 This is pure a PELCA with Michael PELCA only on the blitz radio network And we've got Jonathan on the line and I'll get you Jonathan promise, but I Want to take I want to talk a little bit about Trump's speech from last night about Afghanistan as an illustration for some of the things we've been talking about because I Thought that the speech was the best speech I've ever heard Trump give on the one hand and yet an example of Why this country is heading in the wrong direction and why? We are losing the war on on Islamic terrorism Why the jihadis are winning why we have no strategy completely unfocused. It's disintegrated. It's borderline dishonest is Is the kind of the kind of assessment we heard yesterday about Afghanistan, so we were told yesterday that Afghanistan is getting is getting worse There are more terror organizations in Afghanistan now than they were Maybe ever There's more hostility towards the United States and and from groups in Afghanistan and in Pakistan than ever before in spite of the fact that we've been fighting a war there for 16 years the longest war in American history and That the solution for all this the solution for victory is We're not gonna tell you we're not gonna leave We're not gonna leave Afghanistan that's for sure and we're not gonna tell you what the solution is because that strategy and its secret And we're not gonna we're gonna tell you how we're gonna we heard a lot about victory. We're gonna win Bush said we're gonna win. I mean Obama kind of said we were gonna win Retreat with honor, you know get out of there with honor after we crushed the enemy never happened Why do we think it's gonna happen now and nowhere in the speech yesterday with the real fundamental questions asked the speech yesterday was completely rambling in the sense that What is the issue? What is what is at stake here? I'm an individualist, right? I want the government to protect my life is Afghanistan a threat to my life I Think it probably is today Because it is a haven for all these terrorist organizations that would like to attack America and kill me and kill you Okay, so let's describe the threat Why are they so successful? Why are they so many of them over there? Why are they more now than they were before in spite of the fact that America's been fighting this war for 16 years Who funds this? Where does the money come from? Who inspires this? Is it the Afghan government is the problem in Afghanistan? Is that where they're generating the money? I mean some of it is because they they make money off of drugs, but is that it is that what's funding it? Why don't we just firebomb all of their you know puppy fields? Can't be just that because they get money from other sources. What are those other sources? What is the threat? Where does it really come from? I mean, that's a reason to approach. Let's look at reality That's examined the facts and let's come to conclusions based on those facts We didn't get any of that. We got vague promises about this time. We're gonna win Trust me, which is a you know, he didn't actually say it, but that was implied throughout the speech Which is a typical Trump line trust me. I'm not gonna give you details on how I'm gonna get there. Just trust me wishes over facts You know just just You know, what do we actually have to do now? There were some good things in the speech I'll admit there was a hint non explicit that we might change our rules of engagement. That would be good I'm all for that There were hints that that we're actually gonna do the things necessary to win. I'm all for that. That's good But I have argued From 9-11 till today that the war isn't in Afghanistan Afghanistan is the middle of nowhere These people wouldn't have the money the resources and the ideas to fight if not for whom If not for the country's really behind these terrorists really behind The ideology of jihadism that is killing westerners all over the world. I Mean we first have to face the facts face reality Ask the questions about who these people really are and when you do that When you examine when you look at the evidence when you do the research and Trump has a lot more information that I have a Lot more information than I have Then what you discover is that these people are funded By the Saudis and by the Iranians They're inspired by the Saudis and the Iranians Pakistan is Plays a huge role here and who who supports Pakistan who funds all those schools and madrasas and Mosques in Pakistan where these people get radicalized Well, if you're Shiite It's Iran if you're Sunni It's Saudi Arabia How can you give a talk a speech like the president did yesterday about winning the war in Afghanistan? while ignoring the two Elephants in the room the two countries that support all The terrorist activities all these organizations that are now live in Afghanistan How can you do without recognizing and identifying those countries? But exactly the opposite. This is you know completely ignore. This is left and right are doing this, right? We're gonna evade we're gonna pretend. This isn't a problem. Why cuz we're friends with the Saudis Friends with people who want to kill us really that's that's a great friendship You should try that at a personal level sometime. I'm not friends with people who hate me I'm not friends with people who who go every Friday and say death to Iran death to Iran But in the mosques in Saudi Arabia and in Iran they preach death to America regularly These are not our friends these are enemies and Yet we pretend because we prefer pretense Over honesty over reality over facts over rationally assessing this situation We've been taught not to offend anybody well unless you're Afghan and Afghanistan is significant But God forbid you should you should offend the Saudis Saudis important So there's no honest discussion about these topics and the president was not honest with the American people yesterday He was not honest With the soldiers right in front of him Who he is going to send over there to fight for what what interest these United States have in in in Afghanistan really To destroy terrorists who might attack the u.s. In the future if you want to do that Afghanistan is not the place to start. How about wiping out ISIS to begin with How about Stopping the Saudis and the Iranians from funding these groups and supporting these groups and giving them intelligence and make and promoting this ideology The fact is today that Sunni Shi'a doesn't matter the Iranians are all over Afghanistan They're the ones supporting the Taliban Does the American president mention that no No recognition of who the enemy actually is No willingness to face the actual facts of reality This is where This is where we have to be honest, but we also have to be thoughtful. We have to figure it out And We can't evade we can't evade the facts of reality That's what leadership is about leadership is about facing the facts integrating them communicating them and Laying out a plan to deal with them and we got none of that none of that Yesterday from Trump's speech now. It was the most adult speech. I've seen him give I'll give him that But it still was empty Was empty. I you know, I want to see I want to see a president actually identify the enemy. I want to see a president outline a strategy for winning 16 years since 9 11 and we still have troops all over the world We have troops hunting, you know in 120 countries. What do we what do we have them there for? What are we sending troops to Afghanistan to do? To win what does victory look like? He never said that all I want. What does victory look like? He never said what victory looked like. He actually suggested that we might negotiate with the Taliban one day How do you win it when you negotiate with the enemy? The only thing I know Of of war is you win when you destroy the enemy When you bring them to their knees when they reject their ideology It's how we won world war two. That's why the japanese are friends today and the germans are friends because they rejected the ideology Because they were crushed defeated Are we doing that in afghanistan? Do we plan to do that in afghanistan? No, if we're not going to do that in afghanistan Bring the troops home. Why should one more american die? In that godforsaken place If we're not going to win If we're not going to protect americans If we're not defend america if we're gonna negotiate with the Taliban and hand it over in the end to them anyway Uh All right I get angry. What can I do? All right, um, you're listening to uh, you're on brook. This is the uh Michael back a pelka show and uh, we'll be back right after these message You're listening to pure opelka with michael pelka on the blaze radio network Okay, so the first thing we want from a president from a leadership from people who Claim to be pro-american is the fact Is looking at the world and actually telling us what's actually going on who the enemy Really is it needs to be identified? and then second is We need leaders who are committed to protecting us And I I like the fact this is one of the things I liked about the speech yesterday I like the fact that donald trump said we are not Going to be do nation building We're not Going to fight wars for the sake of other people But then why are we staying in afghanistan? What is the criteria for victory? Are we Investing there are we going to cut economic support afghanistan and pakistan and in many other countries that are not our friends Are we going to actually commit to american interest you see but you see Nobody even even trump who is considered, you know, america first nobody can actually be today america first We live in a world dominated by a particular moral code A moral code of altruism a moral code of self sacrifice a moral code that says that you must live for others You must live for the protection of others for the defense of others for the for the sake of their the other people's will be And as a country we believe that it's our job many people believe To protect others to defend others that we can't and we can't be too harsh on others Oh when we bomb them we have to we have to send the food packages at the same time That's a reference to bush bombing afghanistan and dropping food packages with them You can't be self-assertive you can't stand up for yourself But what we need today is self-assertiveness We need to be able to say america first with everything that that means And that means we will do whatever is necessary to defend america and in afghanist if Being in afghanistan is required to defend america then we will stay in afghanistan But this is what we'll do we'll crush the enemy. We will destroy them. We will kill them everywhere we find them We will stop worrying about Collateral damage and we will protect our own people and we will defend this country and crush its enemies That is what i'd like To hear from a president. All right now. I'm gonna skip some callers Because logan is actually the only one who wants to talk about afghanistan right now I'll get you to skyler and jonathan later, but hi logan. You're in the um Pure pelka show who with you ron brook What's up? Hey, so I just wanted to make the point that I think that staying in afghanistan is actually counterproductive to protecting americans because For a couple reasons one. It's a huge waste of money and american lives Say a lot more american lives are lost By being over there than to just withdraw second thing is that most of the terrorist attacks since 9 11 are from American citizens who are radicalized because of our foreign policy And I think that over the last 50 or 60 years most of this jihadism is a reactionary movement To a failed foreign policy not just by america, but by many western nations Yeah, so so i'm gonna agree and disagree with you mainly disagree um I agree with you that that afghanistan is particularly the way we're fighting the war over the 2000 americans have died over there almost as many as 9 11 and a trillion dollars one Trillion dollars imagine what you could do with a trillion dollars Have been Spent over there and I'd say wasted over there because we're worse off now in terms of the state of afghanistan In terms of a threat to the united states than we were just after 9 11 We could have gone in there crushed al-qaeda crushed the taliban and left That would have been perfect. That would have been ideal What I reject though logan completely and I think it's a historical and a factual Is the idea that people are radicalized because what we're doing in the middle east. This is just not true People are radicalized because they've adopted an ideology. They've adopted a religion. They've adopted a set of beliefs That has no place for america in it has no place for individualism in it has no place for capitalism in it Has no place for secularism. Isn't it has no place For for for couples dancing in public in it It's an ideology that hates Freedom that hates human beings and it seeks to destroy them And this ideology do you mean islam it's rooted in islam now I don't claim to speak for islam. So i'm not saying all muslims hold this ideology But it's a version of islam that holds these ideas and people have adopted these ideas and then what they see Is a weakness in the west. They truly believe they can win They truly believe they can lose their knees now the claim is we interfere in their countries now. That's nonsense That's complete and out of garbage Uh, if anything we have helped the arab world out Tremendously we have supported them over and over again throughout history our found policy Is bad and it supports terrorism only in the sense that it is weak only in a sense that We don't actually advocate for what we believe in we're only in the sense that we don't actually stand up for ourselves It's our weakness that that promotes jihadism It's our appeasement of them that promotes their violence It's not our intervention in their lands now again I'm not for having troops in all these places around the world the troops should be home We should go only where American lives and property is in danger of Is one that we should we should when we go we should crush the enemy and come home But to blame the radicalization in the muslim world and american intervention is complete garbage If you read these slumists, they don't blame it out. You know, it's not about america It's about returning to what they view as tru slum I'm not going to argue with it. They're right about tru slum or not That's their issue but That's the essence of what's going on here. It's it's it's not a backlash It is them finding An ideology that they believe in and fighting for it and it's our weakness It's our not being willing to stand for what we believe for our ideas and it's not our willing It's it's a lack of willingness and our part To crush them militarily We appease them an appeasement 10 only supports the evil it supports Evil and strength five four listening to the acapella show. We'll be right back one All right, this is your aunt ruk filling in for michael felker and Be here through thursday and we just talked about afghanistan and the war and and and let me just Let me just say something about uh, logon the last caller and about this idea that you know muslims Or the islamic world hates us because of what we do And they're just desponding and they blow themselves up because we committed the injustice And they're just just responding to that they're radicalized because of our actions That is a prevalent view and and it's a prevalent view that applies not just To muslims it is this view That the primary motivation of people is we're kind of these like billiard boards balls You hit us in one direction and you know, you you one ball hits the other ball We go another it's certain the level of determinism um But think about it. I mean we've intervened in latin america in probably inappropriate ways and we don't even Have any latin americans blowing themselves up killing americans. We certainly intervened in europe both in world war one and world war two Um, I I think world war one inappropriately world war two appropriately given that You know, they they declared war on us the nazis did um But we don't have suicide bombers. They were german blowing themselves up to kill americans We've we've intervened in the philippines. We we went to the whole war 100 years ago in the philippines I think I I think A stupid war or what we should have never got involved in Under the belief that americans back then had that we were supposed to establish some kind of empire And they're no philippinos blowing themselves up to kill americans No, I mean people are now motivated by you do something and they just respond ping pong balls or something Or billiard balls or whatever people are motivated by ideas The founding fathers in this country were not just motivated by the bad stuff the king advocated for the the taxes the founding fathers will were motivated by a belief Based on reason in ideas that were revolutionary at the time the idea of the sanctity of the individual The idea that each individual was capable of taking care of their own life Because they were capable of thinking of using their mind of being reason of using their reason They they they had ideas and then they acted on those ideas and they they fought for those ideas And yeah, the momentary stimulus Was a king in england doing offensive things But they would have found ultimately an excuse to do this the founders did because they wanted to establish a new country on the basis of a new idea The islamists have an old idea An idea that god talks to them An idea that they are gods messengers And when people have that idea Whether it's christians jews or muslims they often become violent And you can't reason with them you can't reason with them because what are you gonna say? No god didn't say that They're convinced There's no fact in reality that you can point to that says god didn't say that You can't point to the scripture because scripture is completely contradictory all scriptures are contradictory you can find whatever you want in scripture That's just the nature of it. I mean I I I uh I grew up in uh in in a jewish uh background right Where every sentence of the old testament had 50 different interpretations depending on which rabbi you talk to Indeed 50 rabbis usually would interpret every sentence 52 different ways So what's the right way? How do we know what's the basis of knowledge? We can't ask god himself directly So who gets to decide it's not based on facts of reality Whenever Whenever truth is achieved through revelation that you can't discuss it you can't argue it You can't debate it reason is out discussion is out debate is out So all you're left with is force I can't convince you i'm right About the truth of islam so the only thing I can do Is force you to submit to islam that's all that You know that view permits it's all you can do So it leads to violence But it's the ideas in this case the religion which is a set of ideas that drive people That drive people to commit the horrors that they commit To fight america. It's not anything we did. It's what they believe Now there are lots of people out there in the world including in the western world searching for meaning in life By the way, a lot of the terrorists in europe and in the u.s. Will convert con people who converted to islam Radicalized by the religion and then became terrorists They were seeking something were seeking a set of ideas to guide their life and one of the great tragedies Is that the west today? Doesn't advocate for alternative ideas Doesn't advocate For for for for reason for individualism for meaningful life through the embrace of philosophy Of a good philosophy of a reality based philosophy what we have to offer people Is is the leftist postmodern nihilism? Where everything goes there's no reality you just make it up as you go along and anything you believe can be okay Which by the way also leads to violence. We'll talk about that tomorrow when we talk about american campuses and uh You know and and on the right kind of a pragmatism Or an alternative religion which is not an answer Which is not a solution convert to christianity instead of islam Or become a pragmatist. There's still no principle still no real ideas. Just do whatever works Well, what works is blowing myself up because I'm trying to achieve 72 virgins or whatever. I'm trying to achieve a khalifat Instead we what we need in this country what the west needs desperately what europe needs what american needs Is fighters for an enlightenment Is is to rediscover the ideas that animated the founding fathers Rediscover the passion for reason for science and for individualism and individual rights And until we discover and and and and how those can bring meaning to one's life The founders got it when it came to meeting in life. They put it in the declaration of independence In a sense the meaning of life is the pursuit of happiness It's about your life It's about the pursuit of your happiness It's about you succeeding in life you making the most of your own life. That's all the meaning you need We don't advocate for that. We don't teach that. We don't we don't teach people to think we don't teach reason and rationality We undercut those Left and right all over the place and as a consequence we get people radicalized by a set of alternative ideas called islam And you know a particular form of islam call it totalitarian islam talk call it jihadism whatever And they're willing to blow themselves up for those ideas people are shaped by ideas People are motivated by ideas And if we're gonna win this war and this is the most important thing that trump did not mention And on the contrary he undercut it if we're gonna win this war We have to offer an alternative set of ideas We have to argue about what it is we're fighting for are we just fighting for america because we're blind patriots Or are we fighting For a set of ideas freedom individualism Self-reliance in the most meaningful sense of the world Self-realization the pursuit of happiness And until we're willing to name the ideas that we're fighting for we cannot win And and what the president should have said yesterday is yeah, we're not going to bring you to democracy We're not going to try to change your cultures But by the way if you want to have a good culture if you want to have a good country if you want to live the good life Then adopt Enlightenment values then adopt the ideas of the enlightenment the ideas of individualism the ideas of freedom All right, you're listening to your own book fill in for mike Opelka and we'll be right back after these messages Pure opelka with mike opelka on the blaze radio network All right, you're listening to your own book filling in for mike opelka and uh We're about to wrap up the show. I've got a couple of callers. Let me just say this Bad ideas evil ideas Only successful in the world when the good are silent When good ideas are silent When we do not stand up For the ideas of life liberty in the pursuit of happiness for individual rights For for for the individual for reason Then bad ideas will dominate And that's that's happening overseas With the radicalization of so many of these muslims who attack us and it's happening in a universities With the alt left and now the alt right Embracing evil ideas But it's the default. It's the default of the of the good of identifying the good ideas and advocating for them and shouting them and Well, not really shouting them Talking about them explaining them educating That vacuum left by the good ideas is filled by evil and that's what we're experiencing in the world today The the the the success of evil because of the silence of the good and the site and the good has been silent Because is it is adopted? America's adopted bad ideas. We'll talk a lot more about that tomorrow I want to talk about the state of american universities tomorrow Uh, why they are the hub for for many of these bad ideas Why much of the state of the culture we live in today is a consequence of those bad ideas And and what is it? That makes it possible for us to just be silent in the face of jihadism in the face of alt left alt right And all the nonsense that's out there if you even mention alt left the new york times were writing an article about you Saying that you're full of it. All right We have also let me just mention this while i'm talking about tomorrow. We've also got a guest tomorrow Alex Epstein who's going to talk to us about our gore's latest movie We're going to talk in the context of all these ideas How uh climate change Is part of this attack On the founding principles of this country the the advocates for for climate change. I'll go on the rest of them Anti the foundational ideas of this country and and why that is and how that works and well Alex's is great on this. So Alex will be here at 11 a.m. Pacific time Tomorrow. All right, uh, let's take uh, jonathan. You're in the iran book show. Sorry to keep you waiting so long Um, hi, i'll hitler. It's absolutely nothing wrong All right, cut him off. I mean Really? This is what people think is what entertaining. They're trying to piss me off. What what is exactly going on here We've got nazis calling in the show Uh, okay, let me say one more time Hitler is one of the most evil people in all of human history His ideas are repugnant the people who made hitler possible a disgusting and anybody today who advocates for his ideas Are disgusting these ideas are evil through and through and and you might think it's funny To say hi'll hitler But you know when they come and put you in the ovens And they turn on the gas and you die slowly and in great agony You know That's what your ideas will lead to So hey Enjoy the freedom that you have in the united states To be able to say that and you certainly have the freedom to say it But it's sick Uh, and it's disgusting and I hope you have a miserable life fitting Uh, to the ideas you advocate for all right. We've got ed and austin who hopefully Is not going to say something stupid like that go ahead ed No, you're on don't let the trolls get to you. Uh, now you're doing god's work Uh, I cannot wait to hear alex from the show tomorrow Uh, I actually just wanted to call and uh, get you hopefully To spill the beans on any more up and coming future alex epstein intellectuals coming out of ari Going through the other industries and exposing these postmodern ideologies, you know that that are Conceived over there the subsidized hellhole of academia sure What's going on over there at ari? We got any more alex epstein's don walken's gonna be Going around challenging Well, as you know, I think you know don watkins my co-author on Uh, free market revolution and equal is unfair and on a new book that's coming out next month, which I'll talk about Um tomorrow or thursday Don has gone over and joined alex, uh at the center for industrial progress And he will be fighting the good fight, uh with alex and i'm sure yeah I mean we've got we've got elan jono. We've got uh, steve simpson We've got um, adam axel. We've got others at the institute, uh, and we're bringing in more and uh We're training more in this battle and this war will continue As we continue to advocate for good ideas and um Let me just say let me just end with uh with this. We've got we've got less than two minutes. Thanks. Thanks for the call Uh, I appreciate it. This is a ideological battle I started with the importance of ideas and i'll end with the importance of ideas Ideas shape the world In a sense and we'll talk about this maybe tomorrow or thursday It's greek philosophy that we're still debating the ideas brought up by greek philosophy We're still debating The the mall the moral ideas that have been around for for hundreds thousands of years It is these ideas that shape ultimately people's behavior and certainly shape the culture And shape history and if we're gonna Defeat evil. We're gonna have to come up with good ideas The ideas I adopted Because i think they're true and it inspired me with the ideas of iron rand as expressed in atlas shrug And for those of you haven't read atlas shrugged. I encourage you to do so for those of you have read it again and uh Think about it. Think about it. The best advice I can give you all 10 is to think All right, you mean listening to your own book show. We'll be back tomorrow And those three Two one Clear. Sorry. I got tripped up on my numbers there. It's radio network All right, thanks a lot. I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow. Sure thing. Thanks