Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 09, 2020


Ep 336 ｜ Democrats' Lockdowns Do More Harm Than Good


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour

Words per Minute

170.95181

Word Count

10,337

Sentence Count

679

Misogynist Sentences

16

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, happy Wednesday. Welcome to Relatable. Hope everyone has had a great week so far.
00:00:14.420 We are going to talk about, once again, some of the craziness that is going on in our country
00:00:19.300 and where we stand in the midst of it. Before we get started, I do want to remind you guys,
00:00:26.340 I haven't talked about this in a long time. I had a book that came out back in August,
00:00:31.360 You're Not Enough and That's Okay, Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love. I am just so
00:00:36.980 incredibly thankful for all of you who have read it and who supported me, who sent me emails about
00:00:43.560 it, who sent me messages about it. It was such a labor of love for me. Then to have the support
00:00:51.100 that I've had from so many of you has just meant so much to me. Of course, all for the glory of God
00:00:56.240 and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have written it. If you are looking for a present to
00:01:02.080 get for a woman in particular, it's really geared towards women in your family, whether it is a
00:01:08.340 teenager, I would say 16 is about the age where the target demographic starts for this book and then
00:01:17.200 upwards is as high as you can go in the age range. But if you are looking for a book to get your
00:01:24.800 daughter, to get your sister, to get your friend, to get your mom or your aunt, whomever, then this
00:01:32.380 could be a good option for you. You can go to alibethstucky.com book and you can find all of the
00:01:39.240 places where it is available online. Of course, it might be available at your local library as well
00:01:44.500 or your local bookstore, Barnes and Noble. But if that sounds like something that you are interested
00:01:49.680 in, then I would love for you to get the book. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's not about
00:01:56.260 reveling in our lack. It is not about hating ourselves. It is about realizing that our
00:02:03.640 sufficiency, our identity comes from Christ. And that is actually so much more freeing than the
00:02:11.100 self-empowerment mantras that we are weighed down with on a daily basis today. If you have already read
00:02:18.500 the book, it would mean a lot to me. If you left a five-star review on Amazon, if those, of course,
00:02:23.660 are your true feelings about the book and, you know, you can just give a brief sentence on why you
00:02:29.220 liked the book and what it meant to you. But I would really appreciate that as well. Thank you guys so
00:02:34.560 much again for your support in all of that. Okay, let's get into today's episode. So as you guys know,
00:02:42.140 as the lockdowns are coming in a new wave throughout the country, people are more desperate
00:02:49.680 than ever. Whereas I think that a few months ago at the beginning, we were all kind of willing to do
00:02:54.100 our part and say, okay, this is going to be for a finite amount of time and we're willing to close
00:02:59.200 down our business. We're willing to take a pay cut. We're willing to even be unemployed for a period
00:03:04.060 of time because all of this is going to start back up. And surely the same government who told me to
00:03:09.120 close my business isn't going to abandon me. But that's exactly what has happened to a lot of
00:03:13.460 people in a lot of different states. Thankfully, some states are doing it correctly. They have tried
00:03:17.380 to balance mitigating the risk of the virus with mitigating the risk of people losing their
00:03:23.720 livelihoods and their mental health deteriorating and kids being held back in their education. But
00:03:28.980 other states just haven't done that so well. And people are crying out for help. They're frustrated
00:03:35.260 with the arbitrary nature of a lot of these regulations. They're frustrated with the hypocrisy
00:03:40.040 of the leaders that a lot of them voted for in the name of compassion, in the name of these
00:03:48.360 politicians promising to care for their constituents. And so what you're seeing is a lot of protests,
00:03:54.260 a lot of civil unrest right now, especially in places like New York and California. You've got
00:03:59.360 small businesses, you've got restaurants and schools being shut down or restricted in the name of
00:04:05.100 quelling the virus. But like I said, the restrictions are often arbitrary. They're not based on any real
00:04:11.720 data. They're not based on any science that we know of. And the rules aren't abided by by the very
00:04:17.620 people who are implementing them. And that is driving some people to when I say madness, I don't mean that
00:04:25.120 they're out of their minds, but just such rage filled, justified rage filled frustration. So in Southern
00:04:33.500 California, people are getting so fed up with the COVID lockdowns and the politicians hypocrisy that
00:04:39.260 they are protesting. In West Hollywood, a boutique called Kitson Los Angeles went viral last week. And
00:04:46.440 I'll put the pictures up for those of you who are watching on YouTube for posting pictures of Nancy
00:04:52.180 Pelosi and Gavin Newsom on their windows, declaring them the hypocrites of 2020. This week, the store owner
00:04:59.060 invited the recall Gavin Newsom campaign to park their truck in front of the store to collect
00:05:04.600 signatures. Now, I don't even know the political affiliations of the people who are running this
00:05:11.260 boutique, but whether they're Republican or Democrat, they are frustrated by having their livelihoods
00:05:16.360 stolen from them by the guy who was just caught dining maskless in close quarters inside with a bunch of
00:05:24.100 his rich friends at a bougie restaurant called the French Laundry. In Santa Monica, business owners
00:05:30.140 and restaurant owners held a protest outside of the home of Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuhl
00:05:35.820 demanding she votes to undo the outdoor dining ban she advocated for last week. The reason why they
00:05:43.700 were really upset at Kuhl is because hours after she had voted for this ban, she then went to eat
00:05:50.220 outdoors at her favorite restaurant before the ban went into effect. And when reporters asked her
00:05:55.080 about this, she said, Oh, well, I felt bad for the restaurant. So I just wanted to support them.
00:05:59.260 Meanwhile, she voted to make sure that they are shut down the outdoor dining that has already been
00:06:04.780 proven to be able to be done safely. She voted to make sure that that is closed down. And a lot of
00:06:10.420 these restaurants are going to go under. But after she voted for that, she went to go eat outside at her
00:06:16.440 favorite restaurant. So here is a video of protesters outside of outside of her home.
00:06:29.180 So now let me let me just say let me say these are peaceful protesters. They look like they are,
00:06:36.040 you know, they're in order. I do not advocate. I do not advocate for protesting outside of people's
00:06:43.180 homes. I do not advocate for intimidating public officials, even when we very much disagree with
00:06:51.060 them. I mean, it is intimidation. You're saying that I know exactly where you live. And if I want
00:06:56.080 to do something to you, I can. I think it's wrong when BLM does it and when Antifa does it, when left
00:07:00.820 wing protesters do it. I thought it was wrong when people were harassing Mitch McConnell outside of
00:07:05.540 his home. And I think that this is wrong as well. I think that there's nothing wrong with peaceful
00:07:09.740 protesting. I think that that is a good First Amendment right that people should be absolutely
00:07:14.640 free to exercise whether or not I agree with the content of the protest. This protest, of course,
00:07:20.380 I agree with in a lot of ways. And I completely sympathize with the frustration that these people
00:07:26.080 are feeling, with the desperation that these people are feeling. Absolutely. So I support them
00:07:30.700 in this endeavor. However, I just as an aside, I do not think that it is the right tactic
00:07:36.380 for us to intimidate public officials by standing outside of their private residence. I just do not
00:07:44.000 think that is correct. I'm going to put up some photos of some signs that people were holding up
00:07:50.400 while they were protesting. There is one woman in a mask and she said she has two columns on the sign
00:07:58.580 and one says open indoor malls, salons, gyms, mini golf, go karting and closed outdoor dining. Make it
00:08:07.040 make sense. Then you've got another woman who is holding a sign. I have lost three jobs due to county
00:08:12.580 closures. Seven hundred thousand jobs in the food industry have been lost. And so you can understand how
00:08:18.500 people are very frustrated by the duplicitous nature of some of these regulations and how hard this is making
00:08:25.140 their lives unnecessarily. Let's remember that restaurant owners, that people who work in the
00:08:31.540 service industry are willing to do whatever it takes to mitigate the risk of the virus as long as
00:08:38.300 they can stay open and feed their families. I mean, small business owners have more of an interest in
00:08:43.640 making sure that people are not contracting the virus in their business than the state does. I mean,
00:08:48.180 they are going to do everything they possibly can to make sure that their business,
00:08:52.180 their store is not a source of COVID spread. So if that means only letting in one customer at a time,
00:08:58.260 I'm sure they're willing to do that. If that means sanitizing constantly, if that means that people
00:09:03.300 have to wear gloves and masks, I guarantee you these small business owners are willing to do that as long
00:09:08.560 as they can keep their doors open, as long as they can continue to feed their family. So we have decided
00:09:14.520 somewhat arbitrarily that the lives of people who get COVID and die from COVID,
00:09:20.920 that they matter more than the lives that are lost due to depression and suicide that was induced
00:09:28.120 either by loneliness and isolation and or financial calamity. I just happen to think that both of
00:09:34.920 those lives matter and that it is the job of the leader to make sure that you are balancing those two
00:09:40.240 risks and that you are upholding the value of those two lives. I want to show you a clip that points
00:09:47.960 out so perfectly the hypocrisy of these regulations that leaders in places like California have
00:09:56.160 implemented and how it is hurting the working class, how it is hurting regular people. The protests that
00:10:02.620 you that I just showed you the clips of, they were organized by a lady named Angela Marsden. She's the
00:10:07.880 owner of the Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill. Her restaurant was was shut down despite the steps that
00:10:14.460 she took to set up safe outdoor dining. I mean, she spent a lot of money making sure that she was matching the
00:10:21.820 previous regulations to ensure that her that her dining establishment was safe so that people could eat
00:10:29.000 outside in a way that abided by the law, but also was going to mitigate the risk of spread. But with these new
00:10:35.580 regulations in California, she was told that she also had to shut down outdoor dining. So all of the money and the effort that
00:10:41.240 she spent into making sure she was abiding by the previous regulations, it was all wasted because now
00:10:47.200 outdoor dining is banned. Well, she posted this video showing that there was actually a movie company
00:10:53.520 that was allowed to set up outdoor dining just across the street from her closed business. Here's that video.
00:11:03.600 So this is my place, the Pineapple Hill Grill and Saloon. If you go to my page, you can see all the work I did
00:11:08.940 for outdoor dining for outdoor dining for tables being seven feet apart. And I come in today because I'm
00:11:14.380 organizing a protest and I came in to get stuff for that. And I walk into my parking lot. And obviously,
00:11:24.380 Mayor Garcetti has approved
00:11:28.940 this
00:11:32.220 has approved
00:11:33.180 this being set up for this being set up for for a movie company.
00:11:50.620 I'm losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me. And they set up a movie company
00:11:57.260 right next to my outdoor patio, which is right over here.
00:12:06.860 And people wonder why I'm protesting and why I have had enough. They have not given us money and they
00:12:14.940 have shut us down. We cannot survive. My staff cannot survive. Look at this.
00:12:19.660 Tell me that this is dangerous, but right next to me as a slap in my face.
00:12:39.180 That's safe. This is safe.
00:12:43.020 50 feet away.
00:12:43.980 This is dangerous. Mayor Garcetti and Gavin Newsom is responsible for every single person
00:12:55.340 that doesn't have unemployment, that does not have a job and all the businesses that are going under.
00:13:01.260 And we need your help. We need somebody to do something about this.
00:13:05.660 That just makes me makes you want to cry. You hear the desperation in her voice, the frustration in
00:13:14.460 her voice. This woman who has taken all this time to make sure that her her restaurant is safe,
00:13:22.140 who has spent all of this money to no avail. And then this this this crew, this movie crew,
00:13:30.780 is able to set up basically an identical setup of outdoor dining. And they are able to do that
00:13:37.100 legally, of course, because this is all more about politics and special interests and money for these
00:13:42.220 politicians than it really is about mitigating the virus. Of course, the government officials in
00:13:48.380 California and specifically L.A. are going to kowtow to Hollywood. I mean, there's too much money there
00:13:55.500 for these politicians and for the state of California for them to restrict the entertainment
00:14:00.860 industry. And so they're not. Instead, they're going to crush small businesses. Another bar owner said
00:14:05.900 that they spent ten thousand dollars in California to make sure that their kitchen and restaurant were
00:14:11.500 safe, only to be shut down by the outdoor dining ban. So now they're already out that money, which they
00:14:18.140 needed because they've probably lost tens of thousands of dollars over the past few months due to these
00:14:22.700 arbitrary restrictions and to absolutely no avail. In May, the Washington Post reported that over
00:14:29.100 a hundred thousand small businesses have closed for good. I'm sure that is close to two hundred thousand
00:14:35.980 now, not due to the virus, by the way. Every headline says, oh, due to the virus, these businesses have
00:14:43.020 been closed. No, it's not due to the virus. It's due to the restrictions, even though there's no data
00:14:47.740 data showing that these small businesses are spreading the virus or are unable to implement
00:14:54.380 restrictions to mitigate the risk of the spread. And I'm going to get into more of that in just one
00:15:00.680 second and the ridiculousness of it all and the burden that it's placing on average people. But first,
00:15:06.020 I have to take a quick ad break. So with these restaurants and with these small businesses,
00:15:19.880 no one is saying that they shouldn't take restrictions or that there shouldn't be
00:15:23.820 any regulations whatsoever, but that the government should allow people, for the most part, to make
00:15:29.800 their own decisions because these businesses, as I've said so many times, will be responsible. They
00:15:35.500 have an interest in being responsible. They care about their businesses and even the health of
00:15:40.400 their customers more than the state does. They have an interest in caring about the health of their
00:15:44.680 customers. Or at the very least, if the government is going to place these restrictions on people
00:15:49.900 where their livelihoods are just ruined, the government needs to help out the people whose lives
00:15:55.000 they are burdening. Nancy Pelosi has refused the White House's offers on a stimulus deal
00:16:02.660 multiple times. So this was in October. This is according to Business Insider.
00:16:07.880 Quote, over the weekend, the White House proposed a $1.8 trillion measure. The White House proposal
00:16:13.000 includes a $400 boost in weekly unemployed insurance, $1,200 direct payments for U.S. adults,
00:16:19.240 and $1,000 payments for each child, the Washington Post reported. Democrats have pushed for a $600
00:16:24.500 increase in weekly unemployment benefits and $1,200 payments for child dependents,
00:16:29.360 as well as substantially more funding for state and local governments. The Democratic proposal
00:16:34.020 also, though it comes up, it includes left-wing policies and left-wing proposals that have nothing
00:16:41.480 to do with the virus or with mitigating the risk. So there's lots of left-wing pork in there that the
00:16:48.340 Republicans understandably do not want and are not going to let pass. So it's not just a matter of
00:16:54.540 numbers, the disagreement here. But Pelosi has rejected, time and again, any good compromise coming
00:17:00.440 from the White House or coming from Republicans. For months, Pelosi insisted that a COVID relief bill
00:17:05.900 would have to be at least $2.2 trillion. She turned down, like I said, a bipartisan deal of $1.5 trillion
00:17:13.880 and also Trump's $1.8 trillion deal. But now, interestingly, she has decided that she would support
00:17:23.060 a $900 billion COVID relief bill, which is obviously less than the $1.8 trillion bill that Trump offered
00:17:34.000 in his negotiation. And she was asked about this. CNN's Manu Raju asked Pelosi if it was a mistake
00:17:41.100 to shoot down the previous compromises, the previous bills. And she became very agitated. She was very
00:17:47.140 annoyed by this question, this question of, OK, why are you supporting a $900 billion deal now? And you
00:17:53.920 rejected the $1.8 trillion deal that Trump offered you a couple months ago. She got very annoyed and
00:18:02.200 said, do not characterize my actions as a mistake. If you want me to answer your question, here's a video
00:18:08.320 of that.
00:18:09.320 Well, when the mistake of not to accept half of a low months ago, when you said, I'm not going to accept
00:18:13.520 half of a low.
00:18:14.100 I'm going to tell you something. Don't characterize what we did before as a mistake, as a preface
00:18:19.760 to your question, if you want an answer. That was not a mistake. It was a decision. And it has taken
00:18:26.180 us to a place where we can do the right thing without other, shall we say, considerations in the
00:18:32.640 legislation that we don't want. So we're very pleased at where it is. And as I say,
00:18:38.900 with a Democratic president committed to a scientific solution for this,
00:18:45.800 with the idea that we will have a vaccine, it's a complete game changer from them.
00:18:51.860 So she basically admits it at the end of that clip, and we kind of spliced together two different
00:18:57.860 parts of her answer, but we'll include the link to the full press conference in the description.
00:19:05.120 But she basically says, look, you know, don't characterize that as a mistake. It wasn't a
00:19:09.600 mistake. We had other considerations. And the other considerations she kind of reveals at the end of
00:19:14.500 that is that now they have a Democratic president. And so it's OK if they pass a bill so long as Trump
00:19:20.080 doesn't get the credit for it. And oh, because we have a vaccine, now we're able to give people
00:19:26.960 less support than we wanted to before. The fact of the matter is, she just didn't want to negotiate
00:19:31.080 with Trump. She didn't care that people were suffering. She didn't care that small businesses
00:19:34.860 were being closed down and people's lives were being ruined and families being put in very desperate
00:19:38.980 situations. She didn't want to give Trump any credit for the relief that they very well could have
00:19:44.380 offered. Like I said, she is now accepting a deal with a far smaller, with a far smaller dollar
00:19:53.460 amount attached to it than the one that Trump offered just a couple months ago. It's all about
00:20:01.500 politics and power, you guys. It's not about taking care of you and your family. And I think that this
00:20:08.160 is also demonstrated through this headline. Ilhan Omar spent millions on her husband's political
00:20:14.220 consulting firm, who also received over $600,000 in federal COVID relief. This is from The Daily
00:20:22.380 Wire. Omar's husband, Tim Minette, owns E Street Group, a political consulting firm. Public records
00:20:29.000 show that E Street Group received nearly $135,000 in Paycheck Protection Program PPP loans and $500,000
00:20:38.860 in Economic Injury Disaster Loans. During the 2019-2020 election cycle, Omar paid nearly $2.8 million
00:20:48.300 to E Street Group, her husband's company. The Federal Election Commission data shows that Omar's
00:20:55.060 campaign spent $1.6 million on her husband's company from the beginning of 2019 to July 22nd,
00:21:02.060 2020. In the third quarter of 2020, Omar's campaign spent $1.6 million in total, $1.1 million of which
00:21:09.400 was spent on E Street Group. She cut ties with the company mid-November after she won re-election.
00:21:17.560 Interesting. She wanted to make sure that there are no perceived issues, but it does kind of seem
00:21:24.300 a little late for that. She claims that her husband, quote, received no profit whatsoever from the
00:21:29.080 consulting relationship that the firm provided. That is very hard to believe. So even while she
00:21:34.060 was dishing out millions of dollars to her husband's company, he was receiving, his company was also
00:21:39.200 receiving your taxpayer dollars from the first stimulus bill. While millions of Americans,
00:21:46.900 millions of Americans are suffering, unable to feed their families because they can't legally open
00:21:52.360 their businesses, despite being totally willing, totally willing and able to operate in a way that
00:21:57.260 is safe. Our elites are raking in funds for themselves and their families. And this is not just
00:22:02.340 exclusive to Democrats. By the way, I think there's a lot of Republicans sitting on their hands,
00:22:06.460 not wanting to do anything, that really are not hit very hard by the effects of this virus and
00:22:13.620 are being lazy and getting things done for the American people. I do think we see a lot of hypocrisy
00:22:19.020 from the Democrats in that they are the ones that are so pro-lockdown and so fear-mongering and so
00:22:25.580 anti-small business. It seems that when it comes to this, while simultaneously flouting the rules
00:22:30.100 themselves and not and are not willing to give the help to the people that they desperately need because
00:22:37.260 of these lockdowns. But look, you've got a lot of lazy and apathetic and hypocritical people in the
00:22:42.560 Republican Party as well that are not standing up for their constituents who need help. So it's not only
00:22:48.720 small businesses, as you guys know, that are being shut down. It's also being it's also schools who are being
00:22:54.940 shut down thanks to teachers unions and associations, as well as the Democratic politicians that they're
00:23:00.340 controlled by. And we'll get into all of that in just one second. We've got to take one more ad break
00:23:04.880 first. Okay, let's talk about the latest craziness in our public school system. So there are teacher
00:23:20.460 sick outs going on in multiple districts around the country. Corey DeAngelis, who is an expert on public
00:23:28.840 education and an advocate for school choice. He reported that Potts Grove School District was
00:23:33.920 supposed to partially reopen a couple days ago on December 7th. But families found out the night
00:23:39.960 before on December 6th that their schools aren't opening because too many teachers called in sick.
00:23:46.420 families, as he says, are getting the short end of the stick here because these teachers unions are
00:23:52.540 advocating for sick outs as a way to protest, protest schools reopening. There is an organization called
00:24:01.740 More UFT who are described, they describe themselves as the Justice Caucus in NYC United Federation of
00:24:08.320 Teachers. They publicly on Twitter called for a sick out. So called for teachers to call in sick,
00:24:13.360 even though they're not really sick. So they don't have to teach your children. There was a peaceful
00:24:19.640 protest protesting the lockdowns in Oregon. And there was a teacher who drove by and was very angry
00:24:30.060 about this. So I'm going to play this clip. So thankfully we bleeped out the cuss words for you,
00:24:55.880 but she tells these peaceful protesters to kill themselves. And she calls them derogatory names.
00:25:03.740 And she says, I am an expletive teacher. I work at school. Guys, no amount of public school funding
00:25:13.820 can change the fact that these are some of the educators that are teaching your kids. There's a lot
00:25:19.620 of wonderful, wonderful caring educators out there. But there's a lot of educators like this too,
00:25:25.020 who are indoctrinating your kids. You know, it's so funny. People say, oh, homeschooling
00:25:28.960 parents indoctrinate their kids. Your kids are going to be indoctrinated. Do you want them
00:25:32.620 indoctrinated by that lady or by you who loves them and who cares about them and who knows what
00:25:38.800 they need? Of course, kids are going to be taught. They're going to be indoctrinated and they're going
00:25:43.920 to be given certain values in a particular worldview. Nothing is neutral. This lady clearly isn't neutral.
00:25:49.540 This lady is in charge of the education of your kids for eight hours a day.
00:25:54.420 And this is unfortunately representative of a portion of educators, really, whether you're
00:26:01.940 looking at public school or private school. They're so frustrated by the fact that there are people
00:26:07.440 who want to maintain their livelihoods by working, even though the jobs of these public education
00:26:12.640 teachers are protected. Like they are still getting paid with our taxpayer dollars,
00:26:16.780 even if they refuse to go to school. That's not right. I mean, in any other private sector job,
00:26:23.920 you would be fired for that kind of behavior or you would be fired for for not going to work.
00:26:29.320 And the science shows, as we will get into over and over again, that it is actually safe to open up
00:26:34.980 the schools and to have in-person instruction. And yet the Chicago Teachers Union tweeted this.
00:26:40.440 The push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism and misogyny. Really?
00:26:46.780 Well, I would say that the push to keep schools closed in the face of all of the science that we
00:26:52.600 have proving the safety of reopening schools is actually rooted in teachers unions, a longstanding
00:27:00.020 tradition of hating their students. And I know that that's controversial for a lot of people who
00:27:07.060 still are under the illusion that teachers unions care about teachers and students. They don't.
00:27:12.700 They care about bureaucracy. They care about themselves. They care about money. They have
00:27:17.720 never cared, well, at least in the past 60 or so years, have not cared about the well-being of
00:27:23.800 their students or else they would abide by what the American Academy of Pediatrics says about education.
00:27:30.740 This is according to their website. The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly advocates that all policy
00:27:36.360 considerations for the coming school year, so they were saying this back in August,
00:27:39.980 should start with a goal of having students physically present in school.
00:27:45.400 A study by Indiana University finds that their students who attended in-person classes
00:27:49.560 were not more likely to test positive for COVID-19. So this is according to their site in this
00:27:57.480 particular study. For Indiana University's fall semester, a 13-week period from August to November,
00:28:03.640 students were allowed to attend in-person classes along with safety precautions such as social
00:28:08.060 distancing and mask wearing. IU researchers analyzed data for 70,000 students across all their campuses.
00:28:15.180 They found that there was a negative correlation between the number of credit hours students were
00:28:19.840 enrolled in and the likelihood of testing positive for COVID-19. For each in-person credit hour taken,
00:28:25.300 students were increasingly less likely to test positive for COVID-19. Among students taking one to three
00:28:30.680 in-person credit hours, eight percent tested positive. Among students taking 13 to 15 in-person credit
00:28:36.240 hours, two percent tested positive. The university was happy to report these findings. They take it as
00:28:40.820 confirmation that their safety measures are working. And so we see that actually the risks of students
00:28:48.180 not going to school in person are greater than them going to school in person. That includes the
00:28:54.980 teachers. We have already talked about a particular study a couple weeks ago that found that the
00:29:00.360 positive rate for teachers who are engaged in in-person instruction is not any higher than the
00:29:07.660 positive rate for the rest of the population. And so whether you're talking about the health of the
00:29:11.980 teachers or the health of the students, there's no reason in relation to the virus to not open up
00:29:18.080 these schools. This was reported by the Washington Post. Quote, after the U.S. education system fractured
00:29:24.720 into Zoom screens last spring, experts feared millions of children would fall behind. Hard evidence
00:29:30.000 now shows they were right. A flood of new data on the national, state, and district levels find students
00:29:35.240 began this academic year behind. Most of the research concludes students of color and those in high
00:29:40.400 poverty communities fell further behind than their peers. Of course, of course. Exacerbating long-standing
00:29:46.700 gaps in American education. A study being released this week by McKinsey & Co. estimates that the
00:29:52.640 shift to remote school in the spring set white students back by one to three months in math,
00:29:57.900 while students of color lost three to five months. As the coronavirus pandemic persists through this
00:30:02.900 academic year, McKinsey said losses will escalate. Now, again, the Washington Post is going to blame
00:30:08.640 the virus for this. It's not the virus that is to blame. It is these unscientific shutdowns of the
00:30:14.680 schools. The California Bay Area schools are seeing a spike in failing grades. Sequoia Union
00:30:19.720 High School District reported that the percentage of students with more than one failing grade this
00:30:23.840 fall jumped to 29 percent from 19.7 percent in 2019. That's a high percentage regardless, but
00:30:32.500 almost a third, almost a third of students this year have at least one failing grade. Mount Diablo
00:30:38.920 Unified School District reported a similar rise in high school students failing more than one grade,
00:30:43.360 30.66 percent from just over 19 percent the previous two academic years. Sonoma County saw similar
00:30:50.380 spikes. 37 percent of students across its 10 districts with high schools had at least one failing
00:30:55.880 grade compared to 27 percent at the same time last year. In Helzberg Unified School District, the number
00:31:02.440 of high school students with D and F grades at this point in the fall roughly doubled to 39 percent
00:31:08.760 from 20 percent in a typical year. Santa Rose City schools are seeing 30 percent to 50 percent more F grades
00:31:14.820 this year than at the same time last year. Educators and students are saying that a big part of the problem
00:31:20.280 is that it's harder for kids to focus on class when it's a Zoom meeting rather than in a classroom, that
00:31:27.720 kids aren't getting as much instruction time through remote learning as they did on campus. Of course, this is
00:31:33.000 obvious. Houston area schools see a spike in failing grades. Some districts reported nearly half of their
00:31:40.680 middle and high schoolers received at least two F grades because they routinely missed class or neglected
00:31:46.360 assignments. In Houston ISD, the state's largest district, 42 percent of students failed two or more
00:31:52.680 classes in the first grading period, up from about 11 percent in a typical year. About 25 percent of middle
00:31:59.700 school students received at least two F grades, about five times higher than 2019 to 2020. The Tri-Cities
00:32:09.620 area in Washington sees spikes in failing grades. At least 20 percent of Richland's nearly 4,300 high
00:32:16.260 school students are failing a class, the district officials. Washington keeps delaying school openings,
00:32:21.460 and they say due to rising COVID case numbers, they believe the schools and some of these districts
00:32:29.700 actually believe that they can open the schools safely based on the size of the groups that they
00:32:33.940 have and maybe only meeting twice a week. But unfortunately, the governments in these areas are making that
00:32:39.140 very difficult. Now, finally, after months and months of denying this, Dr. Fauci has said,
00:32:44.820 okay, we should open our schools. Schools have been safely open in Europe and several parts of the
00:32:50.900 world all year, by the way. But Dr. Fauci and our, quote, scientific and political experts, the powers
00:32:58.340 that be here, have said, no, no, no. It's far too dangerous. I'll never forget on MSNBC when the host
00:33:04.420 asked a panel of doctors whether or not they would allow their kids to go back to school. I think this
00:33:10.180 was back in June and July. Every single one of those doctors said, yes, of course. And yet,
00:33:15.380 schools continued to shut down across the country. Here is Nancy Pelosi in July saying that, oh,
00:33:22.520 opening up the schools is way too dangerous. A large percentage, overwhelmingly, the teachers
00:33:28.180 want to open up the schools. But it has to be safe for the children. And to be safe for the children,
00:33:36.320 we must attack this coronavirus. We must kill it off.
00:33:41.900 Now, here is what Trump said in July.
00:33:43.960 So what we want to do is we want to get our schools open. We want to get them open quickly,
00:33:50.060 beautifully in the fall. And the, as you know, this is a disease. It's a horrible disease. But
00:33:57.720 young people do extraordinarily well. And we hope that most schools are going to be open. We don't
00:34:03.920 want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons. I think it's going to be
00:34:07.920 good for them politically. So they keep the schools closed. No way. So we're very much going to put
00:34:12.820 pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open. And it's very
00:34:20.440 important. It's very important for our country. It's very important for the well-being of the student
00:34:24.800 and the parents. So we're going to be putting a lot of pressure on open your schools in the fall.
00:34:30.200 So, of course, you can see why Democrats took the position that they did, why in some ways teachers
00:34:34.980 unions took the position that they did, because it has been a game. It has been a routine for the
00:34:40.120 past four years to ensure that Trump is opposed on everything he says. But Trump was following the
00:34:46.860 science. Now, the funny thing is, Democrats say that, oh, now we have a guy in office who is
00:34:50.700 following the science. Well, Trump was following the science back in July. And Democrats said that he
00:34:55.460 was wrong and that it was dangerous. CNN ran a headline after he said that saying,
00:35:00.300 Trump's mind-bending logic on school reopenings. So data apparently is mind-bending. And as we
00:35:07.160 talked about last week, kids are not only not getting the virus very much, and they're certainly
00:35:12.840 not dying from it, they are very rarely spreading the virus, even to teachers. And yet the teachers
00:35:19.100 unions, they protested. They have threatened to go on strike. They are striking in some places right now.
00:35:24.140 They wrote that they would, or they said that they would write their would-be obituaries in
00:35:33.460 certain places like Arizona. LA teachers union said that they want Medicare for all and to defund
00:35:39.660 the police before going back to school. The teachers unions are not in it. They're not in it for the
00:35:45.800 teachers. They're not in it for their salaries. They're not in it for the safety of the schools.
00:35:49.800 They're not in it for the students. They're in it for themselves. And in other places, it's about
00:35:56.080 the Democratic politicians that are giving into these shutdowns. It's simply about doing what the
00:36:00.640 media, what they know the media will applaud them for. They're scared of the backlash if they don't
00:36:05.300 shut everything down, including the schools to the detriment of the most vulnerable kids, the very kids
00:36:10.480 in these black and brown communities that the Democratic Party says that they care about. They always say
00:36:15.560 that they care so much about income gaps, about success gaps. And yet, right now, we are creating
00:36:20.240 gaps between white kids and black kids by shutting down the schools. And the Democratic Party, for the
00:36:25.280 large part, for the past few months, have been the ones advocating for this. And by the way, it's the
00:36:31.620 teachers unions that are pushing the curriculum about critical race theory and systemic racism.
00:36:36.760 And they're also the ones pushing for these lockdowns that are disproportionately hurting the black
00:36:41.060 and brown kids for months and years to come, maybe for an entire lifetime. It doesn't make any sense.
00:36:47.040 And that should at least make you question things. Rich kids, kids of politicians, they're not going to
00:36:52.940 fall behind. Their parents aren't going to let them fall behind. There are a lot of different options
00:36:57.620 for these kids. If you have money to be able to make sure that they are staying on track in their
00:37:04.520 education, it's poor children. It's children with single parents who can't afford to quit working.
00:37:09.140 Kids who are in abusive situations at home. Children without access to Wi-Fi or a personal
00:37:14.400 computer. Kids who can't count on meals at home. Kids who are suffering or maybe suffering abuse at
00:37:19.820 home. Those are the kids that are falling behind. Those are the kids that are disproportionately affected
00:37:23.700 by unscientific shutdowns pushed by the Democratic Party, some in the Republican Party, and teachers
00:37:29.260 unions. There was a report that came out, I think that we have talked about it before, that suicides
00:37:38.620 have surged among youths over the past few months. From Atrium Health, the Arizona superintendent of
00:37:45.240 public instruction, Kathy Hoffman, talked about the increase in suicides in her school district.
00:37:51.060 In Japan, more people died by suicide in October than from COVID in all of 2020. And it's not just
00:37:57.940 students that this is happening to. I mean, I know personally some students who are struggling with
00:38:02.400 mental health and who are struggling with isolation, who are struggling with falling behind and just
00:38:06.860 feelings of purposelessness. And hours and hours spent in front of a screen all day that is deteriorating
00:38:11.560 their mental health and just their brain's capacity to think critically and to even process
00:38:17.380 their emotions. I mean, they're really suffering right now, these kids who are missing in-person
00:38:22.060 instruction. Now, some of them have parents who are very present and who are helping them, who aren't
00:38:26.460 suffering as much, but some kids don't. The most vulnerable kids don't. But it's not just these students
00:38:31.400 who are struggling. It's also people who are older. In July, a majority of U.S. adults 18 and older said
00:38:38.720 that worry and stress related to coronavirus has had a negative impact on their mental health, up from
00:38:43.960 39% in May. The University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging asked U.S. adults aged 50 to 80
00:38:51.940 about loneliness, social interactions, and health behaviors in June 2020. And a large percentage of
00:38:59.400 them said that they felt isolated, that they felt like they had a lack of purpose and a lack
00:39:03.800 of companionship. There was a 90-year-old woman in Canada who chose medically assisted suicide
00:39:10.920 over another round of lockdowns. Her name was Nancy Russell. It's just tragic. NBC reported that more
00:39:19.820 than eight months into the pandemic, the very isolation that is meant to protect nursing home residents
00:39:25.840 is actually hurting them. And so all of these arbitrary lockdowns that, by the way, so many
00:39:32.120 people in power are not abiding by, and we're going to get through that string of hypocrites in just a
00:39:36.180 second. They're hurting people. They're hurting their minds. They're hurting their souls. They're
00:39:41.460 hurting their hearts. And we just don't care about that. I mean, I do. And I know that there are a lot
00:39:46.420 of Americans do, but the people in power just apparently don't. They just don't care about the whole
00:39:51.080 person. For some reason, they just think that people who die by COVID are important, but people
00:39:55.820 who die by suicide aren't. And I just don't get it. I just don't get it. And I just want to give us
00:40:01.460 some perspective as well, just a reminder that according to the CDC, the virus has a 99.98%
00:40:10.140 survival rate if you are under the age of 50, a 99.5% survival rate if you are under the age of 70,
00:40:16.820 and at least a 95% survival rate if you are over the age of 70. And it's significantly higher than
00:40:24.900 that if you are, the survival rate is significantly higher than that if you are a woman over the age
00:40:30.480 of 70. For whatever reason, men, according to the CDC, are getting hit harder by this than women.
00:40:36.600 Now, according to the CDC, the flu fatality rate for 18 to 49-year-olds in the 2018 to 2019 season
00:40:43.760 was 0.02%, which is comparable to other years and is the same for the fatality rate of COVID for that
00:40:51.420 age group. Now, here is where there is a disparate impact between the flu and COVID, which is why COVID
00:40:58.280 is regarded as more dangerous and is more deadly than the flu, I think accurately. You've got a 0.06%
00:41:07.060 chance of dying from the flu if you are ages 50 to 64, and a 0.5% chance of dying from COVID if you
00:41:15.100 get that. So that's still a really high survival rate, of course, but that's a much bigger chance
00:41:20.320 of dying from COVID than from the flu at that age, about nine times bigger. The flu fatality rate for
00:41:26.780 people 65 years old and older is 0.8% and is apparently, according to the CDC, about 6% for COVID,
00:41:35.120 which is obviously a huge difference. So there's an average of 0.1% chance of dying from the flu and
00:41:41.500 an average of about 2% chance of dying from the flu if you look at all age groups. But the reason why
00:41:48.100 that number goes from 99.9% survival rate to 98% survival rate, if you're comparing the flu and
00:41:57.040 coronavirus for all age groups, is because of the disparate impact that COVID has on older people
00:42:02.560 in the United States versus the flu. For every other age group, the fatality rate between COVID
00:42:08.140 and the flu is actually comparable. Even so, the survival rate is, thankfully, thank the Lord,
00:42:15.640 very, very high for all age groups, which tells us something that seems to be pretty obvious
00:42:20.800 to the average person, to the average Joe like me, not a scientist, not a doctor, not a politician,
00:42:26.260 not a data analyst, always open to be proven wrong on this, not a public health expert,
00:42:30.900 not any of these things, just an observer of these numbers, just looking at the information.
00:42:36.080 It seems to me that the strategy should be obvious, that we protect these older populations
00:42:40.540 that are much more likely to die of this if they get it than they are of the flu,
00:42:45.240 and that everyone else lives their lives as cautiously and as responsibly as they can,
00:42:51.040 as they would like, without shutting down their business and shutting down their whole lives.
00:42:54.460 The message all along, if we're really looking at the science, which a lot of people say that they
00:42:59.940 are, but they're actually not, they're looking at political ideology, if we're actually looking
00:43:04.280 at the science, the message, the strategy should have been, this is a relatively dangerous virus for
00:43:10.740 our older population, and for people with XYZ underlying conditions, here are the precautions
00:43:16.380 we recommend you take to mitigate the spread to those populations.
00:43:20.180 And hey, when we develop a vaccine, they should say, which I think a lot of people in charge
00:43:26.340 are, we are going to ensure that these people get it first.
00:43:29.480 In the meantime, do these things to mitigate the spread, keep yourself healthy by going
00:43:33.960 outside, by eating well, taking vitamin D, washing your hands, not going out if you have
00:43:39.600 been sick or if you have been around anyone who's sick.
00:43:42.940 I think all of that would have been really smart, really practical.
00:43:45.960 A lot of people would have been a lot less skeptical of the people in power if they had
00:43:51.500 left those options up to us, and if they had based their restrictions and regulations and
00:43:56.540 suggestions on the data, rather than just having these rolling waves of lockdowns that are actually
00:44:02.660 connected to the special interests that are lining the pockets of these politicians, rather
00:44:07.040 than in the interest of the population.
00:44:09.300 Like, I'm okay with the mask recommendations.
00:44:11.860 I have looked at the data.
00:44:13.280 I think that there is, based on the data, there is some help that masks can provide in
00:44:20.700 that they might prevent the person that is sick from spreading it to someone else.
00:44:27.700 They're not going to keep you from getting sick.
00:44:30.620 Like, if you are around someone else who is sick and you get in close contact with them,
00:44:36.160 your mask is not going to help you.
00:44:38.100 But if you are sick, your mask might protect you from getting someone else sick.
00:44:45.200 So I'm okay with the mask recommendation.
00:44:47.340 I understand the mask recommendation.
00:44:49.260 I'm okay with distancing suggestions.
00:44:51.060 I'm fine with all of that guidance.
00:44:52.920 I think the vast majority of people follow voluntary guidelines because they don't want to
00:44:56.900 get sick.
00:44:57.780 And they don't want their family members to get sick.
00:44:59.420 They don't want the people they love to get sick.
00:45:00.900 They don't want to shut down their business.
00:45:02.820 But rather than fear-mongering, we have needed people in the mainstream media, we have needed
00:45:07.740 Dr. Fauci to paint a realistic picture of what is going on and make realistic suggestions
00:45:13.000 based on the data that we have.
00:45:14.460 We need politicians to prioritize their public health orders based on actual data and based
00:45:21.660 on the whole person, like based on what people need education-wise, what people need financially,
00:45:26.820 but they haven't.
00:45:27.620 Democratic and some Republican politicians have bought into this media-manufactured trap
00:45:33.080 that says the more restrictions that you place on the people in your state, the better
00:45:36.920 job you're doing, the more responsible and compassionate you are, and the less restrictions
00:45:41.100 you place, regardless of how many cases or deaths your area has had, you're a bad leader.
00:45:47.300 And according to many in the leftist media, it's okay if these leaders like Whitmer and Cuomo
00:45:52.620 and Newsom and Lightfoot and Schumer and Pelosi, who are all pro-lockdown politicians,
00:45:56.480 break their own rules or allow protests and riots to go on unregulated and uncriticized
00:46:00.960 because A, they're Democrats, and B, they took draconian measures to, quote, stop the
00:46:05.240 virus.
00:46:06.360 So these power-hungry, affirmation-craving politicians shut down schools.
00:46:12.760 They have forced businesses and restaurants to close, many of them permanently.
00:46:16.800 They've crushed people's lives and livelihoods in a way that does not actually correspond with
00:46:21.160 any science, and they know this.
00:46:23.040 That's why most of them are just living their lives.
00:46:26.360 And I want to read you this list of politicians who have told you that you can't live your
00:46:32.560 life but have gone on living their own lives despite the rules that they have set for you.
00:46:37.860 This thread was compiled by Mary Margaret Olihan, who works at The Daily Caller.
00:46:44.520 So D.C.
00:46:45.220 Mayor Muriel Bowser traveled to Joe Biden's victory speech in high-risk Delaware and excused the trip
00:46:50.900 by saying it was essential travel exempt under D.C.'s restrictions.
00:46:55.420 So despite the heavy restrictions that she has placed on D.C., she wanted to celebrate
00:46:59.920 Joe Biden's projected victory.
00:47:03.040 Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended her decision to get a haircut despite urging citizens to stay
00:47:08.000 at home in accordance with the state order.
00:47:11.180 Lightfoot, again, Chicago mayor tells people to cancel traditional Thanksgiving plans after celebrating
00:47:16.520 Biden victory in large crowd without a mask.
00:47:19.800 And I will include a link to all of these, by the way.
00:47:22.740 Security footage obtained by Fox News shows a wet-haired Nancy Pelosi walking through e-salon
00:47:27.780 in San Francisco on Monday at 3.08 p.m. as she attended her appointment for a wash and blowout,
00:47:33.540 though indoor hair salons in the California city were currently closed.
00:47:38.080 Photos show a maskless Gavin Newsom, governor of California, dining indoors at one of the highest-rated
00:47:43.180 restaurants in the world despite his restrictive coronavirus guidelines for the citizens of
00:47:47.120 California.
00:47:48.260 Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney dined indoors in Maryland.
00:47:51.920 A widely circulated photograph shows, though indoor dining was prohibited in Philadelphia.
00:47:57.280 Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia caught maskless at Virginia Beach.
00:48:00.820 He later apologized and said, quote, I was not prepared.
00:48:05.080 That's funny.
00:48:05.780 I guess he just didn't want to bring the KKK hood that he had posed in several decades ago.
00:48:11.980 So de Blasio, mayor of New York City, goes to the gym before New York Governor Cuomo shuts
00:48:18.720 all of them down.
00:48:19.840 His excuse was that the YMCA had been a big part of his life.
00:48:24.480 And so he needed to make sure that he still exercised publicly, even while urging other
00:48:29.500 people not to.
00:48:30.560 Dianne Feinstein, senator from California, she pushed for a nationwide mask mandate.
00:48:35.140 She was seen maskless in public in an airport.
00:48:38.180 New York Democratic leaders caught maskless at a private party despite COVID restrictions
00:48:43.760 in New York.
00:48:45.240 New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy confronted by angry protesters for eating outside without
00:48:50.740 a mask, which is not allowed in New Jersey.
00:48:54.900 New York Governor Cuomo said that his mother and daughters were coming for Thanksgiving after
00:48:59.240 telling New Yorkers to, quote, stay away from loved ones.
00:49:02.760 After a massive backlash, his office told Mary Margaret that Cuomo will be busy on Thanksgiving
00:49:09.340 and won't be home.
00:49:11.580 The governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, who cheered on the massive BLM protests earlier this year,
00:49:16.280 tells citizens to, quote, uninvite family members for Thanksgiving.
00:49:20.700 Denver Mayor Hancock tweeted warnings to citizens to, quote, avoid travel 30 minutes before he boarded
00:49:28.020 a flight to travel to his family for Thanksgiving.
00:49:31.700 San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo attended a Thanksgiving party with family members who were not part of
00:49:37.140 his own household after telling citizens to cancel big gatherings this year.
00:49:41.880 Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuhl dined outdoors only hours after voting to ban outdoor
00:49:47.660 dining.
00:49:48.680 California lawmakers traveled to conference in Hawaii despite new coronavirus restrictions.
00:49:54.640 Amazing.
00:49:54.940 I want to travel to Hawaii on the taxpayer dime.
00:49:58.340 Pelosi cancels dinner for new Democrats after blowback over coronavirus risk.
00:50:02.840 And so she was going to have she was going to have a dinner with multiple people seated
00:50:07.920 at tables in D.C. to celebrate the the the new the freshman or the new congresspeople.
00:50:16.080 And she got a lot of pushback for that.
00:50:18.080 And rightfully so.
00:50:18.900 She said she was going to do it in a way that was safe.
00:50:20.840 Why can't small business?
00:50:22.180 Why can't restaurants run their restaurant in a way that is safe?
00:50:26.080 Nancy Pelosi.
00:50:28.000 Oh, gosh.
00:50:29.140 Now we're just getting into the nitty gritty.
00:50:31.060 This is another this is another story.
00:50:33.040 This one from the Daily Caller.
00:50:34.160 Nancy Pelosi takes down her mask, wipes her nose, then touches the podium.
00:50:39.640 House members, including Nancy Pelosi, demonstrating the wrong way to wear a mask.
00:50:44.800 And the latest coronavirus hypocrite, Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, dined in a semi-enclosed
00:50:51.260 room at the French Laundry restaurant three days before she banned indoor dining in her
00:50:55.820 city.
00:50:56.640 That is the same restaurant that Newsom infamously dined at.
00:51:00.760 A Texas judge pled guilty and paid a fine after violating his own stay at home order.
00:51:06.580 Austin Mayor Steve Adler flew private to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where he filmed himself
00:51:13.960 himself telling citizens to, quote, stay home.
00:51:16.860 He says in the video from his timeshare in Cabo, quote, this is not the time to relax.
00:51:22.520 We may have to close things down if we are not careful.
00:51:26.480 Wow.
00:51:27.020 So you wonder why people are desperate.
00:51:28.620 Like you wonder why people are frustrated.
00:51:30.600 You wonder why people are angry right now.
00:51:33.160 Because the very rules that are ruining the average citizen's life are not being abided
00:51:37.880 by by the people who are placing them on you.
00:51:40.360 So they've placed a burden on people that no one can bear.
00:51:42.580 And it's ruined people.
00:51:43.560 It's hurt people.
00:51:44.280 It's killed people in some cases.
00:51:45.740 It's set kids back.
00:51:46.980 Who knows how far?
00:51:48.020 In a time when we're talking about inequality and disparate outcomes, students in poor communities
00:51:52.780 and predominantly black and brown communities are watching any hope of graduation in college
00:51:56.920 and a future stripped from them because they don't have the resources or parental guidance
00:52:01.620 to, quote, distance learn in some of these cases.
00:52:03.920 It has hurt people with special needs, people who live by themselves, who are already suffering
00:52:08.760 from loneliness and depression, our elderly population.
00:52:12.060 And yet, for pointing this out months ago, conservatives were called grandma killers, heartless,
00:52:17.800 pro-death, pro-birth hypocrites, for pointing out that the lockdowns and many of the measures
00:52:22.480 are not based on science and are not taking into account the risks on the other side.
00:52:26.860 The virus is not the only or even greatest threat to our lives, guys.
00:52:30.600 It is a threat.
00:52:32.620 It is.
00:52:33.180 And I have said that from the beginning.
00:52:34.840 I won't deny that.
00:52:36.220 But loneliness is also a threat that is killing people every day.
00:52:39.660 Financial collapse because the government forced your small business of 30 years to close
00:52:44.020 is a threat.
00:52:45.540 People without access in some places to school, to therapy, especially in the early months,
00:52:52.060 to their cancer screenings and checkups, to churches and other community events, that
00:52:56.880 whether they realized it or not, we're keeping them alive and whole.
00:53:00.140 These people are suffering.
00:53:01.220 That is a threat, not just individually, but as a whole.
00:53:04.620 People's mental health is deteriorating.
00:53:06.800 People's spiritual state is dire.
00:53:08.180 Their financial state is not good.
00:53:11.220 I mean, what are we doing?
00:53:12.660 Based on what information?
00:53:14.440 This should be the last time that you trust politicians and those who call themselves experts
00:53:20.820 but are really floundering around just like everyone else.
00:53:24.440 This has been a hard year that has been made a lot worse by terrible leadership.
00:53:29.860 And you can see how these lockdown policies are made from a secular materialist worldview,
00:53:34.860 which is what we kind of talked about on Monday when we dissected the telos, the biblical
00:53:38.860 telos of gender, which holds that human beings, this secularist worldview, that human beings
00:53:44.060 are just material objects.
00:53:45.320 They're just clumps of matter.
00:53:46.380 They can adapt to anything.
00:53:47.820 But it's not true.
00:53:49.060 We have needs.
00:53:49.740 We are communal beings.
00:53:51.160 We actually need social activity.
00:53:53.100 We actually need to be educated.
00:53:55.240 We need work.
00:53:56.160 We need a purpose.
00:53:57.120 We're not just material objects.
00:53:58.620 We're not just clumps of matter.
00:54:00.400 There are immutable traits of human nature that when they are pressured or when they're
00:54:05.340 neglected, they cause us to falter.
00:54:07.700 That is why, for example, that communism and socialism don't work.
00:54:10.960 The need for work to provide for your own family and for yourself, the drive to procure
00:54:16.740 and to protect private personal property, the principles of supply and demand, the need
00:54:21.840 for some level of freedom are all innate.
00:54:24.080 We've seen it in human nature from the beginning.
00:54:26.180 When humans are denied these things, massive suffering and frustration and unrest follow
00:54:31.320 always.
00:54:32.680 That is why the biblical worldview is the most functional worldview.
00:54:35.660 It's the best view on which societies can properly be built because it accounts for the
00:54:40.440 whole person.
00:54:41.080 It understands human nature holistically.
00:54:44.360 Human beings are made in the image of God with bodies that are lovingly and purposely
00:54:49.400 made by God, as we talked about on Monday, with minds that are given the ability to reason
00:54:53.860 and discern, with souls that will live forever, with hearts that need love and need to be loved,
00:54:58.420 that need interaction.
00:54:59.460 We aren't just here.
00:55:00.600 We want to know why we're here.
00:55:02.140 We don't just think, therefore, we are, as Descartes said.
00:55:06.000 We want to know what we are and who we are and whose we are.
00:55:09.840 We are social beings.
00:55:11.060 We are communal beings.
00:55:12.060 We are interdependent beings.
00:55:13.380 We are beings who, without work and intellectual stimulation and without some sense of purpose,
00:55:18.920 atrophy, both mentally and spiritually.
00:55:22.580 So we constantly live and care for others in a way that takes into account all of these parts
00:55:28.360 of our nature, and government restrictions cannot stop us as the church from doing that.
00:55:34.040 That doesn't mean recklessness and carelessness.
00:55:35.960 It means attending to the whole person the way that Jesus did.
00:55:38.820 In Luke 5, when Jesus healed the paralytic man, he didn't just say, he didn't just say,
00:55:43.420 rise up and walk.
00:55:44.180 He said, your sins are forgiven.
00:55:46.200 So he didn't care only for his body, only for his sickness.
00:55:49.560 He also cared for his soul.
00:55:51.180 He didn't just want his physical healing, but his spiritual healing too.
00:55:54.280 So certain forms of purported Christianity and secularism don't like to talk about sins.
00:56:00.660 They don't like to even talk about the soul.
00:56:02.520 They'll talk about societal sins, like the oppressive patriarchy or systemic racism, but
00:56:08.240 they won't talk about personal rebellion to God in the form of immorality that we are then
00:56:14.180 called to repentance and salvation through faith in Christ.
00:56:17.360 They are typically viewed these subjects as inappropriate and intrusive, especially when it comes to vulnerable
00:56:22.460 people.
00:56:22.980 And yet we see Jesus time and again, get to the heart of the issue, to the dire need that we all
00:56:27.980 have to be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to God above all earthly needs that must be met.
00:56:33.360 Both the body and the soul matter.
00:56:36.100 The heart and the mind both matter.
00:56:38.680 And the public policy that is being implemented right now are trying and failing, by the way,
00:56:44.060 to protect the body at the expense of the rest of the person.
00:56:47.980 That's not always easy to do.
00:56:49.960 So I understand the government was never meant to be our caretaker.
00:56:54.100 They were never meant to be the shepherd of our souls.
00:56:56.820 They were never meant to be the caretaker of our heart.
00:57:00.440 I understand that.
00:57:01.680 But public policy that is going to affect people in this way has to be balanced.
00:57:06.120 It has to look at the entire person.
00:57:08.220 And unfortunately, because so much of our government actually comes from the secularist,
00:57:11.900 materialist worldview that doesn't see people as made in the image of God with an innate human
00:57:18.860 nature that when pressured or denied in some way is going to rebel and is going to become
00:57:25.920 frustrated, is going to become desperate, even sometimes to the point of suicide, because they
00:57:30.800 don't understand that they're making bad policy decisions.
00:57:33.240 And America is so politicized and so polarized that they're not even able to just base their policy
00:57:41.160 and base their proposals on the data that there's always a million different special interests pulling
00:57:46.660 our politicians in a different direction rather than your personal interests.
00:57:50.800 So please do not trust the governments.
00:57:53.380 Do not vote to give them more of your money.
00:57:56.300 I'm talking Republican or Democrat.
00:57:58.480 Thankfully, we serve a God who has never been hypocritical.
00:58:01.440 We serve a God who has never lied.
00:58:04.060 We serve a God who has never betrayed us, who has never stopped thinking about his glory
00:58:09.260 and our good, and his glory is our good.
00:58:11.700 And we serve a God who promises to rule in perfect peace and perfect honor and perfect
00:58:16.180 righteousness and integrity forever and ever.
00:58:18.720 And one day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that that Jesus, that he is
00:58:23.440 Lord.
00:58:24.420 And that is what we have to look forward to.
00:58:25.940 And so when we look at the leadership of some of the hypocrites in charge,
00:58:30.940 we can take heart knowing that they are not going to rule forever, that we do our best
00:58:35.100 to abide by the regulations that are put in place.
00:58:37.540 We do the best to be obedient and submissive citizens unless it causes us to sin.
00:58:42.900 But ultimately, our hope is in the God who reigns.
00:58:46.500 Our hope is in the King of Kings.
00:58:48.280 And that is where our assurance, that is where our peace also comes from.
00:58:52.660 So I know that you're in a hard situation right now.
00:58:55.080 You're feeling desperate.
00:58:56.040 You're feeling alone.
00:58:57.220 You're feeling isolated.
00:58:58.420 You're feeling like you don't know what to do.
00:59:00.660 I pray and I hope that you would cast your cares on the God who cares for you and the
00:59:06.820 true shepherd of your soul, who longs to and promises to provide for you because the
00:59:12.840 government ain't going to cut it.
00:59:15.200 We can hold our leaders accountable as much as possible.
00:59:18.340 And we should use the government for the well-being of our country.
00:59:23.200 But at the end of the day, don't place your hope there.
00:59:25.700 Don't place your peace there.
00:59:26.960 Don't place your assurance there.
00:59:28.500 It's going to continue to disappoint you.
00:59:31.960 So I'm continuing to pray for you, for all of us who are in those desperate situations.
00:59:37.200 I'm continuing to pray for political change in the favor of the well-being of the average
00:59:43.640 American.
00:59:44.820 And I am praying that people would turn to God, their true caretaker in all of this.
00:59:51.580 Remember, God is working even when it doesn't seem like it.
00:59:54.900 And I trust that he is.
00:59:56.420 OK, that's all I have for us today.
00:59:58.200 We will be back here on Friday.
00:59:59.920 Have a great day.
01:00:00.560 Have a great day.
01:00:01.180 Have a great day.
01:00:02.200 Have one.
01:00:02.940 Have one.
01:00:03.320 Have a great day.
01:00:03.380 Have a great day.
01:00:04.200 Have a great day.
01:00:04.320 Have a great day.
01:00:04.760 Have a great day.
01:00:05.400 Have a great day.
01:00:05.560 Have a good day.
01:00:14.040 Have a great day.
01:00:15.340 Have a great day.
01:00:15.520 Have a great day.
01:00:15.640 Have a great day.
01:00:16.440 Have a great day.
01:00:18.640 Have a great day.
01:00:19.600 Have a great day.
01:00:19.800 Have a great day.
01:00:20.280 Have a great day.
01:00:21.000 Have a great day.
01:00:21.720 Have a great day.
01:00:22.020 Have a great day.
01:00:22.220 Have a great day.
01:00:22.700 Have a great day.
01:00:23.540 Have a great day.
01:00:24.040 Have a great day.
01:00:25.600 Have a great day.
01:00:26.160 Have a great day.
01:00:27.700 Great day.