Many people on the left are blaming Jordan Neely's death on "the failures of the social safety net". No, that's not it. People on the right are blaming Neely for the bad decisions he has made in his life. Okay, sure. But...I think the most blame goes even before that.
Welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. Thanks for being here. Today was a very interesting show on SiriusXM Patriot. I don't know if it worked at all. It took me a while to talk out loud for a bit and refine my thoughts. So if you were a part of it today on SiriusXM, thank you for going on the journey.
The very short of it is Daniel Penny, if you've been following the story. Daniel Penny and Jordan Neely on the New York City subway. Well, praise God, Daniel Penny found not guilty. That's a wonderful thing. We need more Daniel Pennys in our country. I want to be more like Daniel Penny. I pray we have more Daniel Pennys. So that's thought number Then, we talked about Jordan Neely. Now we have two things that tend to get talked about here.
So if you're on the left and you want to talk about Jordan Neely, they freak out about how the system failed and there's no social safety nets for the Jordan Neelys out there. And I would argue that that's not true. Jordan Neely, when he punched a 67-year-old woman on the sidewalk for no reason, if there's ever a good reason, but for no reason, randomly, he was given a safe place to stay and treatment for his addictions,
etc. and mental health problems. He didn't take it. So I don't know how much more social safety net one needs. It's the progressive worldview is that all good things come from government. So if something is broken, it means there's not enough government or there wasn't enough government. So here we have what Jordan Neely did and who he was and who he became and how he was acting and it's broken and the problem is not
enough social safety nets. Like no, that's not it. And then you have conservatives who blame him. He's been arrested 42 times or whatever it was and and it's his fault, and so I'm looking at it and I blame the parents. Now we got a couple of things on the table here. First thing to reiterate, Daniel Penney, all good. We need more Daniel Penneys. done. Second thought, I totally believe in personal agency always. I have to
believe that. I must believe in that. That must be true. And obviously in the end of the day, at the end of the day, only that person is responsible for the actions or the decisions etc. etc. Yes, that is true. Third point, Jordan Neely really had no chance. Because of the decisions made by the people around him, specifically his parents. We told the full of the story on the show this morning,
I'll do the very short of it. New York Magazine wrote a whole article about him. You have his mom, Christy Neely, met his dad, Andrew Zachary, who by the way, is doing this whole, I love my son so much routine because he sees major dollar signs.
They met at a club. He was a member of an R&B group. They had sex, she got pregnant, and Jordan was born. And he actually, he was a member of an R&B group, and they actually got a song that was on the charts for 20 weeks back in 1995.
And he got some money from it, and he blew it all, and he slept around. So, he left, Jordan had no dad. He was about two years old. He had no role model. His mom was doing the best she could.
She was a telemarketer in Manhattan. They lived in shelters for a while in New York City, but mom wanted a place of their own.
So she took classes to become a paralegal.
And in the class she sat next to this guy. Started dating. She saved enough money, could rent an apartment in New Jersey. And she invited the man to come live with her. This guy's name was Sutherland. Kept a padlock on the door, the bedroom door.
So Jordan, as a young boy, could not enter the room. Weird. Super jealous guy, would call his girlfriend, Jordan's mom, 10 times every hour if she was out with her mom, right, that kind of guy. And one day, his mom always woke him up every morning before school.
And one day, mom didn't wake him up. He was 14 years old. So he got ready on his own and went into the bedroom to say goodbye, but Sutherland, the boyfriend, blocked the door closed. Okay, so he goes off to school, comes home.
No one's home. So Sutherland says, oh, my aunt died, I left to the funeral. For days, he didn't know where his mom was. And he didn't tell anyone.
He's 14 years old.
So finally, he calls her work. And her colleagues were wondering where she was too. And Jordan told the co-worker, I don't know what to do, it's cold, the mail keeps coming in, the heat went off. One of mom's rules for Jordan was you can't cook by yourself and over all those days he never cooked any food because he expected mom to come home at any minute and he didn't want to get in
trouble. He finally got on his bike and he rode to a family friend's house. They filed a missing persons report. They got the boyfriend on the phone. He said she went on vacation. And Jordan's like, no, that's not what happened. While they're on the phone with the guy, they had the TV on. And the reporter on the TV said that a woman's body had been found
in a duffel bag in the Bronx. And the corpse is decomposed, and they don't know who it is. And on the news, they put a picture of her belt and a turquoise ring. And Jordan knew immediately that that was his mom. 14 years old and the boyfriend was the murderer. So that's some trauma. Where's the boy gonna go live with his dad? Nope. When he was 16 he started doing this Michael Jackson
impersonating on the subway. When he was 18 he went to go live with his dad, but his dad was, I mean, I wasn't there. I don't know, I can't judge it, but it didn't work. So, that was it, out in the streets. Now, who's to blame?
Who do you blame?
In no particular order, I blame the dad for being a deadbeat, sleeping around, and not wanting to raise his child. I blame the mom for making bad decisions. Now real quick, every time I mention a deadbeat dad on SiriusXM, it's very interesting, a bunch of dads call in, and this is true, there's truth to this.
Hey Slater, don't be so hard on dads, it's not always the dads, oftentimes it's the mom who kicks the dad out, maybe it's the mom who goes crazy. And the dad wants to be a part of the son's life, but it's the mom, fair enough. I don't think that's the situation here, but fair enough.
That can happen too. I do blame this mom for making bad mating decisions. We don't talk about that in our country. That's what I really want to talk about here. We don't talk about mating decisions. I don't know a better way to put it.
We don't talk enough about who people sleep with. And then of course you got to blame the murderer. But why are you bringing in this guy? Well it's because the dad left. That's the fault of the dad for leaving the mother and child in the first place and a woman is going to want to bring someone in to provide and make bad decisions all around. and some people are blaming Jordan Neely for his bad choices.
I want to go a little bit further back and I want to blame mom and dad for having sex out of wedlock in the beginning and for not making a family and not providing for a family. That to me seems like the nexus of the whole thing that no one's paying attention to. As we often say, Henry David Thoreau, there's thousands hacking at the branches of evil
to every one who strikes the root. So we're talking about this on the radio today. My whole point, I just want us to do better at helping our kids make better decisions on what to look for in a spouse and who you mate with, who you have children with.
And we had these calls and there was like a moment when I was like, I don't know what to teach our kids. I don't know what we should be telling our kids, but it ain't working now. And I was in this free-fall state. A guy called in and he goes on and quotes God's word.
And you're like, oh, yeah, that's the answer, obviously. Thank you, thank you very much. I was in free fall for a moment there. It was perfect timing yesterday. The two boys were in jujitsu class. It's an hour, so I got me, the two year old boy,
and Grace, who's six. And Grace likes to play, it's good, me and Grace time. And we came up with a game, pin the tail on the donkey. So we're in this long hallway with a waiting room in it, and I put a blanket, or a jacket over her head, and spin her around a bunch of times
and she has to try to find this sign that's on the wall. There's a sign that says, I don't know what it says, like no smoking, I don't know what it says. It has Braille on it. So she has to find the sign without, right, after I spin her around. And it was super fun, we had a great time. And that's what I was like.
I was like spinning, out of control, didn't know where I was pitch black grasping for an answer of I don't know what we should look for and that's all of us too that's like our culture that's our society today we're like where am I what do I do who do I marry who do I have who do I have kids with you and that's it like how's it going not well and when this guy because caller quoted the Bible it was just like taking the blindfold off. You're like, oh, here I am.
And this is what I should do. We need a more intentional conversation in our culture about what we should look for in a spouse. I say, let's do descending order. How we should treat each other in a marriage. Before that, how to find the right person to marry.
There's no conversation about that. And then the world would say, well, before that, it should be, you know, who do you want to sleep with? It's like, oh, we're out of order here. I should be able to marry that, then the sleeping and having kids and then having a proper marriage. So we're all out of order. We're all out of whack.
So first order of business, we have to change our culture about sleeping with people out of wedlock. And it's got to change. And it can. It really, genuinely can. Obviously some people still will. But we need to stop treating it as a norm or celebrating it.
No. We need to stop with this cultural expectation that you should just have sex. And potentially have kids out of wedlock. It's not good. And if you make a claim like this on the radio, someone's gonna call and be like,
well I have two kids out of wedlock and they're fine. Are they?
And it's really difficult to talk about any of this stuff
because people get very defensive or people get full of regret for things that have happened in their life. And it's okay, fine. Get over it. We gotta focus on the next generation.
Let's focus on the next generation and help them make better decisions. Okay, so we're done with the premarital sex. Great. But then said, who should I marry? What should I look for in a spouse? We're not intentional about it. Okay, so what do you want me to do? Well, let's go to the Bible. It's all there. The gentleman who called in with
the God's word, he said, the Bible says, don't be unequally yoked. Like, oh, yeah, that's it. That wooden bar between two oxen. If one is stronger, one oxen is shorter, or whatever, it won't work. The ox is going to pull in circles. You're not going to go straight. You're not going to complete the task.
That's what the Bible says. Don't be unequally yoked. Okay, so what should you look for in a spouse? Well, fear of the Lord. Your spouse, number two, your spouse should be honest, trustworthy. Trustworthy.
Proverbs 31, we just go through Proverbs 31, the heart of her husband trusts in her. Number three, she should be someone who's helpful, builds you up. Verse 12 says, she does him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
You should look for someone who loves God, fears the Lord. Number two, honest. Number three, supports, builds up. Number four, hardworking. Proverbs 31 says she seeks wool and flax, works with her willing hands. She's like the ships of the merchant. She brings food from afar. She rises while it's yet night and
provides food for, right? Number, so hard worker. Number five, somebody who's generous and hospitable. Sticking in Proverbs 31, she opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. Number six, you want to look for someone who loves wisdom. Verse 26 says, she opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
Number seven, you want someone, my favorite, in verse 25, my favorite part of Proverbs 31 is verse 25, she laughs at the time to come. Trust Jesus. Someone who trusts Jesus. Number eight, someone with self-control. Proverbs 23 20 says, do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat for drunkards and gluttons become poor and drowsiness or laziness clothes them in rags. So get someone with self-control. That's not
just a hard worker. That's right. That's one of the other ones we listed here. But someone with self-control. If you lose, if you lack your self-control, then you will become poor and you will be in rags. And number nine, someone who is patient. James 1, So then my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
So those are nine things that I think we should be telling our kids from a young age, I don't know, 14, this is what you should be looking for in your future spouse. Put it in there pretty young, I don't know when the right age is. You want to be looking for a spouse that you're going to spend the rest of your life with. Someone who's a hard worker someone generous and hospitable
someone who loves wisdom Someone who trusts Jesus laughs at time to come that's good perspective Friends of ours put it someone who's in on the joke Like they get they get life they understand life Number eight is someone who has self-control. And number nine is someone who's patient.
Those are nine really good values, aren't they? Do we tell our kids about those nine?
I just came up with those nine.
I didn't spend an hour on this. I just looked up the Bible real quickly.
That's all there is there.
I'm sure there's more.
Can we be intentional about this? So I'm thinking, well, what do we tell our kids now about who to look for in a mate? And we had a guy call in and he said, well, today, you know, it's all about what clicks. Do we click? Isn't that an interesting word that we've come up with?
Oh, we click. And the guy's like, well, this is no good, this caller, because he says, you often seek what you grew up. So if you grew up in dysfunction, you're going to seek that same dysfunction because it's comfortable in a perverted way.
So you find someone who's equally dysfunctional and the person says, well, we click. Okay, that doesn't mean it's good. Click doesn't mean good. So we have to do better than that. We have to get rid of that term entirely.
Oh, we just click. Like, no. So, alright, so what are we basing our decisions off of now? I guess looks. But the Bible speaks to that too. Proverbs 11, 22, like a gold ring, oh that's nice, a gold ring. In a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.
A gold ring, oh that's nice, and a pig snout. So if you focus on a woman's physical beauty, you can often miss her lack of character. That would be the ugly pig. Proverbs 12, you would never marry an ugly pig. The pig, you get it, the gold ring is the beauty on the outside and the pig is the woman's character.
Man's too, we'll apply it equally. You don't want to marry the pig. Proverbs 12.4 A wife of noble character is her husband's crown, but a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones. Proverbs 31.3
Charm is deceptive, beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. I read this. Outer beauty is often what initially attracts a man to a woman, but it can also trap him. Instead of obtaining a wife who is a crowning jewel to be highly praised, the man who selects a beautiful woman who
lacks discretion gains a frivolous and sensible companion who will make him look like a fool. My point of this Giordanile segment is we need to be more intentional about this in our churches. So I don't know what this means to you as a parent, and someone wrote me an email that says parenting doesn't end when the kids turn 18 But there's still a lot of life decisions to be made and there's maybe this cultural push it like you're 18 You're out of the house. You're on your own and I raised you and now you make decisions, but it's like oh
I don't know. Maybe your daughter's 22 and needs some helps. I could still be guided well, right? So we need to kind of fight back against that cultural thing too, but so as a parent What can you do with this stuff and also someone in your church what can you bring into the church what can you encourage the leaders of the church to do to speak more to this into kids with its youth ministry or whatever because we have to be more intentional about this we just have to be we can't wing it
anymore so what should you look for in a spouse and then a challenge for men and women is to be that person that people should be looking for. Again, there are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to everyone who strikes the root. People are talking about lack of city services, like, hmm, that's not it. Well, he just, you know, Jordan nearly made bad choices. Okay, fine. Let's keep digging. It's all about the family, and I would like to prevent almost every social problem in our country
is caused by broken families. So I'd like to really get to the root of these social problems and encourage everyone to make better decisions before families are even made. Think of what heartache can be avoided and what godliness can be gained. I hope that's helpful.
I hope that's something.
I'm still talking this through. If you have any insight you can give me on this would be very much appreciated. My personal email is slaterradio at gmail.com, slaterradio at gmail.com. Or if you're on the website, mikeslater.locals.com, of course you can leave a comment
there, mikeslater.locals.com. there, mikeslater.locals.com. Transcripted commercial free, mikeslater.locals.com.
