The Divided States of America

Dave Jackson
00:00:00.400 - 00:13:39.770
I remember growing up watching the Olympics. Everybody got a Dorothy Hamill haircut. Nadia Comanici scoring a perfect 10.

And the one thing I miss in the age of social media and everybody watching their tablets and their phones and Netflix and Hulu is I miss the days when you would run into anybody and we all watch stuff together. Well, today we're going to talk about the Olympics in 2026. Now, I'll be honest, I did not watch the Olympics, not a single minute.

But I heard that both the women and the men's hockey team won gold. In fact, the men's team. Now, to be honest, I didn't research the women's team, but the men's team is a movie.

In the waiting, one of their players, John Hughes, in the actual the gold medal game, lost four teeth. He was in an interview after the. The game, and somebody said, so how many teeth did you lose? And the. The goalie starts counties like 1, 2, 3.

Looks like about 4. So he loses the teeth in the game. It goes into overtime.

But everybody's worried because our goalie, whatever team he plays for, is kind of known for choking in big games. And it doesn't get any bigger than playing for a gold medal for your. Your country. But the goalie actually is one of the reasons why we won.

He came up strong, big time. Like, all right, that was cool. And then the guy that lost his teeth scores the winning goal in overtime. How cool is that? And this is the Canadiens.

Like, look, if they got one thing, it's hockey. Not anymore. And the American team, they've been traveling with their teammates jersey.

Now, this teammate had died in a biking accident along with his brother. So there's all these pictures of him holding up his jersey Again, it sounds like a movie, right?

And then after they win the gold, they go out for, like, this group photo, and they pull the dead teammates, children on the ice, and they held up the jersey again for the photo. And I mean, that's amazing. Any gold medal. And again, congratulations to the women's team.

Now, what happened was the president, being the president, called the men, and he made the mistake of making a joke. Now, I don't know about you, but if you're around men, they might actually do a little complaining about the women.

And look, ladies, I listen to your podcast. You know, there. There are some serious men hating females on the planet, and they're not shy about sharing that.

So I think we can all kind of go, you know what? Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. We're different. And Sometimes it makes it hard to coexist.

And so you got a bunch of men in a locker room with the president, who's a man.

And he unfortunately said, now you do know we'll have to bring the women's team because he invited them to the State of the Union, you know, he said, yeah, we're gonna have to bring the women's team as well. You do know that. And everyone laughed. Yeah, it's a joke.

And it's kind of funny because anytime our country loses its sense of humor, it seems like we also lose the ability to talk to each other. And so the ladies team who was invited to the State of the Union, like, that's one of the biggest nights in government.

Could you imagine sitting in that thing with all the people and. Yeah, well, they turned it down and they said they had scheduling conflicts.

And I'm sorry, this is just me, but if I got a chance to go see something and hang with the president, I'm calling my boss off and saying, look, I, I think I got a cold next week. But. And everyone thought the men should have declined as well. And look, if you don't respect the person, you can always respect the position.

And it's sad because we've lost the art of dialogue. And that's unfortunate because some of the things I've learned, I've learned by talking to people who think a little different than I do.

And it's fun when people are open to hearing other opinions. Now, that doesn't mean you're wrong. If you learn something, it means you were uneducated. Doesn't mean you were stupid.

Dialogues can be very, very handy. Have you ever heard of Daryl Davis? Daryl Davis was on a Friend of Mine show Jordan Harbinger, the Two Parter. It's so good. Why is it so good?

Well, Daryl is a black musician who played piano for Chuck Berry. That's a cool gig. And then he, he ended up in an all white club and he started talking to the kkk.

And if it was me, I don't know that I'd be reaching out. From what I understand, those people do not take kindly to people with skin that is darker than theirs.

But Darryl said, look, how can they hate me when they don't even know me? And so he started talking to people in the kkk. If I remember the story right, at one point he was their driver.

And I'm like, I don't want to drive with a bunch of guys in hoods. Take me out in the middle of nowhere. And that's My last drive. But not Darryl. He was into having a dialogue.

Well, those dialogues led to more than 200. Let's think about that number a second. That's 10 classrooms, said the old teacher. 200 KKK members hanging up their robes for good.

Just by hanging out with people who think a little different than you do. And we've gone from having a belief to now that becomes a movement, and that becomes kind of a cult like status.

And now people are kind of joking about how much people hate our president. Look, I'm not a huge fan, but it's called Trump Derangement Syndrome. And what I thought was cool.

Bill Maher, the comedian that does a show on hbo, just did a segment explaining how he doesn't have Trump Deranged syndrome, even though he does point out things that he doesn't like about the president. But he also did a segment explaining, yep, believe it or not, the good things that Trump has done. And he agreed with these things that had happened.

And this is after they had had dinner. And apparently shortly thereafter, Trump went to Truth Social and wrote a post online that reverted back to, well, name calling.

And Bill Maher was like, well, that's the difference. I can admit when I was wrong, the president, maybe not so much. But the thing I've noticed, I watched a lot of weird videos putting this together.

And I think we must be training our children to fight the police, because I know I didn't hear that growing up. I remember second grade. The policeman is your friend. Well, he is until you're doing 86 and a 60. Right.

And I understand people are, are missing the fact that we have the right to a peaceful protest. Look, I live in Ohio. I used to service copy machines at Kent State University.

And back then when they were protesting the Vietnam War, you would protest with your little cardboard signs, and then the cops would come and you would disperse. And of course, that went out of control there when they started throwing rocks at the cops, things like that.

And Chris Rock, the comedian, said, there's an easy way to not get your. Your butt beat by the police. Quit breaking the law. And so we have the right to a peaceful protest. But I saw and I tried to get clips.

There was a clip of a bunch of high school kids who should have been in school, but they were protesting. And this one high school kid pushed back against a cop. Well, guess what? That'll get you arrested.

Uh, I wasn't around, but I guess in the 60s, you'd go to a protest, and then when the paddy wagon was coming, they'd go, the bus is coming. There's a great song by Billy Preston called the Bus. And when you push back, you're going to get a bus ride.

And I'm not sure, I think people think if they just yell in the streets, whatever they're yelling about is going to just go away. They're just going to pass a law because you've been outside for 20 minutes with your fancy new sign. I don't know.

But I do know this, we are slowly becoming, if we not. If we're not already becoming the divided States of America. I mean, a typical conversation in America now is, hey, ice has killed three people.

And then somebody else will go, yeah, you know who's killed more? Confused trans teenagers. They've killed five. And we're off to the races.

We all forget how horrible it is that people are dying and instead we focus on being right. When in both cases we could benefit with a bit more investigation. But we're not going to do that. Or if we do, we don't believe it.

And that is a problem. We even changed our verbiage. I remember growing up, people were illegal aliens and now they're undocumented. Why?

Because if we call them illegal, it might actually make sense to deport them because again, they broke the law. People forget that the people we are deporting are broke the law now, the way we're going about it.

But I love when I see things like, you know, watch YouTube or I'll see a newscast or whatever, you'll have a couple of 20 year old women, some of them gay, and they're protesting for Palestine where if they live there, they would be beaten for the way they dressed and maybe even killed. Our children are undereducated and oversensitized. And what's weird is they shouldn't be undereducated.

But unfortunately, the way our society is made up, the, let's say people that lean a little left, all their news because of algorithms, because they want you to come to their website, feed them left leaning content, they never hear the right. And likewise the people on the right. Oh yeah, just right leaning stuff. You never get a chance to see the other side.

So that when you see the other side you're like, how can you even think that? Come on. But it's there. If we just talk about illegal aliens. Barack Obama removed 1.16 million illegal aliens his first term, Trump his first term.

Not this one, but his first term. Yeah, 2.4 million he removed. And everybody wants to focus on that. Joe Biden yeah, 4.4 million. Close to double in his first term. Now, let's be fair.

His first term started in 2021. And that might have been Covid related. Might have to do some more digging on that.

But instead, we become the Divided States of America and we've lost the art of dialogue, and we can only hear what we want to hear, which, of course, just winds us up. And it's very hard to find any kind of clips to play because all of them have, shall we say, colorful language.

It seems like the less of an opinion you have, the more you can just swear and cuss and scream and that'll get you some clicks. And we're going to talk about clicks in a second.

But when I talk about people getting wound up, here's a clip of a woman who apparently, correct me if I'm wrong, is not crazy about Republicans.

TikTok Woman
00:13:40.250 - 00:13:57.050
I will not hire a Republican. I will not do business with a place that employs Republicans. I will not allow a Republican in my home.

These folks will sell a child to a predator for a dollar.

Dave Jackson
00:13:57.530 - 00:14:45.260
And the interesting thing is she believes that wholeheartedly. Now, of course, there's no links to evidence. There's no proof.

It's just, I think it, I feel it, I must say it, but I think there's something else going on here, and that is, I think especially our younger children are not basing their value on how many friends they have, on how many people they've helped, on their grades, on their relationship with their parents or whatever. They're basing their value.

And this is just my opinion, but this is what I think they're basing their value on how many likes, how many clicks, how many views they have. And the more outrageous you are, the more people are going to share this. To go look at this person.

Outraged 20 Something
00:14:46.060 - 00:15:00.380
How, how, how are these people still running this country? Our leaders are pedophiles. They enjoy graping children.

Dave Jackson
00:15:01.340 - 00:15:01.740
Children.

TikTok Woman
00:15:03.020 - 00:15:04.220
What are we doing?

Dave Jackson
00:15:09.150 - 00:24:42.290
So they're selling babies for a dollar. They're raping children. They're all pedophiles. I would love to see the next three seconds of that video where she has to hit stop. I don't know.

I feel bad for her. I don't want anybody to be that wound up, but it's a shame. All right, Dave, but what do we do?

How do I get along with someone who is absolutely so different than I am?

Well, the scripture is very realistic about deep disagreements because, you know, we're human, and it's not something that was invented last year, but it consistently calls Christians to pursue peace, love and truth. And we need to look at the way we treat those we differ with, even our enemies.

And so in Romans 12, 17, 18, this is Paul, and he says, do not repay anyone evil for evil. And I'm here to tell you that's not easy. Your knee jerk reaction is to like, oh, yeah, I remember my first wife cheated on me and I'm a nerd.

And I got on the Internet and I found his phone number and he was married. And I was like, if I'm going down, you're going down. And I was going to call his wife and he had a kid and just say, I'm going to blow it all up.

And instead I was like, I'm going to let God sort it out. It's hard to do, but be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.

And if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Easier said than done, but fairly clear. There's not a lot of rhetoric in that particular verse.

And if we go to Matthew 5, 43, 44, you'll see he says, you've heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Again, not easy. And the other thing we're told to do is to deal with our conflicts directly and privately. That's a little different in Matthew.

Again, this is Jesus, chapter 18, verses 15. Jesus said, if your brother or sister sins against you, you go to them just between the two of you, right? To seek reconciliation and not to get even.

Right? So that principle that totally counters our public performative outrage culture. I mean, the new American pastime is recreational outrage.

And I watched a video, it was really disturbing that it looks like two neighbors, they might live two doors down in an apartment complex. And this woman goes over to kick the other person's butt and she didn't realize the other woman could fight.

And she got close enough and boy, this woman just, you know, hits her. The other woman grabs her by her hair and is kicking. And this goes on for a long time. This is the thing that always kind of goes, huh?

Because I don't know if it was her husband or her boyfriend or somebody, but somebody was filming. And a, if you're gonna go kick your neighbor's butt, you might want to check to see if they can fight.

And number two, maybe if you get your butt kicked, maybe not post that video, but you gotta post the video because again, it might get shared it might get liked. Who knows? You might be famous. You might, you know, end up on, I don't know, some talk show with the lower third of, you know, whatever her name was.

I'm just going to make a Melanie, you know, woman who got her butt kicked, really weird. And I see that with videos of kids in school, two kids start fighting, four phones pop out and start recording. Nobody's trying to break it up.

And the thing is, we think about reconciliation. You need it. Not something we want. You need it. It is a worship priority. It's not an optional extra like, hey, I'll take life.

And if you can throw in some reconciliation, that would be good. No, no, this is something we. We need to do. And again, where does this come from? Some guy named Jesus. Chapter 5, verses 23 through 24.

Jesus says, if you're at the altar and remember your brother has something against you, first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.

If your relationship with God is maybe not as good as it should be, could it be you got something going on with some people that you need to reconcile first, make things right with those people? It's part of honoring God. It's not a distraction from it. And then this is another one. This is James 3, 17, 18.

He describes heavenly wisdom, which we have as peace loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy.

Says we're peacemakers who sow in peace and reap a harvest of righteousness that totally stands against slander, scorekeeping, any kind of contempt talk. That's not what James is talking about there.

And the thing I thought that was really weird is this one youtuber, I forget her name, she went on a campus, so she's talking to young people, and she's fairly young, and she's asking people about the State of the Union, the one that just happened, the longest State of the Union in history. And person after person just raked it over the coals. And when asked, why was it so bad? They would just explain how bad Trump is.

And the video goes on for about two minutes, which is a long time of like, hey, did you. And they would say, did you watch the State of the Union last night? And they would go, you know, and they're like, well, what would you give it?

And they'd go, I'd give it a two, because he's awful. Now, the fun part about the video, the State of the Union, was the next night.

It hadn't happened yet, but yet these people were willing to lie and they already hated it. I remember when I was growing up, my brother had Kiss. Whatever distraction syndrome.

He would walk in, me and my one friend, we love the band Kiss, and we would put on a good song. My brother walk in and go, hey, who is. This is pretty good. And we'd go, hey, it's Kiss. Ah. And he'd go, oh, stinks. Walk out of the room. So weird.

There's a very popular video of a cop handcuffing a very small boy in diapers. Everybody's like, look at this. Ice is arresting people. They're putting children in handcuffs.

But in reality, the cop has come out and said, hey, easy. That's me and that's my son, and we're playing a game of cops and robbers. Yeah. So you might want to get your news from more than one source.

And that is awful that we got to do that. But when we all hide, we turn off the tv. Look, I'm guilty of that. Just like, you know what? I don't want to be scared. I don't want to be worried.

I don't want to be afraid. I'm just not going to turn on the news today. And maybe that's not the best way to live.

But if we turn off the tv, we stay inside, well, then we lose the opportunity to plant a seed. We miss the opportunity to come together to celebrate something like, I don't know, gold medals. We miss that common feeling.

And when we come together, that can lead us to more important discussions. We can plant that seed. So pray, be patient, be kind, be loving. Nobody said it was easy. None of those verses was like, hey, do this.

It's a piece of cake. It's not in there. But if we take the steps to mend the fences, maybe someday we'll take those fences completely down. The website, feedingmyfaith.com.

you know somebody who might benefit from this? Could you do me a favor? Go down to your phone. There's that little up pointing arrow, the share button.

You know, send them a link to in a text or just send them over to Feeding My Faith dot com. That would be greatly appreciated. I'm Dave Jackson. You can find me at the school of podcasting dot com. And I thank you so much for listening.