Speaker 1: I gotta hand it to the teachers' unions in California.
Speaker 1: They are a bold bunch. It's incredible, the the kutzpah,
Speaker 1: how do you pronounce that word, chutzpah? The kutzpa that
Speaker 1: these people have to produce such consistently terrible results year
Speaker 1: after year after year. As far as the actual job
Speaker 1: that the workers within the teachers union do, i e.
Speaker 1: Teaching kids, where so many California public schools are failing, failing, failing, failing,
Speaker 1: And yet what is the teachers union, individual local teachers unions,
Speaker 1: statewide teachers associations. What do they do? More money, more jobs,
Speaker 1: more power. And they are far and away the most
Speaker 1: powerful entity in Sacramento, the most powerful lobbying entity in
Speaker 1: Sacramento are unions. And lest someone say, well, how could
Speaker 1: you criticize teachers like that? That's so terrible of you,
Speaker 1: Oh my god. First of all, this is the teacher's
Speaker 1: union union entities I'm talking about whose job is not
Speaker 1: the heroic, noble mother Teresa esque work of educating kids.
Speaker 1: The job of a teachers union is to get more
Speaker 1: money for teachers, more jobs for teachers, better hours for teachers.
Speaker 1: That's the job of a union make sure teachers don't
Speaker 1: get fired. That's the job of a union. Its job
Speaker 1: is not actually to educate kids. It is about having
Speaker 1: jobs for adults. If kids are educated, well, that is
Speaker 1: a happy byproduct, but it is not necessarily the end
Speaker 1: goal of what the union wants. Secondly, if you're saying,
Speaker 1: how oh could you attack teachers like this, chehol that's
Speaker 1: so these teachers do. That's the most difficult job in
Speaker 1: the world. It ain't coal mining. Pretty sure, that's more difficult.
Speaker 1: And Secondly, I am a firm believer in getting rid
Speaker 1: of this sort of piety about any job. I say
Speaker 1: this about teachers, and this will tick off liberals. I'll
Speaker 1: say this about nurses, and it'll tick off anyone. It's
Speaker 1: a nurse, I guess. I'll say this about cops and
Speaker 1: soldiers and it'll tick off conservatives. I think any job
Speaker 1: has a range of people who do it. I think
Speaker 1: any job has a couple of people who are really
Speaker 1: excellent at their jobs, a couple of people who really
Speaker 1: really stink, and probably a large number of people in
Speaker 1: the middle who are okay to pretty good. Teachers are
Speaker 1: no different. Okay, there's some teachers who are great, there's
Speaker 1: some teachers who stink, and there's a lot of teachers
Speaker 1: in the middle, and obviously we would like to have
Speaker 1: policies that increase whatever that standard is for, especially the
Speaker 1: teachers in the middle. You're always gonna have bad teachers,
Speaker 1: you always have some teachers that need to get fired.
Speaker 1: You're always gonna have screw ups. But if you can
Speaker 1: raise the standard for everyone in the middle, that would
Speaker 1: be good. What the Teachers' Union is concerned with, apparently,
Speaker 1: is not increasing that standard for everyone in the middle,
Speaker 1: in fact, actively working to eliminate measures to raise the
Speaker 1: standard for people in the middle, to increase the pool
Speaker 1: of people able to become teachers. Maybe more people become teachers,
Speaker 1: maybe more people get accepted more jobs. So this is
Speaker 1: an actual piece of legislation that was being debated in Sacramento,
Speaker 1: and it's remarkable because it shows this is how bold
Speaker 1: the teachers' unions have gotten in California that they were
Speaker 1: able to present this with a straight face. It did
Speaker 1: get defeated ultimately, but this is how far they're trying
Speaker 1: to push. Pressure from education advocates ends the effort to
Speaker 1: eliminate teacher assessments, a controversial bill that would have. This
Speaker 1: is from the outlet ed sources in GVWARE. A controversial
Speaker 1: bill that would have eliminated teaching performance assessments, the last
Speaker 1: licensure test California teacher candidates are required to take, has
Speaker 1: been dramatically revised under pressure from education advocacy groups. Senate
Speaker 1: Bill one two sixty three, sponsored by the California Teachers Association,
Speaker 1: would have so California Teachers Sociation big consortium of all
Speaker 1: the different local school public school labor unions for teachers
Speaker 1: throughout the state, one of the most powerful lobbying entities
Speaker 1: in Sacramento. Senate Bill one two sixty three, sponsored by
Speaker 1: the California Teachers Association, would have ended the requirement that
Speaker 1: teacher candidates take video clips of classroom instruction, submit lesson plans,
Speaker 1: student work, and written reflections on their practice to prove
Speaker 1: they are prepared to become teachers. In mid June, the
Speaker 1: bill was amended to retain the teaching performance assessments, with
Speaker 1: a provision that the California Commission on Teacher credentially convene
Speaker 1: a working group of teachers, college education faculty, and performance
Speaker 1: assessment experts to review the assessments and recommend changes The
Speaker 1: revised bill, if passed, would require the commissions the Commission
Speaker 1: to approve recommendations from the work Group by July first
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, and to implement them within three
Speaker 1: years from that date. The Commission would be required to
Speaker 1: make annual reports to the legislature. Leslie Littman, CTA Vice president,
Speaker 1: said that the amendments retaining the test were disappointing, but
Speaker 1: that the creation of the work group is a positive
Speaker 1: step towards addressing the concerns that union members have had
Speaker 1: with the assessment. All right, so they get this bill passed,
Speaker 1: but they don't eliminate the assessment part. This teacher assessment
Speaker 1: in which teachers in training have this final sort of
Speaker 1: part of their examination where they take video of classroom instruction,
Speaker 1: they provide their written course materials, reflections from students, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And it's the video thing I want to focus on.
Speaker 1: All right, you have all these teachers complaining about this.
Speaker 1: Many here's the story. Many teachers say that the test
Speaker 1: is a waste of time. The bill was originally introduced
Speaker 1: by Senator Josh Newman, a Democrat from Fullerton, chair of
Speaker 1: the Senate Education Committee, who said in April that eliminating
Speaker 1: the assessment would encourage more people to enter the teaching profession. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you could get a job without having to take
Speaker 1: a bunch of tests and examinations and stuff and not
Speaker 1: have to prove that you actually learned anything, I'm sure
Speaker 1: more people would want to apply. Oh, I have to
Speaker 1: do work. Ooh, I have to get uncomfortable. Ooh, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. He also said that it
Speaker 1: duplicates other requirements teachers must fulfill to earn a credential. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Yeah, do the same thing repeatedly. See if
Speaker 1: you can actually do it more than once. K through twelve.
Speaker 1: Teachers who commented on ed source stories about the legislation
Speaker 1: were overwhelmingly critical of the assessment. Yeah, because people like
Speaker 1: to complain. You know what lawyers like to do about
Speaker 1: the bargs. Nam, they like to complain about the bargs.
Speaker 1: Is it a good thing. It's probably a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's probably good to have a really hard barrier to
Speaker 1: entry before someone can become a lawyer. That requires a
Speaker 1: lot of really hard studying. Is it the best test
Speaker 1: that's ever been devised by man? Is it the most
Speaker 1: perfectly suited to no, but it shows a certain base
Speaker 1: level of hard work, competence and the ability to jump
Speaker 1: through a hoop that maybe you'd want out of a lawyer.
Speaker 1: California teacher candidates must pass either the California Teaching Performance Assessment,
Speaker 1: the Educative Teaching Performance Assessment, or the Fresno Assessment of
Speaker 1: School Teachers before they can earn a preliminary teaching credential.
Speaker 1: The test costs three hundred dollars total one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: dollars per cycle, according to Littmann. Now, other people say
Speaker 1: it's a valuable tool, but this is the level that
Speaker 1: the teachers' unions are getting to at first, blush. Does
Speaker 1: anyone look at the state of how California teachers are doing,
Speaker 1: the results we're getting out of our public schools and think,
Speaker 1: you know what, you know what we should really do.
Speaker 1: We should really water down the requirements for our teachers.
Speaker 1: We don't need teachers to be this highly assessed. Just
Speaker 1: let them skate. We don't need to actually take video
Speaker 1: of them actually doing their jobs and have that be
Speaker 1: part of our assessment of whether or not they should
Speaker 1: be teachers. No, no, no, no, no no no. We should just
Speaker 1: just trust them. Or just have them do a written
Speaker 1: test or something for this job that's primarily about verbal communication.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course you're gonna want to have video assessment,
Speaker 1: either video assessment or in person assessments or something. Video
Speaker 1: assessment seems to me like a great way to do it.
Speaker 1: More on that later. But it's just the boldness of
Speaker 1: this that it just stuns me. The teachers unions have
Speaker 1: so much power that they're basically like, yeah, we want
Speaker 1: to just knock down we want the we want the
Speaker 1: doors wide open, let anybody come in and become a
Speaker 1: teacher who needs this test. So what's gonna happen. Well,
Speaker 1: we're I wonder if it's just sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: we're not there yet. Enough people were able to look
Speaker 1: at this and clearly like this is the remarkable thing
Speaker 1: about this. Okay. Teachers unions by far the most powerful
Speaker 1: lobbying entity in Sacramento, far and away. Sacramento dominated by
Speaker 1: the Democrats, like three quarters majority in both houses of
Speaker 1: the state legislatures. Democrats and teachers' unions in Sacramento are
Speaker 1: like frickin' frack. They're joined at the hip. What one does,
Speaker 1: what one thinks, the other things they finish each other's sentences. Okay,
Speaker 1: there there's no division. There's no like Sacramento is run
Speaker 1: by the teachers' unions, one of the most powerful constituencies
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party, which completely controls Sacramento. It's not
Speaker 1: like Republicans voting against this how much of a say.
Speaker 1: The reason this thing went down is because Democrats looked
Speaker 1: at it and went, Okay, this seems like a couple
Speaker 1: of steps too far. I'm gonna have a hard time
Speaker 1: explaining this to my voters why I voted actually to
Speaker 1: water down the standards for teachers. And you would think
Speaker 1: there would be some level of like professional pride of like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna lessen our standards for teachers, because again,
Speaker 1: that's not the job of a union. All right. When
Speaker 1: you know, not that the ABA is any or state
Speaker 1: bar associations or anything like that or anything. Not that
Speaker 1: they're the greatest, most perfect entities on planet Earth. But
Speaker 1: I think when the California Bar Association is looking at well,
Speaker 1: how should we structure say the uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: bar exam, I think they are able to credibly assess
Speaker 1: that because I think associations of lawyers those aren't lawyers' unions, Okay,
Speaker 1: that their advocacy doesn't result in lawyers getting more and
Speaker 1: more jobs. Lawyers aren't unionized, they're they're their own sort
Speaker 1: of deal. They run their own law firms. And this
Speaker 1: is just a professional association that does have an interest
Speaker 1: in maintaining a high standard for the bar. So when
Speaker 1: they look at the bar exam, I think they can
Speaker 1: make reasonable judgments about like, Okay, well, the California Bar Exam,
Speaker 1: for example, was getting extremely difficult, maybe too difficult, to
Speaker 1: the point where only forty percent of people were passing.
Speaker 1: You had people from really good law schools failing it. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: are we making this punitively difficult versus okay, well, we
Speaker 1: want to maintain high standards, but we nonetheless, you know,
Speaker 1: the point of this isn't to be punitively bad. It's
Speaker 1: just to demonstrate that you know this stuff. Let's compare
Speaker 1: it against other states. What are we doing. I think
Speaker 1: the Bar Association is able to make more kind of
Speaker 1: credible judgments because they don't have there There's nothing self
Speaker 1: interested for lawyers about having more lawyers in the profession.
Speaker 1: If anything, I would imagine the Bar Association has an
Speaker 1: interest in not flooding the market with lawyers. You would
Speaker 1: want there to be less competition. I mean, the fewer lawyers,
Speaker 1: the more work for you, you know more, you know,
Speaker 1: less supply, equal demand, higher prices. But with the Teachers
Speaker 1: Association that there's nothing. It's totally non credible. They want
Speaker 1: this in order to allow for more people to be teachers,
Speaker 1: and they're talking openly in their advocacy about maybe this
Speaker 1: would encourage more people to be teachers. Yeah, because you
Speaker 1: want more jobs, you want more power, you want more positions,
Speaker 1: you want to advocate for more and more and more
Speaker 1: and more and more. Because that's how a labor union
Speaker 1: gets powerful. More jobs, more pay, fewer hours, fewer standards.
Speaker 1: That's what the Teachers Union that, that's its end goal
Speaker 1: that it pursues. And that's why I think public sector
Speaker 1: unions are so stupid when when you have that in
Speaker 1: the context of a private sector union, it has a
Speaker 1: natural force that a poses it. When you have a
Speaker 1: private sector union, Okay, the employees at Ford Motor Company,
Speaker 1: they want more jobs, more money, better hours, et cetera
Speaker 1: for themselves, and management wants more of the profits for itself,
Speaker 1: and the two forces are in opposition. To each other,
Speaker 1: in tension with each other, to hopefully bring about some
Speaker 1: fair resolution. In the context of public sector unions, there's
Speaker 1: nothing in opposition for them. It's a bunch of liberal
Speaker 1: politicians in Sacramento spending other people's money. And even that,
Speaker 1: even the lack of any material thing in opposition to
Speaker 1: them resulted in this case in looks. Listen, we know
Speaker 1: the Teachers' Union runs the show here in Sacramento. You
Speaker 1: can't just eliminate requirements for teachers like you can't dumb
Speaker 1: it down so much. When we return, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about this specific aspect of this bill, getting rid
Speaker 1: of the video assessment. Why that is total bunk. Next
Speaker 1: on the John Girardi Show, talking about this bill that
Speaker 1: was actually well, this one portion of it that was
Speaker 1: defeated in the state legislature, Senate Bill one two sixty three,
Speaker 1: which was sponsored by the California Teachers Association, which would
Speaker 1: have eliminated the teacher one of the teacher credentialing assessments,
Speaker 1: and the specific portion of this assessment was this requirement
Speaker 1: that teacher candidates take video clips of classroom instruction, submit
Speaker 1: lesson plans, student work, and written reflections on their practice
Speaker 1: to prove they are prepared to become teachers. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this bill originally was going to do that. The California
Speaker 1: Teachers Association was pushing for this, which represents all the unions.
Speaker 1: They were pushing to get rid of this requirement for
Speaker 1: someone to become a new teacher, including the video assessment.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing I want to talk about,
Speaker 1: all right. I have some experience with this. People hate
Speaker 1: watching themselves on video. They hate listening to themselves on audio.
Speaker 1: And I remember this. In law school, I did a
Speaker 1: lot of different classes for trial advocacy and so basically
Speaker 1: learning how to be an in the courtroom trial litigator.
Speaker 1: And the lawyer. The professor who sort of taught those classes,
Speaker 1: he taught a lot of these practicum classes and he
Speaker 1: had this really great practice, this really great program he
Speaker 1: had put together. He was sort of famous for it,
Speaker 1: and he insisted that everyone be video recorded doing all
Speaker 1: the various different things they were doing, so he would
Speaker 1: video record you. He also had like deposition practice classes
Speaker 1: where you would practice giving a deposition or representing a
Speaker 1: client during a deposition or whatever, so he would video
Speaker 1: record us. And he would also he would video record
Speaker 1: us and make us watch ourselves doing whatever it was
Speaker 1: we were doing. I remembered one time I did it,
Speaker 1: and I did the video recording of me giving an
Speaker 1: opening statement, and I was watching myself, and I was
Speaker 1: so embarrassed because I kept shifting from one foot to
Speaker 1: the other, like I was rocking back and forth, back
Speaker 1: and forth, and I had no idea I was doing
Speaker 1: that while I was delivering this. People hate watching themselves,
Speaker 1: but it's a really useful tool. It lets you know, hey,
Speaker 1: you're doing something weird. I'd say the best thing I
Speaker 1: ever did with radio to help me become a better
Speaker 1: radio host, the best thing I do is listen to myself.
Speaker 1: I listened to myself on the podcast the first time
Speaker 1: I ever did any kind of podcast or radio thing.
Speaker 1: It was a podcast thing I was doing with my
Speaker 1: buddy Jonathan Keller, and he asked me, hey, afterwards, can
Speaker 1: you just take the audio file and edit out anytime
Speaker 1: any of us says the word uh or um? And
Speaker 1: it was me, Jonathan and some pastor. It's a pastor
Speaker 1: lots of experience with public speaking, never said um. Jonathan
Speaker 1: some experience with public speaking said um a few times.
Speaker 1: I at that time, with very little experience public speaking,
Speaker 1: I said uh or a billion times and I had
Speaker 1: to edit out every single instance. And I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1: It was such a formative thing for me to realize
Speaker 1: this is actually how you talk, and you can't improve
Speaker 1: unless you you know, you can't treat the illness and
Speaker 1: unless you diagnose what it is. So the idea that
Speaker 1: the teachers a association in this bill, and thank god
Speaker 1: this got amended, how with a straight face are they
Speaker 1: able to say, no, no, no, no, no, These teachers
Speaker 1: don't need to submit video of how they're doing. They
Speaker 1: don't need to submit video of their classroom instruction as
Speaker 1: part of the assessment whether they should get a credential
Speaker 1: to be a teacher. No no, no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: you don't need to do that. I can understand the
Speaker 1: motive for why you wouldn't want to do that, because
Speaker 1: it stinks. It's painful. It's painful to listen to yourself.
Speaker 1: It's painful to see yourself sometimes if you're screwing up,
Speaker 1: because often in public speaking you're doing stupid things without
Speaker 1: realizing it. How many of you can think of a
Speaker 1: pastor or something who was bad at sermonizing or being
Speaker 1: a homilist whatever. It's probably because he's not painfully forcing
Speaker 1: himself to watch and listen to his own stuff, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't realize all the things he keeps saying and
Speaker 1: saying and saying and saying, all the ticks he has,
Speaker 1: all the annoying things he does. But I think this
Speaker 1: is part of professional development. If you are in a
Speaker 1: position where you're public speaking, that's what teachers are. They're speaking.
Speaker 1: They're speaking in front of a group of thirty kids
Speaker 1: every single day. So are you gonna do it well?
Speaker 1: Are you gonna make sure that these people are prepared
Speaker 1: to do that? Or are we just gonna just leave
Speaker 1: the doors wide open let anyone do this. I don't
Speaker 1: think the performance of California teachers has been so great
Speaker 1: that we should be looking for ways to make it
Speaker 1: easier for people to become teach. That seems to me,
Speaker 1: like you know, and again for people getting piously upset
Speaker 1: like I'm you know, tarnishing the reputation of mother Teresa
Speaker 1: or something over here. I think there are some teachers
Speaker 1: who are great. I think, though, like in any job,
Speaker 1: there are some teachers who stink. And I think there
Speaker 1: are a lot of teachers in the middle. And you
Speaker 1: know who's probably nodding their head and agreeing with me
Speaker 1: right now, because every time I say this to a teacher,
Speaker 1: they nod their head and agree with me. Is a
Speaker 1: bunch of teachers, Okay, a lot of teachers stink, a
Speaker 1: lot of teachers are mediocre, and then there's a good
Speaker 1: number of teachers who are good. And that's true of cops,
Speaker 1: it's true of lawyers, it's true of doctors, it's true
Speaker 1: of nurses, it's true of guys in the military. Pretty
Speaker 1: much any job has people who are really really good,
Speaker 1: people who are really really stink, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: people in the middle. But to weaken the requirements for
Speaker 1: teachers is ridiculous. So thank god that portion of Senate
Speaker 1: Bill one two sixty three was taken out, though they
Speaker 1: are going to study the matter, which means CTA, the
Speaker 1: California Teachers Association, will keep pushing for that change at
Speaker 1: some point down the road when we return. Some thoughts
Speaker 1: about Tim Walls reading the Bible and respect for newly
Speaker 1: born disabled children next on The John Girardi Show. One
Speaker 1: of my kind of chief building blocks of my prayer
Speaker 1: life is it's kind of like an adaptation of the
Speaker 1: Book of Common Prayer. So the Book of Common Prayer
Speaker 1: is sort of the foundational prayer and liturgy textbook for
Speaker 1: Anglicans and Episcopalians and people in that universe. Now, pou
Speaker 1: Benedict the sixteenth one of the more significant things he
Speaker 1: did was he set up a structure to allow Anglicans
Speaker 1: and Episcopalians to convert to Catholicism while retaining a lot
Speaker 1: of their prayer traditions. Basically, a lot of Anglican prayer
Speaker 1: and practice has its roots in ancient more ancient Catholic stuff,
Speaker 1: and bo Benedict sort of recognized that there was much
Speaker 1: within the Anglican and Episcopal prayer traditions that was really good.
Speaker 1: So while you know, acknowledging that converting Anglicans and Episcopalians
Speaker 1: would have to, you know, believe in points of Catholic dogma,
Speaker 1: it's not like they can become Catholic and who is
Speaker 1: this pope? Guy? We don't need a pope. Nonetheless, the
Speaker 1: traditions of how they pray Bo Bendict thought were beautiful
Speaker 1: and worthy things to be preserved. So one of the
Speaker 1: things that was brought over was sort of the tradition
Speaker 1: of daily prayer that was rooted in the Book of
Speaker 1: Common Prayer, and these Anglicans who became Catholic produced this
Speaker 1: book called Divine Worship the Daily Office, and that's been
Speaker 1: kind of my daily round of prayer. I sort of
Speaker 1: found it and it seems to sort of work well
Speaker 1: with my work and life schedule, and it's pretty cool. Basically,
Speaker 1: it involves praying all one hundred and fifty Psalms over
Speaker 1: the course of a month, and then you have a
Speaker 1: big read it. It's divided into basically morning prayer and
Speaker 1: evening prayer, so you read a chunk from the Psalms,
Speaker 1: an Old Testament reading, and a New Testament reading, along
Speaker 1: with two other sort of biblical or extra biblical canticles,
Speaker 1: and it sort of changes depending on the season. It
Speaker 1: reflects the liturgical calendar, the liturgical season that exists within
Speaker 1: the Catholic but also the Anglican and Lutheran and other
Speaker 1: traditions of you know, lent Easter time, after Pentecost, Advent, Christmas,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So pretty much every day I'm reading at
Speaker 1: morning prayer and at evening prayer two big chunks from
Speaker 1: the Old Testament, and over the course of the year
Speaker 1: you sort of wind up reading through You're not reading
Speaker 1: the entire Old Testament, but you're reading through, you know,
Speaker 1: selections of almost all of the books of the Old
Speaker 1: Testament over the course of a year. You also get
Speaker 1: two big chunks from the New Testament every day, and
Speaker 1: you do read I think about just about one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the New Testament over the course of a year,
Speaker 1: and right now over the last since Pentecost. The selection
Speaker 1: that I've been reading from the Old Testament that's been
Speaker 1: assigned is a lot of the history of the kingdom
Speaker 1: of sort of King Saul and then King David's kingdom
Speaker 1: King Solomon, and then the division of the two kingdoms
Speaker 1: of Israel into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah Israel
Speaker 1: in the north, Judah in the south, and a lot
Speaker 1: of this is this is all written out in First Samuel,
Speaker 1: Second Samuel, First Kings, Second Kings. And now we're sort
Speaker 1: of into the book the Prophet Jeremiah, and Jeremiah is
Speaker 1: at the time of the Babylonian captivity, where Jerusalem, the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of Judah, is taken over by the Chaldeans or
Speaker 1: the Babylonians, and the devastation that comes as a result. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing that you see throughout this history is the
Speaker 1: way that the author, the divine author, but the divine
Speaker 1: author working through this human author of these books. They
Speaker 1: are basically judging these various of Judah and Israel on
Speaker 1: the basis of their fidelity to the Old Law, their
Speaker 1: fidelity to God, or their abandoning of God to allow
Speaker 1: or promote the worship of other gods. These other gods
Speaker 1: that were worshiped in the area of Palestine. And there
Speaker 1: were two that were sort of the most prominent. There
Speaker 1: was Baal, or at least what the Old Testament calls Bal.
Speaker 1: It seems like there were a number of different kinds
Speaker 1: of balls Ball, Baal and Asherah. Now, the worship of
Speaker 1: Ball one of the characteristic aspects of it that is
Speaker 1: discussed throughout these books of the Old Testament. It involves
Speaker 1: human sacrifice in many cases, and often it seemed to
Speaker 1: involve the burning alive of children. And there were kings
Speaker 1: of Israel and or Judah who actually killed their own children,
Speaker 1: offering them as human sacrifices to Baal. You also had
Speaker 1: connected the worship of Asherah and the worship of Ashrah
Speaker 1: involved ritual prostitution rituals, and this religious practice was always
Speaker 1: in tension and opposition to the authentic worship of God
Speaker 1: that happened in the Temple in Jerusalem. And basically all
Speaker 1: of these kings of Israel and Judah in the years
Speaker 1: following King Solomon, they were always sort of measured according
Speaker 1: to the standard of well, were they worshiping God or
Speaker 1: were they allow or promoting the worship of Baal and Astra,
Speaker 1: and so what were they doing? And I think sometimes
Speaker 1: with our modern eyes, we look at this and think, well,
Speaker 1: this seems so bizarre. Why would there be this such
Speaker 1: a temptation to want to worship these other gods? It
Speaker 1: just seems so illogical. It seems like a temptation that
Speaker 1: the Israelites suffered that we can't. It's hard for us
Speaker 1: to understand. And I recognize that the response to us
Speaker 1: will be, oh, well, that's just the same way that
Speaker 1: we idolize things like money and power. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's a little different. It doesn't. That has never
Speaker 1: felt like a satisfactory answer to me. Why were they
Speaker 1: so drawn to this? And I think the answer lies
Speaker 1: in the killing babies and the sex stuff. The authentic
Speaker 1: worship of the God of the Hebrew, of God, the
Speaker 1: God of the Jewish people. It precluded a lot of
Speaker 1: things that were fairly common in the culture that surrounded
Speaker 1: the people of Israel and Judah, namely taking advantage of
Speaker 1: people for sex outside of marriage. Right, all of the
Speaker 1: cultures surrounding Israel in Judah would not have batted an
Speaker 1: eye at a male citizen or a male person with
Speaker 1: power engaging in sexual conduct outside of marriage, whether that
Speaker 1: was with a slave, whether that was with a prostitute,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, that was not uncommon, okay, and it
Speaker 1: it Israel and Judah were weird for insisting on sexual
Speaker 1: conduct within marriage. The other way in which Israel and
Speaker 1: Judah were weird, and you might think, why would anyone
Speaker 1: be tempted to join, you know, the worship of a
Speaker 1: god like ball that wanted human sacrifice of children. That
Speaker 1: seems so weird? What what what would be appealing about that?
Speaker 1: The other way in which Israel and Judah were weird
Speaker 1: was in the area of preserving human life, including the
Speaker 1: lives of infants who were not wanted. Frequently, you know, like,
Speaker 1: let's think about this. You know how the prophets in
Speaker 1: the Old Testament frequently sort of excoriate the infidelity of
Speaker 1: Israel and Judah for not taking care of widows and orphans.
Speaker 1: What does that mean if you're a widow, if you're
Speaker 1: a woman with no one to protect you, like your
Speaker 1: husband's dead, your father's dead. What's going to happen to
Speaker 1: you in this brutal and violent world of the Middle East. Well,
Speaker 1: often you could be subject to some kind of sexual violence.
Speaker 1: If you're a child with no one to protect you,
Speaker 1: you are highly inconvenient and often what would happen in
Speaker 1: the ancient world, in the ancient Near East when a
Speaker 1: child was born with any kind of disability, or a
Speaker 1: child was just born and the parents didn't want that child.
Speaker 1: Maybe the child was born of a slave, Maybe the
Speaker 1: child was born of an illicit liaison. Maybe whatever it was,
Speaker 1: this was very common in the Roman Empire, common in Greece,
Speaker 1: common in all these cultures surrounding the people of his
Speaker 1: real Judah. What would they do? They would kill the baby,
Speaker 1: they would leave the baby to die somewhere, that was
Speaker 1: what the Romans did, Or in the case of some
Speaker 1: of these Near Eastern Phoenician religions, you could have the
Speaker 1: baby be ritually burnt, offered in sacrifice to God. And
Speaker 1: I think it's this that leads me to talk about
Speaker 1: Tim Walls. One of the Tim Walls's record on abortion
Speaker 1: is terrible, but one of the most extreme things he did,
Speaker 1: and there's a great piece about it written by Charlie Comosi.
Speaker 1: I think that's how you pronounce his name. I linked
Speaker 1: to it for my Twitter account Twitter dot com slash
Speaker 1: Fresno Johnny at Fresno Johnny. It's the piece he wrote
Speaker 1: in the First Things talking about specific changes Tim Walls
Speaker 1: signed into law in Minnesota to eliminate requirements for treating
Speaker 1: a child who is born after surviving an abortion attempt.
Speaker 1: It's not actively killing a child after they've survived an
Speaker 1: abortion attempt or have been fully delivered in the midst
Speaker 1: of trying to perform an abortion. It's letting a child
Speaker 1: die providing care or not providing care on the basis
Speaker 1: of whether the child's wanted, not on the basis of
Speaker 1: whether or not the treatment will be successful on the
Speaker 1: basis of whether the child's wanted. And one of the
Speaker 1: things Kamosi goes into further is this sort of silent
Speaker 1: epidemic of not treating children who could be saved on
Speaker 1: the basis not just of whether they were wanted to
Speaker 1: be abortion, but whether they want to be a disability,
Speaker 1: and that in many cases, the same kinds of doctors
Speaker 1: who would move heaven and earth to save a disabled
Speaker 1: five year old who was facing illness will not do
Speaker 1: the same thing for a disabled newborn. And it makes
Speaker 1: me sort of, look, this is a more and more
Speaker 1: commonplace thing, and this is what the Democratic Party supports.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid more and more it's what a lot of
Speaker 1: Republicans are okay with. Given the way that votes have
Speaker 1: gone on the abortion issue in states like Ohio, There's
Speaker 1: part of me that wonders more and more Republicans are
Speaker 1: okay with this, and it makes me think we're really
Speaker 1: not so different from the ancient Israelites. Yeah, we're not
Speaker 1: offering our children to ball, but the same sort of
Speaker 1: motives to get rid of human beings who are inconvenient
Speaker 1: and to instrumentalize women for the sake of sexual gratification.
Speaker 1: These things are hallmarks of our culture too, just as
Speaker 1: much as it was of their unfaithful culture. When we return,
Speaker 1: how no one seems to be standing up for Tim
Speaker 1: Walls with this whole stolen valor thing. Next on The
Speaker 1: John Girardi Show, the Tim Walls stolen valor story seems
Speaker 1: to kind of be getting legs. And the thing that
Speaker 1: I've been sort of surprised at is that it's not
Speaker 1: a thing where like, Okay, Republicans are making this claim,
Speaker 1: but then some people close to Walls are upset about it,
Speaker 1: but other people are like, hey, you know, he he
Speaker 1: didn't do anything that bad, Like like this is you know,
Speaker 1: I served with Walls and he was a pretty good guy.
Speaker 1: The thing that's I'm finding to be extraordinary and maybe
Speaker 1: I just haven't seen anything else. Maybe I'm just consuming
Speaker 1: too much conservative media. Nobody's sticking up for Walls. His
Speaker 1: battalion commander just issued a statement blasting the guy for
Speaker 1: claiming to be a rank that he wasn't. His former
Speaker 1: chaplin is blasting him. I feel like this story has legs,
Speaker 1: and I'm almost afraid of Republicans spoiling it by hyping
Speaker 1: it up too much to allow Kamala time to switch
Speaker 1: him out before the Democrat convention. So we'll see about that.
Speaker 1: That that'll do it for John Glady Show. See you
Speaker 1: next time on Power Talk