Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 54 ｜ Our Fundamental Disagreements

00:00:00.000 Hey y'all, what's up? Welcome to Relatable. This is Ali Stuckey. Thank you so much for

00:00:04.920 listening to my podcast. If this is your first time here, we discuss politics, we discuss culture,

00:00:11.380 what's going on in the news. We also discuss theology, all from a Christian conservative

00:00:15.860 perspective. So just FYI, I'm not out here trying to pretend like I'm unbiased. I'm always going to

00:00:22.620 try my best to present you with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

00:00:26.600 But I don't pretend to be an objective journalist or anything. I am a commentator. I wouldn't call

00:00:33.060 myself an analyst, but someone who analyzes what's going on. And that is the perspective that I have

00:00:39.100 of a Christian conservative. So today, from that perspective, we are going to talk about the

00:00:45.680 craziness of the midterms. Yes, somehow that's still going on, even though the midterms were a week ago.

00:00:51.580 And we're also going to talk about the downright scariness of tribalism right now that's happening

00:00:59.240 in our partisan political world that we live in. So we're going to talk about that, but then we're

00:01:06.180 going to end on a positive note. And I'm also going to answer some of your questions that you

00:01:10.040 guys sent me via Instagram. I got a lot of good questions. So I'm going to answer as many as I

00:01:14.460 possibly can. First, I'm going to tell you about how I sleep at night, in case you're wondering.

00:01:20.160 I sleep on this really awesome pillow that was made by Bolster Sleep. It has this amazing

00:01:25.840 technology that keeps you cool all night. It also keeps its shape. I've said before,

00:01:30.820 I sleep with like a million different pillows around my head, but I haven't had to do that

00:01:35.280 ever since I got Bolster Sleep. It's just, it's an amazing, amazing thing, pillow tool that has

00:01:43.420 helped me sleep better. I used to get cricks in my neck all the time. I would wake up and feel like,

00:01:47.820 oh my gosh, I'm just so tense. I really don't feel like that anymore. I would not lie to you

00:01:51.860 guys. They don't just make pillows though. They make adjustable beds, mattresses, and every purchase

00:01:58.060 you make also goes to help people over in Haiti. They support a program that equips people in Haiti

00:02:02.780 to be trained in basic trades like plumbing or anything that can help them support their families.

00:02:10.800 And so buying from Bolster Sleep not only helps you because you're getting a better night's sleep,

00:02:14.800 but it's also helping people in need across the sea. So it's really just a win-win. Plus,

00:02:20.140 if you go to bolstersleep.com and you use promo code Allie, A-L-L-I-E, you get $100 off a mattress

00:02:25.920 or an adjustable bed. So it's well worth it. And you know what? You're probably going to need,

00:02:30.740 you're probably going to need a good night's sleep when you realize the state that our country is in

00:02:37.040 because of the political tension that we are now experiencing. I mean, I know that I've only

00:02:42.920 been around for 26 years, which means I really only remember like the past 10 years of my life,

00:02:48.920 especially when it comes to politics, probably fewer than that. But definitely in my lifetime,

00:02:54.720 as far as I can remember, this is the most tense, the most hate-fueled time that we have ever lived

00:03:03.900 in. People look across the aisle and they say, you know what? That person's not just wrong.

00:03:08.780 That person doesn't just have bad ideas, but I hate them. And I want what is worse for them.

00:03:14.880 People have asked me before, you know, what's the worst part of being in political media or kind of

00:03:20.000 being in this sphere that I'm in? And I say this as someone who is not nearly as famous as so many

00:03:28.180 people are in this realm. I'm just, you know, a tiny blip on the map. But it's even so in my position,

00:03:35.080 it's the feeling and the knowledge that there are people out there that if you died,

00:03:40.860 they would celebrate. They would publicly say, good, I'm glad that this person is gone off of

00:03:46.440 the earth. I really don't care if she was violently murdered. This is better for mankind that this

00:03:51.460 person with conservative politics is no longer on the face of the earth. People that not only want

00:03:56.300 to see you dead, but also want to see your life ruined. I don't, I can't say that there has never

00:04:02.860 been a time like this in American politics. I'm sure that there has been. I mean, definitely the

00:04:09.100 founders had their contentions with, with other people in the political sphere. They had their

00:04:13.800 disagreements that sometimes ended in duels like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. So it's not like

00:04:19.740 we've never had extremely contentious, extremely hate filled times before, but it certainly seems,

00:04:27.820 it certainly seems worse than it has been in decades. So most of you know who Tucker Carlson

00:04:33.900 is. He hosts Tucker Carlson tonight on Fox News. It's one of the highest rated news shows

00:04:39.160 in cable news, extremely popular. He's been doing this for a really long time. He used to work at CNN,

00:04:45.320 used to work at Miss NBC. He's worked at Fox for a few years. And he is extremely strong,

00:04:52.180 especially on the subject of immigration to the point where people really don't like what he has

00:04:58.440 to say about it. Immigration is an extremely sensitive topic. People say that if you are

00:05:03.880 against illegal immigration, then you must be some sort of racist bigot. Of course, people have

00:05:08.920 labeled Tucker as that simply for asking logical questions about illegal immigration and purporting

00:05:15.840 that there might be an importance in borders. People don't like Tucker Carlson because of this. And of

00:05:21.400 course, if Tucker Carlson's show wasn't rated so high, they really wouldn't care about him at all.

00:05:26.400 They wouldn't be talking about him. But because so many people watch Tucker, a lot of people on the

00:05:30.180 left feel like it is their responsibility to demean him, to call him out, to push him back, whatever it

00:05:36.580 is. So last week, I think it was, we saw a video surfaced from an account called Smash Racism DC,

00:05:46.080 a bunch of self-deemed vigilantes that go around and they protest people that they think are

00:05:54.280 perpetuating racism. Of course, they believe that Tucker Carlson is one of those people. So what do

00:05:59.460 they do? They go to his house and they yell things at him and his family. Here is a brief video of that.

00:06:08.100 So apparently they think that this is extremely effective. As you can tell, if you're watching

00:06:30.000 this on CRTV.com, this is at night. He doesn't appear to be home. From what I understand, he was

00:06:38.460 actually recording his show at this time. And he says that his wife was home by herself. She was

00:06:43.960 cooking. She heard someone banging on the door. It sounded like someone apparently was trying to push

00:06:49.720 the door through. She got into her pantry and she called 911. Of course, she thought that it was a home

00:06:53.780 invasion. I mean, well, what else would you think? He said that his wife isn't really involved in

00:06:59.620 politics. It's not like she's thinking, oh, this must be Antifa. This must be the antifascist. This

00:07:05.520 must be Smash Racism DC. No, she was just living her normal life. I think that Tucker has four or five

00:07:12.040 kids. She might have been making dinner for a few of her kids. I'm not really sure what was going on,

00:07:16.520 but she was home by herself. Obviously, she was scared. She called 911 and they posted this video,

00:07:22.820 Smash Racism DC on social media. They also broadcast his address. They put his address on

00:07:30.320 there for everyone to see. This is what is called doxing, where you put people's personal information

00:07:35.760 on Twitter so people can go and harass them and possibly cause them physical harm. You just never

00:07:42.360 know what people are going to do with that kind of information. And Twitter, of course, went absolutely

00:07:50.000 crazy. Conservative Twitter said, are you kidding me? We're going to allow this to be up. They reported

00:07:55.380 the tweet. They reported the tweets with all the addresses. There are still tweets with his address

00:08:00.940 up, by the way. But people are trying hard to combat that. You had conversations between the left and

00:08:08.320 the right on. Is this OK? Is this really America? Have we devolved into this kind of anarchy? Tucker took

00:08:16.060 two days off vacation. He said it was preplanned. I don't know if it was preplanned. Whether it was

00:08:21.380 or not doesn't really matter. I'm sure that he was scared for his family's safety. He actually

00:08:25.440 went on his own show when Brian Kilmeade was hosting and he had a little bit to say just about

00:08:33.860 his feelings on everything that's going on. And I'm not personally, I don't feel threatened

00:08:39.720 physically. But, you know, I have five other people in my house and maybe they do. And that's

00:08:47.900 the point. So if I'm I'm walking down the street and someone comes up and says, you know, I violently

00:08:52.040 disagree with you. OK, you know, let me hear about it. But to do this is a form of intimidation.

00:08:59.460 And that's just that breaks my heart. That breaks my heart to hear him say he doesn't want to leave

00:09:05.920 his kids home by himself, by themselves because of his profession, because of his politics.

00:09:13.040 Really? Like, is that the America that we want to live in, that we are so scared of the mob

00:09:17.780 physically harming us, hurting, killing, whatever, harassing our children that we can't even speak

00:09:26.020 up for the things that we believe in? That's not protesting. That doesn't make you an activist.

00:09:30.720 It doesn't make you a vigilante. That makes you a psychopath. That means that you are unhinged,

00:09:35.300 that you are unstable, that you have nothing else to do with your life except for making someone else

00:09:40.980 miserable. And the sad thing is, is that there's not just a few extremists on the left that do this,

00:09:45.680 but that it's somewhat not by everyone on the left, but it's somewhat celebrated or at least

00:09:51.400 tolerated by people on the left. Now, to Brian Stelters and Chris Cuomo, Jake Tappers,

00:09:57.180 people at CNN, to their credit, they did speak out about this and say, you know,

00:10:00.780 this is criminal. This is wrong. No reporter should feel in danger because of his job or

00:10:06.340 because of what he believes or says on his show. So good for them for that. But there was a guy,

00:10:13.460 his name is Matthew Iglesias, and he's the co-founder of Vox. He still does some kind of

00:10:18.840 journalism. And he said, you know, honestly, I can't empathize with Tucker's wife at all.

00:10:26.360 I have no idea how this feels. And here's specifically one of the tweets. He had a

00:10:31.940 series of tweets. He just got completely lambasted and ratioed over this. So one of the things that

00:10:37.980 he said, this Matthew Iglesias, real awesome human being, he said, I think the idea behind terrorizing

00:10:44.040 his family, like it or not, as a strategy is to make them feel some of the fear that the victims

00:10:50.040 of MAGA-inspired violence feel, thanks to the nonstop racial incitement coming from Tucker,

00:10:56.420 Trump, etc. So first of all, what is he even talking about? Is he talking about the MAGA bomber,

00:11:04.060 the guy who was insane, who already had a criminal record before he sent mail bombs to the,

00:11:09.300 you know, Democratic influencers and politicians? Yeah, he was a crazy person. Sure, maybe he was a

00:11:15.200 crazy person that latched onto something that Donald Trump said and ran with it. That's not

00:11:19.840 Donald Trump's fault. That's not Tucker Carlson's fault. Brian Stelter, if you'll remember, also said

00:11:24.600 in the midst of all of that, that Fox News needs to do some soul searching. So even though Brian

00:11:30.100 Stelter after this said, oh, you know, that's criminal and wrong that they're protesting at his

00:11:34.020 house. Well, I think it's a little bit ironic. So Brian Stelter of CNN, who said that Fox

00:11:39.160 News needs to do some soul searching after the whole MAGA bomber thing happened? What does CNN

00:11:44.580 need to do when someone like Tucker Carlson is being terrorized? You say that he needs to do some

00:11:50.440 soul searching for being on Fox News and calling the caravan a group of invaders. So what does CNN

00:11:56.680 need to do when conservatives are terrorized? Because CNN is every bit, if you are going to call

00:12:04.480 news stations guilty for inciting violence, which I am not a fan of, I think the only person

00:12:09.980 responsible for violence is the person who perpetrates the violence. But if according to

00:12:14.880 CNN's Brian Stelter's standards, news organizations need to be held accountable and need to soul search

00:12:22.060 for inciting violence, well, then CNN does, too. They need to live up to their own standards because

00:12:27.060 they certainly demean Trump and conservatives on a daily basis. They have guests say that, for example,

00:12:33.060 Donald Trump has terrorized more people than ISIS, and they let that go completely uncombatted,

00:12:39.300 completely unconfronted whatsoever. They talk about people like Tucker Carlson. They say,

00:12:44.560 like Don Lemon did, that white men are terrorizing the country. So they aren't supposed to be

00:12:51.380 responsible. They aren't supposed to be held accountable for their rhetoric when conservatives

00:12:55.420 are terrorized. But it's when it's the other way around. Fox News needs to be held accountable.

00:13:00.260 That doesn't make any sense. All I'm asking for is an even standard. And I personally think that

00:13:05.760 news organizations should report the truth. They should report facts. They should, of course,

00:13:10.760 be held accountable for what they say, but they shouldn't be accredited for inciting violence unless

00:13:16.400 they are actually inciting violence, unless they are actually telling people to go out there and

00:13:21.500 terrorize people. No, they're not responsible for these acts of violence that happen. But I'm just

00:13:27.540 saying, if CNN wants to set that standard, then they also need to live up to that standard.

00:13:33.900 So that's the position that we're in right now, that not only do we have people terrorizing others

00:13:39.340 across the aisle, but we also have people that say, you know what, I kind of get it.

00:13:43.080 I kind of understand. Like when James Hodgkinson, the guy who was a Bernie Sanders lover and shot up

00:13:50.480 Steve Scalise and other Republican congressmen on the baseball field years so ago, the reason he did

00:13:56.360 it or the reason he felt like he needed to do it was because, oh, 24 million people were going to die

00:14:01.400 because Republicans were kicking them off of health care, a statistic that's not true at all. It's

00:14:05.560 complete apocalyptic hyperbole. But he believed that and that partly motivated him. I don't think

00:14:11.200 Democrats are to blame for that. I don't think Bernie Sanders is to blame for that. I think that guy was

00:14:16.040 crazy. He might've been motivated by something that he said, but he was crazy anyway. I'm fine

00:14:21.940 as long as we apply the standards to both sides. I'm fine with that. I don't think that we need to

00:14:28.100 be pointing fingers or maybe we need to all be pointing fingers and turn it down just a notch.

00:14:33.000 Maybe we all need to take a step back and say, okay, how am I contributing to this? I've talked

00:14:37.020 about this on this podcast before, that I can do a better job of turning down the temperature and

00:14:42.140 saying, okay, I need to stop making this such a heated conversation or a heated debate. I'm

00:14:47.540 sounding like, sometimes I sound like, even though I don't feel this way, that I believe that all

00:14:52.560 Democrats are bad people because they're Democrats. That's not true. And that's exactly, this is exactly

00:14:58.640 where that argument gets us. The argument that because you disagree with me, because you don't

00:15:02.780 align with my agenda, you're not just wrong, but you are a bad person. That's where, this is where

00:15:08.100 that gets us. People terrorizing you outside your home, wanting to see you die, wanting to see you

00:15:14.180 hurt, wanting to see you silenced, wanting to see your entire life ruined. That's where that argument

00:15:20.300 gets us. That if you don't agree with me, you are bad. You're bad for America. You're bad for humanity

00:15:27.220 because then people feel like they are vigilantes. That, okay, well, if you take out someone that's

00:15:32.380 bad for humanity, aren't you kind of doing a favor for humanity? And so you can justify it.

00:15:37.200 You kind of feel like the superhero a little bit. That's really dangerous. We all need to be very

00:15:42.040 clear, me included. I know I've said this several times, but I can be even more clear that the people

00:15:47.260 on the other side of the aisle are not bad themselves because of their politics. They have

00:15:52.000 bad ideas. I believe that Democrats have bad ideas that are hurting the country. I do think

00:15:58.260 that their policies are stupid. And maybe some of them are bad people. Maybe some of them are stupid

00:16:02.900 themselves, but they're not bad and stupid just because they're Democrats. They might have other

00:16:06.980 things in their life that make them bad and stupid. I don't know. Same thing with Republicans,

00:16:10.640 but they're not bad simply because they are Democrats. Now, do I think being pro-choice is

00:16:16.340 immoral? Absolutely. Do I think open borders is immoral? Absolutely. Do I think socialism is

00:16:21.860 immoral? Absolutely. Single payer healthcare? Yes, absolutely. But the fact of the matter is

00:16:26.520 probably, I would say, probably most liberals at least have good intentions in those things.

00:16:32.540 They might be ignorant. They might not understand the implications of their beliefs. I certainly

00:16:38.880 don't think Ocasio-Cortez, for example, has any idea what her plan is going to cost or the consequences

00:16:44.840 that it's going to have on the country and how detrimental socialism and totalitarianism has been

00:16:50.060 throughout history. She must be ignorant to that. But do I think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the

00:16:55.180 Democratic Socialists of America, even Bernie Sanders, are sitting around and thinking how awesome it's

00:17:00.260 going to be when we're digging graves for the victims of socialism in this country? No, I don't

00:17:05.200 think they think that. I think that they're wrong. I think that they have bad ideas. I think just like

00:17:10.660 anyone else, if they were enlightened, if they had, you know, reason, debate and conversation with people

00:17:15.840 that they could change their minds. I don't think that their hearts are bad. I don't think that they're

00:17:20.060 bad people. I just think that they're wrong. And I think if we were able to go back there as a

00:17:25.100 country, Democrats, Republicans alike, if we were able to just say, gosh, the other side has some

00:17:30.180 really bad ideas, but they're not bad people. We're all Americans at the end of the day.

00:17:36.280 Something that's reminded me of that is just seeing the heroism and the camaraderie

00:17:40.060 in the wake of the wildfires happening in California. Now, of course, there's some politicizing

00:17:46.420 about all of that. There's always going to be people that do that. But in general, you've seen a lot

00:17:51.680 of coming togetherness of people that probably have different ways of thinking, live different

00:17:56.680 kinds of lives coming together and just remembering, hey, you and I are both humans and politics really

00:18:03.740 don't matter right now. And someone asked me the other day when I was speaking, what do you think

00:18:08.320 it's going to take for Americans to come together? And as little as I want this to happen, you have to

00:18:15.520 wonder and you really look at the statistics throughout history after a catastrophe like 9-11 and you

00:18:21.400 have to wonder, is it catastrophe and is it tragedy that is necessary to bring in Americans

00:18:26.920 together? Like, is that what it is? Or is it going to be like an all out civil war to where we finally

00:18:31.640 step back and we say, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not who we are. Why are we doing this? Why are we

00:18:37.660 acting like barbarians? Do we not have anything in common anymore? I don't know what it's going to

00:18:42.920 take, but you have to think that it's going to take some kind of hitting rock bottom before we realize

00:18:48.900 this is not who we want to be. But I don't know if that's possible. I don't know. It seems like we

00:18:55.140 are so far apart on very fundamental, basic things that it's almost impossible to see how we can come

00:19:03.280 together. And again, that doesn't mean that we can't love each other as humans, but is there any

00:19:07.720 possibility of unification for us to look across the aisle and say, you're my fellow American.

00:19:11.920 I'm proud to be united with you. I don't know. And this is something that if you heard me speak

00:19:18.960 anytime over the past two weeks, I talked about a lot. It's that our arguments and our disagreements

00:19:25.680 as a country are not more complicated than they used to be. I mean, they are. There are more

00:19:30.160 complicated arguments like about gender, about immigration, about morality. All of these things

00:19:35.820 have become very complex over the past 10 years. Things that used to be very fundamental and basic

00:19:41.320 and accepted by the mainstream are now called into question. However, those are not the things that

00:19:47.880 are driving us apart. I don't think our policy differences are driving us apart. I don't think

00:19:51.620 our cultural differences are driving us apart. I think that there are basic disagreements that drive

00:19:56.860 us apart. Like what is truth? Is America a good place to live? Is the constitution a worthy document

00:20:02.780 to look to? Is work moral and good? Are humans meant to be productive? Is family, I don't remember if I said

00:20:09.860 this one. Is family essential to a thriving society? Conservatives in general would say yes.

00:20:15.840 Progressives in general would say no. Those are very fundamental disagreements about how we see the

00:20:22.880 world. If we prioritize liberty, if we're on the same page when it comes to, okay, we want men and

00:20:29.380 women to be equal and unencumbered in their own pursuit of happiness. We don't agree on that anymore.

00:20:34.760 We don't agree on at all what equality looks like. We don't agree that every human being has inherent

00:20:42.560 dignity, that they were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them being

00:20:47.480 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's not just that we don't have or that we have different

00:20:51.300 definitions of those things. It's that some people actually don't believe that. They believe that our

00:20:56.100 rights come from the government and therefore can be given or taken away by them. That is a fundamental,

00:21:01.080 basic disagreement. It's a moral disagreement. It's almost a spiritual disagreement, whether you

00:21:07.320 are religious or not. That's why I worry that our country can't come together. That's why it makes

00:21:14.160 sense to me when I see someone protesting outside of Tucker's house or the violence that we're seeing,

00:21:20.060 the deadly violence that we're seeing that's motivated by politics, because it's not political.

00:21:24.960 It is moral. It is a spiritual battle. And I kind of mean that not literally spiritual,

00:21:32.020 but just a deep, profound, emotional battle that we are having as Americans. Our disagreements are

00:21:38.420 very, very foundational, very fundamental. And I'm not saying that Republicans are completely

00:21:44.200 that we can't take any blame for that. But a lot of it is because of postmodernism,

00:21:50.580 this idea that there is no absolute truth, there are no universal principles, there is no objective

00:21:56.660 morality. It's all just you, the individual, or the prison through which everything travels. You

00:22:01.880 determine reality. Everything is subjective. There's no such thing as an overarching narrative

00:22:08.160 of Western culture. All of that has pervaded our school systems and has infected young people

00:22:14.140 and has infected the left. That's why we see the onslaught of totalitarianism, of socialism,

00:22:18.860 even of communism. Of course, socialists would say that they're against communists,

00:22:23.240 but they're very closely related. That's why we're seeing all of these things. We see

00:22:27.940 the abdication or the giving up of personal responsibility in favor of government control

00:22:34.720 and the government taking care of you. And it's because people have lost their own moral compass.

00:22:41.280 We've lost the ability to agree on the fact that truth exists, that family is good,

00:22:45.880 that the Constitution is a worthy document. That's why we're having all of this chaos. That's why

00:22:51.520 we're having all of this division. And I just don't know how we are going to glue all of that back

00:22:58.960 together. I just don't know. I was working on a project where I analyzed one of Ronald Reagan's

00:23:05.760 speeches. I had to write a chapter about this. It was his CPAC speech in 1987. And gosh, I mean,

00:23:12.900 I always cry when I'm reading something by President Reagan. I don't know. I feel like

00:23:16.660 he's like my long lost grandfather or something. I just love him so much. But I couldn't help. I mean,

00:23:22.760 he's the greatest inspirational speech or speaker ever. He is so good at instilling confidence and

00:23:29.600 hope even in the midst of despair and chaos. But I was so emotional by the end of his speech that I was

00:23:37.000 watching and reading because he was talking about the... Actually, this wasn't towards the end,

00:23:42.520 but it was somewhere. He was talking about the end of socialism and how we've realized that socialism

00:23:47.520 has wreaked so much havoc throughout the world. And it's been proven. And now we're moving on.

00:23:53.040 We are embracing a world of freedom. Two years after this speech, the Berlin Wall fell,

00:23:57.600 which was really kind of the exclamation point on Reagan's legacy, proof that men and women are meant

00:24:03.920 to be free, that the human soul thrives on liberty and flourishes in liberty. And when given the

00:24:10.820 opportunity, they will take the opportunity to work and to be productive and to attach themselves to

00:24:15.480 something bigger than themselves. And he was so optimistic about that. And he was so optimistic

00:24:20.460 about the fact that we had finally proven that those regimes, that socialism, that communism were evil,

00:24:26.360 and we were on to something new and something better. And only 30 years later, 30 years after

00:24:35.080 the speech, are we accepting socialism as good? And again, that's not because we disagree on policy.

00:24:41.880 It's because we have fundamental disagreements about human beings and about truth and about morality

00:24:47.560 and about liberty. We have very basic disagreements that now socialism is not a dirty word,

00:24:55.040 but it's a badge of honor. It's no longer that scarlet letter that it used to be, even in the

00:25:00.620 Democratic Party. The idea of giving up our freedom for convenience is very appealing to us,

00:25:09.080 is appealing to an entire generation. I saw a statistic that only 12% of millennials have any kind of

00:25:15.120 conservative worldview whatsoever. Only 12% of us. That means probably the vast majority of us are at

00:25:23.300 least okay with socialism a little bit. How disappointed would Reagan be to realize that

00:25:29.840 just how forgetful the American people are, how forgetful we are about the evils of totalitarianism

00:25:36.620 and how we have not just allowed it to pervade our system, but we've actually invited it in.

00:25:43.960 Our disagreements are extremely fundamental. And like I said, I don't know exactly how to piece

00:25:51.460 those together or how to, how to fix that. But here's, here are two things that I told people that

00:25:58.800 I was speaking to over the weekend. There are really two things that conservatives can do and

00:26:03.920 particularly Christians can do in the face of all of this tribalism and the face of just ugly identity

00:26:09.140 politics and the, the hatefulness that we are seeing in politics right now. A, love your neighbor

00:26:18.460 and B, don't stop fighting for truth. So it's a, love your neighbor and B, don't stop fighting for

00:26:25.200 truth. A, love your neighbor. That sounds pretty easy. It sounds pretty simple, but it's actually

00:26:30.540 really hard because you have to go out of your way to inconvenience yourself and actually sacrifice

00:26:34.840 yourself on behalf of other people. But this is where we reach past partisan politics. And we love

00:26:40.420 people as if politics really didn't matter. This could mean just being nice to your literal next door

00:26:45.500 neighbor. It could mean, um, helping them out when they need help. It could mean baking them

00:26:49.440 cookies or it could be volunteering at a pro-life center. It could be feeding the homeless for

00:26:54.220 Thanksgiving. Um, doing all of the things against which there is no law against which there is going

00:27:00.780 to be no argument that isn't politically motivated, but is motivated out of the goodness of your heart.

00:27:06.640 I think that changes our perspective. One, it makes us more grateful. It makes us more loving

00:27:10.500 kind. It also reminds us of our common humanity. And I think that's so important right now.

00:27:15.860 And then also there's a political argument for loving your neighbor from the point of conservatism.

00:27:22.100 See, people always say that progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are hypocritical for not

00:27:27.640 giving everything they have to the poor. Bernie Sanders, uh, that they're hypocritical for not giving

00:27:32.220 everything they have to the poor. And I say, no, they're not. They're actually not hypocritical

00:27:36.060 because they never argue that it's the individual's responsibility. They always argue

00:27:41.600 that it's the government's responsibility. So I'm not surprised that they, I don't know if they do or

00:27:45.880 not, but if they don't give to charity, I wouldn't be surprised by that. They don't believe in that.

00:27:50.460 They believe it's the government's job, but it is hypocritical when conservatives don't do it.

00:27:55.700 So the argument for progressives, when they argue for programs and big government and things like that,

00:28:01.060 the argument is if we, if the government doesn't take care of these people, the poor, the old,

00:28:06.220 the marginalized, the weak, then who is going to? And the conservative's answer should always be

00:28:11.400 me. I will, I will do it. I will do whatever it takes to help out my fellow man, to help out

00:28:17.780 the least of these. That is our greatest argument for self-governance that, Hey, we don't need

00:28:23.500 bureaucrats to come in and help us because we know that the government never helps without also

00:28:28.940 telling you what to do. The government never helps you without telling you what to do. So our greatest

00:28:34.800 argument, our best case for self-governance is that we don't need the government to take care of us

00:28:40.600 because we are going to do it. We are going to take care of our families. We are going to take

00:28:45.300 care of our communities. We are going to take care of our society the best that we can because we do a

00:28:50.360 better job of not only helping people, but also allowing them to be free. The government is

00:28:55.820 completely unable to do that. The private sector does such a better job of taking care of people

00:29:00.940 than the government does. And that needs to be our mantra. Loving your neighbor is actually

00:29:06.120 necessary to the argument of conservatism. We cannot sit around and just say, Oh, people need to help

00:29:12.600 themselves. It's better if the individual does it rather than the government and not actually do that.

00:29:17.960 Like we can talk about how individuals need to help and it doesn't need to be the government.

00:29:21.880 But if we're not willing to help those who need help, then we're really just hypocrites.

00:29:27.020 Progressives aren't. We are the hypocrites. You can't simultaneously argue for small government

00:29:32.400 and not be willing to pick up the slack because there are people who fall on hard luck. There are

00:29:38.460 people who through no fault of their own just end up in very vulnerable situations. They get sick.

00:29:43.440 They can't pay their medical bills. They lose their job. They get kicked out of the house as a

00:29:47.760 teenager. They don't know what to do. They're raped. They get pregnant. These things actually

00:29:52.020 happen. Sometimes conservatives deny that people just fall into bad circumstances and need help.

00:29:58.720 And there's a place for the government. I believe that the government can offer relief as long as it

00:30:03.040 still incentivizes people to take responsibility and work. But we need to be the ones to step up to the

00:30:08.780 plate and to help these people when they need it. There is this kind of a weird streak within

00:30:14.760 conservatism. I don't know if it's libertarians or who it is that basically says, oh, no, we don't

00:30:19.860 need to give handouts to people. That's a form of socialism. No, it's not. No, it's not. We have to

00:30:27.000 help those who need help. We need to be the ones that do it. So love your neighbor, not just for

00:30:31.860 yourself and to see humanity in other people when you've become too cynical, like I do very often,

00:30:37.300 but also because conservatism depends on that kind of decency and that kind of compassion.

00:30:42.700 Reagan was so good at emphasizing that conservatism is compassionate. It is the compassionate kind and

00:30:49.700 moral option, but it's not unless we step up to the plate and do the things that the government

00:30:54.720 can't do well, take care of other people in a way that they can't. And then B was to continue to

00:31:02.760 fight for truth. So I know this is going to sound like I mean that truth is relative and it's not.

00:31:09.620 That's not what I mean. But when I say that there are lots of different kinds of truth,

00:31:14.320 what I mean is that there are a lot of different things that are true. So in fighting for truth,

00:31:19.180 that sounds extremely vague or it sounds very broad. What does it mean to fight for truth? Well,

00:31:25.420 it could mean a lot of different things. It could be fighting for the pro-life cause.

00:31:29.100 It could be fighting for the Second Amendment cause because you believe that grants true equality and

00:31:33.680 that people have to be free from tyranny in order or they have to be able to bear arms in order to be

00:31:40.160 truly free from tyranny. Maybe it is advancing the cause of border security because you know that's

00:31:47.520 better for our communities. Of course, for Christians, it's preaching the gospel, which is

00:31:51.360 really transcendent through everything that we do. There are lots of different things that are true

00:31:56.280 that you can fight for. It could just be being an honest journalist or being someone who is an honest

00:32:01.340 and good doctor. It doesn't have to be anything in politics. But fighting for truth, standing up for

00:32:06.720 truth, verbalizing truth, being bold in the face of lies, holding on to the truth is crucial that you

00:32:14.740 are going to get bullied. You are going to get marginalized. You are going to be pushed to the

00:32:18.340 side, silenced, doxed, repressed, fired, whatever, for being a conservative, particularly for being a

00:32:24.540 Christian. And you have to be able to stand up for those things and realize that the lie of the left

00:32:30.400 is that leftism is compassionate. And we know that that's not true. And history is on our side.

00:32:35.320 So continue to fight for truth. Now, there's going to be a lot more repercussions for fighting for

00:32:39.940 truth. And there is going to be to loving your neighbor, but loving your neighbor and remaining

00:32:44.840 silent in the midst of lies and deception and a wrong ideology that comes from the left.

00:32:52.060 It doesn't do that much. It doesn't do that much for our posterity. It certainly doesn't do that

00:32:57.640 much to perpetuate liberty. And you don't have to be some outspoken activist. It could just be in

00:33:03.300 your own life, how you volunteer, what you give your money to, the causes that you are involved in,

00:33:08.480 the things that you know that are true and are beneficial for society, for your family,

00:33:14.600 for posterity. These are the things that are worth fighting for. So love your neighbor and stand up for

00:33:21.000 truth. And I had so many other things to say today. I kind of went off on this long tangent.

00:33:26.380 I was going to talk about voter fraud in Florida, in Arizona, and all of the stuff that's happening

00:33:33.060 also in Georgia, these elections that haven't been decided yet a week later. But then I just kind of

00:33:38.060 went off on this thing. And I don't really have time for that anymore, because you guys have busy

00:33:42.900 lives. So what I want to do, okay, I'll just do two things really fast. I want to leave us on a little

00:33:49.820 bit of a happier, on a happier note, because there are good parts, very, very rarely, but good parts to

00:33:57.860 this whole political world. So Dan Crenshaw, representative, I believe he's a representative

00:34:03.820 from Texas. He just won his election. And he was made fun of by Pete Davidson on SNL for the eye patch

00:34:12.560 that he wears. But he was injured in war. He is a veteran. And he wears an eye patch because he lost

00:34:19.080 his eye in battle. And Pete Davidson made fun of him for that for some weird reason. Of course,

00:34:24.980 this caused a huge ruckus. And well, Pete Davidson and Dan Crenshaw ended up making up on national

00:34:33.120 television. Well, I just wanted to say for people that don't know, the reason you're wearing an eye

00:34:38.460 patch right now is that you lost your eye to an IED in Afghanistan during your third combat tour.

00:34:44.040 And I'm sorry. Thank you, Pete. I appreciate you saying that. So we good? We're good. Apology accepted.

00:34:50.980 Just keep breathing.

00:34:57.220 You're going to answer that. And I'm just going to let it ring because that's rude to answer.

00:35:04.380 Let's just let it go to voicemail. It's cool. There's a lot of lessons to learn here.

00:35:08.460 Not just that the left and right can still agree on some things, but also this Americans can forgive

00:35:15.060 one another. We can remember what brings us together as a country and still see the good in

00:35:20.240 each other. This is Veterans Day weekend, which means that it's a good time for every American to

00:35:25.740 connect with a veteran. Maybe say thanks for your service. But I would actually encourage you to say

00:35:30.940 something else. Tell a veteran, never forget. When you say never forget to a veteran, you are implying

00:35:37.960 that as an American, you are in it with them, not separated by some imaginary barrier between

00:35:43.680 civilians and veterans, but connected together as grateful fellow Americans. We'll never forget

00:35:49.900 the sacrifices made by veterans past and present and never forget those we lost on 9-11 heroes like

00:35:56.460 Pete's father. So I'll just say, Pete, never forget.

00:36:00.040 Never forget.

00:36:02.120 So I just I love that. That was such a rare, rare moment in in the world of politics nowadays.

00:36:11.540 Good for Dan Crenshaw for being the bigger person. I mean, I still think that Pete Davidson is a total

00:36:16.300 punk and not funny at all. And I highly doubt this was his idea. But you know what? Credit where it's due.

00:36:21.680 Maybe it was good for him. As you heard, he has a dad or I don't know if it was in that clip or not,

00:36:28.320 but he his dad died in 9-11. So he does have some kind of attachment to this. You think he would have

00:36:34.960 been more sensitive, but I'm glad they came together. I'm glad they reconciled. We really need more of

00:36:39.740 that. This is what lowers the temperature. This is what reminds us that we're all human beings,

00:36:44.420 that we are all Americans and that at the end of the day, that's what matters. We have our

00:36:49.780 disagreements, but we should be able to sit down at the dinner table and say, I love you anyway.

00:36:54.440 Okay. Now one question, because I feel bad and I said, I told this person I would answer this

00:36:58.680 question. And then I, yeah, I kind of ran out of time, but I'm just going to answer it anyway.

00:37:04.000 So the question that I had, and I'll just paraphrase it. Someone asked me how you know,

00:37:10.500 how you know that the person that you're dating is the person that you're supposed to marry.

00:37:14.100 So everyone is going to have different answers for this. So I don't pretend like the answer that I'm

00:37:19.220 going to give you is right for every single person. It's different. I know people who are

00:37:23.280 married, who broke up 10 times. I know people who are married, who dated for 10 years. I know people

00:37:28.420 who are married, who dated for five months like me. And I know people who had doubts throughout

00:37:35.100 their dating relationship. And then they realized, oh no, this is totally the right person. He's been

00:37:40.080 right in front of my face this whole time. And I just didn't realize it. So it's different for

00:37:44.220 everyone. I firmly believe that there's no exact formula. Now I will tell you a little story.

00:37:50.120 I was dating someone in college that I thought that I was going to marry, but I knew that I didn't

00:37:55.700 want to. I knew it. I knew it in my heart and soul that I did not love this person. And the main thing

00:38:01.460 for me, it's different for everyone. Main thing for me is that I didn't think he was funny. He just

00:38:06.220 didn't make me laugh. Like we didn't have the same sense of humor, but he checked all the boxes.

00:38:10.920 He was a great guy. He was a strong Christian. His family was great. And so I just told myself,

00:38:18.200 and other people told me, well, you need to get over the personality thing. You need to get over

00:38:22.760 the humor thing because he's a good Christian. And you're just supposed to marry a strong Christian.

00:38:29.440 Don't overthink it. It doesn't matter what you feel. Just don't overthink it. And I was like,

00:38:34.420 okay, yeah, you're right. I'm overthinking it. So I convinced myself I was going to marry this

00:38:39.300 person. Thank the Lord. Literally, thank God that did not work out. That we ended up breaking up.

00:38:46.260 And about a year later, I met my husband and people had always told me, when you know, you know. And I

00:38:52.280 was very confused by that. I was like, what do you mean when you know, you know? There's a million

00:38:55.840 things to think about. What do you mean that? But I totally did. It was like a week after I met my

00:39:02.140 husband. I knew. I texted one of my best friends and I was like, yep, I'm going to marry him. Hadn't even

00:39:07.420 been on a date yet. We had just been talking at the gym where we met very romantically. I just knew

00:39:13.900 it. So as a Christian, of course, there are certain criteria that you want. You want someone that's

00:39:18.600 chasing after God. You want someone that is becoming more Christ-like, that takes their

00:39:22.400 relationship with God seriously. You want someone who's compatible. Of course, this is not necessarily

00:39:27.600 a Christian thing, but you want someone who's compatible with your personality. You want someone

00:39:31.360 that you have fun with, that you can talk to, that's going to challenge you. And I can't even

00:39:36.920 say what it was exactly about Timothy that I loved. But we just complement each other so well. And we

00:39:44.280 just could talk for hours and hours. And I thought that he was funny. He thought I was funny. Very

00:39:49.140 important to me. And I just knew. I never doubted. And I never doubted from the very beginning. There was

00:39:57.640 not one time in our dating relationship, not one time in our engagement, not one time in our marriage

00:40:02.860 that I've ever been like, oh, maybe this wasn't right. I've always known. So I would take stock of

00:40:10.820 your doubts if you have doubts. I would think about them and consider them. And here's one thing I would

00:40:15.960 say no matter what that's true across the board. Do not convince yourself that you love someone.

00:40:21.120 If you are convincing yourself, you don't. You should not have to convince yourself or the other person

00:40:27.540 that you are meant to be. If you have to do that, if you have to convince yourself or convince the

00:40:31.900 other person that you are meant to be, then it's probably not. Now, maybe not. Again, these are not

00:40:37.380 hard and fast rules. But in my experience and what I've seen in other relationships, the whole convincing

00:40:42.900 thing, it just doesn't end well. So that's my advice to you. Again, subjective advice. Take it as what it is.

00:40:51.320 But I am against this idea that as long as someone is a Christian, you just marry them and it'll be fine.

00:40:56.680 If I had taken that advice, I truly believe I would be miserable right now. Thank God. Thank God.

00:41:05.220 Thank God. So I think one of the beautiful things about life is that God allows us to be in love,

00:41:10.760 that God allows us to have romantic love. It's not just about, okay, well, he reads his Bible. It's

00:41:15.460 fine. It's like, no, God gave us personalities and compatibility. He gave us the ability to have fun

00:41:20.700 and to really love each other. So remember that. And if you don't have that, if you do not want to

00:41:26.700 be with this person, if you're not excited to be with this person, if you don't get

00:41:30.180 happier, like, yeah, happier when you're with them, then it's probably not right. Marriage is hard.

00:41:36.840 There's going to be times when you are not happy with that person. If you already feel like that when

00:41:40.100 you're dating, no. Okay. That's my advice for today. I like giving the relationship advice. It's fun.

00:41:46.880 Um, if you have any more, please send the questions my way. Okay. Love you guys. Thanks for listening.

00:41:52.580 I'll be back on Thursday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 13, 2018

Ep 54 ｜ Our Fundamental Disagreements

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