Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 637 ｜ America's Masculinity Crisis

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. This episode is brought to you by our friends

00:00:04.560 at Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com slash Allie for American Meat Delivered.

00:00:10.480 That's GoodRanchers.com slash Allie.

00:00:22.660 All right, guys, today we are going to talk some about the shooting that happened in Highland

00:00:28.720 Park, Illinois over the weekend. Super sad. We're going to talk about some other things as well.

00:00:34.400 We've got a big week, some good interviews, lots of good things to talk about. We covered a really,

00:00:41.320 really big and important, profound, and disturbing also subject last Thursday. And I really encourage

00:00:49.100 you to go listen to or watch that episode if you have not already. I learned a lot from my guest,

00:00:54.440 Genevieve Gluck. I know you will too. Listen to it, watch it, share it. It really is that important

00:01:00.460 because the episode is doing so well. Hopefully we'll be able to have her back maybe in a few

00:01:05.320 weeks for a part two. We didn't even really scratch the surface of what I wanted to talk to her about

00:01:10.340 because the web that is transgender ideology and activism and the institutions that it has now

00:01:24.200 infected, whether it's academia or whether it is medicine. I mean, it's just a huge tangled web and

00:01:31.860 she is doing a lot of unraveling. And so it's really important that we get to be a part of that and we

00:01:37.040 get to help untangle that web so we can really understand what is going on. If you love this

00:01:44.360 podcast, I do have a request. If you can leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, wherever you

00:01:49.640 get your podcast, that would mean a whole lot to us. If you don't subscribe on YouTube, go ahead and do

00:01:55.460 that as well. All right. Before we get into some of the serious stuff, we'll talk about some light

00:01:59.740 hearted stuff. We'll talk about what I did over the weekend, my favorite holiday, 4th of July.

00:02:04.720 Now, that does not mean that I think it is more important than my Savior's birth or Jesus's

00:02:11.080 resurrection. It is just that I love the summer and I love everything that is involved in celebrating

00:02:16.660 the 4th of July. I love it all. And you guys know, as I said on my special 4th of July six-minute

00:02:23.980 episode from yesterday, that I'm a very patriotic person, still tear up when I am singing the Star

00:02:30.320 Spangled Banner. I just love everything America was founded on. I love the good things that we have

00:02:35.780 done. And I truly still believe that we live in the greatest country in the world, even though there

00:02:41.220 are so many things that I wish I could change about it, so many things that I don't like about it.

00:02:45.400 The reality is that everything that I want to change is really, I want it to conform to our founding

00:02:52.520 ideals and ideas, not that I want to get away from that. So we had fun celebrating over this long

00:02:59.740 weekend. There was a lot of swimming. There was a lot of eating. I made, speaking of eating, you

00:03:04.640 might have seen on Instagram that I made my grandmother's, Grandma Dot. She's in heaven. She

00:03:11.300 died in the fall of 2019. We were very, very close. And so I wanted to honor her by making,

00:03:17.400 also almost her birthday, honor her by making her famous peaches and cream. Now, this is a little bit

00:03:23.400 different than peach cobbler. And a lot of you guys, when I posted this on Instagram, you asked for the

00:03:27.840 recipe. I don't really know if I can consider it a secret recipe. I don't think that she would really

00:03:32.760 care if I shared it. But at the same time, if you, I don't know, I feel protective of it for some

00:03:37.900 reason. I don't know. So I'm not going to share it for now. But it's a little bit different than

00:03:42.160 peach cobbler. It is basically just like canned peaches and sugar and flour and cream cheese. This is

00:03:51.060 the thing that's on top that makes it peaches and cream and not peach cobbler. It's peaches and cream

00:03:55.700 because on top is cream cheese and sugar. So people were asking if there's some kind of like

00:04:00.720 bisquick breading on top or no, it's nothing like that. There's no actual crust. It's just that when

00:04:06.080 you put it in the oven, it browns and it kind of creates a kind of crust over it. Even if you're

00:04:10.980 not like a huge peach fan and I'm not really, it's so good. I am a huge cream cheese fan. So I made it

00:04:18.400 and this was the first time that I made it. And I accidentally, so you're not actually supposed

00:04:23.280 to put the three fourths cup of sugar into the mix. That's only for the topping of cream cheese.

00:04:31.160 And I didn't realize that. I wasn't paying close enough attention. So I put the huge scoop of sugar

00:04:37.380 into the actual mix. And so I was a little worried that it could be too sweet. But then I thought about

00:04:43.100 it and I was like, is that even a possibility? Can something like a peach cobbler or peaches and cream

00:04:47.680 be too sweet? Thankfully, it turned out really well. And I think one of the reasons that it ended

00:04:54.200 up evening out is because when my husband went to the store to get the ingredients, he got,

00:04:59.160 so you also put like instant jello pudding mix into it, vanilla. And he got the keto sugar-free kind.

00:05:09.860 So I think that I made up for it by putting too much sugar in there. So it turned out, I'm sure

00:05:17.140 that Grandma Dot was looking down from heaven and was like, did you just put a second scoop

00:05:21.020 of sugar into my peaches and cream? But it all turned out, I think that she would be very proud

00:05:28.600 of my, of my baking skills over the weekend. So that's one thing we did. Let's see, did we do

00:05:34.340 anything else? We went to a parade and that was really fun. It was really hot, as you can imagine,

00:05:40.520 as I'm sure it is wherever you are as well. And so, yeah, we just did all of the fun 4th of July

00:05:45.960 things, hung out with family, saw some friends, went to church. And it was just a weekend that I was

00:05:52.140 just so thankful, so thankful, not just for my family and my life and all of these wonderful

00:05:57.620 blessings, but that we do live in a country where we can do those things. And we are celebrating

00:06:03.720 our independence and where we are celebrating the freedoms that we have, even if we feel

00:06:10.300 like they're constantly being fought against, like the powers that be are trying to minimize them or

00:06:17.140 trying to redefine them or take them away. The fact of the matter is, is that we could go to church this

00:06:22.280 weekend and we could read from the Bible. We could worship God out in the open without fear of

00:06:29.020 persecution, without fear of being sent to jail, being detained, being murdered, being tortured.

00:06:37.080 I know that sounds dramatic, but you understand that there are millions of Christians around the

00:06:40.700 world today that do not have that liberty. And so while we still do have it, we take advantage of it.

00:06:47.660 And I was just filled with so much gratitude this weekend that we still have that. And that is a

00:06:53.740 reason to celebrate. So I hope that you enjoyed this weekend. I know that per usual, as is popular over

00:07:01.300 the past few years, you probably saw some tweets from some, you know, Christians, more social justice

00:07:09.380 Christians who couldn't celebrate the 4th of July or couldn't post about celebrating the 4th of July 0.99

00:07:15.080 without some kind of caveat, without some kind of mention of the injustices that were, that have been

00:07:21.560 perpetrated by the United States without some mention of racism or how things are imperfect or

00:07:27.060 what America has done wrong over the years or is still getting wrong now. They might have used words

00:07:32.920 like tension or nuance. And I really hate these kinds of, I really hate these kinds of posts.

00:07:39.380 I mean, I also hate the kinds of posts that act like celebrating the 4th of July or talking about

00:07:44.180 the 4th of July or American independence in church is some scary form of Christian nationalist fascism, 0.64

00:07:50.380 where people are worshiping the American flag or worshiping the United States of the America. I

00:07:56.240 mean, maybe that's happening in some places and I'm obviously that's not good creating any kind of

00:08:01.820 idol ever, but these are the same people that are fine typically with the church waving a pride flag or

00:08:07.260 something like that. They just don't like this particular, this particular flag or this particular

00:08:14.840 kind of church because they perceive it as conservative. And there is a group of professing Christians

00:08:19.480 that calls anything conservative or patriotic, scary, fascist, Christian nationalism. So those 1.00

00:08:25.180 group of people, there are that group of people that can't celebrate the 4th of July. They can't

00:08:30.080 celebrate American independence without either caveating it or just they can't celebrate it at all.

00:08:37.680 I know that they want to be perceived as having more thoughtfulness and more righteousness and more

00:08:45.640 love and more empathy and more understanding and more knowledge than those of us who are lighting

00:08:52.020 fireworks and eating our hot dogs without a care in the world. But really the truth is, is that they

00:08:58.940 lack gratitude. As we talked about yesterday, think of patriotism, which Augustine said was actually a

00:09:07.280 virtue. Think of patriotism just as gratitude. Gratitude for where God providentially placed you.

00:09:12.880 Gratitude for the gifts that God has given you in liberty. For gratitude for where you are, the time

00:09:22.040 that you live in, the way that you are able to participate as a free citizen of the United States.

00:09:28.860 Patriotism is just a form of gratitude. Celebrating the 4th of July is a form of gratitude. It can be used

00:09:36.560 as a way to worship the Lord and say, thank you so much for the gifts that you have given me.

00:09:41.360 Thank you so much for placing me where you have placed me. Thank you so much for the people I

00:09:46.460 live next to. Thank you so much that I get to raise my kids here. I know that I have it really

00:09:52.280 good. I know that I have a lot of blessings. I know that you have shown so much grace to me by

00:09:58.900 allowing me to live in this place and you do nothing arbitrarily and nothing by accident.

00:10:04.560 Fourth of July can be a day to simply reiterate your gratitude to the Lord for those things. But

00:10:12.060 mumbling and grumbling and bitterness and resentment and entitlement and holding America

00:10:19.380 to this standard of perfect justice that you hold no other country to and saying basically that you have

00:10:27.740 to withhold your celebration until America meets this impossible standard of perfect righteousness,

00:10:33.740 it is ungrateful. I mean, and ingratitude is certainly not a fruit of the spirit. Ingratitude

00:10:41.120 and bitterness and resentment are actually the exact opposite of what the Lord is calling Christians

00:10:47.900 to. So that doesn't mean that we pretend like America has never perpetrated injustices. I mean,

00:10:53.640 just in the past 50 years alone, America has legally slaughtered over 60 million babies. So you don't

00:10:59.580 have to tell me that there are things wrong with justice in the United States. But that doesn't mean

00:11:06.660 that you have to diminish your gratitude or your celebration of the 4th of July and how God has

00:11:12.540 shown his mercy so much to this great nation. So I just don't like posts like that because I just

00:11:18.940 really do see them as miserable and ungrateful and not at all as nuanced or thoughtful or empathetic.

00:11:26.960 I think there is a facade of those things. And underneath, it's just a lot of mumbling and

00:11:32.380 grumbling that I don't think actually glorifies the Lord at all and is not a good witness. So all that

00:11:38.160 said, I hope that you had a great 4th of July, that you had a fun time celebrating. We certainly did.

00:11:45.040 I'm thankful for you all that we live in a country where we can be friends and have this community

00:11:49.940 and talk about the things that we do. All right, let me tell you what we know about this shooting

00:12:06.720 in Highland Park, Illinois. Now, I think when people hear that Highland Park, Illinois is outside of

00:12:13.360 Chicago. They think, well, Chicago has mass shootings every weekend. Multiple people die

00:12:19.760 from shootings every weekend in Chicago. But Highland Park is not the part of Chicago that

00:12:23.840 is typically seeing this sort of violence. But I also don't want to diminish the seriousness and the

00:12:30.460 sadness of the mass shootings that happen in inner city Chicago every weekend that, of course,

00:12:35.620 are not covered because they are so commonplace that no one really makes a big deal of them. But

00:12:43.360 when something like this happens in this kind of community that is not used to that kind of

00:12:47.900 violence, of course, we highlight it because it is so rare. And I'm not going to name the name of

00:12:54.620 the shooter. That is something that I try to do. I have not always had this rule in the past. But

00:12:59.680 because it seems like these shooters want attention, they want fame, and they want their picture and name

00:13:04.400 out there. I just don't want to contribute to that. But we do know the shooter in this Highland Park

00:13:10.080 shooting 22 year old guy. He apparently was on a roofer in some kind of position where he could

00:13:17.760 just take aim with his gun at the floats and at the bystanders and he just opened fire. And he killed

00:13:26.460 at least six people. That's what we have right now. And then there are at least 26 people in the

00:13:32.420 hospital who are injured. Now, the first question that we have in this, because this is such just

00:13:39.800 a question that unfortunately has to be asked, did the FBI know about this? Were there warning signs?

00:13:46.380 Did law enforcement know about this? Did this person have a criminal history? We don't know everything

00:13:51.960 about him. But we do know that he has a pretty significant social media footprint. He had a YouTube

00:13:58.280 channel where he posted different music videos. Apparently, he was an aspiring rapper. And the

00:14:04.640 music videos that were circulating on Twitter, again, I'm not sure how helpful that is, because it seems

00:14:10.000 like that is just kind of contributing to this person's seeking of fame or infamy, maybe. But the

00:14:18.540 videos are, they seem to be simulating like a school shooting. There was a music video that looked like

00:14:26.920 that's what he was trying to depict that had over 42,000 views. I mean, his music videos were very

00:14:32.900 creepy. They were at least insinuating violence. And not that this necessarily indicates that someone

00:14:39.840 is going to be violent in any way. But I mean, this, he obviously is going for a particular

00:14:47.760 a particular look. He's got face tattoos and neck tattoos. That's actually what he what the police

00:14:56.800 were using to try to identify him. I think that's part of what helped them find him because he has

00:15:02.060 these very distinct face tattoos. And so he was arrested at 630 p.m. on Monday after the attack.

00:15:13.100 Thank God for law enforcement. Thank God for the men and women who put their time and their energy

00:15:18.340 into finding him. And so he is arrested. There have been family members who have been

00:15:25.340 interviewed. Of course, they say there were no warning signs. But even as they're saying no

00:15:31.460 warning signs, there was an interview with the uncle that said, oh, no, there were no warning signs. But

00:15:36.140 he was a really quiet kid who kept to himself, who was kind of a loner and never really expressed

00:15:42.060 himself. Yeah, that tends to be the profile of these guys. That doesn't mean that if you are a loner

00:15:47.300 and you spend time by yourself that you're going to do something like this. But that seems to always be

00:15:51.780 a characteristic of the a characteristic of these men who are committing these crimes. So that in

00:15:59.480 addition to the violent videos and the videos glorifying violence that he was putting on his

00:16:07.100 YouTube channel, that probably should have been an indication to someone that something is going

00:16:12.540 wrong. But just as we discussed when we were talking about the Buffalo shooter, it is really difficult

00:16:19.660 to take away someone's Second Amendment or any kind of right if they do not go through due process or

00:16:28.840 if they are just saying things that are scary. Because we do have First Amendment rights. You are allowed

00:16:35.100 to say things that are disturbing. You are allowed to say things that are insinuating violence. You are

00:16:43.000 allowed to be like a creepy guy who makes weird and creepy music videos. You are allowed to do that

00:16:50.280 legally. You can't take away someone's rights for maybe fitting the profile of someone who might

00:16:58.800 commit a crime one day. And I mean, we're thankful for that, right? Like we don't want people to have

00:17:05.360 their rights taken away who haven't actually committed a crime. But there must be some kind of system in

00:17:12.100 place. There has to be some kind of system in place to be able to spot these people and to be able to

00:17:19.260 prevent them from carrying out these attacks. And I just don't know if we have a great system in place

00:17:25.140 right now. It doesn't seem that we do. There are a lot of details about him, about his life, about his

00:17:32.240 background that we don't know. People are arguing online about whether he was a leftist or whether he was

00:17:37.640 a Trump supporter. I saw that the New York Post, they had a headline saying his dad liked to tweet

00:17:42.780 supporting the Second Amendment. At one point, there was a picture of him like holding a Trump flag.

00:17:48.980 Other people were saying, though, that he was making fun of Trump supporters and that he was actually a leftist.

00:17:55.420 As far as I'm concerned, like I don't I don't really want to engage in that argument. I don't really want to engage in

00:18:01.780 that debate because it looks like we're not going to find that out. I think that we should be asking

00:18:06.360 ourselves so much some some deeper questions why it seems like no matter the political ideology

00:18:12.140 of the shooter, they are these young loner men who have some other characteristics in common, that they

00:18:19.940 are idle, that they report feelings of purposelessness, wanting meaning in their life, wanting to be

00:18:26.880 someone wanting a fight to fight for. Like when are we going to deal with that epidemic of idleness

00:18:33.960 and purposelessness and godlessness that is so obviously infecting young men? Like when are we

00:18:41.620 going to confront that? When are we going to do something about that? The fact of the matter is we

00:18:47.620 have cultural and moral rot that has to be rooted out in our country. We can talk about gun laws. We can

00:18:54.140 talk about legislation. We can talk about all that. But until we deal with the root, until we deal with

00:19:01.260 what is going on, the depravity, the rot that is underneath all of this, things are never going

00:19:08.000 to change. You know, there was also a mass shooting over the weekend in Copenhagen that has some of the

00:19:13.640 strictest gun laws in the world. We always hear, oh, these mass shootings only happen in the United

00:19:18.240 States. If you look at the data, that's not actually true. It's not actually true that these only

00:19:23.620 happen in the United States. I would say it's probably disproportionate. It is disproportionate

00:19:28.380 in the United States, but it's not true that they only happen in the United States. But I would say

00:19:33.060 the problem that we really have is just this insidious amorality and purposelessness

00:19:41.300 that is so prevalent, especially among our young people.

00:19:56.000 The truth is, there is nothing more dangerous than a man with no one to live for and nothing to do.

00:20:06.760 Idleness is an enemy of healthy masculinity. Idleness really, for any of us, can send us down

00:20:14.720 a spiral of anxiety and depression. It can warp how we see the world. Loneliness can do the same

00:20:21.400 thing because we're not meant to be lonely. We're meant to live in community. We're meant to have

00:20:25.960 family. We're meant to have friendship. For most of time, friendship and kinship and community was

00:20:31.920 really inevitable for people because they had to depend on one another for what they needed. They

00:20:36.600 needed to rely on their village, to rely on their next door neighbor for food and for protection or

00:20:44.260 for whatever it was. And so you relied on one another and you had very interconnected communities

00:20:51.000 simply out of necessity. We really don't need in-person interaction to survive anymore. I mean,

00:20:57.140 you can sit on your couch and you can be fully entertained and get all of the food and all of

00:21:03.800 the supplies that you need and you can be completely comfortable and never have to interact with another

00:21:10.200 human. You certainly wouldn't have to depend on your church for these things or your community

00:21:14.220 for these things. And so the luxury that we have in this country isolates us. It makes us very lonely.

00:21:23.280 It also makes us very idle because we do not have to put a lot of time into producing the things

00:21:29.160 that we need. We are so actually distant from the production of the things that we need that we don't

00:21:34.720 even know how to produce most of the things that we need. So idleness and loneliness also creates the

00:21:41.640 purposelessness that is an infection in humanity because God created us to work. He created us not only to

00:21:49.380 be in communion, in community, but he also created us to work, to be productive. As with so many things

00:21:56.400 that we talk about today, this really goes down, it comes down to Genesis 1. It comes back to Genesis 1

00:22:03.980 creation. What we see from the very beginning is that man was meant to work. We like to think of work as

00:22:12.320 like a necessary evil or a product of the fall or a product of sin, but it's not. Work is something that

00:22:18.280 God mandated Adam do before the fall. This is a part of the created order. This is something that is

00:22:24.220 innate in human beings that we were created to work and work is very good. It is not a necessary evil

00:22:30.240 or a product of the fall. Genesis 2.15, the Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work

00:22:37.340 it and to keep it. And then we see after the fall, after sin, that the curse on work is about the

00:22:47.960 fruitlessness that can come from toil, that you can try to plant seeds and you can try to cultivate the

00:22:55.920 ground and it still may not sprout with anything that is good or worth eating. So the curse of work

00:23:03.580 comes with the fruitlessness that can sometimes be the product of toil, but the toil itself is a part

00:23:11.020 of the good created order. So that tells us something about how human beings are supposed to function.

00:23:17.200 That is not just how we survive, but is also how we thrive. And if that is true of the individual,

00:23:22.300 as we see in the beginning of Genesis, then that is going to be true of society as a whole. You see this

00:23:28.540 kind of progressive vision that human beings will own nothing, that we'll do nothing, that we'll just

00:23:34.500 spend time on our hobbies all day. Everything will become automated. Everything will be done for us. And

00:23:41.360 there's just kind of this idea that if human beings have all of our needs met and we don't have to work

00:23:49.300 for what we have, then we will all just kind of be happy and be content. And there won't be all of

00:23:55.820 these social and moral ills and division and anger that we deal with today. It's this idea that it's

00:24:01.360 capitalism that is really oppressing us, these systems of hierarchy or what are kind of tearing

00:24:08.280 us apart and tearing us down. But that's not actually true. We see from the beginning that

00:24:13.380 productivity and working for what you have and supplying what your family needs through work,

00:24:20.800 that it is actually something that is necessary for the well-being of human beings. And as I

00:24:25.780 said, also for society, since society is made up of individual human beings, we also see from the

00:24:31.580 beginning that God says that it is not good for man to be alone. So God creates a partner for Adam

00:24:40.560 because Adam needs a helper. We see that also in who God is. God is triune. He is in constant community

00:24:49.280 and fellowship with himself, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we are made in his image.

00:24:55.160 So we see, again, from the creation account that we are made for fellowship and community,

00:25:00.840 that we are made for work and productivity. We are made also, we see, from the Genesis account to

00:25:06.940 glorify God, to be in communion with God. So again, it goes back to what I think is ailing us,

00:25:15.320 and especially men. Idleness, which is not part of God's plan for us. We were made to work. Purposelessness

00:25:22.860 and loneliness is not what I originally said, but loneliness and also godlessness. This is a toxic

00:25:31.900 combination. It is especially a toxic combination for young men because men just biologically, they have 1.00

00:25:39.800 a lot of testosterone. And testosterone makes you more aggressive. Men are naturally more aggressive than

00:25:46.420 women. I know today that we want to try to deny these very real categories of male and female and

00:25:52.620 try to say that how male and female manifests itself is just a product of social norms. It's something that

00:25:59.740 we created in order to, I don't know, oppress women or keep these arbitrary categories. But it's not true.

00:26:06.940 There are innate differences between men and women. One of those innate differences is that men are 1.00

00:26:11.900 generally naturally more aggressive than women. It is because of how God made them just biologically. 1.00

00:26:19.220 That's how they function, which means God created men to seek a good fight to fight or just to seek a

00:26:25.700 fight to fight. And so when the aggression that men, that boys naturally have, is not channeled towards a

00:26:32.500 good fight, fighting for their family, fighting for their community, fighting in the sense of just

00:26:37.820 being a productive worker. They're going to find unhealthy means to channel that aggression. And I

00:26:44.520 don't think that you need to think very hard or look very far to see that young men's aggression is being

00:26:51.300 channeled in this country towards bad, violent means. I mean, we see that surely every weekend in

00:26:59.860 Chicago, every weekend in basically every inner city in this country. We don't talk about that

00:27:07.800 disparate outcome that it is. If you look at like the gender makeup between male and female 0.56

00:27:15.260 violence and homicide that's committed every year, that the vast, vast majority of the violence is being

00:27:23.680 committed by men. We'll look at every disparate outcome between races or if it allows Democrats to

00:27:31.080 make some kind of policy to create equity. Let's talk about the inequity or the inequitable outcomes

00:27:37.460 between the violence that is perpetrated by men and women. It is mostly young men. We are not providing 0.98

00:27:47.000 purpose. We are not providing community. We are not providing a higher and better calling to young men.

00:27:53.520 Rather, we are trying to demonize masculinity. We're trying to call it toxic. We're trying to

00:27:59.240 minimize the differences between men and women. We are not addressing one of the biggest problems 0.99

00:28:06.620 with young men is that they don't have any examples to look to, that they don't have a father in the home

00:28:14.540 many times. And that causes delinquency. That also causes loneliness and purposelessness and all these

00:28:22.100 dangerous characteristics that we're talking about. They don't have anyone that's taking them under

00:28:28.040 their wing and teaching them how to be a responsible man. That is the deficit that we are experiencing

00:28:35.320 in this country. We have a deficit of healthy masculinity, of healthy male role models who are

00:28:43.700 taking responsibility and leadership in their communities for the boys that are around them.

00:28:48.660 Now, there are a lot of organizations and a lot of people and a lot of churches that are trying to do that,

00:28:53.840 but we need more. And I understand men have been told by the feminist movement for decades that you just

00:29:00.960 need to shut up, that you just need to sit down, that you just need to be quiet, that now this is going to be

00:29:06.920 a matriarchy where women are in charge. I understand that there have been women, that there have been 0.99

00:29:12.820 feminist activists that have tried very hard to neuter men, thinking that it is going to lead to a more 0.99

00:29:17.880 peaceful world, that it is going to lead to a more equitable and equal world. It's not going to.

00:29:24.420 The fact of the matter is, is that men are men. Men, throughout all of history, for all of time,

00:29:32.120 in every place, men have been the ones to both found civilizations and destroy civilizations. 0.90

00:29:37.880 They have been the ones to start wars and end wars. That's the truth. But that feminist attempt to try 1.00

00:29:45.140 to change what masculinity is or try to minimize it or try to neuter it in some way is never going to,

00:29:54.340 and it has never, and it's never going to achieve its goal. That is not how a society achieves

00:30:01.920 equality by denying the innate differences between men and women. The fact is, as we've already said,

00:30:08.680 that male aggression has to be channeled towards good things. It has to be channeled towards a good

00:30:13.840 fight. Men need a good fight to fight. An idle man is a dangerous man. There is nothing more dangerous

00:30:21.000 than that, as we have seen over and over again. And so this denial or this theft, I would call it,

00:30:30.040 that we have committed as a society to that. It manifests itself in like stealing the joy of

00:30:37.700 patriotism, stealing the joy and the necessity of hard work, stealing the joy that comes with like

00:30:47.080 real life interaction and adventure with friends, stealing purpose, stealing busyness

00:30:55.820 from young men. We are paying for it. And I don't even think we've seen all of the chickens come

00:31:01.740 home to roost. Unfortunately, I think that we are going to see more of these because we are not even

00:31:07.740 starting to address the problems that these young men are facing because we disagree fundamentally.

00:31:14.520 That's the thing. I mean, the right and the left disagree fundamentally on what the issue is.

00:31:19.400 One side thinks that if we just take away guns and we make it harder for law-abiding citizens to

00:31:24.540 defend themselves and if we just give more money to young people and we just queer up the world, 0.95

00:31:33.120 then all of our problems will be solved and everyone will be happier and these things will

00:31:37.800 go away. And the right realizes that there is a deep moral issue here. There is a godlessness

00:31:45.460 issue here. There's a spiritual issue here. And if we don't start to address that,

00:31:52.360 if we don't start to address the root, then it doesn't matter. The symptom management that is

00:31:58.760 being attempted right now obviously isn't working and it will ultimately be fruitless and it will not

00:32:06.920 matter if we do not have some kind of revival on the spiritual level and men in churches and

00:32:14.460 neighborhoods and communities stepping up and ensuring that they are going after that one

00:32:18.900 lonely, purposeless kid who needs a man in their life to mentor them and to take them under their

00:32:27.580 wing. Maybe you know. Maybe you know someone that you can think of in your community, in your church,

00:32:34.360 in your neighborhood, in your family. You can tell that they need guidance. They need male guidance. 0.96

00:32:43.260 And maybe if you're listening to this and you're thinking of your husband or your brother or someone

00:32:48.200 that you know that can maybe take that young man under their wing, like maybe that is the first step.

00:32:53.620 Maybe all of us think of that person in our lives who needs guidance, who needs fellowship, who needs

00:32:59.440 a purpose. And we try to supply that for them. I mean, we can all only do what we can do, but maybe

00:33:05.540 that's a first step that we can take. Because if you look at this guy in Illinois, it was so obvious.

00:33:10.600 It was so obvious that he needed some intervention in his life. And yet it seems that no one did

00:33:17.460 anything. That is a common theme here. No one's doing anything. So what can we do in our own small

00:33:23.520 way in our own communities to help fix it?

00:33:25.360 There was another tragic event that happened over the weekend, and that was in Akron, Ohio. There was

00:33:42.180 a young man named Jalen Walker. He was a young black man who was shot in the back by police officers. And

00:33:49.880 of course, there were a lot of protests. There were riots that occurred over the weekend in Akron,

00:33:55.020 Ohio by BLM activists and other activists in the city, angry about this, calling this racist police

00:34:02.820 brutality. And so this is according to Fox News. People gathered in the streets of downtown Akron,

00:34:07.920 Ohio Sunday night to protest the deadly police shooting of Jalen Walker. A crowd of people formed

00:34:12.680 in the city outside the Akron Justice Center around 6 p.m. shortly after police footage showing the

00:34:17.180 final moments before Walker's death was released to the public. At the police, the demonstrators can

00:34:23.140 be heard chanting. So this is a part of what happened. So officers fatally shot 25-year-old Jalen

00:34:33.120 Walker, an unarmed black man, after a vehicle and foot pursuit last Monday. A medical examiner

00:34:40.200 confirmed there were more than 60 wounds that were on Walker's body. Now, unarmed is

00:34:47.060 misleading in this case because his car actually did have a handgun and apparently, reportedly,

00:34:53.020 he was shooting at the police from his car. He led them on a wild car chase and then got out of his car

00:34:59.740 and started running. And that is when police officers shot at him. Now, why would police officers do this?

00:35:06.020 Because they didn't know whether he was going to be harmful to the community. Wherever he went,

00:35:13.640 he could have had a gun and he could have shot at people and killed people. It is part of their 1.00

00:35:19.280 responsibility not just to stop this person who is driving away from him, but also could pose a

00:35:27.260 threat to the rest of the community and try to just save the lives of the other people that he could

00:35:31.660 have potentially harmed. That is part of their job. Now, I am not someone who unconditionally defends

00:35:37.960 the police. I see no reason to do that. I am obviously conservative. And so I am very wary

00:35:45.560 of the power of the state, especially used against defenseless individuals. And so I am not someone that

00:35:54.240 you are going to see unconditionally, unwaveringly backing the blue. Obviously, there was a big reason

00:36:00.920 to criticize the police in the Uvalde shooting that happened a few weeks ago in Texas. But in this case,

00:36:08.980 it looks like the police were trying to protect the community from someone that they weren't sure

00:36:16.620 was harmful and a threat. He led them on a wild car chase. This was not something to where they

00:36:23.600 just this they provoked an individual who was doing nothing wrong and then shot and killed him.

00:36:33.540 And so that's what people are angry about. That's what people are protesting and rioting about. Do we

00:36:40.640 have any indication whatsoever that this had to do with skin color, that this had to do with race,

00:36:45.660 that this had some kind of racial motivation to it? No. As we've talked about many times, the data simply

00:36:51.560 does not show the idea that there is an epidemic of violence by cops against unarmed Black men. That

00:37:00.340 is not an epidemic that is happening. We have gone through the data many, many times on that. Now,

00:37:07.660 that's not to say that it's not tragic when there are unjustified shootings by the police or killings

00:37:14.320 by the police to a person of any race. That is something that happens and that should be condemned and

00:37:20.700 there should be accountability for that. But just because there is a certain melanin count of the

00:37:27.160 person who was shot by the police and there was another melanin count by the police officer who shot

00:37:33.680 them does not mean that it is a racial incident. It also doesn't mean that it was necessarily

00:37:38.820 unjustified. And so we'll see what comes out. There could be more information that comes out here and I'm

00:37:46.220 happy to change my assessment and my analysis based on any information or based on any facts

00:37:54.620 that come out. But that's what we have right now that he was he led them on a car chase that he had

00:37:59.760 a gun in his car. He apparently reportedly shot at them. And so he was not technically unarmed. And so

00:38:08.600 yeah, we will continue to talk about that story if it develops.

00:38:24.860 Lots of craziness going on in the world today. Lots of bad. I want to show this picture that I

00:38:30.900 meant to show a couple minutes ago. And it's of this police officer who was walking through

00:38:35.400 the wreckage, the aftermath of the Highland Park, Illinois shooting. And if you're listening to this,

00:38:43.940 it's a police officer. He's walking by himself and he's got his hands covering his face. I think

00:38:50.240 a lot of times it's so easy for us to criticize law enforcement when we feel like they've done

00:38:54.820 something wrong. And sometimes they really do wrong things. They carry hefty responsibility and

00:39:00.320 sometimes that's misused. But they are also some of the best people among us. They are also

00:39:06.920 putting themselves on a line that we would never put ourselves on. They are also making sacrifices

00:39:11.760 that many of us just are not courageous enough to make. And the emotional toll, the physical toll,

00:39:17.560 but also the emotional toll that this puts on men. And as we're talking about earlier, just the lack

00:39:24.760 of masculinity that I think our country is suffering from and the young men who use the natural aggression 1.00

00:39:31.960 that they have in violent and evil and destructive ways. We also have to remember that we do have men

00:39:38.560 among us that are using that natural drive towards protection and aggression that God has given them

00:39:44.860 in a way that protects and that builds and that helps. And this police officer, gosh, it just breaks my

00:39:52.520 heart. And this is also behind the tough veneer of every courageous and heroic man. They're people.

00:40:01.520 They're humans. They have a heart. They have emotions. It is hard for them to see this kind of tragedy.

00:40:07.080 And so let us pray for the people who are on the front lines. Let us pray for this community. Let us pray

00:40:12.860 for the young men of this country, for the older men of this country, that there would be an alliance of

00:40:18.660 responsible mentors with young men who need to be mentored, who need to be fathered, who need to be

00:40:25.460 helped, who need to be paid attention to, who need friends, who need purpose, who need productivity.

00:40:31.700 Let us do everything that we can in our own lives, in our own communities to help that. That's how we

00:40:37.380 really get to the root of all of this. And God just comfort the families that are dealing with the

00:40:44.080 aftermath of this. It gets so tiring to talk about over and over again every single month. There's

00:40:50.820 something like this that happens, and there's not a quick fix. I wish I had a 10-step plan to fix it,

00:40:57.620 but we need God's mercy. We need His guidance, and we need strong men. Thanks so much for listening.

00:41:03.460 We'll be back here tomorrow with a great interview that I know you guys are going to love. It's going to

00:41:08.180 be inspiring and encouraging, also enlightening as we kind of peel back the layers of what's really

00:41:13.340 going on in our education system, how we got where we are, and how we get out of it. So we will see

00:41:19.220 you guys back here tomorrow.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 05, 2022

Ep 637 ｜ America's Masculinity Crisis

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