Point of View September 4, 2026 – Hour 2: Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View. Kirby Anderson. It's a second hour today and I thought we'd spend just a little bit of time talking about the murder trial of Lindsey Clancy.

[00:00:25] I'm glad we postponed it long enough because now the judge finally has declared a mistrial after the state's top court simply denied the defense appeal. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict in the murder trial of Lindsey Clancy and we'll talk about that, killing the three of her children which she has admitted to. This gets us into what happened in the court, the issue of depression, the reaction of the women outside the trial.

[00:00:54] I figured this would be a good one for both Dr. Merrill Matthews and Aaron Smith in this particular area. So Aaron, you can pick any one of those three or even some of the others, but we have wondered what would happen. And here you have a mistrial and I guess maybe you can give us some legal background. What's next? I guess a lot of people are wondering how this happened and what is going to be the next step. Yeah, so it's interesting. So a mistrial, right, it happened because the jury couldn't come to a decision.

[00:01:24] The judge finally just declared like there's been a mistrial, right? The jury can't come to the unanimous verdict that it has to. You know, most of the media is reporting that it was one person that was holding out. And so that resulted in what's called a hung jury, which means that they just they can't they can't figure it out. They cannot come to common consensus. I have not seen a jury be told that many times to keep going and keep deliberating. That was that's unusual.

[00:01:52] That was unusual that the judge wouldn't declare mistrial after like day three, even of them sitting there talking about it and rehashing things and asking multiple questions. So what will end up happening is either the prosecution will file a new a new trial. They'll they'll start again and do it over again. Or sometimes you'll see the prosecutors will go to the defense attorneys and say, OK, let's cut a deal because the defense attorney is sitting there thinking if I can do it once, I can do it again.

[00:02:22] Right. That's the that's the thought in most defense attorneys minds. And I think one of the things they'll do is they'll go and talk to the jurors. Right. And find out where the right. What they found is the most persuasive arguments was the one hold out one who did not did not agree, did not or did think she was had was justified in a mental defense. Or was that person the one that did everybody else think she was justified?

[00:02:46] And so only one person wanted to go forward and be criminally convicted. And I guess so figure out, number one, where the jury was, what the hang up was. And if it was one person, then whoever side that person's on, they might say, well, we still got a chance. But right. Right. Now, it'll be interesting with them interviewing jurors and asking, like, what what was going on? You know, what what were you thinking? And of course, the jurors don't have to answer their questions, but but they certainly can.

[00:03:15] Yeah. Yeah. So, again, one of the questions was premeditation. And the article I've given you from Jim Garrity, who, of course, writes for National Review is look. He says, I'm not a psychiatrist. But I figure even if you're dealing with hallucinations, delusions, mania to then be Googling to find out how much time your husband will be out of the house. Googling all sorts of other elements that sure sound more like premeditation are the case.

[00:03:40] So that's another one of those questions that people had in the back of their minds, because the argument, especially from the people outside of the trial, was we need to stand with women. Because after all, they are dealing with whatever it is, postpartum psychosis, hallucinations, delusions, mania, whatever it might be. Some of the things we just talked about a minute ago. Well, yes. And my wife and I were discussing this last night as to which way the jury might have gone.

[00:04:05] And the last trial that I was a juror on, which was several years ago, there's 12 people on the jury. It was a civil trial. So only 10 had to find for the plaintiff. And they did. And so there's two of us who disagreed. But it was interesting because there was a mental health component in this one. And the person who had had he had died, he had been asked from an insurance company whether or not he had had any mental health issues.

[00:04:34] Two months before that, he had spent two weeks in the hospital in the mental health wing of a hospital. And they got a doctor up there or psychiatrist who said, yeah, if you can have mental health issues and not believe that you have mental health issues. And some of that, some of the things they did were persuasive to the jury. So they all found for that side, I disagreed. But at any rate, it was interesting because mental health played a major role in this.

[00:05:02] And you saw some disagreement among the jurors as we discussed it. Yes. Well, I want to talk about some of the things outside the trial. But I thought it was interesting because you don't get too far into where he mentions, you know, Luigi Mangione. Of course, then he, for those of us who are older, remember when Ted Bundy, a serial killer, received hundreds of love letters.

[00:05:24] And, of course, even the people right now that are trying to argue that Tyler Robinson did not kill Charlie Kirk. And that brings us to, of course, he mentions the last page, somebody you've been writing about, Candace Owens. And there are just some things going on that you say, okay, we could have maybe some slight disagreements here. But it just illustrates again the people outside the court had just all sorts of perspectives.

[00:05:52] And some of the women are convinced that, if nothing else, it was the husband that killed the three children. So you just can't live in this world where people can't at least deal with the facts. Right, right. I mean, she's already admitted to doing it. There's no like, oh, well, what? You know, they're not proving that she did or didn't do it. They're trying to prove that she wasn't, you know, insane at the time that she did and that she killed her three children. So that's the question.

[00:06:21] And people, you know, speculating, well, was it the husband? I mean, I just, the obsession. And this is, you know, something that the article brings up, the obsession with, you know, true crime and following trials around and the high profile nature of these horrible crimes that people are committing. I mean, horrendous things. Multiple people losing their lives. Right. You're talking about Ted Bundy. Right. Killing young women. And the question, I mean, you want to protect jurors. This is what I keep thinking.

[00:06:51] You want to protect the jurors so that they can make the decision that the law requires. But you know that some of those jurors were sitting there. They're not unaware of what's happening outside the courthouse or inside the courtroom. They are identifiable people. And if they make a decision that these hordes of people that have proven to be violent in the past, people that care a lot about this. These issues. Right.

[00:07:16] Are you going to sit there and I hope and pray that they are men and women of courage that can make, you know, the decision the law requires? But at the end of the day, they are human beings that are susceptible to the public pressure. And I think if I remember right from the Jim Garrity argument, some of this depends upon state law. Right. And Massachusetts has a provision in there in which if you it's a it's you have to prove that they were saying you have to prove that they were in Massachusetts.

[00:07:43] The prosecution has to prove that they were saying where in most cases, in other cases, you have to you give the benefit of the doubt to the person who claims to be insane. Well, I want to come back to that because I know this is reaching way into history, but we had another individual try to assassinate the president of the United States, John Hinckley. And we said he was not guilty for reason of insanity. And my argument back in the early 1980s was, can't we have something that says guilty but insane?

[00:08:12] But this idea that you're not guilty because you were insane is, I think, an interesting issue. And again, in this article, it gives you some pretty disturbing quotes from an Atlantic article about the women obsessed with Lindsay Clancy. And even mentioned Susan Smith for our listeners out there in South Carolina who drowned her three children. And also the number I was unaware of, the number of women that kill their children every year. And that was in this article as well.

[00:08:41] We'll come back and talk about that and then move on to some other issues right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Colonist Kyle Smith says that the left have a hamburger problem. Let me explain.

[00:09:11] He borrows the phrase from Josh Barrow, who coined the phrase to explain why progressives and Democrats seem to be losing so much. He writes, Democrats' problems isn't that they're on the wrong side of policy issues. It's that they're too ready to bother too many ordinary people about too many of their personal preferences, all the way down to the hamburgers they eat. John Stuart Mill referred to British conservatives as the stupidest party. Kyle Smith says that today the Democrats are the annoying party.

[00:09:39] Not only do they criticize eating hamburgers, but they also complain about every perceived social ill and promote lots of irrational ideas. In just over two decades, perceptions have changed. Back in the 1990s, Republican leaders were often accused of intruding into people's lives because they were promoting family values and telling kids to just say no to drugs.

[00:10:01] Today, Americans who want to be left alone are more likely to side with the Republican Party rather than the Democratic Party that seems filled with political busybodies. Will this perception change? Jonah Goldberg goes on to say that he doesn't think so because the left are the aggressors in the culture war that will never end. The moment that the left wins a victory, they immediately push forward to the next fight, which is even more extreme.

[00:10:26] The day after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, progressives started pushing transgender issues. So during this election season, many candidates on the left will lose because they have a hamburger problem. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:55] That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, we'll talk about the trial for a few more minutes and then move on to some other issues. Aaron Smith as well as Merrill Matthews. And first of all, I did mention if you read through this article, this is shocking to me, about 250 mothers murder their children every year. I had no idea the number was that high.

[00:11:22] Of course, we have 85 million mothers in America, so it still is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent. But still, you do occasionally hear about these stories, and they get certainly front-page news. But I thought for just a minute we might at least have a question about the kinds of charges that we bring, because I'll use John Hinckley trying to assassinate, certainly, Ronald Reagan, and found not guilty for reason of insanity.

[00:11:52] It seems to me much fairer to say guilty but insane, and we have those kinds of cases. We have a case here in Dallas where this police officer comes to what she thinks is her apartment, but turns out she's one floor off and thinks somebody's in her apartment, shoots, and she's then convicted of murder. Now, I always think that murder involves some kind of premeditation, even in the Old Testament.

[00:12:19] Now this gets into my little booklet on a biblical point of view on criminal justice. The Bible talks about lying and weight, premeditation, those kinds of things. And when we throw around terms like murder, which I think involves premeditation or not guilty for reason of insanity, I think we don't necessarily speak honestly about those issues. So I thought we'd ask one of our lawyers here about that,

[00:12:43] because these are some very troubling issues that surface from time to time in some of these high-profile cases. Right. I mean, there are people that, right, you think about what does premeditation mean? Well, it can happen, you know, premeditation can't happen in a split second. That's true. It doesn't have to be lying and weight, but it certainly can be lying and weight. It can be making a detailed plan, those sorts of things. And so we've kind of delineated in our criminal code, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, right? You've got manslaughter.

[00:13:14] You've got even different degrees of manslaughter in some instances. And then you have the not guilty by reason of insanity. Insanity being an interesting legal term because lots of people, you think, when you hear the word insane, you think of, you know, you have your own thought that comes to mind. This is what I think of when I think of an insane person.

[00:13:36] But really, in most instances, the legal question of insanity is, did that person understand that what they were doing is wrong? Did they understand the difference between, right, were they in their right mind to understand there are consequences to my actions? And not the consequences that this is going to be the outcome, but is this right or is this wrong? Right.

[00:13:59] Like, I can look at Dr. Matthews, and if I think for some reason he is Napoleon Bonaparte and he is trying to kill me, and I defend myself, and I kill Dr. Matthews because I thought he was Napoleon Bonaparte and he was trying to kill me, I'm guilty of, you know, I murdered him. I killed him. But I didn't know that I wasn't defending myself. I didn't know that he wasn't Napoleon.

[00:14:26] And so that would be, you know, a very dramatic example of not being in your right mind, being insane, but being still right guilty. And, you know, we also have, just in our judicial system, there are times when the prosecutors and the judge know the person's guilty. Yes. But because you can't bring certain evidence up because of maybe it was obtained illegally or didn't get the Miranda rights just right or something of that nature. It wasn't a warrant was changed or something like that.

[00:14:55] You've got this person, you know the person's guilty, but you can't convict him because of rules of evidence and other things that's allowed in. On the other hand, we occasionally have times where we convict somebody of being guilty and that person wasn't. And the Innocence Project would go through and sometimes finds DNA and so forth. And I wrote about this back when there was this Believe the Woman thing with Justice Kavanaugh's hearing. You believe the woman.

[00:15:21] And I went through the Innocence Project and found cases where men were convicted and later exonerated. And it was clear that either the person lied or something of that nature who witnessed it. And the person's cleared. And you think, gee, you know, it's just you want to have the right outcome, but you can't always get it either because of things we don't know or because of things we do know, but it won't be allowed. Yeah. Well, I just wanted you at least hear some of the conversation. Any of the final comments?

[00:15:49] Because, again, this is going to be in the news. I honestly thought when I suggested this that eventually, after all these days, the jury would finally come to some conclusion. But we are certainly dealing with this, I think, in the future because maybe they'll work out a deal. We'll see if they do. If not, we'll be talking about this again here on Point of View.

[00:16:11] And look at what the – if they interview the jurors, look at what they said and what they thought was the most persuasive argument either for or con, Lindsay. Yeah. And I think that this is a good – if anything, it has brought to the forefront the danger of, you know, one, just the crazy conspiracy theories of people saying the husband did it. But also, we should be careful with, you know, things like empathy can go too far, right?

[00:16:40] These women, they do feel for Lindsay Clancy. I mean, her three children have died. She killed them. And we know that that's true. And, yes, we should be empathetic toward our fellow man. Absolutely. But at what point do you say, okay, justice is rooted in truth and in what is right and what is wrong? People have different – are coming to the table with different definitions of what is right and what is wrong.

[00:17:07] The truth is that three children lost their lives. And so what is just in this instance? Well, she did kill them. So then the question is, you know, we have to go through this logically. The law demands that we look at things – let justice be blind and that we look at the facts as they exist. So it's a good reminder that empathy could be a really, really dangerous thing if not used carefully. I think I'd also add we weren't sitting in the courtroom. Right.

[00:17:36] And an awful lot of people weigh in with their opinion who haven't heard the testimony from either side and just make an opinion about something when they haven't even – when they haven't looked at it. So I think it's a good time to think about I need to make sure I have all the facts before I weigh in on a strong opinion. I may have a feeling one way or the other, but before I jump in there and am taking a strong position, make sure you've got the facts from both sides.

[00:18:06] And, you know, Kirby, we see this on things we write and other times people who come up and say, you said such and such, and I look at it, actually, I didn't say that at all. And you're criticizing me or you've got something wrong on this that I said I didn't say that. You got the number wrong. Make sure you know what happened and before you weigh in with a serious opinion. And, again, a couple of books have been written about toxic empathy.

[00:18:30] And, again, I even did a commentary recently in which I said empathy is a virtue, but if it's taken to its extreme, it becomes a vice. So good point there as well. Just before we take a break, I'm only just going to mention it. A lot of times people say we don't talk about Iran. And, of course, last week we did it all the time because we had two different guests, both of whom had grown up. These are different programs in Iran. Both became Christians and both are talking about what's going on there.

[00:18:56] But I did post a piece here just to remind us that just the other day some very significant strikes by Iran against the United States, killing at least 13 troops. And so, again, sometimes we don't talk about the Iran war very often. But U.S. was reported 18 military personnel that have been killed, more than 750 wounded in this war in Iran. Even though we don't talk about it every day, it's worth a mention. And even more killed in Iran.

[00:19:24] In some cases, apparently those were innocent people who were just either the bomb was off target a little bit or we thought we had the right building or the building may have changed and something else was going on there than what we thought. So there have been a lot of lives lost in this. Civilian death tolls in that chart piece too. So I just thought I would mention that. And, of course, we have talked about that. We'll continue to do so. And, of course, when we talk about the midterms, we do wonder how much that's going to weigh in on this as well.

[00:19:53] The Strait of Hormuz, we aren't moving all the oil through that we were before the war, but we're moving a lot through. And that's pretty significant. So we will come back to that as well. But I did want to, when we come back from the break, spend just a little bit of time talking about this trade war between America and Canada. I just knew that Dr. Merrill Matthews would want to talk about this. He has probably written more on the issue of tariffs.

[00:20:19] And I thought this was a good piece because, on the one hand, Victor Davis Hanson said, this is crazy. But, on the other hand, at least acknowledges why the president has made this such an issue. So Victor Davis Hanson calls it the elephant in the Canadian room. So we'll get into the Canadian-American trade war, the asymmetry and all that. And then, of course, one of the things we always like to do is mention Pentatextor's commentary.

[00:20:44] And this one is pretty interesting as well about individuals that try to sound smart but maybe aren't. And so that is one of her commentaries, which we have posted there as well. So you can find that commentary as well. My commentary today is what I call the hamburger problem. And you might go, what are we talking about there? Well, it's a phrase that was used a while back and say, Democrats, they want to make sure they can run every part of your life, even tell you what kind of hamburger to buy. And so we'll get into that piece as well if we have some time. But let's take a break.

[00:21:15] Just been waiting to hear Merrill Matthews talk about the trade war between the United States and Canada. That's coming up right after this. I'm sure that you've noticed that social media is now filled with information generated by AI.

[00:21:39] Dramatic descriptions of politicians and music stars supposedly making statements about a current issue, leaning into the microphone, looking into the lens, opponents silenced. It's powerful. It's riveting. And it's all lies. Even several national television networks were recently found using enhanced pictures, meaning manipulated, falsified, literally not giving a true picture. So many liars.

[00:22:09] So much deception. Where can we turn for truth? Right here. From Kirby and the team at Point of View. We need your support. Please join the Point of View truth team today with a monthly gift of $30 or more. Together we can shine the light of truth and dispel the darkness and deception of this day.

[00:22:32] Give now at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:54] 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. Final half hour. Let's see if we can get into one other issue, and that is certainly related to tariffs.

[00:23:21] And this is something that we've talked about quite often. If you go to the website, pointofview.net, and do a search engine type tariffs, it's going to go boom because there's quite a few. A disproportionate number of those have been written by Dr. Merrill Matthews. And I think, if nothing else, Victor Davis Hanson, as I pointed out the other day, said the same thing I had said on the air. At first glance, this trade war between the United States and Canada is absurd. We're neighbors. We have a long, close friendship. Same language.

[00:23:50] Spring from the same British civilization. Nearly one million Canadians reside in the United States. Didn't know it was that high. But then he does go into some of the issues, which I would say are relevant. But I don't know that at a time when we have a war in Ukraine and we have a war in Iran, I would make a big deal about the fact that, obviously, the Prime Minister Mark Carney and the President Donald Trump disagree on some very fundamental issues. They do disagree on some fundamental issues.

[00:24:19] And, you know, he starts out talking about the asymmetry between the two countries, and that's true. Canada has about a tenth, I think he says a ninth, but about a tenth of the population that we have in the U.S. So that is a huge difference, both in GDP and other things. And they take, Victor takes a point of saying there's this perpetual concern about the $50 billion trade deficit that seems to be going on.

[00:24:45] And if you're ten times the size of the other country, you're going to have a trade deficit with that other country. A country that is a tenth the size of the U.S. is not going to be able to buy as much. And I watched Jameson Greer say something along the lines, we want it. This is free trade. We need to have some symmetry here. Well, no, you're not. If you're going to have ten times the size, we're going to buy a lot more from Canada than they're going to buy from us just because of the size.

[00:25:12] And they're a little critical of the size of Canada's economy. They have had liberals, and you've got a liberal right now. Having said that, I noticed that Victor Davis Hanson talked about how we tended to be more Republican. Well, if you start with Bill Clinton, we've had 20 years of Democratic presence versus 14 years of Republican presence. Depends on your count. It depends upon where you start the count.

[00:25:37] And so we have our own problem with liberals coming in and trying to do things liberal here. And there is an irony here, which is the conservative candidate who was running for prime minister before Carney was generally considered to have a pretty good chance of winning. And then when Trump came in, but he was considered to be more Trumpish in his or more Trump friendly. When Trump came in and started calling Canada the 51st state and calling the prime minister governor, that switched the polls.

[00:26:06] I mean, I read several articles on this, and it went to Mark Carney because Canadians were somewhat offended by that kind of pushback. So if we have a liberal prime minister right now, it may be because of some of the things that we did. So I'm not as critical of Canada on some of these things as Victor is. And I don't know how you resolve some of these problems. I do think one of the things, and the New York Times highlighted this, it hadn't gotten a lot of tension,

[00:26:34] that one of the reasons that the trade negotiations broke down is that the U.S. said, essentially we want to have oversight over who you, Canada, trade with and your trade agreements and perhaps even a veto power. Overreach. That's not going to sell for any country. Canada is a sovereign country. Canadians are proud to be part of Canada.

[00:26:58] And so you've got to be able to let Canadians be patriotic and proud of their country and willing to be able to say, if you're not going to – I do it this way. If I'm dating somebody and the person who comes up I'm dating says, we're going to – I'm giving you a hard time. We're not going to be dating anymore like we did in the past. Then don't tell me who I can go date with somebody else. And what happened was China – Carney went off to visit in China. That's the China issue.

[00:27:27] I'm sure part of that was to egg the – President Trump. It certainly got under his skin. He did not like that. But on the other hand, if you're not going to be able to have a good trade agreement with the people that we've had a long trade agreement with, you need to have other countries that you can have a trade agreement with. Yeah. The trade deficit is something that I was struggling to understand, but I think that you just put it in really – it makes sense now that Canadians don't have as many people.

[00:27:57] They don't need as many things. America has 10 times more people, so they need more things. They need more furniture or more whatever it is that Canada is exporting to us. They will say that most of that trade deficit is from the oil we import from Vancouver. My guess is that's probably right. I think so. And we do get some timber from them and things like that. Yeah, we do buy some things.

[00:28:22] And it is hard for people to understand trade and trade issues because every population has certain areas where you have people who want politically powerful organizations that are able to get tariffs imposed. We've long had that on sugar here in the United States. We don't want to be importing sugar. We've had – the sugar lobby is very, very powerful in trying to keep sugar from coming into the United States. They want to support this.

[00:28:49] And Canadians have some of that with their dairy products and some of the other things. So it's a trade and what you find and what you tariff is strange. We're putting tariffs on hockey sticks coming from Canada? Of all the things we could put tariffs on, I'm just surprised at that. I am too. Let me just for a second point out that near the end here, Victor Davis Hanson says,

[00:29:16] The tragic irony is that Canada once punched well above its demographic weight with a formidable military and dynamic economy. And the other day, the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessett, said, You know, when we went to war in World War II on D-Day, Canada was very significant in terms of the – assaulting the beaches and everything.

[00:29:41] And now, of course, you can't even get them to spend their requisite 2% of GDP on NATO. Same thing with a dynamic economy. So there was a time in which Canada was a little bit more of a military force. And today, it is barely even able to defend itself. And it's one of the reasons why sometimes when you talk with a Canadian about the issue we talked about just a minute ago, they'll say, Well, you Americans, you know, you don't even have free health care.

[00:30:10] Well, the reason Canada and most of the European Union can actually afford to have, quote, free health care is because they're not spending it on the military. And we are. You may get a bit of a pass. But Canada and the United Kingdom came to our aid when we were attacked in 9-11. Yes. And that's then part of the thing. When President Trump was critical of these other countries that didn't come to U.S. aid or side with U.S. aid, he didn't go and ask them. He didn't go and get their input.

[00:30:38] And most of them would have discouraged him from doing that. But when 9-11 happened, Canada, U.K. and some other countries came to our aid. Well, one of the things that you, Aaron, and I have talked off air is that there aren't just a lot of conservatives and not much of a conservative party in Canada. So that seems to irk President Trump as well. Well, yeah. I mean, the conservative, I was saying to you, I feel bad for the conservatives in Canada. I mean, they don't have any power, right?

[00:31:07] They really, they appreciate America. They want to, you know, I think emulate some of the things that we're doing here, right? Like they enjoy the protections that we have under our Constitution and our system. And they like, you know, our health care system here. And they want to be able to get the treatment that they need. So there are all sorts of things that I think conservative Canadians are envious of what the United States has. But they like being Canadian, too. To the point, though, that Alberta has floated the idea.

[00:31:36] That's where it's going to go to. She knows, right? You're good. And becoming part of the United States. It's going to be the 51st state. Providence, Alberta Providence wants to be the 51st state. Come join the party. Come join the party. That's exactly where I was taking that, because I just thought that that was so intriguing to see that. And it illustrates something else. Just to be fair for a minute, then we'll take a break.

[00:32:02] For our listeners in Wisconsin, I've watched over the years how the cheese lobby in Canada prevents the people in Wisconsin who make cheese from selling any of the cheese in Canada because the tariff is like 200%. Well, unless you're really convinced that Wisconsin cheese is really good. You can get cheese from all over Canada, all over Europe for less than you can get from America. And that's why I say tariffs are so individual to each country.

[00:32:31] In some cases, they'll have a tariff. But you can import X number amount of something, and then the tariff hits if you go over that. It's very, very difficult to try. India has tariffs on our motorcycles. Yes. Why? In India, bicycles and motorcycles should be a great choice. But if I remember right, Harley Davidson was trying to push India to get the, I think, almost 100% tariff off motorcycles coming in.

[00:32:59] It depends upon the country and the power of various lobbies within the country as to what they end up tariffing. Yeah. Same thing, trying to sell a Ford truck in Japan, wherever it might be. I mean, it's just the way it is. We have higher tariffs on foreign trucks coming in, not cars, but on foreign trucks because we wanted to protect the truck industry. Just nuts. But, again, we believe in free trade and also fair trade. And, again, most of these tariffs make no sense.

[00:33:27] And if you'd like to learn a little bit more or even see the Victor Davis Hanson, which reminds you there's a good reason why we might not want to pick a fight with Canada. But the president does have some reasons, and you can read it, and it's one of our articles on the website. We'll be right back.

[00:33:42] How have we come, seemingly so quickly, to the place where Marxists and Islamists are reshaping the democratic primaries? In an article for First Things, Shai Goldman provides one explanation.

[00:34:11] He writes of his years attending Columbia University as rabid anti-Semitism was exploding on campus. Mr. Goldman's time at Columbia overlapped with that of Daria Liza Avila-Chevalier, who recently became the Democrats' nominee to represent Upper Manhattan in Congress. She was a leader of the Gaza movement, which spread throughout the student body. Much of the core curriculum at Columbia is taught in small seminars. Mr. Goldman writes,

[00:34:35] At every seminar, 20 of us would sit around a table, each with the same goal, to fool the professor into believing we had read the assigned material. He admits, We would attempt to expound on texts in a manner that appeared profound and reasonable, without revealing that we actually had little to no idea what we were talking about. This often elicited praise for critical thinking. Two years later, Mr. Goldman says, I have come to believe that this game lies at the heart of what has gone wrong at America's top institutions of higher learning. He continues,

[00:35:05] When college seminars reward students for speaking confidently about topics they do not understand, the students learn to become experts at doing just that. And now, they're doing it on a national stage. Daria Liza Avila-Chevalier is calling for the seizure of property from landlords and the abolition of police and prisons. She and other young radicals are winning primaries based upon promises that sound good to their peers, but are often misinformed and could potentially destroy our economy and system of government.

[00:35:35] In the 90s, parents became concerned that schools were shortchanging basics. We were told our children were learning something better, critical thinking. Students and candidates may sound smart, but without serious study of a subject, critical thinking yields misguided and dangerous conclusions. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:36:05] As we wind down, let me just mention that, of course, we're coming to Labor Day weekend, so Monday, of course, we will be playing a tape. On Tuesday, this fascinating book that was put together by a good friend of Charlie Kirk. It's called Charlie Kirk in Her Words, and it is by Christy Edwards. Really just a beautiful coffee table book of pictures and everything. Next week, of course, you have the anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

[00:36:33] We also, on Friday, have the anniversary, the 25th anniversary of 9-11. So there will be a lot of things that we'll be talking about next week that have to do. Oh, and the Republican Convention is going to be here next week or Wednesday, I think. So we certainly have a few things to talk about for sure. The president will be here. The midterm election. The midterm election, all these kinds of things. The midterm convention, I mean. So we are really going to be busy next week, so I think you will want to tune in every single day.

[00:37:01] Let me just mention, though, that all of that is available at the website, pointofview.net, and you might even want to get that app so you can follow along. But let me hold up this. This, of course, was our recent issue on the Democratic Socialists, and I'm holding it up because Penna Dexter's commentary has the title, Sounding Smart. And she says, you know, some people have wondered, why is it that so quickly Marxists and Muslims and others have been able to,

[00:37:29] you Islamists, as she calls it, re-save the democratic primaries. Quotes from an article in First Things, which I subscribe to, in which he was saying, you know, I saw some of this when I was at Columbia. You'd have this core curriculum at Columbia taught in small seminars. And so what would happen is every seminar, I'm giving you a quote now, 20 of us would sit around a table, each with the same goal, to fool the professor into believing we had read the assigned material. We would attempt to expound on text in a manner that appears profound and reasonable

[00:37:58] without revealing that we actually had no idea what we were talking about. And this was, of course, given praise for critical thinking. We sometimes pick on the younger generation, Aaron, but this has been going on for some time. But it seemed to reach a fever pitch in which young individuals in the universities were rewarded for what we would think to be pretty fuzzy thinking. And some of those people now have the vote and are the ones that seem to be pushing this idea of democratic socialism.

[00:38:27] Yeah, there's what politicians are like, professional talkers. And so, I mean, there's an art to it. There's an art to being able to talk and sound really smart, right? Profound. Something that, unfortunately, I don't think Kamala Harris, you know, was very good at. She tried really hard. But it always ended up being in a very obvious circle. You know, you didn't have to listen very long to realize she was saying the same thing at the beginning, just reversed in the end to write to get there.

[00:38:57] But I'm like reminded of Proverbs, you know, like chapter 17 that says, even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise when he closes his lips. He's deemed intelligent. So sometimes, like the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, right? It's better to be a fool and keep silent and open your mouth and remove all doubt. So there's definitely some of that going on where people should probably just keep their mouth closed.

[00:39:23] You know, at a time when people are struggling with inflation, a lot of younger people having trouble finding jobs and so forth, the socialist message can sound appealing to them. We're going to make sure that you can get affordable rent. We're going to make sure that you can get affordable food. We're going to make sure that you can get affordable fuel. And we're going to move away from fuel anyway to go to green energy. And some of that, if you don't ask the question, the serious questions, how are you going to do this? How are you going to pay for it? Who's going to do it? And so forth.

[00:39:53] In many cases, they don't because they're politicians. They oftentimes just they resort to cliches that they can say and then get applause and move on. Well, I can say like I can say what I what I think you want to hear and get you to, you know, want to vote for me. Like, that's great. But if I can't do that thing or if I do that thing and it's way worse. But, yeah, I can sit here and be like, I want to make life more affordable for young people.

[00:40:20] I want you to be able to afford to buy your first home. I want you to be able to afford to send your kids to college. Right. And I'm not really going to tell you how I'm going to do that or I'm going to tell you how I'm going to do it. I'm going to cloak it in words that sound nice. And so people can do that. It's just dishonest. Yeah. Pretty amazing. Dishonesty in politics. I'm shocked. I'm shocked. Real quickly, I just mentioned Pennexer's commentary. If you sign up for it, it will show up in your inbox tomorrow.

[00:40:50] But if you have your inbox open today, mine come Monday through Friday and mine is called the hamburger problem. And you go, what in the world is that about? Well, Kyle Smith, a columnist, said that the Democrats problem isn't that they're on the wrong side of policy issues. And this actually came from somebody else. He's quoting, but they're just too ready to tell too many ordinary people about too many of their personal choices all the way down to the hamburgers they eat.

[00:41:13] And what he's illustrating is that you've got right now this kind of push in the Democratic Party where we need to tell you how to think and how to believe. We're going to cancel you if you don't agree. And so he uses the example. John Stuart Mill used to refer to the British conservatives as the stupidest party. He says basically today Democrats have become kind of the annoying party.

[00:41:37] And Dr. Matthews, you can remember back in the 1990s, what are the arguments against the Republicans are because they were talking about traditional marriage and they were talking about just say no. When they were speaking about abortion, they were perceived as when they were promoting family values as really in getting involved in your life. But today it's really kind of reverse. Now it's like the Democrats want to get involved in your life.

[00:42:03] They want to tell you whether or not you can drive this kind of car, whether or not you can have access to this much gasoline or diesel and just on and on and on. And so the hamburger problem was just an idea that says, if nothing else, Democrats are also having trouble in the midterms because they're kind of getting to me perceived as the annoying party. That's right. They want to have they want to have their fingers in everything.

[00:42:27] And, of course, as we talked about with health care, if to the extent that you put it under the government, then the government gets to decide what you can do, can and can't do. And that arranges that goes for a whole range of things where there's jobs, education, lifestyle and other things. That's just amazing. Well, again, you can read those two commentaries. But, Aaron, just before we end, I mentioned at the outset and last week we talked about it with Kelly Shackelford.

[00:42:53] I think you have one case for sure that First Liberty will have before the Supreme Court. You have nine others. So we should be praying about those, shouldn't we? Yeah, we would we would appreciate. And we do we do covet the prayers of all that feel led to pray for what we fight for, fight for religious liberty on behalf of all Americans of any faith. And so if you want to learn more about our cases, you can go to FirstLiberty.org. We have, you know, running lists of an announcements and press releases of all the cases that we're handling.

[00:43:22] And and yeah, we're by the end of by the end of the year. I mean, we're going to have quite a few cases before, you know, that the Supreme Court will consider taking. We do have one right now that that will be heard by the Supreme Court. But just a couple that that I'd like to mention, I'll stay in the education theme. So I'll pill a couple of education type cases.

[00:43:42] We have one in California that is on behalf of some homeschool families that want to purchase, you know, curriculum that's made by religious creators. It's not a religious math book, but it is, you know, published by a Christian company. And the state of California is telling them that they are not allowed to use the money for that. And so we're we're taking that case before the Supreme Court.

[00:44:06] Or and then the other one is the one that we've talked about, and I know you've talked about before on the show, Bethany Hall, who is a you know, she is in her undergraduate degree at Liberty University. And there's a rule that says that she can't go get a religious degree with the state tuition money. And she wants to be a worship leader. She wants to do worship music. So apparently you're allowed to get a music degree with state funds, but you are not allowed to get a religious music degree with state funds.

[00:44:33] So it all depends in the state of Virginia and a lot of states what kind of music you are learning to sing. Again, I think you should pray for those and then pray that the Supreme Court justice will take the cases. Takes four to take it, five to win. And so you're only talking about one or two individuals there. And then at that point, you have to pray for Holly and Aaron and Kelly and everybody else, because they might have a load that they've never seen before in front of the Supreme Court.

[00:45:02] Enjoy the Labor Day weekend. As always, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Derek, thank you for producing the program. See you back here on Tuesday right here on Point of View. Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Those are the words of President Ronald Reagan, a staunch defender against socialism.

[00:45:27] Sadly, too many Americans have failed to educate this generation about the dangers and failures of socialism. Surveys show that a majority of young Americans hold favorable views of socialism. And here's what's really surprising. More than a third of churchgoers prefer socialism to capitalism. How can we prevent freedom's extinction?

[00:45:53] It's up to patriotic Americans like you, those who believe in the existence of truth, to band together and defend freedom's legacy. Thankfully, there is a team dedicated to doing just that, the Truth Team. And we have a spot for you. Join us in defending freedom's legacy. Learn more by visiting pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:46:22] That's pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.