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1:07
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:11
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:13
Let's get into it.
1:14
All right, guys.
1:15
Today, we are going to be discussing the Overton Window, the Overton Window.
1:19
Okay.
1:20
I know where you might have heard this term, but I know if you listened to any political
1:23
podcast or maybe any podcast where they're talking about macro issues, you might have
1:27
run into the Overton Window before, but for the majority of you, I'm assuming you've never
1:31
heard of this.
1:32
So we're going to get into it today.
1:33
And I promise you, it's not nearly as dull as this intro has been so far.
1:36
I promise this is something that we can use, especially as followers of Christ, but the
1:40
definition, I guess the basic definition of the Overton Window is this.
1:44
It's the range of policies, politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.
1:52
So one more time, the Overton Window is the range of policies, politically acceptable
1:56
to the mainstream population at a given time.
1:59
So to kind of give you a little bit of the history behind this, this was a concept that
2:02
was developed by a guy named Joseph P. Overton.
2:05
And this was in kind of the mid 1990s.
2:08
So he was the senior VP of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
2:11
So just kind of a, a public policy think tank area.
2:14
He died in 2003, but his work was kind of carried on after that by a guy named Joseph,
2:19
Joseph Layman, and Joseph Layman actually coined the term Overton Window and named it after
2:23
his late buddy, Joseph Overton.
2:26
So the interesting thing about that is there's a whole lot of different perspectives on this,
2:30
but I just wanted to go right to the horse's mouth here.
2:32
So Mackinac.org, which I'll give you that link later, but Mackinac.org.
2:36
This is kind of a little bit more detail that goes beyond the definition of what the Overton
2:40
Window is. I'm going to read these a couple of paragraphs real quick.
2:44
The Overton Window is a model for understanding how ideas and societies change over time and
2:49
influence politics.
2:51
The core concept is that politicians are limited in what policy ideas they can support. They
2:55
generally only pursue policies that are widely accepted throughout society as legitimate
3:00
policy options.
3:01
These policies lie inside the Overton Window.
3:04
Other policy ideas exist, but politicians risk losing popular support if they champion
3:09
these ideas. These policies lie outside of the Overton Window, but the Overton Window
3:15
can both shift and expand, either increasingly or shrinkingly, the number of ideas politicians
3:20
can support without unduly risking their electoral support. Sometimes politicians can move the
3:25
Overton Window themselves by courageously endorsing a policy lying outside the window,
3:30
but this is rare.
3:32
More often, the window moves based on much more complex and dynamic phenomenon, one that
3:36
is not easily controlled from on high, the slow evolution of societal values and norms.
3:42
So I'm going to help you guys here. I'm going to, for some of you, you're a little bit more
3:45
visual and, you know, unfortunately, this isn't a video podcast. You're just going
3:48
to have to listen to me and I'll do my best with it.
3:50
But when you're thinking about this, don't think of this as an X axis thing. Okay. Don't
3:54
think of this as a left right thing. That just causes too much confusion, especially
3:57
since it's kind of lives in the political sphere.
4:00
Think of it as a vertical spectrum. Think of it as a Y axis, right? So going up and down.
4:05
Now if you're visualizing this at the very top of the spectrum, you'll have what's called
4:10
more free. Okay.
4:12
At the bottom of the spectrum again, up and down, you see less free. Okay. So more free
4:18
at the top, less free at the bottom. Now there was another political commentator Joshua Trevino.
4:24
He described kind of the different degrees of acceptance of public ideas. Okay. So let's
4:29
assume that we're starting at the very top of the spectrum. Okay. The more free spectrum.
4:34
And then we're just going to work our way down here. Okay. So unthinkable, radical,
4:39
acceptable, sensible, popular policy, popular, sensible, acceptable, acceptable, radical,
4:48
unthinkable. Okay. So if we're working from top to bottom or from bottom to top, right
4:52
there in the middle is where you get the stuff that is sensible, popular, and policy. Those
4:57
are the things that you kind of see. And so that's essentially what this is, right?
5:01
The overton window kind of gives us an idea as to what the things are that it really expands
5:06
out a little bit more, but it's acceptable, sensible, popular, and then things become
5:09
policy. So hopefully that makes sense. But if you think about even some of your favorite
5:13
political people, once they are in office, not whenever they're, they're trying to get
5:17
elected because they can say just about anything, but when they're trying to get in office,
5:20
they're trying to keep the, when they're trying to keep their job, when they're already in
5:23
the job, when they're trying to keep your support, they tend to keep things in that area
5:27
of acceptable, sensible, popular, and policy. They don't really want to do things that are
5:31
either unthinkable or radical, right? They don't really want to do that. But again, remember,
5:37
the window can move up and down that continuum, right? And it kind of goes based on societal
5:43
societal norms, but it can also expand. It can also get bigger. Okay. So there's some
5:48
modern application for us kind of in 2020, especially when we're in election year, when
5:52
we're kind of thinking about this, but there was a quote that I thought was very appropriate
5:56
from Joseph Lehman. That's the guy who again, kept this work going of over 10 after he passed
6:00
away. But there was this couple of sentences here. He said this, the most common misconception
6:04
is that lawmakers themselves are in the business of shifting the over 10 window. This is absolutely
6:10
false. Lawmakers are actually in the business of detecting where the window is and then
6:14
moving to be in accordance with it. This is where I think Lehman, and I don't know when
6:19
this quote was from. So I'm going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt that he did
6:22
not say this quote within the last two or three years. But if you're just paying attention
6:26
even a little bit to modern politics, but especially on the democratic side, this is
6:32
not the case whatsoever. They are not simply simply trying to detect where the window
6:37
is and then moving in accordance with it. They're they're not doing that, right? I mean, the
6:41
Democrats that are running for president could absolutely care less about the over 10 window,
6:46
because they're not making policy right now, even though there are people that currently
6:49
have jobs in our government that are running for president, they're not really making policy
6:53
right now. They're just trying to, but can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine if they
6:57
were, but let's just kind of give you a rundown of the things that popular 2020 democratic
7:01
candidates have said that they've endorsed that they've openly supported in the run up
7:05
to the 2020 election. So I just made a list of the things that I could remember. So there's
7:09
certainly more than this. So socialism, abortion on demand, abortion up to the moment of birth,
7:14
abortion after birth, we call that infanticide, open borders, the abolition of the immigration
7:20
and customs enforcement. So that's ice gun confiscation, abolishing the second amendment,
7:25
impeachment of Donald Trump, even without cause, student loan forgiveness across the board,
7:29
Medicare for all 75% plus wealth tax, universal basic income, slavery reparations, abolishing
7:36
the electoral college, allowing prisoners the right to vote, breaking up big tech companies
7:41
and banks. And guys, I could keep going, but I don't want you to vomit like I feel like
7:44
vomiting right now, just having to read that list of things. But here's the thing is the
7:48
Democrats, this has been a sham so far. And it's been a loser for them politically. And
7:53
it's been a winner for Donald Trump, politically believe it or not. And we've seen this before,
7:57
we saw this bill Clinton, he was made to be even though he actually perjured himself.
8:01
He actually did commit something that should have been a high crime or misdemeanor that should
8:04
have had him leaving office. The Democrats have gone way out over their skis on this entire
8:09
impeachment process. As of right now, the impeachment process and or the trial rather
8:14
is happening in the Senate, right? As I'm recording this and as you're probably listening
8:18
to this, he is currently going through the whole rigmarole of defending himself in the
8:23
Senate. Okay. And the thing about it is is the Democrats that have gone out over their
8:27
skis in order to do this. I mean, it's like they believe the blue check mark people on
8:31
Twitter, like that was real life, like that was, you know, an example or descriptive of
8:35
the electorate. Well, here's the thing about half the country did not want Donald Trump
8:38
to be elected. So of course they would be in favor of this. But guys, we're in an election
8:42
year. They could just wait. You can vote the guy, literally vote the guy out of office.
8:46
But you know, they're not really doing that. But the one thing I will say, cause I'm kind
8:50
of hitting on the Democrats here and they deserve it. Democrats are actually way better at moving
8:56
the overton window than Republicans are, even though they don't necessarily care about it
9:00
right now. They're actually really good at using the overton window to their advantage.
9:05
Again, the overton window is that small window of things that are politically palatable for
9:09
people to try and take on. So Republicans typically are conservatives or, you know, right, right
9:14
wing people, you can call them whatever you want. There's either seen as, you know, polite
9:18
prudes or loudmouth rednecks or just just people that can rarely get their point across
9:23
in a poignant and cogent manner, right? That that's what you kind of get, especially that's
9:28
what people say, you know, at Democrat rallies or on Twitter or whatever the situation may
9:32
be. But Democrats have actually figured out how to shift and expand the overton window.
9:37
And it's actually incredible to watch their experts at it. So the ideas that used to be
9:42
kind of outside the realm of acceptable norms are now kind of old hat, right? So think about
9:48
where we are in 2020 and just just think about where we were in the years to year 2000. So
9:52
let's just stick with this millennia, right? Gay marriage, the gender transition of children
9:59
or just, I guess, gender, gender transition in general, socialism and communism. I mean,
10:04
especially with millennials and Gen Z, I mean, those are seen as acceptable forms of governing,
10:09
right? And I mean, just think about in the year 2000, remember, remember why 2K? Remember
10:14
what you were doing? I was in ninth grade at the time. None of those things would even
10:18
be fathomable to even discuss publicly, right? That those are so outside of the realm of possibility.
10:25
And now they are old hat, right? Those are just things that we're supposed to accept now.
10:31
But the thing is, and again, Democrats have done a tremendous job, or maybe we could say
10:34
more specifically leftist have done a very fantastic job of doing this, is how do you
10:39
make things seem acceptable? So if you have a crazy idea, like a Looney Tunes idea, like
10:45
a three year old can, you know, decide their gender, right? How do you make those ideas
10:48
seem acceptable? Well, what you do is you say insanely wild things that are super far
10:55
out there. I mean, not not even to the left. We're talking about way to the left, right?
11:01
Say those things. And then the stuff that used to seem like they were super far to the left
11:07
are now all of a sudden acceptable and sensible. Again, you're going to start talking about
11:13
these things that are way, way, way out there. And then the things that are actually far
11:17
left, they don't seem as far left anymore. And you could, to be reasonable, you could
11:21
do this on the right as well. Take stuff that is so far out to the right, but we'll
11:25
get more into how that doesn't exactly work the same. So far out to the right, if it's
11:28
a little bit to the right now, it seems sensible. Right, layman thinks that this is not possible.
11:33
But we've watched it happen. We've absolutely watched it happen right before our eyes. And
11:39
I don't know if that's because of Trump derangement syndrome. I don't know if that's literally
11:42
because Trump has broken the brains of so many people that used to be smart and used
11:46
to actually be a good person to politically and intellectually spar with. But something
11:50
has happened. Something has changed to where this overton window can be shifted and expanded
11:54
to a fairly extreme degree. But I kind of want to give you guys a thought experiment
11:58
before I get into the overall point of why I'm even talking about the overton window
12:01
today. I'm going to give you a thought experiment. Okay. So because it's 2020. Now I just had
12:07
you guys go back in your minds to the year 2000 and think about the things that have
12:11
changed societally and think about where we're headed. I want you to think about which
12:17
ideas or philosophies will be acceptable by societal standards in 20 years and in the
12:22
year 2040, the things that are considered insane right now, this exact moment. Can we
12:29
really say that in 20 years that they won't be considered insane? Can we really make a
12:35
cogent argument that would say, yeah, you know, that's probably not going to happen.
12:39
And we honestly do that because I'll tell you that I've done that and I would actually
12:44
encourage you to pause this podcast, whatever you're doing. If you're running, walking the
12:46
dog, uh, you know, working out, you know, driving in the car, whatever, just pause this
12:50
and think about that. Just think about that for a minute or two and just think of some
12:54
of the things that you thought of because I did this for about five minutes. And I scared
12:57
myself. I was like, okay, this is what life was like in 2000. Now it's 2020. This is what
13:01
life is like. Now what could life look like in 2040? And so I'm not saying I'm predicting
13:05
that these things are going to happen. But these are some of the things that I thought
13:10
of, okay, pedophilia in the year 2040 could be considered acceptable. Or at least something
13:16
that should be part of, you know, the conversation, right? And if you think I'm crazy for that
13:21
first one, go back to episode 87 of this podcast. It's called normalizing pedophilia. If you
13:26
missed that one, go back and get it. What about multiple spouses? You know, the Mormons
13:32
were weirdos back in the day. That's why they had to go to Mexico or to Utah or where the
13:36
situation may be. But you know, why can't we have multiple spouses? What about relationships
13:41
with the animals? Oh, Kyle, this is crazy. This is nonsense. This is, you know, the stupid
13:45
argument. I'm just saying, you know, if love is love, and I love my llama or I love my
13:52
pig. I mean, why, why are you trying to tell me what love is and what love isn't? How about
13:58
just open socialism in the United States? Not democratic socialism, not AOC, Bernie Sanders
14:03
socialism. Oh, it's democratic socialism. Like that's a thing. Like that's an actual
14:06
category. But what about open socialism? Is that a possibility in the next 20 years?
14:13
What about words being seen and treated as actual violence? So you dead name somebody,
14:20
right? You know, you call someone by the name they used to call themselves before they transition
14:24
genders, which biologically didn't happen. But before they transitioned genders, you dead
14:29
name somebody and then you go to jail. I mean, there are laws like that out there. Will that
14:34
happen in the United States? What about Sharia law in the United States? Will there be pockets
14:40
of the US that use Sharia law as the law that they govern by? Is that possible? What about
14:47
forced abortions and sterilizations? Not just the overwhelming abundance of abortions
14:52
where, you know, basically playing a parent who can kill 1000 people per day. But what
14:56
about forced abortions and sterilizations? And before you say, God, that's crazy. You
15:00
need to watch one child nation on Amazon. It's a documentary about the one child policy
15:06
in China. Okay. So forced abortions and sterilization is not some sort of crazy thing. What about
15:12
assisted suicide across the country? There are already countries that do that dying with
15:17
dignity is what they call right? But assisted suicide across the country, basically available.
15:21
Will it be like internet cafes? Hey, you can go over there on third street and you can
15:24
kill yourself. No big deal. Will we have an electoral college in 20 years? I'm actually
15:30
somewhat mortified to see what would happen because this will eventually happen when a
15:34
Democrat is in the White House and they have the Senate and they have the house. I'm actually
15:39
terrified about that. And what if they can skew the Supreme Court Supreme Court should
15:42
have never been this important? But it is, are we gonna have an electoral college? Is that
15:48
just going to wipe out the opinions of everybody that lives in between New York and California?
15:52
Is that possible? What about slavery reparations? Just about every single Democratic candidate
15:57
said they support slavery reparations. They haven't said how they're going to do that
16:02
for, you know, the, the descendants of black people that own slaves. They haven't, they
16:06
haven't said that. They also haven't said what about people that have mixed races that maybe
16:10
they have black and whites and Indian and whatever else in, in their kind of gene pool. They haven't
16:15
really figured that part out yet. But will they figure it out in the next 20 years?
16:19
How about the legalization of all drugs? You know, the thing that Joe Rogan and everyone
16:22
that comes on the show thinks we'll solve the drug problem in the United States. We'll
16:25
solve the cartel problem in the world, right? How about we just legalize all drugs? Like
16:31
not just marijuana. That's easy, right? That's definitely going to be federally legalized
16:34
within the next 20 years. What about everything else? How about no prison system? Is that
16:40
possible? And if you're thinking that's crazy, yes, there are people that think that we should
16:43
just get rid of the prison system altogether that we can just love and flowers and puppies,
16:49
people, you know, into submission, right? They don't actually want to hurt us. People
16:53
are just generally good, right? They don't generally want to hurt us. And, and guys,
16:57
believe me, I can go on and on and on. But what, what did you think of? I mean, I didn't
17:02
make a list that is the only list out there, but I'm sure you thought of some stuff. I
17:07
mean, that's where this is going. The Overton window in the last 20 years has shifted considerably.
17:13
The things that were acceptable then versus the things that are acceptable now. But there
17:18
is a reality here that want, I want you guys to really think through, right? Again, because
17:21
this is kind of a highfalutin topic or whatever. I'm trying to bring it down so that we can
17:25
all, you know, interact with it. But non-believers, you know, people that don't believe in Jesus,
17:30
that they don't believe in the truth of the gospel, they live on this spectrum because
17:36
they have to because whichever the way the wind is blowing, that's the way that they're
17:40
going, right? If you don't have any core belief, but believers have an anchor point.
17:47
So those of you listening to this podcast said do believe that Jesus is the risen Christ,
17:51
right? And you worship him as such. We have him as the anchor point. We have the Bible
17:55
as an anchor point. We don't have to expand our horizons of acceptable discourse or evolve
18:02
our thinking on controversial topics. We don't have to, right? We have the truth. We have
18:07
the proper application, right? We have those things. We just have to keep bringing people
18:12
back to the truth. That is what our job is as Christians. So guys, this is one of the
18:18
reasons why conservatism, right? In a macro sense, and I want to be very careful with how
18:24
I'm describing this, okay? This is why one of the big reasons of conservatism in a macro
18:28
sense is much more aligned with Christianity than progressivism. There are some people
18:34
that get have this idea that, you know, Jesus would support Bernie Sanders. Like he would
18:38
just be this, you know, ridiculous socialist or something like that. And it just doesn't
18:42
really jive with what we see in the gospels. It just doesn't really jive whatsoever, right?
18:48
And the thing about it is is conservatism, while it has its issues and it has its things
18:55
that I disagree with, it is more aligned with Christianity. Because when you're trying to
18:58
conserve something, you're trying to keep it to a core set of principles or beliefs or
19:03
philosophies or theologies, you're trying to keep it there. Whereas progressivism is
19:08
progressing towards something that is not even defined. Because progressivism is in its most
19:13
basic sense, trying to take us to utopia. The problem is is people can't exactly define
19:18
what utopia is. And the reason is is because utopia to you is different than what utopia
19:25
would be to me or to my neighbor or to the guy that lives in Iran or to the guy that lives
19:31
in Australia or to it's different for everybody. Whereas with Christianity, we have this core
19:38
set of principles, we have this core set of beliefs, and we're trying to conserve people
19:42
to that. So what a true red blood conservative would be is somebody that is trying to stick
19:47
to the original principles of the United States. For those of you who don't live in this country,
19:52
I'm sorry, I'm boring you a little bit with this US talk. But the thing about it is there
19:55
are some core principles, which if you believe, you know, the book that Ben Shapiro wrote
19:58
is true, it is set up on this set of Judeo Christian ethics that we wouldn't otherwise
20:04
have. Okay. That's why I think it's, it's interesting to listen to progressives that are
20:09
also trying to trumpet the cause of Jesus. So think about Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who's
20:13
running and it might even win Iowa, he might even win the Iowa caucuses that are here coming
20:16
up just because he's kind of got that Obama chill to him in whatever situation may be,
20:21
even though you know, he's just a small town mayor, he could end up being the Democrat
20:25
nominee for president. This is an openly gay person who is married to a man who also claims
20:30
to be a Christian. Oh, a Christian that also thinks abortion is okay. Right. So that's
20:35
where you get that poll between conservatism and progressivism. But here are the considerations
20:41
that I have for you for the undaunted, undaunted lifers that are listening to this for the
20:45
Christians listening to this here are the considerations is that we have to be courageous
20:49
about the things that God cares about. We have to, it is our mandate, but here's the thing
20:56
is frankly guys, most Christians, especially Christian men, they're just pussies when it
20:59
comes to this kind of stuff. You know, we, we don't want to ruffle any feathers and, you
21:04
know, we just, we just don't want to call a spade a spade right now. And you know, I'm
21:08
just not at the place of my business where I could afford to make people angry. And I
21:11
just, I don't really know. I mean, can anyone really know, you know, you've heard stuff
21:16
like that. Maybe you've heard yourself say stuff like that. But let me ask you some questions
21:21
that are likely to, to [inaudible] some of your, but it is what it is you've probably been made
21:25
angry at some point in this podcast already. Have you been to a gay wedding before? Did
21:32
you go to a ceremony that was basically celebrating that act celebrating sodomy? Have you, have
21:41
you gone to one? Did you convince yourself that you were somehow loving those people
21:46
by going and supporting them at their gay marriage? How about this one? Do you support
21:52
the woman's right to choose in certain scenarios? Oh, you know, I'm pro life, I'm pro life
21:59
to the, to the grave. But you know what, if if somebody was right, I just, we could probably
22:04
kill that baby. We could probably give the death penalty to the kid for the sins of the
22:08
father that that's, that's acceptable. Oh, I just haven't really thought through that
22:11
one entirely. I've heard yourself say that a little bit. How about this? Do you think
22:16
it's acceptable for women to fight on the front lines in our military? Oh, that one's
22:23
going to hurt a lot of people's feelings. The thing about it is is I'm not talking about
22:26
women that are in the military in support structures and staff. I'm talking about the
22:30
women that are fighting on the front lines that might actually bleed and die, like on
22:34
the front lines of war. You think that's acceptable? How about this? Have you taken your kid to
22:43
a drag queen story hour at your local library? Did you take them there? They, they saw that
22:51
and learned about it later. And then did you just kind of keep to yourself and keep quiet?
22:57
Do you know how I know the Overton window is real and how it shifts insanely? It's because
23:03
these things would have been completely unacceptable to our grandfathers. All of the things I just
23:09
described, right? In those random scenarios that I threw out there, our grandfathers,
23:13
our Christian grandfathers and forefathers would have absolutely flipped out and rightfully
23:19
so. But if any of you have had to kind of war with those questions before or think about
23:27
how you would respond in one of those types of settings, it's because these opinions are
23:31
the product of the church living downstream of culture and you, frankly, living downstream
23:36
of culture. You're letting culture dictate what it is that you're going to do and what
23:40
you're going to believe and how you're going to go about it. Okay. And that's an unacceptable
23:45
way of doing things if you claim to be a Christian male. Okay. So I'm not just going to be descriptive
23:51
here. I'm going to be prescriptive for you. Okay. I've got a bunch of things that I'm
23:54
going to go over here in terms of, okay, great. I understand what the Overton window is. I
23:58
understand the things that are outside of it and inside of it. This is what we do. Okay.
24:02
The first thing guys is read your Bible. Oh yeah. Of course, you know, Christian podcasts
24:06
where I need to read my Bible. No, I'm serious. Read your Bible. Because here's the thing,
24:10
guys, is you cannot defend the standard if you don't know it, right? Think about a lawyer
24:17
trying to argue using a legal argument when he has not read the law in question that would
24:23
be silly, right? We would not expect that person to have a good day in court. But some
24:27
of you try to go out there and do battle on, you know, for the sake of Christ, but you
24:32
have no idea what you're defending. You're defending what your pastor said or the latest
24:37
bumper sticker quote from Stephen Furtick or Craig Rochelle or one of those types of
24:40
guys. You just, you have nothing. You have no idea as to what you're even saying. You're
24:45
just saying things that look cool on a t-shirt. How about another thing here is figure out
24:52
why you're so afraid. Figure out why you are so absolutely petrified and mortified at the
24:59
thought of challenging something that is societally acceptable. Think about where that fear possibly
25:06
comes from. Because I can tell you one thing, that fear does not come from the Lord. That
25:10
is probably manufactured fear from the enemy from the dark sides of this equation, right?
25:17
Because you were just so afraid of what people might say. You're so afraid of the comments
25:21
that might be left on your Facebook. You're so afraid of when the phone rings and it's
25:25
that person you know is angry about the opinion that you just expressed in public, right?
25:30
Figure out why you're so afraid. I think that'd be important for you to dig into. The third
25:35
thing here is stand up and speak out. I mean, this is pretty duh. This is pretty basic at
25:40
this point. Actually stand up and speak out. You have so many opportunities to stand up
25:46
for what you know to be true to what you know to be right to what you know to be moral and
25:50
you don't. You don't. And it's because you're trying to be polite. And that's the fourth
25:57
thing, which is don't be default polite. The thing is that I don't understand whenever
26:03
I ask people that are just like, I'll just be polite, just be nice, just whatever is
26:07
where in the world or sorry, where in the Bible do you get the mandate from Jesus that we
26:12
should all just be super polite? Like, where do you get that from? There's a story that
26:19
I want you guys to read in Luke four, read Luke four, verse 16 through 30. I'm not going
26:23
to read it for you. You read it. Luke four versus 16 through 30. Because the thing is
26:27
is when you get to verse 30, you might miss the magnitude of what's going on here, but
26:33
essentially the things that Jesus said to a group of people made them so angry that they
26:40
ran Jesus out of town into the edge of a cliff. And you know what they did once they got there?
26:47
Just turns around, looks at him and just walks his way right through the middle of the crowd.
26:53
You're not going to do anything to me. Doesn't say that he says that in the scripture, but
26:58
he just walked away with his life that day. I can't imagine the things that he said that
27:04
got them so angry. We're super polite. I can't imagine that that's what he did. The fifth
27:09
thing here is be the parent. I'm talking to the parents out here. Okay. Teach this to your
27:15
kids. Teach them about the overton window. Teach them about the things that are currently
27:19
inside of that window in the culture and teach them about the things that should be inside
27:24
of the acceptable nature of things. Don't let the public school system raise them. Don't
27:29
let the private school system raise them. I just talked to a buddy the other day. There
27:32
is a Christian school in my area that the parents found out about after the fact that
27:37
there was an openly gay teacher teaching in their school and they didn't tell the parents
27:43
and they were paying God knows how much to have there are three or four kids in that
27:47
school, right? I don't want to give away exactly who it is, but they have a lot of kids in
27:50
this school and they're paying an insane amount of money to send them to this school
27:54
to protect them from some of the dangerous things in public school, right? And it's even
27:59
happening there. Guys, don't let your church youth group raise your kids. Either you be
28:04
the parent. Certainly don't let Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube raise. And for some of you
28:10
guys, don't let Joe Rogan raise your kid. Don't let Jocko willing raise your kid. Look, the
28:14
becoming a warrior kid or whatever, those those things, I'm sure are amazing for your
28:19
children. Don't let that raise your kids. You do it. Because the thing is, is these
28:23
are these conversations are so important. And think about the types of people that are
28:27
in your kids life that are going to actually engage them on these types of subjects. You
28:32
need to be the top person on that list. And the next thing here is shift the window yourself
28:38
every chance you get. Shifting yourself. The thing about what is acceptable, I'll go back
28:46
to a conversation I have with a good buddy of mine here in Oklahoma. And we disagree
28:49
with everything. Every time we get together, it's three hours of whiskey and fun because
28:53
we just disagree for three hours and we always leave, you know, each other's friends or whatever.
28:57
But every single time we talk, I shift the window a little bit. Sometimes on purpose,
29:01
sometimes I kind of do it on accident, but I'm shifting the window of what is acceptable
29:04
in his brain. Because I remember the first time that I told him that no, a woman should
29:10
not be able to kill the baby inside her stomach if she's been raped. No, absolutely not. It's
29:14
not the baby's fault. I thought he was going to lunge across the table at me and I thought
29:18
he was going to stand up on the table after he smoked me and tell everyone what I said.
29:22
But now if I were to say that, I've shifted the window, at least for him and I in a micro
29:28
sense, I've shifted the window as to what's acceptable. That's an idea in his brain now
29:31
that, Oh, wait a minute, you know, he's he at least needs to reckon with the idea that
29:35
a kid is getting the death penalty because of something their father did. I just, I just
29:40
threw that in a shoe. I just put a rock in his shoe, right? That's what I did. So shift
29:44
the window every chance you get. It doesn't have to be this big, long drawn out, exciting
29:48
thing. It could just be what it is. And guys, when you're done, a kind of figuring out how
29:53
to do that, teach others to shift the window. I mean, you should be talking with other people
29:58
about what they're doing at their workplace or in their fraternities or at their police
30:02
station or where the situation may be to shift this window. Maybe you're having people that
30:07
are having a tremendous amount of success inside of their school district, talking with the
30:10
people that are running the school district in terms of shifting what is important and
30:14
what they should be talking to their kids, kids about your first grade teacher, regardless
30:18
of where your kids go to school should not be asking your kids what gender they feel
30:21
like that day. That that is outside the realm. That is super radical. Like they should maybe
30:27
ask them if they're happy. That's not really great either. But it's certainly better than
30:30
trying to create gender confusion in a child, right? Kind of the next thing here. And this
30:35
is kind of a bigger deal. We won't spend much time on is have your representatives backs.
30:41
So your local representatives, maybe it's your sheriff, maybe it's your mayor, maybe it's
30:44
your state senator, maybe maybe it's your, you know, a federal center, right? Have their
30:49
backs. Because again, this is a political discussion. This is a political topic, right?
30:56
And if you are trying to embolden the people that you've elected to represent you in your
31:01
area, or perhaps you didn't elect them, but you want them to represent you because you
31:05
are in their area, perhaps let them know, hey, if you go out and say that you're against
31:09
this, I got your back. And not only that, my church has your back, all the dudes in my
31:14
Jiu Jitsu school have your back, all the dudes at the police station got your back, all the
31:18
people at the news station got your back. Everyone in the neighborhood associations got
31:21
your back. Be that person. Because the reason why most of these politicians don't, you
31:27
know, go out of their way to engage in all these difficult topics is because it's their
31:32
political losers. That's why you haven't really had a single modern politician talk
31:36
about entitlements. Entitlements have already crippled this country. If you think that entitlements
31:43
have not made us go bankrupt yet, you just aren't paying attention. It's a matter of
31:48
time before the bomb explodes, but the bomb is already going to explode. It can't unexplode
31:52
itself at this point. It's going to happen. But there's not a single politician that wants
31:56
to talk about that because they don't want to talk about taking, you know, prescription
31:59
money away from grandma. They don't want to have to have that discussion about, yeah,
32:03
I know you put into the social security for 30 years, but we're going to have to tax that
32:06
now or we're going to have to change that now. They don't want to be that person, right?
32:09
Because it's unacceptable. It's political suicide. But it wouldn't be political suicide
32:14
if they're constituents believed in that and voted for that, right? Does that make sense?
32:19
And the last thing I guess here is make sure to learn to be tactful and truthful in your
32:24
approach. So if you're going to be helping shift the overton window for people in a macro
32:29
sense, micro sense and in a dyadic sense in a big group, since whatever the situation
32:32
may be, make sure you do it tactfully and truthfully. You guys have heard me talk about this book
32:37
before, but it's a book tactics by Gregory Cocle, Cocle's K-O-U-K-L, right? So I'll give
32:42
you, I'll give you a link to that book here in the show notes, but it's a must read, it's
32:46
a must read for just about anybody, but especially for Christians, especially for Christians.
32:50
Because it gives you an idea of how to defend your faith and not just how to defend your
32:54
faith, but to keep other people from being able to just run roughshout over you with
32:58
their illogical points of view. Because that's one of the things is you don't have to be
33:02
super polite, right? You certainly don't have to be a [inaudible], but you can be somewhere
33:06
in the middle and be very, very tactful and stand up for the truth. But if you don't
33:10
know how to do that naturally, you're going to have to learn how to do it. Most of us,
33:15
most of you guys that know how to work on cars, you didn't just know how to work on
33:18
a car when you were two. Someone had to show you your dad or your uncle or grandpa or
33:22
maybe you went to school for it or something like that, but you had to learn. So for some
33:26
of you being tactful and truthful in these discussions and influencing people left to
33:30
right is just easy. It comes natural to you. It's something to a certain degree that comes
33:33
natural to me, but you do have to sharpen the sword, even if it does come natural, but for
33:37
most of you, it doesn't come natural. So learn how to do it. But here's the thing, guys,
33:41
is, you know, I just gave you a big long list of eight or nine things or whatever in terms
33:44
of what you should do in terms of, well, I'll go and do a rundown of them again. Again,
33:47
it's read your Bible, figure out why you're so afraid, stand up and speak out. Don't be
33:53
default polite. Be the parent. Shift the window every chance you get. Teach others to shift
33:59
the window. Have your representatives backs. Learn to be tactful and truthful in your approach.
34:04
Nine. Okay. But there's something that you actually need to do before you even worry
34:08
about doing any of those, right? Before any of that discern if you actually believe any
34:15
of this stuff. And I guess by this stuff, I mean the gospel because if you don't, then
34:24
who cares? Why does any of this matter? If the gospel is not real, if it is not true,
34:31
then we are just dancing to our DNA. Then we are just stardust bouncing into other stardusts.
34:36
We are just highly evolved monkeys that talk and wear pants. That's just who we are. But
34:43
if you do believe in the truth of the gospel, it is your mandate to stand for it and stand
34:49
up for it. It is your mandate to shift the window back to its anchor point, right? So
34:58
if you don't believe in any of it, don't worry about it. But if you do, you better
35:02
get on it. All right, guys, before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience
35:05
boost. As you know, by now we are immense ministry and our mission is cultivating manly
35:09
resilience. Specifically, we do that by providing content like this podcast that for just spiritual
35:14
mental and physical toughness. So I've got a couple of links for you. The first is the
35:17
Mackinac website. So that is Mackinac.org. So you can check out the overton window part
35:21
and the rest of their website. And then I also have a link to the book that I told you
35:24
about. That is the tactics, a game plan for discussing your Christian convictions by Gregory
35:29
Cocle. So you can check that out as well. That's whatever, hit me up info at undaunted.life
35:34
again, that's I N F O at undaunted.life website is www dot undaunted.life. You can follow
35:40
us on Instagram and Twitter at undaunted life for Facebook.com backslash undaunted life.
35:44
Check out our free devotionals on the U Virgin Bible app. Just search undaunted life under
35:48
plans. And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns read for allowing us to use
35:51
their entire music library for our content. The intro out to a track on this podcast is
35:55
our song King of Sorrow, which shows off their latest record entitled Phantom Anthem. The
35:59
links to all of this are in the description. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep
36:04
cultivating mainly resilience, keep forging spiritual mental and physical toughness. Keep
36:10
seeking the Lion of Judah.