Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 474 ｜ 'America Last' Is Destructive

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. It's Thursday. You've almost made it through the week. So

00:00:13.740 if you guys think that I talk fast regularly, just get ready for this episode because we're

00:00:19.700 on a time constraint today and I've got a lot to say. So maybe you'll have to put this

00:00:24.940 on halftime or something because I'm going to have to speed talk here to get through

00:00:29.060 everything I want to get to in the time constraints that we have. Okay, we are going to put everything

00:00:35.240 into perspective because there's so much to learn about everything that's going on right

00:00:40.260 now, particularly when it comes to Afghanistan and all that America has its hand in in the

00:00:46.600 world. We're going to talk about how this pertains to our worldview, our theology, our cultural

00:00:51.600 and political stances. And I probably won't even get to all the things that I wanted to

00:00:55.500 get to at the end because I'll just have to end it. But we'll continue that next week

00:01:00.940 if we have to. So you've heard the reports about what's going on. We talked about this

00:01:05.500 early on Tuesday. But as a refresher, in case you didn't know, President Biden pulled the

00:01:10.180 American troops from Afghanistan. We've been fighting a war in the Middle East since after

00:01:14.180 9-11. And there has been a strong desire by a large percentage of Americans to withdraw troops.

00:01:20.260 You have heard people talking about endless foreign wars, how they're needlessly costing

00:01:25.520 lives, most importantly, and also taxpayer dollars while not really accomplishing that much.

00:01:30.360 Obviously, there is another side to that. There are people that say, okay, well, it actually

00:01:34.200 accomplishes not having another 9-11 on American soil and stabilizing the region. So there's obviously

00:01:40.740 a debate about that. But it's a pretty bipartisan consensus that people, that the American

00:01:47.480 people no longer want to be in the Middle East. Obama pulled troops out of Iraq when he was

00:01:55.240 president. That was totally bungled by a lot of people's estimation, ended with the rise of ISIS.

00:02:02.920 Obama helped fund terrorism in Iran through a deal that his administration erroneously thought

00:02:07.720 was going to bring, I don't know, some kind of normalcy there. He promised to pull troops from

00:02:12.380 Afghanistan, too. But that didn't happen. Trump also promised to pull troops from Afghanistan.

00:02:17.400 And as you heard on Tuesday, had the plans in place to do so. But he just hadn't followed through

00:02:23.020 yet when he left office. And of course, all of this started while Bush was president. So this has been

00:02:28.220 going on for a very long time. That to say, Biden doesn't take the blame for everything that's

00:02:36.460 happening. He did something that many Americans have wanted to happen. It was the how with which

00:02:43.720 people are frustrated. We withdrew without getting our citizens and our allies out of the region.

00:02:48.760 We left our millions of dollars of weapons, which the Taliban quickly took for themselves. This is

00:02:54.540 exactly what our troops fought to prevent for so long. And one of the worst parts about all of this,

00:03:00.180 and what I want to focus on for a little bit, there are still thousands of American citizens

00:03:04.880 in Afghanistan. And we're not hearing a guarantee from this administration that the Americans will

00:03:10.340 be removed or the Afghans who risked their lives to help us, our allies there. Both Americans and our

00:03:16.480 allies in Afghanistan are being specifically targeted and slaughtered by the Taliban. They're being

00:03:21.740 targeted. They're being tortured. They're being killed, as we have seen on video and through

00:03:29.280 testimony of our fellow citizens still there. People with families, with babies, knowing for sure

00:03:36.180 that they are going to be slaughtered and their kids may be sold into sex slavery. I mean, we're

00:03:41.740 talking about Americans here. Our fellow citizens in the Biden administration is not promising that they

00:03:48.880 will be removed. Here's a clip of the press secretary basically saying this.

00:03:54.820 Can you offer any guarantee to the Americans and Afghan allies that if they remain there

00:04:02.280 past the end of the month, U.S. troops will help them evacuate past the end of the month?

00:04:08.000 Our focus right now is on doing the work at hand and on the task at hand. And that is day by day,

00:04:14.520 getting as many American citizens, as many SIV applicants, as many members of a vulnerable

00:04:19.680 population who are eligible to be evacuated to the airport and out on planes.

00:04:24.140 So she's not guaranteeing it. They're not guaranteeing that they are going to get all

00:04:28.840 Americans out. I guess maybe if you want to be generous, if you want to be charitable,

00:04:32.400 you could say that that was her saying basically we're going to try. There should be a guarantee.

00:04:36.980 And this is what people on both sides of the aisle are very upset about. Not that he left,

00:04:41.860 although like I said, there are people who don't agree with leaving at all,

00:04:45.040 but because of how obviously haphazardly this was done with seemingly no plans for contingencies.

00:04:51.220 We know that American intelligence saw the very real possibility of a speedy Taliban takeover,

00:04:56.920 and yet we didn't make the preparations to ensure our own people and our allies would be protected.

00:05:01.940 And we are still, we're still not promising that that's going to happen. That is a huge shift

00:05:07.200 from President Trump. Like whether you loved him or hated him, if there is one thing Trump hated

00:05:13.660 himself, was the idea of America being humiliated. You may remember when he directed the killing of

00:05:20.940 Soleimani, the lead Iranian terrorist, and just tweeted afterwards as soon as it happened,

00:05:26.280 this huge American flag on Twitter. I remember when he threatened North Korea, when they threatened to

00:05:34.000 use their nukes, and he said that they will be met with fire fury and frankly power, the likes of which

00:05:40.920 the world has never seen. Also, don't forget that iconic tweet to the Iranian president a few years

00:05:48.000 ago. He said, to Iranian President Rouhani, never, in all caps, never ever threaten the United States

00:05:55.020 again, or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered

00:06:00.620 before. We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death.

00:06:05.780 Be cautious. And we can laugh at that. I'm kind of laughing at it myself just because it's so

00:06:12.520 iconically, classically Trump. And maybe you could say, oh, well, they're just tweets. They're not real

00:06:17.940 strength. They're inconsequential. But that's not true because it was actually matched with strong

00:06:22.920 foreign policy that led to the dwindling of ISIS, the killing of the head terrorist of Iran,

00:06:28.380 agreements for peace through the Abraham Accords like we've never seen, and a prioritization

00:06:33.960 of American lives. His administration rescued Pastor Andrew Brunson, whom we've had on this

00:06:40.020 podcast, who was in prison in Turkey for preaching the gospel while Obama and Biden were still in the

00:06:45.520 White House. He also rescued the Trump administration, also rescued Otto Warmbier, who was in prison and

00:06:51.040 tortured in North Korea while Obama was still president. I mean, that was one of just the most

00:06:55.500 gruesome, terrible, heartbreaking stories, I think, that we've read in the past few years.

00:07:00.640 Trump made it his priority to get him out to put Americans first in a way that, quite frankly and

00:07:06.080 honestly, objectively, the Obama administration did not. Now, I complained about Trump while he

00:07:12.120 was in office, especially toward the end when I felt that he had kind of removed himself from

00:07:17.340 reality a little bit and was causing a lot of unnecessary strife and chaos and confusion among

00:07:21.820 the American people. But there's no question, at least in my mind, of whether or not he was a

00:07:27.400 better president policy-wise than this president. Honestly, I'm not even sure how anyone, by any

00:07:33.480 objective measure, I'm not just talking about feelings, objective measure could say that Biden

00:07:38.380 is doing a good job for our people. I just don't see it. I mean, we've got record inflation. We've got

00:07:45.340 higher prices on gas and nearly every other good and service. It's significantly higher than it was

00:07:54.460 last year. Still too high unemployment. Hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants that have been

00:07:59.300 imported from the southern border into the interior of the United States. We don't know why. We don't

00:08:04.420 know how. We don't know where. We don't know if they're tested. We don't know if they're vaccinated.

00:08:07.780 We don't know where they come from. We don't know their background. We don't know their criminal

00:08:10.960 history. All of this is happening intentionally under Joe Biden's presidency. He shut down the Keystone

00:08:17.740 pipeline and then had the audacity to ask OPEC to pump more oil. So that means he shut down American

00:08:26.260 and Canadian production of oil, getting rid of hundreds of jobs and the ability to rely on our

00:08:30.720 own energy in the name of helping the environment, supposedly, then asked foreign oil producers to

00:08:36.460 make more. So that means it obviously wasn't about the environment then. It was about what? Hurting the

00:08:43.460 working class yet again, just as he did by damaging landlords with the eviction moratorium. I mean,

00:08:49.520 what is perfectly clear is that just like Obama, Biden's philosophy is America last. That is just

00:08:56.260 obvious. I don't think that Biden personally hates America. I really don't. I think he probably feels

00:09:03.280 a lot of love for America in his heart. But I think that he is a misguided as he has been

00:09:11.520 on all foreign policy for his 40 years as a politician. I also think B, he's not really the

00:09:17.640 one making the decisions. I think he truly is a puppet president. That much is made obvious by the

00:09:23.400 other egregious part of this whole thing, that he is totally absent. I mean, most presidents are in

00:09:28.820 these kinds of situations and these kinds of crises, taking questions, doing press conferences,

00:09:34.380 reassuring the American people that our priorities are being taken to heart, that everything is going to

00:09:40.820 be okay doing interviews. But he was at Camp David, said nothing about this over the weekend while all

00:09:46.680 of it was going down, made a speech blaming everyone but himself, ignoring the concerns people have about

00:09:52.680 how it was done and what's going to be done about it, didn't take questions, went back to Camp David

00:09:59.760 after that, then came back on Wednesday, gave another speech, but not to do with what's going on in

00:10:06.320 Afghanistan, but about COVID. So NBC reported on this. Speaking at the White House, Biden said some

00:10:12.700 politicians are trying to turn public safety measures into, quote, political disputes for their

00:10:17.380 own political gain and warned they are, quote, setting a dangerous tone. Biden said he had directed

00:10:22.980 Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to wield his oversight authority and take legal action if appropriate.

00:10:31.560 As others have mentioned, at this point, Biden has spoken more about going after Republican governors

00:10:41.960 than he has talked about going after the Taliban and rescuing Americans and our allies in Afghanistan.

00:10:49.500 He did do one interview with George Stephanopoulos that was super, super weird. A lot of people are

00:10:56.340 talking about this. George Stephanopoulos said, you know, there are people trying to get to America

00:11:01.200 or get out of Afghanistan because of the chaos that your decision wrought, who are falling from

00:11:06.820 planes. And Biden literally responded, yeah, but that was like five or six days ago. What? What?

00:11:14.820 What are you even talking about? Then there was this other section where George Stephanopoulos was

00:11:19.900 talking about Americans being targeted and Joe Biden knocked on wood and said, well, no one's dying

00:11:26.400 right now. What? So this is why he's not doing interviews. Like, this is why he's behind the scenes

00:11:31.580 because the man is not there. He is not there. And by the way, going back to the COVID speech that he

00:11:38.220 decided it was important to make in the midst of all of this, those Republican governors that he is

00:11:43.020 talking about, just to clarify, did not ban masks. They simply said, look, districts can't force kids to

00:11:49.580 wear masks. Parents and kids should be able to decide on their own. So they are doing their jobs

00:11:53.640 by defending individual choice. Any Democrat saying it's overreach on the governor's part

00:11:59.240 don't have any problem with the Democratic governors forcing masks, even on school districts and private

00:12:05.300 schools. A private Christian school in Illinois announced the other day that they wouldn't be

00:12:09.660 requiring masks. And the Illinois Department of Education took their accreditation away and removed

00:12:15.280 their ability to compete in sports with other schools. But of course, no Democrat is complaining

00:12:20.160 of that kind of overreach. That is something that I've realized recently that typically when

00:12:25.420 a Democrat, typically, not always typically, when a Democrat decries overreach or authoritarianism,

00:12:31.740 they're actually just talking about policy that they don't like. They're not talking about

00:12:35.840 in any sort of principled or constitutional sense. I saw someone on Twitter say that, you know,

00:12:43.100 Biden extending the eviction moratorium despite the Supreme Court saying that you can't do that

00:12:47.720 is overreach, which it is, and a much more authoritarian action than anything that Trump

00:12:52.220 ever did. And the replies from people on the other side were like, oh, so wanting people to be able to

00:12:57.980 stay in their homes is so bad in authoritarianism? Okay, so got it. That means that you think authoritarian

00:13:05.760 just means things that you see are bad, but it's not authoritarian. When the full power of the

00:13:11.280 government forces an individual or an entity or a school to do what you want them to do. But that's

00:13:18.680 not actually what the word means. Democrats in power are completely unafraid to wield the power of

00:13:24.300 the government to force states, local governments, and individuals to do what they want. And as long

00:13:29.020 as it's for what they deem a worthy goal, it really doesn't matter to them whether or not it's

00:13:34.100 constitutional or whether it has precedent. And all of this ties together with the Afghanistan stuff

00:13:39.020 and what we're talking about, by the way. But Democrats are shocked that now in response,

00:13:44.460 Republicans are using the power of the government to stop them from infringing on people's freedom.

00:13:49.520 That is what the ban on mask mandates is. It is a protection of individual choice. And now the

00:13:55.100 federal government is coming in and saying, no, these governors are not allowed to protect individual

00:13:59.060 choice in their states. And the Supreme Court of Texas has already ruled, at least in Texas,

00:14:04.080 that the governor has the power to do what they are doing. And yet Biden,

00:14:09.020 in the midst of this catastrophe, has made it his mission to go after these governors,

00:14:13.480 while we've got thousands of Americans who are preparing to be slaughtered at the hands of

00:14:20.260 the Taliban. This, all of this, everything that I just mentioned, is what it looks like to put

00:14:26.600 America last. People, Christians in particular, blasted the idea. Some Christians, obviously, not

00:14:34.640 all or even most of them. But they blasted, while Trump was president, the idea of putting America

00:14:40.760 first. They called it white nationalism or Christian nationalism, which people on the left sometimes use

00:14:46.380 interchangeably with a variety of definitions. But look, putting the needs of your country first

00:14:53.240 is good leadership. It is wise, prudent, God-glorifying leadership. It can be God-glorifying

00:15:00.220 leadership. It is wise. It is prudent. It is right. Countries are like families. Parents put

00:15:07.100 the needs of their families first. They seek to protect and to provide for their children first.

00:15:12.640 They lock the doors of their own house. They protect their own children from harm. They wake

00:15:18.060 up every day ensuring their children are cared for. That doesn't mean those parents don't help their

00:15:23.380 neighbors or don't serve other children in need or that they hate other children. They might even

00:15:28.520 welcome people into their home, but their priority, their first priority every day is to the family

00:15:34.300 that God has given them. If parents decided, oh, you know, actually, I think I'm going to focus more

00:15:40.320 on meeting the needs of everyone outside my family before the needs of my own family, that would be

00:15:46.660 irresponsible because that would come at the expense of the needs of the children that God has given them

00:15:51.900 specifically to provide for and to protect. God created families for this kind of provision and

00:15:58.360 protection. God created the family, mom, dad, kids. The Bible is very specific about that particular

00:16:05.540 definition from creation to revelation to be the nucleus of society. That's where we get our values,

00:16:11.520 our safety, our provision, our security. Then from there, we are called to love our fellow believers,

00:16:17.300 our neighbors, our community, and yes, our country. And we'll get more into the theology or what I

00:16:24.260 believe to be the theological support for this kind of mentality in just one second.

00:16:32.900 All right. So we see, for example, in Jeremiah 29, that Israel in exile was commanded to seek the

00:16:40.720 welfare of the nation in which they lived. And we Christians are in exile here on earth. Our ultimate

00:16:47.820 citizenship is in heaven. So wherever we live on earth, we are in exile. We are called, though, to seek the

00:16:55.660 welfare of the nations in which we live. Just because the church is global does not mean that the church

00:17:02.320 doesn't care about their own country or that Christians don't care about their own country in which

00:17:08.440 they reside. Acts 17, 26 makes clear that God created these boundaries of nations, or he ordained

00:17:16.800 them. He meant for them to happen. Quote, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all

00:17:24.240 the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.

00:17:30.420 We see nations referenced throughout scripture, and nowhere do we see that borders are bad. And actually,

00:17:36.560 we see the Bible speak of a city without walls as a city that's vulnerable. Proverbs 25, 28,

00:17:43.520 a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. Now, I'm not saying

00:17:49.500 that's talking about border policy specifically. I'm saying that it's talking about the fact that a

00:17:54.560 city that is unprotected is vulnerable to chaos, to lawlessness, to danger, just as a man who doesn't

00:18:00.500 have any self-control is. And God hates lawlessness, by the way. He is a God of laws. He is a God of

00:18:06.320 order. He is a God of process. We see that the most, I believe, in the first few books of the

00:18:11.700 Old Testament. He is not a God of chaos, of disarray, of anarchy. In fact, the Antichrist in

00:18:17.720 2 Thessalonians 2 is called the man of lawlessness, who will oppose God, will oppose his order and his

00:18:24.160 law. God sees lawlessness as an enemy synonymous with destruction. Human beings need order. We need

00:18:31.700 boundaries. I believe that God created countries for our protection, for our good, in the same way

00:18:38.000 that he created the nuclear family for our protection and our good. And in the same way

00:18:42.040 that a good mom and dad first prioritize their kids and their family, so leaders of a country are

00:18:47.400 to prioritize the needs, the security, the rights of their constituents first. So that means in regards

00:18:54.980 to our current situation, one, I believe, every single American must be rescued, sparing absolutely

00:19:01.960 no expense to ensure that happens. That means securing the southern border. Having a hard life

00:19:08.600 somewhere else does not give someone the right to enjoy the benefits of being an American without

00:19:13.920 becoming a legal citizen. That's something that I think people need to realize. That's not lacking

00:19:19.040 compassion for them. There are all kinds of ways that you can and Americans do help and Americans

00:19:26.560 do to help persecuted and impoverished people abroad. But in order to preserve order, in order to preserve

00:19:34.000 law and safety, compassion for your own citizens, we should not be incentivizing and enabling illegal

00:19:40.080 immigration the way this presidency is now. It's criminal, in my opinion. It means relying on

00:19:47.340 prioritizing Americans' needs means relying on our own energy and manufacturing as much as possible,

00:19:54.480 which has been a slow fade and decline, responsible, I mean, blamed on both parties for

00:20:02.900 several decades. But if we could go back, it would mean relying on our own manufacturing as much as

00:20:09.180 possible. I mean, these are just a few things that Joe Biden is currently doing the opposite of.

00:20:15.160 It also means, as we're hearing calls for accepting all Afghan refugees, I believe that must be weighed

00:20:22.020 against the safety, security, and the available resources of the American people and should not

00:20:27.520 actually be discussed until all Americans are brought home. That is good leadership. Being an American

00:20:33.640 must mean something. It must mean, unlike in other countries, that your government has your back,

00:20:38.940 that if you're stranded, threatened, in harm's way, the target of one of our adversaries, no matter your

00:20:44.480 political affiliation, no matter your background, you can rest assured that the toughest military in

00:20:49.700 the world will rescue you. Now, that does not mean that we shouldn't accept Afghan refugees, because I

00:20:55.720 think we should. America, historically, just until the last couple of years, has led the world in

00:21:01.740 refugee acceptance for the past 40 years, according to Pew Research. Until 2017, no other country came

00:21:07.960 close. I saw some some post by someone who, you know, identifies as, I guess, social justice

00:21:13.900 advocating Christian, saying that this whole thing, maybe it will encourage Americans to vote for more

00:21:19.700 compassionate policies when it comes to allowing more asylum seekers and refugees. What are you talking

00:21:25.520 about? America has accepted more refugees and more immigrants just by raw numbers than any other

00:21:32.860 country by far through the past few decades, more than all other countries combined. And it's not even

00:21:39.240 close. So I'm just I'm confused by that accusation. And we can continue to accept refugees. I believe that we

00:21:48.680 should. But we have to acknowledge that there is risk here. And we have to act accordingly with the

00:21:55.500 interests of Americans top of mind, because we know from the footage that we've seen that these are

00:22:01.180 mostly fighting age men whom we have no ability, nor does the Biden administration have any seeming

00:22:09.060 willingness to vet. Now, I don't blame these men one bit for wanting to come to the United States or

00:22:14.380 just get out, get out of get out of Dodge. And I hope every refugee that that comes here makes a

00:22:21.920 wonderful, productive life. I really do. And it's an opportunity for Christians to take these people

00:22:27.120 in and care of these and take care of these people as much as we can and to share the gospel with them,

00:22:32.120 the ones who do make it here. But the government has the obligation to give more weight to American

00:22:38.640 interests than theirs, because it's an American government. And that means looking at an inconvenient

00:22:44.080 fact. And I understand that facts are often seen as bigoted, but they are reality. And reality really

00:22:49.340 matters when we're making decisions, public policy decisions that affect people, especially vulnerable

00:22:55.700 people in our own country. So this is an article in foreignpolicy.com. It's reported this is from

00:23:02.020 July of this year. Quote, in 2015, Germany and Sweden were the two most popular countries for asylum

00:23:07.760 seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Although the recipient countries have since worked hard to

00:23:13.680 integrate the asylum seekers, the challenge has been made more difficult by the fact that many asylum

00:23:18.220 seekers arrived alone in Sweden, more than 35,000 asylum seekers who arrived in 2015 registered as

00:23:24.800 unaccompanied minors. 92 percent of them were men and two thirds were Afghan. So again, the majority of

00:23:33.360 these are men and Afghan men, actually. While the majority of refugees are law abiding, sadly, some of them

00:23:40.360 have started to show up in crime statistics. Fifty eight percent of people convicted for rape in Sweden

00:23:45.320 between 2013 and 2018 were born in other countries. So that's a majority of people convicted

00:23:51.960 for rape in Sweden were actually born in other countries. With Afghans, this article says, the

00:23:56.900 second most common nationality among perpetrators after Swedes. So that means there is a hugely

00:24:04.340 disproportionate number of Afghans in Sweden being convicted of rape. I mean, that's something that you have

00:24:10.920 to take into account. Over the past few years, various European countries have strengthened their

00:24:16.080 asylum rules. The article goes on to say, making it harder for people from Afghanistan to be approved.

00:24:21.600 And so there are other countries that are that are making these changes. They've shifted their refugee

00:24:26.980 policy in accordance with these very inconvenient facts that really no one wants to talk about. I don't

00:24:33.860 even want to talk about them. But I like I said, I think when we're making policy decisions that affect

00:24:38.800 Americans, you have to look at this kind of stuff. France announced that they would be significantly

00:24:42.960 limiting the refugees it accepts. We talked with Ayaan Hirsi Ali a few months ago on the show. We'll

00:24:48.660 link that past episode in the description of this show, who just wrote a book about the crisis of

00:24:53.920 sexual abuse of women by Islamic refugees in European countries. It's also important to note that

00:25:00.240 according to Pew Research, 99 percent of Afghans said in a survey that they want Sharia law to be the

00:25:06.100 law of the land. That is the highest in all of the Middle East. And again, we have to take that into

00:25:13.980 account. Now, I understand that all of this offends our Western sensitivities. It offends my own,

00:25:20.480 which tell us that we must be unconditionally tolerant and that America is uniquely obligated to

00:25:27.680 open its borders no matter what. And I do understand that in this particular case, America is responsible for

00:25:33.220 this mess. And so I do think that we therefore have a responsibility to accept some refugees.

00:25:38.400 But, but there are some stipulations. A, not at the expense of the Americans that are still there.

00:25:44.160 We can do both, but not at the expense of the Americans that are still there. B, they must be

00:25:50.000 carefully and thoroughly vetted. And C, I believe women and children should be prioritized. Unfortunately,

00:25:57.320 none of those three things are going to happen. We are accepting refugees already in the U.S.,

00:26:03.140 even as thousands of Americans are waiting to die in Afghanistan. We do not have the capability of

00:26:07.920 vetting these people because many don't even have identification. And last, most of them will be men

00:26:12.780 because as we've seen in the photos and video, the men, because they are physically capable of doing

00:26:17.260 so, escaped while many of the women and children have been left, left behind to face a life of murder,

00:26:22.680 rape, and sex slavery. Now, there are some women and children who made it. I saw a very touching,

00:26:26.680 but just heartbreaking, heartbreaking video of a group of Afghans, I guess, outside of the airport,

00:26:35.380 passing a baby over their heads to try to get the baby to safety so the baby could be rescued and,

00:26:42.640 I guess, taken to some European country. I mean, I just think about the mothers who are nursing their

00:26:47.160 children who are so terrified. I just, it just boggles the mind and breaks, it breaks my heart.

00:26:53.880 And so I'm not trying to say that the Afghan people, that the Afghan men, that none of them

00:26:57.940 have compassion or anything. The fact of the matter is the vast majority of the people who are able to

00:27:02.700 escape are going to be men, which means the vast majority of the people left behind are going to

00:27:07.120 be the most vulnerable to the Taliban's attacks, and that is women and children. So all of this that

00:27:12.520 we're seeing, though, from America, from the Biden administration, is the harm, I think, in not,

00:27:17.840 you know, weighing the costs and benefits of just accepting unconditionally refugees from Afghanistan

00:27:24.000 without looking at the interests of the people of the United States. It's the harm of compassion

00:27:28.720 that is just too narrow. It's only focused on one group of people and never looking at the

00:27:33.980 consequences that will affect the people on the other side of the equation. This is social justice,

00:27:38.840 what Thomas Sowell calls cosmic justice, viewing one group, in this case Americans, as privileged and

00:27:44.600 thus not worthy of consideration, and another group, in this case Afghans, as oppressed and thus

00:27:50.720 exclusively worthy of consideration. They are oppressed, by the way, but you have to consider both sides of

00:27:56.900 the equation, especially when you are a government representing only one side of the equation. But actual

00:28:02.760 justice, actual justice seeks both order and security and mercy. Actual justice is not endlessly

00:28:10.300 inclusive and tolerant and empathetic. Actual justice that we see reflected in God's law giving to Israel is

00:28:16.820 impartial. It is proportional. It is direct. It is truthful. It is orderly. It is fair. It gives rights to both the

00:28:23.740 accused and the accuser, to both the citizen and the foreigner. But the foreigner who was welcomed into Israel

00:28:29.520 was required to go through a process of acceptance and was expected to assimilate. We see that in

00:28:34.880 Scripture. And I do want to note as well that many of the Christians that I see only calling to accept

00:28:42.900 refugees, I do want to know as well that many of the Christians I see only calling to accept refugees

00:28:51.760 and ignoring the needs of Americans, both here and abroad, are relying on the Bible's call to welcome

00:28:58.180 the foreigner to do so. But they are not only disregarding the biblical parameters of that

00:29:06.140 welcoming. But these are also some of the same people who accuse Christian conservatives of trying

00:29:12.220 to establish some kind of theocracy because, I don't know, we don't want to legalize killing

00:29:18.080 unborn children or something. So they talk about separation of church and state, but they rely on

00:29:22.940 Scripture and God's law when they believe it supports their policies. But they accuse conservatives of being

00:29:27.580 theocratic tyrants when they reference Scripture to support theirs. The reality is the Bible's moral law,

00:29:34.140 like the Ten Commandments and other process laws that we see, like the Bible's description of due process,

00:29:40.580 do serve as the inspiration for American law and the basis for ideas like equality, due process, property rights.

00:29:48.620 And it is totally a worthy debate about what we should be taking from God's laws, from the Bible,

00:29:54.460 and applying here, and which ones are exclusive to ancient Israel. I think we all agree the ceremonial

00:29:59.880 laws shouldn't be imposed in America. But for one side to accuse the other side of being theocrats,

00:30:06.700 while they themselves reference the Bible to support their policy positions, I believe in a way that is

00:30:11.020 just erroneous and bad interpretation, is hypocritical. Also, by the way, where were any

00:30:17.860 of these progressives calling for full and total acceptance of Cuban refugees a few weeks ago?

00:30:23.440 It didn't happen, purely because Cubans were protesting communism, and they didn't like that.

00:30:28.860 All right, we'll speak more about how this ties into our worldview in just one second.

00:30:36.060 So all of this speaks to a very important point, I believe, about all of this. Biden and progressives

00:30:47.640 current handling of this crisis speaks to a particular worldview. This is not happening in

00:30:54.180 a vacuum. Their apparent naivete about the Taliban takeover, what they would do, how long it would

00:31:00.160 take, their complete disregard for American lives, their prioritization of the interests of other

00:31:04.840 countries before ours. This idea, these ideas come from somewhere. They come from the progressive

00:31:13.000 worldview that sees America as an entity that deserves to be taken down a notch. And this is

00:31:19.320 the view of most of Europe, of the UN, certainly our foreign enemies, and honestly, most of the

00:31:25.060 Democratic Party, at least leadership at this point, that American strength has actually been a force for

00:31:31.040 evil, not for good, and that weakening the American economy, the American military, and American

00:31:36.020 patriotism will get rid of this, what they would consider a toxic myth of American exceptionalism.

00:31:42.380 And then finally, America will be more like Europe, and the world will just be happier and more

00:31:46.640 cohesive. This all plays into what we talked about last week on the Great Reset episode that I recommend

00:31:52.400 you go listen to if you haven't already, one of my most listened to episodes ever. The reality is that

00:31:57.520 there will always be a world superpower. If it's not America, it will be someone else. I know that

00:32:03.140 there are a lot of people on the left who think that if we, you know, take, if we knock America

00:32:08.700 down a little bit, that everyone will be equal, and we won't have a hierarchy because the left thinks

00:32:14.600 all hierarchies are evil, and therefore they think that American exceptionalism is some kind of

00:32:20.340 oppressive force. But that's just not true. There's always going to be a world superpower.

00:32:24.780 We are seeing an alliance between Russia, China, and the Taliban, and we know what that power is

00:32:31.780 going to look like if and possibly when they become the world superpower. It looks like a power that

00:32:41.240 employs and celebrates slavery to this day. It looks like a power that does not believe in the concept

00:32:46.860 of rights. It looks like a power that has no concept of justice or compassion or humans being equal or

00:32:53.140 human value at all, and it is bent on the destruction and domination of the West and

00:32:58.120 specifically the United States. The U.S. may have been wrong to think that we could export democracy

00:33:04.300 to the countries we've kept the presence in, but it was a more noble desire than the desire of our

00:33:09.420 enemies who want to export oppressive dictatorships to the rest of the world.

00:33:12.880 So neutrality is a myth. Either America is in charge with all of our imperfections,

00:33:18.280 yet a stronger commitment to human rights and dignity, or the countries who believe in the

00:33:22.900 torture, rape, murder, exploitation, imprisonment of all dissenters and those that they dislike

00:33:28.860 are in charge. That's not a false dichotomy. Those are our two options. Just watch how this

00:33:35.800 alliance will be on the prowl. You will see the further subjugation of Taiwan. You will see further

00:33:41.340 exploitation of South American and African resources, something China has been up to for a long time

00:33:46.240 now. You will see more Islamic radicalism ripping apart Africa as more Africans are kidnapped and

00:33:51.400 slaughtered, especially Christians in places like Nigeria. The poorest and most vulnerable in the world

00:33:56.960 are less safe because America is weaker, in particular under this presidency. That's why ideologies

00:34:04.780 like those posited by critical theories and specifically critical race theory, which we've talked about so

00:34:10.520 much on the show before, are destructive. It's why they matter. It's not just a boogeyman.

00:34:15.220 It villainizes America on the basis of a false narrative about how integral white supremacy and

00:34:21.760 oppression have been to the formation of all of America's systems and institutions and implicitly and

00:34:29.820 sometimes explicitly elevates all non-white countries as oppressed liberators. It views right and wrong as

00:34:36.980 black and white and is therefore unable to see that the world's most brutal and pervasive oppressors of

00:34:42.400 black and brown people around the globe are not white, but also black and brown. And because it is unable to

00:34:49.240 see that reality, it is unable to react accordingly. It's unable to respond accordingly. So instead, you get the

00:34:56.120 United States government urging the Taliban to recognize the rights of women and girls. Secretary of State

00:35:02.540 Anthony Blinken tweeted, quote, together with our international partners, we call on those in

00:35:07.640 positions of power and authority across Afghanistan to guarantee the protection of women and girls and

00:35:12.660 their rights. We will monitor closely how any future government ensures their rights and freedoms.

00:35:19.040 Yeah. OK. Here's U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield saying that the U.S. sent a very strongly worded

00:35:26.420 letter to the Taliban to recognize the rights of women and girls.

00:35:29.820 And we have expressed in no uncertain terms here at the United Nations through a very strongly worded

00:35:37.200 press statement from the Security Council that we expect the Taliban to respect human rights,

00:35:43.280 including the rights of women and girls.

00:35:46.620 So I'm sure they'll respect that. Also interesting to know that we have gone from birthing people to

00:35:54.680 women and girls. Women and girls are being persecuted there because they are women and girls.

00:35:59.800 Not because they identify as women and girls. Now, you could say so-called trans people are

00:36:05.500 persecuted there, too, if they even exist in that area of the world. But that's not the point.

00:36:12.240 Everyone is persecuted there. Yes. The point is that women, girls and boys are all persecuted in

00:36:17.540 their own particular ways in accordance with their sex. Sharia subjugates women because they are women,

00:36:23.580 not because they say they're women. Sex, not so-called gender identity, matters when we're

00:36:29.200 talking about the rights and the safety of girls. Progressivism gets human nature wrong. It gets

00:36:36.120 theology wrong. It doesn't understand sin. It doesn't understand spiritual warfare. It doesn't

00:36:41.220 understand competing worldviews. And I'm not saying conservatism is totally in accordance with a

00:36:46.860 biblical worldview either. I'm just saying that secular progressivism is completely contradictory

00:36:53.060 to the Bible's descriptions of all of these things. The Taliban is not going to recognize

00:36:58.620 women and girls' rights because they don't believe in rights. Because Islamic law doesn't recognize

00:37:03.860 rights for women the same way that we do. So under Sharia, women cannot leave the house without being

00:37:09.400 accompanied by a man. Her face has to be completely covered. She can be beaten for going outside without a

00:37:14.400 man. She cannot speak unless spoken to at all. She cannot work. She cannot be educated. If she paints

00:37:19.480 her nails, she gets a finger cut off. But it goes beyond this in most of the Islamic world. Women and

00:37:24.320 children of both sexes are raped. They're used as sexual objects. They are abused. They are routinely

00:37:29.460 sold into sex slavery. There is no concept of men and women being equal in value in Sharia law,

00:37:35.560 unlike we see, especially in Jesus's ministry. The Christian church has been a refuge for women when it was

00:37:42.220 written. I know that there are a lot of feminists who would say otherwise. And of course, there have

00:37:46.360 been people who, in the name of Christianity, have abused women and have abused children. That is true.

00:37:51.820 But Christianity, what it actually is, what we see in Scripture, and when the church lives out what we see

00:37:57.200 about women and children in Scripture, it is a refuge for these vulnerable populations. Women in Bible

00:38:03.020 times were used as property. They were used to being used as property. And Christianity came along in a very

00:38:09.300 radical way and said, no, you are actually made in God's image too. There is no hierarchy of worth

00:38:14.840 among male and female in Christ. Your husband is to care for you and love you. Ephesians 5, which now

00:38:20.540 feminists freak out about because it says wives submit to your husbands, it was actually radical

00:38:25.040 in favor of women because it called the husbands to take care of their wives. That was radical for the

00:38:33.660 time. Jesus' attention, especially to vulnerable women, was radical at the time. So let's once and

00:38:40.820 for all get rid of this nonsense that all worldviews are the same. All sets of beliefs are the same.

00:38:45.680 They're not. Slavery and pedophilia are still the norm in most of the non-Western world.

00:38:51.540 And the driving force behind eventually stigmatizing both of them and making both illegal here was the

00:38:58.820 burgeoning and mainstreaming of the Christian worldview that radically asserted that all people

00:39:03.700 of all ages and skin colors are made in God's image and are worthy of life and rights and are not

00:39:10.040 property. Yes, it might have taken us a while to manifest that. And did America fail at that? Yes.

00:39:16.540 Have Christians failed at that or have people who say that they're Christians failed at that?

00:39:20.200 Absolutely. But it is Christian theology that has made that possible. Not all religions assert that,

00:39:25.760 as we can see. So cultural and moral relativism are silly. They're toxic. Objective truth exists.

00:39:33.220 Objective morality exists. And the same people who tend to reject that are simultaneously telling

00:39:37.920 the Taliban to respect the rights of women and girls. So obviously, they do believe in objective

00:39:43.000 truth and a universal morality because they're demanding it out of a foreign government who doesn't

00:39:47.180 have the same values as us. How is that not imperialism, by the way? And one more note about

00:39:52.000 cultural relativism, there are reports from the New York Times that U.S. troops were told to ignore

00:40:00.060 the abuse of little boys, the sexual abuse of little boys by Afghan troops. And of course,

00:40:06.960 this was in the name of being tolerant of different cultural differences. And there were probably other

00:40:13.080 motives there, too. Like, we need to keep these allies. That is evil. That is grotesque.

00:40:17.400 Also, to the Christians who have been saying for the past year and a half that other Christians

00:40:24.220 that were too concerned with our rights. That's what I hear a lot of people kind of on the left

00:40:29.120 saying to Christians on the right, that it's not the Christian way to care about rights.

00:40:35.020 Look what's happening in Afghanistan, what's happened with every tyrannical,

00:40:38.840 murderous regime in the world. And you can see what a world without rights looks like.

00:40:43.900 It looks like the weak being trampled by the powerful, which I'm pretty sure is the literal

00:40:47.720 definition of oppression. If you want to alleviate oppression, fight for people's liberty. Fight for

00:40:53.380 their rights to life, to free speech, religious liberty, self-defense, to live in accordance with

00:40:58.320 their values and raise their families as they see fit, to provide for their own families, to own

00:41:02.360 property without fear of the government. Advocate for the cohesion of the nuclear family,

00:41:06.660 which protects the most vulnerable. All of these protects people from oppression.

00:41:11.900 These same Christians, quoting Romans 13, when it comes to Christians unconditionally nodding along

00:41:17.220 with the government here, do they say the same for Christians there? Now, I'm not saying that

00:41:22.100 countries are, or these countries are the same at all. I'm not comparing the regulations here to

00:41:27.620 what's happening in Afghanistan. I'm saying that the principle is the same and that we know that there

00:41:32.020 are times when Christians are not called to obey tyrants. We can learn a little bit

00:41:40.720 about the slaughter of the 20th century, and you will see that it looks, you will see what it looks

00:41:46.920 like when Christians are complacent, when they use bad theology to justify their apathy of what's going

00:41:51.940 on politically, when they no longer care about rights. Read the Gulag Archipelago, and you will

00:41:57.120 see what it looks like when Christians no longer care about rights. When Christians don't care about

00:42:01.540 rights, America no longer cares about liberty, no longer believes in its own ideas, which leads to

00:42:06.460 people around the world being tortured and murdered by tyrants. It looks like Hong Kong falling. It looks

00:42:11.700 like Cubans starved. It looks like Afghans subjugated. So it matters what we care about here.

00:42:19.320 It matters that we care about rights. People's lives are at stake. When we don't care about rights,

00:42:25.660 both here and abroad, people's lives are at stake. All right.

00:42:29.220 All right. So a final word. I know that was like a very intense and breathless monologue. And I probably

00:42:41.160 sound a little sassy. Maybe I sound a little angry. And maybe it's because I am. And I'm sure that some

00:42:49.480 people will maybe not be pleased with my tone. But I just think that there is a sense of urgency here

00:42:54.880 that we all need to feel. And yes, I can talk about politics. I can talk about culture. I can

00:43:00.160 talk about theology all day. But I do think that the most important thing that I want to draw attention

00:43:04.620 to, that I think that we can all unify around. And I want us to unify despite our disagreements. That

00:43:09.980 doesn't mean that I'm going to not disagree with you and articulate my disagreements. But I can still

00:43:14.400 unify with other Christians who disagree with me on the things that I just talked about

00:43:19.540 when we recognize that we are most united with our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world

00:43:27.120 more than we are our fellow countrymen. I think countries are important. Citizenship is important.

00:43:31.860 But I have more of a connection to, more of a commitment to my fellow sister or brother in Christ

00:43:41.500 from a different background, a different ethnicity, of different nationality than I do someone who doesn't

00:43:46.740 share that faith with me here. And so that means that my focus in my prayer is going to be on those

00:43:56.600 people who are suffering. It's going to be on the persecuted church. I am going to be thinking about

00:44:01.360 the Christians who are now being targeted and slaughtered by the Taliban. And I'm going to be

00:44:05.880 praying for their deliverance. I'm going to be praying for their strength. I'm going to be

00:44:09.840 praying that God would preserve them through the end. I would love their lives to be preserved. I pray for

00:44:14.920 that. I pray for the mercy of God on them, that He would miraculously protect them. But I also pray

00:44:21.100 that they would represent the gospel until the very end, that their joy in seeing Christ and the

00:44:30.020 expectation of seeing Christ would be able to buoy them in such a difficult time. And I just pray

00:44:37.400 somehow miraculously that that gospel would impact people who are not Christians in Afghanistan

00:44:42.680 and that the message of Christ would go out and that it would plant seeds in the fertile soil

00:44:49.800 of soft hearts there. I'm praying for the church. I'm praying that she would be a beacon of light,

00:44:56.100 a beacon of hope, a beacon of joy wherever she goes. And there are many different organizations

00:45:07.700 that are helping these people. No one left behind is one organization. I'm looking into another

00:45:15.120 organization that claims to be sending Pedialyte and formula and things like that. That obviously is

00:45:22.260 where my heart is. Right now, thinking especially of those mothers, not that other people don't matter,

00:45:28.820 but I just being a mother myself, being a nursing mother myself, I think about the women who are in

00:45:36.500 that situation. And I went to church last night and I was there sitting worshiping with my baby and just

00:45:48.200 thinking about how grateful I am for the freedom to be able to do that and to be able to be pretty

00:45:58.260 confident in our safety, that we don't have to fear government encroachment on that, that I don't

00:46:05.620 have to fear being targeted in the same way that people in Afghanistan are being targeted, that I can

00:46:12.120 be pretty confident. We all can be pretty confident, depending on where you live, in the safety and

00:46:19.580 security of your neighborhood. I mean, that is a privilege that most of the world will never know.

00:46:25.960 I think that it's loving your neighbor to try to preserve that here as much as possible,

00:46:30.080 but it also should compel us to help people who don't have those privileges as much as we possibly

00:46:36.720 can. I think I know that prayer moves mountains, that the prayer of a righteous person has great

00:46:42.680 power. So that means that your prayer, that my prayer really matters, the donations that we give

00:46:48.380 to organizations that are reputable. I know sometimes it's hard to tell, so I'm going to try to create a

00:46:53.600 list of resources for you guys. All of those things matter. So despite whatever, everything I said

00:46:59.480 today, whether you disagree with it or agree with it, I have been in connection with Christians that

00:47:05.500 I know I disagree with politically because we are united in praying for the church in Afghanistan and

00:47:11.540 praying for oppressed people there and caring for them. And so we can all join hands, at least through

00:47:17.340 prayer and do that. And I encourage you to do so. God is totally and completely sovereign. And one of

00:47:24.460 the miracles is that there are thousands of Afghan children, or not just children, Christians, who are

00:47:31.020 about to hear, well done, my good and faithful servant, who know more joy than we can even imagine

00:47:36.780 in this life. So let's pray for them. Let's join them in the hope of heaven. All right, that's all I got

00:47:42.860 time for for today. I will be back here on Monday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 19, 2021

Ep 474 ｜ 'America Last' Is Destructive — and Unbiblical

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