The President launched his "Shield of the Americas" union to fight the drug cartels in our hemisphere. This is a righteous project that needs to be celebrated. We should be grateful that our founders set up a justice system based on Old Testament principles, so now we can be the model for the world.
Welcome to Politics by Faith. This is where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with peace and perspective because there's new headlines every day. But Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story. Today, we're going to talk about the shield of the Americas. Quick programming note before we get to it, though, this is not my normal background or my normal camera.
If you're watching on YouTube, we just started a YouTube page, youtube . com slash politics by faith, just Blew past 100 subscribers. I think we're up to 173. Thank you so much for subscribing. YouTube . com slash politics by faith.
We are, um, we just started recording these and then I went on vacation. Bad timing for recording nice looking videos. Apologies for that. But, uh, our goal is to go on as many trips. I want to show our kids as much about America as we possibly can while they're still young. So we're taking as many trips as we can.
Right now we're in Southern Utah, Moab, Arches National Park. Kids just hiked, probably did four miles or so, not too much, but they have to go on these side quests and climb every rock they see. And there's just, there's nothing but rocks here. So we're just, they're just climbing on stuff all the time. So we're out there for like five or six hours or so. The parents are beat.
My wife and I are pretty tired right now. And the kids are outside playing tag. They're fine. Also, there's a little shuffleboard table upstairs. So you may hear some banging. For some reason, the shuffleboard, it's like shuffleboard on the table.
It's not on the ground, like on a cruise ship. It's right on the table. But for some reason, it's the loudest thing I've ever heard. So you may hear a lot of banging. That would be the shuffleboard upstairs. All right.
So the shield of the Americas. This is a wonderful thing that needs to be celebrated and we need to know that it happened. Donald Trump has in one year completely changed the global world order. It is indeed a new world order. I know that sounds very scary, a new world order. But what I mean to say is there was an ordering of the world and now it's different.
It's a new order of things. And that happens, right? Things are always changing. We mentioned the other day, might've been on the satellite show that the British naval fleet is a pittance. of what it once was. There was a period of time, three, 400 years when the British ruled the world.
Their empire was 25 % of the world's landmass. Their Navy was enormous. Now it barely exists. And they refused to help us with the war with Iran because they didn't want to upset their Muslim voters. Trump, the other day on truth social, he said the UK, our once great ally, maybe the greatest of them all is giving serious, thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East. That's okay, Prime Minister Starmer.
We don't need them any longer, but we will remember. We don't need people that join wars after we've already won. So that allyship is changing because it's a different country. It's a Muslim country now. The arrangements in the Middle East are all changing. Iran would be one of them, but all these Middle Eastern countries are now aligned with the United States.
All the Trump trade deals are all about recentering manufacturing and trade towards America and against China for every country. With the Trump told every country, you got to pick a side, you're either going to pick the side of China or America, that's it. And the countries all chose America. Greenland gives us the control over the North Pole, taking out the Maduro Venezuela, that solidifies our control over the Western Hemisphere. Soon we're going to take over Cuba.
It's going to be amazing. Now, we have no interest in taking over the world. We just want to make sure, Trump just wants to make sure that the world is centered on what's in the best interest of America. We're not going to go take over Argentina for the sake of empire, but we are thrilled that the leader of Argentina is a huge MAGA guy. So the Shield of the Americas conference, it was a conference with the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, which is right next to Venezuela, and they got a ton of oil there, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago. That was it.
So one purpose of this gathering, the president said, on this historic day, we come together to announce a brand new military coalition to eradicate the criminal cartels plaguing our region. We're calling this military partnership the America's Counter Cartel Coalition. And then here's a bigger why. So the very specific why is we're gonna work together to eliminate the cartels. The bigger why, the president said, all the nations in this room share the same priorities, security, prosperity, free commerce, and the rule of law. Remember that one?
That's why together we're forming the Shield of the Americas, a new organization to advance these shared priorities in our hemisphere. Now, first priority, eliminate the drug cartels. The president said, just as we formed a coalition to eradicate ISIS in the Middle East, we must now do the same thing to eradicate the cartels at home. Great, love that. Noticeably, who is? not at the Shield of the Americas conference, was Mexico.
The president said, as part of our commitment to countering the cartel presence in our region, we must recognize the epicenter of cartel violence is Mexico. I love this president name. the enemy. The Mexican cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere, and the United States government will do whatever is necessary to defend our national security and protect the safety of the American people. Then he went off prompt. He said it all comes through Mexico.
And I like the president very much, Trump said. She's a very good person. She's got a beautiful voice. A beautiful woman, but a beautiful voice. I said, let me eradicate the cartels. No, no, no, please, president, please.
We have to eradicate them. We have to knock the hell out of them because they're getting worse. They're taking over their country. The cartels are running Mexico. We can't have that. Too close to us, too close to you.
But everything comes in through Mexico, mostly. At the same time, all of us must commit to ensuring that law and order within our own nations, and that includes showing zero tolerance for the gang activity, tremendous gang activity.
Okay.
I want to talk about law and order here. Quick sidebar before we do the old side quest. This is the equivalent is the podcast equivalent of the kids running off to go climb on that rock. At this conference, Shield of the Americas conference, Trump spoke and then Marco Rubio got up and spoke and he spoke in a very fluent Spanish, which I say very fluent as opposed to like AOC Spanish. Like he's like actually speaking Spanish. Now at the very beginning of the speech, Trump said, he's like, listen, I'm not going to learn your language, which is not enough time.
He said, uh, but I have an interpreter. And he said, just give me a good interpreter. Interpreter, very important. And I know if somebody is good. This is a little president standup routine. I've never heard this act before.
He said, I may not speak the language, but I know. I had an interpreter recently that wasn't good, talking to a very strong person from a different part of the world. And I could tell, even though I don't speak the language, I could tell the interpreter was not good. When you go, uh, uh, uh, when I give a long, flowing, beautiful sentence. And in this case, it was a woman and she gave it in about four, a quarter of the time.
I said, well, their language may be efficient, but it's not that efficient. And I could also tell when I had great interpreters, interpreters are very important. You know, he kept going, this was getting laughs. So he kept going. He said, you have a bad interpreter and you think you're doing well. Boy, did I do a good job talking to this one or that one?
Was I great when I spoke to Putin today or what? Was I great when I spoke to this president? Wasn't I great? But if the interpreter isn't speaking right or is weak or is ineffective or is just not good, it's not interesting or is not interpreting your words correctly. In one case, we had an interpreter who, when she disagreed with what we were saying, she actually changed it. We considered her a foreign minister, right?
That's great. Okay. So that was at the beginning of the speech. Then Trump speaks and then Rubio gets up and he starts talking in Spanish and Trump goes back and said, is he better in English or Spanish? Is he better in English or Spanish? I think he's better in Spanish.
And then he goes, Pete. Pete Hexhead, like Pete Hexhead, you're up next. And Pete gets up and says, thank you, Mr. President. I only speak American. And I thought that was a funny back and forth. All right.
So back to the main topic at hand.
Although now I think we could do a segment here on translations.
That's a good idea. I missed that. Bible translations, what the differences are, what like interesting words in Greek and Hebrew that we don't have the same full English equivalent of that would be an interesting episode. Maybe we can do that. Alas, it's not what I've prepared. We're going to go in a different direction.
Talk about law and order and the drug cartels. We are so blessed in America with a culture and a system that hates corruption and bribery. Did I say bribery? Bri -bo -ry. In Mexico, where the cartels run everything, they extort businesses, they run entire industries, they have paid off the police and politicians and judges.
It's a horrible way to live. Horrible way to live. We take it for granted that we don't live like that, but it is the norm in Mexico. So let's go to the Bible. I read a very interesting analysis on what our founding fathers and grandfathers learned from the Old Testament when we, when our founders were setting up our justice system here. And the answer is nearly everything.
They learned it all from the Bible. Samuel Langdon, he was the president of Harvard in 1774. He of course served in the during the revolution as well. He gave a speech once and he quoted Isaiah 126. And he said, the Bible says, and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning. Afterward, they shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.
And this is Samuel Langdon said, hey, we need to set up our systems like they did in the Bible. He said, every nation when able and agreed has a right to set up over itself any form of government, which to it may appear most conducive to its common welfare. The civil polity of Israel Old Testament is doubtless an excellent general model. And it wasn't just him, John Adams. He said that the Hebrews had a government instituted by God. They had a judge, the great Sanhedrin, and general assemblies of the people.
So the Old Testament was the model that our founding fathers used. Even the concept that justice was something that was our responsibility, something that was in our hands, that of course is biblical. Genesis 9, after the flood. says, "...and God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." Right after that, we'll skip to verse 6, God says, "...whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man in his own image." A couple of really important things here.
First of all, it must be noted that one of the first orders of business after the flood was for man to set up a justice system. This is also the first time in the Bible that God tells humans that humans, you guys, you people, are created in God's image. Because before this point, God dispensed justice, but now humans were told to take responsibility or become partners with God in dispensing justice while here on earth. Also, what needs to be noted is the equality under the law. We think that's an important system in the American, important aspect of the American system.
Of course it is. That comes to the Bible. Verse six, again, it said, whoever sheds the blood of man, whoever, all people, everyone subject to the law. Another aspect of our justice system that we have in America, and they don't in Mexico, is property rights. And that comes from the Bible. Deuteronomy 24, 10, 11.
It says, when you make a loan of any sort to your neighbor, you must not enter his house to seize his pledge. You must remain outside. while the man to whom you made the loan brings the pledge out to you. Can't go running in his house. Just take, even if it's yours. In cartel controlled areas, you don't have a business.
You don't have a home. The cartel owns everything and they will get whatever they want. They will kill you for it. And then do horrific things with your body, like hang you over a bridge to send a message to everybody else. They're not following Deuteronomy 2410. Another aspect would be a jury trial.
Numbers 35 on the planes of, are you kidding me here? Moab? We're in, the Slater family happens to be in Moab right now at this very moment, Moab, Utah. And here it is in the Bible, on the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho, the Lord said to Moses, come on. God said in this scene here, God said to Moses that if someone kills someone unintentionally, then there should be six different cities of refuge that they can go to.
They will be places of refuge from the avenger so that anyone accused of murder may not die before they stand trial before the assembly. So the accused is protected from the family of those who are killed, from those seeking revenge, right? And they get to go to this place and they're safe until they have a trial. And at the trial, people, their peers decide if it was intentional murder or something that we would call it today, like involuntary manslaughter or something like that. So you have a jury of your peers and you also have innocent until proven guilty. It's amazing.
All this comes from the Bible and much more, but we need to have a deeper appreciation of this. Our founding fathers set up our system of justice based on the Old Testament. That is not the case in Mexico or many of our neighbors in South America. that are in the shield of the America. Oh, I forgot about the bribes. Um, one more Deuteronomy 16, 18, 19 judges shall govern the people with due justice.
You shall not judge unfairly. You shall show no partiality. You shall not take bribes for bribes, blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just a nation cannot thrive with corrupt judges. Now we have corrupt judges, right? We have. We have judges that are beholden to a woke ideology that results in them also not dispensing justice properly.
It's a bit of a different form of corruption, and we need to handle that. It's very important. But it's nothing like what they have in Mexico. So in conclusion, what the president is doing with this Shield of the Americas is excellent and praiseworthy. If we can all work together as countries in this hemisphere, the freedom -loving nations of our hemisphere, with our leadership, the United States of America, with our worldview, with our vision, with our righteousness, which is really just the Bible's example.
And if we can dispense justice to the cartel members properly, thereby saving the lives of Americans and improving the lives of everyone in our hemisphere, what a righteous action that is. YouTube . com slash politics by faith is where you can watch the video.
of this episode, and of course, everywhere you listen to podcasts for the audio. Politics by Faith. Good work.
