Church & State -What is America's Future with Eric Kohn

Spokane Valley could become a sanctuary city. A different Columan, Caleb Collier says that this I'm. Opposing that the city of Spokane Valley issue a proclamation stating that our city is a Second Amendment sanctuary. Welcome to the fire. Today on Church and State, What is America's Future with Eric Cohen Helocasi Patriots and Welcome to Church and State, where we drive morality and religion over tolerance and apathy. And I'm your host, Caleb Callier, once again, your favorite far right shock jock and the show that talks about politics and religion. Jesus Christ is our referee, so it's always nice and clean. Real quick point you to the website Church and State dot Media. Out this form for us, get our newsletter bypass censorship, and of course I personally call every single one of you who fills this out. Also check out our most recent episodes. Continuing to bring some incredible people on the show right there, the health ranger Mike Adams. 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So anything you can throw our away five dollars, ten dollars a month, whatever it is, we appreciate it. Lastly, if you want to get ahold of us Church and State seventeen seventy six at Proton dot me. With that, let's go ahead and bring on our guest. Now, I'm thrilled to bring to you Eric Cohen. He's the chief chief executive officer at America's Future this is a talent accelerator and social club for liberty minded young professionals. My gosh, do we need more of that. Prior to joining af Eric was chief marketing officer Empower Illinois. He's also previously served as Director of Marketing and Communications at the Action Institute and Director of Communications Management at the Illinois Policy Institute. SPAN has done a lot, Eric, It is a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it absolutely so tell us a little bit more about what you're doing, because I see such a need for this to get the youth in particular engaged in the fight for liberty. Yeah. Well, America's Future was founded in nineteen ninety five by a lot of young people in Washington, DC who were in the think tank research space there, and what they were really angling for was, okay, so how do we get our boss's jobs at some point in time in the near future. And they realized that they weren't getting invited to do things like speak on panel discussions, they weren't getting invited to do things like participate in debates. So the question was like, how do we get this experience? How do we accumulate and build these skill sets that are going to be necessary for us to advance our careers. So they did something that I love, which is they created their own institution and they member sourced the people who are going to participate in those debates and discussions. And today, fast forward thirty one years later, America's Future. We are a talent accelerator and professional network for classically liberal young people. So we work with young people between the ages of twenty two all up to the age of forty who are in that early to mid stage of their career. And what we help them do is a couple of things. First, we help them build their skill sets, so we run fellowship programs throughout the year. They will allow them to build. Their skill sets and a number of different tactical skill areas. So we have a writing Fellows program that will help people make much more compelling argument in seven hundred and fifty to eight hundred and fifty words. We have a lead Fellows program that helps people develop the leadership skills that they will need. It's really for people who are moving into managing people for the first time or just getting ready to move into a position where they're going to manage people. And then we have a Create Fellows program that is in the marketing space. As you noted in the intro, I've got a marketing background, so we're working to expand the skill sets of people who work in marketing. And then this fall we're launching our first fundraising oriented fellowship. So we work through these programs to build those skill sets and then as well to build a sense of network and community amongst these young people, but with a shared set of beliefs that will be important for them in the further into and maintenance of their careers down the road. I got to tell you, I love everything you said, except for one thing. Nineteen ninety five was thirty one years ago. I reject that entirely. No, No, it doesn't see that. I agree with Yeah, yeah, that's it's still like people say the nineteen eighties and it's like, yeah, that was like twenty years ago. Right, yeah, yeah, exactly, I'm still a young man. I will fight you on that. No, this is this is phenomenal stuff. I love that it was so organic in its inception that they saw a need and they didn't scratch their heads and say, you know, somebody ought to or even worse than that the government ought to. No, they decided to take action themselves and you know, really leading these young people in expressing these principles of liberty. You know, you mentioned classical liberalism. I absolutely love that we need more of that. And if anybody's watching the show, going what you Breed Democrat, that's wrung liberals, guys do a little bit more homework there. So tell me a few success stories. So some individuals that maybe that you've been tracking since the beginning and they've moved on and really been you know, some like a vocal point for this this idea set some of the. People who are involved with America's future very early on. There are names that some of your listeners might recognize. We used to publish a magazine back in the day called Doublethink, and among the first editors of that magazine where people like Catherine Mangi Ward and Peter Suderman who are now at Reason Magazine. Tim Carney who was a contributor to that study Bunch who used to be the Washington Examiner he's now at the Bulwark is had a blog with us at one point in time. So there's definitely some names that you would recognize, but there are also just thousands of people who work at national organizations, international organizations, state based think tanks who are working on these ideas of how do we expand human liberty, how do we unleash the potential of the human person. I've had experience really all three of those levels. America's Future is one of those organizations that serves people nationally. I worked at the Actin Institute prior to that, which is an internationally focused think tank that works on the intersection of faith and freedom, of good intentions and sound economics. And then a little further back in my career, I was at the Illinois Policy Institute, which is one in a network of really great state based thing tanks that work out there that are hyper focused on the issues facing individual states. So as someone in Illinois, that was a whole lot of budget tax related issues Illinois has. I imagine by this time, it's got to be over a three hundred billion dollar unfunded pension liability, Illinois as one of the highest property tax states. In the nation. And then we would work on solutions to I take that back. I don't like using the word solutions because I don't think any of these things are ever permanently solved, we would work on means to address those problems and to alleviate those problems to make Illinois a more affordable and wonderful place to live. So we've got people. Who have been through our network, been through our training programs who are marketers, influencers, thinkers, writers, personalities, people who are working on these issues and how can we expand a concept of liberty and really have that lead to the kind of human flourishing that I think we all want to see. Yeah, no, absolutely I agree with that. You know, let me ask you a question about the youth, because you know, there tends to be this mentality. You know, I'm a gen xer, and you know. I tend to shake my fist right at the next generations and get off my lawn type of mentality. But what I'm seeing within the youth is there is, of course that problematic attraction to democratic socialism. I don't know why we throw the democrat in, it's just socialism, but there is a trend towards that. But then also I do see the younger generation interested in in this liberty movement, in libertarianism and the you know, the different thought processes, the anarchists, the menarchists, the classically liberal. So where do you see the youth going? Are they going to go one of two directions or anything in between? Yeah? I think it's you know, predictions are are difficult, particularly ones about the future. So where are they going to go? Is is hard? And I think that the I can't remember which British Prime minister it was whose response to a question was events, dear boy. Events, That's what's going to end up shaping the future. And there will be things that are and anyways beyond any of our control that are going to have a major impact on that. I will tell you what I am seeing, and that what is leading people in either a you know, the direction that we're more in favor of, you know, the these concepts of human liberty, and what are leading people in another direction? I think it really is the same motivating thing, and I think it is a search for meaning. It is a search for a sense of belonging. And I have been saying for a number of years, dating back to the time that I spent at the Acton Institute, that we are Homo religioso as a species, right we have this calling to seek the transcendent. We have this internal calling to find something that is bigger than ourselves that we want to be a part of. As the author David Foster Wallace that everyone worships. The question is just what and we have I think we're seeing in the young people who are inclined towards it was first the you know, the Bernie Sanders boomlet, which is now blossomed into this democrat socialist movement that we are seeing mostly in major cities, but also at some different levels too, And we'll have to wait and see what a success level of some of those individuals and candidates are. I think what you're seeing there is people who are searching for a sense of meaning, young people who are searching for a sense of meaning and belonging to something larger than themselves. As we would say when I was at Acton, people aren't going to get their religious fulfillment from religion. It's not that they're not going to stop seeking it. It's just that they are going to seek it in other places. And I've had these conversations before with my friend David Bonnson about the lack of and need for a sense of eschatology amongst people a theory of what the end times actually looks like, because when you do not believe that there is anything beyond this existence, it gives you a permission structure to do all kinds of awful things within the parameters of this existence, because well, what excuse do you have for not trying to make this existence the most perfect it possibly can be? And I think that should also keep in mind that. We, especially through the filtering of the Internet, we hear a lot of the loudest and most activist voices, and I think we see this in the work that we are doing, that there are a lot of people who are in that same age demographic who are not particularly inclined towards either of these, but do have a sensibility about the same desires that they are looking for, that sense of meaning. So I think it is yet to be seen which is the direction that more things are. Going to take. But I guess I would conclude that answer with this that there was a really great essay in a publication called National Affairs by a social scientist named or political scientist named Daniel Burns, and the title of the piece was Liberal theory Versus Liberal Practice, And again we're talking about small l classical liberalism here, not the counterpoint to conservatism as described in most of the twentieth century, I think is a very good one. Which there are these voices now and I think you increasingly seeing them on some sectors of the right that think that if we could just erase John Locke from everybody's memory, that America would stop being a liberal society. And Burns's point in there is so much of that is just baked into the cake of who we are as Americans, that we are a smaller liberal society in our actions, even irrespective of liberal theory. So one of the reasons I remain hopeful, I don't like to say optimistic. My friend, father Robert Sirriko, the co founder of the Act and Institute, always made this point that optimism is really, in that sense no different from pessimism, and that you're just hoping things get better or expecting that they get worse. I think hope is different, and that someone with hope is doing things to pursue those ends. But I am hopeful about the future and about the future of young people because of the power of liberal institutions in this country, of the liberal DNA of Americans that I think is going to continue to be a major driving factor and where those people go. So I'm alarmed by the Democratic Socialist rise. I think that it's going to create a lot of problems. But also I do think we have the advantage of you know, I think we our arguments are right. I think what we believe is right, and I think it will be venerated as such over time. And perhaps we just need these reminders every generation or so. As Edmund Burke said, example is the school of mankind, and he shall learn it no other. We need these examples of like, oh we're going to try this again, Oh it failed the same way that it did previously, and you know we learned then through those examples. Sure, I've got a smaller follow up on that, and then I want to dive into what you were talking about eschatology, because I find that fascinating. But one of the things that always kind of vexed to me, I suppose, was there was a portion of the of the younger population that were all on board for the Ron Paul Revolution, and then after that didn't work out, unfortunately, many of them flipped over to Bernie Sanders, which these two are fundamentally opposed to each other and how government should operate. Is that just more of that wanting, that sense of blonding. I think that's some of it. You know. I've always found it kind of interesting that the two politicians that most embodied this kind of young person populist movement were both, you know, I think sceptagenarians or octogenarians when they were doing it. Look, I think we've definitely got a problem in this country with gerontocracy, and I think we need to start looking to some younger people more pointedly. But you know, I think that I think that those were two different people who were offering two different explanations for the problems that we're plaguing the country at the time. Although I think that there is sometimes you can find some overlap, and I think at least the sentiment about you know that there are some forces out of your control, that youth that are really affecting your life. And I'm not the hugest fan of that argument, not because there are power sources within the country, but because I do think a lot of it is more within people's control, or at least things within the parameters of your individual life and how you wish to live are a lot more in your control than a lot of those people want to give you in terms of an answer. So I think it is a pretty interesting socio sociological phenomenon that we had. But I think so much of this really and I think you can peg it more towards Ron Paul's second run for the presidency, more so than his first. But I think we a lot of this has been us dealing with the very long tail of the financial crisis of two thousand and eight, which typically does lead to waves of populist movements, and there is some importance in a limited sense, I think to that populism as a corrective, but it cannot be governing in and of itself. I don't think just because of the nature of populism. Being I want what I want now. Irrespective of what the law actually is, and we need. One of the things that has made us a great country has been being a rule of law society, and I think either of those kinds of populism can be eroding of that. So I think it was kind of split. Phenomenon, but a lot of it very much descended from what happened in the financial crisis. Sure that makes sense to me. All right, let's dive into what you were talking about with eschatology. Obviously, with a name like Church and State, we are a religious show. You know. This is I think so important to this discussion is that there are so many of these people, you know, varying degrees of nihilism. They just believe that they exist and then they cease to exist, and so there's no point in trying to make this world better. They can live however they want because it's all kind of pointless. Regardless of the religion that you practice, I'll throw that out there. Anyone who's who's believing in a higher power believes that there's life after you know, this time on earth is going to have a different perspective. Sometimes that can lead to really positive things. Sometimes it can lead to really negative things. But I think eschatology is important and I would hope that more people would be on this journey towards finding that truth. Ultimately, I believe that truth is Jesus Christ. But what would you say, as far as this world is going, is there more people that are being attracted to the faith. There is there more people that are seeing everything is absurd and pointless. I think it's complicated. I think there is some evidence of young people who are seeking out, especially more traditional forms of religion. I think you have seen some bumps certainly in like the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. I think there are people who are seeking that out. I mean to come back to the fundamental point, right the David Foster Wallace quote of everybody worships. I think we are inclined towards this kind of way of thinking no matter what. So I think that seeking in us doesn't cease. It's just a question of what it is that we end up believing we're going. To discover as a result of that. So I would just have to say from the sociological numbers that I don't see evidence of that we're on the precipice of any kind of a major religious revival or. Anything like that right now. What I do find interesting is anecdotal evidence, though, is you know there was this again going back to like the late two thousands. In the early twenty tens, there was this very viruliant new atheist movement characterized by people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, people who I think are interesting on some level, but we're viruliantly anti religious. And I think there is an important distinction that one needed to make in that, which is that I don't think they were actually atheists at all. They were anti theists, and there's a difference between the two of them. The atheist doesn't believe that God exists. The anti theist doesn't believe that God exists, and you too must also believe that, or should also believe that. Anti theism is an evangelical anti faith. It wants to persuade other people of their lack of belief in a way that I think atheism plaw atheism is a little less concerned with do other people believe the same as I do. I think it is interesting that that movement petered out so ignominiously as it did. You don't really hear about those new atheists anymore. Hitchins has passed on, Dawkins is much much older, but any of the other people involved in that movement. It does not have the weight and force that it once did. So, you know, I think that we still live in the most one of the most religious. Countries in the entire world. Church going percentages in this country are much higher than even you know, we got I've been in the trenches of the battles over things like what was going on in Hungary over the last decade, And even as I'm being told that this is this you know, great thing that's you know, being governed in a much more Christian manner, they still had church going rates that were far below what they were in the United States of America. So I think there is again some reason for some hope in all of that. Amongst young people. It's just really going to be a question of, you know, people are going to seek these things beyond themselves, to be part of something that is bigger than themselves, and is it are they going to find the people repriend resenting those arguments for faith, for Christianity to be compelling and something that they wish to associate themselves with. I think a huge part of what we're seeing, too is institutional disaffiliation from people. People are choosing not to be part of institutions, not just church, but plenty of other institutions as well, and then some anti institutionalist fervor I think has certainly informed our politics in our American life over the last decade or so. I think that's unsustainable long term I think people need to be parts of those small bands of civil society where we come together to accomplish things that would be a lot harder if we were doing them individually. So it's a question of are they going. To find those institutions asking them to come be a part of them compelling, And I think that's yet to be seen. Yeah, that's an interesting thing. You run up that there was. A bump in Catholicism or I've seen this as well, even within some of the more mainline Protestant denominations. You're seeing some attraction there. I myself converted to Lutheranism from more of a non denominational Pentecostal church. But then you also just said that people are kind of they've kind of had it up to here with the institutions. So if there's this movement against institutions, why do you see that that there's a bump in the more institutionalized Christian denominations. If I were to hazard a guess, and I'm certainly no scholar on this, I think that the look I'm I'm a Catholic. I think one of the things that I like about the Catholic Church is, you know, in the same way that you can't have a new old friend, you can't have a new old institution. And I think that there is something special and important about an institution that has survived thousands of years and has figured out how to navigate that and is offering people, in some senses, a less flexlexible version of something to be a part of. And I think you get this in in some mainline Protestant churches as well. I think you get this in the particularly the Missouri Sinat of the Lutheran Church. As opposed to say and to take this entirely so, I don't want to offend any evangelicals in the audience who are listening, but purely from a sephological point of view, right from an elections ballot counting political analysis point of view. I talked to someone a few years ago who told me that evangelical has ceased to be a useful term for political analysis. And one of the primary reasons for that is have you ever seen the Have you seen the movie The Untouchables Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, gvy. So this is the scene on the bridge where Connery meets Costner's elliot Ness for the first time. Ness has a gun, and you know, eventually Conrie lets him go after he tells him he's a treasury officer. It's like I just told you that. It's like who would claim to be that? Who is not? And there's within the conflines of say. The Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church. There is that characteristic of there aren't a lot of people who claim to be that who are not. Now, they may be less practicing, you know, they may be more of the cafeteria Catholic variety of it, but nonetheless you're still either a part of the church or you are not. And the point that this sophologist I was talking to was making about evangelicalism is in that term, you have people who attend church weekly, who go to a Bible study, who are incredibly active, and you have people who never attend at all, aren't even Christmas or Easter. So I think one of the reasons you're seeing some of those more traditional institutions get that bump, and I think perhaps the beginning of a return mentality to not only religious institutions, but I'm also hoping a lot of the important institutions of civil society is because those more firmer harder confines are something that people are looking for, right, I mean, in many ways, to me, they bring out the best in us. I have a friend from college who's a composer, and he would tell me that the worst commissions that he ever got to write music were when people would say, do whatever you want. Unlimited options in many ways is why I do not wish to forcibly remove options from people. Of course, constraining yourself in some way unleashes a greater sense of creativity, because when you've got some parameters, you figure out how to be creative within the. Box of those parameters. Being creative in an unlimited sense, there's nothing guiding you saying, like, you know, I should go less in this direction and more in this direction. It would be more interesting, it would be more creative going in this direction. So I think that's why you're seeing that bump, and especially some of the older and oldest of the institutions in faith world starting to receive more people of having an interest in it. Yeah, I suppose to use an analogy, it's, you know, we went off the road and people are starting to get tired of all the bumps and ruts, and they look over and there's a you know, a nice paved area over there. Let's serve the wheel a little bit and get back. On the lane. Yah. Yeah, I think that's fair. All right. Well, I mean that certainly makes a whole lot of sense to me, I know for myself, and I've been very open with the audience about my own personal journey, and I agree, I'll echo with you. I'm not trying to offend the evangelicals. I just know this is what my journey led me to, was to more orthodoxy, more tradition, and I'm very attracted to those types of churches. Even though you know, I'm not Catholic. I have a lot of respect for the Catholics. Even though I'm not Reformed. I have a lot of respect for the Presbyterian churches. And I will say the good ones, the ones that haven't gone woke, because I'm not going to encourage anyone to go to some of these woke churches that are that have all sorts of problems. Yeah, I think people are people are searching for that sense at least I hope they're searching for that sense of tradition, like the things that connect us. Well, this gets back to. The eschatology point that where we started this conversation, right, So this desire to be connected to things that preceded us and that things that will follow us. This to you, But we're hitting that hard break. We're going to come back though, Ladies and gentlemen, We're going to finish this conversation. Because it's a good one. Hey, this is Caleb Callier with Church and State and I want to tell you about a great product, Liberty Cigars. I know for myself there's nothing grander that's sitting around a campfire having a great theology discussion with a group of men while smoking a cigar. That's why I love Liberty Cigars. Every cigar has a story to tell. Not only are going to be smoking the finest cigars on the market, but you're also going to get a history less with every single one of them from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the heroes of the American Revolution, generals, presidents throughout history. And tell you I absolutely love Liberty Cigars. I need you to go to Liberty Cigars dot com use that promo code Church and State. You'll get a discount and you'll also be helping to support Church and State with everything that we do, and we are back and thank you for staying with us. You're over at Church and State dot Media and we're going to go right back to our guests. But real quick, I gotta plug one of our affiliates, and I am thinking coffee. Chris. You know I love coffee. Chris loves coffee even more than I do. But this is the preferred beverage of Americans. Right. We don't drink tea here in this country. That's just we like to throw it in water and not drink it afterwards. We like coffee, Okay, So if you like coffee, go check out Hunter's Blend coffee. It is absolutely delicious. It's by a Christian and a Patriot, so you know you're spending your money in a wise way, but go check this stuff out. They got some great blends. In fact, I got one right here, Liberty Roast. This is a fantastic medium blend and I typically typically don't like medium blends. So go check those out. Use the promo code Church and State, get a good cup of coffee and help support us, and one more time, hit the donate button for us, please keep us alive. On so many of these different networks and continue to expand it having great conversations like that. So right there, hit the donate button for us, keep us going. All right with that, let's go back to our guest, Eric Cohen, and I hate it. I'm watching the clock go by and I'm like, oh no, I'm gonna have to interrupt him. I hate it. I apologize, but Eric, please continue with what you were talking about with returning back to eschatology. Yeah, it's the sense right of being. We were talking about tradition and one of the reasons that people are being attracted to institutions with a longer history in that sense of tradition. To me, it comes back to that, you know, wanting to be connected not only to things that preceded you, but to things that will follow you on this planet as well. To not just see your life as being entirely contained within the parameters of your birth and your death. Now we get this in some very human ways as well, right, and that you knew your parents, your grandparents, people who's uh you know coming into this world preceded yours. And if you have a family, I've got two kids, you see, your children is something that is you know, you are tied to something that will continue beyond beyond you, right like they. I always love the the line in the Christopher Nolan movie Interstellar that we're here to be memories for our children. I think you have that drive in people to want to be connected not only to things that will come after you, and I think that's probably the one that we need the most of right now. My friend Tim Carney I mentioned earlier, talks a lot about, you know, the birth dearth problems that that we are having that are affecting not the you know, the rest of the world more pointedly, but the United States as well. I mean, people don't have kids when they don't feel hopeful about the futures. So I think that's the one that I think needs the most attention right now. But also, you know, that sense of what came before us, that sense of tradition, the understanding of like why things are done the way that they are done is you know, some people would call it democracy for the dead. I think there's that great Chestertonian fence insight in it as well, that it's not to say that everything that's been handed down to us as tradition needs to be maintained forever and ever amen, it is to say that you do at least need to understand why those things are there before you want to obliterate them. And I think that desire that exists in us to be tethered to something that is bigger than us, that came before us, that will be after us as well, I think should inevitably lead people back to instances that are connected to the past and that do have a vision towards the future. Yeah. I would one hundred percent agree with that, and I would encourage anyone watching the show to go and examine these institutions. Once again, my journey. I took a year of studying the different denominations and ultimately landed on lcms specifically, but it was a grand journey for me. I want to turn this conversation back over to politics because we've been talking a little bit about the populist movements, and you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up Donald Trump in this because he really started as a populist movement. But as of late, in particular, a lot of people are feeling like they've been betrayed. What are your thoughts on this? I am less inclined toly agree that people have been betrayed in any sense, and that I think my evaluation of Donald Trump was that never that he was a pro grammatic candidate, you know, I think he was a candidate who was in many ways more detached from ideology than most politicians that came before him, I mean, even ones that you would want to at least in recent history. The quintessential example of this has always been Bill Clinton, right, who was willing to triangulate against his left flank, against people on his right as well. I definitely think that there was a core belief system there. I think Trump's primary belief system is in himself, and in that sense, I don't think it is possible for him to betray anything, because it's just it is whatever it is that he wants, whenever it is that he wants it. So I would suggest that people who accepted it under the premise that there was like a clear program that was going to be followed here, I think we're just inevitably setting themselves up for disappointment. There was this great anecdote early on in the Trump phenomenon publication it does still exist, called American Affairs, and the guy who started it by the name of Julius Crime. The effort was to put some philosophical and ideological underpinnings to trump Ism, and there were a number of us at the time who looked at that project and said, this is going to end in one of two ways. Either you are going to fashion this ideological framework and at some point you are going to have to willingly depart from Trump because he is inevitably going to contradict it, or you just have to agree to follow the man wherever he goes. And Crime, to his credit, i think it's even less than a year into the publication, basically said is like, yeah, that's the problem. Either we can follow this in an ideological format or we just have to follow whatever it is that he does. So my suggestion would be that you can evalue wait his individual decisions on the merits of themselves. But if you were looking for consistency or a through line other than I think his own concept of his self interest in all of this, I think you were setting yourself up to be disappointed. Yeah, I think that's what a lot of people are experiencing right now. That you saw a lot of people excuse after excuse. Trust the plan. You know, Trump is playing five D chess or whatever it was, and we kept seeing disappointment and we really couldn't hold him to that standard that you were talking about. And I think you. Absolutely nailed it, because Trump believes in Trump, and so he's going to do whatever he wants to do. Who do you believe when we're looking back throughout American history and specifically towards the executive office, who was the last classically liberal or true constitutionalist as a president? The last I think would be. I could say positive things about the Reagan presidency, I can say positive things about, in some senses, the Eisenhower presidency, and certainly the Calvin Coolidge presidency before we start getting into the eighteen hundreds. I really think we focus so much when we get back to the early nineteen hundreds, before we really get to World War Two and FDR, who is just a much more complicated legacy. We tend to have an over focusing on Woodrow Wilson and an underfocusing on Calvin Coolidge, who I think, arguably, at least from the twentieth century forward, Coolidge was, you know, the most classically liberal constitutionalist president that we had, and Woodrow Wilson was quite arguably, and I think is the least constitution. I mean, he had the most open disdain for the Constitution, for the American system of any president that we had, and to have them come in such close proximity to each other as almost kind of a fascinating whiplash effect. That tells you about what can happen when events, dear boy, events start to intervene there. But particularly since we're in celebrating America's two hundred and fiftieth this year, if any of your listeners have never read the speech that Coolidge gave on. What would it have been? It would have been the one hundred. Fifty anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I was not a math major. I was a percussionist, so I only count to four. But go back and read that speech from Coolidge, and to me is one of the most important things you'll read about the Declaration of Independence for the point that it makes of when you make the statements that are made in that declaration, and we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. That is final, There is no improving on that, There is nothing to evolve from that forward. That is final for all time, and it is a beautiful summation of the importance of the declaration. Particularly, and here's. Where I not only as an Illinoisan, but I think as an American, I have to give a hat tip to Abraham Lincoln for what he did in the second founding of the country. That we understand the importance of the Declaration of Independence differently post Lincoln than Americans did prior to it, and that the conclusion of the Declaration was what was important, that we're declaring independence from England, and the rest was, you know, depending on how you want to look at it's some very beautiful throat clearing or you know, Thomas Jefferson working on a deadline. Post Lincoln, we have this refocusing on the beginning of the Declaration as the animating principle for our country, the idea that we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among those life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We refocus the meaning of what it is to be an American on that which is very much echoed in that beautiful speech from Coolidge, which is absolutely something I'd point people to to really appreciate the incredible thing that is the American founding in this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of it. I mean, amen, keep it cool with Coolidge. I'm so pleased that you said that. I've told people on the show for a very long time that Calvin Coolidge was truly our last constitutional president, and so I would echo that. Read what he said. I mean, he was called silent cow, but he had some great writings, some great speeches, and in reference to Wilson. Was it Wilson was a house, you know. I mean, we don't really know who was actually leading the country at that point, but regardless, two awful men. I want to point people to the website is working. We're kind of running winding down here, but I want people to go to your website, and the website is America's Future dot org. Tell us a little bit more about this website, why people should go to it, perhaps support you in all of your work. We think that there's an important role in a lot of those institutions that we mentioned before in the space of advocating for human freedom, for liberty, for sound economics, and what America's Future does is we work with and train and accelerate the careers of the young people at those institutions for the future leaders of these organizations that are going to be coming up with the policy proposals that are going to be coming up with the antidotes to a lot of the problems that we see at the federal level, but also at the state level and at the local level. And we work with those young people to improve their writing, their leadership, their marketing skills, their fundraising skills as well as to and the way that I first got involve with the organization as I led the chapter in Chicago, Illinois for about eleven years, and you know, in some of these major cities, you know where my joke has always been, right like somebody who was on the center right in Chicago, you kind of that feeling of like being Christians in ancient Rome. You know, you draw a sea in the dirt and you wipe it out and you're like, we'll meet in the catacombs under the Daily Center. It gives you that sense of community that there are other people that are there that see the world similarly to you, and that you can build a network with them and that you can all help and support each other. So that's the work that we do. People can find it at America's Future dot org. If you're interested, if you know, if you're a young person and you're interested in those programs, please check them out. We've got applications open for fellowships, our writing lead Marketing Create Fellowship, and our fundraising fellowship applications are open right now. Take a look at those. If you have young people in your life who are interested in these ideas, please point them to them. And if you have the ability, you know, please check out the donate page as well and consider supporting the work that we're doing. Sure, absolutely tell us about this rooftop happy hour as well. This is an event we're really right around the corner here, but it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, I mean this is within our programming like that. Especially in Washington, d C. We bounce back and forth between having social events and having policy focused events because, as the founders of AFS said in the late nineties, never underestimate the. Value of having a good time. And one of the things that we've found, particularly in DC where we're very active and there's a lot of people who work in this space, who work for think tanks and policy organizations, who are of this mindset, who believe in the American founding and believe in the concept of human freedom and liberty, wanting to build that network with each other. So it's an opportunity for those people to come together, have a drink, have a good time, get to know each each other, and then also find out about the policy focused event, the ideas focused events that will have coming up where they can expand their understanding of classically liberal ideas, get more involved with the organization, and move their careers forward. Excellent. Well, I got to tell you, I've really enjoyed this interview and very very insightful. I hope the audience goes to America's Future dot org. America's Future dot org. Go check that out, ladies and gentlemen and see you know. Maybe you know you're a little bit older and you have a child that's starting to get interested in the workforce. I think this would be a great organization to put them in contact with. Eric. It's been a pleasure. I'm going to go ahead and close us out, if you'd hold on one more minute post production to sayah goodbyes. I'd appreciate it, but again, thank you for your work in joining us on Church and State. Thank you for having me absolutely all right, ladies and gentlemen, there you go. Look there's hope. And I like that, not that you're a pessimist, not that you're an optimist, but that you're hopeful, hopeful for the next generation. And if you do have that hope, think getting them in contact with America's future is a great idea. Church and State is brought to you in part by colonialized Spokane independent Agents, Finders Insurance and Mark three seven dot com. I'm Caleb Callier. I was born for a storm. Welcome to the fire. This is Caleb Callier with Church and State. 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