Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 295 | Trump vs. Biden 2020: Justice

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

Both Democrats and Republicans claim to be the side for enacting true justice, but the two worldviews look radically different. Amid riots, police shootings, and racial tensions, Allie Beth Stuckey breaks down how to look at the truth and facts of justice through a Biblical worldview.  Today's Links: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877 https://www.city-journal.org/reflections-on-race-riots-and-police https://www.hoplofobia.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2016-Perils-of-Police-Action.pdf https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-full-truth-about-race-and-policing-11591744223 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-william-p-barr-announces-launch-operation-legend Today's Sponsor: See how much you can save on your car and homeowners insurance. Go to https://Gabi.com/RELATABLE

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed.

You can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a great weekend. There is a lot of craziness that's going on right now and we're going to break some of that down. We are continuing our election series.

The first bit of the election series, the first episode of it was about abortion. and we compared Trump versus Joe Biden on the issue of abortion. We talked about what abortion is. We looked at abortion policy. And so make sure that you listen to that. The second episode was last week. I interviewed Dr. John McArthur at the end. But before that, we talked about religious liberty, the importance of religious liberty.

What I think the Trump administration and Republicans in general have done to protect religious liberty and what I want them to do and why I believe that the Democratic platform is an assault on religious liberty and why that's something that Christians should care about. Today we are going to talk about justice, justice from a biblical perspective. And this is going to be different than the previous two episodes where we kind of look specifically at the policies between the two parties and between the two candidates. Because I just want to look at this issue of justice in general. And for those of you who have been listening or watching to or watching relatable for a good amount of time, you know that we have talked about justice and social justice so much because I think

it is an issue that many Christians and professing Christians are very confused about. And it is damaging your worldview. It's damaging your theology. I have seen people get this one subject wrong and their entire worldview falls apart sooner. Sooner or later, they end up saying, well, maybe Jesus is not the only way, the only truth, and the only life. Maybe there are other ways to get to the Father except through Him. It's very interesting that this subject, when you link arms with the world, the rest of your biblical perspective kind of disintegrates. And because there is so much confusion, I think coming from evangelical pulpits, I want to try to offer as much clarity as I can. I mean, I've seen so many Christians jump on this social justice bandwagon,

and especially in relation to the issue of race. And there's so much that I could talk about today that we won't get into that I'm sure I will get into in another episode soon. But I want to relate this conversation back to the things that are happening right now, back to the incident with Jacob Blake and back to the riots and the arson and the looting and the protests and the demonstrations that are going on across the country right now. Because I want to make sure that as Christians we have a right view of this. Maybe you are someone who is on the other side of the aisle and your friend shared this podcast with you.

You are going to disagree with me. You're probably going to be uncomfortable at certain points of this. First of all, I'm really glad that you're here. It really takes a lot to listen to a podcast that you know that you're probably going to disagree with. And some of you in the past week or so have reached out to me. And we've had a good productive dialogue about this. I mean, I had a conversation with someone who it sounds like is very far left. and she was so respectful and so kind and sent me links. And we went back and forth on our

perspectives. And she said she was going to listen to further episodes. And that just, that just means the world to me. And that gives me a lot of hope. I am not hopeless because there are a large number of people who disagree with me. First of all, I don't think that I'm right on everything. And I think that disagreement is good. I am, I don't, I'm not despairing, but I'm disappointed. What I am disappointed in is that we see. to not be able to in so many instances have any kind of rational disagreement or productive dialogue because it so quickly becomes emotional and we're not on the same page at all. We don't have the same starting point at all.

We don't have the same goals or aims at all. And so it becomes very difficult to have any kind of discussion or a debate. But when those of you who do disagree with me, reach out to me and we have a respectful dialogue, that just gives me so much hope. And it also teaches me a lot of things. It teaches me about your perspective. maybe I won't change my mind. Maybe you won't change yours.

But it's really helpful. And what I want this podcast to do, for those of you who do tend to agree with me and who are Christians and conservatives, I want this podcast to be equipping for you. I want it to at least be a starting point for you to do your own research and certainly do your own study of the Word of God. Don't take my word for everything, certainly. And don't let me be the only source of information or wisdom that you have by any means. but I want it to be a starting place for you, a jumping off point for you. I want it to help

equip you to have conversations with people that you disagree with because I do think that is so important. There are friends that I have. I know we disagree on politics and so I don't bring it up often. But when I do have the opportunity, I try to push a little bit back on what I believe they are, they have erroneous positions on. And then you just kind of have to have the emotional intelligence to realize when to back off because that friendship, that relationship is more important than your political. And in some cases, your theological disagreement. So I hope this podcast is that for you.

That's what I desire today. As a lot of you guys are, I'm really tired. I'm really tired. And to be perfectly honest, I'm anxious about everything that's going on in the country. Jesus tells us time and again not to be anxious, not to worry about anything. I mean, he closed the the lilies of the field and how much more valuable Jesus says, are we human beings, God's, God's children, those whom he has called, how much more valuable are we to God than the lilies of the field or the sparrows who he makes sure are also taking care of, who cannot fall out of the

sky apart from his will? Jesus says, Jesus tells us not to fear. God tells us over and over again his people to be courageous. He says that I am going to be with you. Psalm 37 is one of the most comforting chapters in the Bible because it doesn't just say, hey, don't fear, just sit back and try not to worry or be anxious about anything. It actually says that God is going to take care of the evil toers, that he is going to take care of wrongdoing, that he is going to make sure that the wicked are destroyed and that the righteous, those who by grace through faith are in Jesus Christ, are taking care of, that

they are the ones that inherit the earth. So ultimately, I know we don't have anything to worry about that we are America is, especially your and my life, it's just a tiny blip on the span of eternity, a tiny, tiny blip in God's grand story of redemption. And God is completely in control. He has not gotten off his throne. He is not surprised. He has not taken aback. He has not thrown off. He's not been taken off guard. He's not looking down. say, what the heck are you guys doing? God is suspended in the eternal now. He is not bound by linear time. He is not wondering what's going to happen in the future. He's not regretting things that happened in the past. He is over all of it, in control of all of it. And I've said something in the

past that I think is a little bit misleading. I comfort us by saying that one day God is going to rule in perfect peace, which of course is true in the new heaven and the new earth. There's not going to be any evil. There's not going to be any sadness. There's not going to be any anxiety or sorrow. But I think it's important for me to emphasize and clarify that God is putting all the enemies under Jesus's feet right now. Like God is at or Jesus is at the right hand of God in heaven right now. Jesus is king of kings right now. He is the ruler right now. He is sovereign and in control and in charge of everything right now. So even when it seems like, like things are chaotic, I know that God is in control. All of that said, knowing all of that,

that is why I'm a little bit ashamed to admit to you that I know all of that. And yet, I feel nervous. I have to fight the anxiety when I'm going to sleep at night. It doesn't help that I end my day typically and sometimes start my day as well on Twitter, the most anxiety-inducing plates in the world. But I just feel kind of this urgency to know what's going on in America's major cities. and it's just wearing me out, you guys. And I know that a lot of you feel the same way. Some of you are close to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and you're thinking, I never thought that this was going to happen to me.

I never thought that this was going to happen to my city. Now my city is burned down. What do I do? Some of you are thinking, when is this coming for me? You've seen the videos of people harassed in D.C. Restaurants, outside of D.C. restaurants. You've got Black Lives Matter, Antifa activists that are coming up to these women or to these people yelling in their face, telling them that they have to put up a black power fist.

And if they don't, they're going to do something to them. They were pushing against this woman who was sitting there, minding her own business, demanding to know if she was a Christian. And so this is mob rule that's happening in parts of our country that I do believe they're coming for us, no matter where you live, unless the law is enforced. And of course, we'll talk more about that today. but I just want you to know like I I know how you feel because I feel the same way. I'm nervous and I'm anxious, but we do have to remember what I reiterated to us that God is sovereign,

that he's completely in control. When we see him doing one thing, he's doing a million things. And as I've said before, God's work does not make headlines. People right now are being reached with the gospel. People are coming to the Lord or the Lord is pursuing them and saving them. people are being reconciled by the cross of Christ to a holy God right now as we speak, and he is still using you and me, and our job is to be obedient. But another part of our job is right now, as we are looking at the world around us,

to make sure that we have a proper perspective, that we have a biblical perspective of the world around us. And actually, it does bring a lot of peace. And one of the things that we have to make sure that we get right, because, as I already said, it has implications for the rest of our perspective, the rest of our worldview, is the definition of justice. There are a million people who have their fists raised in the name of justice who are rioting and looting and burning down and harassing and assaulting in the name of justice. And we need to ask ourselves, do we have a place as Christians to criticize that?

Or should we say, you know what? At least they're doing it for the right cause. And I don't feel like I have a place to criticize that because at least they are doing it in the name of justice. We have to ask ourselves, is that justice? I mean, the answer to that question changes completely how we react to that. And so I want to make sure, as I have many times on this podcast before, to explain what, according to the Bible, justice as it pertains to law in order, as it pertains to wrongdoing, actually looks like according to the Bible, which American law is supposed to be based on. And yes, I understand that we have imperfectly implemented these biblical principles in American history and still do in some cases to this day. But that is what we go back to.

Like that is our starting point. And I will get into that. Now, to back up, I talked about this last Wednesday, but I'm going to talk about it again. Give us more context for why the current riots are happening, really riots in Portland and Seattle that have killed people and destroyed people's businesses and have moved people out of Portland in Seattle. Those have been happening for three months the liberal Democrat politicians in those cities have told police officers not to do anything and to simply allow this lawlessness to ruin their cities because these are their voters. They're scared of this. This is their base.

And this is the leftist worldview played out is that they are very soft on crime to the detriment of their law-abiding citizens. And we will get into a little bit more of that. But the new set of riots that are going on in places like Kenosius. show Wisconsin and are having an effect in places like D.C. as well is because of a black man named Jacob Blake, who was shot seven times in the back last week by a white police officer. We saw the video from across the street. I didn't play it last Wednesday, but because I think that it adds clarity and it adds some context to the situation, I will play it. I'm just letting you know

if you're watching this on YouTube, you probably don't want your kids to watch this. It is very disturbing. Fast forward if you have to. So I'm trying to give you a fair warning. But here is that short clip. Wow. So what we can see if you're listening to this, not watching on YouTube, is that he was walking to his car.

Police officers are yelling at him. They already have their guns drawn. So that indicates to us that whatever interaction they were having has been going on for a little bit of time. They're telling him to stop. He continues. He bends over to get something from his floorboard in his car. and the police officer, one of the police officers, shoots him seven times in the back. Now, here are the facts about what happened that we know so far. We still don't know everything.

People pretending like they know everything. People ascribing motives to the police officer, they simply do not know. Now, the context that I am about to give is not meant to say, this context alone does not justify what happened. I am not trying to say giving this context that this justifies being shot in the back seven times. I am simply giving you context because I think it does, it helps us understand what happened and it helps us distinguish some of the false narratives out there from what is actually true. So I'm simply providing context. People always say, well, when you provide context, that means that you're trying to justify

it or excuse it or say that it was right. That's not what I'm doing. But if you don't know the truth, then you're going to believe a narrative that says, that he was just a guy that was a good Samaritan and he was doing nothing wrong. He was actually breaking up a fight and the police came after him and just hunted him down and shot him. Well, that doesn't help us get to the answer. That doesn't actually help us secure and execute justice in this case.

So we actually have to know what is true. The Wisconsin DOJ did an independent investigation. And what we have figured out from the 911 audio is that Jacob Blake's girlfriend called the police on him because according to her he was intimidating her at her house and according to her he was not supposed to be there we don't know what happened before or when the cops got there did she tell them that hey he's armed and dangerous did she tell them that he is trying to hurt her or kill her we don't know but we can only guess or but we can guess we can assume pretty safely why she was scared and why she called the police jacob lake had had a warrant out for his

arrest since July 9th for third-degree assault against her, against his girlfriend. And in Wisconsin, that is rape. And so he has been accused by this girlfriend who called 911 last week and said, hey, my boyfriend, Jacob Blake is trespassing. I'm at my home. He's not supposed to be here. He already had a warrant out for his arrest because she accused him of raping her back in May. So that is probably why she was afraid that Jacob Blake was at her house and why she called the police. like I said, there was a warrant out for his arrest for that rape, but also for domestic abuse and for disorderly conduct. They have three kids together, and the kids were apparently there, so you can see why clearly his girlfriend called the police officers to help her.

She didn't want to be raped again. If indeed, that accusation is true, she didn't want her children who were there to be harmed, probably knowing the context that we have that is seemingly what is going on here. That was not his first run in with the law. He reportedly has a history of domestic violence. And in 2015, he had to be subdued by a police canine for wielding a gun while intoxicated. Again, I am not saying that these facts are what justifies what happened to him. But I am providing context that he does have a history.

The girlfriend probably or did know this history when she called the police and asked them to please protect her from Blake. police did know this history. We know that before they showed up. And I just want to pause for a second because we often hear, and very often rightly so, about the problems in our justice system. And there are problems with our justice system. But most people who talk about this mean that the justice system is too harsh on criminals. And that may be true in the cases of some nonviolent drug offenses. I think our bail system is messed up and can disproportionately at times, unfortunately and unjustly affect poor people. And so there are problems in that regard with our justice system. But how about the fact that a guy charged with raping his girlfriend had been

walking around for free for almost two months with impunity to the point to where he was able to go and harass that same girlfriend who accused him of rape? Like how about the parts of our justice system that don't protect victims and potential victims from predators who should already be in jail. Like, that's a problem too. Now, carrying on, the Wisconsin DOJ have found that Jacob Blake had a knife in the floorboard of his car. So was he reaching for that knife? We don't know. He could have just been reaching for his cell phone to call his lawyer. He could have been reaching for his license. He could have been reaching for a what? We don't know. Now, the officer could have seen the knife and that's why he shot him. Did the officer, based on Blake's history, assumed that he had a gun, and that's why he

shot him. Officers often don't know if they're completely unarmed, and we just don't know. We know from the Wisconsin DOJ investigation the police had already tried to use a stun gun on him, but that did not work. And Blake continued to resist arrest and disobey orders, then went into his car, reached down into his floorboard, and that is when the officer shot him seven times. Now, there is an investigative. into the officer and into the interaction that is still going on. And there will be that will continue until we know exactly what happened. And until they decide whether or not the shooting was justified. I think that there are many people who are understandably questioning why the police officer

shot him seven times in the back at point blank range. If the shooting was justified, I think a lot of people are asking, why not just once? I don't know the answer to that. I've never been a police officer. It's easy for me. It's easy for us to litigate the situation from here and say seven times seems really excessive. I would agree with that. And I think if that was all the discussion was, like if that was our contention with this issue, then we could have a productive conversation about that. We could say, hey, was it necessary for this guy to be shot seven times in the back? And we could all be on the same page. and have a conversation about that.

But because the defense of Blake has gone so far, on the left in particular, so far beyond what actually happened and instead says something like this, this is another example of the epidemic of unarmed, innocent black men being shot by a racist police force. And this was just an innocent father and an innocent son going about his business when he was pursued and terrorized by the police. Well, that means that we're not on the same page, that we're not starting with an honest premise. And so we can't have a productive dialogue. we're forced to peel back the layers and say, hang on, what is actually the truth here?

Because as I've said, in order for us to come together, which I desperately want us to do, in order for us to have meaningful dialogue that leads to meaningful change, which I think is important, whether that is further transparency in the police, apparently none of these police officers were wearing body cameras, whether that is better de-escalation training, which I think a lot of precincts already have a lot of good training, but maybe other precincts don't, whether that means taking a look at the policies of the police unions, you guys know, I don't like public unions in general, whatever reasonable reform looks like, whatever changes we can make to get the number down to zero of unarmed people who are shot and killed by the police, I think that it is worth having that conversation. But in order to do that, we have to start with truthful premises. We can't craft a narrative that makes the situation seem different than it actually was.

And if you start on the page that says that Jacob Blake was nothing more than an innocent man going about his day when he was targeted by racist police officers, and this is an example of systemic racism in the police and the police are disproportionately shooting black people, well, then we can't have a meaningful conversation. And change will never happen because those starting points are untruthful. And we will get to the numbers and the data once again that talk about this in just a moment. minute, just a minute. If we started from the place of, hey, we don't know what happened leading up to this, but seven times in the back seems excessive. So I think we need a full investigation here and talk about what we can do to make this less likely. Then I think that that would be great. And don't tell me that that kind of conversation does not work. It does. Republican Tim Scott introduced a police reform bill that Democrats refused to even debate.

And Republican Rand Paul is the one who introduced the justice for Bionna Taylor Act, which put an end to no knock warrants, which is the type of warrant that allows police to basically barge in to not state their purpose or to state their authority. And they can just kind of come in without permission. Now, there's a lot of details with the Brianna Taylor that, quite frankly, I haven't investigated, which is part of the reason why I haven't talked about this. But I think this is a good piece of legislation to say that no knock warrants should not be allowed. I think that is a small government issue. I think that's a justice issue. It was a Republican Rand Paul who introduced that. So don't tell me that things cannot be accomplished through peaceful and democratic means.

Things have been accomplished since the 1960 civil rights movement. Things have been accomplished through peaceful and democratic means that have led to progress for specifically black people in this country, but all demographics in this country. So when a grifter like Sean King says that we need violence and we need unrest because America doesn't listen to peace, that is a lie. That's just a lie. that is a historical myth. That is an excuse for the anarchy that the left thinks will help them destroy the country and usher in socialism. That is what this is all about. And unfortunately, a lot of people have been duped into believing that this is a genuine

movement towards justice and is just not. And what is currently happening right now, what is currently happening right now is a left-wing revolution that depends on anarchy, that depends on chaos, that depends on, that depends on upping people's emotions and getting people riled up to the point to where they are willing to burn down buildings and loot and doing it all in the name of justice. So people will be convinced to engage and they believe that burning things down will create the foundation for them to destroy or will create the foundation for them to build the kind of left-wing government that they want to build.

The night Jacob Blake was shot, riots broke out in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Churches, were burned down, car lots were incinerated businesses and stores were burned down. Here is a short video of that. This morning, get up, come down here, and what I see I was not prepared for. I knew it was going to be a disaster, but I didn't know what a disaster looked like until I saw it. And I can hear the emotion in just in what you're saying. I mean, what is the family feeling right now? It's tough.

You know, this is a business that my parents started for. 40 years ago, small out of their garage is a small business. Did it just to make a few extra dollars. And eventually it grew. 31 years ago, they bought this building. And so we've been here every since. And here's a video of an elderly man trying to defend his business who was knocked out cold by a rioter. They just threw a bottle at this guy.

You're okay? And we keep hearing. We keep hearing from people. Christians and non-Christians are like, it's just property. It's just property. Why do you care more about property than you do people's lives? It's not just property. Yes, people are more important than property. Obviously, I believe that. God believes that. But God does care about property, by the way. Like the Ten Commandments do forbid not just theft, but also envy. Like you're not even supposed to covet your neighbor's property, much less steal your

neighbor's property. I mean, God is very clear that private property is legitimate that it is a crime to steal or to harm your neighbor's property or even to want your neighbor's property that isn't yours. I mean, you want to talk about a defense against socialism in the Bible. Those two commandments, very simple. Do not steal. Do not covet. That's it for socialism, according to the Bible. But what we're seeing right now is not just a destruction of simple property, but property

that correlates to people's lives and livelihoods. This property represents people's businesses, the way that they provide for their family, the businesses that people own or use in order to survive. This doesn't affect, by the way, the rich and so-called privileged people. It affects poor people. It affects the middle class people. It affects the people trying to get by. And very often, it affects most disproportionately black and brown people.

Furthermore, this is punishing people who did nothing wrong. Who didn't do anything to Jacob Blake? Who didn't do anything to George Floyd? And is there any better? Is there any more accurate definition of injustice? than punishing people for something that they did not do. But they say riots are the voice of the unheard. This is what we have to do because until unarmed black people stop getting killed by the police, we've got to just burn it down. Guys, the fact is this is the simple fact and this is what people

don't like to hear. This is what people say is racist. It's not right. I don't even understand how this can be construed as racist. It is fact. And this is. This should be, I mean, it's disturbing, but for the people who want to believe that police officers are disproportionately targeting black people in police shootings, this should actually give a form of comfort. Still, it is disturbing what I'm about to say, but it should bust that myth in a way that allows us to have healthy dialogue about necessary police reform. For every unarmed black person who gets killed by the police, there is one or more unarmed white person who is killed by the police. In 2019, there were 15 unarmed black people killed by the police. There were 25 unarmed white people killed by the police. And I know what some of you are thinking, well, the black people only make 13% of the population.

They account for 35% of the police shootings. We are going to get into that statistic and why it is misleading. White people killed by the police in 2019 whose names you do not know. This thread was compiled on Twitter by Leonidas Johnson. And he gave a list of some of the names. is just an abbreviated sampling of that list. Matthew Kruper was shot and killed by the police in Leake City, Texas, while he was assaulting an officer.

He was unarmed. Robert Saigon was shot and killed by police in Carroll County, Ohio. After fighting with police during a traffic stop and then attempting to run away, he was unarmed. Cameron Eli was shot and killed by the police in Santa Barbara, California. After stabbing his mother to death and pretending to draw a firearm when confronted by the police, he was unarmed. Dwayne Morgan was shot and killed by police in Greg County, Texas after fighting with a police officer and attempting to choke him. He was unarmed. Riley Pei was shot and killed in Greenville and Glenville, Georgia after fighting police officers at a pawn shop. He was unarmed. David Engel was shot and killed in Joplin, Missouri after fighting with officers and shaking off a taser. He was unarmed. Maggie Brooks. This is tragic. Maggie Brooks was shot and killed in Arlington, Texas after an officer shot at a dog that was running towards him and accidentally.

shot her. She was unarmed. Luke Patterson was killed in Montgomery, New York, after he was found walking down the highway, refused to cooperate with state troopers and tried to get into a patrol car. He was unarmed. Thomas Viro was shot and killed in Kalamazoo, Michigan, after telling officers he had a gun and would kill them himself, refused to show his hands, and then made a sudden move forward. He was unarmed. There are many more. That's just a sampling. The common thread in most of those is that they were resisting arrest, which is the common thread in most of these situations. And most of the officers who shot these unarmed people have not been charged. And that's just in 2019. We didn't even talk about Tony Tempa, Justine Damon, Daniel Schaver, these white people who

were also unarmed. They are situations, those particular situations are situations that those three should not have been killed by the police and yet were. It is simply a myth. that police officers are less likely to kill a white person and get away with it than a black person. That is not true. Roland Friar, an economic professor at Harvard University, he also happens to be black. He conducted a thorough study in July 2016 looking at the existence of racial bias and police force, specifically police shootings. He examined over 1,000 shootings and 10 major police departments in Texas, California, and Florida. He said the results of the study, quote, is the most surprising result of my career. This is according to the New York Times coverage of this particular study. Mr. Friar, the youngest

African American to receive tenure at Harvard and the first to win a John Bates-Clark Medal, a prize given to the most promising American economist under 40, said anger after the deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and others drove him to study the issue. You know, protesting is not my thing, he said, but data is my thing. So I decided I was going to collect a bunch of data and try to understand what is really going on when it comes to racial differences in police use of force. In shootings in these 10 cities involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without first having been attacked when the subjects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results

undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of lethal force. But police shootings are only part of the picture. What about situations in which the officer might be expected to fire but doesn't? To answer this, Mr. Fryer focused on one city, Houston. The police department there let the researchers look at reports, not only for shootings, but also for arrests when lethal force might have been justified. Mr. Fryer defined this group to include encounters with suspects. The police subsequently charged with series offenses like attempting to murder an officer or evading or resisting arrest.

He also considered suspects shocked with tasers. Mr. Fryer found that in such situations, officers in Houston were about 20% less likely, to shoot if the suspects were black. This estimate was not precise and firmer conclusions would require more data, but in various models controlling for different factors in using different definitions of ten situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites. A 2019 peer-reviewed study titled Officer Characteristics and Racial Disparities and Fatal Officer

Involved shootings, published in a scientific journal aimed to examine. examine racial bias and police shootings found that black cops are more likely to shoot black civilians and Hispanic cops are more likely to shoot Hispanic civilians and so on. Here is what that study found. Quote, as the proportion of violent crime committed by black civilians increased, a person fatally shot was more likely to be black. As the proportion of violent crime committed by Hispanic civilians increased, a person fatally shot was more likely to be Hispanic. Conversely, as white crime rates increased, a person fatally shot was less likely to be black or Hispanic. It goes on, quote, we did not find any evidence for anti-black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police

used to force across all shootings. And if anything, found anti-white disparities when controlling for race-specific crime. And yet, you will see statistics like this, like mapping policeviolence.com, says 36% of unarmed people killed by the police were black in 2015, despite black people only making up 13% of the U.S. population. That is the statistic over and over again that you see in order to support the idea that black people are disproportionately targeted by a racist police system. But as Coleman Hughes says in City Journal, who is, by the way, a black liberal said that he's voting for Joe Biden.

He says this, quote, to demonstrate the existence of racial bias in the police, it is not enough to cite the fact that black people comprise 14% of the population, but about 35% of unarmed Americans shot dead by police. By that logic, he says, you could prove that police shootings were extremely sexist by pointing out that men comprise 50% of the population, but 93% of unarmed Americans shot by cops. And of course, you wouldn't say that. Instead, you must do, Coleman Hughes says, what all good social scientists do. control for confounding variables to isolate the effect that one variable has upon another.

In this case, the effect of a suspect's race on a cop's decision to pull the trigger. At least four careful studies have done this. One by Harvard economists Roland Friar, one by a group of public health researchers, one by economists in Dill, Mulanathan, and one by David Johnson at all. None of these studies has found a racial bias in deadly shootings. Of course, this hardly settles the issue for all time. as always more research is needed. But given the study's already done, it seems unlikely that future work will uncover anything

close to the amount of racial bias that BLM protesters in America and around the world believe exists. Black Americans tend to have a disproportionate number of police interactions than other groups, according to a peer-reviewed study by Ted R. Miller at all. Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics had higher stop-slash-arrest rates per 10,000 population than white non-Hispanics and Asians. On average, an estimated one in 291 stop slash arrests resulted in hospital treated injury or death of a suspect or bystander. Rations of admitted in fatal injury due to legal police intervention per 10,000 stop

slash arrests did not differ significantly between racial slash ethnic groups. Rations rose with age and were higher for men than for women. Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal. He has written a lot about these issues in the black community because he himself is black. He has a lot of insight into this, has written many books about these issues. He says this in Wall Street Journal, quote, So long as blacks are committing more than half of all murders and robberies while making up only 13% of the population, and so long as almost all of their victims are their neighbors,

these communities will draw the lion's share of police attention. Defunding the police or making it easier to prosecute officers will only result in more lives lost in those neighborhoods that most need protecting. What we have found, like we said earlier, that it is more likely for a black police officer to kill a black suspect, a Hispanic police officer, to kill a Hispanic suspect or to just shoot at them. And the same with a white police officer towards a white suspect. and of course you don't hear about any of those. A peer-reviewed study by David Johnson et al found as the proportion of black or Hispanic officers and a fatal officer involved shooting increases,

the person shot is more likely to be black or Hispanic than white, a disparity explained by county demographics. Race-specific county-level violent crime strongly predicts the race of the civilian shot. And we find no overall evidence of anti-black or anti-Hispanic disparities in fatal shootings. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase

narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Now, all of this said, does this justify disproportionate force used by the police? Am I trying to say that we should just not care about it, that we shouldn't call for investigations, that we shouldn't call for justice? Absolutely not. Does, and am I trying to say that all this stuff then supports the idea that the police officer was, was justified in shooting Jacob Blake seven times in the back? No, that's not what I'm doing.

Does this mean that there are no racist cops or that black people somehow deserve bad treatment by the police? Absolutely not. Or that black people are inherently more violent. No, that is not what this is about. Clearly, it would be better if no unarmed person got shot and killed by the police. and whatever common sense reforms can be taken to help that number get closer to zero. I am all for talking about that. But the premise is that this is happening disproportionately to black people due to racism, and that assertion is simply not backed up by the truth. And you, Christian, are bound to the truth. You are bound to fact.

You are bound to evidence. God forbids and hates murder. The unjust killing of a person. so the killing of an innocent person. That means he also hates abortion. He hates when police kill a person that they should not have killed. He hates when a white person murders a black person or a white person. He hates when a black person murders a black person or a white person.

God's anger and wrath and sadness towards murder does not increase or decrease based on the victims or the perpetrator's skin color. So that means that ours should not either. God is just as angry when thousands of black young men are killed by each other every year in their own neighborhoods. The number one cause of preventable death for young black men is homicide. Do you think that God cares less about those murders than other kinds of murders? You would think, according to what the social justice Christians talk about, you would think that he does. But he doesn't. Only one-third of all gang violence and murder is ever prosecuted, ever.

It is not true that black people don't get away with things that white people do on a large scale in 2020. One-third of all gang violence and murder in these predominantly black communities are ever prosecuted. That means the vast majority of victims of violent crime in these inner cities. They never see justice. Their perpetrator is never placed into jail. Do you think that God cares less about the nine-year-old, Tyshaun Lee, the little boy who was killed by a gang member in Chicago a couple years ago, whose murder then laughed about it as he described what happened in jail? Does God care less about that? Then why do we, according to our outrage,

according to the things that we are rioting about and posting about on social media? Does God care less about Sequoia Turner? The eight-year-old that was murdered by rioters in Atlanta after the police officers shot Rashard Brooks? Does he care less about Antonio Mays, the 16-year-old murdered by rioters in Seattle? Both of these children were black and they were murdered by rioters in these cities. If God doesn't care less about their lives, Christian, if God doesn't care less about their murders, Christian, then why does it seem like some of us do? Why does it seem like our outrage is not dictated by injustice, but whatever social media is mad about? Is that what God calls us to why do we as Christians post black squares and say hashtag black lives matter or hashtag say their

names or become social media activist for only one type of murder and not the kind of murder that represents the vast majority of murders of black people? Does God care less about the retired black police captain David Dorn who was murdered in the St. Louis in the St. Louis demonstrations by rioters, by looters who live streamed his execution. on Facebook? Does God care less about his life? Does God care less when a white person is unjustifiably killed by the police than a black person? According to FBI data, there are more white people killed by black people every year than the other way around. Does God care less about that? Does God care less about Cannon Hinnett, the little five-year-old white boy riding his bike in his

front yard who was shot at point blank range in the head by a black neighbor in front of his sisters? you would think based on what social justice Christians post about on social media and what they are selectively outraged about that God only cares about one type of murder toward one kind of person. And that is based on the false premise that that one type of murder is happening more than any other type of murder or more disproportionately than any other type of murder. And it's not. It's just not. So all the people who cannot bring themselves to call out the violence that's destroying our cities,

who thinks that you are helping things by immediately latching on to a narrative that is not true, who thinks you are being compassionate or biblical or merciful or godly by repeating talking points that are not based on fact you are not. You've been lied to and you have believed the lie. What's happening right now in our streets is not like the civil rights movement of the 1960s, which simply said very righteously that black people deserve to be treated equally under the law because they are image bearers of God and that they deserve to have an opportunity to fulfill the promise of liberty and justice for all, which for so long had been held beyond their

reach. That is exactly the right premise. That is correct. It is still correct. And we have made so much progress since then. Is America perfect? No. Are they still racist? Yes, they're probably unfortunately always will be because ism, their hate, all isms are a form of hate and that exists in the human heart. And God says, you cannot love God and hate your brother. And so there are going to be people who hate God, who are racist or they have other isms that are in their heart, unfortunately, that always exist. But have we made immense progress through the civil rights movement in the 1960s? Yes, we absolutely have because it started with a true premise. What's happening in our streets today is nothing like the civil rights movement,

no matter what Jamar Tisby says on Twitter, and everything like the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia the Maoist cultural revolution in China. Mugabe's revolution in Zimbabwe, the Venezuelan revolution, Paul Potts Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, read about them. Read about them. Read about all these revolutions and read what happened. Tell me, did it end in prosperity? Did it end in peace? Did it end in liberation from oppression, from poverty, from these unjust systems? No, it didn't. It led to more lawlessness, eventual tyranny. It leads to destruction. This leads to and led to oppression.

These left-wing revolutions always lead to persecution. This is a left-wing revolution that is looking to overthrow the country, and they realize the easiest ways to do that is to make it about race. And I don't think that most of the people that are latching on to this even realize that. But that's what it is. It is a class war that is described as a race war because, making this about race and racism, shames white people, and stirs up black people so that the left-wing radicals can achieve what Marxists have always tried to achieve a proletariat overthrowing of the bourgeoisie.

That is what is going on right now. These demonstrators have guillotines out there, like the French revolutionaries, they've got guillotine slicing the heads off teddy bears and depictions of Donald Trump. I'll just show you a little video of that so you can believe me. They're assaulting police officers. to murder police officers by throwing bricks at them, harassing and killing innocent people in these riots. This is not justice. Christian, this is not God's justice. And if you have bought into it even a little bit, you have been duped. And you are perpetuating chaos and injustice that the left-wing revolutionaries desperately want you to engage in because they believe

that it is going to bring about the anarchy that they believe will lead to a socialist, Utopia. Again, we've seen this over and over again throughout history. It always leads to more violence, always leads to more oppression. They start with the promise of justice and compassion and equality. That's what they have to do to get people to join their cause. And then it ends up with more injustice, more inequality, and more oppression, and less compassion. So if you have been duped into perpetuating this chaos and injustice, you need to go before the Lord and you need to repent. You need to ask him for forgiveness and you need to ask him for wisdom, which according to the book of James, he promises to give you. I'm not saying that I have it all figured out. I know that I have

blind spots. I know that there are things that I need to learn and know. And I am not saying that if you care about justice or if you care about racism or if you care about things that really do disproportionately affect the black community or poor communities or whoever the least of these are in our society, that you are wrong. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if you buy into the false narratives and the selective outrage that says that apparently God only cares about one type of murder or one kind of injustice and you are latching on to the leftist prescriptions that are being pushed by these left-wing radicals, then you have attached yourself to a movement that is not biblical and that is only going to end in more suffering and you need to realign yourself

with God's word. When it comes to wrongdoing and punishing wrongdoing, God's justice is four things according to the Word of God. I've talked about this a lot on this podcast. Here we go again. Four things. When we're talking about wrongdoing and taking care of wrongdoing and helping both the accuser and the accused and treating them fairly. Four characteristics of God's justice in regards to this.

One, it's truthful. Number two, it is impartial. Number three, it is proportionate. Number four, it is direct. And in this way, God's justice is very good. and very merciful. Exodus 23, 1 through 3, quote, you shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many so as to prefer

justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit. So God wants to make sure that when we are adjudicating something, when we are deciding between right, and wrong that we are not showing partiality to the poor person. We are not showing partiality to anyone, that we are not assuming motives. We're not slandering people based on what they look like or based on what we think or based on a certain narrative. God is very clear that your accusations must be truthful, that the witnesses must be truthful. Right there, in His commands to Israel, we see two major aspects of God's definition of justice. His heart has not changed. Truthful and impartial. Leviticus 1915, you shall do no injustice.

justice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor? Again, we see partiality. We see truthfulness. We also see the characteristic of directness. We're talking about judging your neighbor, the person who did you wrong, the person directly involved with the crime, not an entire city who did nothing to you, not innocent people who did nothing to you, but the person directly involved. Listen to Deuteronomy 1915, through 21 and God's concern with truth, with impartiality, with proportionality, and directness. A single witness, God says to Israel, shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with an offense that he has committed.

Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, so a malicious witness is someone who is not telling the truth, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently. And if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he admits to do to his brother. So if someone says, if someone is a false witness and says, yes, this person committed murder. Therefore, according to God's law, they should get the death penalty. And it turns out that that witness was a false witness, then God says they should also

get the death penalty. That is how seriously God takes truth when we are talking about justice. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, God says, and the rest shall hear and fear and shall never again commit any such evil among you. Now, we know that when it comes to the gospel, that God's justice was satisfied on Jesus Christ. And so we do not have to pay the debt that we owe because of our sin. and we rejoice in that grace. Grace does exist. It is a part of the new covenant and that is wonderful. That does not mean that we do not punish wrongdoing. Romans 13, a part of the New Testament, is very clear that the servant of the Lord, the government is supposed to be a servant of the Lord, that they do not bear the sword in vain, that they are supposed to execute justice to punish

the wrongdoer and to reward those who do good. That's what Romans 13 says. The New Testament makes it also very clear that God's judgment and therefore his definition of justice is impartial, as we've already read a couple times now. Acts 1034, Peter preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. James 2 8 through 9 says, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality,

you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. And God doesn't like partiality. So when we only show outrage, when black people get murdered by white people, when a police officer is unnecessarily brutal towards a black person and not any other kind of murder and not any other kind of injustice, we are showing partiality and God says that is a sin, especially when it's based on a false premise. That means that our definition of justice is not truthful. God also says that's a sin. So we have to make sure that our definition of justice, the problems that we are pointing to and the solutions that we are prescribing fit God's definition of justice in relation to wrongdoing. God's justice is truthful. It is impartial. It is proportionate. It is direct.

and so should our definition of justice be. I've seen a lot of evangelical leaders say lately. This just must be the talking point, the line that's going around. I've seen it from Bethmore to Tim Calder to a dozen other evangelical leaders. Because talking about biblical justice isn't Marxist. First of all, I think a lot of the people who are giving this rebuke, they don't, I'm not saying this about Tim Keller because I think he does know what Marxism is, but I think a lot of people repeating this haven't even taken the time to look into what Marxism is.

We are not saying that talking about biblical justice is Marxist. We're saying that Marxism is Marxist and take care that your definition of justice is biblical and not Marxist. A Marxist definition of so-called justice is not justice according to the Bible at all because it is the opposite of truthful, direct, imp proportional, and impartial. It ascribes guilt and innocence based on whether you are part of the proletariat, so the working class or the bourgeois, the rich. And that can be those terms can also just be generally applied to the lens of the oppressed versus the oppressor. And remember, this worldview of critical theory says that you are the side of the oppressor if you are white, whether or not you've actually oppressed anyone. You are on the side of the oppressor if you are a straight, cisgender male.

You are on the side of the oppressed automatically if you are a black person, if you are gay, if you are Muslim, if you are transgender, whatever it is. That is what critical theory says. It is concerned with power dynamics. It splits people according to their sexual, religious, racial characteristics into the oppressed versus the oppressor. And it assigns guilt and innocence based on your group identity. That is a form of Marxism who split people into the oppressed versus the oppressor based on their socioeconomic class. Critical theory takes that further to categorize people on oppressed versus oppressor based on things like skin color. When you view the world in that way, you will automatically, automatically give into an unbiblical definition of justice because God does not ascribe gills or innocence based on someone's skin color, based on the perception of oppression. And God does not

categorize you as oppressed or oppressor based on your immutable characteristics. And thank God. God for that. That is so anti-gospel. The reality is, as I talked about with Monique on Friday, the reality is that there are only two categories. You are dead in your sin or you're alive in Christ, and all of us who are alive in Christ are on equal footing. Everyone who is dead in Christ is on equal footing. Now, does that mean that there is no injustice, there's no inequality in the world and that we shouldn't care about those things? No, Micah 6-8 does tell us to do justice, to love mercy. And so, yes, we are supposed to do justice, but our definition of justice, so many people quoting Micah 6-8 that have no idea what God's justice is. Our definition of justice

is according to God's word. It is not this Marxist definition of justice which gives you guilt that is based on your skin color or immediately implicates you for having white privilege without even knowing what your station in life is. And who implicates you for being fragile as a white person or being a bigot or perpetuating white supremacy as a white person simply based on your skin color without any evidence of that. That goes directly against what God calls justice. That is not truthful. That is not direct.

What we're seeing, the consequence of that, the riots that are going on are not proportional and it's certainly not impartial. So Christian, when you quote Micah 6-8 and when you say biblical justice isn't Marxist, define, define your terms. Define justice. I have learned that that is kryptonite to critical theory. That is kryptonite to social justice theology. Define your terms. Ask clarifying questions. What do you mean by blank? Like that is the most difficult question for social justicians to answer. What do you mean by justice? And really, the better question is, what does God mean by justice? Marxism is not biblical justice.

It is all law and no gospel. There's nothing that you can do. according to critical theory, there's nothing that you can do as a white person to ever be exonerated of your guilt and of your complicity. Thank God that that is not the case. There's so much freedom and liberation in the gospel and there's so much fairness and biblical justice. And so I simply believe that the Bible has given us all that we need for life and godliness, according to scripture. And I believe that the Bible is everything that we need for justice and for loving mercy. for making sure that the least of these in our society are treated fairly and equitably. I do think that that is a worthy cause to pursue, but ensure that your definition of justice is

gods and not Karl Marxist and not the world. Christian, if you have the same definition of justice, if you are a part of all the same causes as all your atheist and agnostic friends, if you vote the same way, if you think the same way, if you have the same view of a so-called racial justice and social justice as all your atheists and agnostic friends, people who don't believe in God, people who don't believe that God created the heavens in the earth and therefore has authority over all of it, who don't believe human beings are made in the image of God, then you need to double check. You need to make sure that your definition of the causes that you are fighting for align with God's heart,

align with the word of God. That is what I, that is what I, that is what I, I encourage you to do. Get in your Bible and don't read your Bible as a guidebook for socialism, as a guidebook for social justice. Don't read your Bible with you in the center or the so-called oppressed in the center. Read your Bible with Jesus at the center and say, what does this mean? Go into the context, study the history, study the original Greek and Hebrew. Start in the book of John. Get you a big systematic theology book that helps you break down. theology and answer so many of your theological questions. Got Questions.org, an amazing resource for a lot of your theological questions. Make sure that your worldview is being shaped by the Bible and not the

world. If you look like and think like and are talking like and are posting on social media like the rest of the world, all these people that you don't know God, that you know, don't know God, then it is time for you to check your worldview. It could be that they are doing a better job of evangelizing to you than the other way around. So it's time for you to make sure that your definition of justice, that your worldview is truthful, that your definition of justice is impartial, that it is proportional, that it is direct as God's is. You don't need Black Lives Matter or Marxism to advance the cause of justice for people, as you can see, because it's actually leading to injustice right now. It's actually leading to violence as Marxism always does. The Bible is sufficient.

speak up on behalf of real injustice, real victims of real oppression. Yes, and amen, that is what we are called to do. But be correct in naming the problem and biblical in prescribing the solution. Right now we're seeing a lot of injustice. We're seeing that secular worldview take root and fan itself into flames in Democrat-led cities. These are not happening in Republican cities. They are not happening where there are Republican leaders. Now, I personally think that Republicans in Congress, most of them have been extremely weak on this. They have not been willing to say, hey, we need to stop destroying property. We need to stop allowing violence. These organizations very often are made up of domestic terrorists who want nothing more than anarchy. And this is a left-wing revolution, just like any left-wing revolution that we've seen in the past 100 years that has led to so much murder and oppression and starvation and poverty. Too many Republicans won't speak up about that. They want to be quiet about it. They kind of want to acquiesce a little bit. And they don't want to get. in trouble for it. But the fact of the matter is is that this isn't happening in Republican cities because Republicans have the backs of their police officers, good police officers. Democrats don't.

This is the leftist worldview that says, okay, as long as it's for the cause that I wanted to be for, as long as it aligns with my ideology, I'm going to let these people destroy my cities. This is what Democrats have done to the detriment of law-abiding people of all shades of all demographics, of all socioeconomic classes, violence, uproar. It's the cause of bad liberal policies. It is the cause of weakness. It is caused by a leftist worldview. This is how, like I've said, Marxism always ends up. Biden making a statement about Jacob Blake, immediately saying that this is about systemic racism and that he is somehow going to uproot systemic racism in our country that raises the temperature in this country by assuming something that we do not know that is not,

It could be. It could have been caused by racism. Maybe this was a racist cop. Maybe there was racial bias that we have evidence of. And I think, you know, we can obviously talk about that if that is true. And if we can find evidence of that. But to assume that just raises the temperature and exacerbates tensions in the same way that Obama did. It was the Obama DOJ, by the way, who said that George Zimmerman who killed Trayvon Martin,

that there was no sufficient. evidence to charge him. George Zimmerman was acquitted of that. And that is actually why Black Lives Matter started because they were not okay with that conclusion when it was the Obama DOJ that actually said there was no further evidence to be able to further charge him. And yet, Biden and Obama always raising the temperature through their rhetoric by racializing things that we do not know. We simply do not know are racial. Something that I think is really good that the Trump administration has done. I will read you from the DOJ website. Attorney General William Barr announced the launch of Operation Legend, a sustained systematic and coordinated law enforcement initiative across all federal

law enforcement agencies working in conjunction with state and local law enforcement officials to fight the sudden surge of violent crime beginning in Kansas City, Missouri. Operation Legend was created as a result of President Trump's promise to assist America's cities that are plagued by recent violence. And by the way, he has tried to do that. He has offered the National Guard. He has offered federal help to all of these cities. And they have all turned him away. The media has helped him with this, has helped them with this, these liberal politicians saying, oh, no, no, no, this is fascist. These are peaceful protests. It's totally fine. There was a hilarious CNN, Kairon, where the reporter was literally standing in front of the city of Kenosha,

Wisconsin that was burning down behind him. And the Chiron CNN said, fiery but mostly peaceful protests. Okay, if a protest is fiery, like if buildings are burning because of the protest, it is not peaceful. But again, they are along the ride. They are supportive of this ideology that leads to the clash that we are seeing now. Operation legend, the DOJ goes on, is named after four-year-old legend Talaferro, who was shot and killed while he slept early in the morning of June 29th in Kansas City in the

latest in a string of violence, the latest in a string of violence to plague Kansas City in recent weeks. Kansas City has already reached 100 homicides this year, a 40% increase from last year. This is happening in a majority in a large number of Democratic-led cities. This is not happening in Republican-led cities. This is happening in Democrat-led cities, where they have decided to. pull back the reins on their police in the name of social justice, places like New York City, places like Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, Austin, you are seeing crime rise in those cities

because the Democratic politicians have decided that they are going to tell their officers to stand down in the name of social justice. As Thomas Sol says, social justice is actually anti-social justice since what is typically not considered is the cost to society. And the DOJ goes on to say, President Trump has made clear the federal government stands ready and willing to assist any of our state and local law enforcement partners across the nation responding to violent crime. Operation Legend will combine federal and local resources to combat the disturbing uptick in violence by surging federal agents and other federal assets into cities like Kansas City, a city currently experiencing its worst homicide rate in its history, said Attorney General Barr. The department's Operation Legend is named in honor of one of Kansas City's youngest victims, as we just explained. It's a reminder that violent crime left unchecked is a threat to us all and cannot be allowed to continue. As part of Operation Legend, Attorney General Barr directed federal agents from the FBI, U.S. Marshal Service, DEA, and ATF to surge resources to Kansas City in the coming weeks to help state and local officials fight the surge of violent crime.

they will be working alongside state and local law enforcement agencies. Department of Justice assets will include over 100 FBI agents, U.S. Marshals, DEA agents and ATF agents. In addition, Timothy A. Garrison, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, will be surging additional resources from his office to ensure he is able to handle an anticipated increase in prosecutions. And so President Trump, they're doing what they can legally to help these cities. But this is a city-state local problem. And President Trump has tried to help. And I hope he continues to try to help. But there's only so much he can do when Democrats say, no, no, no, I don't want you. And when you've got Democrats in Congress, when you've got Democrats in the media,

who refuse to acknowledge that these cities are being ravaged by violence because of left-wing policies. And in many cases, because of left-wing revolutionaries. They just refuse to say anything about it. Proverbs 285 says, evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. So let us understand justice. Let us, as Micah 6-8 says, do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God, but let us know what justice looks like. it is truthful. We have to start with truthful premises. We have to start with the truth. We have to start with facts or else we cannot have a meaningful conversation that enacts meaningful

change. Let us try as best as we can to make this country align with our foundational values, which no matter what the revolutionaries tell you, are good, even if they have been imperfectly implemented in so many ways throughout our history, liberty and justice for all equality under the law endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are good ideals upon which our nation was founded. And we have gotten closer and closer to fully realizing them the longer we have been around. And now we are trying to take steps back because of people who say that America has never been good, that the ideals upon which we were founded are completely empty, that they're hollow,

that we have to go scorched earth and start over. Those people are. are dangerous. Those people are wrong. Those people, as Proverbs 285 says, are evil men who do not understand justice. And let us set ourselves apart as Christians as people who seek the Lord who understand justice completely. And let us pray for wisdom. God calls wisdom a promise in the book of James. He also calls it a process in the book of Proverbs. That means we ask him for wisdom. He promises to give it without reproach, but we also have to seek wisdom through his word, through our own research, through a study of history, as Proverbs makes clear, and how awesome, through common grace that he has given access to all of these things.

And so be diligent, Christian, be diligent in all of these things. And let us pursue justice. Let us pursue mercy in making sure that it aligns with God's definition of justice and mercy. We talk about all of this, while part of this, we talk about real justice in my book, you're not enough and that's okay and we really talk about the worldview that helps us get to the point of understanding what biblical justice is and that starts with removing ourselves from the center of our universe and no longer bowing down to the god of self and instead bowing down to the god of scripture and that is what I want for all of us that is what I want for you I'm praying for the

writers I'm praying for the protesters who the peaceful protesters obviously should not be conflated with the writers, but I'm praying for both. I mean, I think it's similar to how Jesus felt when he looked out at the crowd in the gospels when he said that, when the Bible says that he felt compassion because they were like sheep without a shepherd. I think that most of these people out there who are writing and looting, they're like sheep without a shepherd. They are godless. Many of them, they're doing this because they've actually never felt any love or identity or acceptance in their life. And they're trying to find some kind of worth and purpose through this anarchy. This is the first time that they have felt powerful. And they need Jesus. And so I'm praying

for callous hearts to change. I'm praying for justice to be better realized in our own justice system in the United States. And I just have to trust that God is in control and that he is still using his church, but gosh, the church has to be united, has to be united in biblical integrity and biblical definitions of things like truth and justice. Okay, I know this is a long episode, but that's all I got. I will be back here on Wednesday. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the

news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective. objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.