Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 561 ｜ Free Crack Pipes & the Cruelty of Progressive Compassion

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Almost forgot what day it was. This episode is

00:00:07.580 brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. American meat delivered right to your front door.

00:00:14.160 Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie or use promo code Allie, goodranchers.com slash Allie.

00:00:19.900 Okay, guys, we've got a lot to talk about today. I don't even know if we're going to have time to

00:00:33.660 talk about all the things that I want to talk about. I originally wanted to dedicate this episode

00:00:38.780 to female issues. And by female issues, I am talking about women in sports and men who are

00:00:47.820 pretending to be women, specifically this person named Leah Thomas, who is a swimmer at the

00:00:53.800 University of Pennsylvania. We've talked about this person before. Well, now the teammates,

00:01:00.080 the swimming teammates have written this open letter saying that Leah Thomas does have an

00:01:05.200 unfair advantage, which of course we already knew because we love reality here on the Relatable

00:01:11.200 podcast. But I don't know if we're even going to have time to get to that story. Hopefully we will.

00:01:17.820 But I realized last night that I really want to talk about this crack pipe, this crack pipe story,

00:01:27.040 free crack pipes for racial equity, crediting the Biden administration for this amazing headline

00:01:37.060 that I read in the Washington Free Beacon. I really want to explain this story and talk about that first,

00:01:42.880 and then we'll get to the other stuff. There's also this tweet that's circulating on Evangelical

00:01:46.800 Twitter about female modesty. I was going to get into that. So who knows? Who knows if I'm going to

00:01:51.940 be able to get into those female centric stories, because I have a lot to say about this crack pipe

00:01:59.100 story. I don't think we've ever used the phrase crack pipe on Relatable. It just hasn't been relevant

00:02:04.160 to the things that we want to talk about. And crack pipes for racial equity surely has not been a phrase

00:02:09.480 that I've used because that is not enter into the minds of sane people. But we are not led by sane

00:02:16.080 people. As I've said a few times, we are truly in a cake-istocracy. If you don't know what a cake-istocracy

00:02:21.380 is, it is where you are run by people. You are led by people who are incompetent. So the least competent

00:02:28.380 people are in charge. Every day when I read the news, I realize on the right and the left that we are

00:02:34.840 in a cake-istocracy, unfortunately. And this story that I first read in the Washington Free Beacon and

00:02:41.600 now has been picked up by several outlets is perfect evidence of that. And now I know that I'm kind of

00:02:47.760 being silly and sarcastic, but this is a serious story. It has huge worldview implications. And as

00:02:54.060 Christians, we have to care about this because this has to do with people. Of course, all policy has to do

00:03:00.260 with people. It has an impact on people. But we're truly talking about some of the most vulnerable

00:03:04.520 people in our society, the people that we, of course, we're supposed to care about everyone, but

00:03:09.280 we want to be voices. We want to be defenders. We want to be advocates for the most vulnerable people

00:03:15.700 in our society. And this story has to do with that and our responsibility as Christians to these

00:03:22.520 people. So let me read you some of this reporting. As I said, it's very serious, but there are some

00:03:29.660 funny parts, just some absurd parts to it too. And I think it's okay to laugh at the ridiculousness

00:03:34.880 of all of this. So the title of this article is Biden admin to fund crack pipe distribution to advance

00:03:42.920 racial equity. I thought that this was a Babylon Bee title. I don't think, and this is, I'm not trying to

00:03:50.800 offend the writers of the Babylon Bee who are hilariously creative. I honestly don't think if they got even

00:03:57.680 their most creative people, their funniest writers together, that they could come up with a better,

00:04:04.380 more absurd, more hilarious headline than this. This reads like satire. But isn't that true of so

00:04:11.860 much of the news today? That's actually why I think the people at the Babylon Bee, they have a very

00:04:16.060 difficult job because it's hard today to actually distinguish between reality and satire because

00:04:23.340 reality is so absurd. If you didn't know, I've written several articles, satirical articles for

00:04:29.720 the Babylon Bee. Maybe I'll try to find some of them. I haven't written for them in a long time just

00:04:33.580 because I felt like I didn't have time. But maybe I'll link some of those past articles in the

00:04:39.020 description to this episode if you are interested in reading them. So this is a real headline.

00:04:44.100 Biden admin to fund crack pipe distribution to advance racial equity. Here's what the article

00:04:50.100 says. The Biden administration is set to fund the distribution of crack pipes to drug addicts as

00:04:55.940 part of its plan to advance racial equity. The $30 million grant program, and it's linked in this

00:05:02.300 article so you can read it for yourself to make sure that this is not misinformation, which closed

00:05:07.760 applications Monday and will begin in May, will provide funds to nonprofits and local governments

00:05:12.720 to help make drug use safer for addicts, included in the grant, which is overseen by the Department

00:05:18.740 of Health and Human Services. And you'll remember the head of the Department of Health and Human

00:05:23.580 Services. I think his name is his last name is Becerra. And we've talked about him several times

00:05:30.500 on this show. He is a lawyer. He doesn't actually have any background in medicine or science. He is

00:05:35.840 extremely pro-abortion. And when he was the attorney general in California,

00:05:40.820 he went after many pro-life organizations, even religious pro-life organizations,

00:05:46.400 because he is so pro-abortion. And then we've got our assistant health secretary,

00:05:53.080 whose name is Rachel Levine. Sorry, it's hard for me to say that seriously. We've also talked about

00:06:03.260 this person several times. You can look up Rachel Levine and you can tell me if you think this person

00:06:08.460 should be in charge of the country's health. So it doesn't really surprise me. We've got these two

00:06:14.880 people that are running the Department of Health and Human Services and their ideologues, and they

00:06:19.500 don't seem to know a whole lot about health. And they are overseeing this $30 million grant program.

00:06:26.960 The funds in this program are for, quote, smoking kits and supplies. The article goes on to say,

00:06:33.400 a spokesman for the agency told the Washington Free Beacon that these kits will provide pipes

00:06:38.220 for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal meth, and any illicit substance. HHS said the kits aim to

00:06:45.380 reduce the risk. That's the propaganda phrase that you will hear. Reduce the risk, reduce the risk,

00:06:50.920 risk reduction. So they say that it aims to reduce the risk of infection when smoking substances with

00:06:57.300 glass pipes, which can lead to infections through cuts and sores. Applicants for the grant are

00:07:01.600 prioritized if they treat a majority of undeserved community, underserved communities, including

00:07:07.920 African-Americans and, quote, LGBTQ plus persons, as established under President Joe Biden's executive

00:07:14.780 order on, quote, advancing racial equity. Democratic-run cities such as San Francisco and Seattle have

00:07:22.140 distributed smoking kits to residents. Some local governments, however, have in recent years backed

00:07:28.680 away from their smoking kit programs over concerns they enable drug use. Huh, that's so crazy. I don't

00:07:35.580 see the connection at all. Louisville, Kentucky, for example, allowed convenience stores to sell smoking

00:07:40.880 kits but later banned them. Legislators in Maryland ditched their distribution plan after facing backlash

00:07:46.780 from local law enforcement and African-American leaders. Funding for the, quote, harm reduction grant

00:07:54.180 program, that's another phrase, risk reduction, harm reduction grant program, is provided through

00:07:59.540 Democrats' American Rescue Plan. I mean, there couldn't be a more Orwellian name for this American

00:08:06.720 Rescue Plan providing crack pipes for equity, which the Senate passed along party lines after President,

00:08:14.700 Vice President Kamala Harris, maybe just a little slip there, cast a tie-breaking vote. Other equipment that

00:08:21.900 qualifies for funding include syringes, vaccinations, disease screenings, condoms, and fentanyl strips.

00:08:29.120 The grant program will last three years and includes 25 awards of up to $400,000. An HHS spokesman

00:08:37.400 declined to specify what is included in the smoking kits. Similar distribution efforts provide mouthpieces

00:08:43.780 to prevent glass cuts, rubber bands to prevent burns, and filters to minimize the risk of disease.

00:08:49.720 It is against federal law. Okay, these last two lines, this is in the article, okay? I'm quoting,

00:08:55.640 and they're funny. It's sad, but it's funny. Okay, quote, it is against federal law to distribute or

00:09:02.080 sell drug paraphernalia unless authorized by the government. Oh, that is such a good example of why

00:09:10.940 corrupt big government is so awful. It is against federal law to distribute or sell drug paraphernalia

00:09:17.420 unless authorized by the government. Amazing. Last line of this article, gold. They really buried the

00:09:24.220 lead here. President Biden's son, Hunter, is a longtime user of crack cocaine. That's how the

00:09:28.860 article ends. And a lot of people were talking about that on Twitter yesterday. Again, I'm not

00:09:33.220 trying to make light of this because it's very consequential and it's very, very sad. This is a

00:09:37.320 very sad story. But there are such absurd, ridiculous parts of this that I think it's okay to laugh because

00:09:43.940 it's actually true. It's well documented that Hunter Biden is a user of crack cocaine. And I don't want to

00:09:51.220 make light of someone's addiction. A lot of people have family members who are unfortunately, they've

00:09:56.160 suffered from addiction for a very long time. They've tried to get help. They've been unable to get help.

00:10:01.320 And we should have all of the compassion in the world for that. But let's point out the hypocrisy

00:10:07.260 here and the absurdity here in in all of this. I think that is very appropriate, too. Now, I want to

00:10:13.580 get to the question of, well, does this really work? Because as a thinking person, I think that should

00:10:19.000 be our question. Does does this work? Does this help people get off the streets? Does this help

00:10:24.940 prevent people from dying from drug overdoses and infections and things like this? Is this a useful

00:10:30.960 and effective program? There are other countries around the world who have used similar programs

00:10:36.420 apparently pretty effectively. And so let's answer that question before we just completely bash this

00:10:42.240 because it does look ridiculous on its face. But I am for effective policies. And so we will analyze

00:10:49.960 that in just one second. So you guys might be familiar with Michael Schellenberger. He is the author

00:10:57.900 of San Francisco. And he spent a long time as a progressive activist. He even worked for

00:11:04.500 organizations that were funded by George Soros. We have had him on this show. We will link that

00:11:10.200 episode. We talked about his book, San Francisco, on this show. And so we'll link that and you can go

00:11:17.240 listen to it. He has done lots of interviews and he recently contributed to Barry Weiss's

00:11:23.480 Substack, an article about what is happening in San Francisco with supervised drug consumption sites.

00:11:33.580 And what the federal government is doing with these free kits, it's all kind of a part of the same plan

00:11:39.860 that if we just allow people to take heroin and meth and fentanyl and crack, quote, safely,

00:11:48.860 then we can actually help these vulnerable communities. And like I said, I am open to

00:11:54.580 policies, even if on their face, they seem like they wouldn't work. If you can show me that they

00:11:58.880 actually do work, then I'm open to looking at that. I don't want people to die from drug overdoses.

00:12:06.220 I want people to get off the street. I don't want people chained to addiction. I would say that most

00:12:11.720 people, most thinking people don't. But I do think after reading this article, which we're going to get

00:12:17.480 into, this is really a clash of worldviews. I really think that this is moral relativism

00:12:23.580 run amok, that progressivism, because they really don't have a place where they are getting

00:12:31.200 any kind of strict or clear definition of right and wrong, actually think that it's judgmental,

00:12:37.860 it's bigoted, it's wrong to say that addiction is bad or that living on the streets is bad. I think

00:12:43.320 that's why you see in very progressive cities, the incentivizing of living on the streets and

00:12:49.820 opposition to any policies that would discourage or disincentivize homelessness and drug use,

00:12:57.000 especially public drug use. And that prioritizes trying to get people rehabilitated and into jobs,

00:13:04.420 because they assume that this just means that you're criminalizing poverty or criminalizing

00:13:10.000 homelessness or that people are just getting sucked into incarceration. And that's really not what

00:13:15.820 it's about. I do believe that if the law has a place, and I think it does, it should be in

00:13:20.540 incentivizing people to live clean lives and productive lives. I have seen interviews Michael

00:13:27.380 Schellenberger has done on the street interviews with some of these addicts and drug dealers in places

00:13:33.780 like San Francisco and in other very progressive cities across the country. Tucker Carlson showed a

00:13:40.300 couple of those last night. And it just broke my heart because these people, when they are at all

00:13:45.640 lucid, when they do have any clarity of speech and clarity of mind, I mean, you can tell they're drug

00:13:51.080 addicted just because physically their teeth, their face, their posture, you can tell that they are

00:13:58.120 suffering from addiction. But one of the guys that was interviewed on Tucker Carlson last night,

00:14:04.400 I mean, you can just tell by his vocabulary, by his ability to express himself that even though he

00:14:09.860 looks so downtrodden and very sick, that he's a smart person. And I just think about the waste of human

00:14:17.480 potential that is experienced and that is seen when you look at this addiction and these drug consumption

00:14:27.760 sites and these, quote, safe drug kits and so many of these measures that aim or claim to be for risk

00:14:36.460 reduction and harm reduction are actually just incentivizing otherwise very potentially productive people

00:14:43.560 to stay addicted. And that is what Michael Schellenberger essentially is arguing in this

00:14:49.800 Substack article, which we will link in the description of this episode. He writes this, quote, San Francisco is

00:14:56.500 running a supervised drug consumption site in United Nations Plaza, just blocks away from City Hall and

00:15:02.380 the Opera House in flagrant violation of state and federal law. There, city-funded service providers

00:15:08.760 supervise people smoking fentanyl and meth they buy from drug dealers across the street. The police do

00:15:15.380 nothing. Indeed, the mayor, this is Mayor London Breed, through the Department of Emergency Management and

00:15:20.580 the Department of Public Health, is running the site. The city is carrying out a bizarre medical experiment

00:15:26.260 whereby addicts are given everything they need to maintain their addiction. Cash, hot meals, shelter in

00:15:33.080 exchange for almost nothing. Voters have found themselves in the strange position of paying for fentanyl, meth and

00:15:40.980 crack use on public property. See, this is the problem, not just with moral relativism. While it is, it's

00:15:48.780 inextricably intertwined with moral relativism. When empathy, and I would argue superficial cheap

00:15:56.100 definitions of empathy, are leading all of your policy positions, you get something like this,

00:16:02.080 where you are simply facilitating what is objectively a deadly and a dangerous and a damaging lifestyle that

00:16:10.600 doesn't just affect these individuals who are dealing the drugs and consuming the drugs, but affects the

00:16:15.640 community as a whole affects the children that are trying to live safely in this community. This is the

00:16:23.260 consequence of that. You cannot only push policies based on what feels good, based on simply facilitating

00:16:32.080 the kind of lives that people want to live. That's what progressivism does, though. That's why every single

00:16:38.680 city that is run by progressive mayors, progressive DAs, and progressive city council members, why they are

00:16:47.800 all like this, or at least they're heading that direction. Portland, Seattle, Denver, Austin, Pittsburgh,

00:16:58.800 DC, New York City, Boston, all of these cities that are run by these progressive politicians are all

00:17:07.000 heading this direction. And that's why I honestly don't understand why any well-meaning person would

00:17:13.420 vote for a Democrat at this point. How can you not see that the cities that are run by Democrats and

00:17:19.900 have been run by Democrats for a very long time are places that you would never want to live with your

00:17:25.100 family? Of course, the rich parts of these cities are, for the most part, fine. But I think in places

00:17:30.920 like San Francisco, just the damage and the deterioration that you're seeing because of

00:17:39.920 these policies is now reaching into the rich parts of the city, which is why you see even Democrats in

00:17:44.980 San Francisco kind of pushing back on this. Once it starts to affect you, once it starts to actually

00:17:50.240 affect the elites, which for the most part, Democratic policies don't, they're most damaging to the people

00:17:56.920 that they say that they're trying to help, like the poor and the marginalized, people on the fringes

00:18:01.640 of society. Once the policies really start affecting rich people, that's when you see Democrats saying,

00:18:08.400 OK, we understand that our progressive policies have really run amok. I think, by the way, I know I'm

00:18:13.200 inserting a separate conversation in here. I think that's part of the reason why you are seeing

00:18:17.780 some Democrats roll back COVID restrictions. One, I think it's because the midterms are coming up this

00:18:25.400 year and they know it's unpopular. And so they're going to let the country get in a better mood

00:18:29.380 before the midterms. And they're going to do some disaster in September, October to make sure that

00:18:34.820 people are motivated for Republicans. That's how it goes. It's very tired at this point. But I also

00:18:40.220 think it's because you even have powerful Democrats and probably rich Democrat donors who are tired of

00:18:46.120 their kids having to wear masks at school. So I know I'm very cynical, but I think that's part of the

00:18:51.580 reason why Democrats are doing what they're doing in regards to rolling back COVID restrictions

00:18:55.940 and how that relates to what we're talking about is that that is when you start to see some

00:19:02.540 progressives and some liberals speaking up about the damage of progressive policies. When the rich

00:19:08.400 people, when the elites in their party start to be affected and start to complain, that's when they

00:19:13.480 start kind of speaking up and doing something about it. That's probably why Mayor London Breed

00:19:17.560 said a few weeks ago, we've got to do something about this BS that is ruining our city. And as

00:19:23.320 Michael Schellenberger notes, she hasn't actually done anything about that. So he goes on in this

00:19:29.460 article, if you're coming into a place that's supposed to guide you toward the end of seeking.

00:19:33.700 So now he's sorry, he's quoting someone right now. If you're coming into a place that's supposed to

00:19:38.580 guide you toward the end of seeking treatment and recovery, and there are people using drugs around

00:19:42.760 you, which is what happens in this drug consumption site, that becomes an incentive to keep

00:19:47.160 going, said Stanford University School of Medicine addiction expert Keith Humphreys. It's like trying

00:19:52.600 to have an AA meeting in a bar. And so these, quote, risk reduction sites and, quote, risk reduction

00:19:59.020 kits that are now being handed out by the federal government thanks to our tax dollars, really it's

00:20:04.800 incentivizing people because it's making it easier to be around other drug users and be around other

00:20:10.580 drug dealers. And so if the goal, if even just the stated goal, the ostensible goal is to get people

00:20:18.700 to stop using drugs and to stop being addicted, you wouldn't do this. You wouldn't do this because

00:20:23.560 it's just making it easier for people to be around other people that are doing drugs. As this addiction

00:20:29.700 expert from Stanford University says, it's like trying to have an AA meeting in a bar. It just doesn't

00:20:34.220 work. The article goes on to say, San Franciscans have been fed the line that people are not on the

00:20:39.800 street primarily because they are addicts, but because of high rent and lack of housing. I mean,

00:20:45.680 even if that were true, that is also because of progressive politicians and the policies that

00:20:51.500 they have pushed in the state of California. The most powerful proponent of this view,

00:20:56.140 Michael Schellenberger says in this article, is Jennifer Freidenbach of San Francisco Coalition

00:21:02.360 on Homelessness. She blocked the closure of open drug scenes, calls people who disagree with her

00:21:07.380 fascists and racists, of course, and organizes protests at the homes of politicians. She says

00:21:13.500 they're screaming for housing, she says about the city's homeless population. But that is not what

00:21:19.860 addicts on the street tell me, according to Michael Schellenberger. On Saturday, I talked to a 37-year-old

00:21:24.760 heroin addict, originally from Alabama, who has been living on San Francisco streets for seven years.

00:21:30.940 He told me that for the majority of homeless people, addiction is the main driving force.

00:21:35.240 The so-called housing-first approach pioneered in San Francisco doesn't even keep people housed

00:21:40.860 long-term. In the spring of 2021, a team of Harvard medical experts found that after 10 years,

00:21:46.660 just 12% of the previously homeless remained housed. It is not about a lack of housing for the vast

00:21:54.600 majority of homeless people. Unfortunately, it has to do with mental illness in some cases. It has to do

00:22:00.800 with a variety of scenarios, but really the driving force. And we see this not just in San Francisco,

00:22:05.340 but again, in progressive cities across the country. Addiction is the driving force. And so

00:22:09.560 we're just feeding that. In 2018, a National Academies of Sciences review of the scientific

00:22:16.240 literature of Housing First concluded that there was no substantial evidence that the policy of Housing

00:22:22.000 First contributes to improved health outcomes. This shouldn't come as a surprise,

00:22:26.620 given that it doesn't deal with addiction. So what are the worldview implications of all of this?

00:22:34.420 Well, we've already alluded to them. We already touched on them a little bit. I think once again,

00:22:39.480 we are seeing the consequences of the secular progressive and secular humanist, I think ironically

00:22:47.340 labeled worldview that basically says that there is no objective right and wrong. There is no

00:22:55.820 right way to live. And the loving thing to do, the compassionate thing to do is simply to help

00:23:01.800 people live exactly how they want to live and how they feel like living. If you really loved someone,

00:23:09.460 if you really love someone, is that the stance you take? If your child was suffering from addiction,

00:23:16.300 would you do everything you can to simply make them more comfortable in suffering from addiction?

00:23:20.740 Now, I understand maybe you'd say, well, you know, they're going to use drugs anyway,

00:23:24.660 so let's at least help them, you know, stop dying from infections. I mean, I guess you could try to

00:23:30.840 make that argument, but they're just going to die from an overdose. And as this article also says by

00:23:36.800 Michael Schellenberger, that these drug consumption sites aren't actually reducing the, aren't actually

00:23:44.820 reducing the number of people who are dying from drug overdoses. They're just doing it under supervision

00:23:51.920 to make sure, I guess, they have clean needles. But look, we're still looking at deadly drugs, and there is no

00:23:58.680 way to do meth to take fentanyl safely. There just isn't. He also notes that in other countries who have, that

00:24:07.740 have implemented these, you know, these kinds of similar policies, these drug consumption sites,

00:24:14.120 still are, like the Netherlands, for example, they still greatly stigmatize on purpose drug use.

00:24:23.620 And so even while they are trying to prevent overdoses, or they're trying to prevent infections

00:24:29.420 from contaminated drug paraphernalia, they are still disincentivizing and strongly discouraging

00:24:37.940 drug use. That's not what's happening in places like San Francisco. Again, they don't want to

00:24:43.960 stigmatize anything. You hear that a lot from the progressive side that we need to de-stigmatize,

00:24:48.040 we need to de-stigmatize everything. Well, some things need a stigma. Some things in society need a

00:24:54.460 stigma. But it just seems like this is the far-left attempt at making people unable to work, unable to

00:25:02.560 be productive, and just dependent upon the government so that they can say anyone who wants to take away

00:25:08.460 these programs that supposedly help these marginalized communities are heartless. This is heartless. This

00:25:17.080 is cruel. If you loved someone, if you cared about someone's well-being, if you really cared about

00:25:23.680 so-called racial equity and so-called marginalized communities and people of color, as Democrats say

00:25:31.960 that they do, would you make it easier for them to ruin their lives and to ruin the communities that

00:25:37.880 they are a part of? Of course you wouldn't. You would have to hate someone to do this. This is how you

00:25:43.420 treat someone. This is how you treat a group of people if you hate them. If you love someone, you want

00:25:49.620 what's best for them. And the definition of best is not just whatever feels good to them or whatever

00:25:55.380 they want to do. I mean, we know this, of course, as parents. There are things that our children want

00:26:00.220 to do that we don't allow them to do because we love them. I mean, my two-year-old would love to eat

00:26:06.320 only cupcakes all day, every day. I don't allow her to do that. Why? Because I don't want her to be

00:26:12.560 happy because I don't love her. No, it's because I love her so much and because I want what's good

00:26:18.860 for her. And she doesn't know. She doesn't know everything that's good for her. And as her parent,

00:26:24.000 it is my responsibility to steward this wonderful gift that God has given me by ensuring that she

00:26:29.920 is taking in things that are good for her. That's because I love her. But this superficial,

00:26:35.440 flimsy definition of empathy that seems to be running far-left progressive policies

00:26:40.420 and cities, it actually mistakes what really is hate for love. They're hating these vulnerable

00:26:48.520 communities by not doing what's best for them, but actually doing what is quite literally worst for

00:26:54.840 them. And it really does, as I said, it really does break my heart. These are people who are made in

00:27:03.020 the image of God who have potential and who are wasting away, not just because of government policy,

00:27:12.000 because of choices that they've made, because of circumstances that they're in, because of a whole

00:27:16.540 host of things. And we are not serving them well. We are not serving them well by simply making it

00:27:24.300 easier to destroy themselves. We're just not. And I wish people would realize that. We hear all the

00:27:32.400 time that voting for Democrat is the more compassionate thing because, oh, we care about poor people,

00:27:36.780 because you care about people of color, because you care about equality and equity. Why don't you

00:27:41.520 look at the cities that are run by Democrats and tell me if any of those things are even close to

00:27:45.720 being accomplished there? I'm not saying that you have to like Republicans or everything that

00:27:49.840 Republicans do. I understand. I do. I have my own problems with the Republican Party. But you can't

00:27:55.540 tell me that voting for Democrat is somehow more compassionate. Thomas Sowell talks about how Democrats

00:28:01.660 tend to judge the effectiveness of their policies by their stated intentions and never by the results.

00:28:07.440 No, we judge policies not by the stated or purported intentions. We judge policies by their results and

00:28:14.660 the results of the policies that are being pushed forth by the current Democratic Party. They're

00:28:19.960 destruction all around. There are forms of tyranny in some cases when you look at the restrictions that

00:28:25.300 have been placed on individuals and churches and schools and children for the past couple of years. But

00:28:29.500 they're also deadly and destructive. Like when you look at abortion policy, for example, and when you

00:28:34.440 look at drug use policy. And of course, it's always in the name of compassion. By the way, tyranny is

00:28:39.140 always in the name of compassion, too. I don't care what's done in the name of compassion. I want to

00:28:44.700 know what is actually being done and what is the result of that. I'm sure Pol Pot also put forth his

00:28:50.040 policies in the name of compassion, too. I'm sure Khmer Rouge billed themselves as the party of

00:28:56.920 compassion. Of course, destructive tyrants always do. And again, I am not trying to say that

00:29:02.700 Republicans are the perfect party with the perfect policies that have put forward perfect solutions

00:29:07.040 to the very real issues that we have. I wish that they would. I think that's why you actually see a

00:29:11.980 shift in the Republican Party away from this kind of libertarian, well, you know, whatever. It's not the

00:29:18.180 government's role to do anything to a, OK, well, how can we harness the power of the government in order

00:29:24.580 to advance policies that are actually good for communities? I think that's a particularly good

00:29:30.020 shift. And I think we should lean into that while also not wanting government power to simply run

00:29:35.680 run amok. And so there's there's just there's a lot to be there's a lot to be discussed there. And I

00:29:43.000 also want to acknowledge I understand because Michael Schallenberger, I don't think he calls himself a

00:29:47.020 conservative or Republican and neither does Barry Weiss. And so there are a lot of people who identify

00:29:52.620 as on the left or maybe center left or maybe right in the center who maybe identify as Democrats who

00:29:58.820 voted for Joe Biden, who are not for this kind of thing, who can look at what's happening on the

00:30:04.500 streets of San Francisco or Austin or any of the other cities that I've named and see, OK, this is a

00:30:09.120 problem. This is a problem. And they're not for this either. And I'm not saying that there is a whole

00:30:14.960 lot of compromise to be had between the modern Democratic Party and those of us who identify as

00:30:19.880 conservatives. But on some things like we just have to be able to say, OK, do we share the goal

00:30:25.120 of policies that are good for communities? Do we share the goal of getting people off the streets

00:30:30.720 and out of addiction if we share that goal, which I think the vast majority of people do, despite

00:30:37.700 your political affiliation, no matter what your political affiliation is, is. But I think that

00:30:43.940 there's probably, you know, fringe progressives that think that addiction is fine and that people should

00:30:48.140 just be incentivized to live that way. I think the vast majority of us truly want everyone to be

00:30:54.340 a productive citizen that is able to make money for themselves and their families and to live

00:30:59.700 clean and responsible lives. Right. And so if we agree on that, let's look at policies that are

00:31:05.540 actually going to discourage, disincentivize and yes, stigmatize the kind of lifestyle that is truly

00:31:12.560 not just destroying these individuals, but destroying communities and societies as a whole.

00:31:18.180 We have to care about that if we say that we're compassionate, even if the policies that disincentivize

00:31:23.840 those things may sound not compassionate. We have to, again, look at the results. This is not about

00:31:30.440 feelings or what feels good or, again, superficial, flimsy definitions of empathy. This is about true love

00:31:37.120 and true love actually seeks the true best interest of the people that we say that we're loving. So I

00:31:46.080 just wanted to make sure that we're covering that story and also point out just a couple of things.

00:31:51.660 I mean, I would be remiss if I didn't bring up pro-life evangelicals for Biden because I do every chance

00:31:58.680 that I get. This administration, unfortunately, as moderate as he said that he was going to be,

00:32:04.480 is run by radical progressives. It is. Those are the nominees that he has tapped. Those are the

00:32:09.940 people that are running the show. Biden's not running the show. He can barely complete a sentence.

00:32:13.700 That's just objectively true. You can say that that's rude. It's easily observable. He can barely

00:32:18.720 hold it together. And so the people that are running the show are probably much farther left than him.

00:32:23.300 And we have been saying that since before the election. And yet we were told by people in the

00:32:28.940 pro-life evangelical for Biden camp, the compassionate politics camp and people who said that Joe Biden is

00:32:36.160 going to restore America to a sense of normalcy and going to unite Americans together. He's not going

00:32:42.720 to be a demagogue and he is going to squash COVID. None of those things have been true. He has been

00:32:47.760 extremely radical, not just in his rhetoric, but also in the policies that his administration has

00:32:54.260 advocated for. And so we said we said this. I mean, I hate to say I told you so. There are plenty of

00:33:00.620 things that I've been wrong about over the years. But on this, we were right. We told you that Biden

00:33:05.620 and his administration was they were going to be radical, that they were going to be in America last

00:33:11.880 administration. And if you wanted to ruin the country, if you wanted to weaken America, you would

00:33:18.760 not do anything differently than what the Biden administration has done. I mean, that is abundantly

00:33:26.520 clear. And anyone who could not see that at this point, you've just got your head in the sand or

00:33:31.120 maybe you just so badly want to justify and defend your vote and you still want to believe that you

00:33:35.860 did the right and the compassionate thing, that you refuse to see what is so blatantly in front of

00:33:40.900 you. Just admit Joe Biden is doing a bad job. Everything is just just just tangibly worse and even

00:33:47.420 intangibly worse. Like everything just feels dark and depressing a little bit. Not that there's not

00:33:53.500 a lot of happiness in life, because there is. I have a very happy and wonderful life. But just

00:33:58.780 everything is more expensive and more burdensome and more absurd than it was even when Trump was

00:34:06.600 president. I mean, the decline has been very precipitous. And that is why, of course, Joe Biden has

00:34:12.560 such low ratings. But I do wish I do wish that some leaders who advocated for Joe Biden, Christian

00:34:20.500 leaders who advocated for Joe Biden, some of whom we talked about yesterday, would come out and say,

00:34:26.960 you know what, I was I was wrong. I was wrong that this would be a so-called holistically pro-life

00:34:33.900 uniting more Christian presidency. And that they would just come out and say, you know what,

00:34:40.120 I didn't like Trump. I didn't like a lot of the things that he said. But the policies that he put

00:34:43.720 forth, they were better than the policies put forth. They were more, quote, holistically pro-life or

00:34:48.840 pro-all life than the policies put forth by the Biden administration, whether you're looking at

00:34:55.000 immigration, whether you're looking at abortion, whether you're looking at what we've talked about

00:34:58.040 today. I mean, that's just objectively true. You don't have to love Donald Trump or be a Republican

00:35:02.500 to be able to acknowledge that. I saw a tweet by Beth Moore and she said, you know, that she thinks

00:35:10.060 that it's very strange that a lot of Christian leaders don't feel the need to apologize when they

00:35:15.420 have been purveyors of misinformation or when they've said something that has turned out not to

00:35:19.940 be true or when they've contributed to, you know, bad mouthing someone and what they said turned out

00:35:25.240 not to be true, whatever. And I just think that that is really interesting because I have a feeling

00:35:31.040 she's not talking about the people that I think of when that comes to mind. I think of all of the

00:35:38.320 people who vouched either implicitly or explicitly for Joe Biden saying again that he was going to be

00:35:43.940 unifying or in some way pro-life or that he was going to be more reflective of Christian values in

00:35:49.360 his presidency than Donald Trump was. I think of some of the people that we talked about yesterday

00:35:53.700 that platformed Francis Collins, who said that a cloth mask was a life-saving device

00:35:58.280 and that not getting a vaccine that doesn't stop infection or transmission is loving your neighbor.

00:36:03.240 I think about those people. Well, why haven't they apologized? Or the people who said that

00:36:08.140 we should meet virtually for churches instead of just allowing that to be a place of Christian

00:36:13.180 liberty or acknowledging that, hey, Johns Hopkins has just come out and said that lockdowns had no

00:36:18.440 measurably positive effect when it came to mitigating the spread of the virus. Why shouldn't they come

00:36:23.560 out and say, you know what? I was wrong. I was wrong in saying that. I was wrong in castigating

00:36:30.920 my fellow Christians who took a different stance on meeting together as churches. I was wrong in

00:36:36.480 saying that it is loving your neighbor to get this vaccine because some of those people have been

00:36:41.380 triple vaccinated and still got COVID and possibly spread COVID. And so I wish some of those leaders,

00:36:47.200 and I don't think that's who Beth Moore is alluding to, I wish some of those leaders would come out

00:36:51.540 and apologize and simply say, you know what? I was wrong. And I was wrong to divide the church

00:36:58.180 in that way. I would love to know. I would love to know actually specifically who she is referring to

00:37:06.900 there. And one more absurd thing, in addition to the lack of response from the evangelical pro-life

00:37:13.180 for Biden crowd is in thinking about what this administration has demonized and now what they

00:37:22.780 seem to be almost endorsing or at least incentivizing and allowing. They have demonized ivermectin,

00:37:31.180 hydroxychloroquine. They have stopped the production or reduced the production and the distribution of

00:37:38.040 monoclonal antibodies, all of which have been used by doctors with lots of experience and specifically

00:37:45.160 lots of experience with COVID patients. And they have been used reportedly by these doctors, according

00:37:52.480 to these doctors, effectively, at the very least, they haven't caused harm for the patients, according

00:37:59.100 to these doctors. And yet this administration has demonized them. And yet they're making it easier

00:38:06.800 to smoke crack for equity. That's what I said on Twitter yesterday. Ivermectin is horse dewormer,

00:38:14.000 hydroxychloroquine is fish tank cleaner, monoclonal antibodies are useless, and free crack pipes are

00:38:20.640 equity. Science, health, truth, reality, democracy, all of the values encompassed in one ridiculous headline.

00:38:36.800 Okay, so I actually think that's all that we have time for today, rather than get into this whole

00:38:42.720 other story about Leah Thomas. I'll save that for another day. I'm actually I'm going to do an extra

00:38:49.840 episode on Friday because I have so much that I want to talk about this week. And I didn't have a

00:38:54.880 new episode on Monday since we did a part two on Monday. Definitely go listen to that. By the way,

00:39:00.040 I share the gospel, I talk about the gospel with an atheist with James Lindsay, we talk about theology,

00:39:05.560 go listen to that. But I didn't get in everything I wanted to talk about this week. And so we're going

00:39:09.960 to do an extra episode on Friday, and which maybe I'll talk about this Leah Thomas story,

00:39:14.760 or maybe we'll talk about the Canadian convoy. Tomorrow, we're talking to Scott Atlas. I'm super

00:39:20.040 excited about that. And he's going to he's going to pull back the curtain on the pandemic response in

00:39:27.880 the history of that super fascinating book that he has out. I'm really, really excited about that

00:39:31.880 conversation. But yeah, I think I'm going to save I think I'm going to save that conversation and

00:39:40.360 the other conversation about Leah Thomas, and also that tweet about modesty that's been going around

00:39:46.360 also speaking of Beth Moore, that she responded to. I think I'm going to save that for Friday,

00:39:53.000 or maybe even Monday. Who knows? There's always people ask me all the time. Or do you ever feel

00:39:59.200 you run out of content? Do you ever wake up and you're like, I have no idea what I'm going to talk

00:40:04.180 about. Sometimes I don't know what I'm going to talk about when I wake up. But I never run out of

00:40:10.680 things to talk about. There's just always so much to cover. And you guys also ask me,

00:40:15.800 do you just get tired of talking about it? Sometimes I do. But honestly, like this gives

00:40:20.120 me energy. I love recording this podcast. I think that I if I didn't have an outlet to talk about

00:40:25.720 these things, I'd probably just like talk to myself or I talked to my husband even when he's

00:40:29.980 got his headphones in because I just have to get out my thoughts about all of this.

00:40:36.220 All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. Make sure you go back and listen to Monday and

00:40:40.360 Tuesday's episodes. If you haven't done that already, subscribe on YouTube. If you currently don't,

00:40:45.800 and please, if you love this podcast, leave us a five star review. Tell us why you love it. Or you

00:40:50.920 don't even have to say why you love it. If you don't have time, just leave us a five star review.

00:40:54.780 It means a lot. Thank you guys so much. We will be back here tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 09, 2022

Ep 561 ｜ Free Crack Pipes & the Cruelty of Progressive Compassion

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