("Best-of" Edition from 3/7/25) Delano Squires, Research Fellow in Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at the Heritage Foundation, returns to “The Corner.”

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

1. 0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
2. 0:03It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
3. 0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
4. 0:11It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
5. 0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
6. 0:18And the philosophies of this world.
7. 0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
8. 0:24Even in this dark moment.
9. 0:26Let's not miss our moment.
10. 0:28And now, the Hamilton Corner.
11. 0:33Good evening, everybody.
12. 0:34Welcome to the Hamilton Corner here on American Family Radio.
13. 0:37I'm your host, Abraham Hamilton, the third.
14. 0:39What a week.
15. 0:42What a week this has been.
16. 0:44I'm joined by a produced extraordinaire, often imitated,
17. 0:46never duplicated the real J. Mac.
18. 0:49There's a man in the controls, and we
19. 0:51are ready to rock and roll with today's edition of the program.
20. 0:54At this very moment, many of you, if not most of you,
21. 0:56are making your transition from your part-time jobs, where
22. 1:00you generate an income to your full time jobs
23. 1:03where you cultivate an outcome.
24. 1:06And as you do so, I want to remind you
25. 1:09to make that move with intentionality,
26. 1:11understanding the primacy that God places on family
27. 1:18will never be able to out politic, out vote
28. 1:25or out church the deficiencies that abound in the home.
29. 1:30home and I'm truly hopeful that the conversation that we have today will really
30. 1:36bring that point home because I'll tell you frankly man Satan works over time to
31. 1:43get us to invest ourselves all over the world in all manner of things you know
32. 1:50I'm sorry I got this noise you vest on is picking it up in the mic to invest
33. 1:55ourselves into all matter of things. We spend ourselves everywhere outside of, outside of
34. 2:02our families in our homes. And the things are transpiring to such a degree and we're probably
35. 2:07going to get into this now and into this later in the program. But the simple reality is as
36. 2:13things are happening in our society, the majority of children that are being born, especially when
37. 2:19you break down the data demographically, they're being born into families that they're not being
38. 2:24raised with married fathers and mothers. And I don't want to be hyperbolic at all, but that's
39. 2:33a formula for disaster. And we're giving attention to the economy, which we should give attention
40. 2:42to the economy. We're giving attention to various policies, and I'm grateful it's being
41. 2:48reported that President Trump has a draft executive order calling for the dismantling
42. 2:57of the Department of Education needs to happen.
43. 3:01But those things in and of themselves will not be what we need for our nation.
44. 3:04We must understand the primacy that God places on family before you get to a modern iteration
45. 3:11of civil government, before you get to orders of priests and prophets.
46. 3:14The first human institution that God establishes the family, it's the family.
47. 3:20The family is the foundational rubric of the church.
48. 3:23foundation is the fundamental indispensable component of
49. 3:27stabilized society. Can't escape it guys. And so I want to
50. 3:33encourage you who are listening to this program to refuse to allow
51. 3:38everything else to be more important. I know we're at different
52. 3:43stages, different places. I know some of you may be listening to
53. 3:45me right now. You say, man, I hear what you talking about my
54. 3:49marriage is on the rocks. I don't know all of the variables and
55. 3:53all of the details. But I know for the most part, when it comes
56. 3:58right down to it when there is difficulty. One or more parties in the mayor is the husband
57. 4:04or the wife are refusing to humble themselves, be humble themselves before God first and have
58. 4:14the demonstrable component of that vertical humility exemplified in how you interact with
59. 4:19one another. Don't allow the world to trump the importance of your home. So as you're making
60. 4:27your transition to your full time jobs today, that today be the day, if you've never done
61. 4:31before I let today be the day where you appropriately worship the Lord by serving him through your
62. 4:36family and in your home today. If you are a person who you've understood that and you've been
63. 4:42investing yourself in that way, I want to encourage you to refuse to become weary and well doing.
64. 4:48But to continue what you have done for those who are not yet married, I don't care what the world
65. 4:54says marriage is good primarily because God made it an easy one who said it was good. When you search
66. 4:59The book of Genesis, for example, who's the one that's suggested to Adam, it's not good for
67. 5:03man to be alone. That wasn't Adam's idea. That came from God. The desire to be married is a good
68. 5:10desire. It came from God. It's not an exclusive context, surely. There's a reality of the vocation
69. 5:18of singleness, but rest assured it is in fact a vocation. And the vocation of singleness is
70. 5:23accompanied by the gift of celibacy. Because it is the first, because the first command given to
71. 5:32to keep mankind is issued within the familial context,
72. 5:36fruitfulness, multiplication, and replenishing the earth.
73. 5:39It is the reality for the majority of people
74. 5:41that it is the will of God for us to be married.
75. 5:44That was something I really considered.
76. 5:46Lord, is this your will for me?
77. 5:47Are you calling me to be like the Apostle Paul,
78. 5:51a lifelong unmarried man which I was willing to pursue?
79. 5:56But the Lord helped me to see that wasn't his will for me
80. 5:58and Lord, I'm grateful that he did.
81. 6:03But for those who are called to the vocation of singleness,
82. 6:05you'll be able to rejoice in your vocation just as I'm able to rejoice in
83. 6:08mind as a husband and a father. I've been endeavoring to communicate, man, that we
84. 6:16will not have a great nation if we focus solely on what happens at the
85. 6:19governmental level. We have got to live locally. We've got to live locally and
86. 6:24fundamentally what you and I do as citizens of this nation
87. 6:30and what you and I do who are members of the Lord's bride, we will
88. 6:34determine the quality or the lack thereof of what the church will be in our nation
89. 6:40and what our nation will be.
90. 6:42That's just the bottom line.
91. 6:44Simply put, America will be what our citizens make her.
92. 6:50The church will be in America
93. 6:52with the members of the Lord's bride in America,
94. 6:54due in submission to the Lord's authority
95. 6:56as communicated to Wester's Word.
96. 6:58To the word of God we go,
97. 6:59Deuteronomy chapter 30 is where I wanna go.
98. 7:02If you've been listening to the program,
99. 7:03you probably know this.
100. 7:04If you're new to the program,
101. 7:05the book of Deuteronomy,
102. 7:07the root word is Deuter meaning two.
103. 7:09All right, this is the Deuterocannical expression.
104. 7:12And this is Moses's instruction.
105. 7:15I didn't say the verse yet.
106. 7:17Oh, in ASB 95 is what I'm going.
107. 7:20I'm sorry, I didn't put that on a rundown either.
108. 7:23Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses 11 through 20
109. 7:26is where I'm gonna go.
110. 7:27I haven't had that in a rundown, I'm sorry.
111. 7:29Deuteronomy chapter 30 verses 11 through 20
112. 7:33is where I'm gonna go.
113. 7:34This, as I was explaining,
114. 7:36the Deuterocannical expression from Moses
115. 7:39is his articulation to the second generation
116. 7:42of wilderness Israelites.
117. 7:43You'll remember, if you don't remember, I'll refresh your memory, that the first generation
118. 7:48of wilderness Israelites are those who refuse to enter the Promised Land when the Lord says,
119. 7:51hey, this is yours, go in.
120. 7:54And they respond to we are like grasshoppers in the eyes of the people who are inside the
121. 7:58Promised Land.
122. 7:59Now they didn't know that, they didn't take a poll.
123. 8:02They have George Barna saying, hey, I wonder how we look to them.
124. 8:06No, that's what their conclusion was.
125. 8:08And the simple reality was that their conclusion was based on their own perception, denying
126. 8:12the reality of who their God was.
127. 8:15And so the truth is the wilderness journey was actually an application of judgment for
128. 8:21the rebellion of the first generation of wilderness Israelites.
129. 8:25And so their children, I'm sorry, the first generation, the only first generation wilderness
130. 8:31Israelites that were given all trade to the Promised Land was Moses and Caleb.
131. 8:35I'm sorry, Joshua and Caleb.
132. 8:37Lord, please forgive me. Joshua and Caleb, not even Moses, into the promised land. But
133. 8:43he's preparing the second generation. These are those who were infants when they exited
134. 8:52Egypt or those who were born, for example, in the wilderness while they were traveling
135. 8:57at 30 in the wilderness for 40 years. It is these children who have now become adults and
136. 9:02their children who are preparing the into the promised land under Joshua's authority. And
137. 9:06So Moses offers this instruction to them to prepare them for life and a promised land.
138. 9:11And I want to direct your attention, direct your attention there.
139. 9:15Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 11.
140. 9:21For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you.
141. 9:26Nor is it out of reach.
142. 9:28It is not in heaven that you should say, who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us
143. 9:33and make us hear it that we may observe it.
144. 9:36Or is it beyond the sea that you should say,
145. 9:39who will cross the sea for us to get it for us
146. 9:41and make us hear it that we may observe it?
147. 9:44But the word is very near you in your mouth
148. 9:46and in your heart that you may observe it.
149. 9:52See, I have set before you today,
150. 9:54life and prosperity or some translation,
151. 9:58there's a life in good and death and adversity
152. 10:05or death and evil in that I command you today
153. 10:12today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments and his
154. 10:18statutes and his judgments that you may live and multiply and that the Lord your God may
155. 10:23bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away
156. 10:30and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods, Lord Keshji, and serve
157. 10:36Give them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.
158. 10:43You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and
159. 10:47possess it.
160. 10:48I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and
161. 10:54death, the blessing and the curse.
162. 10:58So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord
163. 11:06your God by obeying his voice and by holding fast to him, for this is your life and the length
164. 11:14of your days that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham,
165. 11:20Isaac, and Jacob to give them.
166. 11:25Most explain very plainly to the second generation of wildernesses your lives.
167. 11:30That God, Yahweh, is setting before you life and death.
168. 11:36Life and death are available to you.
169. 11:39If you follow God's way, God's way produces God's results.
170. 11:48If you stray or reject or rebel against God's way, that rejection produces death.
171. 12:01That communication, guys, is just as true today as it was the day Moses articulated it.
172. 12:10The unfortunate reality is that in our day and age, there have been many euphemisms and
173. 12:16arguments, employed marketing strategies, employed, I would say that they are the plausible arguments
174. 12:22that Paul warned about in Galatia chapter two, to persuade people to willingly and voluntarily
175. 12:31reject God's way. There in Deuteronomy, when when Moses warned the second generation of wilderness
176. 12:41Israelites against worshiping foreign gods, lower case G, which by the way are no gods at all.
177. 12:48Ultimately, they're demons. The marketing strategy from Satan, which CS Lewis captured very beautifully
178. 13:00in screw tape, screw tape letters, where you had old screw tape and warm wood collaborating,
179. 13:08is that we have people willingly and voluntarily rejecting God's way. And saying that rejection
180. 13:15is actually empowerment. That rejection is actually progress. That's why I don't call the
181. 13:20progressives, progressives are calling regressives because there's no way you can advance as an
182. 13:24individual or as a society by rejecting God's way. You're only, you're only inviting destruction.
183. 13:34You are welcoming disaster. You are courting death. And that by and large is what we are
184. 13:44experiencing in our society. We had the demonically inspired sexual revolution that followed the
185. 13:58demonically inspired advancement of Darwinian evolution. And those two were followed by, you know,
186. 14:10feminism, second wave, third wave, wait, wait, wait, now I want to tell you when I say feminism,
187. 14:15Feminism did not just affect women, it affected men too.
188. 14:19It even feminized men.
189. 14:21And we are reeling from that to where we are voluntarily ripping our own progeny,
190. 14:27limb from limb in the womb through surgical abortion or chemically burning them to death
191. 14:34through various chemicals.
192. 14:35Or we're destroying our own families with our own hands and calling in progress.
193. 14:41Who says you need a husband and a father in the home with the child?
194. 14:43Who says that's the only way family can be?
195. 14:46And I understand the reality of what we experience, but we should never allow the frequency of experiences
196. 14:52that stray from God's standards to redefine for us what should be standardized or normalized.
197. 15:00Preborn celebrates that Roe vs. Wade has been overturned.
198. 15:04Roe has been responsible for the slaughter of over 63 million babies.
199. 15:09Now the decision to abort a child will be left in the hands of the states,
200. 15:13and sadly, abortions will continue in the most liberal states.
201. 15:17Over the past 16 years, preborn has positioned their clinics in the top abortion cities where 50% of
202. 15:24abortions occur. Preborn's work of saving babies' lives continues at an even greater level as they
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204. 15:37Preborn's response is dependent on you, the pro-life community. Be a part of rescuing lives and changing
205. 15:43hearts for Christ.
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209. 16:06Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton the third year I'm delighted to have
210. 16:15on the program. My brother has been on the show before. I got to
211. 16:19dap him up in person at NRB in Dallas last week. But my guest is
212. 16:25Delano Squires, who is a research fellow in the Richard and Helen
213. 16:29Devos Center for life, religion, and family at the Heritage
214. 16:33Foundation. He's also a contributor to Blaze Media, where
215. 16:36he writes about faith, family, and culture, as well as to Blaze,
216. 16:39TV, fearless with Jason Whitlock. I want to ask you to join me in
217. 16:43welcoming Delano Squires back to the Hamilton Corner.
218. 16:47Thank you for joining me on the show, man.
219. 16:49Thank you for having me.
220. 16:50It is truly, truly, truly my pleasure.
221. 16:53I want to jump right into it.
222. 16:54We just had a rather interesting joint session of Congress
223. 16:59in which President Trump addressed the Congressman
224. 17:02and Al Green not loving happiness.
225. 17:04He brought out his pain and you had a whole bunch
226. 17:07of things happening there.
227. 17:08What is your reaction to President Trump's address
228. 17:12to the joint session of Congress earlier this week?
229. 17:16Well, the first thing I noticed was sort of just before we
230. 17:20get into the substance of the speech,
231. 17:22the president just felt seemed much more comfortable
232. 17:25in his role addressing Congress.
233. 17:26He felt natural.
234. 17:29He had a few lines and garnered some a few laughs.
235. 17:33And I think he was brilliant strategically when he said,
236. 17:37nothing I do tonight or say tonight
237. 17:39is going to satisfy the Democrats.
238. 17:42And I think he went on to talk about things that many Americans would generally be in support
239. 17:46of, cutting ways from the government, millions of dollars, pro-LGBT projects in Mozambique
240. 17:54and Lesotho and all this stuff.
241. 17:58And then the sort of combination of serious substitute policy issues, so issues around the
242. 18:04border, as well as heartwarming moments like when he made the 13 year old boy a secret
243. 18:11service agent, DJ Daniel, yeah. Right. Right. DJ. So it felt like, you know, President Trump,
244. 18:18like as I said, was is more comfortable this time around than it was the first time around.
245. 18:22And I think it feels as if he has a beat on the pulse of the American public,
246. 18:27and which was stood in stark contrast to Democrats who would not stand or applaud for anything,
247. 18:34except as I've heard when he talked about sending more funding to Ukraine. And I think the difference
248. 18:40and distinction between the two parties was made clearer than ever during that speech.
249. 18:46Yeah, and I think you're right about the distinction between the parties and I also think
250. 18:50that unfortunately, and you know, I try to be equal opportunity to true teller. When Republicans
251. 18:54mess up, I'll call it out, you know, but frankly, in this instance, the Democrats
252. 18:58distinguished themselves, I believe, frankly, from the American people, not just their counterparts
253. 19:03in the other side of the aisle, because I mean, if you haven't read the room, the American people
254. 19:08agree with most of what President Trump was saying, not American people who are members of the Democrat Party too,
255. 19:14which they're starting to come out in in in droves and even say these things,
256. 19:18many of them saying how embarrassed they are to be Democrats, how ashamed they are to be Democrats, and to have such a
257. 19:23deplorable display for all the world to see.
258. 19:26I think it was a it was a seminal moment and a nation's history and it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out in the midterms.
259. 19:31Yeah, but the here's the thing some of the criticism I heard
260. 19:35of Democrats from the left was not that,
261. 19:39oh, they breached the rules of civility,
262. 19:42is that they weren't radical enough.
263. 19:44They didn't do enough.
264. 19:44They should have just got out and mass
265. 19:46and stormed out behind Representative Al Green.
266. 19:49And I think that would have made them look even worse.
267. 19:51So yes, the little bingo paddles holding up faults
268. 19:55or Elon Musk did look ridiculous.
269. 19:58It wasn't a good visual.
270. 20:00But it's also, at a certain point,
271. 20:02they're gonna have to deal with the substance
272. 20:03of their structural problem,
273. 20:05which is that Democrats have moved from being a party
274. 20:08that can brand itself as fighting for the working class,
275. 20:12and they've become a party that's embraced radical,
276. 20:16ideological positions on some of the most essential issues,
277. 20:19whether it's on the nature of human sex,
278. 20:23the definition of family,
279. 20:24it's the stop boys and girls sports.
280. 20:26And I think to your point,
281. 20:29they're becoming more and more out of touch
282. 20:30with the everyday Americans.
283. 20:31So I don't think more radicalism is going to help them,
284. 20:34but I think that's what their party is looking for right now.
285. 20:37And that is wild.
286. 20:39We also had, I mentioned this a bit yesterday,
287. 20:42President Trump campaigned and promised
288. 20:46that he would dismantle the Department of Education.
289. 20:49He said it in the Oval Office
290. 20:51that he would like to see it dismantled immediately.
291. 20:53Well, just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal
292. 20:55got a hold of a draft executive order that calls for
293. 20:59the dismantling of the Department of Education
294. 21:01and instructs newly confirmed Secretary of the Department of Education to, I want to say
295. 21:07it exactly how the draft executive order says it directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon
296. 21:14to quote, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department. And
297. 21:21upon being confirmed, Linda McMahon sends an email to the entire 4,000 plus Department
298. 21:26of education staff saying that they are working on the department's final mission.
299. 21:33Final mission now to be fair and frank and clear in order for that to be executed in
300. 21:39totality is going to require congressional participation.
301. 21:42But there are a lot of steps that the president can take on his own with the assistance of
302. 21:46the education secretary to begin to winnow down what the Department of Education does.
303. 21:51What is your reaction to having a draft executive order out there just as recently as yesterday
304. 21:57calling forward a dismantling of the Department of Education?
305. 22:00Well, to your point, right?
306. 22:02The president campaigned on this issue and it's one of these things where he's going to
307. 22:05say, promises made, promises kept.
308. 22:07I said I was going to dismantle it and I'm moving in that direction.
309. 22:10So whether Congress gets on board with that obviously remains to be seen.
310. 22:15But again, I think this is another area where, particularly on the right, I'll say it for conservatives.
311. 22:21There's a lot of energy around dismantling Department of Education.
312. 22:25My sense is that they're still going to require some massaging and messaging in this area because
313. 22:32people tend to respond very one-dimensionally when they hear, oh, you want to get rid of the
314. 22:37education department?
315. 22:38That's a bad thing.
316. 22:39And I think it's going to require good advocates on the president side to say, no, the Department
317. 22:45of Education does not educate.
318. 22:46It has become an ideological institution and part of the bureaucracy that pushes very radical
319. 22:54ideas and requires states and locales to accept these ideas or else face funding cuts.
320. 23:04Obviously, I remember when, I'm sure you remember when President Obama on his way out said school
321. 23:10districts have to allow kids to use bathrooms in accordance with their quote-unquote gender
322. 23:15or face potential funding cuts.
323. 23:20That's the type of thing that Department of Ed is into.
324. 23:22And that's why the president says it's got to go.
325. 23:24Yeah.
326. 23:25And because under the messaging point,
327. 23:26I don't think it's gonna be a hard lift
328. 23:28to very potent points can be raised first and foremost.
329. 23:34Contrast educational standards in America
330. 23:37and productivity, production.
331. 23:40The children's ability to read and write
332. 23:41and to do mathematics, compare it to what it was
333. 23:45prior to Department of Education's formation in 1980,
334. 23:47to what it is now.
335. 23:48That's step one.
336. 23:50Secondarily, you can say that since its formation,
337. 23:53the Department of Education has had over a trillion dollars,
338. 23:56a trillion, not a billion, trillion with a T,
339. 24:00yet look at the results that have been produced very simply.
340. 24:03And then lastly, I would say,
341. 24:06talk about the genesis of it,
342. 24:07that it wasn't the product of well-studied ideas
343. 24:10and this is gonna move America forward.
344. 24:12it was a campaign barter between Jimmy Carter
345. 24:17and the teachers unions to get in support
346. 24:19for his reelection bid.
347. 24:20Had nothing to do with the educational outcome
348. 24:23of American children despite what they say.
349. 24:26And I think if you let the American people know those facts,
350. 24:29those are facts, you'll see, hmm,
351. 24:33maybe we should consider some alternatives.
352. 24:35You think I'm over maybe hyperbolic in that assessment?
353. 24:39I hope you're correct.
354. 24:43My sense is that they're going to be some holdouts.
355. 24:46And I'm thinking of people in my old family, right?
356. 24:48I grew up in New York and I'm thinking,
357. 24:50oh, they just hear the top line.
358. 24:52They see the headline, they hear the top line.
359. 24:54Trump wants to cut education funding.
360. 24:57And to your point, we can say, look,
361. 24:59before the Department of Ed, this is where we were.
362. 25:01But as someone who worked almost 15 years
363. 25:03in local government, one of the things that I know is
364. 25:06once a government program is created,
365. 25:09It is incredibly difficult to get rid of it.
366. 25:12And the responses to government programs,
367. 25:16particularly the ones that fail, are almost always the same.
368. 25:19They start with, this is our intention.
369. 25:23They skip over the incentives, they skip over the interests,
370. 25:27they skip over implementation, and then they say,
371. 25:29here's the impact.
372. 25:30And when impact does not match intent,
373. 25:33you know the standard line.
374. 25:35Oh, we need more funding.
375. 25:36We need more funding.
376. 25:37We need more time.
377. 25:38So I think many of us, whether on the left or the right,
378. 25:42have been conditioned to think this way,
379. 25:44and that's why rolling back,
380. 25:45particularly a department that has that name.
381. 25:47It's the Department of Education,
382. 25:49is going to take a little bit of time.
383. 25:51Again, I hope you're right.
384. 25:52But my sense is that it'll be a hard sell
385. 25:54for a significant part of the American public.
386. 25:57Yeah, no, I agree with you on it being a hard sell,
387. 26:00but it's a necessary sell.
388. 26:01I literally just covered earlier this week's story,
389. 26:04a girl who went to public school in Connecticut,
390. 26:07Kate from first grade all the two,
391. 26:10graduation from high school, she can't read.
392. 26:12Cannot read.
393. 26:13By own admission, she can't read.
394. 26:16And she started her classes each year,
395. 26:18telling her teachers that she couldn't read.
396. 26:20And they would mock her.
397. 26:22You know, but, you know,
398. 26:23they could not allow their graduation rates, you see,
399. 26:26to drop.
400. 26:27And so they promoted the child.
401. 26:28Now she's suing.
402. 26:29She's suing the school district,
403. 26:31her school in particular,
404. 26:32and a teacher specifically,
405. 26:34who would mock and deride her,
406. 26:35in that they continue to socially promote her
407. 26:40all the way throughout her high school years.
408. 26:43And she can't read 19 years old.
409. 26:46Alicia Ortiz is her name.
410. 26:48There should be a class action suit
411. 26:49because there are a lot of students
412. 26:51in a lot of school districts
413. 26:54who have similar complaints.
414. 26:55I will say this though.
415. 26:57I think one of the things that needs to be reiterated
416. 27:00in these debates about education is that education
417. 27:03And the responsibility to educate children starts in the home with parents.
418. 27:08And I think one of the reasons we are where we are is because too many parents have gotten
419. 27:12too comfortable discharging that responsibility onto teachers and administrators
420. 27:18without any sense that they are ultimately the keepers and the ones responsible for ensuring that the kids receive
421. 27:24an adequate education. But yes, I think if you're getting promoted year after year,
422. 27:31somebody's gonna have to be accountable for that.
423. 27:34But as you know, right, if schools don't promote these kids,
424. 27:39and you have a backlog of 24 year old super duper seniors,
425. 27:43that is going to cause some trouble as well.
426. 27:45So it's attention that's not very,
427. 27:48it's attention that's not easy to resolve quickly,
428. 27:51but it needs to be for sure.
429. 27:53And that graduation rate is incentivized by what is that?
430. 27:56Oh yeah, yeah, funding from the Department of Education.
431. 27:58Isn't that right?
432. 27:59Exactly, exactly.
433. 28:00To your point in her email to the DOE staff,
434. 28:03Linda McMahon literally says, quote,
435. 28:05as a mother and grandmother,
436. 28:07I know there is nobody more qualified than a parent
437. 28:11to make educational decisions for their children, end quote.
438. 28:14She literally said exactly what you said
439. 28:16in her email to the Department of Education staff
440. 28:18as she explains to them they're embarking upon
441. 28:21their final mission, should they choose to accept it.
442. 28:24That's very interesting.
443. 28:28And now I introduced you as the Heritage Foundation's research fellow and the Richard and Helen
444. 28:33DeVos Center for Life, Religion and Family.
445. 28:36And I know you and Rachel Sheffield, a co-author to deep dive into the state of the American
446. 28:42family in a new report titled Crossroads, American Family Life at the Intersection of
447. 28:47Tradition and Modernity.
448. 28:50And I want to dive into this a bit.
449. 28:53Now I want to start with what you all identify in your report as the connection conundrum as
450. 29:00it applies to family formation.
451. 29:02Sure.
452. 29:03And when we talk about the connection conundrum, one of the things that we observed is that
453. 29:08we live in an era where technology is ubiquitous, right?
454. 29:12And people feel as if, well, I can reach out and touch this person.
455. 29:15I know this person.
456. 29:16I have this many friends on social media.
457. 29:19So people, I believe, have a false sense of connection with one another, including in terms
458. 29:24of romantic connection.
459. 29:26But what you see is that singles report having more trouble in their dating lives than they
460. 29:30did in years past.
461. 29:32And people are, even again, with all the dating apps that are out there, people are still
462. 29:38having a difficult time meeting someone in real life, connecting with them and forming
463. 29:44a family.
464. 29:45And you see that in the data, right?
465. 29:47The median age of first marriage has increased.
466. 29:51It was about 24 for men and 22 for women in 1980.
467. 29:55It's about 31 and 29 right now.
468. 29:57And there's no reason to think
469. 29:59that it's going to level off right there
470. 30:00because people are not meeting.
471. 30:03The life script for the average American
472. 30:05has completely changed over the last few decades
473. 30:08and people are pushing off marriage, particularly marriage,
474. 30:12not always children, but particularly marriage further
475. 30:15further as they get the sense that I need to accomplish all of these personal, professional
476. 30:21milestones before I begin to have a family.
477. 30:24And it will eventually have a downstream effect on all of American society.
478. 30:27No, no doubt about it.
479. 30:29I began the show in Dude Rounding with Chapter 30, where Moses is really warning the second
480. 30:34generation of wilderness Israelites as they prepare and enter the Promised Land of the
481. 30:37Joshua's Authority to say, listen, I present before you life and death.
482. 30:42I'm choose life.
483. 30:44And it's almost like there's an interstate.
484. 30:47You get on the interstate heading east, you're going to end up towards the Atlantic Ocean.
485. 30:50You go west, you can end up towards the Pacific Ocean.
486. 30:53Once you get on this road, unless you reverse course, that is where you inevitably will
487. 30:56end up.
488. 30:57And by and large in our society, we're choosing death.
489. 31:00We're using all kinds of fancy terminology, euphemisms, I call it regressive, identification
490. 31:07markers.
491. 31:08But it's actually going in the opposite direction.
492. 31:11And you pointed out that, well, people are deferring, delaying or even outright declining
493. 31:17marriage but not child production, not bearing children, that is a formula for disintegrating
494. 31:24society.
495. 31:26This is a huge question.
496. 31:28Well, what are contributing to us being driven in this direction as a society?
497. 31:34And I'll add, there's no way America will be made great if we continue to ignore the reality
498. 31:38of family disintegration.
499. 31:39Absolutely, and that's that, particularly around non-marital childbirth, right?
500. 31:44Because I refer to that one because if I had to take any statistic as it relates to the
501. 31:48family, I go there because what that tells me is that two people have come together and joined
502. 31:54to make a child, but not necessarily make a home, right?
503. 31:57An intact home for that child.
504. 31:59And right now, 40% of American children are born to unmarried parents.
505. 32:04And about 25% live with a single parent, typically a single mom.
506. 32:09second statistic, the 23% of kids raised by a single parent in America is the highest rate
507. 32:14in the world. So what you have are people who are at times choosing to have kids, but
508. 32:23forgoing marriage. Now sometimes people will say, well, you know, well, we live together,
509. 32:28we just want to see because marriage is a lifelong commitment. And I think it's well, a child is
510. 32:33having a child together as a lifelong commitment because you're bound to another person for
511. 32:38the entirety of your life.
512. 32:40I think we got here.
513. 32:42Wait, let me stop you right there because music is on.
514. 32:44I want to pick up with you right there
515. 32:46as to how we got here.
516. 32:48And this whole idea is something that really
517. 32:50is impacting society.
518. 32:51I mean, you just had the Elon Musk, Ashley St. Clair
519. 32:55phenomenon, which is what happened in our society.
520. 33:05The Hamilton Quarter podcast and One-Minute Common
521. 33:08Terrets are available at eFR.net.
522. 33:10Back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.
523. 33:15Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton the third here.
524. 33:18My guest is Delano Squire's research fellow and the Richard and Helen Devos Center for
525. 33:22Life, Religion and Family at the Heritage Foundation before the disrespectful music grabbed us.
526. 33:28Delano, you were beginning to explain your perspective as to how we got to this place to
527. 33:33where frankly we've normalized family disintegration.
528. 33:37Yeah, and I'll say this historically, this conversation has been sort of pitched in racial
529. 33:44terms.
530. 33:45families have been analyzed and dissected by social scientists, journalists, policymakers,
531. 33:50for the better part of 60 plus years, right?
532. 33:53Yeah.
533. 33:54You know, particularly with the Moynihan report and all that other stuff.
534. 33:57But in retrospect, the Black family really was a canary in the coal mine because it's the
535. 34:01same factor as that play.
536. 34:04And oftentimes people will say, well, it's changed the city economy and it's mass incarceration.
537. 34:09And I think those things play a role, but the fundamental way to destroy a family is to
538. 34:16make both, particularly the man and woman, husband and wife, reconsider their roles and
539. 34:21responsibilities towards one another and their offspring.
540. 34:25So when you have the rise of big government liberalism in the 1960s, that says, either
541. 34:31implies or explicitly says, we can replace the role of the father and the husband by giving
542. 34:36you a check from the government.
543. 34:38So a lot of Uncle Sam to become the de facto head of household for millions of families
544. 34:43and everything will be all right.
545. 34:45And you have that happening at exactly the same time, that second wave feminist say, or
546. 34:50telling women femininity as you've practiced it this week, masculinity is toxic, marriage
547. 34:58is a tool of the patriarchy.
548. 35:00The home is a prison and your children are a burden.
549. 35:02You should a free and liberated woman goes out and pursues her own interests and does
550. 35:08her own thing, you don't need them in order to live a fulfilled life and you have those
551. 35:13two things happening at the same time.
552. 35:16What you do is create an alternative and parallel family structure and it sends the signal throughout
553. 35:22the culture that particularly that women don't really need a man and children don't really
554. 35:28need a father.
555. 35:29And when you add policy to that that incentivizes and you have cultural messages that reinforce
556. 35:34that message, you just let it play out and the snowball will roll down the hill and pick
557. 35:40up steam, I'm mixing metaphors now, but it'll pick up momentum without any external push.
558. 35:47And I think that's one of the reasons that we got to where we are today because we have
559. 35:51been practicing this as a grand social experiment for the better part of 60 years.
560. 35:56Man, that's so true.
561. 35:57And it was sad to me.
562. 36:01South society hasn't recognized that notion, the convergence of influences that you identified,
563. 36:08including second wave feminism, was straight out of the communist manifesto.
564. 36:13Straight out of it.
565. 36:15To where it was one of the branches of critical theory, to where you have feminine feminism
566. 36:22and queer critical theory.
567. 36:25and then you have critical race theory,
568. 36:27they're all subsets of the same objective
569. 36:29that ultimately sought to decimate individual liberty
570. 36:34to decimate individual identity for a collectivist notion
571. 36:39that ultimately leads to the state being the end all be all.
572. 36:44And that is the inevitable consequence.
573. 36:47And you mentioned the Black family being the canary
574. 36:50and the coal mine, and unfortunately,
575. 36:51you have some on the right who haven't thought through
576. 36:53some of these things to where some who have been pro-family advocates, but when you have
577. 36:59people like Elon Musk who is quite committed to pro-creation, but not to being a father and
578. 37:05to a stabilized family where a husband marries the mother of his children and rears them together,
579. 37:12you have some who would say, well, as long as the check is big enough, then you don't need
580. 37:15it.
581. 37:16Well, that's the people on the right saying the exact same thing people on the left have been
582. 37:18saying that who needs daddy as long as the government can be daddy, and all we need to
583. 37:22to make sure as the check is big enough,
584. 37:24you have completely commodified and reduced
585. 37:27what a father is and a father is indispensable
586. 37:32to the formation of children and ultimately society.
587. 37:37Absolutely.
588. 37:38And the other thing that people don't realize
589. 37:40is that oftentimes these conversations are strictly
590. 37:43about the father's responsibilities to his children.
591. 37:46Obviously that's important,
592. 37:47but husbands and wives have obligations to one another.
593. 37:50Bingo. Right?
594. 37:50So that vow to stay together in sickness and health, I've never heard it in a cohabitation
595. 37:56agreement, I've never heard it in a divorce decree, and I've never heard it in a child
596. 38:00support order.
597. 38:01And I've never heard it in the Congressional appropriation.
598. 38:04Right, right, right.
599. 38:06So it's one of these things where it's the household needs to be unified because everyone
600. 38:10has a responsibility and has duties and obligations there.
601. 38:14But oftentimes to your point, the politics can sort of scrub that away and just say, let's
602. 38:19Let's just focus on responsible fatherhood.
603. 38:21Again, it's good.
604. 38:22But before man is a father, I believe that everyone of them should be a husband because
605. 38:26the left will do is say, oh, many low income single moms don't have marriageable men, which
606. 38:34makes me think, okay, so you had a baby with a man who you felt was suitable to father your
607. 38:39children, but not suitable to be your husband.
608. 38:43Since when did we start to separate those two sets of characteristics?
609. 38:47the notions you identified, the Marxist convergence, second wave feminism, the sexual revolution,
610. 38:54Darwinian evolution, giving rise to the sexual revolution, those notions contributed to our
611. 38:59assessing those things. And you talked to a lot of young people today, they'll tell you
612. 39:03they want to be parents, but they won't say anything about being husbands and wives.
613. 39:07It's strange to them.
614. 39:09Yeah.
615. 39:10And this is, go ahead, go ahead.
616. 39:13And I was saying, this is one of the things that myself and my colleague found in our
617. 39:17report is that people are still wanting sort of the trappings of marriage and relationships.
618. 39:24They just don't want to get married.
619. 39:25So now what you see is that they're more Americans who have ever cohabited, right, who have
620. 39:29lived together outside of marriage than who have ever been married.
621. 39:33And one of the things, you and I are on the same age, and if you remember, if you were
622. 39:37living with your girlfriend, even if she was your fiancé, before you got married, oh,
623. 39:40folks say, oh, you're shacking up.
624. 39:41Yeah.
625. 39:42but now moving in together is just another step
626. 39:45on sort of the relationship trajectory.
627. 39:47So you meet somebody you date for a couple of months,
628. 39:49you're in the same city, it's crazy expensive here,
629. 39:52let's move in together.
630. 39:53And now what you find is that 20% of new home purchases,
631. 39:58I believe in 2022, were unmarried couples.
632. 40:02So instead of just moving in together in an apartment,
633. 40:05it's no, we'll buy property together as if we're a married couple.
634. 40:09We'll have kids together as if we're a married couple.
635. 40:11as if we were married couple, but without the benefits of being married either to the benefits to one another or to our offspring.
636. 40:18I often say we will never ask the society be able to out politic, outvote or even out church the deficiencies that are bound in our home, in our homes.
637. 40:28And by and large, man, we we we've bought the lie. We bought the lie like that from the rebellion in the garden did God surely say, you know, you won't die die, you won't move, you know,
638. 40:39We have that same phenomenon being perpetuated in what we have happening is we are conflating
639. 40:47popular occurrence with normalization.
640. 40:50Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's normal because you can have a normalization
641. 40:55of rebellion.
642. 40:56That's what Genesis 11 and Tower of Babel is.
643. 40:58They were unified.
644. 40:59They were on one accord in rebellion.
645. 41:02And what we have constructed in modern society and modernity is a social tower of Babel.
646. 41:08We can look at other nations that are further along this trajectory than where we are in
647. 41:12like Europe and other places in Canada and there's some that are behind us in Latin American
648. 41:17countries and some further behind in African countries.
649. 41:20But you can see the inevitable result in what is attempting to occur is to say, hey, we don't
650. 41:26need God's blueprint for building society and building life.
651. 41:29We will do what is right in our own eyes, but chaos is in the wake.
652. 41:34If we continue along this trajectory, what are the kind of things we can see practically
653. 41:38that will happen downstream.
654. 41:40Well, one of them, and I mentioned this in the report,
655. 41:42because what you have when marriage rates decrease,
656. 41:45people wait longer to get married,
657. 41:47but they continue to have children out of wedlock, right?
658. 41:50And two thirds of children born to cohabiting parents,
659. 41:55those parents break up before the child turns 12.
660. 41:57So one of the tangible outcomes,
661. 41:58and particularly sort of, you know,
662. 42:00smaller medium-sized cities,
663. 42:02is that you're going to have people
664. 42:04who end up dating their half-siblings, half-sibling,
665. 42:07because multiple partner fertility is also on the rise, right?
666. 42:10So a guy may have five kids by four women or a woman may have four kids by three men.
667. 42:15And each of those kids has half siblings by the other parent.
668. 42:19So the family tree is going to become far more difficult to reconstruct, right?
669. 42:25And not because, or we don't, well, it is because we may not know who's who's particularly
670. 42:29dad, but because the relationships are going to become increasingly complex.
671. 42:34The other thing, one of the other outcomes,
672. 42:37and this comes from the same spirit in terms of adults
673. 42:41prioritizing their desires over the needs and rights of children,
674. 42:44one of the other outcomes is just the complete separation
675. 42:48of sex and reproduction from marriage through reproductive technology,
676. 42:54IVF, birthing pods, whatever your mind can imagine,
677. 42:59we're on a downward trajectory to get there.
678. 43:03And one of the things, and I say this often,
679. 43:06this stems from partly the government's decision
680. 43:09or attempt to redefine marriage.
681. 43:11So the left will say, no, marriage shouldn't just be
682. 43:14between a man and a woman, is any two consenting adults.
683. 43:17And my question is why only two?
684. 43:19Why can't the polyquials that the New York
685. 43:21or rights about incessantly,
686. 43:23why can't those three guys say we wanna get married?
687. 43:25And when they do, why can't they go down
688. 43:27to child services and say, now we want to adopt a child
689. 43:31and we should have a right to do so?
690. 43:32It's dystopian if you really think about it.
691. 43:35Or to use the whole, and I don't mean to be crude here,
692. 43:38the rental room phenomenon.
693. 43:40Why can't we have a modern day 21st century slavery
694. 43:44where we rent a room and we call that liberty
695. 43:47and progress and advancement.
696. 43:50Or why is that problematic?
697. 43:55Right.
698. 43:56It's not liberty for the motherless and fatherless children
699. 43:59who are being intentionally created
700. 44:01so that people who've chosen a lifestyle
701. 44:04that makes them fruitless can have the family life
702. 44:07that they've always wanted.
703. 44:09And what we're doing is we're demanding that children,
704. 44:12the weak, sacrifice on behalf of adults, the strong.
705. 44:16Oh man, that's so galling.
706. 44:18That's so galling.
707. 44:19I want everybody to know that,
708. 44:20as Delano is sharing these statistics,
709. 44:22we're not trying to condemn people for choices
710. 44:24and things that they've made,
711. 44:25but we need to be aware of the consequences
712. 44:27of these type of choices.
713. 44:28And if these things continue as they are,
714. 44:30these are some of the downstream realities
715. 44:32that could occur now.
716. 44:33Delano, what would you say to the person who say,
717. 44:34oh man, Delano, you sound like a old crum-mudgeon,
718. 44:38Fuddy Duddy, you just want us to go back
719. 44:40to the doldrums of being shackled by the notions of antiquity.
720. 44:46What would you say to that person?
721. 44:48Well, I say, look, if advocating God's blueprint
722. 44:51makes me a Fuddy Duddy, I will gladly accept that charge.
723. 44:55The other thing is, I would say, look, look at the evidence,
724. 44:57what we're doing is not working.
725. 44:58Yeah.
726. 44:59So the strong single mother type who says,
727. 45:02I can do it all, she's constantly online
728. 45:04talking about how stressed out she is.
729. 45:06So I believe that children need their parents,
730. 45:10men need women and women need men.
731. 45:12And the best way for that,
732. 45:14those interconnected relationships to be executed
733. 45:18is in a loving, low conflict home
734. 45:21with married mom and dad raising their offspring.
735. 45:23So that is the blueprint.
736. 45:26And that is, it's the blueprint
737. 45:27because that is how our Creator designed us to be.
738. 45:31Now the people who think that they can do something better,
739. 45:33let's see your results.
740. 45:34Because the last 60 years of telling me
741. 45:36that they're not looking particularly good.
742. 45:38Man, you're so right about that.
743. 45:39And I wanna say as a moment of encouragement,
744. 45:42that man God knows where we are,
745. 45:44God knows our stations in life.
746. 45:46He knows that even if we haven't,
747. 45:48I know I talked to a lot of guys that's your man, Abe,
748. 45:51I didn't know nothing about being a father,
749. 45:53being a husband, but the scripture promises
750. 45:56that he's the father to the fatherless, you know,
751. 45:58and that God's way still is the best way.
752. 46:02And even if you have not had that personal experience,
753. 46:05you have the fresh opportunity to submit yourselves a fresh
754. 46:09to the truth of God's word and the Lord can give you wisdom
755. 46:13to rectify what you probably were deprived of.
756. 46:16If we speak realistically concerning the statistics
757. 46:18that are prevalent now, have you had the circumstance
758. 46:21and encountered with people who might say,
759. 46:23I came from a pretty tortured background,
760. 46:26but I want to make an adjustment to my lifespan.
761. 46:29What has your experience been with that?
762. 46:30Yeah, absolutely.
763. 46:31And one of the things I tell people all the time is
764. 46:33that you can't help the family that you're born into,
765. 46:36but you can help the one that you build.
766. 46:37Amen.
767. 46:38So part of it is saying, look, I had no sort of say
768. 46:45in what my parents did or how they managed their relationship,
769. 46:47but I want something better for myself
770. 46:49and for my future children.
771. 46:50Or if your guy says, look,
772. 46:52I have four kids about three different women.
773. 46:54I can't marry all three of them,
774. 46:57but what I can do is express something
775. 47:00and encourage something and plant a new seed
776. 47:03for my children.
777. 47:05And the thing is we have a beautiful pattern of this, right?
778. 47:08If you go into any urban school district,
779. 47:10in any school, in any big city,
780. 47:12you're going to see banners and flags with Harvard
781. 47:15and Yale and Duke and Hampton and Howard.
782. 47:17And oftentimes these are schools
783. 47:19that are educating children whose parents
784. 47:21have never even gone to college, never imagined going to college.
785. 47:24But the school understands how to express an ideal
786. 47:28in such a way where the parents don't feel condemned or judged.
787. 47:31And a good parent wants something better for their child
788. 47:36than what they have for themselves. So I think we can apply the same
789. 47:39logic to people whose lives may not measure up to the ideal.
790. 47:44But I'll say this, there is no way to express and articulate and hold a particular value
791. 47:51in place over the course of generations without the carrot of affirmation as well as the stick
792. 47:59of correction. I would just much rather use my stick on the institutions that are anti-family,
793. 48:07on the institutions that are led by people who talk right, who live right but talk left.
794. 48:14So I'm thinking about all of the Martha's Vineyard set who don't talk about, let's say for instance,
795. 48:19the plight of the Black family, but they don't drive the Who's Your Daddy DNA track around
796. 48:24Martha's Vineyard because all of those people live their lives in such a way where they
797. 48:29try their best to adhere to God's design. So I would rather bring the stick of shame against the institutions.
798. 48:40The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those
799. 48:44of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.