For nearly 140 years, the Statue of Liberty has stood in New York Harbor, torch held high, a symbol of freedom and hope. But last week, a French politician made headlines by saying they want her back. How did a monument to liberty become a rallying cry for open borders? And more importantly, what does this shift reveal about the way modern America understands itself? Today we re going back to the real history, breaking down the myth and pointing towards a better vision.
00:01:03.200Those words were never part of the statue's original meaning.
00:01:06.680When France gifted the statue to the United States in 1886,
00:01:10.900she was named Liberty Enlightening the World.
00:01:14.560She was not meant to symbolize mass migration, but the ideals of ordered liberty.
00:01:19.900The kind of liberty that could only be sustained by a virtuous and free people.
00:01:25.240She was a monument to the political and spiritual inheritance of Christodom, a testament to the unique civilization that made true freedom possible.
00:01:35.080Yet over time, that meaning was rewritten.
00:01:38.260Lady Liberty was no longer a symbol of Christian self-government, but of open borders and a rootless multicultural myth.
00:01:47.020So what happens when a nation forgets what made it free in the first place?
00:01:51.600Today, we're setting the record straight.
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00:02:18.240The Statue of Liberty was never meant to be a symbol of mass migration,
00:02:22.380Yet somehow, that's the version of history that we've all been sold.
00:14:53.820And those ideals, you're absolutely right.
00:14:56.220Nobody models those better than perhaps France.1.00
00:14:59.320Like the ideals of getting rid of every single border and allowing your own native people to be completely invaded by the third world and particularly by Muslims and people who hate liberty.1.00
00:15:12.000Then, yeah, in that sense, the Statue of Liberty belongs to no one better.1.00
00:15:16.640It's nowhere more fitting than France.
00:15:18.880As France continues to commit national suicide, which is really, it's angering, but it's tragic, especially to the French people.
00:15:33.400You're saying, well, America doesn't, America is, we, the French, a suicidal people, gave this to you to ensure that you too would join us in suicide.
00:15:45.460And you guys are backing out of the deal.
00:15:47.340it seems like, you know, that you've got, you've elected some leaders who at least want to commit
00:15:52.240suicide slower and maybe not at all. And so you don't deserve this stat. You give it back.
00:15:57.660Those weren't the terms we gave it on. That's right. Yeah. That's basically what's going on.
00:16:00.860Well, to add a little levity to this, if you didn't see it, it's worth watching. Well,
00:16:05.020you're going to watch it now if you're watching the live stream, but we're going to play
00:16:07.300a response from the White House press secretary when asked about this exact question. And I think
00:16:13.960it's pretty great. A French politician requesting the United States return the Statue of Liberty,
00:16:20.200Raphael Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament, he says, give us back the Statue
00:16:25.000of Liberty to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants. The White House press
00:16:30.220secretary steps up. My advice to that low-level French politician would be to remind them that
00:16:36.500it's only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now.
00:16:40.960I can just imagine Donald Trump just being like, you know what?
00:17:04.960now it pains me greatly to point out historically that one of the reasons why america was able to
00:17:15.580win its independence was because france cast his law in with us in the war for independence
00:17:22.280the revolutionary war it's a painful memory so we do have to at least acknowledge that um we do
00:17:29.060have something of a partnership going back with the french a long way but actually that is kind
00:17:34.100of what led to the collaboration or at least the gift of the Statue of Liberty towards us is
00:17:39.520the French Revolution, if I'm right, historically came several years after the American Revolution.
00:17:46.340And in principle, they said, we want what America has. In theory, they said, oh, except for without0.59
00:17:53.240the Christianity. We'll take the Rousseau, we'll take the humanism, and we will gain our quote
00:18:00.540unquote independence and freedom um but in a lot of ways france even though it sided with us
00:18:05.940we quickly outpaced it and it even in its revolution ended up kind of looking up to the
00:18:11.740american um spirit that had been created when when america became a nation um in 1780
00:18:19.300oh now i'm putting me on the spot here but 1776 no that's when we signed the declaration
00:18:24.600but i'm saying like when we actually formalized and became a nation in 1788 we ratify the
00:18:28.960okay thank you yeah so um there is a little bit of history we do have to acknowledge that uh going
00:18:36.080back that far at least we are indebted to the french uh to some degree yeah so we want to
00:18:42.700used to be a great people they did yeah there's no denying yep charlemagne charlemagne fantastic
00:18:47.860used to be great people they have not been a great people for a great period of time but they used to
00:18:52.580be a great people yeah so we want to go over a little bit of the history of the statue of liberty
00:18:57.460And I want to say at the beginning, it is good for a man and a church and even a nation to have a reputation for being magnanimous, right?
00:19:09.480It is actually a glory to a nation that people from around the world would recognize the prosperity that God has given to us and say, I want to get me some of that, right?
00:19:20.280Like it is the nations at the bottom of the barrel that don't have any immigration problems because no one's trying to get in.
00:19:27.460And so there is a sense where a Christian nation, if it's blessed by God, ought to be magnanimous, right?
00:19:35.960There ought to be a sense of America always considered itself to be a city on a hill, not the Christian city on the hill, but a city on a hill casting a light.
00:19:46.020And that's really what the Statue of Liberty gets into, casting a light of some sort to the nations of the world for them to perhaps look up to, to emulate, to try and aspire to be.
00:19:57.460Magnanimity is not a bad thing for a nation to have.
00:20:01.220In fact, that is kind of the, Joel, you talk a lot about the glory of the husband or the father, the father more than the husband, who will condescend to his children and how even that condescension is a glory to the husband.
00:20:17.560And so we don't want to go so far that we say, well, we have no role in the world, actually.
00:20:26.240That we as a people, we as a nation have no role in the world.
00:20:29.300I think that if we can recapture ourselves over the next decades, we want to assume the role that God has given us in the world.
00:20:35.900There's nothing inherently wrong with empires.
00:20:39.340But you kind of, that's, to me, I've been thinking a lot about this for the past few years.
00:20:44.220like so you know i've gone i feel like i've gone through all the phases of like all right strict
00:20:49.360isolationist that's it i've had it you know build build three walls you know and like let's build a
00:20:54.680dome you know over america like nobody in nobody out and we don't let the rest of the world just0.72
00:21:00.300crumble you know and burn to ash and that you know it's not my you know not my circus not my clowns
00:21:07.800you know, it's not my problem, America. But there is, I mean, God has used empires throughout
00:21:15.180history. But here's the deal, you just, you have to make up your mind. You have to make up your,
00:21:19.480like, pick a lane. What America, what's been so terrible as of late, and when I say as of late,
00:21:24.940I mean for decades, for America, is that it's fulfilled the duties of an empire without
00:21:30.500receiving any of the blessings and the rights of an empire. So, we've provided the whole world
00:21:36.900with um we've policed the whole world made made the world safe made shipping you know in all the
00:21:42.600oceans and lanes you know safe and done this pirates right now yeah and we've done it for
00:21:47.440every country in the world to where every country has been lifted up out of abject poverty um but
00:21:53.540we've done it for free we've done it for free with no expectation of of of any fidelity being
00:22:00.740returned to us no like and i think that's a lot of what trump is kind of getting at he's like we've
00:22:06.100like the whole world all the nations of the world have been ripping us off for decades and decades
00:22:10.420and decades and we've been letting it happen so i don't think you know the more i thought about like
00:22:13.860i am a nationalist don't get me wrong i'm a nationalist and america first 100 and i mean
00:22:18.320actual america first not israel first but america first um that said if america we got to get our
00:22:24.840you know get the you know clean your own house first so we got to get our own house in order
00:22:28.860first um but eventually i don't want to say like you know again you've heard me say this there's
00:22:34.560timely principles and timeless principles so when i say america first uh pull everything back
00:22:40.020build three walls you know uh millions have to go back let's you know let's focus at home
00:22:46.120that's a timely principle the timeless in terms of the timeless um i would be perfectly fine if
00:22:53.600if not not today but eventually eventually when things are in order at home and america is
00:23:00.760prospering and america doesn't have people pushing uh old old women into uh the the train tracks on
00:23:08.640the subway you know and lighting people on fire you know and like okay like if we can get our
00:23:14.340house in order if we can do that um then in principle uh i don't have any theological or
00:23:21.060biblical argument against um america eventually um being empirical but but if we're going to be
00:23:29.000an empire, function as an empire, as an actual empire. Don't just assume the duties for free
00:23:37.100so that every other country benefits except for your own people. That's not an empire. That's
00:23:42.260just making your own people a tax farm. And then also, if you're going to be an empire,
00:23:47.140do not export our sacred democracy. Do what empires do and have a better form of government
00:23:53.920that anyone who falls underneath the empire is subjugated to, not democracy.
00:24:00.220I do not want a democratic empire that includes nations with people who don't even know how to read.
00:24:07.740You're telling me 20 years in Afghanistan, billions and billions of dollars.0.94
00:29:47.640French philosophers have been a terrible lot for us in the last 150 years.
00:29:52.160So it's hard to say that when they gave the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of liberty, liberty's light, they probably did already have a sense of kind of this more modernist.
00:30:06.020But we're going to reclaim that term, and we're going to go back to the liberty that the U.S. meant, right?
00:30:13.500The kind of liberty that can only be produced when there is a moral and religious, self-governed people who are under the, really the restraints.
00:30:23.500The only restraints they have is the restraints of the gospel.
00:30:26.660Right. And so in that sense, I think that many of the people early in Christian history could have kind of gotten along and said, yeah, this liberty that we have as an American society and American people is a good and godly and ordered thing.
00:30:40.100And so thank you very much, French government. We do have that kind of liberty. But the Statue of Liberty was given about 100 years into the American project.
00:30:48.360It was supposed to celebrate or commemorate the 100 year anniversary of signing the Declaration of Independence.
00:30:53.460And I bet if we, to be fair, I bet if we went very carefully, by that point already, I would imagine the definition of liberty and freedom was already starting to change a little bit just through the influence of the European and the French philosophers and postmodernists.
00:31:08.900We've got a lot of people in the chat, I keep noticing, they keep saying, liberty from rap music.
00:31:15.660It needs to happen. The people of these United States need to be free from going into public venues and being assaulted by the most degrading, pathetic, it's hard to even call it music, but sounds that have ever been gone across airways.0.70
00:31:33.560All right, let's do this. Let's go to our first commercial break, and then we will come right back. And I want to point out a tweet that I put out when this story first broke last week to get a little bit into the origins, not so much of the Statue of Liberty, which we'll talk more about, but of this particular plaque, the poem, that has been attributed to the Statue of Liberty and has been on the Statue of Liberty for quite some time. So let's go to a commercial break, and we'll be right back.
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00:36:02.740Obviously, there are broader ramifications than what I'm about to say.
00:36:06.320I know that this is not exclusive or exhaustive,0.74
00:36:08.460but anytime I think of Russian Jews, I think of Bolsheviks.
00:36:12.640that's like 92 of the bolshevik party so that was the the the bolsheviks and the mensheviks the
00:36:18.300bolsheviks were the far left party and the mensheviks were kind of the moderate like 92
00:36:21.760of the bolshevik party was made up of ethnic jews at the time which soldier calls out because he's
00:36:26.800like wait a second we had this party this movement take over russia violently depose our emperor and
00:36:32.220all this but it wasn't even the russian people themselves it was people that weren't native to
00:36:35.480us so when you say that like that's the reason historically you're literally saying the bolsheviks
00:36:40.000and then jewish who typically comprise that party right so this is a young woman who was working
00:36:44.440with immigrants at the time in new york predominantly um russian jewish immigrants
00:36:50.820that may or may have not you know may or may not have had ties to the bolshevik early 1900s was the
00:36:57.360high watermark too of american communism right like that was when it actually had a chance of
00:37:01.220winning elections and that was the exact time this was the end of the 1800s going into the
00:37:05.000beginning of the 1900s it was in 1883 that she wrote it 1883 that she wrote this poem and the
00:37:09.360context again is she's in new york she's working with russian jews who are immigrants and she was
00:37:14.220a self-described femme or uh obviously feminist she was a socialist yeah that was her political
00:37:20.160party there you go yeah and um and she writes this poem that has been cited should we read it
00:37:27.500quick again yeah we should read it nathan go ahead and pull that up if you can but this poem
00:37:32.140uh that has been cited again and again and again as like the empirical infallible proof
00:37:38.880that america basically can't be a country we're not allowed to be a country america cannot be for
00:37:45.360americans but has to be open to the whole world it's it's basically this poem it's it's not
00:37:51.300the exclusive you know um source by by any stretch but it is a chief source that's cited as as
00:37:59.920the reason why basically this is how a lot of people think that the world is broken up into
00:38:04.720two categories only two um that there are americans and then there are potential americans
00:38:10.700right like right it's not like there's america with americans and then india with indians no
00:38:16.220there's america with americans and then india with 1.3 billion potential americans as ronald
00:38:22.060reagan said he's very well addressed i know anyone reagan did not help can come to america
00:38:26.060and be an american and and that's and in the context we've shown that clip before but
00:38:29.520he uh he he doesn't just say that it'd be one thing if he just said that in isolation but he
00:38:34.040says it in the context of saying that this is not true of every other nation on the planet so every
00:38:39.640other country he says you know you can move to france and attain citizenship so you can be like
00:38:44.740a beer right you can you can be a french citizen you can be um a citizen of great britain you know
00:38:51.820or you can be a citizen of uganda or anywhere else and this is a speech that president reagan gave
00:38:57.640I can move to France and attain, you know, French citizenry, citizenship. And I can move to Russia
00:39:05.620and attain, you know, Russian citizenship. He said, but I'll never be a Frenchman and I'll1.00
00:39:12.080never be a Russian. But he said, but here's the beauty of our country. Anyone from anywhere
00:39:16.880can become an American. And the answer, of course, is no. No, you can't. No, you can by going through0.99
00:39:26.860the proper channels. And hopefully, by God's grace, we'll stop this too for a good 50 years
00:39:32.060because we've gone overboard. But eventually, as things begin to settle, then yes, there will be
00:39:40.040some mitigated responsible forms, you know, policy for immigration. And by going through the proper
00:39:45.920channels, you could attain American citizenship. But you cannot simply move to America and even
00:39:54.460be a citizen um and then and then that somehow magically make you an american right that's
00:40:00.620simply not how it works if i move to japan um and attain citizenship i'm not japanese i'm a i'm a
00:40:08.140japanese citizen and i can love japan and all those kinds of things um and if i happen to marry
00:40:14.100in to to japanese um by by taking a japanese wife then eventually my children and i would argue from
00:40:23.300a biblical perspective their children now getting to the third generation then they would be japanese
00:40:28.280so i can be stayed in japan if they stayed in there they also married japanese exactly to that
00:40:32.960that's the way it works assimilation here's the deal one of the big principles of assimilation
00:40:38.580even in biblically speaking um is through intermarriage right ruth marries in um rahab
00:40:46.140marries in, going somewhere when you already have your family, you and your wife, who is of
00:40:55.080your race or your ethnic stock and your children, and then you move to America, and you don't just
00:41:01.700move to the suburbs somewhere or some rural plot of land, but you congregate with a bunch of other
00:41:08.360people from your native country who have also moved there, and there's 10,000 Somalians in this
00:41:14.520small little area right and you're all married to Somalians yeah exactly like I mean that's the
00:41:20.580concept of America think about this um the fact that we even have this concept little Italy0.92
00:41:25.660little China Chinatown Chinatown like all these different other countries don't do this
00:41:32.160not like we do I knew I knew in Taiwan where Hong Kong Vietnamese area was or where the you know
00:41:38.920like they the the they do tend to gather even because Taiwan has a lot of workers from southeast
00:41:44.360east asia come to do the menial labor kind of yeah kind of like here so that would almost be
00:41:48.260like german irish and english in different parts of chicago that's right more than just we have an
00:41:52.420enclave of yeah nigeria or something like that but you're talking about on american soil to the
00:41:57.960extent where their whole uh congregants of of people who don't even uh they don't even speak
00:42:04.780english right right you know what i mean like like you go into that part of town and every sign
00:42:10.160is in their nation's language not because they just got there two weeks ago right not because
00:42:14.360they're new um but but for generations they never never actually assimilate in and um so no in a
00:42:21.380very real sense none of this is is racism none of this is animus or hatred uh but in a very real
00:42:27.400sense if that's what we're talking about then yes those people are not american they may they may
00:42:32.300have attained american citizenship they may be american citizens but they are not american in
00:42:38.480the same way that i'll never be french and that's okay there's a there's a third category too that
00:42:43.060we actually our nation does this too and almost every nation does it and there's just simply
00:42:48.500legal residency right right a lot of people go to a country for a period of time right and they're
00:42:53.520legally residents there but when i was a legal resident in taiwan i had no expectation that i
00:42:57.640was going to be a citizen i didn't get to vote i didn't have any say in the political process
00:43:01.580much less that i was going to become taiwanese i was just there for a time period i had the
00:43:06.600government's permission to be there that meant that i was subject to their laws but also protected
00:43:10.260by their laws and then i was going to go back home to my country like and with that's actually
00:43:15.460more similar to the historical pattern over time and that's the biblical pattern the sojourner
00:43:20.940was not going to stay yeah and and so when the bible says well you know treat the sojourner
00:43:26.020fairly don't exploit him don't take advantage of him like um treat him fairly like that's a
00:43:31.840biblical principle and so yes anyone who is visiting the united states legally who is a
00:43:37.920visitor should behave as a guest and should be treated respectfully as a guest but you don't
00:43:45.720get to stay and you're certainly not an american right yeah none of this is novel all right let's
00:43:51.520read this poem yep yeah here's the poem here we go nathan's going to put it up not like the brazen
00:43:56.860giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land, here at our sea-washed
00:44:04.100sunset gates shall stand, a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning,
00:44:12.160and her name, Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome, her mild eyes
00:44:21.540command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame keep ancient lands your storied pomp
00:44:29.900cries she with silent lips give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free0.99
00:44:38.840the wretched refuse the wretched refuse of your teeming shore send these the homeless0.99
00:44:46.960tempest tossed to me i lift my lamp beside the golden door get that out of my face so hard if0.74
00:44:56.260i was like 17 and i just read communist manifesto for the first time seriously that is a communist
00:45:01.340poem it is it really is that is a communist poem probably inspired by a jewish woman working with
00:45:09.660russian jewish immigrants in new york um probably with some bolshevik you know inspirations in there
00:45:17.940um yeah i mean that that poem i mean literally i just i just read it i just read it as as it's
00:45:24.100written and i mean it's basically it's basically a recipe for how could how could this country
00:45:30.140what's the best and quickest way that we could destroy this country yeah yeah and the the really
00:45:34.980important thing about that is most americans only encounter those few famous lines giving your poor0.91
00:45:42.260your huddled masses and we know that it's attached to the statue of liberty and we tend to think that
00:45:47.600the statue of liberty is older than it is and so part of our founding and so the i think the
00:45:52.800unconscious connection gets made it certainly was for me for a very long time that this is a
00:45:58.960christian principle and it's a principle in line with our founding and the reality is you just
00:46:05.420said jul is nothing could be further from the truth right yeah i want to read some sections
00:46:10.020of an article and here's a little bit of a white pill well maybe not because it went unheeded
00:46:14.760but this is an article that was published it was an op-ed by the washington post in 2009
00:46:21.680And this writer, his name is Robert Surrow. He actually wrote a book in 1998 called Strangers Among Us, in which he argued that the only way to improve the conditions of lower class workers and unskilled workers was to stop immigration.
00:46:43.340Now, he was still kind of on the liberal perspective, but he was already seeing how terrible the idea of unlimited immigration was.
00:46:51.760And so he wrote that in 1998, and then the Washington Post published his op-ed, which I'm going to read portions of, in 2009.
00:46:59.420And so it always is good for me to run across people who have been saying things that we kind of are stumbling upon now and to realize we're actually not the first people to tread this ground.
00:59:31.380The statue's original name is Liberty Enlightening the World.
00:59:36.200And the tablet that the lady holds in her left hand reads July 4th, 1776, to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
00:59:45.500Lady Liberty celebrates U.S. political values as a force for the betterment of humanity, as well as the bond of friendship among freedom-loving nations.
01:00:34.500In Lazarus's vision, the statue would be called, quote, Mother of Exiles,
01:00:39.600and it would stand by the, quote, Golden Door,
01:00:43.220welcoming, quote, Huddled Masses yearning to breathe free, end quote.
01:00:47.020That is a distinctly political perspective on immigration,
01:00:50.100the United States as a refuge for the oppressed.
01:00:52.200The truth is that our political values do not explain who comes here or why.
01:00:57.320Economic imperatives, this is what you were getting to earlier, Wes.
01:01:00.820Economic imperatives, much more than political aspirations, have always driven immigration in the United States.
01:01:07.560Planters, merchants, servants, and slaves vastly outnumbered pilgrims and Puritans.
01:01:12.740Since the mid-1980s, refugees and asylum seekers have accounted for less than a fifth of the immigrants admitted to the permanent residence here.
01:01:20.620The United States draws immigrants for a lot of good reasons, but our political values are only part of the appeal.
01:01:26.740When our economy grows, it creates more jobs, and I'm going to skip through this part.0.97
01:03:07.820But we do her no injustice by deciding that the words do not serve as an ode to immigration today.
01:03:15.120And then this is what we've just documented.
01:03:16.620Born into a wealthy family that traced its roots to New York City's earliest Jewish residents, Lazarus was a social activist as well as an accomplished writer.
01:03:26.060She lent a hand at the station on Wards Island where destitute immigrants were detained, and she helped set up training schools in the tenements.
01:03:34.400When she wrote the poem in 1883, she was a prominent advocate for Jews fleeing the pogroms of imperialistic Russia.
01:03:41.340So, already covering what we went over there.
01:07:27.180that had been born abroad dropped to historically low levels as the Europeans who had come through
01:07:33.080New York, Harvard, died. By 1970, the foreign-born made up less than 5% of the population,
01:07:39.740a third of what their share had been around the turn of the century. With the newcomers arriving,1.00
01:07:45.560the myth-making went into full swing, and this is what to me is so interesting. Eleanor Roosevelt
01:07:51.160quoted Lazarus in an advertisement she recorded for John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign,
01:07:56.260And in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson used the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop when he signed legislation that increased immigration from countries most disadvantaged under the old quota system.
01:08:09.020The apex of Lazarus' vision came with the statue's centennial in 1986, a massively commercialized four-year fundraising campaign collected more than $270 million to restore both the statue and Ellis Island, linking the two more than ever before.
01:08:24.540at the grand event on liberty weekend president ronald reagan spoke of his belief that the quote
01:08:31.380divine provident that divine providence had made the united states a home for a special kind of
01:08:36.820people from every corner of the world who had a special love for freedom unabashed he called it0.95
01:08:41.900he said call it mysticism and you if you will one more here the foreign born real quick yep
01:08:47.440common reagan yeah yep roosevelt and johnson before very common roosevelt too i have to tell
01:08:53.880people all the time because my daughter one of my daughters is named eleanor oh i have a son named
01:08:59.600franklin and i have to like people look at me it's time to change names oh i know they're great
01:09:05.460names but like all my you know right-wing friends like i'll introduce my children you know at church
01:09:10.120you know to a new family that's visiting i'll be like this is eleanor and this is franklin and
01:09:14.420they'll kind of look at me and i'll be like no relation go ahead um so nate let's pull up the
01:09:19.980quote that I had from you. This is the quote from Austin Bramwell. So in commenting on this whole
01:09:28.280issue, writer Austin Bramwell, this is for, I forget which article now. First, he says this,
01:09:35.720first, the peoples of the third world are not oppressed in the way that Lazarus believes the
01:09:39.260peoples of Europe were oppressed. On the contrary, they have nearly all thrown off the yoke of the
01:09:44.220ancient lands of Europe and set up independent governance. In other words, they're coming from
01:09:48.880independent nations they have no need for america because they are already free second they are not
01:09:54.820homeless on the contrary the peoples of the third world have their own nations peoples and traditions
01:10:00.240which they retain when they come here often with the encouragement of their home countries and so
01:10:05.840what i really found fascinating doing the research for this was that this was not originally attached
01:10:11.340to the statue of liberty yeah it was a political narrative mythology making process in the 70s 80s
01:10:19.320and 90s well 70s and 80s especially to kind of justify a push to reopen immigration especially
01:10:29.060to countries that were considered to be more disadvantaged at the time can i ask something
01:10:33.500without everyone getting mad like freedom like is calcutta india like really that oppressive
01:10:39.500like day to day is the average ordinary citizen like he's given a diet with two options like no
01:10:45.160opportunity for work and we say this all the time like well they're here for freedom like is nigeria
01:10:49.660really like not that free all right just in my mind i there are certainly places with totalitarian
01:10:55.600rule and a great example would be north korea but these people broadly that we're speaking about
01:10:59.680that are coming here and we're using this language or taping it over with liberty and freedom and all
01:11:03.520these things i don't feel like they're actually leaving places that are in and of themselves
01:11:07.620authoritarian and restricted they're leaving places that are not prosperous exactly they're
01:11:12.580not leaving them right i hear from missionaries all the time uh talking about um african countries
01:11:20.440you know where they've done mission work or talking about you know in asia or different
01:11:24.360places in south america and they're like there's a ton of opportunity because there's literally
01:11:30.200like quantitatively more freedom there's not all the regulation and red tape there's not a lot of
01:11:36.360regulation exactly you can just you can just equipment you can just build engineering like
01:11:40.760you know like you can just build something you don't have to get all these permits you don't
01:11:43.800have there's not all the red tape uh so and they said like there's actually like a lot of americans
01:11:47.860who are moving you know to this place or to this place or to this place and setting up shop and
01:11:51.600building you know whether it's a resort or or it's this or it's that you know and set it like
01:11:56.040there's there's there is literally more freedom more freedom um people are not moving to america
01:12:03.320from these countries for freedom they're moving to america to take what has been produced already
01:12:09.860by americans because the place they're leaving is oppressive no because it's poor right that's
01:12:14.900what it is there is in india there's the caste system and if you're part of the lower caste
01:12:19.840it's horrible but those are not the people who are immigrating here because they can't they don't
01:12:23.600have the opportunity to do it second what people let's let's take a hard-working person that comes
01:12:31.700here to build what they gain in america that they don't have back home is the good chance that if
01:12:39.200they build something it's not just going to kind of come in and be stolen by some politician or
01:12:43.580gang like so there is opportunity but the security the law-abiding culture that you that the u.s has
01:12:49.440traditionally had is actually not present in a lot of places and so someone could build something
01:12:53.780but if you can't afford the security or if you're not a u.s investor with a security team or greasing
01:12:58.820the palms of the politicians locally there is a sense where you could build and the very next day
01:13:04.240it'll be that's true less regulation yeah but also less protection but that's not freedom to your
01:13:09.260point west and i think of the example of china for example china is very pro-censorship like
01:13:13.520there's stories about its genesis its founding all these like they just they're not allowed to
01:13:17.680know so there are certainly real countries where people will look across to america where you can
01:13:22.360say and criticize the government where you can keep your wages most certainly there are millions
01:13:26.760of people like that who are looking across but of those that we're dealing with the examples i gave
01:13:31.160typically we're not looking at those type of governments many many ways because they're
01:13:36.160actually they're not very technologically advanced a lot of the mythology was built
01:13:40.440when there were um very oppressive dictatorships in central american countries communism was
01:13:47.320setting up a footstep or a on our doorstep in cuba and the dominican republic several other
01:13:54.780various uh central american countries there was very oppressive forms of government in the 50s
01:14:02.26060s 40s and so part of the mythology that was crafted through the statue of liberty
01:14:07.160was in a time where we did actually have some fairly near neighbors who were living actually
01:14:12.580in a situation where um freedom as we're saying now even of going out and starting a business
01:14:18.340largely it was it was quite difficult what we have to recognize is we are living in different
01:14:23.900times and people are coming for different reasons that's right than they were before we used to have
01:14:27.060settlers now we have immigrants yep times have changed we need to recognize that and honestly
01:14:32.660that's that's part of i think properly understanding politics is um it's not ideology it's not timeless
01:14:40.140you know one size fits all for all times and all places ideology that you can just just do this
01:14:45.300um know that the realm of the political takes in into account the circumstances right um this
01:14:52.220this was working. Now the context has changed, and so now we need to adapt, or we need a different
01:14:58.680set of laws, or we need a different strategy, because we have different people. We have this,
01:15:02.900we have that. Even, and people hate this, but like, this applies to everything, even
01:15:09.140the Constitution. This does not apply to the immutable moral laws of God. Those are timeless,
01:15:16.960but in terms of of how they're particularly applied to a people in a place in a time
01:15:23.320such as the american constitution right like i i know at this point it's ad nauseum quoted again
01:15:30.500and again and again but just in case any of our listeners right now think i'm you know what i'm
01:15:34.700saying is heresy um and i've never heard the quote um the the constitution was was written and created
01:15:41.980for a moral and upright people, religious and moral people, and is wholly unfit for any other,
01:15:48.020John Adams. The Constitution, even that mold of government, a self-governed republic,
01:15:57.960a constitutional self-governed republic, what that assumes and presupposes is a people who are fit
01:16:06.660for self-governance right right we currently no longer have those people right i mean i don't i'm
01:16:12.200not saying we don't have them at all i think some people are uh but we are not a nation we're
01:16:16.940across the board yeah we're not characterized by that anymore we're characterized by mobs of people
01:16:22.960raiding cvs pharmacies amazon delivery trucks and amazon delivery trucks and breaking out into
01:16:29.060brawls in you know every high school is has is honestly has more um more fights and and is
01:16:37.640arguably more dangerous than a lot of prisons right um that we because you have unruly people
01:16:44.060who are not capable of self-governance uh one day maybe we can aspire towards that again but we
01:16:50.840always forget that our constitutional republic of self-governance um that that it doesn't just
01:16:57.180appear magically out of the ether. It's not in a vacuum. It is sitting on top of a millennium
01:17:07.220of monarchy, of pretty strict rule, pretty strict rule where pagans were shaped and formed by the
01:17:19.480gospel into Christians, and then with kings and lords. They are then further shaped and tutored
01:17:27.900by the law of God. That's one of the functions of the law. It's a mirror. It reveals to us the
01:17:32.300holiness of God, and by way of consequence, reveals our sinfulness and our need for a Savior.
01:17:37.000The law of God doesn't save, but it's a mirror that shows us our need for Christ. Charles Spurgeon,
01:17:42.080a man cannot appreciate the beauty of Christ unless he first comes to see the need for Christ.
01:17:45.660That's the first use. The third use of the law is that it's a guide, a compass. It's a lamp unto
01:17:51.040thy feet, as David says, a light unto our path. So, for the Christian who already is now converted,
01:17:57.980the law first reveals his sin and need for conversion, need for Christ. The first use,0.88
01:18:02.760mirror. Third use, compass, guide. Upon being saved, the law then shows us the path to salvation. No,
01:18:11.240from being saved, it shows us the path from salvation. Now that I am saved, not by my works
01:18:16.660of obedience to the law, but by Christ's perfect finished obedience on my behalf that was received
01:18:21.540fully as an act of grace and faith being merely the empty hand that lays hold of that grace.
01:18:27.780Now that I am a Christian, the law doesn't show me how to be saved, where to go to be saved,
01:18:32.100but it shows me how to respond for the free salvation I've already received. 1 John 4, 19,
01:18:37.700We love because he first loved us. So, because God loved us freely in the gospel, in Christ,
01:18:43.000we now cannot help but love him in return. And because we love him, the first question that
01:18:48.000that raises, if we love him, is, well, God, how can I show you and demonstrate my love for you?
01:18:56.180And Jesus answers this question by saying, obey my commandments. And so, the law comes back in.
01:19:00.320So, that's the first, the bookends, the first and the third use of the law, mirror and a compass.
01:19:03.920In the middle, you have tutor and shield, tutor and shield. The second use of God's law is that
01:19:11.360the law of God, insofar as it's legislated and enforced by the civil magistrate among a particular
01:19:18.440society, then the law of God works as a shield, restraining evil of the heart? No, right? Total
01:19:25.280depravity still remains intact, but it does restrain as a shield outward manifestations of
01:19:32.200evil, evil actions, that more would murder if it wasn't for laws against murder, and enforcing
01:19:38.080those laws through the proper sphere, the civil magistrate. So, it restrains outward manifestations
01:19:44.100of evil, shield, and then also functions as a tutor, the pedagogical function of the law,
01:19:48.800that it shapes and teaches the people. Again, it doesn't convert, the gospel converts,0.55
01:19:56.460But what it does is it, over time, this doesn't happen in 15 minutes, but over generations, righteous laws being applied with prudence and wisdom by the civil magistrate begin to shape the consciences of the people to make them more acutely aware of what is moral and what is immoral.
01:20:16.560And then that understanding of intrinsic morality, again, doesn't save people, but sets the proper backdrop for the gospel preachers and the church to do its ministry, word and sacrament, grace, ministry of mercy, gospel, to where now the gospel doesn't fall on deaf ears of people who are already self-righteous, but it falls on the ears of people who have been trained and tutored by the law of God to recognize that in themselves,
01:20:42.720even if their law abiding in their outward actions, that their hearts are still wicked and evil
01:20:47.580because they have evil desires that breach the law. And therefore, they're aware of their need
01:20:52.600for Christ. And so, now the gospel is coming on much more fertile soil. And so, it's hand in
01:20:59.800glove. It works in tandem. The civil magistrate with the church, the state and the church working
01:21:04.920together, not the state being the church, not the church being the state, but still working together
01:21:09.800without this severing that we've kind of invented, there is some overflap and flow
01:21:16.580back and forth where they work together, gospel and law, law and gospel. And the point is with
01:21:23.480all this, that over time, that with strict laws and with kings and monarchs and these kinds of
01:21:31.760and feudal lord systems and all this kind of stuff, then over generations, over a thousand
01:21:36.900years over a millennium from King Alfred all the way to present day, then yes, that eventually
01:21:42.880trained the populace. And even then, it wasn't all of England. It was some, some people who were
01:21:50.140the most responsible, the most fit, the most endeavoring. They took upon themselves the risk
01:21:58.360of life and limb to cross the ocean, to go to a place that was unsettled with nothing that was
01:22:03.280waiting for them and those people were um were fit for self-governance in a constitutional republic
01:22:10.300right look at america today watch tiktok videos and tell me that that our current population
01:22:17.300is fit for that kind of governance when i see people trashing movie theater you know what i
01:22:23.060think man i want these people voting i need them picking my my mayor my city council no of course
01:22:30.280not yeah so we just we have to keep these things in mind um right nation of immigrants no a nation
01:22:36.740of settlers and their posterity yes um but but we've got a long road right now to get back to
01:22:45.420that and uh a lot of people um have to be returned to their their home of origin and that's not
01:22:52.760inhumane it's you have to go back home but then there are also a lot of people who have no home
01:22:57.640to go back to this is the only home they have heritage americans and for them um they need to
01:23:04.040then put things back into order and become a moral and upright religious people once again
01:23:10.100christianity needs to win the day i i i am confident that secular humanism is dying right
01:23:17.660i am not confident that christianity is winning right i am confident as a post-millennial that
01:23:23.700Christianity will eventually win. But there's a return to nature right now, because things are
01:23:32.180out of order, and nature abhors a vacuum, and the left has overplayed its hand. And so people are
01:23:40.400saying, no, this is ridiculous. We're going back. So the rubber band is snapping back. Nature is0.87
01:23:46.200healing, as the kids say. Nature is healing, and it's healing fast. And that's great. However,
01:23:52.160However, it's worth keeping in mind that there is more than just one worldview, at the risk
01:24:00.540of Dr. Stephen Wolfe getting upset with me for using the word, but there's more than
01:24:04.500just one set of principles, belief system, that adheres to natural order.
01:24:12.120Christianity works well with nature, because it's the religion of the God who made nature.0.58
01:24:17.720but um islam adheres to nature paganism actually adheres to nature secular humanism is the0.89
01:24:27.980abhorition that's the misnomer and it it's quickly sprung up and it's quickly dying um the vacuum
01:24:35.180will be filled but i'm just i'm just letting people know the listener you need to be aware
01:24:39.580of this if you think that secular humanism dying that that guarantees that christianity will fill
01:24:45.700its place, you've got another thing coming. You've got another thing coming.
01:24:50.580Or at least a robust Christianity. It could have a Christianity in name.
01:24:54.100A Christian skin suit, just like secular humanism did.0.85
01:24:57.420But be nothing but Nietzschean vitalism.0.97
01:24:59.660Liberalism has been walking around in a Christian skin suit for centuries, but it's not robust0.82
01:25:05.520Christianity. It's not historic Christianity. And so, too, paganism could have some little,0.75
01:25:10.460you know, because we've never really experienced post-Christian paganism. So, I bet a post-Christian0.99
01:25:15.680and paganism would maintain some of the language and vernacular and veneer of Christianity.
01:25:24.160But my point is, Christianity is not the default.
01:25:29.260Nature is the default, and Christianity, I think, best pairs with nature, because Christianity
01:25:34.860is the religion of the God who made nature.
01:25:38.920But there is a return to nature, secular humanism is dying, and Christianity will ultimately0.60
01:25:45.440win the day, but it may not immediately win the day. There may be a phase, whether it be a decade0.86
01:25:51.580or a century or half a millennia in between secular humanism and Christianity eventually
01:25:57.420winning. And that could be Islam, that could be some weird kind of pagan hybrid that could,
01:26:03.920you know, a Darwinian, just raw naturalism based in science, you know, and that has no
01:26:09.640religious affiliation whatsoever. But the point is, right now, things are in flux and our nation
01:26:19.360is chaotic. There are many white pills to go around of things that are hopeful, but there are
01:26:27.600very little guarantees currently at this juncture. And we just need to be aware that
01:26:33.960my whole point in bringing this up is the idea of the political is not, true politics is not
01:26:43.940ideology. It's not ideology. Ideologues make bad politicians. It's not just one size fits all
01:26:53.080always for anyone, anywhere, at any time. So this constitutional republic, I just want to be clear,
01:27:00.080i like it i would even be willing to say that it might be the the optimal ideal best form of
01:27:08.580government but if it is and i'm inclined to say it is if it is the optimal ideal best form of
01:27:16.560government and not a raw democracy that crept in later but what the founders intended a
01:27:21.640constitutional representative you know republic if that is the ideal form of government um it is
01:27:28.720sitting on top of a millennia of monarchy that shaped people to make them capable of that kind
01:27:35.660of government. And we don't have those people, not anymore. All right, let's go to our last
01:27:40.020commercial break and then we'll come back. All right, the clock is running out. You need to go
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01:29:51.980and all of finance for Christendom. All right, to wrap things up here, we want to cover a little
01:30:00.240bit of some of the costs of, this is specifically illegal immigration. So we are all aware that the
01:30:07.820The financial picture and the situation is much broader than just illegal immigration,
01:30:13.540but some of those numbers are hard to get.
01:30:16.320And at least illegal immigration, the costs of it have been tracked pretty well.
01:30:20.400So, Nate, let's put up that first chart.
01:30:24.660This is what kinds of households in the United States are using welfare.
01:30:30.820Okay, so the percentage is of that group of people, so U.S.-born legal immigrants or illegal immigrants, what percentage of the households headed by someone of that status is using these kinds of welfare?
01:30:46.180So, for instance, any welfare at all, 39% of U.S.-born households are using welfare.
01:30:52.50059% of illegal immigrant households are using welfare.
01:30:55.980And so you can see that across the board, there are a few cases where illegal immigrants are using less than legal immigrants.
01:31:05.120But part of that is just because it's based on legal resident status here.
01:31:09.880For anyone listening, it's a small amount.
01:31:11.280It's like 5% lower in cash, 1% in housing.
01:31:14.160So for any welfare, it's 59% of illegal homes are using it, 52% of legal homes, and then 39% of U.S.-born homes.
01:47:20.540rock and roll and free love yeah like in many ways that was you know like we had denim and i
01:47:27.620mean yep in north korea like denim is like even seen as like well that's capitalist and that's
01:47:31.940like wicked so i mean who wouldn't want to live in a world where like oh at least i can pick the
01:47:35.420type of jeans i wear yep but all right uh last one jeff halfley good good old faithful jeff thank
01:47:41.820you jeff uh five dollar super chat uh he says in most evangelical circles sanctification can most
01:47:49.320accurately be described as mastering the art of testosterone suppression so that's absolutely
01:47:55.540right and it's not just in evangelical circles which is bad enough because you wouldn't expect0.63
01:48:00.360that in churches uh but it's the same thing in schools um little boys are not just taught but
01:48:06.440they're drugged to um to mimic the behavioral patterns of little girls adderall and ritalin
01:48:16.160Yeah. I mean, you can look at the statistics. How many girls are on Adderall and Ritalin by comparison to the boys? We have determined as a society in total, both our churches and our schools and our workplaces at every single level, we have determined as a society that we're going to penalize masculinity, that masculinity is a vice.