Truthscript Wednesday: Exvangelicals, Abortion Exceptions, and 911

We are live now on the TruthScript Wednesday podcast. I didn't wanna do the Lego movie thing and say TruthScript Tuesday on a Wednesday. I just decided to forego that and have our first ever TruthScript Wednesday.

So that's what we're doing today. We have a number of great articles on the TruthScript website to go over. One of them actually made me tear up a little bit. We may talk about that. But here to join me to talk about that as well is my brother, David Harris, who's also the president of TruthScript.

We practice nepotism here. So I'm just the secretary, which I don't think that has any authority, but David has tons of authority. So if you have questions for David in the live chat about TruthScript or any of that, be sure to talk to him about that.

I'm getting a message that Rumble's not coming through, so I'm gonna work on that. But while I'm working on it, why don't we just start going through the articles, David? I don't know if there's anything you wanna say before we start doing that.

I'm ready to go. I got my NeoCon mug, so I think we're set. All right.

Oh, nice. All right, well, let's start here then. This is actually an article for next week because it's Wednesday today and that was posted this morning. But we have three today. The first one is by Bob Colton, who I think is a pastor, if I'm not mistaken, right?

Yeah, or a professor, I guess.

He was a professor for a long time. He's an older gentleman, but he was at Baptist Theological, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. That's S-W-B-T-S, no. S-B-T-S, Southwest. Isn't that where Paige Patterson was?

Yeah, I'm pulling it up.

It says right on, Bob Colton was a professor of psychology and counseling at Dallas Baptist University. So you, yeah, offended everyone. Oh, I don't know if anyone's offended by that. I mean, Dallas is, I think that's a pretty good school from as far as academically, I think.

I don't know if that's Dallas Theological Seminary though. We're really getting stuck in the weeds here, but. He is a Baptist. He is a Baptist, he's a Baptist. We can affirm that. And also, and it looks like you're right.

Also from, I think he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, member of Heritage Baptist Church. Now he wrote this article that I thought was kind of interesting on deconstructing. And so I titled, I put the word exvangelical out there, but you've talked about this a little bit.

What do you think the thesis of this article is?

I mean, it's definitely like a more reformed argument, but basically that like the crux of it is that, and it says verbatim, an inadequate understanding of the depravity of man is why, is the reason that he gives, or his argument that there's so much deconstruction today, which I think is definitely valid.

I mean, I immediately thought of like a ton of examples of deconstruction that I'm personally familiar. And it kind of seems like a daily thing at this point, and not just with major leaders, like he kind of starts off talking about, but people that I know or we know personally, and then you just see something on Facebook or some other app, or you hear something from somebody that, oh, they changed their gender and moved to, I don't know, Minneapolis and helped burn it down in 2020.

And you're just like, what in the world happened?

Yeah, I've had that a few times. I mean, I think everyone has to some extent, and it is quite startling. I think, one of them was seeing someone I knew from college who was in the Christian group. Now she has an OnlyFans account, and I guess that's how she's making her money.

And no, I didn't see her on OnlyFans. I saw, I think it was a Facebook thing or something, and I'm like, wait a minute. It's just obviously not in a Christian setting anymore. And another one recently that I saw, actually, it wasn't that recently.

It was, maybe it was a year ago, but it was someone who I knew growing up for years who was very active in Christian ministries and also homeschooling and things like that. And she made a public post about how she's in a relationship with two other people.

So it's not even a marriage, it's a thruffle. Right, and you just don't hear from these people for years. The last you saw them, they seemed to be doing pretty well, or at least they seemed like they were semi-solid.

And then all of a sudden, boom, this happens. So anyway, it touches a lot of people. And I mean, what do you think the reformed way of approaching this is? Like, what's the explanation for it?

Well, I mean, what he goes into is that essentially, if you deconstruct, it's evidence that you were never saved to begin with, which it's funny because like, I mean, I live in Tennessee now. I've lived here for 10 months.

And I lived in New York. I mean, you live in the same house that I did for a long time now, because I used to rent from my older brother. And I kind of forget that a lot of these sort of gimmicky, this is kind of what he goes into a little bit, that these sort of gimmicky, over-the-top altar call, super emotive, like corporate style churches that kind of are more of a brand.

And he's kind of touching the theological part of it. But one thing that he kind of made me think of in this article is the cultural part of it. And in the South, like this is still a big thing. This is still going on pretty extensively that salvation is almost like something that you sign up for, like a country club, like something that you sort of, you know, and very regular people, people that I work with and stuff.

Oh yeah, I go to church. Oh yeah, my Sunday school class. I went to my Sunday school class to go do this or go do that. And it's just strange. Like in New York, you didn't have a lot of that as much because it's a little more black and white and more spiritually dark areas.

But in the Bible Belt, you still have kind of a, where people will live according to sort of a cultural set of ideals, mostly about, I mean, the area I live is mostly Baptist. And like, there's a lot of upsides to it.

Like there's a lot of good things about it, but I forgot that this kind of thing existed where it's more of an emotional thing or you're just, you grow up in it, you don't question it. And then people, you know, deconstruct, or I mean, we used to say backslide.

That's kind of, now they say deconstruct, but that's the people who are actually deconstructing and taking ownership of that word. And I think he, I think Bob Colton used the right word because that's what people are applying to themselves.

But that's a, they wear it as a badge of honor now. And it's almost like, the funny thing too is, it's not, deconstruction is usually related to, more than anything else is related to like sexual ethics.

That's the thing that you hear the most today. Well, you know, the Christians were really mean to gay people. The Christians were really mean. And like, I just, I realized, like I didn't have to be a part.

So I started to deconstruct. And so I don't know that those are things that he brought up that I thought about, but his, to answer your main question, the reformed angle on like, why does this happen?

Is that the method of evangelism, the sort of mass, like everybody's a sinner. And if you pray this prayer, then you can come to know Jesus today and come on to the front, minimizes like your need for conviction of sin.

And then one way would be that it doesn't apply to you directly. Like it applies to sort of everybody equally. Like don't, you know, don't take that as an offense. Like everybody's a sinner, you know, you have your sin.

And a lot of time that's used to downplay certain sins that are, you don't wanna touch on because it's not culturally, you know, you're trying to be culturally sensitive. So if you downplay sin and you downplay depravity, then ultimately you don't really have a need for salvation.

And of course you're gonna deconstruct because you never really needed to construct to begin with.

The Social Consequences of Privatized Faith

Yeah, there's a quote I was looking for and I can't find it now, but I was reading a book called The Demon in Democracy. I've read it before and I'm rereading it. And the author, it's interesting because he's a Polish, he lived in an Eastern block country.

He lived in, I guess, Poland under communism and he decided to immigrate. I don't know exactly what Western country he immigrated to, but he spent most of his adult life, I guess, now in the West. And what he found when he got there was that socialism or the communism, I should say, that he was under and Western democracies had a great many things in common.

And one of the things he talks about is the way they view the church. And without getting into the details too deeply here, the thing that relates to this article in my mind is that he said, you know, I think he's Catholic.

So he's, but he didn't seem like too biased. He seemed like he was pretty objective with how he treated this. But he did say Protestants had this tendency to focus on the private profession, the privatization of the faith in a way.

I mean, it led to that, I suppose, in his mind, but that they believe that your commitment, your decision, your personal relationship with Jesus, right, we hear all these words, these terms was the most important thing.

And they wanted to guard that. I think we even see that with the Christian nationalist debate today in a way. And there is this though, this social element to religion that can't be denied. And when it is denied, you end up getting these really aggressive forms of statism.

And so his point was that it hasn't taken place in the same way in the West, but whereas in communism, it was just an immediate persecution of Christians, very intense, but it's been ramped up over time in the West.

And so now we are seeing that it's very possible in our minds that this could happen. And so what are the implications? I'm not saying, I'm not attributing it all to this. I know this is just another explanation for what we've been encountering with that ex-evangelicals and the secularization and paganization.

But what are the implications when churches are pushed to the sidelines, when they give up or are forced to give up their social credibility, their, I guess, credibility in the public square for being authoritative.

And they concede that to other institutions, to the university, to doctors, psychologists, to experts in the media. When they do that, then they're no longer relevant. And you start over time, I think, losing your traditions, your holidays, all the things that used to remind even secular people, I shouldn't say secular, but even people who were not born again believers, they were, they had to live under this.

I saw it when I was in Turkey with Islam, right? In a way, and I'm not saying that the two are completely parallel because they're not, but even if you're not a Muslim, you have to, you're gonna hear the call to prayer, right?

You're constantly reminded that the default setting, that the assumptions of the society you're living in are Muslim, and that you, if you're tolerated, are a minority. And in Istanbul, it's pretty tolerant for the most part.

So you are a tolerated minority, but you don't get to have authority in that. And so anyway, this gets into all these other topics, but I just think it relates to this deconstruction stuff because when people, when young people cast aside Christianity, oftentimes it seems like it just wasn't making that, like they reached the point where it was so replaceable.

It wasn't really serving a function in their life because they weren't saved as the author talks about. But beyond that, there just wasn't any, like they wholesale reject it, like in every single element of it, like they reject.

There's not even like a traditional component that they wanna keep around. And I wonder if it has to do with that secularization, but anyway, I don't know if there's any thoughts on that.

I mean, like ultimately the church, you know, the church's number one goal and mission is to provide hope for a dying humanity and to, you know, not just that, but also instruct in biblical morality. And if when the church, and I feel like this actually relates to the second article because the pro-life movement is an excellent example of how that's kind of slid in out of the, you know, a mission drift, how that's become a mission drift because when you, and I don't know, I can lead into the second article if we want.

Mission Drift in the Pro-Life Movement

Yeah, yeah, go for it. So this, and this would be the relation. A lot of people who, most of the people I know who deconstructed personally, is like, this is a, ultimately if you deconstruct fully, if you reject Christianity, that's a pretty big deal, especially if you grew up in it.

You're saying that the only way, like you did believe, or at least you aspired to believe that you're a sinner and you're going to burn in hell for all of eternity unless you put your trust in Christ.

And, you know, that's a pretty significant, that's the most significant thing that there is. So if you reject that, why would you not reject everything else? Like, of course you're going to reject everything else.

And when the church, so then when, if the church is wishy-washy or wonky on that at all, then of course it's going to be wishy-washy on every social societal issue too. And a lot of the people that I knew like in college that deconstructed, and I think I've shared this before, but when I went to, I went to a very like secular, very left-leaning school in upstate New York that was staffed by a lot of ex-hippies who had come to New York for Woodstock and never left.

So it was a, you know, extraordinarily left-wing place, but there was a fairly robust like Christian group on the campus that I went to. And, you know, we did quite a few events. I mean, we can talk about the abortion debate because I feel like that, that's what I thought of when I was reading this article.

But there was a pro-life group on campus that was mostly Catholics. And I'll never forget, this was my first exposure, because like I knew about abortion, you know, I knew it was a horrible thing. I knew it was a big issue.

It was never my, it was never something that I think interested me a ton in like as much as other, you know, apologetic issues or moral issues or political issues, because I think it's because it has to do with pregnancy and birth and women, and I'm a guy, and I just didn't really think about it a whole lot, but I always knew it was evil.

And when I was at college and we scheduled that debate, you remember, because you were the one who did the debate. And I was kind of behind the scenes. This is actually 10 years ago. It's just a little over 10 years ago.

I was behind the scenes like doing all the setup and I'm like coordinating who's gonna moderate the debate. Who are we gonna debate it? Who are you gonna be debating? And then like trying to get other clubs to join in and be a part of this.

And so I'm thinking like, obviously, we'll have, you know, our group, and then we'll have the main Christian group on campus. Like I would assume that they would wanna be a part of this. They didn't.

And the Second Christian Alliance did,.

Because they were the ones who staffed the other side. But then the one that, to me, that would have been the most obvious of any group was the Pro-Life group. Like literally that is the point of your group, but.

Yeah, I forgot about that, but you're right. They didn't want to sponsor or be like associated in any way with. Do you remember why?

No. I do, because I had the meeting. I had the meeting with the head of the Pro-Life club. She wanted to meet me and talk about her concerns. And I was like, concern, concern for what? Like, isn't this fantastic?

Your whole thing is being Pro-Life and we're gonna debate it on campus. Like it's the marketplace of ideas. And basically it all came down to one thing. She was concerned that we might show pictures of aborted fetuses.

And if we did show pictures of aborted fetuses, then they didn't wanna be a part of it because, you know, that can cause a lot of trauma. And I remember just thinking at the time, like,.

Who gives a crap? Yeah, there was a little, a video I think I showed that did, I think I did show some aborted fetuses and I think I warned everyone, but yeah, it was part of the presentation.

And I suggested that, like, we can do a warning. We can like, we can tell people, hey, this is gonna happen. Like if you're gonna get triggered by this, then you don't have to be a part of this. But that was like, that was the first time that I realized, oh, the Pro-Life movement isn't as Pro-Life as I thought it was.

And then this came up over and over and over again in different forums. And so then like when last year, when Roe v. Wade got overturned, and like everyone is, everyone's sort of like, oh, yay, we won.

And you're like, no, you didn't win. You still have to pass it in all the states. And they're like, no, no, we won. This is a great victory. You can go into that, but there's a correlation there.

Yeah, no, that's interesting. And I remember the other Christian group on campus that we thought would probably be somewhat supportive decided, I think they scheduled that night like a ultimate Frisbee competition, literally to try to take people away from the event.

It was one of the most amazing, it was an eye-opening thing. I feel like these past 10 years, I've just had one eye-opening red pill moment after another, you know, like thinking it's one way and then realizing, oh man, it seems like it's worse than I thought it was.

And, you know, I guess that's kind of a depressing thought, but it's, I think it's good to know what your actual numbers are, what you're actually dealing with.

But it went well, the event went well. I remember that. And I mean, somebody flipped you the bird midway, but. Yeah, I think that, yeah.

How about your camera? How was video recording it? Yeah, it's on YouTube. It's on, I think, my YouTube channel if you want to check it out. But so anyway, the article though, let's talk about that. So this is pro-life except in the cases of, and it's by our editor, one of our editors, Jan Weaver, who volunteers her time.

She's really good at what she does to edit articles that you all submit. And I didn't even give the plug at the beginning. I probably should have, but if you go to truestrip .com, scroll to the bottom, there is a publish tab.

You click on that and there's a form you can fill out if you want to submit an article. We also, by the way, take donations. It is 501c3. So if you feel compelled to donate to what we're doing, I know we would all, David especially, would appreciate that.

And it enables us to do more. And I think right now, a lot of people are desiring that, wanting an evangelical Christian organization to address issues people are actually asking and not to be afraid of those things.

And that's kind of what TrueScript does. So go through the article then. Maybe I should read some of it. I don't know. I mean, it's kind of

It kind of has like a tipping point because Yeah. I don't know if we want to kind of do the big reveal, but Jan talks about, which just kudos to Jan. Jan really was very transparent in writing this.

And I'm sure this was a very, very difficult thing to write. But this is the kind of stuff that the pro-life community really needs to read. And I would really recommend, if you haven't read it yet, read it and share it too.

Especially if you have people in your church who are really raw, raw about pro-life stuff, I think they would probably get a lot out of this. But she starts off talking about the whole rape and incest.

So exceptions for rape and incest.

She talks about Holy Post. She talks about Phil Vischer and Sky Jethani, who co-hosts the Holy Post. Was it Jethani? I thought it was Jethani.

Is it something else? I thought it was Jenthi. Jethani? Jethani was a Star Wars character.

Yeah, Skywalker and Jethani. Yeah, okay, all right. I always thought it was Jethani, but either way, Sky will just say.

Sky Jethani is not super worried about abortion.

Yeah, well, he thinks that it's not about what laws you have on the books, but whether or not you can reduce the number of abortions. That's the main thing. And he thinks that he has a better formula for addressing that through social justice rather than making abortion illegal, basically.

And so she critiques that as pragmatism. And she talks about, I guess, just how this, kind of like the frog in the kettle, how this gradually moves people to my body, my choice. Because that's the underlying assumption here, really.

Because as soon as you assume that it's an actual person, then that changes everything, right? And so then, I guess, is the big story. She goes through critiquing this because she thinks it starts with, for Christians at least, this idea that, oh, except in the cases of rape and incest, right?

And then that moves you to my body, my choice position. But she wants to nip it in the bud. And the way she does it is she tells this story about this girl, 15-year-old Anna, and how Anna gets pregnant.

And it's pretty well-written, and it's pretty emotional. And I don't know if you wanna talk about that at all, or.

I think it might be best to let people read it. Because if you just kind of talk about it, and if, you know, she tells the story, and the story is, it hits hard.

Yeah, yeah, it is probably one of the better stories to send to a Christian, at least, pro-life or anti-abortion articles that you could send to someone to really just kind of jolt them a little bit.

It's just, it's well done. So check that out, pro-life except in the cases of. And if you ever hear anybody say,.

You know, well, I'm pro-life except for, you know, in cases, which I have heard. I've heard it a few times. You don't hear that a lot. I feel like in Christian circles, you might hear it more in, like, neocon circles.

But I think, didn't President Trump say something to that effect not too long ago? I don't know if it was. Or like they should have allowed exceptions for this or that. I mean, that's, I feel like that's a Republican talking point.

That's like basically every Republican.

It's like, oh, we're pro-life, but, you know, we need to have exceptions. Yeah, Trump's all over the place, though. Because remember what, 2016, he was saying women should be punished for it, and everyone lost their mind.

And now, yeah, that makes sense, though. I'm pretty sure, because I remember, I was with Senator Steve King once, had a dinner a few years ago. And he told a story about meeting with President Trump on the issue of abortion.

And President, he brought, actually, it's kind of funny. He brought a woman from Iowa with him, I guess. And she had, I guess she had an experience where she was raped, had a child, and is against the exceptions, you know, the rape incest exceptions.

And so she's sitting there in the Oval Office with President Trump, you know, just met him and with Steve King. And Trump, I guess, pulls Steve King aside and basically says, where do you find these people?

Because he just could not believe that someone who had gone through that experience would be supportive of not allowing abortions for other people going through that experience to alleviate it somehow.

He says, where do you find these people? You know, and Steve King said, they're all over the Midwest, Mr. President. But yeah, I mean, so whether or not it's public, I know privately, President Trump has said that.

And that is kind of like the, I guess, that's like the default setting for most Republicans is, well, we're pro-life, but you know, there's those exception cases. So anyway, I should probably just ask, there's some people in the private chat here.

I'm just gonna see, do you wanna tell your story first or do you wanna go to some people in the private or in who are waiting to come on first and then go to your story?

We can let some people come on.

9/11, Loss of Innocence, and National Memory

All right. All right, Mark, I'm gonna pitch it to you here. So make sure you're unmuted. See if I can. There you go. Hey, Mark. Hey. I see your hand. What's going on? Yeah. So for those who don't know Mark on Twitter, I don't know if you just started doing this.

He's the Nine Marks, Nine Marks? Oh yeah, you're Mark Dever.

You're Mark Dever. Yes, yes, that's me. Mark, you seem a lot happier than I'm sorry about the conference.

I'm sorry I'm getting moments down. Yeah, sorry your conference was canceled, Mark Dever.

Well, I'm so overjoyed. The two fellows in the back, they were cuddling on the couch. They got their moment in the spotlight that everyone could see. That's what I'm excited about.

Okay. Well, you have a lot of videos you post on Twitter doing construction. Is that what you do? Are you like an independent contractor?

I'm trying to be, but right now I'm getting the experience. Oh, okay. Yeah, so I work for Wharton Home Improvements. I'm in Western Maryland right now in the tri-state area. So West Virginia and Pennsylvania, all right here together.

It's good Appalachian territory. Yeah, so we're doing multiple jobs right now, multiple additions, renovations. We even build whole entire houses. So what I'm doing now, since Elon Musk has opened up, I've been doing a lot of ad revenue sharing for everyone.

I've been making excuses about not creating content and doing podcasts or whatever online for years and watching people talk about it and all that. And I finally said, what am I waiting for? I just clicked and I'm going after it now.

So I'm posting on Twitter and other places, but I've also bought the domains or makeyourmarkcraftsman .com and .net. And I'm gonna be setting up LLC, get a website going so I can bring this all together into a website, showcase my abilities and so forth, have a brand presence online, but also build up locally and whatever so that I can, yeah, get my own thing going.

Awesome, I think you're doing it right.

Because you're focusing on something that you enjoy, you're good at, and a lot of people, I think, make the mistake of trying to get involved in a political discussion or a theological discussion when they just don't really have...

Sometimes that's just not their thing, right? But they care about it, which we all should care about those things. But I've advised people, find your thing, find the thing that you really enjoy and like to talk about that lights you up.

And you're definitely motivated about construction and stuff.

I'm all in on it because it's so wide open. For people who are on the fence about what to do, especially young people, get into trade work now because there is so much work. Everyone's always gonna need a toilet, gonna need a receptacle to plug their devices into and gonna need a roof over their head.

And robots cannot do those jobs. Robots cannot frame a house, they can't build a deck, they can't do that stuff. Get into it now, it's wide open. Make it happen.

Yeah, yeah. Good advice from Mark Dever from 10 Marks, I guess. 10 Marks Construction. 10 Marks, I love your film. So, hey, did you have anything to add to the show.

Or I don't know if any of the topics 10 Marks, the healthy deck, you know, that's what I'm going for. Well, you know, I think the deconstruction stuff, it's goofy. It's just another way to like be edgy and weird and not really be a Christian.

Like what, it's unbiblical. Why would you say I'm a Christian and I'm gonna start just piece by piece tearing off everything that makes you an actual Christian? I don't understand the point. Are you following Christ or are you just like doing what you wanna do?

Well, you kind of bring up an interesting point too because it is like, it is kind of trendy to do it in stages. And I feel like, I had this conversation yesterday with my wife. Like you're talking about somebody who has made some, you know, like, well, I left this church and I'm gonna go to this church or, you know, I don't know.

I just don't know how I feel about the tone here. And then, and like, you know, in my mind, I'm like, okay, so you're decontrolling, you're not in anymore. Like you decided this isn't for you. Maybe you were never saved.

I don't know. Like, I don't know how far you're gonna take it, but it's sort of like this gradual, like, oh, I'm gonna do it in steps. Like, I'm gonna do it like a TV show. Like this is season one. And in season one, I leave my original church and go to like a little local church.

In season two, I get a tattoo. In season three, I start faithing. And then it just, it's kind of good.

Yeah, well, and you'll notice, I think the tell is the fact that they have to announce it. If this is just what you're doing, you know, you don't have to announce it to people. Why do they make it a point to let everyone know this is what we're doing?

And to your point of the trendiness, look at the people who are deconstructing, you know, in the public eye. You're Christian rappers and you're Christian musicians and, you know, you're Christian cartoonists and all that kind of stuff.

So it's people, it's kind of like the reality shows. It's when famous people started dropping down to the B list and the C list and the D list. And then all of a sudden they would be on a reality show to try to get popular again.

I don't know. I just think, honestly, it's for attention. Why are you talking about tearing your salvation and your belief in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord and Savior of your life? And you're gonna talk about how, well, I'm just gonna keep stripping all this stuff of biblical Christianity away from my life.

I don't understand the point.

Yeah, they're not just doing it with even Christianity though. Like it also gets into, usually even the deconstruction stories start out with like a political thing. Like, you know, I grew up in a Republican household and we were patriotic and we supported the president or whatever.

And then I realized that the Republicans are just awful. And that like, you know, leads to the reason that we were supporting Republicans was because we were Christian. And so Christianity must also be awful.

And it's like every single element of their childhood and any attachments that they formed at that time must all be severed, must all be rejected. It's a remaking of oneself. It's like a new, it is like being born again.

In a secular, in a pagan way.

But it's born again to what you want. It's conforming it to human desires of whatever you want your image to be. A lot of times it's not conforming to Christ. So, yeah. I agree, man.

I totally agree. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, I appreciate you, Mark. Thanks for the support and yeah, we'll talk to you later. All right. Oh, I cut Mark off. Sorry, Mark. Sorry, Mark. That was kind of rude of me there.

He's giving me the thumbs up. All right. So, the last article is written by actually you.

I wrote it. I gotta see if I can remember what I wrote. Well, I mean. This was a, actually this was a really, this was a very emotional. This was a lot more emotional than I expected. Like I had a very hard time writing this and I'm not sure why.

But every year and I was kind of interested to see what your memories were too. Since obviously we, you were 11, I was nine when this happened. But every year around September, I don't know if this is different because we're New Yorkers and because we were pretty close to where this happened.

I think I was 12. But every year around September, huh? I was 12, but anyway. You had just turned 12, whatever. Yeah. And I was almost 10. Every year around September for several days, I just have like, I don't, I, you know, you'll be reminded that it happened.

And I'll always find myself like digging into like some of the dark side of the event. You know, like when the people were jumping out of the buildings. That's one that sticks in my head, like really very strongly.

And every year around the anniversary, I'll kind of drift into this, just like remembering, because it's so vivid. And when I was reflecting on it this time, because it's just, the weird thing about this year is, and I kind of mentioned this in the article, this is a few paragraphs down, but I said, it's incredibly surreal to realize that 20 years have now come and gone since that time.

And I just talked about how like my perspective on this recently has sort of shifted, like sort of politically, like I don't, and I'm not like, I'm not really on the, I have a lot on my plate, so I don't have a lot of time for like digging into conspiracy theory stuff.

So a lot of the time when I have discussions with people about like, did this happen or this happen? I can at least say at this point, I don't know. Like, I don't know. I don't really know everything that happened that day.

I'm not sure. I'm not convinced that like, though I do know that like the whole political narrative around that, that we kind of, like, especially on the right, we're almost pigeonholed into, like we were really, really rah, rah, rah for Iraq and Afghanistan and everything around that.

I don't know. I don't know what, I don't know what the administration knew. I don't know what anybody know. I'm just not sure. I have lots of questions. What I do know is, you know, is what I remember being nine years old and seeing all that happen.