Point of View June 2, 2026 – Hour 1 : Tuesday’s Top Stories

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Anderson. Thank you for joining me. It is the Tuesday edition of Point of View and we certainly welcome your conversations as we get into some of the issues today.

[00:00:27] Election Day for at least a half a dozen different states as well as other special elections so we'll spend a little bit of time talking about that. Next hour we're going to be getting into a book, The Art of Asking Better Questions. In studio with me today is Liberty McCarter and this is Election Day. A lot of people go into the polls and California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota in terms of statewide elections.

[00:00:52] And then of course you have a number of other small ones so a very important day in which voters get a chance to cast their vote for candidates. Yes, absolutely. I think a lot of people even aren't in California may be watching Los Angeles specifically to see if common sense will prevail there in the mayoral race. Well, let's get into this. For those of you that don't live in California and I imagine even if you don't, you've probably heard of Spencer Pratt.

[00:01:17] Now again, Liberty can tell me a little bit about the involvement that he's been in terms of reality shows. But here is an individual who was very frustrated with what has happened in Los Angeles. And just to give you some numbers, to give you a feel for why this is the case, Los Angeles has more people living on the streets than any city in the United States.

[00:01:42] You could maybe even say more than any capital or city in the world. I don't know. Having grown up in California, this statistic really got me. There are 15 counties in California whose total populations are smaller than the homeless population in Los Angeles County, which exceeds 75,000. If you filled Dodger Stadium, and I've been there before watching the Dodgers, with all of the county's homeless people,

[00:02:12] you would still have enough left over to go to the Crypto.com Arena downtown. So we are talking about a very significant issue, and Liberty there maybe is one reason, along with the fact that Spencer Pratt had his house burned down, and got the sense that we don't necessarily have the most competent people running in the mayor's office. And so we'll see tonight whether or not he is in the runoff.

[00:02:38] But even if he is not, as you just said a minute ago, sometimes a person just stands up and says, can we get some common sense? Because Mayor Karen Bassett hasn't really shown so much for that, has she? Yeah, definitely not. You know, I give credit to my older sister. So she knew directly of Spencer Pratt back in the day, watching him on the hills and things like that. So whenever he got into the race, she kind of gave me a little bit of an education there. But even she was noting that when you saw the debate between the candidates,

[00:03:07] it really struck a chord with the people watching online or on TV or even who were there, because he did have that personal experience. And whenever, you know, there was some quote or statistic about something that had happened with the fire specifically, he was able to refute that and say, we all know that's not true. Like, my house was burned down. I was there. And I think a lot of people, I imagine, would say, what's going on? This just doesn't make sense.

[00:03:35] And then he stood up and basically said what everybody was thinking, which is a trend that I think we've seen in the United States in the last decade or so. So, again, one of the arguments against him, and I think it's legitimate, has no credit credibility because he has had no experience. But again, let's recognize that many times people run for mayor who haven't even been in the city council. So I recognize that possibility. I also recognize that even if he is not elected or even gets to the general election,

[00:04:04] he's changed politics, I think, because this gets back to one of the topics you and I talk about all the time, artificial intelligence. He has produced these commercials, which are completely, in some cases, AI-generated, or they're in some way or another playing off some expertise that he must have had with somebody on his campaign who knows how to put together visuals and music and all the rest.

[00:04:29] And we aren't exactly dealing with boring kind of advertisements trying to encourage people to vote for Spencer Pratt. Yeah, you know, I have seen a lot of those on online and on social media. It reminds me not, of course, there's not a one-to-one comparison in any sense, but it does remind me of Donald Trump a little bit, especially when he first began running, because I think maybe Spencer Pratt,

[00:04:53] especially for a lot of the people in California, has just done things differently and shown people, wait, oh, OK, we can say that. Like, he's kind of brought things into the conversation or he's not necessarily just doing things because this is the way it's always been done. And that gets people's attention. One other thing I think I just might mention in since some people have been watching it, even though it's just a local mayor's race,

[00:05:16] it has been, in a sense, given national focus, it is still quite likely that he won't be one of the two. And the reason why is, first of all, you have to recognize that you have an enormous number of Democrats registered in Los Angeles County. Number two, you have a number of people that indeed are frustrated with what has happened. But I looked these numbers up as well.

[00:05:44] Turns out that a lot of those people that were frustrated or voted with their feet, 53,000 people from Los Angeles have left Los Angeles from July 2024 to 2025. So, and I don't even know what we're there now, but that gives you a pretty good idea. So the bottom line is you might say, well, there would be people that are very frustrated who would vote for him. You know, some of those people that might have voted for him after the fires, especially, they just said, we're gone. And so a lot of things happening.

[00:06:14] But let me just again, just before we take a break and get into some other topics, mention that there are a number of very key elections that some of us might be watching tonight when we watch TV or just hear about a little bit later. And when you look at all of those, it is back to a point that we make so often a liberty.

[00:06:31] And that is if you complain about who you are supposed to vote for in the general election, maybe you need to get back to the primary and recognize that that's where sometimes the best opportunity to pick an ideal candidate is. And of course, even in the mayor's race, I mentioned only two individuals. There are 14 candidates running for mayor in Los Angeles, so they'll win all it down to two.

[00:06:55] But still, if you are one of those individuals in many of the states I just mentioned where you have a chance to vote today, well, let me encourage you to do so. Of course, you may have already voted early, but it's just a reminder that this is, I think, a very important time in the future of this country. And if nothing else, I think Spencer Pratt illustrates a point that I make too often. Liberty, I probably say it too many times, but you can't solve a problem if you won't admit that there's a problem in the first place.

[00:07:24] We say that when we talk about the fact that the rising house prices and the overspending, we're going to get into maybe fraud today and a few others. But you can't fix a problem if you don't admit it. And I've got to give the guy credit whether he gets into the final race or not. He was willing to, if nothing else, say these problems that we have here aren't going to be fixed by trying to fix the teeth for people that have been strung out on methamphetamine. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:07:53] At least it is starting a conversation. And I would just reiterate what you said. You know, last week we voted in a runoff here in Texas. And I can't remember the exact statistic right now, but I saw afterward that such a so few registered. And that was a Republican runoff. But so few registered voters who are registered as Republicans actually showed up for that. So if you want to make an impact on who's going to run in the general election or things that might affect you more specifically and locally,

[00:08:21] you really do have to get involved at those starting levels in the primaries and things like that. I looked at some of those vote totals, and I was just saying, really? 6,000 people in some of these on other races, not the Senate race. But, I mean, it just doesn't take many. You can just get your church and three other churches to get involved. You could actually be in office. But anyway, let's take a break. School is out for most. It will be out for others. We're going to talk about what that means right after this.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. You know, with estimates that the federal deficit will increase this year, we're once again hearing comments about making the rich pay their fair share. Even if we set aside the moral arguments, there's still the reality that attempts to soak the rich haven't generated tax revenues promised by progressive politicians. To illustrate this, look at one of the most boring graphs in economics.

[00:09:26] If you plot federal government revenue as a percentage of GDP, you get approximately a horizontal line. This is what has come to be known as Hauser's Law. 30 years ago, investment analyst Kurt Hauser wrote that no matter what the tax rates, the tax revenues remained at approximately the same percentage. If you plot the top individual tax rate, you will see how tax rates and tax revenues are not connected. In the 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was 90%. President Reagan slashed the tax rate to 50%.

[00:09:56] Today's top rate is 37%. Throughout these fluctuations, the percentage of tax revenue as a percentage of GDP was around 17% to 19%. Here's a link to a Wall Street Journal commentary from 15 years ago that includes the graph. The author argues that Hauser's Law should become as central to economics as Boyle's Law is to the physics of gases. Unfortunately, most politicians are unaware of it. Progressive politicians are convinced that if you increase tax rates, you will increase tax revenue.

[00:10:26] I won't bore you with other graphs, but generally the inverse is true. Raising the rates for income tax, capital gains tax, and inheritance tax usually generate less revenue. The current debate about taxes and spending could use some wise economic insights found in a horizontal line on a graph. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:55] That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. Of course, we've been talking about the election, but I also want to talk about schools. It is June. For most of you right now, your school is out. Your kids are home. For a very small number of you, mostly in the West Coast, you still have another week, but pretty soon school is out.

[00:11:25] And Liberty, I thought we might spend some time talking about this. You've been a teacher. We talk about homeschooling. We talk about education. I know you're going to be doing a booklet on the whole issue of AI and education. But Mark Ostrich says the empty desks are telling us something. And the bottom line is this. If you have not looked at the numbers, the latest data from 39 states and Washington, D.C.,

[00:11:49] so that's a pretty good representation, shows that there are 23% of students that are chronically absent in 2024, 2025. We're very soon going to get those numbers, and I guarantee you, because I've looked at what little inference comes from that, that it looks like that number is still going to be very significant. That means nearly a quarter of the students are chronically absent.

[00:12:16] It, I think, comes for a variety of reasons, and I thought you and I could kind of delve into this a little bit, because we recognize that students were not in school when we had the pandemic and the lockdowns. And then we recognized that when it was time to get back to school, some of the states were very hesitant. Some of the teachers' unions were very hesitant and really arguing against it. But we are years past that.

[00:12:42] And yet the bottom line is we have a lot of empty desks. And if we're going to spend as much money as the federal government spends on education and as much money as every state spends on education, and almost a quarter of the students are chronically absent, this is a problem that needs to be addressed, don't you think? Yeah, absolutely. I think what it should do to kind of go with the theme of later in the show, asking better questions,

[00:13:10] we need to make sure we're asking the right questions about this. And I really appreciated the fact that the author here says we can kind of predict the line, you know, from a lot of teachers' unions and governments and things like that. This is a crisis. These parents are negligent. We need to just, you know, make sure that kids are going back to school. And we do want kids in school. They need to be getting their full education. But why did they feel that they had to stop going as often?

[00:13:40] And I think, again, like you said just a few minutes ago, if you're not even willing to acknowledge that there's a problem, then you're not going to fix the problem. And so I think there's evidence showing that when so many students were forced to the kitchen table to have to, you know, classroom, came home, and parents saw whether it was the methods that they were using, whether it was, oh, my goodness, my child actually can't read, and I've been told that they could,

[00:14:08] things like that where they realize this isn't working for my kid. Or if it's not a big deal that you can, that they be there, if you can just say even long past what was really necessary, that they just aren't going to school, that kind of, I think, demotivates people with the importance of school to say, well, if you can say I'm not going back to school yet as a teacher, does my kid have to go every single day?

[00:14:35] I think those are kind of, I think there's a trust issue that's been lost here that we need to examine. And one of the things that he does mention, and you are very familiar with this, because you've been writing on homeschooling and everything, more than a million students have left for private schools, homeschooling, or sometimes what they call micro schools or hybrids. So it's really even worse than that, because it's not just the empty desk, it's the desk that would have been populated if the schools were doing the right thing.

[00:15:04] Now, I thought for just a minute, since I get to travel around, I get to meet people in different parts of the country. So let me use a couple of examples. First, in Georgia, the way the lawmakers have dealt with this is they have advanced a bill that would threaten chronically absent students with the loss of their driver's license. So one attempt is to say, well, if you can't show up to school, then you're not going to get to be able to drive. I've been in New Mexico, too.

[00:15:29] New Mexico has a proposal that would have punished parents of absentee students with fines or even jail time. But that's the point. You would think that education should be good enough that we just offer the carrot. Now they're even offering the stick, and they're still dealing with nearly a quarter of the students not showing up. And so I just picked two examples of places where I've been recently,

[00:15:56] and you begin to see also that high school seniors are absent at roughly double the rate of elementary students. Now this is no surprise. Boys are more likely to be chronically absent than girls. Economically disadvantaged students are more absent than their affluent peers and all the rest. So there's a lot of other issues going on here. But can't we make education interesting enough,

[00:16:22] and can't we make the case compelling enough that a student would want to go to school? And if nothing else, when they don't get to go to school, then they don't get to see their friends. They don't get to hang out. They're just all... And so it does seem to me that this is, as you said before, it's a chronic problem. But the bottom line is, if we want to solve it, the first thing is to address it. And as we now have come to the end, or very close to the end of the school year,

[00:16:52] the problem isn't getting any better. It seems, if anything, to be getting worse when you factor in the fact that a million or more students have left for the private schools or homeschooling as well. Can't we say spending more money is not going to make this any better, and we're not going to be able to fix the problem? Yeah, I think spending more money isn't going to make this any better is the message that really we need people to understand.

[00:17:21] So there are so many ways, and this, again, just goes to show how a local impact can be so effective, because you really do need to look at your community. Who are the students? What are the demographics that are going to your local school district or ISD? And what are the issues that they're facing, some of the problems? I am.

[00:17:46] You've seen a movement with getting rid of cell phones in public schools, and a lot of parents realizing that while they are now seeing all this damage that technology is doing to their child, they're trying to cut down on that at home, only to then their child given a laptop or a tablet in kindergarten and first grade, and they find out that they're watching literally hundreds of YouTube videos a day. I just read an article about this the other day,

[00:18:11] and now it is so integrated into the classroom that teachers are stuck because they have to use YouTube to teach, and it's just a whole cycle. So there are movements to try to just, I think, make schooling more simplistic again. It doesn't have to be overly complicated. And so things like that, you can look at your local school district and get involved, as you always encourage people to do, Kirby, to say, what are the issues that are happening here?

[00:18:36] Because any sort of state-level, even definitely federal-level mandate is not going to, I don't think, effectively address the issue because it really depends on the kids in that community. We just talked about the elections because if you want to run for school board and you can just get the people in your church or maybe two other churches to vote for you, you'll be on the school board, and there you can make some very significant changes. Let me just mention again, we'll take some phone calls along the way, 1-800-351-1212.

[00:19:04] But I thought these last few comments he made in the article very good. Students who are chronically absent are not making a random choice. In many cases, they're responding to schools that have failed to teach them to read, failed to adapt to their needs, failed to make the case that another day in the building is worth what it costs. You know, again, people say, well, I'm too busy. Well, first of all, I can't be too busy for school when you're a student. But people make time for things that make a difference.

[00:19:31] He says the honest story is that a significant number of families concentrated among the poor, the male, and the badly serviced are basically concluding from direct experience that what their local public school offers is not worth the time it costs. An empty desk is trying to tell us something. The scandal is not that the students are sending the message. It is the adults keep pretending not to understand it.

[00:19:56] And so if you are concerned about schooling, as we will probably do again before you enroll in the fall, I know some of you may are, of course, just naturally going to be going to the public schools. But if you want to go to a Christian school, you want to go to a private school, you want to homeschool, you're having to think about that. I know Liberty is going to be doing some programs on that. But I just thought this was a very good piece. Empty desks are telling us something.

[00:20:21] And until I read this piece, I did not realize what a crisis this is. And if you're looking for a local issue to run on, this is it. Don't you think? Oh, yeah. And I think the thing is, you know, and of course, love homeschooling and all the alternative options and talking about those and promoting those. But for some of these chronically absent children, they haven't necessarily chosen an alternative. They're just not showing up. But maybe their alternative isn't accessible to them or their parents.

[00:20:51] So we do need to make sure that while there is a thriving marketplace of educational options, that the public school hopefully remains a good option for people who may need to go there. Again, we've said how important it is to get a good education. And if schools are not teaching you to read and write and be able to be functional in an economy, you're going to be dealing with some really significant problems in the future. So empty desks are telling us something.

[00:21:21] It's one of the articles I've posted. I think you should read it. And then ask your local school board what's going on. We'll be right back. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say 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.

[00:21:51] It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up. But we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, never give in. 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. This is not a time to give in,

[00:22:19] 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 pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151.

[00:22:48] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. 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. Back once again.

[00:23:16] We have in studio with me today, Liberty McCarter. If you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. We normally leave these kind of conversations, Liberty, to Friday when we have a Pennexster or Kelly Shackelford or Jeff Mater or somebody like that. But, of course, you've worked at First Liberty, so I think we can all talk about this. Because Charles Cook came out with something the other day, and I thought it would be worth a mention. And that is, reform the court. I reject the premise completely.

[00:23:43] Now, of course, the argument that is being made by Representative Jamie Raskin is, you know, really the court just needs to turn around. After all, we have 13 circuit courts, but we only have nine justices. So why don't we get 13 justices? Now, of course, very quickly then, he makes the case that I'm very concerned about the conservative court.

[00:24:06] So it isn't worried about necessarily that the nine justices are working too hard or that we should have one justice for each circuit. But nevertheless, it is interesting to see that the argument being made, and we've heard this many times before, haven't we, Liberty? If they say, we certainly just need to add more to the court. And this issue of court packing is something we've been talking about for, it seems like, a decade now.

[00:24:33] Oh, I think so, because that's about when Donald Trump came on the scene. And as we know, he's had the opportunity to nominate many justices for the Supreme Court. So, yes, I do think that it is interesting to see these same court packing arguments come up every so often in the last few years. But, you know, Cook does a really great job of pointing out that this isn't really about constitutional concerns,

[00:25:00] but rather about certain decisions that are not preferred. And made a good point that if it was the Republican Party or the conservatives or Trump himself saying, oh, we need to pack the court, then I don't think you would be seeing bipartisan agreement on that. Well, as a matter of fact, I happened to watch the other day a little clip that happened when Jim Jordan, who is the representative from Ohio, Jamie Raskin is the Democrat from Maryland,

[00:25:29] saying, well, if we do need to increase the number of justices, why don't we do that right now? And to watch the reaction around the table. Oh, OK, well, if you think we need 13 Supreme Court justices, let's do it right now. Yeah. And nobody around the panel was interested in that because what they wanted to do was wait until their hope that there will be a Democrat in the White House and there will be a Democratic controlled at least Senate.

[00:25:56] And then we can add the four justices because I think this is where Jamie Raskin later on, at least he was honest enough to say the Supreme Court has been a profoundly conservative, a reactionary institution for the vast majority of our history. And so the argument he's making is, well, we can increase the number in the court. So why shouldn't we? And so you could see the fallacy of, well, we have 13 federal appeal courts.

[00:26:24] So why don't we have 13 justices? But as soon as Jim Jordan called their bluff, nobody around the table was as excited about the possibility that four more justices could be put to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump, which I think shows you exactly what was going on. And interesting enough, when he complained, Jamie Raskin mentioned one issue time and time again. And that's an issue you've written about the Dobbs decision. It's the overturning Roe versus Wade.

[00:26:51] He mentioned some others, but you almost get the sense that, again, the issue of abortion was the real issue as to why they wanted to pack the courts. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, whenever I remember Justice Barrett's nomination hearing or confirmation hearing process, it seemed like that's almost all they wanted to ask her about, the dogma living loudly within her and whether or not she was going to vote to overturn Roe. And then it wasn't even a constitutional precedent to begin with.

[00:27:21] So it was more of a decision that needed to be rectified. And she and others have spoken about the constitutional theory on that. So, you know, I think it is very transparent. And I'm trying to find exact numbers here, but I do remember seeing in the past when these conversations have come up, the majority of Americans actually don't support court packing because I think, again, back to common sense, a lot of people, even if they aren't happy with current decisions from the Supreme Court,

[00:27:48] and that might be the case, they can see the danger of changing that precedent and really just making the Supreme Court another political arm or a partisan arm where then, oh, let's add a few more. Well, now that a president from our preferred party is in office, let's add a few more. And I think people realize, no, it's supposed to be above that, and they don't support that. And that's why it's so transparent when somebody starts talking about packing the court

[00:28:17] because you know they're only wanting to do it for one reason. We have Jeff Mattier on Friday, so we might bring it up again. But I just thought since we have certainly talked about it many times, and I think Charlie Cook does such a good job of evaluating that. But if you run into somebody and say, well, I think maybe we need to expand the court, you might want to read this piece. It is our second article. But I thought we'd move on for just a minute because one of the other ones that really got my attention was where there was an attempt to deal with fraud.

[00:28:47] Now, I wonder why. Well, you can start thinking about all sorts of places, Minnesota and California and a variety of others. You can think about the citizen journalist Nick Shirley and some others. And so they gathered together a group of attorneys general from different states. And you had more than a dozen that actually wanted to meet with Vice President J.D. Vance because they had this anti-fraud roundtable.

[00:29:14] But if you look around the anti-fraud roundtable, all the attorneys general were all Republicans. And so then you even had 23 Democratic attorneys general sign a public letter saying they were not going to participate. They didn't think it was a serious discussion. And, again, you could maybe say, I like what Joshua says, the complaint's not without merit.

[00:29:35] It took a while to actually get the invitation out to the Democrats because J.D. Vance wanted both Republicans and Democrats from the various states to join that. But it brings us back to one of the bigger questions. And that is, how serious are certain states about fraud?

[00:29:55] And when you start seeing some of the evidence of fraud, and I'll pick on Minnesota for another few minutes simply because we now have arguments coming from the Justice Department that the fraud was on the order of $15 billion just in the health care issue alone, not to mention those leering centers. Remember those? Leered a lot from those. I couldn't even spell the word right.

[00:30:20] You can begin to say that if we are serious about waste, fraud, and abuse, this shouldn't be a bipartisan issue. And this article by Joshua Arnold suggests that it's sort of becoming one where Republicans seem serious about trying to get rid of fraud, and Democrats seem to be at the very least dragging their heels or not being willing to go along.

[00:30:47] California is a good example, and people are trying to figure out is it because they don't believe there's fraud or because they don't want to be embarrassed when you find the fraud. But whatever reason, this should be a bipartisan issue, not a partisan issue, shouldn't it? Absolutely. It should. A quick shout-out to Josh Arnold. We went to undergrad together and worked in the cafeteria, so we had some vegetable-chopping discussions back in the days, and he's still great at making conversation and writing good arguments.

[00:31:15] But, yeah, it definitely should be a bipartisan issue. And, you know, we live in a very reactionary society. So if you're talking with somebody and maybe they are hearing Republicans or they're hearing Trump talk about this and then they don't like who's talking about it, I think you can still make a good case that, no, this is something we should all care about because Democrats and Republicans pay taxes.

[00:31:38] So do you want your tax dollars filling the pockets of somebody who is taking advantage of taxpayers to, I don't know, stock up on a bunch of gold bars, fancy watches, cars? There are some of the examples here in this article. I think most voters would say, no, I don't really like that. Most taxpayers would say, no, I don't like that. If you do care about a safety net for people in need, do you want the money going to people who legitimately need that,

[00:32:08] or do you want it, again, going to fraud? I think most people would say, I don't want it wasted on people who don't actually need it. And I think the question of whether or not an attorney general actually cares about what's happening in their state is, well, hey, there have been some really funky numbers in a lot of these states for a long time. Was anything done about it? They could make a stink about not being invited to the meeting on time, which may be a valid complaint, but I think we can also look at what they were doing before, if anything. If you wonder what Liberty was talking about, I heard about this the other day,

[00:32:37] and it's in this article because you had an individual that, it turns out, falsified the idea that he was with the Naval Service. Anyway, he'd been a CIA analyst, and they went into his home. And when I first heard this, I said, this has got to be Babylon Bee, but no, it's not true. They found $40 million in gold bars, $2 million in cash, and 35 luxury watches, some of those which probably were used as bribes by the CIA.

[00:33:04] But I think at this point we can say, yeah, that's definitely fraud and abuse. And it's just a good illustration. So as we've tried to illustrate before, fraud is one issue, and it certainly didn't get very far under Doge, which is sad because there is a fair amount of fraud. It may not balance the budget, but it would certainly get us closer to something like that. And when you have various states not even willing to cooperate in this anti-fraud roundtable,

[00:33:34] I think that is a real concern. And you need to figure out whether or not your attorney general actually was willing to attend or whether he or she just simply turned and went the other way. We'll be right back. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:03] We'll be right back for a few more minutes. Next hour we're going to be talking with J.R. Briggs about the art of asking better questions, pursuing stronger relationships, healthier leadership, and deeper faith. And Liberty and I will spend some time working through what I think is a very good book published by InterVarsity Press. But one last article I thought we might mention, and it's by our friend Joe Locante. I've known Joe Locante since he was in the Heritage Foundation, and I believe he's now the director of the Rivendale Center in New York City.

[00:34:31] I know he's also a scholar there at the New College in Florida and does a lot with the C.S. Lewis Institute and a variety of others. But Liberty, I thought this was interesting because we've been talking about anti-Semitism. I've done an earlier book, and then I did a kind of revision after, of course, what happened in October 2023 with Hamas and Israel.

[00:34:55] But this is a reminder that a lot of the atheistic ideas have been, in a sense, actually undergirding and supporting anti-Semitism. And so, in some respects, he starts out by quoting from Edward Gibbons, the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which really, again, was looking at Western culture and, in particular, the fall of the Roman Empire. But, of course, with this atheistic secular mindset,

[00:35:25] he pretty much gave us an understanding of how, in some respects, that militant secularism oftentimes leads to anti-Semitism. And then, in a minute, I want to get to the positive aspects, because if you think about this, as we are talking about this nation's heritage, when you look at the founders and even the framers, the founders in particular many times did quote from Jewish sources.

[00:35:53] They oftentimes used Jewish illustrations and Old Testament illustrations for the Revolution. And so, in some respects, this is why, even though you've had a virulent anti-Semitism in Europe, in part because of a secular kind of mindset, you've had, until fairly recently, much less in the United States. Yeah, this is such a good article. I would really encourage people to read this one,

[00:36:21] which you can read it at the link at pointofview.net. But it is just so important. And it's a great conversation augment for someone, because, unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of people, even self-proclaiming Christians, fall into anti-Semitic rhetoric and conspiracy theory. So what can help us to evaluate our ideas? One of the better questions we need to ask is, where does this thought come from?

[00:36:50] So I thought it was so telling, so helpful to understand the effect of the Enlightenment, where reason really became valued by society over spiritual revelation. And if you adopt a materialist worldview, you're not going to believe in anything supernatural. Well, guess what? The God of the Jewish people, the God of the Bible is supernatural,

[00:37:15] and you can't get away from it whenever you are interacting with the Jewish community. And so I think that that is one reason why you automatically have this just resistance of kind of the rationalist movement to resist the Hebrew God, Hebrew belief in one God. It was so different in ancient times. It's different today. But yes, it's such an important thing to know where that really originates.

[00:37:43] And again, he makes a very good case that, again, the anti-Semitism in the United States has everything to do with religion, but what he means is the rejection of a biblical view, and rather than one that is biblical but animated, as he says, by militant secularism. And you say if you start with a Hebrew belief in one God, a creator who fashioned men and women in his image, has provided the strongest foundation for human dignity. And if I could, for just a minute, having spent a fair number of times,

[00:38:12] especially even in graduate school and afterwards, reading some of the writers, you go back to the Puritans. The Puritan covenant was actually a covenant based upon the Hebrew Bible. And we talk about that. And as a matter of fact, I have that on One Nation Under God where we document how that fits together. Then during the Revolution, many of the ministers, we have one on the patriot preachers, talk about how often they used biblical illustrations.

[00:38:38] And the illustrations they used were the idea of the Exodus, in which the Jews escaped the slavery of an Egyptian tyrant. Many times they would say, we need to escape the slavery or the tyranny of King George. And even by the time of the Constitution, you had this concept that Jewish Americans were equal citizens. Well, we look at that and take that for granted. But there were times, especially in Europe,

[00:39:07] when indeed very few countries allowed Jewish people, or even those who were related to Jewish people, to participate in very much, which is why some of them ended up being involved in various aspects of commerce that allowed them to even survive. And so all of these ideas, even he mentions the Philadelphia July 4th parade of 1788,

[00:39:35] the first one to celebrate the ratification of the Constitution, Jewish people were part of the procession. Wow. So all the way through, you can see that if you accept a biblical view, you certainly would want to honor the Jewish people. I recognize that there have been people that have called themselves Christians that have been some of the worst to prosecute Jewish people. But nevertheless, I think this is a great piece that Joe Luconte put together,

[00:40:03] just reminding us of the fact that if you want to deal with anti-Semitism, bring people back to a biblical faith. Yeah. I think he ends by saying, you know, get more people reading their Bible. And that's, of course, what we want everybody to do at point of view, because when you really do examine the scriptures and you take that biblical worldview and you allow it to illuminate your own beliefs, you will realize there is absolutely no place for anti-Semitism in a biblical worldview

[00:40:33] where every single person is made in the image of God. And I think that it's really neat to make that connection to human rights all the way back to the Old Testament. And as somebody who is not a biblical scholar, by any means, I sympathize with, sometimes it can be kind of difficult to go through some of those books and read all these laws and say, that sounds really weird. Why are we reading so much about, you know, people's wounds and sores and cleanliness and things like that? But when you read it through the lens

[00:41:03] of how set apart God's people were from everybody else, you had God saying things about adultery and human rights and treating slaves and foreigners fairly and child sacrifice and even cleanliness and health and things like that, that were so different. That's where we get our human rights from is from God and he handed them down to his people in the Old Testament. He ends with a very good quote from Stuart Halpern, The Jewish Roots of American Liberty,

[00:41:31] Jews owe an immense debt to America, which has been for them an incomparable, generous and welcoming land. I've had Dennis Prager sitting in the very chair where you were sitting saying the very same thing. He says, if you were a Jewish person and you had to pick any country in the world where you would be protected and have the greatest amount of freedom, it would be the United States of America. So, if nothing else, a very good piece on the atheistic roots of modern anti-Semitism.

[00:42:01] And, again, I want to hasten to add, I know many atheists that do support Jewish people, but I think it's still a reminder as he goes back and looks at Edward Gibbons, really his magnum opus, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, how you get some of those biases there as well. Let's take a break though. When we come back, we're going to talk about the art of asking better questions. Let me just mention real quickly, I'm holding up the June issue of Outlook. If you are not a donor, let me encourage you to be so.

[00:42:30] This is the one on artificial intelligence. I have an article in there. Liberty has an article in there. There's some other great material that would be very helpful. And, of course, we have many other issues that we are addressing. And one of the benefits of supporting Point of View is that you receive the Outlook magazine if you give on a monthly basis. If you give as little as $1 a day, $30 a month or more, you receive those booklets we've been talking about. So, let me encourage you as we take a break to go back and maybe click on that button

[00:43:00] that says Donate. Also, of course, we're making available our free copy of the Declaration of Independence. Let's take a break. We have more to cover right after this. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:43:30] London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth, it is truth, for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need

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