, to stand up and defend the truth, people will start coming back. We we need a revival, desperately need a revival in this country, or we're lost.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it is it and and just to finish up here, it's gonna depend on us. I I get back to Fulton Sheen, who saw this coming and said, Who's gonna save the church? He said, It's you, the laity. He said, It's up to you to make sure your priests act like priests, your religious act like religious, and your bishops act like bishops. And uh, and Tom, the only way you can do that is if you have the confidence in your faith. So this challenges all of us to go deep, uh, to learn the faith. And those people that have studied and lived this out have a responsibility to go and turn to these young people that have been treated really unjustly, not given any of this. And this is why it's so important for us to do these types of podcasts to get this down to young people so that they know somebody is there, there's a structure there for them. We have to invite these young people into a deeper uh relationship with with with God and places how many places are you aware of where they're uh where the churches are teaching uh the truth to overcome the falsehood that the kids are being taught in schools?
SPEAKER_02:It's not happening in my church.
SPEAKER_00:And not only that, these pastors should be standing up, right? And some of them do. Some of them do. Oh, yeah, some of them, yes. They need to stand up and push back on this this corrupt public education system. They know what's going on in those public schools. Why aren't they preaching on Sunday? All of us in this church, you know, they're some of these churches are big, right? The Catholic Church is big. Why don't we all stand up and say we're not we're not paying taxes to these governments anymore? You know, and they're all afraid. They're all afraid that the government's gonna come after them or make them take away their tax exemption. You know, our coke nation's gonna go down if we don't stand for the truth. And again, all of those pastors and myself too, we have an eternal life that we're putting on the line here. If we don't stand up for the truth, I'm gonna be f afraid to meet my own maker, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, yeah, you can't just let it pass. You know, inaction is a sin as well.
SPEAKER_00:Amen, brother.
SPEAKER_02:Sins aren't only sins by commission, but they're sins of omission. 100%. If you remain silent in the face of injustice, you are guilty of that same injustice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but it's gonna take courage, and I tell you where that courage comes from. And if you don't have that, you won't have the courage to stand up. I don't see it, Tom. You know, I mean, there are some exceptions that throughout history of men that that uh uh you know were agnostic or whatever, and it still stood up for the truth, but that's it that's one in a million men. You know, most of us are gonna stand up because we know the truth in our own hearts, and God has given us the grace to do that. Hey, brother, good to be with you. Hey, thanks everyone. Thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye bye.