Point of View October 24, 2024 – Hour 2 : Past Presidential Elections

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Across America, live, this is Point of View, your guest host for Point of View.

[00:00:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back. I'm Liberty McCarter hosting for Kirby Anderson today. I'm so glad that you're still with us. We have some important topics to cover. We're a week and a half away from Election Day. So let's talk about the election. And we are going to be joined right now by historian Richard Lim. He's a friend of Point of View. You've heard him many times on the Millennial Roundtable.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_05]: And if you're a listener of the Know Why podcast, which I host, you've heard him on there a couple of times as well. So, Richard, welcome back to Point of View.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Good to be here, Liberty.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_05]: So I do want to get into some questions about some recent polling, some predictions and then get your historical perspective on this election. But let me just remind listeners, if you have not cast your vote, you can go to pointofview.net and we have a free Election Central.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_05]: So scroll down, you'll see the Election Central banner you can click on with links to relevant articles, resources from Kirby, sample ballots, voter guides.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_05]: It's just a great free resource for you to take advantage of as you think carefully about how you're going to vote.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_05]: So, Richard, let's talk about some of the recent polling.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_05]: It's very close between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Earlier this week, 538 released data showing that Harris was polling ahead by less than two points.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_05]: And but with this model, Trump was still projected to win the electoral votes.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Another poll from The Wall Street Journal this week found Trump polling two percentage points ahead of Harris.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_05]: But then I saw another one out today saying that, you know, Harris is ahead a little bit electorally as well.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_05]: But obviously, these predictions have their limits and it really is going to come down to a few of those key states in terms of the electoral vote.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely. They're saying that this is the closest election in terms of polling in a very long time.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the last time I can remember a race this close in terms of polling was probably 2004.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_03]: So it's been about 20 years. And that was election that came down to one state.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_03]: So if you look at the real clear politics polling average, you see basically in the national average,

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Harris is up nationally by two tenths of a percentage point.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And these are the averages of multiple polls.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_03]: What really matters are the battleground states, of course, because this is not about the popular vote.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_03]: It's about the electoral vote.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you look at that and you look at the averages, Trump is leading in almost all of the swing states by very small margins.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Wisconsin is two tenths of a percentage point for Trump.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Michigan is two tenths of a percentage point.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_03]: We all know that these polls deal with margins of error.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_03]: So two tenths of a percentage point is effectively a tie.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_03]: It's pretty frightening that the election is just this close.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_03]: The important thing, though, that I think could really matter is that Harris is hemorrhaging support from black men,

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_03]: from Hispanics and from Rust Belt voters.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Those are normally the Democratic demographics.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_03]: They're part of the Democratic base.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And she's hoping to make that up in terms of the vote for women, from women.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_03]: The problem is, is that her margin, as far as it goes with women, is about the same as Biden's in 2020 and Hillary's in 2016.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_03]: So she really hasn't improved on that, despite the possibility of being the first woman president.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so fascinating.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think it really is going to come down to who gets out to vote.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_05]: I was reading another article today saying that, you know, Trump is very popular with young men,

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_05]: but that's a base that is less likely historically to actually get to the polls, to get out and vote.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_05]: And so who can motivate their voters more?

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_05]: So just as a reminder for people, the seven swing states we're looking at right now are Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_05]: And so this, as you said, this is historically close.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_05]: It's not the only extremely close election, though, that we've had recently.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_05]: And even I believe it was in 2016 and 2020, Pennsylvania came down to electorally less than one percentage point.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Am I right on that?

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Pennsylvania, that sounds about right.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Trump won the blue wall states by a very thin margin.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And then in 2020, depending on what you believe, they ended up in Biden's column by a larger margin.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_03]: But, yeah, 2016 was a very close election in terms of the margins in those battleground states.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_05]: So just a reminder, again, your vote matters.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_05]: You may not think it does.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_05]: We've talked recently on Point of View about how a lot of people are unmotivated to vote and are planning on staying home,

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_05]: partly because they don't think their vote counts.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_05]: But here we are in a very close election, and so your vote really could make a difference.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_05]: But before we move on and talk about some other things, we want to talk about the Electoral College in a little bit more detail.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_05]: But, Richard, from a historical perspective, you know, do you have any words of wisdom for people when it comes to these, you know,

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_05]: the polling and the predictions?

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_05]: Because, I mean, ultimately, you really don't know until election night, right?

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, absolutely.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, as we all remember, Hillary Clinton was leading in the polls significantly outside of the margin of error in the run-up to the 2016 election,

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_03]: literally the night before.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_03]: So, and we all know how that turned out.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And so anything is possible.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_03]: What I will say is when you say that every vote matters, it really does.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_03]: The 2000 election, 100 million votes were cast, as we all remember,

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_03]: or at least those of us who are old enough to remember, it came down to one state, Florida.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Six million votes cast in Florida.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Out of those six million, Bush won by less than 600 votes.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_03]: So really, out of 100 million, it was a 600-vote margin in one state.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_03]: At that point, the weather could have changed the outcome.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, every vote does count, and this is a vote that's going to be on, like, the smallest margins that are very possible in this race.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_05]: So, yes, you can make an impact with your vote.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_05]: But we hear this every election cycle, every presidential election, people start talking about the electoral college

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_05]: and whether they're kind of panicking a little bit leading up to the election or they don't like the results after.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_05]: We often hear a lot of controversy about the electoral college and saying that, you know, we don't want it anymore.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_05]: But I think this is something that we're about to have a break.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_05]: So, Richard, I want to get your take when we come back.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_05]: But let me just set the stage for a minute for listeners.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_05]: You may find it surprising that actually 63 percent of Americans are in favor of getting rid of the electoral college.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_05]: And so I think a lot of people, at least maybe the kind of people who listen to Point of View and constitutionally educated people,

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_05]: know that on the left you're more likely to have people who do not like the electoral college.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_05]: But even among Republicans, the people who favor it's a split about half and half right down the middle in terms of people who favor the electoral college and people who don't.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And a lot of people are saying the majority of Americans are saying it should just be decided.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_05]: The presidency should be decided based on popular voting.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_05]: So in the lead up to the election or maybe even after around the table on Thanksgiving with your family,

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_05]: you may encounter some people who are in that camp and say, well, I don't think we need the electoral college.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't think it matters.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_05]: I think we should get rid of it.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_05]: And you may be wondering, well, I don't really know how to respond to that because I think it's important, but I'm not sure why.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_05]: So we're going to dig into that more in the next segment as we talk with Richard.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_05]: He's going to explain the electoral college to us a little bit more.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a good refresher for everybody.

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_05]: So stay with us.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll be right back on Point of View.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_02]: This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Nearly every recent survey documents the need for Christians to get sound, biblically-based instruction on finances.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_00]: One way to maximize your resources for God's kingdom is to get a copy of Enduring Wealth, Being Rich in This World and the Next by Raymond Harris.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: He asks many questions throughout the book and begins with an important one.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you rich?

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_00]: You probably don't think that you are because you know others who are wealthier, but he reminds us that compared to most of the world's population, you are very rich.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: He also reminds us that the wealth that we have is a gift from God.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: One chapter reminds us that it is okay to be rich and provides biblical advice for the rich.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Solomon underscored the inability of wealth to provide security.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus warned of the folly of chasing temporary wealth.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_00]: A very significant chapter talks about developing economic engines.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_00]: In the future, we will need to develop other ways to fund missions and ministries apart from typical fundraising activities.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_00]: He is concerned that as non-profits and ministries proliferate, the clamor for kingdom dollars will intensify.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Developing a business project can finance God's kingdom work and is something he has not only thought about but has accomplished in many parts of the world.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_00]: He also has wise advice for business people who need to see themselves as stewards.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_00]: He even suggests that the new missionary will be a business person.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_00]: They will need to understand the difference between the world's economy and God's economy,

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and we all need to remember, as he says in one chapter, that life is hard and time is short.

[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I recommend Enduring Wealth because it will remind you of what is important and encourage you to use your wealth,

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_00]: your time, your talent, and your treasure for God's kingdom.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info slash Israel.

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Viewpoints.info slash Israel.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm Liberty McCarter sitting in for Kirby Anderson today,

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_05]: and right now I'm talking with Richard Lim.

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_05]: He's a friend of Point of View, has been on the program multiple times,

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_05]: and we're talking about the election.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_05]: And I mentioned right before the break that recent research from Pew Research Center

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_05]: shows that 63% of Americans are not a fan of the Electoral College.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_05]: They think it should be done away with.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_05]: But as we lead up to the election and we're discussing polling and the outcome,

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_05]: obviously it all centers on the Electoral College.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_05]: So, Richard, we're in class right now.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_05]: You're the history teacher.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Talk to us about why we have the Electoral College and why is it so important.

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_03]: So, as far as those polls that show that people oppose the Electoral College,

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I think one of the biggest reasons is that it takes an extra step of logic to understand

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_03]: why we have it in the first place.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_03]: It's very easy for someone to say the person with the most votes should always win the election.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, for the most part in American history, that's what happens.

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_03]: If a candidate gets significantly more votes than another candidate, let's say five percentage points or more,

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_03]: the Electoral College almost always guarantees that they will win the election.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_03]: In fact, it actually usually exaggerates the popular vote total.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, Ronald Reagan won almost 60% of the votes in 1984, the popular votes,

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_03]: but he won over 95% of the electoral votes.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_03]: The only time it really comes into play is if it's a close race.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And the reason why it matters is because the founding fathers wanted to protect the suffrage,

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_03]: the voting power of as many people as possible in America.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_03]: If we had no Electoral College, candidates would have every incentive to just scoop up as many votes as possible.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Where would they go to scoop up those votes?

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_03]: They'd go to the city.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_03]: They wouldn't spend any time in the countryside.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_03]: They wouldn't spend any time in, you know, the Midwest or the South.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_03]: They would essentially just go to the major population centers,

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_03]: and that would essentially reduce the voting power of people that live in rural areas.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_03]: So the founders wanted to make sure that there was a mechanism that forced the candidates to go to as many different types of states as possible.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And so that's why we have an Electoral College.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_03]: It's also – it ties into the fact that we do not have a democracy.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_03]: We have a republic.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_03]: We have a representative democracy.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And members of the Electoral College are our representatives in voting for the president.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you have a problem with that, it's the same principle as us voting for congressmen and senators to vote for a law.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, with all that said, the biggest reason, one of the best things about the Electoral College, I think,

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_03]: is that imagine if you had a popular vote, and there are many countries that you have a popular vote,

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_03]: and it's based on who gets the most votes nationwide.

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, imagine if the election was so close that there was a recount, that, you know, there was a recount that was mandated or demanded.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_03]: We had a recount in Florida in 2000.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, imagine if instead of a recount in one state, you have to recount the entire country, 120, 30 million votes.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, that is what could happen under a popular vote system.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_03]: If someone wants to contest the results of the election, they would have to recount nationwide the vote, and that would be a nightmare.

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_03]: It would make what happened in 2000 in Florida look like a picnic.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_03]: When you have a system like the Electoral College that preserves the sovereignty of the states and you need a recount,

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_03]: you could localize that recount to one state.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_03]: It's much more manageable.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_03]: In other countries, in Mexico, in I think it was 2006, there was a national recount.

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, a candidate in a close election has every incentive to challenge the results.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a recount.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_03]: It undermined the legitimacy of the winner.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what you get with a national popular vote, a recount involving over 100 million votes.

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And I ask anyone that wants to go popular vote, do you really want to see that?

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Do you want to see a national recount, which would be a complete disaster?

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Really good, Richard.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_05]: So if you know anybody who maybe is questioning the wisdom of the Electoral College,

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_05]: then you can go to pointofview.net later on and send them the link to this interview,

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_05]: because I think, Richard, you explained it so well.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_05]: But I want to get, before our interview wraps up in the next few minutes,

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_05]: I do want to get your perspective just on this, the history of presidential elections.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Obviously, this election has been called unprecedented, which is warranted.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_05]: There are good reasons for that.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_05]: But it's certainly not the first unique presidential election in American history.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_05]: So give us one or two examples of some other interesting elections of history that maybe will cast a few things today into perspective.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, there were a couple of times in American history that we had a tie or we had no one reach the majority of electoral votes that you need to win.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_03]: So the election, according to the Constitution, had to go to the House of Representatives.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_03]: So there are a few scenarios.

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_03]: The odds are relatively low.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_03]: But there are a few scenarios where this election could result in a tie, 269 to 269.

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_03]: No one gets the 270 electoral votes.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And it has to go to the House of Representatives.

[00:17:02] [SPEAKER_03]: That would be fascinating if that ever happened.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_03]: But it did happen twice, once in 1800 and once in 1824.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Very fascinating moments in American history.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_03]: There was an election in 1876 that was so close that – and there were outstanding states that both parties were contesting.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And literally, Congress had to create a brand-new process outside of the Constitution to solve the election.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_03]: They had to create a special commission.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_03]: The final score in that election ended up being 185 to 184.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Rutherford Behaves won that election by one electoral vote.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_03]: That was a pretty crazy election.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_03]: They didn't know the winner for sure until a couple days before inauguration.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_03]: I mentioned 2000, where the election came to just a handful of votes, a few hundred votes in Florida.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, we've gone through a lot.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And we've gotten through it.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And we've gone through elections during wartime.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Abraham Lincoln, FDR, ran for president during wartime.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_03]: So we've gone through a lot.

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I believe we'll get through this.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, hard-fought, controversial, contested elections are not anything new.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, important to remember.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_05]: And I love just learning more.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_05]: I feel like I learn more about America's history from you every time we talk.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_05]: So speaking of which, I definitely encourage you listeners to check out Richard's podcast.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_05]: He's the host of This American President and also the author of an upcoming book on George Washington called Refusing a Crown.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_05]: Richard, tell us a little bit more about that project and where it is and other resources that people may want to take advantage of that you have.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_03]: I wrote a book about George Washington and his significance in history because he stepped down from power.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And he set the example that we all wish our current politicians would follow.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_03]: He could have stayed in power for the rest of his life.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And unlike so many of our politicians that, you know, stay in power until their 80s and 90s, he was willing to leave.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was something that really stunned the whole world.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And I covered just how it did that.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And the book will be called, at least the preliminary title is Refusing a Crown.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_03]: You can check out information about it on my website, richardmlim.com.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Last name is spelled L-I-M.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And Liberty, I know you've been very supportive of this effort, so I appreciate what you've done just in terms of helping me out.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But, yeah, my hope is to get it published.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_03]: I have a manuscript written.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_03]: I have a friend who's a historian looking at it right now.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_03]: But I hope to tell this story, especially in time for America's 250th anniversary in 2026.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I look forward to reading it when it's published.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_05]: I know it will be, and it'll be a wonderful resource for people to learn more about our just really exceptional history.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Richard, before we wrap up our interview, though, any final words of wisdom or thoughts that you'd like to share with the listeners of Point of View regarding our election season right now?

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I guess all I would say is that, you know, it really matters.

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Elections are won based on enthusiasm and getting out the vote.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think it is important if you have a friend that is, should I vote, should I not vote, how should I vote, I don't know what to vote.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_03]: And remind them, especially if they're a fellow believer, just about what's at stake and, you know, that it's important that we should be stewards of what is happening in this world right now.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_03]: This world is temporary, and yet we're still called to steward it well and to vote for the side that is all about biblical principles.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Even though both sides are flawed and imperfect, the fact of the matter is that they're not equally flawed.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_03]: They're not equally imperfect, and you have to vote for the side that aligns more with Scripture, and that's what I would say.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Very good words of wisdom, Richard.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_05]: And I would remind listeners, too, there are many state and local elections that are very important.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_05]: I know we've encouraged you about this on Point of View before, but definitely don't forget about those.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Go to pointofview.net.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Again, you can check out the free resource, our election central, if you haven't voted yet, and you can find voter guides and sample ballots to find out what all races you'll be eligible to vote for.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_05]: We're about to go to a break, but I'll be covering some important news of the day when we come back, so stay with Point of View.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll be back in just a few minutes.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_02]: There is an old military saying, if you don't have communications, you don't have anything.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Good information is the key to success, not only for those in the military, but for all of us.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_02]: You can't take positive, productive, and helpful action if you don't have good information.

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[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Point of View will continue after this.

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[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_02]: The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And now, here again, your guest host for Point of View.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back to Point of View.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm Liberty McCarter filling in today for Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_05]: We've had a great show so far.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much for being with me today and listening.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_05]: If you missed our couple of interviews that we've done today, go to PointofView.net.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_05]: You can find those.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_05]: I talked with Dr. Brad East on his recent book about the church.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_05]: That's just a great resource for Christians in the first hour.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_05]: So you'll want to check that out.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_05]: And we just wrapped up an interview with Richard Lim, a friend of Point of View, on his historical perspective on some of the events that are happening in the election cycle right now.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_05]: For the next few minutes, though, I do want to turn to an important topic.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_05]: It is a bit heavier.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I want to talk about one of the practical implications of what is happening at the border right now.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_05]: And that is the increase in human trafficking happening right under our noses.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_05]: If you haven't, I would definitely check out the free press.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_05]: It is an online news resource.

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_05]: It is not a Christian organization, but they are liberal in the traditional sense, dedicated to good journalism.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_05]: This is an investigative report that came out recently this month by reporter Madeline Rowley.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_05]: It's really important.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_05]: In fact, a lot of it was based, a lot of the investigations and interviews were done right here in Dallas, Texas, where we record.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_05]: So the title of the article that I'm referring to, in case you want to look it up for yourself and read the whole thing online,

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_05]: it's called Inside America's Fastest Growing Criminal Enterprise Sex Trafficking.

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_05]: And if you don't think that it's a big issue in the United States, or maybe you haven't heard about it on the news very much,

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_05]: let me assure you, it is a big problem.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_05]: And in fact, it has increased substantially in recent years.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_05]: So we're going to be talking about some of the reasons why.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_05]: One of the things that is happening with trafficking in the modern era is that there are multiple ads on social media platforms

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_05]: that people, including kids, use every single day, places like TikTok and Facebook.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_05]: And so one of the things that the article does is it interviews somebody who runs a nonprofit organization called Shepard's Watch.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, she's given the name Lisa in the article because she didn't want to use her real name.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_05]: But this woman, Lisa, runs Shepard's Watch because since many local law enforcement agencies are so understaffed,

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_05]: especially with regard to this issue, organizations like Shepard's Watch will actually contract with people.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_05]: They will do their own investigations and they will find victims, often minors,

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_05]: who are migrants, unaccompanied minors who have come across the border.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_05]: And then they have been kidnapped by gangs and people who traffic them.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And this is happening in cities all over America.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_05]: So they do these investigations, they find these victims, and then they report them to local law enforcement,

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_05]: who will then hopefully follow up and often does follow up with more investigations and arrests when possible.

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_05]: But Lisa is quoted in this article as saying that every single week,

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_05]: the small nonprofit tracks over 12,000 ads for women in Houston,

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_05]: 2,600 ads every week in San Antonio, 3,500 in Austin, and 14,000 in Dallas.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's just on social media.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_05]: So again, this is something that is happening right under our noses.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_05]: It's accessible to anybody who wanted to find it.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_05]: And so here's what's crazy, though, or maybe not so crazy, not so surprising,

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_05]: is just the increase in this problem in the last three years.

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_05]: So as we know, the Biden administration severely loosened up restrictions at the border.

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_05]: So with that, since 2021, 8 million migrants have crossed the southern border since then.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's where this problem is primarily stemming from.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_05]: Nearly all of the trafficking rings that they are identifying when they investigate this issue

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_05]: and all of the victims that they are able to identify and rescue are migrant girls,

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_05]: minor children who are being brought across the border.

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_05]: So just a few more numbers to get an idea of how big of a problem this is.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_05]: As you can find, a reporter here found this on a federal website,

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_05]: thanks to FOIA Freedom of Information Act.

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_05]: During the four years of the Trump administration, the office that deals with this thing,

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_05]: the Office of Trafficking Persons, issued an average of 625 letters per year.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And this was to migrant minors who had been trafficked, but they managed to rescue them,

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_05]: to break them free.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's the statistic of how many of these people they were rescuing under the Trump administration.

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_05]: In 2021, that number jumped to 1,143 per year.

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_05]: It has jumped the next year.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_05]: And so the latest year that we have, it jumped up to over 2,000 letters through the last year

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_05]: that this agency is issuing for migrant girls who have been rescued from trafficking.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_05]: But that, again, those are the people who have been rescued, not the ones who are still held by traffickers,

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_05]: the ones that are still being looked for by nonprofits like Shepard's Watch,

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_05]: which the lady featured in this investigative report from the free press.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_05]: So this is an issue that is severely increasing under the current administration and under the current policies.

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_05]: So how is this happening, though?

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Because obviously nobody wants this to happen.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Nobody is saying, you know, yes, this can happen.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_05]: It's obviously not supposed to happen.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_05]: So where is the breakdown in responsibility that is allowing this to happen?

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_05]: So, well, obviously, when you've got, you know, more people coming in with less vetting,

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_05]: it's an issue of numbers and manpower.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_05]: In order to get the vetting done, you're going to have more criminals crossing the border.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_05]: But it really, a lot of the responsibility lies with federal agencies.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_05]: For instance, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the ORR, has been negligent in vetting sponsors.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_05]: So what happens is when you have an unaccompanied minor that crosses the border,

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_05]: they are often placed in holding facilities that are run by nonprofit organizations who then work with the federal government.

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_05]: And ideally what is supposed to happen is that that unaccompanied minor will have a sponsor in the United States,

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_05]: ideally a relative is often who it is, some connection that they are traveling to,

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_05]: that is supposed to then pick them up from the holding facility and who they can go with.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Now, is anybody just allowed to show up and take these kids out of the holding facilities?

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_05]: No, that they're not supposed to.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_05]: But in reality, that's what's happening because a lot of the vetting processes that are supposed to happen

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_05]: to verify the identity of these supposed sponsors before they get kids out of the holding facilities,

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_05]: that's just not happening.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_05]: And so they are having forms that are not being checked, fingerprinting processes that are supposed to happen,

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_05]: that are not happening, which is allowing a lot of gangs to then get unaccompanied minors

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_05]: that have crossed the border and are being held in these facilities and then to take them.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And obviously then that's how they get caught up in these trafficking rings.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_05]: So this is something that Republicans have focused on a little bit more leading up to the election

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_05]: because obviously the border crisis is one of the big issues that voters care about.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_05]: But it has not been that way for a long time.

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_05]: For instance, you are going to see more interest in an important topic like this leading up to an election

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_05]: because it's how people are going to get their votes.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think that this story is a reminder that the federal policies that are supported or put in place

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_05]: by the person sitting in the Oval Office, they do have implications.

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_05]: And we need to keep that in mind.

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_05]: But regardless of who wins the election, this is an issue that needs to stay top of mind for us,

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_05]: top of mind for Christians, because it's easy for a lot of politicians to talk about this leading up to the election.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_05]: And then once they win, not do anything about it.

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's what we can't allow to happen, because there are certain policies that could be put in place,

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_05]: border reform and, you know, stopping the massive flow of illegal immigration.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_05]: That would definitely help.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_05]: But it's not going to completely solve the problem overnight.

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_05]: You're going to need more targeted reform for that.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_05]: So I just I know this is a heavy topic.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_05]: I did want to bring it to your attention, though, because it is something that as Christians,

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_05]: we need to be aware of before the election.

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_05]: We need to be aware of it after.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_05]: This is we often point of view.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_05]: We want to encourage you to make a difference by contacting your representatives, contacting your senators.

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_05]: And this is an issue that after the election, you can contact your senators and say this matters to me

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_05]: because there is one senator.

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_05]: He's 91 years old.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_05]: Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_05]: And as this report from the free press details, this has been an issue that has been close to his heart that he has worked on for years.

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Back when the numbers were much, much smaller, but it was still a problem that needed to be addressed.

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_05]: So something to be aware of.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_05]: You can look up the free press online.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_05]: If you want to learn more about this issue, I encourage you to take action.

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Contact your representatives who regardless of the election outcome, this is something that Christians need to be vocal about

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_05]: in advocating for reform when it comes to border policy, because this is one of the effects of what happens when you are not paying attention.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_05]: But we have another segment coming up, and we're going to switch to something a little lighter but more important,

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_05]: elite college students who can't read books.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_05]: We'll talk more about that when we come back from this break.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back to Point of View.

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_05]: For the final segment, thank you for being with me today.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm Liberty McCarter sitting in for Kirby Anderson.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Don't forget to tune in tomorrow to the Weekend Edition.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Kirby will be back for the Weekend Edition Roundtable, and it's always a great discussion.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_05]: But before I leave you, I did want to mention one more article.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_05]: It's a little bit of a lighter subject than the last thing we discussed, but it is still important.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_05]: This is from The Atlantic, the November 2024 issue, The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Subtitled, To Read a Book in College, It Helps to Have Read a Book in High School.

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_05]: So I wanted to talk about this because it does have roots in something that I think you as Point of View listeners are very familiar with

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_05]: and have heard talked about in the past, Common Core and some other educational changes that have happened in recent decades in the public school system.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Also relevant in our digital age as we talk about attention spans and just in general changing values in our culture and how we view education.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_05]: So I want to bring it back to how we should view education as Christians.

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_05]: And just a little background about me.

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_05]: I am a homeschool mom.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Before that, I was a teacher for a couple of years at a homeschool hybrid school where I taught high school literature and middle school literature and English.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Plus, I just love to read.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_05]: So this is kind of a fun topic for me.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_05]: But it's interesting.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_05]: The article, which you can find a summary of the article at pointofview.net, it opens up with an interview with Nicholas Dame,

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_05]: who has taught literature humanities at Columbia University since 1998.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_05]: But he began to be puzzled because he realized that his students in recent years were having such a hard time with the assigned reading in a literature course.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_05]: So this shouldn't have been a surprise, multiple books being assigned.

[00:35:55] [SPEAKER_05]: But he really dawned that it dawned on him what was happening one day when he had a student come into his office to talk about the struggle.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And she said she had never been required to read an entire book in either middle school or high school.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_05]: She had been assigned some excerpts of things, some poetry, some news articles, but had never been assigned to read a single book from cover to cover.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_05]: And so he the Professor Dame said his jaw dropped.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_05]: But it made sense what he was seeing in his classroom at an Ivy League institution that kids who were being admitted, young adults who are being admitted to Ivy League institutions.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_05]: So obviously they've got good GPAs and other things going for them.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_05]: But they had never been required to read before, to read a book.

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_05]: And then as the article details, it's a lengthy article.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_05]: There are multiple professors and educational experts cited in here that they're all seeing the same things.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_05]: So one another one was quoted saying that at the University of Virginia in a literature course,

[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_05]: students were shutting down when confronted with ideas they didn't understand, less able to persist through a challenging text than they used to be.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_05]: From Georgetown's English department, a professor said that his students have trouble staying focused even on a sonnet,

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_05]: which I know that our producer, Steve, he's going to know that what a sonnet is.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_05]: But in case you didn't know, that's 14 lines of poetry.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_05]: So then again, that does just kind of incriminate us in terms of our attention spans today with phones and screens and everything,

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_05]: because if we can't even stay focused and read 14 lines of poetry without getting distracted,

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_05]: then how do you expect somebody to sit through an entire book?

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_05]: But that's just the attention span is not the only thing.

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Really, this goes back to some changes in education and how we approach education in our schools.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And so there are a couple of culprits here.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_05]: No Child Left Behind and Common Core both emphasized informational text over study of literature and standardized tests.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think if you have been involved with the public school system at all,

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_05]: I've got friends who are teachers.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_05]: They're amazing teachers.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_05]: They do amazing work.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_05]: But the testing is oftentimes so stressful because you can't.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Here's a great quote from one of the professors here from schools in New York.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_05]: There's no testing skill that can be related to can you sit down and read Tolstoy?

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_05]: So and this is something that actually if you have been with Point of View for a long time and if you've been a supporter,

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_05]: you may remember an article from about three years ago in Outlook magazine,

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_05]: because if you do donate monthly to Point of View, you will receive our monthly Outlook magazine.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_05]: But we actually did an issue on Common Core.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_05]: And one of the things and I had never really dived into it before, but I was investigating it for this article.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And one of the things that I was reading about is how with Common Core they pivoted from teaching literature kind of as its own subject.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_05]: So it's a project just for the sake of reading and discussing multiple books to promoting practical skills that you could glean through reading.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_05]: And if you remember taking standardized tests at ACT, the SAT, you remember, okay, here's a passage and I've got to analyze it.

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_05]: But that's what they began doing in the classroom is just focusing on short excerpts of text and teaching kids how to analyze it so that they could be prepared for the standardized test.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_05]: Did that improve scores?

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Did that improve academic achievement?

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_05]: No, it hasn't.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_05]: And even though Common Core is still utilized in some form or fashion in 41 states, it has been widely acknowledged that in general it's a failure and is not producing good results.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_05]: It is not very popular among Republicans or Democrats.

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_05]: And so and this is now we're seeing in real time the effect of that.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_05]: And so the reason I wanted to bring it up, though, is because I think this is a symptom of a broader issue.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Common Core is just one more thing in a line of deviations from a true understanding of education's purpose, because in a progressive view, and I think that has been adopted widely, even among many Christians and Christian schools and even homeschools.

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_05]: The purpose of education is to prepare you to be a productive member of society, to prepare you to have a job.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_05]: And so it shouldn't really be surprising to us that you kind of have a factory set up.

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_05]: This is where we've got public schools set up the way we do today so that parents could go to work and then their kids went to school and then they learned how to be good workers.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_05]: But when we understand, have a better grasp of education as a means to know creation better and to therefore know our creator better, then it really does change our perspective.

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_05]: And so I you know, we talk about education a lot on point of view.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_05]: Point of view was a champion of homeschooling back before it was popular when most people hadn't even heard of what homeschooling was.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_05]: I'm a graduate of homeschooling, so I'm a beneficiary of that movement.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_05]: And like I said, I'm homeschooling my kids today.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_05]: But I have seen this even among many Christians of this very pragmatic view when it comes to subjects like literature.

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_05]: If you don't really need to read the whole book, you can read an excerpt and get the gist and get the practical skills you need to then go on and get a job.

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_05]: But we are really missing a big part of our humanity and a big opportunity to understand our fellow human beings better and understand our creator better when we have that narrow view of education.

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_05]: So if you are pulling your kids out of public school, you consider homeschooling or Christian private school, then that's great.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_05]: But make sure that you keep a true definition of education in mind and that you embrace education for the beautiful thing that it is, not just for what it might be able to get you down the road.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_05]: But we're out of time.

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_05]: That's my soapbox today that I'm going to end on is education and literature.

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_05]: You should go and read a book because you'll be a little bit countercultural if you do that.

[00:42:36] [SPEAKER_05]: But I just want to thank Steve and Megan today for helping with the show.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_05]: I want to thank you for listening and just a reminder of a few of our resources that you can find at pointofview.net, the Electron Central.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_05]: It is such a good resource of multiple things you can find for free, voter guides, sample ballots.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_05]: So we've talked a lot about that today.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Get out and vote.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_05]: You can also listen to the show, read any articles that you've missed.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_05]: So, again, thank you for being with me today as I host Point of View.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_05]: I look forward to being back with you again and be sure to tune in tomorrow for the weekend edition.

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_02]: It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_02]: They say men can be women and women men.

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_02]: People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You feel like giving up.

[00:43:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But we can't.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_02]: We shouldn't.

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_02]: We must not.

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_02]: As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II,

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_02]: never give in.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Never give in.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Never, never, never.

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Never yield to force.

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what we say to you today.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_02]: This is not a time to give in,

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_02]: but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_02]: We can't do it alone,

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_02]: but together, with God's help,

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_02]: we will overcome the darkness.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_02]: or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_02]: pointofview.net

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_02]: and 800-347-5151.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.