FF 503: Fighting Back Against the Unhinged Left with Steven Fox

Steven Fox is an entrepreneur and passionate photographer with over 30 years of experience. He owns a photography business and specializes in family portraits, senior sessions, commercial work and food photography. Steven also Fox N’ Sons Coffee, which he started in part to pass on the spirit of entrepreneurship to his sons. Get 15% off Fox N’ Sons Coffee off an order of $40 or more with promo code “JOHN” We have a new show on Lions of Liberty! The Politicks Podcast! Be sure to subscribe to the standalone Politicks Podcast feed. This is the absolute best way to support the show! Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And remember, they’re all Blood Suckers! Subscribe to John’s Finding Freedom Show solo feed to listen to “Pursuit of Freedom,” which is a new podcast series where John shares the highs and lows of his entrepreneurial journey. Listen and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Follow the Lions of Liberty: Twitter Rumble YouTube Instagram Telegram Get access to all of our bonus audio content, livestreams, behind-the-scenes segments and more for as little as $5 per month by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride on Patreon OR support us on Locals! Check out our merchandise at the Lions of Liberty Store for all of our awesome t-shirts, mugs and hats! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  We are born free. And we will die free. The time in between, though. That's complicated. In that time, governments, institutions, and our egos will limit our ability to find true freedom in this life. These are real stories of real people overcoming the odds, persevering in justice, and unlocking their potential. Welcome to Finding Freedom. Here's your host, John Oderman.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to Finding Freedom here on the Lions of Liberty Podcast Network. Great to have you here for another live show as we're streaming live on YouTube and Twitter, not on Rumble right now because I forgot to put it on Rumble. So I will get it up there after the fact. But of course, published audio everywhere, all the podcast apps. So please go listen, watch, subscribe, comment, support the show. I really do appreciate all of that. So thank you in advance. Got a good show for today, a fun show, interesting, interesting show, bringing back a friend

• 1:15Speaker 01

  of the show, someone who I promote a little bit on this show. If you're a long time listener, you will, I think, recognize his name. So Stephen Fox is back on the show. Stephen's been on twice now, I think. The last time we did like a more of a deep dive into, into the coffee business with, with Fox and Sons Coffee, which I promote here, where of course you can get 15% off and order $40 or more for a bag of coffee with using promo code JOHN, J O H N, at checkout. So go ahead and buy some coffee. But Stephen, great to have you back on the show.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Thanks, man. I really appreciate you having me on.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  And Stephen, the reason, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you back on, I like talking to you. That's one reason, but the main reason is you reached out to me recently.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  On X, this group called Extreme Michigan, at Extreme Michigan. Started going after you, going after your, your business, going after you, you personally.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Both businesses, not just one, they went after both of me.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Both of your businesses and you know, from, from my perspective, when I see someone who's, who's my friend, someone who was a good guy, someone who was a fellow Christian. And when I see them under attack, you know, I want to help out. How, how can I help to, to defend? So first off, what do you know about this group, Extreme Michigan? And tell us a little bit about, you know, what they, you know, what they posted and what they did.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  I really, I don't know much about them at all. They're, of course you can't find out who they actually are because they hide that. They, they just go through and they try to dox people, try to get people like canceled hurt.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  It, it was, uh, so I was doing the morning show with, uh, Justin. And we were talking and I pull up, pull up X, Twitter, whatever. I always call Twitter. Pulled that up and all of a sudden I see this post on there saying like, Stephen's Fox supports. So I work with, I work with you. I work with a lot of other podcasters, ones, Old Glory Club, OGC. And it was like, they're, they're antisemitites and they're, they're, uh, you know, they're, they're racist. And I'm like, and what's your point? Keep going, come on. So it was just.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Use, use all the names. Don't leave, don't leave any out. They're Nazis too.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, you forgot. Yeah. You definitely forgot Nazi on that one, but they, you know, so they tagged me, they tagged Old Glory Club. There was an article written about Old Glory Club, uh, from, I forget the article, but it was one of those, you know, one of the hit pieces that was written about them.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  And so.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  They just attacked me. They attacked them because I support them and advertise on their podcasts. They came after me as well. Um, and you know, just they tagged some local newspapers. Yeah, at first I admit at first it was like, oh crap, like I'm screwed. I'm sunk and

• 4:37Speaker 02

  I got some advice from, I'm in a group with a few other people on Twitter and I showed them the screenshot. I'm like, hey, I need like, what would you guys do? And somebody said, don't respond, don't respond. Block them. Don't respond. Just have as many people as you can, report it and see what happens. And so I did that and it died. It died pretty quickly. You know, I had the boys from OGC came out and uh, we had a lot of orders that day. It was a really amazing. It was one of our best online days ever.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  Um, you know, cause they, they're good, they're good men. They support, they support the people that support them. And um, you know, Pete went out there and said some stuff and they went out there and told their followers and um, you know, like I just contacted everybody and like, hey, can you please uh,

• 5:25Speaker 02

  you know, report the, report the post as doxing and all this stuff. And of course, nothing happened to them. Twitter's like, oh no, they're fine. You know, rules for thee, not for me, you know, that kind of thing. Uh, even though one of my accounts got busted for like, just saying something stupid. They got, I got uh, they took out one of my accounts not a couple of years ago. So I was really bummed because it was the day after Tom Massey followed me. I was like, sweet, moving up on Twitter world. And so I got, I got.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  That's probably why they did it. That's why they did it. Trying to knock down.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  I said, I said something somewhat stupid, you know, there was a, there was a guy on there that had glued his hands to the ground and I said they should have just cut him off at the wrist instead of ruining the pavement. So I got, I got busted for violence, calling for violence. It's just kind of funny, but no, so, so that happens. They, they come after me. They post about it. Uh, they tag local newspapers, which kind of freaked me out. That was, I was like, uh, the last thing I need is, cause you know, you know, reporters are, they don't actually look into thing. They don't nuance anything. They just go, oh racist. Let's, let's go after them. Luckily none of that stuff happened. Um.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Uh, did, did you freeze up there, Steve? And you still there?

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Looks like we're frozen on Stevenson or it could be on my end. I don't know. If anyone's watching live, let me know.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  There we go. You're back. Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Can you see that?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. You're, you're good now. You're good now.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. My boys are always playing online. Sorry. Um. So where, where'd you lose me at?

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Um.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  That's okay. I'll just, I'll kind of start over. Um, so.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I, I don't think you need to start over. I mean,

• 7:21Speaker 02

  No, no, not start over. I'll just go back a little bit, but, um, yeah. So it actually worked out really well. I had a bunch of people would do some orders. Um, you know, a lot of things were said. And their post got like maybe 4,000 views. Um. They tagged somebody who I used to work with, but I forgot to take down the link off my website. So. Whatever. Um, but. Yeah. It was, like I said, at first, when I first saw it, I was, I was pretty taken aback. I was like, oh crap. Like this is, this is not good. Um. And then when I saw they tagged both my photography business and my copy business, I was even, I was even more worried. I think five years ago would have,

• 8:05Speaker 02

  would have really sucked me. Um, but I don't think that they have the power that they thought they did anymore. Which is the good news. That's, that's a good part coming out of it.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. And when, so when you say, yeah, five years ago, so pre Elon Twitter. Um, yeah, something like that. You probably would be sunk because you know, the, the people that would,

• 8:28Speaker 01

  well, I guess, I guess a couple of things, maybe something like that would have been elevated in the, you know, the leftist, the old algorithm um to, to, to, you know, sic the dogs on this guy, this, this Nazi white supremacist anti Semite, um a post like that, you know, might have gotten elevated more. Now with uh, you know, the, the way that Twitter is set up, I mean, you gotta actually draw real engagement. You have to find ways to uh, you know, bring value to people. Um, things don't get, I mean, I'm sure the algorithm does have certain things that, that it promotes and,

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  and things like that, but um, it's not, it's not promoting just based off of leftist hate, which is essentially what it was previously.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Well, that and the, the whole, they killed all the bots, like they, you know, Elon did turn the bots off. So would that, that helped out a lot because there were tons of bots on there that were always just finding those things and then amplifying them a lot more. So, um, yeah, so I, I, I think, I think that because of that stuff, I think that did help a lot. I mean, I, and I think people are in a different mood now. People are pretty much like, yeah, you can say everybody is a racist because that's all you ever do. So nobody gives a crap anymore. And I think that's part of it as well. I think people just don't care. Like people are over, over being called names. You know, they, they see, they see what the other side's doing and they're just, they're tired of it. Like,

• 10:01Speaker 02

  I don't think it works anymore. I mean, I think it can work if you really go after somebody hard, but I think for the most part, it doesn't work like it used to.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  And I wonder, I wonder how much of that is just fatigue? Like you're saying, people just being fatigued by it. So it's like the boy who cried wolf. If you say it over and over again, the term loses its meaning. You know, that's not to say that, you know, they're, they're using this, this, they're not calling actual racist racist, but you keep using these words. They, they lose their meaning. So maybe when you have someone who's actually racist and you use it, then it's not going to have meaning there either. So what they've done is they've, they've destroyed vocabulary essentially.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, they absolutely have it. They, they, they're to the point now where it just doesn't matter. You know, one of the things Justin said to me when, cause I was on the show when it actually happened. It's like,

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Did you address it on the show? Did you, did you talk about?

• 11:04Speaker 02

  Well, I was like, I was like, hey, this, I, I put it in the private chat that, that it popped up. And Justin's like, lean into it. I'm like, no way, man. I'm not leaning into this, but it took me a minute to, to like kind of think about it. And I was like, yeah, actually you do, you lean into it. You're like, fine. Call me whatever you want to call me. I don't care anymore. You know, it just, it, it doesn't affect me anymore. You know, was that, uh, the line from Princess Bride? Like, I don't think that word means what you think it means. You know, it's like, it just, it doesn't matter anymore. I mean, it definitely can have.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  I think it can affect you with normies, but with, the people on Twitter, they're like, no, we're done. We're not doing this. This is a dumb game. We're not playing this game anymore.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't even know where normies hang out now. I mean,

• 11:55Speaker 02

  I don't think there's very many of them left. I think everybody's kind of polarized now. So.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  One way or the other. Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  I just, I just saw a post today, this morning on Twitter. I, I forget who posted it. It was one of those, one of these accounts where it was someone. Um, who used to be a Democrat, but then voted for Trump this last election. And they posted something like, if you have a story of a friend or family member who ended their friendship with you because you voted for Trump, share it below. And it was crazy. I was reading through it for like five minutes on all of these people, you know, talking about 30 year long friendships that were, that were ended just because um, they voted for Trump in this, in this last election. So, yeah, it's a, it's very polarized right now, obviously.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  And it's not, it's not improving. And we, we were talking about this on um, the politics podcast on Friday, which if you're not subscribed to, you should, myself, Brian Williams, Lou Perez, Brian Nichols, every other Friday. Um, check out the politics podcast, but

• 13:04Speaker 01

  how, you know, this, this latest thing where, where Trump is, and it's, it's being, it's being, um, you know, the media is reporting on it through the frame of Trump is going to try to change history. But what Trump is doing is going to these, you know, Smithsonian's who get like 67, 70% of their funding from the federal government. And having them take out all of the woke bullshit. And it's like, well, is this going to lead to, uh, you know,

• 13:33Speaker 01

  really a, a run here where we go back and forth between left and right administrations? And they just keep changing history, keep changing stuff, and it swings back and forth.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, I mean, it's, that's going to happen for sure. I mean, because you're not going to have, it'd be nice to see Trump redistrict everywhere and only have Republicans in office. It'd be great. But it's not going to happen. So you will see that. It'll be, it will be interesting. And it's funny because, yeah, you hear, you hear the NPR types and that's of saying, oh, he's changing history. It's like, no, he's just pulling out the BS. It's not, it's not bad. Yeah. So.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we find out so many things, you know, 20, 30 years later that, oh, wait, that history was wrong and the conspiracy theories were right. So people have this, this high view of the history that we've been taught growing up in public schools and a lot of it's just bullshit. And I, I mean, I think the, the cool thing is in like the, the white pill in all of this, one of the white pills, you look at the younger generations, you know, like Gen Z and I guess Gen Alpha is before that. They don't trust institutions anymore. I was talking about that with, with Jeffrey Tucker, when I had him on. They don't, you know, they don't trust the FBI, the CIA.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  They don't trust their teachers even as much. And a lot of them are starting to ask questions and they're looking towards religion. They're looking towards faith and being like, what, what is the truth here? Like, what is the true source of, of truth in this world?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Well, I just, I read a post the other day on X Twitter. I'm sorry, I've called Twitter.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't care what you're calling.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  I, I read a post on there saying that like, that church, that the young, younger people, probably 30 and under, have started going to church more over the last two years. Like it's grown by 30% out of that, out of that crowd.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Which is crazy, which is like a huge, that's a huge reversal, right?

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Like, and I've seen like, even with my son, I've watched him have stances that I've had, but never said much about because I didn't want to,

• 15:55Speaker 02

  those things I just didn't want to like push on him. But it was really funny because my wife and I were talking one day or said something, she was giving me grief about some conspiracy theories. And I was like, well, you know, Helen Keller was fake, right? And she was like, no, my son's like, absolutely it was. He, he just goes off and starts bringing up all these facts. And I was like, we have never spoken about this. And I'm so proud that he knew all these facts about it. And he was like, yeah, it's just total bullshit. It's like, and he was probably 18 at the time. He was like, he was like, you're telling me this happened? Like this person actually did this? It's like, and I just sat back and let him go and, and totally my wife just got the biggest, you

• 16:39Speaker 02

  know, was it the biggest red pill ever? He's just like.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Helen Keller thing, it's like, there's like a timeline of waking up, you know, first you start to, you know, learn about libertarian beliefs, you get into Ron Paul, then maybe you become an anarchist, and then, you know, something, something happens where you realize, oh, wait a minute, this philosophy and all of this doesn't work. And then you start to question everything around you. And, I mean, it's, it's, it's great for, for young kids to be getting to that point so quickly, where you're questioning Helen Keller, and I'm just waiting for like, they're still teaching this shit in school, too.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude, it didn't hit me into my 40s, like, the Helen Keller thing, he's half my age, I'm like, I'm so proud, I'm like, the kid's gonna be good, you know, he's gonna, he's gonna be good, he's gonna be okay. So.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  What's, what's the other one? Um, oh, God, who's, who's the, uh, the black singer who plays, who's, uh, blind, who plays the piano? Um, God.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Oh, um.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  What's up with his? What's up with that one?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  And it's fake, he's not really blind. It's all fake. Is it Ray Charles?

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Ray Charles, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that it's just an act.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Oh, that's hilarious. That'd be funny. I wish, I would, I would love to know that one.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  That's hilarious.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  The Helen Keller one, like, when you start even like, looking into it more, and like, she was like, used as a, like, a political mouthpiece for like, the, for the left, and what they had her saying, the whole thing was just a crock of shit.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. And how do you, how do you listen to anything after that point? Like, again, that goes back to the beginning of like, nobody believes you people anymore. Nobody believes you anymore. Nobody cares what you say. You call everybody a racist, you call everybody, you know, anti Semite, which, I'm, cool. You want to call me anti Semite? Okay, fine, I am. Call me one. Yeah, it's like, look, look in, look into some certain things and tell me, tell me the truth, yeah, on that one. Like, but it's like, I, I. I just don't care what people call me anymore. I don't care if somebody calls me a name. I don't care if somebody says something bad about me online.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  It just doesn't matter. And until everybody gets to that point, and until everybody leans into it. Like, the the biggest mistake anybody can make is try to apologize for it. Because apologizing for it only makes you look way more guilty. It only gets gets them the satisfaction they want. And it only brings in more of a problem for you. Like, how many times do you see these people that are like, oh, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to say this. I said this. It's came out wrong. I didn't mean it this way. And it just snowballs into the fact where eventually it doesn't matter because they get canceled. There's very few people actually can step away from that. And step out of it if they apologize.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Like, you just, you can't, you can't do it. It just doesn't work. It never works.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I think when it when it comes to apologizing, like, I think you're on to something here. Just so just hear me out here.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  So, we've been like, if you do something wrong, you mess up with your family, right? You're like in a close, close relationship. Sure, right? Apologize, right? That makes sense. But in like a like a forward facing, public facing view. Um, yeah, apologizing for stuff, it it just makes you look weak, weak. And you look like, you look at Donald Trump. And the guy, I don't necessarily agree with things, everything that he does. The guy never apologizes for anything.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  At all. He never backtracks. He never says, well, I wish I would have done this differently.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  And, you know, there's certain things you look at like, well, man, with Operation Warp Speed, it would probably be good if you just said something to the effect of, I was, I was misled there by Fauci. And, uh, you know, these guys kind of, you know, not to you, he could word it in a way where it would look like they were doing things behind his back. He won't even do that. He won't even do that.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, and he doesn't. And that's, I mean, you gotta give the man credit. You gotta give him credit for that because he he will not and does not step away from the, even the mistakes he makes, he won't step away from. Now, I'm not sure, I don't. Correct me if I'm wrong. On the second campaign, I think the only thing he said was like he had brought in people that were wrong or bad on the first, on the first administration.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think, I mean.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  But that's as close as he came to an apology about anything.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he'll follow it up and say something like, but, but I fired him, you know?

• 21:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, which he's right. He did. He fired him. But like, the problem, you know, the problem with him going into that position is that he didn't have the people in place for it. Like, and so he got stuck with the swamp. He got stuck with the people that were, had been there forever. And I think he has made some good choices. I think he's made some bad choices, but he's made a lot better choices on a second round than he did on his first round.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. And I think, I think you're kind of limited in the amount of good choices you can make, really, in, in that position.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's only so many people that are that in that realm of government or, or, or that would be people that you could bring in that you could actually trust.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Or people who, who want to do it too. Like.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Got to be the trust factor. There's got to be the skill level and there's got to be someone who actually wants to put their life on hold, put themselves under a microscope and, and actually do it. So.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, literally everything you do and say is going to be twisted to anything what they want you to say. So. But I don't, again, I don't think, I don't even think that power is there anymore for the media. I, I, I think, I really think that they're losing on all sides. Like, I don't think they're winning on, and just about any side. I mean, they're bringing out Gavin Newsom, like that's, they're so desperate, they're bringing out the guy that has destroyed California.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Did you see the post recently that, uh? Somebody put up and Newsome re- uh retweeted it like which way Western man and it had like Gavin Newsom. It was like a black and white Gavin Newsom picture, him real young, like in a with a scarf around his neck, reading a book. And one with uh with J D Vance, that picture of him in like high school. Where he's in the men's room and there's two chicks next to him pretending to to piss into urinals. He says a stupid look on his face.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  I haven't seen that picture of him, so.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Really? I'll I'll pull it up here. Um, but it's like. It's the interesting thing is so so now now the left is a totally cool with like body shaming. As long as they're basically saying, pick the good looking guy over the guy who looks a little bit goofy. Because that's what we should be basing our presidential selection process on, assuming that of course.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  They did that with Clinton, no. They did that with Clinton and Obama.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  I mean, again, they they don't they don't believe in anything they actually say.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Then they don't, nothing is, nothing is honest anymore. That I and both sides aren't honest, but but them more so, I guess, they're they're not with it, but.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  But I, yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is just coming coming down to the fact of like.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  I I really think that that.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  That that side, they're so desperate for anything to destroy anything. That they just keep throwing the same thing up against the wall and it doesn't work anymore. It just doesn't, it doesn't float, it doesn't work and. Like, that's the best part about this whole situation. That and I got an amazing amount of sales in one day.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  I mean, I did a month's worth of sales in one day.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  It was that good. Yeah, it was that good. Like, so, um, you know, bring it on, man. Attack me again.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Keep, keep attacking.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's good because it just doesn't, it doesn't matter. Um.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  You know, and I talked to a couple of people I know and showed them the thing and they were like, that doesn't matter. That's hilarious. Although JD Vance looks like a retard there, but yeah, that's hilarious.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  But yeah, I just pulled up the meme saying it's Gavin Newsom reading a newspaper with a scarf on. And Newsom responded to this, I think, like, uh, I missed that scarf or something. Um, but yeah, JD Vance looks pretty, uh, it's not, not his best picture, but you know what? It shows that he's a, he's a normal guy. Yeah. He's taking, taking a goofy picture. It's, it's like stuff like this. The left like tries to like own people with this and it's like, who, who do you relate to more? When you look at this, do you relate more to JD Vance doing something stupid when he's in high school with a couple of girls? Or this very posed picture, wearing a freaking scarf reading newspaper of Gavin Newsom? Like, which is more relatable?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Well, and that shows you that everything Newsom has ever done has been scripted for him. Like, he's, he's. I, I really don't believe that a lot of people are that, but I believe more on the left have done are, are that. Like, I think Clinton was for sure. Um, I think the Obamas definitely were, everything was scripted for them and the same with, with him. Everything is scripted. Like, they would, they want to bring these people up so that they can control them and. Yeah, this doesn't, it doesn't fly. No, nobody's buying it anymore. And the thing with the JD Vance, like you have to look at is like.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  I mean, he had a rough childhood, like really rough childhood. So you're going to give the guy crap because he had a bad childhood? You know, and he cleaned himself up and now he's the vice president, like.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Are you going to go after him for that? Like, this, there's literally nothing else there. You have, you have nothing on the man.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  It's a good, it's a good story. You have, I mean, it's, it's, it's the ultimate American dream story, right? You have a guy that grew up in a broken home, a mother with a severe drug problem. And the guy gets excellent grades. Where, where'd he go to Yale or went to like Harvard? I forget where he went to school. Anyway, that's probably both wrong. Went to some prestigious college and extremely successful in the tech, in the tech world, becomes a senator, becomes the vice president and we're going to shit on that now because he's kind of goo, kind of goofy looking and he runs like a weirdo.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  And he's done some stupid stuff like in his life. Like who hasn't done stupid stuff in their life?

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Like, seriously, which one of us has not done something really dumb?

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  At one point in time.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  I am so, so thankful that social media was not big, at least like picture taking.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Posting on social media is not big when I was in high school and college. Cause

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  That would just be, it would be a disaster.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I mean, there's like going out clubbing and hey, like, I'm like, oh God, I'm glad some of those pictures are made.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. It's just, yeah, it's, it's just.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  But it's, it's kind of interesting. Like when you start to like, think about that, like, okay, so like kids today, like when we went out, you're going to have fun with your friends, whatever. Um, all you really were thinking about was, I just want to have fun in that moment. Sure. You're doing some stupid things, but now today, kids are like, okay, how is this going to look for my social media accounts? How am I going to go with my friends or the restaurant we go to, or the bar we go to? Um, how are we going to make this look cool, look good? So get more followers to get more interaction. So there, there's like a, that's not good. I, I, I don't think that.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  That is like the, a big part of decision making for, and not just the youth. I mean, it's, it's, it's everywhere now.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, it's funny because I discovered an account. I can't remember the guy's name on Facebook yesterday. My wife is gone for a couple of days for a meeting at work. And so I was home just like scrolling Facebook yesterday and doing the thing that annoys the heck out of me when other people do it around me. But, and I discovered this guy who's like, he tells these stories of like people that basically either kill other people or do something stupid. And he tells a story about it and he's big. I guess he's big on Facebook. I don't know. But anyways.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  And almost every single story is dealing with the person that commits the crime is doing it on social media and that's how they catch them. Or they're doing it and there's something on their social media that I and it was just, it's crazy that people are that addicted. And that like they're so addicted to the attention on social media that they're posting crimes on there.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Like it's just it's it's mind blowing to me.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  It's like how like.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  I mean, I've really tried to cut back on my social media. In fact, I I cut most of it until recently when I was like, I have to do some stuff for work, you know, for posting stuff because it's how you get more work. And but it's like.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  I am so just. So over social media. I mean, I think Facebook is dead anyways, and so is Instagram, but. I it's just the only thing that interests me anymore is Twitter and I don't even comment. I just read. I just read and I'll just laugh about stories. So it's like, there's no point in commenting on it because people are just being, they're just dumb on there anyways. So.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, Twitter's Twitter's a good, a good news source, but.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Think about, think about this perspective because I've had this conversation with my uh, my men's group Bible study last year because everyone, you know, I don't necessarily disagree with you on the on social media being sort of, you know, most. I'm not going to say mostly a net, a net negative, but for a lot of people, a net negative because of the behaviors that it gets you into scrolling and just wasting time and comparing yourself to others. Of course, yeah, I think that stuff can all be bad. But if you look at it from the perspective of. You could say that about. A lot, a lot of stuff, a lot of different forms of media.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Watching television, watching, uh, you know, watching movies, you know, garbage in, garbage out. Can focus you more on the world, on the world, focusing, chasing things in the world rather than,

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  As a Christian focusing on, on God and, you know, trying to, you know, grow that relationship. Well, same thing with social media. Social media can be used to, to spread the gospel. I mean, you look at someone, look at someone like, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with Forrest Frank. He's a Christian musician now. Um, he, he's a young guy. So he, you know, he creates like, you know, songs that, that are catchy. Gets, gets kids dancing, but the, the message is, is good. And he's now, he has the most downloads on Spotify more than anyone else. So like, it's a, I don't know. I, I feel like it's one of those things and it's how you use it, right? You look at, even with AI, it's like,

• 32:19Speaker 01

  is AI, AI is from this world, right? So it's, it's gonna be, you know, can definitely drag people down some dangerous paths. But at the same time, when used the right way. I mean, I think AI can be a huge time saver. I, I think it could, in many ways, make, you know, increase our quality of life. You know, I, I don't know if you're able to use AI for anything that, that you do.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I use, there's a editing program called, uh, well, it's, it's basically, there's an editing program that's out there that is, um, that has, uh, sorry, my computer flipped out here. It has a AI component to it. And there's one, the one thing it does that I use the most is it pulls out like little stray hairs on people. So like if, if, and it just deletes them, like it finds them and deletes them. I don't know how it works. I joke that it's witchcraft. And then it does it with glasses. It pulls out reflections out of glasses. So yeah, I use AI.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  If I'm writing something to somebody and I want it to sound a little bit better, I'll run it through AI and see what it says and then I'll edit it from there.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  So, yeah, like, yes, things can be good. Things, you know, I think.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  I think social media can be good. There's some people on social media that I follow that I really like.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Very few Christians I follow on social media.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  Because I'm so like, I'm some somewhere in between Protestant and Orthodox. Really heavily leaning Orthodox right now.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  So there's some people I follow and listen to and watch on YouTube that are pretty heavily Orthodox. I mean, but I've, I've cut.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  The majority of my social media out. The only thing I really post about is either business or albums that I bought. Like, that's it.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think, I think it's healthy to, for social media. To have a plan like that, like, I think that's where it becomes sort of dangerous. It's people who are just users, you know, if you're, if you're just a user, you're, you're the product, right?

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Um, I saw, I, I use it, I use every, all my social medias, except for Twitter, that's pretty much my news source. But I use it, you know, from a strategic. Business perspective, either to, to grow the podcast. Um, you know, other, other business ventures to network for real estate. Um, you know, to network for Plexus. Yes, I'm, I'm, I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all to have a plan for it. Yeah.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  No, but it's the people that get caught up in it. And it's like, you know, every once in a while I'll be scrolling and you'll see something from like the whatever podcast. And it's just, you see these girls that just get sucked into this life. And then they're doing OnlyFans, they're doing all this stuff. And it's like. It's just, it's sad, it's painful, it's, it's.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  It really, really sucks. Like, it, it, it has destroyed so many people because people can't handle it. And, and it's the same with like, you know, it's the same with alcohol, it's the same with movies, it's the same with like drugs, like it.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  It, I think, I think for the most part, there's things that are good about a lot of stuff, but I think. If. You know, what is that? What is that one scripture? It's like, things are permissible, but not always, I forget what it is, but anyways. Just not allowing yourself to get caught up into those things.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Is really, really important, you know, not, not allowing that stuff to just destroy you as a person. Um, and, and it's hard. It's hard to be guarded about that stuff, you know, especially like, I know, but you would, have you seen the Facebook ads was like, everything has an ad on it now. You're watching a video. There's an ad at the bottom. Everything's an ad. Well, I keep getting like, no idea why, but I keep getting ones for like women's underwear. I'm like, why the hell are these in my feed? Like, why is this in my feed? It makes no sense. Like, so I get like,

• 36:46Speaker 02

  literally makes no sense other than the fact that they know I'm a guy and it's, it's a way to push. It's a way to push you into that, you know, like to look at that stuff. Would that be the only reason to do that?

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  You know, it's like,

• 37:01Speaker 01

  because like, yeah, some, sometimes with your phone, like if you have your phone out and you know, you're with your wife and she's talking about something.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  They can pick that up and then you'll, you'll see an ad, you know, about that, but yeah, I don't know.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, it's, it's the weirdest thing in the world. I don't understand that one.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  You know, we get, verse, verse, the verse you were talking about before I forget. I just looked it up. I think it's first Corinthians, 1023, everything is permissible. Not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I mean, it's like, it's, and I, and I know people that, that, that drank and I'm like, cool. As long as you can handle it, that's fine. Like that was something I couldn't handle anymore. It wasn't constructive to me. It wasn't something that was good for me to keep doing. So I quit. I stopped. Um,

• 37:55Speaker 01

  and that's, I mean, and that's like a big, that's when you talk about repentance and, and repenting sin.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, things like that, things that are detrimental, um, literally turning away from it. So if, uh, if drinking is a problem for someone else, drugs are a problem for someone else. If pornography is a problem, um, turning away from that sin, actually actively.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Blocking that website if you know from from your computer. Yeah, like.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's like I'm I'm proud of both my boys. They both had Instagram pages. They both got rid of it because they said there's too much. Too much stuff on there.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  You know, that's like, and I was like, super, super proud of them. Um. So, yeah. It that was that was cool to see like that was that was cool for me to see it from them and then um. Sorry, my son is texting me telling me that uh the internet wasn't slow. I'm like, yes, it was. I told this get offline. Um.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Oh, man, you don't know about the internet. The internet wasn't.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  So, um.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  But yeah, you like you have to. You have to. Pace yourself. You have to not do things that are that are gonna be that can get caught. You can get caught up and then get caught in other places, but. Something I want to say about like OGC and all this whole thing. I want to wrap it up, wrap up that part of a conversation with this.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  At first I was at first I was upset and then I was mad and I was like, I want this guy like I wanted, I really want this guy to get hurt, you know, I was like. But then. After thinking about it, talking with a couple of guys from OGC and talking with some of the guys from the Christian ghetto group. Um. Which is a great, great group if you don't follow them on uh on Twitter, really good group. Um.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  What's a Christian ghetto?

• 39:54Speaker 02

  Christian ghetto. I'll send you a link. I'll send you too. Um.

• 40:00Speaker 02

  After about a half hour of being frustrated and upset and going through that, you know, I was like, I just stopped and was like, I'm gonna pray for this guy like. I don't want to.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  I really want to hurt him. But I'm gonna pray for him. Yeah, I'm gonna, it doesn't matter what I think. It just doesn't matter. This guy needs God. This this guy really needs God and he thinks I'm wrong. He thinks I hate this or I hate that and I don't. But. It's okay. I'll take the time and I will, I will stop what I'm doing and I will pray for this man. And as people were contacting, I have like 50, 60 people contact me that I never talked to before.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  And like, hey, is everything okay? Are you good? Do you need anything? Um, like the community really stepped up, like it was, it was amazing. And I was finally at first, at first I was like, yeah, just block this guy, you know, oh, well, I say something, whatever. And I was like, guys, stop, just everybody take time and pray for this guy.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Please. And, you know, the guys from OGC were like, hey, we're praying for him. And

• 41:06Speaker 02

  it really showed me I'm in the right place. I'm in the right, with the right people. Because people are, are done. They're just done with it. And it's like, okay, we don't like you. We don't like what you did. We think you're wrong. But instead of attacking you, we're not going to do that. We're just not going to do it. Some people did attack the guy, whatever. But we're not going to do that. We're going to pray for you. We're going to, we're going to pray that you find peace, you find God. And it's okay. You, you can attack me if that makes you feel better. That makes you feel like a better person. Cool. Whatever. Ready to find God. That's all.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so it's, it's interesting. I, I titled this podcast, and I don't think I'm going to change the name because I think it still does make sense. I titled it Fighting Back Against the Unhinged Left with Stephen Fox. And you know, my first thought is, well, you know, maybe I should change it because he's not really, it's not like there's a, there's a fighting back. It's not like it's, you know, go comment on their stuff and tell them they suck. But it is, it is fighting back through, through, through, through prayer. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's spiritual warfare. So.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  And, and if you, have you ever seen the movie Shadowlands about C.S. Lewis?

• 42:22Speaker 01

  No, but you're, I think you're the second person to tell me that within the past couple of weeks to watch it.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Watch it. It's good. Um, one of the things that he addresses

• 42:31Speaker 02

  in, in, one of the things that gets addressed, I don't know if he does it, but he, he actually addresses it in a conversation with a group of people.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  He's like prayer. I don't do prayer to change God. I do prayer to change me.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  And most people think that they're just changing God or changing God's mind. You know, you look at the Bible. It's like, well, in God's mind was changed when they prayed to him. I was like, no, really wasn't changed, but well, why it says it that way? Cause it doesn't sound right, but it wasn't changed. Like God was like, oh, okay. I'll just give grace. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't like, so I'm not.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm praying that this dude changes and that something happens in his life and he finds God. But I'm also praying that I'm changed. You know, cause five years ago I would have lost it with this person.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Isn't that crazy that you can look back and see just in five years? How much you've changed?

• 43:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  It's a wild thing.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  Dude, I still like cut me off in the freeway and see how fast I lose it like.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Like, or get in front of me when you shouldn't on the freeway. I that's, I'm still working on that one, you know, but but like, what's the point? What's the point of like going after these people? What's the point of hurting them? Because they hurt me like there's no point in doing that. There's, there just isn't and and I have to treat them with love and I don't want to. It's not fun. It's but it's the right thing to do and

• 44:02Speaker 02

  you just have to suck it up and move on and, and, and grow up and grow a pair and and then realize like cool. It's not about me. Yeah, I'm not going to make it about me. I don't want to make it about me. I, I honestly questioned about doing this because I didn't want to make it about me.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Like this person needs help mentally. They need spiritual help. Like it sucks. It's sad. It really is.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  When your only existence is to tear other people down that hard. It's really, really bad.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  So.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  You know, it is what it is. Um.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  You know, I, I, I just want to say that. You know, I told you before the show, I didn't have, have a plan for where this was going to go. I just kind of knew it would go in the right direction.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  And I, I couldn't be more pleased with, with the direction it has been. Yes. Um, I mean.

• 45:01Speaker 02

  And again, I am not like a super speaker. I'm not, I, I. I say stuff that's out of line. I say something shouldn't say I, I smart off to people. I'll, I've cussed people out recently.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  So I'm not saying this to like, make myself sound better. I'm really not that great of a person. Um, this is just one area where I've really felt God has.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Looks, looks like, uh, your, your kids froze up your connection here again, Stephen, with the, uh, with the games, but just to kind of expand on, on what you were saying there. And I, you know, I think one way that people get, you know, a little bit confused on, um, Christianity. And I think I, I definitely fell into this in the past where they look at it as in order to become a Christian. Um, you need to change yourself first in order to become a Christian, that you need to, you know,

• 46:15Speaker 01

  do these things, do good works, fix your own life. When, and it looks like we just lost Stephen there. I'm sure he'll pull me back in a second. Um, when in reality, that's not what it is. It's, it's the reverse. Seek God. Seek a relationship with Jesus Christ. And then allow him to change you. So Steven's back here, so I'll add him now. I don't know if you caught anything what I was saying there.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  No, sir.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  But just to sum it up quickly, because you froze, so I started talking. But a misconception that I had for a long time, and this is when my high school years, college years, twenties, I'm not really understanding what it meant to be a Christian, thinking that in order to be a Christian, you know, I need to go and change myself and, you know, do good works, do certain things in order to be a Christian. When in fact, the reverse is actually true. In order to, you know, actually be a Christ follower, you need to follow Christ. You need to have that relationship with Christ.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  You need to be in the Word. You need to pray. And through that, God's Holy Spirit comes upon you and changes you and changes these things. And it doesn't make us perfect, right? We're never, we're never perfect.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  But that's, that's been an epiphany for me. It looks like we got you frozen again. Anyway, I'm sure Steven will join here quickly. Hopefully we'll get a couple of closing thoughts from him here. But we're gonna be wrapping this up shortly today. But as I mentioned a few minutes ago, I really, you know, really didn't know the direction this was going to go in. I knew talking to, talking to Steve earlier, when this happened, when this, you know, this X page, you know, tried to, tried to cancel him, said terrible things about him and went after his, his two businesses that he uses to feed his family.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  I didn't have, you know, really a plan coming into it, but I think, you know, I think what I've learned today, at least, or what's been reinforced for me, is that when things like this happen, when someone does attack us, and I think, I think it's going to continue to happen.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, I think the left will, will continue to, to attack the right. We'll continue to call us. Yeah. Because that's all they have. That's all they have.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  That's their job. Their job is to do that. Our job is to forgive, let it go. And it's hard. Like, because I

• 49:12Speaker 02

  I believe that there are sometimes you need to crush crush your enemies. I do believe that there is times of that.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  But that doesn't mean you'll pray for them.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Like, right?

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, which is not easy to do. I mean, we say that, man, it's it's hard to do. I've had people that have wronged me in the past.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  It's it's difficult.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  And it sucks. Nobody wants to do that. It's it's it's not natural.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  It's it's not naturally. It's totally goes against our wiring, our programming. Like, it's it's now we're supposed to do. I mean, well, it's what we're supposed to do, but it's not. It's not normal for us. So.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Sorry about the internet.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  No, that's that's that's fine. Um, it happens. And we're we're going to wrap up the next five to 10 minutes here.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  But just to kind of take this, you know, the next step.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  You know, I think what the left wants us to do is, and I'm I'm fearful that a lot of people on the right are falling into this trap. Is that, yeah, they they want that fight back. And they want, you know, the pendulum swings, you know, one way to the other way. The the left was in control for years. They won the culture war. They took over academia. They controlled the media. Now things are swinging back. And, you know, is the right going to do all the same things that the left did? Or is the right going to forgive? And, you know, pray for peace. Pray for those who have wronged them. Not easy to do.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Again, you need to forgive, but there's also things that you need to do. Like that are a little hard sometimes or harsh. You just there's there are things you have to do. Um.

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Talking about like going back to Trump and we were talking about some, I think we brought redistricting. I, I think the right needs to come at them with

• 51:16Speaker 02

  just do exactly what they have done for the last 20 years. Redistrict them out of existence.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  You, you do it. You have to, you have to do it. You, sometimes you have to fight in a way that is so hard and so harsh.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  That it takes away all of their power. Like I, I as much as I like things that Trump does.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  I don't think he, I don't think he fights hard enough. I don't think he goes after them hard enough. Like, and he's the best we've seen in years. And I don't think he's, I don't think he goes after them hard enough. At all.

• 51:56Speaker 02

  And it stinks because, yeah, we do need to pray for him, but, but we also need there's some things that just need to be put down forever.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  And it doesn't mean you don't love. Doesn't mean you don't care, but that also just means you're not dealing with it anymore. You know, sometimes love is correction, right?

• 52:19Speaker 02

  Sometimes you have to have a hard correction. You have it with your, with your kid, right?

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  There's sometimes you have to have a hard correction. And I'm saying you beat the snot out of them. But there is a hard correction and sometimes we have to do things that are a good correction. But yeah, you're right. They wanna fight us. They wanna see that fight. They, they crave it because I think that's the only way for them to see the, we're right. They're violent. They're violent. They're violent. And it's like, you guys want to burn down cities and during the summer of love? I didn't burn down anything.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  Well, all, all of their energy, all the left's energy, especially post-Trump.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Comes from the right. I mean, everything that they talk about, it's all associated with the right to this, the right to that. There's no original ideas. There's nothing. It's all just a, just a reaction, which is kind of crazy. And I mean, I think one thing that's interesting, when you look at the guy who's won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York, Mamdani, the difference, he's terrible. He's awful. I mean,

• 53:34Speaker 01

  but the difference with him and what other leftists have been doing, like AOC and

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer and the whole crowd is he actually started talking about solutions, not that they will work, they won't work, like his solutions are taking over grocery stores and making them government run, but he's talking about ways to, to potentially solve problems. They won't work, but he's not just attacking the right. He's offering a solution, which is why I think he's having success. And I kinda, I kinda hope he wins because I think it would be a great example for the United States to see, you know, when New York City totally crumbles, like, oh, that's why we don't want socialism. Okay.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  I really don't think it'll wake people up. I don't. We've seen it. We've seen it in every state. We've seen it. We've seen it in Chicago. We've seen it in California. We've seen it in New York the last 20 years. Like it, nothing's changed, really. I mean, the only person to make that city better was Giuliani. And even, I even disagree with some of the ways he did things. You know, but he was the only person to make that city better.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  You know, he doesn't have fun. Disney fight it, but it still smell like pee. We worked in New York out in office.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  You can't get rid of the.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  Years, dude, the whole the.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Like the Philadelphia airport always smells like pee.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  As soon as you land in uh in LaGuardia, like it just it smells the whole, the whole area smells like piss the entire time you're there. It's just gross. Just the worst. Anyways, sorry. Let me do rant. It's why I would never move back to New York. It was awful. I hated it.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  I I I mean, I I just don't understand people wanting to live stacked up with other people and being outside shoulder to shoulder with other people. I just I just don't understand.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  And it's funny. When my wife and I first got married, I was totally on that side. Like I wanted to live in New York City. I wanted to be, you know, and and now I'm like, I want to live in the country. I don't want to have a neighbor. And she's like, I want to live in New York City. I was like, no way, man. So there's no way I'm moving to the city. I'd have to give up eighty percent of my guns. It'd be awful. So.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Well, you lose them in a boating accident.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Problem is like they are true communist country. Like, I don't want to. We had talked about moving to California once. Uh, she had a job offer and I was like, nah, I'd have to get rid of too many guns. So.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, Ca- California is lost.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  Dude, I love, I love California. I like beautiful. It is one of the greatest, greatest places on the base of the earth. It's gorgeous.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Getting off a plane in California, you know, getting in a car, rental car, whatever. And when you first start driving, it's like, this is, this is paradise. I mean, it's, it's, it's so beautiful. I mean, you have, you have the mountain views. I, I, I lived in uh, Riverside, California for a little over a year. And I had a close buddy that lived out in Palm Springs. I worked out there. So I would go out there in the weekends or I would go down to Venice Beach where Brian and Mark lived. And so I was, I went up to Sacramento. I had a buddy lived up there. So I.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  We're going to Joshua Tree?

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Whole, whole state. Did not make it to Joshua Tree.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Joshua Tree is, is, I want to die there. That's, that's the most beautiful place. It's quiet. It's gorgeous. It's wonderful. I told my wife, I'm like, when I'm dying, take me there. Just let me die somewhere there. Just let me hang out in the desert. So. But anyways, sorry, didn't mean to sidetrack.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  That's, that's, that should be the title of the podcast, sidetracked. But it's, that's been a, it's been a good discussion. You know, I think we've touched on a lot of things. And if you're still listening now, I think that's a sign you should go buy some of Stephen Fox's coffee at Fox N. That's Fox letter N, Suns.com. Use promo code JOHN, J O H N, for 15% off an order of $40 or more. And it's a, tell us about, before I let you go, just like a couple of the, you know, the coffee beans you have that you, that you like right now. Of course, you like them all, but.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, no, when people come to the market, it's like they ask like, what's your favorite? And I always, I always say, well, the most popular is the Boogaloo. Like that's the electric Boogaloo. It's a great name. Good coffee. Really amazing. Good coffee. Um, it's a blend out of Peru. That's a fun one. Just a good everyday medium roast. But my absolute favorite is the Ethiopian natural. It's a unwashed Ethiopian.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Good stuff.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  I sent that one to you recently.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was awesome. That was really good.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  So it's unwashed. So it's kind of funky. Um, I tell people you taste the dirt in it. It's got a, it's, that's a light roast, but it drinks like a medium roast. It has, uh, has phenomenal umami flavors to it. It's just a really great, great coffee. It's probably, I would say it's my favorite one that we've ever done.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  It made a really good cold brew, too.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's good cold brew. I like, I drink it as a mocha pot, which is like a stove top espresso. That's what I, how I drink it. And I drink, that's my everyday. That's like, no matter what, that is my everyday coffee. Um, I love the espresso too, but that's my everyday one. Um, what we're getting are, we had a coffee from Mexico that was out of this world. It was, it was so good. It was a good, dark, medium roast. Um, and we just found out we're getting that one back again. So I'm excited to get that one back. Cause sometimes stuff will go away for a little while. But that one's coming back. So I'm really, really happy about that one. It's to be up in about a month.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Somewhere around a month. So, but yeah.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  Have you had any impact from the, uh, from the tariffs on coffee pricing?

• 59:38Speaker 02

  We, yeah, we did raise our prices recently. We raised them about a dollar a bag. Um, dollar, pound, dollar bag, whatever. Um. But we've seen some from the tariffs. It's more supply and demand than it's tariffs. You know, if a 10% tariff is not a big deal, like I can absorb 10%, I can't absorb. When prices shoot up. But it's a lot of, a lot of what's going on is Europe is buying. A lot more coffee than it used to, and so was Asia. So it's just driving the prices up. So it's the, the, you know, the. Old, the good old supply and demand thing that everybody on the libertarian side loves. Talk about, but it actually does screw everything up at the same time.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, cause the, the, this, I mean, the, the production isn't there, right? It's, it's been built, you know, you, you're, what is Europe typically was more tea drinking? Now they're switching it to more coffee?

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, and look at, look at the demographic of people that are moving. Into Europe or being imported without, you know, papers. Um.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  So you, you see that happening and you were, you know, like then people are like, oh, I wonder why this is happening. Well, you have people from all over the world being dumped off there. And trying to, trying to muddy the waters a bit and. So they're drinking more coffee in that area now. So you're seeing, you're seeing the consumption go up. Yeah. So when the consumption goes up. And it doesn't matter like. It starts at the lower end, but it drives all the prices up. So we're all seeing it. So. Cause our stuff is not the low end. I mean, though I think we're, our prices are fair. They're not cheap, but.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Oh, your prices are definitely fair. Yeah. Cause I know, I know a little bit about the coffee game. Being, and know how difficult it is.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  With the pricing. Yeah.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  I mean, you'd like, we make maybe $2 a bag.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Like, that's it. Like, so it's, there's not a lot of profit in it. It's not, it's not a huge profit margin. It's a volume issue.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  So, but yeah, anyway, so yeah, I think our prices are fair. I think we, like, we do a good. I think we do a good job for what we're doing. And like I said, everything we do is organic. It's all clean coffee. It's not been sitting in warehouses for years on end. It's not garbage. Um. So I I I'm really proud of what we do. I think I think we have a great product and I think that it shows and you can taste it and.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think, I mean, just just to go to the like not sitting on a shelf thing.

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Um, like buying and people who buy like,

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  or I guess people who go into grocery stores and pick it off a shelf. I would think most of the time. How long ago was that roasted? Months ago? Like?

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  Well, it's not even roasted. It could have been roasted fresh, but if you're

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  if you're roasting shit, you're getting shit. It's it's it's it starts out with if you're not using good beans, you're not getting good product.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  And people, most people don't care. Most people think McDonald's coffee tastes good. There might have been a time where I thought that too.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  A lot of boomers have never actually had a good cup of coffee in their entire life. It's crazy. Yeah.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. People have not had good coffee and it makes a big difference if you have good coffee. I mean, like there was a couple of people that I that bought from us and they continue to buy from us because it is easier on their stomach. And I believe that has everything to do with organic. I I was I was the kind of guy 10 years ago that was like, organics is a joke. It doesn't mean anything. It's not true. And now I'm 100% on the opposite end of that spectrum. I'm all about organic. I'm all about fresh farm stuff. Like I it's all I want to have in my house. I don't want to have anything that's pre-made in our house ever again. I think it makes a huge difference

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  in in just in your attitude and the way you and the way you carry yourself and the way you feel every day. I don't care what anybody says. Yeah, it costs a lot more, but buy the best you can afford for your family because it does make a huge difference and stop buying anything processed. Stop it. It's gonna kill you.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, 100% agree. It goes for coffee, goes, goes for everything.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, but yeah. And if you don't buy, if you don't want to buy our coffee and you want another good organic coffee, buy it from somebody else. It's okay. It's fine. Just make sure you're putting the best stuff you can afford into your body at all times.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes a difference. And yeah, over time it adds up. Might not notice it day to day, but for sure over time.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. When you keep putting bad stuff in your system, it will affect you. It will cause cancer. It will destroy you. So you have to, you have to start somewhere. Might as well start there. So.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Speaking of starting there, we started, we've been going for over an hour now. So, uh, I think, I think we're gonna have to wrap this up, but dude, awesome conversation.

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Thanks for coming on the show.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I really do.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  And, uh, anything else you want to plug your, your Twitter or anything else before?

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  No, I'm good. Like, I'm good. Right. I, I have, I have a, uh,

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  I have a non Twitter and then I have my, uh, I have my business Twitter, but my business Twitter is locked down. I did lock it down.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  So, um, it's just, I don't even know what it is. The coffee guy. I don't remember my Twitter.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Actually, I looked it up not too long ago. Go, cause you sent me, did they tag you in it in that tweet?

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  No, they tagged me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Those, they tagged me. Um, it's just Fox and Sun. That's all it is.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  So X and S O N. Yeah. And then if you really want to have fun, go to B Team Steve.

• 1:05:39Speaker 01

  B Team Steve?

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's where I post all the fun stuff.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Nice. So anyways, I do appreciate you, man. Thanks for having me on. Good talk to you again.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, this, this was fun. Thanks for coming on the show and, uh, we'll talk soon.

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  See you.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  All right, guys. That's a wrap for today's show. I gotta get this thing, uh, produced and, uh, pushed out on the audio today. So you get it quickly. But if you like this show, if you like any of our shows on Lions Liberty, please do subscribe and. If you're a fan of our new politics podcast, which I can tell by the numbers, a lot of you are, it would greatly help us if you subscribe also to our solo feed for the politics podcast. Just search politics with tick spelled like the blood sucking insect, T I C K S, and go subscribe there as well to our lines of liberty network feed.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Just help us out. And if you want to do even extra, want to do more, you can Spotify, leave a comment, you can on Apple podcasts, you can rate it and review it. And I'm sure you can do stuff on another apps. It all helps us out and we do appreciate all of that being said, I'll see you all next week with another awesome guest. In the meantime, always remember to keep your head up and the fires of liberty burning.