You're listening to Breakpoint This Week, where we're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian worldview. Today, we are reflecting on the passing of Senator Lindsey Graham and talking about what a couple of different politicians got wrong about American exceptionalism. We're so glad you're with us this week. Please stick around. I'm Katie McCoy, along with John Stone Street of the Colson Center.
Welcome to Breakpoint this week. We've got quite a few topics to cover. John, should we start with America 250? Did you have a good celebration, America 250, 4th of July, and all that?
Well, no, because I'm in Colorado, and we're hardly patriotic as a state to begin with, but the whole state was on fire. Our fireworks were relegated to watching it on the television. But I have been kind of still trying to get over how many fireworks were shot off in Washington, D.C. That's what I was watching. I think we talked about that with Maria last week, but it's still 850,000 fireworks shot off by Trump in D.C.
It's just like, it just looked like the whole city was on fire. That's what I heard. Yeah, that it was just it was just like smoke-filled and you know, nothing says America, right? Like just we went, we went, go big or go home. There you go.
It sounds like it was a Texas style, to be honest. It was Texas style, yeah. And you you're familiar with that, but I was I was with a friend last week who was there, not kind of within the confines of the security, but was able to see him in DC. He said he it just felt like he was under assault for about 40 minutes, is what it felt like.
So, you know, hey, that's that's there we go. That's so funny.
Well, on a somber note, We're noting the passing of Senator Lindsey Graham this week. What a shock that was to wake up to the headlines and see that he had passed a 71 from, they said, a brief but sudden illness. He's very well known for his contributions to foreign policy. But perhaps lesser well-known, John, is how much of an advocate he was for pre-born life. Yeah, it was.
I mean, he had a pretty consistent voting record, which is interesting on the life stuff because his faith, the faith aspect, seemed to be inconsistent or maybe more formalized. You didn't get the impression that there was, you know, kind of a strong evangelical personal faith that often goes along. with kind of a consistent voting record on life. I think he was more even more recently, as you said, better known for his contributions in in in foreign policy. I think he had just returned from an overseas trip, actually, I think having to do with the Ukrainian Uh conflict.
But you know One of the things that I think is is i interesting here is that Graham was one of the politicians, and I think there's a growing number of them of a previous generation kind of caught in the transition within their own party. And maybe this is.
Something that goes beyond the purposes of this program, you know, which tries to deal less with the purely political and more with kind of worldview in general. But if you think about Mitch McConnell, and you even think about the way that politicians in the Democratic Party that have been around for a while, the Chuck Schumers, even the Hakeem Jeffries recently, kind of come on coming under pretty significant Critique from members of their own party that want to go further, that want to go. Into a more extreme direction, either with policy or with rhetoric or with both. And this is something you've seen. On both the right and the left.
I think the left has gone further, but Graham is one of those politicians that's had to navigate this kind of brave new world. Of the GOP since Trump. And he's done it in an interesting Way. You know, he's been both critiqued by the President and accepted by the President. The President had really kind words to say.
about Lindsay Graham this past week. And the same conversations right now are being had about somebody like Mitch McConnell, whose health is not in great shape. It seems, and there's a lot of mystery surrounding kind of just exactly what's happening w w with him. But it's a moment in time, politically speaking, in the American context, where kind of both. Of these parties have moved further away from each other.
Again, I think the left has moved. way further than the right has, but at the same time There are these kind of moderates or people that would have been moderate yesterday that are kind of caught. in the middle and Senator Graham was one of those. But You know, it was unexpected. I am grateful for the consistency that he did show.
In his votes supporting preborn lives. And that's something worth noting. Yeah, as you said, it seems as though the extremes are just getting more extreme, both politically and culturally. I think someone needs to like make Make reasonableness great again in America, right? Like, let's just have some that word moderation or moderates, they're becoming a rare breed in part because extremes are just begetting more extremes.
And speaking of that. On the extreme left, I think it's fair to say We have what we saw. In America 250 celebrations and speeches. We'll talk about President Trump's in just a moment, but let's park on New York City Mayor. Zoran Mandani.
I was shocked. Frankly, angered and just very indignant to read some of his words on the America. 250 celebration. He gave his speech on July 3rd. But he talked about a version of American exceptionalism.
That Well, I guess it was just kind of changing the definition. Certainly, of what I have heard growing up of what American exceptionalism was. Where was he coming from with this? Yeah. the quote of the speech which defines it, In such an interesting way, was this: America is exceptional because here nothing is fixed into place.
There's a vision of life surrounding a Marxist framework, which is this kind of inevitable. economically driven march towards a classless society, towards things getting better and better. There's a progressive sort of framing that's in the name itself, right? Things are getting better and better and better. And that's a very different vision than saying, you know, look, there were ideals that were put into place at the beginning.
of the American experiment that were certainly aspirational. Not fully realized, not fully true, but gave us something to aim at. As opposed to this, always look forward, never look back. My wife and I have just kind of watched through a series, and I'm not recommending this for everyone, there's parts of it that we We certainly fast-forwarded through, but called Man at High Castle. And it's kind of a hypothetical if.
The Nazis had actually won the war. and also Imperial Japan, and they had split the United States. But in this kind of grand experiment of National Socialism of the Third Reich, there was always this reject the past, always look to the future. We will build the future. And Marxism certainly is not Nazism, but Marxism has that same kind of shared vision.
And it's kind of built on a rejection of sort of. Of classic ideas. It's built on a rejection of authoritarian religion or anything like that. That we're going to kind of build this future, and the future is marching towards this utopian direction. And that's the idea.
That's why progressivism and Marxism. You know, there's a room, I guess, for Marxism within a progressive vision.
Some would actually say they're identical. I don't think they're identical, but it makes sense why progressives have this kind of room because there is this vision that we're not building on the past, that we are getting better and better. It's a moralistic, evolutionary kind of. Kind of perspective. There's a lot of different ways.
I think we can talk about it, but it's really in this statement: nothing is fixed into place. But that's different than what the founders imagine. The founders imagine some things fixed into place. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their creator. If you start with a creator and that human nature is created, and within that human nature, Are aspects of things that need to be guaranteed within a system.
And you're kind of building the experiment on that. That America is exceptional precisely because it acknowledged things that were eternally true. Eternally true. The truths that a government doesn't make, that a government doesn't invent, but that a government has to respect. And acknowledge and create space for, that's a very different understanding than this one, which is we're just kind of in this, you know, kind of falling forward in a progressive way.
I thought it was a pretty remarkable understanding of exceptionalism. And it kind of, again, tells you a lot. About where Mom Donnie is. But also, because when we talk about Mom Donnie now, we're not just talking about him. We're talking about an increasing group within the political left that has a vision of life in the world.
That aligns with this.
Now, notice I didn't talk about the political foibles here, I'm talking about the ideological failures. Of the framework that communism is built on. Communism is a failed system because it is a flawed worldview. And if there are no eternals, Kind of these fixed points of reference and stability for us as individuals or families or communities or a society. I don't know why there is this thought that we'll fall forward and not backwards, you know, but that's the framing here of a Marxist framework.
Yeah, that's a fascinating juxtaposition that the world is inherently broken and we have to completely revolutionize it. And yet, somehow, we, our generation, the true ideological Marxist beliefs, we have the way forward. We have the truth. You know, when I read his statement that there is nothing fixed, I thought, you know, that sounds familiar. I know what it reminds me of.
It reminds me of when Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just a few months ago was speaking in Munich and she talked about how culture is thin. Different words expressing the same concept, that culture is thin. And what both AOC and Mom Doni have articulated in different ways. Is this true ideological Marxist understanding of the way the world works? As you said, there is the economic base.
That is what is Truly true. That's the concrete, material, evidentiary truth, and the only thing that is driving the rest of the world. And so, when AOC said culture is thin, what she was referring to is this idea that tradition, government, family, laws. Values, morals, those are all things that are built on top of that economic reality. and indeed reinforce that economic reality.
So You know, how do you change the world?
Well, you change the economic realities. And from Marx to Mom Dani, that's what we're hearing. You know, he also said something, John, in his speech that really stood out to me. He was talking to New Americans. I believe in this context, it was naturalized citizens.
And he said, you each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means. That sounds really kind of like one of those tweetable, quotable lines that might be in a politician's speech. But when you get down into the ideas of it, It is straight out of a thinker named Herbert Marcuse. Marcuse believed that language, meaning, how you actually understand and construct meaning is something that is in flux and all part of a political struggle.
So, when you take all of his words together, when he's saying, What does America mean? That the idea of America is something that we can continue to redefine, couple that with the idea that nothing's fixed. then you really have a a mindset. That is primed to deconstruct the structures that we have. And that is the one thing that we're seeing between progressivism and true communism.
That's kind of the handmaiden that you, that they're handmaidens of each other in that sense, that they want to deconstruct the things that are in our society. Yeah, he's super charming. You kind of have to be to sell such a bad idea. That's never worked ever, anywhere. But why do you think this is catching fire?
Well, I think it's catching fire because I think there's a generation that's kind of relied on calling people commies. And that was enough to end the debate, right? I mean, I remember hearing about when the communist, I think it was Todd Gitland wrote in his book, The Sixties, that after the 60s, The right marched on the White House and the left marched on the English departments. And the Marxists kind of moved into the universities. And you hear stories about these patriots standing up in college classes, go, you're a commie, you know, and that was it.
That could end the conversation. But now that's not necessarily a bad thing. I remember somewhere a decade ago realizing that for many Americans, You know, we could say we need to protect religious freedom, and/or we're losing religious freedom. And that ended the argument because people thought religious freedom was a good thing. We there more work needed to be done when religious freedom became A term associated with discrimination and bigotry, right?
Same thing here, only in the opposite direction. There was a time you could just talk about he's a commie man, and that ended the debate because everyone, A, knew what that meant, and B, that communism was inherently bad. And that's not actually the case anymore, as you see with the popularity of these individuals. I was fascinated this week to even see Colorado governor, who's who is a progressive, Jared Polis, but he's also a rich progressive. Funny how that happens a lot, by the way.
It is, but he did it as a businessman to some degree. And so he was pushing back on. Kind of socialism and saying, look, we need to make these distinctions. And I think there's a whole group that's realizing. What an educational lift this is right now when you haven't.
Properly educated, a rising generation in civics, in history. when the history has been reduced. There was a report just last week about the Smithsonian and about how many of the exhibits in the Smithsonian that talk about American history. frame it primarily in America's mistakes. Frame it primarily as a story of getting things wrong, a story of bigotry and discrimination.
And hatred, as if there was nothing else to the story than those things.
Well, look, I am not one that thinks we should downplay racial sins. That are part of America's past. Slavery was a unique and distinct evil, particularly the way that it was practiced in some parts. Of the South, the way it violated individual dignity, the way that it separated families and encouraged the breakdown of the family. Not to mention just the violence and the abuse and so on.
This was really bad stuff.
So we need to downplay it. But you know, there is a dramatic difference between a civilization that is oriented. towards some ideal That then leads the conflict with these evils to be inevitable and eventually having to be addressed, and those that. Only telling one side of that story. And that's, I think, one of the reasons that communism is having another day.
And it would not have had it just a generation ago. It would have been unthinkable. And now, something that was unthinkable a generation ago is thinkable today. Why is that the case? That's how culture shifts, and that's how culture moves.
And it has to do, I think, with how we raise. And understand the next generation. And it's going to matter, by the way, how then we respond. There was a lot that I really appreciated and liked about that celebration in Washington, D.C. That the Trump administration put together.
I really loved the. hundred and seven year old. Veteran of World War II who stood up and saluted the flag. I love the stories of the flags. I love the pointing to the ideals.
I thought that that was really moving. I loved kind of doing the math of, you know, the World War II veteran who wasn't, he was like 101 or just under, and kind of thinking, I wonder if that guy actually lied to be able to fight in the war early, you know, because like a lot of young people did, because they believed in the cause. But you know Mayor Mom Donnie got American exceptionalism wrong, as we're talking about. But there were ways President Trump got it wrong in that speech, too. Yeah, he did.
Because it was almost like talking about as Americans were exceptional because we're Americans. And what made America exceptional from the beginning were exceptional ideals, ideals that. actually aligned with the truth about life in the world. The truth about the moral framework that God had created into the universe. It's why it was different.
The call to freedom was so different here than in, say, for example, revolutionary France. You know, it was based on some fixed eternals. that were true. And It's not true to say America is exceptional because Americans are exceptional. Americans are humans made in the image of God.
I think we can say humans are exceptional when compared to animals and computers and AI. But Americans aren't exceptional when compared to other humans. There is the degree to which We have morally aligned ourselves. With what is true. We've ideologically aligned ourselves with what is true about the human condition and the proper role of government and understanding the kind of restraints and constraints that are necessary.
In a vision of ordered liberty as opposed to Disordered. Liberty. de Tocqueville wrote about American exceptionalism in the nineteenth century. And he talked about the power of local communities. That both catechized individuals as citizens, but also kept the big state, the big government at bay.
And that was unusual because if you go across most of the world, including the Western world at the time, and even today, basically the whole game was a competition between the big state and the radical individual. And within America, there was this whole other layer, multiple layers, state governments, voluntary associations, certainly the rich community that comes out of a robust church and religious life that was built around religious revival. That was a uniqueness in the United States. And then the family. And so it's just a different sort of way of thinking about exceptionalism.
Americans aren't morally exceptional because we're Americans. If we cease being morally exceptional, By rejecting these eternal truths and embracing things that aren't. True, or embracing things that are alive. We won't be exceptional anymore just because we're Americans. It has to do with something bigger than us.
And to your point, It has to do with the fact That line in the Declaration that we were endowed by our Creator. It's either embrace the idea of creation. Or retreat into this kind of vision of. constant deconstruction and construction. As if human nature and human value and all that stuff is up for grabs.
Yeah, that's so well said. As you mentioned, ordered liberty and implicit in the idea of a creator. Is a sense of morality that we all know. And even if there is not necessarily one particular religious expression of that. There is at least enough of the understanding of natural law, moral conscience.
I'm thinking of how there was an emphasis on self-governance. It wasn't liberty just to be libertine. It was.
well-ordered self-governance. I so appreciate how you're talking about the things with the Smithsonian, but we don't want to try to paper. Our national sins, but I think part of what makes America so different. Is that despite our national sins, and we can look them square in the face. But we can say, despite that, we are realigning ourselves according to the ideals that we began with.
And this is why, even to this day, 250 years later, people from all over the world want to come live here. They want to come and be here for the freedom, the liberty, and the ideas that were established all the way at the beginning. You know, American exceptionalism, I saw an amazing clip. uh former CEO of PepsiCo. recently.
Her name is Indra Nuya. She is from India. And she sat down with Condoleezza Rice and she was asked the question, you know, what what makes America? Why is America still the land of opportunity? And she said that there is no other nation in the world where I possibly could have been a CEO, not even in India.
Only in America could I have become the CEO of this Very American brand. huge corporation And so, that idea of equal opportunity, it doesn't matter who your parents were, your grandparents were, your socioeconomic status. Everyone has equal opportunity. I just still get a little teary sometimes when I see some of these very patriotic expressions. I just am a shameless patriot.
I'll be one till the day I die. John, we need to take a break here. We'll be right back. What if you and your spouse could pursue robust spiritual and intellectual formation together? Couples who enroll in the Colson Fellows program each save 25% on tuition.
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As we're talking about some of these self-evident truths, Some of these rightly ordered liberties. Expressions of those rightly ordered liberties and self-governance and those major values in American history, namely family and our friends at Them Before Us. did a poll that demonstrated how most Americans believe that children should have both a father and a mother. This really flies in the face of what we have been told Americans believe is that the kids are okay in LGBTQ households. What does this poll signify?
Is the tide turning on some of the either gay marriage or adoption by gay couples? Is the mindset shifting here? It was a fascinating study to kind of get to some truths that you might say are self-evident or kind of built in, and people just kind of always acknowledge, right? I mean, we've seen enough of the collapse of certain communities, whether in inner cities across America or Appalachia. We've seen the children who are at most at risk and how much of that points back to.
Usually, the presence of a father or not. I mean, President Obama certainly made that a key point to say: is that, look, kids need a mom and a dad. And it's such an irony that he never saw that his famous evolution on same-sex marriage undermined. You know, that same sort of reality. What he was, you know, addressing was the crisis within impoverished communities, which was so often related to the fact that dads were absent and that left mothers financially, culturally, personally, and in terms of safety, you know, quite vulnerable.
So There's been this kind of whole process we we've been through.
So to come back and hear Americans just kind of assent to the fact, yes, yes, kids need a mom and a dad. I mean, that kind of stuff is to some degree self evident. And I think it's also important to recognize, though, the implications of all that, that means. Because This is not just something. That social science says that people believe.
This is actually something that social science consistently points to. That kids who are raised in a home with married biological mom and dad have an advantage over every other kind of situation. And that moms and dads parent differently. Mom's mom and dad's dad, and moms can't dad, and dads don't mom. There's just a fundamental difference to this.
Now, the research to this has been consistent. You would think that then we would be able to take that next step and say, well, wait a minute, a same-sex marital relationship actually. robs a child of either a mom. Yeah, I think it's a very good idea. And so on.
But we haven't made that jump. And that's one of the things that I think the Them Before Us poll is trying to do. Here's my warning, or my hesitation, or my concern. Leading up to. the Dobbs decision.
when people were became increasingly uncomfortable. on a personal level with abortion. We had polls telling us that the younger generation was more pro-life than their parents. We also had polls saying The younger generation was more likely to drive their friends to an abortion clinic if they needed help and they felt like that was the loving thing to do.
Now, how could you hold both of those beliefs without your head exploding? To quote my former summit colleague Frank Beckwith, who used to like to say, you know, point out logical inconsistencies like that and say it's impossible. It is impossible to hold those two truths together, but people do it in their head all the time, especially if they are at their heart and at their core moral relativist. That is the cultural waters in which we swim. And it's interesting how that moral relativism has become awful intolerant and absolutist in some ways.
But that relativism, our inability to tell someone else you are wrong in how you're living your life, particularly when it comes to sexuality or when it comes to romance or something like that, or family structures. I think it is just such a deeply embedded belief that we will find people willing to say, yeah, kids deserve a mom and a dad. And then refuse to go to where that belief then demands. I think it's a fascinating poll. that it's a helpful poll to realize because it's speaking to things that To quote Jay Bushaszewski, the philosophy professor, these are things we can't not know.
Right? It just makes perfect sense in light of cultural breakdown to see, oh, you know what? Dads would make a difference here because they do, they always do. Dads make all the difference. Uh, in these situations.
And no one needs to question whether moms make a difference. Of course, moms, I mean, that's that's no one's asking that question because it's a ridiculous. Do moms matter? Yes, moms matter. But it's one thing to say that, and it's another thing to say then, oh, well, if that's true.
You now need to conform your life to that truth. You now need to curb your own desires. and prioritize a child's well-being. And what's best for them over what you want. That to me is a whole nother leap.
And we didn't see it happen in the life movement. And I think we have to realize: okay, what other work do we need to do to rebuild this vision of the family? Because again, it goes back to what we were talking about in the last segment. Is the world created or is the world constructed? Is family a creation built into the fabric of the universe like gravity?
Or is family a social construct like a speed limit? And if the social conditions change, then we can change the speed limit and nothing changes. And that's how we're treating family. We're treating family like a speed limit. You know, I told a group of summit kids this week: you guys are living in one of the greatest times of social experimentation that the world has ever seen.
For better or for worse. I mean, it's not, that's not a compliment. That's not encouraging you. I'm just talking about we've never seen a culture experiment with something so foundational in so many grand ways. And as you know, you said it, oh, hey, and you know what?
You'll love this. You'll be fine. And of course, they're not. And that's what we're seeing. Yeah, relatedly, there was a Barnabol that found Gen Z both deeply holds to their Christian religious beliefs, but then they believe that it's wrong to proselytize or to try to convince or evangelize their friends about the truth of Jesus.
How can those two things coexist? And it's as you said. Not only that, moral relativism, I wonder if it kind of It sort of accelerates into our hyperindividualism that says, it feels rude. It feels rude or wrong to tell someone how they should be living their lives. And that's where, even the question of what do we owe to society, what do we owe to people outside of ourselves in the decisions that we make, not only in our own lives, but then in our civic life as well.
Well, we're seeing the erosion of some of these Very foundational beliefs and ideas happen all around us. Most notably, we're seeing stories coming out of Europe. Hopefully, your listeners are familiar with the former parliamentarian from Finland, Paivi Rossinen. I never know if I'm pronouncing her name correctly. She is just a a she's a diminutive looking woman who is a total Spitfire.
This woman was prosecuted by the government and convicted of a hate crime For taking issue with her state church supporting a pride parade. to the point that government prosecutors went back decades to try to find things that she had written in defense of a biblical ethic of marriage, and they used that against her. This is not only affecting her life in Finland, She's traveling the world sharing her story, and it's affecting her even in her travel. Tell us about that.
Well, yeah, this is in the category of stories that beg the question is Britain Gone. This past week, Stephen Hayward wrote about the fact that Britain is now on its seventh prime minister in 10 years. He called it a spectacle unthinkable even a decade ago. It's starting to look as shaky and unstable as the most fractious and unstable parliamentary governments on the continent. And it made me think about the project we just did last year with folks in the family called Truth Rising, where you talk about civilizations.
And that's not something most people think and talk about. If we do, we're at a museum looking through artifacts or we're in a history book talking about. Groups that no longer exist. And so it's hard to think about kind of what is in the modern world and think about like 10 years ago, people will be talking about that in these same or 10 years down the road or 20 or 30 or 40 years because nations rise, nations fall. Civilizations rise, civilizations die.
Some of the great civilizations in the history of the planet are no more. There's no reason to think that ours will go on forever or components of ours will go on forever. And usually it's a long process and so on. And you just have, you know, story after story after story stacking up in the UK.
So Paibi Rosanan was with us last week at an ADF event. She is a wonderful example of courage, saying the right things, also a victim of state. Sponsored. Essentially, censorship, trying to keep her quiet, even though what she had written had nothing to do with the state. She was talking about her own church, calling her own church to live by what her own church has always believed.
Finnish government has gone after her and now the UK basically rejected her ETA. Which is the new kind of thing in Britain, which is kind of an electronic visa. I forget what the ETA stands for, but I had to get one not that long ago. It's interesting because you can kind of think about: oh, I see how this probably happened, which is this is an electronic visa program. There's probably these kind of checkboxes that are built into the system where they recognize, oh, this person has been, you know, they're accessing other files and, you know, criminal files and all that.
And She has been accused of being a hate criminal, right? And she has been convicted. Not accused. Yeah, convicted of being a hate criminal. I mean, they trumped up some pretty crazy charges against her.
And now it probably just flagged it, you know, within the electronic system, or some guy, you know, who's tasked to be doing this, checked the box and then. You know, here you go. And to me, it was an incredible example of what Rod Rare talks about in Live Not By Lies, which is soft totalitarianism and hard totalitarianism.
Soft just being kind of those cultural initiatives where you just push. Unpopular opinions or people to the side. And the hard being the kind of things we've seen in history, right? From the Soviet Union and from totalitarian governments.
Well, there's this process of, you know, Where a civilization gets to where the soft becomes the hard. And you know, there is a back and forth that's taking place here between these mechanisms of. Totalitarianism kind of being built into the fabric and built into the system. And you have somebody like Pier.
Now, listen, you and I can both attest to the fact, having been at places where Paibu Razanin is, you know, Britain is poor for keeping her out. She's awesome. Like, she's amazing. She's a lot of fun, too. She's got a great spirit.
She's got a great attitude. She's got real convictions. Like, she's a firecracker. She's awesome. So can you imagine a government saying that this woman is not even allowed.
To transit through Heathrow. Can't even step off the plane. That's right. She's not allowed on British soil because she is that dangerous. There's also an incredible iron here, of course, too.
Which this is the government that just was exposed for tolerating and allowing an incredible amount of violent immigrants. Who have committed crimes that have become kind of the rape crisis of the UK?
So she's the dangerous one, but the rape gangs, I mean, it's just a bizarre. Place to come down, but you that's what happens when civilization up becomes down, right becomes wrong, left becomes right, the whole thing gets gets discombobulated. And I think her story is an example of that. Yeah, exactly.
So much of it is just, I want to say double plus ungood, which someone who's read 1984 would know that's a reference to the totalitarian state, because all you have to do is just redefine what is morally good and evil. And so a Pive Rosinan, who she's convicted of a hate crime. For expressing a concern and opinion related to something that runs afoul of the LGBTQ culture. She's the criminal. But Not only the people that committed these heinous crimes in the United Kingdom, but also those who covered it up.
Well, they're just maintaining order in the state. the the police force that was looking the other way on this for decades. And so And this goes back to language, telling the telling the truth. and truth correlating and corresponding to reality, that that is becoming more and more a subversive act, a subversive act in some of these cultures.
Well, let's pivot a little bit back to the United States, but to something else that is, I guess you could put it under that soft totalitarianism, whether it is the state law in Colorado related to what is available to homeschooling students, but then also the way that culture changes is typified in what we heard from a very left-leaning podcaster, Jennifer Welch, who just, if you've never Listen to her. Looked her up. God bless you. Don't. She is not a happy kimper about life, but she has a lot to say.
about homeschoolers, but only Only a certain type of homeschoolers. Isn't that right, John? Not all homeschoolers. Just a certain type. Yeah, I mean, we hate to do.
What we call around the Colson Center nut picking, which is when you hold up a particularly egregious story, treat it as if it's typical of the entire group of people or movement or something like that, or even lift it up as if it's a problem. I had this conversation this past week with a group of state leaders, and they were talking about a particular group. I said, Well, is it a problem or is it an annoyance? And I think sometimes we have to figure that out: is it a problem or is it an annoyance? But in light of what we were just talking about with Pive Rosin and UK, I mean, the UK has this rule to protect public safety.
You can smuggle in an awful lot of things through that big window of, we need to protect your safety, trust us, we're doing this for you. And I think the education wars that are happening in the US. Which unreservedly have gone in an incredibly positive direction in the last decade or so. There's no question about it. I mean, look, I've been watching this stuff long enough to remember where the idea of school choice and the idea of taking taxpayer funding and redirecting it to where the kid wants to go and not just sending it to teachers and teachers' unions and public schools and things like that, the whole system.
That was an unthinkable proposition.
Now we have 20-some states that have done some version. Of this. And what's interesting in Colorado is Colorado is a very, very blue state. It's become very distinctly blue in the last decade or more. But there was a point, I mean, maybe part of it is the libertarian West that we're part of or something like that.
But there was an awful lot of elbow room created. for educational alternatives in Colorado, both through Things like charter schools. And homeschools and so on.
Now, part of that was kind of creative legislation that was done before things got super blue. Didn't quite do the school funding thing, or student funding, having taxpayer funding follow the students or. But but it did provide an awful lot of choice.
Now, here's the problem with that. A progressive vision. for a group of people, particularly through state power. You can't do that if one of the socks hanging outside the suitcase is education. That's just too much control that's given up.
And we're seeing that now. I've been saying this for a long time as a Colorado resident. This will not stand with this regime. This kind of educational. Freedom, this kind of educational choice.
And we've seen it kind of being chipped away in various ways. Charter schools, big, big, big in Colorado.
Well, the LGBTQ push. involved charter schools which are supposed to operate independently.
Well, independently except for that. That was a way that the state was able to get some stronghold back into these institutions. It was a a program. where public schools could provide enrichment days. Or enrichment classes, or just various enrichment things for homeschool families.
And if the homeschooler stepped on the campus, then the school could claim that student and then use that to get additional funding. Homeschoolers liked it because, hey, you get science class, you get, you know, athletic participation, you get. You know, rocket class or, you know, whatever else. And you didn't have to bring anything. Like they had the pencils, they had the rulers, they had everything for you because this was all a financial thing.
Schools liked it because it was a way that they could claim additional students in order to get more funding.
So it was working for everybody, basically.
Well, it was mutually beneficial. One of the complaints is that the homeschool families took advantage of it. And of course we did. Are you kidding me? Because then this took on a virtual form where you could do stuff and then just claim.
I mean, the state's going to let me get my taxpayer dollars back. I'm going to take them. You know, I mean, that's just kind of anyway. All that's over. All that's over here in Colorado.
The temptation is to say this is a failed program. There's not enough money. I think it's bigger than that. And the reason I think it's bigger than that is a couple things. Number one is because of this whole context in which I've talked about which this level of educational freedom and elbow room just cannot stand within that progressive vision.
Just can't. It's just inconsistent. The second thing is, is that we have been on this tear. having to do with trying to overturn A long standing bill or law in Colorado called Tabor, the taxpayer bill of rights. And so we find that every single year And this is super political, but every single year there's some crisis in the budget because the goal is to chip away at this Tabor thing, which actually.
means the state has to give Taxpayers in Colorado refunds if there's an excess.
So the answer, of course, is to make sure there's never an excess. This year, all the emphasis is being put on schools. and that we have a funding shortage for our schools.
Now Katie, I don't know if you remember. When we legalized marijuana in Colorado, we were told there would never be a funding shortage for education again. Yeah, no kidding. Marijuana. is always, always always promoted in a state Based on the educational funding windfall that will come as a result.
So we were never supposed to have this, but now we have an educational shortage.
So that's all factors into this as well. But at the end of the day, we're having a dramatic. I think culture-wide. across the state. This is just what it looks like in Colorado.
I'd love to hear from listeners what's it looking like right now in Indiana because red and blue are going in different directions here. But it's not just about policies, not just about strategies like school funding. There is a fundamental difference. There is a fundamental distinction. and world view here.
Ultimately, Who do kids belong to? Do kids ultimately belong to the state and are outsourced to parents? Or do kids belong to parents? And they are outsourced to the state when it comes to education. And we can talk about the wisdom or lack thereof of that whole strategy.
But are the parents there to serve the state, or the state's there to join the parents? And education long ago. Was captive by a companion ideology that I think made this a lot harder to answer. which is the professionalism, the elitism, the expert. class of education.
So we hear all the time, and this is the podcaster that you mentioned, Jennifer Welch. She said even people with PhD in nuclear physics aren't able to to teach their own kids. It was a radical statement. Why? Because she believes what a lot of people believe that the educators or these professional elite think.
Now, can you learn something about education? Yes. Can you get an education in education? Yes. Does that make you a better educator?
Theoretically. We compare the end results, we're not seeing that same sort of success. And the idea that we are trying to educate A kid means we're trying to shape a soul. In that vision, it is the parents' job, and the parents are the ones that are best equipped to do it, even if they outsource various aspects of it. To the church, to the school, to Christian schools, to educational programs, or to whatever.
But it's a fundamental disagreement here between. Those who think kids ultimately belong to the state, and we have to have the experts do it, and that kids ultimately belong to parents, they're responsible and they can outsource that. It's a fundamental difference.
Well, and bringing this up, it's connecting to so many things that we've talked about.
So, for instance, Tocqueville talking about the voluntary associations that made America so exceptional, and those were localized. The idea was that you take care of your own family, your own community, your own neighborhood, and then your own state. And when you take those voluntary associations away, or what's also they're also called mediating institutions. That mediate between the individual and the state, the only thing that's left is a more direct relationship between the state and the individual. And so, what this podcaster was advocating is really shaming people into saying, you know, it's just so ridiculous.
That Christians would educate their children, basically making them socially backward. Side note: what is hindering the socialization of our children in this country is social media. It's social media use, and they can't form. Complete sentences and have eye contact, and certainly not write a letter. If we're going to talk about the socialization of children, that would be what we would focus on, and specifically the relationships, the epidemic of loneliness.
But that's really just the side issue. Because the real issue that she was advocating for, and again, Podcasters, media influencers, this is part of how culture changes, changing public opinion. This is all to remove the mediating institution of the family. Having the primary say over how their children are educated. And then, you know, along with that, I think about how 50 years ago, John, citizenship.
Was a primary goal in public education. They are training good citizens.
Well, implicit in that is that you have. A cohesive understanding of what America is, what it means to be a good citizen, what good even is. And so we have so lost. such basic foundational Cohering beliefs. That we will continue to see, I think you said Indiana and Colorado or Texas and New York.
I don't want to be doom and gloom here, but this is how we really do come to some cultural crises: when we have people that are really living in very different realities. Christian Educators. This is Billy Hutchinson with Colson Educators. And as a former teacher myself, I know you're busy, and I know you want to teach like a Christian, not just be a Christian who teaches.
Well that's why we created the Colson Educators app. You can get practical worldview training wherever you are, complete courses on your schedule, earn CEUs and connect with a community of like-minded educators. Download the Colson Educators app on the Apple App Store or Google Play. Another happy chipper subject. Let's talk about AI.
Do you get tired of talking about AI? Because it feels like every week there's some new headline. Like it or not. Here we are. This one was kind of an attention grabber.
There are nearly 200 artificial intelligence researchers, more than a dozen Nobel laureates in economics, and they issued. A statement. Calling for the consideration, the regulation, the thoughtfulness in the use of artificial technology and how it is going to transform. The economy. I think part of what made the statement so alarming, John, was how short it was.
Like there's something about the brevity that's like they just put something out there. It's like, we're in a five alarm fire, and here's this very short statement. But it also reminded me of how companies like Anthropic have started consulting religious leaders. And the use of artificial intelligence. It's that people are understanding, you know, in our post-secular age.
With AI. How are we going to navigate this without having conversations about humanity? And meaning.
So, what stood out to you in this we must act now? That's what it's called. We must act now statement.
Well, there's nothing on its face that I disagree with in the statement. It just really consisted of three points, and that was it: that AI may become radically more powerful in the next 10 years. Number two, this could drive an unprecedented transformation of the economy. even more so than the Industrial Revolution. There's a caveat in that.
Second point: that this includes both risks and opportunities. And that economist, the third point, that we have to act now. It always I'm always. I guess hesitant w when someone uh Someone says, We got to do something, we got to do something.
Well, you don't always got to do something, and what you do might be worse than what was happening beforehand, right? I mean, we have to know what it is that we need to do, and we have to properly understand it. For example, this. The economic conversation around AI from those who are involved in AI. And by the way, this is this group, this was 200 AI researchers, right?
These are people from some of the big AI companies that were involved in crafting and putting out this statement. We got to do what? Because yes. AI will dramatically shift the economic picture when it comes to whether people have a job and can make money, whether they're out of work, whether they have a living wage, all that sort of stuff. But What about the more fundamental question, which is what if humans actually were made to work?
Than Elon Musk's strategy, for example, of just, well, let's let AI do all the hard work and we'll just give everyone a basic living income. We're going to have bigger problems than not having enough, not having a paycheck. The bigger problem is not having meaning, not having a reason to go on, not having a reason to actually wanna eat. Is a more fundamental problem than not being able to afford the right kind of food or something like that. I also just was struck by this, we must act now.
Economists, policymakers and technology leaders must act now. This was a statement. From economists, policymakers, and technology leaders. Yeah, yeah. Like, aren't you the ones we call?
Are you telling us we're going to act? Are you telling us we must? Are you? Are you giving us your next 10-year strategic plan? If it's time to act now, then go act now.
Like you're the ones doing this. But the problem is, and that's unfair to say to them to some degree, because there is this. techno-centric push, this dominates this realm. And it's done the same thing with biotechnologies, which is if we can do it, we have to do it. Because if we don't do it, somebody else will do it.
And if somebody else will do it, we'll miss out on the opportunity.
So, this is a vicious cycle. It's a perpetuating, self-perpetuating machine, and it's almost impossible to get out. What Anthropic, for example, has done. by even trying to step out and bring outside voices into the conversation that are religious, that aren't technocrats themselves, is really remarkably unique when you compare with all the others, right? And of course, when we look across the world to China and what China's doing, I mean, that's the pressure, right?
If we don't do it, they will. If they do it, they'll beat us. And we can't let them beat us. It's the space race only with way higher stakes.
So I get the impulse here, but It's just whenever we talk about, first of all, this was only a statement on the economy. Whenever we talk about the economy, We can't. Talk about as if the fund the the fundamental concern is is is money. Because the economy points to something deeper about us. I've been thinking a lot about something Carl Truman said at our conference a couple years ago.
Months ago at the Colson Center Conference, he said, We're all Marxists now. And he didn't mean that we're all Mom Dani now. What he meant was, we all think like Marxist. In terms of that, we are economically driven creatures, therefore, the political is the most important. Wow.
And he was quoting somebody else, by the way, but that is the fact that even people. who aren't Marxist are Marxist if they think that the answer is to be found in economic determinate solutions that are politically driven. You have to ask questions deeper than the economy. You have to point to what it means to be human. to questions of human exceptionalism, who are we really, and that sort of thing.
So interesting statement. I think we'll get a lot more of these, my guess is, from various groups. I don't necessarily disagree. But my first thing was we must act now. Economists, policymakers, and technology leaders must act now.
And it was signed by economists, policymakers, and technology.
So go act. Like, go do something, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, exactly.
I was a little struck by the The irony. It's fascinating, though, isn't it? That some of the brightest minds they're. They're taking a step back and looking at what they've created collectively. and saying we need to do something about what we've created.
Because what they've done has dipped into areas of expertise, spheres of human life. that are much bigger than economics, even bigger than the social sciences. And so it's a fascinating moment that we're in of some of these brilliant Silicon Valley and Economic theorists recognizing Implicitly, you know, there really is more to life. Than just our economic concerns, because we recognize that this is going to affect so much more. than just the economy.
To your point, there's a reason that economics is in the social sciences. And it's not in the math department, it's in the social sciences right up there with psychology because it's about human behavior.
Well, with that in mind, John, we've got a question from a listener. Two is asking about this question what it means to be human. And the listener notes that you've talked about what it means to be human a few times this year. Are there any resources that you could recommend on the question, especially one that addresses transgender issues and artificial intelligence? And then the listener says that, hey, John, maybe you should just write one.
Well, what's funny is that's the understatement of the year that I've touched on what it means to be human a few times this year. I've done it a few times in the last hour. It is the fundamental question of our day. I'll point to a number of sources. I know there was a part of the question that wanted it in relation to these contemporary issues of transgenderism and AI.
But there's no substitute for Blaise Pascal. There's no substitute for picking up Passe. Which is a collection of thoughts from the 17th century mathematician, late convert, who was putting together a master apologetic. Voltaire talked about how formidable a thought opponent Pascal was. And a lot of this is on the human condition.
What does it mean to be human? The thing about Pensees is it's not a flowing narrative. It's a collection of thoughts that they found after he died and published it posthumously, but it's just. Remarkable.
So pick up Pense. Read a little bit at a time. You'll appreciate it, I think. We have the Identity Project. You contributed to the Identity Project.
It's a video teaching platform. You can find it at identityproject.tv. This is a set of teachings on what it means to be human and also interacts with some of these Issues that are being talked about. The Identity Project is expanding, so we're in the process of producing even more resources that are both scholarly and academic, and also popularly. I would mention specifically on these two issues.
I think Abdou Murray's new book is fantastic. On this, and he specifically addresses the trans issue and the AI issue. How that relates to identity is a book from Abdou Muri called Fake ID. How AI and identity ideology are collapsing reality. I think he did a tremendous job with that.
Fake ID. That's a great title. Fake ID. Yeah. Isn't that a great title?
Yeah. Yeah. And he's going to be speaking along with Gretchen Heisinga up at our Bay Harbor event. This is the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview, which we do once a year, usually in late July, early August. This year, It will be held in August, August the 6th, and that is absolutely free.
If you're in the Michigan area, you can join us. If you want to fly to the northern Michigan area, which is one of the coolest beautiful places on the planet. In July and August, not so much in February. Right. Yeah, it's completely different.
But it's a wonderful, wonderful place. And we're having a great conversation there on AI and the human future.
So that's a resource that you could watch with your kids and watch with your church, your small group. And talk about it's free to attend. You got to register, or you can do the live stream. And we've got. A couple hundred churches, I think, that are going to be showing that live stream about that conversation.
So excited about that as a resource. And Soon to come, not yet, but you have contributed to a volume that Sean McDowell and I are editing on the question of the body. And how that informs conversations, or should inform the ethical conversations we have about various aspects of sexuality.
So from pornography to artificial reproductive technologies to everything else. the Christian vision of what it means to be human. male and female, what it means to be human, as not just Disembodied or embodied spirits, but fully embodied. What does that mean? I think this is going to be a helpful collection of essays, and you've done a terrific chapter in that book, and there's a lot more chapters to come.
So that one's coming probably sometime next year, but there's a whole host of resources on this issue. And do you have any you want to add? That was fantastic. I think the few that stand out to me, I think about Christopher West, Our Bodies Tell God's Story. And just the significance of being an embodied being.
That once we get that right, it's sort of like the lens through which we can understand all of these very transient cultural issues like artificial intelligence and transgenderism. That's great.
Well, we are out of time. It has been wonderful being with you. Thanks for sitting in again, Katie. It's been a couple, been a while since you have, but it's always good to have you on the program. It's always fun to do.
So until next time, you've been listening to Breakpoint This Week, podcast from the Colson Center. I'm Katie McCoy, signing off for John Stone Street. We'll see you next time.
