Point of View June 3, 2024 – Hour 2 : Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership

[00:00:46] Point of View Radio Talk Show, Point of View Radio Talk Show, Point of View Radio Talk

[00:01:16] Point of View Radio Talk Show, Point of View Radio Talk Show, Point of View Radio Talk Show,

[00:01:46] that. The current target, of course, is the majority, the conservative majority on the

[00:01:50] Supreme Court. And he says those leading the charge would be the New York Times, Rolling

[00:01:56] Stone Magazine and ProPublica. I'll only mention two of those in the interest of time. But

[00:02:02] on May 29th, the Times published an opinion piece arguing that the Justice Department

[00:02:08] should exercise its authority and force Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas

[00:02:15] to recuse themselves on a case related to January 6th. First of all, let me just bring

[00:02:25] a little bit of perspective into this. The Justice Department has no authority to do

[00:02:30] that. And in some respects, as they said, they're talking off their hat. They then go

[00:02:36] on to talk about some of the flags that have been flying, whether it is the inverted U.S.

[00:02:43] flag or the revolutionary era pine tree flag. And so a little bit later, we'll get into

[00:02:49] some of that. But it's just a reminder that as Kelly Shackelford has pointed out to us

[00:02:54] before, there has been just sort of a deliberate and coordinated attempt to try to criticize

[00:03:01] the members of the Supreme Court to try then justify those individuals who might render

[00:03:08] a decision they may disagree with, with some kind of recusal. And yet as we'll get into

[00:03:14] maybe later this hour, I'll talk about the fact that when the shoe is on the other foot

[00:03:20] and people like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example, had a husband that was actually representing

[00:03:26] clients before the Supreme Court, that's okay. But when Amy Coney Barrett's husband is doing

[00:03:30] so well, then that's just a complete breach of constitutional propriety. So those are

[00:03:36] some issues we will certainly be talking about later this hour. But let's get to this conversation

[00:03:42] about abstinence and marriage education. This comes from Scott Phelps, who joined the

[00:03:48] Chicago Care Pregnancy Center, now known as CARES, a number of years ago, went to work

[00:03:54] for Kathleen Sullivan, very well known in the field at Project Reality, and then has

[00:03:58] put together a number of abstinence curricula. And of course, the A&M Partnership that's

[00:04:04] been around since 2004 has really been training more than 4,000 educators nationwide. They

[00:04:12] provide training for pregnancy centers, public and private schools, churches, and community

[00:04:16] organizations. So Scott Phelps, thank you for joining with us today here on Point of View.

[00:04:21] Hey Kirby, thanks so much for having me on again. Really appreciate it. Love your show.

[00:04:26] I might just mention that we have a link to the NationalMarriageCampaign.com, and then

[00:04:31] we'll get to the SuccessSequence.com as well. But Scott, tell the story a little bit, because

[00:04:37] here is an individual that decided to actually work in this area of abstinence education,

[00:04:44] and we've had some very good programs over the years, but you realized that there would

[00:04:48] be a real opportunity to begin to develop some other abstinence curricula, and those

[00:04:54] have been not only successful in say the Christian schools...

[00:04:57] You have exceeded maximum voicemail duration.

[00:05:00] ...but even into the actual public school curriculum as well. Scott, go ahead.

[00:05:08] I guess we've got a problem with connecting up with you, so maybe we need to take a break

[00:05:12] and we'll see if we can figure out what is happening there, because I have never had

[00:05:15] that happen before. But let me just mention real quickly that we do have a link to a couple

[00:05:20] of the websites here. It's NationalMarriageCampaign.com, and as you go there, you're going to find

[00:05:27] all sorts of resources. First of all, there's a podcast, there's a blog, there's some resources

[00:05:32] and those kinds of things. And then what they have developed over the years is what you

[00:05:37] might refer to as a success sequence program. In other words, whatever grade level you're

[00:05:43] dealing with, 6-9, 7-10, 8-11, 9-12, you have different programs which are age appropriate,

[00:05:52] really teaching a little bit more about this subject of abstinence and marriage. But Scott,

[00:05:56] I think we have you back, so share a little bit about how this all took place.

[00:06:00] Excellent, thanks so much. So years ago, we just celebrated our 20th anniversary of the

[00:06:06] Abstinence Marriage Education Partnership. And I got into this, Kirby, because I was

[00:06:11] doing a lot of pastoral counseling and found that so many of the issues that I was dealing

[00:06:19] with had to do with people who were having sex outside the context of a marriage relationship,

[00:06:25] whether it was teen pregnancy or abortion or divorce, cohabitation, whatever the issue

[00:06:31] was, there was a fundamental centerpiece to all of this. And it was a lack of a marriage

[00:06:38] relationship. And so we started, so for example, one of the stories I like to tell that really

[00:06:43] launched me into this work 25 years ago is in my counseling, I had a 16-year-old pregnant

[00:06:51] girl coming to see me along with her single parent mom. And a 16-year-old pregnant girl

[00:06:57] wants to have an abortion. Mom says, first of all, we're going to take you to see Pastor

[00:07:01] Phelps. There they are in my office. And I'm saying to this girl, you know, it's not easy

[00:07:07] to adopt a baby nowadays. And if you would be willing, I've got a couple that is trying

[00:07:11] to adopt a baby, would you be willing to carry this baby to term? We can do an open adoption,

[00:07:17] you can meet them. And it all worked out beautifully. This girl, instead of having

[00:07:22] an abortion, was able to provide this couple with a beautiful, wonderful baby. And so it

[00:07:29] was a very exciting, very exciting thing to experience. However, a year later, that same

[00:07:35] girl was back in my office, pregnant again, and this time would not be dissuaded from

[00:07:40] an abortion. As you mentioned in your intro, I contacted our local pregnancy care center

[00:07:48] and I said, you know, I want to come help. What can I do to help? And I really was after

[00:07:53] – my whole goal was really to save the babies. You know, 85% of abortions in America occur

[00:07:59] among unmarried women. And I just began to see the relationship between breakdown of

[00:08:05] marriage and family and a whole host of social pathologies, especially abortion. And so that's

[00:08:11] really Kirby what launched me into this 25 years ago. And we've reached over 2 million

[00:08:16] kids around the country, trained thousands of teachers, and that's what we do. We're

[00:08:20] lifting up the message of why abstinence prior to marriage can help you have a future happy,

[00:08:30] healthy marriage. That's the nutshell.

[00:08:31] Let's take a break. We'll continue our conversation with Scott Phelps right after this.

[00:08:53] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:08:59] Michael Barone is a political analyst and best known as the principal author of the

[00:09:03] Almond Act of American Politics. He has been writing about the disconnect between the left-leaning

[00:09:08] media and the typical American voter. He cites one writer for The Atlantic who argues that

[00:09:13] the Biden years have seen the strongest economy the United States has ever experienced. Her

[00:09:18] suggestion is that voters are not knowledgeable or sophisticated enough to understand how

[00:09:22] the economy is doing great. His response is to point to a pair of charts that were recently

[00:09:27] published in the Wall Street Journal. The two writers say that the best way to compare

[00:09:31] two presidencies is to look at net worth. The first chart shows that net worth under

[00:09:36] Trump was a little better than under Biden. The second chart then takes inflation into

[00:09:41] account. The red line for Trump increases but has some dips along the way because of

[00:09:46] factors like the pandemic and lockdowns. The blue line for Biden has a brief increase

[00:09:51] in net worth, then turns negative for the rest of his time in office. Rebecca Downs

[00:09:56] also addresses the disconnect between the media and voters by citing an article in

[00:10:00] Axios. The article cites a Harris poll showing that more than half of Americans believe the

[00:10:06] U.S. is in a recession and then confidently says they are all wrong. Now it is true that

[00:10:10] according to the traditional definition, the country is not currently in a recession, but

[00:10:15] there is a reason why the latest polls show that most Americans say the cost of living

[00:10:19] is their biggest economic concern and why most also say inflation is an important issue.

[00:10:25] You know, pundits and politicians can point to low unemployment and increasing wage growth,

[00:10:30] but the American people don't feel these few positive economic indicators in their pocketbooks.

[00:10:35] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:42] For a free copy of Kirby's booklet, A Biblical View on Racism, go to viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:49] That's viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:54] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:10:59] Continuing our conversation today with Scott Phelps with, again, an organization known

[00:11:03] as A&M Partnerships, stands for Abstinence and Marriage Education Partnership. And Scott,

[00:11:09] let's see if we can talk about some of the most popular curricula that you've developed,

[00:11:13] AC Green's Game Plan and Navigator, because that was kind of, if you will, another sort

[00:11:20] of game changer, wasn't it, to provide some opportunities to really teach this concept

[00:11:26] of abstinence?

[00:11:27] Well, this really is the key, Kirby. We really exist to supplant and replace sex education

[00:11:35] in American schools. Sex education is destructive to our youth, and it is corrosive to the national

[00:11:43] soul. Of all the educational ills, of which there are many, sex education is a pretty

[00:11:50] center of the rock in our schools, and it's got to be removed. And so what we do is rather

[00:11:56] than just going to schools and saying, hey, stop teaching all this harmful information,

[00:12:03] what we say is here's a much better way to talk to your kids.

[00:12:07] And so we do have our curriculum division, successsequence.com, where schools, Christian

[00:12:14] schools, churches, public schools, most of our work is actually in public schools, where

[00:12:20] as a part of their health curriculum, they can teach the clear and objective benefits

[00:12:26] of reserving all sexual activity for the context of marriage. That's just a flat-out health

[00:12:31] message. It's what every American school should be teaching our kids. It's not that sex is

[00:12:36] a bad thing, it'll ruin your life, but it's a wonderful thing to be reserved in the context

[00:12:40] of a marriage relationship. And if every school in America were doing that, we would be in

[00:12:45] a much healthier place, and that's our mission field.

[00:12:48] So yes, Game Plan and Navigator as well as Quest, Aspire, and we have Excel for Christian

[00:12:55] schools. We have five different curricula available, and we exist to equip teachers

[00:13:02] and parents and pastors to teach these things clearly to our kids in a way that they embrace

[00:13:09] it, and they really do. When it's taught well, Kirby, kids are eating it up. They're dying

[00:13:14] to learn about this, and they're dying to hear this message, but no one's teaching

[00:13:18] it to them, and that's the gap that we seek to fill.

[00:13:20] And again, Scott, one of the things I sometimes try to use as an illustration is we always

[00:13:25] hear people saying, well, you know, abstinence is just naive because some of these individuals

[00:13:31] are going to get sexually involved. Well, and I understand that, but we also recognize

[00:13:35] some of them are going to be able to get access to drugs, but how do we deal with the drug

[00:13:40] issue in school? Teach them how to use drugs safely, where to get the drugs, how to protect

[00:13:47] themselves from drug overdoses? No, we tell them don't use drugs. But when it comes to

[00:13:52] sex, we say, well, I guess we just have to teach them how to have safe sex because if

[00:13:59] we teach anything else like abstinence, well, that's not always going to be effective, and

[00:14:04] yet almost every study I've looked at shows that when you teach abstinence, a lot of young

[00:14:09] people who were really thinking about getting involved sexually decide that that's not

[00:14:14] or actually going to further their own personal goals and futures. So it seems to me we should

[00:14:20] be teaching that in every school, shouldn't we?

[00:14:22] We should be teaching it, Kirby, and we should be teaching it well. Now the reason we're

[00:14:27] launching this year the National Marriage Campaign is because, and the reason why we're

[00:14:33] called the Absence and Marriage Education Partnership is because abstinence must always

[00:14:39] necessarily be tied to marriage. We're not just saying, you know, don't have sex for

[00:14:45] a while or wait until you're older or wait until you're in love or you're two years...

[00:14:50] No, it's all about preparing well for healthy future marriage. And when we can lift up the

[00:14:56] goal of marriage to our kids, that's what really makes their hearts sing because that's what

[00:15:02] they're really looking for. You know, we have research out of the University of Michigan

[00:15:06] over decades that shows that 90% of high school seniors in America say they want to get married

[00:15:14] and have a family in the future and they want it to go well. 90% of high school seniors

[00:15:19] are hoping to have a healthy future marriage. And so that's what we need to be teaching

[00:15:25] our kids. But sex ed, and even too often abstinence ed, doesn't go the distance. They don't talk

[00:15:30] to kids about the beauty of sex within the context of a marriage relationship. Why waiting

[00:15:35] for marriage matters? So we're launching a national marriage campaign inspiring hope

[00:15:42] for a healthy future marriage. We want kids to see that there's a pathway forward and

[00:15:47] that's actually what the success sequence curriculum teaches them.

[00:15:49] Well, again, we have a link to NationalMarriageCampaign.com. You don't even have to remember all that.

[00:15:55] But let's see if we can for just a few minutes, Scott, talk about what's available there because

[00:15:59] you have a blog, you have a podcast. A podcast tells some wonderful stories. The blog tells

[00:16:05] some very good stories. There's all sorts of resources. There is, as I mentioned before

[00:16:10] you came on the air, the success sequence curriculum. So there's a lot that is available

[00:16:15] for parents, for churches, and most importantly for schools, isn't there?

[00:16:20] That's right. That's what we're dedicated to and committed to. And like I said, we've

[00:16:24] been doing this for 20 years now and really we want to supply and equip and help you.

[00:16:30] We don't do presentations ourselves so much once in a while, but primarily what we do is

[00:16:35] we equip and help you with resources. So yes, if you go to successsequence.com, you'll have

[00:16:40] videos that are available for free that you can show your kids that are beautiful, inspiring

[00:16:45] videos. We have curriculum there. They can get paperwork books. They can get online learning

[00:16:51] courses for their kids. They can be used in school. They can be used in homeschools.

[00:16:56] A whole variety of resources. So we're trying to equip and support and to help the adults

[00:17:04] in our culture teach the youth of our culture that marriage is good and worthy. It's a good

[00:17:11] and worthy goal. And by reserving sexual activity for it can be super helpful for you. That's

[00:17:16] our message.

[00:17:18] One other thing I thought I'd pick up on your blog, you have one particular article posted

[00:17:22] about how fewer high school seniors see marriage in their future. They've seen the divorce

[00:17:27] culture. They've seen the hookup culture. They have also seen that they may not necessarily

[00:17:34] do as well economically as their parents. And so we not only need to be talking about

[00:17:39] abstinence, we really need to be talking about marriage too, which is why you've put the two

[00:17:43] together, isn't it?

[00:17:44] That's exactly it. You're right on it now. And you know, there's a funny because I just

[00:17:50] mentioned this research at the University of Michigan that 90% of American high school

[00:17:54] students, seniors, want to get married and have a family. But the one that you're citing,

[00:17:59] that article is about how there is despair. And those two things do go together. Here's

[00:18:04] the way a girl said it to me one time at a school. She said it this way. We think the

[00:18:08] idea of waiting for marriage is like a fairy tale. Yes, we really, really want it, but we

[00:18:13] just don't see it happening. In other words, there's the desire for it. But everything

[00:18:17] in culture, everything in society is beating them down. It's not going to happen. Divorce,

[00:18:23] you know, it's bad. And what we need to do is say, no, no, no, there's a beautiful pathway

[00:18:29] forward for you. And that's why we use the word hope in our tagline, inspiring hope for

[00:18:35] a healthy future marriage. That's what kids need to see is that not only is it a good desire,

[00:18:40] but there's a way forward. And so the success sequence is exactly that big pathway to healthy

[00:18:46] future living and healthy future marriage. Again, nationalmarriagecampaign.com. Let

[00:18:51] me just again talk about all the things that are available. You have material for parents

[00:18:55] and guardians, material for educators and youth leaders, material for policymakers because

[00:19:02] in some cases the resistance is at the legislative level. So there is material there. And there's

[00:19:08] a place where people can obviously donate to you, but also to contact you because, Scott,

[00:19:13] I know you're such a dynamic speaker. Maybe some would like to have you come to their

[00:19:17] community and have you address those issues. So is that possible too?

[00:19:20] Of course. We love to do that. And that's what we exist to do is to encourage and inspire

[00:19:26] and to help people to teach this message to their kids. So absolutely they can contact

[00:19:31] us through the website. Thank you, Kirby. Again, Scott Phelps is somebody I've been

[00:19:34] familiar with for some time. Of course, Kathleen Sullivan who he's worked with as well. These

[00:19:38] are people that have been involved in the battle for a long time. And if you find yourself

[00:19:43] saying we've got to do something instead of always being worried about sexually transmitted

[00:19:49] diseases and abortion, everything else, let's go upstream and prevent that from happening

[00:19:54] in the first place. And so again, if you find yourself saying, well, I'd like to know a

[00:19:58] little bit more about this, go to our website or else go directly to nationalmarriagecampaign.com.

[00:20:05] I would encourage you to find out more about that organization. I would encourage you to

[00:20:09] donate to that organization and see if you might even want to schedule them to come and

[00:20:14] speak or to take some of their great resources and apply it to your Christian school, your

[00:20:19] public school, even in your own family and community. So Scott, as always, great to have

[00:20:23] you on the program and thank you for joining us today here on Point of View.

[00:20:26] Kirby, and thank you so much. You gave a terrific synopsis of what it is. It's not chasing symptoms.

[00:20:34] It's getting to the core issues. So thank you very much for having me on.

[00:20:38] Well, again, Scott Phelps, we have all the information on our website or you can go to

[00:20:43] nationalmarriagecampaign.com. I started out this section because we hadn't connected up

[00:20:47] with him talking about what's going on with the Supreme Court and the attack on some of

[00:20:52] the justices. We'll get into that. Also, maybe before we're done, just how I think this issue

[00:20:56] of foreign policy might even be a very important issue in election 2024. So we'll cover those

[00:21:02] issues before we run out of time. But go to the website right now, pointofview.net.

[00:21:06] You're going to find all the material necessary. And if you'd like to know a little bit more,

[00:21:10] nationalmarriagecampaign.com. Let's take a break though. We still have a lot to cover.

[00:21:15] I'll get out my electronic shoehorn, see if we can get as much in as possible before

[00:21:20] the end of the show. And we'll be back right after this.

[00:21:27] Where does moral truth come from? According to 58% of Americans, individuals determine

[00:21:33] moral truth. A quarter of Generation Z says society determines moral truth, and morality

[00:21:39] can even change over time. Only 42% of Americans believe that truth comes from God. I don't

[00:21:46] know about you, but I find these numbers extremely troubling. It really is a crisis of truth,

[00:21:52] and that crisis has consequences. Look at society. Evil is called good, good called

[00:21:58] evil. People with biblical beliefs are called bigots, or worse, they're canceled. But there

[00:22:03] is hope. The Bible promises the truth will set us free. And that's why Point of View

[00:22:09] is relentless in our commitment to the ultimate source of moral truth, God's Word. At Point

[00:22:15] of View, we know that God's truth is eternal. And if we stand together, we can help more

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[00:22:44] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:22:58] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management

[00:23:03] or staff of this station. And now, here again is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:08] Final half hour, let's if we can come back to one I talked about at the outset of this

[00:23:13] hour, and that is the media's coordinated campaign to destroy the Supreme Court. Beckett

[00:23:18] Adams talks about that, and I sort of gave you a little bit of an overview in which now

[00:23:22] you're having people suggesting, which is not going to happen because it would not happen

[00:23:27] and should not happen constitutionally for the Justice Department to force justices to

[00:23:33] recuse themselves. This whole idea of recusal is, I think, kind of an interesting phenomenon

[00:23:40] because whenever the case doesn't mean a great deal, well then, as we saw the other day,

[00:23:45] there are three liberal justices that have recused themselves from a case which is going

[00:23:50] to go nowhere in which they were sued by, I think, kind of a Trump supporter about the

[00:23:55] election. And we know that even so, even though they're recused, the other six justices will

[00:24:01] vote against that. I'm surprised they even have the case being considered. But whenever

[00:24:05] it's an important case, I think, for example, when there was going to be a decision about

[00:24:11] same-sex marriage, well, you didn't hear, for example, a number of individuals that actually

[00:24:20] had been involved in some kind of same-sex marriage. And a good example of that would

[00:24:26] be Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had actually married a couple, same-sex couple, or Elena

[00:24:32] Kagan and some others. They don't recuse themselves. So that is, I think, one of those issues that

[00:24:39] only is raised occasionally when it doesn't make any difference and otherwise not going

[00:24:44] to happen. But at the core of this has to do with two flags. As you may know, and you'd

[00:24:53] know certainly because the New York Times has made a big deal about this, apparently

[00:24:58] outside the house of Samuel Alito, his wife actually raised an upside-down flag. And then

[00:25:06] there was also a revolutionary era pine tree flag, which I think is kind of interesting

[00:25:13] because those stories, according to the New York Times, were provocative and generally

[00:25:19] were considered to be an example of the fact that, I don't know, Samuel Alito was, I don't

[00:25:25] know, Christian nationalist or unfit to be a Supreme Court justice. And I thought it was

[00:25:30] interesting in Beckett Adams' piece, he says, you know, the so-called pine tree flag was

[00:25:36] never seen as a controversial flag if for no other reason it was flying outside the

[00:25:42] city of San Francisco in front of the city hall until about a week ago it was taken

[00:25:48] down because all of a sudden the New York Times thought that it was a problem. And of

[00:25:53] course you've had people in New England flying that flag for years and even some of the

[00:25:59] anti-police demonstrators during the unrest of the 2020s, especially in the year 2020,

[00:26:07] flew it. But all of a sudden that became controversial. But the last one I thought I'd pick off real

[00:26:12] quickly before we get to the piece, which we've also posted by Tim Graham, his Rolling

[00:26:16] Stone magazine, all of a sudden has discovered that the Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett's

[00:26:22] husband is an attorney and he has clients. Well, yes, he does. No surprise there. And

[00:26:30] yet again, the headline, Amy Coney Barrett's husband is representing Fox in a lawsuit,

[00:26:35] read the Scoops headline. If you read into it, there's really nothing there. But this

[00:26:40] is the same news organization that didn't see any problem with the fact that the former

[00:26:46] justice before she died, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, actually had a husband whose law firm actually

[00:26:54] did business with colleagues and with clients that appeared before the Supreme Court. So

[00:27:01] what you have here is the New York Times, which has posted 22 opinion or news articles

[00:27:08] about the Alitos and the flags. Rolling Stone posting an issue about Amy Coney Barrett having

[00:27:15] a husband who's an attorney and 22 articles, some of which were authored by Pulitzer Prize

[00:27:21] winners, one of which I didn't notice the other day, won a Pulitzer Prize for the local

[00:27:26] story in that regard. And yet had exactly zero articles about the husband of Ruth Bader

[00:27:33] Ginsburg, which would be Marty Ginsburg, who actually had clients appeared for his before

[00:27:39] his wife on the Supreme Court. And the argument is not, well, that's not a what about it's

[00:27:45] just simply to say that, look, the Times did not care about judicial in propriety when

[00:27:52] it involved a liberal progressive justice like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But all of a sudden

[00:27:58] they've got their, as they used to say, knickers in their not about what happens with Amy Coney

[00:28:04] Barrett or Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas. And again, we have to understand that some

[00:28:10] of that is to be expected. But this next article by Tim Graham points out that some actually

[00:28:18] get into what almost is a conspiracy theory. Now, let's just be honest for a minute. We've

[00:28:24] had conservatives with all sorts of weird conspiracy theories. The QAnon conspiracy

[00:28:30] certainly fit into that category. And of course, we've had a number of liberal groups with

[00:28:34] all sorts of conspiracies, many of them showing up on MSNBC on a pretty regular basis. But

[00:28:40] Tim Graham has been looking at the media and saying that even they are coming up with

[00:28:46] conspiracy theories. And he picks off one other news organization, and that would be

[00:28:52] National Public Radio. He says the taxpayer-funded National Public Radio, which has never managed

[00:28:58] to produce a single feature story on the foiled assassination attempt of Brett Kavanaugh in

[00:29:06] 2022, has provided multiple stories about Samuel Alito in terms of, again, the flag issue.

[00:29:15] And they use fake neutral headlines like flag displays at Justice Alito's homes concern

[00:29:21] judicial watchdogs instead of actually saying conserved Democrat law professors. And it

[00:29:28] then goes on to say that the Supreme Court reporter for NPR is Nina Totenberg, who he

[00:29:34] says tried to strangle the Clarence Thomas nomination back in the 1990s in the crib,

[00:29:40] couldn't muster any concern for Brett Kavanaugh. And again, when you have some of these media

[00:29:47] watchdogs like Tim Graham and others, they point out that on the one hand there is just

[00:29:54] a deep and abiding concern about a flag that was actually flying in a home that is owned

[00:30:03] by Samuel Alito, and never could even show the slightest concern about the fact that

[00:30:10] we almost had an assassination of a Supreme Court justice. And so again, you have another

[00:30:17] quote that he gives us in terms of MSNBC, Ellie Mestal, who said, though the lines through

[00:30:24] the Alito flag story, the Clarence Thomas coup story and their wives, what we saw today

[00:30:30] from the Supreme Court in their gerrymandering decision means that they don't want black

[00:30:35] people's votes to count equally. Which is hard to make the case, if you think about

[00:30:40] it for just a minute, since Clarence Thomas is African American. He's black as well. As

[00:30:46] for Thomas, forget that Justice Conjie Brown Jackson has a white husband, of course he

[00:30:51] has a white wife, but that's not a problem apparently for those individuals. And again,

[00:30:58] the argument I think could be very simply made that if you are against any kind of gerrymandering,

[00:31:06] it must show some kind of racial prejudice, even though Clarence Thomas is black. Well,

[00:31:12] yes, but he's influenced by his what? White wife. But nobody ever raises the question

[00:31:19] as to whether Justice Conjie Brown Jackson is being influenced by her white husband. So

[00:31:25] it's just a good example of so often the focus and attention is developed only when it advances

[00:31:33] a liberal mindset or a liberal agenda, but is simply ignored when you're talking about

[00:31:40] other kinds of situations. Finally, let me get to my second to last article because I

[00:31:46] do believe that one of the things that is going to be more significant in this election

[00:31:52] in 2020, not just for the presidential election, but also for individuals that we elect to

[00:31:59] the U.S. Senate has to do with the fact that we are facing more threats overseas than

[00:32:06] ever before. And the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal put it this way, President

[00:32:12] Biden's greatest abdication has been his willingness to let U.S. defenses erode even as American

[00:32:17] adversaries are on the march. Too many Republicans, including Donald Trump, have acquiesced to

[00:32:24] their silence, so they're not necessarily thrilled with Donald Trump either. So he says

[00:32:28] it's even more worth applauding the marker put down last week by Senator Roger Wicker

[00:32:36] that the U.S. needs to return to spending 5 percent of the economy on national defense

[00:32:43] to deter those adversaries. Of course, Wicker is the ranking Republican on the Armed Services

[00:32:49] Committee and rolled out a report detailing why America's military budget is inadequate

[00:32:56] in a world in which we find ourselves. America's military isn't equipped to deal with potential

[00:33:02] wars on two continents at the same time. And he talks about the risk of some of those dangers.

[00:33:08] So after we come back from the break, I want to talk about how did we get ourselves in

[00:33:12] this situation? We don't necessarily want to spend lots of money on defense, but we don't

[00:33:18] want to ignore that we are in a more dangerous world than we've seen in some time. And deterrence

[00:33:26] prevents, I think, many of these countries from exercising their military options and

[00:33:32] thus keeps us from having to deploy American troops on some of those continents. Let's

[00:33:38] take a break, come back and talk about that right after this.

[00:33:41] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:33:56] How are you going to vote in this particular election? Not only for president, but for

[00:34:01] the United States Senate, even for the House of Representatives. Obviously, there are a

[00:34:05] number of things that will certainly affect the vote in 2024, both for president and for

[00:34:11] Congress. One of those is whether we have a good or bad economy. That, by the way, is

[00:34:17] my commentary today, if you have not read it. Very good piece where I quote from Michael

[00:34:22] Barone and actually show the graphs and charts so that you can see that some of the concerns

[00:34:27] that you have about where the economy is going and inflation are justifiable, even

[00:34:32] if other people are convinced that you don't really understand what is going on. I think,

[00:34:37] of course, how you vote on a variety of other issues ranging from immigration to abortion

[00:34:44] to what is happening in terms of the government, bureaucracy and the rest are very important.

[00:34:51] But this may be one of those elections where foreign policy is important. It was important,

[00:34:56] of course, when we had a war on terror. But it is now, I think, becoming even more concerning

[00:35:02] because as I point out in this particular piece that comes from the editors of the Wall

[00:35:07] Street Journal, they are very appreciative of the fact that Senator Roger Wicker has said

[00:35:13] we need to be a little more serious about what we need to do in terms of projecting

[00:35:20] force and by doing that preventing other kinds of military actions. And in the article

[00:35:27] here it talks about the fact that China, Russia and Iran are working together against the

[00:35:33] West in multiple ways. China is providing Russia with enough smokeless powder to produce

[00:35:40] 80 million rounds of ammunition. Vladimir Putin is returning the favor with joint naval

[00:35:45] patrols in the Pacific. Russia is furnishing combat training jets to Iran, which is instructing

[00:35:52] Russian troops on how to operate its drones to pummel Ukraine. And North Korea provides

[00:35:58] missiles to Russia, which helps them dodge United Nations sanctions. So a lot of these

[00:36:05] dangerous actions need to be confronted by the U.S. military. And this article goes on

[00:36:12] to say that the U.S. is still basically living off of Ronald Reagan's military buildup in

[00:36:18] the 1980s and everything from fighters to the nuclear triad is wearing out at the same

[00:36:25] time. The Air Force needs to purchase 340 more aircraft above its current plans over

[00:36:32] the next five years. And of course it goes through the fact that the Navy will have to

[00:36:37] produce three attack submarines a year to deter Chinese aggression and goes through

[00:36:43] this long list of what needs to take place. Near the end, the editors of the Wall Street

[00:36:49] Journal say yes we know about the deficit and the debt, but again they say this $55

[00:36:55] billion for defense in 2025 is a fraction of what Congress has blown on social programs

[00:37:03] over the last three years. The Inflation Reduction Act alone is shoveling out subsidies that

[00:37:09] will total more than a trillion dollars to green energy subsidies and Republicans should

[00:37:16] start a debate about priorities. And so again they even suggest Mr. Trump, you might want

[00:37:23] to pivot from your guilty verdict and maybe start focusing on what you want to do in the

[00:37:29] next four years if indeed you're elected president. And that brings me to my last piece which

[00:37:34] actually is quite long and we'll just give you a summary, but it's written by Robert

[00:37:38] Clark. Robert Clark is really helping us understand that the West basically needs to stand strong

[00:37:47] and the world needs the West. This originally was in the magazine under the title Guns with

[00:37:53] Butter, this one instead has the title The World Needs the West. And again he reminds

[00:37:59] us that quote, the world keeps getting more dangerous, it's now grappling with war in Ukraine,

[00:38:06] China's increasingly bellicose actions in the South China Sea and it's little talked about

[00:38:12] nuclear proliferation, Iran aggression that threatens the existence of Israel, the lives

[00:38:18] of U.S. forces and their allies in the Middle East, and the security of global shipping

[00:38:23] trains and all of this is happening against the background of a project long held by authoritarian

[00:38:30] regimes, including Russia and China to undermine the liberal order that has guaranteed peace

[00:38:37] in most of the West since World War II. And he says one of the problems, and he agrees

[00:38:43] with the article that I just mentioned from the Wall Street Journal, is that we've had

[00:38:47] this prolonged peace dividend. After World War II we had of course a build down to the

[00:38:54] military and then we built some of it back up, especially under Ronald Reagan, but then

[00:38:59] you had after the Cold War what was called a peace dividend. And as a result what actually

[00:39:06] became possible for a short period of time to get close to a balanced budget because we

[00:39:11] weren't spending much on military because Bill Clinton was the President. And this also

[00:39:16] as he says led to European nations to reduce their national defense spending in inordinate

[00:39:22] ways. And so as a result, if you will, China and Russia, they didn't get the memo, and

[00:39:30] as a result now you have some of these authoritarian states, China, Russia, Iran to mention just

[00:39:35] a few that are involved in all of this. And so Russia's invasion in Georgia in 2008, its

[00:39:43] invasion in Ukraine in 2014, and then again in 2022 as well as China's desire to eventually

[00:39:52] invade of course Taiwan are just some good examples of what has been taking place. And

[00:39:59] so the problem oftentimes has been the threat for a great deal of naivete to just assume

[00:40:07] that if we build down our military, then the others will plan to do the very same. But

[00:40:15] he says unfortunately political naivete and military weakness are all too common in liberal

[00:40:21] democracies whose politicians often fail to see beyond the four or five year election

[00:40:27] cycles and to craft long-term strategies. And quite frankly I think we've been lulled

[00:40:34] into a world in which we believe that peace is the norm. And yet if you know anything

[00:40:40] about history, peace is the exception, war and all sorts of threats are the reality.

[00:40:49] And we have I think had some wake-up calls that have reminded us of that. Of course I

[00:40:54] just mentioned the invasion of Ukraine. We talk about the threat to Ukraine and Taiwan.

[00:41:02] But how about one more and that is October 7th in which you had Iran's proxy Hamas killing

[00:41:12] more than a thousand individuals followed up by then Iran sending a massive drone and

[00:41:19] missile strike on Israel as a retaliation for bombing an Iranian compound in Syria. And

[00:41:27] it is again just a reminder that we live in a dangerous world and deterrence is the way

[00:41:34] to prevent having to send troops and ships into our harm's way. But deterrence he says

[00:41:42] is failing. It's no coincidence he said that Putin amassed the largest army that Europe

[00:41:48] has seen in 80 years as a result of being able to then go into Ukraine. So these are

[00:41:55] articles I think to remind us that as we come to an opportunity to vote for who will

[00:42:01] elect as president, who you will elect as a U.S. Senator, who you elect to Congress,

[00:42:07] it's going to be important to recognize that as Robert Clark points out, the world needs

[00:42:12] the West. We need to provide deterrence and it is almost unthinkable to imagine what the

[00:42:19] world would be like if indeed no longer America was providing the kind of protection that

[00:42:26] has given us the peace that generally has existed around the world but still has broken

[00:42:32] out in some major theaters around the world and we're going to have to make wise decisions

[00:42:38] about who we elect to offices who are going to be making decisions about how we will use

[00:42:44] and fund the military. So those are a few articles we've posted for you today. Let

[00:42:49] me encourage you to join us each day. I'll be broadcasting Wednesday from Traverse City

[00:42:55] but first of all let me thank Megan for help engineering the program. Karen, thank you

[00:42:59] for stepping in and producing the program and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow

[00:43:03] right here on Point of View. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many

[00:43:09] people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men. People are

[00:43:16] prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued

[00:43:22] and rewarded than law abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel

[00:43:29] like giving up but we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to

[00:43:35] Britain in the darkest days of World War II, never give in. Never give in. Never, never,

[00:43:42] never. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the

[00:43:47] enemy and that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in but to step

[00:43:53] up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone but together

[00:44:01] with God's help we will overcome the darkness. Invest in Biblical clarity today at PointofView.net

[00:44:10] or call 1-800-347-5151. PointofView.net and 800-347-5151.