Apologia Radio

490. Trump, the Constitution, & Extremist Groups

We are thrilled to have our dear brother and retired JAG lawyer Davis Younts back on to discuss Trump’s run for reelection, the state of the Constitution, and the DOD’s published list of Extremist Groups.

Davis serves as the President and legal council for Stand With Warriors. You can reach Davis at: standwithwarriors.org

Join us for the Aftershow!! https://apologiastudios.com/shows/apologia-aftershow/

Duration:: 1h 5m
Broadcast on:: 16 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

In Matthew 16, Jesus chastised the Pharisees who could interpret the appearance of the sky but failed to interpret the signs of the time in which they lived. Who are the Pharisees of our day? This strong hold of sort of whiteness and white identity and pristineness is really part of what keeps us from making progress. We need to do better. The church rich in theological scholarship has lingered in academic sanctuaries and ivory towers failing to translate its lofty doctrines into a tangible and practical cultural apologetic. At the Worldview Youth Academy we bridge this critical gap. Here theological depth is not an end in itself but a means to engage with contemporary cultural issues for the glory of God and the expansion of his kingdom. Our mission is to cultivate thinkers who can articulate and apply Christian truths within contemporary societal challenges. So embrace this call to worship God with all your heart, all your soul and with all your mind. We will do better as this next generation tears down the idols of our modern culture and works to build a brighter future toward Christendom 2.0. Non-rockabletous must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it. Are you going to bark all day? Little doggy or are you going to bite? Delusional. Delusional is okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. It's young up on me. I got it. What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men lauding them for their courage. Go into all the world and make disciples, not go into the world and make buddies, not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make cronies, disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, Pasta. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say their speaking truth when they're not. Take an amazing journey to a place that will blow your life and move your mind so you will never be the same again. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. Every wave a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. That's Proverbs 21. One through three, y'all. Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. Luke the Bear, hosting today as Pastor Jeff. He just the adoption decree, which is finalized for his twin baby girls, Nora and Piper. So he's at home celebrating with his family. He's very, very grateful to be there to witness that. It was a very cool and beautiful thing. So he'll be talking a lot about that now that that's final. So be looking for that. You're already on Facebook. Friends of them here to put out. You can see some of that. But yes, I got the old Little Caesars next to me. Hey everyone. Yes. Good to be here. Director of Communications for Andy Borschen now. That's me. We got DOC. You know what's weird? I was thinking, yeah, you know me. I knew you wouldn't be able to-- I knew it. Good. Usually the fall is slow for us. It's like about to ramp up. Yeah. It already has. I think that's just kind of the nature of the fight that we're fighting here right now at this time. True. Jeff's going to be in Ohio next week and then we're going to be in Louisiana. North Dakota. North Dakota, both in September. Jeff and I will be in Germany in November. And Jeff will be at Bradley's thing in October. Yeah, it's October I think. And then we got all these battle initiatives we're fighting. We'll talk about that. We'll get to that stuff. But thanks for tuning in today. This show is brought to you by iandlayer.com. Look at we did it. We both did it. Yeah. Don't talk about right there. Sun's out. I on layers out. Sun's out. It's hot. I don't know where it's like where you all live, but it's hot here. It does not. Oh, sweet. The train's coming. Yes. We turn the AC off because it's so loud. And now I'm already dripping a sweat in. Now we got the old gospel train coming by. Yeah, you can't hear it. But we can. I on layer.com. We love those guys. Jeff has done plenty of spiel on the nad patches, but I won't waste any time there. But they're great. You can go to iandlayer.com and put apology in the coupon code and get sweet discount. And they are partnering with us. So everything we do here, everything you see, you can thank iandlayer for because they're helping us keep the lights on. And the code you put in for the discount. It's apology, right? Apology. That's right. Wanted to make sure I include that because don't want to forget those small bennies. Also, I just heard I asked Kyle yesterday. We've been getting our shop that apology is studio. Which is fantastic. I got this new provokes shirt on today. Yeah. Yeah. You shared some of those designs coming up for different shirts. And I'm just here to tell you, if you live here, especially, you're going to love it. You're going to love it. It's going to be meaningful. You're going to say something. You can also go get some amazing coffee beans. Presit. The best part of waking up. Presit in your cup. We got all these sweet tracks. We actually just ordered this one. And Spanish. No, master, baby. Baby. So be looking for that. I think we're going to be going through these a lot because I know a lot of people go to the mill and try to say babies. You know how to speak Spanish. The gospel to abortion. The issue of abortion. That's what that tract is for. So we're very excited about that. Those tracks. But let me just bring in my guest here. This beautiful bearded man. Davis younts. Yount some of this. What's up, brother? You must have come up with that yourself. I did. Gentlemen. How are we doing? Doing great. Thanks for being here, man. Absolutely. I let the record show that Davis did not have a beard when I first met him. Well, he got one now. But man. A very short beard. A very short beard. But man is that thing incredible. It's like its own entity. Yeah, it's going. It's going, man. So we've had Davis on a lot. I'm privileged to work with him very closely with Stand With Warriors. And so we're going to kind of talk about a bunch of stuff today. They kind of all tie together. So the first thing I will start off with a disclaimer because we are going to talk about Trump. This is not an official endorsement for or against Donald J. Trump as president. Let me repeat that. I am not telling you whether or not you should vote for Trump. We're going to talk about him and some of his policies and where we're at as a nation. But I mean, I heard something in a good place. Yeah, we'll just say that. I already saw people in the comments like they're saying they're struggling. They don't know what to do, how to vote. And this is, I get asked a lot. Same. Who should I vote for? And my answer is always vote your conscience. I'm not going to sit down here and tell you who you should vote for because I don't want people voting for someone because I said I'm voting for that person. I want you to vote your conscience. And that's the truth. And now if I be honest, I haven't made my mind up yet. But that's the part that I'm wrestling with in my own conscience is should I vote for Trump or not. Now I'm going to tell you, do not vote for the other silly goose. Wow, that was very nice. You could have said something else. Some Holy Spirit restraint right there. And it's not just to be clear. It's not just the silly goose. It's the entire platform regime, the structure supporting the silly goose. Exactly. Boy, I am hot. Did I mention I was hot? I didn't get to rip it. It's okay. We're rolling with it. Yeah. Well, Davis, what do you tell us what's going on? I know you're a busy man because of get some big cases, which we'll get into. But what's going on with you right now? And then we'll get into Trump. Yeah, absolutely. So as you know, Stan with Warriors is needed now more than ever. We started this during COVID and it just continues. Things are ramping up. So we're working very closely with Brad Geary. He had the opportunity to be on the Sean Ryan show, which was fantastic. I got to be on there as well. So his case is moving forward. He's a Navy SEAL captain, a strong Christian brother, incredible testimony. And he is being persecuted by the Navy because he's not willing to go along with a lie. He wants to stand for the truth, tell the truth about what happened in Navy SEAL training. And so he is facing the loss of his retirement. So if anyone's interested in following that, you certainly can follow his case. And the on the lookout for news about that, Stan with Warriors is taking donations to support him and help his family pay for legal fees. And they are going to be significant because we're looking at not only fighting the Navy within the Navy system, we're looking at seeking injunctions in federal court and putting a stop to what's happening at the highest level. So that's one piece. The other piece we'll get into a little bit later, but we are dealing with Christians, people who have biblical values, traditional biblical values when it comes to marriage and human sexuality are now being labeled as of June 14th by the United States Army as extremists. So that's something we can we can talk about as well. Yeah, it's Wow. What a bombshell that was. I don't even know how to respond. I'm going to need a minute. Yeah. Davis sent me a text. He's like, congratulations. You're now an extremist. I'm like, well, that's not the first time I've been called. So probably not the last, but yeah, so there's a lot like going on. And you know, I'll just say this, Davis, it's so cool. I know we've talked about this and you've talked about it, which by the way, Sean Ron shows one of my favorite podcasts. I think it's number two of all podcasts. Brad's interview was six hours long and absolutely incredible. My favorite by far and my man Davis gave me a shout out. Proud moment there. Thank you, buddy. Thank you for that. It's amazing how, and I was talking to Brad about this the other day, which I've gotten to know Brad incredibly well. He, man, that guy is, he's legit. I'll just say that, but just it's amazing to me how, you know, Davis, how God brought us together just like no plans or intentions. And then it's just ever since then it's just been like God keeps bringing more and more guys in front of us and just how he's kind of orchestrating all this and all the connections. Like I was listening to Brad's interview and there's all these names he's mentioning and like, also in all these puzzle pieces start coming together in my mind and I'm like, bro, this is not, this is not a coincidence. God's doing something, you know, he's given you a platform, he, you know, he's the man for the job for sure. And so I've just been super encouraged despite all of the craziness going on in the culture and stuff. We're going to talk about today. It's, it's apparent. That's one of the reasons I chose the verse that I did God still sovereign, still in control and he's orchestrating all of that. So I'm very thankful for that and encouraged. So we'll just get right into old Donald J. What kind of what sparked honestly this conversation I've been wanting to have for Davis for a little while, because he was on cross politic, which by the way, I got a little bone to pick with cross politic. I just listened to the show that you just did with them, which we're going to talk about that situation. And Toby tried to claim, claim you as their lawyer. He's like, it's our lawyer. I'm like, hold on a second Toby J. Sumter Davis is my guy. Don't be claiming him. But it's my bone. I have to reach out to him. But anyways, um, you had, you've been on their pipe out two months ago, I'm guessing now you were talking about the constitution and, you know, I think they had just asked you, like, is the constitution dead? And actually it was, uh, MIM's message me and he was like, he did have Davis on to talk about this. And so I went and listened to it and I was like, Oh, that's actually a really great conversation. Because this is a debate going on right now, right? Amongst conservatives, amongst Republicans is the constitution functionally defunct, I suppose, if you will, so yeah, I'd, I'd really be curious to dive into that. Yeah. And there's, I'm trying to keep it like organized because we can go all over the place. And this is going to tie into our, um, ballot initiatives. Mm hmm. Okay. Um, and so we'll start with, with, with the Don, right? So, um, Don here, here's the thing that, you know, I have it, we'll start here. I just saw Jeff shared it yesterday. He just released their, the RNC platform, right, and nowhere on there is the mention of, right? It's gone. Which obviously we have major issues with major, major, here's, here's what's killing me. And I, and I think I know what's happening, but it, the Republicans, it's, they're like completely ignoring the conversation and they're ignoring it because they want to get reelected. Mm hmm. They're like, if we just ignore it, don't talk about it, then maybe we can get some of these middle ground liberals to vote for us, you know, and, and they're just scared of losing the election, but then we have the left side there. They're going all in. We got the battle and they're all in and they're, they're full steam ahead. And then we just got all these Republicans just acting like it's not happening. It's super frustrating. So what's the start there? It is the, the principal issue of their platform that they're running on and they're proud of it. They're incredibly vocal about it. Speaking about the Democrats, it is their sacred sacrament, child murder up to the point of birth. And that's probably being covert about their actual intentions, if we're being honest, because I think given, um, you know, their power structure and their desires and designs for the future, um, they may desire to even go further than that. I'm sure I think the only thing holding them back right now is they're a straining hand of God upon their wickedness. Um, and the fact that they don't have enough power to accomplish and carry that out right now. So yes, it is incredibly concerning the overall direction of the Republican party and the GOP and their platform. And like you said, I think I understand the why the strategy behind it, everyone always points to the fact that, well, look, Donald Trump gave this issue back to the States. That's where it should be. That's where it belongs. Um, and I understand why they would seek to down play it in order to appeal to the squishy middle. Um, I still think it's wrong, but for sure it's, um, it demonstrates a complete shift of the principles that we have come to deem worth conserving. If life is not worth conserving, and if it's not being vocal about being steadfast in conserving that and outspoken, um, and if we're not willing to say that and hold to these convictions in a public manner, then really conservative as a label ceases to be meaningful and significant. And so when you see the absence of these things, um, it just goes to show that, you know, the practical outworking of these things is this, when they're quiet on the murder of children in the womb, that trickle down effect is that at the state level, we no longer address the question of the murder of children and the woman by we, I mean the conservative Republican representatives because look, he's staying away from it. Don't address it. Right. This is not what we're emphasizing right now. We have an election to win. And you see at the state level now pro life groups, um, and Republican representatives have followed suit. They want to distance themselves away from this topic and away from this subject because hey, uh, this seems to be the direction that the culture is moving. So we're not even going to have the fight. We're not even going to have the argument. We're not going to make a compelling case for life. We're not even going to mess with it because apparently there's just too much at stake right now. Yeah. Davis, love to hear your thoughts, brother, man. So much there. I think to begin with, we've just, we've lost our way when it comes to even understanding the electorate. I mean, I don't understand this fascination with abandoning unborn children, um, as politically expedient. It's not going to work. I mean, look, look at Florida. Here's the example. I mean, I honestly have concerns that Trump won't win Florida. That sounds insane to say, but the turnout in Florida for Molek worshipers who want to have the freedom to murder children, they're going to turn out to vote for that amendment to enshrine the right to, you know, kill babies up to the moment of birth, even partial birth in Florida. They want to enshrine that and I guarantee you there will be, you know, billions of dollars pumped into a turnout operation to get people to come out and vote in favor of that. And so if on the other side, there is no momentum, there is no enthusiasm to save and preserve life, um, where, why are we, why are you and I struggling with how we're going to vote personally in this election? A lot of it has to do with the life issue because, you know, that, that to me is a center point in what I'm going to do. We have to be able to preserve the most innocent. Why else do we have a constitution? Why do we have a bill of rights? Why do we care about anything else if we're not preserving innocent life? So I just think the, the expediency of it is deeply, deeply troubling because even look at the, you know, the 2022 election, the governors that one big that could have had close elections were very pro life, even on the Republican side because it energizes the base. How many people have been consistent, adamant pro life voters for so long? I think that's one piece. And then I think the other piece is, look, it used to be a saying, you can go back to the nineties early 2000s and the, you know, the pro baby murder lobby, that crowd, when they lost an election, they would say the fetus beat us. They would literally repeat that mantra and they would say the fetus beat us. What does that mean? It's because the focus, even the messaging was on the right thing, which is the preservation of a human life, the preservation of an innocent child. And somehow, you know, over the last few years, and it feels like it's happened very, very quickly, but all of a sudden the, you know, big pro life lobby, big pro life organizations aren't even focusing on the baby anymore. It's about the woman and caring for the woman throughout her life. And, you know, I'm sorry, but that, that messaging, not only does it not send the right message, not only is it not the right priority, it's just a watered down version of whatever the other side is selling. And it, and it's idolatry because it's not focused on the right thing. So I mean, I think that's pretty hitting it pretty hard, but what are we, are we idolizing self or we worshiping God and the truth in this? So again, I think from a practical perspective, my frustration in all of this is there's no excitement among the base among conservative Christians to come out and vote unless we're going to stay true on that life issue. And that's why it's just, it's, it's sad on so many levels that that's been taken out of the platform. Amen. I think that's helpful. I think a big takeaway there is that what this does is it effectively neutralizes the resistance to this tsunami of bloodshed that we are on the verge of experiencing in our state and in other states. As you mentioned, Florida, yeah, I'm just not confident at this point, really, that they won't get it. Got a sovereign and he works through Providence and the work of his people. But I think these kinds of things show us that along with them being strategic choices by the Democrats, right, swing states, you know, red state activity, right, think about the massive demoralization of Christians and conservatives. If these things are successful in a bastion of Liberty, like Florida, to put abortion rights on the ballot up to birth, that is a massive blow to the morale of conservatives and Republicans. If we can't win on life there in this red haven sanctuary, if you will, where all these people move to during COVID because it was a bastion of Liberty, like if we can't win there. And I think the pro-burts are strategic in choosing these places because it's a demoralization campaign alongside of being everything else that it is, right? You know, oh, you're not for this, then you're not going along with what popular opinion wants. You're the weirdo, you're the crazy, you're the fascist, you're the extremist, you're out of touch with what people want. This is what your state wants. And so to your point, Davis, we're going to channel a bunch of money and infrastructure and resources into your state to manufacture excitement around the killing of babies, right? I think this is incredibly likely what they're doing. I'm not convinced that the majority of Arizonans want this. I'm not. But like the presidential campaign that we're seeing on one side right now, the tendency is to manufacture the excitement of a fake revival to get you feeling crazy for not going along with the crowd. So Christians have to not go along with those who are doing evil in that way. And we really have to consider, you know, standing now, we have to stand now and we have to speak. And we especially need to put as much pressure on Trump as we can to correct course on this and to take a solid stand for the sake of these children. Yeah. And what I've heard, and this is just hearsay, but I've heard that the plan is they're kind of, you know, going silent, going soft on this, and then they want to win all the things and then they're going to go hard after that. And I'm like, okay, one, I'll believe that when I see it. But two, even if that's true, like that's so pragmatic and just infuriating and I'm like, why can't we just be courageous? And a little dishonest if we're being, you know, if we're being real, it's a little dishonest, you know, like, oh, let's wait till we get power, then we'll be upfront with what we really want. Right. Right. But it's like we're, we're at now because people are cowards because no one will stand stand for truth. And you know, we've watched that this year in our own state with the pro life industry here in Arizona just, just wasn't out on stuff and not being courageous, you know, and they were influenced by Trump. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. We're talking about initiative here, and we could talk more about that, but, you know, we see the pro life industry here in Arizona, like they're not even, they're just, they're literally not putting a dime into it. And they've, they've already accepted the fact it's going to be on, it's going to get voted in and then they want to put all their money into fighting on the backside. And I'm like, what is happening here? But that's what we're, but we're up against and you're right, it starts at the top. That's the platform, you know, Kerry Lake folded like a, like a lawn chair on that and yep. And yeah, so I don't want to ramble here, but you mentioned the constitution, right? I mean, the constitution, the 14th amendment, we know why we have it because of a certain group of people being dehumanized at one point in history, and we have another category of persons that have been dehumanized for five decades now, at the very least and continue to be dehumanized. And so if we can't guarantee equal protection under the law for all human beings from the moment of fertilization, if we can't even affirm that, we're, yeah, we're in big trouble. The drift is real. Yeah. David, did you want to anything? Yeah, I just want to say, you know, I think to what we have to remember when we're silent on this and when we compromise on, on abortion, you know, we know, we, we know based on scripture, based on our conviction, abortion is murder. This is the taking of an innocent human life. And so if there are so-called pro-life groups that are compromising on that, that are weak on that, that are talking about the mother and not talking about the murder of a child and protecting mothers who engage in, conspire to commit a murder, that hypocrisy is apparent. I mean, that's part of the problem. I think it has a negative impact on, on our testimony because we look like hypocrites. When that occurs, Christians look like hypocrites because how are we in any different than the other side or the secular world because it looks like we're just using that issue then to gain power, but we really don't care about the baby. Yeah. We really don't care about that innocent life. So the other thing I will say is when we're silent, we send such powerful messages through our silence. It's the same thing that happens in the church. You know, we look at a church that remains silent on something that's a critical cultural issue that's happening around us. And what does that message send that message sends either we're not serious or we don't care about that issue or that sin just isn't that big of a deal because we're going to remain silent on it. And the world looks in or even people sitting, you know, our, our children, teenagers sitting in the pews of our churches, see that, they see that silence and they see us as hypocrites because we're not willing to push back and fight against murder, against slaughter. And I just think that's so critical because if we compromise on this, if we're soft on this, if we're weak on this, we look exactly like the other side that's just doing this because they're power hungry and quite frankly, from a worldly secular perspective, from a non-biblical perspective, sometimes some of their arguments sound more compelling the way they present them because Satan's the ultimate deceiver. So it does, you know, tickle the years to hear some of the things they will say about, you know, freedom and it's a woman's body and all these things that are just horrific lies, but they sound good. If they're not con if they're not confronted with truth, they sound reasonable to our human lives. Excellent. Excellent point. So I mean, that brings us into the conversation then, you know, is the constitution that I've heard men that I love and respect very much, basically say the constitution's dead, every politician's a liar, it's like, okay, hold on, let's, let's back up here a little bit. Let's not, we're not there yet. That's my position. And I understand I, I, I talked a loud and slaughter a lot, right? So I have a more optimistic view of the constitution and the state of our nation than some, some Christians do, and I, I'm dying to hear your take on this and yours as well that, you know, I don't think we're there yet. And I think the reason we're not there yet is because we have guns. And then I want to grab a trail too much. But it's, it's the truth. Like if we didn't have the right to bear arms, it'd be a different conversation right now. And I really think that's what told everything together. But I think our, the founding fathers had a lot of fantastic foresight and putting things together. But I mean, what's like, so going back to the ballot initiative, because this is part of this conversation, a lot of people don't realize what, what these initiatives are doing are attempting to undermine the democratic process. And I know where it ends in the name of democracy and the name of democracy. And I know we're a constitutional republic, but that's, they're still, they're trying to undermine that process. How do we bypass the rule of law? Exactly. Exactly. And so that, right. People don't understand that. They're just like, Oh, it's just another ballot initiative. And it's like, you don't understand this is actually undermining how our entire process was established. And so I know they already passed it in Ohio. I talked to my cousin a couple weeks ago with those in Ohio and they were furious over it. You know, they're Christians. They were just furious over that. And you know, we're, we're fighting to hear like we, it's basically like our church and a handful of other people, which is, again, just so frustrating that have been fighting this, you know, so for example, here in Arizona, they needed 340 or 320,000 signatures. They had 800,000, 150,000, I think, supposedly. So we literally combed through every single one of those signatures. I mean, we got video of these guys cheating, like they're like, you know, lying. We combed through everyone got we like got so many of them thrown out or should have got so many of them thrown out because they were not done how they were supposed to have been done. There's all kinds of stuff. And we had a lawyer that was representing this. And they literally backed out the last second because they were scared, scared of the left. They're scared of losing their job. Yeah. And we're still, we're still actually, we're, we're waiting because I think everything's due tomorrow, right? If I remember Craig, we're doing that, somebody's doing a meekous brief. Anyways, so we're waiting because they got, I got, they got ruled against in the lower court. So it's up to Arizona Supreme Court this. So hopefully next week we'll hear on that. And there's still a chance we might, it might be rule in our favor. But the point is like, again, it's just, it's undermining the process. People aren't being courageous. They're not standing up for, for truth. And so I take it real quick. I'm sure Davis wants to jump on this, like a glass of milk in a snowstorm or whatever the expression is, I guess, like, he wants to be like wide on rice, you know, that's what I mean. All right. Back on track here. So in the name of democracy, undermining the democratic process, the rule of law, how we change the law in our nation by putting up the question of who gets to live and who gets to die to a popular vote. Like that's what these ballot referendums are all about. So I'll just say this, one of the things that you just pointed out, Luke, is the downfall of pure democracy. And that is mob rule. Yep. So when the mob is in charge, when Vox, Populai, Vox Day, right, when the voice of the people is the voice of God, those who do maintain an office, who are office bearers, are put in a place where they are put in fear of the mob, in fear of the people. And when they're in fear of the people, in fear of the mob, and I'm not talking about a righteous kind of fear, like we should put in the hearts of our legislators because of our values and the fact that they need to stand on moral principles and so on and so forth. When it's exercised justly and rightly, that's a good thing. And that really is the point. We are not a nation of moral people. We are an immoral people, largely. And so we cannot leave these kinds of questions up to an immoral population. This is the danger of this, really. Anyone who votes against human life ought to be kept as far away from the levers of power as humanly possible, as humanly possible. You want that kind of an immoral, apostate culture far away from the ability to bypass the rule of law. And what I've noticed lately is that these abortion access groups, people that fighting to put this on the ballot, complain so much in the courts and in the appeal process about not receiving a fair and impartial hearing. They use these terms, impartial, democracy, so on and so forth. But they just don't recognize how hypocritical they're being because impartiality applies fair and equal treatment under the law for everybody. So they're willing to shout that from the rooftops while denying pre-born children fair and impartial treatment under the law as persons. And that's really what this mob rule descends into. So does that mean that things like the Constitution are dead? I don't think so. But I would love to hear Davis bring us into that conversation a little more. Take it away, man. So much, so much there. I just, I think it's important that we kind of take a step back and recognize when we start talking about the Constitution, whether or not it's dead, we do have to take a moment and just dispel sort of a worship of the Constitution, right? So there are conservatives, they call themselves strict constructionists or otherwise, they all have almost like, it's almost like those folks that are KGB only, right? The KGB version is the only inspired word of God, right? They have that sort of worship of the Constitution as if the Constitution itself, the written document was somehow inspired by God or perfect. And it's not, it's far from that. And in fact, we fought a bloody civil war that in part was a debate about some provisions of the Constitution and what it really meant and whether or not states could voluntarily leave a union they voluntarily entered. So I say all of that to say, I am a constitutional lawyer, I'm a constitutional scholar. I love the Constitution, but we cannot worship it as this perfect document. What is perfect, I think about our Constitution is the fact that it is founded on the word of God and the founding fathers, imperfect human beings, were at least seeking biblical inspiration for what they were doing. There's so much of the handprint of God in the Constitution itself and it was only possible, the American Revolution was only possible because of the Great Awakening and revival, right? So I say all of that is backdrop to say the Constitution isn't dead. The people are dead, the people are dead, the hearts of the people are dead and we need a revival because the Constitution is not a infallible document. The system that it's there is the best that has been created in human history for human flourishing after the fall when we start looking at that. But it's the hearts of the people that are dead, it's us that are dead, that are degenerate, that are not worthy of the Constitution and for the most part, far too many people in our government see the Constitution as an obstacle, either power or accomplishing what they want to do and so they want to either give just passing homage to the Constitution and move on or just ignore it altogether. So that's where we have to be careful. I don't think we can be just purely strict constructionists and say the Constitution is this infallible document, that's right in a lot of respects, but we have to be careful how far we go. So I don't think it's dead, but the people are dead. Man, that's a helpful way of thinking about it. Yeah. Yeah, that was really helpful. I appreciate that because the founders were brilliant in that I think they understood better than anybody that what is the Constitution? It's a standard outside of yourself. Right, it's a higher law because fallen man left to his own debased passions will destroy himself and others. And so inherent within the view of the founders worldviews was definitely, I don't see how you can escape this, a recognition of the human sinfulness of man, thus the division of power and all of those things, right? You cannot place all of this power within one centralized entity, which is what we are increasingly seeing more and more of in our day, is a totalitarian state that gobbles up all of its smaller parts and assimilates them into itself to have centralized power, right? But in the name of democracy. So as long as the people vote for dictatorship and totalitarianism, then it's okay. Not the case. Well, yeah, I mean, that goes back to the fact that we're not a true democracy. Your Constitution and Republic, Lex Rex, the law is king. And that's what we're getting away from. That's what this the ballot initiatives are trying to do, right? Is then become you're the standard the people you decide. There's no standard outside of yourself. You decide, I mean, Allah Genesis three, right? You determined for yourself between good and evil apart from a standard outside of yourself, which the Constitution is that, but as you pointed out, it's not infallible. The word of God is above that as the infallible standard. So in every case, we point to the higher law. Yeah. And I appreciate what you were saying there, Davis, I just dropped my charging cable. Hopefully, I think doesn't die because and I think you would agree with this is, I mean, I was raised, you know, in the church, but under this understanding that it's all about who's president and that's what's going to change things. And you put all of our, our hope in the government and especially higher ups, like they're the Messiah, like they're going to fix things. And you're like, no, it's actually people need Jesus, right? Which is spiritual training, but that's, that's post millennialism. You know, it's it's, it's, it's, and that's what we are constantly saying is it starts the individual. And I've talked about this quite a bit, but honestly, if we want real change, like, it's not going to be who we vote for for president. It starts in our houses. It starts with our dads being good dads and leading their families and it starts with the self government and the family, the church and then the civil, but we get too, too focused on the big picture and lose sight of what's right in front of us. And if we want real change, it's got to start in our own houses. And if it doesn't start there, then it's just, we're just all, we're chasing his own thing at that point. Mm hmm. Absolutely. And I think too, the other piece, you know, of the constitution being dead, even during COVID, right? The COVID tyranny, the other tyrannical things we have seen recently, we saw glimpses of the constitution working. We saw a glimpses of what a constitutional republic can be and what it looks like. And where do we see that? We forget too often the federal government isn't, isn't the be all end all and the separation of powers in the federal government really isn't the starting point for separation of powers. Separation of powers isn't just at that level. It's also at the state level. It's also at the county level, right? So, so we realize there are these lesser magistrates. There's things like county sheriffs that are sometimes the bulwark of the first level of pushing back against federal tyranny, state tyranny and otherwise. And even things like the district attorney's office and who's sitting in that seat as a district attorney. So, when we say, when I say the constitution isn't dead, we have to remember sometimes the elections that we can have the most impact on or at the state or really the local level. I mean, I was talking to someone I met just a fellow Christian brother who I encouraged to run for county commissioner. I met him at a conference and only 3,000 people voted in that primary anyone and now there's this Christian sitting in this county influencing the sheriffs, influencing policy. And it was just, you know, he was just a regular guy. Never been involved in politics, but he's like, I kind of feel like I need to do this. Um, but I just say that, look at that difference. I ask anybody, do you know who your district attorney is? What's the name of the district attorney in your county? And you think, okay, how often does that impact me every day? Well, look at Michael Cassidy, the guy that, that beheaded Satan in Iowa, the DA in Iowa was a Soros funded DA that got $300,000 in campaign donations from a Soros, you know, put it back to be there and they went after Michael Cassidy as a Christian for a hate crime. And yet how many people, how many Christians even cared or paid attention to that district attorney's race. So yeah, absolutely. You know, I would encourage everyone to vote, vote your conscience, be consistent in it. Think of, you know, unfortunately for the president's election, we're looking at the lesser of two evils. I think that's probably the analysis that will cause me to vote, um, prayerfully, um, and sadly, with a lot of remorse, I think in, in what we are called to do, but we have to look at the local elections and how much that impacts and what you guys did trying to fight the ballot initiative in, in Arizona. Those are the things we have to do because, you know, a family, a church, a community getting together, talking, walking through these things, bringing biblical principles to the ballot box can have a huge impact locally. I mean, why, why did Obama become so interested in Soros, you know, funded DAs and electing DAs? Because they saw that's an easy way. It's a relatively small investment to have a huge impact on policy and what's happened throughout America. And so you see cities that are just lost in utter chaos, but they've sewn destruction because they understood how they could use the constitution and how they could use the ballot box at the local level to create chaos. And could you maybe help flesh that out just very briefly, the significance of having the DAs, I mean, because this is just a determinant of which crimes are predisposed to be prosecuted, right? What becomes focused on in the legal level? Absolutely. A district attorney in a county has incredible flexibility to decide what to prosecute and what not to prosecute, which crimes to go after, which crimes to let go. So you see that across the country, you could just look at, you know, numerous cases where crime goes unpunished, murder, you know, goes unpunished, people are released, people are let out on bail. There's just, you know, the cries of injustice are replete. And that is because the district attorneys, many of them have become political operatives or I mean, they're just given over to the spirit of man and they care more about politics. They care more about critical theory than they do about justice. And it has creates havoc in these communities. Example of this, if I'm not mistaken, David Dilleiden in California, the Center for Medical Progress, when they dropped all of those videos on the abominable actions of Planned Parenthood, the DA at that time, I believe, Kamala Harris, rather than going after the ones killing babies, went after the ones exposing it. Yep. So, I mean, that should give you a sense of the significance of that office, I suppose. Yeah. And you know, we've, I mean, this is, I'm so thankful you brought that update was this is something we've witnessed an experience here in Arizona even since 2020. The left has very carefully and did so, they'd planned it, but they got key individuals elected. They didn't have to win everything. They got key, key spots elected, like you're talking about, like the county recorder in Maricopa County. You want to talk about all the election fraud? Who was, who was one in the show? It was the, the Democrat county recorder, you know, that the Arizona. In a swing state, that's, that's, that particularly matters. Yeah. The Arizona attorney general, I'm talking, well, you know, it's not the district attorney, but the attorney general, same thing. And she's even come out and said that she's not going to prosecute, you know, any abortion crimes in Arizona, you know, they don't, you know, so there was just, it's exactly what you're saying. There was just key positions. They didn't have to win everything, but they knew who needed to win. They made sure it happened and, you know, we're paying for it now and, and we've witnessed all that. And so we need, this is, this is why we have to think smaller. We have to think locally and be aware of what's, what's going on when it comes to voting. Otherwise we're just, like I said, we're just casting votes into the win for no reason at all. Yeah. Absolutely. And how many counties is it total? Just look at the swing states. I mean, you know, three counties will potentially decide Pennsylvania in this election. It's like it did last election, Michigan, Arizona, New Mexico. I mean, it's only a few counties and who are the elected leaders in those counties who, who have, you know, millions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been pumped into getting in positions of authority in those counties and look at the difference that makes. And yet, you know, we complain or we're upset. The constitution is dead. All these illegal things are happening, but what have we done on the local level? And again, do we even know the names of those people, you know, we even care enough to do that. Exactly. So this, this is a good, good spot. I think the transition in the next part of a conversation. So, so bring us into what you're dealing with right now and how this all ties together. Yeah. So, you know, with Sam with Warriors and what I do in my legal practice, we're seeing a, a shift. I'm seeing a shift in a lot of places where critical theory and just, you know, really communist ideals, and it all comes back to the worship of man secular humanism are just seeping through everything we're seeing. You know, a lot of my, my work is military. And what we're seeing is the military is adopting policies that are just unheard of a few years ago, but they are, they are now present. And so all of this has an impact. So we have sidelined Christians, we've sidelined chaplains, it started in the military with chaplains not being allowed to pray in Jesus name, and in many circumstances being, you know, trained to do that, not being allowed to do that, even if that was consistent with their faith, you know, strong Christian biblical chaplains being forced to perform same sex weddings or getting in trouble for it. So all that pressure came in and, and you had this campaign in the military. And now it's turned to the point where about a month ago you had training slide lead that we're labeling pro-life organizations, Christian organizations as extremist groups, right? These are examples of extremist groups you should stay away from. Just run the mill bland pro-life organizations. And that's on the heels of this June 14th policy that we talked about. So June 14th of 2024, the army issued an update, a policy memo on anti extremism and defining extremism in the army. Why do we care about that? One of the things they include in there is a statement defining examples, ideas of what an extremist group is or extremist activity is. So for example, they label an extremist group as any organization that's advocating against or advocating for discrimination against LGBTQ individuals that really is defined as anyone who would say marriage should be between a man and a woman and we should not legalize we should not state sanction gay marriage. Well, if I advocate against that, if I advocate for marriage between being a man and woman that that be the law of the land, then I am an extremist. Here's what gets very interesting. The church I go to, the church you gentlemen are a part of, that message is preached from the pulpit, right? This is God's plan for the family. This is God's plan for human sexuality. Well, that teaching that preaching would be labeled as discriminatory. The advocating would be labeled as advocating for discrimination. So if I was still serving in the United States Air Force, if I was not retired, if I was still serving and I go to my church on Sunday and then I donate money to my church, which advocates for marriage between a man and a woman, which goes and prays outside of libraries when there's going to be a drag queen story hour, which is involved in abortion mill ministry. All of those things, when I donate my tithe money, I am supporting, according to the army definition, I would be supporting an extremist group. So arguably, under this policy, if it's allowed to be maintained and in place, there is a clear argument to be made that anyone who donates a tithe to their church that has biblical values. And again, we can just look at human sexuality and marriage, you're contributing to an extremist group under this policy. And that may sound conspiratorial, that may sound extreme, but right now in Idaho, Stan with warriors is representing a major in Idaho who was fired from his position in the Idaho National Guard simply because of statements he made in a private capacity. He's a guardsman. He's only in uniform one week in a month, two weeks in the summer. He was in a private citizen capacity running for office a year before he got hired into a leadership position in the Idaho Guard. And he was fired from that position in six days after someone complained about things he had said in a private capacity as a private citizen while running for office that were consistent with biblical views of marriage and human sexuality. He was literally removed from his position after five days because someone complained about things he'd said before he got into that job and they made that person sad. Those were discriminatory. And so the recommendation now that's on the table, it doesn't mean it will be adopted by the Idaho National Guard, but they literally conducted an investigation where they are now recommending that anyone going for a leadership position be vetted so that no one like my client is ever hired again for a leadership position in the Idaho Guard. That's the consequences of this when we when we look at this. So that's where all of this comes together and that's why I say we, you know, the church has bought into all kinds of myths when it comes to, you know, not having an influence on society. It's allowed secular humanism, just pure man worship to become the primary religion of our nation. And we haven't pushed back. The church is abandoned the public spirit and these are the consequences. And you're literally at a point where Christians can be labeled as extremists. No one even bats an eye, no one even thinks about at the Pentagon even thinks about what that means for just people who attend a Bible teaching church. And now the consequences are apparent. I know it took a crazy, crazy story. I know that there's you're trying to protect the identity of the client. Can you talk about what it was that he said that got everyone all up in arms? Nothing any different than what you or I would say when we're when we're talking about our biblical views. He was advocating for marriage to be between a man and a woman and that we should have, you know, traditional biblical views of human sexuality. He was absolutely campaigning running for state office on the grounds that we should not be mutilating our kids just because they have gender dysphoria. So all of the things we would look at and say the Bible gives clear teaching on this. This is a loving way to approach the world. This is God's plan. And so none of it, none of it was extreme. None of it was outside the bounds of what the Bible teaches. And it wasn't, I mean, not even said in a way that was particularly harsh is literally just espousing biblical teaching on those issues. Have you noticed that the secular humanists as Davis calls them are remarkably discriminatory when it comes to someone violating their blasphemy laws, right? These blasphemy laws are unavoidable, it appears to be, but it seems that in, you know, not even being particularly offensive in the way that they, this was communicated, you still violated the law and you must be punished. There must be a tone made to our false gods, our false religious system in order to make these things correct. I think it just speaks to the nature of there will be an ultimate standard. And as secular humanists believe that will be found in man and in his word, or as Christians believe it will be found in the word of the living God. And so that's not something that we can afford to be shy about any longer, really at this point, if we don't speak now, if we don't act now, if we don't maintain the courage of our convictions in the face of this onslaught on reality, which is what it is. It is an attack on reality itself to say that you can't discriminate against this person for their sexual proclivity is like saying, you know, you must bow the knee to our lie that there is no such thing as gravity. You must operate in a fictitious world of our creation, not in, of course, the world that God made, where these things are objectively true, that what promotes human flourishing is intact, whole, integrated sexuality, men, women, you know, men laying their lives down for women, the roles of the genders together, life itself, family marriage, the building block of any healthy society, you know, it appears that enunciating those things will put you under the boot of heavy discrimination, because really, and this is the lie that we've bought is that there's such a thing as neutrality in the public's sphere, that someone's not going to impose their morality, their belief system, their blasphemy laws in the public square. And it obviously that's just not correct, obviously. Yeah. Well, and I'll just, we'll end on this point here. I want, I just want to make the point to, to demonstrate why what Davis is doing with staying with words is so important. Um, just if you, I don't think people think about it like this, but normally, you know, our military servicemen and women just, they do what they're told, right? And that's just the way you're, you're trained, you do what you're told. And here, you know, this started with a bunch of seals that said, this is, this is not okay. You know, because they took an oath to a constitution that wasn't dead. Exactly. Right. It's an unlawful order. They said are they make the oath to the constitution, not to their superior officers, right? Um, not to the whoever is coming down, supposedly Biden, but who knows if he was even awake, but the point is like that that's not who they swore their oath to, which is the constitution. And they are like the last, uh, bastion of defense force, right? Because just think about this. Here you have the army trying to tell their servicemen and women that these guys are extremists. Do you understand what that means? That means that they're trying to prepare them to say these are the guys that are actually the problem that you need to be able to, to fight against. It's these Christian groups. These, you know, white, uh, the Christian nationalist extreme is whatever, like, that's why this is so important. And that's why it's so important again, what Davis is doing with, with the guys we're representing with Brad, uh, with your, your major and Idaho, you have guys that are saying, no, this is, this is not okay. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to let this slide. I'm going to stand for truth. Um, and so anyways, I, I just wanted to, to mention that Davis, I'd love to hear your take on that. No, that's absolutely right. And you know, that was, that was our heart in this is to, to find Christian men in these positions in the military in federal law enforcement that are willing to take a stand and actually understand what an oath to the constitution means because without that, what you're seeing is the military being conditioned to turn on traditional values. And the problem is, you know, just, I mean, how, uh, understand we've seen this. This has been the case throughout history. I mean, look at the fall of the Roman Republic. It went from a republic to, you know, tyranny and look at Germany before World War two, all of the military, if you were going to stay in the military, you had to swear an oath to Hitler. You had to swear an oath to Adolf Hitler. Why? Because that became, you know, there were, there were German generals and others who literally defended their war crimes by saying, well, I was just following an order and I took an oath to Hitler and I couldn't go back on my word. Right? We look back on that, we realize how absurd that is, but that was, that's what's unique about our oath in the United States military to the constitution, it unique in world history that that's the oath that was made, but it's so important. So as a Christian, you understand it's an oath to the constitution. It's an oath to the principles of what our nation is about, which is why, you know, so many people were convicted over COVID because the executive branch was ignoring the law and that, that created a constitutional crisis. So that's what we're really looking at here is we're looking at finding ways to get to right people like Captain Geary, who we can support when they're taking a stand for truth and for the constitution and tell their stories. In doing that, we share the gospel, regardless of the outcome, we have the opportunity to share the gospel where we're taking a stand for truth and we're hoping the whole idea behind stand with warriors is inspiring other people within the military and without throughout society to be bold in their faith, to be bold in talking about their faith and to hopefully see revival within the military spread throughout all the society that's, that's what's on our heart. Yeah, and this just goes to one of my favorite verses in Proverbs where there's no prophetic vision that people cast off for strength and that's what we're witnessing, right? There's been no prophetic vision starting in the pulpits. It starts in the pulpits again. Both government church or family than church, right? Like it starts in the individual, it has to start in the pulpits. There's been no prophetic vision and that's what's been so encouraging to me about the guys that Davis has been representing. I mean, I sat in that room with them and they said, I'm, one of them literally said I'm willing to have my career martyred in order to stand for the constitution. That's incredible. And we need more men, not just in, not just in the military, more men in general. But anyways, I'm rambling now. So anything else you want to add Davis and then we'll, we'll get out of here in a second and we are going to have an after show. So you can stick around Davis is going to be around for a little bit for all our ex, all access subscribers. But Davis, do you want to add anything else? I just want to say, you know, don't be discouraged by, by any of this, you know, again, we wouldn't have the nation that we have if it wasn't for revival at the Great Awakening, the American Revolution started in churches. We can get there again. We just, we have to be faithful. God has a plan. So that's where we get optimistic, right? But be engaged at the local level and it really can make a difference. So where can people go to help support the work you're doing? Stand with warriors.org is the best place to start. So stand with warriors.org. There's information about what we're doing. There's information about Gary's case and, you know, just keep, keep on the lookout for that. Folks can follow me on Twitter, I guess, X now, but stand with warriors.org is a great place to start. And we just launched Stand With Warriors action, right? So we can do more stuff legislatively more. Is that the plan? Yeah, absolutely. So we have the original 501(c)(3) and we've launched Stand With Warriors action, which can get involved in political issues. So donations to it are not tax deductible, but it gives us the flexibility to engage policy in a way that we can't as a 501(c)(3). Excellent. Zach, do you want to add anything to that or have any closing thoughts? No. No, I really appreciate this. You know, it makes us just recognize, too, the sacrifice of these men and willing to put so much on the line for the sake of freedom and to really leave behind a legacy of doing the right thing, I think, for the next generation of fighters. And so I'm grateful to these men and to Davis for representing them. So it's a blessing. Amen. We'll tell you what, we'll jump on the after-show here in a few minutes. So this is what we'll do if you guys want to stick around, again, those who are all access, which we thank you so much for your support and partnering with us. If you stick around, have some questions. You want to ask Davis, he'll be around for about 20 minutes and we can fire away with those. I mentioned another fantastic retired warrior that partners with us, and that's Bill Rapier. Of course, Amtak Blades. Have you met Bill Davis? Not in person. Not in person. I got to introduce you to him. He knows Brad very well. They were in Bible study together back at Dev Group, but Bill's a fantastic brother, makes some fantastic blades, and we're honored to be partnering with him. So you can go to amtakblades.com, put apology in the coupon code, get 5% off your order, and he donates 5% matches that 5% donation to end abortion now to help us fight to save babies. And don't forget our good friend, Bradley Pierce, a constitutional attorney as well, and Heritage Defense, a non-profit legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the kingdom of Christ by protecting and empowering the biblical family. If any three letter or agency is show up at your door, have peace of mind knowing that an attorney who shares your values is available around the clock, and that's our man Bradley and his team there ready to advocate for you and protect your household. So go to heritagedefense.org for more information. I would know Davis if it wasn't for Bradley Pierce. So we love Brad. True story. All right, everyone. Thank you so much. We will be back next week. I don't know if Jeff will be on or not, because he may or may not be in Ohio. We'll see. I know there's some exciting topics we want and we're itching to discuss, so we'll see if we get that out. But as always, thank you, everyone, for your support for end abortion now and for apology of studios. We will see you next week. Peace out. This is the Academy. I am Eli Ayala of Revealed Apologetics, and I will be bringing a six part series on presuppositional apologetics. What is this called? The apology Academy? It's just called the Academy. Okay. What's up, everybody? My name is Pastor Jeff Durbin, and you're watching Collision Today. I'm going to be interacting with an atheist on TikTok. So here we go. Unsupervised and unhinged. Welcome back to Cultacy Aftermath. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Ask Me Anything. And though you are watching apology of radios after show exclusively for all access. (dramatic music) You