Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E155: Can Empathy Be Toxic? w/ Allie Beth Stuckey

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E155: Can Empathy Be Toxic? w/ Allie Beth Stuckey · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
So what is toxic empathy? Toxic empathy is a tool of
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emotional manipulation into believing the progressive
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perspective is the compassionate and loving one.
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It's sort of like who can outdo each other and being nice today?
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And niceness isn't always what's loving.
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The question has to be not how do you feel or how does that
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person feel? It's not necessarily
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unimportant, but it's incomplete.
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The question is what is true and what is right.
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To decide that, you have to look at what is scientifically
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factually true, but most important for the Christian,
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what is biblically true. I have seen toxic empathy
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certainly on the left, and I'm seeing it on the right.
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Trans women are women is the same math as love is love
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because you're refusing to define what those things are.
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It's just a secular mantra that can mean anything you want it to
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mean. Adoption redeems an already
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broken situation where a surrogacy AG selling, sperm
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selling. Creates that broken situation.
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It's a massive. Social experiment that has never
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been done before in the history of humanity.
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This Christ list, secular conservative movement that we
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have, at the end of the day, that's going to wash away like
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everything else because it's not anchored.
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Allie Stuckey, welcome back to the podcast.
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Thanks. So much for having me it.
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Was so fun having you on earlier this year.
1:18
Yes, I know. I always love to be here.
1:20
We were. Talking about motherhood and
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women's stuff, all of that. All the good stuff.
1:25
And I just saw your girls recently.
1:27
They're all beautiful. Oh.
1:28
Thank you. Thank you so much.
1:30
And you're, you're coming out with a book.
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In fact, when we're filming this, it's I think a week before
1:34
D-Day for the book. But the book's out now, right?
1:37
Yes, toxic empathy, how progressives exploit Christian
1:41
compassion, which everyone says. That's a very like zingy title.
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I don't know if I necessarily meant it to be, but I guess it
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does kind of grab people's attention just because we only
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hear empathy talked about in positive terms, which is.
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Why I wrote the book? So what is toxic empathy?
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Toxic empathy is a tool of emotional manipulation that is,
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I would say, primarily used by the laughed simply because
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progressivism controls most of the media, most of the channels
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of information and communication and influence that we have.
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And so they use this tool to manipulate, I would say in
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particular women, I guess you could say everyone, but even
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more specifically Christian women, into believing that the
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progressive perspective on a particular issue is the
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compassionate and loving one. And there's a formula they fall
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to, to use this, to employ this tactic basically on every
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subject. They'll hoist up a particular
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victim, they'll tell you their heartstring pulling story, and
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they will lead you either explicitly, explicitly or
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implicitly to conclude that affirming this person's choice,
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affirming this person's feeling is the righteous and moral and
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compassionate position. And so you're left with
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thinking, well, the only loving thing to do, the truly
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empathetic thing to do, because I feel how this person feels,
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the story has put me in their shoes, is to affirm whatever
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choice they want to make. Affirm their choice to abort
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their child. Affirm their choice to quote UN
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quote, change their gender. Affirm their choice to marry
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whomever they please. Affirm their choice to cross the
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border illegally. Affirm the lawlessness that I
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see promoted by social justice ideology.
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All because you feel that you are helping the least of these.
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And we'll get into it, but this is actually the reason I call it
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toxic is because this strategy blinds you to both reality and
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morality. The truth is on every side of of
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the issue, there are people that are affected.
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There's people that could be hurt on the immigration issue,
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on the abortion issue. It's not just the person that
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the media hoists up as the victim.
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There are other people who are affected by whatever policy or
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ideological position we hold. And so when we're looking at
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people on both sides of the issue and both people evoke our
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compassion and empathy, the question is, especially for the
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Christian, well, what do we do? Which is why we can't be led by
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empathy. Because if we have empathy for
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everyone, we're constantly just in our puddle of emotions and we
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don't know what to do. We can't make a policy decision
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which is all about trade-offs anyway, so the question has to
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be not how do you feel or how does that person feel, because
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that can only get you so far. It's not necessarily
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unimportant, but it's incomplete.
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The question is what is true and what is right.
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And so to decide that you have to look at what is
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scientifically factually true, historically true.
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But most important for the Christian, what is biblically
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true and what is biblically true is not always going to feel good
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to every party involved. But what is biblically true is
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always the most loving thing because love and empathy are not
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the same. Empathy is a feeling, but love
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seeks what is best for someone as God defines best.
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And that's really not a matter of emotions.
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That's the matter of righteous perspective, but also action.
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Such a good point. I think with the empathy topic,
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empathy is important. It is important to be inside
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someone else's shoes. But like you're saying, feelings
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are not the definitive end of anybody.
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And also sometimes your feelings might happen and you still have
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to do the the tough thing or the hard thing.
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I think about like the obvious case of an example of someone
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who is committing crimes, you know, stealing or being violent
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against someone in public. You can have empathy for them
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and still recognize they're a threat to themselves and others
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and they need to be probably in prison.
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You know, that depending on the circumstances or a mental ward,
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if it's a mentally unstable moment.
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And what's most loving for that person as the aggressor in that
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scenario is to actually remove them from a place where they're
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harming themselves or others. So that, you know, you could
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call that maybe tough love, but that is ultimately loving.
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That is the most loving thing that you can do.
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So I think this is often lost in our conversations about public
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policy is that sometimes the tough love thing for the sake of
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that person and for the other people who might be endangered
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is the right decision. Now I want to start with your
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back to your title, which is a great title, by the way, that
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the idea of toxic empathy is a really important one because
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it's sort of like who can outdo each other and being nice today,
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especially for women. Like we, oh, I'm so nice now
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you're so nice. And niceness isn't always what's
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loving, but you talk about progressives.
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I'm going to start with that because I have seen toxic
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empathy certainly on the left and I'm seeing it on the right.
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And particularly right now we're in an election cycle.
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There's a lot of toxic empathy on the issue of abortion where
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you're seeing people on the right, right politicians, like
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right now the Trump campaign, who I mean, JD Vance, even in
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the vice presidential debate last week, he was saying that we
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need to be more understanding of women basically who have
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abortions, gain their trust as if, as if being pro-life means
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you are violating someone's trust.
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I mean, that was the implication that was so bad.
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Add there is that you're pro-life, you are opposed to the
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killing of children. You, you know, abortion's not
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good for women, even if it's what society is telling them is
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good. And but Judy man's made this
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comment about some, you know, girl that he knew that was a in
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an abusive relationship. She had an abortion.
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And basically it was like a concession.
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Like, OK, those who support abortion, I, I, I, we need to be
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more understanding because in tough situations, it's what's
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good for the woman. Because he was saying in this
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story, this woman told him it was what was good for her.
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Have you seen this happening more in the right?
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What is your take on all of that?
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Well, it is still progressivism exploiting Christian compassion
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or conservative compassion, because the toxic empathy that
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we see on the right typically manifests itself in more
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progressive policy positions. And so.
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So they're just becoming progressive.
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In their view on this issue, certainly because they are
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buying into the pro-choice premise, the entire pro-choice
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premise is that abortion is different than other kinds of
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killing for whatever reason, because the baby is small,
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because of the location, because of the age, because of the size.
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And so as soon as you start to admit, well, sometimes abortion
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is OK, sometimes it is right to kill the child.
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Sometimes it is more about what the mother needs in that
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particular situation. Sometimes the circumstances of
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conception are so bad that abortion is fine, well, then
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you've just basically conceded everything.
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You've conceded to their premise that abortion is the justified,
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in some cases at least, killing of an innocent person.
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And so you. Basically agree with.
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Them on the foundations of the pro abortion position that life
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inside the womb isn't just like any other life that it really is
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less than that. It really does it.
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It really doesn't have the same value.
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And therefore we have to make exceptions for babies inside the
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womb they're killing that we would never make for people
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outside the womb. And once you've got that, like
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what's stopping you from from being pro-choice in any other
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regard? And it is toxic empathy because
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it is forcing you to only focus on the plight or the purported
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plight of the mother. And in the 1st chapter, and this
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was the I mean, it was a difficult chapter to write just
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because of the brutality of abortion, but it was also the
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easiest to write just because of how passionate I am about it and
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how black and white I really think this issue is.
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But at the start of every chapter, we tell a toxic empathy
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story that has been told by say NPR or the Washington Post or
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maybe a story that most people are familiar with in the news.
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And we tell it in a compelling way.
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Like I wanted to tell it in a way that would pull on someone's
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heartstrings so that at the end of the story they think, well,
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maybe I am pro-choice because this was a horrible story.
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So we tell this story of Samantha and Halo Castellano.
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And this was a report that was that was originally written in
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the Washington Post or actually in NPR couple years ago to try
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to explain why these pro-life laws in.
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Texas are so awful. And Halo was a baby who was
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diagnosed at the 20 week ultrasound with trisomy 18,
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which of course can be a life limiting diagnosis.
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But she, her mother, Samantha, wasn't able to get an abortion
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in the state of Texas because of the pro-life laws that had been
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passed after the Dobbs decision. And so they were forced,
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according to NPR, to have this baby full term to pay for a
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funeral, even though their family was poor.
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And the story talks about how grueling it was, how painful it
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was to be in labor for so many hours knowing that your baby is
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going to die in your arms. So at the end of it, you're
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thinking, oh, I can't believe this poor woman, Samantha and
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her poor family and her poor children were forced to endure
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such hardship. Because, of course, absent in
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this storytelling is the life of this child and her dignity and
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her rights and her personhood and her humanity.
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Absent from this story is what a 20 week abortion would have
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looked like, would have felt like, would have sounded like.
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What was absent from this story is the alternative reality in
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which Halo, instead of being born whole and loved and cared
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for and held by her mom and dad after birth, would have been
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ripped apart and discarded like trash.
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Of course, NPR isn't going to tell that side of the story,
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because they only want you to feel for Samantha.
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They only want you to feel for the mom.
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They don't want you to think about the other part of this
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moral equation, the other calculation that's at play.
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And so in the in the chapter, that's what we do.
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After we end that story, we say, OK, but let's tell this another,
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let's tell this another way. Let's tell it from the
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perspective of Halo and what would have happened to her if
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she had been aborted. And we walk through what an
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abortion looks. Like at this stage, which of
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course your viewers and listeners know very well because
12:19
of live actions resources. And then we go into not only
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medically what an abortion is, but what's the history of
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abortion. We look at the anti natalist
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movement all the way back to Thomas Malthus and the Nazi ties
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with Margaret Singer and the Eugenicist society and how
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really Planned Parenthood is still carrying out that mission
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to this day. And we also really get into it
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every chapter we look at how the church and specifically
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evangelicals, because that's the group I'm a part of, how people
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in my camp have really equivocated on each of these
12:53
issues, but especially this issue, the holistically pro-life
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or pro all life, which sounds good.
13:00
But typically those who take this position, even professing
13:03
Christians, they'll say, well, I'm pro all life, which is why I
13:08
vote Democrat because I care about the border, I care about
13:10
racism, I care about social justice.
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And so they'll say, you know, we really shouldn't focus on making
13:16
abortion illegal. We should only focus focus on
13:19
making it unthinkable, and how we do that is increase welfare
13:23
or increase these government programs or increase access to
13:26
birth control or comprehensive. What's so crazy is we have more
13:30
of those programs than ever before in human history or
13:33
American history and the abortion rates going up.
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Right. Which is devastating.
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And so I'm not saying there's a direct causation there, but I
13:41
will say I have seen again and again in this movement, you need
13:44
material resources. That's why we're big champions
13:46
of the pregnancy Resource Center movement.
13:48
That's why we love and support getting the woman the support
13:51
that she needs and deserves, not just before birth, but after
13:54
birth, But even with all the material goods that may be
13:57
available. If there is a mindset that I
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can't do this, that I don't want to do this, that this baby is a
14:03
threat to my empowerment, my achievement, whatever it is you
14:08
could hand out, you know, your diapers are taken care of.
14:11
Here's housing. Like, here's all of these needs
14:13
that we can meet for you, and it won't be enough.
14:15
Yeah. And a lot of people.
14:17
A lot of people who justify however they vote or justify
14:22
their opposition to securing the legal right to life for unborn
14:28
children by saying, well, we just need to do more.
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I always ask, when's the last time you donated your time or
14:35
your treasure to your pregnancy center?
14:38
What's the name of the pregnancy center in in your area?
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Most of them don't even know that pregnancy centers exist or
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they've imbibed this propaganda that they're fake clinics just
14:48
lying to women, which of course is not true at all.
14:51
And so if you were concerned that women don't have enough
14:54
sources, it's time to get up and do something about that.
14:57
Do not delegate the compassion that God has called you to to
15:01
the government, because with the government, there's always going
15:03
to be a tradeoff. It's never charity from the
15:05
government. There's always some kind of
15:07
exchange. There.
15:09
So there have, you know, there's Christians who have been doing
15:12
that work that pro choicers say need to be done before they can
15:16
be pro-life for decades and decades.
15:19
So you can be a part of that, or you can complain and continue to
15:22
vote for the people who believe in the slaughter of unborn
15:24
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16:57
All right, so another topic that you get into in the book is
17:00
sexuality issues and you actually have two chapters about
17:03
this. One is on LG and.
17:06
LGB, yeah. LG Well LGB.
17:08
Yeah. And then the last is on T.
17:10
Yeah, I want to do the. This is obviously highly
17:13
controversial today. I think in some ways it's more
17:15
controversial to be for natural marriage than it is to be
17:20
pro-life in some parts of our society.
17:23
So, you know, I think you did a great job of opposing the lies
17:27
of the toxic empathy used on sometimes both sides to justify
17:31
killing innocent babies. It's never loving to kill a
17:33
baby, full stop. Let's talk about the sexuality
17:37
issues because I do think there's a ton of emotional
17:40
hijacking that happens there. And you know, I'm going to start
17:44
with one that was really controversial.
17:47
And I know you address this with reproductive technologies in
17:49
your book, But when you have these public figures come out
17:52
and talk about their adoption stories and they're in same sex
17:55
relationships and so they're either doing surrogacy and IVF
17:58
or there's adoption. But often it's surrogacy and IVF
18:01
to have children and people who say, well, a child deserves a
18:05
mother and a father when at all possible, let them have a a
18:08
mother and a father that's an Arab.
18:10
Those are irreplaceable roles. It's not that everyone has them
18:13
because of loss or death or even God forbid, abuse, but that's
18:16
maximally good for kids. And so when you, you know,
18:20
especially if you're bringing life into the world
18:22
intentionally through IVF and surrogacy, only to deny that
18:25
child of a mother or a father because they're being placed
18:27
with the same sex couple, there is all this empathy for the same
18:31
sex couple, right in modern society.
18:33
But of course, they should have the right to have children.
18:34
How dare you. This child is going to do great.
18:37
The child's fine. It's not a big deal.
18:40
You address some of this. What is your take on that?
18:42
Yeah, there's something called the family diversity theory, and
18:46
I heard about it first from Doctor Brad Wilcox.
18:49
He's part of the Family Institute at the University of
18:52
Virginia. And it's this theory that
18:55
children just need love and it doesn't matter who it's from.
18:59
They, it could be aunts and uncles.
19:00
It could be some kind of strange polycule situation.
19:04
It could be two men, it could be two women.
19:06
It could be a single parent. As long as they are loved and
19:08
cared for. As long.
19:09
As they have material. Resources.
19:11
They're not abused, they're not in severe poverty.
19:14
They'll be fine. But that's not actually what the
19:16
data bears out at all. The data bears out that a child,
19:20
even in an imperfect home, feels most stable and most secure,
19:26
most emotionally healthy, when they are with their biological
19:30
mom and dad. And as you said, are there
19:32
exceptions to that? Of course we're not advocating
19:35
for a child to stay in an abusive home, but statistically
19:39
this is what is healthiest for the child.
19:40
And obviously that makes sense. The two components that are made
19:44
to make a child are also needed to raise a child.
19:48
It's a very anti science, pseudo religious, superstitious
19:51
position to say you need a sperm and an egg, a man and a woman.
19:55
Every single person on earth needs that in order to exist.
19:59
But then one of those components or one of those people all the
20:03
sudden becomes replaceable or arbitrary.
20:06
And here's the thing. Because we have people who are
20:08
part of the LGB. That are like well.
20:10
I don't agree with the T but homosexuality and gay so-called
20:14
marriage is completely different.
20:16
It's not. It's the same math.
20:18
Trans women are women is the same math as love is love.
20:22
Because you're refusing to define what those things are.
20:25
It's just a secular mantra that can mean anything you want it to
20:28
mean. It's just as absurd and you are
20:31
saying essentially, just as transgenderism says, well,
20:35
basically a woman can be anything that you say.
20:37
Anyone that declares it. Well, the gay union movement or
20:42
gay marriage movement is saying a mother can be anything that
20:46
you say that it is. A father can be anything that
20:49
you say that it is. These aren't real fixed
20:52
biological categories. These are social categories that
20:56
we can kind of just change. I think it is one of the
20:59
cruelest crimes against humanity that we are purposely creating
21:04
and raising motherless and fatherless children.
21:08
I mean, there's a reason why in the Bible, fatherlessness is
21:12
exclusively a category of vulnerability.
21:15
Christians are called to take up the cause of the fatherless.
21:18
And yet when it comes to reproductive technology, when it
21:21
comes to two women raising children, we don't think of
21:24
that. We don't think of those as
21:25
vulnerable children that we're supposed to be carrying the
21:27
mantle for. But I mean, there's a reason why
21:30
the Bible doesn't really talk about motherless children
21:32
because it's unnatural. It is so against how God created
21:37
us. And it's such a historical
21:39
aberration because mothers very rarely abandoned their children.
21:43
And yet right now we are not only celebrating that in the
21:46
name of empathy and love, we're subsidizing it through IVF and
21:51
especially in the state of California.
21:54
And I think those chickens will come home to roost at some
21:57
point, and it's frightening to think about.
21:59
What that will look like? It's a massive social experiment
22:02
that has never been done before in the history of humanity.
22:05
What politics, a combination of politics, we can call it
22:09
progressive politics and reproductive technologies has
22:13
created where there's a whole generation of kids that are
22:16
intentionally being separated from their biological parents,
22:18
not because of loss or abuse, because of the choices, the
22:24
commodification of the creation of new life.
22:27
And there's so little regulation of any of it.
22:30
Of course, you know, you've talked about this so many times
22:32
in your show. You've been so amazing about
22:34
that Ali, talking about reproductive technologies and
22:36
the harm of IVF. But there's a whole generation
22:38
of kids that are having a massive social experiment
22:41
performed on them and they're and they're being told that you
22:43
do not need a mother or you do not need a father, that you
22:47
should be happy because you're being gaslit.
22:49
They're being gaslit. Yes.
22:50
And Katie Foust, who you've talked about, she has them
22:53
before us and she highlights a lot of the testimonies of these
22:56
kids who are told by their peers, told by their teachers,
23:00
told by their counselors, their therapists and their parents.
23:03
No, you don't really want a mom. No, you know, some people have
23:05
bad moms. No, you're aren't you happy?
23:07
Look at everything that you have.
23:09
Look at how much they love you. Look at everything they went
23:11
through to have you in the IVF process, the egg selling, the
23:15
womb renting process, which is a whole other horrific side of the
23:20
surrogacy aspect of all of this. And so even children are being
23:25
told no. I know you feel like there's
23:27
something missing. I know you're feeling like you
23:29
were abandoned and you want to know half of your DNAI know that
23:33
you long for that love of your mother, but you don't really
23:37
need it. I don't know if you saw Lance
23:39
Bass. He was, you know, that **NSYNC
23:41
singer, and he is with a man. And they did the whole surrogacy
23:46
process to have children. And he actually confessed in an
23:50
article when he was being asked about fatherhood, he said, you
23:53
know, it's so hard. And the first year of their
23:55
life, they wouldn't cuddle with us.
23:57
They never wanted to snuggle with me.
23:59
And yet when my mom came over, it was immediate.
24:02
They just gravitated toward her. That's so sad.
24:05
Because God created us physiologically to need our
24:10
moms. And you know, I, I always get
24:12
asked, well, what, what about adoption?
24:14
Are you saying that that's, well, I am saying, of course
24:17
that adoption is not the ideal, but adoption redeems an already
24:22
broken situation where a surrogacy AG selling sperm
24:26
selling creates that broken situation.
24:29
And through toxic empathy, we're only looking at, well, they
24:32
really want a baby. They really want a baby, whether
24:35
it's the same sex couple or like, you know, a heterosexual
24:38
couple that's using reproductive technology.
24:41
We never think about the babies on the other side of the
24:43
equation. We only think about who the
24:46
media says are the victims, and that's the parents wanting a
24:48
child. It's.
24:49
Such a good point. I remember seeing a comment or a
24:53
short video Khloe Kardashian after undergoing surrogacy,
24:58
admitting that she didn't feel she could connect with her baby
25:02
afterwards, like it wasn't her baby.
25:05
She didn't even come get her baby.
25:06
The doctor that delivered the baby said, I'll take the baby
25:09
home for the weekend because you're busy, You're out of town.
25:13
I mean, that's commodifying. You're objectifying your child
25:17
in a way. It's like, oh, let me put that
25:19
dress on hold. I can't get it right now.
25:21
I'll come get it later. I mean, and those first few
25:25
moments of that child's life where it's so important to
25:27
connect, those are gone forever. There is part of the, I think
25:32
toxic empathy narrative too, is so many people I think are
25:36
struggling with their sexuality and there's real struggles
25:39
happening and there's real questions that are happening.
25:42
And some people, they believe they find a sense of community
25:45
relief and freedom when they are in what is called today, you
25:49
know, in our kind of colloquialism, LGBTQ plus IA,
25:53
whatever community, they feel that they've finally found
25:56
people to understand them, that affirm them.
25:58
And I think it is part of the human condition to to some
26:02
degree wrestle with sexuality or sexual attraction.
26:07
And this doesn't go away just because you're hetero, you know,
26:10
in terms of your hetero and you might have interest in someone
26:13
you're not married to or maybe before you get married, you're
26:16
sexually attracted to someone. That doesn't mean you should act
26:18
on those sexual attractions. So the whole, the whole rubric
26:21
for how to think about sexuality has been flipped on its head
26:23
today. And so now you know, you are
26:25
your desires. Your desires are a core part of
26:27
your identity. And if you can't act out in your
26:29
desires within the reason of, you know, it has to be between
26:32
consenting adults. That's a kind of the the bedrock
26:35
now of any sexual ethics. Then if you can't do that, then
26:38
you are oppressed, you are shamed, you are hurt.
26:42
So you address some of this in toxic empathy.
26:45
How did you navigate that? Because it's so highly, I think
26:50
it's so painful for a lot of people who feel like they are
26:53
being erased if they're told by others that you know you're, you
26:58
are not your sexual attractions. That was a perfect explanation
27:02
of the framing that I think has gotten us there.
27:05
This idea that our feelings are who we are, they are our
27:09
identity. And if you don't affirm my
27:12
feelings, if you don't have that not only empathy, feeling how I
27:15
feel, but through your empathy affirm everything I feel, then
27:19
you are denying my value as a person.
27:21
You don't love me, you hate me. You're trying to oppress Ask Me
27:25
and when we go through this particular chapter, when it's
27:28
talking about sexuality, both in the gender and sexuality.
27:33
But in the homosexuality chapter, we go through the story
27:37
of Glennon Doyle, who is a very famous author.
27:40
She's written a few books, and all of them have just sold a ton
27:46
of copies, like millions of copies.
27:48
And she was a Christian mommy Blogger, and she wrote about the
27:52
hardship of motherhood and marriage and how her husband had
27:56
been unfaithful. But she wrote Love Warrior and
27:59
she was going to stick it out. And then one day she announced
28:02
that through all of this, she was actually getting a divorce.
28:04
People felt betrayed, but that she had actually fallen in love
28:07
with a woman. What was her book?
28:09
I think was it Love Warrior that had come out?
28:12
They're selling the book and it was about her finding redemption
28:14
with her husband and being faithful to him even in his
28:17
infidelities and them finding a new marriage basically.
28:19
And literally as they were selling that book, I think she
28:22
made the announcement, I'm leaving him actually, and I'm
28:24
marrying a woman. By any standard, it's so
28:26
confusing. The message is by for your
28:28
marriage even in the face of, you know, significant betrayals.
28:32
And then he had, I guess, restored and started fighting
28:35
for it too apparent according to her book.
28:37
And then there's this very public betrayal of her vows.
28:40
And then a step further, there was now I'm going to enter
28:43
another marriage, but this time with someone of the same sex.
28:46
Yep, and how she describes it is just, I felt like me for the
28:51
first time. I was liberated.
28:54
I felt like my true self. I felt like I've never felt
28:57
before. And now the picture that she
28:59
paints is one of complete and total happiness that our whole
29:03
family gets along so well. My kids have so many people to
29:06
love them and it's just perfect. And we're so happy together.
29:10
And I think most people hear that and they're like, well, how
29:13
does that really affect me? If she's happy, if she's being
29:16
her true self, she's not hurting anyone and it works for them,
29:20
then what's the problem? And maybe that is true for most
29:24
people. How you know they see things,
29:27
but it can't be true for the Christian because while you may
29:31
be able to feel how they feel and understand or sympathize
29:36
with the hardships that she went through.
29:38
If you understand that God is love first John 48 and that love
29:43
rejoices with the truth first Corinthians 13 six, then you
29:47
know that you cannot really love someone by disagreeing with God.
29:52
You can't really love someone by opposing what he says is good
29:55
and right and true. You can't really love someone
29:57
and want what's best for them by looking at the creation account
30:01
all of the answers that are given to us in Genesis 127 about
30:05
the definition of marriage and say, OK, God doesn't know what
30:09
he's talking about. The God who is love, who created
30:12
our bodies, who created marriage to be an earthly reflection of
30:16
Christ and the church. I think I'm a little better than
30:20
that. I think I'm kinder than God.
30:21
I think I'm nicer than God. I think I'm more compassionate
30:24
than God. And I can be happy for this
30:27
person who is opposing what God says is good, right and true and
30:31
affirm what they're doing and still consider myself kind.
30:34
Well, you might have toxic empathy, but you don't have love
30:37
and kindness as God defines it, because you can't be truly
30:41
loving and kind and oppose what God says is true.
30:44
And then, of course, the implications of redefining
30:47
marriage for society and for children, the unconsenting
30:51
subjects of this social experiment, as you articulated,
30:54
they're just massive. And then we also talked about,
30:57
and Rosaria Butterfield really challenged me on this because I
31:00
had such a hard time for a while understanding, OK, but how
31:04
should my belief about this affect the public sphere?
31:08
Because I remember when I talked to Dave Rubin a few years ago on
31:12
his show and I shared my perspective on LGBTQ and he was
31:16
like, yeah, you know, I'm fine with people believing what they
31:18
believe as long as they don't believe that my marriage should
31:21
be illegal. And I'm like.
31:23
OK, well and I have. To I have a note here too, but
31:25
we're talking about progressivism kind of entering
31:27
conservativism increasingly and that's not just on life, it's
31:31
definitely on marriage. They did take natural marriage
31:34
out of the Republican Party Party's platform just a couple
31:38
months ago. This was a big deal.
31:40
I mean, it had been natural marriage in there for years and
31:43
years and years, and now it's removed.
31:45
So this is kind of what we're seeing, unfortunately, on the
31:48
right with this embrace of live and let live.
31:52
Love is love. You know, there's not one good
31:55
path for children at any family, any shape of family.
31:59
I think right now the new boundary alley is like, it has
32:01
to be 1. It has to be 1, you know, two
32:03
adults, right? So like for now, it can be two
32:06
women, it can be two men. And that's kind of the boundary
32:08
of marriage. But California is looking at
32:11
enshrining in the state constitution a complete erasure
32:15
of the definition of marriage. So no longer is it even 2
32:19
consenting adults. It could be 4 consenting adults,
32:22
5 consenting adults and, and some people say, well, that's
32:24
not a big deal. That's only going to be a fringe
32:26
amount of people anyways. But when you make, when you
32:29
ratify, when you make a right to marriage and you redefine it as
32:33
anything but a man and a woman, there are going to be people
32:37
affected, the generation of children that will be affected
32:40
one way or another. You can't.
32:41
This is not just about what adults do in their bedroom.
32:44
This does affect children because necessarily it gets into
32:47
adoption and reproductive technologies.
32:49
Which in California you're now you're subsidizing that too.
32:52
So it's. Subsidized.
32:53
You're not just in your bedrooms, you're in our
32:55
pocketbooks. And I mean, you're, you're in
32:59
our churches too. This ideology anyway, that's
33:02
asking us not only to affirm, but also to celebrate and pay
33:06
for it. And so it was always a lie that
33:09
you could redefine something as existential, fundamental and
33:14
cohesive as marriage and that it wouldn't affect anyone else,
33:17
even statistically. The most dangerous person to a
33:21
child statistically, again, there's always exceptions to to
33:25
statistics, but the most dangerous person to a child's
33:28
physical well-being is the unrelated person in their house,
33:33
whether it's a step parent or whether it is another family
33:37
member or family friend. The further degrees of
33:41
separation that you get from a child and the closer you are in
33:45
proximity to that child, the more in danger that child
33:49
statistically is. So when you think about these
33:52
polycule situations where you have multiple unrelated and many
33:56
times sexually confused adults all in one place with these
34:00
vulnerable children, that is a recipe for disaster.
34:04
But that's what toxic empathy does.
34:06
We only are supposed to think about what do adults want?
34:09
What does this person want? And what that person wants goes,
34:14
and whoever pays the price on the other side of it really
34:16
doesn't matter. Do you think that the message
34:20
that you when you share, when you speak about this, and I know
34:22
you, you've talked about this on the podcast many times and
34:25
you've got millions of people who have listened and listened
34:27
to your show. Do you feel like you've made you
34:30
can make progress on this one? Because I think there's also a
34:33
new narrative that you can't make progress on the sexuality
34:36
issues that if people have attractions a different
34:39
direction, you know, if they're confused sexually or they have
34:42
these sexual attractions or identify a certain way, that's
34:44
just the way it's going to be. And society better just learn
34:47
how to live with each other, like live the live and let live
34:49
message. Of course, children are this
34:52
unfortunate group that just get left in the lurch of this.
34:56
What are you? What are you seeing out there?
34:58
I'm seeing some hope, but I want to.
34:59
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Join crowd health.com well. I did see that actually support
36:03
for a gay marriage has the trend has actually reversed for the
36:07
first time in like 20 years. That's huge.
36:09
And Z, which is really, really interesting.
36:12
It's so interesting. And of course, individually, I
36:16
hear stories all the time, as I'm sure you do, of people
36:19
changing their own hearts and minds on things like abortion or
36:22
things like gender. I had this beautiful young woman
36:24
named Daisy Stronging come on my show.
36:27
And she was a part of the Prager U documentary about D
36:30
transitioning. And she had reached out to me
36:32
and said, you know, I transitioned when I was about
36:35
1920 years old after I had a lot of people via toxic empathy feel
36:40
for me and affirm me even when her frontal lobe wasn't
36:43
developed. And she said during this time
36:46
that I transitioned, I started listening to some right wing
36:50
things, mostly because I had seen some of your names on
36:53
Reddit and I just, I was kind of hilarious watching and I would
36:57
argue with you guys. And she said, but every time you
37:00
would talk about gender, I couldn't formulate my arguments.
37:04
And that's not me taking credit. It's really just a basic
37:08
biological observable, observable fact, the difference
37:11
between male and female. She was like, I kept on trying
37:13
to argue and I couldn't argue. And so it wasn't of course, just
37:18
my content. It was several other people, but
37:20
over time and through God working and in her heart, she
37:23
was like, I can't do this anymore.
37:25
This is a lie. I'm never really going to be a
37:27
man. She D transitioned and now she
37:29
is married and a mother of two and a Christian.
37:32
And it's a really beautiful story.
37:34
But to me, you know, I can get really discouraged when I look
37:38
at the big picture or when I look at the medium picture,
37:42
because the big picture is that God is in charge and that his
37:44
eternal plan of redemption is going off without a hitch and
37:47
he's going to find all of his lost sheep because God never
37:49
fails. That's the big picture, and the
37:52
small picture is that everyone's mind and heart is going to
37:56
change whom God sets out to change.
38:00
And that is something you and I get a front row and seeing, and
38:04
I get those messages all the time.
38:06
The medium picture is what is discouraging.
38:08
The stuff that you see on social media, the stuff that you see on
38:11
your timeline, that everything is going to hell in a handbasket
38:15
and everyone is just sufficiently propagandized into
38:18
believing that abortion is OK, that you can switch genders,
38:21
that family structure doesn't matter, open borders is fine,
38:24
and all of that, that and the medium scale matters.
38:27
The medium picture matters. It can determine elections, but
38:31
it is not the ultimate form of reality and it's not what we can
38:35
focus on every second of every day because it will demoralize
38:39
us. I heard this a couple years ago,
38:41
and it's so encouraging to me. And this is when I try to focus
38:45
on the little picture. In the big picture, the measure
38:48
of success in a Christian's life is faithfulness.
38:52
Not fame, not the number of followers that you have, not
38:56
even in the number of people who tell you that they've changed
38:59
their mind, but faithfulness. And if you're being faithful,
39:03
God is going to do and change exactly what he wants to through
39:07
you. And so that's how I kind of
39:09
remain encouraged. God's going to do what he wants.
39:12
Even that me, I love the way you create that picture.
39:16
You created this, you know, this big picture of God's eternity,
39:19
the middle picture of what's happening in the world.
39:21
And especially you see it through media and social media
39:23
and a little picture of like the one heart, one mind you can
39:25
reach and you can love. But I will also say for that
39:28
medium picture, I really believe there's so many intentional lies
39:33
being told about that medium picture that become a self
39:36
fulfilling prophecy. And you know this from social
39:39
experiments where you see, you know, I don't know if you saw
39:41
that famous clip of the guy, he's out there dancing and he
39:45
gets other people to get out there dancing with him.
39:47
But it started with the one guy doing it and then everyone
39:49
didn't. It's like, oh, it's normal to
39:50
dance like crazy in public. And so if you think everybody
39:54
else believes a certain way, if you think everyone else behaves
39:58
a certain way, then it's much easier to think you should even
40:02
behave that way. And this was the strategy when
40:04
it comes to sex. This was the strategy of the
40:06
sexual revolutionaries with Alfred Kinsey.
40:08
He would do these experiments on a prisoner population, and he
40:12
would do these surveys about their sexual behaviors.
40:15
And then he would say, well, this many of them cheat.
40:17
This many of them are swingers. This many of them are
40:19
polyamorous. This many of them are, you know,
40:21
bisexual or homosexual. This many.
40:23
Them are pedophilic and he would say this population is
40:27
representative. He would extrapolate that on the
40:29
rest of the population. And then he's published all
40:31
these studies and books. And so he would tell your
40:33
average person that X amount of you guys are cheating on your
40:37
spouses doing swinging culture or homosexual or bisexual and
40:41
create these categories of sexual behavior that he would
40:44
normalize to say this is normal activity.
40:48
And the problem with repeating a lie enough times is it can
40:51
become a self fulfilling prophecy for the people leaving
40:54
it. And so they think it is normal
40:55
then to cheat on my spouse. It's normal if I have same sex
40:58
attraction to go act on it and to develop a whole identity
41:00
around it, etcetera, etcetera. And so when I look at the medium
41:03
picture, I'm actually hopeful because I see this intentional
41:07
deception that's happening relentlessly on issues of
41:10
abortion, sexuality, these different things where people
41:13
are being told everyone is pro abortion.
41:15
Yeah. Everyone is for same sex couples
41:18
adopting, everyone is for these things.
41:21
But then when you actually talk to people about it and your
41:24
everyday person who maybe is afraid to sometimes post it on
41:26
social media, a lot more, nature is powerful.
41:30
The law of God and the natural law is powerful.
41:32
It's written on the heart. And people still show up and
41:35
say, you know, actually, I, I don't agree with that.
41:37
Yeah, I don't agree. And that law of God being
41:41
written on our hearts is obvious even to say.
41:45
Planned Parenthood or the abortion lobby, if it weren't
41:49
true that human beings instinctively know basically the
41:54
difference between right and wrong, Planned Parenthood would
41:57
come out and say, see, this is how we do an abortion, isn't it
41:59
good? See, it's a great point.
42:01
This is this is how a baby develops in the womb.
42:04
Don't you think it's fine to kill her?
42:06
Let me tell you about the chemical combination that we use
42:09
to inject in the baby's heart and the second trimester
42:11
abortion. It's the same chemical
42:13
combination that's used in lethal injections of murders on
42:16
death row, by the way. They wouldn't use words like
42:19
bodily autonomy or terminating a pregnancy or contents of
42:22
pregnancy or even fetus. They would just be outright
42:26
about it. That would be their advertising
42:27
NPR campaign. When you've got a good product,
42:30
you don't use euphemisms and lies to try to say, well, we
42:34
don't want to tell you what our product or service actually is,
42:37
just trust us that it's really good.
42:39
They know it's bad. They know it's barbaric, or they
42:42
at least know that most people know it's bad.
42:46
So that's you're right. The law of God is written on
42:49
hearts and that is why propaganda for bad ideas is
42:52
necessary. It's such a good point and I
42:54
know you make it again and again intoxic empathy.
42:56
And it's true in the sexuality issues too, because it is not OK
43:01
today in most circles to talk about the harm of disordered
43:05
sexual activity, whether it's STI, sexually transmitted
43:08
infections, which like a century ago were almost nowhere.
43:12
I mean, there were some if you went to brothels, but you don't
43:14
that wasn't like a thing. The the amount of people who
43:17
have STI's has skyrocketed in the last several decades,
43:20
obviously unwanted pregnancy, out of wedlock pregnancy people,
43:24
you know, 9 out of every 10 women's having abortions,
43:27
they're unmarried. And then when it comes to some
43:29
of this more exploratory, you know, sexual deviant behavior,
43:34
that's also rarely talked about the damage.
43:37
There's a group of, I know people who used to live the same
43:40
sex lifestyle, especially the gay homosexual lifestyle,
43:43
talking about the physical harm that that life.
43:46
So that kind of sexual activity specifically has on their
43:50
physical bodies beyond even STI. And then of course, there's the
43:54
physical harm of transgender, you know, reassignment
43:57
surgeries. Do you find when that is talked
44:00
about and again, very controversial to even say, oh,
44:03
there's consequences to physical consequences to sexual activity
44:08
outside of a one man, one woman full of love, marriage, that
44:12
there's physical emotional consequences to that.
44:14
How do you find people respond to that message?
44:17
Oh, I think even conservatives, as we were talking about
44:20
earlier, have a hard time with that one.
44:22
And of course, we see that in our Republican representatives
44:26
that after Obergefell, most Republican were like, OK, well,
44:29
that's just a lost battle. Let's just focus on this other
44:32
stuff, immigration, economics, things like that, that both
44:35
sides can kind of maybe come together on, or at least pro
44:40
LGBTQ conservatives can still get on board with.
44:43
And of course, I think part of that is the Trump ification of
44:46
the Republican Party. So he's, you know, in New York.
44:49
I, I don't know if I'd call him liberal in every sense of the
44:52
word, of course, but socially definitely, definitely so.
44:56
But when you don't have a grounding in these fundamental
45:00
moral and biological truths, then really anything goes.
45:04
Like, what is even the reason for anything, for the foundation
45:09
of our country? If we don't believe what the
45:11
Declaration of Independence says, that we were created by
45:14
God with certain inalienable rights.
45:16
And if you don't believe that, then sure, marriage can be
45:19
anything. Morality can be anything.
45:21
But if that's the case, if morality can be anything, if we
45:24
don't have a God that gave us certain inalienable rights,
45:26
whose authority is transcended over the government, then what
45:29
justification do we have for borders and for sovereignty and
45:33
for national identity? That's, I mean, the founders at
45:37
least knew, even though they weren't wrestling with the same
45:39
cultural issues and moral issues that we are today, they at least
45:43
knew that the basis of our legitimacy has to be that we
45:47
were created by a God whose moral order, whose natural law,
45:52
whose definitions of right and wrong and rights themselves.
45:56
But that has to be the basis for a free country.
45:59
And I'm just afraid that this whole like Christ list secular
46:03
conservative movement that we have, even though we can partner
46:06
in some areas, at the end of the day that's going to wash away
46:10
like everything else because it's not anchored.
46:13
That is such a good point. And I know you talk about that
46:15
on your show, and I'm seeing this more and more.
46:18
You use the word Trumpification, which you're right.
46:21
I mean, he is a social liberal effectively, but I think a lot
46:25
of conservatives stick are sticking with him because he is
46:29
he, you know, he wants a border. He says he wants a border and
46:31
some of these other things. You do address immigration in
46:34
your book as well as another topic that you explore.
46:37
I want to talk about the Trump thing for a minute.
46:39
We're obviously in an election cycle.
46:41
You have expressed your dismay over some of the left-leaning
46:46
turns that the Republicans have taken.
46:48
And not all Republicans. They're definitely some really
46:50
solid pro-life, pro family, pro marriage Republicans still
46:55
standing. But unfortunately, and there's
46:57
an occasional Democrat, by the way, but they're very quiet
47:00
about it and they're very, very rare and their party hates them.
47:04
But increasingly, I'm seeing this happen on the right.
47:06
And it's deeply concerning to me that the platform changed to two
47:10
months ago. That was not what Trump was
47:12
running on in the primary. Trump was not running on the
47:14
platform changes that he made two months ago, so it wasn't.
47:17
Certainly wasn't in 2016. And he certainly wasn't in 2016.
47:20
So it was a bait and switch for voters.
47:23
And so everyone knows on the show, I've been very vocal about
47:25
it. You've been vocal about it too,
47:27
saying this is a problem, don't do this, President, you know,
47:29
former President Trump, this is wrong.
47:32
I think where you and I may be at a point of disagreement at
47:35
this time is that you're actively telling people you
47:38
still got to show up and vote for Trump.
47:40
And I'm saying you've got to threaten not to vote for Trump
47:42
right now. Like, this is a serious
47:44
inflection point where he is actively flip flopping on these
47:48
issues and we can and we must push him towards what he, you
47:53
know, before in many ways was not willing to break down, but
47:56
now he's just, you know, breaking out.
47:58
Melania Trump also came out last week with her book and a video
48:01
explaining why she supports abortion unrestricted.
48:04
So again, toxic empathy, call it what you wanted, but
48:07
infiltrating a movement that for decades, yes, we didn't always
48:10
have the best politicians, but their principle was clear and
48:13
there was an opportunity to hold the politician to the principle.
48:16
Now the principle, even in the party platform is being
48:19
destroyed. OK, here's what I say.
48:21
I think this is going to be so helpful for people if we kind of
48:25
go back and forth and see our varying perspectives because,
48:28
you know, they might see the debates that we've done left
48:31
versus right on abortion or gender, but you don't often get
48:35
like the nuances within the conservative side on this.
48:38
So I think this will be super helpful.
48:41
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50:01
We both agree that Trump's position and Vance's position
50:06
now on abortion just aren't pro-life.
50:08
They're not what we wanted to be.
50:09
A lot of people say, well, who cares about that?
50:12
This is who Trump has always been.
50:13
But as we pointed out in 2016, he said, look, I'm going to
50:17
appoint pro-life justices. He cared about the evangelical
50:20
vote. He cared about the pro-life
50:22
vote. He promised something.
50:24
We got that. In exchange, they helped him
50:26
win. I don't think he would have won.
50:27
It was because Trump got the evangelical and conservative
50:31
vote in 20, 2016 that he won. And the reason he got the vote
50:35
is because they said we want these things from you and you
50:39
need to deliver. And that that whole transaction
50:41
happened. People say, well, Trump's
50:42
transactional, that transaction happened.
50:44
There's no transaction right now.
50:46
Now it's just Trump steamrolling over his voter block and saying,
50:50
sorry, guys, I'm going to do this other thing.
50:53
So that's therein lies the Therein lies the rub, yes.
50:55
Therein lies the rub. There's a couple things I would
50:58
say on that. Number one, I do think that
51:00
Trump can be pushed towards life.
51:02
And I, I know that you saw this when everyone, including you and
51:05
you kind of spearheaded this, raised a respectful ruckus about
51:09
Trump basically saying, well, I think six weeks is too short.
51:12
I don't know how I'm going to vote on Amendment 4.
51:14
But he ended up coming out and saying, look, this is radical.
51:18
I'm voting no one Amendment 4 in Florida.
51:20
And so he was influenced by the outcry of people who said, no,
51:24
that's too far. Kamala Harris would never be
51:28
influenced that direction. She would never back down from
51:31
being completely radical on abortion.
51:33
Neither would Tim Walz. Their record proves this.
51:35
This is not hyperbole. Your listeners already know
51:38
Kamala Harris record so I don't even need to go into that.
51:41
I think Trump, even if he is not as pro-life because we want him
51:45
to be, it is a mistake to say, well, both parties are basically
51:48
the same. They're not.
51:49
There's a lot of daylight between the Republican position,
51:53
which we would like to be a lot stronger, and the Democrat
51:55
position, which is no limit through all nine months paid for
51:59
by the taxpayer. And even after nine months, if
52:02
the baby survives an abortion, they should be left to die.
52:05
That's the Democrat position. The Republican position is not
52:08
that. Even if it is not as strong as
52:10
we want, it's not that. So I'll pause there.
52:12
That's the on the abortion. But then I've got some other
52:15
reasons why I'm voting for Trump.
52:16
But go ahead. Well, on, on abortion, if we
52:18
hold that for a moment, because I want to explore that a little
52:20
more. I see, you know, I, I look, I'm
52:23
looking 10 years out, right. So this election is about
52:26
tomorrow. It is about the day after we
52:29
vote, but this and it's about 2025.
52:31
But this left election is also about a crucial juncture in the
52:34
story that's playing out over the next decades, the next few
52:37
decades. So I think there's sort of an
52:39
immediacy with an election where you think, OK, I just got to get
52:41
like, I just got to hang on for another year, you know, kind of
52:44
thing. Like when people say, well, if
52:46
Trump doesn't win, it's going to be the death knell, you know,
52:48
death knell for the entire Republic.
52:49
I mean, there's that. And by the way, the left says
52:51
that about the right. So they're both saying that
52:52
about each other. But this is the concern, right?
52:55
The concern is if voters go out and there's different degrees
53:01
because you can go out and say Trump's the most president ever
53:03
wear the MAGA hat. I'm so excited to vote for him,
53:06
right? That camp.
53:08
And then there's the camp that says I'm going to hold my nose
53:10
and vote for him because he's better than Kamala, right?
53:13
So there, that is an important distinction.
53:15
And I want to just address the people that like want to be
53:17
excited to vote for him, which I totally can understand because
53:20
we're dealing with a Democrat party that is so left, you know,
53:25
militantly pro abortion. And so you want to have a
53:28
champion to stand up to that, right?
53:31
But I think one mistake we can make is if we make it seem like
53:36
if we don't speak truth to power, and we make it seem like
53:38
we we basically gloss over the problems with our own candidate
53:44
because we want them to win so badly.
53:47
And this is just in conversation with friends on podcasting,
53:50
Wherever it is, we pretend like those problems don't exist or we
53:53
kind of rationalize them instead of acknowledging, yes, these
53:56
problems exist. And I'll still, in this
53:59
situation, vote for the lesser of two evils.
54:01
So there is that. And I love what you do on this
54:03
alley because I do think you don't whitewash, you don't gloss
54:06
over and you call a spade a spade.
54:08
That unfortunately is not what I think everyone in the kind of
54:11
media circuit is doing right now.
54:13
Because again, they they're so afraid of Trump losing that
54:16
they're willing to gloss over some of these problems.
54:18
They'll speak about them privately, but they won't dare
54:21
speak about them publicly. And I think the mistake that
54:23
that makes is it further enshrines that these things
54:26
don't matter. Because if you're going to go
54:29
hard for this candidate who is betraying you on these issues
54:33
and you're not willing to call that out while still saying I'm
54:35
going to still vote because they're better than the other,
54:36
then I think you cement the idea that those things don't matter
54:39
that much in the very same people that you're talking to.
54:43
What what is your take on that? Yeah, I agree with you that you
54:46
lose trust with your audience and you should if you pretend
54:51
that the issues with Trump or your disagreements with Trump
54:55
just don't exist or you minimize them.
54:57
And I mean, obviously you've seen this, but those of us who
54:59
do criticize Trump or Melania, when they say something
55:04
pro-choice, we're blamed. We're like, how?
55:07
Why are you talking about this? We're a month well from the
55:09
election. You're going to make him lose.
55:11
I'm like, no, get mad at the politicians who are saying this
55:14
a month out from the election. There is no good reason why
55:17
Melania Trump should have come out 50 days before the election
55:20
and said, yeah, I believe that a right to terminate your
55:23
pregnancy is fundamental to a woman's bodily autonomy.
55:26
Like, that is absolutely insane. Don't get mad at us for saying
55:29
that. That's insane.
55:30
Get mad at her for saying something that is insane.
55:35
So anyway, I, I think that I agree with you on that.
55:38
I agree with you that we should be calling out Trump and
55:41
criticizing when it's justified. The reason why I am still voting
55:48
for Donald Trump. You mentioned that both sides
55:50
are like, oh, well, this is an end to our country.
55:53
Well, just because both sides are saying it doesn't mean
55:55
they're both wrong. I think that one side is right
55:59
and one side is wrong. We have Donald Trump's record
56:02
that he has not pushed us towards an autocracy.
56:04
He hasn't that pushed us towards a theocracy.
56:07
Like the guy who was basically a Playboy is not going to bring in
56:12
The Handmaid's Tale. That's like the most ridiculous
56:14
thing. He used to judge bikini contest.
56:16
Like he's not going to be the one forcing women to wear red
56:20
robes and to be sex slaves to men.
56:23
It's crazy. And so that I think criticism of
56:29
Donald Trump that he's going to be the end to democracy, it's
56:32
just not founded in reality. It's not founded in his record.
56:35
And when you look at Kamala Harris like she is the chaos
56:38
candidate, her and Tim Walls are as far left as you can be.
56:41
That's not hyperbole. Actually, when you look at her
56:44
record as senator, she was the furthest left senator when she
56:48
served in the Senate, even alongside Bernie Sanders, who
56:52
was her colleague at the time. I don't have to tell your
56:54
audience what she did in the state of California, both as
56:57
attorney general and this District Attorney of San
57:00
Francisco, not only to go after pro lifers, whether it's
57:03
pregnancy Center telling them that they have to prominently
57:06
advertise for abortion. That fact act was overturned, of
57:09
course, by the Supreme Court because it's a violation of the
57:12
1st Amendment. Also going after your friend
57:14
David Daleiden for reporting on Planned Parenthood, another
57:18
violation of the 1st Amendment. And so we see that she doesn't
57:21
care about your most fundamental constitutional rights if they
57:25
get in the way of abortion. We know the Biden and Harris
57:28
administration, they've jailed pro lifers for peaceful
57:32
demonstrations in front of abortion.
57:34
Clinic 11 in federal prison right now.
57:36
Yes, including Joan Bell, who is 74, I think and still.
57:40
Got a life award this weekend. She's in jail.
57:43
Couldn't receive it in person, but she's in jail for her
57:45
pro-life, peaceful pro-life work.
57:47
Yes. So these Sentinels of democracy,
57:49
we're told on the left, will violate every single one of your
57:53
constitutional rights if it gets in the way of abortion.
57:56
And if we look at the Equality Act, which of course hasn't
57:58
passed, the same thing with LGBTQ, they will absolutely
58:02
violate your First Amendment rights and force you to
58:06
celebrate, to marry, to affirm verbally the sexual and gender
58:12
choices of people that you don't align with, who have choices and
58:17
identities that you don't affirm.
58:19
And so that's Kamala Harris. And when I look at what is
58:24
actually a threat to freedom, what's actually a threat to
58:27
order, I'm looking at a candidate that believes in
58:30
institutionalizing sexual degeneracy and disorder.
58:34
She's been the border czar for the last 3 1/2 years.
58:37
Our border crossings are worse than they've been.
58:39
Of course, the amount of sex and drug trafficking, the human toll
58:43
at the border because of lawlessness and borderlessness
58:46
is so great. I actually am afraid that our
58:50
country would not survive a presidency under Kamala Harris.
58:53
I don't mean that we would actually be dissolved in the
58:56
next four years, but the damage that she would cause in the next
59:01
4 to 8 years would be so great to our nation's sovereignty,
59:05
security, stability, even globally.
59:08
Whereas Trump really brought in peace through his diplomacy.
59:13
That really scares me. And so while I don't want to
59:18
make a short sighted decision with Donald Trump, I don't want
59:21
them to think, well look, we can just sell out pro lifers and
59:24
they'll still vote for us. I.
59:27
Am pro familyers because it's it is the marriage thing too.
59:31
It's not just abortion. It is a binary choice, though.
59:33
It is a binary choice and I don't.
59:35
If someone doesn't vote for either candidate, it's not like
59:38
I think they've lost their salvation or something.
59:41
But we are looking at an election that has a lot at
59:45
stake, and I try really hard not to exaggerate because that's
59:48
another thing I think can lose, can like make you lose trust
59:51
with your audience. I don't want to put hyperboles
59:54
out there. I don't want to fear monger.
59:56
But when I just look at who she is, the record of what she's
59:59
done, the bloodthirst that I think marks.
1:00:03
Her record as a politician, not even to mention the very tawdry
1:00:07
and scary stuff in her and her husband's personal life with
1:00:11
abuse and sexual degeneracy and selling her body for power.
1:00:15
Like, I think that it's a very, very scary prospect to have
1:00:18
Kamala Harris in the White House.
1:00:20
And yes, I am going to vote against that.
1:00:23
Even if I don't love what Donald Trump has said, I'm going to
1:00:27
vote against that. I'm going to vote for the more
1:00:30
orderly candidate because disorder and chaos, they're
1:00:35
products of Satan. He is the king of chaos, and God
1:00:39
is a God of order. We see that from the beginning.
1:00:42
He placed us in a garden with boundaries, not a jungle.
1:00:46
And everywhere we see walls and borders and parameters depicted
1:00:50
in the Bible, it's positive, either metaphorically or
1:00:53
literally. And I think that we can take
1:00:56
that into account not only when we're talking about the literal
1:00:59
borders of our country, but also the borders and parameters of
1:01:02
morality and family. There's a scary quote that I
1:01:05
heard recently that the cost for abortion, the consequence of
1:01:10
abortion, over 60 million little boys and girls murdered by
1:01:13
abortion since 1973 in America alone.
1:01:16
Globally, we're talking maybe 2 billion plus.
1:01:19
It's insane that the cost for abortion maybe nuclear will be
1:01:23
is the nuclear war. And I mentioned this on a show
1:01:26
recently. It was improperly ascribed to
1:01:28
Mother Teresa, meaning the bloodthirst and the blood
1:01:32
letting of abortion on a spiritual level, the judgement
1:01:35
and and also it's not just like some something, it's not
1:01:38
something God does because God doesn't kill.
1:01:40
God doesn't do nuclear war. That's not something God does,
1:01:42
but it's a natural consequence in the chaos to what you're
1:01:45
speaking to connecting it back to what you just said.
1:01:48
It's the chaos that we've created culturally where you
1:01:51
know, left is right, up is down. A baby's not a baby.
1:01:55
It's OK to kill a baby. That same morally confused
1:01:58
chaotic culture is a culture that weakens itself to be at the
1:02:02
point of you can use the word invasion, but the point of bad
1:02:05
decision making when it comes to foreign affairs, when it comes
1:02:09
to everything else we do as a society, a society that is
1:02:12
willing to sell the right to life of the child is a society
1:02:16
that is willing to and will make mistakes on many other things.
1:02:20
So that's the that's the idea there.
1:02:23
And I think there's a lot to that idea.
1:02:25
And so going back to this election, this historic election
1:02:29
and going back to this incredibly difficult, chaotic
1:02:32
moment that we find ourselves in, so many people are so
1:02:35
concerned as they should be about our country and our future
1:02:38
and what to do in this election. I agree.
1:02:41
Voting for Kamala is, you know, on abortion, she's worse than
1:02:46
Trump, Vance, she wants to enshrine Roe V Wade.
1:02:49
Now, the actual implication of that versus President Trump
1:02:53
literally saying that he doesn't support pro-life laws, that he
1:02:57
thinks California has the right to have an abort, you know,
1:02:59
right to abortion and do what they want practically, they look
1:03:03
really pretty similar, which is horrible to say, but that is.
1:03:07
So to say this is my question and I don't mean to like turn
1:03:10
the tables but I do. I'm really curious so.
1:03:13
Turn them alley. Yes, well.
1:03:14
OK, then I'll finish what the other.
1:03:16
So let's go here which. Obviously we agree with, but we
1:03:19
disagree with that. Oh well, It's just a state issue
1:03:21
basically. Stop bothering me about it.
1:03:23
That's how I think that he. Well, that's not what he says
1:03:25
though, 'cause he says it's a state's issue.
1:03:27
But then he says, and you should have, he's prescriptive about
1:03:31
it. It's not it's it's not just the
1:03:32
message of let the states decide, which by the way, is a
1:03:34
horrible message like California have abortion through only
1:03:37
months. Not my not my problem and wash
1:03:39
my hands of this. Even though there's a
1:03:40
constitutional right to life. It's also Florida doesn't have
1:03:44
enough weeks I we'd need these exceptions in personal
1:03:48
conversations I have been able to have with the campaign.
1:03:53
It's it's a personal belief of this is not there is not an A
1:03:59
clear right to life, but that there is a right in many in many
1:04:03
situations to abortion. And so it would be one thing if
1:04:06
it was a pure washing of the hands and even that would be a
1:04:08
hugely problematic. But it's more than that.
1:04:10
There's a positive right to abortion that that exists there.
1:04:13
Yeah, he just in that world. Right, he believes in some kind
1:04:17
of exception and I just. Wonder an abortion in the first
1:04:20
trimester, basically. Yeah, yeah.
1:04:22
And he said that on multiple occasions.
1:04:25
So, but what he would do politically is he would leave it
1:04:30
up to the states. And the reason I say stop
1:04:32
bothering me about it is because, I mean, he can't
1:04:34
actually go to Georgia or go to Texas and say, hey, you need
1:04:37
more weeks on the books right now.
1:04:39
Politically, I think he wishes it were an issue and that he
1:04:43
would just not talk about it anymore and that he gave it to
1:04:46
the states. He did what he needs to do and
1:04:47
now it's done. Whereas Kamala Harris, they want
1:04:51
to federalize whatever they say, Roe V Wade, But it would
1:04:55
probably look a lot like the laws that states have on the
1:04:58
books that say, yeah, you have basically an unmitigated right
1:05:02
through 24 weeks. And then after that, as long as
1:05:05
the healthcare provider says that you need it, it could be
1:05:08
for mental or emotional health or family or financial
1:05:10
situation, then you also have a right.
1:05:12
So basically abortion through all nine months.
1:05:14
And no state would be able to have a law that goes against
1:05:19
that federal. Law, if they got that through
1:05:21
the House, and which is by the way, anybody who might be
1:05:24
thinking again, you know, it's their conscience, they obviously
1:05:27
can't vote for Kamala. They're struggling.
1:05:29
Can I vote for Trump? I do think it's essential that
1:05:31
we, you know, regardless of who's in power, but especially
1:05:35
if Kamala is in power, I think we need to ensure that that
1:05:39
doesn't happen. What you're describing, that
1:05:40
there's not, you know, Roe V. Wade enshrined federally for the
1:05:44
next 4 years, but. That would be different than
1:05:46
Trump not which I think he should sign a law that would
1:05:50
that would ban abortion. But we got to keep the House and
1:05:52
the Senate, is what I'm saying, where you need to keep and
1:05:54
everything stayed there in the. Senate, if everything stayed the
1:05:57
same, Florida would get to keep their heartbeat law.
1:06:00
Texas would be able to do the same.
1:06:02
Georgia would be able to do the same.
1:06:03
But if Kamala Harris got her way, none of these states would
1:06:06
be able to have the restrictions that they have, right?
1:06:08
So it's not the same. Well, and that's, if she has,
1:06:12
that's if the Democrats have full power of the House and the
1:06:15
Senate. I I think the other piece here
1:06:17
though, that it that, and I was kind of saying earlier that I'm
1:06:19
wrestling with and I want to hear what you think about this
1:06:22
when it comes to what Trump, the Trumpification comment you made
1:06:25
earlier. When it comes to what President
1:06:26
Trump has done, even with JD Vance, he's actually a great
1:06:30
case study and we're watching it happen in real time, right?
1:06:33
JD Vance had this 100% pro-life rating from Susan B Anthony at
1:06:37
least, right? Because he went out there.
1:06:38
He was like, you know, no, there's no exception.
1:06:40
You can't kill a baby just because they're conceived in
1:06:42
violence. It's not good for women anyways.
1:06:44
You know, abortion is wrong. It's always wrong.
1:06:45
There's a constitutional right to life.
1:06:47
You know, he was on it, right? And then because of the
1:06:51
influence of President Trump, he has been, I mean, I don't think
1:06:55
anyone's forced to say anything. I think he could have said
1:06:58
politely. I will not say what's untrue.
1:07:00
I will not lie. I will not do this.
1:07:01
It's wrong. I think that would have been the
1:07:03
heroic thing to do. Unfortunately, JD Vance has
1:07:06
chosen to go the path of I'm going to just identify exactly
1:07:08
with Trump's public policy on this and I'm going to sacrifice
1:07:11
my beliefs here. And there's not just a belief
1:07:13
like a religious belief. It's what's right.
1:07:15
You know, when it comes to human life is worthy of protecting.
1:07:19
So you know, what does it look like?
1:07:20
What do you think? Like, let's say Trump wins.
1:07:22
Let's like game theory it let's say Trump wins because the he
1:07:24
gets you know, everyone's so horrified by Kamala Harris,
1:07:27
right? They all we all get out to vote
1:07:29
for President Trump. He wins.
1:07:30
He wins in a landslide. He has the evangelical vote
1:07:33
locked down the Catholic vote. Enough of it.
1:07:35
Locked down conservatives. What does that do long term to
1:07:40
the Republican Party and to the political opportunities of the
1:07:46
pro-life, pro family voting bloc?
1:07:49
Because now not only have we completely turned out the vote
1:07:53
right, we have also, I think sent a message to people like JD
1:07:57
Vance that it's totally fine like you did.
1:08:01
He did a full 180 like Trump, you know, has always had a had a
1:08:04
few exceptions in his platform on this right.
1:08:06
But JD Vance had a full 180, and Trump wants the political party,
1:08:11
the Republicans, to have these also ultimately socially left
1:08:17
planks. So how do you see the future of
1:08:19
the party? In today's modern world, it can
1:08:21
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1:08:25
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your prayer walk with God. Well, I think no matter who
1:10:05
wins, we have to start working right now on who's going to be
1:10:09
our primary candidate in 2028 or who's going to who we want to be
1:10:15
the nominee in 2028. Because Trump, I mean, it's not
1:10:18
going to be Trump. Obviously he'll finish out.
1:10:21
We want someone that's going to be Kamala Harris.
1:10:24
And so right now we have to start selecting that person,
1:10:27
working on supporting that person, deciding who we want to
1:10:32
win. And we have to start rallying
1:10:34
people behind that 'cause now. And that is true if Kamala
1:10:38
Harris wins as well. Because I'm not so sure that if
1:10:41
Trump loses that people will wake up and say, oh, wow, I
1:10:45
really see that. He should have, he should have
1:10:48
tried to get more pro-life support.
1:10:50
And so we're going to get a different person in.
1:10:52
Oh, I don't think that's the lesson that's going to be drawn
1:10:54
in by the we've just lost four years of the country.
1:10:57
Not by the pro-choice Republicans anyways.
1:10:59
I think it's more it's more question of, you know, what who
1:11:03
is, who is, who is running the show, so to speak, and not
1:11:06
running, running the show, but what is the what is the
1:11:09
influence right, of social conservatives?
1:11:12
And, you know, we could just kind of, you know, put the run
1:11:16
the battle down the field and say, listen, we got to vote for
1:11:18
the lesser of two evils and then we'll just try to pick someone
1:11:21
better next time. You know, that is, is going to
1:11:23
be strong on these issues. The the big question mark there
1:11:26
is when you have an incumbent, when you have someone who just
1:11:29
won their election and they're the kingmaker in the Republican
1:11:32
Party, it's easier for them to pick the successor, right?
1:11:35
It's easier for the party to go that route because they're in
1:11:37
power When and if there's a loss, right, because of maybe
1:11:41
mistakes the candidate might have made, then it's easier to
1:11:44
disrupt the party. We saw this even with what just
1:11:47
happened with Biden and Harris, right?
1:11:49
Biden was not performing well. You know, maybe cognitive
1:11:52
decline. I mean, I think a lot of people
1:11:54
think, yeah, he's getting, he's getting older, he's having
1:11:56
struggle, having troubles. So they basically appointed
1:11:59
Kamala. You know, he steps down, they
1:12:01
appoint Kamala. Unfortunately, now she looks
1:12:03
like she's going to be, you know, the next king maker for
1:12:05
the party if she wins especially.
1:12:08
But do you see what You see what I'm saying here?
1:12:09
It's like, who is going to set the tone?
1:12:12
And if Trump does win, there's a tone setting that has happened
1:12:15
on the Republican side that will influence 2028.
1:12:19
I would like to believe, like you and I, we will have this
1:12:21
influence in all of our friends, our influence in 2028 if Trump
1:12:24
wins and who's going to be the nominee.
1:12:27
But I think the biggest and most influential voice will be Trump
1:12:30
in 2028 if he wins in 2024. And you think that if he doesn't
1:12:34
win, there's more of a chance for those of us who are truly
1:12:37
pro-life to influence. And I'm just not sure about that
1:12:40
because I think the time for this conversation was during the
1:12:44
primary. And I know you said earlier that
1:12:46
Trump really kind of did a bait and switch, but he was during
1:12:49
the primary when we still had DeSantis as an option out there
1:12:52
saying, well, you know, Floridas Florida six week ban.
1:12:55
I think that was way too soon. That was ridiculous.
1:12:57
Maybe he was just trying to hit DeSantis on that because he saw
1:13:00
him as a competitor. But I think a lot of us would
1:13:03
have preferred a more pro-life candidate.
1:13:05
I know I would have. I would have.
1:13:07
Preferred Ron De Santis, I don't know, for a variety of reasons,
1:13:11
he didn't gain the support. And so like, we had that
1:13:14
opportunity. We had that option then.
1:13:16
And if that were really where the Republican Party were,
1:13:20
enough of us would have been able to band together and say,
1:13:22
no, we're not voting for the guy that just criticized the
1:13:25
heartbeat bill in Florida. But we didn't.
1:13:28
And so now here we are. So now we've got the only thing
1:13:31
standing between seeing Kamala Harris in the White House.
1:13:33
I still think Kamala Harris is 4 to 8 years in the White House is
1:13:37
too destructive to justify not voting for Trump, even even with
1:13:45
what you're talking about. Because I understand, I really
1:13:47
do understand that calculation. And I don't want to become the
1:13:50
cheap date of the Republican Party.
1:13:53
You know, that just says, OK, well, basically and kind of
1:13:57
crude terms, we know that the Christian pro lifers are going
1:14:00
to put out no matter what and there's not that much that we
1:14:03
have to do. Maybe buy him dinner, maybe not.
1:14:05
And that's it. I don't want that, and I
1:14:08
understand the threat there, but at the same time, the specter of
1:14:13
another four years of a Harris administration, I just don't
1:14:19
know if the damage is worth it. I don't know.
1:14:23
And that's not to say that everything that you're saying
1:14:25
isn't true, but I don't know that Trump losing is going to
1:14:30
give us this ability to revitalize and pro lifeify the
1:14:36
Republican Party enough. I mean, I I agree with that last
1:14:39
comment too, because I'm not saying that if Trump loses, all
1:14:42
of a sudden pro-life somehow won.
1:14:45
That's not the case. You know, tragically, none of
1:14:47
it's the case because then we have Kamala Harris in the White
1:14:50
House. And then you still have to do
1:14:52
the hard work of detangling the Republican Party's future and
1:14:56
figuring out how do we have, you know, how does the Republican
1:14:58
Party have a future that's a pro-life future?
1:15:00
And you're going to have a lot of consultants blaming the
1:15:02
pro-life vote for Trump's loss. If he loses, that's going to
1:15:05
happen. Trump already did that in the
1:15:07
midterms. Trump blamed pro lifers
1:15:09
specifically for the losses of candidates like Herschel Walker.
1:15:13
And you know, Herschel Walker, who's not pro-life, by the way,
1:15:16
but somehow his loss gets blamed.
1:15:18
The pro lifers get blamed for his loss.
1:15:19
He's just a terrible candidate or Doctor Oz, who wasn't, again,
1:15:23
even pro-life, and somehow his loss gets blamed on pro-life
1:15:27
voters, you know, so I think. Over the politicians, it's
1:15:29
always. Like the scapegoat, I think the
1:15:31
pro-life voters are going to get blamed either way, whether it's
1:15:35
their fault and I don't think it would be their fault either way.
1:15:38
But I think just back to that longevity question of what are
1:15:41
we aiming towards as a movement and how are we going to get
1:15:43
there? I we need a game plan, you know,
1:15:46
that is beyond this election because the, the, as you said,
1:15:51
the Trumpification of the party is, is undoing the principles.
1:15:56
It's undoing the foundations that we hold so dear and we know
1:15:59
are necessary for the future of the country.
1:16:02
It's not just a partisan thing. Yeah.
1:16:04
So I think it's unfortunate that the alternative to Trump is pro
1:16:07
lifers being put in jail and our First Amendment rights being
1:16:12
systematically violated by someone whose entire career has
1:16:16
been buoyed by the blood money of Planned Parenthood hood, and
1:16:20
that's Kamala Harris. And so also when I'm thinking
1:16:23
about the longevity of the pro-life movement, I'm also
1:16:27
thinking, OK, like, how many pro lifers are going to be?
1:16:30
And I hate to sound exaggeratory, but again, David
1:16:32
Daleiden is a case study in this.
1:16:34
Like, is pro-life an investigative work?
1:16:37
Is it going to be legal? Is it going to be allowed?
1:16:40
Like, what is big Tech going to look like when Democrats finally
1:16:43
get their way and they're able to use whatever crisis is at
1:16:46
hand to justify an even worse wave of censorship than we saw
1:16:52
during COVID during 2020? So I'm also thinking about the
1:16:56
survival of the constitutional rights that are necessary for
1:17:00
pro lifers to freely do our work without fear of consequence.
1:17:04
And I, I wish that were just like, you know, pie in the sky.
1:17:08
Not pie in the sky, but just like some kind of conspiracy
1:17:11
theory. But again, looking at her
1:17:13
record, I'm not sure that that's an exaggerated fear.
1:17:17
Is it different for you because it's comma versus Biden?
1:17:20
Or in your view, was Biden just completely controlled by the far
1:17:23
left anyways? Well, I think, I think Biden is.
1:17:26
I think that he probably personally is less radical than
1:17:30
Kamala Harris, but I don't think that matters because we've
1:17:33
certainly seen over the past few weeks that he's not running the
1:17:36
country. No one even talks about our
1:17:37
president of the United States anymore.
1:17:39
The people who are running the country are probably the people
1:17:41
who have always been running the country.
1:17:43
And none of us know exactly who that is, but they're certainly
1:17:46
far left. And that's pretty scary.
1:17:49
It's tough, yeah. I mean, I think this is the
1:17:52
toughest election in my lifetime.
1:17:53
Are you feeling that? I think so, yes.
1:17:58
For some reason I feel that it's a little less vitriolic than
1:18:01
2016 and 2020. I don't know why, but 2016 was a
1:18:06
doozy. I felt like that was when a lot
1:18:10
of people lost friendships. Relationships got very
1:18:14
polarized. 2020 didn't help. I mean, certainly I've seen
1:18:18
people go liberal that I'm like, really you 2, but it doesn't
1:18:23
seem quite. As needed.
1:18:25
There's more permission now people have to vote for one or
1:18:27
the other. It's not as controversial to be
1:18:30
pro Trump. People.
1:18:31
Are over the embarrassment of voting for Trump, certainly
1:18:35
after he was almost assassinated twice.
1:18:37
I think people are like, you know what whatever.
1:18:39
Yeah, I support him. I support him.
1:18:42
And so yeah, I think that there is part of that too.
1:18:45
We've lost the like shock that Trump once brought into the
1:18:49
picture. I'm not saying that's good or
1:18:51
bad, but more people are just open about yeah, I.
1:18:55
You know, I'm going to vote for him.
1:18:56
And Kamala is terrible, which I think is a good thing, that more
1:18:59
people are outspoken about being against Kamala Harris.
1:19:02
And I people have asked me like, who are you voting for?
1:19:04
What, who should I vote for? And I said, I'm not going to
1:19:06
tell you who to vote for, but I will tell you what I know about
1:19:10
these the candidates positions and my concerns about the long
1:19:14
term impact of those positions, which I know you're doing
1:19:16
faithfully day in and day out. And at the end of the day, we do
1:19:19
have to vote our conscience. I mean, that is what people have
1:19:21
to do. So I think what you've done,
1:19:24
Allie, in the space of not just the conservative movement, but
1:19:27
you're talking to a lot more people, even in the middle.
1:19:29
I mean, I love that you're changing hearts and minds with
1:19:32
your show and with toxic empathy is give language for people with
1:19:36
this to understand these attacks really coming from, you know,
1:19:41
the far left pro aborts all of these ideologies to be able to
1:19:45
talk about them in a way that is winsome because people are
1:19:49
getting so increasingly confused with all of the ideologies just
1:19:52
pounding us constantly. Did you have a favorite topic to
1:19:57
dismantle in Lie to Dismantle? Toxic, Toxic Empathy to
1:20:02
dismantle in your book. Yeah, you know they're.
1:20:05
All subjects that I talk about a lot, I, I was surprised at how
1:20:08
passionate I was while I was typing out my immigration
1:20:13
chapter because that's not really a subject that I focus on
1:20:16
quite as much. Of course, it's something that I
1:20:19
care about. I was born and raised in Texas,
1:20:21
and so the border issue is something that affects us a lot.
1:20:27
But I I haven't really gotten into the nitty gritty in the
1:20:31
weeds of immigration policy on my show.
1:20:34
And as I was typing it out, I just realized how absurd it is
1:20:38
that we are being sold out. American citizens are being sold
1:20:43
out for people that are not only not citizens, but in many cases,
1:20:47
not all, but in many cases really have no love of this
1:20:51
country, have no fidelity to American values whatsoever.
1:20:55
And not only are we being sold out, but a lot of these people
1:20:58
are given preferential treatment.
1:21:00
They're being subsidized. And so the American citizen
1:21:02
can't even compete in employment and housing for some of those
1:21:06
who are literally being imported and bust and flown into the
1:21:09
interior of the United States to purposely change the
1:21:12
demographics of America, to change its political trajectory.
1:21:16
And they say that that's some kind of crazy conspiracy theory,
1:21:19
but they're very open about it as well.
1:21:21
And when I say they, I mean left wing media.
1:21:24
Yeah. And we started that chapter
1:21:26
telling the heartstring pulling story of a woman named Maribel
1:21:29
Diaz who fled Mexico because of poverty, because of violence
1:21:33
with her children and with her sickly husband.
1:21:35
And when Donald Trump became president, she was deported and
1:21:39
she was separated from her children.
1:21:41
It was a gut wrenching story for me to read and to write about
1:21:45
because she had small children and she was separated from them.
1:21:48
And that is my biggest fear, being separated from my kids.
1:21:52
And so I do feel empathy for her.
1:21:54
Like I can place myself in her shoes and think, oh, my gosh,
1:21:58
this would be so terrible. This would be so scary.
1:22:00
She moved to Fairfield. OH, she created a life there.
1:22:04
It's the only home her kids knew.
1:22:06
And yet she was deported. She was sent back home to
1:22:08
Mexico. And that is the only side of the
1:22:11
story that most people hear. And so because they have empathy
1:22:14
for that mother, they think, OK, I've got it.
1:22:17
Even though they might not say I'm for open borders.
1:22:19
They think I'm against deportation.
1:22:22
I am for these people coming here and having a better life.
1:22:25
But then I looked at the other side.
1:22:27
Who? What's the human cost on the
1:22:29
other side of the illegal immigration issue?
1:22:31
And I told the equally gut wrenching story, the actually
1:22:34
much worse gut wrenching story of Kate Steinle, who was walking
1:22:37
on a pier in San Francisco with her dad, enjoying an afternoon
1:22:41
walk. And she was shot in the back.
1:22:43
And her last words before she took her last breath in her
1:22:46
father's arms were Help me, daddy.
1:22:49
And she was shot by an illegal immigrant who had been deported
1:22:52
five times and yet had been shielded by San Francisco's
1:22:56
sanctuary city policies, which were, of course, championed by
1:22:59
Kamala Harris. And he was supposed to be
1:23:02
deported again. But of course, San Francisco
1:23:04
wouldn't cooperate with ICE. That's what a sanctuary city is.
1:23:08
And so he was protected. He stole a gun from a truck.
1:23:11
He shot her in the back. And she died.
1:23:13
And it's the same thing. It's the same kind of story with
1:23:17
Molly Tibbetts, with Lake and Riley, all innocent young women
1:23:22
who were living their lives until they were violently
1:23:24
murdered by illegal aliens. And so for every Maribel Diaz,
1:23:28
you have 5 or more of these men who come into the country
1:23:33
illegally because they are incentivized to do so and
1:23:36
unfortunately take the lives of young people.
1:23:40
Whether it's drunk driving or whether it's this kind of
1:23:43
violence or whether it's the story that we just saw out of
1:23:46
Nantucket, where these Venezuelan migrants or, sorry,
1:23:50
Honduran migrants were arrested for raping children in the city.
1:23:54
And the difference between the crime that's committed by the
1:23:57
illegal alien and the crime that's committed by the citizen,
1:23:59
because both commit crimes, is that every single crime that is
1:24:03
committed by an illegal alien is preventable.
1:24:06
It's preventable. You can't prevent every single
1:24:08
crime that's committed by a citizen, but you can prevent
1:24:11
every single crime that's committed by someone who should
1:24:13
never be here in the 1st place. And so I, as I was just telling
1:24:18
these stories of these innocent citizens, innocent people who
1:24:22
lost their lives because of the dereliction of duty of our
1:24:25
government, whose first responsibility is to take care
1:24:29
of its own people first. It just, it made me sad.
1:24:33
It made me angry. And borders and governments and
1:24:36
countries were God's idea. They were placed for our good.
1:24:41
Parameters, boundaries. Those were all God's idea.
1:24:45
God is a God of order. It is borderlessness is
1:24:48
lawlessness, and lawlessness always has a high human cost,
1:24:51
not only for the countries that these people are leaving, but
1:24:54
also for our own countries. I don't think America has the
1:24:57
moral obligation. I don't think any country has
1:24:59
the moral obligation actually to accept anyone.
1:25:01
I think we should and we can accept a certain number of
1:25:05
asylum seekers and refugees. But this idea that we have to
1:25:10
allow anyone in who wants to come here in order to be moral
1:25:14
and compassionate, no one makes that argument for Zimbabwe.
1:25:18
No one makes that argument for Indonesia.
1:25:20
But when America wants to regulate our immigration, all of
1:25:23
a sudden it's white supremacist and cruel.
1:25:25
And I just don't buy that. I think every country should put
1:25:28
their citizens first. I think most of the people that
1:25:30
I talked to, even on the left and on the right, they agree
1:25:33
that there is a thing of called national sovereignty, that
1:25:37
governments have a not just a right, but a responsibility to
1:25:40
have a border and that how borders work.
1:25:43
Obviously there's a lot of prudential decision making about
1:25:46
how the border works, how you manage the flow of immigration.
1:25:50
But that that is the right of a government and the
1:25:52
responsibility of a government to do, to manage immigration, to
1:25:55
have less or more of it, depending on the needs of the
1:25:57
country. And to have a, some often a
1:25:59
vetting process to ensure that the people entering are going to
1:26:03
be good, you know, good members of the country and, and part of
1:26:06
the, the human society that's formed.
1:26:08
I am curious about those two stories or the, the stories that
1:26:11
you tell, because when you talk about the young mother who's
1:26:13
deported, and especially she's not a, not an offender, she's
1:26:16
not a criminal offender beyond coming here as an undocumented
1:26:19
or an illegal alien. And then you have the story of
1:26:21
someone who is literally murdering, raping, and often
1:26:24
they have criminal histories. You know, usually these are
1:26:27
repeat offenders that are not deported the first time.
1:26:29
Many of the stories you referenced were not deported the
1:26:32
first time at upon criminal offense.
1:26:34
They stayed in the country and they, you know, it's a repeat
1:26:36
offense situation. And then the the offenses get
1:26:39
worse and then maybe it, you know, becomes this big story.
1:26:42
And then it's like, how could they not have been deported?
1:26:44
They were here illegally anyways.
1:26:47
Is there a difference, in your view between deporting a mother
1:26:50
of young children who flees to this country and is here
1:26:53
undocumented, and deporting a violent offender?
1:26:58
Well, of course, I want all violent offenders to be
1:27:00
prioritized and the deportation process, absolutely.
1:27:04
But for that young mother, I want her to come legally.
1:27:08
I want her to try to come legally.
1:27:09
And again, I think a country also has a right to say this is
1:27:11
how many legal immigrants we are going to admit.
1:27:13
And here's our vetting process. So I'm not saying unmitigated
1:27:16
legal immigration either, but there is a legal process to
1:27:20
become a refugee, to gain asylum.
1:27:22
Some people think that every person that shows up at the
1:27:25
border is seeking asylum. Well, just because you come from
1:27:28
country that is poorer than the United States, which is every
1:27:30
country in the world, doesn't mean that you're seeking asylum
1:27:32
or that you qualify as a refugee.
1:27:35
You don't have a right to come here illegally just because you
1:27:37
want a better life. There aren't any other countries
1:27:40
that I know of that allow for that kind of thing, at least
1:27:44
when it comes to illegal immigration.
1:27:46
And so, yes, there is a difference between those two
1:27:49
people and the threat that they pose.
1:27:52
But when it comes down to the principle of, as you said,
1:27:55
having borders, you don't have borders.
1:27:58
They're not enforced. Everyone can say, look at that
1:28:00
map, that's where America exists.
1:28:02
But if you don't enforce your borders with some kind of
1:28:05
consequence, some kind of consequence, whatever that is,
1:28:09
then it doesn't matter. They are just lines on a map.
1:28:11
And anyone can step over a line on a map.
1:28:14
And so we have to have enforced borders.
1:28:18
We have to have, I think, stringent laws.
1:28:20
We have to disincentivize as much as possible the trafficking
1:28:24
that goes on, the costly and dangerous journey across the
1:28:29
border that people are taking that are, you know, losing
1:28:32
lives. And the sad thing is, like one
1:28:34
of our favorite families are family friends.
1:28:36
They are immigrants from Africa. They are so hardworking, godly.
1:28:41
Their sons are beautiful, responsible, great young men.
1:28:44
And we just love this family so much.
1:28:46
We wish that there were 1,000,000 more of them just
1:28:48
because of what they contribute to every community they're a
1:28:52
part of. And they have family members
1:28:54
back home in Africa who would love to immigrate here, who
1:28:58
would love to just get a visa to be able to come here.
1:29:00
They're exactly like them. They're hardworking Christians.
1:29:03
They would come here, they'd be industrious and they keep
1:29:06
getting denied. They keep getting denied a visa.
1:29:09
And it's so difficult because all they want to do is come here
1:29:11
and work and they want to do it the right way.
1:29:13
They could probably, you know, come across the border
1:29:16
illegally. It's not that hard to do right
1:29:18
now. And they're.
1:29:18
Getting denied a visa because the quota's already met for that
1:29:20
country? You.
1:29:21
Know why? Usually that's.
1:29:23
Do you think we should increase quotas as we're strengthening
1:29:26
the border to ensure that not? Until we strengthen the border,
1:29:29
and not until in the. Ideal world, would you say?
1:29:32
We strengthen the border and then we increase quotas for
1:29:35
those that like this family you're describing.
1:29:38
I would be because our populations.
1:29:40
Declining alley, I mean, is the thing we talk about in the show.
1:29:42
If not for immigration, well. I would rather address the
1:29:47
antinatalism push, which I know that would be done.
1:29:50
I would much rather address that than say, OK, let's just allow
1:29:54
because we're not just an economic like experiment, like
1:29:57
America is a people with a shared culture.
1:30:01
And even though we come from different backgrounds, we have a
1:30:04
shared values. We're not just, it's not just
1:30:06
about the numbers of our population decline or increase.
1:30:10
It is about who we are in our national identity.
1:30:13
And again, when we start talking, you know, culture and
1:30:14
identity, for some reason it's wrong when America talks about
1:30:17
it, but OK when Mexico talks about it or another country.
1:30:20
And so it's not just about that. But yes, like I am very open to
1:30:24
that. If we got our illegal
1:30:26
immigration under control, I want our immigration to be very
1:30:30
strategic, that we are accepting people that are going to be a
1:30:33
net positive or most likely to be a net positive to our
1:30:37
society. But the absolute injustice is
1:30:40
that we are allowing and then rewarding those who could have
1:30:44
done it legally but chose not to.
1:30:46
Because it's typically the Christians and the other
1:30:48
countries who are saying I'm not going to cross it legally
1:30:50
because that's wrong, that's immoral, because that's against.
1:30:53
And it's also very dangerous, so there's a a protective moment
1:30:57
there. That's the issue is that we've
1:30:59
got the Christians who know that they don't want to disobey God
1:31:03
by breaking a law that are staying put and getting denied
1:31:06
visas in many cases. And then we've got people who
1:31:09
are flouting the law coming through.
1:31:11
And that's going to be a big, you know, that's a moral shift
1:31:14
in our country, too. You talk about this in your book
1:31:17
and it's of course a mandate to Christians to welcome the
1:31:20
stranger and Jesus actually, you know, talks about this.
1:31:24
Our Lord talks about this and talks about how you were I was a
1:31:26
stranger and you welcomed me. There's this very, you know,
1:31:29
throughout all of Scripture, there is a repeated an emphasis
1:31:33
on the alien, the stranger, the foreigner who is seeking refuge
1:31:38
or a better life. And even in the parable of the
1:31:42
Good Samaritan as an example, it is the other.
1:31:44
It is the stranger that is held up as the example of doing the
1:31:47
right thing because they chose to care for the person that they
1:31:51
had no ethnic or national tie to.
1:31:53
This was somebody that was just, you know, an enemy really in
1:31:57
society for them that they went and they took care of seeing
1:32:00
them on the side of the road beaten and, you know, robbed and
1:32:02
taken doing in and spend money on them.
1:32:04
So there is this very distinct. And this is what some Christians
1:32:08
who identify more as left would say right now.
1:32:10
They'd say, listen, I hear what you're saying, Allie, you know,
1:32:13
but we are supposed to welcome the stranger.
1:32:16
And yeah, sometimes that's uncomfortable.
1:32:18
Sometimes that's messy. Sometimes that involves a lot of
1:32:21
complications and even what might seem like an even a
1:32:25
negative for the population because you said they have to be
1:32:27
a net positive. What's your take on that?
1:32:29
Oh, yeah, I would love to talk to someone who says that because
1:32:32
typically those people are also so scared of theocracy and
1:32:35
Christian nationalism that if you or I cited, say, Psalm 139
1:32:41
for my reason for to be against abortion, they would say, well,
1:32:45
you should compartmentalize your faith.
1:32:47
You leave your faith over there. It shouldn't influence what you
1:32:50
think about policy. That's scary Christian
1:32:52
nationalism. But they are the first ones to
1:32:55
cite the Old Testament or cite what Jesus said to say, well,
1:32:58
this is our prescription for immigration policy.
1:33:00
So my first question should be, OK, what role does the Bible
1:33:03
have in playing? Does the Bible have in dictating
1:33:07
our laws? Because sometimes you think that
1:33:10
it's justified and sometimes you don't.
1:33:12
And the fact of the matter is, I think in both cases, we should
1:33:14
always look at it in context. I don't believe you can
1:33:17
compartmentalize your faith from what you believe.
1:33:19
So I think it would be fine to say, here's what the Bible says
1:33:22
about immigration. That's what drives what I
1:33:24
believe about it. The problem is, is that there's
1:33:26
a misapplication of Scripture because when we read to love the
1:33:30
sojourner, because you all were once sojourners, when God is
1:33:34
talking to ancient Israel, ancient Israel.
1:33:36
If you want to, if you want to look at immigration policy in
1:33:40
ancient Israel and then apply it to America, I might actually be
1:33:43
open to something like that. Which is extremely strict yes,
1:33:47
if a sojourner for a foreigner. Who was seeking refuge or
1:33:51
seeking help and even material resources from Israel?
1:33:55
There was a process for that. There were resources that were
1:33:58
left for them. There was a portion of even the
1:34:01
crops that were harvested that were left for them.
1:34:04
But they were expected to follow every law.
1:34:06
They were expected to assimilate.
1:34:08
There was no place for their idolatry.
1:34:10
There was no place for their lawlessness.
1:34:12
And so they had very strict immigration laws.
1:34:16
And of course, we see throughout Scripture that every time a wall
1:34:19
is depicted. It is a depiction, literally or
1:34:22
metaphorically, of security, of God's love for His people, His
1:34:26
protection of His people. The Garden of Eden had clear
1:34:29
parameters. Heaven itself.
1:34:31
Has walls and so we actually see that the.
1:34:34
Lack of walls is. Chaotic.
1:34:38
And so yes, you can love the sojourner.
1:34:41
Maybe there is a process by which we accept certain
1:34:45
foreigners. But if you are to use that as
1:34:48
the justification for your immigration policy, then
1:34:51
logically you're saying we should accept everyone.
1:34:54
I always ask, well, what should the limit be?
1:34:56
If you think loving the sojourner means that we should
1:34:59
accept everyone who wants to come, Are we obligated to accept
1:35:03
everyone, every single person from every single country, no
1:35:07
matter what their background is, no matter what they've done?
1:35:10
And I think most people would say no, there should be limits.
1:35:13
OK? If there are limits, does that
1:35:14
mean you're not loving those sojourners?
1:35:17
And how can you love if you, if it is an open border policy,
1:35:20
then in the end you're not loving even the Sojourner
1:35:23
because of the chaos it might create for the country?
1:35:25
I, I think, you know, from a Christian perspective, and
1:35:28
ultimately, I think even what is most loving from a natural law
1:35:32
perspective, like what's best for human civilization, for a
1:35:34
society having some immigration is, you know, if, especially if
1:35:39
it's from a population that is aligned largely of the values.
1:35:43
Of course, if you're dealing with totally conflicting values,
1:35:45
that's a problem. But I think historically it's
1:35:48
when we are we err on the side of generosity as opposed to
1:35:52
restriction. Again, considering that we're
1:35:55
talking about people that are going to want to assimilate with
1:35:57
at least the law values and want to be proud to be American work
1:36:02
hard, all of these things. I think the extent do you would
1:36:05
you agree, What do you think about this that an extension if
1:36:08
we can have a strong border, if we can look at our immigration
1:36:11
policy and air on the side of not extreme generosity where we
1:36:14
are just, you know, there's no, there's no caps.
1:36:17
You can have endless people coming from any country as long
1:36:19
as they do the paperwork. That's one extreme versus we're
1:36:22
going to, you know, shrink it down to a very, very small group
1:36:25
of people. Where would you land in terms of
1:36:28
how much legal immigration you would support?
1:36:31
Yeah, I think that if we stopped the flow of illegal immigration
1:36:35
altogether, we conducted mass deportations primarily focused
1:36:40
on criminal offenders. Again, in addition to the crime
1:36:44
of crossing the border illegally, especially violent
1:36:47
offenders, those who are stirring off this gang violence
1:36:51
in many of the cities that we see, Dallas, Denver and several
1:36:54
others. Like let's prioritize that.
1:36:56
I think if we got to that point, I would see that as a massive
1:36:59
win. And I think 1, I think the
1:37:02
courts wouldn't be weighed down as much.
1:37:04
There wouldn't be as much of this bottleneck and we could
1:37:07
actually have like a much more sane and civil conversation
1:37:10
about the nuances of who we should let in.
1:37:12
Because that is where I don't think that the Bible is black
1:37:16
and white. I think it's pretty black and
1:37:17
white that we shouldn't have people here illegally and that
1:37:20
we should have strong. Borders where we can have.
1:37:22
A nuanced discussion is how many people do we let in and what are
1:37:28
the parameters for that. And I don't know that I have the
1:37:31
black and white answer of the exact number of people we should
1:37:34
let in and what every, you know, question on the questionnaire
1:37:37
should be. But I would be excited to have
1:37:39
that conversation in good faith debates and discussions about
1:37:42
that. I don't think that there is a
1:37:44
good faith discussion to have about whether or not we should
1:37:47
have enforced borders. I agree we need borders.
1:37:50
I think we're on the same page and I think most people agree
1:37:52
with that. You know, even people on the
1:37:54
left, I think a lot of people, of course, didn't even Kamala
1:37:56
Harris is going to the border and claiming we need a stronger
1:37:59
border. So even the left is saying a lot
1:38:01
of that. I, I have to ask, as you just,
1:38:03
you just noted, I want to understand it better.
1:38:05
And then I know we've got a rap soon, but you're your comment
1:38:09
about deportations, deporting people with criminal histories.
1:38:13
I think most people can get behind that, like you.
1:38:15
You're coming here, you're, you're committing, you know,
1:38:17
violence, your, your theft, whatever it is.
1:38:21
Deportation is in order for the safety, quite frankly, of the
1:38:25
community. But when you're dealing with a
1:38:26
nonviolent offender who maybe has been here a decade, again,
1:38:29
right, The story of someone who came here very young or they
1:38:32
were brought here very, very young, is your position on that
1:38:36
mastery deportation for all of those people?
1:38:39
Because they are deeply embedded in our communities and they have
1:38:41
families, many of them. Well, I think childhood
1:38:44
arrivals, I think the definition could change because right now
1:38:47
childhood arrivals is 18 and under, I believe, or maybe under
1:38:50
18. I would probably put it a little
1:38:52
bit lower than that. And I do think that we could
1:38:55
have compassion for those who were literally brought here by
1:38:59
no will of their own. Maybe they were brought here as
1:39:02
a newborn and they were raised here and they really are
1:39:05
American. Now, the other side of that is
1:39:08
people will say, well, that just incentivizes illegal immigration
1:39:11
'cause people bring their children here knowing that
1:39:13
they're going to get shielded from deportation, that they're
1:39:16
going to be able to. But.
1:39:17
That's the importance of the strong border.
1:39:19
That's the importance of the strong border.
1:39:20
But I understand, like right now we have young children who were
1:39:25
here. It's also, I mean, of course, if
1:39:28
they're still young children, you're probably going to deport
1:39:31
them with their parents. You're not going to.
1:39:33
I don't want family separation, true family separation.
1:39:36
So I don't want the parents to be deported and the child to
1:39:39
stay here and to be placed into foster care.
1:39:42
But if there are, say, teenagers here who were brought here as a
1:39:46
baby and this is all they know, I mean, that would be really
1:39:50
hard for me to get behind deportation of those kinds of
1:39:55
people. That part I would say, is more
1:39:58
complicated and nuanced. But in general, I believe that
1:40:02
no one should be here who is illegally here for the sake.
1:40:06
For the sake of our country and the sake of our fellow citizens.
1:40:08
It's not that you hate the people who are not here legally.
1:40:12
It's that God placed you here providentially.
1:40:15
He didn't place you in another country, He placed you here.
1:40:17
And your citizenship does mean something.
1:40:20
I think countries are like families.
1:40:22
You lock your door at night. You have walls in your house not
1:40:25
because you hate your neighbors, but because you love your kids.
1:40:28
You don't allow strangers to come into your house and eat all
1:40:31
your kids food and sleep on their bed while they starve and
1:40:33
sleep on the floor. And it's not because you hate,
1:40:36
hate those strangers. It's because you love your kids.
1:40:38
And God gave you your kids to steward.
1:40:41
God gave you your kids to take care of.
1:40:43
That doesn't mean you don't also take care of others, but never
1:40:46
at the expense of your own children, because that would
1:40:48
make you a cruel parent. And I really think that
1:40:51
countries are like families. We actually do not have the
1:40:55
capacity as fallible and finite human beings to have equal
1:40:58
compassion and equal love, equal empathy for all people at all
1:41:02
times. Besides, love of the church,
1:41:05
like love of family or love of country is about as big as it
1:41:10
can get. And Chesterton actually said
1:41:12
very, I think it's controversial today.
1:41:14
But he said, and I'm going to kind of butcher this quote, I
1:41:17
put it in my book, but it was, he said he doesn't want
1:41:20
foreigners to take over his country for the same reason that
1:41:23
he doesn't want someone to burn his house down because he
1:41:25
wouldn't even be able to enumerate all of the things he
1:41:28
would miss. We forget in America that a
1:41:31
country is a shared culture. America does have a culture.
1:41:34
It matters. It does have shared values.
1:41:36
Those things matter. And all immigration debates, I
1:41:40
think, should be talked about not only through the prism of
1:41:42
compassion, but through that prism as well.
1:41:45
I think if we have this porous border and there's people that
1:41:48
have been here for decades, especially, or they come here
1:41:51
very young, this is where it gets very tough when it comes to
1:41:54
public policy. Because it might sound easy to
1:41:56
say we'll just deport everyone who's here, who's here, who's
1:41:58
undocumented. But we're talking about
1:42:00
families, we're talking about children.
1:42:02
You know, we're not just talking about violent offenders, right?
1:42:04
Of course there are those exist too, right?
1:42:06
As you talk about in your book. But as you just said, it's very
1:42:09
tough when you're talking about a kid, when you're talking about
1:42:11
a a family and and the separation of that family.
1:42:14
If there was a mass deportation and the cultural chaos that
1:42:17
would ensue, there are other consequences if we do mass
1:42:20
deportation, which we have a full.
1:42:22
Immigration also, which I know you agree, but illegal
1:42:24
immigration also separates families of.
1:42:27
Course, yeah, they're they're that already separates.
1:42:29
Families and there's kids being trafficked.
1:42:31
Like before we even talk about, well, what happens with the kid
1:42:34
who might get deported or the kid who came here, I'm like,
1:42:36
well, OK, before we talk about the hypotheticals, let's talk
1:42:39
about the kids that are being sex trafficked.
1:42:41
Across the border, we're in agreement alley.
1:42:42
Yeah, we need a stronger border. That is, there is no
1:42:45
disagreement there. I think the part that is really
1:42:47
tough for people and it's tough for me is some of the, you know,
1:42:51
the language signal coming from people on, you know, some of not
1:42:54
the all right, but some of the right, this idea of mass
1:42:57
deportations of all anybody here who's undocumented.
1:43:00
And I think the cultural impact of that is beyond maybe what
1:43:04
they realize when they say that maybe it sounds good.
1:43:06
Let's get everyone here who's here has to be paperwork has to
1:43:09
be perfect. But if we're talking about
1:43:11
families, young, young children who are brought here, people who
1:43:14
have been here for decades, right, and have built been maybe
1:43:17
they're paying taxes, you know, they're they're part of their
1:43:19
economy. They're being employed by
1:43:21
citizens. You know, they're part of this
1:43:23
economy, right? Maybe they're not able to vote,
1:43:26
but they are part of the economy.
1:43:27
What is the just solution there? And I have a hard time seeing as
1:43:32
just, you know, wave the wand, round everybody up and ship them
1:43:34
out. I don't know that that is the
1:43:36
the right solution. I doubt that it's going to
1:43:38
happen just because logistically.
1:43:40
It's like, what are we calling exactly?
1:43:41
You're exactly right. Logistically.
1:43:42
Logistically. It's probably not going to
1:43:44
happen, and ICE would have its work cut out for them if they
1:43:48
just focused on the violent criminals alone.
1:43:52
But again, when you allow for illegal immigration and you
1:43:57
allow someone to basically treat America like an economic
1:44:00
playground, you're not voting. Maybe you're not contributing in
1:44:04
other ways. You didn't have enough respect
1:44:06
for the country to enter legally.
1:44:08
Then you are incentivizing that dangerous trek.
1:44:12
You are incentivizing that for other people.
1:44:15
And there is a conversation to be had about how we do balance
1:44:19
compassion for real people with real families, the real stories
1:44:22
with real roots here and and logistics.
1:44:26
The role of the government, as we read in Romans 13, which was
1:44:30
instituted by God, is to execute justice against the wrongdoer
1:44:35
and to reward those who do good. And So what does sovereignty
1:44:40
actually look like? What does compassionate but
1:44:42
righteous and good and consistent?
1:44:44
Because also justice according to God is impartial.
1:44:47
It doesn't show favoritism towards some people and then is
1:44:51
harsher towards others because that's not truthful, that's not
1:44:54
proportionate, that's not right. And so we also have to look at
1:44:57
the principles of justice as well.
1:44:59
And that doesn't mean that we always negate mercy, but it does
1:45:04
mean that if we're talking about like the government's role in
1:45:07
this, we have to look at a consistent approach to
1:45:10
immigration enforcement. And I'm not saying that's easier
1:45:12
that I figured all of that out, certainly.
1:45:16
But I would hope that people, I want to at least get people to
1:45:19
the point of thinking harder about this.
1:45:22
It's not just about the sad stories about the mom getting
1:45:27
deported because she was here illegally.
1:45:29
It is also about the human cost on the other side of this issue.
1:45:32
I think we're in agreement that we need a strong border and I
1:45:35
think we're in agreement and a lot of people are that if you're
1:45:37
a violent offender and you're not documented, you're here and
1:45:40
you're not documented, then that seems like a no brainer
1:45:44
deportation. If you're out here, you know,
1:45:46
creating chaos. I think where there's, you know,
1:45:49
as you said, there's a lot of, you know, challenging
1:45:52
conversations that need to happen, but logistically all the
1:45:56
people that might be here that are, you know, not the violent
1:45:59
offenders like you're saying, but it.
1:46:00
Is came from just when you think about like the illegal
1:46:03
immigrants who are here. I have another friend who is
1:46:05
here on a student visa and even if she can't even transfer
1:46:08
schools if she wants to, because if she has a second where she is
1:46:13
like she's not actually actively enrolled in school, she could
1:46:17
get deported back to Africa. Whereas there are people here
1:46:20
illegally who don't have that fear because they don't have
1:46:23
documents. It's tough.
1:46:24
And that is also an injustice. Yes, I agree.
1:46:27
It's very complex. Ali, where can people find your
1:46:31
book? Yeah, thank you for putting all
1:46:32
that hard work into it. And you have, again, I think the
1:46:35
toxic empathy concept is such a crucial one for people to
1:46:37
navigate these issues. Yes, toxic empathy, how
1:46:41
progressives exploit Christian compassion.
1:46:43
They can get it wherever books are sold.
1:46:44
They can get it on Amazon. That's probably the best and
1:46:48
easiest place to get it. I talked about it a lot on
1:46:51
Relatable, and that's available wherever you listen to or watch
1:46:55
your podcast. Thanks, Ali.
1:46:57
Thanks for being a voice of true.
1:46:58
A lot of true compassion, especially on life and family.
1:47:01
It's so needed. Thank you.
1:47:04
A huge thank you to our partner EWTN.
1:47:07
EWTN is the largest religious network, reaching millions of
1:47:11
people with the truth of the faith, entertainment and news.
1:47:14
Check them out at ewtn.com.