Point of View May 1, 2026 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kerby Anderson. Thank you for joining us, it is the Friday Weekend Edition and we have quite a bit to talk about. First of all we have the President's Task Force trying to eradicate anti-Christian bias, so we'll certainly be talking with our friend Kelly Shackelford about that.

[00:00:33] Also some unfair treatment about this issue of release time. As I mentioned just the other day, we've had a couple of Supreme Court cases on everything from racial gerrymandering to pregnancy center donors, and I decided we'll just wait till the Friday Weekend Edition to talk about that. And then we have quite a number of other topics that we will get into as well, so as we will always try to cover as many of these as possible. A little bit later we'll open up the phones in case you have some comments or questions about that as well.

[00:01:02] Liberty McArtor, a host of Point of View, also of course the host of the Know Why podcast, Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, Chief Counsel for First Liberty Institute. Anybody that already is on your mailing list has heard you speak, but I think some of the people would like to hear more about the President's Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, and you have certainly been following that for some time, and you refer to it as a shocking report. It is shocking.

[00:01:30] I mean, anybody in the United States that reads it should be shocked. I mean, I know some people don't care about the Constitution, don't care. But, I mean, they were using the government to attack Christians all over the country. And it wasn't like, oh yeah, there's five incidents. It was hundreds. I mean, these were all documented as to what they were doing. And that follows up on the report they released just a few weeks ago. Yes.

[00:01:59] Where they were specifically doing this to pro-lifers. I mean, they, for over a year, they were tracking and following them with the help of pro-abortion groups. I mean, you essentially had like Planned Parenthood type groups, you know, infiltrating the government and using the levers of the government to try to crush people who would go out and pray or do something to try to end, you know, abortion.

[00:02:29] And, you know, and of course you had, you know, one man, his house was, the SWAT team came in because he would go out and pray. It was horrible, right? Well, this is many, many, many more examples. And it doesn't just include individuals. It's churches. It's church after church after church that was under attack. That were, it's organizations that just wanted to be a 501c3.

[00:02:56] Like, you know, Christians engaged where they said the IRS said, oh, no, you can't be a nonprofit because you say that you follow biblical values. And biblical values means that you must be, you're much more associated with the Republican Party. And therefore you can't be a nonprofit. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that, you know, there was harassment, you know, criminal, everything.

[00:03:24] And so I just, I really encourage people. It had our Navy, a lot of our cases are in there, but there's a lot more than our cases. Sure. You know, the Navy SEALs was in there, what they did to those in our military, all in violation of the law. And, and so I, you know, it's, they posted it. It's readable. I'd, you know, again, maybe you don't want to read the 200 pages, but there's a summary up front. Read that and see.

[00:03:50] And again, what I like is you see a lot of things on the internet and people say things and you're not really sure what's really true. Right. Okay. This is the Department of Justice and there's 200 or 300 pages of exhibits and documents and things showing these things to be true. So this is evidence based. Uh, this is real and it should be a wake up call to people. We can't allow this type of thing to happen again.

[00:04:16] I hope some people in what has just gone out in the, the, on the pro lifers and on this one, I hope that some people actually pay consequences for using the government in this way to attack fellow citizens, uh, especially in the religious freedoms. You know, one of the things that I noticed just as I'm reading through the summary is that there really, uh, seems to be a multi pronged attack.

[00:04:43] Like they are going after Christian universities, churches, like you mentioned, the pro life centers, um, traditional Catholics. And it's like every sphere where Christians want to be able to live out their faith and apply it to all these different things. This was, it seems very intentional, not just, Oh, an accident. And we have a different interpretation of the law, but this was active, intentional animus against all the different ways Christians live out their faith. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know?

[00:05:12] And I mean, everybody knows some, some of these things people knew about, right? The, the Garland memo, you know, that was released that basically said that parents, uh, are domestic terrorists. Yeah. If you go and speak at a school board meeting, cause you care about your kids. Now you're a domestic terrorist. And I mean, this was literally a memo from the head of the FBI that went out all over the country and caused activity.

[00:05:36] So there are just a lot of things like that, that some, some people forgotten, you know, how ridiculous, uh, the things they were doing, but there's a lot of things in there. People weren't aware of. So, uh, you know, thank goodness we have an administration that actually is exposing these things. Um, and, but we've got it, we've got to find a way to make sure that this does not happen again.

[00:05:58] I mean, there should, there should be consequences for people that use the government, um, to go after people like this, um, in a way that is clearly unconstitutional. One other thought I might make is first of all, we have of course, your press release, which came out yesterday. So you can read that. And that is a pretty good summary in case you don't want to read through all those pages.

[00:06:20] But it was also striking by the fact that it wasn't just what was happening in schools, what it was just happening in the business workplace, what was happening in the military, in the public squares. It was a multi prong attack on any way in which a Christian would exercise his or her faith in a public arena. Right.

[00:06:42] I mean, it was almost like Satan inhabited the government and went after every, everywhere that Christians were, you know, I mean that, uh, and you know, some people said, you know, this tells you why, you know, a Christian can say, well, I want to stay out of politics. Well, you know what politics is not going to stay out of messing with you. So you better get involved and make sure that you don't have people in control that are this evil, that they're this intentionally, uh, ready to violate people's religious freedoms.

[00:07:10] Uh, they don't care whether you're Catholic or Protestant or what your background is. They don't care if you're a grandma, you know, they're going to put you in jail for two years for praying outside the abortion clinic. Um, it doesn't matter who you are. They want to crush you because you're a person who believes in Jesus. And I think just this should be obvious, but every American should care about this because of this is the kind of precedent that's being set.

[00:07:34] Then do you want the government to be able to just become, you know, a club that they can wield against whatever ideology they don't like? No American should want this. This should really disturb everyone. Yeah. And the, and the great thing is, you know, this administration could have come in and said, oh, they did it to us. We're going to do it to them. They're not doing that. They're saying this is wrong, right?

[00:07:58] This is, this is wrong on a lot of levels, including the constitution, but it's certainly, and I think it invites us to be better at keeping the FBI and all of these agencies, which we have trusted in the past accountable. Mm-hmm. That there, there should, there should be transparency on everything that there can be. And, and there should be really, there need to be consequences from people that are involved in this type of activity. Let's take a break.

[00:08:25] We have some other cases to talk about, but, um, if this is the first time you've heard about that, maybe that's a good reason to be listening to point of view, because sometimes the mainstream press hasn't done a very good job of covering some of those issues. But you learn about these kinds of things here on point of view. Um, seems like a school district needs to learn something about the constitution. We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:08:58] This is viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Is America great? Was America great? These are questions that deserve an answer in a year when we're celebrating the 250th anniversary of this country. We know the divisions. On the one side is Donald Trump and all the people who wear caps that say, make America great again. On the other side are the critics of him and the country who even have created the America never was great hashtag on social media.

[00:09:24] Critics have every right to express their discontent with America, but a time when many want to express their gratitude for what this country has done, liberals and progressives are making a long list of America's sins. What we need is an honest debate about America and its history. While we can point to many dark chapters in American history, it should not blind us to the many successes. America had slavery and the Indian wars, but it also abolished slavery and discriminatory laws in a constitutional republic that lasted more than two centuries.

[00:09:54] The U.S. fought many wars, several were ill-advised, but it also protected the world from tyranny. Talk show host Michael Medved used to start every program with the statement that this is the greatest nation on God's green earth. Given the decline in America, people sometimes ask him if he still thinks America is the greatest nation. He always responds by asking them, can you think of a better nation? I've seen several attempts by critics to use a selected set of statistics to prove that other countries, usually in Europe, are a better place to live.

[00:10:24] I would love to see a more balanced and less biased set of statistics. Is America great? Was America ever great? There are lots of people who don't believe that it was. Let's have a debate about America's greatness that involves more than a hashtag. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:53] That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again is our weekend edition, and again, we have Kelly Shackelford, Liberty McArtor, and Liberty. One of the things I thought was kind of interesting is we have in the past recognized that sometimes there's a need for people in school districts to learn that there is a thing called the First Amendment. There's such a thing as equal access and all of the rest.

[00:11:23] And up there in Everett, Washington, not too far from another place where Coach Kennedy actually was a football coach, they don't seem to understand the Constitution, do they? I guess not. And this is also a reminder of why you should care about who's elected to the school board, even if you don't have kids in school or you're homeschooling or private school or something like this.

[00:11:43] Because, Kelly, I mentioned this off the air a minute ago, but one of the school board members was on the record saying that he said, I would like to address the claim about whether my comments are motivated by animus toward LifeWise Academy, which you'll tell us about. I want to make it very extremely abundantly clear that, yes, I do, in fact, hold animus toward LifeWise Academy.

[00:12:05] And just the amount of hatred that this what looks to be a very sweet Christian organization trying to help kids in public schools, which I looked at their website, they have a 95 percent approval rating from educators. It seems like that are actually working with them. But just the blatant hatred toward this organization is like, man, that's from a school board member. You know, there's Washington State and Seattle and all these places that are so radical.

[00:12:34] They give us a lot of gifts. I mean, you know, the Coach Kennedy case, it's like, you know, other places in the country, they try to hide this stuff. But out there, they're like, no, I hate religious groups. And I don't want them anywhere around our school. And what they've done, I guess I'm going to step back, what is LifeWise, right? We've had the law has been for 60 years that you can do what's called release time, meaning during the school day.

[00:13:04] Your kids at school can, if you approve as a parent, be taken off campus for Bible instruction and then brought back. Like if there's an elective, for instance, right? There's a or a study hall, right? You have a study hall or whatever. If they want, they can do this where the parents approve. They go off and they get Bible instruction. The problem in the 60 years is how do you make this work, right?

[00:13:32] I mean, how do you get them off the campus in a safe way to a safe environment and all this? Well, LifeWise has figured out how to do it. And they do it by sort of getting a lot of people in their community saying, I'll be a part of this. And once they get to a certain number and they have the backing, they do it. And it's unbelievable what the changes this makes.

[00:13:55] Number one, these kids, especially in some of the impoverished areas, have never been given a Bible or anything that valuable in their life. It's like a treasure to them. They learn these principles. They learn what the Bible teaches. Many of them become Christians. Their families become Christians. It's changing communities. And then the other part of this is why would you want this if you're a principal at the school?

[00:14:23] Because guess what happens to bad conduct and all kinds of offenses? They all go down. I mean, this is all documented. Wherever you have this Bible instruction, it's actually a lot easier for the principal to run this school. And so you would think everybody would say, yeah, if the parents are four, they put their kids in here. And they're in, I think, I know over 1,000 and I think maybe over 2,000. I don't know. But their goal is to get in all the schools. And you can do this anywhere in the country.

[00:14:53] In fact, it's starting to happen all across. But in Everett, Washington, they're like, oh, no, we're going to treat them differently than every other group. You know, we have a resource day where they can see all the different groups. You're not allowed. The kids can bring things home, you know, about what opportunities are at school, not life-wise. And you could just go on and on and on.

[00:15:19] It's just pure discrimination against them because they are a Christian group. And, well, you would think, well, maybe you don't have a very friendly court out there. It doesn't matter. Even a judge who is very left-wing still knows that this is a massive violation of the First Amendment. So a week ago today, an injunction was issued saying you can't do this. This violates the law. I'm enjoining you under the U.S. Constitution.

[00:15:49] And so freedom for parents and kids out in Everett, Washington. So a very important victory. But I would use this as an opportunity to challenge people. Go online and look at LifeWise Academy. It's something that you would want in your community. And it's a great thing. Boy, think of all the kids, you know. And by the way, I think the average, I mean, you'd have to talk to them.

[00:16:15] But I think the average is maybe 80 to 90 percent of the parents, when they're asked, they say they want this for their kids. And think of what that would do for the country. And the beauty of this is this is not in some private school. This is in every public school during the school day. Talk about redeeming time. That's redeeming time. You know, you're not learning about the fact that there really is no difference between, you know, being a boy and a girl.

[00:16:43] In fact, you're learning what the Bible says. So that's thinking bad and removing it and replacing it with the truth. You know, I really do think it's probably a bad idea to put the Ten Commandments in public schools if, you know, it's going to cause them to behave so much better to be taught Christian principles. Anyways, but yeah, this in all seriousness, this looks like such a great organization.

[00:17:08] I just looked at the website while we were talking and noticed that in the school district where I live, there's only a few more signatures necessary to basically petition them to say, hey, our community wants this in there. So, you know, for I really am convicted that as Christians, education is a moral responsibility that we have just relinquished in too many cases. And so this is an awesome way for the local church to get involved and, like, you know, minister to local school children. And what a great organization.

[00:17:38] So, yeah, not surprising that, you know, I think there's probably spiritual attacks coming against them because this is such a powerful ministry. But, yeah, LifeWise.org, people can check that out, see if it's in your area. One of the other things that they're doing is obviously you can do this. The Constitution, you know, the Supreme Court has said so. But one of the things they're doing is in many states are actually passing laws, sometimes as a part of a parental rights package.

[00:18:07] But to make it to where you don't have to have your school district kind of approve this, to just say, look, this is just up to the parents. Right. At the schools. And when they do that, then it makes it a lot easier because you might have one school or one school district or whatever in an area that is trying to be hostile. And so they make it more difficult to do this. Again, that's foolish if you're wanting to run your school well and have well-behaved children.

[00:18:37] But that's something that people can do, too, you know, is get legislation through to protect parental rights and to allow parents that choice because it is their choice. And it's just a matter of the school district. I think they call it whether it's a may or a shall is kind of the difference in that law. And so it's easy to do. And a number of states have already done it across the country. A couple of key points.

[00:19:01] Number one, you've seen somehow these two are connected because we've already seen and we've talked with Kelly about how in some cases, whether it's the state of Maine or whether it's the state of Washington, where they are already hostile to Christian schools or things of that nature. And so then when they even try to provide an alternative for release time, that certainly is a problem for them as well. And so you can see the need for that and certainly why people in Washington state would want that.

[00:19:29] The other that I would certainly encourage you to do is not only look at these two different press releases, but also go to RFIA.org, which is Restoring Faith in America. Because Liberty just mentioned the Ten Commandments, whether it's the Ten Commandments, whether it's release time, or we're now coming into that season, Kelly, where you're going to start getting phone calls from parents who found out that their kids could not mention Jesus in a graduation speech.

[00:19:56] And so these are all issues which you have to be responsible for. They won't be involved unless you call them or unless you stand up for your rights. Yeah. And there's, you know, people all the time go, gosh, what can I do? You know, well, RFIA, Restoring Faith in America, RFIA.org is a way to do that, which is it's taking the victories that have already happened that give you rights.

[00:20:21] And every month an email goes out to the people that sort of sign up as, quote, faith blazers in their community. And it says, here's something you can do in your community to bring faith back. You know, and of course, an obvious one when we get around Christmas is they could put up a nativity scene at the city hall, at the county. They go, wait, I thought we couldn't do that. The Kennedy case overruled that.

[00:20:43] OK, so and, you know, you could start when you think of it, it might be as simple as asking your people on your board, whatever that is, to put up a display, to put up a Hanukkah, a menorah at Hanukkah, to put up a nativity scene at Christmas. Well, guess what? The next county, the next city, they see that. They go, oh, wow, I can do that.

[00:21:08] And you might start 100 or 200 or however many just by people exercising rights that they don't realize have been restored. We're going to take a break and then we'll talk about a few of those Supreme Court cases. Let's also open up the phones if you'd like to join the conversation. 1-800-351-1212. We'll be back right after this. Who can you trust?

[00:21:34] Years ago, many of us could probably have provided a fairly long list. But today, well, today it seems we almost can't trust anyone. Educators don't even know what a woman is anymore. Many so-called public servants have shown all they care about is themselves. The FBI has been accused of bias, law-breaking, betrayal, and journalism.

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[00:22:57] 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, if you would like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Going to be talking about two Supreme Court decisions coming down. I agree with both of them and will explain why.

[00:23:24] The first one has to do with this issue of voting rights. And back in 1965, I remember at the time, the argument of the Voting Rights Act is that we have to create districts where if a minority person would want to serve in Congress, he or she would have to have a majority-minority district. And at the time, maybe that made some sense in the South. I don't think it makes a lot of sense now.

[00:23:49] Because the argument that I have to have a significant number of African-American, maybe even a majority of African-American, for me as an African-American to serve in Congress, is violated. Scott Jennings came up with these numbers the other day. There are 58 members of the House who are black. A majority of them are elected from plurality white districts. And, of course, then there was some back and forth. And, you know, I'm thinking J.D., J.C. Watts. I'm thinking Tim Scott.

[00:24:19] How about Barack Obama? I mean, the argument that you have to have a minority district for a person who's a minority to win, I think might have been true in the past, but not now. And so, Kelly, let me come to you. This one is not a 9-0 as the next one will be. This one's a 6-3. But still, I think they made the right decision because in trying to carve up these congressional districts on the basis of race is certainly a violation, they thought, of the Constitution.

[00:24:49] Yeah. I mean, look, people that are drawing the districts could really care less what people's race is. I mean, I don't know anybody out there that says somebody – they care about whether they're liberal or conservative, right? I mean, so it's silly. Nobody's drawing districts based upon the race. So that was the purpose for the Voting Rights Act.

[00:25:14] But what they've done in the Voting Rights Act in the past, and they've drawn these districts based on race. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think it was Roberts that said it, you know, the way to stop religious discrimination – I mean, racial discrimination – Is to stop engaging in racial discrimination. I love that way. Which is what this is. I mean, to draw districts based upon their race?

[00:25:42] What – I mean, are we against racial discrimination or are we in favor of it? I thought we were against it. You don't do that. That's morally wrong. And now, I do think there's a problem. I think the gerrymandering is getting out of control. Oh, for sure. And I think that – I don't care which side it's on. We don't want unrepresentative government. It's representative government.

[00:26:09] So you should have communities, you know, actually not split into little pieces in order to have, like – what is it, Virginia? They have, like, you know, 40-something percent Republican, and they're going to have no districts. Just one. Yeah, 10 to one. 10 to one. Yeah. I mean, we don't want that. 10 to one instead of six to five. That's not representative government.

[00:26:31] And I know both sides are doing it, but they're – and it's just – I know it's hard for the Supreme Court because how do they determine – I mean, it's like what's too far? That's very hard for them. They don't want to be looking at every line on every race in every district. But obviously, obviously – and what's disappointing to me is to watch some of these people on TV. It's like it was outrage.

[00:26:58] It's an outrage that we're not discriminating anymore on the basis of race. And I'm like, you know, good grief, you know. I mean, we lost our minds. I mean, does anybody, you know, I mean, see what's right in front of them. I mean, this is over. Thank goodness this is over. We shouldn't be drawing districts based on people's race.

[00:27:18] And again, I think except for this one thing that was going on where they were drawing them to make sure we had somebody of a certain race, I don't think it's going on at all. I think that people are doing it based on their politics. And they could care less if the person's black, white, Hispanic, Asian, anything. Yeah, I definitely agree that now – I mean, just looking at like millennials and Gen Z too, they're looking at somebody's policies.

[00:27:45] I mean, it wasn't in Virginia that you had the two candidates for governor. You know, it was like – anyway, you – people aren't really looking at, you know, somebody's race. They're looking at whether or not they agree with them. And I was trying to understand this and this whole issue, and it seems to me like maybe it's just, hey, this was needed at this time, but that doesn't really apply anymore. But now it's being twisted and misapplied, kind of like with Title IX.

[00:28:12] It was, you know, there so that you're not discriminating on the basis of sex, and it's to protect biological women. And then they tried to add gender identity into it, and it's like that's – wait, the opposite, because now you're supposed to be protecting women, and now you're saying that men who are pretending to be women have the same protections. It's like completely the opposite of the original intent.

[00:28:33] And so it seems like maybe, you know, it's been kind of misconstrued and misapplied now for different political ends when in reality the issue is not needed anymore. One of the other things I thought was interesting is the case was out of Louisiana, and if you – we last week even talked about what was happening in Virginia. And one of the things Liberty we were talking about with Kelly said, you know, I want you to look at the charts because we posted them on the air just in Virginia,

[00:29:00] and one looked normal and the other looked like something out of modern art, you know. And the one in Louisiana was worse because in order to create a majority-minority district, you have a district that snakes 250 miles out of its way so that you include people.

[00:29:18] And if the goal ultimately, Kelly, is to have districts that represent a cohesive social unit, having part of that unit go 250 miles to the west or to the east just illustrates the stupidity of some of this.

[00:30:02] It does. It's good for our system of government to have communities fractured and diffused and cut into pieces like that. You should have communities should be representative, and that representative should represent those communities and be a person. It's really no different from like a school district, right? I mean, you want your school district to represent the people in that school district. You don't want the state to set one school district for everybody.

[00:30:31] I mean, the whole point is that the values of the curriculum and the values and the approach of the teaching is going to much more closely align with that community. But when you go broader and you go to the state or whatever, you're going to get something completely different. And so that's what it should be with congressmen and congresswomen especially because there's 435 of these, and you don't want one size fits all.

[00:30:59] You want all – and this is sort of the whole marketplace of ideas, right, of having these different communities, different thoughts, different people, different backgrounds that all come together and give us the best ideas and the best debate with the best results. Yeah. And if you are saying, you know, kind of some of these crazy images that come out of, you know, reconstruing these districts to try to get a racial majority or something like that, doesn't it mean that the actual local community is pretty well integrated? And isn't that what you would want?

[00:31:26] And I think one of the answers just for the general divisiveness in our politics anyway is if we do have more of a local focus because when you're focusing on, hey, this region, this area, this community of the people who live here, there's a lot people can start to agree about maybe over like more practical issues that are different than some of the, you know, big culture war issues. And then I think the more you gerrymander, you know, for political purposes like that,

[00:31:53] the further removed you get from that and the less people who are actually in a region or community together are able to coalesce around certain things that matter to them. So just for the sake of federalism, it seems like, you know, you should not want to be doing this. One great quote from Justice Alito. We like him, don't we? He said, first of all, that much has changed since the Jim Crow laws. He says black voters now participate in elections at similar rates as the rest of the electorate,

[00:32:19] even turning out in higher rates on many cases than white voters in two of the five most recent presidential elections nationwide in Louisiana. So at some time, it might have made some sense in 1965 for the Voter Rights Act. But in particular, that Section 2, which is guaranteeing minorities to have a particular stake in that case, I think a lot of that has changed dramatically. So we'll take some phone calls.

[00:32:47] But also when we come back, I also want to talk about a 9-0 re-ruling. This has to do with pregnancy-centered donors. And we believe in transparency, but there's more to this case. Anytime you can get nine justices to agree on anything, it must be pretty significant. And so we'll come back and talk about that. But we'll take some phone calls to 1-800-351-1212. And if you find yourself saying, well, I'd like to read a little bit more, we do have these two articles, both of them from the Wall Street Journal.

[00:33:15] And if you'd like to at least know a little bit about this issue, that is the case. Next hour, we'll also get into some other very important issues, certainly the rights of pro-lifers, also the issue of free speech, also a very good piece that Liberty's put together on why 60% of Gen Z say that they've cut people out of their lives. And we'll talk about some of that, as well as a commentary by Penn and Dexter. We have a lot to cover. We'll do some of that right after these important messages.

[00:33:54] Grade inflation is ravaging American universities. In 1960, 15% of grades were A's. Today, nearly 50% are. At the college level, more A's are given than any other grade. The Washington Post reports that last year at Harvard, two-thirds of the grades were A's, up from 35% just 12 years ago. According to the Post, that doesn't count A-minuses, which were another 18%. Grade inflation occurs when schools award higher grades for the same quality of work over time.

[00:34:24] Consequently, there's a collapse in the informational value of grades, especially at the high end. It becomes harder to tell who the top students are. And grade inflation at the college level eventually extends into high schools, especially competitive ones. Harvard's faculty was considering a solution, a cap on A's. Students revolted, but college students and parents should not expect high grades as if they were customers expecting good service.

[00:34:51] Harvard's stature is such that its faculty would do us all a favor if it pushes ahead with its proposal, which would cap the number of A's an instructor can give to 20% of the class plus four students. The Post's editorial explains that the extra four benefit students in smaller courses, which tend to be more advanced. The Washington Post calls grade inflation a collective action problem. It's hard for a professor to break from the herd. Tough graders attract fewer students.

[00:35:20] Plus, professors don't want to disadvantage students competing for grad school slots with other students who are getting easy A's. Some profs give out A's out of compassion, false compassion. Easy A's teach students that life is easy. They're later shocked when it's not. Grade inflation poses a problem for employers who are denied accurate information for recruitment and hiring. Colleges need a standard to rein in these runaway A's. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter.

[00:35:54] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let's if we say it can get maybe our first line on the air because we'd like to talk with Fran in Georgia, WLPE. We'll see if we can get her on in just a minute. Fran, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View. Hi, it's my pleasure. I've been thinking all along with this gerrymandering thing.

[00:36:20] Couldn't Congress do something about preventing gerrymandering being done to disenfranchise 47% of the population? You know, that's the issue because both sides like to gerrymander, don't they, Kelly? And in some respects, I wish we could find a solution to this because, first of all, this mid-decade gerrymandering certainly doesn't seem appropriate.

[00:36:44] But even so, I think we are doing harm to politics because we create more polarized districts and we end up with a more polarized Congress, don't we? Yeah. I mean, I think there are, you know, again, it's not my area of the law, so I don't camp out in this area. But I would think that there would be both constitutional arguments and things that could be done, you know, as far as Congress passing some things.

[00:37:11] But the problem is that the states get a lot of authority with regard to their own districts and what they draw. Now, I think there's more leeway when it comes to on the federal side, certainly. But I just don't know. I haven't studied that area of the law. But certainly, you know, you can't do it on the basis of race.

[00:37:34] You can't, you know, we've got the 14th Amendment there, you know, due process, equal protection, all those types of things. You know, you can't treat people differently. You have to treat them equally based upon their race, their religion, their sex, et cetera. But the gerrymandering, I think, goes more to really fair representation. Right.

[00:37:58] And that, I mean, it's really damaging to our system of government when you do what we're going into now. It's really a sort of a hyper. I mean, we had some silly, you know, drawn districts. Oh. And I think what might have happened, I don't know, somebody that lives in this area of the law might know better.

[00:38:20] But what might have happened is that because they were drawing these ridiculous lines on the basis of race, it might have let them know, well, then we can draw ridiculous lines to do anything we want. And maybe that'll fix that. And so, I don't know, maybe the court will draw some lines now on, you know, what's too far. Because they used to, if you remember, they used to say you would see some ridiculously gerrymandered and they would strike that down. Right. And they've kind of...

[00:38:49] And used public opinion and shame them and that kind of stuff. Yeah. And that is the case. So, we'll see. You know, I have a feeling that it'll be taken care of in that way. Unfortunately, as part of our history, the word gerrymandered comes from Eldridge Jerry, who was a governor in the state of Massachusetts that looked like a salamander, hence the gerrymandering. And you went to Patrick Henry. Well, this is a little footnote in history.

[00:39:12] Patrick Henry got on the opposite side of James Madison and so gerrymandered a district so that James Monroe would serve and James Madison would not. So, in some respects, even the founders engaged in a little bit of that. But nevertheless, I think you've got a good point. Number one, Fran, thank you for bringing it up. Maybe Congress could address that issue if we weren't so partisan.

[00:39:34] And second of all, maybe, like you said, Kelly, if we stop drawing these crazy districts based on race, maybe we'll stop drawing some based on politics. And that would be good for the American people. But I do, before we take a break, wanted to talk about this one, a 9-0 ruling for pregnancy centers.

[00:39:52] And what this is is that the state of New Jersey said that if you are a particular pregnancy center or faith-based center, then we really want to know who is donating to you. And this all is under the guise of transparency. But, Kelly, explain why we don't want to issue, for example, the people that donate to First Liberty Institute. Well, yeah. I mean, look, what they're doing here is why did they need to see who their donors are?

[00:40:20] Well, because the state wanted to talk to their donors and see if maybe they were being deceived. I mean, come on. Look, this goes way back. We've had cases that go to the Supreme Court when the KKK wanted to know who was giving to the NAACP. And states would try to get a copy of their list. And the Supreme Court said, you don't have a – you can't.

[00:40:48] There's a right to privacy there where – and really a First Amendment right of that organization. If people think that they're going to be exposed and maybe attacked or whatever because when they give a gift, it's going to be made public, then many of those people won't give to the nonprofit organization. And so the Supreme Court said you can't do that. And that's really what this decision is about.

[00:41:14] I mean, it was more couched in terms of whether you had standing, of whether it was ripe, of whether – because they're like, well, we haven't done anything yet. We just want to see their list. And the argument is no. I mean, it's harm. That's the harm right there before you even do anything. And the Supreme Court said that you can't do that.

[00:41:36] And it's 9-0 because anybody who has any foresight, no matter what side of the aisle they're on, realizes that this ox – I mean, your ox is going to be gored no matter what it is if you allow this because it will just be government being used to attack whatever nonprofit whoever's in control doesn't like.

[00:42:00] Yeah, I mean, we just talked about the report of how the Biden administration was going after Christians and people with beliefs that they didn't like. And I know the FACE Act has been abused and misapplied. And so, yeah, I wonder why they didn't want to release their donor list and think about all the pregnancy centers that were attacked and set on fire.

[00:42:25] And not to mention, unfortunately, the political climate that we're in where you're seeing more and more political violence. And so it makes total sense to me that, you know, we would want to protect privacy in that regard for anybody who's donating to a cause that might be controversial. And like you said, on any side, this is not something that I think people want to mess around with because, unfortunately, we see where we are as a culture and as a nation.

[00:42:52] You also think about the fact that we have a Supreme Court justice that was going to be attacked if that hadn't been stopped. And so you do recognize that if you start doxing donors for any organization, that there could be all sorts of recrimination. And we've seen that happening. I remember when they were just simply having a vote in the state of California on whether or not marriage is between one man and one woman.

[00:43:21] We had a very prominent person in Silicon Valley that had just given to that initiative and all the kind of abuse that he went through. And he was perhaps able to defend himself in ways that I think others were not. So certainly one of the things that you have followed in the past, Liberty, is what's going on with the pro-life movement.

[00:43:42] And when we come back at the top of the hour next hour, we have a very good piece by Jeremy on how the DOJ weaponized against pro-life Americans. We've already sort of alluded to that, but I thought doing a deep dive into it illustrates that as well. But, Kelly, 9-0 is a good way of saying there was no debate on the court over this issue. When you can get even Justice Jackson to agree with the other individuals, 9-0, that sends a signal, doesn't it? Yeah.

[00:44:12] I mean, sort of good news, right? That was 9-0. Our victory in our Gabe Olivier case about his right to bring a lawsuit when they shut him down from sharing the gospel, that was 9-0. So, you know, people say they're always divided. They're divided on some of the really hot-button issues. But to be honest, there's a lot of times that the Supreme Court agrees. Yeah. Groff case, wasn't it? 9-0? Groff was 9-0. All you're doing is getting 9-0s over here. This is just amazing, you know?

[00:44:42] So it's good and bad. There's a sense in which sometimes when you do these cases, you'd like the 5-4 decision because it's probably going to be stronger. Stronger, yeah. Which is why. But the good news is when you have 9 lower court judges, no matter what side of the aisle they're on, they realize they need to follow that. Yes. Well, we're going to take a break. A lot more to cover, as you might imagine. We'll be back right after this. Where does moral truth come from?

[00:45:12] According to 58% of Americans, individuals determine moral truth. A quarter of Generation Z says society determines moral truth, and morality can even change over time. Only 42% of Americans believe that truth comes from God. I don't know about you, but I find these numbers extremely troubling. It really is a crisis of truth, and that crisis has consequences. Look at society. Evil is called good. Good called evil.

[00:45:42] People with biblical beliefs are called bigots, or worse, they're canceled. But there is hope. The Bible promises the truth will set us free. And that's why Point of View is relentless in our commitment to the ultimate source of moral truth, God's Word. At Point of View, we know that God's truth is eternal, and if we stand together, we can help more Americans apply His truth in their daily life.

[00:46:08] Help Americans find truth again by giving at pointofview.net, or call 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net, and 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:46:39] Across America, live, this is Point of View. And now, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, we'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Kelly Shackelford, Liberty McCarter, and let's, if we can, take another phone call. We'll go up to Alaska. Elmer, thank you for joining us today.

[00:47:08] Hi, good morning. Or good afternoon there. So you're talking about the voter list, I mean the membership list of the NAAC and the right to privacy and the right to an association, those things. And what's revealed in gerrymandering and how those things are used. I'm concerned about, isn't that the same thing as just turning over our state voter rolls to the federal government? And I don't know if it isn't that part of the SAVE Act.

[00:47:37] Our lieutenant governor has done that, but several states have resisted, and I think it's probably wise to resist turning over those things because there is a violation, a potential violation of privacy and free association. Yeah, I don't, you know, I think that's happening before any SAVE Act is passed, for instance. It might be a part of it, I don't know, but they're doing it now, right?

[00:48:03] I mean, I think what's happening is the attorney general of the United States was asking states for their roles. I think their argument is that they're trying to do it for voter integrity to make sure that there's not, you know, people are illegally on voter rolls or maybe there's somebody in five states or whatever. I don't know what their purpose is.

[00:48:27] I don't think it would be – I don't know what the law is on that and whether they have to provide those or not, and I haven't seen that litigation. I don't think a right of association would work there because it's not a group like an NAACP that they're asking for the info from. It's a state, and so I don't think that – I mean, really, a right of association is so that, you know, we can never really propagate ideas very well if we can't come together around those ideas and form something. I mean, that's what churches are, right?

[00:48:57] They're an association, and so those are – that's a very important right. But I don't think I've ever seen it applied to say that that applies to a state. I don't think it would. I think it's more of a group of citizens who have come together in a nonprofit, whether it's the NAACP or whether it's a church or whether it's any other sort of even political group of association.

[00:49:21] It typically is organized around ideas and certain beliefs and not, you know, how the state lines are drawn, you know, in the United States. It raises a good question because I really hadn't thought about it either. I've always been in favor of transparency except in places where that transparency would violate a person's privacy. Right. And when you're doing something public like registering to vote, that seems like something where you'd want transparency.

[00:49:50] Any kind of debate that's taking place in Congress or in a state legislature, that's why we have a lot of these open-air acts and things of that nature so that you would know that. But I see that differently than if you were, I don't know, a voluntary association.

[00:50:06] And it could be anything from a country club to the Audubon Society to certainly National Right to Life or even National Rifle Association, NRA, all sorts of things would be more of a voluntary association. But I'm just going to get a good question. I haven't thought about that.

[00:50:25] Yeah, and I do think the question that would be really relevant to me at least would be if the state has people's information and they are giving it to the federal government, you know, is the federal government going to keep the privacy rights law? You know, because the state's going to have its own laws, right, for what it allows. Is the federal government, once it gets there, are people going to have the ability to get that?

[00:50:55] Under some sort of, you know, open records type act or something. And so if you are, if by sending it to the federal government, you're opening up people's private information to others that would not have right to it otherwise, then there are those issues. If it's the same as the state, whatever that protection level is, then that wouldn't be an issue. Good question. If you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212.

[00:51:21] It has been really less than a week since we've seen an assassination temp against Donald Trump, but also against a number of other individuals, because the original goal of this assassin was to take out quite a number of individuals. And the other day, somebody posted President Charles Grassley. And I said, what is that all about?

[00:51:44] Well, it turns out that if you look at, you know, the succession, if you were to take out the president, the vice president, and Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, then the next person in line would be the Speaker Pro Tem, the president pro tem of the Senate. And that's Charles Grassley, who's 92 years of age.

[00:52:04] Now, again, that's just to help you understand that maybe it is dangerous to have too many individuals in any one spot, which they are there, of course, during the State of the Union address. But it illustrates, again, all of that. And, again, I would love to go around the roundtable and just get some of your comments, because the other day somebody pointed out that there was a poll that was done and found that a third of Democrats thought that the 2000 or the 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt was staged,

[00:52:33] that Donald Trump had fake blood in his hand, put it on his ear. And there are people that have now said that this was a false flag attempt and a fake. And I just don't necessarily live in the same world of these individuals that come up with some of the most bizarre conspiracy theories. Yeah, it's I don't know. It's concerning to me, even sometimes in person.

[00:52:58] And you have to decide, OK, am I going to sit here and be like, let me tell you all the reasons that what you're saying is crazy right now? Or if somebody is buying into that level of conspiracy thinking, anything you say is like, well, then that's just that's what they want you to believe. That's just a conspiracy.

[00:53:21] Like you said, you're not living in the same plane of reality to where you're even able to have a conversation with the same facts. So it's something where it's like, hey, start from the beginning with your babies and teach them critical thinking, because I really do think with this issue and so many others like the conspiracy theory thinking is just really taking over. Yeah, I have sort of a light response and then one that's a little goes a little deeper.

[00:53:51] I don't know if we'll have time to go into the into the break. But I mean, on the light side, it's you can't fix stupid. I mean, you just people are just so their brain just fell out of the out of their ears. Yeah. Then I mean, I just don't I don't think you can say anything to these people. You know, maybe they think you are from Mars when you start to answer and give a different opinion. It's just bizarre. I mean, every I mean, you know, if you do something in public in front of all the media, they're all there.

[00:54:20] OK, you know, I mean, they didn't say it was. Yeah. Nobody there thought it was. No, you know, they're all in on it. I mean, that's the argument. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so the liberals, the conservatives, everybody in between everybody from every political perspective is in on it. Yeah. Conspiracy kind of falls apart. Yes. Yeah. It's like we didn't land in the moon, you know, and everybody in NASA and every astronaut and the nine trips that we took to the moon, six landings in the moon. And that was a conspiracy. I think and we can talk about this later.

[00:54:49] But I do think that there is something societally going on. Yes. It's very disturbing. And it's the same thing that leads to the the Candace Owens attacking Erica Kirk and just all of this. And Rod Dreher has written a lot about this. He has. And it's coming out with a book soon. And it is it is a little concerning, the loss of trust or anything people see right now. In fact, we were trying to get Rod Dreher on. And I know he's coming to maybe speak for you. So we'll see what that can be.

[00:55:19] We'll come back and talk a little bit about the psychology of conspiracy. And then get into some of the other articles we've posted right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Is America great? Was America great? These are questions that deserve an answer in a year when we're celebrating the 250th anniversary of this country. We know the divisions.

[00:55:49] On the one side is Donald Trump and all the people who wear caps that say, make America great again. On the other side are the critics of him and the country who even have created the America never was great hashtag on social media. Critics have every right to express their discontent with America. But at a time when many want to express their gratitude for what this country has done, liberals and progressives are making a long list of America's sins. What we need is an honest debate about America and its history.

[00:56:14] While we can point to many dark chapters in American history, it should not blind us to the many successes. America had slavery and the Indian Wars, but it also abolished slavery and discriminatory laws in a constitutional republic that lasted more than two centuries. The U.S. fought many wars. Some were ill-advised. But it also protected the world from tyranny. Talk show host Michael Medved used to start every program with a statement that this is the greatest nation on God's green earth.

[00:56:42] Given the decline in America, people sometimes ask him if he still thinks America is the greatest nation. He always responds by asking them, can you think of a better nation? I've seen several attempts by critics to use a selected set of statistics to prove that other countries, usually in Europe, are a better place to live. I would love to see a more balanced and less biased set of statistics. Is America great? Was America ever great? There are lots of people who don't believe that it was.

[00:57:08] Let's have a debate about America's greatness that involves more than a hashtag. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. 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.

[00:57:38] I sometimes said we should keep the microphone on during the break because we've spent as much time talking about conspiracy theories, which just surfaced. But one of the individuals I've been thinking about having on this program is somebody who, for the first time, had a light go on in my brain because he says that if you are dealing with a person who shows that something is false, then you tend to believe that person because they showed some other things were false.

[00:58:05] And he uses that specifically to talk about, okay, we're going to pick on Candace Owens for just a minute. Because as soon as she says, well, maybe some of the things that you think you know about Israel are wrong and finds even something that maybe was poorly explained or maybe was intentionally deceiving, then you tend to believe them. And if you think about this, the people right now that we tend to talk about, whether it's Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, the list is getting pretty long.

[00:58:35] Oftentimes it starts with the idea that is it possible that some of the things that you've been told are wrong? And then as soon as they find one of those, then they become your trusted source. And that's something to be paying attention to in terms of conspiracies. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there's a couple of things going on in our country right now. One is people are losing faith in institutions across the board. That includes the church, right?

[00:59:05] I mean, it's not just the schools. It's not just the FBI, the CIA, you name the government entity. It's really all institutions. They just don't trust anything. And, again, we mentioned the author, Rod Dreher.

[00:59:28] And he's writing a book with a lot of history on the Weimar Republic and sort of what happened that would allow Hitler to come into power. Yes. And he thinks it's very similar. He thinks that there's this sort of the loss of trust in institutions. There's this divide where it's almost like nobody in the middle. And that's kind of what we're – it's like – I think I saw just the other day that 60 percent of Democrats are now socialist.

[00:59:58] And so we're having this where it's almost impossible for anybody to be in the middle. And then he says when you get these really fractured kind of dangerous situations, as soon as there's like an economic collapse, boom. And that's when everything happens. And so I think that's definitely – some of that's true right now. There's a lot of displacement going on. There's a lot of people that have lost trust. It happened with COVID.

[01:00:27] It happened with so many of these things, right? And then add to that social media and the Internet. There you go. And because people are just seeing a story and it's made nice and it's going around and other people are following the story. And so that's a different approach as well. So it tends to be – I do appreciate people.

[01:00:51] I see all the time people will post something and you see some – there's somebody in that line that does the work. They go and they look at it and they say, hey, guys, this is not right. This is not true. And I wish – you know, somebody that's a full-time job right now on the Internet. We salute you in the comment section. We did that the other day about supposedly finding Noah's Ark, which they did not and all that kind of stuff. But it's really dangerous.

[01:01:18] And I think as Christians we have to be very careful because this is – I mean, this is – I mean, God doesn't speak very well of this. And I know people don't think of it this way, but it's gossip. People are hurt by this. Okay? You are saying things to other people to sort of like to be the one to deliver the message. And what you're saying you're not sure is true.

[01:01:45] And so it's very – I think it's very dangerous. And we're watching it be dangerous, but I think we forget about it amongst ourselves to just take something and then run with it without even thinking about, have I really checked this out? You know, this could impact – who could this impact that I'm not even thinking about, right? And you can easily be pulled in to a sin that God treats very seriously.

[01:02:16] I mean, I think people downplay gossip, but it is incredibly damaging to people. So good. And so that's something that we all need to take to heart ourselves as we might get carried away looking at something, you know, in social media or the Internet. And that's so true. And so many times people dehumanize somebody that seems far removed from them or a public figure.

[01:02:39] But it's like, okay, you can criticize things they've said or ideas that they have, but are you just now making things up or not checking things like personal claims about that person? A couple other scriptures to keep in mind, too. And I think – I saw a recent study. I can't remember the number, so I won't say it. But it was saying something like a lot of people who feel nervous and fearful about their environment tend to believe in conspiracy theories.

[01:03:09] And somebody commented, well, that seems odd because aren't conspiracy theories scary? But it's an attempt to grasp at an explanation for why things are happening. And we are in a time of a lot of disruption. Like you said, Kelly, lack of institutional trust. And so people – I've talked about this on the Know Why podcast. They want to make sense of it. And you as a Christian, you have to remember God already makes sense of it in his word. Like nothing that's happening in the world should surprise us. We know there's going to be tribulation.

[01:03:39] And he says he's not giving us a spirit of fear but power, love, and a sound mind. And so we have to remember to think critically. Like that's our calling as Christians. Also, just if you see something and you're like, oh, whoa, that sounds crazy. Proverbs 18, 17. He who states his case first seems right until his rival comes and cross-examines him. We need a lot more cross-examining in the church today. Very, very good.

[01:04:04] Well, I'm thinking maybe we need to do a booklet or even a series of things on conspiracy theories and gossip and some of that. Very well done. And again, Rod Dreyer, let me recommend another book that you and I love very much, Live Not By Lies, because it seems to me that that was something else that he was noticing, that when you look at what was happening behind the Iron Curtain, the government was forcing you to believe lies.

[01:04:28] He says, you come over here, it's not hard totalitarianism, it's more soft totalitarianism, but social media, the government, and others were forcing you to believe lies. And a lot of common sense breaking out all over the place. Let's see if we can get into another topic just before the break. Jeremy, who's been, of course, been on the program one of the times, DOJ weaponized against pro-life Americans. In some respects, this is a subset of what we've talked about, Liberty,

[01:04:55] but it's just a reminder that we have the FACE Act that was supposed to not only protect abortion clinics, but certainly pregnancy resource centers. And yet this group called Jane's Revenge and a variety of other pro-abortion groups or anti-life groups were involved in all sorts of actions, including disabling security systems,

[01:05:20] setting buildings on fire, shattering windows, spray painting, and on and on. And this piece I wanted to post just because if you're in a pregnancy center, I think you would really want to read this and maybe even pass it on to some of the people that donate to your ministry. Yeah, it was really important. I remember at the time when the Dobbs decision came down, and then all of a sudden you started seeing these attacks against community pro-life pregnancy centers, and you were like, are they going to say anything?

[01:05:50] Are they going to say anything? Are these domestic terrorists? Because the parents at the school board were. And it was just like, oh, my gosh. But then, oh, no, there's a pro-lifer with SWAT at his house or thrown in prison. And it was just extremely evident how misapplied it was. So we need to remember that and make sure that doesn't happen again. Yeah, it was the federal FACE Act, Freedom of Access to Clinic Interances,

[01:06:16] was there to protect both churches and abortion clinics. And instead of using it when at the very time when, you know, pregnancy care centers were being attacked and studying that, they used it to go after pro-lifers who weren't doing any obstruction of people into those facilities.

[01:06:43] And, again, I think that, if I'm not mistaken, I think the guy, wasn't the guy's name Hauk, H-A-U-C-K? That's the one I remember the most. But there were a lot of examples in the report. Yes. Oh, man. He was the one who he and his son went to pray outside an abortion clinic. And as they were leaving blocks away from the clinic, again, FACE was about not obstructing, damaging, whatever the clinic.

[01:07:11] Blocks away, one of the protesters there against the pro-lifers came and started yelling things in his face, in his kid's face. And he just, with his arm, just shoved him a little. And for that, SWAT team came in, burst into his house from the federal government. He went through an entire federal trial to put him in jail. Now, he won. The jury saw it and said, this is ridiculous. But that's what the federal government did.

[01:07:41] And that's why on the Religious Liberty Commission, one of the proposals I made is that we should put a law in place that any time the federal government comes after a citizen and they lose, they should have to reimburse all the attorney's fees, all the expenses, everything of that citizen. Well said. A lot more to cover. But, again, this is an article you might want to read. It's on the website. We'll be right back. At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer.

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[01:09:32] 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. Earlier in the week you might remember that we had Dr. Matthew Spaulding on the program, and he is the author of the book The Making of the American Mind, The Story of the Declaration of Independence,

[01:09:57] a book that I highly recommend and one that we will probably include in our booklet on the Declaration of Independence next time we reprint it. But near the end, Matthew Spaulding, who is also a professor, used to be at the Heritage Foundation, but now a professor at Hillsdale College. We talked about the great program they have there. And it immediately reminded me that Kelly Shackelford was going to speak on religious liberty at Hillsdale.

[01:10:23] And for those of you that received the Imprimus reprints that come out, I suspect if you'll be watching for it in the future, you'll see one by Kelly. But Hillsdale College there in Hillsdale, Michigan. That was a great opportunity for you, wasn't it? It was a lot of fun. You know, first, it's kind of in the middle of nowhere on purpose. They're trying to keep detached from being corrupted by – and it's why they don't take any, you know, government money.

[01:10:52] Great place. Larry Arnison, a wonderful job, and just wonderful students too. I was amazed because the Federalist Society is a group of attorneys who get together and have debates and things on the big issues of the day, legal issues. And, you know, it's what, six of the nine justices remember the Federalist Society.

[01:11:17] And so you have chapters at a lot of the law schools all over the – pretty much all of them all over the country. But one of the few places that has a Federalist Society chapter in the college, which shows you what Hillsdale is all about. Oh, sure. Is Hillsdale. Yes. And so before I gave my – there was an annual lecture that I was asked to give that was endowed there. But before, the students said, hey, will you have lunch with us? And I said, sure.

[01:11:46] And, I mean, they had – it was a big room full of people. I'm like, tell me who in college wants to go sort of talk about law and religious freedom. And this is just a great group of students and great questions, great interactions. And the speech was a lot of fun. It was a – you know, it was a big – it's a group that's very intellectual, obviously. They're used to having an annual lecture.

[01:12:13] But the sponsor of this whole thing, the guy who endowed it, told me, he said, ah, you know, they get enough of that. He said, I want boots on the ground stuff. And I said, I can do that. And so just really updated people on religious freedom, the different battles that are going on around the country. And it was, I think, really well received. And it was a neat place to go. I really enjoyed getting to see the campus. And they're in the middle of building a lot of new buildings, new libraries. It's going to be beautiful when they finish what they're working on.

[01:12:42] But just a really unique university, one of the few that's keeping itself separate and staying true. To more, you know, true academic principles and not – there's no wokeness in you. You're not going to find that there. That's right. That's not how they do things. Yeah. Well, and I might just mention, of course, if you're thinking about some of the schools, Hillsdale, Grove City College. I'm going to have Paul Kinger on next week. And he's there.

[01:13:10] And let's talk about your alma mater, Patrick Henry. Yep. There's some great places to go that are where you're going to learn a lot more about the Constitution. You're going to learn a lot more about biblical principles. Hillsdale, maybe not as spiritual as some of the others I just mentioned here, but still going to provide you an opportunity. And Matthew Spaulding, of course, he's teaching the constitutional government classes.

[01:13:36] He also is the head of their particular program that is in Washington, D.C. And he also talked about the fact that you can actually take some of those online courses, which, interestingly enough, we've talked about before because that was one of the things that Charlie Kirk said helped him educate himself. So some great places to learn. But you've been to Patrick Henry. Well, let's give a good plug for that for a minute, too. Oh, yeah.

[01:14:03] I mean, Patrick Henry College, I was homeschooled and had a great education that way. But PHC is where I really got introduced to, like, you know, the classical liberal arts and the great books education. And I'm educating my own kids in that tradition now as a homeschool mom. And I'm really encouraged to see more colleges like that because I think there, you know, we talk a lot about the problems with higher education, of course, and there are so many.

[01:14:31] But really, at its core, what it should be is the liberal arts tradition and the, you know, the truly digging into your history and that learn that critical thinking that is so needed in our society. And you are seeing more and more of colleges like Hillsdale, like Patrick Henry College, which were some of the pioneers, I think. But more kind of liberal arts colleges like that pop up around the nation. And I'm really encouraged to see that. It's just it's so needed. And you're seeing like University of Austin.

[01:15:01] Yes. There's another good example. There's a number, a new college in Florida, which DeSantis put an old friend of his who was an attorney but also an educator. And he took over as dean and has cleaned that place out of all the craziness. And so, I mean, there's a lot of these places that are being turned around. I know Ben Sass was working in some of those directions as well.

[01:15:25] So there's some hope out there for turning some of these things because people realize that education had been somewhat lost in a lot of these colleges and universities. Yeah. Yeah. So often we talk about maybe it's not worth everyone going to college. But if you are going to go to college, make sure you pick the right one because there's some places where you can really be stimulated, learn the life of the mind, learn critical thinking and the rest, which is a perfect setup for what we're going to talk about now. Ben Shapiro, when does speech become dangerous?

[01:15:54] First of all, I think we all around the table believe in free speech. We believe that many times it has been curtailed, but he's also taking on the fact that maybe there's some times where, yes, you are free to say anything you want, but you're not free from the consequences. Jimmy Kimmel or a variety of others that you might. We just mentioned Candace Owens and a variety of others.

[01:16:16] There are times when certainly we have to recognize that you are free to say things, but there is also the issue of defamation. Defamation, there are times when there are some limits to speech, aren't there? Absolutely. Number one, I think most people don't understand that they just don't think about this, but free speech is only against the government, right?

[01:16:40] I mean, you know, I've heard people in a lot of situations go, well, you don't have a right to, you know, I have my right to free speech. It's like, well, not on my property, you don't. You know, if it's your private organization, you can kick somebody out because you don't like what they say, right? So the right of free speech is the government doesn't have.

[01:17:02] Now, privately you do because that's kind of what freedom association ultimately is all about, right, is you can decide who's in your group and who's not. But having said that, there are also some civil limitations, like you mentioned defamation.

[01:17:20] So the lawsuit that was just filed by Charlie Kirk's bodyguard against Candace Owens because she, you know, the allegations are that she said that he was a part of Charlie's murder. And that, you know, again, if he proves that in court, she better get out the checkbook because it's going to be coming. And I would imagine a jury won't appreciate that. So that is, I mean, she has a right to say that.

[01:17:49] The government could not stop her from saying those false things. And even the bodyguard could not stop her from saying the false things. But once she says them, if they're not truthful and they cause damage to somebody else, they can sue because that's defamation.

[01:18:09] Yeah, I think what we really need to be careful about articulating is there's just so much confusion where you have people today who say speech is violence. And then they don't understand what free speech is. And you can say, well, you don't want the government to start censoring speech. But that doesn't mean, especially from a Christian perspective, that everything's worth saying and that there shouldn't be just social consequences, too.

[01:18:39] And a lot of this has to do with like kind of the violence. And what it has to do really is it's people saying things kind of like we were talking about earlier, defamation, gossip. And there's if you're in an echo chamber like with Jimmy Kimmel and some others, maybe in the mainstream media, there unfortunately is a lot of stuff about Trump and his administration that is being repeated as if it were fact when it's just not. And if you want to criticize President Trump, there's a lot of things that he said on the record.

[01:19:05] You know, like you can talk about things, but people aren't operating in a fact based reality anymore. They are accepting as reality the things that people have said so many times that now they just think it's true. Yeah. And there's two there's two different things floating around. Right. There's the there's the statement of Jimmy Kimmel that I think very clearly was implying that he hoped President Trump was was killed and Melania was a widow.

[01:19:30] And then there's Comey, former head of the FBI, who put on the beach the, you know, 86, meaning get rid of 47, meaning Trump. And, you know, whether those things are protected or not against the government doing something that's, you know, we'll see.

[01:19:52] But certainly, you know, if you're ABC, you can you can he doesn't have any right to free speech versus ABC. So that's that's kind of the distinction. And people should people should take action on this themselves and say, well, I'm not I'm not going to participate in something that is asking or gleeful of somebody's death. Yeah. And a lot of that gets back to civility more than even free speech. Anyway, let's take a break.

[01:20:20] Penandexter's commentary coming up right after this. Great inflation is ravaging American universities. In 1960, 15 percent of grades were A's. Today, nearly 50 percent are. At the college level, more A's are given than any other grade. The Washington Post reports that last year at Harvard, two thirds of the grades were A's, up from 35 percent just 12 years ago.

[01:20:49] According to the Post, that doesn't count A minuses, which were another 18 percent. Great inflation occurs when schools award higher grades for the same quality of work over time. Consequently, there's a collapse in the informational value of grades, especially at the high end. It becomes harder to tell who the top students are. And great inflation at the college level eventually extends into high schools, especially competitive ones. Harvard's faculty was considering a solution, a cap on A's.

[01:21:18] Students revolted. But college students and parents should not expect high grades as if they were customers expecting good service. Harvard's stature is such that its faculty would do us all a favor if it pushes ahead with its proposal, which would cap the number of A's an instructor can give to 20 percent of the class plus four students. The Post's editorial explains that the extra four benefit students in smaller courses, which tend to be more advanced.

[01:21:45] The Washington Post calls grade inflation a collective action problem. It's hard for a professor to break from the herd. Tough graders attract fewer students. Plus, professors don't want to disadvantage students competing for grad school slots with other students who are getting easy A's. Some profs give out A's out of compassion. False compassion. Easy A's teach students that life is easy. They're later shocked when it's not.

[01:22:11] Great inflation poses a problem for employers who are denied accurate information for recruitment and hiring. Colleges need a standard to rein in these right-of-way A's. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes, and I wanted to spend a little bit of time chatting with Liberty about these issues.

[01:22:40] Because even yesterday, we had Tim Gagline on, and we got talking a little bit about this issue of loneliness. And then we had J.P. DeGantz talking about how this issue of loneliness is important in what is happening in terms of church growth. So let me hold up the card again, which is a reminder that we have the Know Why podcast. And if you're not getting the Know Why podcast, we have a link to it right now. Because the first article there, why 60% of Gen Z said they cut people out of their lives.

[01:23:08] And then we also have Penna Dexter's one on great inflation. But Liberty, you also talked about that on the Know Why podcast. This is a way to help young people know why they believe what they believe. A lot of young people maybe know what they believe. Sometimes they don't even know that. But to know why, that's why, of course, the Know Why podcast. Yeah, I really try to drill down into the why, of course. But, you know, how were we made? How do we function as human beings?

[01:23:36] What's going on in society that's causing this? So with the great inflation and the most recent episode I did on the podcast, they really tied in. And so with that last episode that came out on Wednesday, yeah, I saw this survey where in the last year in America, 60% of Gen Z said that they had cut someone off, like gone no contact. 50% of millennials said that compared to just 38% of Gen X and 20% of baby boomers.

[01:24:04] And here are the top reasons they listed. The person they cut out was not respectful to me. The relationship negatively impacted my mental health. They were too negative. Their values differed too much from mine. Or we disagreed about politics or social issues. Now, okay, you're cutting out all these negative people. So are you feeling happy? No. No.

[01:24:32] 47% of respondents to the survey said they experienced loneliness on a typical day. 34% said they feel less socially connected now than they did five years ago. So, and it's easy to kind of like laugh at this and be like, well, yeah, you just, you're cutting out everybody that you disagree with. But I really think it's a deep root issue. And I make this argument in the podcast about how my generation and Gen Z have been raised.

[01:24:58] And I know Jonathan Haidt's written about this in his book, The Coddling of the American Mind. But really, you had a couple generations that the whole road was kind of smoothed out before them. People like to joke about participation trophies. But that kind of became a culture where everything became so easy that young adults stopped expecting any sort of friction or struggle. And I'm not blaming parents wholesale.

[01:25:25] But this, a lot of it was just kind of how people were raised too. And then you add social media into that online. You are naturally having less real in-person interface interaction as a young person with other people where naturally conflict occurs. You have to get over the argument. You overcome it.

[01:25:45] And now we're in a place where if somebody is disagreeing with you or you have a disagreement about a certain issue, then you just cut them off. And I know that there are probably a lot of reasons, but I really think a lot of it has to do with the false expectation of what real relationship and connection should look like. And conflict and disagreement is inevitable.

[01:26:07] And if you are going to go no contact with someone the first time that the relationship gets a little trickier, you have to navigate something, then, yeah, you're going to get lonely real fast. Yeah. That's, I mean, you know, they're not – people aren't ready.

[01:26:21] And I think of it online contributes to this, right, because, you know, what the algorithms do is they try to – you can't – it's very hard to have real back and forth from people who disagree online. Because the algorithms try to throw you into hating each other. Yeah. I mean, this is their very purpose. Because the more they can get you to hate, the more energy, the more activity, the more you're, you know, doing that.

[01:26:51] And so some of it is they don't – this is the world they're in, and they don't see how to have relationship with people when there's conflict. Because the example, the model they're being given is very destructive. And so – and I know a lot of people who are Christians who – I'm not saying this is wrong – have said, I'm not going to engage in those conversations there.

[01:27:44] Mm-hmm. And you can find the one about 60 percent of Gen Z said they cut people out of their lives. But if you scroll down, you've talked about this issue as well. And that's Penna Dexter's commentary today. Yeah. I covered this last fall because, again, I think it goes to a false expectation that a lot of young people have. Because when a lot of this was reported, especially when Harvard said, okay, whoa, the average GPA was like 3.98.

[01:28:12] And there was this report in the Atlantic where the faculty was laughing because they knew what their students were doing, and they knew that wasn't accurate. But there's this peer pressure because, oh, well, if you're going to give all your students A's, they're not going to want to take my class, so I better give them A's too. And it becomes this whole thing. And so they had said, okay, we're going to cap our A's.

[01:28:33] But then the reaction from the students was what I was kind of responding to in the podcast because there was a lot of quotes in the media where they were saying, how am I supposed to enjoy my class if I have to stress about my grade now? Where were they when we went to school? I know. They said my studies wouldn't be, you know, fulfilling to me.

[01:28:56] And so the direction I took it in that episode was saying, again, we as a culture, though, I think, unless you're a Christian, really think that, okay, what's the purpose of life? Well, to have fun, I guess. If you don't have anything deeper and so you want to go to Harvard, well, it better be fun. But this isn't legally blonde. This is real life, okay? So when you go to Harvard, you're going to have to work. Good line, good line. And anyway, I just – but I think that people have not been given the truth.

[01:29:26] And the thing is when you work hard to achieve something, it expands your ability to enjoy life in general and take deep joy and fulfillment, which is what God created us for. Yeah. I mean, it's great stuff. And it's sad because when we say cutting people off, we're not talking about this directly, but how many of us have seen children cut their parents off? Yes. Cut grandparents off from seeing their grandchildren.

[01:29:55] I can't think of anything that would make Satan more happy, which tells you something if you're a person doing that. I mean, again, there might be a situation of real, like, safety, something really bad, very, very rare. Right. Not, oh, well, they have different beliefs than me or, you know, whatever they come up with. But, I mean, this is – I mean, we never used to – I mean, I don't remember ever hearing of that. Mm-mm.

[01:30:24] But you hear about it now. And it's just so sad. And really, you know, they think the sickness is the parents, the grandparents, whoever, when the sickness is them. Yeah. They're the ones with the problem because they can't even get along with their own family. Look, we all come together on Thanksgiving with our family and have lots of Cousin Eddie's and all kinds of situations of people who are very different. And we all manage to get along with each other because we're family.

[01:30:54] Need to cope. And, of course, again, if you're in college and you don't get along with your roommate, you get a new roommate. And then later on they say, well, if I don't get along with my spouse, I get a new spouse. And just that's that same mindset. So thank you both for being here today. I thought next week I would point out that Philip Harigi is going to be with us. We're going to talk about the prodigal court. We have a former Senator Rick Santorum with us. I mentioned Paul Kanger. I know you're going to be doing the Tuesday outreach of the Next Generation Roundtable.

[01:31:22] So just all sorts of things to look forward to next week. But most importantly, I want to say thank you to Megan. This is the different Megan setting in for the other Megan. We have Megan 1 and 2. But nevertheless, Megan, thank you for engineering today. Steve, thank you for producing the program. Enjoy the weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday right here on Point of View. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[01:31:51] 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. 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.

[01:32:20] 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, 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.

[01:32:44] Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.