Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 88 | Dumb Decisions

Episode Date: March 20, 2019

We analyze the New Zealand shooting, Christians' appropriate respons, and the media bias surrounding the tragedy. Then, we discuss lowering the voting age to 16 and abolishing the Electoral College. Copyright Blaze Media All Rights Reserved.

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. What's up, guys? Welcome to Relatable. I hope everyone has had a great week so far. It is Wednesday. We are halfway through the week. And guys, I am so happy that the weather has changed down here in Texas. As I said, probably this time last year, because by the way, we on Religious.

relatable or celebrating one year of this podcast, started out one time a week, moved to two times a week last summer by popular demand. And now it's three times a week and I've gotten really good feedback from you guys. That's just an aside. But as I said about this time last year, I love the heat and I love the summer and I cannot wait until it is that kind of day in Texas where you go outside at 8 a.m. and you immediately start sweating where the pool water feels like a bath. I cannot wait. Now, just, well, we'll see. We'll see what my Instagram stories are like in July when I am miserable with a newborn child and I don't want to leave my refrigerator. We'll see. But right now, I just cannot wait for summer and the leaves are changing and the trees are, the leaves are changing

in a good way, I mean, and the trees are blossoming and it's getting to be like 70 degrees. And I am just really excited about that. If you are living somewhere where it's cold, I'm really sorry. You can live vicariously through me. Just pretend like you're living down here in Texas. Okay, today we're not going to talk about the weather, although I probably could talk about the weather for 30 minutes, but I'm not going to. I won't bore you in that regard. We're going to talk about some of the stuff that's been going on in the news. As you guys know, Wednesday is going to be our news day. And we are going to cover some stuff that's been actually covered for a while now, but is still in the news. So we're going to talk about some of the ideas that Democrats and Democratic

candidates have put forward like lowering the voting age to 16. Is that something that we really want to do? We are also going to talk about abolishing the electoral college, something that sweet Elizabeth Warren has put forth as a grand idea. But we're also going to talk about the big story, something that happened last week, and that is the shooting in Christ Church, New Zealand. Now, on that, I know that you guys have probably already heard everything about that shooting. Like I said, it happened almost a week ago now. People have been covering it, analyzing it, arguing about it, going back and forth for a long time. The last thing that I want to do is rehash old information that you guys already know. I want to add value to this conversation. And so we are going to talk briefly about what happened.

we're going to talk about what the Christian response should be, kind of what the right and the left has said. And the reality of this kind of terrorism worldwide from a bigger picture perspective. And then we're going to move on into the other stuff. 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 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. Okay. Now, we're going to talk about something that has made me lose sleep and has probably made a lot of you lose sleep. And that is the tragic shooting that happened last week in New Zealand. So just a brief rundown in case some of you have just been really busy and you haven't been able to turn on the news and hear what's happened. I do not blame you for that, by the way. Sometimes a whole

week goes by and I realize that I haven't gotten updated on this very important thing that happened just because I've been too overwhelmed by the details of it. So I'm going to break it down in a simple way for those of you who don't know or if you just need a refresher. So there was a 20, year old self-proclaimed white supremacist who opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand last week. He had a camera on his helmet as he opened fire on these people and he live streamed this attack. This video was shared on Facebook millions of times until they took it down. I did not watch the video. I don't even know if it's available online. I encourage you not to watch the video, I didn't want to contribute even in a small way to the attention that this guy

obviously was desperate for. Apparently, the footage is absolutely horrific. I mean, just gives you nightmares. I didn't need to have that visual in my mind to know that this attack was superbly and profoundly evil. And you probably don't either. Don't feed your mind and don't feed your soul with that kind of stuff, you can understand the severity of something without having to experience it or see it for yourself. And again, that gives this guy the attention that he really obviously craved. This was a very public attack and he made sure to make it that way. 50 people are now dead. That count might go higher. It might go up because 40 people are still suffering in the hospital. Proportionally, this is like their 9-11. Like what 9-11?

was for us. That's kind of like what this is for them, proportionally proportioned to their population. New Zealand is a small country, only about 4.7 million people. This guy, this sick, twisted, evil person wrote and posted a manifesto. He claimed that he had a fear of displacement by immigrants. He expressed a hatred for Muslims. And really, and I know this word is a lot of times overused, but this is actually an appropriate place to stay the word xenophobic. This guy was extremely xenophobic. He was afraid and hateful toward anyone who didn't look like him, anyone who didn't believe like him.

He was angry at everyone who wasn't white, who was what he saw as an affront to his European heritage. I'm not going to say his name. I'm not going to quote the manifesto. I'm not going to give him any more airtime. I am certainly not the first. first one to say this. I'm probably the millionth person to say this. There have been a lot of conservatives and people on the other side who have said, I'm not going to give this guy the specific

fame that he's looking for. So I'm not going to show his picture or anything like that. I'm going to join the very wise people who have said we are going to do as much as possible to try to draw attention away from his identity. Now, we still have to talk about it. We still have to talk about him, but we can do what we can to keep him anonymous because that's exactly what he doesn't want. He also said in his manifesto that he wants to start a kind of racial war or he wants to start a divisive conversation between the left and the right, between the different cultures throughout the world, specifically in the West. And unfortunately, that's exactly what has happened because he listed some right-wing personalities

in his manifesto. the left is saying that he is echoing rhetoric of Donald Trump. And so you've got a lot of people on the left saying, look, this is because of Donald Trump. This is because of conservatives. And if they're not stopped, if they're not silenced, then this kind of stuff is going to keep going. Of course, that is insanely stupid. This guy might have in some way been a part of the right because he's basically a fascist. And fascism is on the far right.

if you're looking at an ideological spectrum from right to left, fascism is on the far right, communism is on the far left. They're both equally evil, by the way. But he's technically on the right. But being on the right doesn't make you a conservative. It's not taking conservatism to the extreme. It's just a place on an ideological spectrum. This guy wasn't a conservative. He didn't care about conserving the Constitution, conserving human dignity and the rights that are inherent to men and women because they were given to us by God. That is fundamentally what it means to be a conservative. And of course, he lives in New Zealand.

So he's not expected to care about the American Constitution. But what I mean is the values that were placed in the Constitution that say that all men and women are created equal because they were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is not just an American idea that's supposed to be really a Western idea. but he says that conservatives aren't really conserving anything. Now, this is something that I've heard from a lot of people in the alt-right. Some conservatives don't want to believe that the alt-right exists,

that it was just a word made up by Hillary Clinton. That's not true. The alt-right does exist. And this guy did say some things that sound like some of the things that I've heard. Does that mean that this is the alt-right's fault? No, it doesn't. Of course not. Does this mean that because he mimics the language of some people on the right,

that this is the fault of the right or this is the fault of President Trump. A lot of people are saying because President Trump calls what's happening at the border an invasion. And this guy apparently used the word invasion that this is President Trump's fault. That's absolutely absurd. As some other people have pointed out, the media did not blame Bernie Sanders for when James Hodgkinson went to the baseball field in Virginia and shot at Republican senators because he felt or he thought that Republicans,

were evil for supposedly kicking people off their health care and saying 24 million people are going to die. He echoed the sentiments of Bernie Sanders and yet did we blame Bernie Sanders for that? No. And I don't think we should have blamed Bernie Sanders for that. A lot of people have pointed out the hypocrisy of the media though for blaming Donald Trump and blaming everyone on the right for what happened in New Zealand with a white supremacist. And that is absolutely, absurd. So as as a Christian, what should be our response? Not as someone on the left, not as someone on the right, not from a political perspective, but from a biblical perspective. Well, our response should be really, it should be a natural response of profound sadness. I mean, these were people,

and this is something that really Christians, people who believe in the Bible can only understand and comprehend is that these people were made in the image of God. They had value because they were made in the image of God, not just because they were any old people, but because they buried the image of God, because they had souls. They have families now who are broken, who are devastated, whose lives are completely marred by this, who are traumatized forever from what they saw, from the people that they lost, and our hearts should break for them. We should pray for these families. We should pray that they would know and feel the God of peace, that God would be with them. And we should pray that they would come to know Christ in whom we find ultimate fulfillment, ultimate satisfaction, and of

course, salvation. We should pray that they find the joy and the comfort and the peace that can only come from them. We should be praying hard for them. We should be praying for the churches in New Zealand, that they are mobilized to do the good work of Christ, that they go to these people. They mourn with those who mourn, of course, is we are also called to rejoice with those who rejoice. We should pray for the church that they are able to help these people bear their burdens of sadness and of sorrow, not seeking anything in return except just to love them and show the unconditional love of Christ. That's what we should be praying for. However, a lot of people, especially in America, and especially on the left in America, some people on the right as well, disdain.

this idea of thoughts and prayers. You've got a lot of people saying, I'm giving my thoughts and prayers to these people. Now, where I agree with that is that I don't really understand what people say, what people mean when they say thoughts. You are sending your thoughts. You could be thinking thoughts. You could be feeling things, but all of those things are really, they're trapped inside you. They don't actually do anything. It's not actually possible to send good vibes. It's not actually possible to send love. It's not possible to send thoughts. No one can read your thoughts. No one can feel your thoughts. Your feelings enclosed in your body, enclosed in your mind, don't actually have any effect. So when people criticize the idea of thoughts, even though I don't

think it's necessarily appropriate right then, and I've made that mistake before, of criticizing, thoughts don't mean anything in the wake of something. And that was inappropriate. And I do think it's inappropriate when people are just trying to sincerely respond to say, your thoughts don't mean anything. But at this point, I think it's fair to say, it's fair to point out that your thoughts don't. Your thoughts don't actually do anything. Your good vibes don't actually do anything. Your feeling of love doesn't actually do anything. That is doing something for you. It's not doing anything for other people. But what does something, what does have power, what does have impact, what does have meaning, what can change things and have a very,

real effect on the material world and on the hearts and souls and minds of real physical people is prayer. Thoughts and prayers, in my opinion, shouldn't even be put in the same sentence. Because what are thoughts except for things that you conceptualize in your head that, like I said, have really no outside meaning unless they do spur action. But prayers, prayers are different because you're not praying to yourself. It's not just a thought you have. You are praying. to the God of the universe. You are praying to the God who is in and through and who created everything. James 516 says, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Romans 826 says, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray

for as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. a lot of people disdain this because the reality is that a lot of people who don't really understand the Bible who maybe aren't practicing Christians or they're just not not people who understand prayer and the power of prayer they don't understand the nature of God disdain this because they think of prayers as thoughts. They think of them as these blurbs that go on inside your head that don't actually ever leave your head. They're not going to anything. They're just something to make you feel better. So if you think of prayers as nothing more than sincere thoughts, then yeah, maybe you would be angry about this. But that just goes to show the people who are angry about

people saying that they're praying don't really understand prayer. That's a heart issue for them. AOC tweeted out, what good are your thoughts and prayers when they don't even keep the pews safe? So this is someone who fundamentally does not understand prayer. She's saying, why are you even praying? All of these religious people are being attacked. Obviously, that's not working. Now, she didn't say that explicitly, but that's the obvious implication from what she said. What good are your thoughts and prayers when they don't even keep the pew safe?

She's saying, obviously, your prayers are insufficient. So she has a very basic misunderstanding of theology. She doesn't understand the nature of God. She doesn't understand the nature of prayer. She doesn't understand James 516 doesn't understand Romans 826. When you pray in Jesus, there is something real that is happening. Even if you are the sonchist Calvinist in the world who believes in the sovereignty of God, the Bible is still very clear that we have a responsibility in our actions and our actions have consequences,

even though God is sovereign over it all. but you are praying for something real. You are praying for something to manifest itself. Like I said, you are praying to the God who created everything. God sees a thousand years from now just as clearly as he sees the dawn of creation. He is suspended in this eternal now. So that means that he's not surprised by anything. He wasn't thrown off by this attack.

Nothing throws him off. He's not wondering how we got to this place. He's not up there shaking his head saying, wow, I did not see this coming. How did you get yourselves into all this? Okay, well, I got to come clean it up. No, he is over all of it. He is bigger than all of it. He doesn't go through our days like we do. He's not wondering what's going to happen tomorrow. He's not having a hard time remembering what happened yesterday. He is suspended in the eternal now. He is just as present today as he is a thousand years ago and as he is a thousand years from now. That means nothing

gets past him. And even when it does not seem like it, that means that he is in total control. The prayer of a Christian to his or her heavenly father has great power because he is over everything and he is in control of everything. Now, we don't understand that. It's very easy to say that. And we don't understand it. We don't get why bad things happen.

We get, okay, we live in a false. all in world. We get the Garden of Eden. We understand that there were consequences from that. We know people get sick and die. But when we really think about it, you know, it's hard, it's hard for us to really comprehend if we're honest with ourselves. Evil like this. Something so sick and twisted. Something like the Holocaust, something like the event in New Zealand. It's very hard for us to understand how a God who is both all good, who is, all powerful, who is all knowing, and who is all present to, that it's hard for us to imagine a God like that with all of those characteristics being sovereign over and being in control

over such horrific things that cause human suffering. It is hard to understand and believe that a sovereign good God was in control or sovereign over 9-11. He was sovereign over the Christ Church shooting. Of course, I don't think that he, I know that he doesn't want those things to happen in the sense that, of course, he doesn't want people to suffer. He doesn't take joy from that. But it's also not theologically correct to say that he just sits back and allows it to happen. That is taking away one characteristic of God that the Bible does not allow us to take away. He doesn't remove his power. He doesn't say all of a sudden I'm not in control and whoops, how did that happen? He is still in control. And that's the part

that we don't really understand and I'm not sure that we are meant to understand that at all times, in all situations, in all evil eras of history, God is just as in control as he is during the good times. That means that as hard as it is for us to comprehend that we cannot deny that God is in total control over tragedies as he is over joy, over things that bring us peace. Because to do so would say that he's either not good, to say that he's not knowing or that he's not present and he is all three or that he's not all powerful. And he is all of those things, even if we don't get it. We're not meant to.

We are meant to trust that. And the hope for the Christian, the hope for the Christian is not that one day we will totally be able to reconcile all of these parts of. of God's character, which we just have to trust or true because the Bible says it is and because the Bible is God's word. And that's really the only source of truth that we have. And so we have to be able to cling to it as fallible human beings. But the hope for the Christian is that one day reconciliation will be complete, that there will be no more terrorism. There will be no more shootings. There will be no more white supremacy. There will be no more death. There will be no more mourning.

There will be no more media. Thank goodness. There will be no more. only be fullness of joy for all of those who have put their faith in Christ. There will be everlasting peace. This won't be something that we have to worry about anymore. We're not going to be anxious anymore. We're not going to be desperate anymore. We're not going to be depressed anymore. We're not going to be concerned with anything except for worshiping Jesus. That's the hope that we have. And so our job now, as it always is, is to preach the gospel to serve others and to pray. tell people about Jesus, show them hospitality and generosity, and pray, pray for the souls of the people around you, the souls and the minds of those in power. Now, all of that said,

it is still a fair question. Is there more that can be done? Should we talk about gun legislation? After all, I'm pro-life. I don't only pray that abortion is ended. I should be praying that every day. I don't only pray that we end abortion. I also fight for ways to end abortion. So I volunteer. I help pro-life organizations. I donate. I advocate and talk about legislation that would restrict access to abortion.

And I also look for ways to help women who are in crisis. I want abortion to be unthinkable. I do things in order to manifest that just reality. And so it's a fair question for. Christians and non-Christians alike to say, is gun legislation something that we should look into? Now, the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden, has pledged proposed legislation within the next week that would dramatically change gun laws in that country. These are measures that could include restricting military-style semi-automatic weapons that were used in the attack last week. According to the New York Times to get a gun in New Zealand, it's already pretty hard.

than it is in the United States. The applicant has to first pass a background check that considers criminal, medical, mental health, domestic violence records, provide character references, subject themselves to government interviews, pass a home security inspection, take a gun safety course, and then wait weeks or months for firearms license approval.

Now, I think that is way too strict. If someone is looking to defend themselves with a gun, and if someone really fears for their life, they have to wait weeks or months to be able to have the right to defend themselves. I think that's way too much, but they've already got really strict laws in place. In 2017, though, even though it takes a long time, it's not extremely hard, or they don't typically deny people. In 2017, 43,509 firearms license applications were submitted in New Zealand. Only 188 applications were declined. According to figures compiled by the

University of Sydney, New Zealand, had 0.17 gun-related homicides per 100,000 people in 2015. That's really low in contrast to the United States, which had 11 deaths per 100,000 people in 2015, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So what they're trying to do now by enacting gun restricting legislation or gun rights restricting legislation, it's really an emotional decision. They are completely, they're completely in their right to be emotional and to be distraught over this. However, emotionalism doesn't usually lay a good groundwork for legislation that restricts the rights of law-abiding citizens. The reality is they don't really have a homicide problem.

1.2 million guns are in New Zealand, barely have any deaths by guns. every year. We have Kim Kardashian policy expert tweeting out just 24 hours after the Christchurch shooting, New Zealand banned semi-automatic guns. America take note, why can't our elected officials put public safety over gun manufacturers' profits? Well, this just points to a profound misunderstanding of the right to bear arms in the Second Amendment in the United States of America. It has nothing to do with gun manufacturers' profits. It's the right of law-abiding citizens. to bear arms. And the problem, as we've seen in study after study, is not law-abiding citizens who own their guns legally. It's people who get their guns illegally. It's people who break the law

in other ways. And we have not seen that gun legislation in this country has had a significantly positive impact on a gun-related deaths. Because it's not necessarily a legislation problem. It's certainly not an NRA problem. And so we can look at it. And so we can look at it. And so, we can look at it. And so, it's somewhere like New Zealand, which is a completely different country than us and say they enacted this legislation. But the question should be not is, does this feel good to us after a tragic incident? But is this going to work? And I'm just not sure that it is. The media, as we've already kind of discussed at the beginning, is really grappling with who to blame. Here is a guest on MSNBC saying that this is Fox News's fault. And to my mind, Fox News is the single cause, singular cause of this

kind of hate in discourse. And almost every liberal news outlet has kind of gone down that same vein. Twitter has been ablaze for the past week with people blaming conservative commentators like Bench Piro like Candice Owens or anyone who has ever criticized Islam in their lives. It's completely absurd. Again, the same respect was disrespect was not shown to Bernie Sanders after James Hodgkinson shot and almost killed Steve Scalise, the Republican senator. Chelsea Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, you know, Democrat, you know, daughter of Bill and Hillary

Clinton, she is being blamed for criticizing Ilhan Omar for being an anti-Semite. Ilhan Omar is the representative from Minnesota, freshman representative for Minnesota that we talked about, I think last week who is an anti-Semite? And she's had very anti-Semitic things multiple times. So here Chelsea Clinton is pregnant Chelsea Clinton being harassed by people at a vigil in New York. After all that you have done and all this long token of you have soaked. And I'm so sorry. Well, certainly it's never applied to attention.

I do believe it's matter. I believe we have to show us all the day. And this right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the word that you put out into the world. And I want you to know that. And I want you to feel that deep inside. 49 people died because of the rhetoric that you put out there.

I don't think. What does, I'm sorry you feel that we mean? What does that mean? So the people who harassed her, these absolutely out of their minds, crazy people who didn't even didn't even have an ability to make a logical argument,

basically said that because Chelsea Clinton cared about anti-Semitism and the anti-Semitism that was showed by Ilhan Omar, that she spoke out in a very respectful way about that, that she somehow contributes to what happened in New Zealand. Okay. So these people got space in BuzzFeed to write an op-ed.

BuzzFeed gives a platform to these kinds of harassers. So here's a quote from that. Spread on by professional bigots, anti-Muslim hate now permeates our culture and politics and everyone as a matter of urgency should consider the role they play in enabling it. That includes Chelsea Clinton. Okay, sure. I agree. We should assess in our hearts if we hate people because of their religion.

We hate people because of their skin color. If we are truly bigoted and racist and we have deep-seated hate in our hearts as Christians, of course we're told to you that. Jesus says that if you hate someone in your heart, that is the same as murdering them. So, of course, Christians and everyone, well, really not, but they say that they do. Really everyone has a moral obligation to assess in their hearts whether or not they hate someone, especially in a particularly bigoted anti-religious way, of course. But Chelsea Clinton didn't represent that.

She hasn't demonstrated that. And it is not true to say that anti-Muslim hate permeates our culture or permeates our media. That is simply not true. The fact that these people are getting space on buzzfeed.com shows the, shows the past that we give people who say that criticizing Islam in any way or criticizing someone who is Muslim in any way is Islam. I mean, Ilhan Omar, after her anti-Semitic statements, got to write an op-ed in the Washington Post. And so we are totally fine with giving people like Ilhan Omar and people who say that criticizing Islam is evil and perpetuates white supremacy and terrorist attacks. We're totally fine with giving them a platform in the media.

So I'm not really sure what these people are complaining about. The media is extremely biased when it comes to reporting like this. And the reason why they have covered this for so long is yes, because it's tragic. Yes, because it should be talked about. Yes, because white supremacy should be denounced. And by the way, Trump hasn't done, I don't think, an explicit and a good enough job to say that white supremacy is a problem. And it is something that needs to be addressed and needs to be condemned outright.

And is a terrorist ideology, just like any other extremist ideology. I think we should talk about that. But that's really one of the only reasons why a lot of people in the media have been heartbeat on this for so long because it fits the narrative that the problem is everyone on the right. The problem is President Trump that we're the ones of perpetuating extremism. Well, that's obviously not true. The numbers don't even prove that. More Muslims are killed by extremist Muslims every year than they're killed by any other group.

And you just don't hear them reporting on that. You don't hear them reporting on the Christians who are martyred, who are killed every year in Muslim majority countries. I'm not saying that now is the right time to necessarily report on that, but we don't hear the media talking about that. Why? Because it doesn't fit the narrative. And quite frankly, I think that's disgusting. If you really care about the loss of human life, if you really care about anti-religious bigotry, which we should, bigotry against any religion, then we need to be talking about that kind of stuff. For example, there is a story that I saw in Christian solidarity worldwide, and this is from my friend Nick Pitts's daily briefing email, and he reports at least 120 people have been killed in a series of alleged attacks by Falani militia on Christian communities and the Adara Chieftain of Southern Kaduna in Nigeria since February, according to the nonprofit group Christian solidarity worldwide. Falani is a Muslim nomadic group in Africa.

And I'm not saying that we need to focus on this or we need to say, what aboutism? All I'm saying, all I'm saying is that if the media really cared about the loss of life, if the media really cared about anti-religious bigotry without the spinning of a narrative, then they would talk about these things too. They would talk about the harassment of other religions around the world, the harassment of Christians, the harassment of Jews on a wide scale. Because the fact of the matter is, according to Pew Research, Christians are the number one target of anti-religious harassment everywhere. Throughout the world, we don't hear the media reporting on that. All I'm saying is that we need reporting of all of this stuff. And I am guilty of this as well. I usually just kind of jump on whatever the media is reporting on. And I don't jump on the persecution that's happening of all Christians. or not just of all Christians, of all religions throughout the world. And so we just need to be aware of the fact that a lot of the media, the only reason why they're really focusing on this,

isn't because of the tragic loss of life, which is why they should be focusing on it, but because it fits into their anti-right narrative. And that's really disgusting. It's really disgusting to be politicizing something like this. We're all guilty of politicizing things. We're all guilty of using something dramatic or tragic that happens to advance our narrative, and we all need to get better at not doing that because that's exactly

what this shooter wanted. He wanted to drive this kind of division. He wanted to drive this kind of wedge. What we need to unite around, which we just can't do, is that people are evil. The evil exists in the world and that this is a matter of the heart. This is a soul sickness. And that doesn't mean that legislation is never an option. That doesn't mean that there's never something to do. but primarily this is a problem of morality. This is a problem of the heart. But we're unwilling to get on that. Instead, we just want the clicks.

We just want to drive up the views. We just want the drama that comes with good ratings. And so we politicize things to the point of blaming people that have nothing to do with it. And we fail to report on other problems that are happening simply because they don't fit into our narrative. And that's really sad. That's a horrible and true. ruthless place to be and Christians, myself included, need to get better at removing ourselves from that and seeing the bigger and more eternal picture. So I'm going to move on from that.

I'm going to talk about two other really stupid things. There's really no other way to say it. So there's really two ridiculous things that I want everyone to take notice of that's happening in the Democratic Party. Now, there's stupid stuff that happens in the Republican Party as well. There's stupid stuff that happens on the right as well. But these two things happen to be perpetuated by the left. And so we're going to talk about them really fast. Nancy Pelosi thinks that we should lower the voting age to 16. Here she is suggesting that.

Well, I disagree with the HGL on this. In terms of legislation, we couldn't be prouder than HR1. This is about reducing the role of big, dark, special interest money in politics and empowering small donors. It's about ending voter suppression. It's about making redistricting fair. It's really a source of joy and hope to so many people in the country. I myself, personally, I'm not speaking for my caucus.

I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16. I think it's really important to capture kids when they're in high school, when they're interested in all of this, when they're learning about government to be able to vote. That is not necessary. In other words, some of the priorities in this bill are. that transparency and openness and accessibility and the rest. That's a subject of debate. But my view is that I would welcome that.

But I've been in that position for a long time. Okay. So here's the thing. When I was 16 years old, my parents were sweet enough to allow me to have a car. Looking back, like that probably wasn't the best idea. Now would I have pitched a little brady 15-year-old fit if I hadn't been able to drive and get my driver's license and have a car? Yes, I probably would have.

Why? Because 16-year-olds are stupid. They're mostly stupid. And it's not even really our faults when we're 16. Like our brains just haven't developed yet. And we're so full of hormones that we think that we're smarter than we are. We think that we make good decisions. Why do you think our insurance is so high when we are 16 years old and driving?

Because we are dumb. And I am living proof of that. Thankfully, I'm still alive because I got in six fender benders in the first six months of having a license when I was 16. Now, why the heck my parents weren't like, I'm taking the keys away from you? Because they probably wanted their independence and they were being nice and gracious to me. But, oh my gosh, I was an idiot. I remember the first time I got in a fender bender.

I was with my friends. And we were listening to Taylor Swift's Fearless album. that album brings back all these times in the Volvo that I drove. We were listening to it and I was backing up my car. Didn't even look in the rearview mirror to see the person that was behind me. Backed into a car. There are so many other stupid stories of me at 16 years old being an idiot. Why?

Because 16 year olds are stupid. We're just not smart. We just don't know anything. Now, we might be smart for our ages. And of course, we're valuable people and we should be taken seriously. And that's all well and good. But should we be given a voice in civic life? Should we be able to vote?

Absolutely not. I actually think 18 is too low. Because really, the phenomenon that's been happening in our country for quite some time is prolonged adolescence. People are younger for a lot longer. People put off taking responsibility, getting a job, moving out of their parents' house, paying off debt, getting married, and having kids. It's later than it has ever been.

And we think adulting. is something that you don't have to do until you're 35. And so you just laugh it off and say, oh, it's still fun to get hung over on Sundays when you are 27 years old because adulting is boring. Yeah, I just kind of think that maybe it's 16 years old, like when you haven't even, your frontal lobe is just like this tiny thing that's barely pulsating that you maybe shouldn't have an effect

on the kind of taxes that I have to pay. Here's my theory is that, you know, back in the day, what America was just starting out, we said no taxation without representation. Well, now it should be no representation without taxation. You have to pay some kind of tax in order to vote, not sales tax. That doesn't work.

And I've gone on and on with my Twitter audience about this and how you would have to have some exemptions for the disabled. You'd have to have some exemptions for retirees. But you have to be contributing in some way, most people in America. You have to be contributing taxes and not just sales tax in order to vote because you should have some skin in the game. Like this should actually affect you. Why should a 16-year-old who is still getting their lunch money from their parents

determine how much I pay in taxes. Like, can you tell me that? I actually think we can eliminate the age limit altogether. I'm fine with 16-year-olds voting. If there is a 16-year-old that is working and that is paying taxes, they have to provide for their family. I get that. That's hard.

They're actually affected by stuff and they don't have a say in anything. I don't think that's fair. I'm fine with 16-year-olds voting as long as they're paying taxes. I am not okay with people who are doing nothing to contribute to society whatsoever, even though they can physically, mentally, they're able to. They're not contributing to society. They're not paying taxes. And they get a say on how much I pay in taxes, the things that affect my life that don't

really affect theirs? No. I say no representation without taxation. It is stupid, stupid to allow teenagers, most of whom really have no responsibility and have zero skin in the game, have no idea how. money works whatsoever to vote for policies that affect man you. It doesn't make any sense. But the Democrats want this because they know the young people are Democrats because

it's cool to be liberal. It's cool to care about social stuff. The funny thing is they tout themselves as the educated intellectual party, but they know that the only way that they're going to keep subsisting, the only way that they are going to survive is if they have 16 year olds whose brains aren't developed yet to vote for them. come on come on but you can bet if that does happen i'm going to be in every high school in america like i am going to be gathering these people up and say here's the constitution people

if you're going to vote you need to know a little bit about it now i wish that we could also have a civics test before we voted but i i'm not really totally sure that that's actually legal i think that the supreme court said that that's not uh that that's not constitutional i would challenge that I think that we should know something just about physics. Basic or physics. What? Wow, I would never be able to vote if we had to know something about physics. Civics in order to vote.

But like I said, I'm not really sure that's going to happen. Okay, second thing that's going on that the left apparently thinks is a really good idea. Some people, not everyone, some people on the left seem to think is a good idea. I've seen this perpetuated a lot that we should abolish the electoral college. And here is sweet girl, chief Elizabeth Warren. saying as much. You know, come a general election, presidential candidates don't come to places like Mississippi. Yeah. They also don't come to places like California and Massachusetts, right? Because we're not the battleground states. Well, my view is that every vote matters. And the way we can make that

happen is that we can have national voting. And that means get rid of the electoral college. So, okay, we all kind of need a refresher on what the electoral college does. There's actually a really good Prager You video that I would encourage you to go watch about the electoral college, just so we understand what it is. But here's what would happen if we had no electoral college. the popular vote would obviously be the one who determines who determines who the president of the United States is. So that means that Hillary Clinton would have won the presidency because she won the popular vote. President Trump won the electoral vote. The reason why President Trump won the electoral vote, if you look at a map, a voting map after the 2016 election, it's almost completely red.

The whole country is almost completely red. But you see in these big cities that Hillary Clinton won the big cities. And so what you would have happened. happening is that you would have people who live in New York, people who New York City, people who live in San Francisco, people who live in even places like Dallas, determining what happens for the rest of the country. People who know nothing about farming, who know nothing about the issues that the middle of the country is facing, would determine the fate for the rest of the country. That is why we have the electoral college. You would never have a candidate again going to the middle of the middle America. Middle America. You would only have them visiting the big cities because the big cities would be the only, the only cities that actually matter. You would have mob rule. There's a reason why the founders set up the electoral college. So everyone is evenly representative.

You've represented nearly same people complaining that states with the lower population shouldn't have the same number of senators and states with a higher population. Well, that's also idiotic. That's why we have the House of Representatives. You have a certain number of representatives based on how many people are in your state, but you have the same number of senators per state no matter how many people you have in your state. Yes, that's how it's supposed to work. And so it's not mob rule.

So people in San Francisco can't decide all of the issues and all of the representation and all of the leadership for the people in Bozeman, Montana, because they don't have the same issues. And, of course, you still have state and local politicians. But we are supposed to be represented on a federal level in a way that corresponds with the issues that we're facing. And if you abolish something like the electoral college, if you say, okay, we're not going to have representation or even representation on every state. We're only going to have representation based on population. And then, like I said, you have urban and mob rule.

So these are very, very dumb ideas, lowering the voting age to 16, abolishing the electoral. college. It's really Democrats attempt to stay in power by violating the Constitution. Lowering the age to 16 is not unconstitutional. But they really hate how the country is set up and how it has resulted in Republicans winning. And quite frankly, I think they cannot for the life of them understand how with all of the tools and the money and the power that they have on their side and the manipulative rhetoric that they've been able to wield that people are still voting Republican. just don't get it. And so they're trying any means possible to make sure that they can get power and stay in power. And we need to be smart enough to fight up against that and say something about it.

Okay, that's all I have to say for today. On Friday, we're going to have a really fun and laid back episode. I'm really excited about it. Who knows what we're going to talk about? I'm going to answer some questions and talk about some trash people stuff. So I hope you have a great couple days and I will see you here on Friday morning. Hey, this is Steve Deast. 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 lead, 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,

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