Ep 475 ｜ The Police State Down Under
Episode Stats
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179.62383
Summary
On today's episode of Relatable Happy Monday, we talk about some good news and some bad news from the past week, including the departure of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and some of the hypocrisy we see from our nation's beloved elites.
Transcript
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hey guys welcome to relatable happy monday hope everyone had a wonderful weekend so
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we've actually got some good news that we're going to talk about today i know there's a lot
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of bad going on in the world and we're actually going to talk about some of that too but i'm going
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to talk about i guess the silver lining in some of that bad news and then just some good news
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stories the first good news story that i just want to touch on we're not going to get into too much
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is that today is the last day that new york governor andrew cuomo is in office we talked about
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all of this a couple weeks ago we've also had janice dean on this podcast who has been going
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hard after andrew cuomo really for the past year um and that the the thing the reason why she was
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going after him was not actually the reason why he ended up resigning she was going after him for
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what i think is the most scandalous part of all of this uh or of his entire uh entire time in
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leadership and that was for shoving a bunch of covid positive elderly nursing home patients back into
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the nursing home knowingly and there are different reasons for that we talked about the corruption that
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led to that kind of decision the financial motivation that led to that kind of decision
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back i think it was in april 2020 we were talking about it and that's not even the reason why he left
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office which is really sad i mean the guy literally has blood on his hands but um his hands got him in
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trouble in another way because he was touchy-feely with some women and was accused of sexual harassment
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that is why he ended up um stepping down uh now is his replacement going to be any better probably not
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probably not um so that is not necessarily going to be long-term good news for new york but i mean this
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guy was hoisted up as a hero and the foil to donald trump while donald trump was in office and his rise
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and fall has just been one of the most stunning things that we have ever seen i mean the guy got
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an emmy award for his leadership i didn't even know that was possible and also he got like a five
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million dollar book deal talking about leadership even as he was killing elderly people because of
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his policies that also happened by the way in pennsylvania and michigan this is not just a one-off new
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york thing that decision to really not care about the elderly even while calling people who question
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the use of masks grandma killers but that's a whole other thing for another day so today's his last day
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in office maybe we'll talk more about that um tomorrow it's really honestly pretty shocking that it even
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happened but today uh we are going to talk about what's going on in australia what we can learn from
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what's going on in australia this is not something we typically talk about or a country that we
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typically talk about we're typically very focused on what's going on here which is a good thing but i
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think that there are some things to learn from what we see in australia we're going to look at some of
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the continued hypocrisy that we see here from our nation's beloved elites um what it's going to look
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like if and when people finally wake up from their stupor and realize that even though covet is very real
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and it can be a very real threat to some people uh the fact of the matter is is that many of these
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public health orders are not based on science they're certainly not based on compassion and a
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desire for your well-being first let me um i'm gonna kind of set this up because i've um been noticing
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how people have been talking not just about what's going on there but just what's going on in our
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political moment in general and i kind of want to just lay a foundation and give a little bit of
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clarity and um remind all of us i guess what my priorities are and what my focus is on this podcast
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um and why i talk about the things that i do because every day i struggle with whether i should be talking
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about politics in the news or not every day i struggle with how much i should care about what's
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going on in politics the news culture wars uh i go back and forth between okay this is affecting real
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people it has real consequences the people in my audience need to know about it do something about
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it and this is just going to be um and then the other side of that i i think okay well this is just
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going to be divisive this is just going to make people mad maybe this is just a distraction i shouldn't
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talk about this because it takes away from the bigger truths that we should be focusing on about
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god and who he is and how we can obey him in our daily lives so that's a struggle that i have every
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day when i'm thinking about what to post about and and what to talk about because i don't want to
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distract from the bigger things and i really want to give you guys a balance i mean at least once a
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week we have an episode that's dedicated not to the news and we will again uh this week we're going to
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talk to um a therapist a mental health counselor about how people are struggling and i'm going to
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ask her some of the questions that you guys have about all that and i hope that it's just a uh a
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refresher a breath of fresh air for you guys and every every episode every day that we have an episode
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i try to draw us back to scripture back to the gospel remind us of the god who is in control remind
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myself and you that jesus's victory assured that one day evil will be no more and that our job is to
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trust and obey until then but i also feel so strongly that we can't be asleep at the wheel
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right now when it comes to the changes our country is experiencing and our role in them so a lot of
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you guys ask me like how do i balance that how do i make sure that we're not so inundated with the
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news we don't become obsessed with what's going on in the world and that we don't put our our trust
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in people and in politicians rather than in god and just to be transparent with you i think about
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that and wrestle with that every day i mean that's part of the reason why this podcast is called
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relatable because i am figuring this stuff out even as you guys are figuring this out and you're coming
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along um on that journey with me um and the days that i feel like okay should i talk about this
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controversial topic should i get into this particular culture war or should i just forget all about it the
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reason why i do the reason why i have the conversations that i have the reason why i do
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dive into these tough subjects is because one you guys have questions about them like we can pretend like
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the things in the world aren't going on but people are wondering what to think about for example uh
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transgenderism people are wondering what to think about refugee resettlement people are wondering what
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to think about abortion and all of these things and if you're not getting your information and your
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answers from your pastor or from a mentor or from me like you're gonna go to tiktok and you're gonna
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get the random 17 year old who thinks that they're an expert on geopolitics to tell you their opinion
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that's gonna shape your worldview so i find that worldview shaping and talking about these different
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issues really does matter and that's why i talk about the things that i do even if people accuse
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that of being divisive um as we always say on this on this podcast politics matter because policies
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matter because people matter politics affects policy policy affects people and people matter also we
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have been placed in america at this time not arbitrarily so you've been placed in your town
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your neighborhood your school district with your kids purposely by the god who does nothing accidentally
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or haphazardly and i believe just as israelites were called in jeremiah 29 to seek the welfare of
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the city in which they were exiled we as christians who are exiled on this earth whose true citizenship
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is in heaven are called to seek the welfare of the city in uh of the city and country in which god has
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placed us and in the united states like we get to do that democratically we get to do that by uh via
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free speech speaking up about the things that matter in in legally lawfully pushing back against
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policies and politicians that we don't agree with yes we are called to love our communities directly
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but i also love my community by caring about issues that i know are going to affect them
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and it seems like people who profess to be more progressive social justice christians understand
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this more than those who consider themselves conservative christians and how do i know that
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because people who consider themselves i see it people who consider themselves on the center left and
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christians speak up a lot more about political issues that they care about than people on the center
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right do now i think people who identify as you know leftist christians make politics their idol they
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elevate progressive activism above christian sanctification but they do recognize at least
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um that public policy has an effect on the public and therefore we should care about it and we should
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seek to influence it whereas i see christians who consider themselves theologically conservative consider
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themselves maybe center right politically they actually seem much quicker to speak up about more
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leftist social and political issues than conservative ones for example i had plenty of friends who consider
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themselves conservative christians post a black square after the george floyd thing without really
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knowing anything that's going on in regards to that whom i have never seen publicly talk about abortion
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who i know they consider themselves pro-life too and i believe that they are they had no problem
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talking about so-called anti-racism last summer um but talking about you know for example the
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humanitarian disaster at the border directly caused by biden's border policy right now they would
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probably consider too divisive and maybe even to be a little bit more charitable i don't even think
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they know what's happening there at the border right now most young christian women even those who are
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not liberal when it comes to speaking up about social and political issues online simply wait for the
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next trend or trending story to tell them what to be upset about and what to post about and that is
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that's why this podcast exists because i don't want us to have that existence like i and i don't know maybe
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it's the same thing like maybe this podcast is you just waiting for me to tell you what to care about
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and that's not necessarily what i want either but i do hope to give you um a broader spectrum a bigger picture
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of all the different types of things that are going on than the one viral story that we are going to
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see trending on social media that we happen to latch on to just because the outrage mob is going to come
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get us if we don't care about it so that is part of why this podcast exists uh exists to tell you about
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a bunch of different things that are going on that affects you not just the thing that happens to be
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trendy in that moment and that you know people on the left are telling you that you actually that
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you absolutely have to care about in order to be a good person now look it's not everyone's calling to
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be thinking about and talking about the news all the time i totally get that i'm glad that's not
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everyone's calling you have to be focused on what's right in front of you and do the work that god has
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called you to do in your home in your church in your community and you cannot be burdened uh by
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everything all at once as we talked about a lot last week but at the same time we can't bury our head
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in the sand and decide we no longer care enough to speak up publicly about issues just because they're
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not trending on social media so all this to say all this to say that is why i try to talk about the
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things that i do while also bringing us back to an eternal perspective when i can i am an unabashed
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conservative you guys know that um i am here to give you a conservative and to the best of my ability
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by the grace of god and the power of the holy spirit a biblical analysis of what's going on
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now that does not mean i don't get it wrong that does it mean that i don't make mistakes or that i am
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the arbiter of all things true thank the lord i i don't and cannot bear that burden
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um i am trying to get women like me and like you to care about things that have a real effect
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on our world while reminding us of who is ultimately in charge i want us to be involved in our communities
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our state our country without making politics an idol i want us to raise a respectful ruckus as we say
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about the things that matter without ceasing to love those with whom we disagree i want us to care
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about what's going on without being cynical i want us to have knowledge about big issues without feeling
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the anxiety of thinking we have to control it all and fix it all we have a very limited capacity to
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care and to do we are called to influence by the power of christ the little and big spheres we occupy
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with truth and with love so you don't have to care equally about every subject that's talked about
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on this show my hope is to make you aware of all the big things going on and that you will find that
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one or those two or three things that you really care about and run with them and that everything
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else that we talk about will simply you know enlighten you about things that you didn't know
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were going on will help shape your worldview will equip you to have informed conversations with people
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in your life and will help you when it comes time to vote and most of all my goal is to remind you
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that the god who made us and made the universe is in complete control and while we have a role in
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this ultimately god has totally and completely got it nothing throws him off so while we have that faith
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and our hope is ultimately in heaven god created us to occupy this time this space on earth that means
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we have a purpose here we have a say here especially in the united states thank god for the first
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amendment and that is to uh and our bigger purpose is to glorify god in all that we say and do in
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one way to glorify god is to love our neighbor in one way to love my neighbor in my opinion is to care
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about my neighbor's freedom and that brings us finally finally i know it seems like i kind of
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went off rails for a second but i'm bringing us back here uh it brings us to what is happening
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in australia which does have an impact at least on how we think uh about things that are happening
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in the united states so i will explain all of everything that's going on there and why in just
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one second okay australia what's happening down under this is craziness the videos that i have seen
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are crazy um of the protesters getting beaten by police officers in the name of public health so
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it's insane let us back up just um a little bit so parts of australia have locked down again because
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of a seven-day average of four deaths now uh all the people who have died in all of the world australia
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the united states everywhere else absolutely matter they are people made in the image of god
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they have souls that are going to live forever they had people that loved them um and so every
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single death matters it's not insignificant but when you are talking about public policy that affects
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the lives the livelihoods and the mental health of millions of people you have to make a calculus like
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you have to look at the equation and say okay what makes sense let's do some cost benefit analysis
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here when we're kind of weighing the cost of um our policies like that's that's what good leaders
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would do right they wouldn't be hysterical they wouldn't drive people to panic um and especially
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in a place like australia when you think australia you don't think chinese communist party and yet that
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is how the government in australia is acting when it comes to um so-called public health policy so
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this is a an average a seven-day average of four deaths um out of 25 million people that live in
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australia so australia did not report a single death from october of 2020 to july of 2021 good job
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australia and now fewer than 10 people have died in the last week and the people um in australia are
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barely allowed to leave their homes because of that so here are the new restrictions according to nine
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news in parts of australia only the only these are the only reasons that you're allowed to leave your
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home leave your home shopping for essential items um one person only so you're not allowed to go with
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anyone else i i don't what do you do by the way if you're like a single parent are you allowed to go
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with your dependents because you're also only allowed to designate like one person to be able to
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have any sort of like community and fellowship with and so i guess that person what has to be
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your babysitter i don't even know how this would work so you can only leave your home shopping for
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essential items um you can leave for care and compassionate reasons so they recognize that
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human beings can't live in isolation solitary confinement is uh the cruelest form of punishment that
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we uh allow and yet we are um we are forcing people into it basically in the name of public health
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but only one visitor is um allowed for these so-called care and compassionate reasons uh you can leave your
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house for exercise in groups no more than two excluding groups of household members within five kilometers
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or within the the local government district i guess so no outdoor recreation no outdoor recreation
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because that makes a lot of sense for a virus that we know um that can be uh it can respond well to
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vitamin d in the sense that it can actually reduce the length of um symptomatic in infection and it can
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also be um preventative to a certain degree and we also know that the virus as it
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transmit effectively at all outside but no outdoor recreation says the australian government
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um work and education that cannot be conducted remotely which i guess they would call
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uh essential business so some terms that the government there has been using single bubble
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that means people who live alone can nominate one designated family member or friend to visit for
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companionship um they'll be required to be registered with the government by the way
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so they don't trust you to actually like pick that bubble i think it's actually singles bubble so
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um they don't uh they don't trust you to be able to designate your bubble you actually have to require
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that bubble of people with the government um school educate so schools will conduct remote learning
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but will remain open for students who need them that's under the education umbrella masks must be worn
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in all non-residential indoor settings outside while uh waiting for uh waiting for i guess a cab or
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something at outdoor markets and in all common property shared spaces of a residential building
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um will be mandatory everywhere outside the home except for when exercising from monday august 23rd but
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you're only allowed to exercise for up to one hour so um okay in addition to the stay at home order
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uh it says must wear a mask at all times outside like we said 9 p.m to 5 a.m curfew as of august 23rd
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that's today exercise limited to one hour per day um that must not go farther than five kilometers
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uh from the house for exercise shopping or single bubble visits must not leave their lga local
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government authority for work except for emergency services and health care workers child care workers
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and disability workers in the lga must have their first vaccine dose by august 30th authorized workers
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must carry a service nsw permit construction workers can attend unoccupied sites if they meet
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vaccination conditions so if you don't i guess you are um you're just out of luck and you don't have
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a job anymore a curfew has been introduced across 12 local government areas in greater sydney where
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coronavirus cases are at their highest of course they are not high so people literally cannot leave
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their homes they cannot leave their homes without the permission of the government you can't leave your
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home at all from 9 p.m to 5 a.m like what in the police state is this can you imagine the state
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telling you not to leave your home and honestly there are millions of people here in the united states
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that would be totally fine with that like that's what i'm convinced of and that's what i it just
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boggles my mind the lack of love for liberty that people have for just the semblance of safety it's not
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even we don't even know if this stuff is keeping people from being infected by coronavirus and yet
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people are like oh yes please i i love the government so much big brother really does care
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about me sure i'll stay inside if the government says so it's mind-boggling to me real clear politics
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reports this quote a sydney australia family says their 12 year old daughter was pepper sprayed while two
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other family members were arrested for not following face mask rules during a shopping trip um so they're
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there are videos of this going around on twitter which is actually strange it's hard to find them
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it was not hard to find them the other day i don't know this but i would not be surprised at all if
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twitter is for some reason suppressing that um and but i did see that in the video at least one of the
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officers appears to not be wearing a mask and they're certainly not socially distancing you got to
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be kind of up close in order to pepper spray a 12 year old i mean it's insane it's insane um there
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was a video i saw circulating again which is hard to find now of helicopters hovering over a beach in
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australia telling people to obey public health orders that is totally dystopian some people seem
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to not have understood that 1984 wasn't like a guide for what the government should do but a warning
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against a warning against what happens when we continue to surrender our freedoms uh the total
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number of deaths since march of 2020 in australia is 984 uh if my calculation is correct that is
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like point zero zero three percent of the population of course all of those lives matter but look there have
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been um there have been over 800 suicide attempts in australia in just the past six months there is an
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epidemic of teen suicide um that is happening in australia and teen suicide attempts that's happening
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in australia i am sure in large part due to the isolation that we have forced upon children without
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thinking one bit about their mental health it's insane it's insane if you really care about lives if you
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really care about public health you have to realize that people aren't just bodies and vectors for a
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virus but they also have hearts they also have souls as i have been saying and a lot of people
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not just me but we have definitely been saying for a year and a half on this podcast that you have to
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care about the entire person like this is not how human beings are meant to live you will see more
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suicide because of this it's cruel it's cruel okay i mean i care about the people who have died i know
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people personally who have been put on a vent i know people who know people themselves who are
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probably not going to survive this virus i know people whose parents have died from this virus and
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so i'm not minimizing that but look people cannot live in isolation you can't take away people's
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livelihoods and then expect them to be okay you have to care about those things too the progressive
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mentality about human nature that humans can be endlessly adapted to different kinds of public
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policies and different kinds of environments it's just a lie people were made they were created by
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god to live in community that's one of the parts of being an image bearer of god because we were made
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in god's image and god is living eternally in community as a triune god the father son the holy
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spirit are living in community with one another so we were not made to live in isolation by ourselves we
00:25:12.880
have to have fellowship we have to have community and taking that away from people is going to drive
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people to the brink of insanity and it's definitely going to drive people to anger so that's what
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we're seeing right now we are seeing in australia protests we are seeing people uh storm the streets
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we are seeing arrests we are seeing police um beating people again in the name of public health
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because people want to go outside like people want to be free people want to be able to travel
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um so let me show you some of the the clips of the the crazy protests that are happening right now in
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australia so these people i mean they're not armed obviously because australia made the fateful decision
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to surrender their guns again in the name of um public safety and so now they are bearing the
00:26:04.480
consequences of giving up um their right to self-defense simply because like this is why this
00:26:12.000
this is this is why i know it's controversial to say but it's just true like the second amendment
00:26:17.680
was um was created uh so people have the right to self-defense and they had the right to defend
00:26:25.660
themselves against the violence of tyrants like it wasn't to hunt that is not why the second amendment
00:26:31.880
exists that's a great reason for it but when you disarm the populace they are easier to control so i'm
00:26:39.280
very glad that australians are they're they're protesting the way that they still can that's
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that's really good and i definitely would not i know there are some people who disagree with me on
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this i would not call for violence you're not gonna see me doing that i do call for peaceful
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protesting i do call for people speaking up and people standing up and people um pushing back
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the police told reuters that they arrested 218 people in melbourne and issued 236 fines for breaking
00:27:11.340
public health orders at three thousand nine hundred dollars each so because i care about my neighbor
00:27:17.700
i care about people's freedom like i care about them not being ruled under a police state like that
00:27:24.420
matters not just there but also here and we are watching what it looks like for people to be pushed
00:27:31.640
by tyrants to the brink of insanity in some cases the brink of suicide in some cases the loss of
00:27:37.560
livelihood um and certainly to uh their breaking point they just can't take it anymore and you
00:27:45.840
absolutely have an obligation while you can as lawfully as possible as lawfully as possible to push
00:27:53.900
back um against tyrants and so i am glad the people of australia have realized this i hope
00:28:01.140
that at some point people in the united states realize that so many of these arbitrary guidelines
00:28:06.840
and restrictions that are being placed on people especially on children are not really for your
00:28:11.100
health it's for control it's for control now listen to this story too if you don't if you don't believe
00:28:17.400
me that this is not really about health this is from sky news uh rescue dogs shot dead in australia
00:28:23.840
over coronavirus restrictions a council in australia killed the impounded animals to prevent
00:28:29.520
volunteers at an animal shelter from traveling to pick them up and potentially spreading the virus
00:28:33.680
let me read that to you again a council in australia killed shot impounded animals to prevent volunteers
00:28:41.780
at an animal shelter from traveling to pick them up and potentially spreading the virus
00:28:45.860
so that's how australia is going if you want to see the trajectory of continuing allow politicians who
00:28:53.360
do not care about you who don't care about your child who really as we will see in just one second
00:28:58.360
aren't even scared of coronavirus this is the trajectory of continuing to allow them to take
00:29:03.780
your freedoms away in the name of public health it's cruelty it's cruelty on a humanitarian level
00:29:08.740
it's cruelty when it comes to how they're treating animals if they really cared about lives do you think
00:29:14.080
that they would be doing things like this no no absolutely not absolutely not but so here's how
00:29:20.660
we're going to transition to the next thing that i told you guys that i had good news and this is
00:29:25.580
part okay so part of the good news is that okay australians have woken up and they're pushing
00:29:30.700
back against uh this kind of thing they're pushing back against a police state which i do i do believe
00:29:35.720
is a way to love your neighbor um while you still can you push back against tyranny tyranny always hurts
00:29:41.660
the most vulnerable as we have already noted like suicides are going up as a result of this so do you do
00:29:47.300
you love your teenage neighbor that's on the brink of suicide because of loneliness well then you need
00:29:52.080
to speak up about this as australians are now um the weird thing about australia is that if you look
00:29:59.720
at their mask mandate it is only required for people ages 12 and up now that is very different from the
00:30:06.540
united states where in many areas and on planes kids as young as two as young as two are required
00:30:14.640
to wear masks now we talked about last week we did a whole episode and i've written a whole article
00:30:20.740
about all of the peer-reviewed studies all of the scientific analysis all of the data that says
00:30:25.960
that kids should not be wearing masks and actually that mask mandates in general really have no effect
00:30:30.800
whatsoever on the spread of the virus if we're ready for that conversation which a lot of people have
00:30:34.860
been having for the past year and a half um but kids should not be mandated to wear masks and most of
00:30:42.780
our peer countries in europe do not require kids to wear masks i mean consider the fact that australia
00:30:49.020
one of the most tyrannical places right now when it comes to covid restrictions does not require kids
00:30:54.500
under the age of 12 to wear masks and yet here in the united states you actually have districts in
00:30:59.500
places like florida like texas like tennessee who are trying to sue the state and are trying to defy
00:31:06.300
the governor's ban on uh mask mandates in schools um by saying no we're just going to mandate that kids
00:31:13.900
kindergarteners have to wear masks we are going to mandate that two-year-olds um in these areas
00:31:19.580
have to wear masks at daycare some of you have reached out to me that uh your kid who is going
00:31:24.960
to daycare young as two years old is going to be forced to wear a cloth mask all day i'm sorry i know
00:31:30.600
people get mad at me when i say this but that is a form of child abuse that's a form of child abuse
00:31:35.460
it is and people say oh well it's not child abuse there are people who are really abused yes there are
00:31:40.400
people who are abused worse than that absolutely and i don't believe that the intent necessarily
00:31:44.920
is abuse but the impact is tell me what it is when you force a child to do something that only has
00:31:50.140
physical and psychological harm and no clear benefits what is that called what's that called
00:31:54.660
is that not a form of abuse but here's what i think is a piece of good a piece of good news um in all
00:32:03.760
of this is that the is that new york magazine which is very liberal magazine is actually reporting on the
00:32:08.920
fact that mask mandates among kids don't work they don't work i'll link to my past episode and my
00:32:15.580
article on this but the fact that new york magazine is talking about this um is a very good thing it
00:32:22.700
means that possibly possibly the dam is breaking and i'm going to read you some excerpts from that
00:32:30.500
all right let me tell you guys uh about this article which i was so surprised to see i also
00:32:42.280
felt very vindicated um because i you know i compiled all of that data about mask wearing and the fact
00:32:51.240
that it's not effective for kids to be wearing masks and i got way more support than i got detractors
00:32:57.320
or any pushback but i did get pushed back and there were people that i know for a fact did not
00:33:02.680
read the article and just said oh you're citing yourself you know allybethstucky.com is your source
00:33:08.240
no those people didn't look at all of the studies that were linked um and people there was this one
00:33:16.140
woman who calls herself a doctor was like oh this is just so unintelligent and it was just a screenshot
00:33:22.640
of the link to the blog post so this person didn't even read it and so some people like
00:33:29.440
masking is just it's a religion for them it's become an outward symbol of their alleged virtue
00:33:38.500
like they think that it makes some sort of statement about how loving and compassionate they are
00:33:44.120
and it's become therefore a part of their identity and so it doesn't matter how many facts you bring up
00:33:50.420
they're not actually thinking rationally they're thinking emotionally and it's really hard to get
00:33:55.820
someone to change their mind who is only thinking emotionally by using logic and data it's almost
00:34:01.640
impossible um but i say almost impossible because i do think it's possible and that's why it's important
00:34:08.160
that we continue to talk about it and so i was very happy to see in new york magazine um this author
00:34:14.840
david zwig uh talking about this so he mentioned at the beginning of the article um that the cdc
00:34:21.760
published uh what he says is a notable yet mostly ignored large-scale study of covid transmission
00:34:26.540
in american schools and he links to the article and um the study which is or the summary of the study
00:34:34.280
which is basically the only thing that people even read when they're looking at these studies
00:34:39.000
says that masking then unvaccinated teachers and improving ventilation with more fresh air were
00:34:43.840
associated with the lower incidence of the virus in schools they said this is these are common sense
00:34:49.060
uh measures and they said and they said that you know all of these things need to be implemented to
00:34:55.000
to mitigate the spread of the virus in schools however the article goes on to say other findings of
00:35:01.080
equal importance in the study however were absent from the summary and were not widely reported
00:35:05.660
these findings cast doubt on the impact of many of the most common mitigation measures in american
00:35:10.300
schools distancing hybrid models classroom barriers uh hepa filters and most notably requiring student
00:35:19.420
masking were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit in other words these measures
00:35:26.080
could not be said to be effective um and then he goes on to mention as we have said before
00:35:32.800
in the uk ireland all of scandinavia france the netherlands switzerland italy have exempted kids
00:35:39.740
with varying age cutoffs from wearing masks in classrooms there has been no evidence of more
00:35:45.660
outbreaks in these places in schools relative to the schools in the u.s where the solid majority of kids
00:35:51.780
wore masks for an entire academic year and will continue to for the foreseeable future again he talks
00:35:58.140
about what we talked about last week that the who whose child masking guidance differs substantially from the
00:36:05.020
cdc's recommendations have explicitly recognized that the decision to mask students carries with it
00:36:10.140
potential academic and social harms for children and may lack a clear benefit and they have not changed
00:36:17.220
that just because of the very transmission transmissible delta variant um and so we are seeing a very
00:36:24.700
different message from the who who by the way i think it's a corrupt organization but even a you know a broken
00:36:31.520
clock is is right twice a day and so the who has said you know there are a lot of harms in masking kids
00:36:40.020
unicef which i think is another you know corrupt organization says that you should under no circumstances be
00:36:47.420
masking kids under the age of five again i linked to that in the blog post that i published a couple weeks
00:36:53.700
ago um and they said really kids age five to eleven only if they have to wear masks should only be made to
00:37:00.600
wear masks for a certain amount of time in certain situations but really they don't recommend mask
00:37:05.400
wearing under the age um under the age of 12 the american academy of pediatrics this is weird it's
00:37:12.280
going to take us on a little bit of an aside um they said that kids need to be wearing masks aged two
00:37:19.520
and up they had a tweet that they put out where they said and this was just stunning american academy
00:37:26.080
of pediatrics babies and young children study faces so you may worry that having masked caregivers
00:37:31.920
would harm children's language development there are no studies to support this concern young children
00:37:37.780
will use other clues like gestures and tone of voice so i think we talked about this actually last week so
00:37:44.920
their first sentence actually contradicts the next sentence babies and young children study faces
00:37:49.600
okay so they know that for a fact and so understandably we may worry that wearing a mask covering
00:37:55.000
half of your face the most expressive part of your face is going to hinder their communication their
00:37:59.720
neurological development and they're saying no there's no studies yeah there are no studies there
00:38:06.100
are no studies if you don't study it good one aap but actually they did have a study on their website
00:38:11.700
that talks about the importance of face time um with a baby with your with your kids um smiling at them
00:38:20.620
them uh seeing how you move your mouth when you're speaking is very important for babies very important
00:38:26.360
for toddlers it's especially important for kids with special needs kids who are hard of hearing kids
00:38:31.900
who are autistic they need to see the full spectrum of human emotion on the face to really uh to really
00:38:37.940
have that kind of emotional intelligence and be able to gain social cues that are already hard for
00:38:44.160
them to gain because of their special needs but it's also important for kids who don't have special
00:38:48.340
needs the american academy of pediatrics had a study showing that um on their website and they took it
00:38:55.220
down they took it down so you can actually see where the link uh where the link used to exist or at least
00:39:01.360
you could a few days ago when i when i searched this on duck.go um but when you click on it it doesn't
00:39:07.980
actually take you to that page now thankfully the ohio chapter of the american academy of pediatrics
00:39:14.920
still has uh still has the uh study or still has at least um a summary of that study on their website
00:39:23.840
and so i was able to read that it's from 2013 um and it talks about how important how important
00:39:30.880
facetime is how important uh smiling is and talking to your baby is and all of this is much harder when
00:39:38.780
you have a mask on i mean obviously they can't see your smile with a mask on and the aap again
00:39:44.400
like 1984 is just memory holding that information so you're going to tell me that they actually care
00:39:50.600
about our kids health why should we listen to the aap on anything now there are scientists there are
00:39:56.940
pediatricians within the aap that i think um differ on this and some of them are actually quoted in this
00:40:03.320
particular article and some of them are quoted in the article that i wrote but as um an upfront
00:40:09.480
position they are saying that kids need to be masked at two years old and of course all caregivers
00:40:14.280
at all times need to be masked around children it absolutely makes no sense whatsoever it's
00:40:20.480
political so once again whenever i hear that republicans are the ones that are politicizing this
00:40:25.920
no no the people on the left these organizations politicians on the left have been politicizing this
00:40:31.760
from the moment they figured out they could use it against donald trump now they figured out they
00:40:36.140
can use it against conservatives they can use it to try to fight some kind of war against republican
00:40:41.020
governors that's exactly what the biden administration is doing by condemning their republican govern
00:40:45.380
governors from banning mask mandates um that's exactly what the school districts who are trying to sue
00:40:51.500
these governors who are banning mask mates uh mask mandates um are doing they're not following the
00:40:58.240
science they're not following the science whether it's in uh whether it's in florida or tennessee or
00:41:04.660
or texas these school districts that are saying no we are absolutely going to make kindergartners
00:41:09.680
wear masks we are not going to politicize this virus we care about our kids you're politicizing it
00:41:14.280
because you're not following the science you are just trying to score points against ron de santis and
00:41:19.540
i see you and i see your lack of compassion and i'm not going to let you get away with it um or at least
00:41:26.120
i hope the people in your district aren't going to let you get away with it and i am going to arm them
00:41:30.900
with as much information with as much data as i possibly can to make sure that you don't get away
00:41:35.660
with it so this article in new york magazine um goes on goes on to talk about the american academy
00:41:43.180
of pediatrics how this is clearly a political stance how um it's contradicted by some of their own
00:41:50.560
studies it goes on to say in florida tennessee and elsewhere local school board meetings are verging
00:41:55.220
on violence as parents and officials fight over the question but with tens of millions of american
00:41:59.680
kids headed back to school in the fall their parents and political leaders owe it to them
00:42:03.280
to have a clear-sighted scientifically rigorous discussion about which anti-covid measures
00:42:08.360
actually work and which might put an extra burden on vulnerable young people without meaningfully or
00:42:14.360
demonstrably slowing the spread of the virus in that context the best practices for mask
00:42:19.860
mask use in schools elementary schools in particular are much less obvious than cdc guidance and news
00:42:25.680
headlines about keeping schools safe might have you believe so again the cdc is going against the
00:42:30.820
science and all of this these are bureaucrats before they are actually scientists now the study by the cdc
00:42:37.400
looked at 90 000 elementary school students in 169 georgia schools from november 16th to december 11th
00:42:46.140
and again they found there was no uh statistically significant um uh impact from kids being forced
00:42:55.780
to wear masks this particular journalist reached out to the cdc they reached out to the american academy
00:43:02.120
of pediatrics asking hey you know what's your evidence what's your underlying data for the
00:43:07.780
recommendations that you are putting forth that all two-year-olds and up need to be wearing masks the
00:43:13.400
american academy of pediatrics did not respond to this journalist which is revealing in itself
00:43:18.320
the cdc press office replied that since children under 12 cannot be vaccinated the agency recommends
00:43:23.760
schools do universal masking and then included links to unrelated materials on vaccines in a recent
00:43:29.740
outbreak among adults so again did not answer the question that's because i don't know what the
00:43:35.900
politics are behind it i don't understand the nefarious reasons i don't understand the ulterior motives
00:43:41.140
like it just doesn't it doesn't make sense like the same people who seem to want to turn america into
00:43:47.500
europe and are constantly lauding you know the policies of scandinavia on this they are departing
00:43:54.260
from that and i truly don't understand um so this is alisa schecter perkins who is the director of
00:44:02.340
emergency medicine infectious disease at infectious disease management at boston medical center said
00:44:08.720
a year ago um i said masks are not the end of the world why not just wear a mask but the world has
00:44:14.840
changed there are real downsides to masking children for this long with no known end date and without
00:44:19.620
any clear upside without any clear upside i'm not aware of any studies that show conclusively that kids
00:44:25.660
wearing masks in schools has any effect on their own morbidity or mortality or on the hospitalization
00:44:30.760
or death rate in the community around them so like they're even not there and we talked about this again
00:44:36.820
they it is very rare that they even transmit the virus to teachers or to adults and by the way
00:44:43.740
if the vaccine works um and these people are pro vaccine then everyone above the age of 12 has already
00:44:51.960
had the opportunity to get the vaccine and so why would they be scared of kids transmitting the virus to
00:44:57.520
them if they got the vaccine that they apparently believe um works uh so the article then uh goes
00:45:06.680
on to talk about how children are less likely to have severe disease from SARS-CoV-2 they're less
00:45:12.880
likely to be symptomatic and even though it might be okay for adults to wear masks even though i think
00:45:21.280
these masks are highly ineffective they say children are not little adults just because something is
00:45:27.800
okay for adults does not mean that it is okay for kids a difference between the effectiveness of
00:45:34.540
requiring masks on children in schools and adults in other environments would not be a surprising
00:45:40.000
finding this may in part explain why the cdc study did not find a statistically significant benefit in
00:45:45.980
elementary age kids but did see a benefit in unvaccinated uh teachers again i would probably
00:45:52.440
push back on that based on the other data that we have uh that we have talked about cloth masks in 95s
00:46:00.540
kn95s uh none of these seem to make any kind of difference in effectiveness when it comes to
00:46:07.160
masking kids um again the who they say has repeatedly affirmed their guidance for children under the age
00:46:14.400
of six not to wear masks that it's actually harmful for them to wear masks and so we don't actually know
00:46:20.440
where the cdc where the aap is getting any of their data but we do know for sure that this is going to
00:46:27.320
have a negative impact on kids so i'm gonna link if you didn't see me link it on instagram or on twitter
00:46:32.980
i'm going to link this article in the description of this podcast episode so you can read it for
00:46:38.660
yourself and you can arm yourself um with the data that you need to talk to your school board your local
00:46:45.120
health officials unfortunately they have a big hand in this now there have been i got a message this
00:46:51.140
morning from uh someone and this just makes my heart sing so they used the data that i compiled
00:46:57.960
on my blog post she rallied a bunch of other parents who don't want their kids to be wearing masks
00:47:03.720
and they went to their school board they changed the mind of two people on their school board and so
00:47:10.180
the school board ended up voting to make masks optional whereas it was mandated before the rest of the
00:47:16.940
board is really mad and is um trying to somehow reverse this decision but it makes a difference
00:47:25.000
it makes a difference it i mean maybe it maybe it won't i can't guarantee obviously that kind of result
00:47:30.820
everywhere that you live but looking at the data um taking the facts that i've provided you with
00:47:37.400
that a lot of other people can provide you with that have been doing this work for a very long time
00:47:42.700
um and finding other parents that agree with you even just five other you know five other sets of
00:47:50.600
parents that agree with you going to your school's administrators your the teachers at the school
00:47:55.300
probably can't make a difference but you can get them to join in with you going to the school's
00:47:59.380
administrators if you're at a private school going to the local school board if you're at a public
00:48:04.300
school trying to talk to your local health officials um uh this can make a big difference when
00:48:10.640
you are armed with facts now again a lot of these people are not thinking rationally they're just
00:48:15.620
thinking about what looks good for them they're thinking about the political fights that they
00:48:18.780
might be having with their republican governor so they might not give one lick what you say to them
00:48:23.300
but you might be able to change some people's minds and it matters now we have seen some what i
00:48:28.180
consider some reprehensible behavior from some people that seem to be threatening uh the other side with
00:48:34.360
violence i obviously do not recommend that i would say uh that we have to raise a respectful ruckus
00:48:41.220
as i say so that means being as peaceful and as kind as possible but that doesn't mean that you can't
00:48:46.140
be bold that doesn't mean that you can't be brazen that means that doesn't mean that you can't be
00:48:49.940
brutally honest because like your kids well-being is on the line and that absolutely matters and so if
00:48:57.080
you're someone who has been sitting on the sidelines then i recommend that now is the time to get in the
00:49:02.700
game like now is the time to talk about this stuff you see what's happening in australia
00:49:06.980
for the people who say oh it's just a mask it's just this little thing it doesn't really it doesn't
00:49:13.640
really matter giving up your freedom especially with like there is absolutely no public health benefit
00:49:20.800
to it it absolutely matters and for people who cite you know romans 13 yes that's an important passage
00:49:28.540
but you have a right to speak up it's not illegal it's not illegal for you to push back on this stuff
00:49:33.920
like you are this our elected officials are supposed to be beholden to the constitution you've
00:49:39.640
got the free speech right to stand up for this the state as we always say does not care about your kids
00:49:44.160
you care about your kids you know about your kids it is your god-given responsibility to speak
00:49:48.820
up for your kids when something like wearing a mask only proves to be psychologically and physically
00:49:55.360
harmful and has no physical or psychological benefit like that is a form of abuse again i don't think
00:50:01.440
that's the in the intent but it does end up being the impact and so i mean if we could get the uh the
00:50:09.340
airlines to no longer require this i would say that that is a huge win but let's start at schools
00:50:14.460
and let's start with your voice coming together with other voices and using facts to push back on what i
00:50:21.500
think is just a absolutely egregious policy something else that i found interesting just
00:50:27.960
talking about masks in general was this 2003 article when there was a sars outbreak then um and this is
00:50:34.660
from australia so this is from the sydney morning herald listen to this first line retailers who cash in
00:50:40.720
on community fears about sars by exaggerating the health benefits of surgical masks could face fines up
00:50:46.240
to 110 000 and so there were retailers who are saying oh this mask is going to protect you the
00:50:52.220
surgical mask is going to protect you um from this virus and scientists knew that this wasn't the case
00:50:59.500
and so uh they um the you know the authority said look you can't swindle people like this you're not
00:51:07.400
going to be able to trick people and you are going to get fined in an insane amount if you try to trick
00:51:13.000
people by telling them that this is uh that this is effective and so they knew that professor yvonne
00:51:19.480
cassart of the department of infectious diseases at the university of sydney said those masks the
00:51:24.720
surgical masks are only effective so long as they are dry and they become ineffective in as little as
00:51:30.840
15 or 20 minutes after which the mask must be changed if you talk to a nurse that used to you know
00:51:38.420
if they were wearing masks with a flu patient for example in the hospital uh they would be told to
00:51:44.960
change their mask after every patient because it becomes unsanitary and so we've known these things
00:51:51.780
to be true for a very long time and the fact that we are continuing to push this it just doesn't make
00:51:56.820
any sense and as we say often we have to live not by lies we have to live not by lies and masks will
00:52:05.580
start with we'll start with the kids um it's a lie it's a lie that it's helpful and i think that we
00:52:11.820
are required by god to live not by lies let me close out by reading you this one tweet by or tweet
00:52:19.140
c.s lewis did not tweet this but he did say this he did write this um and you've probably heard it
00:52:23.840
before but i think that it um it's it goes well with what we're talking about of all tyrannies a
00:52:30.060
tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive it would be better to
00:52:34.580
live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies the robber baron's cruelty may
00:52:39.440
sometimes sleep his cupidity may at some point be satiated but those who torment us for our own
00:52:45.160
good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience a tyranny
00:52:51.960
sincerely exercised for the good of its victims is without a doubt the most oppressive and we do have
00:52:57.980
the obligation while we have the freedom to do so to love our communities by pushing back against
00:53:03.640
tyranny especially that which is done in the name of our good all right we'll be back here tomorrow see