Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 371 ｜ Power Outages, Moral Relativism & Middle Parts

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful day so

00:00:15.480 far. Today we're going to talk about a few things. We are going to talk a little bit

00:00:21.180 about the weather problems and why these things are happening in Texas and in these southern

00:00:27.880 states. And that's not typically something that we cover on this podcast, but I actually think

00:00:33.200 that it's important. It's not just because there are so many people who are negatively affected

00:00:37.920 right now, but also because there are a lot of myths that are surrounding this and a lot of

00:00:45.260 political theater that I also think is clouding the reality of the why. This is not my expertise,

00:00:53.180 by the way. I'm going to tell you what experts have told me. And there are many other factors. The

00:00:57.880 plan to this, but I actually think it's important to talk about this. We're also going to talk about

00:01:03.520 one or two things that Biden said in his town hall last night and how it relates to the worldview issue

00:01:12.040 of foreign policy and how we see right versus wrong when it comes to our foreign allies and enemies.

00:01:21.720 And then we will also talk about how that kind of morally relativistic, I'll argue, worldview leads us

00:01:30.480 to create enemies here in our country who aren't actually our enemies, especially in regards to

00:01:36.940 categorizing all Christians as Christian extremists and people who cause violence simply by believing

00:01:43.580 that, for example, the Bible is inerrant. And so we'll try to get all of that in today.

00:01:48.460 Another full episode. If I have time, I'll do like a lighthearted segment at the end of this. A lot of

00:01:55.040 you guys have told me that it's sometimes hard for you to keep up four days a week with every single

00:02:00.420 day being so heavy and so much with really hard hitting interviews and really deep subjects and

00:02:07.220 sometimes difficult subjects to get into. And so maybe a way we can kind of alleviate that for some of

00:02:12.560 you. Now, for most of you, apparently that's not a problem. That's the feedback I got. But maybe we

00:02:18.700 need some like lighthearted every other day or like twice a week. We need a lighthearted segment to just

00:02:23.900 kind of just kind of make it not quite so heavy every single day, because I do feel that like I feel

00:02:32.180 that feedback that it can be hard to keep up with or overwhelming to keep up with when they're so

00:02:37.400 there. There's so much. There's just so much there because the guests that we have are just so super

00:02:42.920 smart and they give us so much wisdom and insight, so much to think about. Sometimes you feel like you have

00:02:46.420 to chew on it a couple of days before you can come back and listen to another similar episode. So I

00:02:51.400 understand now for those of you who on Instagram, you're like, please do not make your episodes any

00:02:56.700 different. Please don't make them shorter. Please don't take any episodes away during the week. You do not

00:03:01.500 have to fear that's not going to happen. Originally, I said that these episodes were supposed to be

00:03:06.880 about 30 minutes. I've just kind of given up on that goal. And I've realized that's probably

00:03:10.940 not going to happen. I'll try to do that every now and then for you guys. But it's really difficult

00:03:17.760 for it's really difficult for me to do for several reasons. There's a lot to talk about. I'm just a

00:03:22.700 verbose person. It's just difficult for me to kind of abbreviate these to 30 minutes. I'm also not

00:03:30.320 going to make them any fewer than four episodes a week. So the vast majority of you have told me that

00:03:36.660 you like the format, you like the cadence, you like how many there are a week, you like the subject matter,

00:03:41.900 you like how long they are. Some of you want five days a week, some of you want them to be an hour to

00:03:46.840 two hours long. That's probably not going to happen either. I don't know if anyone, including myself on

00:03:52.040 this team has time for all of that craziness. I could honestly talk for four hours a day. But I just we just

00:03:58.400 don't have time at this stage in our life. So anyway, thank you guys so much for feedback. And thank you so

00:04:02.540 much for listening and watching. And all that good stuff. I am very, very grateful for you. All

00:04:08.000 right, let's start by talking about what's happening in Texas. This is not just happening in Texas,

00:04:12.840 there's bad weather in the surrounding areas. So Arkansas has got some bad weather, Louisiana's got

00:04:18.980 some bad weather, Oklahoma's got some bad weather, all of these states, Oklahoma is more used to

00:04:24.440 this kind of snowy weather. They're a little bit probably more prepared in areas of Oklahoma,

00:04:31.300 Texas, not so much Arkansas and Louisiana are having a tough go of it. Power has been out for

00:04:38.120 millions of Texans for several days now. We're talking about nursing homes, we're talking about

00:04:44.860 vulnerable people who don't have any access to power, some people's water has been shut off,

00:04:52.440 the water treatment facilities have been shut down. In some places, pipes have been frozen,

00:05:00.680 people just have no way to get to the resources that they need to survive. If you think about

00:05:07.680 elderly people who certainly can't and should not go out and drive, they don't have anyone to come 1.00

00:05:13.540 help them. I heard a terrible, terrible story. My mom has a friend whose mom is in a nursing home and

00:05:21.140 affluent area in the DFW area and she has not had power in this nursing home for now 48 hours and has 0.96

00:05:32.000 also not seen anyone. So the staff apparently hasn't even been able to show up to work. And so

00:05:38.020 if you think about these nursing homes where they need life-saving medication,

00:05:41.800 a lot of them are on oxygen, they need help going to the bathroom, bathing, eating, apparently this

00:05:50.940 woman also hasn't eaten in a couple days because she just hasn't had any help. They rely on the

00:05:57.620 nursing home to make their meals every day. I mean, this is criminal what's going on. It is absolutely

00:06:02.900 tragic just how unprepared we are. Now, some people are saying, I saw AOC saying, I saw, of course,

00:06:09.140 federal work saying this has to do with climate change. This is what happens when you elect climate

00:06:14.380 deniers. And there's a little bit of confusion there because simultaneously you hear from climate

00:06:19.080 activists that climate is not weather, has nothing to do with weather. So when people say, oh, global

00:06:24.900 warming, is it real? Because look, it's so cold this year. You get climate activists saying, you know,

00:06:30.940 rolling their eyes and saying, oh, climate isn't weather. You guys don't understand. But at the same time,

00:06:35.500 when there is extreme weather, you have climate activists saying that, yes, see, this does have to do

00:06:42.320 with climate change. And so it seems that climate activists and climate alarmists are simultaneously

00:06:46.420 saying climate is weather and also climate is not weather. Weather is not proof of climate change.

00:06:52.820 Yes, weather is proof of climate change. The fact of the matter is, if you look at Texas records for

00:06:58.380 weather over the past 100 years, Texas has had this kind of weather before. The weather has been

00:07:05.080 going through the same kinds of cycles for the past 100 years of records that Texas has when it comes

00:07:12.080 to snow, when it comes to rain, when it comes to heat, and when it comes to cold. This is very rare

00:07:17.260 for Texas to have this kind of cold, to have this kind of snow. Very, very rare. Growing up

00:07:23.880 in Texas, we would be super excited if we had one day of like, kind of icy snow. It's very rare for

00:07:31.380 Texas to actually have snow snow, like powder type snow. It's usually some kind of combination of like

00:07:38.740 75% ice and a little bit of snow, it would last for a few hours in one day. And then by the afternoon,

00:07:45.440 it would melt and everyone would be so excited because you get to take the day off school and all

00:07:49.900 of that stuff. But having like, two days worth of snow, and having the weather in the teens,

00:07:56.100 that is very rare. It's usually like maybe 25 is the coldest, but usually stays in the 30s and 40s,

00:08:03.580 especially by February. And so people just, they're just not mentally prepared for this people don't

00:08:09.400 even have like the right clothes. Because why would you invest in, you know, why would you invest in

00:08:17.100 kind of clothing and gear for this type of weather when it is just so very rare for this to happen?

00:08:22.940 Insulation in the houses, they just are not set up. They're just not prepared for this kind of

00:08:31.740 weather. And then, of course, the energy companies and ERCOT, which is the Electric Reliability Council of

00:08:38.500 Texas. I mean, they've got some responsibility to bear in all of this. And that's kind of what I want to

00:08:44.800 explain, because there are so many different theories, especially by Democrats who are using

00:08:50.020 this to try to gain political points and try to say this is the problem with Republicans, or this is

00:08:56.720 the problem with Republican leadership. They're making assertions that just aren't true, that just

00:09:00.980 aren't based on facts. And like I said, I'm not necessarily, I'm definitely not the foremost expert

00:09:07.360 on all of this. But I have talked to people, I have talked to people who do know so much more than I do.

00:09:12.440 And so I'm going to explain a tiny snippet of what I know and what I kind of understand when it comes

00:09:19.880 to all of this stuff.

00:09:30.080 So, like I said, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas that is ERCOT, that's an acronym that you've

00:09:37.100 probably seen, especially if you live in Texas, you probably never even heard of them because you

00:09:41.320 don't know what they do. They have a board that is appointed by power companies. And one of the

00:09:47.820 problems that some people are saying is that actually they're not required to live in Texas.

00:09:51.980 So some of the board members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas don't even live in

00:09:56.860 Texas. And you can see how that would be a problem. They don't, they're not even touched by the crisis

00:10:01.360 at hand. They might not even have any family or friends who were touched by the crisis at hand.

00:10:05.620 And they might not even know how all of this works exactly because they're not in Texas. So the Electric

00:10:11.620 Reliability Council of Texas is under the authority of the Public Utilities Commission, which is the

00:10:17.000 PUC. That is appointed by the governor and the PUC sets the rules for ERCOT. So yes, the governor

00:10:26.120 definitely has some authority over this and everything rises and falls on leadership, but he

00:10:32.900 doesn't have necessarily so much power to change the way that things are going. The legislature,

00:10:40.200 the state legislature, however, does because the legislature sets the rules via law to say what the

00:10:47.520 PUC, who is over ERCOT, can and cannot do. And so a few years ago, ERCOT decided that they were going to

00:10:54.840 reduce excess energy capacity that they maintain. They buy energy from solar plants, from wind plants,

00:11:00.640 from natural gas, coal and nuclear plants, decided that they would not buy energy above more than 10%

00:11:08.000 than what they, what they think that they will actually need at any particular time. That's a very

00:11:15.080 slim margin. Experts recommended to the legislature that, hey, this needs to go up to 20%. Like that needs

00:11:23.080 to be the rule that set by the PUC that then, that then regulates or commands what ERCOT actually does

00:11:31.960 and the margins that they are allowed to have. And so ERCOT decided that their margin was just going

00:11:37.660 to be 10%. They thought that they would be able to buy any excess energy that they needed relatively

00:11:43.360 cheaply in a time of crisis. But that is a huge risk. And that's what we're seeing right now,

00:11:49.440 the consequence of taking that risk. When it gets really hot, demand goes up. When it gets really

00:11:54.040 cold, demand goes up. And there's just not enough energy right now in Texas to meet that demand because

00:12:00.540 ERCOT decided for, you know, one of the reasons is that ERCOT decided they were only going to keep

00:12:06.100 10% of that excess energy at all times. So when we don't have the capacity that we need, when we don't

00:12:13.160 have that bigger margin of about 20% that we need, we can't just turn around to the energy suppliers

00:12:18.820 and say, hey, you know, we need more energy. ERCOT can't necessarily do that. It's not that easy.

00:12:24.260 The suppliers aren't going to supply energy that they don't know that they will be able to sell.

00:12:31.060 Wind and solar power, they became totally unreliable over the past few days. We get about 25% of our

00:12:38.040 energy through wind and solar power, but both of those things froze. So the solar panels were covered

00:12:44.140 in ice, the wind turbines froze. And so now we can't get any energy from where we were previously

00:12:50.720 getting 25% of our energy. So you can see how that's a problem. The natural gas wells froze in

00:12:56.880 part because we didn't protect the valves from severe weather, because again, that's just so rare

00:13:02.880 in Texas. And so there were a lot of recommendations that were ignored by energy companies, by the

00:13:11.520 legislature. So yes, there are politics that certainly have to do, certainly have to do with

00:13:17.760 all of this. But it's not all politics. It also has to do with these energy companies, with ERCOT,

00:13:25.500 with the PUC, and with the various choices that they have made and the various risks that they

00:13:33.360 have taken over the years. And so that's part of the problem. Again, I'm just scratching the

00:13:40.400 surface. A lot of people could tell you a variety of reasons why all of this is going on. In some

00:13:47.800 cases, I mean, this feels criminal. The fact that there are vulnerable people, there are elderly

00:13:53.320 people, there are sick people, there are nursing homes that do not have power and have not had

00:13:59.580 power for days, don't have water, the water treatment facilities are shut down. And so some

00:14:05.440 people are having to boil their water, or they're just not getting any water at all. I mean, what is

00:14:10.400 the single mom supposed to do who has to boil water to create to have formula for her infant? Like 1.00

00:14:15.880 think about all the situations in which people are right now, that they are just completely without

00:14:24.000 the resources that they need to be able to survive. I mean, think about the elderly people that live by

00:14:30.000 themselves. Think about all of the vulnerable people who are unable to defend themselves against

00:14:36.500 the elements, who have been without power, without heat, in 15 degree weather for the past few days.

00:14:44.220 I mean, it's, it's, it's awful. There are so many things that the government does in excess. Like

00:14:51.600 there are so many things that the government should not be in charge of that the government

00:14:55.240 should not have their hand in whatsoever. There are so many times when the government just needs to

00:15:01.060 leave things alone, it needs to leave us alone. There are so many things that the government should

00:15:05.700 not be doing from my conservative perspective. But it seems like the least that they could possibly do

00:15:11.360 was to ensure that the people in their state, the constituents that they have, have power

00:15:18.360 and aren't going to freeze to death or aren't going to go without water for several days or a nursing

00:15:25.140 home isn't going to go without heat for days on end. I mean, some people apparently aren't going to have

00:15:31.020 power for weeks. That is criminal. So for all of the things that the government says, oh, this is my job

00:15:36.800 to make people's life better. This is my job to intervene. This is my job to interfere. You're

00:15:41.220 telling me you can't even keep people's power on. And I think that this is actually, this is actually

00:15:48.220 a moment for us to realize just how incompetent government can be, whether it's, whether it's

00:15:56.060 Republican or Democrat. Of course, I vote Republican. I don't think Democratic leadership at all would make

00:16:03.400 this any better. People saying on Twitter, oh, just Beto O'Rourke was our leader. Like if, if he just

00:16:09.360 came along and he made better decisions. No, no, no, no. Like I have seen no evidence for his

00:16:14.500 leadership capabilities whatsoever. He complained about it on Twitter. He didn't offer any solutions

00:16:19.480 at all. People saying that, oh, Greg Abbott is so, is so awful. And we just need a democratic leader.

00:16:25.980 I see no, I see no evidence of that. Sure. I think that some things were ignored and some mistakes

00:16:31.100 were made by politicians in Texas. That is certainly true, but to lay it all on their feet,

00:16:36.260 it's just not an accurate assessment of what's going on. And to say the Democrats would do this

00:16:40.260 better. I just don't see any proof of that. Also, this is happening for other reasons in places like

00:16:46.380 Oregon, places who are used to this kind of weather. There are also people without heat. There are people

00:16:51.420 without power. Oregon is obviously a very, quote, progressive state. So you can't just lay this on the

00:16:57.840 feet of, quote, climate deniers. And let us also remember in California, the wildfires that

00:17:03.000 tragically overtook the state. There were a variety of reasons for that. And Democrats and people on

00:17:08.120 the left had no problem saying that this also had to do with climate change, that this was also the

00:17:13.400 fault of climate deniers. Yes, because climate change deniers dominates the state legislature in

00:17:18.920 California. And I'm sure Gavin Newsom fits that bill as well. No, we talked about it at the time.

00:17:24.020 The reason that the fires could not be controlled in California among many reasons, but two of the

00:17:32.540 reasons were because of environmental policy that stopped, that prevented brush clearing in the

00:17:39.420 forests that can help prevent these forest fires. And the firefighters union had pushed so hard for

00:17:46.400 firefighters to have these high six figure salaries that the state couldn't actually afford to hire

00:17:51.640 enough firefighters to be able to fight the fires that were happening. And those are democratic policies.

00:17:58.380 I mean, California is obviously dominated by democratic laws and democratic leaders. And we've

00:18:04.600 seen disasters there. It seems like both both sides of the aisle have their faults when it comes to

00:18:11.620 dealing with disaster. And I think that we just both we need to realize that like we can't say

00:18:17.460 that every single natural disaster and every single failure of leadership is actually the

00:18:22.460 responsibility of climate change tonight. I mean, there's just no logical consistency to that

00:18:26.940 whatsoever. And AOC saying that this shows that we need a green new deal. You're telling me you want

00:18:32.560 me to put more power in the hands of the government? You want this to become more centralized? You want

00:18:38.700 you want me to give bureaucrats more responsibility? Like there is nothing at all about this whole thing

00:18:47.000 or any handling of any natural disaster that makes me think that the government should be given more

00:18:51.960 power and more responsibility in all of this. But like I said, I do think the least a government can do,

00:18:59.440 even the smallest government, the least you should be able to do is make sure that people have

00:19:03.680 power when it's snowing outside. Like, come on, guys. Come on. This is crazy. This is criminal.

00:19:10.900 So continue to pray for Texas surrounding areas. Pray for the people throughout power or without power,

00:19:17.540 not just here, but also in places like Oregon. And just pray for the power to turn on, especially for

00:19:27.820 vulnerable people, especially for those, um, who can't help themselves, who can't provide for

00:19:34.380 themselves, the elderly, the people with special needs, the people who live by themselves, um,

00:19:39.980 people in poor areas, they just don't have the resources. They can't drive to, uh, to some of

00:19:46.740 these centers that are providing water, who are providing food. They are providing, uh, they are providing

00:19:53.180 heat, um, pray for those people, pray for them to be able to get power. Um, it's just, it's tragic all

00:20:01.740 around. And, uh, tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow is my birthday. Uh, it starts my last year of being

00:20:10.540 29 and I will be posting, um, about a charity that I want you guys, um, to, uh, to donate to down in

00:20:18.500 Texas. It's a pregnancy center and vulnerable moms, moms who are already in crisis right now,

00:20:25.000 pregnant moms who are in crisis are in special and particular need, um, of our health right now.

00:20:31.560 They are, they might already be in a crisis situation. They might already be in a vulnerable

00:20:36.860 situation and the only place where they are able to get the supplies that they need and not just

00:20:42.420 pregnant moms, but new moms as well. They can't go out and get diapers. They can't afford diapers right now. 1.00

00:20:48.240 Um, they don't have anywhere to turn for help. And, uh, these pregnancy centers, these crisis

00:20:54.280 pregnancy centers are going to be the only resource centers where a lot of vulnerable moms and families 0.97

00:21:00.200 can go to get the supplies that they need. And so tomorrow for my birthday, I will post the link to,

00:21:06.720 um, the Amazon registry for this particular center. I would love for you guys to help out, uh, Texas in

00:21:15.520 that way and to help out moms in crisis in Texas in that way by donating baby items. So just be on the

00:21:21.960 lookout for that tomorrow. I'll post it on social media and I will also provide the link in the

00:21:27.100 description. All right. So I just wanted to talk about all of that. We probably won't be able to

00:21:31.980 get to everything, um, that I want to talk about today per usual, but I do want to talk about, uh,

00:21:39.320 this town hall that, uh, Biden participated in hosted by CNN, um, last night where he, he made a

00:21:48.220 series of gaffes. You guys, he is more prone to gaffes than Trump was. And that is very difficult

00:21:56.120 to do, but it's very interesting to watch the media constantly cover for him and tell us what he

00:22:03.700 actually meant to give him the benefit of the doubt and kind of be the Biden translator. When he says

00:22:08.600 something that is clearly weird or clearly offensive or, um, clearly incorrect, the media

00:22:17.740 clamors to cover for him and say, well, this is what he really meant. I don't remember any kind of

00:22:22.620 BOD being given to Trump when he messed up or when he actually said something was true. They actually

00:22:28.220 worked overtime to try and tell you why it wasn't actually totally accurate. So we're going to get

00:22:33.240 into a couple of the things that he said last night. All right, let's talk a little bit about

00:22:43.220 this Biden town hall. There were a few things that he said that just, that just made me laugh. He said,

00:22:50.160 uh, for example, did you ever think that a few years ago you would see biracial couples,

00:22:56.140 uh, every other commercial. Okay. Let's, let's just play that little snippet.

00:23:01.560 Did you ever five years ago think every second or third ad out of five or six you'd turn on would

00:23:08.200 be biracial couples? I mean, that's just a strange thing to say, right? I saw people on Twitter who

00:23:13.900 support Biden, like, yes, this is so amazing. Oh my gosh. I know I'm going to be saying this phrase

00:23:18.980 so often, and I know it gets kind of tiring and annoying, but if Trump had said that they would

00:23:26.140 say that that's racist, I can just imagine Biden sitting in front of his TV saying, oh,

00:23:31.500 oh, another, another by another biracial couple. Well, that's, that's, that's different. I mean, 0.98

00:23:38.740 I think several years ago, he would have referred to that as quote, what, what phrase did he use?

00:23:44.000 Racial jungle when he was talking about what kind of school he didn't want his children to go to, 1.00

00:23:49.640 uh, when he was serving as Senator. Um, but you know, apparently this is a sign of progress.

00:23:56.140 Which I'm, you know, I'm totally fine with that. If we want to talk about how increased

00:24:00.660 representation is a sign of progress, then I would agree with that. There are unfortunately

00:24:05.280 a lot of critical race theorists out there who say that there's been no progress whatsoever in

00:24:09.580 the way of representation. And the fact that there are more biracial, uh, couples on television

00:24:15.480 and advertisement, it actually means nothing. Or the fact that we have, uh, black billionaires or 0.52

00:24:21.740 the fact that we had a black president, critical race theorists will tell you that that means nothing

00:24:25.760 that we're still in the same place that we were in the 1960s back when Joe Biden turned like 55.

00:24:33.420 Um, all right. He also, he said a few other things. He says, everyone knows I like, I like, uh, kids more

00:24:42.560 than people. I'll play you that really quickly. Everybody knows I like kids better than people.

00:24:47.100 They're just, there's so many things with that. There's so many things with that. Obviously

00:24:51.620 kids are people. And so that's a little bit confusing. Also there were accusations of Biden,

00:24:59.700 uh, during the campaign of kind of being creepy. It's just, again, a weird thing to say. If Trump

00:25:07.880 had said that, Oh my goodness, there would be think pieces and op eds. There would be headlines

00:25:14.300 about how troubling this was to say, Oh wow. It's so obvious that Trump doesn't think kids are people

00:25:19.880 that explains what's happening at the border. There would be all kinds of craziness and assumptions

00:25:26.240 made if Trump had said something as ridiculous as that. Now let's get into what I think is far 0.98

00:25:32.500 more troubling than these kinds of gaps and just kind of awkward things. I mean, the guy is also,

00:25:39.920 he's just super awkward and I, I feel badly for him. I truly do. I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not

00:25:45.740 trying to be mean. I just think that he has an inability to be able to articulate things well. And I,

00:25:52.720 I mean, I also think that Trump had a hard time articulating as well, but he's always kind of

00:25:58.420 been like that. Like Trump's cadence, his rhetoric, how he talks, how he explains things, his mannerisms

00:26:03.600 have always basically been the same. I don't think that's true of Joe Biden. Like if you saw his

00:26:08.260 other several failed presidential campaigns over the years and you heard him, um, you heard him speak,

00:26:14.640 you could tell that he was very coherent, that, um, he was able to articulate his thoughts,

00:26:19.840 even though I disagreed with him, he, you know, was able to say what he thought in a way that

00:26:25.080 actually made logical sense. He just doesn't seem to be able to do that anymore. And it does make

00:26:30.220 me sad. And he's constantly apologizing too. Like if you noticed in the town hall, he's constantly

00:26:34.400 saying, Oh, I'm sorry. You know, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have to, I shouldn't explain that or like,

00:26:38.400 I shouldn't say it that way. And I actually think that's probably a nervous tick because I think he

00:26:44.360 loses his train of thought really easily. And then he apologizes trying to make it come up across

00:26:51.500 as courteous. I think it's actually coming across as, Oh my gosh, I don't really know what I'm saying.

00:26:55.640 And I don't want to mess up again. So he just apologizes for it. Um, it's hard for me to imagine

00:27:01.480 him on the phone with foreign leaders. And again, and I'm not trying to just like caveat everything,

00:27:07.360 but I do think back about what I thought about Trump. It was hard for me to imagine Trump on the phone

00:27:12.200 with a lot of these leaders too, but again, for, for different reasons. And apparently Joe Biden

00:27:17.880 had talked to Xi Jinping and he was asked about this in the town hall. I want to play you this clip

00:27:24.080 and I'll talk about why I think it's so incredibly troubling and why we should care about it.

00:27:29.420 The central principle of Xi Jinping is that there must be a united, tightly controlled China.

00:27:37.260 And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that. I point out to him,

00:27:42.200 no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn't reflect the values of the

00:27:47.240 United States. And so the idea, I'm not going to speak out against what he's doing in Hong Kong,

00:27:53.620 what he's doing with the Uyghurs in Western mountains of, of, uh, China and Taiwan trying to 0.93

00:28:01.020 end the one China policy by making it forceful. I said, and by the way, he said he, he gets it

00:28:07.860 culturally, there are different norms at each country and they, their leaders are expected

00:28:13.800 to follow. What? Speaking of following, it was very hard. It was very hard for me to follow that.

00:28:20.800 Um, if I wanted to give an extremely generous and extremely charitable interpretation of what

00:28:28.620 he said, I would say that he wasn't necessarily saying that he condoned what's happening there,

00:28:37.380 but that it's very difficult to communicate his disapproval to the leader of China because

00:28:44.780 they have different goals and China doesn't have the same worldview or the same perspective or the

00:28:51.500 same priorities that the United States does. And sure. I, I think that's true, but I don't know if

00:29:00.420 I can say that that very generous, very charitable interpretation of what he says is actually

00:29:07.480 accurate. I think that it shows a kind of Neville Chamberlain weakness, uh, when it comes to foreign

00:29:16.100 policy. And unfortunately this is characteristic of liberal foreign policy nowadays, it certainly was

00:29:22.520 characteristic of, um, of, uh, Barack Obama's foreign policy. Barack Obama's foreign policy was an

00:29:31.040 abject failure. Like when Joe Biden talks about, okay, we got to get back into normal. We got to make

00:29:36.900 sure that, uh, we are once again, uh, a player on the world stage. Well, we didn't get into any new

00:29:44.700 foreign wars under Donald Trump. And there were unprecedented peace deals that were orchestrated

00:29:49.720 by the Trump administration. And so why would we want to get away from that? Normalcy now under a

00:29:57.760 democratic regime is appeasement to hostile foreign powers like Iran and even Russia. And yes, China too.

00:30:05.760 Now I do think that Biden has appointed some people who see the evils that China is perpetuating and does 0.92

00:30:13.840 stand against that. Um, but we have seen, unfortunately, a lot of troubling policy

00:30:19.780 and retraction of policy from the Biden administration. And if you want, uh, more

00:30:25.280 information on that, I'll put the link in this description to an episode I did last week. Uh,

00:30:30.700 when I talked to Melissa Chen, she is an expert on China. She writes for the spectator and she has

00:30:36.920 talked about a lot of the troubling decisions that the Biden administration has made. And even some of

00:30:41.920 the rhetoric that they have, uh, that, that they have been using in regards to China and why we

00:30:48.580 should be concerned about that. So go back and listen to that episode with Melissa Chen. She also

00:30:53.700 said something that I thought was accurate and interesting and disturbing in regards to this

00:30:58.360 particular line by Biden. Uh, she said that the idea of universal human rights, which I think most

00:31:04.140 liberals would say that they agree with, and the idea of cultural relativism are completely

00:31:09.200 incongruent and congruent. They contradict one another. So we can't simultaneously say

00:31:13.660 that every, every human has a right to X, Y, Z, and then also say, well, culturally things are

00:31:21.020 different. China just has different priorities. And that's what inspires Xi Jinping to, um, place

00:31:28.560 Muslims in re-education camps or persecute Christians or ensure people don't have any kind of freedom of 0.99

00:31:34.680 speech or to take over Hong Kong or to terrorize Taiwan. Um, that is a kind of moral relativism 0.64

00:31:43.020 that we should be opposing with everything in us. This kind of postmodern, uh, your right is your

00:31:49.980 right. Your truth is your truth. And I can't tell you any differently. Uh, this kind of postmodern

00:31:56.420 worldview has not only infected academia here. It's not only infected our moral compass here, our sense of

00:32:03.180 our, um, our, our sense of who we are as people. It's also affected our sense of who we are as a

00:32:08.780 country and it's affected our foreign policy as well. And this is disastrous. Like I said, this is

00:32:14.140 very similar to the foreign policy of the prime minister of the UK, Neville Chamberlain, who was

00:32:20.240 prime minister from, I think, yeah, 1937 to 1940, who was known for appeasing Nazi Germany, specifically the

00:32:29.100 Munich agreement. When he conceded, uh, Czechoslovakia to Germany, he did end up declaring war on Germany,

00:32:37.220 but it was too little, too late. His theory that if we just kind of allowed Nazi Germany to do what

00:32:43.240 they want to do, that everything's going to be okay. It absolutely failed. And it's going to fail

00:32:49.280 here. That's not how you handle these hostile regimes. And we've talked about so many times

00:32:54.440 what China is guilty of what they are perpetuating. And it's not contained in China. They're not 0.77

00:33:01.300 interested, um, in just a tightly controlled China, no matter what Joe Biden said, they're interested

00:33:07.280 in world domination. And we absolutely have to care who the world power is, which means you

00:33:12.940 absolutely have to care which values a particular country purports, which values they actually have.

00:33:19.400 Do you want the world leader to be a country who does not believe in human rights, who does not

00:33:25.700 believe in any form of equality, who does not believe in free speech, who doesn't believe in

00:33:30.080 freedom of religion, who doesn't believe, um, in any kind of, uh, personal liberty or any kind of

00:33:37.480 rights to privacy and ultimately any kind of rights to a property or right to due process. There is no

00:33:45.420 even handed or impartial rule of law to speak up. There is no idea of an inherent human right in

00:33:53.000 China. That is why we see the disasters that we do. That's why we see them being a bully, not just to 1.00

00:33:59.520 their own people, but also abroad. I mean, they're a colonizing imperialistic, racist, xenophobic, 0.98

00:34:06.900 Islamophobic, um, every kind of phobic that you can think of regime. And people here think it's, 0.89

00:34:15.680 think it's worse if America is the world leader. Look guys, there's always going to be a world leader.

00:34:20.340 There's going to be one guy on top. Do you want it to be America who with all of our flaws and

00:34:26.020 failures actually do have founding documents and founding ideals, which guarantee people, uh, uh,

00:34:32.720 people rights that are given to us by God and therefore cannot be taken away arbitrarily by

00:34:37.540 the government and who has done more good in the world than any other country by far in all of

00:34:43.680 history, no matter what your critical race theory curriculum has been telling you, or do you want

00:34:48.480 it to be a country who right now is perpetuating the same kinds of crimes against humanity that we

00:34:53.860 saw in Nazi Germany in the last century? There is no reason that we should be treating China any 1.00

00:34:59.780 differently or regarding China any differently than Nazi Germany. And the fact that people

00:35:04.940 ham and haw around that, that it's somehow different, that, you know, it's culturally relative,

00:35:09.780 that it's morally relative, that who are we to be able to criticize someone like China when,

00:35:14.420 uh, we do X, Y, Z, it is not morally equivalent at all. And this is where the kind of godless postmodernism

00:35:22.200 and moral relativism gets you. It makes you stupid when it comes to foreign policy. It makes you 1.00

00:35:27.740 unable to say what is right, what is wrong, not to mention what critical race theory does to your

00:35:32.960 mind. Critical race theory that says everything in America is so endemically racist and pervasively

00:35:38.060 racist. Everyone who is white is either complicit or racist. Everyone who is white is part of the 0.91

00:35:43.200 problem. White supremacy is our chief sin and it infects everything. And everyone who is non-white 1.00

00:35:50.600 is on the side of the oppressed that restricts you from being able to see the world as it is that 0.77

00:35:57.860 oppressors come in every color, that the oppressed comes in every color and that the history of the

00:36:02.960 world is enslaving and being enslaved, oppressing and being oppressed, colonizing and being colonized,

00:36:10.820 conquering and being conquered. That is not exclusive to whiteness. That's not exclusive to the West. 0.77

00:36:16.740 That's not exclusive to any particular group. Unfortunately, that has been the history of the

00:36:21.720 world and trying to view the world through the lens of race stops you from being able to see right

00:36:27.400 and wrong objectively as it is. And I'm not saying that's necessarily what Joe Biden is doing here.

00:36:32.960 I think that it's much sloppier than that. I think that it is much looser than that in that he simply

00:36:39.340 believes that we should kind of respect Iran's priorities and China's priorities and Russia's

00:36:46.380 priorities when it comes to oppressing its own people and its disbelief in any kind of idea of

00:36:51.600 a universal or inherent human right. No, that's that's going to be just as disastrous as it was

00:36:58.080 when Neville Chamberlain decided that he was going to appease Nazi Germany. And I'm just afraid of what

00:37:03.340 the Biden administration is going to do in terms of sending us back in all the advancements that the

00:37:08.480 Trump administration for all of its flaws and failures actually pushed forward. They did they

00:37:15.040 did push they did push us in the right direction when it came to our relationship with China by

00:37:20.820 showing strength. Conservatives and liberals have very different views of foreign policy. And I'm

00:37:26.140 certainly not saying that conservatives have always gotten it right. There are unfortunately a lot

00:37:30.520 of unnecessary warmongers in the Republican Party that are not really interested in actually

00:37:35.880 accomplishing anything through these wars, but are they are more interested in appeasing their special

00:37:43.720 interest groups that help them stay in power. And so I'm certainly not saying that Republicans have

00:37:49.360 been perfect in regards to foreign policy, but the conservative idea of foreign policy of peace through

00:37:55.060 strength and hey, it's actually really good if America is the world leader, the world economic leader,

00:38:00.080 the world military leader, the world is stronger, the world is more at peace when that happens,

00:38:05.240 versus a regime like China, being in charge, and the left thinking, well, it's actually okay,

00:38:11.480 if America becomes weaker, it's actually okay, if we're all less patriotic, and we hate ourselves and hate

00:38:18.140 our country, it's actually okay, if our economy crashes, it's okay, if China takes power, because, 0.86

00:38:24.860 you know, everything is relative. And look, America has done all these bad things. So who are we

00:38:29.240 to speak? You are just becoming a puppet for the communist propaganda that has been pervasive

00:38:37.720 throughout the communist and socialist world about America and about the West for the past 100 years.

00:38:45.260 So I would resist that. If I, if I were you. All right, I do want to talk about at some point,

00:38:55.260 I want to talk about how that kind of moral relativism. Also, it creates this, it creates a

00:39:03.540 wrong view of what is actually, well, it obviously creates a wrong view of what is right and what is

00:39:08.440 wrong, because it doesn't actually believe in an objective right and wrong. But it also skews our idea

00:39:13.620 of what, what are who our allies are, and who our enemies are. And I think we're seeing that a lot in

00:39:23.520 regards to this idea of evangelical Christianity being the source of all evil and all violence in

00:39:30.620 the United States, and just how incredibly factually inaccurate that is. And the danger of that kind of

00:39:37.160 rhetoric and where we've seen it before, I do want to talk about all that. But that deserves almost its

00:39:42.340 own episode, I'm realizing. And so in order not to make this episode super, super long, I'm going to

00:39:49.760 push that off. And instead, I will just end with this little lighthearted topic. So you guys may have

00:39:56.060 been seeing that, I don't know if it was like a story that I saw, but this is going around how Generation

00:40:01.420 Z is telling older generations like me, millennial, born in 1992, back in the last century,

00:40:10.920 how we are supposed to dress and like what is actually cool, and what is not. And two of those things that

00:40:19.180 apparently we are supposed to abandon are side parts and skinny jeans. And we're not supposed to use I heard

00:40:27.120 the crying laughing emoji, not the straight on one, and definitely not the sideways crying laughing emoji. I heard

00:40:34.100 that that is like baby boomer to the max. The problem is, is I'm still going to use I'm going to 0.83

00:40:39.880 still use both of those I don't really use like the topsy turvy crying laughing one quite as much. I use

00:40:46.400 like the straight on laughing one, quite a lot. And I'm not going to stop doing that. I don't care if you

00:40:51.540 call me a baby boomer, I really, really don't care. The thing that is irking me though, the thing that I will

00:41:00.680 resist with all of my might, that in 50 years, future generations will ask, what did our ancestors

00:41:07.980 do about this, I will be able to stand up and say, I fought against this. And that is changing

00:41:13.420 the side part to the middle part, as like the standard part that we have in our hair.

00:41:20.520 I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I will resist that with all of my heart,

00:41:26.340 mind, soul and strength. And I've, I've gotten messages from you guys, because I talked about

00:41:30.680 this on Instagram the other day, I got messages from you guys saying, Allie, it's not that bad.

00:41:35.360 Like, I promise you, you can put your hair in the middle. And you'll look, you'll look fine. Like

00:41:40.220 you'll probably look cute. No, no, my husband can attest. I look like a completely different person.

00:41:47.140 If I part my hair down the middle, and I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that to you guys. I've

00:41:51.220 had the same part in my hair. I don't know, probably since 1992. And it's going to stay

00:41:57.260 that way. It doesn't I okay, so my hair, let me just tell you. My hair is very I have a lot of

00:42:03.240 hair. So it's very fine hair. But it's a lot, a lot of hair. And every time I get my haircut,

00:42:09.540 the the lady always says, Oh my gosh, it's gonna take forever. So take forever to highlight your

00:42:14.980 hair is gonna take forever to cut your hair. Yes, I know. I have many, many, many layers of hair.

00:42:19.600 And it's also very heavy. Like it's very naturally straight. It's very heavy. And it falls forward.

00:42:24.820 I can't, you know how some people can like just kind of lay their hair to the side. And it doesn't

00:42:30.740 fall in front of their face. Well, mine doesn't do that doesn't matter how much hairspray doesn't

00:42:34.540 matter how much I tease my hair, I have to put my hair behind my ear or else it falls forward. It's

00:42:38.020 very heavy. And this has been like a disaster for me whenever I'm on TV. And whenever I'm doing like

00:42:44.260 a news interview or something, because it doesn't really look good to have your hair behind your

00:42:47.840 hair, but I really have no other choice because my hair is so heavy. And so if I put my hair down

00:42:52.200 the middle, and like you see, like, like both sides of it are coming down evenly, it just falls in front

00:42:59.320 of my face. And the only thing you can see is my nose. And so I won't be doing that. I don't care

00:43:04.500 about how trendy it gets. I don't care if I look like a school mom with side part, as far as skinny

00:43:10.380 jeans go. I don't really care about that. Like I'm okay with the boyfriend style jeans, what I'm not

00:43:16.720 going to do is that like total mom jean. That's just not that's not fair. That's not right. Because

00:43:24.300 that is only attractive on like, one body type in the same way that I just while I was like nine at

00:43:31.460 the time. So I guess I had the option to skip over this. But the trend of like back in the early 2000s

00:43:39.060 of wearing super low rise jeans, that the zipper was like a centimeter long, and wearing them like

00:43:46.240 below your hip bones, and wearing a shirt that only showed in between, like your zipper and your

00:43:54.620 belly button, super weird. I mean, like I said, I was nine. So I wasn't trying to do that trend anyway.

00:44:00.740 But it wouldn't that also wouldn't have worked for me. And so I was grateful to be able to skip on

00:44:05.480 over it. And I think I'm at the age now the advanced age of tomorrow, I'll be 29. That I

00:44:12.500 that I can kind of skip over trends and just say, I don't care. I just I just don't care anymore.

00:44:18.840 It's really good. It's really good to get older. Like I wanted to be an adult my entire youth. And it

00:44:26.220 is everything that I thought it would be and more. I love being an adult and not caring about stupid 0.99

00:44:32.140 things. Like what is in style, I'm not going to wear the mom jeans, I'm not going to part my hair 0.99

00:44:37.760 down the middle. I'm not going to stop using the crying laughing emoji. So that makes me if that

00:44:44.080 makes me a baby boomer. So so be it. I'll be a baby boomer. I love it. That's that's me. Allie

00:44:50.200 Beth, the baby boomer. I just don't care anymore. I don't need to be cool. And I know that all of you

00:44:55.360 out there who are over the age of 25 that you are probably thinking the same thing. And I will stand

00:45:00.220 in solidarity with you so that future generations that they will not be able to say that their

00:45:05.980 ancestors didn't do something about all of this. We will resist with all of our might. And all right,

00:45:12.260 that's all I've got to say today. I will be back here tomorrow with more great stuff.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 17, 2021

Ep 371 ｜ Power Outages, Moral Relativism & Middle Parts

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