The Weekly Huge E- Episode 50 Tell me about it, Steph They think he's a righteous dude That's right, episode 50 Pretty excited to be here, thanks to everyone who came out to the Monkey Bar in Midtown Had a great time Yeah, of course, yeah, we didn't really have a big celebration at the Monkey Bar I'm just making that up in my own fever mind Although I do want to go back to New York City in the spring I actually love Manhattan, I'm like a New Yorkophile Everything new with New York, I just love it Although I pretty much hate all the sports teams But I just really like Manhattan, and I want to take a massive test back It's been so long since I've been there that I remember our trip from like 8 years ago So I said, okay, we'll go back maybe on spring break and check it out And we'll be staying near the Monkey Bar It's a great area, it's pretty economical, it is near St. Patrick's Cathedral It's in Midtown, we'll see if we get there next spring, I'm looking forward to it Alright, so, Halloween Some people have asked me, well you're a pretty committed Catholic, do you actually celebrate Halloween in all the darkness? I was like, yeah, I'm not a nerd But yeah, I love Halloween I railed in my writings because people who do not hand out candy on Halloween Now if you're some fundamentalist Christian conscientious objector Okay, I get it Again, I can tell you how you should be on Halloween If you think it's just evil and you can't celebrate it, then okay, that's fine But if you're just not handing out treats because you don't want to I'm just shocked And I've often been appalled at the parents who both want to have the experience of making the kids out trick-or-treating So they don't hand out treats at all, they take their kids out trick-or-treating But they don't reciprocate and hand out treats I was like, wow, I mean, you can't do that It's a community thing So Marina always had a system She stayed home, I took the kids out It was that simple And like two years ago snapped like a 25-year tradition I've been there for 25 years And I was kind of sad when it was over But part of it was like, ah, it's just as well I was getting tired of going out The other time I really liked it Well, I actually liked it all the time with the kids The other time I really liked it though Was like when it was like a Thursday or Friday or Saturday night And I could be drinking while I was walking around doing it I mean, I know I could make up Monday and Tuesday as well But maybe get up in the morning and get to work And it just wasn't quite the same thing And I guess I should pull it in a little bit When I say I'm appalled when both parents go out They don't reciprocate I shouldn't be so judgmental for lack of a better term Objectively speaking, it's just like WTF Don't you see how well you're taking from other people And not giving back And I get it, it's just candy in today's world Candy's so cheap, it's not that big of a deal But the kids get a kick out of seeing different lights on They see the lights on in the house They run out there They get their four cents worth of candy And they run back And if you're not doing that reciprocating Or some people, they say Well, my mom comes to the house And hands out candy While my wife had take her kids out Treating while it was cool And I couldn't care less What I hate though is when I'm walking around Or used to When I wore a younger man's clothes When I'm walking around And Halloween I gotta walk a block or two Because so few people have their lights on It's just It kind of calls me Again, if you're a Christian fundamentalist A conscientious objector, I get that Talk to the fag And your shit's all retarded But man, if you were out trick-or-treating When you were a kid And now you're an adult And you're not putting that light on Hand out treats Talk to the fag And your shit's all retarded There's a disconnect there I'm not sure what it is And if you have your kids out trick-or-treating And you're not reciprocating I think there's another disconnect there And again, I don't know what it is I don't want to judge anyone Because I haven't walked a mile in their shoes Talk to the fag And your shit's all retarded I barely walked a mile in their own shoes When it comes to introspection and whatnot But yeah, I seriously ask yourself Man, why aren't I reciprocating? If you're out in the country, by the way I get that too If you're out in the country No one can come to your house So come into town and trick-or-treat And both of you can come Because no one can go to your house, period Anyway I do celebrate Halloween And I'm going to defend it I'm going to defend it right here And it's really going to come down To one of my favorite quotes From a political philosopher Who's actually a statesman Edmund Burke Russell Kirk had called Edmund Burke The father of modern conservatism His mother was Catholic He was born in Ireland He spent a lot of time In the highly Catholic country of Cork Because he had bad health When he was a kid So he had to go stay with his Catholic relatives In Cork Where the era was considered better for him So he became He was very sympathetic to the Catholic All his life I think he was often rumored to be Catholic And this is 18th century England Where rumored to be Catholic Would be rumored to be a pedophile In the statesman circles But anyway A very powerful thinker Thomas Sowell The great economist Social scientist Whatever you want to call him S-O-W-E-L Thomas Sowell He wrote a splendid little book Called The Conflict of Visions And in that book He contrasts the constrained version Versus the unconstrained version Of reality And he must Sowell He must cite Burke I don't know 20 times I actually looked it up Before I did this podcast And pulled that book off the shelf And looked at the index And he asked us Riddled with Edmund Burke references I look kind of funny The index says Edwin Burke E-D-W-I-N Edwin Burke Instead of Edmund Burke Anyway One of his most famous quotes is Those who do not hate Where they ought to hate Cannot love Where they ought to love That's where I stand on Halloween Those who do not hate Where they ought to hate Cannot love Where they ought to love And that by the way Is not an exact quote I didn't pull it off the shelf Well in order to hate something You need to recognize it first So if you don't recognize The dark side Of things Whatever those things are If you don't recognize Those things to begin with How are you going to hate them And if you can't bring yourself To hate those things Because you don't recognize them How are you going to love Where you're supposed to love So recognition Of the dark Is also acknowledging Of the light This is kind of The whole binary thing You know by just opposing Light and darkness And good and bad You better highlight the good Highlight the light So to speak So that's one reason Why I celebrate Halloween And like the dark forces Coming out And I think there's actually A lot more to That celebration Halloween I'm going to go off And ramble here a little bit at you Modern thought in particular But just thought in general It's local centrism That's a derogatory term Where they say You think words refer To external reality And as shown through The Structuralist As further elaborated upon By Derrida And other postmodernists Words just refer to each other They don't refer to An outside reality And I think they Can prove their point And there might be Some Christians out there And metaphysicians Who hate me for saying that But I don't think It can be denied that Words only have their meaning In reference to other words They don't point necessarily To an external reality And then Derrida and others Took that to say Well because words don't refer To an external reality There is no external reality And there's one Former postmodernist I read Point out he goes He said that's a hell of a Sleight of hand He called it a sleight of hand He said that's not the same thing To say that words don't refer To external reality Doesn't mean there is No external reality And that's like the crux Of the postmodernist creed They make that leap of faith We're all criticized There's a leap of faith But they make one there But more to the point here On Halloween What is this external reality Well it can mean a lot of things But in particular It means the metaphysical reality That words actually refer to Dark forces To good forces To angels To God To the soul Things like that External reality Means external to space and time And this I think Halloween Kind of is a shot at Postmodernism Let's face it We live in a postmodern world Where metaphysics has been Flattened out Denied Not recognized Doesn't play a part In the average person's Mental landscape And I think it's causing Psychosis and other sort of problems Those problems are way beyond The scope of this podcast obviously But there is definitely Something to be said Or in my opinion Everything can be said For the fact that there is An external reality That we need to conform ourselves to An external reality That in turn shapes us Halloween By recognizing the dark Metaphysical forces Things that are fashioned By the devil himself Or recognizing the devil's night Those are metaphysical realities Those are things that slash Against this bland Lack of imagination Postmodernist type society We live in today So I think those things They celebrate They bring it out And I think that's a really good thing By getting us thinking about The dark metaphysical realities We start wondering about The good metaphysical realities And that's great Not even make a libertarian argument For Halloween And I don't think this is a stretch though Keep in mind this fundamental principle As soon as men were seen To be shaped by societal forces As opposed to being shaped By metaphysical forces The role of government skyrocketed Because now men and women Weren't good or bad Based on objective norms Of good and evil Which are things you can't Necessarily do anything about Instead they became seen as Men and women who are good or bad Based on societal forces And so society can be remade Refashioned Repurposed Whatever you want to call it You get more good people And society will be better That gave a huge role To the government to fill That's what Woodard Wilson Started doing in the 19-teens That's when this whole The whole notion of progress Came into being Progress because the government Is going to put into play By reshaping these societal forces Let's look back at Halloween We're saying No, no, no There's metaphysical good and evil That people tie into That shape people That form people And government You can't change the metaphysics That's beyond space and time There's nothing you can do About that stuff You can punish the men For being bad We can celebrate the women For being good Or men for being good Women for being bad Whatever You can do that You can react to the metaphysical forces But the metaphysical forces Are beyond you So you need to have some humility In light of those metaphysical forces And the government Started with Woodard Wilson Basically said No, it's all societal forces And because they're just societal forces Not metaphysical forces We can reshape those societal forces And now government has a huge Freaking role to play In people's everyday lives And that's a fundamental truth By the way That's not mine That is a truth recognized By many thinkers That when that fundamental shift occurred Government took a huge step forward And logically speaking Maybe it should I can have no return arguments Why it shouldn't That's what happened But anyway, so Halloween When it's celebrating The dark metaphysical side of things Is a celebration of metaphysics Which, when thought through Is a condemnation of excessive government Now, I would say I'm not a big fan of kids wearing Like the slasher movie masks The bad characters who are not steeped In metaphysical evil I like the celebration of Dracula And such Ghosts Things like that I'm not as big a fan of Kids wearing those scary outfits Where it's merely celebrating People who might be You know Bad results of a bad social construct I'm not a big fan of those type of characters On Halloween Although I might like them more than Seeing people come dressed up as princesses And good people And again, I'm not getting down On my Catholic companions Who dress their kids up as saints That's fine too But That kind of, you know My whole reason to celebrate Halloween By dressing your kids up as something good You're kind of watered down Why I think Halloween is so great So I'm not a big fan of people doing that Again, if you want to do that You want your kids to participate in Halloween But you're not comfortable with them Looking like the devil Or dressing up as a As a mean ghost or something Okay, well, that's fine Again, to each their own I'm not even going to condemn people Who don't hand out candy I'm sure that's not going to condemn someone For dressing a kid up as St.
Francis of Assisi But I'm not sure people thought it through If you're trying to take away The dark side of Halloween I'm not sure you're really appreciating That by highlighting the darkness You're actually bringing the lightness By highlighting metaphysical evil You're highlighting metaphysical good By highlighting all these things You're highlighting an objective norm Objective truths Hey, just a few more quick notes on Halloween And the whole horror genre That we've had in part of our culture now For hundreds of years If you get a chance Check out E. Michael Jones' book Monsters from the Dead It's a great book I really enjoyed it I launched E. Michael Jones one time Interesting guy But in that book He makes a compelling case that The horror genre Different types of horror movies Or fiction, whatever it is Basically reflects what's going on Beneath our surface As he calls the book Monsters from the Id It's coming from our subconscious And he goes to It's again fascinating He points out that Frankenstein was probably Our subconscious fear of electricity Mary Shelley's book was captioned That fear that we had of the unknown He makes a very compelling case That the whole Dracula genre The whole vampire stories That was driven by fear of syphilis In a fun part of the book He points out that The early slasher movies I think the first one's called Bloodlust or something He traces the modern slasher movies From the late 60s All the way down through Halloween Friday the 13th and whatnot But he points out that That was probably part of the Condemnation of the early hookup culture And he points out In all these movies It's like The good looking girl getting laid Is the one who's going to get slashed up He even points out various critics Who criticize the horror genre Saying they have a Puritan morality Because it's always the people Engaged in sex And premarital sex And teenagers in the back of the car They're the ones getting slashed up And killed in horror movies So again it's a great book It's a fun book Go check it out But I'd like to think about it Or what does that say about Our culture's current obsession With zombies Which by the way I think is going on like 10 years If not more Zombies have been in the forefront For a long long time now We just seem to have A real fascination with them And it's ongoing And here's my theory My theory I think zombies reflect Our middle class concerns That there's a growing underclass That's going to eat away our wealth Like eat away our brains This underclass Whether it's the white trash Or immigrants from Central America Whatever it is All these immigrants coming in This growing underclass of white trash That just wants to feed off the wealth That the middle class produces I think that's the fear of the zombies Is these walking dead I actually downloaded a podcast The Symbolic World That was released last March He talks about zombie And postmodernist culture Which is excellent by the way He doesn't talk just about zombies He's talking about dog-headed men He's talking about a ton of different stuff He doesn't put that interpretation on zombies Although he does start Going to that area at one point But anyway Go check out that podcast The Symbolic World Check out E. Michael Jones Sponsors from the Ed Give us a thought Why our culture is obsessed With having the world Taken over by zombies Having the culture Taken over by zombies See if you can remember Right about this Alright let's do some lighting segments Boy I really wanted to do these On Friday afternoon I was going to grab A bottle of gin in town I can come down here To the recording in the studio Also known as my study Or my library Or the corner of the basement Where all my stuff is And I was going to crank it out But I think that the opposite Is with the hell A handbasket on me I don't know I had to work all afternoon.
I had the greatest plans and get a head start on drinking. Probably just as well because we had some company over Friday night and some of my kids' friends and had a little bit too much to drink anyways. I can't imagine what would have happened if I started at, say, 4 o'clock. That monster's from the Ed book by E.
Michael Jones. It's just a little thoughts about interesting facts and anecdotes. As I mentioned previously, he's a fairly eccentric guy, but he is interesting and really well-read. But he one time points out in this monster of the Ed, he said that Dracula is the antithesis of Christianity.
Quote, Christ shed his blood so his followers could have eternal life. Dracula shed his followers' blood so he could have eternal life. Unquote. That's pretty clever.
Hey, if you didn't check it out, go check out that Joe Rogan interview with Edward Snowden. I had not followed the Edward Snowden thing that closely. I think anyone listens to podcasts and stays somewhat engaged with the news and knows something about Edward Snowden. I didn't realize he's free enough to do an interview, but he was over there in Russia and he did it by phone.
Sound quality is excellent. This thing goes on for three hours. Also bizarre is Rogan doesn't say hardly a thing. One of my friends said, he doesn't listen to Rogan much.
Is that common? And I said, no. I said, one of my friends said he can't stand to listen to Rogan because Rogan won't shut the heck up. He doesn't let his guests speak.
And this? I mean, this interview went out honestly for a full three hours. Now, the last three minutes were advertisements and the first six minutes of every Rogan podcast were advertisements. So maybe it was only two hours and 15 minutes.
But no exaggeration, on that two hours and 15 minutes, I think Rogan spoke fewer than 10 minutes total. And if he told me it was fewer than five minutes total, I'd believe you. It was just one long, roundly narrative by Edward Snowden. Definitely worth listening to.
Very interesting. I just wish I could get the other side of the story. I mean, I know I get the other side of the story from the mainstream press all the time. I get that, but I wish I could have someone point by point things he says come forward with countervailing stories or evidence or whatever.
It's just really hard to get a fix on anything. In fact, I guess that's anything ever. I mean, you never know what to believe anymore. And when you start seeing the story that Edward Snowden story, you can hear what he's talking about.
And he says, you know, go Google it. He doesn't pull it right up. I didn't take him up on any of it. Maybe I will, but he says it's in the Washington Post.
It's the New York Times. We got pieces of stuff together and you'll see he's telling the truth. Yeah, I'd love to hear some of these countervailing facts because Edward Snowden was like, boy, this guy does not sound like a nut. He doesn't sound like a bad guy.
Yeah, I understand. He apparently published names of American operatives overseas that put them in danger, which is completely unforgettable. If he did that, that's a shame on him. Rogan, to his discredit, didn't call him out on that and say something like, did you publish names of our spies or operatives in other countries thereby putting their lives at risk?
Because that would be an awful, awful thing. It always has me thinking, libertarians like me, we have a real hard time when it comes to supporting our troops. It's one of those no-brainers. It's like, well, of course I support our troops.
Of course, I want them to come home safe. But at the same time, you don't want them over there. You want them brought home. You know, in one sense, you can say, well, I support our troops more than you do.
You want them over there and put them in harm's way. I don't want them in harm's way. I want those young men and women brought back to the United States so they can be safe and maybe patrolling our borders or maybe just go back to the civilian workforce. So you can say, in that sense, I support them even more than the warmongers who want them over there putting their necks on the line.
But they are over there and they are fighting and for causes I don't necessarily believe in. I don't, I'm afraid to say. I don't believe they're protecting our freedoms at this point. We're just policing the rest of the world and I think causing a hell of a lot more problems than we're solving.
And probably a lot better off just kind of policing ourselves and protecting our borders. And Tulsa Gabbard wins and she goes against Trump but then you would have two people who are really questioning the war machine, finally. From the 1960s to 1990s there's always like Republicans who are part of the war machine and you had a solid, stable Democrats question it. And then with the Clintons that completely reversed.
And you had libertarians like Ron Paul on the right question the war machine and no one on the left question the war machine anymore unless it's like the Ralph Nader types you know, they're intellectually honest. I'm not sure I agree with them very often. But yeah, that's kind of the French laugh too against the war machine but there's nothing in the mainstream Democrat party that opposes the war machine. And I guess like Tulsa Gabbard is getting so much rollback right now because she's seen that first-hand and she ain't having it.
And I'm definitely intrigued by Tulsa Gabbard. Edward Snowden podcast got me thinking, you know, how do I know anything I read is truth? I'm just kind of disorientating. There's also two other podcasts that say the same thing about that have me just scratching my head saying what the frick is going on in this country?
When do we know what's true or how do we know what's true? And have we ever known from a hundred years ago have we ever been told the truth? Because we know now that Hearst and other newspaper magnacy they light all the time for propaganda or whatever and it's like, gosh, we live in like a freaking czar's question. Excuse me, czar's question.
Maybe the Soviet Union? Providal just fabricate all sorts of stories? It's just not quite the same thing but boy, I wonder just when you get these upper echelons of power, whether it's the press or the colleges, universities or big businesses or government when you get this upper echelon the 2% or whatever how much truth is telling? But anyway, two other podcasts I also get you thinking about if you want to listen to that go listen to the Unrugged podcast number 84 talking about Jerry Sandusky.
Not with me. When that Jerry Sandusky story hit and it came down I was livid when Penn State was like back and competitive again like in three years. I mean, that to me was the classic situation where a football program should have been completely dismantled saying basically you had a bunch of boys raped by this monster and it went on for years and you never squelched it because you're trying to protect your football program. And to me it sounds like a no-brainer just dismantle the football program be down with it.
I mean, it's objectively evil what you did and you're going to pay the price. You can't pay the price when you kill you. Instead, you're back at it. But then I listen to that podcast.
Again, episode 84. I can't remember the guy's name. Crap, it doesn't matter. But listen, unregistered number 84 this reporter goes through and is like I don't think Jerry Sandusky did it.
And he's pretty freaking convincing. So I was like, well alright, maybe good for Penn State to get back on top quickly. So I flip-flop my positions but two total different sets of facts. Again, very disorientating.
And then the third podcast is the Edward Snowden one. 1368 with the Joe Rogan Experience. Go check him out. Listen to him back-to-back-to-back maybe and just wonder if you ever feel like you could grasp the truth ever again.
Talked a couple weeks ago about the one thing file where you listen to a podcast or read an article or read a book you know, write down a note card with one thing you take away from that. Podcast or book or whatever. One thing I took away from that Snowden interview he said the government is not doing alien cover-up. He's like, I'm sorry to tell you this, Joe.
He goes, there are no aliens out there. And then back to that as well what I should say is the government's not covering up the aliens. Or they are covering up. They are doing one heck of a freaking good job of covering up.
He goes, because I was very high-placed intelligence out of that access information and there's nothing out there about alien life coming to Earth or that we're trying to shelter alien life and cover it up. I think that government's pretty pretty disappointed to hear that. Hey, if you haven't heard Kanye West is a Christian. He's coming out with an album called Jesus is King.
And he has, thank goodness condemned pornography. I maintain and have maintained for about 20 years that pornography is the greatest scourge in America. I think it's the biggest scourge in marijuana and I said that back 20 years ago when I was against marijuana's legalization. I'm pretty much for it now but back then I was against marijuana's legalization but I was like, well if I was king and I could only outlaw one of these marijuana or porn definitely would outlaw porn.
I don't think it can really be denied that. Socially speaking much less spiritually speaking and intellectually speaking pornography is awful. Awful for the individual awful for those around him awful for society. So hats off to Kanye age 42 he's coming out saying this stuff's gotta end.
He's already being painted as a freak by the left and he's kind of a freaky guy but hats off maybe he's an ally now who knows and his wife's pretty hot. So hats off to Kanye. Podcast recommendation The Worthy House It's a very unusual podcast this guy named Charles he basically writes papers like you read a book and then you write like a mom paper I don't know 2,000,000,000 words and then he appears to read it as his podcast really dry but packed full of information packed full of analysis I've listened to like three of his podcasts now they're real solid each like 25 minutes I found out like during the third podcast that he's actually Roman Catholic but he's leaving the church and becoming Greek Orthodox so I don't like the fact he's leaving the Catholic church but he's going Greek Orthodox so I'm just like hmm, okay a lot of that could be the confusion being wrought by Pope Francis and this guy just had nothing picking off so check out The Worthy House it's definitely worthy. Alright, one final note about Halloween and horror and all that stuff before we wrap up if you want to check out a great article about werewolves and shape-shifting go check out the 1999 article written by Eric Chesky it's called Dark Shadows of Turning it's in Touchstone it's actually the first article ever sold unfortunately it doesn't appear to be available free anymore it's only available to subscribers of Touchstone which by the way if you like the podcast you seriously ought to consider Touchstone Magazine it's excellent it's an ecumenical magazine unabashedly Christian by the way but it's Roman Catholic Greek Orthodox Evangelical Protestant all voices in the Christian world are welcome to it and I definitely recommend Touchstone but anyway in that article Dark Shadows of Turning I make the argument that shape-shifting is equated with evil because God is changeless that's how it goes like to a Parmenides type truth that being never changes the act of existence just is and because God is changeless things that change frequently are more removed from God than things that are less changeful and therefore through the horror culture or the horror genre of fiction where shape-shifting always took evil forms not always but not always the shape-shifter is an evil person that just reflects our metaphysical intuition that things that change constantly are further removed from God and therefore are more evil than things that don't change frequently and therefore those things that change most radically and most swiftly and most dangerously those things are that much more evil and that's why werewolves and such are always bad creatures I like the Cindy Coppy article but I'm pretty sure Touchstone bought my copyrights to it so I'm not going to be comfortable releasing it to you you just have to go to Touchstone and subscribe to the other archives and check it out alright that's a wrap keep in mind we've got the weekly demon blog going over at demonpodcast.com where you go back to my old blog site thedailydemon.com and it's updated 3, 4, 5 times a week check out the Twitter feed check out Facebook all sorts of good stuff up there as always thanks for listening I'll see you next time