Point of View May 8, 2026 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kerby Anderson. Thank you for joining me, it is the Friday Weekend Edition and as you might imagine we have two individuals from First Liberty Institute and because of that we're going to be talking about a lot of religious liberty cases as well as a case or two out of Colorado.

[00:00:33] Colorado has had so many cases before the Supreme Court, Lathan Watts has suggested they need to just put an express lane in between Colorado and the Supreme Court and here is another one coming up. And many others that we'll talk about as well. A little bit later we'll get into some other issues, one of which is, is the Democratic Party the same Democratic Party that used to exist years ago and it is not your father's Democratic Party as Victor Davis Hanson points out.

[00:00:58] A very good piece, interesting left by Jonathan Haidt, who's been on the program before even though he's not a Christian, not necessarily even a conservative, nevertheless he has to say if you look at the data, right-wing parents do a better job with their kids than left-wing parents. And as I mentioned yesterday, before we're all through since they're talking to pastors about something related to UFOs, well, might as well cover that if we can as well. But let's first of all go around the round table.

[00:01:24] Holly Randall and Aaron Smith are both associate counsel with First Liberty Institute. And one of the things I started out with, Holly, is a piece that you've done a video on and I posted for people to read the content, the whole issue of release time. And this is a press release coming out of the state of Washington involving an organization that we've done interviews with, LifeWise. It's a release time program, but can you tell us a little bit more?

[00:01:52] Yeah, LifeWise Academy is a nonprofit and they facilitate release time religious instruction, release time religious education, however you want to call it, at public schools across the country. So what LifeWise did is tapped into this model that the Supreme Court gave its constitutional blessing to 70 years ago. And they said, so long as you are off school property and you're not using any public money and the students have permission to attend,

[00:02:22] you can take kids during school hours to that location and teach them about the Bible. And what LifeWise does is makes this program, this religious instruction possible for families across the country, meaning they know how to do a plug and play on this. And so we give places like California and Washington and Oregon and the western half of the country, we give them a hard time on point of view sometime for their politics. But it's true that there are a lot of bright spots in places like that.

[00:02:50] And it's families and communities that may send their kids to public school for whatever reason, but want to give them a religious education and they will start LifeWise chapters in their community or at their school district. So that is what we had in Washington. And they were met with, you could say opposition, but it's that's too soft of a word.

[00:03:12] And it turned into an all out just crazy situation where the district knew they couldn't stop LifeWise from having these classes because of the constitutional blessing. But they can make it very difficult for families to send their children there. And so they had permission slip requirements that other organizations that offered checkouts or check in during school hours were not being subjected to.

[00:03:39] They made LifeWise students that were coming back from LifeWise classes into the classroom, seal up their Bibles and these like as if they were some sort of a medical equipment that couldn't come out in the classroom. They were excluding them from community resource fairs, which would prevent LifeWise from advertising to families so that they know this is a service that's being offered at the district. So we started working with our clients there in Everett, Washington, and they were telling us what was going on.

[00:04:06] We said this sounds like enough to go get a preliminary injunction from a court, meaning while we're litigating whether the school's actions are constitutional, they are essentially stopped from doing all this bad stuff to LifeWise. We'll summarize it like that. So the court agreed with us. No thanks in part to some comments from the school board members admitting how much they didn't like LifeWise just because they were religious and lobbing all sorts of slanderous accusations at them.

[00:04:35] But it's exciting because it shows that, you know, we are potentially going to succeed on the merits of our lawsuits. So it's a great indication that opens doors for LifeWise across the country at school districts. Erin, let me come to you because, first of all, it occurred to me that just down the road from Everett, Washington, is where Coach Kennedy won a case in the Supreme Court.

[00:04:57] Number two, you might elaborate a little bit because in this press release, it has the actual quote from this individual school board member, which I just might warn some of our listeners out there. If you're going to say something really nasty or negative about an individual, you might not want to do it in front of a school board meeting, in front of a microphone with the cameras rolling. But nevertheless, that's right. Yeah, I mean, it was a it was a full send as far as our generation.

[00:05:27] He fully sent his comments about how upset he was by the fact that LifeWise was religious, even taking on the actual legal language that we needed to put in a brief to say that. Right. You we have to show that these organizations are hostile toward religion. He admits on open mic night that he is hostile toward religion. And so that quote, I mean, that was just a gift to our case. And I have animus. Yes, I have animus.

[00:05:56] Yes, I absolutely have animus toward these people. And so it just cannot make this up. It was mind boggling. I remember that I was in the other room when Holly was watching the school board meeting and her jaw just dropped wide open as soon as he said that phrase. And so we knew that at that point. Right. Like what a gift that is. And, you know, his lawyers are screaming at what just happened. And so, yeah, it's it was it was it was insane.

[00:06:23] And and I think that this provides, you know, a shameless plug as far as. LifeWise is a really great example of families being willing to live out their faith. They're putting their kids in public school. They're going to live out their faith and send them something like LifeWise. And, you know, if if any of the listeners are listening and thinking, I want to live out my faith. Right. We have for celebrity. We're here to protect and defend your right to do that. If you're looking for ways to figure out how do I get involved in my community?

[00:06:53] A great place to start really is our Restoring Faith in America project. And that's RFI dot org. And you can learn more about different challenges and things that we're we're working on and teaching. You know, hey, here are ways that you can you can actively live out your faith in your community. And, you know, if you encounter pushback or hostility or or open animus admitted on open mic night toward what you're trying to do. Give us a call. You know, reach out. Request legal help at first liberty dot org. That's one action item.

[00:07:23] And of course, we do have, of course, First Liberty Institute on the Web site under both of your pictures. But if you type in LifeWise and scroll down, you'll see that many years ago, I interviewed a man by the name of Joel Penton, who is the founder of LifeWise Academy. He's a huge guy, by the way. He played for OSU and not the OSU you guys there, you know, but the other Ohio State.

[00:07:46] And he is the Ohio State and is a great football player, but also put together this whole program called LifeWise Academy. When I interviewed him and it's been now three years since I've interviewed him here in the other day, this LifeWise release time has exploded. And if you are in a school district right now where you don't have this or if you're in a school district where they're putting the same kind of roadblocks that they did in Washington, they should contact you, shouldn't they? Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:08:17] LifeWise does a great job of making resources available to you. And, yeah, if you're like the families in Everett, contact LifeWise, contact First Liberty. There's no reason that someone should get to admit that they have animus towards you and get away with it. And those are the fun cases for us to go after because the hard work has been done for us. I would say so. Going to take a break. FirstLiberty.org, LifeWise.org, in case you'd like to contact them, find out a little bit more.

[00:08:43] Another victory, well, at least partial, got an injunction, and I'm sure they'll win the rest. We'll be back right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Affordability is a major issue not only in this election season but also in the lives of many Americans.

[00:09:11] Joshua Slocum, writing in The Federalist, argues that the real crisis isn't affordability. It's lifestyle expectation inflation. Two factors affect affordability. The first is the reality of our devalued dollar, which results from government spending too much and having to print more dollars. The second factor is lifestyle expectation. Yes, it takes more dollars for young adults to buy houses, but it is also true that the square footage of even starter homes is larger.

[00:09:38] Both are true, but he focuses on the second using three examples. First is daycare, which used to be considered an option and is now viewed as a necessity. Both parents may not have to work, but they assume they must and usually consider placing their children in expensive institutional daycare centers. Second is the concept of a starter home. He reminds us that anyone born in the 50s through the 70s remembers a world in which most families bought a house and stayed put. Brothers shared bedrooms.

[00:10:08] Sisters shared bedrooms. Two cars in every driveway is a third issue he discusses. He says some will remember the now quaint term the family car. Yet he explains most Americans expect to be able to afford a car for every driver in the household. Many of us remember using carpools to get to work and even taking mass transportation. He does acknowledge that housing is often unaffordable and recent college graduates are swimming in student loan debt.

[00:10:34] But I appreciate the fact that he's also reminding us that some of the affordability issues stem from lifestyle expectations. 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.

[00:11:00] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Holly Randall, Aaron Smith in studio with us today. Today's second article, I wanted to really focus some time and attention on this idea of a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias. Now, if you go back to when Donald Trump took office, he signed lots of executive orders. But one of those was Executive Order 14202, eradicating anti-Christian bias.

[00:11:29] Aaron, it seems to me that there have been a series of testimonies at the National Religious Commission, National Religious Liberty Commission, and now there's a task force in the Department of Justice. And that seems like some of the concerns that you had to address in the courts are now going to even be addressed by the federal government. That's right. Yeah, it's very encouraging. So the president established he did two things, right?

[00:11:54] He established the task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias, and then he also established the Religious Liberty Commission. And so the Religious Liberty Commission has been having all these hearings. You've heard us talk about them multiple times. Kelly Shackelford has been on and talked about his experiences being on that commission. And they are tasked with providing the president with a report for the semi-quincentennial,

[00:12:19] the 250th anniversary of our nation on July 4th, with recommendations after hearing all the testimony, hey, what are things we can do to make our country more free and more free specifically for religion? And then this task force within, you know, the DOJ has been heading up the task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias, which is the longest name ever for a task force. It is made up of the cabinet members, the cabinet secretaries.

[00:12:45] And so they have been digging into, they've been tasked with, hey, let's dig into what was going on during the Biden administration. Is there evidence of anti-Christian action by either the agencies or the Department of Justice? And it turns out after they've released this 300 some odd page report, yes, there is a lot of credible evidence showing that the Biden administration was committing these,

[00:13:13] I mean, just violations. I mean, they're violations of people's rights and they're violations specifically of Christians' religious liberty rights, specifically, right, from listing, hey, you may be encountering religious discrimination if this is happening to you, and then just excluding Christians from the list, right? Kind of hinting and implying you're not entitled to the same religious liberty protections that other people of other faiths are.

[00:13:40] And so this report, I, you know, I would encourage the listeners to go, go read it for yourself. Go look at the exhibits. It's a long report. You don't have to read the entire thing, but even just highlights within it showing things like, man, they were giving double the amount of sentencing to jail, to prison for peaceful protesters,

[00:14:05] for Christian peaceful protesters that they were for people that were burning down pregnancy resource clinics, right? You're going to send a peaceful protester to double time for being peaceful just because you're a Christian. And so there are things like that that the report highlights. And something that I really do want to make a note of is that they go through at the beginning of the report and really talk about, hey, what are we talking about? Let's ground ourselves in. Like, when we say Christians, what do we mean?

[00:14:31] And so it's very cool because the Department of Justice goes through and, you know, it's not supposed to be all-encompassing of every Christian denomination. It's kind of just a baseline to say what are the beliefs. Hey, these are real beliefs that people have. And here's where they're coming from. And here's why the Constitution protects those people just as much as it does anyone else. So it's a great report. It's very encouraging to see the Department of Justice doing an objective job of looking at what had been going on

[00:14:57] and what we had been seeing at First Liberty for the last, you know, however long. Well, again, most people are not going to read 200 pages, but let me hit some highlights here and have you guys react to them. The one that you mentioned a minute ago, the first key finding was, of course, the FACE Act. Matter of fact, Jeremy Dice, last Friday, I think we posted his piece or I guess earlier in the week, and I've got a commentary coming out on that, but again, how they were much more aggressive about those individuals

[00:15:25] that maybe even just been praying silently in front of an abortion clinic versus those who actually were vandalizing and trying to burn down pregnancy resource centers. So that's one. But certainly another one had to do with the IRS. We've had Bunny Pounds on this program, and she, with Christians Engaged, actually wanted to get a 501c3, and yet that was denied.

[00:15:53] And, Holly, if I remember right, it was I think Latham Watts, who at that time was with you, and First Liberty said, wait a minute. You're saying you're not going to allow them to have a 501c3 organization because their religious concepts here about believing in Israel and believing in one man and one woman for marriage and a variety of other issues too closely identifies with the Republican Party. So you're a political group, not a Christian group. Yeah, that's exactly right.

[00:16:21] Christians Engaged was one of our clients, gosh, a few years ago during the Biden administration, and they received a letter that did exactly what you said, that, you know, the fact that you're trying to mobilize people of a Christian faith to vote is just too political for us, which is insane, right? Like, come on. And so we were able to write a letter and help Christians Engaged get that tax-exempt status, which is so important, right, to nonprofits. But it's funny you bring up the IRS because as I was reading the report,

[00:16:50] I was thinking, like, there are agencies that I have never even heard of, that they left no stone unturned when looking, and it was like, how in the world would you expect something like the Department of Transportation to be discriminating against Christians? But guess what? They were, you know. So it is a very surprising report to read because of just how comprehensive and well done it is, and a place your listeners might like to go to learn more about it.

[00:17:16] Camille Verone, who worked really hard on preparing this report, did Allie Beth Stecky's podcast, and she gives, like, a 30-minute breakdown. It's a great resource to just learn about the content that's in it from the mouth of the person that helped work on it. Let me see if I can pull that up. It's a great place that your listeners would like to read about it in a very condensed fashion. But, yeah, it was surprising and not surprising at the same time. Because of what we do at First Liberty, we've been seeing these sort of issues,

[00:17:44] and it's good that they're getting exposed to a wider audience through this report. And, again, going back many years, and this is maybe before some of your guys' time, but when we were dealing with the Tea Party issue, Lois Lerner and some of them were not giving 501c3 organization status to many of those, just if they had the word Tea Party in there, because that, well, sort of anti-Obama or whatever it might have been there.

[00:18:08] But, Aaron, let me come back to you, because one of the other cases that we've been talking about for some time is Dad's Place in Ohio. And it does seem to me that as much as we could get the federal government to prevent anti-Christian bias, if the federal government gets it right, then maybe we could expect the local communities to get it right. So, again, they can't tell this local community, was it Brian, Ohio, what to do.

[00:18:34] But we have all been very concerned about the fact that pastors, whether in Ohio or Arizona, a variety of other cases, have faced all sorts of hostility, haven't they? Absolutely, yeah. And that's something that is both a wonderful – that is a wonderful thing about our country, right, the federalism that exists in America, that the federal government can't come in and dictate to the mayor of Brian, Ohio,

[00:18:59] or the people of Brian, Ohio, how to – in those situations with local government, can't dictate to them. But what we do understand is that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. And so there is a baseline protection for people like the pastor in – you know, pastors in Brian, Ohio, or pastors in Everett, Washington, or pastors in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They have protection to exercise their religious beliefs. The people that go to church have protection to exercise their religious beliefs.

[00:19:29] And just because – and not to jump ahead, but just because the Democrat Party is not the Democrat Party of old, and just because the Republican Party has taken on some of these more – they've almost become polarized morality-wise, that doesn't make the Christian belief about moral right and wrong Republican. That has predated – that predates any political affiliation that anyone has. And so just because a pastor is standing up there telling people that the Bible says abortion is wrong,

[00:19:56] that doesn't make it political speech, and that doesn't mean that the government can come in and dictate to the church. So I think that it's encouraging to see the federal government getting the Constitution right, because that will encourage local governments to get the Constitution right, because it's showing, hey, this is the baseline, and you still have to follow it, even if we can't come in and write your laws for you.

[00:20:21] And again, I just think you've won cases, the Groff case and the Kennedy case and so many others, which have established a national precedent. Now, sometimes it doesn't seem to make its way down to some of these localities, which still gives you something to do, which I guess is job security for you guys. But nevertheless, it does seem to me that if they would get it right at the national level, eventually it works its way down to the statewide level, and you're doing a mop-up operation in some respects. And so that's the case.

[00:20:49] And again, you mentioned RFID, the idea of restoring faith in America, because if you look at one of the other things right next to your press release, it also talks about the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the Ten Commandments law in Texas. And so you guys are winning every time we turn around, and those wins help other people in other communities as well. Let's take a break, though. Let me again mention that we're still making available a copy of the Declaration of the Constitution, and you can go to the website, pointofview.net. You'll see a banner there.

[00:21:19] We're making it available for free. We've got a lot of these. We'd love to give them out to you. And most importantly, we'd encourage you to read them, or hand them to an individual at a school board to read. We'll be right back. Who can you trust? 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.

[00:21:50] 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. It's largely corrupt, with no Clark Kent standing up for truth, justice, and the American way. All of this is why Point of View Radio is more important than ever. And your part in supporting us is more needed than ever.

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[00:22:40] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:04] 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, let's open up the phones. I know most of you like to sit back and listen. Some of you take notes. But if you have a comment along the way, we would certainly love to hear it. I do want to get to this next article. This comes from our good friend John Stone Street on Colorado. But I would be remiss, since I've gone this long without mentioning the obvious one,

[00:23:34] the Virginia Supreme Court struck down the gerrymandering that we were talking about. Now, it was 4-3, but you might remember earlier in the week when I was reading from Jonathan Turley, not an individual that necessarily agrees with everything we talk about around here, nevertheless said that should be what the Supreme Court should do. But he was pretty doubtful as to whether they would, because after all, then they would face some kind of backlash, he feared, from those in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

[00:24:03] But I'll make it real clear. We've always said gerrymandering is not a good idea. We've never been in favor of it. Mid-decade gerrymandering, really have a problem with it. But, okay, the game's been played this way, and this one was so egregious in that all of a sudden you went from a 6-5 to essentially a 10-1. There might only be one possible Republican elected out of the Commonwealth of Virginia. That didn't make a great deal of sense.

[00:24:32] And the Supreme Court in the state of Virginia actually voted it down. And I'll spend more time about that next week when we can get into it in a little more detail. There's some real good takeaways from it, but I thought I'd mention it. But since we've been talking about Supreme Court cases, again, in studio with me today, Holly Randall and Aaron Smith. Holly, let me come to you because, as we've pointed out before, every time you turn around, Colorado is dealing with some case that goes before the Supreme Court.

[00:24:59] We're talking about whether you're talking about cake decorating, web designers, Christian therapists. I mean, the list gets pretty long after a while. But the latest one here is now the Supreme Court agreed to hear another First Amendment case, St. Mary's Catholic Parish versus Roy. And this is one that excludes Catholic and other religious groups from participating in what's called universal preschool program.

[00:25:26] And in some respects, we just talked about release time program. This is preschool program. But again, we thought you were supposed to treat everybody the same, equal protection. And I guess at least some people didn't get that memo from the United States Constitution. This is actually a good place to lead after our conversation about the DOJ report, because one thing we mentioned there is the feds are able to sort of go in and uproot all of this anti-Christian bias at the federal level.

[00:25:56] But there's still states that are doing these sort of covert ways of discriminating against Christians that need to be identified. And what's happened right here is the Supreme Court has landed on one in the St. Mary's case. It's easy to think of it as kind of a very, very simple level is like a school voucher type of situation. It's the state giving money for the benefit of a family and their child's education.

[00:26:21] But what the state does is says, well, you can't use that at a location that can't sign our nondiscrimination agreement, essentially. And this is a common tool that is in the toolkit of state and local governments to exclude Christians from participation in public benefits. There is a Supreme Court precedent from the 1990s that says if the law is neutral and applies to everyone like an anti-discrimination requirement would,

[00:26:48] it doesn't target Christians, then it's not going to be unconstitutional. And so what is happening in this case is the families in Colorado are challenging that. The Christian schools in Colorado are challenging that and saying, yes, your anti-discrimination law might be neutral, but it is still affecting our ability to exercise our religious beliefs. So I'm excited to see where this case lands. If you look at the way the court has moved in the last few years and the way they've interpreted some of these type of requirements,

[00:27:18] there are strong protections for religious schools and religious families that simply want to participate in a government program and not be excluded because something about the nondiscrimination requirement conflicts with their faith. So we have a case, a similar one in Maine with a school voucher program. It's a very similar situation that they want to be able to use it at a Christian school that can't sign a nondiscrimination requirement. So it's exciting that the Supreme Court has paid attention. It's hard to get certain a case.

[00:27:48] We talk about that a lot here. And I'm glad that the court has identified this as a problem, that states are using these nondiscrimination requirements to exclude Christians. Erin, I was just thinking, too, that, of course, you had this case went to the Supreme Court about one in Maine. You've had another case out of New Hampshire. In a couple of months from now, we're going to be traveling to New Hampshire and probably Maine. So I'm going to go try to see some of those places that actually were part of the cases that you've been involved with. But there seems to be some pretty strong Supreme Court precedents.

[00:28:18] And it's, again, amazing that Colorado just didn't seem to get the memo. Yeah. Colorado, I don't know if they they need one of your booklets. You should send one to every member of the Colorado legislature. And, you know, just make sure that they have it because the way that they have been behaving. It's unbelievable. Kind of signals that maybe they I don't they didn't get past the First Amendment because they maybe didn't even read that one.

[00:28:45] But all that to say, yeah, there's been some strong case. So Holly was talking about the direction the Supreme Court has been heading. And the case that she's referencing is it's called Employment Division versus Smith. It's an older case. Probably one of the only Scalia opinions that lawyers that are fans of Justice Scalia go. That one maybe wasn't right. And there are some historical reasons for maybe why he wrote the opinion that he wrote.

[00:29:13] But all that to say, the court has been moving in the direction of what the court tends to do is they will take something that's really bad, like bad precedent, and they will slowly chip away at it. They'll say, well, this case isn't like Smith because of this reason. So we're going to say Smith doesn't apply here. And then they take another case and they say, well, Smith doesn't apply.

[00:29:37] And so the same thing that happened when we brought the American Legion case challenging the lemon test, the same thing that happened when we brought Coach Kennedy's case with the lemon test, which the court had been saying, we're not really applying this. Kennedy was the last domino to fall as far as the lemon test.

[00:29:57] We expect that the court is moving in the direction of which one will be the last domino to fall with the Smith test because we had our Miller case protecting Amish parents from having to vaccinate their kids in the state of New York, which the Supreme Court said, yeah, you can't make the parents do that of the Amish families. Basically refusing to apply Smith in that case. So the court is moving in the direction. We just don't know which domino will be the last to fall.

[00:30:25] And then we're hopeful, you know, that maybe St. Mary's is the last domino to fall. They've said that they're not taking Smith on that particular case. And so maybe that's the one where they'll hint. We need one more. Right. We need one more case to really topple topple the domino. So hopefully it'll be a very strong opinion in the court. The court will get it right. And Colorado will be 0 and 4 on First Amendment cases. It's a Supreme Court. At some point, the taxpayers are going to get mad. Right.

[00:30:53] Like all of these cases, these civil rights cases, you get to fee shift in them. So the civil rights plaintiffs that challenge these actions on behalf of the state of Colorado, the lawyers get their bills paid by the state, not by the plaintiffs. So you would think, I don't know, maybe if people are listening in Colorado, you'll start listening and saying like, oh, I'm paying these bills for St. Mary's. Or I'm potentially going to pay the bill for whatever crazy thing we do next. So you would think they would clue in. But I don't know. Maybe not.

[00:31:23] Again, this is an article by our good friend. John Stone Street's been on many times. I met him years ago when he was at Bryan College. Of course, now he's with the Colson Center. And this one, I just, again, Colorado can't seem to stay out of the constitutional trouble. And, of course, one of the cases, the Smith case, which kudos to Holly. I know you've written a scholarly piece on that. And they mention the Smith case, which is out of Oregon. But the other one they mention is Mokmood, which is the one out of Maryland. And, first of all, it again says, what's happening?

[00:31:52] If these blue states would get it right, we wouldn't even have so many cases before the Supreme Court. But that one is basically said, look, if you've got a program and it's supposed to be neutral, you can't exclude Christians. And so you've got ultimate precedents one after another that really kind of make the case against what Colorado is doing. But here we go again. Yeah, and Mokmood, I'm glad you mentioned it.

[00:32:16] That's a really important precedent for parental rights, meaning parents are the ones in charge of directing the upbringing of their children, not the state, which should be obvious. But apparently we had to have the Supreme Court tell a couple states that was the reality. And it's so helpful in situations like this because what Mokmood says is basically the excuse you can send your kids to private school is not one that makes you constitutionally allowed to discriminate against families. So it says just because you're a Christian, you want to raise your kids according to your belief.

[00:32:45] You can't be excluded. And the opportunity to go educate your kids at a Christian school is not a good enough reason to justify excluding you. So it's important. And if you wonder about that name, there were a number of Christian families, but they took the Muslim family and used the Muslim name. They wanted out of some curriculum and sort of radical gender ideology. You have to opt them out of that. And again, you've dealt with some of those cases in California, haven't you? So that is certainly the case. So, OK, we've done enough on the courts.

[00:33:14] And basically, Aaron set us up for it. Let's go to when we come back from the break. Victor Davis Hanson, love to hear from some of you that have been lifelong Democrats as we talk about this, because it's not your father's Democratic Party anymore. And he gives you some of the facts and figures and so often kind of look at it from a historical point of view. And this has become more obvious when you look at who, for example, is running as a Democratic Party candidate for the Senate in Maine.

[00:33:41] Or for that matter, look who the mayor of New York City is. So come back and talk about that right after this. Throughout our history, American society has been characterized by and rightfully proud of its work ethic. Most citizens either work to live or live to work or both.

[00:34:08] But in certain sectors of our population, there's a growing shift in attitudes about work. Wall Street Journal opinion writer Barton Swain laments our diminished appreciation for the value of honest labor in a column titled America Loses Its Will to Work. He starts with President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty that began in the mid-1960s. Have we won that war? Not really.

[00:34:30] As the Journal's Mr. Swain points out, on the one hand, today's poor live vastly more prosperous lives by any material measure than the poor of the 1960s. But government transfer payments have mushroomed to the point where anti-poverty programs have left more or less the same proportion of the citizenry dependent on welfare. The conclusion, according to Barton Swain, is that the war on poverty hasn't only failed, it has weakened virtues its originators took for granted.

[00:34:56] The welfare reforms of the 90s brought work requirements and moved millions of Americans off welfare and into jobs. But other safety net programs expanded, negating those reforms. A robust work ethic has been battered by critiques of the 40-hour week, accusations that even the term work ethic is racist, the quiet quitting phenomenon that arose during the COVID years, and the economics that have forced companies to reduce hiring in the fields that once provided stable jobs for working-class men.

[00:35:26] Young white men discouraged from looking for work by still-entrenched DEI hiring are often tempted into vices like drug abuse and excessive sports betting. It's no shock that there's growing support, especially among young people, for a universal basic income where every American, working or not, high income or low, receives a government payment. Too many government policies disincentivize work. We need the courage to oppose them. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter.

[00:35:59] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, one of the articles we've posted here by our friend Victor Davis Hanson has been on the program with us many times. Democratic Party is dead. Long live the Jacobins. And, of course, that goes back to the French Revolution.

[00:36:14] But you don't have to even remember that as much as he's just lamenting that there have been times when there have been very prominent leaders in the Democratic Party that, for example, supported strong defense, military deterrence, were oftentimes champions of civil rights, were certainly concerned about the working person. And that is just not the Democratic Party anymore. Now, he does acknowledge that there are a few exceptions.

[00:36:42] One of those is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. Where's Jeff Materi? He's from Pennsylvania. I always joke with him. I said, you know you're in a bad way when John Fetterman is the conscience of the Democratic Party. But nevertheless, he always laughs at that. But, Aaron, let me come to you because you are both the younger individuals.

[00:37:02] But I can remember when we could go through a very long list of very prominent Democrats in the United States Senate that were speaking to very important moral issues, wanting to defend the president, whoever that might be, in military engagements. And certainly weren't calling for trying to get rich people to pay their fair share or even trying to move toward socialism. But that doesn't seem to be the Democratic Party anymore.

[00:37:31] No, it doesn't seem to be the Democratic Party anymore. And I will give two examples. One based in kind of the work that Holly and I are doing and another one based in, I don't know, a pastime of mine. The first being all you have to do is you have to look at something like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. We are using that every day at our jobs. It is a great piece of legislation that fixed Smith.

[00:38:00] It fixed Smith. It was meant to address Smith. That thing was nearly unanimous. Right. Its sponsors were names that our listeners are going to be very familiar with. Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy. Those two, you know, were the sponsors on the House and Senate sides of this incredible piece of legislation that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. That wasn't that long ago. I mean, 1993 was not that long ago.

[00:38:30] So my other example really is all you have to do is watch something like the West Wing, which was considered pretty like forward thinking at the time that the West Wing aired. Now I'm watching the West Wing going, where are those Democrats? Where are they? Where are those Democrats? Where are the because they come across? I mean, when it was airing, not reasonable. Now, extremely reasonable. Democrats would love to work with those Democrats.

[00:38:57] You know, I think there are plenty of Republicans on the Hill that would say we'd love to work with those Democrats. We could get things done. We could move the ball forward for America and to make this place a better place to live, more free. And so those are the two examples. But really, I think this just highlights where we're headed in our country. We have become so unmoored from from objective truth and from morality that anything goes at this point.

[00:39:23] And so I think we're seeing the consequence of of the American society uprooting itself from from objective moral truths. So that's those are those are some of my thoughts and examples. But it's happened a lot to just politics is downstream of culture or culture is downstream of politics. I don't know which one. But if you think about sort of institutions that are not political, but work in that sphere, things like the ACLU when it was founded, did a lot of cases that look like what we do at First Liberty.

[00:39:51] And now we're pretty much opposed to them most 90 percent of the time or just the media. I'm going to go there. I know point of view is exempted here from it. But Democrats like Bill Maher that used to be speaking for the party are now criticizing his own party.

[00:40:13] Institutions like Saturday Night Live that used to be equal opportunity to spoof politicians are now pretty much the let's just joke about Republicans only show and not actually point out that our party is saying things like World War 11. Yeah. You know, in a press conference like that's prime material and they won't go there because the Democratic Party has gone so far. And the institutions that support it have followed right along with it.

[00:40:38] And you find things like the ACLU is now fighting for trans rights in schools instead of like, you know, they were the lawyers in employment division versus Smith for the men that had lost their benefits because of their religious beliefs. So it's just weird to see like we live in this very strange world of everything on such far ends. And I don't know what you do to fix it. Maybe you guys have the ideas. But I think, again, what used to be just the exception is starting to become the rule.

[00:41:07] Sometimes you have to be careful of what I call nut picking. You pick a nut on the left or the right and say that represents everyone. But the nuts are getting a little bit larger now on the left side when you talk about socialism, because we're not just talking about Zoran Mamdani. We're talking about Katie Wilson, who is also a mayor of Seattle. So you have Seattle and New York City that have socialist mayors. You have members of Congress, and that's AOC and Bernie Sanders.

[00:41:36] I mentioned just a few minutes ago this candidate, Graham Plattner, which is, again, a Democratic candidate who is running in Maine. And then you start looking at others that are just very radical. As a matter of fact, here in the state of Texas, they finally said, you know, maybe we need somebody who's maybe not quite as radical as Jasmine Crockett. So it was James Tallarico. And now everybody's starting to go, I don't know, maybe she would have been a better candidate.

[00:42:06] These are individuals that used to be the real extreme, that sometimes you had to be careful not to use them always as nut picking, as we call it. But now they're becoming more and more of the voice. And it is hard for me to imagine in the next time in which we have a presidential convention for the Democratic Party,

[00:42:29] whether they could even think about even nominating a Bill Clinton or someone of that stature, because you have to be very, very radical and you also have to be a person of color and have to check a lot of boxes. And I just really kind of wonder where the future of the Democratic Party is. One of the places you've seen this the most is in immigration as well, right?

[00:42:54] Like in elections in years past, the Democratic Party was like, let's close the borders, let's halt immigration. And now it's let's pay for college education for illegal immigrants and let's get health care, free health care for illegal immigrants. And it's just it's shocking to see the the total 180 that people like Chuck Schumer and Bill Clinton have done on things from signing RFRA and closing borders to now.

[00:43:19] Well, it's so interesting because you think about, gosh, we are not so far away from decrying the evils of communism and socialism. All of a sudden there's been this almost massive like ground movement toward socialist principles in our country. And we should be paying. The government should be paying for everything. I'm sorry. No, like I don't want to pay for that. No, thanks. I don't want to pay for, you know, elective transgender surgeries for people in prison. I am not a fan of that. I don't believe in that.

[00:43:49] I don't want my tax dollars going to that. There are a lot of Americans that feel the same way. And yet we've seen this upgrowth of people being very, very proud to claim the title socialist, the Democrat Socialists of America. Right. This is a popular thing that's happening. I don't know where the breakdown was. Did people just did we stop reading history books? Did we stop remembering around World War nine?

[00:44:16] Who wasn't telling people this doesn't work right in a utopian society? Maybe we can have a very philosophical debate about whether socialism is a good idea if men were angels. But even in the Federalist papers, they very clearly said, yeah, if men were angels, we wouldn't even need any of this business. But they're not. So we need government and we need, you know, control and those sorts of things. So socialism doesn't work. It's a failed experiment. We've got to just leave it alone. Leave it alone.

[00:44:45] Your assignment for the weekend. Just take a time to read Federalist paper number 51, which talks about whether or not men are angels. And by the way, in case anybody thinks that Holly misspoke, we do have a member of Congress that did say World War 11, right? Yeah, she thought World War Two was World War 11 because it was Roman numerals. It could happen anyway. No. Tough crowd. We've got more right after this.

[00:45:15] Where does moral truth come from? 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.

[00:45:44] Evil is called good. Good called evil. 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.

[00:46:13] 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.

[00:46:44] Cross America. Live. This is Point of View. And now, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Privileged to have in the studio with us today both Aaron Smith and Holly Randall.

[00:47:09] And I want to get some of their comments in just a minute as we talk about the Hantavirus and how that whole issue is being covered sometimes accurately, sometimes not so accurately by the media. That's one issue. Also, you might remember sometimes we seem to lose our religious liberty whenever we thought we had a pandemic. So I thought it might be worthwhile to talk about that for a few minutes. Then we're going to get to a piece by Jonathan Haidt, who's been with us before.

[00:47:34] And he is probably best known for co-authoring the book The Coddling of the American Mind, which we've had him on to talk about, as well as Anxious Generation.

[00:47:42] And he, even though he wouldn't necessarily agree with us from his perspective, because he tends to be more on the liberal, secular side, but is a very congenial individual to interview, nevertheless has to say, look, parents of young, right-wing parents, probably a better way to say it, end up having happier and more well-adjusted children than left-wing parents. Not a real surprise, so we'll get into that and many other topics.

[00:48:09] But let me go around the roundtable for just a minute and get either of you some comments, because, first of all, as our good friend Nora Rothman has pointed out, there isn't a cable news producer in the world that could resist the temptation to talk about the outbreak of a rare and deadly communicable disease. We're talking about the Hantavirus. And that has, of course, been in the news. But I thought what I wanted to do is, first of all, I know both of you have been sort of following this case anyway.

[00:48:39] But more importantly, it illustrates, as he goes through this, how some people have been reserved, responsible, and others, it's the end of the world, and we can't even imagine that. And, of course, also, sometimes these pandemics have been a justification for limiting our free speech and our religious liberty. So, Holly, I know you've been watching some of these videos. What's your thoughts? Oh, I'm fascinated by it.

[00:49:04] I didn't know anything was going on until I happened to be scrolling through Instagram, and I saw a video that someone is on the ship that was, like, making. He's like, we're trapped out here, which it does sound like a horrible situation. Oh, I guess. And the thought of being trapped on a cruise ship and not being able to get off is, like, a nightmare scenario to me. So I sympathize with that. But the stuff that is also, you know, not necessarily the on-the-ground reporting, but the CNN reporting, it's just, like, it's insane.

[00:49:31] I can't even get words out about it because they're like, it's coming. What are we going to do? We've got to prepare. I'm like, they're on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I think we've got – it's not COVID. Let's all slow down. But nobody canceled, you know, the class of 2026 graduations just yet. Not yet. Because it's still out there. There we go.

[00:49:54] But I hope – I'm glad you mentioned, you know, sometimes constitutional liberties seem to go out the window as soon as someone throws, you know, any prefix and the word virus together. But hopefully we, like, worked hard enough as religious liberty lawyers and civil rights lawyers to put protections in place in all different ways. Like, right, we've got court rulings that say things.

[00:50:17] States like Texas amended their constitution to say that you're not going to get to close church just because of some public health outbreak or something without, you know, XYZ reasons. So hopefully we learned our lesson the first time. I don't think there is, you know, any reason to think that this is going to be the next COVID. But people might try to – the new Democratic Party might try to turn it into that. Well, they are.

[00:50:41] But the cool thing about – the cool thing really about COVID that I feel like I – you know, COVID was very, you know, sad and devastated a lot of families. It was a horrible, horrible thing that happened. There were a few bright spots that came out of COVID, and that was that the constitution was still there. It was still there. And all we had to do at First Liberty was take the law in hand and say, you can't do this. Like, you can't be doing this to churches. You can't be doing this to people of faith.

[00:51:12] We saw that in – you know, we saw that with churches that were being closed instead of casinos. And we saw that with our Navy SEALs case that the law protects people and the constitution protects Americans' rights to exercise their religion even in the face of a public health crisis. I hope Colorado is listening. Yeah, Colorado, really. Tune in. Tune in. Tune in here.

[00:51:34] But so, I mean, it's – but I think this is just a classic case of people like – I think people, whether they will admit it or not, love to feel the, like, rush of anxiety or panic. There are a lot of people. There's a reason that it's if it bleeds, it leads. This is the same thing that's happening, right? It is. People love drama. I'm following.

[00:52:00] We're staying in tune to it because it's fascinating to read about and to think, like, man, what if those movies talking about, you know, massive outbreaks comes true? Who knows? Yeah. Contact or something else. Let's be realistic. I mean, they're on a boat in the ocean. There's been no, like, contact with people on the mainland. It's not like they let them go and then figured out that people had the Hantavirus.

[00:52:25] It's – I mean, it's been contained and so people panicking about all this is – it's crazy. Well, again, let's give credit where credit is due. New York Times had one where they quoted immunologists. It's good to be cautious. No need to be concerned about a global outbreak. Very good. NPR, sometimes I do have some things to say about NPR, although I didn't appreciate the reporting usually at National Public Radio. And they said it's very, very surprising and obviously a very rare occurrence.

[00:52:52] And then, knock me over, Huffington Post, okay, the outbreak is not concerning to the general public. So at this point you're starting to say, okay, I think that's really good until you get to Esquire. If the Hantavirus reaches America, we're doomed, you know. The Trump administration has withdrawn. And now here we go, political, World Health Organization, because those were such great people, weren't they? It was such a good job. Yeah, it's such a good job.

[00:53:19] And any outbreak more serious than COVID-19, and this country is in a world of hurt. We're in the hands of a madman now. And so it just, of course, relates a little bit back to what we just said a minute ago about the Democratic Party and even the way in which some of those individuals that are supportive of the Democratic Party have gone off the deep end, and they're now in the media, and we can't really trust what the media says. There's an interesting subtle move, I think, that's going on in these Washington Posts. You're giving them a little more grace than me.

[00:53:47] There's a media trick, right, where if you say the word not, it makes the inverse true. So by the New York Times saying, this is not a global health outbreak, what are people thinking? This is a global health outbreak. I want to read the New York Times even more now to learn about it. So I don't know if it's salesmanship or just poor headline crafting, but maybe I'm being a little too negative toward them. But, you know. But again, here, just look at how, first of all, the president disconnected us from the World Health Organization.

[00:54:16] Here's another one. RFK Jr. has fired every single CDC vessel sanitation program worker. Does that mean there aren't any new ones? It's a creative strategy to just sow distrust. I mean, really, like, at bottom, I'm not going to sign, like, I'm not going to call anyone evil or anything, but it is, it looks an awful lot like a creative campaign to sow distrust in our leaders and in, you know, just, like. Everything is politicized.

[00:54:46] We want to try to make, we want to try to give you a reason. When we come and take your rights away, you're going to agree with us because we have slowly undermined any belief that you write. Oh, that's a good point. Right, so, I mean, it looks an awful lot like that to me. Yeah, it certainly does. Well, again, you know, we've said this about sports. Can't we just enjoy sports without it being politicized? Can't we just talk about the fact that we have a Hantavirus outbreak on one ship and not necessarily have it politicized?

[00:55:13] And yet this article just reminds us again, everything gets politicized. And so, if you'd like to read it, I've posted it because I think it's, as we've said before, maybe a preview of coming attractions. Pay attention. We'll be right back. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:55:45] Thank you.

[00:56:15] There are two that the square footage of even starter homes is larger. Both are true, but he focuses on the second using three examples. First is daycare, which used to be considered an option and is now viewed as a necessity. Both parents may not have to work, but they assume they must and usually consider placing their children in expensive institutional daycare centers. Second is the concept of a starter home.

[00:56:39] He reminds us that anyone born in the 50s through the 70s remembers a world in which most families bought a house and stayed put. Brothers shared bedrooms. Sisters shared bedrooms. Two cars in every driveway is a third issue he discusses. He says some will remember the now quaint term, the family car. Yet he explains most Americans expect to be able to afford a car for every driver in the household. Many of us remember using carpools to get to work and even taking mass transportation.

[00:57:07] He does acknowledge that housing is often unaffordable and recent college graduates are swimming in student loan debt. But I appreciate the fact that he's also reminding us that some of the affordability issues stem from lifestyle expectations. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:57:35] That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Yes, we can take some phone calls, 1-800-351-1212. And for line one, Tim in Georgia, thank you for calling today. Oh, thank you for taking my call. You were talking about the Hantavirus.

[00:57:59] I'm a veterinarian, and I've been involved with a little bit of Hantavirus when I was in practice out in Nevada. It has been around since the 1990s. And it has a real current thing that we have to worry about only is that it's in mouse droppings and things like that. We need to be able to just clean carefully, possibly wear a mask if you're around mouse droppings where you're sweeping and so forth.

[00:58:28] But it's been around in this country since 1993 for sure. And the CDC says, you know, do the following. And you be careful because when you're handling mouse or mouse droppings and things like that to use a one-to-ten dilution with bleach. And it becomes – it's a respiratory-driven virus. And I just want to make sure that everybody knows it's not something that's going to like at all, like the COVID virus.

[00:58:56] And by the way, we can't do the COVID virus thing ever again. My wife died because of the COVID virus-associated mandates of having to have the vaccines. And she had cancer at the time, so that's really what truly sent her to heaven. But at the same time, having to have multiple vaccines of COVID, you know, not helpful at all.

[00:59:22] So it probably helped her deteriorate quicker. Well, Tim, I appreciate that. Your level of expertise was helpful and, again, bringing some common sense to this whole conversation. And I guess when they were going even into the rooms there in the cruise ship, they wanted to make sure they didn't vacuum it up because then they would send more of the various virus in the air. Aerosol, right? That's right. Yeah, you do need to be diligent, and that's a really good point.

[00:59:52] You know, we need to think about, like, okay, where is hantavirus? Well, it's often in, like, rodent droppings. And so when we know that, we know, like, don't take a vacuum cleaner to it. So let's make sure that we're not spraying the virus everywhere. And, you know, you don't want to breathe it in, so wear a mask if you're concerned about it. And it should be fine. It's been around for a while, and we haven't had, you know, these massive outbreaks like everyone is concerned about. But we do.

[01:00:21] It doesn't mean we don't need to exercise caution. So I think that that's a good, Holly's making a face. So I didn't think that's a good idea. I didn't know we were going to learn about, you know, vacuum cleaners spraying rodent droppings everywhere today on Point of View. But turn in for the hard-hitting news. I will move off of that immediately. Other than the fact that I was using that, and I think it's a good illustration, and Tim helped us out there as well, the overreaction to some of this, how in some ways constitutional rights just go right out the window

[01:00:49] because there are people with this authoritarian impulse. And we've seen that in the media. We've seen that in certain political parties and things of that nature. And all it takes is a crisis to be able to lose your constitutional rights. There was a great Babylon Bee article. You guys have had them on probably before. And it was, Constitution dies of coronavirus. You know, it said, like, he was surrounded by his friends, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights at the time of his passing.

[01:01:19] Because I think that was just a way of pointing out, like, we tried to trample the Constitution in some places, but like Aaron said, it was enduring and it protected. And the courts did well. And people came to their senses about the mandates they were putting people through. And masks and vaccines and canceled parties and graduations and all that stuff that people missed out on school at the time. So we can't do it again. Tim was right.

[01:01:45] Well, Aaron said the longest task force, the presidential task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias. And one of the things it talks about there is the number of people who were not allowed to use a religious exemption on taking the vaccine. And your seals are a classic case, right? Yeah, they are a classic example.

[01:02:05] They are one of the best examples of you want to talk about some of the healthiest and most, you know, like, who is going to be affected, you know, by like, let's just say any regular illness. Because I, you know, I'm probably going to be affected a little bit more than a Navy SEAL will. And I think that that has something to do with hell week that they endure to get to the point of becoming Navy SEALs.

[01:02:35] They have sincere religious objections to taking the COVID vaccine. And the government was very, I mean, very sneaky. And read the report about, you know, what was going on with COVID. You can go read some of the court filings and the opinions of the court in our Navy SEALs case talking about the government, you know, the military. They were so mean to them. Giving these, they were awful to the Navy SEALs. And they were just denying everyone without even looking at anything, right? They weren't really doing their job.

[01:03:03] And so we need to be vigilant, right? Just because it happened once and it, like, you know, we were able to resolve it. Doesn't mean it won't happen again. Doesn't mean that people won't try to use something like this again to take away your rights. And so being vigilant is important, but we learned a very valuable lesson, I think, through COVID and really what the levers of power within the government can do. They are capable of using them and they will. I call it the authoritarian impulse. And there are a lot of people that are giving away and have given away to it.

[01:03:32] Let's get to our next piece. And that has to do with a very interesting interview they did with Jonathan Haidt. And again, he's an individual that I followed for many years. We've interviewed him on the Caudilline of the American Mind. He's almost well-known right now for having written the book Anxious Generation. But he says, you know, when I looked at the data, who's better parents, there was only maybe a slight gap between conservatives and liberals, although conservatives were doing better.

[01:03:57] But then once we got social media, and he uses the cutoff date of 2012, now there is a vast chasm between left and right. And the bottom line is, is that when kids are rooted in communities, they don't get washed out to sea by phone-based childhood living in the virtual world. And in this case, conservative and religious kids do a lot better than kids growing up with left-wing parents.

[01:04:26] What a surprise. Any thoughts? I think about my, you know, I was raised by two very strong Christian parents who really made it a priority to have me in church, to have me learning how to read my Bible myself. And I am, you know, forever indebted to their faithfulness to be obedient to the Lord. That meant that I was around kids my age, and more than just at school, right? And school's great.

[01:04:55] School's a place where you can find community, but you don't always share your same values with the people that you're going to school with. There was something really special and unique about things like going to Sunday school or going to youth group on Wednesday nights and being with people that, you know, love Jesus just like I do. And we shared that common bond, and we bonded through, you know, fun activities or reading the Bible together. And those are friends that I, you know, consider lifelong friends because of the unity in Christ that we share.

[01:05:26] And that meant that I was probably a little bit more, I guess, well-adjusted than some of the people, right? Like I had real friends that were in front of my face, and I wasn't always on my phone. I wasn't always – I didn't have to do that because I wasn't searching for community. It had been provided to me, and so I think that that's a really special thing. There's also just kind of a natural what follows from this, right? If you looked at the numbers, I am certain, without having them in front of me,

[01:05:54] that they would reflect that there is a greater percentage of right-wing parents that are Christians, that are couples, that are a husband and a wife, and they have children, and they stay married, and they communicate with their kids, you know, you get that sort of what we would all describe as the biblical design for a marriage and family. Imagine that it leads to better outcomes. So I think it's telling, right, that he's tapping into this.

[01:06:20] Even as you mentioned, he takes more of a secular perspective on some of his books, but what he's observing is really like the biblical design for family leads to greater success outcomes because you have two parents that are in a biblical marriage that are raising their children in church that then through church they make friends and play sports and do normal kid things that are not just look at their phone, and I don't know. I think he's zeroing in. He's circling in on the point.

[01:06:48] Maybe we'll get his next piece from him saying, hey, there's something to this Christianity thing. No, yeah. We as Christians, we believe that God is the author and creator of this world, so when he writes something in his word, like the Bible, and is explaining how the world should operate, maybe we should pay attention to what he's saying because we can look at it from a secular viewpoint and say, and there are some instructions he was giving the Israelites about not touching dead bodies.

[01:07:17] That's probably really good. That's good. You can say objectively, right, there are things that can happen if you do that, so let's not do that, and the Lord was explaining that, so why wouldn't the same principle apply to marriage? We might even just pray for somebody like Jonathan Heitze. Of course, his co-author in The Codding of the American Minds is Greg Lukianoff, and he is a Christian, and one of the people that mentioned this was Nancy Piercy. He's been on the program with us before.

[01:07:43] She's co-authored books with Chuck Colson and is a professor at the Houston Christian University, but said research shows that it was secular and liberal kids who got swept away by phones and technology. Kids from religious communities are much more securely rooted. And so it's an interesting study, and we'll probably come back to it again, but it's one of our articles on the website. Stay tuned, we have more right after this.

[01:08:13] At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer, and that is why we have relaunched our Pray for America campaign, a series of weekly emails to unite Americans in prayer for our nation. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of Americans started praying intentionally together on a weekly basis.

[01:08:37] You can help make that a reality by subscribing to our Pray for America emails. Just go to pointofview.net and click on the Pray for America banner that's right there on the homepage. Each week you'll receive a brief news update, a specific prayer guide, and a free resource to equip you in further action. We encourage you to not only pray with us each week,

[01:09:05] but to share these prayers and the resources with others in your life. Join the movement today. Visit pointofview.net and click on the banner Pray for America right there at the top. That's pointofview.net. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in our land. Point of View will continue after this.

[01:09:40] 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. In fact, once again, let me just mention that tomorrow, that is Saturday and Sunday, we obviously will rebroadcast this for your radio station. But then on Monday, we have Cynthia Scott with us, this new book, Celebrating God Our Father.

[01:10:08] We certainly have been focusing a lot on America 250. Once again, I want to mention that we're making available a copy of the Declaration of Constitution. It's published. It has some of the information about Point of View. And it is something we would be glad to make available to you. We've had copies of that. And that is one thing that we'd like to put in your hands. And certainly that is a case. Also, be talking with Dr. Ray Bolin and Sue Bolin on Monday as we talk about preparing young people for what they will encounter in college.

[01:10:36] Also, what you can do in your own community to reach out to Generation Y and Z. So we have a lot of things to cover there as well. But I decided it would be at least fun, especially with these two fun-loving women, to talk about UFOs. Now, the last time I did this was years ago when Tucker Carlson was talking about it. I hate to mention that we were talking about Tucker Carlson, but nevertheless, we were at the time.

[01:11:00] And I remember the engineer started wanting to play Twilight Zone music because we thought we'd lost our minds. But the point is there are a lot of people talking about this. And the reason for this particular conversation has to do with there is a lot of stories about a group of pastors that were approached by some federal U.S. officials to prepare their congregations for the disclosure of UFOs and extraterrestrials. And I said, well, should I cover that?

[01:11:29] And then Glenn Beck talked about it the other day. And everybody else seems to be talking about this. And, of course, you have Barack Obama was asked about this. He says, oh, yes, extraterrestrials are real. I haven't seen any. You go all the way back to Jimmy Carter said he saw a UFO. Matt Gaetz says that he was briefed by an Army official about alien-human hybrids. And we're really talking about something pretty bizarre right off the bat.

[01:11:57] But nevertheless, I thought for just a second or two we might devote some time to the ongoing discussion about UFOs. And, Holly, you said you had some things to talk about, so go for it. Well, we joked with some of our comms team members that I was going to come on and pretend like I was, you know, some sort of extraterrestrial during this segment just to see if we could get some excitement going here.

[01:12:20] But this article, I would encourage people to get on and read it because every paragraph gets more exciting than the next. You know, it's one of those, like, you never know where it's going to go. And when I pulled it up, I read the headline, and I could not have predicted where we ended because there's a couple paragraphs in there that include basically every apocalyptic theory possible all packed into one. So it's a fun read.

[01:12:47] And, gosh, I don't know. I can get in enough. If you want me to wear the tinfoil hat on the show, if you want me to play that role, I can convince people that, you know, UFOs are real. But I don't know if that's my job here today. No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to do a little plug for if there are aliens watching, we have the Declaration of Constitution right here.

[01:13:14] If you're listening, I'm holding on camera the booklet. You also can request this. We'll send it to you. I don't know if you speak English or not. But, yeah, also, I'm sorry. Borders are closed. Like, I don't know what to tell you. We're done accepting illegal immigrants in America. We would have to deport you. Do you want to review the Faith Act before you head into a church and decide to interrupt service? You know, one of the things I was going to post is this one from the Free Press. And Will Rahm has been studying this for some time.

[01:13:44] And he, you know, talks about the fact that I discounted all of this. Although when I watched The X-Files as a kid, I did kind of believe maybe a little of that. But he just points out that, you know, since 2017, The New York Times has unveiled footage of some things that are difficult to understand. You had the retired Air Force officer, David Grosz, talking about some various things. You even go back to World War II.

[01:14:09] There was an argument that Benito Mussolini's Italy had a crashed UFO. Maybe all of that is just hype. But it just, again, I think forces us to sort of think rationally about these issues. And one of the things I might, I didn't bring the book in. I just draw a picture of it here. But there is this very well-written book. And it came out a number of years ago by Christians who were really trying to address this issue. It has the title Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men.

[01:14:39] And it just helps us understand that if you think these UFOs are extraterrestrials, first of all, Hugh Ross is one of the people writing about that. And, you know, the number of galaxies that we even know of and the fact that we have SETI, that is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and we have yet to get any kind of digital record that comes from outer space. And that reaches out to at least 155 light years away.

[01:15:06] So it hasn't, of course, looked at all the universe, but you would think a craft coming in our direction, whether it's Rocky, you know, that's the latest film, or whether it's E.T. or something like that, or the alien, you would expect some kind of communication. And so most of the people here are talking about it being maybe more intradimensional and maybe even tying into something like the occult.

[01:15:30] And that was one of the things that was kind of interesting, the number of places where you actually see these observations usually happen late at night, you know, around 3 a.m. And they always seem to be out in the rural areas, maybe kind of where you guys are from, but not in New York City, you know, at 6 a.m. in the morning or at noon.

[01:15:51] And so there are just a lot of things that people have said, whether or not there can all be explained as swamp gas and various kinds of military actions or parallax situations. It is intriguing that there are enough people now talking about the fact that there may be some kind of announcement in the future about UFOs. And they thought, well, I know we'll go to the pastors because we know the people most likely to be scared about all this will be the Christians. Yeah.

[01:16:23] Maybe World War XI is us against the extraterrestrials. Maybe she was telling us something. I don't know. Gosh, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I say I have thoughts, but my thoughts are that, well, I don't know. If the government tomorrow said, yeah, there's aliens out there and we've known about them for 50 years, there's enough of a distrust of the government in me that would be like, I don't believe that for one second. I would be like, show me the hard evidence. I need pictures.

[01:16:48] Because I listened to you about COVID for a while and it all turned out to be a farce. So tell me about the aliens. That's right. We got a former First Liberty lawyer. She'll be rejoining us soon. She's out clerking in Roswell, Mexico. Oh, she can do us. We'll ask her about what's been going on and maybe she can give us the details. We're more worried about Bigfoot where we're from than the UFOs. Yeah, there's festivals in Oklahoma for that. Yeah.

[01:17:17] Well, if you are interested, we might post this article that we put together years ago on UFOs and alien beings. But the bottom line is a lot of it can be explained. And so it, I think, is an illustration of the fact that sometimes the government hasn't wanted to talk about this because they have been able to develop some pretty sophisticated devices, sometimes even in places like New Mexico.

[01:17:40] And the quick response was, well, it's just UFOs because DARPA, which is kind of the research agency of the Pentagon, wouldn't want everybody to know what we have. And we are now discovering, first when we had an incursion into Venezuela, and now as we're going into Iran, we actually have more military armaments and ways in which to defeat the enemy than I think most people, including the enemy, knew.

[01:18:09] And so that could, in many cases, have been just a simple cover for a lot of things that are easily explained. Then it turns out that now with drones, just because you see lights in the sky, they could just be drones. Well, remember the Chinese spy balloon that floated over the United States for a while? We could have said that was the UFO. I mean, I think you're right. There's enough military stuff that we just don't know about. So I think, again, be very skeptical.

[01:18:33] Be very skeptical, but I would not be surprised, like you're saying, Kirby, if this bombshell report that the government's going to release all these files is just – it's technology that we have used openly against our enemies in war that we can now retroactively explain what that was. The government could come in and say, yeah, remember that thing that happened that everybody thought it was an alien? Well, it turns out it was really beneficial for our use in Desert Storm.

[01:19:01] So maybe that's going to be what's going to happen. But I don't know about this business with inviting the pastors to meet and talk about aliens and all that. All I know is that hopefully what the answer is, Christians know that the Lord reigns supreme. Yeah. And he's not going to be surprised. If there's aliens, he already knew about it. At least the Christians are being included in the government benefit conversation about UFOs, right? We're not having to fight for the pastor to be at the conversation about UFOs. That's right.

[01:19:29] And again, one of the senators from South Dakota, Mike Rounds, is willing, again, the government to come forward with all of this. And I think if this is really as groundbreaking as we would think, don't you think Donald Trump would be the one to release that? And it seems like he's so distracted by everything else. If this is really groundbreaking, if you haven't noticed, President Trump, he's kind of a showman, isn't he? And I think he would probably want to be the one to break the news.

[01:19:58] I'm still waiting on him to tell me who shot John F. Kennedy. Let's get that out of there before we go to the UFO. Let's have a little bit more. Anyway, I knew this would generate some phone calls. So if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. We'll certainly come back and take a call or two. Also, I might just mention we have Penned Extras commentary today. But I would commend to you some of these articles. And if there's interest, we might post some of them next week as we get talking about that. Matter of fact, Dr. Ray Bolin has written a book, an article on Are We Alone in the Universe?

[01:20:27] Which I think dismisses the idea that these could be extraterrestrials. We'll talk about that with him on Monday. We'll be right back. Throughout our history, American society has been characterized by and rightfully proud of its work ethic. Most citizens either work to live or live to work or both. But in certain sectors of our population, there's a growing shift in attitudes about work.

[01:20:54] Wall Street Journal opinion writer Barton Swain laments our diminished appreciation for the value of honest labor in the column titled America Loses Its Will to Work. He starts with President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty that began in the mid-1960s. Have we won that war? Not really. As the Journal's Mr. Swain points out, on the one hand, today's poor live vastly more prosperous lives by any material measure than the poor of the 1960s.

[01:21:19] But government transfer payments have mushroomed to the point where anti-poverty programs have left more or less the same proportion of the citizenry dependent on welfare. The conclusion, according to Barton Swain, is that the war on poverty hasn't only failed, it has weakened virtues its originators took for granted. The welfare reforms of the 90s brought work requirements and moved millions of Americans off welfare and into jobs. But other safety net programs expanded, negating those reforms.

[01:21:48] A robust work ethic has been battered by critiques of the 40-hour week, accusations that even the term work ethic is racist, the quiet quitting phenomenon that arose during the COVID years, and the economics that have forced companies to reduce hiring in the fields that once provided stable jobs for working-class men. Young white men discouraged from looking for work by still-entrenched DEI hiring are often tempted into vices like drug abuse and excessive sports betting.

[01:22:15] It's no shock that there's growing support, especially among young people, for a universal basic income where every American, working or not, high income or low, receives a government payment. Too many government policies disincentivize work. We need the courage to oppose them. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[01:22:45] Back once again, let's get to our first phone call here. Lana in Arizona, KNLB, thank you for calling today. Oh, good afternoon, Kirby, and I'm thankful for your taking my call. I did want to mention that we lived in Roswell. I mean, not Roswell, but Capitan, New Mexico, which is about 40 miles from Roswell.

[01:23:05] So we encountered quite a few people that lived there and people that were living during the time of the incident that Roswell, you know, had happened. So we had the opportunity of our friends coming to Roswell. So we would take them out to the museum.

[01:23:24] So what I wanted to say is what you said earlier is that all of these incidents and things that we are seeing or people say that they're seeing and their encounters have always been at night. So I think that most of this could be something with the government, you know, experiment. I think a lot of it is in the minds of people because we're seeing so many deceptions in the world for decades now.

[01:23:53] And I think this is part of it, too. And I think this is just a prescription for the future with the government to get people getting used to the idea that we have another deception that's going to bombard us in the future. So from what I'm seeing from talking to these people is that most people didn't want to talk about it, even though they had people that supposedly had experiences.

[01:24:18] It just kind of made you wonder, well, where did they get these ideas and these experiences? So I think a lot of it is in the minds of the people. Yes. And, of course, the scriptures do say that in the last days, and if you believe we're in the last days, and I think most of us do, then it talks about there being a strong delusion and miraculous signs and things of that nature. So whether that all fits in there, don't know.

[01:24:42] And whether some of these sightings are actually angels or demons, well, I think we could certainly make a category for that. And it is interesting that whether you believe all the things that are in this piece, which was an interview with Perry Stone or not, and as I thought that's kind of interesting, all I said, the word got reading into it, got into every one of these possible suggestions, even whether or not that could be explaining the rapture.

[01:25:08] The bottom line is that the government thought, well, the people we probably need to educate about this if we're going to make an announcement is pastors. So you heard it here first. Our pastors were briefed about some announcements, and if you think some of us around the table are rather skeptical, well, you've read us right because that's kind of what we think about that. But, Lana, thank you because it once again illustrates that many of these could actually be easily explained by various classified,

[01:25:38] and now some of them are becoming declassified military incursions and actions. So there you go. I love the capitalism of it, right, Roswell? Well, they think they found a UFO and they're like, tourism. Let's go. Let's do America. You've got to love it. You've got to love it. The American approach. It works every time. It works every time. No, it's going to be quite a thing to learn and understand.

[01:26:05] But, yeah, no, if you go looking for something, your mind can certainly trick you into thinking that you've seen something. So if you go to Roswell and you're expecting to see an alien and a satellite flies overhead, well, there it is. There it is. And then pay $20 for the experience. Yeah, yeah, you won't pay up. That's right. Well, we just need to find another place to put one of those and buy the land and then see we found some things there. But, nevertheless, I just wanted to cover it.

[01:26:34] We will certainly get to it again, especially if there's some kind of announcement. But it just illustrates, again, that nothing's off the table here on Point of View. We've talked about everything from hantaviruses to religious liberty to what's happening in Colorado to, of course, the whole issue of UFOs. But, real quickly, and I might take another phone call, did want to mention that, first of all, Penne Dexter's commentary today on Americans and work. And I think it's a good, responsible idea about this as well.

[01:27:03] Laments that we certainly have to talk about the fact that if, indeed, we're going to be successful in the 21st century, I think some people need to develop a work ethic. And yet we've had this war on poverty, which in some respects provides entitlement. And that has undercut, I think, this idea of working, don't you think? I agree. I think that there are a lot of, you know, there are people that genuinely need help. There are people that genuinely do need help and support.

[01:27:32] And I'm of the firm belief that that is the role that the church is supposed to play. Christians should be helping people that need help. And the government, you know, thank you, FDR and all sorts of things, like, stepped in and has become kind of viewed as this indispensable help system for people that are in poverty.

[01:27:55] But what we're seeing, the real effects of welfare is that it does disincentivize having a work ethic. If you can get paid more being on welfare and being unemployed than you can, you know, going and getting a job, I think that that might be a little bit of a concern. We should be thinking about the real-life implications for welfare and those sorts of things, the policies that surround them, the rules and the applications and those questions that I don't know that we were necessarily asking

[01:28:25] when we didn't know that this was going to be something that was going to be permanent and last until now. I like the fact that here it also talks about, Benno talks about the quote from Barton Swain, where in some respects the work ethic is called racist. And then they have this quiet quitting phenomenon which arose during the COVID years.

[01:28:47] And more and more I walk by various office buildings that seem pretty empty because everybody's, quote, working at home. And you know what that's all about. And it just, I think, illustrates again that if we're going to be successful, and this brings us back to some of the commentaries I've written about Mike Rowe, and we want to bring manufacturing back, we have to have people that are willing to actually go into the trades to learn that.

[01:29:15] We can't just believe that only AI and robots are going to do all this work for us. There are need for individuals to actually do hard work. And it does seem to me that working hard is something that we are not seeing a lot of from the younger generation because they've grown up with a sense of entitlement, which gets into my commentary also that came out today on affordability and lifestyle. That is, that's the standard to which I've become accustomed.

[01:29:43] And I don't really want to talk about getting a starter job or a starter house. I want to arrive instantaneously of where I want to be for the rest of my life. You have to blame part of it on the one-two punch, though, of American colleges and government entitlements. There you go. It's because now I know that I can go get a degree in underwater basket weaving, and when that leads to no employment prospects, the government's just going to take care of me instead of going out and getting a degree or a trade in something like plumbing or welding

[01:30:11] that's going to help those manufacturing jobs. So I think part of the blame, too, is we're cranking out college graduates that don't have actual employable skills because their degree is in something that's not necessarily a booming job market, and instead we should be encouraging people to pursue actual employable jobs. I just mentioned, too, that the June issue of Outlook, which we have not mailed but will be mailing soon, is on artificial intelligence.

[01:30:41] One of the things we talk about is that some people say, well, AI is going to be doing so much. We need UBI, which stands for universal basic income. So let's just pay everybody, and then they have freedom to be basket weaving if they want to, and we don't have to do any meaningful work. And I think that undercuts the work ethic, too, don't you think? Oh, yeah. It definitely does. And we know that having a purpose, like feeling like you're filling your purpose, is very important.

[01:31:08] There are a lot of people walking around confused and lost, and they feel like they have no sense of purpose. Go do something. Like, let's set your mind to a task and an accomplishment, but when people start feeling like they're not needed, I mean, that's a bad thing for human beings to feel like you're not needed. And so this idea of, you know, universal basic income, I mean, people are going to need to get, if we do that,

[01:31:33] do you need to get a hobby or find some sort of sense of purpose because that is going to lead to disastrous events. It is. Well, first of all, I want to thank you both for being here. I want to thank Megan for engineering the program. Steve, thanks 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.

[01:32:01] 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.

[01:32:30] 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.

[01:32:54] 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.