Knowing Our Ancestors, Blood And Spirit

MikeSlater

Politics • Spirituality/Belief • Culture

Politics By Faith, May 16, 2025

May 16, 2025

The 250th Anniversary of America is a beautiful time to reconnect with our American ancestors. Every day is the perfect time to connect to our spiritual ancestors.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. Last couple of days on SiriusXM, we've done a couple of segments related to education. We touch on it from time to time. We did a segment last week about how kids can't read. Well, half of Americans can't read at a sixth grade level. That's a problem. It's 46%. 46% can't read at a sixth grade level. That's a problem. It's 46%. 46% can't read at a sixth grade level. That's USA Today, so can't read a newspaper.

New York Times is at an 11th grade level, so they're not even close. Half of Americans can't read a menu, can't read a job application. Big, big problem. But then we did a segment on college kids who can't read. And they don't have the will,

but many don't even have the skill. Today we did a segment on AI. It's graduation time across the country. Many kids are graduating high school and college who are illiterate. And they've outsourced more and more of their brain

to artificial intelligence. And I think this is unwise. And I think it will be bad for our country. There's a video a 10th grade teacher made, she's quitting, a 10th grade teacher, she says, kids can't do anything at all.

She says, she'll ask them to write a five sentence paragraph by hand, and they throw tantrums. They refuse, they throw a tantrum, they can't do it. And you have to write it by hand to avoid AI. And the kids just can't understand

why they would ever need to write anything ever or think on their own in any way. There's no will. And after a while of not having a will to learn, then they'll lose the skill. And then what are we?

What is this country? She said her students don't care about anything. There's a professor at NYU who's been trying to AI proof his assignments, again mostly by writing by hand, and he said the students just complain that the work's too hard.

This is NYU. One student said, why are you not letting me use AI? You're interfering with my learning style. One student asked for an extension because chatGTP was down the day the assignment was due. The day the assignment was due.

One said, you're asking me to go from point A to point B, why wouldn't I use a car to get there? This is one professor at NYU. New Yorker wrote an article, everyone is cheating their way through college. ChatGTP has unraveled the entire academic project.

And it's all about students who literally don't do a single thing at all. They just type in the prompt AI and whatever it spits out, they just hand it in. Like one student wrote an essay or handed it, excuse me, didn't write an essay, handed in an essay.

And the opening sentence was, as an AI, I have been programmed to. Didn't even read the first sentence. Like think about that. Didn't even read the first sentence and think maybe I should take that sentence out.

Just handed that in and that's it. It's like, what's the point of this? College, I mean, what is the point of college? One professor said, well, everyone's cheating AI all the time. Let me ask people to write a paragraph

or a paper about themselves. Surely people won't use AI to do that.

They did.

Students used AI to write an essay about themselves. One student said, I spend so much time on TikTok, hours and hours until my eyes start hurting, which makes it hard to plan and do my schoolwork. With ChatGTP, I can write an essay in two hours that normally takes 12.

I love that. That's so good. People think, so a lot of people, most people in America think that you're born good. And this is a very Nancy Pelosi idea that if we just give people more time, then they'll

use it to write the great American novel and they'll become an artist and they'll just use it to help people and achieve their dream. No, they won't. They'll use it on TikTok. This student used a TikTok until her eyes hurt. ChatGTP makes that more possible where in the past you would have spent 12 hours to

write a paper, well now she can do it in two. So what does she do with the other 10?

Tick tock.

Cal State Chico ethics professor says, massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees and into the workforce who are essentially illiterate, both in the literal sense and in the sense of being, like you cannot read, and in the sense of being historically illiterate

and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else's. So here's my idea, and then we'll bring in the Bible. College needs to just go away, all of it and all of them. And we need to just have two separate things. I'm being serious here, I'm like half joking,

but not really at all actually. We need to have two separate things. We camp, just call it camp. Where I grew up in Syracuse, New York nearby, there was a college called Hobart and we called it Camp Ho-Ho. So have camp and camp is everything you want.

It's got the sports teams, you can watch basketball and football games, and you can play in the sports, you can get in murals, whatever, and there's parties, you can get drunk, black out every night, and I don't know, that's pretty much all colleges.

So it's just a hangout. It's a four year hangout, maybe you can go five or six years hangout. But there's no classes, like stop, like knock it off with even pretending. There's no pretending anymore. There's no point to it. Stop with the pretense of school.

Why are we even pretending this? It's a thing. Just call it camp and just do it. And then we'll have other places, and I don't know if we want to call it college or come up with a new name,

and those are for kids who want to read. I heard someone say, why would a monk cheat at meditation? Well, they wouldn't because they want to do it. An artist doesn't cheat at painting. They want to paint. If you're going on a hike, you're not going to take the shortcut because you want to hike. you want to be there. So we just need college to be only with kids who want to learn.

So you have another place called college and the kids who are there want to read Aristotle and they're with other kids who want to read Aristotle. And then the professor says, hey everyone, write a paper about Aristotle and all the kids say, that's great.

I can't wait to do that. I'll write a paper about Aristotle and all the kids say that's great. I can't wait to do that. I'll write a paper about Aristotle that'll help me understand what I read better and deeper and then we'll compare papers and I'll read your paper and you can read mine and we can discuss it. Like that's what college maybe used to be

and it's not at all for anyone anymore. So we just gotta stop with the whole thing and if you wanna go to med school, then you need to go to a med school school and you can take the classes that you want to take so that you could be a better doctor. But this arms race of AI writing papers and then professors have AI that determines

if a paper is written by AI and then we have better AI that can get around the AI, like enough with that arms race, it's never gonna work. It's foolish, just be done with it. College needs to go away, you just have four year camp, graduate 12th grade, you go to camp for four years,

unless you wanna go to actual college, and no one would cheat there, because they actually wanna learn, not just party. When I was in college, we had to read a ton. And, so I was in the very beginning of this AI stuff. I wasn't AI, but it was Google Books

came out when I was in college. So that made researching papers way easier and it messed with my brain because the goal wasn't to read a book and learn it. I could pick out enough things about a book to just kind of throw an essay together and get through.

No one ever fails out of an Ivy League school. It's impossible. You could just hand in whatever slop you want and you'll get a passing grade. No one cares either. It's so cynical. It's all like, hey, prof, listen, I got in,

I'm paying you, you're teaching at Yale, I'm here, I just want the degree, you wanna get paid, just give me a grade and let's just get out of here. That's all it is. But it retrained my brain in some really bad ways. It took me like a decade before I learned to love to read. I would maybe pick up a book from time to time

and I'd skim it, because that's what you do in college. You skim the book, get enough of it to write an essay. So I couldn't get past that. I was reading books all the time and it took me a long time, literally a decade to realize, oh, I can just like take my time on this. I don't have to write an essay at the end if I can just read it because I want to read it. This is a major problem in our country

and we're not gonna see the effects of it for a while and then it'll be too late in a lot of ways. Slater, what does this have to do with the Bible? as an intro to this project that the White House has in coordination and conjunction and partnership with Hillsdale College called the Story of America.

250 years ago, all these awesome things happened in American history. And this is the time to connect to them. This is the time to learn about it, relearn about them, be reacquainted with them, tell them to your kids. This is it.

And so it's weird in American culture. I don't know if this is true with other cultures. We love round numbers like this. So it's now or never, like no one's gonna wanna learn these things on the 264th anniversary of the shot heard around the world, it's gotta be 250 or 300. So I don't wanna wait 50 years to relearn these things.

We gotta do it now, this is it, 250 years. So 250 years ago was Lexington and Concord. So I just wanna take a minute and tell part of the story and then we'll bring it to the Bible and just pause on this moment for a second. You're here because you want to be here.

There's no grade at the end. There's no getting a degree at the end of this. I'm not going to quiz you just because you want to know. And I want to know. I'm so excited that we have that little bit of an extra excuse to learn about these wonderful moments in our history. 250 years ago, Lexington and Concord.

There was an order from the king to the general in Massachusetts to stop the growing rebellion that is taking place in the colonies. So I want you to march 750 troops to Concord to seize a weapons depot that the patriots created. The fact that we had a weapons depot seems we're pretty far along. And we were ready when they came. We talked about Paul Revere a couple weeks ago, but we knew that

they had to fire the first shot. We were not going to be the ones to fire the first shot. Samuel Adams, he says, put your enemy in the wrong and keep him so is a wise maxim in politics, as well as in war. So the Brits tried to take this depot and there were 70 Minutemen in Lexington to meet these British soldiers. The Minutemen, I love that name, what a great name, whoever came up with that is awesome. Minutemen because they had to be ready at a minute's notice. No one knows who fired that first shot. That

shot heard around the world. But then the British yelled fire and a battle broke out. Eight colonists were killed and the news spread fast. The massacre at Lexington. Many colonists from all over ran to Concord. People pouring in from all over the countryside. There was a proper battle against the British there.

The British lost 14 men and they retreated. And in their retreat they were attacked at every turn by the scrappy colonists. Now a couple weeks ago we read, I think we did it here, I know we did it on the radio, we read Paul Revere's Ride, which kids used to memorize. Kids used to memorize it in their brains, not just pump it into AI. They used to know it in their brains,

they used to know it in their heart. They used to know it deep into their bones. It's a long poem, it's a lot to memorize. Maybe that'll be the summer project for the kids. And that poem ends with, this is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Paul Revere's ride. It ends with, through all our history to the last, in the hour of darkness and peril and

need, the people will waken and listen to hear the hurting hoofbeats of that steed and the midnight message of Paul Revere. And the point here is if there's ever, when there is a moment where we need to summon something deeper into us, we need to look back at our colonists. We need to look back at Paul Revere. We need to listen to the hoof beats of his steed and summon inside of us that same courage and spirit when we most need it.

Because it's been done before. You just read the story of Paul Revere and this is why it matters and this is why we made our kids memorize it. But I want to read another poem today. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1836, the Concord Hymn. This is, this was written for and read at the dedication of the 1836 battle monument.

This is a monument that we put up right next to the most beautiful bridge in America. The Old North Bridge. Give it a search. Search for the Old North Bridge. It's the most beautiful bridge in the entire country. And the Golden Gate Bridge is a beautiful bridge.

The Golden Gate Bridge is worth the hype. And the Brooklyn Bridge. I can't wait to show the kids the Brooklyn Bridge. We're going to New York City next weekend. And I can't wait to show the kids the Brooklyn Bridge. I can't wait to show the kids the Brooklyn Bridge. We're going to New York City next weekend and I can't wait to show the kids the Brooklyn Bridge. It's one of the first things we're gonna see the morning after we get there.

We're going right to the Brooklyn Bridge. So we got some great bridges in this country. No, there's nothing like the old North Bridge. And there's a humble monument there and it says here on the 19th of April 1775, 250 years ago, was made the first forcible resistance to British aggression. On the opposite bank stood the American militia. Here stood the invading army.

And on this spot, the first of the enemy fell in that war of that revolution, which gave independence to these United States. In gratitude to God and in love of freedom, this monument was erected, A.D. 1836. That's the inscription. Here's the poem that was read when that monument was dedicated. By the rude bridge, rude, what do you mean rude? Rude means simple, unadorned.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood, their flag to April's breeze unfurled. Here once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept, like the conqueror silence sleeps. Everyone's dead now. In time, the ruined bridge has swept down the dark stream, which seaward creeps. This all happened a long time ago, even though back then it was only six years ago.

On this green bank, by this soft stream, we set today a votive stone. Votive means something offered or consecrated, like the fulfillment of a vow. So we give this stone, this monument here. We set today a votive stone

that memory may their deed redeem when like our sires, our sons are gone. So just like the people who came before us, they're gone. One day our sons will be gone, but we need something here. We need the stone here so that we can redeem their deeds. That memory, we can never forget what they did.

Here's the last part. Spirit that made those heroes dare to die and leave their children free. Bid time and nature gently spare. Bid means we request. We request time and nature. So, spirit that made those heroes dare to die and leave their children free bid time and nature gently spare

the shaft we raise to them in thee Monuments matter I'll never forget Every summer for like three years. Maybe I was like 10 or so around that age. I would go, we lived in Pennsylvania and then we moved to New York.

And for like three summers, I would go back to Pennsylvania and I would stay with some family friends for the summer to swim on the swim team. And it was just great, great memories. And Joe was the dad, tough guy, he's a lineman in Philadelphia.

And not for the Eagles, but like power alignment. And we were, he's a veteran, and we were driving somewhere and there was a tiny little monument. And I said something disrespectful about it. Like, oh, like it's a little, you know, like who cares about that? It was something, I forget what it was,

but you know, something snarky that a 10 year old would say who doesn't understand what's happening. And he was on it. And I don't remember what he said, but I remember his attitude. It was something like the size doesn't matter.

It's what it means. It's what it represents. It's the people that it's dedicated to are what really matter. And actually that's really interesting memory I have because I don't, I remember visualizing it, but I can't remember what they said, but I got it.

Interesting, I got the message. We need to know our history and we need to know it in our heads. We need to know it in our hearts. We need to know it in our bones. We can't AI it.

Now let's turn to the Bible. Just reading this yesterday with the kiddos, Joshua four, this Israelites 40 years wandering in the desert, old generation, all gone. Now it's just the kids. Except for Caleb and Joshua. Moses is dead. Everyone's gone.

Here's Joshua 4.

And it came to pass that when all the people had completely crossed over the Jordan so it's the second departing of a river or sea that the Lord spoke to Joshua saying take for yourselves twelve men from the people

one man from every tribe and command them saying take for yourself twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan from the place where the priest's feet stood firm. You shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight." So Joshua told him what God said and Joshua said that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come saying, what do those stones mean to you? Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were

cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off and these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever. This happened a couple times, six or so times that we know of in the Old Testament, setting up stones as a memorial. And I love this one here,

because it's explicit that the intent is to provoke questions from kids. We're setting up this thing so that kids say, what's that? What's that about? What does that mean? Why is that there? Who did that? I said we're going to New York next week. We're

taking a boat ride from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Statue of Liberty and then back. What's that thing? What is this big statue thing? Why is that there? Where did this come from? Who built it? Why? We cannot let the deeds of our ancestors be forgotten. And so much of it will naturally, right? Just because, you know, it's, I can't remember everything, but we need to

remember as much as we can. We need to do this in America, our history, our nation, the American story, it's a beautiful thing. But more importantly, much, much more importantly, the story of the Bible, oh, the New Testament, our ancestors, our ancestors.

I feel a deep connection with George Washington. We need to feel a way deeper connection with Abraham. Galatians 3, 7, know then that it is those of faith that you and me, you made it this far. We're at minute 21 of this podcast.

You made it 21 minutes. What are you doing here still? Why are you listening this long? Oh, because you're a person of faith. Know then that it is of those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. Wow, you are in a spiritual bloodline. Galatians 3 29, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Wow. All the fathers of the Old Testament are our fathers too. We are

grafted to that olive tree, Romans 11. Parents and grandparents listening right now, make it a mission to teach your kids about George Washington. Make it a mission to teach your kids about the signing of the Declaration of Independence and those who met at the Second Continental Congress and all the stories of America.

Make sure they know all the stories of our country and all the great Americans who built this place. And infinitely fold. Make sure your kids and grandkids know our ancestors. Going all the way back to Abraham, going all the way back to Adam. What a beautiful thing to study

American history and also our spiritual roots to feel a connection to the great heroes of America, but even more to our ancestors in the Bible and to Jesus Christ. Mike Slater.locals.com.

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Fox & Friends

We were on Fox & Friends talking about all of the train robberies in CA. It's so bad the train company says they may have to ride right THROUGH Los Angeles entirely and never slow down lol. What a joke this state it.

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20220122_110000_FOX_and_Friends_Saturday/start/5640/end/5700

That link is a bit odd, I've attached a short video to get the gist.

In short, The rich get richer, the poor get the handouts and the middle class gets out of town.

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Mike Slater@slaterradio

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Dean Abbott,
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Most men aren't taught that a relationship with a woman means accepting responsibility. No one tells us that a woman represents not only pleasure, but obligation.
The fact that having a relationship with a woman means responsibility and obligation never enters many men's minds.

When these men enter into a relationship with a woman, they are overwhelmed by her needs, her feminine communication style, and her emotions.
Moreover, he unconsciously resents her for having needs at all since he has been conditioned to see her solely as a source of pleasure.
When her anger and disappointment over his irresponsibility gets intense enough, he splits in search of another woman.
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Mike Slater@slaterradio

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Mike Slater@slaterradio

April 20, 2023

Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023

I found a way to easily transcribe the podcasts, so I will post them here first before they go out to iTunes and the rest.

Good morning. Welcome to The Morning Motivation, brought to you by Public Square and Patriot Gold Group. I'm grateful you're here. I was reading a sermon by the great Puritan preacher John Owen in the mid-1600s. I'm so fascinated by this time period, 1600s, early 1700s. We focus a lot on our founding fathers. I think that the Tea Party movement and just conservatism in general has focused a lot on the founding fathers, and that's amazing, but I'm very fascinated by our founding grandfathers or great-grandfathers, the people who created the culture that our founding fathers were raised in.

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Mike Slater@slaterradio

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Inflation and ANGER

I am angry and frustrated. With our Rulers. For getting us in this terrible economy. It doesn't have to be this way.

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Please leave a 5-star review on Itunes. We have a ton of momentum, this is about to break through! Thank you!

Also, I haven't done any lives anywhere becauase we're hosting a daily TV show "Road to Misterms" on thefirsttv.com, and it's taken all of my extra time. And my wife is giving birth any day now, so...it's been a lot around here. But after the midterms, time will free up.

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Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty

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WarriorSandy1@WarriorSandy1

September 30, 2024

This is spot on Mike! We have become dehumanized! You can not read a persons real needs on a screen nor text! A job or passion offers human interaction and I pray these stay at home on our tax dollars find that truth. We have lost our way… People need hugs and love and someone to listen. If we do not have that face to face interaction we will become nothing more than those who can not deal with lives issues.
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Kellypreston78@Kellypreston78

December 05, 2023

Good morning @MikeSlater and all my fellow Slater Crusaders! I've been following Mike for years and after having MANY one way conversations with the radio or podcast, have finally joined the community here on locals.com. I can't wait for the chance to share thoughts and ideas with you all. Thank you Mike for creating this place. I hope we can help inform each other about our world and support growing our relationship and faith in Jesus.

Lavender315@Lavender315

March 08, 2023

Hi @Mike Slater! Are you coming back to locals? Haven’t seen any posts in some time.

Mike Slater@slaterradio

June 09, 2025

Los Angeles and The Curse Of Insurrection

Politics By Faith, June 9, 2025

Deuteronomy 28 has a list of curses that will come upon the Israelites if they turn from God. They're horrific, unthinkable evils. One of them looks a lot like what's happening in Los Angeles.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here.

I'm talking about what's happening in Los Angeles right now. And I don't know if I could see this ending pretty soon or I could see this going on for a long time being worse than even what happened there in 92. So some things to know as you take in more content about what's happening there. This is the background that's most important to know. We know of two exact locations, and I heard there was a third, but we don't know the details

of that one, but two ICE operations to remove criminal illegal aliens. Here's who they detained.

This was on Friday, June 7th.

Excuse me, June 6th. We have a citizen of Peru who has previously been convicted of robbery and given a 10 year prison sentence. It's quite a robbery to give 10 years. Citizen of Indonesia, convictions for narcotics driving under the influence, any legal entry.

Citizen of Honduras, who's been arrested for distribution of heroin, cocaine, and domestic violence. Citizen of Mexico, who's been arrested for grand theft, larceny, and possession of a prohibited weapon. A citizen of Vietnam,

who's been arrested for second degree murder. He was sentenced 15 years to life. Don't know how he was back on the streets, but he was until Friday. And then a citizen of the Philippines who's been arrested for theft, assault, burglary, and rape. That is who all of this is about. Right? This is who the ICE raid picked up. So when you see Newsom and Karen Bass and all the rest

talking about our community and the fear that's in our community and we're so distraught and upset and disturbed and you see all the rioting going on, it's about ICE operations that picked up these people.

It's the first thing to know. aspirations that picked up these people.

That's the first thing to know. Second thing, the demographics of California is plurality Hispanic. Last time, the most recent numbers we have, 40% Hispanic, California's 40% Hispanic, 34% white, 16% Asian, only about 6% black. LA, the most recent numbers, I saw 47% Hispanic,

Mayor Bass just yesterday said over 50% Hispanic. So we'll call it 50%. There are parts of Hispanic, excuse me, there are parts of LA that are 100% Hispanic. And not just, well, my ancestors are from Mexico, but no, like California used to be Mexico and should be again.

That type of Hispanic people who talk about me, gente, my people, my familia, la raza, the race. That's like the big activist group from for Hispanics is the race. People who can talk like that. You can't do that in America. Americans can't talk about my people, my blood.

The head of our 250th anniversary for America, Rosie Rios, there's speeches where she's gone to Mexico and talked about my people, my blood, how California should still be Mexico. How the Mexican, my people, they're the greatest people, they're so passionate.

These are the Hispanics that are in Los Angeles. They're also very poor. East LA has a poverty rate of 20%. Poverty for a family of four is $32,000. That's 20% of East LA. $32,000 for a family of four in LA,

you're in a bad place. And that's 20%. You know, you up the income for family four to $40,000 and now you're at 30% make that, right? So it goes higher, like it's poor. And in LA, 54% of people speak a language other than English at home. So this is the demographic background

of what we're talking about here. Talking about in these neighborhoods, 100% Hispanic, very poor, don't speak English. It's also a lawless place, California. LA is just the pinnacle of steal whatever you want, homeless everywhere, businesses shutting down,

filth on the streets, neighborhoods overrun. It's horrible. Also, no one can read. There's a, this home, so there are two raids. One is somewhere in the Garment District and then another one at a Home Depot in Westlake.

Westlake, there's a high school right nearby called Miguel Contreras Learning Complex. 9% science proficiency, 11% math proficiency, somehow a 44% reading proficiency, but I doubt that. I doubt that very highly. And the school inside this complex

is the Los Angeles School of Global Studies. It's a specifically, and deliberately, it's a social justice school, they call it that. It's like the school of social justice. So we're talking super Hispanic, poor,

don't speak English, can't read. And Westlake, again where that Home Depot is, So, we're talking super Hispanic, poor,

don't speak English, can't read. And Westlake, again where that Home Depot is, used to be a quintessential old Hollywood. There's this beautiful Westlake Theater three blocks away from the Home Depot and it's like this beautiful gold ornate, like top Hollywood theater.

And now it's Bonito's Swap Shop and New Life Immigration Services. You would never go to this part of town. It is a slum beyond slum. It's the whole sidewalk. I think it's 7th Ave.

It's all like a flea market. It's a constant 24-7 flea market with umbrellas covering the whole sidewalk. I put it up on my Twitter, Slater Radio. You can see just this place is absolutely disgusting and It didn't used to be that way

But now we're enriched I'm so enriched by by so many people from Mexico waving the Mexican flag, which by the way you like They love Mexico so much, but if you threaten to send them there They'll tell you how their life is over and how that's horrible and you can't, how dare you send someone to this place whose flag I'm waving on the streets. So that's the scene. Now we can go over all the details of what happened this weekend,

but more and more are going to be coming out and more and more things are going to happen here. So I just want you to know this first background things about the demographics and the situation in LA and where this is all coming out of. Okay, let's turn to the Bible here. Let's talk about Proverbs 28 and I want to start by reading it and you tell me if this is relevant to us or not. Deuteronomy 28, but it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord

your God, to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. This is all conditional and it is in many cases around the Bible. 1 Kings 2 which we quoted last week says, if your sons take heed to their way to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. There's a lot of ifs and here's a big one in Deuteronomy 28. If you, in this

case, if you do not obey, then these are the terrible things are going to happen. May I read the list here? Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the country. So it's everywhere. There's no escaping it. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. So everywhere, your homes, farms, kitchen, everywhere you'll be cursed. "'Cursed shall be the fruit of your body

and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Cursed shall be you when you come in and cursed shall be you when you go out. The Lord will send on you cursing,

confusion and rebuke in all that you set your hands to do until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly." You're starting to get the picture here because of the will. Israel, like this is what God said in Israel, like, if you don't obey here's what will happen. "...because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until he has consumed you from the land which you have forsaken me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you

until he has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. You will have no health. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, with mildew.

They shall pursue you until you perish. And your heavens, which are over your head, shall be bronze, and the earth, which is under you, shall be iron. The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust. From the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.

The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them." So you're not going to win in any war. "'You shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. Everyone's gonna hate you. Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air

and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. The Lord will strike you with all the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. madness and blindness and confusion of heart. Ooh, madness, blindness, confusion of heart. You shall grope at noonday as a blind man gropes in

darkness. You shall not prosper in your ways. You shall only be oppressed and plundered continually and no one shall save you. We haven't gotten to the relevant one here yet, although all this is true in ways already. You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes.

Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. See, it's unjust, just unjust, horrible things. Your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you and shall not be restored to you. Your sheep shall be given to your enemies and you shall have no one to rescue them. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people and your eyes shall look and fall, fail with longing

for them all day long. And there shall be no strength in your hand. A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually." Think of the Israelites, like, all right we get it, we'll obey. So you shall be driven mad, they didn't by the way, you should be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head." We're getting closer.

"'The Lord will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, and you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you an astonishment is like Like confusion more more like the confusion of the mind You shall carry much seed out of the field but gather little in it for the locusts shall consume it

You shall plant vineyards and tend them But you shall neither drink of that wine nor gather the grapes for the worm shall eat them You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity. Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land." All right, here we go. You ready? The alien...

Congratulations if you made it this far through Deuteronomy 28. The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you but you shall not lend to him. Why not? Because he's wealthier, he's richer, he has all the power. He shall be the head. You shall be the tail. Moreover, all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of

the Lord, your God to keep his commandments and his statutes, which he commanded you.

Okay.

So what, what do we do with this? Well practically we do what John Nolte on the radio today said, which is Trump just needs to follow the law. Follow the law and he'll be fine. Don't worry about the optics of things from your perspective. Just do what is right and the law is correct.

And as Trump said, if they spit, we hit. So if they cross a line of assault, then you arrest them and that's it. Just follow the law and you'll be fine. Here politically. Spiritually this is a curse upon our nation. Is to have a nation where foreigners come in and overtake us.

And don't obey the laws.

And it's okay to be a nation that has laws and to enforce those laws. Also know spiritually that we are foreigners in this world. And we have to obey God's law when we're here too.

And if you don't, among many curses that God will reign upon us is to be overtaken by the alien, not as an invading army, but the alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher. By the way, that's only half of Deuteronomy 28. There's a whole bunch more curses to go. You should read all of them, but I just wanted to build to that one because as you read, and one of them is you're gonna eat your babies and that ended up happening. We've talked about that before in this podcast. There's a siege of Jerusalem and mothers ate their

children in desperation, cannibalism. This is among the curses. So among these horrible curses, this is one of them. The alien among you shall rise higher and higher above you. Now I'll just end on a political point, I usually don't, but it's amazing that Mexicans are allowed to love Mexico. They can love it, love, love, love, love,

wave the Mexican flag on top of a burning car in our country, they can love it. The chair of America's 250 can talk about mi gente, mi familia, la raza, and all that. They can love Mexico. They don't want to be there obviously, but they can love it. And I love America. And I want it to be America again. And I'm not gonna pretend or act like I'm the bad guy for to be America again. And I'm not gonna pretend or act like I'm the bad guy for wanting that anymore. MikeSlater.Locals.com. Transcript commercial free on the website Mike Slater, dot Locals, dot com.

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Mike Slater@slaterradio

June 06, 2025

The Trump and Elon Battle and The Bible

Politics By Faith, June 6, 2025

The Trump and Elon Battle and The Bible There is trouble in paradise, it seems. The Bible has advice for them and all of us.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you very much for being here. So we're going to talk about this Elon Trump battle that's going on. It's going to change minute to minute. So let's just get caught up here and then we'll bring it to the Bible here. Where to start? Let's just start here. Elon Musk doesn't like the big beautiful bill because it doesn't cut enough spending. And he's right about that,

doesn't cut nearly enough spending. Trump, his argument is we're dealing with the realities on the ground here with the Congress that we have. And in this one big beautiful bill are all these things that we would never get done otherwise, all these campaign promises that we're actually delivering on

and we should pass it for all those reasons. And Elon says, it doesn't cut enough spending. And there is no country if we keep going down this road of debts, of deficits and debt. So Elon wrote, so Trump said in this, in the Oval Office, he was with the Chancellor from Germany

and he was asked about it. And he said that Elon doesn't support this bill because they take out the subsidies for electric vehicles. So Elon wrote on Twitter, I'm going to try to do this best I can real time like as this happened over an hour period on Twitter yesterday, Elon said, whatever, keep the electric vehicle solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil and gas subsidies are touched, very unfair, but ditch the mountain of disgusting pork in the bill.

In the entire history of civilization, there's never been legislation that is both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this. Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill.

Slim and beautiful is the way. As I'm reading that, I am remembering that there's another Elon tweet that I probably should have started with. Here it is. This was two days ago.

Elon said, I can't keep it in anymore. He said, I'm sorry, I can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. He said, shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong.

You know it. So that was the start of it. That was two days ago. Okay. So then Trump responded. Then Elon gave the response.

I just gave you, okay. Then Elon said, without me, Trump would have lost the election. "'Dems would control the house "'and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. "'Such ingratitude.'" Then Elon said,

"'The easiest way to save money in our budget, "'billions and billions of dollars, "'is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies "'and contracts. "'I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it. He later said, Elon was wearing thin. I asked him to leave.

I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted. That he knew for months I was gonna do and he just went crazy. Elon then responded, time to drop the really big bomb. Trump is in the Epstein files.

That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT. Trump then said, I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress and he gives all the reasons why. Then Elon said that Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.

Then he said the Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year. Okay. That's the latest as of now. So you got the back and forth. Super. I don't know how much we should talk about Elon here. Let me just, and I've said all these things at different points, but I'll put them all together here. When it comes to cutting spending and doge, I've all in, it's incredible, amazing, it's total support of Elon.

When it comes to creating, innovating and inventing and going to space and running these companies, no one's like him, he's brilliant and genius and the way he runs his companies with efficiencies he does and all the companies he runs, it's remarkable and he's the great inventor of our era. He also is not a Christian at all and you see it in many different ways that he

has a very unbiblical worldview. And he doesn't claim to be a Christian so it's fine but and you can look at it with his fathering. It's an abomination what he's doing with these kids. He just he has this belief that we don't have enough people in the world and we're not making enough kids. I used to agree with this I used to make that argument but I'm kind of thinking maybe that's not entirely true. I don't know. I got to think more about that, but he thinks there needs to be more people in the world.

He's very much taking it upon himself and he just fathers children and then abandons them. And he has a ton of money. So he got plenty of money. They're taking care of. He's like a compound in Texas that they all like live in

or I don't know, but it's just weird. He's not a father. He's not a proper father. One of his kids, and this is one of the reasons why he supported Trump, one of his kids that he abandoned is transgender. And clearly this is a result of dad abandoning this child. And this boy, now he sees a girl and that's all Elon's fault. So he's a terrible dad.

Just by, listen, if an NFL player did this, and many of them do, I'd be critical of him. And I have been, and Elon's the same thing. Also, he has this Neuralink company that puts computer chips in people's brains. I hope that thing fails.

So I wish only the worst on that company because where that is going to lead and no one seems to care at all when everyone just puts a computer chip in their brain. And Elon, if the great military advice of the world is you wanna gain the high ground,

Elon with all of his satellites is the owner of the high ground. He has the ultimate high ground. And I don't know how wise that is, especially with someone who has a worldview that is not good and very antithetical to the Bible.

That's for sure.

Again, Doge, efficiency, government waste, total agreement. Everything else, nope. Not in any way. Now, is it better if these two are getting along and agreeing on Government getting rid of government waste I think so maybe not I mean we'll see how things pan out Is this the end of MAGA? No, this is the end of the world. No, we told the story this morning of

Ben Frank, excuse me, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and they were best friends best friends they wrote the Declaration of Independence together Adam Jefferson wrote it, but Adams consulted a lot. And they were great fellow patriots. And then they hated each other. And they hated each other their whole lives. And at the end of their life, they died on the same day.

Happened to be the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Isn't that incredible? July 4th, 1826, they both died on the same day, and when Adams died, his final words were, Thomas Jefferson survives. And he did not know that Thomas Jefferson

died just a couple hours earlier. What is that story? So we'd like to look back and think, oh, they were best friends. They weren't, they hated each other. They didn't start that way.

But we could still look back on him and be like, Oh, they were awesome. Thomas Jefferson was awesome. And it was Thomas Jefferson wanted a small limited government with states rights. And John Adams wanted a larger central government. And they're still both amazing patriots and we can love them for the great things that each of them did. And we do the same thing with Elon and Trump moving forward.

None of that ever changes. And MAG is not going anywhere. And Trump is the CEO and Elon was an employee and now he's not anymore. And that's that. So I think it's going to be okay and get alpha males going at it and it's not a big deal. Now we got some Bible lessons to learn from this. You have two people here who are not Christians and we see what happens when that is the case. I want to talk about gossip and how to confront people.

First on the gossip Elon said that Trump's pedophile. That's what that was with the always in the Epstein files Now I don't think it's true Maybe he's mentioned there once because he was Jeffrey Epstein was a member of Mar-a-Lago for a while before Trump kicked him out but I can't believe that Trump was in the Epstein files and the Democrats just sat on

that like they hid that from the American people. The Democrats did? I don't think so. So this is, at best, gossip. Leviticus 19 says, you shall not go about as a tail bearer among your people. What's a tail bearer among your people. What's a tail bearer?

Adam Clark, Bible commentaries in the 1790s, he says, the person who, a tail bearer is the person who travels about dealing in scandal and calumny. Calumny is making false defamation statements about someone, slander, slander, calumny, slander. Getting the secrets of every person and family and retelling them wherever he goes. A more despicable character exists.

Not such a person is a pest to society and should be exiled from the inhabitations from the habitations of man. Do not be a tailbearer among your people. I spread gossip the other day. Actually, let me show this first. I was talking to a friend the other day and they were just talking about how much

they're working on not gossiping. And they have a conviction against gossip, as we all should. I gossiped the other day and it felt so wrong, so, oh, it was disgusting. I told my wife about someone who I heard from someone else cheated on their wife and I told her,

I felt so dirty about it. It was weird, because I heard it a while ago and I was like, ah, I don't know, I can't tell. And then it just came out, it was like ridiculous. It was like so disgraceful. And I felt so dirty because I have no idea if it's even true.

But it made my wife's impression of this person bad and for what? What was the point of that? I don't even know what happened. I just added to the net negative impression of this other person. I feel awful about it. So I mean, all I can do is vow to never do that again.

Just keep it to yourself. Don't be a tail bearer, God says. And it's all throughout the Bible. Proverbs 20, 19, a gossip betrays a confidence, so avoid anyone who talks too much. Proverbs 11, 13, a gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret. So don't gossip.

And just a great overall one, Ephesians 4.29, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may also benefit those who listen. Do not put people on blast on Twitter. It's not that, Bob didn't say that exactly, but that's, that's the idea. Now what about confronting people? Christians should confront people differently

than people in the world. Matthew 18, moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, and if you guys come to an agreement here, then you've gained your brother. So if someone sins against you, you have two options.

You either drop it, move on, or if you can't do that, you go to them. Not Twitter. Go to them. Charles Spurgeon, he said, we must not let trespass rankle in our bosom. So if someone sends against you and it's like eating away at you, that's not, don't do that.

But he said, nor, I mean, like don't keep it in, if you can't move on, nor may we go and publish the matter abroad. But also don't go tell it ever. We must seek out the offender and tell him, him, his fault as if he were not aware of it as perhaps he may not be that happens a lot of time to like oh hey you said this like what I didn't oh my gosh I'm so sorry and and you'll find a brother meaning the matter gets cleared up

hopefully and brings you together that the irony is not lost that Trump and Elon their division here is over a bill called reconciliation so so maybe one maybe if they, they're supposed to have a phone call today, so maybe they will reconcile. There will be reconciliation over reconciliation.

But if you have this one-on-one conversation with a person, you clear things up, you gain a brother. Also, you've prevented, or you're not sinning by gossiping all over town. So got lots of wins here. But if he will not hear,

take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear then tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.

Just wise advice. Don't call people pedophiles on Twitter. It's not the most biblical course of action. Now Trump and Elon are different, but we should take advice from the Bible and do what the Bible says. Don't gossip, and if you have a problem with someone, go confront them directly, ending

Don't gossip, and if you have a problem with someone, go confront them directly, ending love. And if you have a problem with someone, go confront them directly and do more.

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Mike Slater@slaterradio

June 05, 2025

Ben Franklin and The Big Beautiful Bill

Politics By Faith, June 5, 2025

Can we be surprised that Congress wasted money when frugality among We The People is no longer a virtue?

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you so much for being here. Yesterday we talked about Pride Month and we talked about lack of self-control and read some proverbs about pride and about sexual morality and self-control and lust and watching out for the adulterous woman. Today I want to talk about another aspect of self-control and that is with money.

Now this is a perfect timing because of the debate going back and forth about the one big beautiful bill. So the very short of it is this bill passed the house barely and now it's in the Senate and the senators, there's enough senators that are saying this thing stinks, it needs to cut way, way, way more spending. People like Rand Paul saying, I'm not going to vote to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. That's crazy. We're supposed to be the people against

raising the debt ceiling and against spending money we don't have. That's nuts. So there's a debate going back and forth and I hope, because that's all I can do right now is, and just have a good attitude, that it will result in a better bill. But they have three weeks to get this done, until the 4th of July, so I guess maybe a little less than four weeks to get this done and see what they can pull together. But now we also got a lot of Elon coming out and saying some very dramatic things against

Trump and now Trump is, ah, it's a whole thing. I don't wanna focus on that. I wanna focus on us. Made the argument this morning that spending is a moral issue. As Andrew Breitbart said, politics is downstream of culture.

And so culture comes first. What is culture? Culture is just a collection of people that have shared values and virtues. We have the Congress that I believe best reflects we the people. We are a people for the most part, who do not have a biblical view of work or spending. And therefore we have a government that reflects that.

Ben Franklin said, rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt. He said if you know how to spend less than you get you have the philosopher's stone. Our Congress does not have the philosopher's stone but either do the American people in their own lives at this point. We have more debt now than ever before. I mean, personal debt, like people have more debt. So how can we be a people that have more debt than ever before? And be like, oh, congress can't believe you have so much debt. That's really, really

unacceptable. Like, what did you think? Politics is downstream of culture.

It is a sin to be a sluggard.

It is a sin to be a profligate, waster, spender, waster of money, materialism. All these things are sinful. So ideally, you have a culture that does the opposite of these things are sinful. So ideally you have a culture that does the opposite of these things and calls them virtues. Okay, well the opposite of being a sluggard is being a hard worker.

The opposite of being wasteful is being frugal. So we had a culture that, and we have one, the opposite of being irresponsible is being responsible, personal responsibility. So we had a culture that, and we have one of the opposite of being irresponsible is being responsible, personal responsibility. So we had a culture that built up these three things. Like think about it.

Like, all right. So the Bible says you shouldn't be a sluggard, which means that it's people's natural instinct to be a sluggard, which means it takes a lot of effort to not be a sluggard. That effort we call virtue, that concerted, directed, intentional effort we call virtue. Effort to be something that one is naturally not, right? To do the opposite of sin, it's virtue. So we had a culture for a long time that celebrated the opposite of those sins. We

had a culture for a long time that celebrated virtues. Makes sense. Here's a list of sins. What are the opposite of those things? Great. Let's do those. Let's honor those. Let's celebrate those. Let's value those. And then we'll have better lives and better families and a stronger country.

We haven't done that in a long time on our personal lives, on a personal level, on an individual level. We are now a culture of laziness. We're a culture of no responsibility, we're a culture of materialism, we're a culture of wasting money and going into debt and that is reflected in Congress. So it's hard to say, oh Congress are wasting so

much, spending so much money, we don't have when the American people are billions of dollars in debt. Let me look this up here. Credit card debt. We go again, it's a podcast later, you can press pause. I thought I was gonna say tens of billions. And I was like, man, it's not that much.

The American people currently hold $1.18 trillion in credit card debt. 1.1 trillion. And we're we're like Congress how dare you be 37 trillion in it. What did you think? New Jersey has an average balance of $10,000 per cardholder. Come on. This is a reflection of America. Congress is. So if we want to fix Congress it's not gonna happen by like raving about it. It's

gonna happen by changing the American people in our culture first. Okay, before we get to the Bible, I wanna share what I did again this morning because it's so good. It's Ben Franklin.

Ben Franklin wrote a wonderful work of art called The Way to Wealth, 1758. And he broke it down into three points. It's a beautiful story where there's these guys complaining about taxes outside of a business, and then this old man comes up,

this wise old man comes up and just starts giving advice. And it's beautiful. Let me cut to the point here. He has three sections, one on industry, hard work, one on responsibility, not being dependent on other people, and one on being frugal.

Let's jump right to the frugal one. Actually, I take that back. Let me share this one first on being industrious. He says, industry need not wish, is the wise man, as poor Richard says, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting. There are no gains without pains.

That was my teacher when I was like 12. Poor Richard says at the working man's house, hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Diligence is the mother of good luck,

and God gives all things to industry.

Then plow deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep. Work while it's called today, for you know not how much you will be hindered tomorrow. One today is worth two tomorrows. If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Marr, you then, your own master, be ashamed to catch yourself idle.

When there is much to be done for yourself, your family, your country, be up by the peep of day. Let not the sun look down and say say in glorious here he lies. That's like beautiful, like unbelievably awesome American Ben Franklin stuff right there. All right. Now the saving. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business,

personal responsibility and other section of this letter. But to the but to these, we must add frugality. If we would make our industry more certainly successful. The Indies have not made Spain rich because her outages are greater than her incomes. Away then with your expensive follies. You may think that perhaps a little tea or a little punch now and then, a diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then. Diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer,

and a little entertainment now and then can be no great matter. But remember what poor Richard says, many a little makes a nickel. Nickel, or for a lot. So many a little makes a lot.

And farther, beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship. Here you are, all get together at this venue of fineries and knickknacks. You call them goods, but if you do not take care, they will prove evils to some of you. Remember what poor Richard says, Buy what thou hast no need of, and before long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.

That's just perfect. Perfect, we are so broke in government, in our country, we're so broke from all the wasteful spending. Well, listen, it goes both ways. But to be real, on an individual level,

we spend so much money on things we don't need, and then when an important expense comes up, we don't need. And then when an important expense comes up, we don't have the money. Broke, can't afford it, why not? And at the federal level, it's the same thing. Oh, can't afford to educate our kids, just we have no more money.

Like what, why not? Wow, we just blew it all over here. They won't admit that, but that's what it is. We had a guy, wrote me a note, So you just work in the military and I said like the Air Force or whoever will ask for a billion dollars And the first thing they do is spend it on a golf course And then they come back like oh we need more money. We don't have enough money for an airplane hanger and a runway We're out. We're out of money. What would you spend it on?

You know

More and more of our budget today is just interest of the debt. Money we can't spend on the things we need. The waste is killing us. We are drowning. We are drowning in the shiny stuff. Here's what Ben Franklin said, these are not the necessaries of life.

They can scarcely be called the conveniences and yet only because they look pretty, how many want to have them? The artificial wants of mankind thus become more numerous than the natural, meaning the important things." Now here's a little bit that I did not share on the radio today because I still feel bad about, I think it was like Monday's episode, yeah Monday because of the Swim Meet, I had to go early, it was a very short episode. So we'll go a little longer. He talks about borrowing money to pay for things.

He says, but what madness must it be to run a debt for these superfluities? Superfluities, superfluities, superfluities. We are offered by terms of this store, six months credit. And that perhaps has induced some of us to attend it because we cannot spare the ready money and hope now to be fine without it.

But ah, think what you do when you run in debt. You give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor. You will be in fear when you speak to him. You will make poor pitiful sneaking excuses

and by degrees come to lose your veracity and sink into base downright lying. For as poor Richard says, the second vice is lying, the first is running a debt. And again to the same purpose, lying rides upon debts back. Whereas a freeborn Englishman, again this is 1758, a freeborn Englishman ought not to be ashamed or afraid to see or speak to any man living, but poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue.

It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright, as poor Richard truly says. Now my favorite part of this, oh, I have two favorite parts of this letter. Let me do the Christian one first. Ben Franklin says, he talks about hard work, talks about personal responsibility, frugality,

all these virtues. And he ends with this, this doctrine, my friends is reason and wisdom. But after all, in the end, do not depend too much upon your own industry and frugality and prudence. That's the word I've been looking for. Prudence instead of personal responsibility. Same idea. Though excellent things, like these are great. Industry, frugality, prudence are great.

For they may all be blasted without the blessing of heaven. And therefore ask that blessing humbly and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it but comfort and help them. Remember Job suffered and was afterwards prosperous." Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin, our atheist founding father. Here's my other favorite part of this letter, of this story. So again there's a bunch of people outside of the store about to go buy stuff and they're complaining about taxes.

And the first part of the letter, this old man comes up and he's like, listen, you guys complain about your taxes, but you waste even more being with your laziness, you waste even more with your silliness, your foolishness, your bad decisions.

Waste way more than you pay in taxes. the taxes were like 10% not 50%. So I don't know, poor Richard would have a different take today, but the old man comes and he gives this great speech to these people and here's the end of the letter. Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it and approved the doctrine and immediately practiced the contrary. For the store opened and they began to buy extravagantly,

notwithstanding all his cautions. It didn't matter. Everyone agreed with it. Everyone knew it was the right thing. Everything knew this guy was right. And they immediately did the exact opposite. And Ben Franklin says, I resolved to be the better for having heard this story. And though I had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou will do the same, thy profit will

be as great as mine." We lack the moral and biblical understanding of money and of hard work and frugality and prudence. So of course, our elected representatives will lack those virtues as well. And it's even harder for them to have those virtues because they don't feel the consequences of them wasting money, our money.

Right, at least when you, if someone doesn't work hard and waste their money, they feel the consequences of it. When Congress doesn't work hard and waste their money, waste our money, then they get reelected. So they even even grew. We need to have so much of this virtue. It's such an abundance of it that the people we elect can even overcome the

inherent structures that make it even harder for someone to be industrious and frugal. We have a long way to go for that to happen. Let me just wrap up with a couple scriptures here, a couple Proverbs. First on being a sluggard, just because I love that word. Proverbs 6, go to the ant you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise. How long will you lie there you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? Proverbs 34 for the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing,

but the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Proverbs 19, 24, a sluggard buries his hand in his dish. He will not even bring it back to his mouth. I was like, can't even can't be like, it's so lazy. I can't even put the fork to my face. Proverbs 26, 14 14 as a door turns on its hinges so does the sluggard on the bed. It's back and forth, back and forth. Won't even get up. Proverbs 21 20 a wise man on money, a wise man saves for the future, but a foolish man spends whatever he gets and a foolish government spends two trillion dollars more than they steal from the American people. from the American people. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com.

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