NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Leave California, Come To Texas
Aired: 2022-03-01
Duration: 01:18:23


=== Practical Obedient Defiance (06:31) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
[00:00:03]  If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show, would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five star review?
[00:00:09]  This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
[00:00:17]  Thanks.
[00:00:18]  Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webbin.
[00:00:20]  Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
[00:00:22]  I'm privileged in this episode to have Luke Masseus as a special guest from the Luke Masseus Show.
[00:00:28]  Luke is a political consultant, he's a podcaster, he does all sorts of things.
[00:00:34]  In the realm of culture, in the realm of politics, and all in the great state of Texas.
[00:00:39]  And so I have Luke come on the show to talk about the benefits of Texas, the good, but also the bad and the ugly.
[00:00:47]  The fight for Texas, the fight for really the soul of Texas, and how Christians can get involved to win the culture war.
[00:00:56]  Thanks for tuning in.
[00:00:57]  Real quick, before we get started, I've got some exciting news to announce.
[00:01:01]  I've got A.D. Robles and John Harris from Conversations That Matter coming out.
[00:01:06]  For a whole weekend in the month of March to join up on a Friday, we're going to come in our studio right here, and all three of us are going to record a multiple part series on some of the subject matter that you guys have requested that the three of us address through our YouTube comments.
[00:01:24]  Some of you have emailed, we're taking that into consideration as well, but we're definitely looking at the YouTube comments.
[00:01:30]  We've asked you guys, Hey, what are topics you want us to address?
[00:01:33]  And so the three of us are going to record for several hours a multiple part series in our studio right here in the great state of Texas.
[00:01:41]  In March, and we're going to be releasing that content over the coming weeks.
[00:01:44]  Now, here's the other thing that's on the Friday that they're going to be in town, but on the Saturday, we're going to hold a one day conference.
[00:01:51]  Now, that's going to be March 12th, Saturday, March 12th.
[00:01:55]  It's going to be a one day conference where AD is going to do a session on practical, obedient defiance how to resist civil tyranny, how to resist medical tyranny, and how to do this in practical, on the ground ways as households, as head of households, husbands, fathers.
[00:02:13]  How do we resist as a family?
[00:02:15]  Against the cancel culture and the tyranny and persecution that's coming to America.
[00:02:20]  That's going to be AD's session.
[00:02:21]  I'm going to do a session called Debunking the Boogeyman of Christian Nationalism.
[00:02:27]  I'm going to kind of reveal the fallacies of the Gospel Coalition and all these kind of things.
[00:02:31]  Oh, Christian nationalists, the greatest threat to America.
[00:02:34]  I'm going to show why that's not biblical and how that's not actually happening.
[00:02:38]  And the irony that, if anything, Russell Moore, he's the type who is actually the Christian nationalist in a negative sense.
[00:02:45]  And then John Harris is going to do a session.
[00:02:47]  On social justice versus biblical justice.
[00:02:50]  Again, that's social justice and how it's completely opposed, completely opposite to biblical justice.
[00:02:57]  And then lastly, the three of us are going to come up all together and spend a whole hour doing QA.
[00:03:02]  We're going to take live questions from the audience and address those questions.
[00:03:07]  It's going to be a great time.
[00:03:08]  You'll get to meet John Harris, you'll get to meet Adi Robles, you'll get to meet myself.
[00:03:11]  So if you're anywhere in the area in Williamson County, or if you're in Austin, Texas, or you're north of Williamson County, or to the west, or to the east, and you want to come out and join us for that.
[00:03:21]  One day conference Saturday, March 12th.
[00:03:25]  Come on out.
[00:03:26]  It's free registration.
[00:03:28]  We're going to have some refreshments free.
[00:03:29]  Everything's free.
[00:03:30]  So we're paying out of pocket as a ministry to make this happen.
[00:03:34]  We're covering the cost to fly out John and AD to put them up in a hotel.
[00:03:37]  So you don't have to pay a dime to show up and attend this.
[00:03:41]  However, for anybody who wants to be generous and help us offset these costs, you can do so donating towards this conference by simply going to rightresponseministries.comslash donate.
[00:03:53]  Again, that's rightresponseministries.com/slash donate.
[00:03:57]  Now, to find the address, physical location for the conference, and exact times for each of the sessions for that Saturday, March 12th, again, go to our website, rightresponseministries.com, click on the menu button at the top, and scroll down, and you'll find conference.
[00:04:12]  Click on conference, you'll find all the details that you need.
[00:04:16]  And one of the details there that we need is although registration is free, there's a form at the bottom that says RSVP.
[00:04:24]  We would really appreciate if you could let us know.
[00:04:27]  Whether or not you're coming and how many people you plan on bringing with you, right?
[00:04:31]  If you've got 10 kids, God bless you for having 10 kids, but we would like to know that you're bringing yourself, your wife, and your 10 kids.
[00:04:38]  Please come, but please let us know so that we can adequately prepare for this.
[00:04:42]  The last thing that I'll say is that that Sunday, which would be March 13th, for anybody who wants to join our church, Covenant Bible Church, John Harris will stay in town.
[00:04:53]  He's going to linger and he's going to preach that Sunday morning at our Lord's Day worship service.
[00:04:57]  That's 9 30 a.m. On Sunday, March 13th, at my church that I pastor.
[00:05:03]  Again, that's Covenant Bible Church.
[00:05:05]  We're in Georgetown, Texas.
[00:05:07]  That's the Williamson County area.
[00:05:09]  So if you're in Williamson County or you're in North Austin or you're somewhere nearby and you don't have a church home, if you've got a church home, go there.
[00:05:16]  But if you don't have a church home, you're looking for a church that has courage, that has biblical fidelity, and you want to hear John Harris preach a dynamite sermon from the Word of God, then come and join us again, Sunday, March 13th.
[00:05:29]  You can find Details or directions to join our church that Sunday morning at covenantbible.org.
[00:05:37]  Our website for Covenant Bible Church is covenantbible.org.
[00:05:41]  Without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into our episode.
[00:05:45]  Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
[00:05:48]  This is Theology Applied.
[00:05:56]  Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and you're watching another episode of our show called Theology Applied.
[00:06:02]  Today, I am very privileged to be joined by a special guest named Luke Masseus.
[00:06:07]  Luke Masseus, Luke, go ahead and just introduce yourself to our guests.
[00:06:11]  Tell them all the things that you do.
[00:06:12]  You're a jack of all trades.
[00:06:14]  Let them know who you are.
[00:06:16]  I was going to be a doctor growing up because I was named after Luke in the Bible.
[00:06:22]  And so I was homeschooled, and my parents would make me write papers on the gastrointestinal tract and vestigial organs and interview doctors.

=== Worldview and Election Day (16:05) ===

[00:06:32]  When I was 16, my dad ran for public office, state representative.
[00:06:34]  Somebody in our church came to us.
[00:06:36]  We weren't that involved politically and said, Hey, our representative is a pretty liberal Republican, a pro choice Republican, and other problems in the Texas Hill Country area.
[00:06:46]  So my dad ran for office and won by 45 votes of 20,000 casts.
[00:06:51]  Wow.
[00:06:52]  And me and my six siblings had basically jumped in and got involved.
[00:06:55]  And I knew at that point that I had a passion for this.
[00:06:59]  I honestly hardly schooled that year because I just loved this stuff so much.
[00:07:03]  And mom was always getting on me.
[00:07:04]  So I went into my parents' room after that and I told them, I think that the Lord has called me into the political arena.
[00:07:11]  Which they agreed because I almost failed chemistry that year, too.
[00:07:14]  So the medical direction was not looking good.
[00:07:17]  I was getting pushed and pulled.
[00:07:18]  And at that point, I just started applying myself in politics, did a bunch of different stuff, but ultimately ended up starting a political consulting company 11 years ago.
[00:07:28]  And I've worked on almost 100 political campaigns across Texas.
[00:07:32]  I ended up partnering with and working alongside a lot of the different conservative organizations in Texas.
[00:07:37]  We have various different special interest groups that fight particular issues, be it parental rights issues or Media companies or fiscal accountability watchdog organizations, things like that.
[00:07:47]  So, I've worked alongside that and then partnered up with different philanthropists who are trying to fight to preserve the freedom that we have, maybe even expand it.
[00:07:57]  It's kind of, I think, sometimes hard for Texans to realize that there are a lot of freedoms that we don't have that we could.
[00:08:03]  And so, anyways, I right now have a weekly show as well, not quite as advanced as I've set up.
[00:08:10]  But no, but we talk about Texas news and politics.
[00:08:13]  People have so much access to national stuff.
[00:08:15]  You know, the truth is, there are 1,800 podcasts you can go to if you want to know what the U.S. Senate.
[00:08:21]  Doing in Congress and Biden and Trump and anybody else.
[00:08:25]  But we found that there's just so little content out there about what's happening in our state.
[00:08:29]  And Texas as a state is more impactful culturally and even nationally than any other state in the union, I would argue.
[00:08:37]  And you come from California, right?
[00:08:39]  So you understand there's these large states that have way more pool than a state like Arkansas or Missouri.
[00:08:45]  And so, anyways, enjoy talking to a lot of Texans about the kind of things that are going on in our state.
[00:08:50]  Right.
[00:08:51]  So, with that, you know, so you said like I'm from California.
[00:08:54]  And so, you know, our listeners know that I was born and raised in Texas, but I was in California for the last 11 years until the end of 2020, December.
[00:09:02]  And not just myself, but I, you know, led, as I told you, a team of seven different households to come out of, you know, out of Egypt into the promised land, you know.
[00:09:11]  But the problem with the promised land, to use that metaphor, is that there are enemies in the land.
[00:09:17]  And it's not just coming to a land that flows with milk and honey, but there are problems here as well and things that, Have to be fought against.
[00:09:25]  And so, with that, kind of a double question.
[00:09:28]  We talked about this a little bit before we started recording.
[00:09:30]  But number one, why are guys, whether it be Elon Musk or, you know, I mean, you've got Oracle, you've got Apple, you've got all these different companies in droves moving to not just states like Texas, but Texas.
[00:09:43]  They like Texas.
[00:09:44]  So, what are some of the policies that make Texas appealing?
[00:09:47]  But then also, what are some of those fights that we need?
[00:09:50]  Because you said there are certain things about Texas, certain freedoms that.
[00:09:54]  We don't have.
[00:09:55]  So, what are the good policies and then what are some of the policies that Texans need to be aware of where there's a fight to be fought?
[00:10:01]  Yeah, I think that's a great question because primarily there's a huge appeal to moving to a state with no income tax, first and foremost.
[00:10:09]  I mean, that's fundamentally when you're a business, when you're looking at relocating, and you talk about the fact that a home here is significantly less than a home in California.
[00:10:18]  Now, unfortunately, you probably know home values are skyrocketing in Texas as a result of that.
[00:10:22]  But the reality is that you go, okay, wait, you can get.
[00:10:25]  Twice the home that you would sell this home for, I don't even have to give you a raise, and you start making X percentage more just based on the fact that you don't have a state income tax at this point.
[00:10:36]  So, people like that.
[00:10:37]  Businesses like predictable regulatory environments.
[00:10:40]  That's just the reality.
[00:10:41]  We know that economic based idea that the less they think you're going to change up the regulation, the more they're likely to invest big dollars into this economy because they go, look, we think we'll still be in this environment 10, 15, 20 years from now.
[00:10:55]  And so, I think there's that predictable regulatory environment, the low taxation.
[00:10:59]  That contributes towards people being pretty attractive.
[00:11:02]  And then there's the fact that we are not as woke as where you're currently at, right?
[00:11:07]  So if you're in California and you're somebody who just has a middle of the road worldview, I mean, I would consider myself a relatively far right of center worldview when it comes to 100 people in a room.
[00:11:20]  But the reality is, even if you're somebody who's in the middle of the general worldview of the populace, you are not welcome in a lot of blue states right now.
[00:11:28]  And they are doing what they can to say, look, you either have to be like us or you are not.
[00:11:33]  Welcome here.
[00:11:34]  Your ideas are not welcome.
[00:11:35]  Your children are not allowed to think for themselves.
[00:11:38]  And so all of a sudden they go.
[00:11:39]  Diversity when it comes to skin color, but there's no diversity of thought.
[00:11:43]  No.
[00:11:43]  No true diversity.
[00:11:44]  In fact, they're even more upset if you have, like, you're not white and you actually also have a right of center worldview.
[00:11:50]  Yeah, well, then you're an Uncle Tom, you know, whatever.
[00:11:53]  So they are, I think people then go, well, I'm feeling attacked here, so I will go there because I will be less likely to be attacked.
[00:12:00]  And I think that still remains true today.
[00:12:01]  I mean, your worldview, if you're right of center, you're not going to get attacked in Texas as much as you would if you were in California or one of those states.
[00:12:09]  So this, to me, is an attraction that we have.
[00:12:13]  The things that are really dangerous fundamentally, We, as Texans who are here, are blessed by anybody from California that moves here because we are seeing essentially, I call them political refugees.
[00:12:25]  But the majority of people moving from California to Texas are conservative people.
[00:12:31]  They just are.
[00:12:32]  They're coming here and they're bringing their general right of center worldview here.
[00:12:36]  That's why they're coming.
[00:12:37]  And so, since the majority of them are, when we net 1,000 new citizens, that actually is more helpful to conservatives in the state.
[00:12:45]  One of our problems is that.
[00:12:47]  We do have a lot of indoctrinating going on with our own children.
[00:12:51]  And unfortunately, a lot of it's government funded, right?
[00:12:53]  We have a K 12 system and we have a university system with our public universities that we know are indoctrinating children more often than not.
[00:13:01]  And it's really a sad thing where we've been for decades funding the indoctrination of our own populace.
[00:13:07]  And we're starting to reap the unfortunate benefits or rewards.
[00:13:11]  You reap what you sow, right?
[00:13:13]  And so what we're seeing is that there was a poll done back in 2018 when Better Work almost beat Ted.
[00:13:19]  Cruz.
[00:13:20]  There was a super close election, and everybody was really concerned.
[00:13:23]  They said, Man, all these Californians are changing our state.
[00:13:26]  And what they found was, No, the Californians that moved in here were voting for Ted Cruz over Beto O'Rourke by a 60 40 margin.
[00:13:33]  The problem is, we have all these people 18 to 35 that are in Texas that are native born that are all voting for Beto.
[00:13:40]  Well, why is that?
[00:13:41]  Well, maybe because they went through a K 12 system, and in a lot of those systems, they are run by leftists who are giving you leftist ideology.
[00:13:50]  And then you go to a publicly funded state university, and we know that.
[00:13:54]  I mean, Texas AM just finally this year, after a lot of pressure, canceled its drag show that it's been having for the last several years.
[00:14:01]  This is a Texas college that people would tell you is a more conservative Texas college.
[00:14:05]  They've been having a taxpayer funded drag show on their locations.
[00:14:09]  You've got, they are training up the teachers with these general Marxist ideas and then sending them into the classroom.
[00:14:16]  And so it's this never ending loop.
[00:14:17]  So we have a real problem when it comes to indoctrinating our own populace.
[00:14:22]  And just in the last year or two, we finally, I think, started to bring a lot more light to that.
[00:14:27]  Where people are waking up, citizens are waking up, they're starting to demand action on it because they're realizing we can't sustain this.
[00:14:35]  If we're funding our own demise, it's a pretty big problem.
[00:14:39]  Right.
[00:14:39]  No, I completely agree.
[00:14:41]  So I was going to bring that up, you know, in terms of, you know, people say that it's California that's turning Texas blue and those kinds of things.
[00:14:47]  But I completely agree with you.
[00:14:48]  The person who makes that transition from California or New York to a state like Texas or a state like Idaho tends to be a person who is conservative and is looking for, you know, conservative.
[00:14:59]  Freedoms that come from conservative policies.
[00:15:02]  And it seems like people make that connection.
[00:15:04]  It seems like the people who are embracing liberal ideology and policies are the people who take it for granted.
[00:15:12]  And it just seems like that's kind of the pattern almost of just human history.
[00:15:16]  That, you know, that, well, I can't remember the theologian who said this, but in terms of Christian faith and the gospel, they said the first generation believes the gospel, the second generation assumes the gospel, the third generation neglects the gospel, and the fourth generation rejects the gospel.
[00:15:33]  And it's almost like generationally, things get so bad, and then it's almost like you need a war with Russia or China and communism to be reminded oh, that's why we don't entertain those policies.
[00:15:47]  That's why socialism doesn't work.
[00:15:48]  That's why, you know, whatever it is.
[00:15:51]  And so, how are we going to turn it around?
[00:15:53]  What do you think the solution is?
[00:15:55]  I think that's a great question.
[00:15:59]  Do we have to just wait for disaster?
[00:16:00]  Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of people do sometimes wait for that disaster to wake up.
[00:16:04]  People are very upset when they do hear the type of things that are going on.
[00:16:08]  You know, we have two clinics in Texas who are sexually transitioning children, right?
[00:16:14]  They are professionals at doing this.
[00:16:15]  You can bring them a three year old boy and say, I want my three year old boy to be a three year old girl.
[00:16:21]  And they will help you facilitate that lie to that child.
[00:16:26]  Okay, this is child abuse.
[00:16:27]  We know it is, but it's not defined as child abuse in Texas, unfortunately.
[00:16:31]  And our lawmakers haven't done so.
[00:16:32]  They've known this is going on for years.
[00:16:34]  Three years ago was the first time this really came to light in a pretty significant way.
[00:16:39]  And there's been a coalition of us that have been working on advancing a policy to say we need to stop this in Texas because not only are we transitioning our own children, we're transitioning children outside of Texas.
[00:16:48]  And so it starts with psychological therapies.
[00:16:50]  You sit down with a, uh, a psychologist probably in a setting like this and they ask you a bunch of questions about what you think about when you see these pictures and, you know, what do you think about when you think of girls and boys and, and they're helping transition you.
[00:17:02]  And then they're going to have a coming out party and you're going to be declared as the opposite sex.
[00:17:07]  And then they're going to tell your public school that you are the opposite sex.
[00:17:10]  And then your teachers are going to start calling you a female name.
[00:17:12]  Instead of a male name, even though you're still a boy.
[00:17:15]  And this is the reality that's happening.
[00:17:17]  They'll start blocking these kids' puberty at 9, 10, 11 years old.
[00:17:20]  And these drugs are all legal in the state of Texas.
[00:17:23]  When you bring this to light, the vast majority of the populace is pretty upset.
[00:17:28]  And I think there's a hope that this type of content being brought to the light does wake up a lot of Texans.
[00:17:37]  We have to push it out there more in order for them to go, whoa, not in my backyard.
[00:17:43]  You know, because we kind of think that all this must be happening in California, right?
[00:17:46]  Oh, in New York, they're definitely doing this to the kids.
[00:17:49]  No, they're doing it here.
[00:17:50]  And most politicians are just really scared to disrupt the status quo.
[00:17:56]  They want to take the path of least resistance.
[00:17:57]  And one of the things the left does very well is they're militantly against you if you try to come after them.
[00:18:03]  And so it creates this culture and environment where these politicians go, I don't really want to touch this issue.
[00:18:08]  So I feel like these types of things being brought to light really do give us a potential to wake people up maybe before we're.
[00:18:17]  Into catastrophe.
[00:18:19]  Yep.
[00:18:20]  So, who are some of the players?
[00:18:21]  Let's name some names because we have an election that is coming up.
[00:18:25]  And I think by the time we release this episode, it's going to be Election Day.
[00:18:28]  Election Day.
[00:18:28]  Yeah.
[00:18:29]  Tuesday, March 1st in Texas.
[00:18:31]  And so, who are some of the major players, whether it be Attorney General or whether it be Governor?
[00:18:37]  Yep.
[00:18:38]  Who are some of the guys who are not just your neocons, not just your Mitt Romney's, but a true conservative?
[00:18:44]  And ideally, a true conservative that, in the way I like to say it, is there are people who Have adopted Christ principles, but I always say, you know, Christ principles apart from Christ's person will not produce Christ's peace.
[00:18:56]  And so there are people who are conservatives, but they're hanging these conservative virtues in midair.
[00:19:01]  They don't actually have the Christian foundation.
[00:19:03]  So, who are some guys who are true conservatives, an actual Republican, but also an actual Christian?
[00:19:11]  They have a worldview to sustain those things so that we know that, you know, I think of Ephesians chapter four that talks about every wind and wave of doctrine that tosses us to and fro.
[00:19:21]  Who are the guys who have the worldview, the anchor, so that they won't, you know, five years from now betray their voter base?
[00:19:29]  No, it's.
[00:19:32]  So this is coming out on Election Day.
[00:19:34]  Hopefully, a decent amount of people have already voted.
[00:19:36]  About 55% of votes cast early in Texas.
[00:19:39]  We have Election Day.
[00:19:40]  If somebody's watching this and they haven't voted, they can go vote, right?
[00:19:43]  They can look it up or call their elections office and figure out their precinct.
[00:19:46]  You don't need your voter card.
[00:19:47]  A lot of people think you need your voter card to vote, you just need your driver's license.
[00:19:50]  You can walk in.
[00:19:52]  And so that is.
[00:19:53]  Some nice things that afford people the opportunity to engage in the process.
[00:19:58]  The election we have in front of us, and then I want to talk about elections as a whole if that's okay.
[00:20:01]  But the elections right in front of us, you know, we do have problems.
[00:20:04]  One of the, in fact, I've had a lot of conversations over the last two weeks with voters.
[00:20:08]  I sent out a voter guide in San Antonio, a personal voter guide to my neighbors.
[00:20:12]  I started getting called by all these people who said, Hey, I want to know why I shouldn't vote for Abbott because he's not on your list.
[00:20:18]  Yeah.
[00:20:20]  Answer that question right there.
[00:20:21]  So I'll go.
[00:20:21]  And because when I first moved here, I was like, Hey, Abbott's, you know, taking this.
[00:20:24]  But then as some time went by, I realized, Oh, Abbott's.
[00:20:28]  Number one, Abbott's taking a stand against Abbott.
[00:20:31]  So he's taking a strong stand against that policy that he actually put in place.
[00:20:36]  And all of it's basically like, you know, like how do you find out what Abbott's going to do?
[00:20:40]  Well, you just look at what Ron DeSantis did six months before.
[00:20:43]  Yeah.
[00:20:44]  No, a lot of people do say that.
[00:20:45]  And you're like, well, it'd be a lot easier if we just have DeSantis be our governor.
[00:20:48]  And then we could take our cues from him when he actually does it, as opposed to six months later.
[00:20:53]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:56]  We, on the gender transitioning issue, we have been pushing this for three years.
[00:20:59]  We have a coalition of people built all across the state.
[00:21:01]  The Republican Party of Texas even got involved and put it on the last two primary ballots.
[00:21:05]  In fact, if you go vote, there's some propositions that the Republican Party has put there.
[00:21:10]  And the top one is Texas should ban the transitioning of children.
[00:21:15]  And the reason it's on there is because it still hasn't been done.
[00:21:18]  And the party is trying to put pressure on Abbott to support the policy because he didn't support it last session.
[00:21:23]  The Senate passed three different bills that would have dealt with the issue.
[00:21:26]  And the Texas House killed them.
[00:21:28]  And the Texas House not only killed them, but just so people get a little bit of an understanding of how politics works.
[00:21:34]  The governor will stay silent on any issue that he is okay for the legislature to kill.
[00:21:41]  That is kind of the unspoken understanding between the chambers, which means that if the governor is just quiet, then the House, which is more loyal to him than the Senate, then the House will say, okay, if this bill dies, the governor won't be that upset.
[00:21:55]  In fact, he might even be happy.
[00:21:57]  But he wouldn't come out.
[00:21:58]  What Republican would come out and say, I don't want this legislation on my desk?
[00:22:02]  If he does want the legislation to pass, he'll make a very simple statement.
[00:22:05]  He'll say something like, You know, I would love to sign a bill that bans the sexual transitioning of children in Texas.
[00:22:13]  I would love to sign that bill if it got to my desk.
[00:22:15]  And that sends the message to the House that says, you better move this bill.
[00:22:19]  And if you don't, now the governor's against you, right?
[00:22:23]  But the truth is, he's been silent on this policy for three years.
[00:22:26]  And to the point where, after it died, he has these subsequent special sessions.
[00:22:31]  And in a special session, any bill can be considered as long as the governor, what we say, puts it on the call.

=== Stopping Child Transitioning Bills (13:11) ===

[00:22:37]  And so the lieutenant governor asked him, he actually came out publicly and said that he asked the governor, He told the Mark Davis show this.
[00:22:43]  I asked Governor Abbott to put the ban on sex change surgeries on kids on the call.
[00:22:48]  He didn't do it.
[00:22:48]  The Republican Party of Texas asked him to put it on the call.
[00:22:51]  He didn't do it.
[00:22:52]  A majority of Texas House members co authored a bill to ban it, but he wouldn't put it on the call.
[00:22:56]  The Senate passed it three times.
[00:22:58]  So there are these kind of issues where he's blatantly ignoring the problem, if that makes sense.
[00:23:04]  We actually found out, and Don Huffines, who's running against Mr. Abbott, brought this to light.
[00:23:10]  He actually found, so the Department of Family Protective Services is CPS, they're who invest.
[00:23:14]  To get child abuse.
[00:23:15]  They had an entire page on their website dedicating to celebrating LGBTQIA children, their peers, and their parents.
[00:23:23]  The whole page.
[00:23:24]  And they literally said, they had a resource there that says, Do you want to know the difference between sex and gender?
[00:23:29]  Because remember, the left thinks those are two different things, right?
[00:23:31]  The gender is just in your head.
[00:23:33]  It's very fluid, whatever you want.
[00:23:34]  Sex is just what you're born with, but you can change your gender.
[00:23:37]  And even that second category, so there's sex, biological sex, and gender, and even that second category, second category of gender, they would break up and subdivide into there's gender identity, there's gender expression, there's gender.
[00:23:48]  So, it's like, what do you think you are?
[00:23:50]  Then, what do you project to the world that you are?
[00:23:53]  And then there's sexual orientation, which has to do with attraction.
[00:23:57]  So, I could be a biological male, sex, and then I could say, but in terms of gender, my sexual identity is female, so I think I'm female, but I project a male again, I project that to the world, and then I'm a pansexual over here in terms of sexual orientation.
[00:24:15]  I like any attraction.
[00:24:16]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:24:17]  And standing for all.
[00:24:18]  Right.
[00:24:18]  Whereas, in terms of.
[00:24:20]  The Bible, it's nice because it's symbolic.
[00:24:21]  Yes, true.
[00:24:22]  Male and female.
[00:24:23]  Yeah.
[00:24:26]  We have a pansexual representative in Texas, a Democrat from El Paso.
[00:24:30]  Very sad reality.
[00:24:34]  And yeah, and I know that she's probably been through a tremendous none her life of abuse and people mistreating her.
[00:24:40]  And it's so sad to see how different people medicate their pain.
[00:24:45]  And this is the reality of where we're at in the state of Texas.
[00:24:47]  But that being said, When Greg Abbott's state agency was caught promoting, celebrating these LGBTQIA, LMNOP children, their peers, their parents, Don Huffines called him out, and within three days, that whole website was taken down.
[00:25:04]  Wow.
[00:25:04]  And the problem is, though, somebody's signing off on this stuff.
[00:25:08]  Does that make sense?
[00:25:08]  I mean, this is not Andrew Cuomo or Gavin Newsom putting it out and us catching them.
[00:25:13]  We're catching our own because they're just letting so many of these things through.
[00:25:17]  So I think you have a real example there, and anybody who listens to my show knows that I. Probably like Don Huffines.
[00:25:23]  I've supported him.
[00:25:24]  I've donated to him.
[00:25:25]  So, on a personal level, I'm voting for him.
[00:25:27]  He was a homeschooled dad, five kids.
[00:25:30]  He and his whole family are strong, committed Catholics and just has.
[00:25:36]  Have you heard of Cross Politic, real quick, just to briefly go ahead?
[00:25:38]  Yeah, go ahead.
[00:25:39]  Cross Politic, we've had them on our show, Theology Applied, and they're in Moscow, Idaho, with Doug Wilson.
[00:25:46]  Yes, very familiar.
[00:25:47]  Okay, great.
[00:25:48]  So, Toby Sumter, he's like an associate pastor with Doug Wilson.
[00:25:52]  He's one of the guys on this show.
[00:25:53]  It's three guys.
[00:25:53]  It's a guy named David Shannon, who goes by his moniker Chalk Knox, he's a black guy who, like the Scottish reformer John Knox, was like, Give me Scotland lest I die.
[00:26:02]  And so Chalk Knox is saying, Give me the black community lest I die, realizing that they're constantly being preyed upon and used for their black skin for typically a bunch of rich white guys who are making profiting off of them.
[00:26:16]  The Democratic Party has always been pro slavery.
[00:26:18]  Yep, 100%.
[00:26:19]  In one form or another.
[00:26:20]  They've always been the racist party.
[00:26:22]  And sadly, today is no exception.
[00:26:24]  So, anyways, those guys and then Gabriel Wrench, and he's actually on the board for Right Response Ministries.
[00:26:28]  Okay.
[00:26:28]  Those guys are great, and they just had Don Huffines on the show.
[00:26:32]  Oh, great.
[00:26:33]  And they endorsed him.
[00:26:34]  And so I say all that to say he's got my vote as well.
[00:26:37]  That's awesome.
[00:26:38]  Back to you, Don Huffines.
[00:26:39]  No, so I think, no, and he's been willing to define these cultural issues as what they are.
[00:26:44]  And it's a spiritual battle.
[00:26:45]  And he's talked about that publicly, saying we're in a spiritual battle as well.
[00:26:49]  I think having leaders that are willing to discuss the battles that we are in as battles of good versus evil really do set us apart and give us a unique opportunity.
[00:26:59]  If you don't know that that's the battle you're in, then how are you going to actually fight?
[00:27:03]  Appropriately, if that makes sense.
[00:27:06]  There's quite a few strong Christian men in the legislature.
[00:27:10]  A lot of them are regionally based.
[00:27:11]  One of the things I encourage people to do is to do all your research and try to find people locally.
[00:27:15]  Brian Slayton is a state representative from East Texas.
[00:27:18]  He filed the bill last session to abolish abortion.
[00:27:20]  He led the fight in the Texas House to ban the sexual transitioning of children in Texas.
[00:27:25]  He actually went to seminary.
[00:27:28]  He spent some time as a pastor.
[00:27:30]  Real quick with Brian Slayton.
[00:27:32]  S L A T O.
[00:27:33]  Okay, so Brian Slayton, so I'm not familiar with him, but what would he say if he was sitting in your chair right now and I said, what do you think about the Heartbeat Bill?
[00:27:40]  How would he respond?
[00:27:42]  So he voted for it.
[00:27:43]  There are various different people that have different opinions on it.
[00:27:46]  He said his position would be that he voted for the heartbeat bill.
[00:27:51]  He did express publicly some concerns on different ways the heartbeat was crafted, and his Republican colleagues honestly just massively criticized him for doing so.
[00:28:01]  Because even somebody just getting up and saying, hey, could this be better?
[00:28:05]  Could we actually do better?
[00:28:06]  Are we concerned about any of these things?
[00:28:08]  So he voted for it, but he wasn't killing abolition bills that would have abolished.
[00:28:14]  Yeah, so he supported a bill.
[00:28:16]  He filed the bill to abolish abortion.
[00:28:18]  He then Asked repeatedly, Stephanie Klick is a state representative.
[00:28:22]  She's the chairman of public health, and she's the one who, interestingly enough, slow rolled the bill to ban sex change surgeries.
[00:28:30]  She's the same woman who refused to have a hearing on the abolished abortion bill.
[00:28:35]  So she refused to even have a hearing.
[00:28:37]  A chairman in Texas, you'll kind of learn how the process works.
[00:28:40]  A chairman in the Texas House is basically a king over that policy area.
[00:28:44]  So if I'm the chairman of public health, I get to decide whether all abortion bills even get to be heard.
[00:28:50]  Wow.
[00:28:50]  And they don't have a chance to be voted on if I don't even have a hearing.
[00:28:53]  And then I can even have a hearing on a bill and decide to never vote on it.
[00:28:56]  And none of the members of my committee can make me vote on this bill.
[00:29:00]  I'm the chairman, I have ultimate authority.
[00:29:02]  So Stephanie Click, who is actually in a very tough race up in the North Texas area, the North Richland Hills, Watuga area, just around the Fort Worth Arlington region in Tarrant County, she's got five opponents.
[00:29:15]  And all of these people are running against her because she slow rolled this legislation.
[00:29:21]  Helped kill the ban on sex-drain surgeries.
[00:29:24]  She refused to even let a hearing be held on abolishing abortion.
[00:29:27]  And so I think Brian would tell you that every Republican state rep there campaigned as a conservative.
[00:29:34]  Like none of them went around their communities and said, hey, you know what?
[00:29:37]  I'm kind of more like the middle of the road kind of guy.
[00:29:40]  Vote for me.
[00:29:41]  They all said, they're all over here and they're going to fight for you.
[00:29:44]  And then Brian would probably tell you the same that the handful of the good guys do tell you, which is that when they get there and they close the doors and you're in a Republican caucus, that's when all of a sudden all these people say, well, we don't really need to do that.
[00:29:56]  And you know, like we can't like abolish abortion, right?
[00:29:59]  And we can't like stop all sex change surgeries.
[00:30:02]  You know, you just have these conversations and you realize none of y'all would say this in public.
[00:30:07]  None of you would tell anybody in your district this.
[00:30:10]  You're just saying it here so that we maybe decide not to address it from a public policy perspective.
[00:30:16]  Brian's a great one for people to be aware of.
[00:30:19]  It's honestly one of those where you just find a couple of them that you can trust and then you can actually follow what's happening in Austin and they'll help empower and inform.
[00:30:28]  So that you know how to turn around and try to get other people.
[00:30:32]  You and I have talked about Patrick McGinnis.
[00:30:33]  I know he's running here in the Williamson County area.
[00:30:35]  Very strong conservative, been a committed conservative for a long time in the state and is now running for this open seat.
[00:30:41]  So there's a really good opportunity we have.
[00:30:43]  There's a race in San Antonio that's very competitive.
[00:30:45]  I could kind of go through a list.
[00:30:47]  I hesitate to like bore us by traveling the entire state, but there's really some good opportunities for some strong pickups of strong, godly, Christian, conservative men who seem to have the right mindset to say, I want to actually.
[00:31:02]  Do battle and fight regardless of what the leadership elite will tell me.
[00:31:07]  Great.
[00:31:07]  So, you know, like you said, you don't want to get too in the muck and the mire and all the details.
[00:31:12]  But what's a good resource that people can go to?
[00:31:14]  I know they could watch your show, but is there somewhere where just written out, like this is who we're endorsing for such and such position?
[00:31:22]  Like, what do you recommend as something to follow that people can go to?
[00:31:26]  So, I would recommend basically pulling together several different resources.
[00:31:31]  So, I would definitely look at Texas Scorecard that will keep you kind of overall engaged in the entire space.
[00:31:36]  And that's who you're connected with.
[00:31:37]  And that's my podcast is under that entity, but they do a lot of reporting, some other shows.
[00:31:41]  That talks about other issues.
[00:31:43]  Texans for Fiscal Responsibility is a watchdog group that focuses on property taxes and fiscal issues.
[00:31:50]  So it's one of those where you can go there and find out who the good and the bad ones are on these issues.
[00:31:54]  They have what they call the fiscal index.
[00:31:56]  So you can go there and look at every state rep in Texas and how they rank when it comes to fiscal responsibility in Texas.
[00:32:02]  I'm just thinking of Don Huff finds right now.
[00:32:04]  We just recently went up to Broken Bow, my family, another family in the church that we're close friends with.
[00:32:09]  And we went up to Broken Bow, stayed in the cabin, had a little vacation.
[00:32:12]  And for miles, Don Feinstein was like, zero property taxes, or an actual Republican, or build a wall.
[00:32:20]  I was like, yeah, man, that advertising works.
[00:32:25]  I was already, I already knew about him.
[00:32:27]  I was like, I love this guy.
[00:32:29]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:32:30]  So, real quick, can we talk about property taxes for now?
[00:32:33]  Because so, me coming from California, lots of people, well, some people came with us, and praise God for that.
[00:32:39]  But lots of people disagreed.
[00:32:40]  And a big part of their argument is, well, California needs churches.
[00:32:44]  Someone's got to stay and fight.
[00:32:45]  And I totally support that.
[00:32:46]  So, biblically speaking, I would say there is absolutely a theological category for what we would call a missionary.
[00:32:52]  So, the idea of Christians willingly sacrificing their own personal comforts and pleasures for the good of someone else absolutely makes sense.
[00:33:02]  Now, I do think there are, I would have some disclaimers.
[00:33:05]  I'd say, one, there's a difference in sending missionaries to China or Russia or North Korea, places where people are trapped.
[00:33:12]  People aren't trapped in California.
[00:33:14]  Now, I know fiscally and practically, there's still You can be essentially trapped because generations of your family leave there.
[00:33:22]  You can't just up and leave.
[00:33:24]  Even though you're financially hurting by virtue of being in California, it still takes a lump sum of money to be able to move out of the state.
[00:33:31]  And so you can be effectively trapped.
[00:33:35]  So, the idea of having missionaries there, another good argument that I would have for Christians being in places like San Diego, which is where I was, is because I'm not a pacifist, which means I believe that it's not only permissible but commendable for Christian men to serve in the military.
[00:33:48]  And if they're going to serve in the Navy, They're going to do some time in San Diego, and those Christian guys in the Navy deserve to have a church.
[00:33:53]  Yeah.
[00:33:54]  You know, and so there are reasons to stay.
[00:33:56]  However, at the same time, I always encourage people who have chosen to stay, make sure you're fighting more than you're funding.
[00:34:02]  And I think that takes some brutal honesty to actually, okay, let's look at my bank account.
[00:34:07]  How much did I time?
[00:34:08]  And then how much did I pay in state taxes?
[00:34:11]  And what did Gavin Newsom just say about his promise of becoming a sanctuary state?
[00:34:15]  And not only state funds abortions there, but abortions from people in Texas and Idaho and everywhere else if Roe gets over to like, okay, so how much of my funding?
[00:34:24]  The analogy that I would use in illustration would be like if you had some covert, small special forces platoon behind enemy lines, and let's say they're militant, they're strategic, they're organized, and about once a week they pick off, whether it be sniping or capturing or something, someone of the enemy, one person.
[00:34:47]  So they're taking down one key person of the enemy on a weekly basis.
[00:34:51]  But the other six days of the week, they actually have set up a general store.
[00:34:56]  They actually have all these different supplies where they're actually clothing and feeding, offering medical supplies and treatment to the enemy.
[00:35:04]  And let's say the enemy, these enemy lines, let's say it's like Siberia, Russia.
[00:35:08]  Whereas if they weren't providing these resources, if they just left, the enemy would die out on its own.
[00:35:13]  So for me, the idea of, well, I love California.
[00:35:16]  What I would say is, me too.
[00:35:18]  And that's why I left.
[00:35:20]  By leaving, it's not that I was stuck between two choices of either loving California or leaving.
[00:35:26]  It was, I'm choosing to love California by leaving.
[00:35:30]  I'm fighting by flight, fighting by fleeing.
[00:35:35]  And because I really believe that California, the only thing that's propping up all of its failed godless policies is the most precious people on the planet, these conservative Christians that love the Lord, that have integrity in their business practices, and are doing these.

=== Wealth Creation and Taxes (09:22) ===

[00:35:48]  And if we all just left, California, I think, would be.
[00:35:51]  Would have a major problem.
[00:35:52]  Would have a major problem.
[00:35:53]  I mean, first of all, just their tax revenue would have a major problem.
[00:35:56]  Exactly.
[00:35:56]  Now, all that being said, back to the point about property taxes, some would say, okay, yeah, sure, Texas doesn't have a state tax, and sure, real estate's cheaper, you know, and all these kinds of things.
[00:36:06]  And maybe not for long as things are hopefully they level off, but uh, because it doesn't mean no good the fact that you know, oh, a couple hundred thousand dollars of equity, it's not, I'm not doing anything.
[00:36:17]  What all it does is it makes my friends not able to come here, so I wanted to chill out.
[00:36:22]  But um, but all that being said, you know, some of the California buddies, you know, that would poke you know, poke a counter arguments and stuff, you know, they would say on the fiscal level, well, sure, there's no state tax, but your property taxes, your property taxes, they're crazy, right?
[00:36:34]  So, what would you say, and they are crazy, it really is pretty phenomenal to watch.
[00:36:40]  We have this scheme in Texas that has allowed the government to get more and more of our citizens' money through appraisal increases.
[00:36:47]  And everyone wants to put band aids on these problems.
[00:36:50]  But the reality is that over the last 10 years, more and more Texans get taxed out of their home.
[00:36:54]  And just, I really mean that, taxed out of their home.
[00:36:57]  Not a lot of people can afford to pay $1,000 a month in property taxes, which is what a lot of these upper middle class suburban areas are having.
[00:37:05]  And those are the same areas that we need churches, that we need patriots who are there, invested, engaged in their community and culture.
[00:37:12]  Yet these people are saying, Look, I can't even afford to live here.
[00:37:16]  The property tax system, and it feels like you're always renting.
[00:37:19]  So even if I pay off my mortgage, do I really own anything?
[00:37:23]  No.
[00:37:24]  Because if you stop, they have a first lien.
[00:37:25]  Don Huffines loves to say, they have a first lien on everything, right?
[00:37:28]  You stop paying that property tax bill, they can take your whole home.
[00:37:30]  It's not mine.
[00:37:31]  And they don't even come take, oh, you owe us $8,000.
[00:37:34]  We're not taking your car from you, we're taking your home from you.
[00:37:38]  So we will take the entire asset.
[00:37:39]  But to be fair, California still has one, 1.25 property taxes, whereas right here in Huddle, where I'm at, Williamson.
[00:37:45]  We were like 2.65.
[00:37:47]  Yes.
[00:37:47]  You can get as low as like in the Williamson County area.
[00:37:50]  My mother and father in law are at like 1.9.
[00:37:53]  Yep.
[00:37:53]  But then some are like 3, 3.2, 3.3.
[00:37:56]  And then, you know, in San Diego where I was, it was like 1.25.
[00:38:00]  And I was still actually ironically comparable, right?
[00:38:03]  Because the home in San Diego was $900,000 for a three bedroom, you know, 22, 2400 square feet, you know, and two bathrooms or one and a half.
[00:38:12]  So it's like 900 grand.
[00:38:13]  And so your 1.25% was still comparable to the 2.65 on a $450,000 home.
[00:38:20]  Here in Texas, but the problem is now, you know, that $400,000 home is $600,000, $650,000 in the Williamson County area, not even in Austin, not even in Travis County.
[00:38:30]  And so I'm thinking, like, okay, I'm going to pay off my 30 year mortgage and I'm going to try to aggressively do that if the Lord provides in that way that I can build wealth for, you know, a wise man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.
[00:38:41]  I think it can never be anything less than the spiritual inheritance, but I would argue that if you can, you should seek for it to be more spiritual and financial material.
[00:38:49]  And so I want to do all those things, but it's like, how am I going to pull that off if I pay off my house early?
[00:38:54]  But 15 years from now, my monthly payment is still the same as it is today because property taxes and my home gets revalued.
[00:39:01]  And so, Don Huffines backed in, no property taxes.
[00:39:05]  I know he was saying scaling it back over eight to 10 years, but how is that actually possible?
[00:39:09]  So, the thing to understand if we get kind of wonky within the numbers is that a big portion of your property tax bill, you know, are public schools, okay?
[00:39:19]  Which I don't use.
[00:39:20]  One of the arguments is that we need to quickly fund public schools as much from the state as humanly possible.
[00:39:26]  And that would be the first portion of your property tax bill that needs to go away.
[00:39:31]  It's also easier to do just from a pure, if we're going to get kind of wonky mathematical perspective.
[00:39:35]  And policy perspective, because you can write a check to the school district that buys down the amount of property tax that they take.
[00:39:41]  Okay, so you can essentially say if the current distribution, just to use easy numbers, is 50% of schools are funded from the state giving money to public schools, and then 50% are funded from local property tax collections that are being done, then the more money comes in to public schools, then the lower your property tax bill goes, eventually to zero.
[00:40:02]  Now, the way that ends up working, just to show people kind of mathematically, the way it could work.
[00:40:07]  Is that if when Governor Abbott had taken over the governorship back in 2014 and just said, Hey, our state's growing, we're going to keep the budget where it's at, okay?
[00:40:18]  Just grow it like two or three percent.
[00:40:20]  So grow, but like we're not going to grow, expand into any more new programs.
[00:40:23]  We're not going to start giving more money to all these universities that are indoctrinating our kids.
[00:40:28]  We're not going to give tax breaks to all these companies coming in so that they don't pay property taxes.
[00:40:33]  That's the thing Governor Abbott and the state they write checks to these corporations coming in.
[00:40:38]  So they say, come here, you won't pay property taxes.
[00:40:40]  So you know about Samsung, this company, Taylor.
[00:40:42]  Yes.
[00:40:42]  So Taylor, well, I was there this morning actually visiting a pastor friend, Christ Fellowship Church, great church in Taylor, if anybody lives in that area.
[00:40:50]  So I was visiting Pastor Jeff Ripple because we're partnering with him to do a conference in March.
[00:40:55]  It's called the Resisting Tyranny and Wokeness Conference.
[00:40:58]  Okay.
[00:40:58]  A guy named John Harris from Conversations That Matter.
[00:41:01]  Yeah, I know, you've been on the podcast.
[00:41:03]  Great.
[00:41:03]  Yeah.
[00:41:03]  So myself and Ady and John were teaming up, and this church in Taylor, Christ Fellowship Church, is hosting it.
[00:41:10]  And so I was there scoping it out and getting prepared because our registrations have been more than we expected.
[00:41:15]  And so I can't wait to fit everybody.
[00:41:16]  But, anyways, I can get there.
[00:41:17]  You know, it's just a hop and a skip.
[00:41:19]  I can get there in about 11, 12 minutes from my house.
[00:41:22]  And Samsung is coming into Taylor.
[00:41:23]  It's going to be right off the 79, which is part of the reason why my house is exploding in value right now.
[00:41:28]  You know, and so it's going to be right off the 79.
[00:41:31]  And that's, I'm sympathetic to Taylor and to these areas because they're like, okay, yeah, like we'll give you for the first 10 years, you're going to, we're going to wave off.
[00:41:40]  I think it was like the deal they made was 90%.
[00:41:43]  Of Samsung's property taxes, they don't have to pay if they come to Taylor.
[00:41:49]  And that will benefit Taylor, but then at the same time, it's like that's being made up by the people in Taylor.
[00:41:54]  You.
[00:41:55]  Exactly.
[00:41:56]  So Williamson County is making that up with all the rest of the citizens of Williamson County.
[00:41:59]  Exactly.
[00:42:00]  So they're not cutting their budget.
[00:42:01]  That's right.
[00:42:02]  They're not cutting their budget.
[00:42:03]  They're not saying, hey, normally we would have made this much money from Samsung.
[00:42:06]  We're going to cut our budget that much so that we don't increase the burden.
[00:42:10]  No.
[00:42:11]  Government's still growing at the normal rate, and all it does is then shift more of it.
[00:42:14]  Onto the normal people that are here that have already moved here that are already contributing to the economy.
[00:42:19]  There's a real kind of question to ask too about okay, so if I'm a business owner in Taylor, I'm paying my property tax bill fully.
[00:42:27]  Maybe I have some technology employees that are being poached by Samsung.
[00:42:31]  So now you're bringing in Samsung.
[00:42:33]  They're allowed, they're going to pay my employees more.
[00:42:36]  By the way, one of the reasons they can is because they're not paying property taxes, which I am.
[00:42:40]  So I've been here for 20 years.
[00:42:42]  I was here when Taylor was nothing.
[00:42:43]  I've been contributing to this community, I've been paying back all of these different things.
[00:42:46]  It's crazy.
[00:42:48]  If Governor Abbott in 2014 had said, Hey, we're going to take the extra growth, because you have to understand our economy as it's booming gives us more and more and more tax revenue.
[00:42:56]  And as inflation is going up, we're bringing in massive, record breaking tax receipts.
[00:43:02]  So all we have to do is say, We're going to stop growing the existing government that exists.
[00:43:07]  And as all this extra money comes in, we're going to use that to buy people's property taxes down through public education funding.
[00:43:15]  I hope that's kind of simple enough to make sense to people.
[00:43:17]  Because you take this extra money, you give it to the public school system, but you don't give it as a As a pay raise, you give it as this is money you're getting so that these people's property taxes go down the same amount dollar for dollar.
[00:43:29]  It's not additional, it's a substitute.
[00:43:32]  Yes.
[00:43:33]  And if you do that over a six to eight year time period, you very quickly get rid of that portion of your property tax bill.
[00:43:39]  And the key is getting rid of it where it can't come back.
[00:43:42]  So one of the things Don's promoted is putting it on the ballot where people of Texas actually vote on it so that it's in the Constitution.
[00:43:48]  There is no school property tax, as an example, right?
[00:43:51]  And he hasn't been that to you.
[00:43:52]  It could be a bunch of different ways you put it on the Constitutional amendment.
[00:43:55]  And then you have the school, the cities, the counties, the MUDs, the PUDs, whatever other utility districts you have.
[00:44:03]  And those basically have to get figured out in similar fashions.
[00:44:07]  You have to figure out what are you going to do with these local governments?
[00:44:09]  How are they allowed to get taxes potentially to replace some of the lost revenue they will have?
[00:44:15]  It's not hard for these kind of cities.
[00:44:17]  These kind of cities can make it up a lot easier because you have a lot of people moving in and a lot of commerce.
[00:44:22]  For like rural Texas, to be honest, if you're out there in like a very small city in East or West Texas, They don't have a lot of sales tax revenue.
[00:44:30]  The truth is, they're going to depend more so on it.
[00:44:32]  So, I think there's some creative conversations that we have to have of what that looks like.
[00:44:37]  But the point is that this goes back to wealth creation.
[00:44:40]  You talked about the amount of wealth that would get created tomorrow if everyone did not have just the school property tax portion of their bill.
[00:44:47]  It would just radically change their entire lives.
[00:44:49]  And, real quick, the school property tax portion of property taxes is close to 50%.
[00:44:54]  Yes, absolutely.
[00:44:55]  It's the biggest chunk.
[00:44:56]  It's the chunk.
[00:44:57]  And Don has said that he really thinks you should just get rid of all of it over time, which I. Completely agree with.
[00:45:02]  I mean, if you had no property taxes, first of all, then you'd own your home, period.
[00:45:07]  You are renting your home from the government.
[00:45:08]  And you can say the rent's cheaper than the rent.
[00:45:10]  You're renting the land.

=== Rural Texas Revenue Challenges (13:56) ===

[00:45:11]  Yeah.
[00:45:11]  And I can't take my house.
[00:45:12]  Yeah.
[00:45:13]  Yeah.
[00:45:13]  And they're taking it from you if you don't pay that bill.
[00:45:15]  Right.
[00:45:16]  So, okay.
[00:45:16]  So, what would you say about this?
[00:45:17]  So, you don't know my personal story.
[00:45:19]  Yeah.
[00:45:19]  I, you know, I'm the oldest.
[00:45:21]  I was adopted and I'm the oldest of four.
[00:45:23]  And so, my sister, she's the baby in the family.
[00:45:27]  What?
[00:45:27]  Nope.
[00:45:27]  Nope.
[00:45:28]  I'm the only adopted one.
[00:45:29]  So, it's like, my parents can conceive.
[00:45:31]  Whatever was broke got fixed.
[00:45:32]  God seems to do that story pretty often.
[00:45:34]  You hear like, A couple can't conceive, they adopt, and then God opens the woman's womb.
[00:45:40]  And so I have two younger brothers, and then I have the baby sister.
[00:45:43]  The baby sister is here with me, and my parents are here with me, part of Covenant Bible Church, and her husband, my brother in law, is my fellow elder at the church.
[00:45:51]  Now, my two brothers, in between myself and my sister, one of them is actually transgender, and the other is a Marxist.
[00:45:59]  Now, both I think would profess Christ.
[00:46:02]  The Marxist, I lean towards him being a Christian and confused, maybe a little bit too smart for his own good.
[00:46:10]  The transgender one, I would say, is not a Christian.
[00:46:12]  He's not keeping in step with the gospel.
[00:46:15]  Also confused, but to the point where I would say, no, that's not under the banner.
[00:46:21]  You're just, no.
[00:46:22]  And so my prayer for him is a prayer for salvation.
[00:46:26]  But my Marxist brother, we have a great relationship, and he watches the show from time to time, and we respectfully can dialogue.
[00:46:33]  It's nice because he's in this camp surrounded by a ton of leftists and stuff, but he actually has a spine.
[00:46:40]  He's actually masculine and not a snowflake, and not.
[00:46:44]  Triggered.
[00:46:45]  I appreciate you saying that.
[00:46:46]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:46:46]  So, yeah, exactly.
[00:46:47]  So, we can argue, we can debate, and he doesn't cry or get his feelings hurt.
[00:46:50]  I'm probably more sensitive than he is.
[00:46:52]  So, he's a great guy.
[00:46:54]  But one of the things he would say with property taxes is he would say, Joel, if we did away with property taxes, we would return to a feudal lord system within one generation.
[00:47:03]  And so, basically, what he's saying is that if there were no property taxes, there's no way.
[00:47:07]  So, even biblically, you know, you have every 50 years the year of Jubilee.
[00:47:10]  Like there is some kind of reset.
[00:47:12]  There's some kind of where the land and possessions turn back over to their original.
[00:47:18]  Owner, the original tribe that they, you know, the inheritance was in.
[00:47:21]  And you might say, well, then, you know, that's not fair.
[00:47:23]  But it's like, okay, but that person who's losing it to this person, they're gaining it too, because everybody in Israel was a descendant of one of these tribes.
[00:47:32]  The only people who want to benefit in that is, you know, the foreigner, the sojourner.
[00:47:35]  But even the foreigner or the sojourner, which biblically that word in the Hebrew, both foreigner and sojourner, which is translated, you know, stranger, is still a legal citizen and not an illegal citizen.
[00:47:47]  But there would be even benefits for them in the year of Jubilee.
[00:47:50]  And so there's this.
[00:47:51]  My point is, there's a reset, things go back.
[00:47:53]  So, my brother's point is with the feudal lord system idea is saying, if there's not some kind of form of property tax or a year of jubilee or something like that, you just have you ever watched?
[00:48:04]  I think it was either Tommy Boy or Black Sheep, but it's David Spade and Chris Farley, they're playing checkers together, and David Spade beats him like three, four, five times in a row, and Chris Farley, you know, in his iconic way is getting angry, and David Spade says, Man, I can't believe I beat you this many times.
[00:48:21]  I've never won this many times in checkers, and he says, Well, you know, it's kind of easy to win when you never move your back row.
[00:48:29]  And that's kind of my brother's point is like without property taxes, no one will ever move their back row, aka they won't sell.
[00:48:36]  They'll never sell.
[00:48:37]  And the land gets eventually bought up.
[00:48:39]  There is no land.
[00:48:40]  And so then a few families ultimately own everything, and no one moving to Texas can.
[00:48:45]  What would you do?
[00:48:46]  Do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:48:47]  So, I mean, there's going to be ramifications of no property taxes.
[00:48:52]  There's not a single state in the nation that doesn't have property tax of some form or fashion.
[00:48:57]  So, first and foremost, I mean, Tennessee has like fractional property taxes compared to Texas.
[00:49:02]  It's a good example of somebody of a state that is being run conservatively.
[00:49:06]  They don't have a state income tax, by the way.
[00:49:08]  There is no income tax.
[00:49:09]  And I'm telling you, we were talking to some of our friends who lived in the Texas Hill Country, who moved to the Nashville area, and they were talking about buying this $600,000 house.
[00:49:18]  And all of a sudden they're looking at their property tax bill and they're going, oh my gosh, this is like one fifth of what we pay in Texas.
[00:49:26]  So I think we can at least realize that you can look at the other states with significantly smaller property taxes than Texas.
[00:49:32]  And know this wouldn't be a perfect argument against it, but you would at least know hey, houses are still moving in Tennessee.
[00:49:39]  Just to be clear.
[00:49:41]  So you can look at that scale.
[00:49:42]  I have not seen a study, and I would love to look at one that says that the lower the property tax, the less likely somebody is to sell.
[00:49:48]  I think that it fundamentally gives somebody the dignity of home ownership where they can't lose it.
[00:49:53]  And I think that's really important.
[00:49:54]  Here's the truth the people who are being forced to sell are people whose wealth is tied up in their home.
[00:50:03]  So, this is not the people who have wealth outside of it.
[00:50:06]  What do you call that?
[00:50:07]  You're house poor?
[00:50:08]  Yeah.
[00:50:08]  I mean, you're house rich or house poor, right?
[00:50:11]  So, house rich individuals where most normal citizens.
[00:50:14]  Most normal citizens.
[00:50:15]  Well, if you were, I would want to say that, like, if you were, yeah, if you were house poor, that what might mean, one, you mostly are in debt for your home, right?
[00:50:24]  So, I can have an $800,000 house that I owe $700,000 on.
[00:50:28]  Or, you know, I could have a lot more.
[00:50:32]  Most normal citizens.
[00:50:35]  Accumulate their wealth through their home.
[00:50:36]  I mean, that's just the reality.
[00:50:38]  So, the people that are being forced to sell because they can't afford their $8,000 a year property tax bill, it's actually fundamentally changing their long, I mean, their generational, one, their dignity as a human being.
[00:50:52]  They own a piece of property.
[00:50:53]  And you know, even owning this home, it really changes your psyche.
[00:50:56]  It does.
[00:50:57]  I think there's a reason that property ownership and private property rights are also things that people have long time held as Christian values, generally, and understanding that these things were given to us and we've been given land, right?
[00:51:10]  And so.
[00:51:11]  When you look at that breakdown, I think that you would see that one, states that have low property taxes don't have people just holding onto their homes, not selling it.
[00:51:19]  Tennessee is a great example of a state that's growing a ton and people are selling their property constantly.
[00:51:24]  It's moving around.
[00:51:24]  It's moving their back room.
[00:51:26]  I think they will still have it, and that would be okay.
[00:51:29]  I don't think that that will actually occur when it comes to that.
[00:51:32]  And ultimately, what you'll see is that the people that do hold onto their homes will do so based on the fact that they want to hold onto this for generations.
[00:51:41]  And I think we would be better served long term.
[00:51:44]  If we had portions of the population that never sold their home, that held on to it and actually said, like, this has been in my home for generations, I think you'd have a very different perspective of community.
[00:51:55]  You'd have people really thinking differently about where they're investing, where they're planning their roots.
[00:52:00]  I mean, we have a societal problem of people not making commitments in general, right?
[00:52:04]  You're changing jobs every two years, you're changing your house.
[00:52:06]  You probably experienced this with people coming in and out of here.
[00:52:09]  You're going to have people that, if they're still at your church in five or six years, that's going to be the longest time they've ever been there.
[00:52:14]  Oh, totally.
[00:52:14]  Yeah, and I think I'll have more of that here, but you're right.
[00:52:16]  Even here, it'll still be transient.
[00:52:19]  But it was incredibly transient in San Diego.
[00:52:21]  Yes.
[00:52:21]  And the life of a San Diegan was, we would say, two to three years, four max.
[00:52:26]  But it was constantly people leaving.
[00:52:28]  And that's part of the reason why we left financially it was difficult.
[00:52:30]  Politically, we completely disagreed.
[00:52:33]  And then just our convictions of feeling like we could actually do more for California by leaving California.
[00:52:37]  But part of it also was thinking about my wife and thinking about my children and thinking about myself to a lesser degree, but thinking we want long term friendships.
[00:52:46]  And there was a core of the church there that's still there.
[00:52:48]  Some of the core came with us and some of them stayed.
[00:52:52]  But I realized, like, My kids, they're going to have to be making new friends for the most part.
[00:52:59]  Maybe a few friends, a few pieces of the puzzle that stay there consistently long term.
[00:53:04]  But for the most part, my kids are going to be making new friends every two to three years because even if I can make it here, nobody else can make it here.
[00:53:13]  And so it's one thing for people to be transient because of a lack of commitment, but it's one thing to have an economic system and political policies set in place that actually incentivize or force, outright force people.
[00:53:26]  To basically be anti community.
[00:53:28]  Yeah.
[00:53:29]  Yeah.
[00:53:29]  No, I think that is.
[00:53:30]  And the more we talk about property taxes in that way, to recognize the oppression that it really levies on the citizenry, to say, these people are lacking the ability to have the dignity of home ownership be their choice, right?
[00:53:44]  They have purchased a home, they have worked hard, but here's the problem.
[00:53:48]  We are in a system where that bill's going up.
[00:53:50]  So if your job does not continue to go up at the pace that it needs to go up, five, 10 years from now, you will be selling this home, right?
[00:53:57]  And we don't realize how much people lose when they don't have the ability to own that home.
[00:54:04]  And so this is not, look, the wealthy are always going to have the ability to own a home, just to be clear.
[00:54:09]  And I would say my wife and I are well off enough to where I don't know that we will ever not own a home.
[00:54:14]  I think we're probably going to be okay.
[00:54:16]  This is not going to benefit me personally.
[00:54:19]  It's going to, well, it would because my property taxes would be good.
[00:54:21]  It'll benefit everybody personally, even the wealthy.
[00:54:23]  But it will be way more impactful for somebody who is in a truly middle class income, even lower middle class.
[00:54:30]  By the way, you're.
[00:54:31]  Your mortgage is going to be less because, guess what?
[00:54:35]  Almost every mortgage you know has PITI built into it.
[00:54:39]  So your taxes, so even just your mortgage getting into it is significantly lowered as well, which means that more people can get into home ownership.
[00:54:46]  Fundamentally, the sooner we can get, if we can have a middle class family actually own a home, provide for their family.
[00:54:54]  Blake Masters is honestly a phenomenal candidate running for USA in Arizona.
[00:54:58]  I heard about him through Charlie Cook.
[00:55:00]  Good.
[00:55:01]  So he's done some phenomenal, honestly forward thinking policies that he's pushed.
[00:55:06]  One of them being that he really fundamentally believes that we need to have.
[00:55:10]  A country where you can feed your family on one single income.
[00:55:14]  And this really is becoming harder and harder.
[00:55:16]  We've talked about this the fact that more people are having to have two people work in order to pay their basic bills.
[00:55:23]  Yeah, it's not greed.
[00:55:24]  It's survival.
[00:55:25]  Yeah, these people aren't, they're not both going to work so that they can have this massive push 401k.
[00:55:31]  They're actually saying, no, we are both working because we want our children to get a good education.
[00:55:36]  In order to get a good education, we have to live in this upper middle class neighborhood.
[00:55:39]  We want to just buy a car.
[00:55:41]  Right, we're not talking about the nicest cars, we're not talking about a suburban, we're just talking about a four door sedan.
[00:55:46]  But we're having to spend $22,000 to buy that, and now we don't have that, so we have to have a payment.
[00:55:51]  The realities of what it costs to live you cannot do what you did decades ago, which is that dad or mom, but primarily dad, would go to work and get a job and provide for his wife and his children.
[00:56:04]  He could buy a home, he could provide a roof over their head, right?
[00:56:08]  And they provide transportation.
[00:56:09]  There's lots of sources that have ultimately caused that problem, but I think one of the chief ones that I've often blamed on our show and Had guests to talk about, but I think one of the big ones is feminism.
[00:56:19]  Feminism liberated women from the home and then, with a ball and chain, shackled them to corporations.
[00:56:28]  So, where now women actually don't have the freedom to stay home.
[00:56:31]  A lot of women want to actually stay home with their kids and they can't.
[00:56:34]  And so, feminism, again, it's always the rich that really benefit off of these things, but those at the top, the wealthiest brackets, and CEOs and owners of companies and all those kind of things, they looked at feminism and they're like, yeah, I love feminism because.
[00:56:50]  Ultimately, what it allows me to do is it allows me to take a husband and wife and pay them half the salary, right?
[00:56:56]  And like if a man goes to his employer these days and says, Hey, I'm doing good work, you're not paying me enough to have three kids and to save for a college fund and to have a mortgage and to own two cars.
[00:57:08]  The employer wouldn't say this, but if we could give him truth serum and get him to really share his thoughts, he would say, Well, what makes you entitled to think that that's what you should be paying?
[00:57:16]  Whereas that just used to be common knowledge.
[00:57:18]  Somebody could work at the local grocery store back in the day and they wouldn't be rich necessarily, but they would.
[00:57:23]  You know, be paid a livable wage to have a family.
[00:57:27]  And so, anyways, but back to.
[00:57:30]  No, but that single income idea that families should be able to do that, I think is.
[00:57:35]  It's very interesting to see kind of how these things overlap, right?
[00:57:38]  So, while Don Huffines is talking about this property tax elimination, Blake Masters is talking about, you know, fundamentally reshaping our economic policy around an ideal.
[00:57:46]  And what is the ideal?
[00:57:47]  Well, our ideal is that a family be able to provide on one income.
[00:57:52]  And people have called him sexist for saying so and other things like that.
[00:57:55]  And it is interesting watching the left.
[00:57:57]  All of a sudden, the left is opposing the idea of a single family income household, right?
[00:58:01]  And he actually came out and said, I don't know Blake's entire faith background, to be honest, so I can't speak to that necessarily.
[00:58:09]  But he said, I didn't say man, I didn't say woman.
[00:58:11]  Like, I'm just running for Senate and said somebody should be able to provide on one income.
[00:58:16]  But the left was so upset because they see that as a threat.
[00:58:20]  This fundamental core family, you talk about the woman.
[00:58:23]  And I can say man for him.
[00:58:24]  He doesn't have to say man.
[00:58:25]  I'll say man.
[00:58:26]  And that's where I think that it's so interesting to see how some of these.
[00:58:31]  Some of these policies that we're talking about do really allow families to prosper.
[00:58:36]  And that's what we're talking about.
[00:58:37]  Like when we talk about these single incomes or the property tax issues, we're talking about allowing families to actually prosper.
[00:58:43]  And government is not often geared towards that as an ideal.
[00:58:48]  It's not being pushed.
[00:58:49]  One of the policies that I might miss, I don't want to misspeak this, but I think it's Hungary.
[00:58:55]  I'm pretty sure it is Hungary, where if you have four children or more, you stop paying into Social Security.
[00:59:01]  And this is one of the things.
[00:59:02]  Because your children will pay.
[00:59:03]  Will actually pay.
[00:59:04]  So we have all these families that are having one kid, right?

=== Leading on Internet Pornography (07:17) ===

[00:59:07]  And it's like, okay, you're actually causing this social security system to go bankrupt because you're making it heavier on the top.
[00:59:14]  And so it's a real fundamental map to say, hey, if you have four kids, you stop paying social security taxes.
[00:59:19]  I completely agree.
[00:59:20]  So Romans 13, people forget this, but the role of government first, so I would argue Ephesians 1 22 Christ is not just head of the church, as John MacArthur famously said, Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church.
[00:59:31]  Yes, and amen.
[00:59:32]  But he's also head of the state.
[00:59:33]  That's Caesar.
[00:59:34]  The civil magistrate is God's servant or God's deacon.
[00:59:37]  So ultimately, Ephesians 1 22 says, God has appointed him as head of all things to the benefit of the church.
[00:59:44]  And so Christ is uniquely head of the church in the sense that the church is the only institution for which Christ died.
[00:59:50]  But in terms of authority, Christ is head of every institution within human society, including the state.
[00:59:57]  And so, with all that being said, in terms of the state, its role, because it is ultimately a deacon, an agent of God, it's God's avenger to punish the wrongdoer.
[01:00:06]  But the other part of it is to reward those who do good.
[01:00:10]  And so, as much as I am not for the government printing money and passing it out like candy, at the same time, there is a God given function of the state to reward those who do good, punish those who do evil, but also reward those who do good.
[01:00:23]  And I think, in terms of the benefit of society, one of the best goods that can be done is having children.
[01:00:32]  It's a service that we are providing to, not just for my family, but children really are a blessing and a commodity, a resource.
[01:00:40]  To all of human society.
[01:00:41]  And so I say, man, if a couple is willing to have multiple kids and provided they raise them well, it does no good to.
[01:00:48]  Doug Wilson said this once.
[01:00:49]  He said, you know, Samuel, the prophet, had two unruly sons.
[01:00:53]  And he says, it would have done him no good to have five unruly sons.
[01:00:56]  You know, so yes, like, blesses the man, you know, children are like arrows and blesses the man whose quiver is full, provided that they're good arrows, that they're sharp and they're straight and you don't shoot them like a boomerang.
[01:01:07]  They come back and actually hit you, which is what some of our children are doing right now, right?
[01:01:10]  We send them out.
[01:01:12]  And they're indoctrinated in these liberal institutions and colleges, and they come back and turn on their own parents.
[01:01:18]  And so, provided that people have many kids and raise those kids in the fear and admonition of the Lord, they're providing an incredible service, not just to fellow Christians in society, but all of society, whether they be Buddhist or Muslim or atheist, agnostic.
[01:01:33]  If you raise good Christian children that'll work hard and exercise integrity and generosity and all these kinds of things, you're providing a service.
[01:01:41]  And so, for the government to say, yeah, we'll pay for that.
[01:01:45]  You rarely hear it come out of my mouth that I support the government paying for something, but I would support that.
[01:01:50]  And I think it's actually biblical.
[01:01:52]  It's the rewarding of those who do good.
[01:01:54]  I think it's also really good to see these types of policies almost changing a little bit within the Republican Party where they're realizing more and more families showing up saying, oh no, I'm for that policy.
[01:02:05]  And when you start polling, even people who would say, I'm a limited government conservative, but yeah, if I have four kids, I'd love to stop paying Social Security taxes.
[01:02:12]  Or yes, I do think that we should kind of try to shape our economic policy around this ideal of one income.
[01:02:19]  I think it's been challenging to kind of the ruling class elite to deal with that kind of shift within the party because this has not been their incentive.
[01:02:27]  One of the organizations that I'm a big fan of is the American Principles Project.
[01:02:30]  And they are based in DC, but they've recently opened up a Texas office.
[01:02:35]  They deal with a lot of the transgender issues.
[01:02:37]  They deal with pornography regulation and trying to limit children's access to pornography and other things like that, that no other family organizations are pushing.
[01:02:47]  But one of the things that they do is they call their membership, which is free, Big Family.
[01:02:52]  So they talk about Big Pharma and Big Business and the Big Gun Lobby and the Big Green Lobby and all this different stuff.
[01:02:59]  They'll go, well, we want to be the big family.
[01:03:01]  So they want to come in and say, we're for big family.
[01:03:03]  And so we represent moms.
[01:03:05]  I don't want to fear big families.
[01:03:06]  No, but it's like, hey, we're going to look at this policy and say, nope, that hurts families.
[01:03:10]  Nope, that hurts families.
[01:03:11]  And so I think there was, I loved the way they shaped it because I said, look, this is what we need.
[01:03:16]  We need somebody stamping up and saying, nope, not good for families.
[01:03:19]  Hey, you're expanding.
[01:03:20]  They were expanding.
[01:03:21]  I'm going to get off on a different Texas policy, but just to give people examples of real life areas that could have benefited, Governor Abbott wanted to put billions of dollars into expanding rural broadband.
[01:03:32]  So the government's going to pay.
[01:03:33]  To dig all these lines and get faster internet to all these rural communities.
[01:03:36]  And so, Representative Jeff Kaysen, at the time from North Texas, put on an amendment on this legislation that said that the internet provided through this expansion had to, by default, have porn filtered.
[01:03:49]  Okay?
[01:03:49]  So, it means when you order the internet and it comes to your house, you can't get on pornographic websites.
[01:03:55]  Now, you can call and ask them, hey, can you lift the filter?
[01:03:58]  This is done in Great Britain.
[01:04:00]  And 75% of the homes keep the filter on.
[01:04:04]  And so the reality is that then any phones on the network cannot access this pornographic content.
[01:04:10]  I don't call it adult content because adults shouldn't be consuming it either.
[01:04:13]  But the reality is that we had this there.
[01:04:17]  It was in the bill.
[01:04:18]  It went and the Senate stripped it out.
[01:04:20]  The governor didn't say anything about it.
[01:04:22]  It was his personal, it was one of his top three bills.
[01:04:24]  And everyone was pushing him to say, hey, come out and say you support this porn filter on it.
[01:04:28]  He stayed silent.
[01:04:29]  It got stripped out.
[01:04:31]  He had a signing ceremony where he talked about how good the bill was.
[01:04:34]  And the reality was, one, I don't even think the bill's that good because I think it's going to be a waste of money.
[01:04:38]  But there was this fundamental opportunity to say, hey, here's a policy that we can make pro family.
[01:04:43]  That's right.
[01:04:44]  You know what men don't want to ask their wives?
[01:04:46]  Hey, can we call ATT and lift a porn filter?
[01:04:49]  You know what the kids don't want to ask their parents?
[01:04:51]  Like, hey, why can't I get on this website?
[01:04:53]  They're not going to ask.
[01:04:55]  And so, anyway, Israel does it even hardcore.
[01:04:59]  They actually, if you call and ask for the filter to be removed, they put you on a public registry.
[01:05:07]  So, like, if you're in your neighborhood, you can go on just like sex offenders and see which people on your block.
[01:05:12]  And you go, hey, Tom, don't go into that house.
[01:05:14]  Like, I don't know what they're doing.
[01:05:16]  There's five houses on this block, and one of them does not have it filtered.
[01:05:19]  So, like, we're going to stay out of that home.
[01:05:21]  Israel does that.
[01:05:22]  Yeah.
[01:05:22]  Wow.
[01:05:23]  Isn't that pretty phenomenal?
[01:05:24]  Yeah.
[01:05:24]  So, there's these real life policies.
[01:05:28]  I think Texas has an opportunity on the pornography issue, particularly to really lead the nation and say, we're going to be the first state that requires the internet provided.
[01:05:36]  Have that porn filter on.
[01:05:38]  Wow.
[01:05:38]  Anyway, when you have families that move in from California, they're not even going to know.
[01:05:42]  They're going to call ATT or Spectrum and say, I need internet.
[01:05:44]  What's your price?
[01:05:45]  50.
[01:05:45]  What's your price?
[01:05:46]  40.
[01:05:46]  Get the internet.
[01:05:48]  And they're going to realize, oh, wow, you can't visit any of these websites.
[01:05:51]  And then if you call Spectrum and wait online and click all the buttons, you can get it lifted.
[01:05:56]  It decreases consumption massively.
[01:05:59]  Oh, I bet.
[01:06:00]  I mean, just imagine.
[01:06:01]  Imagine if in Texas specifically, we decrease pornography consumption by 70% overnight.
[01:06:08]  Huge impacts on society.
[01:06:09]  You know, the blessings that would happen on family, marriages, children, even economically.
[01:06:14]  Yeah.
[01:06:15]  Like, I mean, it just drains a man's drive, his ambition, and every aspect of life.
[01:06:20]  It just, yeah, I completely agree.
[01:06:23]  So let's, all that's super helpful.

=== Decreasing Consumption in Texas (08:32) ===

[01:06:25]  And I like that you got really practical.
[01:06:26]  You were able to cover some names, some different offices, things that are pertinent and relevant and specific, but then also some specific policies.
[01:06:33]  These are the kind of things that I often have guests on the show, and we talk in terms of theological overarching principles, which is helpful, but to have somebody who's this is what you do, and that you're educated and knowledgeable, because I'm still learning these things.
[01:06:50]  And so it's super helpful.
[01:06:51]  But I'd like to land the plane.
[01:06:53]  So this is my thought.
[01:06:54]  I know we could go for a while.
[01:06:55]  Well, yeah, yeah.
[01:06:56]  But I'd like to land it here specifically.
[01:06:57]  I'm thinking about, all right, so I came from California.
[01:07:00]  I would like other Christians to leave California.
[01:07:03]  I do think there's a case to stay.
[01:07:05]  Like I said earlier, there are other exceptions that I would add in there if we had more time, other exception clauses for leaving, reasons to stay.
[01:07:13]  But by and large, in general, I really do think that a lot of Christians in California are doing more funding.
[01:07:18]  If they were really brutally honest, they're funding more than they're fighting.
[01:07:22]  And California, I'm picking on California because that's where I came from.
[01:07:24]  But fill in the blank, New York, this blue state, that blue state.
[01:07:28]  But based off of our conversation, we said, all right, here's the good, the bad, and the ugly of Texas.
[01:07:33]  There are some good things.
[01:07:34]  But there's some bad and ugly.
[01:07:36]  So, if I'm a California Christian, a California conservative right now, and I've made the decision to leave, and I've been listening to the podcast, this episode up until this point, I might be thinking, well, maybe I should go to Florida.
[01:07:49]  Yeah, South Dakota, Florida.
[01:07:51]  Montana.
[01:07:52]  Yeah, yeah, Idaho.
[01:07:54]  You know, Texas sounds like it's not really that conservative.
[01:07:58]  And I would say, yeah, well, in some sense, it's not that conservative.
[01:08:01]  But I think, in terms of like the war, and then there's isolated.
[01:08:06]  But very strategic and pivotal battles, the battle of Bunker's Hill.
[01:08:10]  And so I think the reason why I think we should stop fighting with an active presence in California is a couple of reasons.
[01:08:16]  One, because I think that's not a raging battle.
[01:08:20]  People say, oh, the battle's raging in California.
[01:08:22]  No, the battle was raging about 20 years ago in California.
[01:08:25]  You're now fighting in a graveyard.
[01:08:27]  The battle's over.
[01:08:28]  You lost.
[01:08:29]  You lost.
[01:08:31]  And here's the thing we're not running from a fight.
[01:08:35]  Whenever there was one famous general who said, Maybe it was Cromwell or something, but whenever he would retreat, he was like, We're not retreating, we're just advancing to the rear.
[01:08:43]  And so the way I see it is we're not running from a fight, you're running to a fight.
[01:08:47]  And so I would argue for Texas, not because it's the most conservative state in the union, but because it is more significant, like big states, the way we started the conversation all the way back to the beginning of the episode, it is more significant than South Dakota.
[01:09:00]  And yes, we can have a conservative Bastion, you know, and the proverbial Timbuktu, but we don't want to just be safe.
[01:09:06]  We want to be significant.
[01:09:08]  We want to win the larger.
[01:09:09]  So, I would say Texas, because of its size and its influence, is significant.
[01:09:14]  And I would say that Texas, I think of Revelation, I think it's either 2 3 or 3 2 that says, Strengthen that which still remains, but is about to die.
[01:09:23]  And I think there are states in the Union that have died.
[01:09:26]  Virtually nothing remains.
[01:09:28]  And then there are places where almost everything remains.
[01:09:31]  You know, you're South Dakota.
[01:09:34]  But then there are places where it's like there's life, but there's also stage four cancer, but there's still hope.
[01:09:42]  And so I just feel like we need as many reinforcements here as possible.
[01:09:46]  I think Texas is Bunker's Hill.
[01:09:49]  I think this is the pivotal place.
[01:09:51]  If Texas falls, I think we're in a world of hurt.
[01:09:55]  So, could you make a case for the provisions of Texas, the safety, the reason why it is a good place to raise your family, but also the reason why we can't let go of Texas?
[01:10:06]  So, I think your safe versus significance is a great example of just kind of your different options, right?
[01:10:12]  You could look and say, hey, If I go to Montana, you know, I'm not, I think I can do whatever I want.
[01:10:17]  It's like, yeah, that's because no one even knows you're there.
[01:10:19]  For the record, I mean, there's so few people there that you're like, I don't even know if they know somebody moves into the area.
[01:10:24]  They don't run into each other.
[01:10:25]  So there is a safe versus significance aspect.
[01:10:28]  I also think that to the extent that we need to talk about the cancers in our state, it's important.
[01:10:35]  And some people, I have friends of mine who love to death and listen to my show and other stuff on a regular basis, and they go, man, you're sometimes pretty down.
[01:10:44]  And I say, well, look, I'm actually very hopeful about the future of Texas, but I believe that in order to have a bright future, you have to talk about the problems.
[01:10:52]  Because the reason California got where it got was because.
[01:10:56]  It was in a good position and nobody talked about the cancers that were underneath.
[01:11:00]  And so, therefore, all of a sudden people wake up decades from now and they go, Oh my gosh, we'll try to save it.
[01:11:05]  And at that point, you kind of alluded to it as like it's too far gone.
[01:11:10]  Texas is not too far gone, and the problems we have are easily solved.
[01:11:15]  And the politicians that are there either politicians are with us, some, or a lot of the elected officials are just scared.
[01:11:22]  And the key is that the more light that's shown on these issues, the more they start to capitulate.
[01:11:26]  And so, I think we have a real opportunity where the more.
[01:11:31]  Men and women of faith and families of faith are stepping up and engaging in the arena, the more the political elite class is having to reorient their ideas and policies and priorities in order to accommodate that issue they have.
[01:11:48]  They pick the path of least resistance.
[01:11:50]  And so the more people come in and go, I'm going to demand this as an ideal, the more they go, well, actually, the less resistant issue is to go in this direction.
[01:11:59]  And so, one, I do think there's a lot of hope for where Texas is going.
[01:12:03]  I don't think we're too far gone by any means.
[01:12:05]  In fact, we're not anywhere close to purple.
[01:12:08]  You're going to see that this next November, Texas is going to be double digits red across the board.
[01:12:12]  We're going to expand our representation in the House and the Senate and all these other areas.
[01:12:16]  The question, though, remains what will we do with that?
[01:12:20]  And the only reason that that gets wielded in a way that benefits this society and these people is if more and more people are engaged, which is why I love coming on and talking about these issues, because it's like if people don't then engage, then what's going to happen is we're just going to.
[01:12:35]  Take a little more power and not do anything with it.
[01:12:37]  And eventually, yes, we will slowly fade in that area.
[01:12:39]  Safe versus significance, an absolutely phenomenal thing.
[01:12:43]  And yes, there are some core constitutional protections that we now have after Greg Abbott shut down our churches during the shutdown, which is phenomenal to watch a Republican governor shut down churches in a state.
[01:12:54]  Greg Abbott's super courageous in standing up to previous Greg Abbott.
[01:12:59]  Yes, no, he really is.
[01:13:01]  And he staunchly opposed his previous policies.
[01:13:05]  We now put it in the Texas Constitution that churches may never be closed again.
[01:13:10]  And the cool thing is that means that Greg Abbott can never close a church again.
[01:13:13]  That's right.
[01:13:13]  It also means any other bad politician that shows up can't close a church again.
[01:13:17]  Think of the power that that gives the church.
[01:13:19]  Yeah, that's amazing.
[01:13:20]  And the idea that even if our governor got worse, that governor could never, ever, ever close a church service.
[01:13:28]  They would need two thirds majority in both chambers to pass something and the people in Texas to vote to take that out of the Constitution.
[01:13:35]  And that's where we have, I think.
[01:13:38]  So, super strong protections that give people still kind of a core base to come here and engage and know that they are protected.
[01:13:45]  And I've heard that Texas has some of the best pro homeschooling policies in the country.
[01:13:50]  Absolutely.
[01:13:51]  Yeah.
[01:13:51]  That's another reason why a lot of families can serve to fix it.
[01:13:54]  100%.
[01:13:55]  I mean, the Texas Homeschool Coalition, my dad serves on the board of the Texas Homeschool Coalition.
[01:13:58]  I've been, of course, we've been members for a very long time.
[01:14:01]  And Tim Lambert's a phenomenal man.
[01:14:03]  Literally, he was homeschooling when it was illegal to homeschool.
[01:14:06]  Okay.
[01:14:06]  This guy has been a pioneer.
[01:14:08]  And if people should be connected to this organization because they, Have fought tirelessly and will continue to fight not only for homeschool rights but parental rights in general.
[01:14:17]  They've even fought for policy specific to parental rights.
[01:14:20]  In fact, they put out some statements about Don Huffines and Greg Abbott.
[01:14:23]  And the reason they supported Huffines over Abbott was because they've been pushing for more parental rights protections in Texas for a long time that Abbott hasn't supported.
[01:14:31]  And we're very hopeful because the Republican Party and even Governor Abbott caved and put out this plan for parental rights protections legislation that he's been opposing his entire time.
[01:14:41]  Because he sees this goes back to that reality that he sees the ground shifting and he sees these people demanding these rights and protections.
[01:14:49]  Thank you for having me.
[01:14:50]  I just want to remind everybody, and I know you do this on the show every time, but.

=== Fear of the Lord Delivers Us (02:23) ===

[01:14:57]  We are so blessed that we have been given as a free gift from God eternal life through Jesus Christ.
[01:15:05]  And that gives us far more courage than compared to anybody else.
[01:15:11]  We can have these conversations about the world we live in and the battles that we engage in and the spiritual realities of the world around us and how do we apply that in our life, in how we live it out every single day.
[01:15:22]  And the confidence that we are given through the accomplished work of Christ.
[01:15:28]  Is what then gives us the confidence to then go out and boldly serve.
[01:15:31]  And I think that that really gives us an ability to fight fearlessly in a political arena where people are not used to that.
[01:15:44]  They don't know how to deal with people.
[01:15:46]  They're dominated by the fear of man.
[01:15:47]  And the only thing that delivers you from the fear of man is the fear of God.
[01:15:51]  You actually attribute to God, you accredit to God more weight, right?
[01:15:57]  That Old Testament word, of course, is in the New Testament as well, but glory.
[01:16:03]  It signifies weightiness and this view that man is not glorious.
[01:16:08]  Man is made from the dust and to dust he will return, but God is eternally glorious.
[01:16:13]  He carries weight.
[01:16:14]  Therefore, his opinions, his thoughts, what he says, his word about me, that's what carries weight.
[01:16:21]  That's what I should fear.
[01:16:24]  This reverence of I care about what God thinks of me, not what man thinks of me.
[01:16:28]  And you're absolutely right.
[01:16:29]  So I think it's the fear of man, and then we saw over the last two years with COVID, the fear of death.
[01:16:34]  And so I think, you know, the fear of the Lord delivers us from the fear of man.
[01:16:39]  But then, exactly what you said, Christ and our salvation, eternal life, frees us from the fear of death.
[01:16:44]  That Hebrews, I think it's Hebrews chapter 2, verses 12, I think, through 14, it says that Jesus, likewise, he partook of the same flesh as the children of man, so that he, by his death, might deliver us from the one who has authority over death, namely the devil, that he might deliver us from lifelong slavery to the fear of death.
[01:17:07]  And so ultimately, what it's saying is that.
[01:17:09]  Human beings have this constant, whether it's conscious or not, or subconscious, we have this constant, perpetual dread of death.
[01:17:18]  This sense, this groaning sense of our own mortality.

=== Salvation Frees Us from Death (01:02) ===

[01:17:21]  We know.
[01:17:21]  We know that we're fragile.
[01:17:23]  We know that this life is not indefinite.
[01:17:27]  And Jesus, by his death, he freed us from slavery to the fear of death.
[01:17:33]  And I think that's what we saw over the last two years with the threat of doom and destruction, the Imperial College model, and 2.2 million deaths, if we don't.
[01:17:42]  You know, completely surrender all of our rights, you know, and all these things, it just revealed that so many people are afraid of death.
[01:17:50]  And so I think, you know, with politicians, you've got the fear of man, and with the public, you've got the fear of death.
[01:17:57]  But the gospel saves us from both, and it frees us to be courageous.
[01:18:03]  Amen.
[01:18:03]  So thanks so much for coming on the show.
[01:18:05]  I really appreciate it.
[01:18:06]  Thanks so much for listening.
[01:18:07]  But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
[01:18:15]  This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible.
[01:18:22]  Thanks so much.