Today Christa, Bob, and Jeff look at the Christian Life Resources National Convention from 2023. They offer feedback and thoughts on the different presenters.
“The Moral Climate and the Need for the Gospel” with Rev. Jonathan Hein
“Pro-life in a ‘Post-Roe’ America – Celebrating Victory and Preparing for New Battles” with Gracie Skogman
“Embracing Authentic Compassion and Rejecting the Misguided ‘Compassion’ of Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide” with Dr. Caitlyn Trader
“For Those Who Cannot Speak: Modern Day Slavery & Sex Trafficking” with Tracy Scheffler
The Convention can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uynA-rlCQ2w
Today Christa, Bob, and Jeff look at the Christian Life Resources National Convention from 2023. They offer feedback and thoughts on the different presenters.
“The Moral Climate and the Need for the Gospel” with Rev. Jonathan Hein
“Pro-life in a ‘Post-Roe’ America – Celebrating Victory and Preparing for New Battles” with Gracie Skogman
“Embracing Authentic Compassion and Rejecting the Misguided ‘Compassion’ of Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide” with Dr. Caitlyn Trader
“For Those Who Cannot Speak: Modern Day Slavery & Sex Trafficking” with Tracy Scheffler
The Convention can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uynA-rlCQ2w
on today's episode.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Christa Potratz and I'm here today with pastors Bob Fleischmann and Jeff Samelson, and today we want to talk about the Christian Life Resource National Convention. This convention was held back in October, but we wanted to do an episode now because the live stream has become available for the public to view. If you didn't have a chance to attend the convention, you might want to hear the live stream before listening to this episode, but you don't have to. But we will be talking about the different presentations and the different things that happened at the convention this year.
Jeff Samelson:And I'll just add an encouragement If, after listening to the interviews that Krista did with some of the presenters at the convention back in October, you thought, oh, I want to hear the whole thing, but I missed that, this is your opportunity to do so and check it out with the video and you'll know what everything's talking about now.
Christa Potratz:This year, the convention theme was for such a time as this. Bob, can you share with us a little bit about why this theme was chosen specifically for this year?
Bob Fleischmann:What's interesting about the theme is that when we picked the theme, we picked the theme a long time ago, like almost a year ago, and since then it seems like almost every pro-life organization seems to have picked up on the theme. We're seeing it all over. I'm involved with a national adoption conference. Same theme and the same biblical reference. I would say that it probably was the Dobs ruling. When the Dobs ruling came out, there were some surprises in it for the pro-life community because it was an overturner Roe v Wade and so you know, pro-life community was celebratory. But then we found that the kickback was pretty dramatic and, you know, a little bit of soul searching going on. Why are we here? What are we supposed to be doing? Some people thought that this was going to be the solution to the problem, that kind of thing, and so I think that that's part of it. For us at CLR, it's our 40th anniversary. It was in May of 1983 that we started. We became a legal entity, we had our constituting Congress, so basically we wanted to address the question where have we been? What's going on now and where are we going, and why am I here? There must be a reason. So I know that. Jim Behringer.
Bob Fleischmann:Pastor Jim Behringer, who's been on this podcast with us, who's also the chairman of the board for CLR, he did the closing devotion on the Esther reference, which is basically all of the book of Esther.
Bob Fleischmann:It's a fascinating story. But Esther gets challenged by her uncle, mordecai, who just says, because she's kind of saying, I'm not going to, I'm not going in, I'm not going to talk to the king, he's going to kill me, because, you know, unless you're summoned, you can't do this. And Mordecai just basically says to her well, you can not go and you and the family will get wiped out and somebody else will be raised to protect the nation. But perhaps you are in this position and in this place for such a time as this, and so we wanted to kind of carry that theme through the convention so that everybody knew whatever was happening right now. It's no accident that you are here, it's no accident that you were born now, it's no accident that you live in this place and it's no accident that you're hearing what you're going to hear and then do something with it.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, and I'll just add my own observation. After listening to all the various presentations that were made at the convention all part of the theme or whatever I was just struck by how many of the things that were touched on in the presentations were things that we have talked about on this podcast or that I've talked about when I've been doing other presentations and questions that people ask me and things like that. These are the things that are on people's minds right now and just a wonderful connection there that, yeah, this is the time.
Christa Potratz:I really thought that that was such a powerful thing and something that really a lot of the speakers even mentioned and touched on in their presentations as well. The first speaker that we had of the day was Pastor Jonathan Hine, and we have had him on the podcast. As people might remember too, when we did the episode at the convention we didn't have him on, we had the other speakers, because we have had him on the podcast and hope to probably have him on again too sometime. But his talk was just really, I thought, convicting as just a member of a congregation too, and he talked a lot about the different types of people out there that aren't going to church and how that has changed over the years and how, since the type of people have changed and our method and strategies should be changing as well, and I just I found that really, really interesting.
Bob Fleischmann:First of all and I think I mentioned this when John was on the podcast when John was a senior at the seminary, he was on our staff. Back then we used to have a senior from the SEM beyond staff and he just always was remarkable his insight and so forth. So in the work that he does now out of the Synod Building for the Wells, for the Wisconsin University of Jalcaluffin Synod, it's by its nature, it has to be extremely practical. And so when you get John talking, you're going to get charts, you're going to get statistics, you're going to get research, I mean, and he dumped it all on us, I mean at the convention.
Bob Fleischmann:It was there, there were graphs, there were slides, charts, that kind of stuff and really you touched on I thought was a key point and that was it's not the same way, Things are different. So for a church body like ours and for conservative Christianity in general, we joke about it, but there kind of is a quiet mantra that we've always done it this way. I would say maybe a subtitle to his presentation is now we have to be a little bit different. We're not talking about changing the word of God, we're talking about a change of approach when issues become bridges. To talk about this, and John was so spot on, it was just brilliant, I mean, it was wonderful.
Jeff Samelson:And something kind of related to what Bob was just talking about. I don't recall that the Pastor Hein specifically mentioned it, but certainly something that I and I imagine others were kind of. The context in which we heard some of it is so many times it's so easy for us to see the things that are wrong with the world, that are different with the world, the way things have changed and it's not good. Our reaction is somebody ought to do something, and Pastor Ryan's presentation kind of helped us see. Oh wait, no, that's me. You know, I in my church we got to change the way that we're reaching out to the unbelievers in our community, the people who are caught up in all these corruptions in our society. I got to start doing more to reach out personally and be a witness instead of just assuming that people are going to show up at our church's door saying teach me. It turns things back on the self a lot more in a very important way.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, I mean, one of the I felt like one of the most powerful parts of the presentation is when he put up his address there and then zoomed in with the Google map to his house and talked about, you know, like, well, why does he live here? And you can make the argument while he lives there, because that house was on the market when he and his wife were looking and it was close to where they worked and you know and all these things. But I mean, ultimately God had put him there to witness to those neighbors and and I think a lot of us probably can relate with that. I mean, when you think about the people, just even on your street, you can probably identify a number of people that don't know the gospel. And you know, and I think there's part of us that just thinks, okay, well, you know, they see me pull out and go to church every Sunday, like isn't that enough? But you know, just, I don't know. I just felt that that was such an interesting point.
Bob Fleischmann:I think one of the things and I don't think John said it exactly this way but essentially, you know we do have a problem. You know where people want to terminate life unborn life, born life, disabled life, elderly life. We've got a crisis in moral issues and so forth and marriage and gender and all that stuff, but there is a really big overarching issue and that is the salvation of souls. And I think when he, when he did the illustration about where he lived, I remember him pointed out I'm here because of this neighbor over here and that neighbor over there, and I think that that's an extremely valuable point because and then of course you know, bleeding into this we're going to have to do it a little bit different than the way we did before. Two years ago we had the Futures. In my private conversations with Tom and I've known Tom, has Tom helped me get new beginnings. Our home from others started in Denver, you know, 30 years ago. But one of those, those breakfast conversations I had with Tom, he made the comment he said that when it comes to technology and changes, he said companies factor in a generation for it to change. He said the cell phone could have been out on the market a generation earlier, but it's hard to get society to adopt it. You know, like what do you mean? Carry a phone around in your pocket? That sounds crazy, you know. And and he's talking about that Well, I think the same works when it comes to reaching people with the gospel.
Bob Fleischmann:And you know, one of the things that John does in his, in his work with the Synod is he works with a lot of congregations, amalgamating them, combining some, because you've got some smaller churches that that are starting to shrink and not going anywhere, and so forth. And oftentimes we notice in churches there's just a hesitancy about change and how to go about it, and and people are frightened of the change. You know, there's an element that doesn't understand, like in. Like, what we always say at CLR is we use the issues as bridges to talk about Jesus, as to convey the love of God through Christ. You know, everybody feels they need to be an expert on abortion or expert on euthanasia or an expert on IVF and so forth, and that's not what we're saying. We're saying that it becomes the opportunity to talk to people, and so John was really emphasizing.
Bob Fleischmann:You know, now you start looking for bridges to talk with the neighbors. And and if your neighbor has a you know, a pro-abortion sign outside their front yard, personally I would recommend that you don't start there. But you but you look for bridges, you identify opportunities to talk and we use a lot of logic, we use a lot of visuals and all that kind of stuff to to portray the humanity onborn child, and will invoke science and everything, but really a changed heart comes from the Word of God and I would say a cornerstone of what John was saying and what he does on a daily basis is trying to look for ways to get the Word of God into your arsenal as a regular thing. That you do and a lot of people feel. Well, don't ask me to speak, don't ask me to talk in front of people, and he's not talking about it. He's talking about meeting with people and talking.
Christa Potratz:No, it was really, really a very interesting talk and it was very beneficial.
Bob Fleischmann:It was a perfect kickoff.
Christa Potratz:Yes.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, I don't recall. If we mentioned the title, it was the moral climate and the need for the Gospel, because the Gospel it changes everything, mm-hmm.
Christa Potratz:Well, the second presenter that we had was from Wisconsin Right to Life, and it was Gracie Skogman, and Shirtalk was pro-life in a post-Roe America, celebrating victory and preparing for new battles. Bob, I know you and you've mentioned here on the podcast to just tell you've been involved with Wisconsin Right to Life. What was the idea of bringing in some people this year from Wisconsin Right to Life?
Bob Fleischmann:Well, I've been involved personally with Wisconsin Right to Life going back to 1979, the year that I moved from Minnesota to Wisconsin to attend the seminary. I've been a volunteer working with them, I've served head of their education committee, I've served on the board of directors and Diane and I continue to be donors to them. The reasoning for me is that you know, scripture calls for us to feed the hungry and to give water to the thirsty and to visit the alien and so forth. There's a very practical element to living the Christian faith and we care for the bodily needs we recognize it is not the only thing, not even the most important thing, but it is one of the things we do. And what I've always admired about Gracie and what Wisconsin Right to Life does is that they keep working on keeping the climate friendly for what we're trying to do. Now, that doesn't mean they're always popular, that doesn't mean there aren't gonna be protests and stuff, but the thing is is that they're trying to assure that.
Bob Fleischmann:Well, in many ways they are the political, social personification of speaking up for those who can't speak for themselves. They are Gracie is incredibly poised, I mean very accomplished, for somebody who was so young. You know I was teasing one of my daughters there. I said what happened? Where do we go wrong? But she just really is. She's gifted and I've always been impressed. Wisconsin Right to Life has always had real dynamite leaders and she definitely fills that role. So I wanted people to be aware. Personally, I want people to support their local Right to Life affiliate.
Christa Potratz:And I think too I mean she is the legislative director and so she talked a bit about that type of thing in just the climate specifically in Wisconsin. But just this idea that you know, after the Dobs decision abortions were went back or the laws on the books went back, and I think she said maybe something like 5,000 babies possibly in Wisconsin have been saved since that point. But now she also talked about the current climate in Wisconsin and how the Planned Parenthood is back up and running again doing abortions, and that even though there could be consequences, probably the climate in Wisconsin isn't going to prosecute people doing abortions at this time. And I just found that that was really a very interesting thing to hear. That you kind of thought, oh, dobs is done, I can take a little breathing moment or something, and she very much was saying no, it's relevant to keep going.
Bob Fleischmann:One of the things that I thought was interesting is, you know, first of all, she's just a very kind personality and she talks about the abuse she has to put up with, the heckling and so forth and, of course, bullying. You know, bullying is. Bullying is what the foolish person does when he's not smart enough to argue intelligently. You know, oftentimes they'll shout down and I mean it's a terrible thing when it's done on both sides, you know. But I'm looking at her and I'm going.
Bob Fleischmann:You know, there are some people who are in your face, there are some people who are nasty. There are some people, even if they're on your side, they just kind of make you uncomfortable. Not her, yeah, I mean, she just kind, loving and it tells you that there's something inherently wrong in the way we handle differences nowadays and I think it's harming, and that when I was sitting there listening to her talk and she's talking about going to audiences and getting these kickbacks, you know, from the audience, these hecklers and so forth I'm thinking you know that we wonder why we can't talk things through.
Christa Potratz:Well, yeah, no, I was very interested by that as well, and just because she, I think, mostly goes into high schools too, and so when she was talking about getting heckled and the bullying, I mean, I was just wondering, like I mean, is that teachers or you know, because I would think, like in a high school you could tell the kids you know to kind of be quiet and behave themselves.
Christa Potratz:I mean in a college environment, you know, okay, I mean you're gonna get students that just probably go at you. But I mean I would think in a high school environment you would maybe have more support from the teachers and faculty. But I mean nowadays we know that maybe they're not always supportive.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, I certainly can understand that happening it's. You know, it wasn't entirely clear to me whether these were things where, you know, she was just invited in, you know, to speak to an assembly, whether it was they had a special meeting and this week they're gonna have somebody from Planned Parenthood, next week they're gonna have somebody from Wisconsin Right to Life. It wasn't clear what those contexts were. But yeah, you know, a lot of young people, I mean, it's always been this way High school students wanna do what they see the college students doing and they figure, if the college students can get away with it, so can we. The administration of those schools, the teachers in those schools, you know, if they, they're gonna stop it, if they're for whatever the speaker is for, but if it's the other way around, they're probably not gonna be quite as motivated to do it.
Jeff Samelson:And I suspect that part of it was also just kind of, I guess, a demographic way. You know, if Wisconsin Right to Life had sent into these high school somebody who looked like me, you know, somebody in his 50s, balding, a man, a white man, they were just like, oh well, this is exactly what to be, what's to be expected. This is the patriarchy. You know that. You know they're trying to, you know, put the women down or whatever, but instead they send a young, poised woman who's, by all their sense of things, should be the poster child for their side of the issue, and here she is very well representing it. I think it frustrates them because wait, wait, this isn't the way it's supposed to be, and it makes it just that much harder for them to respond or, to you know, to give the respect that they should.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, you know, I had some really nice conversations with all three of the presenters I interviewed for the podcast after and before we recorded too. And when I was talking with her afterwards I was asking her about going into these high schools and I just said, you know, like, what do you like, what do you think of today's youth? And she was saying too, yeah, I mean, you know, yes, it is hard to maybe see positives in them, but she said, if you can kind of turn them on your side, they are also very vocal on your side too. And so some of these very young college students that are now for the pro-life side, I mean she said, you know, they really do add quite a bit of momentum to the movement now too, and so she just kind of saw that as a positive with the way people are today.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, and if no one was talking, like she is, I mean, okay, let's say she speaks to a group of 100 and she gets one person to, you know, come over to the pro-life side. Well, that's one person that wouldn't have come over to the pro-life side if nobody had gone to talk. And you know that right, there is just a wonderful reminder that you know we can't just sit back and complain about what's happening in the world if we're not actually willing to go out there and try to persuade people, to give the best explanations and arguments we can. Can understand plenty of reasons why people would hesitate to do that, but it's all about truth and it's all about love and it's about the defenseless and vulnerable, the very people that God most wants us to protect. Speak up.
Christa Potratz:Well, the next presenter that we had was also from Wisconsin, right to Life, and this presenter was Dr Caitlin Trader and she was talking about end-of-life issues. Her talk was embracing authentic compassion and rejecting the misguided compassion of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, and I know both in her talk and the interview that I did with her, she explained the difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide and talked about how euthanasia isn't legal in the United States at all, but physician-assisted suicide has really been growing quite a bit.
Bob Fleischmann:There is my niece, who's a pharmacist in Iowa, had shown me a note and recommended I read a book called Five Days at Memorial and it had to do with the Obamptus Hospital Memorial Hospital down in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the ethical dilemmas they faced where you had dying patients. I'm at the point I've been creeping my way through the book and I'm at the point where they had euthanized some of the pets and now they were actively discussing euthanizing some of the patients and the idea is we don't think they're going to make it and rather than have them linger, we'll just over-medicate them and then terminate them. And now I'm reading the debates going on among the hospital staff, because this is a couple days into it. They've had no air conditioning, no electricity. The conditions are deplorable. I mean the stench, everything, humidity, when you see the step into the room allowing euthanasia, how it begins, because as I'm reading these accounts, I'm seeing all sorts of logical flaws that maybe aren't as apparent when you're in the middle of the crisis.
Bob Fleischmann:But I think that the Caitlyn was trying to illustrate this point that euthanasia is a Pandora's box. You know because and we're beginning to see it in other countries she had pointed that out. But you know you're going to get to a point in a society, which is why we harp on the CLR. We harp on this idea of allocation of limited resources. Because society has such a great love for money and we devote periodicals and books to it and people you know devote their careers to it and so forth, because we have this great affection for money.
Bob Fleischmann:There is a logical point you get to and that is sometimes you have a patient who is not cognizant, can't make decisions and is dragging down the family that wants to do things and it's dragging down resources. And because we're allocating limited resources, you know, at some point, as our nation becomes slowly accepting of assisted suicide, the right to request medication so you can terminate your own life, where's the goal? Logically, you got to remember you can't sit there and argue for progressivism on one side and then say but no, we won't go any further than this Progressivism says there is, we're progressing towards the next level. What is the next level? Beyond assisted suicide? The next level is somebody has to make the decision who lives and who doesn't. And that's what she was warning about.
Jeff Samelson:And to Bob's point about the progressivism I mean, we have seen that every state, every nation or whatever, where, when they have first introduced the laws permitting assisted suicide or something like that, they said don't worry, don't worry, we've got all of these restrictions in place. It's only going to be permitted to these people in these specific situations. Don't you worry, all those nightmares you're talking about aren't going to happen. And as soon as it's in place, all those restrictions and parameters and stuff start relaxing, start expanding and just keeps going and going and going. And that's seen over and over throughout all the societies that have done this and there's no reason whatsoever to expect that it won't happen here once that door is opened in the rest of the United States.
Christa Potratz:It's interesting too, just with Euse and Asia. I mean I feel like that I have maybe heard about longer just with the whole like Dr Kvorkian thing, and I mean just this idea of Euse and Asia. But it's not legal in the United States, but the physician assisted suicide is, and it just seems like, oh, maybe how you were saying, like is that becomes more and more common and comfortable, then maybe the Euse and Asia kind of will get that same. Just I don't know level of acceptance too.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, one of the things that struck me with Dr Trader's presentation she made a point of she was defining what's Euse and Asia and what's physician assisted suicide.
Jeff Samelson:And she said well, if you go into your doctor's office and you say I want to die and the doctor gives you an ejection that kills you, that's Euse and Asia.
Jeff Samelson:But if you go into the doctor and say I want to die and he gives you a prescription for some pills that then you take to the pharmacy and you get the pills and you take those at home and die, then that's assisted suicide. But you know, in a different kind of legal environment, if I stabbed somebody to death or if I set something in motion that would result in the death of that person, where I wasn't actually holding the knife, I would still be prosecuted for that because I was responsible for taking that person's life. It would not have happened otherwise and you know this distinction. I mean you know there is a reason for it, but at the same time you know it's just to your point, once the physician assisted suicide, where it's just you know the prescription is provided and you do it yourself, once that's legal, it's a very small step morally and ethically for people to then say well, why do we need the middleman of the pharmacist, why can't the doctor just do this directly? And boom, you've opened the door to direct euthanasia.
Bob Fleischmann:What Jeff's touched on is that frustration that society has on legislating motive, because there's all sorts of legal jargon, legal fine points that draw a line between you stabbing and you putting the wheel in motion. You know it still might make you culpable, but of a lesser offense, and so forth, and of course it's splitting hairs, but it's because society doesn't know how to define and deal with motive. You know, because if I'm giving you the pills, knowing full well you plan to use them. To me, that is, that's comparable to injecting them, stabbing them. Whatever it is, your motive was clearly to be in line with the intent. But see, whenever it got to prosecution, the argument could be well, hey, I just prescribe it. Oh, yes, I did mention. You know you don't want to take 20 of these because that'll kill you.
Paul Snamiska:And so they decided to take 20 of them, you know.
Bob Fleischmann:So what was this motive? You know well, how do you, how do you define that? Because they can't. And what I got out of her presentation was that you know, all of life is a slippery slope. You open the door and it just keeps going to the next thing, to the next thing, and this is a big deal.
Bob Fleischmann:I, because you see it already now, you know everybody the way the argumentation goes. Everybody has a constitutional right to things. Your constitutional rights are carried out for you. When you are a minor, you are declared incompetent. You know there might be an age of emancipation at 16 or 18. But you have a constitutional right. Well, when you are declared incompetent, that right is exercised for you on somebody else, by somebody else. So children it's exercised by their parents.
Bob Fleischmann:But sometimes you get wards of the state. You know, and of course those will be the first people under a society that becomes accepting of euthanasia is the wards of the state. You know, where there doesn't seem to be family, that, and and of course people will say, well, what does it matter? I mean, don't they don't know anybody. I mean, does it really matter? But people have. I mean, were you like born in a closet? I mean look around the, you create a mentality and it permeates all the society. And that's what's happening is that we're seeing society permeated with a lack of respect for life, and then a lack of respect for people, and then the people who actually need love the most, the ones who do not have family, do not have friends, become the first to go.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, no, that's all really true, and I mean I also too, like when she talked about just the just even, like the conscious or the morals, I guess, of the physician doing it too, and how you know, like if we're saying like this is okay for a physician to prescribe this medication, we're allowing people that maybe don't feel that great about it thinking that that's okay to do as well. So just a lot of really interesting things there in her talk.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, I was speaking with a member of my congregation who attended online and one of the things that she said was she was really struck by from Dr Trader's presentation was talking about being careful with your language. This member spoke about it as linguistic theft, where words that have a certain meaning get moved over into you know the other category of things. You know like mercy. You know mercy, it's a wonderful thing, but then you had killing to the end of it. You know mercy, killing or this. It would be a mercy to let her take her life.
Jeff Samelson:Dr Trader's point was in the presentation was don't give into that, don't use their language, don't talk about death with dignity or anything like that, because you're giving away the game. You've got to speak truth on these things and hold fast on that so that that witnesses there to society and to the people that you're interacting with and also, I guess, so you don't yourself start getting sucked in to that way of thinking. Because she gave a great, great quote from George Orwell and politics in the English language if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought, and I thought that was really good.
Christa Potratz:Well, the final speaker that we had of the day was Tracy Shuffler and she was the founder of five stones, dodge County, and her talk was for those who cannot speak modern day slavery and sex trafficking. But I think this was probably the first time we had somebody talk on this subject at the conference.
Bob Fleischmann:Yeah, definitely, and the in fact, before the conference people had asked me oh, why this? You know, especially out here Washington County, we're not like in the big urban areas or and stuff like that. Well, first of all let me provide an explanation. We chose somebody like this because this is not a new topic for us at our home, for mothers. I mean, we've had, you know, mothers come in that have been sex trafficked.
Bob Fleischmann:I think I referenced the story of one that we have a video.
Bob Fleischmann:I think you can see the video where she says you know, this is a chimars, my fifth child the state took the first four and then she proceeds to tell the story at least she did at our convention about how her parents sold her into sex slavery at 14, so that she could help support their drug habit and so forth.
Bob Fleischmann:So I mean, we were familiar with it and some of our affiliates have encountered, you know, women like this and what I found, just, I was familiar with the topic, but what I found interesting is how the the guy there's a spotter that that actually scouts you out and brings you into the fold, and but it's not the actual sex trafficker, it's the spotter that kind of is the first one that befriends you and brings you into it, and it was frightening.
Bob Fleischmann:I mean, as the father of five daughters it was frightening. But she even talked about it happening with boys and then and then get to the point of you know, here we are in conservative Washington County and she's from Dodge County, which is next door, but the reality is is that this is going on all over the place and it has, and she talks about the kind of people they target. We need we need to make people aware of who is the most vulnerable for stuff like this, because you know, I've, I've known, you know women who've been drawn in innocently, you know, or naively maybe is the right word.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, and what was going on I think that was one of the most powerful points of her talk too is when she was talking about how these spotters target different types of people and she was saying too yeah, I mean, they look for people with low confidence and so like, if you can just have a lot of confidence, that's a really great thing. But you know, a lot of times these people are not what we maybe think of, like you know, like the old creepy man in a van or something. They're young, they know the lingo, they look good, they're. You know, they poses just kind of like this cool older sibling or this potential older boyfriend or somebody that is really like on your side and yeah, gonna go go with things with you.
Bob Fleischmann:By the way, that that's kind of how I felt, even at the at the presentation. I mean, you're listening, you're listening to her talk and and you're, first of all, you know you have a conflict of things going on. One is anger. People like this, I mean, I've always had, and people who know me well know that I have the strong protectionist side of me and when I hear that, it just enraged me. But then it was like you know how, you know, when she was explaining how the, how that system worked and how they, they prayed upon. You know the kids are not getting along with the parents, you know, and they they pray. You know self-esteem issues and so forth, and you know, yeah, this is your chance to be cool. Why don't you come hang out with me? I got some friends over here, stuff like that.
Bob Fleischmann:I look back over things that have happened, you know, in the lives of people I've known. That's exactly how it happened. You know you could. You know your, your mom and dad always talked about don't hang around with the wrong crowd. Well, at that time they actually seem like the right crowd, the people that will accept me, the people that do understand me, and you know a lot of, even with the whole gender confusion thing and everything. This is the, this is the group. These are the people that pray upon those who are wrestling with all these questions and they don't have the answers. What they have is the way to make you a commodity, to generate large scale income.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, no, I mean, that's really, that's so true, and just really sad too that it is people like that that are getting prayed upon, and I think too, just another point too was just the use of internet and how that is also social media.
Christa Potratz:And you know, I mean I think that's the thing is that the game, so to speak, is always changing and that the people are using those things. And I think it was interesting too, yeah, because she was talking about just different materials that her organization had, and I think too, one was how to screen social media for your children, and then, and then, after she was done talking, there was a break and yeah, her table was swarmed with people that and I mean their stuff had been there the whole day. But I mean, you know, and everybody was like, yeah, grabbing the different handouts and that you know, had she had focused on for the presentation too.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, you know. If you are a parent who says you know I might. My parents were always way too much up in my business and I promised I would never be like that with my kids. And if you're a parent who says you know, I'm going to assume that my kids are trustworthy. I'm not going to, you know, do anything to. You know police their time on the internet or you know their gaming platform or social media or whatever. I'm going to trust them until I see some sign that you know that that's that's not a good idea. And you know, I'm going to trust their choice of friends and everything like that. And I'm going to.
Jeff Samelson:We're in a modern world and we've got so many things and I can trust that. Well, you listen to a presentation like this and if you are a caring parent, you that will change your mind about a lot of what you, you know you may have held on as principles for your entire life, because you realize suddenly I can't guard against all of this stuff. I can't just trust my kids to know you know to not do X, y or Z, because because they're kids, you know they don't. They don't have the skills, they don't have the sensitivity, and there are people who are out there deliberately targeting them to take advantage of their vulnerabilities. As you mentioned so many of the things that you know, the groomers, the spotters, will look at and say, ha well, this is something that I can, you know, take advantage of. You know, as things like not getting along with their parents, has there ever been a child that did not, at some point, have trouble getting along with his or her parents?
Bob Fleischmann:Well, that would be me, that would be me, but they made me get along. No, it's true.
Jeff Samelson:You know, and those, you know, lack of self-esteem. Every child goes through that, which means that at some point, every one of your children is vulnerable to something like this, and so you've got to take steps. You know I listen to this and I'm like man. I'm glad that my kids, you know, escaped their youth without having to deal with this stuff. But there, but for the grace of God, you know, I didn't understand back then, and you know there are things I would have done differently.
Christa Potratz:Right, and I think too, you know, an interesting point that she also made was that it wasn't I mean that it is. It is definitely parents are huge, but then also teachers and schools and the community, and I think she talked to just about like how the community around her really said, oh yeah, like this is something that we care about, and so that it's just a bunch of different factors too that can make a difference.
Bob Fleischmann:You know, what struck me is when I was sitting there and I was, you know, and, like I said, I think of my five daughters, you know, and I'm there and I the idea that someone would have been watching them for the purpose of recruitment.
Bob Fleischmann:And then I, you know, you start flashing back to different experiences, highs and lows. Like Jeff said what, what child hasn't gone through? Low self-esteem, what, what child hasn't gone through? You know conflicts with parents and you're thinking, wow, what, what, what. What would have happened if one of these were here? And and the thing to remember is that she was a speaker from Dodge County. You know, not Dane County, not where Madison is not Milwaukee County or Milwaukee is not Waukesha County or Waukesha we're talking, you know. You know Dodge County we're we're talking about. You know we've got to go out and milk the cows. We've got to, you know.
Paul Snamiska:I mean it just it isn't.
Bob Fleischmann:This isn't New York City, but the but the point is is that because, because money can be attached to this, it's kind of like when we wrestle with with drug, drug abuse, substance abuse and that is what, with money being so strong behind it, it is amazing the extent that people will go to for recruitment and a lot of times I remember there was there was a series of stories maybe a decade ago or so, about sex trafficking that occurred and how a lot of the girls that were in metropolitan areas hooking didn't come from metropolitan areas. They they came in, you know, looking for for attention, looking for something, and they came in from the small areas, the rural areas, and definitely I mean it was it was a sobering talk, it really was.
Christa Potratz:Well, all of these presentations on the the whole convention actually is now available on YouTube now and we will link that below so that anybody can listen to that. But, yeah, I just really want to thank everybody who was there and who takes the time to listen to it, because really some very, very powerful talks, and we thank Bob and Jeff too, for the feedback today, and we thank all of our listeners and we'll see you back next time. Bye.
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