The American Churchman: Rogue California and the Constitution

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the American Churchmen podcast, where we encourage men who are Christians to take responsibility in their home, take dominion in the world.

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And I am John Harris. This is my co -host, Matthew Pearson, if you're here for the first time.

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Welcome. And I'll ask the question I guess I'm in the habit of always asking it. How are you doing, Matthew? I'm doing good,

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John. You and I were talking a little bit before the pod started. I have some car issues. Gotta get a few new things.

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Well, not really a few new. I just need to get a new alternator. But other than that, no, I'm doing fine. Things are going well.

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Summer is hot here in Florida. How's the weather where you are? Yeah, it's kind of damp.

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And it's been like the rainiest month. Last month was the rainiest month we've had in a long time.

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And June's no exception to that. So I'm just kind of used to it. But tomorrow's supposed to be pretty and supposed to get

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Florida weather. We're at like 78, I think. So, although like, what are you guys?

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Right now. Nevermind, nevermind. Yeah, I got in my car and it was the internal temp the other day was 103.

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Oh, yeah, I'm not ready for that. Yeah, that's like one week in July here, maybe two. It was brutal, but.

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That's, neither of us are in California though, which is a blessing, I suppose, right now. In Los Angeles, at least.

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That's true. And we'll talk about that as the program unfolds. I know I talked a lot about immigration on my podcast yesterday for Conversations That Matter.

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But we do have an article queued up on this subject and we're gonna share some scripture and talk about this some more.

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We'll get Matthew's take. Before we get to all that though, we usually do an attribute of God.

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And while people are coming into the channel, why don't we start talking about the sovereignty of God? Yeah, absolutely.

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So we should go over that. And I sometimes forget to do this, but of course,

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I can only do so much with my brain when it comes to discussing these attributes. So I like to cite my sources.

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No Moeller this time. I don't know why I didn't do any Moeller, but we did some bobbing. So there you go.

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From volume two, God and creation. I kind of went through what he had to say about sovereignty, sort of summarize some of my own knowledge of it and synthesized it here.

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So if you're on my Twitter today, you may have seen me post a bobbing quote and that quote will actually be at the end of our discussion of this attribute with me sort of summarizing some things.

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But God's sovereignty, if you are reformed or at least somewhat familiar with the reformed space, that's like the sovereignty of God is like the big thing that people like to talk about it.

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So when people first become reformed and they go in their little cage stage, they love speaking and screaming about God's sovereignty.

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The Lord is sovereign. Who are you a man to say to the Moeller? Why have you made me this way?

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The pot talking to the, or the clay talking to the Moeller. So, yeah, let's just get right into it.

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There's actually a lot more to it than just, oh, God is in control of all things. So we'll discuss all that, but to do what

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I always do before I get into an attribute, I like to read one verse from the old Testament and one from the new. Our first verse will be

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Daniel four verses 34 through 35. This is actually Nebuchadnezzar speaking in the book of Daniel.

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If you're unfamiliar, it's only four chapters in. So give yourself a fresh, quick read on Daniel, but Nebuchadnezzar himself states,

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And at the end of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me.

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And I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation.

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And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his will and the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

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And none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? And our New Testament verse is from Colossians chapter one, verse 16, where the apostle

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Paul writes, for by him were all things created, referring to Christ, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him.

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So God's sovereignty. As I stated, Bovink will be our main source here. How do we define

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God's sovereignty? It can essentially be defined as the assertion that the Lord God alone is the creator.

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And by virtue of this, of him being the creator of all things, visible and invisible, he is thus the owner, possessor, and Lord of all things visible and invisible.

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Again, I'll say those, owner, possessor, and Lord. He is this over all his creation. And from this, by virtue of his ownership, possession, and being

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Lord over all these things, he derives absolute authority. And he derives both his absolute authority and his will in relation to creation is the final ground of all things and their being.

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His will in relation is the final ground of all things and their being. So as I stated there, talking about authority and God's will, sovereignty relates to both

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God's position as the ultimate authority and what flows from this authority, namely his will, what

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God wills and decrees. As the sovereign over all created things, because when we talk about a sovereign, you may refer to someone as,

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I'm the sovereign of this company, or I'm the sovereign of this family, I'm the sovereign of this city, state, or et cetera.

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That means you just have a rightful rule. So God, as a sovereign, has rightful rule over all things and all lawful authorities which exist or all lawful sovereigns which exist, be they civil, be they ecclesiastical, they derive their authority from God's own authority.

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The apostle Paul, in relation to civil government, he writes about this, referring to the civil magistrate as the servant of God.

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So God's will, in light of this, directly relates to his sovereignty because all things derive from God's will because what

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God has decreed always comes to pass. And this power to will all things flows from his sovereign authority.

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Now, though God wills with one and the same simple act, as we always talk about in the attributes,

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God is a simple being, meaning that all that is in God is God, all of his attributes, we can distinguish them, but each of these in essence is the divine essence.

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And so though God wills with one and the same simple act, one is free to be able to distinguish the free will of God from the necessary will of God.

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God's will in relation to himself, what he wills regarding himself, is necessary as he cannot but love himself through his own perfect self -knowledge.

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Because God is immutable and unchangeable, there's nothing that God can will of himself which could be any different because all good things which can be predicated of God himself in relation to his will is perfect and is absolutely necessary that he does these.

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In relation to his creation, however, God's will is free in that what he wills for his creation rests in his own sovereign good pleasure.

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And he owes no one an account for what he does. You may think of what I just referenced in the beginning from Romans 9, who can say to the creator, like, why have you made me this way?

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I don't remember the exact phrasing of the verse but you all get the gist, you can all go to Romans 9 in your Bible right now as I speak.

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But all of this is very important when talking about sovereignty, mainly authority and will.

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A lot of the times many cage sage Calvinists or people that are very into pop level reformed apologetics and theology, they love to emphasize

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God's will. And especially in relation to predestination and election and things like that, because like that's where it's sort of God's will manifests most clearly in election, especially given that God's election unto salvation is unconditioned.

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So God thus and his free will and good pleasure decides to elect some unto salvation while passing over others in response to that.

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However, God's authority in relation to this is also very important. The fact that God himself willing these things itself, like he has the authority to will these things.

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So even though God has authority over all creation, God doesn't derive this authority by virtue of the fact that he creates, but rather God has always possessed this authority.

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And when creation actualizes, he exercises this authority through what he wills for his creation.

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And in regard to, I guess we could say, this is us discussing an attribute of God. It's not necessarily a sermon, but I always do like to leave something when we talk about an attribute like related to application in the life of a believer.

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And to end for application, I'm gonna read this quote isn't too lengthy, but it's like a paragraph length.

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It's a quote from Boving's Reform Dogmatics Volume Two, Part One, Chapter Five. And I posted this on Twitter earlier.

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And at first it sounds all technical, yada, yada, yada. But then at the end of the quote, he really gets into a great application for those and why for people and why they can trust in God.

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Boving writes, accordingly, when Augustine, Thomas referring to Aquinas, Calvin and others said that there was no reason or Latin causa for the divine will, they meant that the will of God as being one with his essence has no causa behind or above it on which that will would be dependent.

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But they by no means meant that the will is without reason or in Latin ratio or ratio, however you wanna pronounce it.

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I haven't taken Latin. That in the sense of Schopenhauer's theory, it is blind and irrational.

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On the contrary, this is a part of application I wanted to focus on. God's will is one with his being, his wisdom, goodness, and all his other perfections.

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For that reason, the human heart and head can rest in that will. For it is a will of an almighty

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God and a gracious father, not that of a blind fate, incalculable chance or dark force of nature.

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His sovereignty is one of unlimited power, but also of wisdom and grace. He is both king and father at one and the same time.

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And that quote is just so important for the Christian life because it helps us to remember that God has a reason and a purpose behind all that he wills and ordains.

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And if you just believe in a very fatalistic God who doesn't really have much attachment or care for his creation, just wills because he wills because he wills, that can leave you in certain discomfort and distress.

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But because all that is in God is God and God's goodness and lovingness and all these things are all tied up with what he wills, we can take comfort and rest in our

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God. And as I always say, that is the attribute of sovereignty in a nutshell.

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That's really good, Matthew. I do need to make a quick announcement. Someone texted me and then

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I saw it on my end. Apparently Facebook live stream is down. So if anyone's trying to look at this on Facebook, jump to YouTube or jump to Rumble or jump to X.

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So yeah, Matthew, regarding God's sovereignty, this is I think one of the big doctrines that's obviously challenged quite a bit because there is evil, the problem of evil.

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And because people think that it conflicts with man's choice, right? Those are probably the two big things that come up in regards to this.

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In apologetics, obviously, those are probably two of the biggest topics that are discussed too.

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Not just for Christianity, but for even in Islam, which they do not have the same view that Christians have of God's sovereignty.

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But because they also posit a monotheistic deity who has a control over creation, some of those same challenges emerge.

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So this is a problem for not just Christians. But I guess what I was gonna say is like, what do you have to say about that specifically when people bring up like, if there's all this evil going on and if this is part of God's plan and if he is truly sovereign over that, it just seems like that shouldn't fit into his plan because it comes into conflict with other attributes we've discussed, like his goodness, for example.

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Yeah, so to that, what I would say is that in regard to free will and things like that, a lot of the times people can talk past each other about what they mean by free will.

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And in reality, the way that God has set up things is that God has imbued man with a will.

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And this will in certain regards is actually free. Westminster Confession of Faith in chapter nine of that, it actually is entitled,

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Of Free Will. And it opens up with the chapter stating, God hath imbued the will of man with that natural liberty that is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.

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It's only by virtue of our fallen to sin that our natures have been corrupted. And so we're still free to will certain things.

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It simply is that, what is the mechanism through which you will? You will through your nature. Nature and will are inextricably tied together, which is why when we talk about Christology behind the person of Christ and him being

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God and man, that we predicate of Christ, a divine and a human nature. And from a divine and human nature, there are two wills, which is why

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Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane said, not my will in reference to his human will, but thy will, the divine will, which he shares in accordance with his divine nature be done.

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So will is tied with nature. And by virtue of the fact that we have fallen natures, man only in an unregenerate state, only wills that which is contrary to the will of God.

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But in regard to evil and how God works with evil, Bavink actually has a section in talking about sovereignty about the problem of evil.

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And he states, God does not will sin. He is far from iniquity. He forbids it and punishes it severely, yet it exists and is subject to his rule.

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And while this may seem almost controversial, the idea that God does not will sin, yet it exists and is subject to his rule.

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This is just what the scriptures say. And the first place that I think of is Genesis 50 verse 20, where Joseph tells his brothers, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.

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So God is able to work around the evil things that man decides in order to bring about the greater good.

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So in light of the fall, man is inclined towards sin by virtue of fallen nature. And yet God who ordains and sustains all things is able to use these for bringing about the greater good.

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And something very important to know is that when we talk about God being sovereign and having control over all things, this does not mean that God makes the choice for you.

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God does not like, God doesn't do that. Rather God in his sovereignty is able to work with that which you do.

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And so God enables you to freely choose the good when you are regenerated. And when you're regenerated and united to Christ, according to reform view, you receive all the benefits of Christ, which means you receive perseverance.

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And thus like you just, what you will not by virtue of your nature, choose that which is evil to your own like condemnation.

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Like you will not be able to apostatize if you are united to Christ because God is able to work with that.

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So God permits man to do things that are evil, but he doesn't himself cause it in a direct manner such that man sins because God infuses evil into them.

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So this kind of gets into God's permissive will and that God permits certain things to occur, but insofar as it's oriented towards bringing about the greater good, which he has in mind.

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And I think that when we make those necessary distinctions that the problem of evil sort of kind of falls behind, but it's a very complicated discussion, which can't be like, you know, resolved in like a few minutes of a podcast.

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You know what I mean? Like there's a lot that's been written on this. Right, yeah, no, totally.

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And I just saw recently there was a good answer. Someone did one of those, I don't know what they're called actually, but those rooms where there's a circle and there's someone in the middle.

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I think Jordan Peterson was on one of these things recently and it was an atheist. Anyway, there was a

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Christian conversing with the atheist and the atheist is going on about the problem of evil. And the Christian makes this argument, but he does it in a way that's,

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I don't know, it was a little outside the box for me. I hadn't heard it quite done the way he was doing it, but he was trying to put in perspective the fact that men live a very short period of time.

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Actually, they were talking about animals. He was saying even, so animals live a very short period of time because obviously animals experience pain in a sin -cursed world.

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So how can God like this or how can God use this or have it see a redemptive purpose here somehow? And he's like, well, you know, he's trying to, he was trying to postulate this world where all of that pain, even for animals,

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I guess he was, maybe he thought they lived eternally or something, I have no clue, but he was trying to say it's so brief that it ends up being in the long run, working out to some future purpose where lessons are learned and this is, and it serves the greater good of man and it serves the greater good of God.

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And I don't know, it was, I'm not doing it justice, but I think that is the answer though, is that God's plan is a long view.

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It's not what we see, our life is a breath and we can't see the next, around the next corner in the rat maze, but God sees the whole thing and has a purpose for it, knows his plans.

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And that is a comforting thought because we don't know what the next thing life's gonna bring to us. We don't know if there's an

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EMP that'll go off tomorrow or a nuclear explosion or, I mean, these are drastic things, but anything could happen, right?

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So unless you're one of those black pillars that think nothing happens, you know, but I think things happen.

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So, well, that was good. Let's get to some questions or comments and then we'll switch gears. And actually,

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Matthew, I don't know if I told you what my title for this particular podcast is.

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I'm actually gonna look it up myself. So I don't, I think I put something like - Rogue California and the

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Constitution. Yeah, yeah, Rogue, yeah, and the Constitution. Maybe I was being a little click baity.

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Rogue California and the Constitution. So there are people who are gonna come into this channel thinking that's what we're gonna talk about.

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So we have to appease them a little bit. And we're gonna do that through this article. But a few comments here.

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The other Paul says, I support the dissident rights disregard. See, he's already, immediately, he's like, he thought we were talking about the

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Constitution. The dissident rights disregard for the Constitution, a loyal subject to the crown. I'm seeing more of this, by the way.

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I don't know exactly where that's coming from, but the guys who want a monarchy, you know, like the time and climes of the world who think that we would be better off with a king that's making its rounds.

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And maybe that's Curtis Yarvin, right? Isn't that his thing, his monarchy? And he's kind of popular.

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Not that I've read much Yarvin. I just know a lot of people that have more time than me to read Curtis Yarvin and other -

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Yeah, you just know people who, right, right. Yeah, I'm just like, I'll read the theology. You can read

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Curtis Yarvin. I'll read his tweets, I guess. Imagine being so pompous that you think you understand

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God's motivations and limitations. Yeah, that's something that I notice in classic literature.

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Well, not classic, but like early American literature, you will constantly find references to the mysterious providence or the mysterious will of God.

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And I love the way that is phrased. So it is mysterious. It's limited.

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We are limited in understanding it. And it makes sense of all the events that come to pass, though.

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And we're subject to it. It's his providence. And anyway, Islam is more fatalistic than Christianity.

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I do believe so, yes. Also, I think Allah is more, he can change his mind more easily and that kind of thing.

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So things are not guaranteed like they are in Christianity, where we have these promises that usually what's brought up is that Christians are assured of a place in heaven if they repent and put their trust in Jesus Christ.

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But someone who's following Islam is not guaranteed a place in paradise, even if they follow the five pillars.

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But that's my understanding from my, I'm reaching back like over 15 years to world religions class.

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All right, let me see if there's other relevant. I would love to hear how I can be sure that I'm saved.

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Oh, okay, I'm paranoid over this. Paul, we're gonna pray for you. I'm gonna pray for you tonight.

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And I don't think we can take a lot of time in the program to talk about this specific topic, but it is an important one.

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And I'll say something briefly. And then if Matthew wants to say something, he can. I'll just say this. I do think it's different for different people.

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So I was, I don't know if this is your story, Paul, but I was raised in the church. And so remembering a time when

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I had not made a profession of faith since I made one at six was very difficult. I couldn't remember before six really. And I struggled with this in my teenage years.

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And really what I came to was the difference between trusting in my decision and then trusting in Christ directly.

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And that made all the difference for me. I don't know if I can fully explain to you. I can explain to you the mechanics, but what happened in my heart,

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I can't quite explain. But I came to a conviction that Christ had actually, he had died for my sins and that it was his will that I put my trust directly in him.

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And that it was a lack of faith that made me keep praying that he would save me, which was my habit, as I think a lot of kids go through that in their early teens who are raised in the church.

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And so I would recommend, if you're gonna do something to remedy this, read,

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I know it's cliche, but read 1 John. Don't read it though as a book of simply just tests to ensure how large your fruit is.

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Read it as a book to determine whether you have fruit at all. In other words, if you, if there is anything in your life that says you love the brothers, that you are walking in righteousness, you hate worldliness, right?

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It doesn't have to be large, large fruit is what I'm trying to say. You don't have to be perfect, which I think is the incorrect way of reading 1

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John. This is a pattern of life. You should be able to look back and see like there's a desire, there's a direction.

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You are becoming more and more conformed to Christ, even if it doesn't go at the rate you'd like.

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And let that encourage you as you see those things. But ultimately, don't just navel gaze, right?

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That's, I think, a big problem. You don't wanna just look at your fruit. I think that is a part of this, but you want to look to Christ because he's the one producing that fruit in you if you are in fact saved.

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Now, if you're not saved, you will not desire the things of God, right? It will all be selfish ambition that even motivates you wanting to have a place in heaven.

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There won't be a true love for Christ. It will be a love for self -preservation, for example.

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So just be comforted. 1 John 1 .9, we confess, he forgives. And then cling to that promise and cling to it every day and put more and more of your focus on what

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Christ has done. And as you do that, I think, you will recognize things changing in your life.

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And that will, in turn, encourage you. So that's my best shot in five minutes here. But Matthew, you have any advice on this?

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Yeah, I would just say, look to Christ. I know it's very cliche, but that really is what it is, is as long as you trust in the

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Lord Jesus and then in light of that, when you look at yourself, the fact that you're even asking that question shows that there's a desire to be one with Christ.

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That desire is a very good sign. Look and trust in Christ. Yes, look to your obedience in some regards, but also realize what 1

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John says. In 1 John, John calls us to obey God. And this is how you know you're in God.

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You keep his commandments, yada, yada, yada. But at the end of the day, you won't do it perfectly. But that's why we have Christ who is a mediator.

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Don't just look to Christ's life, death, and resurrection. Look to those with great joy, because that's where the things really get done.

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But also look to Christ's intercession and the idea that the Lord is pleading on your behalf before the throne of the

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Father. And at the end of the day, also think about what good is it to worry about this stuff to such an extent to where it causes you great distress and pain.

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That doesn't really change a whole lot. So at the end of the day, all you can really do is just look to the

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Lord Jesus, adore him, and be devoted to him, be steadfast.

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Make sure you're in prayer, in the word, going to church. If you're baptized, look back on your baptism and the promises that God made to you there and cling fast to those, apprehend it by faith and truly trust.

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I know that a lot of this is easier said than done. You can just tell people, oh yeah, just trust in Jesus. Look to Christ, yada, yada, yada.

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But truly look to these things and just say, Lord, I surrender to you,

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I trust in you. Because at the end of the day, that's going to be more helpful than just despairing.

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That will do you no good. There's a bigger net positive to trusting in the

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Lord and saying, I am with you, God, do with me what you will. And in surrendering yourself to the

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Lord Jesus, it's easier to be able to go about your day, seeking after him.

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And yeah, just like I said, read the scriptures, be in prayer, go to church and talk to a pastor as well.

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John and I are two podcasters. If you're at a local church, talk to your pastor, talk to elders, talk to Christians more mature in the faith than you.

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That will be of much greater help than anything John or I can provide for you.

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Because that person may know you a bit better. They'll be able to fully talk with you about the things going on in your life, about any concerns and worries you have.

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And it's why God put the church there anyways is to feed you. And that's why we have the body of Christ is to give each other admonition and encouragement to pursuing righteousness, pursuing the

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Lord and resting in his promises. So that's what I'd say. And repent or yeah, repentance, but also yeah, like feeling sorrow for sin, a sorrow that leads to actual repentance and like confessing that you have sinned, that is also obedience.

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That's also fruit. I think sometimes we neglect that. Like, no, when you have sin, when you're like David and you've sinned, right?

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Or Peter and you've denied Christ and you've sinned, the mark of a true Christian is you repent of that sin.

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So even in that repentance, that is obedience. So just be encouraged. And it looks like Paul says he does see progress.

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So he's thankful that we weighed in. He says, I do not go to church as I know I should, but I live where most could be considered false in Vermont.

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Well, well, there's your problem. No, I'm just kidding. You gotta get out of Vermont. Find out where A .D.

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Robles goes to church, right? Doesn't he live in Vermont, I think? I'm not sure, but I mean, yeah, you could do research or like, you know,

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I mean, it may be hard, but look for any good, you know, I'll obviously say

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Presbyterian, but I'm sure there's faithful Baptist churches there, faithful Congregationalist church, heck, even an

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Anglican church, like an Episcopalian church. If you can find one that's faithful, just get plugged in with the church community because, you know,

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Christ left the church for a reason and it's very important for edification. And that was one of the commands is that, you know, you gather with the body.

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So it's very difficult to just, you know, Christianity is not a one -man journey. It's, you know, the

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Lord has bought for himself a people, not a person. So I would say, try to find a church.

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I know it's, again, like I said, it's easier said than done. I'm in a very blessed situation where my particular area is saturated with a lot of good faithful churches, but look around.

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I'm sure there's something out there, even if it's something that doesn't align with all your theological convictions. Yeah, yeah.

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If you have any more questions, you can find me on social media, message me. I'll try to send you some stuff.

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All right, well, let's talk about the issue at hand, which is gonna be this article.

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And then we will get into constitutional stuff a little bit and the argument for what's happening here.

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So I, oh, wow, I just heard thunder outside. So if you guys, if I lose the feed,

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Matthew will finish it up. I don't know how close that thunderstorm is, but you might hear,

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I don't know if you hear that in the background of my mic, but it was just overhead there. Anyways, getting back to the subject at hand, this is obviously the picture that everyone's looking at right now from California.

30:04

The alien shall rise is the name of the article. And, oh, here we go.

30:09

I guess I can't move that article on the screen. All right, so I'll just leave it there. And it's by my brother. And this is like my brother's issue, even more than my issue, because he works, he teaches

30:19

ESL, so English as a second language. And a lot of the people he teaches are the children of migrants who came here in some cases illegally.

30:29

And it's, you might ask, how is that happening? How are they going to school in a red state? Well, it's happening everywhere, guys, because actually by law, states are forced to provide these accommodations.

30:43

And sometimes it comes with meals for illegal migrants. And so, yeah, that is what's happening out there.

30:49

But anyway, he starts to talk a little bit about just like what happened over the weekend. A lot of us are familiar with that and his personal take.

30:57

Some of you don't know this, but I'm from Los Angeles originally. David was born in New York, but he's, you know, obviously his family, my parents were both born in, actually my mom's born in Ohio, but she was like six months old when they moved to LA.

31:11

So my, both my parents are from LA. Anyway, it's kind of a near and dear thing to us just because we've seen the changes there.

31:20

And he kind of talks about that. Like it's hard to lose something that's home or like a special place that you're connected with.

31:27

And that's what it feels like in California. And then he talks about how there's this toxic empathy out there.

31:33

Actually, he showed me in this, there's an article by David Platt. I was not aware of this. This actually was just last month in Relevant Magazine and it's complete trash.

31:43

It is just, it is, you know, the height of woke 2020 is this article. I'll just tell you the last thing he says.

31:50

The whole thing's like this. But the last thing he says, he goes, I don't pretend there's any easy answers, but I do believe the gospel requires us to wrestle with these questions.

31:58

Regardless of where you land politically, we're talking about our neighbors. And Jesus was very clear about how we should treat them.

32:04

As long as immigrants, documented or undocumented, live among us by God's sovereign design, we are compelled to love them as we love ourselves.

32:12

Well, what does that mean? Well, the rest of the whole thing is basically countersignaling right -wingers. Like you're denying the

32:19

Imago Dei, you're denying the gospel, and you're just, you're saying get off my lawn in Spanish.

32:25

I kid you not. That's one of the things he quoted. So yeah, that's, so he showed me that and he's like, look, this is just what's going on in Christian elite circles.

32:35

And it's true, it's still going on. It's a toxic empathy, it's guilt manipulation. But then he brings up this verse, and I'll stop here and see if Matthew has a reaction.

32:44

But Deuteronomy 28, 43 through 44 says, the alien who's among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower.

32:53

He shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He shall be the head and you will be the tail. Of course, this is talking about blessings for obedience in Israel.

33:04

This is about Israel, obviously. And then curses for disobedience. This is one of the curses. And I do think it's maybe important we pause there and just acknowledge the fact that we're in the situation we're in actually reveals something that would be considered a curse in ancient

33:20

Israel. This is a sign God's actually doesn't have favor on your nation or your country.

33:28

And I don't know what you think of that, Matthew. I tend to think that God is,

33:34

I mean, you hear this from a lot of people, that God's judging the United States or judging Americans or whatever.

33:40

Like, I mean, I'm pretty open to that idea. I actually think that's very possible that this is one of those signs.

33:47

What do you think? No, I would, I'd agree with that. I think that it's proper to invoke a verse like that to talk about this situation.

33:56

I know that some people may not be as inclined to go that way because they would say something like, first off, old covenant

34:05

Israel had a very particular theocratic government which was instituted by God for the sake of like their particular purpose.

34:12

And by virtue of that fact, this is something in regard to old covenant Israel, which was, like I said, much more particular, whereas the nature of the church is that it's

34:20

Catholic and universal, such that this would almost make it to where civil societies and commonweals can be multicultural, have foreigners, while this not being a curse from God.

34:32

But to that, I would sort of respond that, I would concede that a lot of what

34:38

Deuteronomy and all these books of the law speak of is in relation particularly to old covenant

34:43

Israel and their circumstances. It's not really, I wouldn't say that the debate is not about who this necessarily applies to in its original context, but more so the principles which we can drive from it.

34:58

And I would say that the principles that you can drive from it is this idea that it is a curse of God to have a commonwealth connected with a nation and its people be subverted by foreign agents.

35:14

And obviously, we can speak about the permissibility of allowing foreigners to reside with you.

35:21

That's obviously something permissible because the old covenant law speaks on how we ought to treat those who are aliens and strangers in the land.

35:29

And it directly links it to the fact that Israelites were foreigners and exiles in Egypt and the fact that Israelites were exiled later on in history.

35:41

But regardless, that's different than having them be completely controlled by those foreigners and displaced by them.

35:49

Because attached to any nation or commonwealth is this idea of a host people.

35:57

And it's a good thing. We would say it's a good thing for a host people to exercise a degree of authority and influence for themselves.

36:06

And we even see this in the preamble to the constitution. It says, for ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.

36:16

The United States of America. I have the schoolhouse rock version, the song memorized so I know that part of it.

36:23

But yeah, it's important. And so this is a discussion about principles. And I think that the principle still stands regardless of the fact that we don't live in a theocratic nation governed by priests, which is in direct covenant with God in the same inner that the

36:39

Israelites were. And that obviously gets into a whole other discussion of whether a modern nation can be in covenant with God, which many of the

36:47

Puritans and even many of the Anglicans that were here did seem to think that a nation or commonwealth could be in covenant with God.

36:56

I think that the principle still stands because attached to this is like losing a degree of influence in your own land that your ancestors fought and died for.

37:11

And also this idea of if a foreigner take you over, that implies that there's not assimilation to your culture and customs and things of that nature, which

37:20

I think that if people are to be permanent residents and citizens, there ought to be an effort to assimilate to a host nation because they're a long -term guest.

37:33

And if they wanna reside there permanently, that's almost like an invitation to assimilate oneself into the host nation through intermarriage and things like that, and taking on the customs and culture.

37:46

And many people think of this because with a lot of the streams of European immigration into the

37:52

United States, what ended up happening is like, of course there was protests, like, oh, why are these Irish and Italians and Spaniards and all that coming in?

37:59

And there are certain parts where they didn't really ever assimilate into the broader culture, which is why you'll see like certain parts of New York that have much more

38:07

Italian influence, where there are others. There's a joke that somebody told me where it's like, if an Italian's in New York, he's an

38:14

Italian, but if he moves to Florida, he's gonna marry an evangelical and the kid's gonna be an Anglo -Saxon. Like that's kind of a joke, but yeah,

38:22

I've sort of rambled on enough about that. I think that the principle still stands that assimilation is important and not having yourself and your people totally taken over by foreigners is good.

38:33

Yeah, no, that's excellent point. I think he's bringing it up because all these other verses are brought up about treating aliens and sojourners a certain way, but somehow this verse is skipped over.

38:44

Like David Platt and Russell Moore are not bringing up this particular verse, 2

38:52

Chronicles, sorry, not 2 Chronicles, Deuteronomy 28, 43 through 44, because it doesn't suit the agenda they have.

38:59

It's a warning about what will happen if you allow a foreign people to control, have too much influence.

39:07

And there are obviously mechanisms to prevent that from happening, like year of Jubilee reverting the land back to the original tribes and that kind of thing.

39:18

But I was gonna say in Los Angeles today, if you were to try to, let's say you're a foreigner coming in and you want to assimilate into the

39:27

United States and your first city that you come in to is Los Angeles. To assimilate into Los Angeles, actually a true assimilation at this point is speaking

39:36

Spanish. It's not really, I'm just telling you someone, I go there like every year to visit family.

39:44

It is not what it was even 15 years ago. Certainly not what

39:49

I remember from the nineties. Like going to Los Angeles is like going to a foreign country. And it's, but it's within the boundaries of the

39:56

United States. And obviously there's little things here and there that signal that it's still part of the

40:01

United States, but it is very disconcerting. It is very surreal. Depending on what parts of the city you go to, like you literally do not feel like you're in America.

40:12

And I say that as someone who was born in Van Nuys. So I'm not very far from where these riots are taking place.

40:21

So yeah, we could probably, yeah, we probably could move on with the article here.

40:26

It says that he talks about Romans 13. He applies, he says by the logic using

40:34

COVID basically. Right, COVID was like, you have to trust what the government says.

40:39

You got to abide by it or else you're not loving your neighbor kind of thing. And he's like, yeah, but why doesn't it apply here?

40:45

Like we have laws against the kind of sanctuary city status that LA is trying to give people illegals and giving them the savings.

40:55

So isn't that encouraging sin? Isn't that encouraging breaking the law? Do we want people to live in perpetual sin?

41:01

Which I think is a very good point to be made. And then lastly, he says that Americans are in a strange position where one political party actually represents the occupying aliens.

41:13

This is a really a point. And the other for its faults represents whatever is left of the United States. The responsibilities delineated in Romans 13 to punish evil and reward good could not be more clearly applicable.

41:25

The Christian who sees evil in his land, and prays about it, and then takes action to oppose it does no wrong.

41:30

Almost sounds like a quote for the Donald Trump foot out there, right? He who saves his country does no wrong or something.

41:36

Anyway, can he sin in his anger at the evil provoking him of course, and we must make sure to be angry and yet do not sin.

41:45

So basically we've got to be Christians about this, which means having a modicum of restraint and perspective.

41:54

And what Matthew said at the beginning, understanding God's sovereignty in these things, understanding this may even be a reaction that's appropriate is actually to repent of the sins that we have as a people too.

42:06

And I don't know exactly what that looks like, but maybe even at church, acknowledging, and usually in January, there's like Sundays where you focus on abortion or something, but there's certain rules for corporate repentance.

42:21

And I think those rules were kind of like run roughshod over in 2020. It's gotta be an actual sin that's taking place.

42:30

It needs to be something that is between you and God. You're not apologizing to people in the audience, right?

42:36

And I don't know that the church is necessarily like the federal head for the United States either, but there does need to be some kind of a change of heart in the people for their personal sins too.

42:47

I mean, that's really where it starts. It's gotta be something you're personally involved in. So anyway, that is an appropriate response.

42:54

And we gotta trust God. We gotta be able to look at these situations and be thankful that God even put a guy like Donald Trump who wants to do something.

43:02

But I'll pitch it back to Matthew here with this, because I have a lot to share as far as my thoughts on the constitutional issues here.

43:11

But I guess this idea of a political party, only one of them being actually pro -America, one of them representing

43:21

America and the other political party, the Democrats, which represent half the nation or half the country, I should say.

43:27

They are actually actively trying to subvert the country.

43:32

They are giving haven in California. Gavin Newsom is giving a haven to illegal migrants without apology.

43:40

And then trying to do these kind of technical referee things with Trump, because he shouldn't have been, he shouldn't have sent the

43:46

National Guard and certainly not the Marines, because this is unconstitutional. He didn't follow the procedure. But like Gavin Newsom is literally, and he's done this for years, made a safe haven for illegal migrants to be able to break the laws of this country.

44:01

And he's got the full force of the Democrat Party behind him. He may be the nominee for president running against J .D.

44:07

Vance or something. I mean, he is the number one name I hear. And he's literally against the country.

44:14

Like that is kind of a bonkers idea. And I don't know what's the remedy for that.

44:20

Something's got to give at some point when half the country doesn't even like the country. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure.

44:27

I think that's in large part an explanation, I'd say since the Trump phenomenon or the

44:33

MAGA movement. I think next week is gonna be officially 10 years since Trump walked down that escalator, which is wild to think of.

44:40

I'm like, wow, I was 14 when all that happened. But yeah, it's pretty crazy to think about.

44:48

But like what it comes down to is it sort of is like it's a revolution from the middle. Sam Francis writes a lot about the forgotten class, about middle

44:56

America, not feeling represented politically at all. And that's like what it is, is that Americans want to feel like they have representation.

45:07

And for the longest time, both Republicans and Democrats have sort of sold them out. And it makes perfect sense to like, want to represent yourself and your interests and to do so collectively.

45:19

That's not evil collective Marxist socialism or whatever, that's just basic common sense.

45:27

And so I think phrasing it that way of one party is for American, the one party that's not, makes a lot of sense because for all the accusations of xenophobia, there seems to me to be a whole lot more xenophilia in regard to like the

45:41

Democratic Party, which in that case, if you're overturning the interest of the people who you've sworn to govern, that's obviously a problem.

45:51

And so I think that phrasing it that way makes a lot of sense. And yeah,

45:56

David's done a great job in this article. And one part of the article that I really liked sort of as a conclusion is where David is sort of talking about like the, the percocet says, the

46:08

Christian response is seeing your nation torch and he sort of, he talks about, or maybe it wasn't here.

46:16

I'm looking at it right now, but he essentially, no, I guess it wasn't there, but there's a part in the article where David sort of he, oh no, it's at the very beginning of the article, my bad,

46:30

I don't mean to be bumbling all over the place right now. He says in the sort of the beginning where he says, as a

46:35

Christian, I'm required to keep all things in eternal perspective. This is a difficult task when viewing the embers of the things you once loved, but it's nevertheless necessary.

46:44

Despair is not an option. Hope of heaven is not a cliche, is a crucial part of the Christian life that helps us weather the storms and maintain hope among the hopeless.

46:52

And the reason why I think that's good to stress here is because some people, like I'd say some of us can be a little bit allergic to this kind of talk.

47:02

Why is that the case? Because we're so used to Jesus jokes. We're so used to people who move out of the way of giving you any real practical solutions in life, who move out of the way of saying like, these are like actual steps you can take because they wanna sweep everything under the rug with like a pithy little nice evangelical saying, and then that's the problem solved.

47:26

And so because of that, some of us are very much like sort of, we issue talk like that.

47:32

But in reality, at the end of the day, I know it is important to keep eternal things in perspective and to remember that in the midst of wickedness, we have grounds for hope.

47:42

Even if we can't resolve a particular thing in this life, we do have hope for the life to come.

47:48

And at the end of the day, what distinguishes us from those who give Jesus jokes is that the

47:53

Jesus joke is a diversion from actually facing the issues. Whereas I would say that David's use of this sort of rhetoric is not to divert someone from facing the issue, but to embolden them and encourage them in the midst of facing an issue to keep somebody from despairing and blackpilling.

48:11

It's to energize someone as they're being active rather than to comfort them into passivity.

48:17

And I just think that's so important and something good to remember. I also think it helps you to keep your bearings on straight when dealing with politics, when dealing with the state of the world, because you don't wanna go to the side where that's the thing that you obsess about the most to a point where you become neurotic and you can't think about anything else and you can't do anything in normal life because everything is collapsing, everything, we're all gonna die.

48:38

But you also can't just ignore it because if you ignore it, that's irresponsible because you may hate politics as much as the next person, but at the end of the day, your politics affects you.

48:49

It affects the very life that you live. And to be concerned about that is not a bad thing. What separates us from non -believers and what separates us from those who sweep everything under the rug is we approach these things headfirst with knowledge that Christ rules,

49:04

Christ reigns. We have grounds for supernatural hope by virtue of the Holy Spirit gifting this to us.

49:11

So that's what I would say. I think that's so important. I think I almost don't wanna continue because that was a good end point to what

49:20

Jesus said. But yeah, no, I completely agree with what you're saying. And that is,

49:26

I think, especially if you're like a poster, right? If you're just like a Twitter guy or some other form of social media, that becomes the temptation because you really have nothing tangible you can do except comment on it, unless you live in these areas.

49:39

I do think it's important to think about though, because this isn't just California anymore. California's problems are now exported everywhere.

49:46

In fact, someone made a comment that they said that my local

49:51

McDonald's is like going to my local Mexican restaurant and this is Heartland, America. I was just driving from New York all the way down to Tennessee.

49:59

And it struck me along the Shenandoah corridor there, the Shenandoah Valley, that if I stopped off at a gas station or a restaurant, it was mostly, and it's not something

50:12

I normally notice, by the way, it's not something I'm looking for, but I couldn't help, but it was

50:17

Indian people or Pakistani people, or it was Hispanic, Latino people.

50:24

And also bringing with them their cultural habits and so forth, playing that kind of music that you would associate with their culture or talking in a different language.

50:35

And it was surreal to me. I'm like, this is the Shenandoah Valley, right? This is, we're talking about Heartland, America, beautiful, beautiful region.

50:43

And what happened here? And I think a lot of people are asking that same question in Heartland areas.

50:49

It's not just obviously California. So we should, I think, think through some of these issues.

50:55

And as a churchman, we should think through them with scripture. Since we talked about the last 10 minutes here, since I mentioned the constitution,

51:03

I'll bring this up. So there is kind of a debate, and I think it is, this is maybe my pet peeve,

51:10

I don't know, or my hobby horse, but I think it is important to honor the foundation or the traditions that we have in this country.

51:19

I'm an originalist when it comes to our constitution. And so when Trump did this, I knew that this wasn't really, it wasn't what

51:26

I would have preferred, but I don't know that he has another option, but here's what I'm talking about. So like, it was article one, section eight, clause 15 is where it says

51:34

Congress shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union.

51:40

And so that means the laws of the union are that, and Congress also has the authority to set naturalization standards.

51:48

So the laws of the union are being violated, and there's already a court order, they have all the justification they need to go into these businesses and find illegal migrants.

52:01

I think they're targeting primarily criminals, criminals not just in the sense of their immigration status, but in addition to it, things they've done here.

52:10

And so this is in the purview of Congress because it's article one. And so Congress hasn't acted on this, if you notice, this is the president.

52:17

And we do have precedents since then, though, that do grant the president some authority.

52:23

Most people cite the Instruction Act of 1807. But, oh, one thing before I get there, it's interesting if you read

52:31

Federalist 29 by, that's Alexander Hamilton. He does not actually even talk about the executive, and it's all about putting down insurrections.

52:41

It's supposed to be Congress. So here's the first problem, I think. I don't know that I, Congress doesn't really impeach judges.

52:49

They don't really take stands on much. It's a terribly corrupt institution.

52:57

And I don't know that you can really depend on them that much. So that's point one, is we don't really have virtuous men at high enough levels in Congress.

53:04

Would Donald Trump even get this passed in Congress? I don't know, it would probably be gridlock. And I think

53:09

Donald Trump knows that, right? But anyway, moving on to the Instruction Act, though. You are supposed to get permission from the governor of the state, or at least the state government is supposed to authorize if the executive is going to call for a militia action.

53:28

And then the militia action's supposed to be about the protection of federal property and those kinds of things. So does this go outside the boundaries of even that?

53:37

I suppose you could say it's debatable, but yeah, probably. But as an originalist,

53:43

I can look at that and say, yeah, I don't like this. And I know there's a few guys in my camp, but here's the thing that I wanna emphasize that maybe will help people be brought along here a little bit.

53:55

We are at a desperate point where we are post -constitutional. And I don't mean that in the sense of like, oh,

54:02

John Marshall was making decisions back in the day and he was violating in Marbury versus Madison. I mean, we don't really have a path back.

54:10

It was suited for this righteous people that we are no longer. It was suited for a much smaller federal republic where states had a lot of power.

54:20

That's not the case anymore. I think it's good and prudent for us to work in our communities, to strengthen them, to be virtuous, to run for office, to do all these things.

54:31

But the fact is at the end of the day, we live under an unwritten constitution, whether we like it or not, ensconced in all kinds of precedents, many of them we don't like, and we should try to roll them back, but it takes time.

54:44

And we are in an emergency situation. Trump's got about three years. And if we don't figure this out, this problem isn't contained in California.

54:53

And it'd be one thing if we could let California be weird, and Alabama could be Alabama, Florida could be Florida, but California's problems come everywhere else.

55:01

Because once the sanctuary city of Los Angeles can allow people to live there, they can then go from Los Angeles, gain some kind of ascendancy and go to other places.

55:12

It's much easier to go from state to state than from the border of another country to another state.

55:19

So California's problem and their soft policies on this have led to problems in other areas in the country.

55:28

And maybe people don't remember this, but California was a red state. It's not anymore, and it has no hope of going back.

55:34

And partially it's because of this, this issue. So I'm not saying we're in a state of nature, but we are kind of like in a state of, where we're approaching kind of the state that the founding fathers were in, trying to figure out like, okay, it's not the

55:50

Articles of Confederation. What suits us then? What suits our scenario? And without the mechanisms necessary to amend the constitution, which that happens, but it doesn't happen often.

56:01

It's not, we can't rely on Congress. A convention of states is kind of a pipe dream, I think. I hate to say that. I know some of you really want that.

56:07

I'm not saying to try to keep, stop trying, but it's just, it hasn't manifested itself. There's only one person left that's functional enough to actually do something to save the country.

56:17

And that's Donald Trump, that's the executive. Look around you, who else is gonna do it, right? So I'll say this in closing.

56:26

I think that the purpose of a government is to protect the people that are under its domain.

56:31

It's to punish evil so that those people are protected primarily, right? That includes things like making sure that borders and immigration are, they are set, especially in an age we live in where there's mass transit and that kind of thing.

56:47

So if that is the purpose for government and government is failing at every level, the state level in California, it's failing.

56:53

The local level in Los Angeles, it's failing. Congress doesn't seem to ever be able to do anything about this.

56:59

It really does come down to one person. And if I gave the example on X, I'd be like, okay, so break this down to an

57:07

HOA. People are comparing Trump to Lincoln. I see Lincoln as like, he didn't like the HOA rules, so he wanted to change them.

57:15

And the houses that left, he decided to burn. With Trump though, it's like, he actually likes the

57:20

HOA rules, but there's this one house that keeps dumping all their trash. I'm not saying humans are trash, it's an analogy.

57:28

They keep dumping all their trash onto these other houses. And Trump is going to trespass without the

57:34

HOA's approval to make them stop because he's tried to get some, there's been attempts to get that rectified and they haven't worked.

57:43

That's how I look at it. And I do think there's a justification there.

57:48

The constitution was for ourselves and our posterities, Matthew said. And it means it's for the general welfare of our people.

57:55

We don't, if it's not working for those ends, then it's not working.

58:01

And I guess maybe I'm making the argument for a cesarean figure who can then relinquish power once they fight all the bad guys and give it back to all the localities.

58:13

I don't know that Trump's that, but it's hard to see another way forward. And so we have to trust

58:20

God in this, that God, even the circumstance of Trump, God knew what was going to happen before it happened.

58:26

I am convinced God put Trump there for a reason. It's hard for me to square that with the two inches, the assassination.

58:34

Two inches, we wouldn't have had Trump. And we don't know what the future holds. So let's obviously trust

58:40

God for whatever the future holds, but let's support the president and let's liberate my homeland of Los Angeles.

58:50

That's kind of - My selfish hope there, I suppose. Anyway, I'm gonna pitch it to questions.

58:58

Man, that brought a lot of questions in. I know that was kind of a long screed, but I wanted to honor the title of the podcast.

59:05

Let's get some questions up here and I'll let Matthew take them. The NWO types want to water down and eventually eliminate our

59:13

European Protestant heritage. I think it's more of a statement. So true, though. So true.

59:19

So real for that one. Yeah. Question, is there commands given to us that we should be focusing on regarding what's happening in LA?

59:29

Okay, so like other biblical commands. I mentioned Romans 13. You think of anything else, Matthew? Not any particular commands, but I mean, at the end of the day, there are certain things you can come to by getting necessary consequences.

59:43

And I think that wanting to preserve and restore order is a good thing.

59:50

Like Paul talks about things in the church being done decently and in good order. So why not do likewise with the civil polity?

59:58

Yeah, nothing I can think of off the top of my head other than that, I think that it's very important that we restore order.

01:00:04

And I'm sure that Patrick Casey would love to hear me say that. Is that what he's saying? I haven't -

01:00:10

Well, his show is called Restoring Order. So it's like - Oh, is that the name of it? It's a meme on right -wing Twitter that like trying to get people to say restore order.

01:00:17

Gotcha, gotcha. Then explain why the state with the second most migrants is

01:00:23

Texas. California has about 15 % more. So I'm calling balderdash on your Democrat migrant.

01:00:28

Okay, so this idea that the Democrats are trying to assist illegal migrants.

01:00:34

That can't be true because Texas is right. And look at Texas, they have illegal migrants. What do you think of that? What do

01:00:40

I think of it? Well, I don't know. I mean, I talk a lot. So I'm trying to give you - No, it's fine.

01:00:46

I don't know. I guess I would say that like part of it's like, even though Texas is red and maybe

01:00:51

I'd have to look at the statistics from the last election, I still think that it's getting less and less red as time goes on.

01:00:59

But I mean, it's a good thing that Trump has managed to be able to get a lot of Hispanics. Not like a lot, lot, but he's been able to like win like a sort of like a multiracial coalition almost to his side to help counteract that.

01:01:13

But I still think it's a case that like, you know, I mean, many Democrats have even admitted to this idea that they want more illegals and more migration in general to happen because it would secure power for themselves.

01:01:27

Of course, they think other things like, oh, it is good. They enrich our culture, yada, yada, yada. I don't think that they, that all of them necessarily think that it's bad, but they want it for power.

01:01:35

I'm sure some do. But many of them have even admitted to this. Do I have the receipts to prove it?

01:01:40

No, not really. I can like look and find it for you, but not at hand. But I think that when you listen to the way that many of these people talk, that it's pretty obvious.

01:01:48

And when you look at voting patterns and all that, heck, if like, you know, if I was a Democrat, I know that I'd be supporting it because I'd wanna like stay in power because we have to realize that power to anyone who thinks they're right is a good thing because power gives you the means to exercise what you believe to be the good of a people, of a nation.

01:02:06

And so I think it's just pretty obvious that that's the case, but that's just me. What do

01:02:12

I know? I'm just a goober. No, I think Texas is also a big state. So, you know, it's a border state.

01:02:19

It's a big state and it's the federal authorities, it's ICE and the border patrol that are supposed to be monitoring these things.

01:02:27

So it's not within their purview or not supposed to be. So that's part of it too. But anyway, technically,

01:02:34

California has been seditious and traitors by allowing foreign enemies to run free. I think you could make that argument.

01:02:41

Right now, the Christian Democratic Party would be a reasonable option altogether considering the vast divide. So I hear this every once in a while, like we should have a

01:02:49

Christian party or we need a third party. What do you think about that,

01:02:54

Matthew? You think we need a third party? No. Do I think that the Republican Party needs immense reforms?

01:03:02

Yes, but I just think that in our political system that any two -party effort that's somewhat right of center would just give room to Democrat victory, especially if we got any energy, because first off, not all of the

01:03:16

Republicans would transfer over. The Democrats would continue to keep one influential party and I think that would just secure them victory for eternity.

01:03:25

Okay. We got Bohunk saying, for more clarification on Trump sending

01:03:31

Marines compared to what Eisenhower did in 1957, Little Rock for desegregation.

01:03:37

Okay, well, I will say this. I don't think those were Marines. I think that was the National Guard, right? I think that was the

01:03:43

Arkansas National Guard if I'm not mistaken. He federalized them and I don't think that was with the permission of the governor either.

01:03:51

So you could say that that's similar to what Trump's doing with the National Guard, maybe not the Marines though. And the difference is like, and this is actually someone who made this point, the modern

01:04:00

National Guard is considered to be state militia, which it shouldn't be. Right, I was just gonna say that too. There's been a bunch of development in different areas.

01:04:08

One of them is this, that the state militias used to be these kind of unregulated, just because everyone in that society owned guns, right?

01:04:20

Like the Minutemen, even in, can you believe it? Even in Massachusetts, you had Minutemen who just had guns and would go take care of business.

01:04:28

It was organic and we don't really have that anymore. There were states that started taking roles of who was in the state militia and so forth.

01:04:36

But the National Guard, this is something that is essentially a federal military force.

01:04:43

I know that there's some like confusion over that because you have these regional state

01:04:49

National Guards and that's true, you do. But there is a significant amount of federal funding going into that.

01:04:58

They pretty much function as a branch of the military. In fact, a lot of guys who are, because I know them,

01:05:06

National Guardsmen are also like in the Marines. And then they're also in the National, like it's just, it's an odd kind of system that we've developed.

01:05:14

And it's not like a state, states don't seem to have the authority over their National Guards. If the president can just federalize them, right?

01:05:22

Like that just makes them an arm of the national or the general government. At least that's how I see it.

01:05:28

But there is at least, we've been working under this assumption though, that they are state. And so there is a difference legally when you bring in the

01:05:36

Marines. And that's what the other Paul is asking. I hear some higher ups flirting with the idea of deploying the Marines in LA.

01:05:41

I'm not sure if that's happened yet. Not that it matters much now, but isn't deploying military in the US contrary to the constitution, if so based?

01:05:49

Well, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right, but there's the Posse Comitatus Act. And that is, it generally forbids the use of federal military forces to enforce domestic laws.

01:06:02

So, and it's also something that if you're going to use military force, it has to be authorized by Congress.

01:06:10

This is different than the Insurrection Act. And I don't, again, has Congress actually acted? That's the question you have to ask.

01:06:17

So no. And so I'd have to say again, no, that's technically not constitutional for him to bring the

01:06:23

Marines in there. But again, what's he gonna do? You have a situation that's happening right now.

01:06:29

And do you really have faith that Congress is gonna actually be able to do anything about it or will become a political football where nothing happens?

01:06:37

And then LA gets to just kind of stay the way it is. And I don't know that that's an option anymore.

01:06:43

So, I mean, this is, again, I'm open to suggestions. I'm open to thoughts on this, but, and it's difficult.

01:06:49

I want people to understand that this is difficult, but we need to have a country, right? It comes down to that. I think

01:06:55

I even, yesterday on the podcast, I even was talking about like, well, what if there was a mechanism for booting a state or breaking up a state or making a state a territory again or something?

01:07:05

But the problem is we don't have that mechanism. So it's no good even talking about it. Gavin Newsom doesn't wanna leave the union.

01:07:11

It's not like 1860 at all. Gavin Newsom is not seceding with California. He's staying in and he's using this for political purposes.

01:07:19

So anyway, I don't know if you have anything to add to that. We're actually over time, so I'll get to a few more questions, but you have any thoughts,

01:07:28

Matthew? Nope, none at all. I concur. The mayor of New York City activated the guard in the subway system.

01:07:35

That's different because it's the mayor of New York City. 50 % of legal Hispanic citizens voted for Trump. I think that's males.

01:07:42

I don't think that was 50 % of all at all, but military has been deployed to the border.

01:07:48

Okay, maybe this is breaking news. I haven't seen. Matthew, I know you're close to come over to Tarpon Springs and let's break bread.

01:07:57

I'll treat you. All you can eat Greek food. Tarpon Springs. You're about 96 miles from me.

01:08:04

That's two and a half hours, Barry, but I'd love to. Is that anywhere near where the church you're preaching at or no?

01:08:11

It's closer to, it's pretty close to Tampa. I'm looking at it right now. If I'm ever in Tampa, I might have to, my fiance and I may have to swing by.

01:08:18

That'd be a lot of fun, about 45 minutes. Okay, yeah, well, I don't know how we would get,

01:08:24

Barry, I guess you can contact Matthew on, do you have your DMs open on X? I don't know. They are,

01:08:30

I'm really horrible about checking them though. It's so bad, I feel bad sometimes. If you want Greek food, you'll have to check them.

01:08:36

Shoot, man, I might want some. Get myself a, you know, I'll pronounce it gyro just to make Greeks mad.

01:08:42

Is it gyro? How do you say it? I think it's gyro. I'm not sure, kind of like, yeah. Lawson says, the

01:08:49

National Guard is ordinarily under the command of the state's governor. Federalization means the executive branch takes command as when

01:08:55

Eisenhower did. Yeah, exactly. I'm just saying though, it's like eminent domain. Like, do you really own your house?

01:09:01

If they can just take it, that's my point. All right, one last comment here.

01:09:07

Vanna Moller says, military was, oh, wait, no, did I just say this? Oh, no, I didn't. Military has been floated to the border since Trump took office.

01:09:13

He just congratulated, okay, all right, gotcha. Our army for their efforts today at Fort Bragg. Okay, yeah, because he was saying it's an invasion.

01:09:21

Yeah, okay, I remember that now, you're right. And, you know, I don't know if you saw this, Matthew. So he was at Fort Bragg today.

01:09:26

Did you hear the announcement he made about renaming military forts? I did not. So he's basically gonna revert it to all, like, including

01:09:34

Fort Robert E. Lee. He's going, he's like, we're gonna rename them all back to what they, well, not rename them, but we're gonna revert the names back to what they were.

01:09:43

So I was like, way to go, Mr. President, standing down and standing by.

01:09:48

So, anyway. So true. All right, well, that's my fault for going 10 minutes over.

01:09:54

I appreciate everyone who's weighed in. We'll, Lord willing, see you next week, and hopefully