Point of View July 9, 2024 – Hour 1 : Top News

[00:00:00] This is the Tuesday edition of Point of View, and where you are, as you might imagine, we're going to talk a little bit about what is happening right now in the Donald Trump campaign

[00:00:28] and the Joe Biden campaign. Those are issues in the news but then we're going to move away from those and get to some very good pieces. One written by Robert Knight, who's been on the program with us many times before. Why America's Christians Support Israel.

[00:00:44] One by Joe Leconte, Joseph Leconte hasn't been on for a while, but just something about founding fathers that I would have been able to get to last week, but thought it might

[00:00:52] be good just even though it's only a few days after the 4th of July, sometimes it's good to talk about our history. And a piece if we can get to it by Colonel Allen West, who's of course also been on the

[00:01:01] program and then we in this second hour will be talking with Rick Lawrence, who's been on the program with us before. We've talked about a book that he co-authored on suicide, but this one a little bit different

[00:01:13] and in some respects in line of many things we've talked about, editing Jesus confronting the distorted faith of the American church. And of course we've talked about that with a variety of people, George Barna, Steve Cable, even recently Nancy French and a variety of others.

[00:01:30] So we'll get into these topics sooner or later, but I thought it would be appropriate for just a minute since this time next week will actually be the Republican convention and especially since yesterday we spent a fair amount of time talking about Joe Biden and

[00:01:46] this issue has not gone away at all, but to actually focus on the particular Republican party platform. By the way, I might just mention this first article is from the New York Times. Then we have one from the Wall Street Journal.

[00:02:01] We have one from National Review, Washington Times, Town Hall. At least three of those are behind a paywall. Karen, who puts these up, reminded me of that. And to me, that is good that we can make that available to you because you probably don't

[00:02:18] have like I do a subscription to the Washington Post and New York Times and a variety of other entities. And so if you say, I'd like to read this, you certainly can go to the New York Times right now and see if you can read it.

[00:02:31] They sometimes give you a free article or two, but probably not. And yet you can go to the website pointofview.net and read it. And I use the New York Times because Maggie Heberman and others who wrote this did a pretty

[00:02:43] good job, I think, of trying to help you understand that no surprise here, former President Donald Trump has wanted to water down some of the issues on the platform. And we've talked about that before as you might remember with Marjorie Dannenfelser.

[00:03:00] So this is in some respects not new, but it's now what is actually in the formal document. So let me just read parts of it and you can read it in its entirety. It goes on for about four pages.

[00:03:12] But first of all, it starts out by saying that Donald J. Trump told officials on Monday that he supports a new Republican Party platform, one that reflects the presumptive nominee's new position on abortion rights and slims down policy specifics across areas of government.

[00:03:28] The new platform as described by the New York Times, and again given the fact that there's a couple of quotes I'm going to give to you in just a few minutes.

[00:03:36] We may or may not find that those quotes are put in context, so of course read with some discernment. But again it hauls about the fact that the platform is more nationalistic, more protectionist and less socially conservative than say the 2016 platform.

[00:03:54] That's their words, but you know, let's take on the issues that may be most concerning. The first is the abortion section has been softened. There's no longer a reference to traditional marriage between one man and one woman, and there's no longer an emphasis on reducing the national debt.

[00:04:12] Just a brief line about slashing wasteful government spending. If you've been listening to Point of View, none of that really should surprise you, but let's get into it in more details. The argument being made right now is Donald Trump and some of the aides have alienated

[00:04:27] some of the activists by shutting them out of the development of the platform. We've tried in the past to talk about how that takes place, and Kelly Shackelford who oftentimes is with us on Friday many years ago was on the platform and would talk about

[00:04:41] how they would have some language and then some people go behind a curtain to make sure it was okay and come back and give their approval or disapproval of what was going to end up on the platform. This is supposedly a document that comes from the grassroots.

[00:04:56] I've been to precinct meetings, I've been to state conventions and even been to some national conventions and can show you that the idea is these ideas surface from the ground up. But you also have a presidential nominee who wants to alter anything that he or she would

[00:05:15] disagree with, and that has certainly been the case as well. What about the abortion issue? Well Marjorie Dannenfelser has been on the program with us before. She's the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, says she's been concerned about some of the changes.

[00:05:29] She says it is important that the Republican Party reaffirm its commitment to protect unborn life today through the 14th Amendment, she said in a statement. Under this amendment it is Congress that enacts and enforces its provisions. The Republican Party remains strongly pro-life at the national level.

[00:05:47] She also added the mission of the pro-life movement for the next six months must be to defeat the Biden-Harris extreme abortion agenda. She has been on the program, we've talked about this, what some of her comments were. Okay, let me give you another set of perspectives.

[00:06:03] Ralph Reed, chairman of Faith and Freedom Coalition said, quote, the Republican Party platform makes clear the unborn child has a right to life that is protected by the Constitution under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.

[00:06:18] Ralph Reed then went on to add, while aspirational it applies to both the states and the federal government, the proposed ban on late-term abortion also implies federal as well as state action.

[00:06:31] So he's a little less critical, but then it goes on in the New York Times to say that Tony Perkins, who of course is the president of the Family Research Council, and actually a member of the platform committee, said he was disappointed and he actually criticized the process.

[00:06:47] He said, quote, the 2024 platform is a decent statement of campaign priorities, but not necessarily the enduring principles of a party. A little bit later he says, unfortunately, the process was unbecoming of constitutional conservatives, which did not allow the document to be amended or to improve it.

[00:07:10] So we are headed towards a Republican convention, obviously, which does, if you will, water down the issue of abortion, really does not mention the national debt. No surprise, even back in 2016, whether it was Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, neither

[00:07:31] of them made a big deal about the national debt. And the language also affirms, in this case when you talk about the national debt, Donald Trump's position on Medicare, Social Security and the rest, that this is the third rail

[00:07:45] of American politics and all options should be considered to preserve Social Security. As you have probably figured out by now, a lot of these platforms are full of platitudes and generalities, but nevertheless there are places where words mean something.

[00:08:05] And I think it would be clear to say that the stronger pro-life stand that used to be in the Republican platform is not in this one. And I think it is due in large part to Donald Trump believing that after the overturning

[00:08:20] of Roe vs. Wade, he does not want the issue of abortion to be the major issue that either leads to the success of Joe Biden or the failure of Donald Trump. Anyway, that is the first article.

[00:08:34] It's published in the New York Times, but you have a chance to read it even if you don't have a subscription to it. And I think it gives you a good overview of what will be discussed next week at the Republican Convention.

[00:08:46] We'll come back and talk about Joe Biden right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Perhaps the most disappointing Supreme Court ruling this last session dealt with the real concern about social media censorship. The justices chose not to decide the case supposedly because the plaintiffs lacked standing.

[00:09:17] Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote, we begin and end with standing. We therefore lack jurisdiction to reach the merits of this dispute. The other argument dealt with the issue of traceability. Although numerous federal agencies did attempt to censor social media posts and people, Big

[00:09:33] Tech didn't always take their advice. Justice Barrett argues that the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content. This is a poor argument. As one commentator put it, the government couldn't be held responsible because the platforms only followed through with government flags and requests at a roughly 50 percent clip.

[00:09:52] In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito did acknowledge that what the officials did in this case was more subtle than the ham-handed censorship found in another case the high court decided. In fact, he argued because of the perpetrators' high positions, it's even more dangerous.

[00:10:07] It was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the court's failure to say so. This is a disappointing ruling, especially since we have the revelations from the Twitter files that show emails and subsequent decisions by Twitter and Facebook to censor content.

[00:10:23] Also, the House Weaponization Subcommittee has released reports showing federal agencies working with non-profits to coerce Big Tech into curtailing certain forms of speech. There will be other Supreme Court cases concerning social media censorship, but this was a missed opportunity. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:48] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let me just mention that in a minute we're going to talk about an action item that we have for you.

[00:11:09] We did unfold it last week and began to encourage you to get involved, but because we had the Fourth of July and we had a number of programs that were taped, and also recognizing that some of you might actually be traveling, might have been on vacation.

[00:11:25] You may not have heard about that. So we have a take action item up there that we did talk about briefly last week, but we want to cover it again in just a few minutes.

[00:11:34] My second article is one that I wanted you to have access to as well, because if you don't have a subscription, say, to the Wall Street Journal, you may or may not have been able to read it.

[00:11:45] A lot of talk shows have been quoting it, because let's give credit where credit is due. The author, Charlie Spies, actually spends a fair amount of time as the former counsel of the Republican National Committee, but also an individual that was the chairman,

[00:12:01] or at least the counsel to the chairman of the Federal Election Commission. He sets aside a lot of the kind of myths that people have right now in terms of what are Democrats going to do? OK, let's try to set the scene.

[00:12:15] You have a lot of evidence now that a doctor who indeed is a specialist on Parkinson's has been to the White House. There have been some people that have wondered if indeed that is one of the issues or

[00:12:30] maybe the issue related to the failing cognitive ability of the president. And so on the one hand, there could be a number of people and are more and more now that Congress has come back into session who are being pressured either to say, I stand with

[00:12:48] the president or I think it is time for the president to step down. But there are all sorts of election issues associated with that, which is why he refers to this article as Biden has 100 million reasons to stay in that 100 million is the

[00:13:06] hundred million dollars that is in the campaign chest for the Biden-Harris campaign. So let's go into it. He says Democrats are in a panic. President Biden's disastrous debate performance has members of his own party debating whether and how to remove him off the ticket.

[00:13:25] The more important question might be when. Let's now explain that. It turns out that campaign finance rules create an incentive for Mr. Biden to stay in the race through the Democratic National Convention, which is in August. I mean, we have the Republican convention next week.

[00:13:43] Five weeks from now, if I've counted right, we have the Democratic convention. Five weeks is an eternity in politics. But there you go at this point. But not before Mr. Biden would be able to transfer his campaign's anticipated 100 million dollar war chest to

[00:14:01] Vice President Kamala Harris, assuming that she too is still on the ticket. OK, you've got some conflicting issues here. Here's what I think I can give you a brief summary. If President Biden drops out before the Democratic Party formally makes him its nominee,

[00:14:20] then the Federal Elections Commission rules dictate that no more than two thousand dollars of any campaign funds that he raised may be transferred to any other candidate, including Kamala Harris. Are you with me? So you don't get 100 million, you get 2000. I just I mean, I had no idea.

[00:14:42] And again, this is a man who was counsel to the chairman of the Federal Elections Committee. So I think he would know the Federal Election Campaign Act governs what a presidential campaign may do with excess campaign funds, which is what the money left in the Biden for

[00:14:59] president campaign will be legally considered if he is no longer a candidate. Those excess funds may be contributed in an unlimited amount to the Democratic National Committee or to an independent expenditure committee. Presidential campaigns may also contribute such funds to other federal campaigns subject

[00:15:18] to contribution limits, which are two thousand dollars per election. You can see the problem here in short before the nomination officially goes to President Joe Biden. His campaign is limited to donating two thousand dollars to the Democratic nominee, whether that is Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer or Kamala Harris.

[00:15:41] Are you with me on this? So there is a real significant financial issue. Let me just before we get any further into this piece, because it goes into some other details, recognize that Democrats are dealing with something else.

[00:15:57] There are those who say we want the president to not run again, but they also are saying they want him to step down because just simply saying that you will not run again raises the obvious question.

[00:16:13] Will if he can't be the president in January, what makes you think he can be the president right now? And more and more people are starting to say and we are starting to hear, as I read to

[00:16:27] you yesterday from Axios, which again is kind of a left of center reporting agency and Internet site, that there have been staffers saying they're making decisions without even informing the president. Now, again, you want to be careful about calling that a scandal.

[00:16:47] I'm sure there will be some sooner or later that will say, well, this is a scandal that rivals Watergate. And of course, we hear those phrases all the time. But just think about this for a minute.

[00:16:57] We're actually having people honestly on the record saying, oh, yeah, we make decisions all the time without even telling the president. And these are individuals, we don't know what their names are. They weren't elected by the people and yet they are making decisions.

[00:17:12] And so, again, that would only continue. And so there is a real tension now, I think, for various leaders in the Democratic Party to try to figure out how to thread that needle between we don't want him to run again because we think he will lose.

[00:17:31] But we can't really get rid of him because if we even get rid of him now, which probably would be better for the sake of the country to have somebody whose mental faculties are

[00:17:42] better, then we would also not have access to that one hundred million dollars and have to re-raise that after the convention in August. I mean, there are just a lot of issues surrounding the Democratic Party right now. But one last point near the end of this article.

[00:18:00] He also says that if President Biden is committed to passing the torch to his vice president and wants to be able to seed her campaign with the current Biden for President campaign war chest, he'll first have to become his party's legal nominee after shuffling

[00:18:17] through the Democratic National Committee's planned roll call vote. He'd be free to drop out. Then Kamala Harris would then seamlessly slip into the driver's seat. That's a risky strategy, says it requires maintaining an obvious fiction under intense public scrutiny for another six weeks.

[00:18:37] That just gives you a little bit of an idea of some of the tension right now inside the White House, outside the White House and the Democratic National Committee and among even members of Congress are being told, it's time for you to tell us, are you with the

[00:18:52] president or are you asking for the president to step down? So again, this is a very helpful article. It's one I've heard people reference in other talk shows and I wanted to post it so you could read it for yourself in its entirety.

[00:19:06] But just before we take a break, last week we did have a take action item. It's pretty straightforward. And that is we want to protect minors online. What we're talking about is a piece of legislation called Take It Down Act, because

[00:19:22] we've had situations in which pornographic images generated by artificial intelligence are being used against, in the particular case that Ted Cruz was talking about, a young girl in Aledo, Texas. Now, these are oftentimes pornographic, deep, fake images, which are oftentimes known as revenge porn.

[00:19:45] Well, the problem is simply that there has been no real legal mechanism to force social media, that is big tech, to take some of those down. And the story of this poor girl is an illustration of how they could just never get them

[00:20:03] to take down this revenge porn on the social media. And so this is why this piece of legislation has been proposed. So you can go to the website and read more about it. We've sent out an email about it, probably send out another one as well.

[00:20:19] We have a suggested letter which you can send to your two United States senators. Of course, one of the individuals that is already put forward is Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. But again, this is something that we think is just obvious.

[00:20:34] Every once in a while we say, you know, this is kind of a no brainer. But sometimes when you talk about no brains, Congress sometimes unfortunately seems to fit into that category. And certainly big tech seem to have a problem with this as well.

[00:20:47] So here is a place for if you're concerned about the proliferation of pornography, how it's sometimes used against young women, especially with these deep fakes and artificial intelligence. Here is a way to express your support for that piece of legislation. And we'll see where it goes from here.

[00:21:08] I think it's one of those ones that has and should have bipartisan support and should be very easy to move through Congress. But again, we give you that opportunity to let your elected officials know how you stand

[00:21:21] on the issue. And if you'd like to know more, go to the website point of view dot net. Click on the button and we'll be back right after this. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of

[00:21:35] authority. They say men can do anything. Men can be women and women, men. People are prosecuted differently or not at all, depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up, but we can't.

[00:21:56] We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War Two, never give in. Never, never, never, never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say to you today.

[00:22:15] This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join point of view in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone. But together with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at point of view dot net.

[00:22:34] Or call one eight hundred three four seven fifty one fifty one point of view dot net and eight hundred three four seven fifty one fifty one. Point of view will continue after you are listening to point of view.

[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on point of view do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now here again is Kirby Anderson. Let's get to some other topics.

[00:23:14] One of those which I thought would be really appropriate is to go to a piece that Robert Knight spent on the program with us many times before has written Why America's Christians Support Israel.

[00:23:26] Now, some of the things that he writes in his article are very similar to what in this booklet. For those of you watching online, this booklet we created a while back on a

[00:23:35] biblical view on Israel gives you a little bit of history, a little bit of the theology and those kinds of things, because obviously there has been such an attack on Israel. Just the other day, Dr. Jeff Meyers sent me a copy of his book Should Christians Support Israel?

[00:23:50] And the reason he wrote that is because as the head of Summit Ministries, he has lots of young people come in every year to get education through Summit Ministries and has found and also, of course, in dealing with all sorts of young people that your

[00:24:06] typical college student is not supportive of the nation of Israel. As a matter of fact, it is sometimes said and he has, I think, some of the opening comments in his book about the fact that the one 22 year old says, I don't know of

[00:24:19] anybody my age that supports Israel. So obviously there's a need to do that. And that's one of the reasons why Robert Knight wrote this piece. And if you would want to get a copy of our booklet or this article, it is the third

[00:24:32] article we've posted. It appeared in The Washington Times. And this may be one that you don't have to necessarily have a subscription to. You can find it there. But he reminds us, first of all, when you look at a map, he says that you will see

[00:24:46] Israel and then 22 countries around it with a combined population of nearly a half a billion on more than five million square miles of land. That doesn't even include 27 other Muslim majority countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and even in India and things of that nature.

[00:25:06] And then recognizes Israel is about seven million people less than the population of New York City and about eight thousand square miles. If you've ever been to Israel and we've taken you there a few times, 263 miles from

[00:25:20] north to south, 75 miles in its widest, six miles at its narrowest and about the size of New Jersey. And so it is amazing that it is always the center of activity. He says, you know, of all the countries that were pictured as a body, as a

[00:25:37] jagged man, Israel would be a fingernail. And yet the nationwide and international attention is on Israel. And then he reminds us of a slogan that I heard three decades ago by one of the guests in point of view. And it was shocking at the time.

[00:25:54] Of course, we say it many times now that many of the Muslim militants have a slogan. First, the Saturday people, then the Sunday people. In other words, first the Jews and the Christians.

[00:26:04] And of course, if you are familiar with the idea of having to pay the Jizra and Demitude and all of that, that would be certainly familiar. But then he goes on to reminds us that Hamas is really an offshoot of the Muslim

[00:26:19] Brotherhood and actually reminds us that even though in the Arabic it means strength or zeal, in Hebrew it means violence. And of course, you've had the pro-Palestinian side, he says, that have occupied Israel. And now they are saying that, well, we are here and the Jewish people were

[00:26:42] interlopers. So he takes on that archaeological issue, which I think is easy to establish. You know, the fact that Israel was there, the Jews were there. He talks about one ninth century Canaanite slab, talking about King David.

[00:26:58] And of course, we talk about that in not only the booklet on Israel, but the one on archaeology and the rest. And Jews lived in the land of Canaan for twenty six hundred years before Mohammed founded Islam.

[00:27:10] And so, you know, you can use everything from history, archaeology, the fact that it's the only functioning democracy in that area of the world. Of course, you can also use biblical ideas. Genesis 12, Genesis 15 and other passages.

[00:27:28] But then reminds us as well what today would almost be a modern day miracle. I mean, when Jews first came to Israel, a lot of dust, a fair amount of malaria in some of the swamps that they were able to fix.

[00:27:41] But from 1948 to now, he points out that Israel now hosts twenty five hundred U.S. companies employing more than seventy two thousand Israelis, according to U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This tiny nation has the highest concentration of engineers,

[00:27:57] scientists and technicians per capita and produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation. He says that according to the U.S. embassy in Israel, the U.S. Israeli economic and commercial relationships include I.T., biotech, life sciences, health care solutions, energy, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, defense

[00:28:18] industries, cybersecurity and aviation to mention just a few. And so again, he points out that if anything, Christians are the ones that believe that indeed this is a nation that deserves support. Whether you accept that Genesis 12 or Genesis 15 applies now, you can certainly say, as

[00:28:40] he says, it is the only functioning democratic republic in the Middle East. And certainly, of course, it is the birthplace of Jesus. And so anyway, it's a good little piece that if you find yourself saying, well, maybe I

[00:28:55] should explain to some of my friends who are just confounded by the fact that you support the nation of Israel. Why do you? I think he's done a pretty good job in this article of talking about that.

[00:29:09] Of course, our booklet that goes into some of those facts and figures and details is available to you as well as we talk about Israel. But I thought for just a minute before we take a break, it would be good to go to a piece by Joe Loconte.

[00:29:23] Joseph Loconte has been on the program with us many times before. First met him when he worked at the various think tanks. And he's also, of course, been involved in education. But he tells the story and I'm glad he does of Benjamin Rush.

[00:29:39] Oftentimes you'll hear young people not only that are critical of Israel, but people that are critical of this country saying, well, the nation was founded by a bunch of slave owners. And as a result, we don't need to support any of them.

[00:29:53] And it's I oftentimes say, well, what about I don't know, like Benjamin Rush and they go, I don't even know who you're talking about. And I said, well, there you make your point, because what Joe Loconte is talking about

[00:30:03] is a pamphlet that was put out even before the American Revolution, written by the physician of Benjamin Rush, who, by the way, was an individual that spent a fair amount of time interacting with Benjamin Franklin and a variety of other individuals that existed at that time.

[00:30:23] And interestingly enough, was also a confidant of John Adams. Did not know until I read this paper that he also was the editor of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. He was for a long time George Washington's surgeon general. So, you know, obviously not a nobody.

[00:30:39] And in this particular case, it is perhaps one of the most, as Joe Loconte says, one of the most devastating intellectual assaults on slavery ever published in American colonies. It was entitled Address to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies Upon Slavekeeping.

[00:30:59] And so, first of all, he demolished the rationalizations for slavery at the time. The argument that Africans were a naturally inferior race to white Europeans and those kinds of arguments. He also took on the what he says here, the dubious claim that slavery was an approved

[00:31:19] practice in the scriptures. If anything, he says, Christ commands us to look upon all mankind, even our enemies as our neighbors and brethren. And in all things to do unto them as you would wish them to do unto us. Of course, that's the golden rule.

[00:31:36] And then he even takes on the argument that, well, we need slavery because of the economic necessity. And he said actually just the opposite. Liberty and proper and property form the basis of abundance and good agriculture.

[00:31:52] He said, I've never observed it to flourish when those rights of mankind were not firmly established. He said there a divine will of the great author of our nature who has created men free. And so anyway, the pamphlet originally did not have his name on it, although he

[00:32:09] later let people know that he had written it. But as Joe Loconte points out, for a young physician trying to establish himself in the Philadelphia social scene, it was a brazen act of defiance because even in

[00:32:24] Philadelphia, about a quarter of the households had slaves and some of the slave owners were people like Benjamin Franklin and John Dickinson. Benjamin Franklin later changed that, but they were significant in his professional life. And of course, they are individuals that you know as signers.

[00:32:42] Of the declaration did not matter. He called for an end to the slave trade and an abolition of slavery in the colonies. And this all came about not only before the American Revolution, but nearly a century before Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, who, of course, was

[00:33:03] an abolitionist as well. And Benjamin Rush, a protege of Franklin, a confidant of John Adams, an editor of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the Surgeon General for George Washington, the Continental Army and all the rest.

[00:33:17] But an individual that probably knew the Bible because he was the founder of the Sunday School movement in America and also was a leader of the American Bible Society. So again, if you want to understand somebody who understands the Bible and

[00:33:34] was writing back in the 18th century, it's the story of Benjamin Rush. So, Joseph Leconte, I thought it was good that you posted it and I would encourage you to read it. We'll be right back. You're listening to Point of View, your listener supported source for Truth.

[00:34:00] Back for a few more minutes and then next hour we're going to be talking with Rick Lawrence about editing Jesus. I think you'll enjoy that conversation. Of course, we'll open up the phones for your comments and questions as well.

[00:34:10] I might just mention those of you that receive an email from us probably received one just a few minutes ago and it was sent by Warren Kelly. And I thought I would alert you what Warren Kelly did was say maybe you didn't see

[00:34:21] the earlier email that was sent out by Kirby Anderson on this issue of Protect Miners Online. So if you see one from Warren Kelly, Warren Kelly is the president of Point of

[00:34:31] View. And so you might be looking for that because if you did not have a chance to respond last week to this take action item of protecting miners online because of the concern of the use of artificial intelligence to create pornographic images, deep

[00:34:48] fake images. We wanted to give you another chance to respond. And of course, you can go to the website PointofView.net in the middle section. It says take action. Click on the button that says take action and follow it and contact your two United States senators.

[00:35:03] But if you see an email from Warren Kelly, well, that is again related to this. He just wanted to send it out one more time in case you might have been on vacation

[00:35:11] last week or missed it. And so that's what you need to be looking for in your inbox. Let's just before wind down for today, also in the first hour, at least wind down for some of the other issues.

[00:35:23] I have a piece here by Colonel Alan West called The Empty Wagon. Now his father, good southern man, oftentimes had some turns of phrases and one of them was, boy, let me tell you, an empty wagon makes a lot of noise.

[00:35:39] And he says, my dad, who was, of course, an Army Colonel and a World War II veteran, Herman West Sr., who is the father of Alan West, actually was referring, as he said, to

[00:35:52] the fact that people who don't have a lot in their head, that is their wagon, make a lot of noise to cover their emptiness. I had a mother that had a couple of phrases like that as well. And so I guess I never heard that one.

[00:36:04] An empty wagon makes more noise. But nevertheless, what he's saying is, is that we have to recognize that right now we're dealing with some very important decisions that are going to be made in this election.

[00:36:19] And he says it's becoming more intense because one example he uses is when the Disney heiress claims she is cutting off donations until Joe Biden steps down. Well, they're in trouble. And he says, let's be honest, it doesn't matter who the left selects to drive their

[00:36:38] wagon. It's empty. So the point he's making is, is that sooner or later, it is probably likely that Joe Biden steps down and most likely, if you were guessing, Kamala Harris will fill that

[00:36:52] spot. But even if they figure out some other way to do that, and it's Gavin Newsom or a variety of other names that have been put forward, even Hillary Clinton, you're talking about the same set of policies.

[00:37:05] And so he took this as an opportunity for just a minute to say that the policies they are promoting, I think could legitimately be called socialism. And again, I might point you to some of the booklets that we make available to you.

[00:37:20] One of those is entitled Capitalism and Socialism. And I've written that one in part simply because we recognize that the younger you are and again, I'm talking about some of the ideas in the heads of young people that have

[00:37:34] been off to college, that all the founders were slave owners. I think I just took that one apart a minute ago just by telling you the story just of Benjamin Rush, not to mention the whole abolition society and everything like that.

[00:37:45] But the other one is, well, socialism is better than capitalism. And of course, then we did a second booklet on the rise of socialism simply because there is such a belief that socialism works.

[00:37:58] And yet we have very good evidence through some very good books that I quote from and research studies that I quote from to show that's not the case. Well, nevertheless, Colonel Alan West says, really, if you want to understand it, socialism has five basic tenets.

[00:38:14] And again, this one would be easy for you to find out online, but we've also posted on the website. But if you happen to be one of those people that take notes, number one to five. Number one is what socialism believes in wealth redistribution.

[00:38:30] That's why you hear the phrase pay their fair share. But of course, they never really tell you what the fair share is. You also hear an economic plan about soaking the rich. And of course, he gives you all sorts of illustrations there from Frederick Bastiat all

[00:38:46] the way to Karl Marx. But again, socialism believes taking from people that have actually earned that wealth and redistributed it to others. Second tenet is the nationalization of economic production. That means the government takes over the means of production.

[00:39:04] And sometimes people will say, well, government doesn't own all that. We still have a free enterprise system. Yes, but the government is controlling it through all sorts of regulations. And more and more, as I pointed out yesterday, when we are told that these jobs were

[00:39:19] all created, most of the jobs that were created were actually in government or related in some way to the government. So that is the case. He says the third tenet of socialism is the creation of a welfare state. No surprise there.

[00:39:35] Any country that has identified itself as a socialist economy oftentimes has a welfare state or sometimes called the nanny state and those kinds of things. The fourth tenet, he says, is the idea of social egalitarianism or equity.

[00:39:52] If you want to understand more about that, of course, we have articles and booklets on things like critical race theory and equity and D.I. the E.C. stands for equity. And again, that is a concern.

[00:40:06] And he points out again how if he was wanting to rise from his circumstances as an individual born in a black only hospital in the inner city of Atlanta could actually rise to the level of success that was not going to happen into a socialist economy

[00:40:26] that demands equity. And then the final one, he also says, which is part of socialism is secular humanism. He says Karl Marx was an avowed atheist and saw religion as its greatest adversary. And quite frankly, when you look at many of the people that do promote socialist ideas,

[00:40:46] they either have a very flawed view of God or don't believe in God at all. And I think that is very fair as a statement. And again, reminds us that just last week we talked about the Declaration of

[00:41:02] Independence. And the fact is, is that we believe in a creator who is endowed us with unalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness properly defined, as he said, by John Locke. And so he goes through this in some detail.

[00:41:18] And again, it's just a good illustration of if you have a young person that maybe has drunk deeply from the well of socialism in major universities and colleges and certainly has believed so many things that have been taught, maybe they need to recognize that there is another perspective.

[00:41:39] And our booklets on capitalism and socialism and also another one on the rise of socialism or even this article about the empty wagon, I think are just a great way to illustrate that there is a viewpoint that they've never had a chance to hear.

[00:41:54] And maybe the light will come on just before I take a break. Let me just mention yesterday I talked about the Supreme Court decision which actually struck down what is called Chevron deference.

[00:42:05] And if you have not read that, I would certainly encourage you to go back and pick that up. The one today deals with another Supreme Court decision about where the Supreme Court decided not to decide on the issue of social media censorship, something

[00:42:20] which we know has been taking place. Something is pretty well documented, if for no other reason, because we've had the Twitter files and we've seen some of the decisions that were made by Twitter now called X and Facebook to censor content, the House Weaponization Subcommittee and

[00:42:36] much, much more. So if you are maybe wanting to make some sense out of some of the decisions that came from the Supreme Court, the Monday and Tuesday commentaries are an attempt to give you a

[00:42:47] short, simple summary of what was decided or in one case not decided in the Supreme Court. Let's take a break, though. We're going to spend some time now talking about editing Jesus. Rick Lawrence will be with us and we'll be back right after this.

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