Losing Our Youth!

The following program is recorded content created by Truth Network. So when it comes to the issue of school choice, school choice, of course, the noble family being subversive as it has been for all these years, we go back all the way to our oldest son, who's now 27, getting married in a couple of weeks. But he was in kindergarten and first grade at a private Christian school.

And then we're getting ready to add our next child and our daughter. And that was a pretty high bar in terms of school choice. In terms of the amount of money to spend two kids to private Christian school. And so we ended up homeschooling. But for us, public school was really never an option early on as our kids got older. And we have one actually that's graduating from a public high school. But she's only gone two out of her four years to public high school of the rest of the time she was homeschooled.

So for us, we took school choice to the ultimate level and just did it ourselves as a homeschooling family for 17 or 18 years. The vast majority of people in America do not have that luxury. They don't have the time. They don't have the inclination, whatever the case may be. And so when you find out and see a movement around the country about school choice, which just empowers parents to actually have their tax dollars follow their children and have some freedom in terms of where your kids go to school, they're locked into the government school system.

They go wherever the government says your kids going to go to school. That's usually not a great thing. So when you see states like Iowa and Utah State taking steps forward with this respect, you can hope and pray that that's just a small symbol of something that's going to happen across the nation. And we're going to talk about that for a little bit today and some other things with respect to our youth. And then I'm going to spend the whole second half of the show talking about the CDC study that just came out, which is horrific, especially when it comes to teen girls. But Timothy Head is the executive director of Faith and Freedom Coalition.

He's been on the show before. And of course, we've done a lot with Faith and Freedom Coalition here in North Carolina. Timothy, great to see you, man. How are you? I'm doing really well.

Thank you so much for having me and for talking about these issues. Yeah. So this is a big deal. I think a lot of people don't necessarily open their eyes and their minds on this particular topic, assuming that the government school system is just the way it is.

It's set in stone and you go where they tell you to go. So when you see things happening like in Iowa and Utah, this is actually a huge deal. It's a huge deal because I think a lot of parents and frankly, even some people that don't have kids in schools anymore in 2020, either curriculum or assignments were being sent home or parents were watching their kids over a Zoom link or whatever the case. And the first day or two, they were like, well, that's a little odd. And seven months through the process, they were like, what the heck is going on here, man? So I think that was kind of the business as usual. And then on top of that, we saw a lot of people, a lot of institutions that were very slow in wanting to renew kind of normal processes or whatever.

And so, yeah, I mean, it started this huge thing. I would say West Virginia and Arizona were probably the first states to take pretty sizable school choice legislative action. You just alluded to Iowa and Utah just here in 2023 now have passed major, major bills. But some other places like North Carolina and like Florida and like Georgia have taken some more kind of education saving account types of approaches or maybe some tax credits, which is certainly better than nothing. But now you're moving into the state of Texas, which is the sort of in public education is the beast that kind of drives the market and all this stuff with millions and millions of kids across the state. And the most like vibrant effort at school choice is happening right now in the state legislature in Texas.

And if that were to happen, I think that you really might start to see the damn break. Yeah. And so school choice, for those that might not be super familiar with the with the term, what does it mean generally? And then, of course, it's going to apply differently in each state.

You mentioned North Carolina. We have like an opportunity scholarship. So if you're a lower income family, you can get some money from the state, which is supposed to be tied to your tax dollars to actually give you some choices in education. But generally, what is school choice cover?

Well, you know, the name is sometimes these monikers don't really do very well, but I think the school choice, you know, moniker is not too bad. It gives parents ultimately the choice in where their kids go to school. And so the idea is generally, you know, before some of the woke ism kind of crept in, it was it was really kind of tied to underperforming schools. So, you know, maybe maybe there's there just a host of of reasons why school districts or specific elementary or middle schools might perform disproportionately lowly. It would allow parents to be able to, you know, once once they're like rating systems for schools and and if if different states do it a little bit differently. But if a school district or a school, you know, a particular middle school, for instance, performs below like a C grade C for three consecutive years with no mitigation, then all of a sudden that triggers the ability for parents to to send their kid to a neighboring school and either a public school or potentially a private school, depending on kind of how you live, where you live. And and then, you know, that money would follow instead of your neighborhood school that's that's failing.

It follows your your your son or daughter to to the school that they actually attend. So it's this has been kind of there's a continuum to this that's been moving in this direction for 30 years. But but I'd say it's really, really picked up steam in the last 10 or 12 years.

And especially, like I said, since since the year 2020. Yeah, we're the kind of the well, the Wizard of Oz had the curtain pulled back. Right. And you could start to see what was going on. A lot of parents are like, what's happening here?

So that's where you get even more freedom, where it might be an ideological decision. You're like, OK, they're teaching all this woke stuff. They're teaching CRT. They're teaching the 1619 project. OK, enough.

We're out. And I'd love to see the most aggressive programs, of course, are going to allow that talks those tax dollars for a parent to flow wherever they want their kid to go. So whether that's another public school or a charter school or even a private school, a private Christian school, and in some cases even homeschooling, because like when your kids are in high school, Timothy, at the homeschool level, like with our kids, I mean, you're spending three, four thousand dollars a year on classes, on materials.

And so to have that kind of support with the money that you're paying into the system is a big deal. I want to talk about that and kind of finish up our conversation on that in the next segment. We're up against the break right now. But then also, I want to turn to another thing that has to do with our children, because I'm really talking about that for the whole show. Which I know you guys have been engaged in.

Timothy Head is the executive director of Faith and Freedom Coalition, fighting for our values all over the country. But also, what about gender affirming health care for kids that are under 18? That's a big problem as well.

But school choice is first. Then we'll talk about that next when we come back right after this break. It's not Saturday, it's Tuesday. Happy Hallmark Day to everybody. This is Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show here today with Timothy Head, who's the executive director for Faith and Freedom Coalition, an outstanding Christian conservative organization all over the country in 24 states now and also acting locally in legislative issues on a state by state basis.

They were just here in North Carolina last week. And Timothy, it's great to have you on. And thank you so much for all your work.

FFcoalition.com is the website. But in 24 states since 2009, tremendous growth. There's a lot of work out there to do, to say the least. But give people just a primer on kind of what Faith and Freedom is all about right quick.

Yeah, great question. So, you know, one of the ways we sometimes say it is we work towards public policy from a biblical worldview in a constitutional framework. OK, so it's possible to have a biblical worldview, but not in a constitutional framework. And we have to be careful about government doing things that shouldn't do right. Also, you know, you can have kind of amoral, you know, not a not moral policies within the constitutional framework.

We believe that both of us have to go together. We work in federal and as well as state policy and legislatures. And then we also are heavily engaged in elections cycles. So last year in 2022, our teams in 26 different states last year knocked on 8.6 million doors. Those are faith based voters to make sure that people aren't sitting home and just kind of sitting on their barca lounge and complaining about how things are not going their way. You got to get in the game. And so we're engaged both on the legislative side and on the grassroots mobilizing side. Yeah. And all that information you can catch at the website FFcoalition.com.

FFcoalition.com as in Faith and Freedom. On the school choice thing again, this is really ultimately, you mentioned going incremental here, Timothy. So at first, yeah, school choice could be just being able to choose the different schools that are in your particular government school district. And then based on performance, I think one of the things that's great about school choice on that level is just forcing schools to perform, because if a school doesn't perform, then they have another choice.

They can compete. Some other school, you just go there and it forces the school to either get its act together or literally go out of business. And that's a pretty healthy thing, isn't it?

It's a healthy thing. And, you know, one of the reasons why we also kind of take an incremental approach is because as more alternatives are kind of coming online, as new schools are starting or they're getting larger, it's pretty hard to just start a brand new school, you know, whole cloth. And so a lot of schools maybe will start like K through five, and they'll do that for two or three years.

And once they get their cohort moves through fifth grade, then they now we're six to eight, you know, K through eight. And so, you know, we work in a lot of states to try to say, hey, let's, you know, let's appropriate a certain amount of money. And, you know, we've seen this in Georgia as an example, but Florida, another one, you know, let's start with $15 million. And then two years later, let's move that to $35 million.

And two years later, let's move that to $75 million. Because it allows not only certainly more students, but it also allows schools to actually build capacity and move faculty. You actually, interestingly enough, are seeing a lot of faculty that also are not exactly thrilled about what they're being required to do. You know, I just want to teach, you know, Shakespeare. Don't make me do all of this other stuff.

I just want to teach, you know, geometry. Not all the woke CRT stuff. Yeah.

So a lot of these, a lot of, you know, maybe they're Christian teachers, but, you know, some of them, they just kind of, they don't like indoctrination. Yeah. They just have common sense.

Yeah. Common sense and common decency. One of the things with school choice that everybody needs to remember is one of the segments of our population that's most interested in school choice are the people that are stuck in really bad schools. A lot of minorities, a lot of inner cities, poorer areas. They want school choice, and the party that says they're all for them won't give it to them. So it's really amazing here that conservatives are like, we're going to do something here to help people in underprivileged areas, especially African Americans in underprivileged areas. School choice is great for them.

It's great. And the politics of this on the back end really originally is actually what won the governorship, believe it or not, for Ron DeSantis four years ago in his first run. That the mayor at the time of Tallahassee, a Democrat who's tied to the teacher union in Florida, was literally going around the state saying that he was going to phase back and eventually repeal school choice. Well, there were 31,000 Democrat registered Democrat mothers who had their kids registered in school choice programs. And his name was Andrew Gillum. Gillum actually lost those. He lost about 50 to 48 for those mothers. So ironically enough, really the core, the base of the Democratic Party, typically as African American females, especially mothers, they flipped on DeSantis because Gillum was actually saying, I'm going to take those school choices. And they were like, you are not doing that to my kid.

I don't care what you say. I'm going with DeSantis, who actually was campaigning on expanding the program. Yeah. So every Republican nationwide would be wise to get on the school choice bus and push it because not only is it good for everybody, but especially it's good for people that are stuck in really bad schools, especially African Americans in the inner city type areas and then just poor areas in general. So switching gears here, Timothy, while I have you, let's talk briefly just about like Utah just banned gender affirming health care for transgender kids. There's 21 other states that are considering bills this year.

I'm sure you guys are dealing with this as well. This is critical because right now we have institutionalized child abuse. Unfortunately, it's true. And, you know, briefly back to the political piece, ironically, this is actually one of the major dynamics that led to Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia. You know, so DeSantis excuse me, Trump struggled in and lost by about 10, just over 10 points in Virginia, literally just 12 months later. So this is not a generation later, 12 months later. Glenn Youngkin runs particularly on on school related issues, a lot of CRT related issues, and even some of these issues that you're alluding to here.

And he flipped the state and won by 2.5 points, a 12 and a half point flip in the 12 months. And these are the issues that were actually driving that. So you're actually right over 20 states either have already passed, moved through their legislature, or are they're kind of, you know, kind of slogging their way through North Carolina is a longer legislative cycle this year. And, but I expect that probably pretty close to all of those probably 17 or 18 right now I think will pass some version of either banning or severe limitations on on this kind of these kinds of practice. Is this this type of legislation, Timothy we're talking to Timothy head executive director for faith and freedom coalition is this type of legislation only supported by a bunch of wacko Bible thumpers like us, or I think this actually has much wider spread support than what the media might want you to believe.

Well, look, I mean, I don't I don't, I couldn't even tell you what the media would want you to believe. I don't have a channel channel there but yes I mean that, you know, part of the reason frankly what over 20 states are moving on this is because the polling on this, you know, let's just be very blunt about it. It's not like, you know, Senate and House leadership and all these different states are just kind of swinging for the hip. They've taken all kinds of public opinion polling and have been for really 24 months on these kinds of issues.

This is like 7080, you know, in several states 90 plus percent I mean, as close almost as you're going to get to consensus that you can find, you know, I think that you wouldn't be able to even agree that the sky is blue in most of these states. And, and they're actually, I mean the medical community, you know, or is coming out disavowing these practices, you know, insurance even, you know, insurance, insurance carriers are disavowing these practices, just complete with all kinds of problems and, you know, you hate to be, you wish that these were not even fights. Yeah, of course, but that's why faith and freedom coalition exists to help us fight for these causes which you don't have to be a Christian to understand these things this is just good common sense Timothy, thanks for being on man, I appreciate you. Thanks for doing it.

I'll rinse it out just throw it in there. Welcome back at Steve noble the Steve noble show great to be with you appreciate Timothy had in the faith and freedom coalition. They're in 24 states so go to their website see if they're in your state get involved they'll really help you stay engaged and knowledgeable about what's happening in the legislature's in your state and and then opportunities to engage and then ways to get educated and get involved every two years with elections super super important they're doing an incredible job. It's amazing how many doors they're knocking on they're really having a major impact so you want to check that out, FF coalition.com they're very strong here in my own state of North Carolina so excited about that, staying on the topic of our, our young people today, our youth. This, I heard about this the other day. And then I spent some time on the actual study that this first story is referencing out of the CDC.

Just listen to this and then I'm going to unpack this some more. And this is a, this is a huge problem. And it's getting worse, every day. And this is one of those times when I'm not going to have an issue with the federal government, using its power to get involved in this one so I'm going to finish up with with that aspect of it here but let me go to this story first from axios but this is in a bunch of different places teen girls engulfed. That's the word they use engulfed in sadness and violence new report says teen girls are experiencing record high levels of sadness and violence, according to a new report published Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now just stop there for a second, you do realize this is happening.

Don't you. I mean, especially if you pay attention if you're ever on Twitter. If you're ever seeing what's going on, I mean, if you go back 10 years 12 years 13 years, and the whole phenomenon of cutting. And then the amount of people that are dealing with anxiety and depression, the amount of kids on medication, all that stuff has gotten unbelievably bad, and it's, and it's increased rapidly over the last 10 or 12 years well, what major societal change started about 12, or let me be specific 13 or 14 years ago well in my hand here if you're watching on Facebook Live or rumble here in my hand you see my handy dandy iPhone 13, okay with a picture of our, one of our grandson on there so the iPhone 13, which means this is the 13th year about it last year so this year the iPhone 14 will come up it's 14 years of iPhones I think they skipped the ones at 10 so maybe it's 12 or 13 years, 12 or 13 years ago you get smartphones going. And then social media comes along. It was before that but then really took off a smartphone so remember that in the background, I think we all know this is the deal. It's just horrific, I mean I've seen these challenges with our own daughters and their friends. This is all over the place it's inside the church it's outside the church nobody's immune because nobody's immune from this thing nobody's immune from this smartphone.

Okay, driving the news back to the Axios article, according to the report. 57% of teen girls in 2021 reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless. Now get your gospel on to. There is one thing that can help all of this. And that's a growing relationship with Christ to know your creator through his son.

So this is ultimately like everything is spiritual problem and then the spiritual problem, which let's say as an iceberg is under the water then what you see in the natural is above the water but the bulk of the problem is under the water it's spiritual. 57% of teen girls in 2021 reported feeling personally sad or hopeless over the past year up 36% from 2011 and the highest rate seen in the last decade by comparison 29% of teen boys reported persistently sad or hopeless compared to 21% 2011 so nowhere near the rate of both but still sad amongst boys and then get this this was interesting to me. LGBTQ plus students and students with same sex partners also reported high levels of sadness and hopelessness hopelessness in 2021 at 69% and 78% respectively. So, LGBTQ plus students 69% feeling persistently sad or hopeless and 78% of students with same sex partners feeling persistently sad and hopeless.

No kidding. There's about 32% of Gen Z now between like 15 and 24 that identify as LGBTQ plus 32%. So there's not a lot of shame there anymore on that one. Now there is some obviously and there's instances depending on the person and what they're experiencing there's that out there, but our culture is nowhere near as negative on that issue as it was before you I mean you have gay characters and just about everything.

So despite that. We're feeling persistently sad and hopeless, about 30% of teen girls said they had seriously considered attempting suicide. Up from 19% in 2011. And with LGBTQ students 45% and 58% also reported seriously considering suicide. 18% of teen girls said they experienced some form of sexual violence in the past year.

How about that. Well that's porn culture, sexual violence, that's what's going on there. What they're saying America's teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness violence and trauma, Deborah how are you the CDC's chief medical officer said in a press briefing on Monday, this week ago over the past decade teens especially girls have experienced dramatic increases and experiences of violence poor mental health violence and suicide risk. She added the numbers are unprecedented Kathleen at the at the year director of the CDC's division of adolescent school health said in an NBC report, now I've got the actual study in front of me okay this is the actual CDC study that particular portion because it's about an 80 page document focus area mental health and suicidality.

Okay. So let me just start here. This is the, the percentage of students who experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. Okay, in 2011 it was 28%. This is all of them male and female in 2021 it's 42% that's a 50% increase in 11 years 50% increase in 10 years.

Why this, this thing right here. The iPhone the smartphone and social media seriously considered attempting suicide it was 16% in 2011 22% in 2021 that's a 38% increase, made a suicide plan 13% 2011 18% and 2021 I know you're thinking, oh, 13 80% that that's not too bad. That's a 38% increase. And attempted suicide it was 8% 2011 of teens. It was 10% in 2021 that's a 25% increase.

And it's way worse for girls. Why social media, Instagram, tick tock influencers, of which almost none of them are. In 2021 42% of high school students felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row that they stopped doing their usual activities. Now what else was going on in 2020 and 2021. Oh, that's right, school shutdowns female students were more likely than male students to experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness so that persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness that would actually affect what they're doing with their time. The total was 42% in 2021. However, that was 57% amongst teen girls versus 29% amongst teen boys so amongst teen girls, 57% of them in 2021 felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks that they stopped doing their usual activities.

So we shut them down and made their social media use, even worse, which is every person that agreed with school shutdowns from Fauci on down. Every single one of you. One day you're going to face, God, you're going to face judgment. And unless you have Jesus that's going to get in between you and the wrath of God, you will experience that wrath personally forever. And with respect to what we've done to our kids on that issue. Not to sound heartless, but you deserve it.

And that's just going by what Jesus said about those who lead little ones astray. For females get this again persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. 36% in 2011 to 57% 10 years later.

It's a nightmare. Poor mental health in 2021 29% of high school students experienced poor mental health during the past 30 days. But for females, it was 41%. Seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021 22% of high school students seriously considered attempting suicide during the past year. That was but that was 30% amongst the female population female teenagers 30% nearly a third. God help us nearly a third in 2021 considered attempting suicide nearly a third. Which skyrocketed by almost 40% in the last 10 years.

I mean, it's 50% for girls. It was 19% seriously considered attempting suicide 2011. It was 37% it's 30% in 2021.

That's an increase of 50%. It went up 50% seriously considering attempting suicide made up suicide plan. In 2021 18% of high school students 18% made a suicide plan.

But for girls, it's 24% a quarter a quarter of our teenage girls in 2021 made a suicide plan. And you think the answer is in the White House. It isn't but there is something DC can do about it. That's pretty radical, but I think needs to be done. We'll talk about that when we come back.

Welcome back at Steve Noble the Steve Noble show talking about something that we simply cannot talk about enough and we should talk about more often. It's what's going on to our with our teens in terms of mental health and suicide. I've been taking you through some of the aspects from the CDC report just looking at 2021.

That's an absolute nightmare. Just some highlights or lowlights here. 57% of teen girls in 2021 reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless. Up from 36% in 2011.

Okay, so this is these the changes here are massive. Okay, so experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2011. It was 28% of teens now it's 42% that's a 50% increase seriously considered attempting suicide in the last 10 years up 38% made a suicide plan up 38% attempted suicide up 25% and then when you get into the girls side of it, it's way worse. So persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness enough that they stopped doing their usual activities.

Okay, a lot of us can probably relate to that either our children or grandchildren. 57% of teen girls fit into that 57%. Seriously, a poor mental health in general, 41% of teen girls in 2021 seriously considered seriously considered attempting suicide 30% of teen girls in 2021 30% nearly a third made a suicide plan 24% of teen girls in 2021, actually made a suicide plan and our, and our suicide rates actual suicide rates are up attempted suicide in 2021 10% of high school students attempted suicide. So 22% made a plan, thought about seriously thought about doing it 18% made a plan, but 10% actually attempted to the size, one or more times during the past year. 10% total, and for girls. It was 13% actually attempted suicide.

So obviously the suicide rates the actual completion successful suicide rate, if you will, is up attempted suicide for girls up 30% in the last 10 years 30% what's going on here. What's the deal with that. Well, I think it's this thing. I think it's the smartphone. And if they're not using the smartphone then they're online on a regular computer desktop iPad, whatever, and they're on tik tok. And they're on Instagram.

They're not on Twitter. Teenagers aren't on Twitter, by the way, FYI, so you know that Twitter and Facebook are for old people like us. Instagram, Snapchat, and now tick tock. Tick tock is where you find young people not even YouTube anymore. Most of them tick tock, you know, and I ask these questions with my students every week, the overwhelming majority of them tick tock so we have some issues there, obviously with Chinese involvement with tick tock. But all these numbers got worse in the last 10 years because social media took off and smartphone proliferated.

And then we shut schools down I mentioned that before the break we shut schools down in 2020 in the spring of 2020 and the fall of 2020 in the spring of 2021 and some of them, the fall of 2020 on and on and on it goes. So then they spend even more time on their phones and on social media, where you're comparing yourself to a lie, basically, you're comparing yourself to a lie. Based on likes or follows or the size of the audience social media influencers you're not an influencer. And if you're not an influencer that means because you have no influence because you got nothing to bear, you bring nothing to bear. No, why would anybody follow you.

You can't garner a crowd you can't even get 50 likes on your best picture, which tells you you're a loser, and you're ugly. You're unworthy, because they're looking to the world and you know, the devil. I use the D word the devil loves this kill steal and destroy right. He comes to kill steal and destroy that's his deal.

He loves this. Oh yeah, your, your self worth wasn't established number one in the fact that you're made in the image of God and number two the fact that the, the God who created you and marked you with his image, also was willing to die for you, you want to get your ultimate self self worth you got to go back to the Middle East 2000 years ago that's where you find yourself worth on a cross when the God who made you and everything else loved you so much, you're so you're worth so much to him that he's willing to die for you. He didn't even ask for it, and you weren't even interested, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. So if you look to the world. This is what happens. And then we bring the world into the palm of your hand in your car in your backpack in your pocket 24 seven waking up in the middle of night, you took the best picture you've ever taken of yourself a great picture you throw it up there on Instagram or whatever, and every 30 minutes you check back, and you couldn't get more than 50 likes and you only have, you know, 322 people that follow you on Instagram you can only get 50 likes so obviously you're a loser. And that might not even be in the front of their mind, but that's the message that it's getting right that they're getting. So let's go to this GOP bill bans kids under 16 from social media to save them from dangerous emotional distress representative Chris Stewart is leading the charge to stop the declining mental health of America's youth. This new bill from Representative Chris Stewart with bar social media companies from allowing children under the age of 16 to use their platforms, and an attempt to help save the declining mental health of America's youth doing it due to an increased use of tick tock Instagram and other addictive media apps, they are addictive they're designed to be addictive.

All these big meat social media companies all have psychologists on staff, and they design everything about this for maximum pull retention how do I keep people how do I keep you on and coming back, so I can run ads in front of you, and that's how I make money. Stewart a republican from Utah introduced the Social Media Child Protection Act. God bless him, which would require big tech companies to verify the age of their users including by using methods such as ID verification would also give states the authority to bring civil lawsuits on behalf of residents if a company violates the age limit restrictions and creates a private right of action they should do this with the porn industry as well for parents on behalf of their children. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission would be in charge of holding big tech companies to account and enforcing fines and violations occur I know we get nervous about government intrusion Believe me I teach that every week.

But in some cases you need the power of the government to enforce things. Stewart told Fox News Digital the idea for the legislation came from a personal experience of a family friend who had a 16 year old daughter whose last action was to leave a message for a suicide prevention hotline before taking her own life. The congressman a former Air Force pilot work to establish the National Suicide Prevention hotline, which also helps a great number of us veterans. After the 988 number was set up Stewart turned to another crisis that he said is fueling the mental health crisis nationwide access to addictive social media at too young of an age.

Amen. He said the issue first emerged in 2012 and Facebook bought Instagram, and began marketing the young girls and then the young men, and they have by the way, admitted that, which of course led to an increase of young Americans access to what the congressman describes as emotional heroin. Isn't that for sure, quote this bill is protecting them from the environment itself from protecting them from the overall immersion that just swallows them up and begins to destroy their value or sense of self worth. It destroys their sense of hope in the future and makes them feel like you know everyone is happy except for me.

Why aren't I happy. I mean it's just a whole list of emotional distresses and that's primarily our focus he said he pointed to President Biden's recent op ed in the Wall Street Journal that said big tech accountability is an area where, quote, Congress can find some common ground unquote as companies are quote pushing content to children that threatens their mental health and safety, unquote, I agree with you there Joe absolutely. We must hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit said Biden. Amen, sir. I'm with you. The introduction of the new bill comes just days after US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said children under the age of 13 are too young to be on social media, because children are still developing their identity, which is why the whole gender thing is a nightmare.

And straight from the pit of hell. I'm saying gender dysphoria doesn't exist it does it needs counseling and help not a scalpel and drugs, not hormone treatment, not scalpel not a double mastectomy at 13. That's child abuse. Quote I personally based on the data I've seen believe that 13 is too early. This is Murphy. It's a time where it's really important for us to be thoughtful about what's going into how they think about their own self worth and their relationship and the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children, if not all of them.

I would add. So what do we do with this. I mean, parents, grandparents, you're not going to win a popularity contest here, but who cares. And I would love to see Congress get together on this and actually for social media companies, all of them.

If you're going to do any business in America, then you're going to have to have verification maybe you need parental consent to verify that that the kid getting the app is at least 16, maybe even older, but you get asked some kind of ironclad thing and if they're making it available to kids you go after them use the power of the Federal Government Act. This is where you actually use the Department of Justice in a good way. And you go after them. Because by allowing these things to happen, we're literally complicit in the emotional, mental and physical destruction of the next generation. I mean, we kill them in the womb. So what's a big deal about watching them suffer once they're born and hit the teen years.

That's how reprobate it can be. But I'm fully in support of this. I hope the GOP gets in there and the Democrats wake up and they all get involved with this and say, yep, we've got to do something about social media because it is the numbers show you this. It's destroying, it's leading them down the road to destruction, mental, emotional and physical.

And then ultimately setting all that aside, you can ban social media all you want, stay off tic tac all you want. But if a young person, a middle aged person or an old person doesn't meet the Lord, there ain't a whole lot ultimately that you can do, which is why we have to continue to preach the full counsel of God's word. Share the gospel, live the gospel out to the best of our ability, point people to Jesus, because if you're going to the world to find your satisfaction and your contentment, you're hosed. You have to go to your creator through his son, your savior. Other than that, everything's temporary and will fall apart.

Your house is built on the sand instead of the rock. Pray about this. Get involved. Pay attention. Make hard decisions. If we love our children. This is Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show. God willing, I'll talk to you again real soon. And like my dad always used to say, ever forward. Another program powered by the Truth Network.