Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 88

00:00:00.000 What's up, guys? Welcome to Relatable. I hope everyone has had a great week so far.

00:00:04.860 It is Wednesday. We are halfway through the week. And guys, I am so happy that the weather has

00:00:12.600 changed down here in Texas. As I said, probably this time last year, because by the way,

00:00:18.140 we on Relatable are celebrating one year of this podcast. Started out one time a week,

00:00:23.720 moved to two times a week last summer by popular demand. And now it's three times a week. And I've

00:00:28.640 gotten really good feedback from you guys. That's just an aside. But as I said about this time last

00:00:33.300 year, I love the heat and I love the summer. And I cannot wait until it is that kind of day in Texas

00:00:41.000 where you go outside at 8 a.m. and you immediately start sweating where the pool water feels like a

00:00:46.360 bath. I cannot wait now. Just well, we'll see. We'll see what my Instagram stories are like in

00:00:54.080 July when I am miserable with a newborn child and I don't want to leave my refrigerator.

00:01:00.820 We'll see. But right now, I just cannot wait for summer. And the leaves are changing and the trees

00:01:08.620 are the leaves are changing in a good way. I mean, and the trees are blossoming and it's getting to be

00:01:14.800 like 70 degrees. And I am just really excited about that. If you are living somewhere where it's cold,

00:01:20.640 I'm really sorry. You can live vicariously through me. Just pretend like you're living down here in

00:01:26.800 Texas. OK, today we're not going to talk about the weather, although I probably could talk about

00:01:31.620 the weather for 30 minutes, but I'm not going to. I won't bore you in that regard. We're going to talk

00:01:37.420 about some of the stuff that's been going on in the news. As you guys know, Wednesday is going to be

00:01:42.080 our news day and we are going to cover some stuff that's been actually covered for a while now,

00:01:48.260 but is still in the news. So we're going to talk about some of the ideas that Democrats and

00:01:55.160 Democratic candidates have put forward, like lowering the voting age to 16. Is that something

00:01:59.300 that we really want to do? We are also going to talk about abolishing the Electoral College,

00:02:05.460 something that sweet Elizabeth Warren has put forth as a grand idea. But we're also going to talk about

00:02:10.660 the big story, something that happened last week, and that is the shooting in Christchurch,

00:02:15.300 New Zealand. Now on that, I know that you guys have probably already heard everything about that

00:02:20.280 shooting. Like I said, it happened almost a week ago now. People have been covering it,

00:02:25.780 analyzing it, arguing about it, going back and forth for a long time. The last thing that I want

00:02:30.360 to do is rehash old information that you guys already know. I want to add value to this conversation.

00:02:36.360 And so we are going to talk briefly about what happened. We're going to talk about what the

00:02:40.680 Christian response should be, kind of what the right and the left has said, and the reality of

00:02:46.680 this kind of terrorism worldwide from a bigger picture perspective. And then we're going to move

00:02:51.160 on into the other stuff. Okay. Now we're going to talk about something that has made me lose sleep

00:02:56.080 and has probably made a lot of you lose sleep. And that is the tragic shooting that happened last

00:03:01.480 week in New Zealand. So just a brief rundown in case some of you have just been really busy and you

00:03:06.480 haven't been able to turn on the news and hear what's happened. I do not blame you for that,

00:03:10.980 by the way. Sometimes a whole week goes by and I realize that I haven't gotten updated on this very

00:03:17.100 important thing that happened just because I've been too overwhelmed by the details of it. So

00:03:20.980 I'm going to break it down in a simple way for those of you who don't know, or if you just need

00:03:24.960 a refresher. So there was a 28-year-old self-proclaimed white supremacist who opened fire on two mosques

00:03:32.120 in Christchurch, New Zealand last week. He had a camera on his helmet as he opened fire on these

00:03:40.000 people and he live streamed this attack. This video was shared on Facebook millions of times until

00:03:46.260 they took it down. I did not watch the video. I don't even know if it's available online. I

00:03:52.840 encourage you not to watch the video. I didn't want to contribute even in a small way to the attention

00:03:58.940 that this guy obviously was desperate for. Apparently the footage is absolutely horrific. I

00:04:05.480 mean, just gives you nightmares. I didn't need to have that visual in my mind to know that this attack

00:04:11.660 was superbly and profoundly evil. And you probably don't either. Don't feed your mind and don't feed

00:04:20.980 your soul with that kind of stuff. You can understand the severity of something without having to

00:04:26.980 experience it or see it for yourself. And again, that gives this guy the attention that he really

00:04:32.640 obviously craved. This was a very public attack and he made sure to make it that way. 50 people are now

00:04:40.220 dead. That count might go higher. It might go up because 40 people are still suffering in the

00:04:45.480 hospital. Proportionally, this is like their 9-11. Like what 9-11 was for us, that's kind of like what

00:04:52.440 this is for them. Proportionally, proportion to their population. New Zealand is a small country,

00:04:57.820 only about 4.7 million people. This guy, this sick, twisted, evil person wrote and posted a manifesto.

00:05:07.780 He claimed that he had a fear of displacement by immigrants. He expressed a hatred for Muslims and

00:05:14.680 really, and I know this word is a lot of times overused, but this is actually an appropriate place

00:05:20.860 to say the word xenophobic. This guy was extremely xenophobic. He was afraid and hateful toward

00:05:27.740 anyone who didn't look like him, anyone who didn't believe like him. He was angry at everyone who wasn't

00:05:33.920 white, who was what he saw as an affront to his European heritage. I'm not going to say his name.

00:05:42.340 I'm not going to quote the manifesto. I'm not going to give him any more airtime. I am certainly

00:05:47.260 not the first one to say this. I'm probably the millionth person to say this. There have been a

00:05:52.720 lot of conservatives and other people on the other side who have said, I'm not going to give this guy

00:05:58.980 the specific fame that he's looking for. So I'm not going to show his picture or anything like that.

00:06:03.660 I'm going to join the very wise people who have said, we are going to do as much as possible to try to

00:06:10.280 draw attention away from his identity. Now we still have to talk about it. We still have to talk about

00:06:16.180 him, but we can do what we can to keep him anonymous because that's exactly what he doesn't

00:06:21.860 want. He also said in his manifesto that he wants to start a kind of racial war or he wants to start

00:06:29.780 a divisive conversation between the left and the right, between the different cultures throughout

00:06:35.540 the world, specifically in the West. And unfortunately, that's exactly what has happened

00:06:39.900 because he listed some right wing personalities in his manifesto.

00:06:43.660 Um, the left is saying that he is echoing rhetoric of Donald Trump. And so you've got a lot of people

00:06:49.140 on the left saying, look, this is because of Donald Trump. This is because of conservatives.

00:06:55.160 And if they're not stopped, if they're not stopped, if they're not silenced, then this kind of stuff is

00:06:59.900 going to keep going. Of course, that is insanely stupid. This guy might have, uh, in some way been a

00:07:06.220 part of the right because he's basically a fascist and, uh, fascism is on the far right. If you're

00:07:12.540 looking at an ideological spectrum from, uh, right to left, fascism is on the far right. Communism is on

00:07:19.100 the far left. They're both equally evil by the way, but he's technically on the right, but being on the

00:07:24.440 right doesn't make you a conservative. It's not taking conservatism to the extreme. It's just a place

00:07:30.660 on an ideological spectrum. This guy wasn't a conservative. Uh, he didn't care about conserving

00:07:36.520 the constitution, uh, conserving human dignity and the rights that are inherent to men and women

00:07:41.820 because they were given to us by God. That is fundamentally what it means to be a conservative.

00:07:46.480 And of course he lives in New Zealand, so he's not expected to care about, uh, the American

00:07:50.820 constitution. But what I mean is the values, uh, that were placed in the constitution that say

00:07:55.680 that all men and women are created equal because they were endowed by their creator with certain

00:07:59.940 inalienable rights among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is not just

00:08:04.160 an American idea. That's supposed to be really a Western idea, but he says that, um, conservatives

00:08:10.940 aren't really conserving anything. Now, this is something that I've heard from a lot of people in

00:08:15.800 the alt-right. Some conservatives don't want to believe that the alt-right exists, that it was just a

00:08:19.640 word made up by Hillary Clinton. That's not true. The alt-right does exist. And this guy did say

00:08:25.220 some things that sound like some of the things that I've heard. Does that mean that this is the

00:08:29.020 alt-right's fault? No, it doesn't. Of course not. Does this mean that because he mimics the language

00:08:34.440 of some people on the right, that this is the fault of the right, or this is the fault of President

00:08:39.320 Trump? A lot of people are saying because President Trump calls, uh, what's happening at the border

00:08:43.760 an invasion. And this guy apparently used the word invasion that this is President Trump's fault.

00:08:48.620 That's absolutely absurd. As some other people have pointed out, the media did not blame

00:08:54.760 Bernie Sanders for when James Hodgkinson, uh, went to the, went to the baseball field in Virginia

00:09:01.100 and shot at Republican senators because he felt, or he thought that Republicans, uh, were evil for

00:09:08.800 supposedly kicking people off their healthcare and saying 24 million people are going to die.

00:09:13.440 He echoed the sentiments of Bernie Sanders. And yet did we blame Bernie Sanders for that? No. And I

00:09:20.020 don't think we should have blamed Bernie Sanders for that. A lot of people have pointed out the

00:09:22.820 hypocrisy of the hypocrisy of the media though, um, for blaming Donald Trump and blaming everyone

00:09:28.500 on the right for what happened in New Zealand, uh, with a white supremacist. And that is absolutely

00:09:36.300 absurd. So as, as a Christian, what should be our response? Not as someone on the left, not as someone

00:09:45.980 on the right, not from a political perspective, but from a biblical perspective, well, our response

00:09:53.280 should be really, it should be a natural response of profound sadness. I mean, these were people,

00:09:59.100 and this is something that really Christians, people who believe in the Bible can only understand

00:10:03.660 and comprehend is that these people were made in the image of God. They had value because they were

00:10:10.460 made in the image of God, not just because they were any old people, but because they bared the image

00:10:15.340 of God because they had souls. They have families now who are broken, who are devastated, whose lives

00:10:21.860 are completely marred by this, who are traumatized forever from what they saw from the people that

00:10:27.560 they lost in our hearts should break for them. Um, we should pray for these families. We should pray

00:10:33.500 that they would know and feel, uh, the God of peace that God would be with them. And we should pray that

00:10:39.240 they would come to know Christ in whom, uh, we find ultimate fulfillment, ultimate satisfaction,

00:10:44.800 and of course, uh, salvation. We should pray that they find the joy and the comfort and the peace

00:10:50.260 that can only come from them. We should be praying hard for them. We should be praying for the churches

00:10:55.620 in New Zealand, that they are mobilized to do the good work of Christ, that they go to these people.

00:11:00.260 They mourn with those who mourn. Of course, as we are also called to rejoice with those who rejoice,

00:11:05.300 we should pray for the church, uh, that they are able to help these people bear their burdens of

00:11:13.560 sadness and of sorrow, not seeking anything in return, uh, except just to love them and show the

00:11:19.180 unconditional love of Christ. That's what we should be praying for. However, a lot of people,

00:11:25.480 especially in America and especially on the left in America, some people on the right as well,

00:11:30.780 uh, disdain this idea of thoughts and prayers. You've got a lot of people saying,

00:11:34.380 I'm giving my thoughts and prayers to these people. Now, where I agree with that is that I,

00:11:40.540 I don't really understand what people say, what people mean when they say thoughts,

00:11:45.020 you are sending your thoughts. You could be thinking thoughts. You could be feeling things,

00:11:50.060 but all of those things are really, uh, they're trapped inside you. They don't actually do anything.

00:11:55.000 It's not actually possible to send good vibes. It's not actually possible to send love. It's not

00:12:00.280 possible to send thoughts. No one can read your thoughts. No one can feel your thoughts. Your

00:12:05.180 feelings enclosed in your body and closed in your mind don't actually have any effect.

00:12:10.260 So when people criticize the idea of thoughts, even though I don't think it's necessarily appropriate

00:12:16.240 right then, and I've made that mistake before of criticizing thoughts, don't mean anything in the

00:12:22.480 wake of something. And that was inappropriate. And I do think it's inappropriate when people are just

00:12:27.160 trying to sincerely respond to say your thoughts don't mean anything. But at this point, I think

00:12:31.940 it's fair to say, it's fair to point out that your thoughts don't, your thoughts don't actually do

00:12:37.980 anything. Your good vibes don't actually do anything. Your feeling of love doesn't actually

00:12:41.960 do anything that is doing something for you. It's not doing anything for other people, but what does

00:12:46.940 something, what does have power, what does have impact, what does have meaning, what can change things

00:12:53.820 and have a very real effect on the material world and on the hearts and souls and minds of real

00:13:01.400 physical people is prayer. Thoughts and prayers, in my opinion, shouldn't even be put in the same

00:13:08.140 sentence. Because what are thoughts except for things that you conceptualize in your head that,

00:13:13.200 like I said, have really no outside meaning unless they do spur action. But prayers, prayers are

00:13:20.000 different. Because you're not praying to yourself. It's not just a thought you have. You are praying

00:13:25.140 to the God of the universe. You are praying to the God who is in and through and who created everything.

00:13:32.740 James 5.16 says, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Romans 8.26 says,

00:13:40.660 likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought,

00:13:46.920 but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. A lot of people

00:13:54.340 disdain this because the reality is, is that a lot of people who don't really understand the Bible,

00:14:00.540 who maybe aren't practicing Christians, or they're just not people who understand prayer and the power

00:14:07.460 of prayer, they don't understand the nature of God, disdain this because they think of prayers as

00:14:14.560 thoughts. They think of them as these blurbs that go on inside your head that don't actually

00:14:19.900 ever leave your head. They're not going to anything. They're just something to make you feel

00:14:23.380 better. So if you think of prayers as nothing more than sincere thoughts, then yeah, maybe you would

00:14:30.520 be angry about this. But that just goes to show the people who are angry about people saying that

00:14:35.580 they're praying don't really understand prayer. That's, that's a heart issue for them. AOC tweeted

00:14:43.300 out, what good are your thoughts and prayers when they don't even keep the pew safe? So this is

00:14:49.520 someone who fundamentally does not understand prayer. She's saying, why are you even praying? All of these

00:14:57.160 religious people are being attacked. Obviously that's not working. Now she didn't say that explicitly,

00:15:02.720 but that's the obvious implication from what she said. What good are your thoughts and prayers when

00:15:07.760 they don't even keep the pew safe? She's saying, obviously your prayers are insufficient. So she has

00:15:12.920 a very basic misunderstanding of theology. She doesn't understand the nature of God. She doesn't

00:15:17.720 understand the nature of prayer. She doesn't understand James 5, 16, doesn't understand Romans 8, 26.

00:15:23.360 When you pray in Jesus, there is something real that is happening. Even as a, even if you are the

00:15:32.660 staunchest Calvinist in the world who believes in the sovereignty of God, the Bible is still very

00:15:37.600 clear that our, we have a responsibility in our actions and our actions have consequences, even

00:15:42.680 though God is sovereign over it all. But you are praying for something real. You are praying for

00:15:49.640 something to manifest itself. Like I said, you are praying to the God who created everything.

00:15:53.360 God sees a thousand years from now, just as clearly as he sees the dawn of creation. He is suspended in

00:16:02.960 this eternal now. So that means that he's not surprised by anything. He wasn't thrown off by

00:16:07.920 this attack. Nothing throws him off. He's not wondering how we got to this place. He's not up

00:16:12.460 there shaking his head saying, wow, I did not see this coming. How'd you get yourselves into all this?

00:16:17.740 Okay. Well, I got to come clean it up. No, he is over all of it. He is bigger than all of it. He

00:16:23.440 doesn't go through our days. Like we do. He's not wondering what's going to happen tomorrow. He's not

00:16:28.380 having a hard time remembering what happened yesterday. He is suspended in the eternal. Now he

00:16:33.640 is just as present today as he will, as he is a thousand years ago. And as he, as he is a thousand

00:16:39.340 years from now, that means nothing gets past him. Uh, and even when it does not seem like it,

00:16:46.100 that means that he is in total control. Uh, the prayer of a Christian to his or her heavenly father

00:16:53.740 has great power because he is over everything and he is in control of everything. Now we don't

00:17:02.080 understand that. It's very easy to say that. And we don't understand it. We don't get why bad things

00:17:08.220 happen. Uh, we get, okay, we live in a fallen world. We get the garden of Eden. We understand that

00:17:14.360 there were consequences from that. Uh, we know people get sick and die, but when we really think

00:17:19.720 about it, you know, it's hard, it's hard for us to really comprehend if we're honest with ourselves,

00:17:24.720 evil like this, um, something so sick and twisted, something like the Holocaust, something like the

00:17:33.120 event in New Zealand. It's very hard for us to understand how a God who is both all good,

00:17:39.580 who is all powerful, who is all knowing, and who is all present, uh, to, for that. It's hard for us

00:17:50.680 to imagine a God like that with all of those characteristics, um, being sovereign over and

00:17:57.100 being in control over such horrific things that cause human suffering. It is hard to understand and

00:18:04.100 believe that a sovereign good God was, uh, in control or sovereign over 9-11. He was sovereign

00:18:11.100 over the Christ church shooting. Of course, I don't think that he, he, I know that he doesn't

00:18:17.760 want those things to happen in the sense that of course he doesn't want people to suffer. He doesn't

00:18:23.220 take joy from that, but it's also not theologically correct to say that he just sits back and allows

00:18:29.300 it to happen. That is taking away one characteristic of God that the Bible does not allow us to take

00:18:35.000 away. He doesn't remove his power. He doesn't say all of a sudden I'm not in control and whoops,

00:18:41.120 how did that happen? He is still in control. And that's the part that we don't really understand.

00:18:46.300 And I'm not sure that we are meant to understand that at all times, in all situations, in all evil

00:18:52.600 eras of history, God is just as in control as he is during the good times. Um, that means that

00:19:00.680 as hard as it is for us to comprehend that we cannot deny that God is in total control over tragedies,

00:19:09.340 um, as he is over joy, over things that bring us peace, uh, because to do so would say that he's

00:19:17.580 either not good to say that he's not knowing or that he's not present. And he is all three or that

00:19:22.460 he's not, uh, all powerful. And he is all of those things. Even if we don't get it, we're not meant

00:19:27.860 to, we are meant to trust that. Uh, and the hope for the Christian, the hope for the Christian is

00:19:33.560 not that one day we will totally be able to reconcile all of these parts of, of God's

00:19:38.200 character, which we just have to trust are true because the Bible says it is. And because the Bible

00:19:42.280 is God's word, and that's really the only source of truth that we have. And so we have to be able to

00:19:46.420 cling to it as fallible human beings. Uh, but the hope for the Christian is that one day

00:19:52.240 reconciliation will be complete, that there will be no more terrorism. There will be no more

00:19:59.140 shootings. There will be no more white supremacy. There will be no more death. There will be no more

00:20:04.400 mourning. There will be no more media. Thank goodness. Uh, there will only be fullness of joy

00:20:09.720 for all of those who have put their faith in Christ. There will be everlasting peace. This won't be

00:20:14.360 something that we have to worry about anymore. We're not going to be anxious anymore. We're not going to be

00:20:19.400 desperate anymore. We're not going to be depressed anymore. We're not going to be concerned with

00:20:24.060 anything except for worshiping Jesus. That's the hope that we have. And so our job now, as it always

00:20:30.240 is, is to preach the gospel, to serve others and to pray, tell people about Jesus, show them

00:20:35.860 hospitality and generosity and pray, pray for the souls of the people around you, of the souls and the

00:20:42.080 minds of those in power. Now, all of that said, it is still a fair question. Is there more that can be

00:20:50.660 done? Should we talk about gun legislation? Uh, after all I'm pro-life. I don't only pray that

00:20:58.760 abortion is ended. I should be praying that every day. I don't only pray that we end abortion. I all,

00:21:05.040 I also fight for ways to end abortion. So I, uh, volunteer, I help pro-life organizations. I

00:21:12.280 donate, I advocate and talk about legislation that would restrict access to abortion. And I also look

00:21:19.800 for ways to help women who are in crisis. I want abortion to be unthinkable. I do things in order to

00:21:26.620 manifest that just reality. And so it's a fair question for Christians and non-Christians alike to

00:21:33.320 say, is gun legislation something that we should look into? Now, uh, prime minister, the prime

00:21:41.120 minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden, uh, has pledged proposed legislation within the next week

00:21:46.880 that would dramatically change gun laws in that country. Uh, these are measures that could include

00:21:51.260 restricting military style, semi-automatic automatic weapons, uh, that were used in the attack last week.

00:21:57.060 Uh, according to the New York times to get a gun in New Zealand, it's already pretty hard. It's harder

00:22:01.620 than it is in the United States. Uh, the applicant has to first pass a background check, uh, that,

00:22:06.880 that considers criminal medical, mental health, domestic violence records, provide character

00:22:11.840 references, uh, subject themselves to government interviews, pass a home security inspection,

00:22:16.980 take a gun safety course, and then wait weeks or months for firearms license approval. Now, I think

00:22:22.920 that is way too strict. If someone is looking to defend themselves with a gun and if someone really

00:22:28.020 fears for their life, they have to wait weeks or months to be able to have the right to defend

00:22:32.220 themselves, I think that's way too much, but they've already got really strict laws in place.

00:22:37.080 Um, in 2017 though, even though it takes a long time, it's not extremely hard, uh, or they don't

00:22:43.960 typically deny people in 2017, uh, 43,509 firearms license applications were submitted in New Zealand.

00:22:51.960 Only 188 applications were declined. Uh, according to figures compiled by the university of Sydney,

00:22:59.260 New Zealand had 0.17 gun related homicides per a hundred thousand people in 2015. That's really low

00:23:05.800 in contrast to the United States, which had 11 deaths per a hundred thousand people in 2015,

00:23:10.880 according to a report from the U S centers for disease control and prevention. So what they're

00:23:16.440 trying to do now by enacting a gun restricting legislation or gun rights restricting legislation,

00:23:21.800 it's really an emotional decision. They are completely, um, they're completely in their

00:23:28.420 rights to be emotional and to be distraught over this. However, emotionalism doesn't usually lay a

00:23:37.640 good groundwork for legislation that restricts the rights of law abiding citizens. Um, the reality is

00:23:44.240 they don't really have a homicide problem. Uh, 1.2 million guns are in New Zealand, barely have any

00:23:51.600 deaths by guns every year. We have Kim Kardashian policy expert tweeting out, uh, just 24 hours after

00:23:59.980 the Christchurch shooting, New Zealand banned semi-automatic guns, America take note. Why can't

00:24:05.600 our elected officials put public safety over gun manufacturers profits? Well, this just points to

00:24:10.520 a profound misunderstanding of the right to bear arms in the second amendment in the United States

00:24:16.700 of America. It has nothing to do with gun manufacturers profits. It's the right of law

00:24:22.100 abiding citizens, uh, to bear arms. And the problem as we've seen in study after study is not law abiding

00:24:31.180 citizens who own their guns legally. It's people who get their guns illegally. It's people who break

00:24:36.140 the law in other ways. And we have not seen that gun legislation in this country has had a significantly

00:24:42.400 positive impact on a gun related deaths because it's not necessarily a legislation problem. It's

00:24:50.400 certainly not an NRA problem. And so we can look at somewhere like New Zealand, which is a completely

00:24:55.980 different country than us and say they enacted this legislation. But the question should be not is,

00:25:00.860 does this feel good to us after a tragic incident, but is this going to work? And I'm just not sure that

00:25:06.680 it is. Uh, the media, as we've already kind of discussed at the beginning is really grappling with who to

00:25:11.820 blame. Here's a guest on MSNBC saying that this is Fox news's fault. And to my mind, Fox news is the

00:25:19.640 single cause, singular cause of this kind of hate in discourse. And almost every liberal news outlet

00:25:28.020 has kind of gone down that same vein. Uh, Twitter has been ablaze for the past week with people blaming,

00:25:34.380 uh, conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro, like Candace Owens, or anyone who has ever criticized

00:25:40.820 Islam in their lives. It's completely absurd. Again, the same respect was disrespect was not shown

00:25:48.420 to Bernie Sanders after James Hodgkinson, um, shot and almost killed Steve Scalise, the Republican

00:25:55.020 Senator, um, Chelsea Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, you know, Democrat, you know, daughter of Bill and Hillary

00:26:02.180 Clinton. Uh, she is being blamed for criticizing Ilhan Omar for being an antisemite. Ilhan Omar

00:26:10.380 is the representative from Minnesota, freshman representative from Minnesota that we talked

00:26:14.880 about, I think last week, who is an antisemite. And she said very antisemite things multiple times.

00:26:19.180 Uh, so here, Chelsea Clinton is pregnant, Chelsea Clinton, uh, being harassed by people at a vigil

00:26:24.460 in New York. After all that you have done and all this, this right here is the result of a massacre

00:26:42.300 stoked by people like you and the word that you put out into the world. And I want you to know that.

00:26:47.400 And I want you to feel that deep inside. The 49 people died because of the rhetoric that you put

00:26:51.580 out there. I don't think, I don't think. What does, I'm sorry, you feel that we mean? What does that

00:26:59.120 mean? Uh, so the people who harassed her, these absolutely out of their minds, crazy people who

00:27:04.880 didn't even, uh, didn't even have an ability to make a logical argument, basically said that because

00:27:10.140 Chelsea Clinton cared about antisemitism and the antisemitism that was showed by Ilhan Omar,

00:27:14.200 um, that she spoke out in a very respectful way, uh, about that, that she somehow contributes

00:27:20.600 to what happened in New Zealand. Okay. So these people got space in Buzzfeed to write an op-ed

00:27:29.080 Buzzfeed gives a platform to these kinds of harassers. So here's a quote from that spread

00:27:33.600 on by professional bigots, anti-Muslim hate now permeates our culture and politics. And everyone

00:27:37.860 is a matter of urgency should consider the role they play in enabling it. That includes Chelsea Clinton.

00:27:42.400 Okay. Sure. I agree. We should assess in our hearts. If we hate people because of their religion,

00:27:48.460 if we hate people because of their skin color, if we are truly bigoted and racist and we have

00:27:53.620 deep seated hate in our hearts as Christians, uh, of course, we're told to do that. Jesus says

00:27:58.060 that if you hate someone in your heart, that is the same as murdering them. So of course Christians

00:28:04.680 and everyone, well, really not, but they say that they do really, everyone has a moral obligation

00:28:11.960 to assess in their hearts, whether or not they hate someone, especially in a particularly bigoted

00:28:16.620 anti-religious way, of course, but Chelsea Clinton didn't represent that. She hasn't demonstrated that.

00:28:22.740 And it is not true to say that anti-Muslim hate permeates our culture or permeates our media.

00:28:29.280 That is simply not true. The fact that these people are, uh, getting, are getting space on

00:28:35.700 buzzfeed.com shows the, shows the past that we give people who say that criticizing Islam in any way

00:28:44.980 or criticizing someone who is Muslim in any way is Islamophobic. I mean, Ilhan Omar, after her

00:28:50.780 anti-Semitic statements got to write an op-ed in the Washington post. And so we are totally fine

00:28:56.000 with giving people like Ilhan Omar and people who say that criticizing Islam is evil and, uh,

00:29:02.380 perpetuates white supremacy and terrorist attacks. We're totally fine with giving them a platform in

00:29:06.960 the media. So I'm not really sure what these people are complaining about. The media is extremely biased

00:29:12.900 when it comes to reporting like this. And the reason why they have covered this for so long is yes,

00:29:17.740 because it's tragic. Yes, because it should be talked about. Yes, because white supremacy should be

00:29:22.580 denounced. And by the way, Trump hasn't done, I don't think an explicit and a good enough job to

00:29:27.240 say that white supremacy is a problem and it is something that needs to be addressed and needs to

00:29:34.180 be condemned outright and is a terrorist ideology, just like any other extremist ideology. I think we

00:29:43.560 should talk about that, but that's really one of the only reasons why a lot of people in the media

00:29:47.960 have been harping on this for so long because it fits the narrative that the problem is everyone

00:29:52.480 on the right. The problem is president Trump, that we're the ones perpetuating extremism. Well,

00:29:58.560 that's obviously not true. The numbers don't even prove that more Muslims are killed by extremist

00:30:04.000 Muslims every year than they're killed by any other group. And you just don't hear them reporting on that.

00:30:09.400 You don't hear them reporting on the Christians who are martyred, who are killed every year in

00:30:15.680 Muslim majority countries. I'm not saying that now is the right time to necessarily report on that,

00:30:20.620 but we don't hear the media talking about that. Why? Because it doesn't fit the narrative. And

00:30:24.420 quite frankly, I think that's disgusting. If you really care about the loss of human life,

00:30:28.480 if you really care about anti-religious bigotry, which we should, bigotry against any religion,

00:30:34.120 then we need to be talking about that kind of stuff. For example, there is a story that I saw in

00:30:40.000 Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and this is from my friend Nick Pitts's daily briefing email,

00:30:44.340 and he reports at least 120 people have been killed in a series of alleged attacks by Fulani

00:30:48.940 militia on Christian communities and the Adara chiefdom of Southern Kaduna in Nigeria since

00:30:53.760 February, according to the nonprofit group Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Fulani is a Muslim nomadic

00:30:59.140 group in Africa. And I'm not saying that we need to focus on this or we need to say what aboutism.

00:31:04.460 All I'm saying, all I'm saying is that if the media really cared about the loss of life,

00:31:09.220 if the media really cared about anti-religious bigotry without the spinning of a narrative,

00:31:14.700 then they would talk about these things too. They would talk about the harassment of other

00:31:18.320 religions around the world, the harassment of Christians, the harassment of Jews on a wide scale,

00:31:24.000 because the fact of the matter is, according to Pew Research, Christians are the number one target

00:31:28.760 of anti-religious harassment everywhere throughout the world. We don't hear the media reporting on that.

00:31:34.120 All I'm saying is that we need reporting of all of this stuff. And I am guilty of this as well. I usually

00:31:40.560 just kind of jump on whatever the media is reporting on. And I don't jump on the persecution that's

00:31:44.720 happening of all Christians, or not just of all Christians, of all religions throughout the world.

00:31:49.400 And so we just need to be aware of the fact that a lot of the media, the only reason why they're

00:31:54.900 really focusing on this isn't because of the tragic loss of life, which is why they should be

00:31:59.040 focusing on it, but because it fits into their anti-right narrative. And that's really disgusting.

00:32:05.540 It's really disgusting to be politicizing something like this. We're all guilty of

00:32:09.740 politicizing things. We're all guilty of using something dramatic or tragic that happens to advance

00:32:16.680 our narrative. And we all need to get better at not doing that because that's exactly what this

00:32:21.280 shooter wanted. And he wanted to drive this kind of division. He wanted to drive this kind of wedge.

00:32:27.500 What we need to unite around, which we just can't do, is that people are evil, that evil exists in

00:32:33.880 the world, and that this is a matter of the heart. This is a soul sickness. And that doesn't mean that

00:32:39.320 legislation is never an option. That doesn't mean that there's never something to do. But primarily,

00:32:44.760 this is a problem of morality. This is a problem of the heart. But we're unwilling to get on that.

00:32:51.600 Instead, we just want the clicks. We just want to drive up the views. We just want the drama that

00:32:58.040 comes with good ratings. And so we politicize things to the point of blaming people that have

00:33:03.620 nothing to do with it. And we fail to report on other problems that are happening simply because

00:33:08.700 they don't fit into our narrative. And that's really sad. That's a horrible and truthless place to be.

00:33:15.620 And Christians, myself included, need to get better at removing ourselves from that and seeing the

00:33:20.240 bigger and more eternal picture. So I'm going to move on from that. I'm going to talk about two

00:33:24.940 other really stupid things. There's no other there's really no other way to say it. So there's

00:33:29.960 really two ridiculous things that I want everyone to take notice of that's happening in the Democratic

00:33:36.280 Party. Now, there's stupid stuff that happens in the Republican Party as well. There's stupid stuff

00:33:39.960 that happens on the right as well. But these two things happen to be perpetuated by the left.

00:33:44.740 And so we're going to talk about them really fast. Nancy Pelosi thinks that we should lower the

00:33:51.140 voting age to 16. Here she is suggesting that. Well, I disagree with the ACLU on this. In terms of

00:33:58.580 legislation, we couldn't be prouder than H.R.1. This is about reducing the role of big, dark, special

00:34:05.880 interest money in politics and empowering small donors. It's about ending voter suppression. It's about

00:34:13.600 making redistricting fair. It's it's it's really a source of joy and hope to so many people in the

00:34:21.000 country. I myself personally am not speaking for my caucus. I myself have always been for lowering

00:34:27.260 the voting age to succeed. I think it's really important to capture kids when they're in high

00:34:32.500 school, when they're interested in all of this, when they're learning about government to be able to

00:34:37.740 vote. That is that is not necessary. You know, in other words, some of the priorities in this bill

00:34:43.040 are that transparency and openness and accessibility and the rest. That's a subject of debate. But my view

00:34:51.620 is that I would welcome that. But I've been in that position for a long time.

00:34:55.920 OK, so here's the thing. When I was 16 years old, my parents were sweet enough to allow me to have a

00:35:06.400 car. Looking back like that probably wasn't the best idea. Now, would I have pitched a little bratty

00:35:14.200 15 year old fit if I hadn't been able to drive and get my driver's license and have a car? Yes,

00:35:20.500 I probably would have. Why? Because 16 year olds are stupid. They're mostly stupid. And it's not

00:35:25.920 even really our fault when we're 16. Like our brains just haven't developed yet. And we're so

00:35:30.500 full of hormones that we think that we're smarter than we are. We think that we make good decisions.

00:35:34.800 Why do you think our insurance is so high when we are 16 years old and driving? Because we are dumb.

00:35:40.980 And I am living proof of that. Thankfully, I'm still alive because I got in six fender

00:35:45.960 benders in the first six months of having a license when I was 16. Now, why the heck

00:35:50.380 my parents weren't like, yeah, I'm taking the keys away from you because they probably wanted

00:35:57.100 their independence and they were being nice and gracious to me. But oh, my gosh, I was an idiot.

00:36:03.340 I remember the first time I got in a fender bender. I was with my friends and we were listening to

00:36:06.860 Taylor Swift's Fearless album. That album bring brings back all these times in the Volvo that I

00:36:12.800 drove. We were listening to it and I was backing up my car. Didn't even look in the rearview mirror to

00:36:17.400 the person that was behind me backed into a car. There are so many other stupid stories

00:36:21.840 of me at 16 years old being an idiot. Why? Because 16 year olds are stupid. We're just not smart. We

00:36:30.840 just don't know anything. Now, we might be smart for our ages. And of course, we're valuable people

00:36:36.240 and we should be taken seriously. And that's all well and good. But should we be given a voice

00:36:42.180 in civic life? Should we be able to vote? Absolutely not. I actually think 18 is too low

00:36:47.220 because really the phenomenon that's been happening in our country for quite some time

00:36:51.740 is prolonged adolescence. People are younger for a lot longer. People put off a taking responsibility,

00:36:58.120 getting a job, moving out of their parents' house, paying off debt, getting married and having kids.

00:37:04.320 It's later than it has ever been. And we think adulting is something that you don't have to do until

00:37:09.780 you're 35. And so you just laugh it off and say, oh, it's still fun to get hung over on Sundays when

00:37:16.440 you are 27 years old because adulting is boring. Yeah, I just kind of think that maybe at 16 years

00:37:25.260 old, like when you haven't even your frontal lobe is just like this tiny thing that's barely pulsating

00:37:33.280 that you maybe shouldn't have an effect on the kind of taxes that I have to pay. Here's my theory

00:37:41.660 is that, you know, back in the day when America was just starting out, we said no taxation without

00:37:49.620 representation. Well, now it should be no representation without taxation. You have to pay

00:37:56.980 some kind of tax in order to vote, not sales tax. That doesn't work. And I've gone on and on with my

00:38:04.320 Twitter audience about this and how you would have to have some exemptions for the disabled.

00:38:09.160 You'd have to have some exemptions for retirees, but you have to be contributing in some way.

00:38:15.680 Most people in America, you have to be contributing taxes and not just sales tax in order to vote because

00:38:21.740 you should have some skin in the game like this should actually affect you. Why should a 16

00:38:26.920 year old who is still getting who is still getting their lunch money from their parents

00:38:34.760 determine how much I pay in taxes? Like, can you tell me that? I actually think we can eliminate

00:38:40.980 the age limit altogether. I'm fine with 16 year olds voting. If there is 16 year old that is working

00:38:47.020 and that is paying taxes, they have to provide for their family. I get that. That's hard. They're

00:38:50.960 actually affected by stuff and they don't have a say in anything. I don't think that's fair. I'm fine

00:38:55.240 with 16 year olds voting as long as they're paying taxes. I am not okay with people who are doing

00:39:01.280 nothing to contribute to society whatsoever, even though they can physically, mentally, they're able

00:39:06.380 to. They're not contributing to society. They're not paying taxes. And they get a say on how much I pay

00:39:14.080 in taxes, the things that affect my life that don't really affect theirs. No, I say no representation

00:39:21.620 without taxation. It is stupid, stupid to allow teenagers, most of whom really have no responsibility

00:39:29.660 and have zero skin in the game, have no idea how money works whatsoever to vote for policies that

00:39:37.660 affect me and you. It doesn't make any sense. But the Democrats want this because they know the young

00:39:42.440 people are Democrats because it's cool to be liberal. It's cool to care about social stuff.

00:39:48.300 The funny thing is they tout themselves as the educated intellectual party, but they know that

00:39:53.380 the only way that they're going to keep subsisting, the only way that they are going to survive is if

00:39:58.940 they have 16 year olds whose brains aren't developed yet to vote for them. Come on, come on. But you can

00:40:05.600 bet if that does happen, I'm going to be in every high school in America. Like I am going to be gathering

00:40:10.720 these people up and say, here's the Constitution, people. If you're going to vote, you need to know a

00:40:14.980 little bit about it. Now, I wish that we could also have a civics test before we voted, but I'm not

00:40:20.700 really totally sure that that's actually legal. I think that the Supreme Court said that that's not

00:40:25.400 that that's not constitutional. I would challenge that. I think that we should know something

00:40:30.960 just about physics, basic or physics. What? Wow. I would never be able to vote if we had to know

00:40:36.980 something about physics, civics in order to vote. But like I said, I'm not really sure that's going to

00:40:41.900 happen. OK, second thing that's going on that the left apparently thinks is a really good idea.

00:40:46.660 Some people, not everyone, some people on the left seem to think it's a good idea. I've seen this

00:40:51.480 perpetuated a lot that we should abolish the Electoral College. And here is sweet girl,

00:40:57.380 Chief Elizabeth Warren saying as much, you know, come a general election, presidential candidates

00:41:04.760 don't come to places like Mississippi. Yeah. They also don't come to places like California and

00:41:13.040 Massachusetts, right? Because we're not the battleground states. Well, my view is that every

00:41:21.160 vote matters. And the way we can make that happen

00:41:25.800 is that we can have national voting. And that means get rid of the Electoral College.

00:41:42.640 So, OK, we all kind of need a refresher on what the Electoral College does. There's actually a really

00:41:48.320 good PragerU video that I would encourage you to go watch about the Electoral College, just so we

00:41:53.780 understand what it is. But here's what would happen if we had no Electoral College. The popular vote

00:42:00.700 would obviously would obviously be the one who determines who determines who the president of

00:42:05.700 the United States is. So that means that Hillary Clinton would have won the presidency because she

00:42:10.240 won the popular vote. President Trump won the electoral vote. The reason why President Trump won

00:42:14.360 the electoral vote, if you look at a map, a voting map after the 2016 election, it's almost completely

00:42:20.260 red. The whole country is almost completely red. But you see in these big cities that Hillary Clinton

00:42:26.140 won the big cities. And so what you would have happening is that you would have people who live

00:42:31.900 in New York, people who New York City, people who live in San Francisco, people who live in even

00:42:36.820 places like Dallas, determining what happens for the rest of the country. People who know nothing

00:42:42.100 about farming, who know nothing about the issues that the middle of the country is facing,

00:42:46.400 would determine the fate for the rest of the country. That is why we have the Electoral College.

00:42:53.140 You would never have a candidate again going to the middle of the middle America. You would only

00:42:59.620 have them visiting the big cities because the big cities would be the only the only cities that

00:43:06.140 actually matter. You would have mob rule. There's a reason why the founders set up the Electoral

00:43:11.160 College. So everyone is evenly representative. You've represented you hear the same people

00:43:16.660 complaining that states with a lower population shouldn't have the same number of senators in

00:43:22.200 states with a higher population. Well, that's also idiotic. That's why we have the House of

00:43:28.140 Representatives. You have a certain number of representatives based on how many people are

00:43:31.980 in your state. But you have the same number of senators per state, no matter how many people you have

00:43:37.340 in your state. Yes, that's how it's supposed to work. And so it's not mob rule. So people in San

00:43:44.000 Francisco can't decide, can't decide all of the issues and all of the representation and all of the

00:43:52.880 leadership for the people in Bozeman, Montana, because they don't have the same issues. And of

00:43:56.220 course, you still have state and local politicians. But we are supposed to be represented on a federal

00:44:01.680 level in a way that corresponds with the issues that we're facing. And if you abolish something like

00:44:07.500 the Electoral College, if you say, OK, we're not going to have representation or even representation on

00:44:14.780 every state, we're only going to have representation based on population. And then, like I said, you have

00:44:19.080 urban and mob rule. So these are very, very dumb ideas. Lowering the voting age to 16, abolishing the

00:44:28.320 electoral college. It's really Democrats attempt to stay in power by violating the Constitution.

00:44:34.840 Lowering the age to 16 is not unconstitutional. But they really hate how the country is set up and how

00:44:41.480 it has resulted in Republicans winning. And quite frankly, I think they cannot for the life of them

00:44:46.720 understand how, with all of the tools and the money and the power that they have on their side and

00:44:52.920 the manipulative rhetoric that they've been able to wield, that people are still voting Republican.

00:44:58.640 They just don't get it. And so they're trying any means possible to make sure that they can get

00:45:03.440 power and stay in power. And we need to be smart enough to fight up against that and say something

00:45:08.160 about it. OK, that's all I have to say for today. On Friday, we're going to have a really fun and

00:45:12.120 laid back episode. I'm really excited about it. Who knows what we're going to talk about? I'm going to

00:45:16.100 answer some questions and talk about some trash people stuff. So I hope you have a great couple

00:45:20.080 days and I will see you here on Friday morning.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 20, 2019

Ep 88 ｜ Dumb Decisions

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