WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.520 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:40.720 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:43.680 Mahler. And I'm still Woe. 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:44.240 On 00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:49.680 today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing land, places, and territory. 00:00:49.680 --> 00:00:52.960 This is an episode about real property. 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:55.680 It's about you know the physical land beneath us. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:02.640 Places are where the land, the these locations become imbued with something 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:06.000 particular to an individual or to a group and so they become 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:09.600 special. So the land is transformed by our experiences and that's what 00:01:09.600 --> 00:01:11.040 we would call place. 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:15.600 And then territory is where you have some sort of exclusive authority 00:01:15.600 --> 00:01:18.480 over a location, over the land. 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:24.800 And so they're concentric rings of authority for territory and different groups, 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:29.120 you know, the governments, the local government, individuals, you know, even if 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:34.000 you only rent, you have authority over the territory of your apartment. 00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:36.560 Today we're going to be talking about how 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:42.640 the physical property that we occupy and that is bestowed to us 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:46.880 by God and that we maintain and that blesses us through God's 00:01:46.880 --> 00:01:50.320 providence is fundamental to our lives. 00:01:50.320 --> 00:01:54.560 It might sound like kind of a dry technical boring topic, but 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:56.560 the reason for discussing this is that 00:01:57.440 --> 00:02:00.800 we want to make you think about it in a different way. 00:02:00.800 --> 00:02:04.400 We want to make you see that the land beneath your feet, 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:08.800 that the places that define your life, and it's the territory that 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:13.040 someone is responsible for protecting, whether it's you or it's someone above 00:02:13.040 --> 00:02:16.400 you, these are the things that make us human. 00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:20.160 If you don't have any land, you can't be human. 00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:23.200 What I mean by that is that we're on the planet Earth. 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:26.400 You need ground beneath your feet to exist. 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:28.800 You know, otherwise you just what you float off into space? 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:30.400 No, you have to have some space. 00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:32.240 You know, we call it personal space. 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.920 The land beneath your feet, the couple square feet that you physically 00:02:35.920 --> 00:02:38.880 occupy is a fundamental part of who you are. 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:42.640 It's not something we ever think about unless somebody runs into you. 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:45.360 You know, if you're walking down the sidewalk and somebody else doesn't 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:48.800 give way and you collide or or if someone is being belligerent 00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:52.480 and they invade your personal space, then you start bumping chess with 00:02:52.480 --> 00:02:56.000 you or something, suddenly that couple square feet of space that's your 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:00.320 land beneath your feet, that for that moment is your sovereign territory, 00:03:00.320 --> 00:03:01.840 becomes a very big deal. 00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:05.760 And the fact that there's that encroachment also becomes a big deal. 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:08.000 See what's just land, maybe it's just a sidewalk. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:10.160 There's nothing particularly interesting about it. 00:03:10.160 --> 00:03:14.880 But when it is invaded by someone with ill intent or hostile 00:03:14.880 --> 00:03:17.680 intent, then it becomes a big deal. 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:21.680 And so politics is all about all of these things. 00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:26.320 It's about who governs the land, who determines whether these places that 00:03:26.320 --> 00:03:31.520 we love and cherish are protected and whether the territory is enforced. 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:34.720 And so, you know, once again, as in a couple recent episodes, 00:03:34.720 --> 00:03:37.680 land, places, and territory, they're basically synonymous. 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:41.760 And we're just focusing on those three facets of the concept because 00:03:41.760 --> 00:03:44.720 they have different applications in our life. 00:03:44.880 --> 00:03:48.560 So land is created by God. 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:53.200 That's tautologically silly to say, but we believe that God is a 00:03:53.200 --> 00:03:54.640 creator of all things. 00:03:54.640 --> 00:03:57.600 He put the land beneath our feet, and he did it for 00:03:57.600 --> 00:03:59.040 a reason. 00:03:59.040 --> 00:04:03.600 And one of those reasons is what is directly given to us 00:04:03.600 --> 00:04:08.160 in us in scripture in Genesis 1 to 28, and God blessed 00:04:08.160 --> 00:04:12.800 them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. 00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:15.280 This is the command that God gave to Adam. 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:19.440 And that command was reiterated to Noah after God wiped out all 00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:22.480 the land on the planet, incidentally in the flood, there was no 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:23.600 land for a while. 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:24.960 There was nothing but waters. 00:04:24.960 --> 00:04:27.040 It was a complete reset. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:31.840 Just as the waters of creation, which were divided to create the 00:04:31.840 --> 00:04:35.440 dry land that was basically run in reverse and redone. 00:04:35.440 --> 00:04:40.560 It was a reset of creation, quite directly, quite literally. 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:44.720 In Genesis 9, 1, God again says, and God blessed Noah and 00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:47.600 his sons and said to them, Increase and multiply and fill the 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:49.200 earth and have dominion over it. 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:52.720 It's exactly the same command that had been given to Adam, and 00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:55.600 it specifically includes filling the earth. 00:04:55.600 --> 00:05:00.560 And as we're Stone Choir point to many times, Acts seventeen twenty 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:04.560 six very clearly says that God later on appointed the boundaries of 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:08.240 our dwelling places, of each of the very races on earth. 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:12.720 And so when Noah and his sons came off the ark, all 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:14.560 the land had been restored. 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:18.640 And personally, I believe that this is when Pangea was reset into 00:05:18.640 --> 00:05:19.920 the modern continents. 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:24.160 I think that when we look geologically, it's interesting the Pangea theory, 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:27.520 which makes perfect sense, like everything lines up directly. 00:05:27.520 --> 00:05:30.240 Australia fits right in all the continents. 00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:33.280 If you push them together as a puzzle, it visually works. 00:05:33.280 --> 00:05:36.640 You can see the mechanically it was all one land at one 00:05:36.640 --> 00:05:41.280 point. I believe that that was what was created at the garden. 00:05:41.280 --> 00:05:45.200 I believe that Pangea was just the world before the flood. 00:05:45.200 --> 00:05:48.640 I might be wrong, but I think it's the simplest explanation for 00:05:48.640 --> 00:05:51.520 what our what our lying eyes tell us versus what the Bible 00:05:51.520 --> 00:05:52.240 tells us. 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:53.600 There was a reset. 00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:56.080 Everything got wiped out and then redone. 00:05:56.080 --> 00:05:58.480 I think it makes sense that the land was moving around, you 00:05:58.480 --> 00:06:03.120 know, the mountains arose and, you know, the ark landed on Arat. 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:04.560 God put God pushed that up. 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:06.720 We don't know what was there before. 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:09.920 But I think that that's an explanation for when we look at 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:13.920 the geological record and we look at the historical record. 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:16.720 I think you can easily make sense of it if you incorporate 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:18.160 the flood as that moment. 00:06:19.200 --> 00:06:21.760 Now it's interesting about that is that when they came off the 00:06:21.760 --> 00:06:25.680 ark, all the land was reformed, but there were no places yet, 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:26.960 because no one had been anywhere. 00:06:26.960 --> 00:06:29.600 And as I said, for the purpose of this episode, when we 00:06:29.600 --> 00:06:34.160 talk about places specifically, we're talking about places that mean something to 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:37.120 you. So all the land was there, but no one had ever 00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:38.240 seen any of it. 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:41.360 The only living men on the planet were now on a planet 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:43.680 where it was all brand new. 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:47.840 And so everywhere that they went, they would discover new places and 00:06:47.840 --> 00:06:49.120 they would become important to them. 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:54.320 And often as godly men traveled, they would erect altars. 00:06:54.320 --> 00:06:58.720 They would name places specifically because of some encounter with God or 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:02.240 a blessing from God or something, giving thanks. 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:05.840 Places became special because of the events that those men had had 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:08.400 in those parts of the land. 00:07:08.400 --> 00:07:14.160 That total reset was amplified through what happened after the Tower of 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:17.680 Babel. After Noah and his sons came off the ark, they multiplied 00:07:17.760 --> 00:07:20.800 as God has commanded, but they did not disperse. 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:23.120 They didn't fill the earth as God had commanded. 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:24.240 So they did half of it. 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:25.760 They made lots of babies. 00:07:25.760 --> 00:07:27.280 They had no problem doing that. 00:07:27.280 --> 00:07:29.120 But they didn't want to go anywhere. 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:32.720 And so humanity basically stayed in one place. 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:36.240 And the Tower of Babel was their monument to the unity of 00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:38.320 man, to one race, the human race. 00:07:38.320 --> 00:07:39.520 I said, We're not going anywhere. 00:07:39.520 --> 00:07:40.480 God said, fill the earth. 00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:41.440 We like it where we are. 00:07:41.440 --> 00:07:44.160 Look how glorious we are when we can combine all of our 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:48.000 efforts and we can have a united humanity in direct defiance of 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.000 God. And so God came down, he disrupted their wicked plans and 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:56.800 their disobedience, he confused man's language, forcing us all to scatter. 00:07:56.800 --> 00:08:01.760 And so once again, we have the record of human spreading forth 00:08:01.760 --> 00:08:03.600 from those parts of the world. 00:08:03.600 --> 00:08:06.560 And we see very clearly from the archaeological evidence that those things 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:08.240 happened, what did man do? 00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:12.720 Went to different lands and created new places by settling there. 00:08:12.720 --> 00:08:17.600 And often the settlement was progressive simply by virtue of reproduction. 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:18.880 We see this everywhere. 00:08:18.880 --> 00:08:19.760 We see in the Bible. 00:08:19.760 --> 00:08:21.120 We see it throughout human history. 00:08:21.120 --> 00:08:26.160 You plant, you know, family someplace You have a few families, and 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:28.880 eventually as they grow up and grow up, there's simply not enough 00:08:28.880 --> 00:08:31.120 land for all of them to sustain themselves. 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:33.040 And so they have to disperse further. 00:08:33.040 --> 00:08:35.360 And that was according to God's plan. 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:38.560 Here's a planet, fill it and subdue it. 00:08:38.800 --> 00:08:41.440 The land was put there for that purpose. 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:45.600 And part of the reason that land is so crucial is that 00:08:45.760 --> 00:08:49.440 one of the primary functions of land, in addition to simply being 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.400 a place that you occupy, and you have to physically be somewhere 00:08:52.400 --> 00:08:53.600 on this planet. 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:56.240 For the sake of this episode, we're gonna ignore space travel, because 00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:58.160 it basically doesn't exist yet. 00:08:58.160 --> 00:09:02.560 Whether it ever does is interesting technological and theological question. 00:09:02.560 --> 00:09:06.320 But as it stands today, you have to have some place on 00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:07.920 the planet to call your own. 00:09:07.920 --> 00:09:09.360 Even if you're in jail. 00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:12.000 You know, some people listening have probably been in jail, maybe in 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:13.120 prison before. 00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:15.920 Even there you still had some land. 00:09:15.920 --> 00:09:18.960 Maybe it was a six by eight, seven by twelve cell. 00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:23.360 That was still a few square feet that was yours, not exclusively, 00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:26.480 but it was still a refuge from everything else going on. 00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:29.840 Everyone else had their place as their land, and you and your 00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:31.680 cell have your place. 00:09:31.680 --> 00:09:36.240 Even in the lowest state of man, in a despicable state, jails, 00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:38.000 prisons should not exist. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:42.320 But even in that most degraded, terrible state, there's still some place 00:09:42.400 --> 00:09:43.600 for you to rest your head. 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:46.960 There's also the matter of the production of food. 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:51.920 And this is why principally the expansion of mankind was driven throughout 00:09:51.920 --> 00:09:52.960 the planet. 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:58.960 Resources. Limited resources, which are created by God, you know, food, animals, 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:03.120 all the things that we need to sustain life, require the land 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:04.320 for their production. 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:06.560 You know, they spring forth from the ground naturally. 00:10:06.560 --> 00:10:09.600 All the plants that we cultivate, God made them and then we 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.800 discover them, oh, this looks tasty and we start playing with it 00:10:12.880 --> 00:10:16.800 and doing some breeding and cross breeding and enhancing and pretty soon 00:10:16.800 --> 00:10:20.080 you have a viable food source and you can farm it. 00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:23.120 And we know that some of the things that are said about 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:25.280 the anthropological history are not true. 00:10:25.280 --> 00:10:28.320 We know that Cain and Abel were farmers and herders. 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:29.600 That was the very first thing. 00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:33.040 The whole hunter-gatherer thing is nonsense. 00:10:33.040 --> 00:10:35.120 Scripture says the opposite happened. 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:39.280 When people became hunter-gatherers, it was when they were spreading out and 00:10:39.280 --> 00:10:42.720 didn't yet have the ability to settle down on lands and say, 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:45.840 Yeah, we're going to settle here, we're going to grow and spread. 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:50.240 It's interesting when you look at the necessity of land for life 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:54.560 in terms of food production, because there you need land for you 00:10:54.560 --> 00:10:56.720 to stand on even it's only a few square feet. 00:10:56.720 --> 00:10:58.640 I mean if you're a renter, you have a few hundred square 00:10:58.640 --> 00:10:59.440 feet of your own. 00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:01.760 You know, if you're renting a room in someone's house or you 00:11:01.760 --> 00:11:04.320 have a small apartment, that's still your space. 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:07.360 But there's also a lot more land on the planet that is 00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:10.800 dedicated to producing the food that you need. 00:11:10.800 --> 00:11:14.880 I did a little bit of research just looking up historically before 00:11:14.880 --> 00:11:21.760 modern mechanical and chemical processes for cultivation of food, how much land 00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:22.800 was necessary. 00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:26.480 I picked medieval Europe as kind of the benchmark for this part 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:29.840 of the discussion, just because it was something that was sustained for 00:11:29.840 --> 00:11:33.760 many centuries by, you know, people who actually had the IQs to 00:11:33.760 --> 00:11:35.040 keep up with the stuff. 00:11:35.040 --> 00:11:39.360 They were not hunter-gatherers, they were able to plan C after season. 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:42.320 But they didn't have a lot of mechanical advantage and they didn't 00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:45.360 chemical advantages like we have today. 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:48.240 What we find when we look at medieval Europe and its food 00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:51.280 production is that for the average household of say about five to 00:11:51.280 --> 00:11:56.320 seven people it took about 30 acres to cultivate the food that 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:57.760 would feed those people. 00:11:57.760 --> 00:12:01.120 Now that cultivation was going to principally just be grains. 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:03.920 There would also be a separate smaller amount of land for some 00:12:03.920 --> 00:12:07.120 of the animals that would go into their diet. 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:10.640 But in medieval Europe, most people didn't have much animal protein in 00:12:10.640 --> 00:12:11.360 their diet. 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:13.200 There was some milk and there was a bit of meat. 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:13.920 There was fish. 00:12:13.920 --> 00:12:15.600 There were things you could forage. 00:12:15.600 --> 00:12:19.360 But in terms of what was being cultivated or husbanded, it was 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:20.800 pretty limited. 00:12:20.800 --> 00:12:24.960 And so thirty acres for a household was pretty much the norm 00:12:25.040 --> 00:12:27.200 more or less in medieval Europe. 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:30.320 And when you look at the reason that was sustainable is that 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:32.880 in any given year, one third of that would be fallow. 00:12:32.880 --> 00:12:36.560 So they'd only have about twenty acres or so actually in use 00:12:36.560 --> 00:12:39.840 in a given year, and the rest of it was just left. 00:12:39.840 --> 00:12:44.880 Because when God describes the jubilees in scripture, it includes jubilees for 00:12:44.880 --> 00:12:45.200 the land. 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:48.640 God commanded that the land be given a break every seven years. 00:12:48.640 --> 00:12:53.200 That's not just some weird Bible command for the special people wandering 00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:55.760 around. That's literally how creation works. 00:12:55.760 --> 00:12:59.280 If you do not rest the soil, it will die. 00:12:59.280 --> 00:13:00.800 You can kill soil. 00:13:00.800 --> 00:13:04.480 And that's what modern farming has done today is absolutely killed the 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:06.960 soil, which is part of why I'm excluding it for the purposes 00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:08.320 of this math. 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:11.680 So thirty acres meant that you had about twenty under cultivation. 00:13:11.680 --> 00:13:14.240 They rotated about, you know, every year. 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:18.480 Thirty acres is about eleven hundred forty-three feet on a side. 00:13:18.480 --> 00:13:22.160 It's point two two square miles, almost a quarter mile, which kind 00:13:22.160 --> 00:13:25.760 of makes sense because it's 160 acres per square mile. 00:13:25.760 --> 00:13:28.560 So 30 acres versus 40, you can kind of see it's pretty 00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:30.480 close to a quarter square mile. 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:33.280 That's not a lot of space, but it's still a lot more 00:13:33.280 --> 00:13:34.480 than most people have today. 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:38.560 But that was what was necessary to keep people alive prior to 00:13:38.560 --> 00:13:41.120 modern farming production methods. 00:13:41.120 --> 00:13:44.800 Now that's important because that was sustainable indefinitely. 00:13:44.800 --> 00:13:48.800 They didn't have any supply chains, they didn't have any chemicals, there 00:13:48.800 --> 00:13:52.880 was no petrochemical industry, they need anybody's permission. 00:13:52.880 --> 00:13:56.400 They just grew what they had, they saved some seed, they replanted 00:13:56.560 --> 00:13:57.360 the next year. 00:13:57.360 --> 00:13:59.520 If we were to take the modern diet and put it back 00:13:59.520 --> 00:14:04.400 into those production methods, the modern American diet has way more animal 00:14:04.400 --> 00:14:07.600 protein and ingredients incorporated into it. 00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:12.880 So between animal products, you know, meats, dairy itself, you know, which 00:14:12.880 --> 00:14:18.320 would include cheese, butter, milk, yogurt, the average intake of the American 00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:20.480 today, and cultivated foods. 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:24.960 So things that are grown, vegetables, fruits, things like that, today for 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:28.320 our modern standard of living per person Per person, you're looking at 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:31.040 about twelve to twenty-one acres, very roughly. 00:14:31.040 --> 00:14:33.760 This is math I did with Claude, so please don't quote me 00:14:33.760 --> 00:14:37.120 on these numbers without doing your own research, but they're plausible numbers 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:40.800 that are ballparking accurately what I'm talking about here. 00:14:40.800 --> 00:14:43.840 So in the medieval era when there wasn't very much protein, there 00:14:43.840 --> 00:14:47.360 wasn't very much animal input in the diet, you're looking about thirty 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:48.880 acres for a household. 00:14:48.880 --> 00:14:51.680 With the modern diet, with the way we're used to eating, it 00:14:51.680 --> 00:14:53.600 would take probably sixty to a hundred and twenty acres 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:58.320 for the same five, six, seven person household. 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:03.120 So absent a supply chain, absent petrochemicals, that's about how much land 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:05.040 it takes to keep you alive. 00:15:05.040 --> 00:15:10.080 Now thanks to the blessings of modern science, that amount of area 00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:11.120 has gotten a lot smaller. 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:14.240 It doesn't take nearly as much land to keep you fed simply 00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:17.360 because of advancements, but those advancements are fragile. 00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:19.680 And as I said, one of the worst things that we have 00:15:19.680 --> 00:15:24.240 done to the land very deliberately and consciously in this country is 00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:28.080 that the modern farming methods completely denude the soil. 00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:32.080 They basically just used the land as a place in a video 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:35.360 game. Like it's just a plot where it's just where you plant 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:37.600 the seed and then you add whatever else you need. 00:15:37.600 --> 00:15:42.000 You add the water, you add whatever chemicals you need for fertilizer, 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:47.440 because the soil has been so depleted of the natural resources that 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:49.200 are never permitted to regrow. 00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:51.040 They're never permitted to be restored. 00:15:51.040 --> 00:15:53.040 And there's so many chemicals put down. 00:15:53.040 --> 00:15:56.240 You have all the microbes in the soil that make it healthy, 00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:59.040 all the earthworms, all the things that naturally 00:16:00.160 --> 00:16:04.560 make the soil fit for growing food have been destroyed by what 00:16:04.560 --> 00:16:05.120 we're doing. 00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:08.000 And so as a result, they have to keep dumping petrochemicals on 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:10.320 top of it or they can't grow any food. 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:14.480 So while it seems like a modern miracle, it's also a modern 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:18.080 horror because absent the supply chain, all that goes away. 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:20.640 And all those farm fields are worthless. 00:16:20.640 --> 00:16:24.400 That soil is destroyed without all the chemicals that it takes to 00:16:24.400 --> 00:16:25.200 produce it. 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:29.520 So this math, the reason I'm using this medieval math, is that 00:16:29.520 --> 00:16:32.960 if you want to think about personal sustainability, that's kind of what 00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:33.760 you're looking at. 00:16:33.760 --> 00:16:38.880 Now this isn't an advocacy for homesteading specialization of labor is another 00:16:38.880 --> 00:16:40.160 blessing from God. 00:16:40.160 --> 00:16:42.560 The fact that we can all be good at different things, that 00:16:42.560 --> 00:16:45.600 some people can grow food for others is a blessing. 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:49.440 I don't want to undo or return to nature any of that. 00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:51.680 We don't want to give up some of the benefits. 00:16:51.680 --> 00:16:54.960 But the reality is whether you're growing your food or somebody else's, 00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:57.920 there's a lot of land that needs to be dedicated to feeding 00:16:57.920 --> 00:16:58.640 your mouth. 00:16:58.640 --> 00:17:02.080 And if that land doesn't exist, you don't exist. 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:04.080 You have to have the land on your feet, you have to 00:17:04.080 --> 00:17:06.640 have land to produce the food that you eat. 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:10.320 And absent that, you don't exist as a human being. 00:17:10.320 --> 00:17:13.360 So the reason this is an important subject just to keep in 00:17:13.360 --> 00:17:17.360 mind is that as more and more of the land itself, the 00:17:17.360 --> 00:17:21.040 actual title to the land, the exclusive territory we'll talk about at 00:17:21.040 --> 00:17:26.080 the end, is transferred from individuals to corporations to BlackRock to Bill 00:17:26.320 --> 00:17:29.600 Gates. Do you think they have your best interests at heart? 00:17:29.600 --> 00:17:31.440 Do you think they want to keep feeding you? 00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:34.080 Do you think they won't jerk the chain and say, well, if 00:17:34.080 --> 00:17:36.400 you want to eat, you're gonna have to eat this other thing 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:40.160 that's been adulterated with these things you don't even know about? 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:44.240 The land and who controls it is a vital issue, vital in 00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:45.520 the etymological sense. 00:17:45.520 --> 00:17:47.520 It is a matter of life and death. 00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:50.560 Who has access to the land and what they do with it 00:17:50.720 --> 00:17:55.360 determines whether or not human beings can thrive as a species. 00:17:55.360 --> 00:17:59.680 So it may seem like a boring, banal kind of esoteric topic 00:17:59.920 --> 00:18:04.240 until that goes away, until someone else, it turns out, is controlling 00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:07.760 all the land that produces the food that you eat, someone else 00:18:07.760 --> 00:18:12.320 is controlling all the land that determines where you can live. 00:18:12.320 --> 00:18:16.160 Suddenly you realize that we will have been r turned into cattle. 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:19.280 And so these blessings from God that begin with the soil under 00:18:19.280 --> 00:18:20.400 our feet. 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:24.720 It's not some theoretical thing, and it's not just a theological thing. 00:18:24.720 --> 00:18:27.360 This is what makes us human. 00:18:27.760 --> 00:18:33.280 With regard to physical land, some of you on hearing about physical 00:18:33.280 --> 00:18:38.160 territory, actual land, and the connection that people have with it will 00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:44.640 have brought to mind certain theories and ideologies that were more common 00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:45.920 in past centuries. 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:48.480 That's not to say they were wrong and so they fell away 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:50.400 and were replaced by something better. 00:18:50.400 --> 00:18:55.040 Rather we in the modern world have disconnected ourselves from the land 00:18:55.120 --> 00:18:59.280 and from the reality of what land represents. 00:18:59.520 --> 00:19:02.720 We could sum this up, of course, in two words that make 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:07.200 people very uncomfortable in some cases, blood and soil. 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.960 Because in order to have a nation, you actually have to have 00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:14.480 soil. soil, you have to have that physical land. 00:19:14.480 --> 00:19:17.360 Yes, to some degree a nation can exist 00:19:18.320 --> 00:19:22.240 in exile, disconnected from the land. 00:19:22.240 --> 00:19:25.360 However, that is a punishment from God. 00:19:25.360 --> 00:19:27.920 You could You can see that very clearly in the pages of 00:19:27.920 --> 00:19:32.400 the Old Testament and in history anywhere else in the world as 00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:38.000 well. A people who are sent into exile are cursed in time 00:19:38.880 --> 00:19:45.520 unless they are returned to their land or another satisfactory land, they 00:19:45.680 --> 00:19:48.560 will disappear, they will cease to exist. 00:19:48.560 --> 00:19:51.520 Because in order to have a nation, you have to have a 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:56.560 people, a physical location, which is to say soil, and you have 00:19:56.560 --> 00:19:57.760 to have a national myth. 00:19:57.760 --> 00:20:00.880 We're not touching on the national myth in this episode, so that's 00:20:00.880 --> 00:20:02.560 a topic for another day. 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:05.840 But necessarily you have to have that soil. 00:20:05.840 --> 00:20:10.080 It is insufficient just to have the people. 00:20:10.080 --> 00:20:11.920 The people are necessary. 00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:16.000 We can see a similar thing to this with regard to, for 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:18.960 example, the human being. 00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:24.000 As a human being, you are spirit and also flesh. 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:28.880 However, at death, your spirit is separated from your flesh for a 00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:32.480 period of time, until it is restored to you and that's good 00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:35.200 news, or if you are an unbeliever it's restored to you and 00:20:35.200 --> 00:20:37.680 that's very bad news. 00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:41.440 But you can exist without your body. 00:20:41.440 --> 00:20:45.840 You are diminished by being separated from your flesh because you are 00:20:45.840 --> 00:20:48.560 meant to be the combination of those things. 00:20:48.560 --> 00:20:51.600 You are again a gestalt, you are something that is greater than 00:20:51.600 --> 00:20:53.280 the sum of its parts. 00:20:53.280 --> 00:20:56.160 The same thing is true of a people, of a nation. 00:20:57.040 --> 00:21:01.040 You can have that nation for a period of time separated from 00:21:01.040 --> 00:21:02.320 the land. 00:21:02.320 --> 00:21:06.800 But if that persists, if that separation continues for too long, the 00:21:06.800 --> 00:21:09.680 nation will cease to exist to exist. 00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:13.040 This is something that should be of the utmost importance to us 00:21:13.040 --> 00:21:17.040 today, because when we look at the current state of the world, 00:21:17.040 --> 00:21:21.280 we see various nations, various peoples being dispossessed of their land 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:26.320 In some cases, perhaps in many cases, this is a curse from 00:21:26.320 --> 00:21:31.200 God because of the sinfulness of those nations that are being dispossessed. 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:35.600 However, just because something is a punishment from God does not mean 00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:38.000 that you don't oppose it. 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.920 Because if you don't oppose a wickedness that is being imposed on 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:44.560 you, you're welcoming it. 00:21:44.560 --> 00:21:46.880 If you welcome foreigners, if you welcome aliens 00:21:47.840 --> 00:21:51.280 to take the land that rightfully belongs to your people. 00:21:51.280 --> 00:21:55.200 You are not only inviting God's judgment on you, you are throwing 00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:58.480 your arms open and welcoming it. 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:00.320 That's wicked. 00:22:00.320 --> 00:22:01.360 You should not welcome 00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:06.720 the destruction of your people, and that is ultimately what will happen 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:10.400 with the destruction, with the taking away of the land that is 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:12.800 necessary for a nation. 00:22:13.280 --> 00:22:17.520 And just as individuals as well, we should have more of a 00:22:17.520 --> 00:22:20.880 connection to the land, more of a connection to nature. 00:22:20.880 --> 00:22:23.760 As Wo said, we're not saying that you have to go back 00:22:23.760 --> 00:22:26.640 to homesteading, that you have to grow all your own food and 00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:29.280 raise all your own animals and all those things. 00:22:29.280 --> 00:22:30.880 I'm not saying don't do some of that. 00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:32.320 It's good to have some of that connection. 00:22:32.320 --> 00:22:36.080 I own chickens because well I like to have good eggs for 00:22:36.080 --> 00:22:40.320 one, but it's also good to own some of your own livestock. 00:22:40.320 --> 00:22:44.080 If you don't have space for that, that's understandable. 00:22:44.080 --> 00:22:46.960 Would it be better if most men had their own space for 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:47.680 that sort of thing? 00:22:47.680 --> 00:22:48.960 I would say yes. 00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:52.000 But again, we're not saying you have to go and start a 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:55.440 homestead and do everything for yourself. 00:22:55.440 --> 00:22:58.800 You don't have to grow the flax and spin the material and 00:22:58.800 --> 00:23:00.800 make your own clothing and all those things. 00:23:00.800 --> 00:23:02.720 Not what we're saying. 00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:07.120 Incidentally, today, if you have an interest in that, there is a 00:23:07.120 --> 00:23:09.200 wealth of resources on that. 00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:13.760 I've looked into it, and you can sustain someone on a modern 00:23:13.760 --> 00:23:17.440 diet on about ten acres, which is the lower bound of what 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:18.800 Woe was saying. 00:23:18.800 --> 00:23:23.200 But that is using all of what we have learned about cultivation 00:23:23.760 --> 00:23:26.960 and the use of perennial crops. 00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:31.440 That's a lot of information that was not available in the medieval 00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:35.680 era. That requires a great deal of knowledge to have been built 00:23:35.680 --> 00:23:39.280 up, and even then, that is only if you have decent soil, 00:23:39.280 --> 00:23:43.680 a decent climate, and you have the necessary knowledge and the ability 00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:45.920 to execute that sort of plan. 00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:49.840 So at the absolute minimum, if you want a modern sort of 00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:52.960 diet, and we're not saying sugary cereal and all those things, we're 00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:57.920 saying a good modern diet that includes variety and includes a decent 00:23:57.920 --> 00:24:02.480 amount of animal protein, you need a minimum of ten acres per 00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:04.800 person to sustain that. 00:24:04.800 --> 00:24:08.240 Someone has to grow that food. 00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:10.960 It doesn't matter if you're the one growing the food or if 00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:12.880 it's a farmer somewhere else. 00:24:12.880 --> 00:24:16.880 We could talk about how far we should be transporting food and 00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:20.080 whether or not localism is perhaps a little better, and it is 00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:24.080 better. You should have some connection with regard to where your food 00:24:24.080 --> 00:24:26.400 is being grown, where it's being raised. 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:30.640 It shouldn't be a totally foreign and disconnected thing, which is what 00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:31.440 we see today. 00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:33.920 So take your children to a farm and have them at least 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:36.480 see animals, see how these things work. 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:39.680 You don't just go to the store and buy a pork chop. 00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:42.000 Someone has to raise the pig. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:45.760 Someone has to slaughter the pig, someone has to butcher the pig. 00:24:45.760 --> 00:24:49.200 All of these other things, depending on how that particular supply chain 00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:52.560 works in your area. 00:24:52.560 --> 00:24:56.880 The modern world has given us a sort of delusional disconnect from 00:24:57.360 --> 00:24:59.520 the actual natural world. 00:24:59.520 --> 00:25:04.320 There are many who live in large cities in particular, and think 00:25:04.320 --> 00:25:07.920 that their food comes from the grocery store, or it comes from 00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:12.320 a food delivery service, which those are very popular these days. 00:25:12.320 --> 00:25:16.400 But we no longer have that connection to the land 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:22.560 One of the fundamental problems that we have with the way things 00:25:22.560 --> 00:25:26.560 are constituted presently in the modern world is that we have this 00:25:26.560 --> 00:25:27.200 disconnect 00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:32.000 from what it means to be an actual person. 00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:36.080 And so many go through life with no real connection to any 00:25:36.320 --> 00:25:41.200 place, any territory, you can become a rootless cosmopolitan. 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:44.400 You could travel the world, you can see all sorts of interesting 00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:46.960 things and have all these experiences. 00:25:46.960 --> 00:25:51.280 But if you have no connection to any place, if you have 00:25:51.280 --> 00:25:55.600 no connection to any land, You are missing out on what God 00:25:55.600 --> 00:25:57.760 designed us to be. 00:25:57.760 --> 00:26:02.320 Because fundamentally, human beings are creatures of the earth. 00:26:02.320 --> 00:26:05.760 That doesn't mean that we're contained on the earth and that I'm 00:26:05.760 --> 00:26:09.360 saying we can't explore space or whatever. 00:26:09.360 --> 00:26:11.680 I think those things are possible. 00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:14.560 But it means that we are connected to the soil in a 00:26:14.560 --> 00:26:18.000 very real way, and if you don't have that connection, if you 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.760 don't cultivate that connection, you don're missing a part of what it 00:26:21.760 --> 00:26:24.160 means to be a human being. 00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:29.120 And not only that, but when we have this vast chunk of 00:26:29.120 --> 00:26:32.800 the population with no connection to the soil, with no connection to 00:26:32.800 --> 00:26:36.080 the land, that's how we wind up with a lot of the 00:26:36.080 --> 00:26:38.880 problems we see today. 00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:42.000 If you don't have a connection to the land, you aren't going 00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:43.920 to respect the land. 00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:47.360 If you don't have that connection, you're not going to care about 00:26:47.360 --> 00:26:48.400 pollution as much. 00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:53.120 You're not going to care about conservation as much. 00:26:53.120 --> 00:26:57.760 That's part of the reason we no longer have certain species in 00:26:57.760 --> 00:26:59.760 our territory. 00:26:59.760 --> 00:27:03.040 In the United States, we eliminated a number of species. 00:27:03.040 --> 00:27:06.400 Now, some of them, yes, that was fine to do, at least 00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:08.560 to tamp down the population. 00:27:08.560 --> 00:27:11.920 For instance, you don't want grizzly bears wandering around in the cities 00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:14.720 in California, perhaps. 00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:17.920 But we did this with animal species that were a key part 00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:23.040 of the ecosystem and are necessary to the fruitfulness, to the fertility 00:27:23.040 --> 00:27:23.920 of the soil. 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:25.680 One of the big examples would be the beaver. 00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:30.160 We virtually wiped out the beaver in the United States. 00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:33.840 We've started restoring that population in some places. 00:27:33.840 --> 00:27:36.320 It has recovered in some places. 00:27:36.320 --> 00:27:38.960 But it's nothing like what it used to be. 00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:41.440 And part of the reason we were able to do that is 00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:44.160 that we didn't have any real connection to the land. 00:27:44.160 --> 00:27:48.160 We didn't feel like we were invested in this as part of 00:27:48.160 --> 00:27:50.800 our past and part of our future. 00:27:50.960 --> 00:27:53.920 Part of what it means to give an inheritance to the next 00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:57.680 generation is to pass on the land to them in the same 00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:02.400 condition you received it or in better condition. 00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:06.160 That has not been done for centuries at this point. 00:28:06.160 --> 00:28:10.160 Certainly the past century has been an intensive version of it. 00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:16.480 But with this diminished connection to place, this diminished connection to physical 00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:21.840 place, to land, you cease to truly be human. 00:28:21.840 --> 00:28:24.720 You lose something that is essential. 00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:28.560 As Christians we should certainly look at the fact that God didn't 00:28:28.560 --> 00:28:31.280 just make Adam. 00:28:31.280 --> 00:28:36.080 God could snap his fingers, and everything came into being, if he 00:28:36.080 --> 00:28:36.960 were so inclined. 00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:38.480 He could have done that. 00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:41.600 He spoke most things into being. 00:28:41.600 --> 00:28:44.480 That's what we see in the pages of Genesis. 00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:48.160 That is not what God did with Adam. 00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:53.360 God formed Adam from the soil, from the dirt. 00:28:53.360 --> 00:28:56.240 He formed us in a very different way from how he formed 00:28:57.280 --> 00:28:59.120 much of creation. 00:28:59.120 --> 00:29:02.800 Because we have more of a connection to the soil. 00:29:02.800 --> 00:29:05.360 We have more of a connection to the earth. 00:29:05.360 --> 00:29:07.200 This isn't in some new age or 00:29:08.080 --> 00:29:10.000 green party sort of sense. 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:11.520 That's not what I'm saying. 00:29:11.520 --> 00:29:15.440 I would say I'm an environmentalist, but in a certain sense of 00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:19.040 that term, and it's a discussion for another time. 00:29:19.040 --> 00:29:24.320 But as human beings, God designed us to have a connection to 00:29:24.400 --> 00:29:28.560 the physical world, to the soil, to the land. 00:29:28.560 --> 00:29:32.320 Part of that is because we are stewards of creation. 00:29:32.320 --> 00:29:35.760 It's not just that we are supposed to subdue the world and 00:29:35.760 --> 00:29:38.720 bring it under our thumb, as it were. 00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:42.640 Because yes, we were told to subdue the earth. 00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:46.640 But in addition to subduing the earth, we are to act as 00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:49.920 stewards of God's creation. 00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:54.160 God created a good world for us. 00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:58.080 God created many wonderful things in nature. 00:29:58.080 --> 00:30:02.720 Yes now things are fallen and there are various insects that like 00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:06.160 to bite us and diseases and all these other problems, but most 00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:09.760 of creation is still good in a fundamental way. 00:30:09.760 --> 00:30:12.720 Not in the way that it's untainted because everything is tainted by 00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:15.680 sin By sin, but in the sense that the fruit of the 00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:20.880 ground is still there for us, trees still yield fruit, animals still 00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:24.480 reproduce, we have food and air and water, and all these good 00:30:24.480 --> 00:30:26.960 gifts from God still exist. 00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:32.160 We should not only exercise our dominion over the earth, but we 00:30:32.160 --> 00:30:36.400 should exercise it in the sense of being stewards of these things, 00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:41.040 to preserve them not just for ourselves and also for future generations, 00:30:41.040 --> 00:30:44.240 but because But because that's part of our duty to God, it 00:30:44.240 --> 00:30:47.440 is what we are supposed to do, given the office that He 00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:52.480 has given us as a species with regard to His creation. 00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:56.960 That has to start with this connection to the soil, with this 00:30:56.960 --> 00:31:00.320 connection to the physical world, to the natural world. 00:31:00.320 --> 00:31:04.400 If you do not feel like you have some connection to the 00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:06.400 land, when you look out your window and you see that land, 00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:09.600 if you have no connection to that, no feelings for it, it's 00:31:09.600 --> 00:31:11.200 just it exists. 00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:14.800 I happen to be here today, I could be somewhere else tomorrow. 00:31:14.800 --> 00:31:18.080 If that's the way that you look at it, you are never 00:31:18.080 --> 00:31:22.320 going to properly execute your office as a steward of creation. 00:31:22.320 --> 00:31:26.560 You are never going to develop that full sense of self and 00:31:26.560 --> 00:31:31.520 family and community and nation that requires as part of its bedrock. 00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:37.040 This connection to the soil, this realization that you are not actually 00:31:37.040 --> 00:31:39.280 separate from creation. 00:31:39.280 --> 00:31:41.760 You are part of creation. 00:31:41.760 --> 00:31:46.080 This is one of those things that we see cropping up in 00:31:46.080 --> 00:31:50.240 a in a certain way, to a certain degree, in many Christian 00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:56.400 groups, and in certainly many other groups, but there's separation of mankind 00:31:56.400 --> 00:31:58.480 from the rest of the physical world. 00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:01.120 Yes, we are made in the image of God. 00:32:01.120 --> 00:32:05.120 Yes, we are more intelligent than the animals, in most cases. 00:32:05.120 --> 00:32:08.240 Yes, we have all these various gifts and things that God has 00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:09.760 given us that set us apart 00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:14.560 to some degree from the rest of the natural world, but at 00:32:14.560 --> 00:32:17.680 the same time we are connected to it in such a way 00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:19.840 that we are not separate from it. 00:32:19.840 --> 00:32:21.760 Because man is an animal. 00:32:21.760 --> 00:32:24.800 You are a mammal, so are most of your pets. 00:32:24.800 --> 00:32:29.440 I have to breathe air to continue living, so does my dog. 00:32:29.440 --> 00:32:34.000 I have to drink water to continue living, so do my chickens. 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:37.360 Many of the things that the animals have to do, we have 00:32:37.360 --> 00:32:38.800 to do to survive. 00:32:38.800 --> 00:32:43.360 We are reliant on these natural systems, in the same way that 00:32:43.360 --> 00:32:44.160 they are. 00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:47.920 That doesn't mean that man is just another animal, but it does 00:32:47.920 --> 00:32:51.280 certainly mean that man is an animal. 00:32:51.280 --> 00:32:55.200 And that connection to the land, that respect for the land, that 00:32:55.200 --> 00:32:59.360 realization that we are not separate from and above this system, but 00:32:59.360 --> 00:33:03.120 rather we are reliant on and part of it, is a fundamental 00:33:03.120 --> 00:33:07.440 part of becoming an actual, fully human being. 00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:12.320 Because otherwise you disconnect yourself from all these things, and you attempt 00:33:12.320 --> 00:33:16.080 to live as if you are something else from what God made 00:33:16.080 --> 00:33:19.440 you and from what God intended you and wants you to 00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:19.760 be 00:33:20.800 --> 00:33:25.440 the beaver is a particularly interesting creature in terms of soil amendment 00:33:25.600 --> 00:33:29.920 because it is the fundamental reason that North American soil quality was 00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:30.640 so great. 00:33:30.640 --> 00:33:36.080 The beaver dominated the entire continent before Westerners showed up, and we 00:33:36.080 --> 00:33:41.120 hunted them nearly to extinction, which was a tragedy because as people 00:33:41.120 --> 00:33:45.440 were moving west, they got annoyed seeing these beavers creating dams and 00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:49.840 swamps and blockages and you know, creating wetlands and places where they 00:33:49.840 --> 00:33:51.840 wanted to have dry soil. 00:33:51.840 --> 00:33:55.280 Because there are other places where there was great soil, great high 00:33:55.280 --> 00:33:57.280 quality farmland. 00:33:57.280 --> 00:33:59.680 What they didn't realize at the time, or I don't think they 00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:02.720 did, they certainly didn't care, was that the very reason that the 00:34:02.720 --> 00:34:06.160 soil was so high quality was that the beavers were constantly moving 00:34:06.160 --> 00:34:11.040 around, and the very act of flooding the land was what was 00:34:11.040 --> 00:34:12.720 restoring the soil. 00:34:12.720 --> 00:34:16.000 So forget about you know a god ordered jubilee. 00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:19.840 If beavers move into an area and dam it up for 10 00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:23.840 years and it gets saturated and all those microbes move in. 00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:28.560 You have fish appear and all sorts of things and they're naturally 00:34:28.720 --> 00:34:31.360 going through their life cycles and then dying and decaying. 00:34:31.360 --> 00:34:35.040 All that settles down into the soil and completely rejuvenates it. 00:34:35.040 --> 00:34:38.960 And so all the places where there was great farmland, it wasn't 00:34:38.960 --> 00:34:41.600 because the beavers hadn't ruined it and made it swampy. 00:34:41.600 --> 00:34:43.520 It's because beavers had already been there. 00:34:43.520 --> 00:34:46.160 And so what's being done today with modern farming practices 00:34:47.040 --> 00:34:49.600 is the absolute opposite of what should be done. 00:34:49.600 --> 00:34:53.600 We should have five hundred million beavers running wild and we should 00:34:53.600 --> 00:34:58.160 treat them as sacred animals because they preserve the thing that keeps 00:34:58.720 --> 00:34:59.600 us alive. 00:34:59.600 --> 00:35:00.800 Now you got to manage. 00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:04.320 I'm obviously not actually calling for half a billion beavers to be 00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:07.840 set free just doing whatever they want, but the quality of the 00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:11.840 soil is not a function of how many petrochemicals you pour onto 00:35:11.840 --> 00:35:16.240 it. It's a function of nature working as God created it. 00:35:16.240 --> 00:35:20.080 And as Corey was saying, we've lost all connection with the soil 00:35:20.080 --> 00:35:21.520 from which God made us. 00:35:21.520 --> 00:35:23.120 And it's also where we return. 00:35:23.120 --> 00:35:25.680 Yeah, that's how God describes our connection. 00:35:25.680 --> 00:35:27.360 It's not incidental. 00:35:27.360 --> 00:35:31.200 And we were created to have that sort of love and understanding 00:35:31.200 --> 00:35:33.520 and relationship with the soil. 00:35:33.520 --> 00:35:39.120 You know, just the arbitrary, fungible, functional soil, not even a particular 00:35:39.120 --> 00:35:42.000 place, which is the next part of this discussion. 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:47.040 You know, when whites came to North America, it was a wilderness. 00:35:47.040 --> 00:35:51.040 There was nothing that would be considered a civilization, not by modern 00:35:51.040 --> 00:35:57.600 standards. The people that we found were exclusively stone age demon worshipping 00:35:57.600 --> 00:36:03.680 savages. And within not very many years, God directly wiped out ninety 00:36:03.840 --> 00:36:05.920 percent of them with plague and pestilence. 00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:08.960 They were killed by diseases that the West brought. 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:11.840 And while we're told today, oh, that was one of the original 00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:12.880 sins of Europeans. 00:36:13.040 --> 00:36:15.440 We accidentally killed all these people with disease. 00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:18.640 Well, if you If you believe that God is actually a part 00:36:18.640 --> 00:36:22.080 of the universe and that He does things, when Christians show up 00:36:22.240 --> 00:36:28.240 and demon worshiping savages start dropping dead by the millions through disease, 00:36:28.240 --> 00:36:30.800 the Christian view is that God did that for our benefit. 00:36:31.520 --> 00:36:34.400 So there's nothing there for us to feel bad about. 00:36:34.400 --> 00:36:37.840 So effectively when we came here, there was nothing. 00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:39.840 It was just wilderness. 00:36:39.840 --> 00:36:44.480 As we moved west and we conquered more and more lands, in 00:36:44.480 --> 00:36:47.280 large part simply by showing up, sometimes there had to be a 00:36:47.280 --> 00:36:50.080 lot of vicious battle to achieve it. 00:36:50.080 --> 00:36:52.720 The land became places for us. 00:36:52.720 --> 00:36:56.880 You know, when my ancestors got off the Mayflower and they got 00:36:56.880 --> 00:36:59.520 off the boat in Jamestown in sixteen oh eight. 00:36:59.520 --> 00:37:02.800 I am descended from someone who survived that first winter. 00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:06.160 And I had five ancestors here by sixteen twenty three, you know, 00:37:06.160 --> 00:37:07.760 over four centuries ago. 00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:11.680 When those people got here to this land, I am certain that 00:37:11.680 --> 00:37:14.640 every one of them got down on their knees on the soil 00:37:14.800 --> 00:37:19.040 and thanked God that they had survived that incredibly arduous trip. 00:37:19.040 --> 00:37:22.480 And then they begged for God's mercy to continue to keep them 00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:27.200 alive in this godforsaken wilderness, where they were surrounded by demon worshiping 00:37:27.200 --> 00:37:30.400 savages who were trying to murder them almost continuously. 00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:33.440 I have numerous ancestors who were murdered by Indians. 00:37:33.440 --> 00:37:37.840 Women When the first colonists landed in Plymouth and they landed in 00:37:38.160 --> 00:37:40.960 Virginia, those became places. 00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:44.080 They gave them names, they dedicated them to God. 00:37:44.080 --> 00:37:47.280 And they became places in the sense that it actually had a 00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:49.760 very personal particular meaning for them. 00:37:49.760 --> 00:37:51.920 Not only because it was the very beginning of the land that 00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:55.200 they were carving out on this continent, because this was the place 00:37:55.200 --> 00:37:57.760 that they had chosen that they had settled on, you know, those 00:37:57.760 --> 00:38:01.760 ships went up and down the coast looking for some place that 00:38:01.760 --> 00:38:06.560 wasn't just miserable swamp, that wasn't just completely infested. 00:38:06.560 --> 00:38:09.280 They were looking for some place that looked like it might be 00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:10.800 able to actually sustain them. 00:38:10.800 --> 00:38:12.160 Because that was their goal. 00:38:12.160 --> 00:38:15.680 They were unlike the conquistadors that went to the South America and 00:38:15.680 --> 00:38:18.480 to Florida, these were men, women, and children. 00:38:18.480 --> 00:38:20.800 These were families coming to settle here. 00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:24.480 They were not simply military expeditions. 00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:28.400 And so being able to be a permanently sustained community was a 00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:29.200 part of it. 00:38:29.200 --> 00:38:33.520 And so they named these places, they consecrated them to God. 00:38:33.520 --> 00:38:37.600 And as they expanded and they discovered new places, I think one 00:38:37.600 --> 00:38:41.440 of the mistakes that we made when we were settling this continent 00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:46.160 was really not taking seriously enough that all of the places that 00:38:46.160 --> 00:38:49.760 we were discovering and saying this is now, you know, for God's 00:38:49.760 --> 00:38:51.920 glory, this is gonna be where we live. 00:38:52.720 --> 00:38:55.440 I don't know to what degree they didn't take seriously, but we 00:38:55.440 --> 00:39:00.480 can tell looking back and looking today to what degree they failed 00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:04.000 to exorcise those places from the demons that had been That had 00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:08.720 been consecrated by the worshipers of that evil before us. 00:39:08.720 --> 00:39:11.440 Because those demons are roaring back today. 00:39:11.440 --> 00:39:14.480 If you exercise a demon and send it away from a place, 00:39:14.480 --> 00:39:17.520 it's not free to return, not unless it's invited. 00:39:17.520 --> 00:39:20.640 So the fact that these demons are returning means that we have 00:39:20.880 --> 00:39:25.280 our ancestors and we have failed to say this is a Christian 00:39:25.280 --> 00:39:29.840 land now, this is a Christian nation, and these places are God's 00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:35.040 places. That's different than land because a place is connected to the 00:39:35.040 --> 00:39:39.280 people. As Corey said, that terrifying phrase, blood and soil. 00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:42.400 When those two things are connected, then you have a true nation, 00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:44.240 a sustainable nation. 00:39:44.240 --> 00:39:50.240 The import of places is the they are land that we define 00:39:50.240 --> 00:39:52.400 in terms of our experiences. 00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:57.040 And then there becomes a symbiotic relationship where those places in turn 00:39:57.040 --> 00:40:01.040 define us and it's a mutually reinforcing thing. 00:40:01.040 --> 00:40:03.440 And there are a couple different kinds of places to help explain 00:40:03.440 --> 00:40:05.840 what it is I'm talking about here. 00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:08.880 I mentioned this story before on X and I shared it on 00:40:08.880 --> 00:40:11.200 another podcast I was on, but I'll reiterate here because some of 00:40:11.200 --> 00:40:12.000 you haven't heard it. 00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:16.560 I think it's a prime example of an incidental place that can 00:40:16.560 --> 00:40:19.920 have very particular meaning to an individual. 00:40:19.920 --> 00:40:23.520 At the end of my second to last year at Apple, right 00:40:23.520 --> 00:40:28.000 after we finished shipping the second last OS I worked on and 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:33.280 going through review process, I had my pretty much annual blowout argument 00:40:33.280 --> 00:40:34.240 with my boss. 00:40:34.240 --> 00:40:37.600 He was a hot-headed Irishman and I was me, so we really 00:40:37.600 --> 00:40:40.080 liked and respected each other, but every once in a while we 00:40:40.080 --> 00:40:43.440 were just butt heads about things that were beyond our control. 00:40:43.440 --> 00:40:44.800 It was never personal. 00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:50.320 We were both just each aggravated with circumstances beyond our control, and 00:40:50.320 --> 00:40:53.040 we would yell at each other instead of yelling at the problem. 00:40:53.040 --> 00:40:55.360 It wasn't acrimonious, but it was inevitable. 00:40:55.360 --> 00:40:56.960 It happened about once a year. 00:40:56.960 --> 00:40:59.840 I had this blowout with my boss, and you know, it wasn't 00:40:59.840 --> 00:41:03.040 a big deal, but I was really aggravated in the moment. 00:41:03.040 --> 00:41:05.840 And so this was a Thursday, I believe. 00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:07.360 Thursday early afternoon. 00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:08.800 I went back to my office. 00:41:08.800 --> 00:41:12.240 I sent an auto reply for my email saying I'm leaving. 00:41:12.240 --> 00:41:15.280 I sent an email to my team and to my peers and 00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:17.200 said, I'll be back Monday. 00:41:17.200 --> 00:41:18.560 I'll be offline. 00:41:18.560 --> 00:41:19.520 And I went home. 00:41:19.520 --> 00:41:22.480 I packed an overnight bag and I left. 00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:24.320 I left the area. 00:41:24.320 --> 00:41:25.920 I had no destination in mind. 00:41:25.920 --> 00:41:27.680 I knew I was going to go north. 00:41:27.680 --> 00:41:28.640 That was it. 00:41:28.640 --> 00:41:29.760 I just had to get away. 00:41:29.760 --> 00:41:33.520 I needed a physical break from the place that I was because 00:41:33.520 --> 00:41:36.800 I was in a bad place mentally due to the stress in 00:41:36.800 --> 00:41:39.920 the corporation, the cultural changes and things. 00:41:40.240 --> 00:41:43.760 So I just drove up Route One and when I told the 00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:46.320 story on X earlier this year, I thought that I was in 00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:49.840 Oregon. I actually found another copy of the picture that I'm gonna 00:41:49.840 --> 00:41:53.360 refer to in a minute that said it was Mendocino, which is 00:41:53.360 --> 00:41:56.800 not too far from the Oregon border, but it's basically the same 00:41:56.800 --> 00:42:00.480 territory. So it's a slight amendment to the previous version of the 00:42:00.480 --> 00:42:04.560 story. I was driving along up Route 1, which is an absolutely 00:42:04.560 --> 00:42:05.520 beautiful road. 00:42:05.520 --> 00:42:08.560 It's right along the Pacific coast for most of it. 00:42:08.560 --> 00:42:11.680 And so as you're driving north on the left for much of 00:42:11.680 --> 00:42:13.600 it, you have just the Pacific Ocean. 00:42:13.600 --> 00:42:15.360 Nothing for thousands of miles. 00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:16.640 It's incredibly beautiful. 00:42:16.640 --> 00:42:18.800 It gets to be rocky terrain. 00:42:18.800 --> 00:42:20.880 I needed that physical break. 00:42:20.880 --> 00:42:22.240 I needed to see different land. 00:42:22.240 --> 00:42:26.800 I needed to find hopefully some place of respite. 00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:31.040 After driving for a few hours, I noticed off to my left, 00:42:31.040 --> 00:42:33.600 I saw there was this little secluded beach, which was exactly what 00:42:33.680 --> 00:42:34.640 I was looking for. 00:42:34.640 --> 00:42:38.000 There were some other beaches that had signs and stuff, but there 00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:38.800 were people there. 00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:40.000 I needed seclusion. 00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:42.400 I needed I was running away. 00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:45.120 I was running away from my problems and from what was stressing 00:42:45.120 --> 00:42:45.520 me out. 00:42:45.680 --> 00:42:49.040 I needed some place to decompress and think with nobody else around. 00:42:49.040 --> 00:42:50.720 So I glanced down to my left. 00:42:50.720 --> 00:42:53.680 It was a deep it was probably fifty feet or so ravine 00:42:53.840 --> 00:42:55.360 down to this little beach. 00:42:55.360 --> 00:42:58.240 So I had to wind my way a couple miles back to 00:42:58.240 --> 00:43:01.200 find where that was, got to it, and I was correct. 00:43:01.200 --> 00:43:03.840 Thankfully there's nobody there. 00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:07.040 And I walked out to the the seashore and there was this 00:43:07.040 --> 00:43:08.880 kind of little rocky outcropping. 00:43:09.040 --> 00:43:11.680 It was a pretty place, but it wasn't certainly the most beautiful 00:43:11.680 --> 00:43:13.040 place on the Pacific Coast. 00:43:13.040 --> 00:43:14.240 It wasn't anything special. 00:43:14.240 --> 00:43:16.240 If you looked at it, you wouldn't think, oh yes, this is 00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:17.040 this is it. 00:43:17.040 --> 00:43:20.960 There are probably 50 more places that were more scenic if you 00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:22.640 just wanted to like gawk. 00:43:22.640 --> 00:43:24.720 But I needed seclusion personally. 00:43:24.720 --> 00:43:26.320 That was what I was craving. 00:43:26.320 --> 00:43:27.440 So this was perfect. 00:43:27.440 --> 00:43:30.320 Because it was kind of enclosed on both sides with these high 00:43:30.320 --> 00:43:33.920 rock walls and the sea was coming in, but to actually see 00:43:33.920 --> 00:43:36.960 the ocean it was out in the distance a little bit. 00:43:37.040 --> 00:43:38.640 So I looked at this and thought this is great. 00:43:38.640 --> 00:43:41.600 And I walked out to the edge of the water and hopped 00:43:41.600 --> 00:43:42.800 up on some rocks. 00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:45.200 There are rough rocks just kind of sitting there. 00:43:45.200 --> 00:43:46.320 They hadn't been a road. 00:43:46.320 --> 00:43:49.280 They're clearly beyond the waterline. 00:43:49.280 --> 00:43:53.360 And I got out on the rocks near where the ocean was, 00:43:53.360 --> 00:43:54.960 and just perched there. 00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:59.120 And I squatted, I stood, I sat there. 00:43:59.120 --> 00:44:01.120 It seemed like half an hour or so it might have been 00:44:01.120 --> 00:44:02.160 forty five minutes. 00:44:02.160 --> 00:44:03.280 Might have been fifteen minutes. 00:44:03.280 --> 00:44:03.840 I don't know. 00:44:03.840 --> 00:44:06.000 It seemed like a fairly long time. 00:44:06.640 --> 00:44:10.080 While I was there, you know, on this land, that to me 00:44:10.160 --> 00:44:11.120 was not yet a place. 00:44:11.120 --> 00:44:13.600 It was just you know, here's a location where I can have 00:44:13.600 --> 00:44:15.120 my peace and quiet. 00:44:15.120 --> 00:44:18.400 In my mind I was working through all the permutations of the 00:44:18.400 --> 00:44:19.680 problem I was facing at work. 00:44:19.760 --> 00:44:26.560 There was basically cultural changes, management changes above my boss's level. 00:44:26.560 --> 00:44:30.480 I could see that there was a certain inevitability of things happening 00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:34.240 that I fundamentally disagreed with and I was trying to figure out 00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:37.120 how could I navigate this, how can I win? 00:44:37.120 --> 00:44:39.920 How can these things happen and how can I still come out 00:44:39.920 --> 00:44:44.480 where I'm happy with the results for me personally, for career wise. 00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:48.000 And as I sat there perched on that rock, iterating over and 00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:52.080 over through every possible permutation of how these things could go, I 00:44:52.080 --> 00:44:54.720 was only finding losing scenarios. 00:44:54.800 --> 00:44:58.640 And after a while it dawned on me that the tide was 00:44:58.640 --> 00:44:59.440 coming in. 00:44:59.440 --> 00:45:01.520 I kind of had a sense it wasn't I went out there, 00:45:01.520 --> 00:45:03.440 so I didn't go too far under the rock in the water 00:45:03.520 --> 00:45:07.280 because I didn't want to get trapped behind me. 00:45:07.360 --> 00:45:09.920 So as I was focusing, you know, I was looking at the 00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:12.400 water and looking at the rocks, but I was really not paying 00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:15.360 attention. I was but paying attention to my problems in my head. 00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:18.800 I started to notice the water coming in more and more. 00:45:18.800 --> 00:45:23.360 And as my focus shifted from what was going on in my 00:45:23.360 --> 00:45:27.440 head to what was going on around me, I paid attention to 00:45:27.440 --> 00:45:29.120 the tide coming in. 00:45:29.120 --> 00:45:32.960 As I watched the waves creep up the shore, you know, a 00:45:32.960 --> 00:45:36.640 few inches each time, coming a little bit closer, starting to surround 00:45:36.640 --> 00:45:40.000 me, starting to rise on the rock I was on. 00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:43.440 I started thinking about tidal forces and thinking about the size of 00:45:43.440 --> 00:45:46.480 the ocean and thinking about how much power it takes 00:45:47.840 --> 00:45:51.440 for water to flow uphill, which is really what's happening when the 00:45:51.440 --> 00:45:52.400 tide comes in. 00:45:52.400 --> 00:45:55.600 Water's actually coming uphill 'cause the moon's pulling it. 00:45:55.600 --> 00:45:59.600 That is power that awesome doesn't even begin to describe it. 00:45:59.600 --> 00:46:04.400 And as I was watching the inexorability of the tide roll in, 00:46:04.400 --> 00:46:06.800 it dawned on me that it was the same problem that I 00:46:06.800 --> 00:46:08.000 had at Apple. 00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:12.320 I was up against the same inexorable forces with with what was 00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:16.240 happening culturally that I was with on that rock with the tide 00:46:16.240 --> 00:46:17.680 rolling in around me. 00:46:17.680 --> 00:46:19.600 And I remember if I laughed or not. 00:46:19.600 --> 00:46:20.880 I probably did. 00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:23.360 But I certainly laugh about it now when I think back to 00:46:23.360 --> 00:46:27.200 it because in that moment I realized I lost. 00:46:27.200 --> 00:46:30.080 The problem that had driven me away from the office driven me 00:46:30.080 --> 00:46:32.000 hours away from where I was. 00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:33.840 I realized that I had lost. 00:46:33.840 --> 00:46:35.040 Yeah, I was suddenly happy. 00:46:35.040 --> 00:46:36.160 I was totally relieved. 00:46:36.160 --> 00:46:38.080 Because I wasn't annoyed about winning or losing. 00:46:38.080 --> 00:46:40.960 I was annoyed about not knowing what was going on. 00:46:40.960 --> 00:46:43.200 I I didn't have a solution to the problem. 00:46:43.360 --> 00:46:47.280 And so I only tell this story because as soon as it 00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:50.560 dawned on me that like okay, the tide rolling in and the 00:46:50.560 --> 00:46:54.320 cultural changes in my workplace, it's the same problem. 00:46:54.320 --> 00:46:55.760 This is inexorable. 00:46:55.760 --> 00:46:57.680 There's nothing I can do. 00:46:57.680 --> 00:46:59.680 It's not even about losing with honor. 00:46:59.680 --> 00:47:00.960 I just I got nothing. 00:47:00.960 --> 00:47:02.080 It's gonna happen. 00:47:02.080 --> 00:47:03.600 I can scream and shout all I want. 00:47:03.600 --> 00:47:05.280 I can't change anything. 00:47:05.280 --> 00:47:08.720 It would be no different than those rocks trying to resist the 00:47:08.720 --> 00:47:10.240 tide coming in. 00:47:10.240 --> 00:47:13.280 I enjoyed the scenery for a minute and then turned around and 00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:15.600 hopped back off that rock while I could still get to shore 00:47:15.600 --> 00:47:19.040 without getting soaked in And before I left, I got a few 00:47:19.040 --> 00:47:20.800 feet from the rock that I'd been perched on. 00:47:20.800 --> 00:47:22.160 I turned around and took a picture. 00:47:22.160 --> 00:47:24.080 We'll link in the show notes if you happen to care about 00:47:24.080 --> 00:47:24.480 the picture. 00:47:24.480 --> 00:47:25.760 It's kind of a pretty scene. 00:47:25.760 --> 00:47:27.680 I took a really nice panorama. 00:47:27.680 --> 00:47:28.960 That was an early iPhone. 00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:29.680 It was a work phone. 00:47:29.680 --> 00:47:32.720 I haven't had my own for almost 20 years now, but I 00:47:32.720 --> 00:47:34.160 had a work phone on me. 00:47:34.160 --> 00:47:36.640 And so I took a nice panoramic shot of the whole thing. 00:47:36.640 --> 00:47:38.640 So you can see the bridge that I had come on, you 00:47:38.640 --> 00:47:41.200 can see the ocean, you can see the rock I was perched 00:47:41.200 --> 00:47:45.200 on. This became a place for me in that moment. 00:47:45.200 --> 00:47:46.720 There's nothing special about it. 00:47:46.720 --> 00:47:48.000 If you look at like, okay, that's nice. 00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:51.520 It's some rocks, you know, the Oregon coast, the Mendocino, North, Northern 00:47:51.600 --> 00:47:55.120 California coast is very pretty, but nothing special. 00:47:55.120 --> 00:47:58.800 There are hundreds of places just like that, many far prettier than 00:47:58.800 --> 00:47:59.680 that one. 00:47:59.680 --> 00:48:02.800 To me, they were all interchangeable, but I wanted the seclusion. 00:48:02.800 --> 00:48:06.240 And so after I had that revelation, like, okay, I went out 00:48:06.240 --> 00:48:09.120 on that rock, not knowing what was going on, not knowing what 00:48:09.120 --> 00:48:12.320 I was gonna do, I came off that rock knowing that my 00:48:12.320 --> 00:48:15.200 career was over, knowing that there was no way for me to 00:48:15.200 --> 00:48:16.880 continue as things stood. 00:48:16.880 --> 00:48:20.160 And so three hundred and seventy days after I took that picture 00:48:20.320 --> 00:48:21.600 was my last day at Apple. 00:48:21.600 --> 00:48:24.560 I went for another year and that was when I quit. 00:48:24.720 --> 00:48:25.840 I was happy after that. 00:48:25.840 --> 00:48:28.480 I mean, it became stressful in that last year because things kept 00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:30.560 getting worse and worse as I knew they would. 00:48:30.560 --> 00:48:34.320 But that place became a place for me personally when I turned 00:48:34.320 --> 00:48:35.200 around and took that picture 00:48:36.160 --> 00:48:37.520 because it was something special. 00:48:37.520 --> 00:48:39.440 Something special happened to me. 00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:42.720 And so one aspect of places is precisely like that. 00:48:42.720 --> 00:48:45.120 We all have places like that where something happened. 00:48:45.120 --> 00:48:47.920 Maybe it was something very good, maybe it was something very bad. 00:48:47.920 --> 00:48:50.160 You know, many of you, if you've met your spouse in a 00:48:50.160 --> 00:48:53.760 particular place or you got engaged or got married, those are very 00:48:53.760 --> 00:48:59.040 happy moments where you know just one among many locations, you know, 00:48:59.040 --> 00:49:02.000 all sorts of land, all sorts of restaurants, all sorts of beaches 00:49:02.160 --> 00:49:02.720 become a place 00:49:03.600 --> 00:49:06.560 when something really personal happens. 00:49:06.880 --> 00:49:11.040 Places are a vital part of what it means to be human 00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:15.120 because it's another part of what Corey was talking about earlier with 00:49:15.120 --> 00:49:16.480 our connection to the land. 00:49:16.720 --> 00:49:21.280 It's not enough simply to treat the land as a fungible economic 00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:25.440 unit that is a source of your sustenance and your livelihood. 00:49:25.440 --> 00:49:27.600 Those are good things, those are blessings from God. 00:49:27.600 --> 00:49:29.840 Not denigrating that in the slightest. 00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:32.400 But it's still not the complete human experience. 00:49:32.400 --> 00:49:37.280 If you do nothing but rise and toil and rest with no 00:49:37.280 --> 00:49:42.000 appreciation for anything around you, with no connection to any real places, 00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:43.920 you're not a full human. 00:49:43.920 --> 00:49:47.040 That's a tragic thing that should be avoided. 00:49:47.040 --> 00:49:49.840 And sometimes it's just as simple as paying attention. 00:49:49.840 --> 00:49:53.520 But as I said, a lot of these places become such because 00:49:53.520 --> 00:49:56.480 of the experiences that we have. 00:49:56.480 --> 00:50:00.160 The reason that this matters is that those places then become things 00:50:00.160 --> 00:50:02.160 that we should guard and protect. 00:50:02.160 --> 00:50:05.680 You know, I think an example that's shared would be the National 00:50:05.680 --> 00:50:08.560 Park system and the state park systems. 00:50:08.560 --> 00:50:12.560 The fact that this land is set aside where it's effectively owned 00:50:12.560 --> 00:50:17.040 by no one, there's no exclusive economic use of it, it becomes 00:50:17.040 --> 00:50:21.120 the opportunity for people to go to those parks and create their 00:50:21.120 --> 00:50:22.240 own places. 00:50:22.240 --> 00:50:25.920 You know, there's gonna be some place that you visit that becomes 00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:28.880 a place for you personally because of what happens there. 00:50:28.880 --> 00:50:32.640 Maybe it's a little alcove in the woods where you teach your 00:50:32.640 --> 00:50:36.320 sons to start fires, teach them how to pitch a tent, someplace 00:50:36.320 --> 00:50:37.440 where you go fishing. 00:50:37.600 --> 00:50:39.840 Doesn't have to be a park, it can be anything. 00:50:39.840 --> 00:50:42.240 The land becomes a place when you love it. 00:50:42.240 --> 00:50:44.800 And you love it because what happens there. 00:50:44.800 --> 00:50:47.600 The love that we have for places is because of the human 00:50:47.600 --> 00:50:50.800 connections we have with each other and that we have with whatever 00:50:50.800 --> 00:50:52.880 moments occur in those places. 00:50:52.880 --> 00:50:53.920 And that's vital. 00:50:53.920 --> 00:50:58.960 It's necessary for our human identity, for those connections to exist. 00:50:58.960 --> 00:51:02.560 And we have to think about this stuff because 00:51:03.680 --> 00:51:07.280 if you don't have any of those places, you're just wandering through 00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:08.720 life aimlessly. 00:51:08.960 --> 00:51:13.280 It's one of the principal arguments against living completely virtual lives where 00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:14.960 everything only happens on the internet. 00:51:14.960 --> 00:51:16.320 There's no place there. 00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:18.560 They're conversations, they're upsides. 00:51:18.560 --> 00:51:23.040 It's not that it's all downside, but the virtualization strips you away 00:51:23.040 --> 00:51:25.600 from human connections that are vital. 00:51:25.840 --> 00:51:28.400 I think one of the simplest examples of a place is the 00:51:28.400 --> 00:51:29.520 dinner table. 00:51:29.520 --> 00:51:33.760 When I was a kid, when cable and satellite TV was just 00:51:33.760 --> 00:51:35.440 beginning to encroach on 00:51:36.640 --> 00:51:40.640 family life when the internet was just barely brand new in the 00:51:40.640 --> 00:51:42.320 mid-late 90s. 00:51:42.320 --> 00:51:45.920 The family dinner table was something my parents guarded jealously. 00:51:45.920 --> 00:51:48.000 Like, you're going to come down here, we're going to have dinner. 00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:50.240 I'd whine about it because I wanted to go play video games. 00:51:50.560 --> 00:51:51.840 I wanted to be an idiot. 00:51:51.840 --> 00:51:55.280 I didn't want to participate in the places that were the connection 00:51:55.280 --> 00:51:57.280 for the typical family unit. 00:51:57.280 --> 00:52:01.520 Like the family gathering place of the dinner table is vital. 00:52:01.520 --> 00:52:04.320 It's always been a vital part of human connection. 00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:09.040 Eating together is a fundamentally intimate human experience. 00:52:09.040 --> 00:52:13.840 And the dinner table is not special because it's furniture, and it's 00:52:13.840 --> 00:52:15.520 not even special because the food. 00:52:15.520 --> 00:52:17.040 Maybe the food is very poor. 00:52:17.040 --> 00:52:19.600 Maybe you're very poor and the food is meager. 00:52:19.600 --> 00:52:23.920 The dinner table is still special because God is providing your sustenance 00:52:24.080 --> 00:52:26.880 and you're surrounded by people who love you and you're in it 00:52:27.280 --> 00:52:29.360 together in good times and bad. 00:52:29.360 --> 00:52:32.880 And so the dinner table is a place in our lives because 00:52:32.880 --> 00:52:35.520 of that, because of the blessings that are there and because of 00:52:35.520 --> 00:52:38.560 the connections we should be having in places like that. 00:52:38.560 --> 00:52:39.680 It's just furniture. 00:52:39.680 --> 00:52:42.960 You know, every dinner table everyone has ever eaten at was just 00:52:42.960 --> 00:52:44.240 some furniture in a store. 00:52:44.240 --> 00:52:45.360 It was like land. 00:52:45.360 --> 00:52:47.120 It was nothing, it was fungible. 00:52:47.120 --> 00:52:50.320 When it comes home and it's given that particular place in your 00:52:50.320 --> 00:52:54.480 house and becomes a place where you gather, then that intimacy that 00:52:54.480 --> 00:52:58.640 makes those connections so human is engendered. 00:52:58.640 --> 00:53:00.480 That is where it occurs. 00:53:00.480 --> 00:53:03.920 And so we should be conscious of the fact that as we 00:53:03.920 --> 00:53:07.840 move through our lives, those places are going to naturally emerge. 00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.160 And sometimes they're static places like a dinner table. 00:53:12.160 --> 00:53:15.920 And sometimes they're ephemeral, like that beach and mendocino, which would mean 00:53:15.920 --> 00:53:17.360 absolutely nothing to you. 00:53:17.360 --> 00:53:20.000 But to me, because of what happened, it means something. 00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:21.200 I'll never see it again. 00:53:21.200 --> 00:53:21.680 I don't care. 00:53:21.680 --> 00:53:23.360 Like I don't need to go back and visit it. 00:53:23.360 --> 00:53:27.200 I'm glad I have the picture of the memory, but it served 00:53:27.200 --> 00:53:29.840 its purpose and therefore it has some connection. 00:53:29.840 --> 00:53:32.080 The dinner table and the other places where we connect to each 00:53:32.080 --> 00:53:32.160 other 00:53:33.040 --> 00:53:38.160 on a more regular basis have a different kind of sustaining benefit 00:53:38.160 --> 00:53:38.800 to us. 00:53:38.800 --> 00:53:40.560 And again, it's symbiotic. 00:53:40.560 --> 00:53:44.640 The places where we gather, the places where we have connections to 00:53:44.640 --> 00:53:49.600 the land and to each other become mutually reinforcing because those become 00:53:49.600 --> 00:53:53.040 definitional of who we are as people. 00:53:53.520 --> 00:53:59.200 By way of example, your wife is probably not particularly special. 00:53:59.520 --> 00:54:05.040 And if you're a woman, your husband is probably not particularly special. 00:54:05.040 --> 00:54:08.080 Because that's just how statistics works. 00:54:08.080 --> 00:54:12.240 By and large, the average person is precisely that. 00:54:12.240 --> 00:54:13.360 Average. 00:54:14.240 --> 00:54:18.640 Your wife is special because she is your wife. 00:54:18.640 --> 00:54:22.960 Your husband is special because he is your husband. 00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:27.840 The same thing is true with regard to places. 00:54:28.480 --> 00:54:33.200 Any particular place along the coast, whether it's a beach or it's 00:54:33.200 --> 00:54:39.200 rocky or what have you, isn't necessarily special in any particular way. 00:54:39.200 --> 00:54:43.920 There are parts of the world that are exceptionally beautiful and virtually 00:54:43.920 --> 00:54:48.320 the entire human species collectively agrees on that fact. 00:54:48.320 --> 00:54:51.760 But most places are not like that. 00:54:51.760 --> 00:54:54.320 But they may be special to you. 00:54:54.320 --> 00:54:58.000 If you're a hiker or a camper, this will immediately resonate with 00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:02.880 you because undoubtedly there is some particular place that is your favorite 00:55:03.360 --> 00:55:07.360 hike, or is your favorite place to camp. 00:55:07.360 --> 00:55:10.560 And it may not even be somewhere that most people would consider 00:55:10.560 --> 00:55:14.880 beautiful. It may just be somewhere that you camped dozens of times 00:55:14.880 --> 00:55:16.080 as a child. 00:55:16.400 --> 00:55:16.720 Or 00:55:17.680 --> 00:55:21.600 you had a particularly great experience on one hike, or as Wo 00:55:21.840 --> 00:55:25.120 said, perhaps you proposed to your spouse there. 00:55:25.120 --> 00:55:30.320 There's a reason that it became a place for you. 00:55:30.400 --> 00:55:35.040 Human beings also do this with a variety of things. 00:55:35.040 --> 00:55:38.400 For instance, the pen that I'm using to take notes as we 00:55:38.400 --> 00:55:39.040 record 00:55:39.920 --> 00:55:44.880 may very well not be special to anyone else. 00:55:44.880 --> 00:55:47.360 To me it is to some degree, because it's a pen that 00:55:47.360 --> 00:55:48.880 I've carried for many years. 00:55:48.880 --> 00:55:53.200 In fact I almost always have one of these in my shirt, 00:55:53.200 --> 00:55:55.600 regardless of where I am. 00:55:55.600 --> 00:56:00.640 But is human beings, we do attach meaning to things. 00:56:00.640 --> 00:56:05.200 And this does extend to places, at least it certainly should extend 00:56:05.440 --> 00:56:07.120 to places. 00:56:07.120 --> 00:56:12.800 We shouldn't just think of all territory, of all physical land. 00:56:12.800 --> 00:56:15.840 Not to confuse the terms as we're using them in this episode, 00:56:15.840 --> 00:56:20.080 but to recognize that they are to a degree interchangeable terms, deliberately 00:56:20.080 --> 00:56:24.560 so. But we need to recognize that land is not just it 00:56:24.560 --> 00:56:27.280 doesn't matter where I am, it's all the same, it's all soil, 00:56:27.280 --> 00:56:28.800 it's all just plants. 00:56:28.800 --> 00:56:34.000 Whatever. No, that's not how we are supposed to live our lives 00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:38.800 as human beings, because you have a connection to a place. 00:56:38.800 --> 00:56:42.080 In fact, one of the most jarring things that can happen to 00:56:42.080 --> 00:56:47.680 a person, one of the worst experiences, would be having A particular 00:56:47.680 --> 00:56:52.160 place like that, some particular place where you went hiking or camping 00:56:52.240 --> 00:56:55.920 or whatever it happens to be, that was truly special to you, 00:56:55.920 --> 00:57:00.320 that over a course of years or even decades you developed this 00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:04.800 sentiment toward that place, this connection with that place, and then at 00:57:04.800 --> 00:57:09.440 some future point you go back there, and it's been fundamentally altered. 00:57:09.440 --> 00:57:15.760 Perhaps they clear-cut the forest and built track homes, whatever it happens 00:57:15.760 --> 00:57:16.640 to be. 00:57:16.640 --> 00:57:20.720 That's a terrible experience to have as a human being. 00:57:20.720 --> 00:57:24.400 And incidentally, it's one reason that we should have this sort of 00:57:24.400 --> 00:57:29.280 connection to the land, so we have concerns with regard to development, 00:57:29.280 --> 00:57:33.040 so we don't just destroy the natural world in order to throw 00:57:33.040 --> 00:57:36.320 up as many cheap houses as possible. 00:57:36.320 --> 00:57:40.880 We should truly consider these matters, they are matters of wisdom. 00:57:40.880 --> 00:57:46.000 We should use the land wisely, we should not just destroy places 00:57:46.800 --> 00:57:48.320 as we please. 00:57:48.320 --> 00:57:53.280 It should not just be a matter of the profit incentive. 00:57:53.280 --> 00:57:57.360 This sort of butts up against the ideas, the twin ideas, of 00:57:57.360 --> 00:58:00.320 the tragedy of the commons and the tragedy of the anti commons, 00:58:00.320 --> 00:58:04.160 and if you're unfamiliar with those, I would say perhaps read briefly 00:58:04.160 --> 00:58:07.440 on them to get sort of a grounding in some of the 00:58:07.440 --> 00:58:08.960 issues in this area. 00:58:08.960 --> 00:58:15.440 I'll put a link to each of those in the show notes. 00:58:15.440 --> 00:58:22.160 But as stewards of creation, and as indeed human beings, hopefully, we 00:58:22.160 --> 00:58:26.400 should have these places in our lives that have taken on meaning 00:58:26.400 --> 00:58:32.400 beyond what they have intrinsically, because they have a meaning for us. 00:58:32.400 --> 00:58:36.560 It is something particular to us. 00:58:36.560 --> 00:58:41.760 We recognize this readily with regard to certain artifacts, with regard to 00:58:41.760 --> 00:58:43.680 certain physical things. 00:58:43.680 --> 00:58:47.280 You may have a family heirloom that has been passed down for 00:58:47.280 --> 00:58:48.560 many generations. 00:58:48.560 --> 00:58:51.840 Objectively, it may have very little value. 00:58:51.840 --> 00:58:54.960 In some cases it may be very valuable, but in others it 00:58:54.960 --> 00:58:56.560 may be worthless. 00:58:56.560 --> 00:59:00.000 I have a watch that was passed down to me from my 00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:03.040 great great grandfather. 00:59:03.040 --> 00:59:06.800 It's not worth very much, objectively speaking. 00:59:06.800 --> 00:59:09.920 Because it was not a very expensive watch then, and it would 00:59:09.920 --> 00:59:14.080 certainly not be a very expensive watch now. 00:59:14.080 --> 00:59:18.320 But the reason that it has meaning, that it has value to 00:59:18.320 --> 00:59:23.200 me and to my family is because it was carried by my 00:59:23.200 --> 00:59:28.160 ancestors for decades, used by them for many years. 00:59:28.160 --> 00:59:31.200 The same thing happens with various things that will pass down to 00:59:31.200 --> 00:59:35.040 our children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces. 00:59:36.960 --> 00:59:42.640 These things have meaning, above and beyond what they have intrinsically. 00:59:42.640 --> 00:59:47.600 The same thing takes place and certainly should take place with regard 00:59:47.600 --> 00:59:49.840 to physical locations. 00:59:51.120 --> 00:59:56.480 We have less of this today because so many people move around 00:59:56.480 --> 01:00:00.720 so much, too much, quite frankly, because as human beings, we were 01:00:00.720 --> 01:00:06.400 not designed to be on the move constantly, to relocate, all the 01:00:06.400 --> 01:00:13.040 time. Yes, this obviously is a significant problem for certain occupations. 01:00:13.040 --> 01:00:18.240 Military families undoubtedly will recognize the toll that this takes This takes. 01:00:18.240 --> 01:00:23.040 But there is something inhuman about moving around all the time because 01:00:23.040 --> 01:00:25.680 it severs you from the land. 01:00:25.680 --> 01:00:30.800 It makes it impossible for you to create these sorts of places. 01:00:30.800 --> 01:00:33.760 For you to build this sort of meaning and attach it to 01:00:33.760 --> 01:00:35.680 those places. 01:00:35.680 --> 01:00:40.320 Because every time you move, you're really starting over. 01:00:40.720 --> 01:00:45.440 You no longer have a favorite spot to watch the sunset, a 01:00:45.440 --> 01:00:49.040 favorite spot to watch the sunrise, a favorite part of the coast 01:00:49.040 --> 01:00:51.920 where you like to watch the tide come in or go out. 01:00:51.920 --> 01:00:55.200 Whatever it happens to be, for wherever you happen to live in 01:00:55.200 --> 01:00:58.560 the world, and at this point we have listeners all around the 01:00:58.560 --> 01:01:04.880 world, those places have meaning for you because you have developed that 01:01:04.880 --> 01:01:08.960 meaning and that connection over time. 01:01:08.960 --> 01:01:11.040 And these things take time. 01:01:11.040 --> 01:01:13.600 Part of the reason your wife is special to you is because 01:01:13.600 --> 01:01:18.720 all the time you have invested in that relationship it took all 01:01:18.720 --> 01:01:21.040 of that time to create that. 01:01:21.040 --> 01:01:22.560 There's no shortcut. 01:01:22.560 --> 01:01:25.760 There's no way you can do it faster than you did it. 01:01:25.760 --> 01:01:27.840 You can't speed it up. 01:01:27.840 --> 01:01:32.480 The same thing is true with regard to place. 01:01:32.640 --> 01:01:37.520 Because in a very real sense, how some of these places develop 01:01:37.520 --> 01:01:39.360 is generationally. 01:01:39.360 --> 01:01:42.800 It may be that the favorite place for you with regard to 01:01:42.800 --> 01:01:47.040 camping is because your father took you there when you were young, 01:01:47.040 --> 01:01:50.400 and his father took him there when he was young, and so 01:01:50.400 --> 01:01:55.040 on and so forth back dozens of generations or hundreds of years 01:01:55.280 --> 01:01:58.160 in some cases even longer. 01:01:58.560 --> 01:02:04.400 That's not something that you can simply rebuild in a single generation. 01:02:04.400 --> 01:02:09.120 Certainly not in a year after you move to a new location. 01:02:09.120 --> 01:02:12.960 And so when we don't respect this connection that we have to 01:02:12.960 --> 01:02:18.080 the soil, that we have to physical place as human beings, we 01:02:18.080 --> 01:02:23.120 sever ourselves from these connections, from this ability to connect to the 01:02:23.120 --> 01:02:27.600 natural world as God clearly designed us to do. 01:02:27.600 --> 01:02:32.240 You don't have a favorite place to watch the sunrise because you're 01:02:32.240 --> 01:02:35.440 unusual, you're quirky, or there's something wrong with you. 01:02:35.440 --> 01:02:36.960 That's how God designed us. 01:02:37.920 --> 01:02:42.720 He designed us to have preferences, to have things that we prefer 01:02:42.720 --> 01:02:45.600 over and above other things. 01:02:45.600 --> 01:02:50.560 That isn't just something that occurs with food or drink or your 01:02:50.560 --> 01:02:53.840 favorite pen if you happen to like writing instruments. 01:02:53.840 --> 01:02:58.160 It is something that also occurs with place. 01:02:58.160 --> 01:03:02.400 And in order for that to occur as it should, you have 01:03:02.400 --> 01:03:05.600 to have roots in that place. 01:03:05.600 --> 01:03:09.600 You have to have a connection to that place, and preferably it 01:03:09.600 --> 01:03:12.560 is a generational one. 01:03:12.560 --> 01:03:16.160 And one of the ways that that can be destroyed is with 01:03:16.160 --> 01:03:21.600 unrestricted and unregulated growth, development so called. 01:03:21.600 --> 01:03:26.800 When you're simply clear cutting and changing things and modifying them to 01:03:26.800 --> 01:03:30.160 the point where you're severing these connections that have been built over 01:03:30.480 --> 01:03:37.360 many years, over generations, you're destroying the ability for people to connect 01:03:37.360 --> 01:03:39.680 to the land. 01:03:39.680 --> 01:03:44.640 And you are destroying the connections that were made in the past. 01:03:45.040 --> 01:03:50.240 We see this happening at a breakneck pace all over the country 01:03:50.400 --> 01:03:54.960 today. Part of that is because so-called immigration we have had an 01:03:54.960 --> 01:03:59.280 influx of tens of millions of people who should not be here 01:03:59.600 --> 01:04:04.800 and are putting strains on all of our systems, particularly on our 01:04:04.800 --> 01:04:07.040 infrastructure and our housing market. 01:04:07.040 --> 01:04:10.960 And so these places are being destroyed, and people are being severed 01:04:10.960 --> 01:04:12.000 from the land. 01:04:12.000 --> 01:04:15.040 That's part of the goal, of course. 01:04:15.040 --> 01:04:17.520 Because if you can be severed from the land, if you no 01:04:17.520 --> 01:04:20.960 longer have this connection with regard to place, then you don't have 01:04:20.960 --> 01:04:21.600 the investment 01:04:22.800 --> 01:04:25.280 with regard to that land. 01:04:25.280 --> 01:04:29.040 You don't have any reason, you don't have the necessary warrant to 01:04:29.040 --> 01:04:33.280 want to defend it, because you don't feel connected to it. 01:04:33.280 --> 01:04:37.200 Which is something that we see all throughout history and all over 01:04:37.200 --> 01:04:38.560 the world. 01:04:38.560 --> 01:04:42.880 Those who do not have a particular connection to a place, to 01:04:42.880 --> 01:04:46.880 a particular plot of land, to a particular region, to a particular 01:04:46.880 --> 01:04:54.000 country, those who lack that connection, that relationship to the land, 01:04:54.000 --> 01:04:57.840 are more willing to destroy it for the sake of profit, or 01:04:57.840 --> 01:05:01.360 to sell it out to foreigners for the sake of profit. 01:05:01.360 --> 01:05:05.280 They are willing to do things that someone who has that connection 01:05:05.600 --> 01:05:11.440 will not do, would never do, virtually regardless of price. 01:05:11.680 --> 01:05:15.440 One of the best examples of this, if you look at those 01:05:15.440 --> 01:05:18.640 who have owned a big chunk of land for a very brief 01:05:18.640 --> 01:05:22.800 period of time, they are more willing to sell to developers than 01:05:22.800 --> 01:05:26.160 those who have inherited a farm that has been in the family 01:05:26.160 --> 01:05:28.240 for centuries. 01:05:28.240 --> 01:05:33.600 If you have a farm that your ancestors built with their own 01:05:33.600 --> 01:05:37.920 hands back in the 1600s or the 1700s, you are going to 01:05:37.920 --> 01:05:40.960 be much less likely to sell that to a developer who will 01:05:40.960 --> 01:05:44.560 come in and destroy it than if you just bought a chunk 01:05:44.560 --> 01:05:47.920 of land ten years ago. 01:05:47.920 --> 01:05:51.440 There's less of a connection to something where you don't have those 01:05:51.440 --> 01:05:53.520 deep roots. 01:05:53.520 --> 01:05:57.600 We've gone over this in many other episodes with regard to how 01:05:57.600 --> 01:06:04.400 many of these problems and necessarily solutions are generational in scope, are 01:06:04.400 --> 01:06:08.000 generational by their very nature, and that is certainly the case with 01:06:08.000 --> 01:06:10.080 regard to place. 01:06:10.080 --> 01:06:14.800 But you have to have the places, the potential places, in order 01:06:14.800 --> 01:06:18.160 for these things to be built, in order for these connections to 01:06:18.160 --> 01:06:23.040 be made and then maintained and reinforced and passed down. 01:06:23.040 --> 01:06:27.360 And so if you don't protect your land, if you don't protect 01:06:27.360 --> 01:06:34.400 your territory, you can't have places because you've destroyed the very possibility 01:06:34.400 --> 01:06:37.920 of those things existing, of those connections being made. 01:06:37.920 --> 01:06:41.280 And that is of course what we see happening today. 01:06:41.280 --> 01:06:44.000 A great deal of it is deliberate. 01:06:44.000 --> 01:06:48.320 Because again, if you can disconnect people from their land, from their 01:06:48.320 --> 01:06:52.000 territory, then you can get them to do things they otherwise would 01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:52.800 not do. 01:06:52.800 --> 01:06:56.080 Or at the very least, you can get them not to care 01:06:56.480 --> 01:07:00.640 when you do things to which they would otherwise object. 01:07:01.920 --> 01:07:07.760 Before we finish with the import of protecting territorial sovereignty, as Corey 01:07:07.840 --> 01:07:09.040 is getting into there. 01:07:09.280 --> 01:07:13.440 I want to give two last examples. 01:07:13.440 --> 01:07:17.760 I want to give two last examples of places that are or 01:07:17.760 --> 01:07:20.960 should be vital to us today. 01:07:20.960 --> 01:07:24.000 And these are competing examples in modern life. 01:07:24.000 --> 01:07:30.080 One is your church and the other is a sports stadium. 01:07:30.080 --> 01:07:35.280 In centuries past, in Christendom, the cathedrals and even the just the 01:07:35.280 --> 01:07:39.520 regular old churches they were built in medieval towns. 01:07:39.520 --> 01:07:42.320 Sometimes they took centuries to build. 01:07:42.320 --> 01:07:44.160 It literally took men 01:07:45.120 --> 01:07:48.320 multiple generations to construct something. 01:07:48.320 --> 01:07:53.280 A man, a workman, an artisan, may well labor on a portion 01:07:53.280 --> 01:07:59.040 of a church for his entire lifetime, knowing that his grandson would 01:07:59.040 --> 01:08:02.000 still not live to see its completion. 01:08:02.000 --> 01:08:06.320 And yet they did that not simply because they were bored, it 01:08:06.320 --> 01:08:10.000 wasn't simply make work projects. 01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:14.560 This was done because they understood that the place of the church 01:08:14.560 --> 01:08:19.040 itself, where God's elect gathered together, was vital. 01:08:19.040 --> 01:08:22.160 It was vital for their spiritual health, it was vital for their 01:08:22.160 --> 01:08:28.160 community. The work, the effort, the passion that they put into that, 01:08:28.160 --> 01:08:31.440 the sheer artistry that is unparalleled today. 01:08:31.440 --> 01:08:33.440 There are things that were done in the past that we could 01:08:33.440 --> 01:08:34.560 not recreate. 01:08:34.560 --> 01:08:38.160 We've lost the ability to make things with our hands that were 01:08:38.160 --> 01:08:41.840 so common that it was just like whoever's nearby is gonna work 01:08:41.840 --> 01:08:43.760 on this. 01:08:43.760 --> 01:08:47.920 Their connection to the land that made them so proficient at working 01:08:47.920 --> 01:08:52.400 in those various materials helped to create those places. 01:08:52.720 --> 01:08:56.880 And the reason that I contrast, you know, particularly the medieval cathedral 01:08:56.880 --> 01:09:01.040 or the medieval church with the modern stadium is that they serve 01:09:01.040 --> 01:09:02.560 the same purpose. 01:09:02.560 --> 01:09:07.440 The same amount of resources are poured today into the construction of 01:09:07.440 --> 01:09:13.840 these multi-billion dollar sports megacomplexes that we used to pour into the 01:09:13.840 --> 01:09:17.200 place where people gathered around Word and Sacrament. 01:09:17.360 --> 01:09:22.080 And for the same reason, that is where worship occurs. 01:09:22.080 --> 01:09:26.720 That which is most highly desired and prized, that to which you 01:09:26.720 --> 01:09:32.160 provide the greatest interest and the greatest amount of resource devotion is 01:09:32.160 --> 01:09:33.120 your God. 01:09:33.120 --> 01:09:36.560 And we see this in many lives today. 01:09:36.560 --> 01:09:39.200 I used to drive every day between two graveyards. 01:09:39.200 --> 01:09:42.720 There was a Catholic graveyard on one side and a Protestant graveyard 01:09:42.720 --> 01:09:43.840 on the other. 01:09:43.840 --> 01:09:46.240 And I could tell that the one side was Catholic 'cause I 01:09:46.160 --> 01:09:48.000 had a bunch of Mary statues. 01:09:48.000 --> 01:09:51.040 I could tell that the other was Protestant because there were a 01:09:51.040 --> 01:09:53.840 number of graves well, there were no Mary statues, I could tell 01:09:53.840 --> 01:09:58.400 the difference, but it was only in the Protestant grave site that 01:09:58.640 --> 01:10:03.440 there were a number of headstones that were lovingly curated and maintained 01:10:03.920 --> 01:10:09.520 throughout the seasons by living members of the deceased family with sports 01:10:09.520 --> 01:10:14.080 penance. Whatever their favorite team colors were, some were college, some were 01:10:14.080 --> 01:10:15.440 pro sports. 01:10:15.440 --> 01:10:18.560 That was the confession that they took to their grave. 01:10:18.560 --> 01:10:24.000 The affinity for some sports ball team was so definitional to those 01:10:24.000 --> 01:10:29.040 people who are now dead that their living memory is of their 01:10:29.040 --> 01:10:31.680 devotion to whatever team it was. 01:10:31.680 --> 01:10:34.960 And you can tell that because the colorful pennants are maintained in 01:10:35.120 --> 01:10:37.600 season and out. 01:10:37.600 --> 01:10:40.480 That is a confession of religion. 01:10:40.480 --> 01:10:43.120 Now, there's nothing wrong with sports per se. 01:10:43.120 --> 01:10:45.440 It's they shouldn't be competing religions. 01:10:45.440 --> 01:10:51.120 I'm I'm not setting athletic activity against being faithful Christians. 01:10:51.120 --> 01:10:54.560 Both should be occurring, although not exactly the same time, at least 01:10:54.640 --> 01:10:56.000 not the worship service. 01:10:56.000 --> 01:10:58.800 You shouldn't have Sunday events. 01:10:58.800 --> 01:11:00.720 Leave that stuff for the rest of the time. 01:11:00.720 --> 01:11:02.560 Let Sunday be for church. 01:11:02.560 --> 01:11:05.680 And then there would be a lot less of a problem. 01:11:05.680 --> 01:11:08.240 But the fact there are people who never have any church home, 01:11:08.240 --> 01:11:11.520 they have no place of church where they have a community of 01:11:11.520 --> 01:11:15.920 of fellow believers, but they have a place that's soldier Field or 01:11:15.920 --> 01:11:19.040 Wrigley Field or Candlestick Park, which is now gone. 01:11:19.040 --> 01:11:23.040 You know these places that their names echo down through the generations 01:11:23.440 --> 01:11:26.160 for however many decades they're erected. 01:11:26.160 --> 01:11:30.000 Because unlike the cathedrals of old, they're capitalist. 01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:35.840 They're erected and destroyed to pursue greater profit in the next calendar 01:11:35.840 --> 01:11:40.960 year. The reason those places are vital is th they're institutions. 01:11:41.280 --> 01:11:44.720 They're places that are locations where people pour their passion and their 01:11:44.720 --> 01:11:47.040 energy in the church is a good place. 01:11:47.040 --> 01:11:49.840 A church is a place where you should gather together with your 01:11:49.840 --> 01:11:52.000 community of fellow believers. 01:11:52.000 --> 01:11:53.440 And you should do the church stuff. 01:11:53.440 --> 01:11:55.440 You should do family stuff, community stuff. 01:11:55.440 --> 01:11:58.880 And that should be the group of people that are an important 01:11:58.880 --> 01:11:59.840 part of your life. 01:11:59.840 --> 01:12:02.480 Not exclusive, but an important part of it. 01:12:02.480 --> 01:12:05.120 Sports would be fine if it weren't a substitute, but what we 01:12:05.120 --> 01:12:07.520 see today is almost exclusively that. 01:12:07.520 --> 01:12:09.840 I look at some pastors' timelines on Sunday. 01:12:09.840 --> 01:12:11.440 They don't say a word about God. 01:12:11.440 --> 01:12:14.320 They will tweet all day on Sunday about sports. 01:12:14.320 --> 01:12:15.360 It's football. 01:12:15.360 --> 01:12:16.640 All day on Sunday. 01:12:16.640 --> 01:12:18.480 It's not the Lord's Day in their heart. 01:12:18.480 --> 01:12:20.560 And it's not that they want to unwind. 01:12:20.560 --> 01:12:24.160 I have said before I have no problem with pastors needing to 01:12:24.160 --> 01:12:26.080 unwind and do something, but 01:12:27.360 --> 01:12:31.040 if you're gonna scream at Stone Choir for not having enough gospel 01:12:31.120 --> 01:12:35.520 when lots of people hear enough gospel to become Christians, you should 01:12:35.520 --> 01:12:37.520 just shut up about football on Sunday. 01:12:37.520 --> 01:12:41.360 Spare me the sanctimony. 01:12:41.360 --> 01:12:44.800 These places are definitional in our lives for good or for ill. 01:12:44.800 --> 01:12:49.680 And that's why identifying which places are our places is so vital. 01:12:49.680 --> 01:12:53.520 Because if you find that you know, a sports stadium has more 01:12:53.520 --> 01:12:58.160 pull on you spiritually than any place where you gather with your 01:12:58.160 --> 01:13:02.400 family or your church community, you might have a problem that you 01:13:02.400 --> 01:13:03.440 should examine. 01:13:03.440 --> 01:13:06.240 So part of the reason for p highlighting this stuff is it's 01:13:06.240 --> 01:13:07.680 diagnostic criteria. 01:13:07.680 --> 01:13:11.680 Just examining in yourself and in others what's their true religion, as 01:13:11.680 --> 01:13:16.320 we kicked off the beginning of this year's podcast series, true religion 01:13:16.320 --> 01:13:19.600 is that which you fear and love the most, that which has 01:13:19.760 --> 01:13:21.280 your greatest zeal. 01:13:21.280 --> 01:13:25.040 And for many people, it's sports ball and Christianity is just you 01:13:25.120 --> 01:13:26.160 somebody tack on. 01:13:26.400 --> 01:13:30.320 It's something you can say they're holier than thou whenever moral issues 01:13:30.320 --> 01:13:33.760 come up, but you don't know how to articulate what's moral. 01:13:33.760 --> 01:13:35.040 That's a disaster. 01:13:35.040 --> 01:13:39.120 Spend less time worrying about sports scores and more time studying the 01:13:39.120 --> 01:13:41.440 word. If you can get both right, fine. 01:13:41.440 --> 01:13:45.120 But if one is gonna lose, let's make sure it's not God. 01:13:45.120 --> 01:13:47.840 That seems like table stakes. 01:13:47.840 --> 01:13:51.360 The last part of this is on territorial sovereignty. 01:13:51.520 --> 01:13:54.720 I'm sure Corey will give a better legal definition of this, but 01:13:54.720 --> 01:14:00.480 basically, territory as we're talking about here, it's beyond land, it's beyond 01:14:00.480 --> 01:14:05.920 places. Territory is that which has an exclusive domain. 01:14:05.920 --> 01:14:10.080 You have exclusive authority in a territory where you is going to 01:14:10.080 --> 01:14:11.760 be whoever has the authority. 01:14:11.760 --> 01:14:16.400 So for the continental United States, it's the federal government has the 01:14:16.400 --> 01:14:18.960 exclusive domain over this territory. 01:14:18.960 --> 01:14:21.280 They have the right, they have the duty, and they have the 01:14:21.280 --> 01:14:27.120 obligation to preserve this territorial integrity against all invaders and against all 01:14:27.120 --> 01:14:28.720 enemies, foreign and domestic. 01:14:28.720 --> 01:14:32.480 Incidentally, something that literally does not exist today. 01:14:32.480 --> 01:14:34.240 The exact opposite happens. 01:14:34.240 --> 01:14:37.760 The last thing any of us can imagine is this federal government 01:14:37.760 --> 01:14:42.560 raising a finger to oppose an enemy, foreign or domestic. 01:14:42.560 --> 01:14:46.880 They're inviting them in, they're hauling them in, and they're erecting them 01:14:46.880 --> 01:14:48.160 against us. 01:14:48.160 --> 01:14:52.160 And so they are abrogating their duty to protect this territory that's 01:14:52.160 --> 01:14:57.200 theirs designated as our government to do so, but the authority still 01:14:57.200 --> 01:15:00.320 rests with them because the territory matters. 01:15:00.320 --> 01:15:00.400 So 01:15:02.000 --> 01:15:07.120 territory is an interesting concept because there are concentric circles involved. 01:15:07.120 --> 01:15:10.960 So the federal government has the territory of the entire United States. 01:15:10.960 --> 01:15:15.360 Each of our state governments has the territory of you know within 01:15:15.360 --> 01:15:16.800 its state boundaries. 01:15:16.800 --> 01:15:22.240 And then you have local subdivisions of counties, cities, towns, hamlets, you 01:15:22.240 --> 01:15:25.120 know, there are all sorts of subdivisions with different names in different 01:15:25.120 --> 01:15:29.280 parts of the country that are all basically talking about sovereignty. 01:15:29.280 --> 01:15:31.040 There are things that, you know 01:15:32.160 --> 01:15:35.040 from without the feds will worry about certain things. 01:15:35.040 --> 01:15:37.280 There aren't federal laws against things like murder. 01:15:37.280 --> 01:15:39.600 There's no federal law against murder per se. 01:15:39.600 --> 01:15:41.040 That's a state matter. 01:15:41.040 --> 01:15:44.560 And then local matters have other jurisdictions. 01:15:44.560 --> 01:15:49.440 And so the jurisdiction of a territory is where there's a monopoly 01:15:49.440 --> 01:15:50.240 on violence. 01:15:50.240 --> 01:15:52.320 Yeah, it's the typical libertarian definition. 01:15:52.320 --> 01:15:53.680 It's spot on. 01:15:53.680 --> 01:15:58.400 A territory is where a specific entity has a monopoly on violence. 01:15:58.400 --> 01:16:02.640 They are called upon to enact violence wherever there's violation of the 01:16:02.640 --> 01:16:06.560 laws and to prevent violence, which is often the same thing, or 01:16:06.560 --> 01:16:08.400 at least it should be. 01:16:08.400 --> 01:16:11.280 And then as we get down to the small concentric circles, we 01:16:11.280 --> 01:16:12.640 have our own territories. 01:16:13.360 --> 01:16:16.320 I own my property, free and clear. 01:16:16.320 --> 01:16:18.320 Of all the things that I used to have, really the only 01:16:18.320 --> 01:16:20.160 thing I have left is the property that I own. 01:16:20.160 --> 01:16:22.320 And frankly, it's one of the reasons I was able to begin 01:16:22.320 --> 01:16:24.320 Stone Choir with Corey. 01:16:24.320 --> 01:16:27.040 I don't have a creditor that can kick me out of my 01:16:27.040 --> 01:16:31.680 house for being a neo-Nazi podcaster, which is defamatory, but it's what 01:16:31.680 --> 01:16:35.040 people want to say because that's how you hurt someone today. 01:16:35.040 --> 01:16:38.400 And so if I didn't own this territory that I live on, 01:16:38.400 --> 01:16:40.720 I might I might not have started this because I would have 01:16:40.720 --> 01:16:41.840 lacked that security. 01:16:42.240 --> 01:16:43.440 maybe not, I don't know. 01:16:43.440 --> 01:16:47.840 But it's certainly something was part of my conscious calculus. 01:16:47.840 --> 01:16:52.400 Even if you were not blessed to have land or blessed not 01:16:52.400 --> 01:16:54.320 to have a mortgage. 01:16:54.320 --> 01:16:57.600 Even if you're a renter in an apartment, even if you rent 01:16:57.600 --> 01:17:02.800 a bedroom in somebody else's house, that is still your territory in 01:17:02.800 --> 01:17:08.240 the sense that you have exclusive claims over it for most purposes. 01:17:08.240 --> 01:17:08.560 And 01:17:09.680 --> 01:17:13.200 this is crucial because that becomes a place for you, a place 01:17:13.200 --> 01:17:14.640 of sanctuary. 01:17:14.640 --> 01:17:16.480 A man's home is his castle. 01:17:16.480 --> 01:17:19.440 That's an ancient term that's used. 01:17:19.440 --> 01:17:25.280 That expression reflects the fact that rich or poor, inside a man's 01:17:25.280 --> 01:17:28.480 four walls, under his roof, even if it's only a room in 01:17:28.480 --> 01:17:32.880 somebody else's house, that is still your domain, that's your territory. 01:17:32.880 --> 01:17:36.320 And this is reflected in the laws, it's reflected in leases. 01:17:36.320 --> 01:17:38.720 Even if you have a landlord, even if you have someone who 01:17:38.720 --> 01:17:42.160 owns the property that you live in, so you don't properly have 01:17:42.480 --> 01:17:48.480 land of your own, while you're leasing someone else's property, you have 01:17:48.480 --> 01:17:52.960 exclusive rights over it, except for the limited purpose is that your 01:17:52.960 --> 01:17:56.560 landlord has to preserve your enjoyment of that place. 01:17:56.560 --> 01:17:59.120 So your landlord can't just walk in as though it's his house 01:17:59.440 --> 01:18:01.920 anymore. He sells that right to you. 01:18:01.920 --> 01:18:04.800 He exchanges it for the money and the lease. 01:18:04.800 --> 01:18:08.000 And in return, he does have a limited right to come with 01:18:08.000 --> 01:18:13.040 pre-agreed conditions to repair things, you know, to inspect to make sure 01:18:13.040 --> 01:18:16.480 that he's maintaining the property up to the standards by which he 01:18:16.480 --> 01:18:17.360 sold it to you. 01:18:17.360 --> 01:18:19.200 He was leasing it to you. 01:18:19.520 --> 01:18:23.520 So even if you have the sort of lowest station station of 01:18:23.520 --> 01:18:28.160 property ownership where it's a territory that you're just leasing temporarily, you 01:18:28.160 --> 01:18:29.440 still have territory. 01:18:29.440 --> 01:18:30.640 You still have rights. 01:18:30.640 --> 01:18:32.560 Your landlord can't violate it. 01:18:32.560 --> 01:18:36.080 The state can't violate it without just cause. 01:18:36.080 --> 01:18:38.960 And the trick when you're talking about territory is that with these 01:18:38.960 --> 01:18:42.880 layers of concentric circles, as you go up, there will be greater 01:18:42.880 --> 01:18:48.160 authority to do certain things, but it's still circumscribed by the law. 01:18:48.160 --> 01:18:53.520 So because no one can kick me out of this place, the 01:18:53.520 --> 01:18:56.400 only way I could lose this land would be if I were 01:18:56.400 --> 01:18:59.440 to commit some crime that would cause the land itself to be 01:18:59.440 --> 01:19:03.200 indicted and handed over, for example, if I started a meth lab, 01:19:03.200 --> 01:19:04.720 which I'm not gonna do. 01:19:04.720 --> 01:19:06.960 Stupid, illegal, disgusting. 01:19:06.960 --> 01:19:09.200 That sort of thing is how you lose your property. 01:19:09.200 --> 01:19:13.600 Or if I stop paying my very owner's property taxes, then the 01:19:13.600 --> 01:19:16.240 town would be able to say, Well, you know, you didn't pay 01:19:16.240 --> 01:19:18.800 your property tax, the title reverts to us. 01:19:18.800 --> 01:19:21.680 They'd take the property from me and they'd sell to somebody just 01:19:21.680 --> 01:19:25.440 to settle their tax bill, which would be small. 01:19:25.440 --> 01:19:29.680 But absent that, I can do what I want with it within 01:19:29.680 --> 01:19:32.880 the limits of whatever the local laws are. 01:19:32.880 --> 01:19:35.760 You know, and there are various laws to maintain some are for 01:19:35.760 --> 01:19:39.520 good order, some are busybodying, and that varies by place. 01:19:39.520 --> 01:19:43.840 But those territorial limits, they're a part of life and they're something 01:19:43.840 --> 01:19:48.240 that we have to recognize because when they're not being preserved, then 01:19:48.240 --> 01:19:49.760 we have a real problem. 01:19:49.760 --> 01:19:52.560 I want to give an absurd example as I often do just 01:19:52.560 --> 01:19:56.640 to illustrate what I'm talking about with regard to territory because this 01:19:56.640 --> 01:19:59.200 ties a little bit into last week where we were talking about 01:19:59.200 --> 01:20:05.120 so called immigration, about treason, about traitors bringing foreign armies onto our 01:20:05.120 --> 01:20:12.080 soil. Territorial sovereignty means that I can't just show up to your 01:20:12.080 --> 01:20:14.160 house and do what I want. 01:20:14.160 --> 01:20:17.280 You know, say some of you like me, you might have me 01:20:17.280 --> 01:20:18.320 over for dinner. 01:20:18.320 --> 01:20:19.840 I would be there as a guest. 01:20:19.840 --> 01:20:22.560 You would invite me into your home as a guest, I would 01:20:22.560 --> 01:20:25.760 eat what you place before me, I wouldn't go into rooms that 01:20:25.760 --> 01:20:27.280 you didn't want me to go into. 01:20:27.280 --> 01:20:31.200 I wouldn't make myself a home, apart from within whatever rules you 01:20:31.200 --> 01:20:34.400 set as the exclusive owner of that territory. 01:20:34.640 --> 01:20:37.120 And as long as I play by the rules of the house, 01:20:37.120 --> 01:20:39.760 I would be a welcome visitor for a time. 01:20:39.760 --> 01:20:42.800 If on the other hand I start breaking the rules, you know, 01:20:42.800 --> 01:20:45.360 I start pawing around, I start messing with things that don't belong 01:20:45.360 --> 01:20:48.320 to me, I start you know get into your liquor and making 01:20:48.320 --> 01:20:49.200 rude comments. 01:20:49.200 --> 01:20:51.680 Well, suddenly I'm not an invited guest anymore. 01:20:51.680 --> 01:20:54.320 Suddenly I am someone who needs to be sent away. 01:20:54.320 --> 01:20:56.320 And you're gonna physically remove me. 01:20:56.320 --> 01:20:59.120 You know, you might be sad about you know in the case, 01:20:59.120 --> 01:21:01.680 you know, me personally, like I'll be bizarre and out of character. 01:21:01.920 --> 01:21:03.040 I'm not like that. 01:21:03.040 --> 01:21:05.840 But for someone to behave that way, you might be sad that 01:21:05.840 --> 01:21:08.880 they let you down by being a scumbag, but you're not gonna 01:21:08.880 --> 01:21:11.680 be sad about removing them like, well, you gotta go. 01:21:11.680 --> 01:21:14.880 You've overstayed your welcome by becoming an unwelcome guest. 01:21:14.880 --> 01:21:17.120 You have to leave my territory now. 01:21:17.120 --> 01:21:20.400 And then at that point, if the belligerent in this scenario is 01:21:20.480 --> 01:21:24.320 like, no, I don't think I'm going anywhere, then it becomes an 01:21:24.320 --> 01:21:26.400 adversarial situation. 01:21:26.400 --> 01:21:30.880 And you have the absolute authority to make sure that I'm removed. 01:21:30.960 --> 01:21:33.920 Doesn't mean you have the absolute authority to go straight to lethal 01:21:33.920 --> 01:21:37.040 force or any sort of wild overreaction. 01:21:37.040 --> 01:21:40.640 But if you say I'm not welcome in your house anymore, I'm 01:21:40.640 --> 01:21:41.920 now trespassing. 01:21:41.920 --> 01:21:45.120 I'm now in violation of the law, which means that generally what 01:21:45.120 --> 01:21:48.000 should happen if I won't listen to you and you don't feel 01:21:48.000 --> 01:21:50.880 like physically removing, you call the cops and they drag me out 01:21:50.960 --> 01:21:52.160 if I won't leave. 01:21:52.160 --> 01:21:55.280 That's perfectly reasonable because it's your territory. 01:21:55.280 --> 01:21:58.160 You get to say what happens under your roof. 01:21:58.160 --> 01:22:00.960 Even if it's a room in someone else's house and that's all 01:22:00.960 --> 01:22:04.960 you're leasing, you still have the territorial dominion in that place. 01:22:05.280 --> 01:22:08.320 And if someone's a guest, they're only a guest to the extent 01:22:08.320 --> 01:22:11.840 that they're welcome, according to your whims, whatever they are. 01:22:11.840 --> 01:22:15.520 You can't do anything more to them than ask them to leave. 01:22:15.520 --> 01:22:18.960 You can't invite me over and then conduct medical experiments. 01:22:18.960 --> 01:22:22.000 Like that's the fact that I'm in your presence doesn't give you 01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:24.960 authority over my body, but it means you can make me leave 01:22:24.960 --> 01:22:27.760 if you're tired of me. 01:22:27.760 --> 01:22:31.680 Another aspect of this would be if, you know, there are a 01:22:31.680 --> 01:22:35.120 few listeners that certainly make a lot more money than I do. 01:22:35.120 --> 01:22:37.760 And say I one day I got really envious of that and 01:22:37.760 --> 01:22:38.800 said, you know what? 01:22:38.800 --> 01:22:40.320 I want a better life. 01:22:40.320 --> 01:22:41.760 I know where I can get a better life. 01:22:41.760 --> 01:22:42.800 I I know this guy. 01:22:42.800 --> 01:22:45.440 I don't know anyone's names where any of you live, but say 01:22:45.520 --> 01:22:48.080 for the sake of argument, like hey, I know this guy. 01:22:48.080 --> 01:22:49.280 He likes the show. 01:22:49.280 --> 01:22:51.120 I'm gonna show up at his house and I'm gonna have a 01:22:51.120 --> 01:22:52.640 better life living with him. 01:22:52.640 --> 01:22:55.360 Cause you have better food than me, you got a bigger house, 01:22:55.360 --> 01:22:57.600 bigger TV, whatever. 01:22:57.600 --> 01:22:59.040 I show up, I say, you know what? 01:22:59.040 --> 01:23:00.240 I'm here for a better life. 01:23:00.240 --> 01:23:04.160 I invite myself in, sit down, start eating your food, living like 01:23:04.160 --> 01:23:05.840 it's mine. 01:23:05.840 --> 01:23:08.880 This is an absurd example because you're you're not even gonna let 01:23:08.880 --> 01:23:09.760 me in the door. 01:23:09.760 --> 01:23:12.800 And you're gonna deal with me pretty harshly pretty quickly because I'm 01:23:12.800 --> 01:23:18.480 uninvited. I'm acting envious, and you have every right to jealously guard 01:23:18.480 --> 01:23:21.440 your property, the things that God has blessed you with. 01:23:21.440 --> 01:23:23.680 If I show up and say, hey, I like this, I want 01:23:23.680 --> 01:23:24.400 a peace. 01:23:24.400 --> 01:23:28.400 Okay, well, that's a very interesting theory, but I need to leave. 01:23:28.400 --> 01:23:30.560 And if I don't, you're going to deal with it. 01:23:30.560 --> 01:23:32.640 There's never going to be thought in your mind, well, you know, 01:23:32.640 --> 01:23:33.760 he's sojourning. 01:23:33.760 --> 01:23:35.040 Maybe I should welcome him in. 01:23:35.040 --> 01:23:36.320 You know, he's a podcaster. 01:23:36.320 --> 01:23:37.520 Those are special people. 01:23:37.520 --> 01:23:39.920 Maybe he's chosen to do this. 01:23:39.920 --> 01:23:42.000 No, absolutely not. 01:23:42.000 --> 01:23:46.400 The second somebody shows up acting entitled, they get dealt with like 01:23:46.400 --> 01:23:48.880 someone who's hostile. 01:23:48.880 --> 01:23:53.280 The reason this is important is because your territorial sovereignty in your 01:23:53.520 --> 01:23:57.840 house on your land under your roof is absolute to the extent 01:23:57.840 --> 01:24:01.360 that it excludes me or anyone else from doing anything you don't 01:24:01.280 --> 01:24:02.320 want done. 01:24:02.320 --> 01:24:05.040 And that extends to the nation. 01:24:05.040 --> 01:24:08.880 The national level, a country has exactly the same rights. 01:24:08.880 --> 01:24:13.200 We have territorial rights to say this group is us, and that 01:24:13.200 --> 01:24:15.360 other group is not us. 01:24:15.360 --> 01:24:19.120 And even if someone is welcome as a guest temporarily, which is 01:24:19.120 --> 01:24:22.960 fine, travel's fine, vacationing is fine. 01:24:22.960 --> 01:24:26.880 When it turns into invasion, when it turns into envy, which is 01:24:26.880 --> 01:24:28.800 where someone says, Oh, I want a better life. 01:24:28.800 --> 01:24:29.840 I know where I can get it. 01:24:29.840 --> 01:24:31.680 I can get a better life in the United States. 01:24:31.680 --> 01:24:32.960 They got a bunch of stuff. 01:24:32.960 --> 01:24:34.800 They have nicer stuff than I have. 01:24:34.800 --> 01:24:37.920 I'm gonna go there and take their stuff because I want it. 01:24:37.920 --> 01:24:41.440 The only difference between the example where you would kick my butt 01:24:41.440 --> 01:24:44.000 and throw me out on the street if I tried to do 01:24:44.000 --> 01:24:48.320 it and when the Haitian or the Squatemalin does it is the 01:24:48.480 --> 01:24:52.080 I'm white and you know that it's BS if I try it. 01:24:52.080 --> 01:24:54.640 Suddenly Suddenly, if somebody has an accent and they have a different 01:24:54.640 --> 01:24:57.280 skin color, like, oh wow, I'm so confused. 01:24:57.280 --> 01:24:58.160 I don't know what's going on. 01:24:58.160 --> 01:24:59.920 Maybe I have to let them in. 01:24:59.920 --> 01:25:01.600 This is insane. 01:25:01.600 --> 01:25:04.240 This land is our land. 01:25:04.240 --> 01:25:05.680 God gave it to us. 01:25:05.680 --> 01:25:09.280 This is our territory that we protect because it's given to us 01:25:09.280 --> 01:25:10.960 for that purpose. 01:25:10.960 --> 01:25:14.480 The way we treat our country is the way we would treat 01:25:14.480 --> 01:25:15.200 our house. 01:25:15.200 --> 01:25:18.480 There is literally no difference. 01:25:18.480 --> 01:25:24.800 The diffusion of responsibility that's concomitant with democracy is a disaster, but 01:25:24.800 --> 01:25:27.760 it doesn't change the obligations. 01:25:27.760 --> 01:25:30.560 People can't just show up and do whatever they want. 01:25:30.560 --> 01:25:33.280 Even if someone is invited as a guest, they can't do whatever 01:25:33.280 --> 01:25:33.520 they want. 01:25:34.160 --> 01:25:37.120 And the second they become a burden, the second they break into 01:25:37.120 --> 01:25:40.160 your liquor cabinet and start drinking and eating things that don't belong 01:25:40.160 --> 01:25:43.280 to them and acting rude, they get sent home. 01:25:43.280 --> 01:25:45.280 And if they have to get sent home by the scruff of 01:25:45.680 --> 01:25:47.600 their neck, fine. 01:25:47.600 --> 01:25:51.600 That is well within the rights of the territorial sovereign. 01:25:51.600 --> 01:25:55.200 And see, we built up to this point talking about land and 01:25:55.200 --> 01:25:58.160 talking about places that are special to us because when push comes 01:25:58.640 --> 01:26:02.400 to shove, if there's no such thing as territory, all the rest 01:26:02.400 --> 01:26:03.520 is lost. 01:26:03.520 --> 01:26:06.880 If I don't have an absolute right to kick you off my 01:26:06.880 --> 01:26:11.520 property when I'm done with you, not beyond the scope of the 01:26:11.520 --> 01:26:14.480 law, but if I don't have the right to say you gotta 01:26:14.480 --> 01:26:16.720 go now, it's not mine. 01:26:16.720 --> 01:26:18.080 It's not mine at all. 01:26:18.080 --> 01:26:21.280 If I have no territorial claim, I have no land. 01:26:21.280 --> 01:26:23.840 And if I have no land, I can't have any places. 01:26:23.840 --> 01:26:27.200 And if that is the case, I have ceased to be a 01:26:27.200 --> 01:26:28.320 full human being. 01:26:28.320 --> 01:26:29.520 I'm a prisoner. 01:26:29.520 --> 01:26:32.000 I am a prisoner with nothing. 01:26:32.000 --> 01:26:35.840 And the fact that whatever blessings God has given me are being 01:26:36.240 --> 01:26:41.040 legally ripped away and socially ripped away from all these lying clerics 01:26:41.040 --> 01:26:44.880 and all these lying politicians saying, Oh no, no, you gotta you 01:26:44.880 --> 01:26:47.280 gotta do this because they're poor and we gotta let them all 01:26:47.280 --> 01:26:50.240 in. Well, there's clearly no end. 01:26:50.240 --> 01:26:53.440 And it's clear that the purpose of those things is to destroy 01:26:53.440 --> 01:26:54.640 the good that we have. 01:26:54.640 --> 01:26:56.400 It's not about spreading the wealth. 01:26:56.400 --> 01:26:58.960 If that were what we're about, we could send money to them. 01:26:58.960 --> 01:27:00.880 But that's not what's going on. 01:27:00.880 --> 01:27:02.560 They are violating 01:27:03.440 --> 01:27:07.520 our territory, the country that belongs to us, and saying we're just 01:27:07.520 --> 01:27:10.080 going to chop this up into pieces and give it away to 01:27:10.080 --> 01:27:12.480 foreigners. Let them devour it. 01:27:12.480 --> 01:27:15.040 If you wouldn't do it in your house, you cannot permit it 01:27:15.040 --> 01:27:15.360 to be 01:27:16.240 --> 01:27:19.760 the policy of a country, because you don't have a nation. 01:27:19.920 --> 01:27:23.280 I'm using those terms differently advisedly. 01:27:23.280 --> 01:27:28.080 The death of a nation is when the territorial sovereignty is wiped 01:27:28.080 --> 01:27:32.000 away by foreigners not being expelled when they need to be. 01:27:32.000 --> 01:27:36.000 For whatever reason they came here, that's completely immaterial in the moment. 01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:38.800 And when they're coming in more and more and more, and you 01:27:38.800 --> 01:27:42.080 can't even make the territorial claim, hey, this is my land, not 01:27:42.080 --> 01:27:44.240 yours. You need to leave. 01:27:44.240 --> 01:27:46.880 The fact that you can say that to me if I break 01:27:46.880 --> 01:27:50.320 into your house, but we're told that you can't say that to 01:27:50.320 --> 01:27:54.720 someone when they break into your country illustrates the absurdity and the 01:27:54.720 --> 01:27:57.840 wickedness of the lies we're being told. 01:27:57.840 --> 01:28:01.600 If you don't have territorial sovereignty, if you don't have the absolute 01:28:01.600 --> 01:28:04.800 right to kick people out, to determine the terms of people being 01:28:04.800 --> 01:28:07.600 present on your land, you have nothing. 01:28:07.600 --> 01:28:12.720 And that's that's the scenario that we're being reduced to today. 01:28:13.200 --> 01:28:20.960 The core issue, philosophically or politically, when dealing with territory, is sovereignty. 01:28:21.440 --> 01:28:25.520 Now I'll leave aside for the sake of this discussion, the sake 01:28:25.520 --> 01:28:30.480 of the episode, the issue of a suzerain for perhaps that doesn't 01:28:30.480 --> 01:28:32.560 really play into this directly. 01:28:32.560 --> 01:28:38.560 But when you speak of territory, the central question is who is 01:28:38.560 --> 01:28:45.680 sovereign? The sovereign is the entity, the person who has the supreme 01:28:45.680 --> 01:28:50.560 authority with regard to a given territory, with regard to a given 01:28:50.560 --> 01:28:53.680 land, a physical place? 01:28:53.680 --> 01:28:54.320 And so 01:28:55.360 --> 01:28:58.400 in the case of the United States, that is the United States 01:28:58.400 --> 01:29:03.120 government, in the case of France, that is the French government. 01:29:03.120 --> 01:29:07.040 In the case of colonies, for instance, I will comment briefly on 01:29:07.040 --> 01:29:11.760 the issue of suzerainty with regard to a colony that is both 01:29:11.760 --> 01:29:16.080 the local government to a certain degree, and then ultimately the colonial 01:29:16.080 --> 01:29:22.320 government, the overlord, that exercises that ultimate sovereignty. 01:29:22.320 --> 01:29:28.000 If you do not have sovereignty sovereignty then you don't have territory. 01:29:28.000 --> 01:29:32.240 As Well was saying, if you do not have the right to 01:29:32.240 --> 01:29:38.080 eject others from your property, then it isn't your property. 01:29:38.800 --> 01:29:41.200 That is the baseline of all of this. 01:29:41.200 --> 01:29:44.080 That is the foundational principle. 01:29:44.080 --> 01:29:51.040 If you cannot exercise exclusive control over a given chunk of land, 01:29:51.040 --> 01:29:55.360 then it is not your property, because you are not sovereign with 01:29:55.360 --> 01:29:58.640 regard to it. 01:29:58.640 --> 01:30:04.960 When you have competing claims of exclusive control, of authority over a 01:30:04.960 --> 01:30:11.440 given chunk of land, and those are between states, that's called war. 01:30:11.440 --> 01:30:18.080 Or at the very least a diplomatic incident, usually devolves into war. 01:30:18.160 --> 01:30:21.520 With regard to neighbors, that would be a matter of a civil 01:30:21.520 --> 01:30:24.800 suit or historically something perhaps a little more violent. 01:30:24.800 --> 01:30:28.960 Today hopefully that goes to the courts. 01:30:28.960 --> 01:30:31.840 But you have to have sovereignty. 01:30:31.840 --> 01:30:37.040 But one of the core aspects of sovereignty is that exercise of 01:30:37.040 --> 01:30:40.960 exclusivity, of the exclusive control over it. 01:30:40.960 --> 01:30:44.480 There are many examples we could give in order to compare this 01:30:44.480 --> 01:30:48.880 to other parts of life that are perhaps more comprehensible. 01:30:48.880 --> 01:30:54.160 Your wife is your wife because you have exclusive ownership. 01:30:54.160 --> 01:30:57.840 She would cease to be if you did not. 01:30:57.840 --> 01:31:00.240 That's just how that works. 01:31:00.240 --> 01:31:04.960 The same thing is true with regard to territory. 01:31:04.960 --> 01:31:08.880 You must have exclusive ownership, which means the Means the right to 01:31:08.880 --> 01:31:14.640 eject others, or you do not have control. 01:31:14.640 --> 01:31:20.640 With regard to a nation, this is territorial sovereignty, and it is 01:31:20.640 --> 01:31:24.080 exercised over the national territory. 01:31:24.080 --> 01:31:31.200 That is the geographic area over which this given state exercises exclusive 01:31:31.200 --> 01:31:36.880 control. And that's going to include land and territorial waters adjacent sea 01:31:36.880 --> 01:31:38.160 to the territory. 01:31:38.160 --> 01:31:41.920 That gets into international law, but that's a separate matter. 01:31:41.920 --> 01:31:46.720 There's a very good reason that early on in this episode, we 01:31:46.720 --> 01:31:51.600 mentioned what it means to be a nation, what the requirements are 01:31:51.600 --> 01:31:55.920 to be a nation, blood and soil, again leaving aside myth for 01:31:55.920 --> 01:31:58.560 another day. 01:31:59.360 --> 01:32:04.000 If the soil is taken away, if the property is taken away, 01:32:04.000 --> 01:32:09.920 if the exclusive occupation of that soil by those of that blood 01:32:10.080 --> 01:32:17.440 is taken away or destroyed, the nation will inevitably cease to exist. 01:32:17.440 --> 01:32:20.240 And so when you look at the current state of the world 01:32:20.480 --> 01:32:26.000 and you look at the so called immigration or immigration crisis, sometimes 01:32:26.000 --> 01:32:31.120 called. Recognize it for the reality of what it is. 01:32:31.120 --> 01:32:35.840 Recognize it for the reality of what is being achieved, of what 01:32:35.840 --> 01:32:38.400 is being done with it. 01:32:39.360 --> 01:32:41.680 Immigration is a weapon. 01:32:41.680 --> 01:32:43.520 It is meant to destroy. 01:32:43.520 --> 01:32:48.480 That is what it does, fundamentally speaking, because it is not immigration, 01:32:48.480 --> 01:32:50.400 it is an invasion. 01:32:50.400 --> 01:32:52.480 It is a punishment from God. 01:32:53.040 --> 01:32:58.000 It is destruction wrought by our wicked rulers. 01:32:58.000 --> 01:33:01.440 Because what again is the ultimate outcome? 01:33:01.440 --> 01:33:04.320 It is the destruction of the nation 01:33:05.600 --> 01:33:10.000 If you cannot defend your nation, if you cannot bring yourself to 01:33:10.000 --> 01:33:12.960 care for your nation more than you would care for the stranger 01:33:12.960 --> 01:33:16.640 or the alien, then not only are you not a Christian, as 01:33:16.640 --> 01:33:20.800 we've covered previously in many episodes, but you're not even human, you're 01:33:20.800 --> 01:33:22.560 not a man. 01:33:22.560 --> 01:33:25.760 That is so fundamentally alien to what it means to be a 01:33:25.760 --> 01:33:31.200 human being that you cannot possibly have loves Loves and a sense 01:33:31.200 --> 01:33:36.000 of duty and desires that are so inverted from what is natural 01:33:36.000 --> 01:33:39.680 for a human being and retain your humanity 01:33:41.120 --> 01:33:46.160 you necessarily sink to a lower level, to something that is subhuman, 01:33:46.160 --> 01:33:49.200 at the absolute best. 01:33:49.200 --> 01:33:52.800 We can also turn to scripture for some of these things, and 01:33:52.960 --> 01:33:55.840 of course we always do that, and we'll do that here That 01:33:55.840 --> 01:34:02.080 here. I want you to think about the promises in the Old 01:34:02.080 --> 01:34:07.680 Testament. What is it that God promised to Abraham? 01:34:07.680 --> 01:34:11.040 What is it that God promised to the patriarchs? 01:34:11.040 --> 01:34:14.960 What is it that God promised to the nation of Israel? 01:34:14.960 --> 01:34:19.040 Now, of course, there were promises with regard to the Messiah, with 01:34:19.040 --> 01:34:22.160 regard to Christ, who would come from that line, from the line 01:34:22.160 --> 01:34:29.680 of David, but temporally, physically. 01:34:29.680 --> 01:34:32.000 They were promised a land. 01:34:32.000 --> 01:34:36.480 God said, I will give you a land, a rich land floating 01:34:36.960 --> 01:34:38.960 with milk and honey. 01:34:38.960 --> 01:34:43.120 The promise was to make them a great nation. 01:34:43.120 --> 01:34:46.240 In fact, that's exactly what God said to Abraham, I will make 01:34:46.240 --> 01:34:48.480 of you a great nation. 01:34:48.480 --> 01:34:49.600 How can you do that? 01:34:49.600 --> 01:34:52.560 How can God do that? 01:34:52.560 --> 01:34:54.800 He had to give them a land. 01:34:54.800 --> 01:34:57.200 He had to give them a physical place. 01:34:57.200 --> 01:35:02.560 He had to give them territory over which they had exclusive control. 01:35:03.360 --> 01:35:09.360 But it was contingent because those things, those blessings are always contingent. 01:35:09.360 --> 01:35:12.720 They are contingent on faithfulness. 01:35:12.720 --> 01:35:17.920 And now you'll get some modern so-called Christians, dispensationalists, who will claim 01:35:17.920 --> 01:35:22.080 that this territory, these promises to Israel, were above and beyond and 01:35:22.080 --> 01:35:26.240 particularly special, and absolutely not. 01:35:27.360 --> 01:35:32.480 Because it is the exact same promise God gives to every nation. 01:35:32.480 --> 01:35:36.000 Because what does Scripture say about the nations? 01:35:36.000 --> 01:35:39.280 It is God who sets their borders in their times. 01:35:39.280 --> 01:35:42.880 And so that is the promise of a land that God has 01:35:42.880 --> 01:35:46.240 given to every nation, and a nation is just a group of 01:35:46.240 --> 01:35:53.920 related families, an extended family, often named after the patriarch historically. 01:35:55.440 --> 01:36:01.920 The promises of a land to the various other sons, grandsons, great 01:36:01.920 --> 01:36:06.720 grandsons, so on and so forth of Noah are not lesser and 01:36:06.720 --> 01:36:11.440 are not greater than those given to the sons of Israel. 01:36:11.440 --> 01:36:14.480 Because it is God who sets the borders, it is God who 01:36:14.480 --> 01:36:18.160 sets the times, it is God who has given that exclusive control 01:36:18.240 --> 01:36:21.360 to certain territories, to certain peoples. 01:36:22.480 --> 01:36:27.200 And when a wicked government, or when wicked third parties attempt to 01:36:27.200 --> 01:36:32.720 take that territory away from you, you have duties, you have very 01:36:32.720 --> 01:36:34.240 real duties. 01:36:34.240 --> 01:36:38.080 Because that is evil and it must not be tolerated. 01:36:38.080 --> 01:36:42.080 When you tolerate these things, you bring the evil on yourself, you 01:36:42.080 --> 01:36:45.760 bring greater judgment on yourself. 01:36:45.760 --> 01:36:50.000 Because with regard to this sovereignty, do not take it as an 01:36:50.000 --> 01:36:55.120 absolute. Sometimes, in some places, historically and legally, it has been taken 01:36:55.120 --> 01:36:57.040 too far. 01:36:57.040 --> 01:36:59.920 And it is taken too far when we do not recognize that 01:36:59.920 --> 01:37:03.760 there are also duties. 01:37:03.760 --> 01:37:06.080 You can take the small example. 01:37:06.080 --> 01:37:08.080 Your family. 01:37:08.080 --> 01:37:14.000 As the father of the household you have sovereignty with regard to 01:37:14.000 --> 01:37:18.080 your household, with regard to your land. 01:37:18.080 --> 01:37:21.440 But it is not unlimited, it is not absolute. 01:37:21.440 --> 01:37:25.680 If you beat your wife and mistreat your children, the magistrate is 01:37:25.680 --> 01:37:29.200 empowered, and it is his right, it is his duty to come 01:37:29.200 --> 01:37:31.200 in and stop that. 01:37:31.200 --> 01:37:34.480 However necessary. 01:37:34.480 --> 01:37:39.360 The magistrate has control over a local territory. 01:37:39.360 --> 01:37:43.280 He has duties with regard to that territory, and he has rights 01:37:43.280 --> 01:37:47.920 with regard to that territory, particularly legal rights, in order to execute 01:37:47.920 --> 01:37:49.200 his duties. 01:37:49.680 --> 01:37:56.000 If he exceeds the bounds, he must answer to the higher magistrate. 01:37:56.000 --> 01:37:59.360 The lesser magistrate answers to the superior. 01:37:59.360 --> 01:38:02.080 That is how the system works. 01:38:02.080 --> 01:38:06.400 The magistrate who is at the top, the godly prince, the godly 01:38:06.400 --> 01:38:10.960 king, the ultimate earthly sovereign. 01:38:10.960 --> 01:38:14.000 He must answer to God. 01:38:14.000 --> 01:38:16.480 And God will certainly judge him. 01:38:16.480 --> 01:38:20.800 He will certainly receive a stricter judgment, because he has been given 01:38:20.800 --> 01:38:24.960 greater duty, greater authority by God. 01:38:24.960 --> 01:38:28.160 From the one to whom much has been given will much be 01:38:28.160 --> 01:38:32.800 demanded. Scripture is abundantly clear about that. 01:38:32.800 --> 01:38:36.320 The things that God has entrusted to your care, you will be 01:38:36.320 --> 01:38:40.160 made to answer for how you used them, or how you squandered 01:38:40.160 --> 01:38:42.320 them, or failed to use them. 01:38:42.880 --> 01:38:46.240 And that most certainly includes the land that God has given you, 01:38:46.240 --> 01:38:50.000 whether it is your land as a person, as an individual man, 01:38:50.000 --> 01:38:53.120 or as a nation. 01:38:53.120 --> 01:38:57.040 I've said this before and I would recommend it again, but go 01:38:57.040 --> 01:39:02.240 and look at the instances in Scripture where God speaks to the 01:39:02.240 --> 01:39:04.160 nation of Israel. 01:39:04.160 --> 01:39:07.920 There are many instances where God speaks to the nation of Israel 01:39:08.560 --> 01:39:12.160 as if the nation of Israel were a single man. 01:39:12.160 --> 01:39:15.840 There are million of them at this time, two million, two million 01:39:15.840 --> 01:39:21.840 men, millions of people constituting this nation, and God speaks to them 01:39:21.840 --> 01:39:25.200 as if they were a single man. 01:39:25.200 --> 01:39:29.920 Because in a very real way, a nation is an entity in 01:39:29.920 --> 01:39:32.240 and of itself. 01:39:32.480 --> 01:39:36.960 It is comprised of individuals, but the nation is a gestalt the 01:39:36.960 --> 01:39:41.680 same as you are, it is a sum of the individual members 01:39:41.680 --> 01:39:44.960 that is greater than that sum. 01:39:44.960 --> 01:39:49.760 If you take away part of what is necessary for the future 01:39:49.760 --> 01:39:55.200 of a nation, you have committed an act more heinous than murder. 01:39:55.440 --> 01:40:01.520 Because as Wo said previously, there is a reason destroying a nation 01:40:01.520 --> 01:40:04.480 is seen as such a heinous crime. 01:40:04.480 --> 01:40:08.000 There is a reason that treason is seen as such a heinous 01:40:08.000 --> 01:40:12.080 crime. Because when you commit treason against the nation, what you are 01:40:12.080 --> 01:40:18.240 doing is murdering every single man, woman and child in and of 01:40:18.240 --> 01:40:19.760 that nation. 01:40:19.760 --> 01:40:23.280 You are committing an act of genocide. 01:40:23.280 --> 01:40:26.320 It is an evil. 01:40:26.320 --> 01:40:32.240 There is no greater evil, except of course treason against God. 01:40:32.240 --> 01:40:39.440 Treason, betrayal of your nation, is the greatest earthly evil that 01:40:39.440 --> 01:40:40.880 you can commit. 01:40:40.880 --> 01:40:44.240 And that is exactly what we see being done by so many 01:40:44.240 --> 01:40:48.880 Western and other governments these days, because they are bringing in hostile 01:40:48.880 --> 01:40:54.480 aliens, they are bringing in incompatible foreigners in order to subvert and 01:40:54.480 --> 01:40:59.680 destroy the native population, in order to destroy the nation. 01:40:59.680 --> 01:41:03.200 That is black letter law genocide. 01:41:03.200 --> 01:41:04.480 It is certainly a rejection of 01:41:05.360 --> 01:41:08.640 the blessings that God has given us. 01:41:08.640 --> 01:41:12.720 And as Christians we should absolutely not be complicit in that sort 01:41:12.720 --> 01:41:13.760 of evil. 01:41:13.760 --> 01:41:17.920 We have to recognize that the territory that God has given us 01:41:18.640 --> 01:41:23.040 is a necessary component of what it means to be a nation. 01:41:23.040 --> 01:41:29.280 If we give up that exclusive authority, that exclusive exercise of ownership 01:41:29.280 --> 01:41:33.840 over that territory, we will ultimately lose everything. 01:41:33.840 --> 01:41:36.800 We see this in the pages of history and we see this 01:41:36.800 --> 01:41:38.880 in the pages of scripture. 01:41:38.880 --> 01:41:42.480 If you lose your land, you cease to be a nation, there 01:41:42.480 --> 01:41:44.800 is no other outcome. 01:41:44.800 --> 01:41:49.120 That is the destruction of everything that you should hold dear. 01:41:49.120 --> 01:41:55.360 And it is what we see being done actively, deliberately, intentionally today 01:41:57.200 --> 01:42:03.760 without control over your territory, you lose the ability as a people 01:42:03.760 --> 01:42:07.520 to make those connections of place. 01:42:07.520 --> 01:42:11.200 When you lose the ability to make those connections with regard to 01:42:11.200 --> 01:42:16.560 place, you lose any real meaning, any tether that ties you to 01:42:16.560 --> 01:42:20.720 a particular part of land, to a particular piece of land. 01:42:20.720 --> 01:42:25.040 And when you ultimately lose that land because that's the next step, 01:42:25.040 --> 01:42:28.880 then you lose everything. 01:42:28.880 --> 01:42:33.200 Man is of the earth, and without that connection to the earth, 01:42:33.200 --> 01:42:38.320 without having your feet firmly planted on that soil, on which your 01:42:38.320 --> 01:42:43.600 fathers and your grandfathers and your forefathers stood, you cease to be 01:42:43.600 --> 01:42:47.360 a man, and ultimately you will cease to be anything at all 01:42:47.520 --> 01:42:50.240 because you will Because your nation will pass into the pages of 01:42:50.240 --> 01:42:54.400 history, and it will not continue into the future. 01:42:54.400 --> 01:42:56.800 That is what we are facing today. 01:42:56.800 --> 01:42:59.920 And that is why land matters. 01:42:59.920 --> 01:43:02.320 Land is not just something that you look out the window and 01:43:02.320 --> 01:43:04.080 you see. 01:43:04.080 --> 01:43:08.480 Land is something upon which you stand, something for which you stand, 01:43:08.480 --> 01:43:12.320 something as a man you should be willing to defend, something upon 01:43:12.320 --> 01:43:16.960 which you rely for your future, for a meaningful future, for your 01:43:16.960 --> 01:43:20.800 ability to be a full and complete human being by developing connections 01:43:20.800 --> 01:43:22.240 with it. 01:43:22.240 --> 01:43:27.200 Extending those connections with regard to your neighbour, with regard to your 01:43:27.200 --> 01:43:31.680 cousins, with regard to the other families that constitute your nation, and 01:43:31.680 --> 01:43:38.160 together exercising that territorial sovereignty, whether it's embodied in a godly prince 01:43:38.160 --> 01:43:42.400 or some other ruler, may God give us a godly king, but 01:43:42.400 --> 01:43:46.560 regardless of the sovereign in which it is embodied, it is incumbent 01:43:46.560 --> 01:43:51.280 on that sovereign to exercise defense over that territory for the good 01:43:51.280 --> 01:43:54.080 of those who have been entrusted to his care, which is to 01:43:54.080 --> 01:43:58.960 say the nation, not foreigners, not aliens, not those who have come 01:43:58.960 --> 01:44:02.160 here to steal and rape and kill. 01:44:02.160 --> 01:44:06.640 It is his duty to exercise his office, his authority, the power 01:44:06.640 --> 01:44:10.960 that God has given him on this earth, to protect those entrusted 01:44:10.960 --> 01:44:17.120 to his care, those to whom he owes duties, not foreigners, not 01:44:17.120 --> 01:44:24.880 aliens, his family, because ultimately that is what a nation is. 01:44:24.880 --> 01:44:29.280 And as Christians we should be willing to defend our nation and 01:44:29.280 --> 01:44:34.640 the territory on which it rests, at least as vehemently, at least 01:44:34.640 --> 01:44:39.600 as staunchly, and at least as uncompromisingly as we are willing to 01:44:39.600 --> 01:44:45.200 defend our own home and our own family that God has given 01:44:45.200 --> 01:44:48.720 us and entrusted to our care Our care. 01:44:48.720 --> 01:44:52.640 It is our duty as men to do nothing less.