Ep 50 ｜ Anti-Semitism & Cycles of Hate
Episode Stats
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Summary
On today's episode of Relatable, Allie talks about the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and how it has changed the way she thinks about the topic of anti-Semitism in the Jewish community, and why you should definitely get a pillow from Bolster Sleep.
Transcript
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What's up, guys? Welcome to Relatable. My name is Allie. This is a podcast of CRTV. You can watch
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this as well. If you don't just want to listen to me at CRTV.com slash Allie, you can subscribe
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there. Use my promo code, which I think is maybe Allie20 and you get some kind of discount.
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Speaking of discounts, guys, this is a big day for the Relatable podcast. I have my very first
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advertisement. And guys, I can hear you right now. You're like, I don't want to listen to
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advertisements. Allie, I can't believe you sold out on this. It is not selling out. I will only
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do advertisements for things that I absolutely believe in and things that I actually think that
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you guys will like and will probably make your life easier. So the first ad that I have is for
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Bolster Sleep. This is an amazing company. So they sent me one of their pillows and I have pillow
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issues. Like I have pillow sleep problems. I have, if you looked at my bed, you would see,
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wow, why does one person slash two people, me and my husband, why do they need 50,000 pillows just to
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get comfortable? The answer is because I've never been able to find the perfect pillow. I have like
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six pillows that I mash up and I sleep on them. And then by the end of the night, I am like down to
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the abyss. My head is, and then the rest of my body is up on another plane. And I wake up with
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a crick in my neck. This has been a problem for as long as I can remember tossing and turning.
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It's just, it's just, it's just never worked for me. All of these different kinds of pillows. I've
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tried Tempur-Pedic, all that stuff. So Bolster sent me one of their pillows and I was kind of
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skeptical. I just was because I've never had a pillow that I like. I've been sleeping on it for two
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weeks. And I'm not kidding when I say that it is amazing. It really is. It's amazing. It's amazing.
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I have not had a crick in my neck. I only sleep with one pillow. The Bolster pillow is the only
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one that I use. It is so good, so comfortable. And I don't know what to do with all of my pillows.
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So if you guys, instead of ordering this Bolster pillow, if you guys just want like some cheap,
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crappy feather pillows, I have a ton that I don't use anymore, but I've been sleeping through the night.
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Haven't been waking up at all. It's been so amazing. And the thing about
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this is, is that you're not just getting a pillow that's going to change your life because it's
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changing your sleeping habits, which affects every area of your life. You're also changing other
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people's lives. So with every purchase, you are also helping people in Haiti. Bolster Sleep actually
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donates some of its proceeds to this program in Haiti that equips them with skills like HVAC,
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with plumbing, with these things that they can actually use in real life in order to have jobs
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and be able to provide for themselves and their families. It's so amazing what this company stands
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for and the products that they sell. So you can go to bolstersleep.com. You can use promo code
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Allie, A-L-L-I-E for $100 off. $100 is a lot. Allie, A-L-L-I-E, $100 off. And you should start with a
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pillow maybe before you get a mattress. Their mattresses are apparently amazing too. But you should
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start with a pillow just to see if you like it. I guarantee you that you will. I've seriously never
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slept on something better in my whole life. Okay. Now that that's done, first ad out of the way. It
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wasn't even that bad, guys. You thought that it was going to be this horrible, boring thing. It
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wasn't. I bet you were fascinated with that ad because I made it a part of my life because now it
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is. Okay. We're going to talk about something that is a lot more serious than advertisements, a lot
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more serious than even sleep. And that is the horrific thing that happened over the weekend at Tree of
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Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in a community called Squirrel Hill, which is literally Mr. Rogers
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Neighborhood. That's where he grew up. It's a very close-knit Jewish community. There were 11
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fatalities in this shooting. This guy who is an anti-Semite who has apparently been very public
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on social media about his hatred for the Jews and, of course, has bought into all of these conspiracy
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theories that have been around since the dawn of time, that the Jews are evil and that they're
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running the world and that if we just exterminated the Jews, then everything would be better. This
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guy literally bought into Nazi propaganda, has been propagating it himself. He bought into it so much
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that he went into the synagogue and he shot it up. He killed people ranging from, I think, middle-aged
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to some people in their 90s. It's horrific. This community is just wrenched with pain and really
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the entire Jewish community. On Saturday when this happened, I was thinking about all of the Orthodox
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Jews who were celebrating Sabbath or who were resting on their Sabbath, who didn't have their phones,
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who didn't have access to the internet, who, you know, they weren't on Twitter. They didn't know this
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was happening. I was just thinking about them, what horrific news this is going to be once they
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are able to check into the technological world and see that this happened. I mean, it's got to be so,
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so scary. I mean, think about it just for a second. If you're not part of a group that has ever been
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persecuted here, and I would say as a white Christian, I don't really have a group that has been
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persecuted or has been oppressed or has been a target of hate crime. So, for example, if, and this is
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different, I'm not saying this is the exact metaphor, but if I found out that there was this,
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there was a large group of people or a relatively large group of people that were online talking
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about how much they hate blonde women, how they're going to kill blonde women, how blonde women really
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are, you know, we're taking over the world in a really bad way and we're part of every horrible
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conspiracy theory that there are these people that go out and they're going to kill blonde women.
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Wherever blonde women are, they're going to kill them. I would be really scared.
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Even if it happened across the country, even if I didn't know the blonde woman that was killed,
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if I knew that she was part of this larger movement of people that wanted to kill blonde
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women, I would be, I would be very afraid. So just think for a second, whatever it is that you are,
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whatever characteristics that you have, if someone was targeting you for an immutable characteristic,
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or maybe I guess in some cases it's chosen, some people convert to Judaism
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for whatever characteristic it is for however you worship, whomever you worship, how you look,
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how you act, how you dress. If someone was targeting you for that or targeting your group
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for that, how scared would you be? How devastated would you be? And then it's taken to an even
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further level when it's a religious community, when they're bonded, maybe not by actually knowing
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each other physically, but a spiritual bond. We Christians can relate to that.
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So I'm just devastated for the entire Jewish community. Anti-Semitism has been around since
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the Jewish people have been around for thousands and thousands of years. This is not new. They have
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been the target of all kinds of vicious attacks because of who they are. And God has amazingly,
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amazingly spared them. And I'm going to get into a little bit later what the Bible
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says about the Jewish people and how we as Christians are supposed to view the Jewish
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people because there's just this very, very strange notion that for whatever reason, I guess
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these people who think this don't read the Bible, there's this very strange notion that it is somewhat
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Christian in a way to be against the Jewish people. And let me just give you a spoiler before
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we even get into the theological part. It's not. There's nothing, nothing remotely biblical,
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theologically sound, Christ-like Christian in any way about being anti-Semitic. There's just not.
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So anyway, let me just say that I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. If I have any Jewish listeners,
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I am so sorry that this happened. I know that it's scary. And gosh,
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if you knew anyone that was affected by this, I am so sorry. It is a scary time that we're living in.
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I mean, I don't know the numbers. I don't know if anti-Semitic hate crimes have increased or if
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hate crimes in general have increased over the past few years. I'm not exactly sure. But I know that
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any time this happens, especially in light of what was just happening with the bombs being sent to
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various Democratic leaders, we live in a very tribalistic, very hateful, very amped up time
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when everyone just everyone seems to hate the people that disagree with them. And unfortunately,
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some people manifest that hatred in violence. So now we're going to talk about a little bit how
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the media has reacted to this. That's always fun, right? How Trump has reacted to this and what is
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the truth and what's false about all of this. So I know that Trump is not a great reconciler.
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He's not. He's not the guy who's going to bring the divided people together. He's not the guy with
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the peaceful rhetoric. He is no Ronald Reagan. We know that. I have criticized him for his rhetoric in
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the past. I certainly do not think he's perfect. I got a message over the weekend saying that I
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worship President Trump. Anyone who's been listening to me knows that that is not true.
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He is not perfect. I wish. I wish sometimes he would stop talking or he would change the things
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that he's saying. I think that most a lot of the things that he says, not most, but a lot of things
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that he says, it's not that they're necessarily wrong. It's just that they're not helpful. And that's
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not his mentality. I've learned he's not thinking about what is actually helpful, what is actually
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productive. And a lot of times in his rhetoric, he's not thinking what is actually good for the
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country. He's thinking what is good for the brand of Trump. And sometimes that can be good for the
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country, but sometimes it's not. In this particular case, in the light of everything that happened,
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he did a pretty good job. Of course, this was a scripted speech. Someone wrote it for him,
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I'm sure, but that's fine. That's true of most presidents. So here is what he had to say.
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As you know, earlier today, there was a horrific shooting targeting and killing Jewish Americans
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at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The shooter is in custody and
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federal authorities have been dispatched to support state and local police and conduct a full and thorough
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federal investigation. This wicked act of mass murder is pure evil, hard to believe.
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And frankly, something that is unimaginable. Our nation and the world are shocked and stunned by the grief.
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The media, however, didn't like this. And of course, they had already made up their minds about
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everything before Trump actually gave their speech. There were blue check marks on the left on Twitter
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saying that this is the kind of hatred that Donald Trump allows, that he exacerbates, that this is the
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country that he's created. This is the environment that he fosters, that these kinds of hate crimes
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only exist, is what they're implying under Donald Trump. There have been articles in the New York Times
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and the Washington Post, of course, conversations on CNN, MSNBC about how this is Trump's fault,
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that they're not blaming him as directly as they were for the bombs on the Democratic leaders. That
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was very explicitly blaming Donald Trump. But now it's just, well, he has created this culture of
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division. He has created this culture of hatred and this is his fault. No, like I said, I disagree
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with a lot of Trump's rhetoric. But no, this is not his fault. Hatred has existed for a long time.
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And like I've said so many times, if you look at the numbers, we became most divided under President
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Obama. Not before that and maybe sometime after that, but it was under President Obama that people
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really started hating each other and that we really started looking at the other side and saying,
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we have absolutely nothing in common. We can't even say that we're proud to be Americans anymore.
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That's when it happened. Now, Trump is a symptom of that. He is not the cause of that,
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but he is a symptom of what happened under President Obama, aka the Great Divider. And
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I'm not saying, again, that he is helping. I am not saying that he is bringing people together. But
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no, it is not Trump's fault. But the media is so hell-bent on blaming conservatives in the right
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for everything, for everything bad that happens, that they're not even able to see the log in their
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own eye. They just can't do it. They can't see how their incendiary rhetoric is adding to the same
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kind of division that they say that Trump is adding to. That them saying, for example,
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that everyone's going to die if Republicans repeal Obamacare, that everyone who voted yes on Kavanaugh
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is a rape apologist and doesn't care about rape victims. That saying that the tax cuts are going to
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be Armageddon or at least agreeing with Nancy Pelosi saying that. Having Maxine Waters on who says
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that anyone in the administration should not be allowed to eat dinner in peace. They don't condemn
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Antifa. Actually, they say that the anti-fascists are okay because they're fighting against bigotry.
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They don't see their own messaging, their own rhetoric, and their own words as incendiary,
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as dangerous, as wrong. They only look at Trump. They only look at the right wing and say they're
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bad. And they wonder why the country is so divided. We're not perfect on our side. We're
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certainly not. I've been convicted over the past few days about, wow, when I have kids one day,
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I want them to be raised in a softer, kinder world than this. How am I going to contribute to that
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softness and kindness? I don't do a good job. I don't because I just get angry at things. And I say,
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this is absolutely ridiculous. And I lash out at whoever is making the stupid comment of the day.
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I'm not helping. So I think that we can all look at ourselves and say, how am I contributing to
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reconciliation? How am I contributing to peace? That doesn't mean you stop speaking truth. That
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doesn't mean that you stop being bold and maybe sometimes even blunt with things that you say
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that are true. But it does mean, okay, we need to examine our hearts here. Am I attacking this person
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simply in a way that is ad hominem, in a way that doesn't actually add to a productive dialogue,
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am I just doing this for attention? Am I doing this to advance my own brand? Am I making a broad
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generalization that really isn't true or fair? Am I making a statement that can't be backed up by
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facts just because I know it's going to get a lot of retweets and likes? It's that kind of stuff that
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we have to examine in ourselves. I am the first and foremost. I know that. Now, I try not to do
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that. I'm never consciously saying I'm going to say this for attention. Never, right? That's never been
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who I am. But it doesn't hurt, of course, to take a step back and say, I need to evaluate myself. I
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need to evaluate how I might be contributing to this rise in temperature. And all I'm asking,
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all I'm asking is for the media to do the same thing. But people on the left tend to think,
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or it's a lot of people right now, not everyone, but a lot of people right now, especially on the
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left-wing media, seem to think that they are the peacemakers, that they are not the problem,
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that we are the problem. And that's when I stop being able to be calm anymore. That's when I kind
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of give up on this whole idea of, okay, well, maybe we can all take responsibility and come
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together. It's very difficult to do when you see the left throwing cheap shots at people on the right
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simply because they think that they're better than us. That makes it very hard to look at the other
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side and say, I want to sit down with you. I want to have a conversation with you. I want to come
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together. Maybe we do have things in common because I don't think that I'm better than people
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on the left. I think they're wrong. I think that they're misinformed. I think that my ideas are better
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than theirs. I don't think that I am better than them. I don't get the same feeling from them on the
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other side. And that is one reason why it is so hard for us to come together. It's so hard.
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There was this headline in the Washington Post by Max Boot, and I'm trying to find it. He says,
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Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media can't escape responsibility. And this is after
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the Tree of Life shooting. So in the article, now Max Boot is an ex-GOP person. He is one of the most
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aggravating commentators in the entire world because to me, his arguments are just so disingenuous
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about conservatism. I don't really understand how you can just give up on your principles because
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you don't like certain politicians in your party. That's not what conservatism is about.
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But in this article, he talks about how Fox News and the rest of right-wing media cannot escape
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responsibility for the Tree of Life shooting. That's amazing. That is so, that's just amazing.
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How much self-awareness do you have to lack for you to write that headline? How much self-awareness
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do you have to lack of the Washington Post to approve of that headline? Now, this was an opinion
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piece, so they're pretty out there headlines sometimes. But still, really? Fox News and the
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rest of right-wing media can't escape responsibility? And you know what? I'm fine. I am actually fine
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with saying, hey, Fox News. Hey, right-wing media, take some responsibility. Maybe you're contributing
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to the madness. Maybe you're contributing to the anger. And maybe Fox News hosts will look at
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themselves and look at their monologues and say, you know what? That's true. I'm making too big of
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statements about this. I'm going too far. I'm exaggerating too much. This is a little bit too
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apocalyptic. I'm not thinking of anyone. I'm honestly not. I'm just saying maybe some Fox News
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hosts will say that. I'm fine with having that conversation. I'm fine with that headline. As long
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as we also say, hey, CNN, MSNBC, left-wing media, you can't escape responsibility either. You cannot
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because your rhetoric is so apocalyptic. Everything is the end of the world. Everything is horrifying.
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Everything that the right does is hate-mongering. Everything President Trump does is awful. And all of
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us who voted for him are complicit. We're complicit in evil. Anyone who dares to think that Donald Trump
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might be a good president is stupid. They're racist. They're wrong. They're bigoted. They're bad people.
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And everyone who agrees with you, well, they're great. They're on the right side of history.
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Don't tell me that Fox News and right-wing media can't escape responsibility if you're not
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also willing to call out the left-wing who also cannot escape responsibility. There is no
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valid argument to be made that Fox News is any more incendiary than CNN or MSNBC,
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that they are any more exaggerated in their rhetoric. In fact, and I know that I'm biased in
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this because I'm a conservative and I like Fox News. I think they are much more balanced.
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Now, not every single show. Some shows admit that they're just opinion shows, that they're just going
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to tell you that the left sucks, which I don't always disagree with, and that President Trump is
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awesome. There are going to be shows on Fox News that do that. But overall, Fox News is extremely
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fair in who they invite on, the conversations that they allow to happen on their air. Do they like
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President Trump in general? Yes. But that's because no other network does like President Trump. Where are
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the people who do like President Trump going to go to get their news? Fox News provides that.
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But I would say a large chunk of their shows are extremely balanced, are extremely objective,
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are extremely fair. You cannot tell me that Brett Baer is biased, that he is responsible for any of
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this violence that's happening. And that's just one example. I don't think that that's true on CNN and
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MSNBC. Now, not all of the journalists there are bad at all. Some of them, I'm sure, very responsible.
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I think Jake Tapper generally does a very good job. There are reporters on CNN that do a very good
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job. I don't think that they are all these, they don't all use hyperbolic rhetoric. I think that
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they're, you know, they're good at what they do. But I would say Fox News does the best job of being
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fair and balanced while also being a conservative network. So again, you cannot say that it is them
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that has to take responsibility for this violence just because they say things that you don't like.
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You cannot do that. And then honestly, honestly, watch MSNBC or CNN and not think,
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huh, they're only telling one side of the story. Huh, I can't believe that they're having this guest
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on. Huh, I can't believe that they're looking at the story in this particular way in order to make
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President Trump look bad or conservatives look bad. You can't do that if you are an honest person.
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Like I said, I am fine with the media taking some responsibility. I'm fine with President Trump
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taking some responsibility and us all toning it down. It's very hard to do when the left is so
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self-righteous. I'm telling you, this would never, this would never be a headline in Fox News.
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Well, I can't say that. Maybe in an opinion section, maybe in an opinion section it would.
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I would be surprised if I saw something like this saying that CNN and the rest of left-wing media
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can't escape responsibility for this shooting at a synagogue. I would be surprised. I might be
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proven wrong. I would be surprised. So President Trump, of course, this morning or yesterday morning,
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he tweeted that the fake news enemy is the, or the fake news media is the enemy of the people.
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And people on both sides of the aisle said, you know, this isn't helpful. Once again,
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this is something that's just kind of unproductive at this point in time. I mean,
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we just had a major shooting. We've had a few scary things happen over the past few days. It
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would be better if we could just kind of come together. But I don't disagree with that statement.
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Some conservatives were saying it needs to stop. He needs to stop calling the fake news media the
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enemy of the people. And as much as I don't like a lot of what Donald Trump says, I don't disagree
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with that phrase that fake news is the, is an enemy of the people that they have animus towards their
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audience, that they think their audience is so stupid that they can indoctrinate them with the
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progressive ideology and only tell them part of the story. The any, any side, or I guess I shouldn't
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say progressive. I guess it would be any side right or left. When you demean the people by lying to them
00:22:54.580
and telling them, oh, President Trump is trying to make trans people disappear, which is not true.
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24 million people are going to die if they repeal Obamacare. That's not true. Tax plan, Armageddon.
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That's not true. That does put you at enmity with the people that you are talking to if you are lying
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to them. So I do not disagree that the fake news is the enemy of the people. Of course, the question
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is, is that the right thing to say right now? Like it would be so much better if he just denounced
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all of this and said, you know what? Let's drop the act. Let's come together. The economy is doing
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well. We're Americans. Let's remember that. And maybe it's too, too little too late at this point
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for President Trump. I'm sure the left has already made up their mind. No matter what the heck he says,
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they're going to hate him anyway. I just, all of this makes me miss President Reagan so much.
00:23:47.680
Someone that I never knew. I didn't live through his presidency, but President Reagan is by far my
00:23:52.340
favorite president. I love him so much. Like I can cry thinking about President Reagan, reading about
00:23:58.300
him. Oh man. Okay. Just listen to this short, really short blurb from one of his speeches where
00:24:08.020
Let me add in the party of Lincoln, there is no room for intolerance and not even a small corner
00:24:15.320
for antisemitism or bigotry of any kind. Many people, many people are welcome in our house,
00:24:31.740
So he says, many people are welcome in our house, but not the bigots. I just, I love that. I love
00:24:38.020
that. We should be able to say that on either side. Of course, the term bigot has become such
00:24:42.820
a progressive term that it's hard for the right to say it, but it's true. There are bigots on our
00:24:47.820
side, on both sides, but on the right, like we have them. We should be able to call them out.
00:24:52.940
They're called the alt-right. Now, this particular shooter who shot in the Tree of Life synagogue,
00:24:57.580
he was anti-Trump, but I don't think that he was left-wing. He just called Trump a globalist.
00:25:04.740
Globalism is a term that everyone uses. It's not just an alt-right term, but it has been used
00:25:10.220
particularly by the alt-right and it's really synonymous to Jews. Like the alt-right exists.
00:25:16.440
There is this idea among conservatives that the alt-right doesn't exist, that it's just a leftist term
00:25:21.200
to demonize certain conservatives. That's not true. The alt-right exists and they are not good people.
00:25:27.580
I know that it sounds like I'm throwing around all of these progressive terms, but they are
00:25:31.920
white nationalists. I sat down and I talked to a prominent person in the alt-right. I had a long
00:25:37.620
interview with them to just honestly try to understand what the alt-right thinks and who
00:25:43.220
they really are and what their values are. He told me, some of them believe in small government,
00:25:49.380
not most of them. Some of them believe in small government, but they don't believe that small
00:25:53.100
government is possible unless you have a completely white country. Like they don't believe that people
00:25:58.880
are really bonded together by, they can be bonded together by common values in the constitution.
00:26:04.200
Like they really do believe that whiteness and quote Western civilization is what is going to be
00:26:10.540
holding us together in the end. And they hate people like me. They call me a neocon because they would
00:26:15.820
say, oh, what are you really conserving? Because, oh, the constitution, oh, you're right. But
00:26:21.800
I won't even get it all. I won't even get all into it. They're so inane. They're so backwards. They're so
00:26:30.400
honestly hateful, most of them. Now, not everyone who is called alt-right is alt-right, but a lot of
00:26:37.100
them are. You'll hear them talk about identity. You'll hear them talk about globalism. They might not
00:26:41.740
outright talk about how they hate the Jews, but they do hate the Jews. They are racist. Now,
00:26:48.520
they might be okay with some black people who are on their side with their cause, but in general,
00:26:54.860
not really. Like they think whiteness is something that is very important to preserve and that white
00:26:59.820
identity is an important part of their version of conservatism. They would also call themselves
00:27:05.500
paleo conservatives, which they don't even really know what that means, but that's what they would
00:27:10.200
call themselves. And they are bigots. And like, we should denounce them. Most conservatives that I
00:27:15.380
know do denounce them. And that's the difference between the left and the right. Most conservatives
00:27:19.040
denounce the alt-right and the left doesn't denounce the people that they see on the far left,
00:27:24.520
like the anti-fascists, quote, anti-fascists. But we need more people denouncing people in the
00:27:30.260
alt-right. It exists. Do not believe that it is just a leftist tactic. The alt-right exists.
00:27:35.040
They like President Trump, mostly. And they are on the side. That doesn't mean everyone who likes
00:27:41.700
President Trump, I voted for President Trump, is part of the alt-right. They exist. And they are bad.
00:27:47.640
This guy was probably in that circle somewhere. Probably. So we just need to be able to acknowledge
00:27:54.440
that. So the question is, though, the bigger question for those of us is, what are Christians
00:27:59.660
supposed to think about Jews? Part of the alt-right, they like Christianity. They like Christendom
00:28:06.120
because they think it's white and European. Funny. Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew, but whatever.
00:28:13.420
They think that hating Jews, like Paul Nealon, for example, I think he was running for Congress or
00:28:18.620
something like that. He got kicked off Twitter. I completely dominated him in a very biblical,
00:28:24.280
sass way about the Jews. He thinks that it's Christian to not like Jews and to tell Jews
00:28:31.000
all of these horrible things about them. Unfortunately, there's this very, very small
00:28:35.040
sack of not really Christians, but call themselves Christians who think that it's bad to, or think that
00:28:40.920
it's good to hate Jewish people. So let's just talk through what the Bible actually says about this,
00:28:46.820
because you know, if you're a Christian, you're supposed to kind of like the Bible and believe in the
00:28:50.560
Bible. So first of all, Jesus was a Jew. His entire lineage was Jewish. As Christians, we don't just
00:28:57.400
get rid of the Old Testament and the stories of God's faithfulness to Israel. All of that matters.
00:29:03.440
All of it is integral to the story of Jesus. Read all of Romans. Jews came first. To them,
00:29:09.700
says Paul, belonged the oracles and the prophecies. They were part of the original tree,
00:29:15.660
the metaphorical tree. And we Gentiles, you and I who are not Jewish, were grafted in through
00:29:20.540
Christ. So our attitude towards the Jewish people should be like Paul's, who says in Romans 9,
00:29:27.340
3, that he wishes that he himself were cut off for the sake of the Jews, that they could be saved.
00:29:32.860
We don't have the exact same view of Jews that we have of other non-Christians. Now, technically,
00:29:41.080
we do, but it is a little bit different. It's a different kind of yearning for them to know Christ,
00:29:46.680
because they believe in the God of Israel, like we do. They know his character. They have the
00:29:52.560
prophecies. They have the Old Testament. And yet they have been God, or the New Testament says that
00:29:58.720
they have been cut off for our sake. And our longing should be that they know Jesus so that they can be
00:30:04.400
joined, so that we can be joined together. We should be praying that the eyes of their hearts are
00:30:08.780
enlightened. That's how we should feel about the Jewish people. We should be yearning for them. We
00:30:16.480
should love them. We should be evangelizing to them. We should be showing them the compassion
00:30:22.300
and the passion of Christ. That's how we should feel about the Jewish people. They still have a
00:30:28.300
purpose. I mean, Romans also talks about how not all Israel is Israel, but a remnant will be saved.
00:30:34.420
God is still going to be faithful to Israel through that remnant and through Christ.
00:30:39.440
Now, we know that no one comes to the Father except through Christ. That is true of every
00:30:44.460
person of every single faith, but we should not be demeaning the Jewish people because they don't
00:30:49.700
know Christ. We should be yearning for them to know Christ. We should be loving them, showing
00:30:53.500
hospitality to them. Right now, we should be devastated that this act of violence happened.
00:30:58.680
We should know that this is not God's will, that it breaks his heart as well,
00:31:02.000
and he wants his people to come to know him through Christ as well. Christ, the ultimate
00:31:05.860
sacrifice for both the Jews and the Gentiles. Our hearts should be broken for that in the same way
00:31:10.780
that God's is. So there is nothing biblical, not a single biblical thing about antisemitism.
00:31:17.240
Like for you to think that you've got to be the most dense, stupid, idiotic, unbiblical,
00:31:22.740
theologically inane person out there. You really do. You do not know Christ. You don't.
00:31:28.900
If you believe that any strand of racism, antisemitism, whatever it is, is justified by
00:31:35.600
the Bible. Okay? So anyway, the reaction to all of this has been, it's been crazy. And I just hope
00:31:44.960
and pray, one, that I can repent of my own sin and all of this and causing any division of any kind,
00:31:52.640
which sometimes the truth divides and that's okay. We're supposed to speak the truth in love. I'm not
00:31:56.840
going to stop doing that. But examining my own heart, examining my own motives behind my words,
00:32:02.540
making sure that what I'm saying, even if it might hurt people's feelings, it's fine with me, but
00:32:06.300
I want to make sure that it's productive, that it's moving the ball forward, that I am only speaking
00:32:10.400
truth. I want my kids to grow up in a better world than it is right now. It's scary right now. We're so
00:32:16.320
tribalistic. I don't want to contribute to that. So that's where I am on all of it. And again,
00:32:23.020
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for any of you who have been experiencing pain over the past few days.
00:32:28.580
And I'm praying for you guys. I'm praying for the entire Jewish community. You can also go to
00:32:33.040
GoFundMe.com. It's on my Twitter page as well. There is a verified GoFundMe page for the Tree of
00:32:38.920
Life Synagogue. They're trying to get up to a million dollars. There's a lot of damages.
00:32:43.080
I think there are, last I checked, there were over a hundred thousand. I'm sure they're much past that
00:32:46.800
now, but let us not forget this moment. Let us not forget the feeling of sadness and compassion
00:32:50.740
that we feel for them. It's so easy to move on really quickly when things like this happen,
00:32:56.520
because the news cycle happens so fast. But remember that those who experience this,
00:33:00.720
they're not moving on quickly. This is going to be haunting them for the rest of their lives.
00:33:04.420
So try to remember them and pray for them when you can. Okay. One final thing, I'm highlighting a
00:33:09.980
nonprofit. One of the nonprofits that someone sent me is called Fighting For Me. And it's an
00:33:15.660
organization that provides free counseling to sexual abuse victims and their loved ones
00:33:20.100
in Orange County, California. Their goal is to have counseling centers nationally,
00:33:24.420
but they want it to be totally free. And so they haven't actually gotten the full funding to be
00:33:29.560
able to start up yet, but they're in the process of doing that. So you can find out more about
00:33:34.060
Fighting For Me at fightingforme.org. Sounds like an amazing service. People who are in those kind of
00:33:40.100
vulnerable situations need to know that they are loved, that they're not alone, that they are known,
00:33:44.720
that they are valued. And this organization is trying to do that. And I think the name Fighting
00:33:49.940
for Me is perfect. Okay. Love you guys so much. I'm headed to New Orleans this week. I'm going to
00:33:55.680
the World War II Museum. It's probably going to be crazy for Halloween. But I'm also going to the
00:34:00.980
Ed Sheeran concert, so that'll be fun too. So I will see you guys back here on Thursday.