The Nikki and Reuel Podcast Experience
Nikki Bascome and Reuel Sample combine to bring you a tour de force of events and happenings in New Hanover County, North Carolina. Tune in to hear political discussions from the realistic right, cultural discussions, and laughter at the always crazy reality of our present culture.
The Nikki and Reuel Podcast Experience
Time To Get Rid Of The American Bar Association? With Joy Pullman
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Summary
In this episode of the Nikki and Reuel Podcast, hosts Reuel Sample and Nikki Bascome engage with Joy Pullmann, executive editor of The Federalist, discussing the profound influence of the American Bar Association (ABA) on the legal system and its implications for constitutional integrity. Joy articulates her concerns about the ABA's monopoly over legal education and its leftist agenda, which she argues undermines the rule of law. The conversation transitions to the concept of queer politics, linking it to the destruction of the family unit, which Joy posits as essential for societal stability. The discussion also touches on the importance of community and church in providing support, especially in addressing trauma among children. Joy emphasizes the need for alternatives to the ABA and advocates for a more entrepreneurial approach to legal reform, highlighting the interconnectedness of family, community, and governance.
Takeaways
The ABA has a significant influence on the legal profession and judicial appointments.
Judicial rulings are increasingly disconnected from constitutional principles.
Queer politics aims to dismantle the traditional family structure.
The family unit is crucial for societal stability and individual well-being.
Trauma in children is often overlooked in societal discussions.
Community and church play vital roles in supporting families.
Legal reform requires alternatives to the ABA's monopoly.
Entrepreneurial policy-making is necessary for effective legal reform.
The government often displaces family and community support systems.
Addressing root causes of societal issues is essential for long-term solutions.
Sound Bites
"The ABA is really kind of a nutty organization."
"The goal is to destroy the family."
"We should encourage things that make people happy."
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Welcome to the Nikki and Reuel P odcast Experience. I'm Reuel Sample joined by Nikki Bascome and her potted plant. Good afternoon Nikki, how are you?
Nikki Bascome:I am well. Look, my potted plant is still celebrating Saint Patrick's Day.
Reuel Sample:Look at that. Look at that. Well, I hope everybody had a good Saint Patrick's Day yesterday. And, you know, it's a day that everybody's Irish, isn't it?
Nikki Bascome:It is, it is. I made a big old crock pot of corned beef and cabbage and red potatoes, and my kids go, oh, not again.
Reuel Sample:But very good. Well, Nikki, we're going to get right into our show because we've got a very, very, very special guest. Uh, Joy Pullman is joining us from The Federalist. Joy is the executive editor of The Federalist. Her latest book is False Flag Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America. We're going to get into that at the at the end of our of our of our show. She is an 18 year education and politics reporter. She has testified before legislatures, she's appeared all over the place. And she has even started a a classical Christian school. So I'm really looking forward to having her on board. So Joy, welcome to the show.
Joy Pullmann:Hi there. Thanks for having me.
Reuel Sample:One of the reasons why I wanted to reach out to you today is I came across your article on The Federalist. I'm going to bring it up right now. It's you're talking about how we have sort of become indebted to the American Bar Association, the ABA, across the entire board, whether it's in in picking justices, uh, The lawyers accreditation all across. Uh, this is located over at The Federalist. But one of the things that really came out from that I. That I wanted to pull out from this article is, uh, I want to make sure that I can get this here from you. Is your statement here? This paragraph really, really, really got me is that the ABA deeply affects the US lawyer pipeline and licensing system. Uh, there's an existential threat to the country, as most recently illustrated by the dozens of federal judges the ABA helped advance who hate our supreme law so much that they rule the elected executive cannot control the unelected executive branch. With judges like those the ABA advances, the United States will quickly discard what remnants of our constitutional order persist. Joy, those are strong words.
Joy Pullmann:I'm paid to write strong words, but I do really think that they are true. I mean, I think most people who are on the constitutional side of the spectrum understand that, you know, we really have lost a lot of our constitutional heritage, and it's very important and precious to us because it was, you know, a gift of Western civilization to the world to live in, ordered liberty in under an experiment that never had been before, done a very, very successful one where people can live in relative peace, security and happiness. And so we don't want that gift to be given away, our inheritance to be destroyed. And part of that inheritance, we have to have a legal system that understands and works to protect that. But, you know, right now the legal system is really stacked against the Constitution. It's, you know, exact opposite of what it exists to do. Like with so many other institutions, rather than, you know, fulfilling its prime purpose, it in fact works to destroy its prime purpose. And so the legal system, you know, again, like education, it's an existential issue for a country. Because if you don't have the rule of law, you don't have the United States. You might have something technically called the United States, but you do not have what people mean and what has been bequeathed to us by our founders as United States of America, a constitutional order that, you know, we deserve as Americans, as our birthright. And it's given away by a legal profession that really cares so little about the law and Constitution that they just legislate from the bench all the time.
Reuel Sample:I would argue that unlike any other profession in the country, the ABA is the only one that is actually self-regulated because it's the lawyers that make up the legislatures. It's the lawyers that make up the judges. So this is really they have really infiltrated every part of our government, haven't they?
Joy Pullmann:And they are very far left extremists. You know, there are a lot of institutions that pretend to be moderate. But the ABA is not only it's a monopoly over the entire legal profession, so if you cross them, if you displease them, how are you going to get advanced as a lawyer? How are you going to avoid, you know, having discipline complaints, being weaponized against you because of your views, not because of your lack of professional ethics. And we have seen tons of that in the Trump era happening. There's all kinds of cases of lawfare. But also, how are you going to be, you know, the ABA, you know, controls a lot of advancement for lawyers into the judicial system to become a judge, you know, which is a prestigious position, something that many of the most ambitious young lawyers want to do. So if you have your career controlled by extreme leftists, it's going to shape your behavior. And so extreme leftists are basically constitution haters. So what this is, is a systematic, systematic, systemic ratchet against the constitutional way of life among the very people who are supposed to be guarding, preserving, protecting and upholding that way of life. So when Americans look at our judicial system and see. How can judges just completely basically destroy their own branch in the way that many of them, especially in the D.C. circuit, are doing now? You have to understand that the ABA is a very important kind of part of creating the problems that we're seeing today with these ridiculous, outlandish, completely lawless court rulings that are being now handed down against not just the Trump administration, but of course, you know, all of us who pay attention to news. We see crazy court rulings all the time. And again, one of the chief entities responsible for that is the American Bar Association. I'll give just two recent examples of their far left extremism. Um, one of them is I don't know if folks remember this was a real blip in the media, but it actually happened at the tail end of Joe Biden's presidency. He just emitted a press release, an executive order declaring that he had personally adopted a constitutional amendment. He just declared, you know, by executive decree that the Equal Rights Amendment, so-called the feminist amendment that would basically transgender every state in the country and every policy possible. He declared that that was law. Well, you know, maybe Americans have been so poorly educated by our public schools that they're not aware, but a president can't. He's not a monarch. He actually can't just decree on a piece of paper that the Constitution is different. You have to have X number of states ratify it. You know, they have to go through their legislatures. And, you know, there's there's there's a constitutionally designed process that was not followed for that. You don't just have presidents writing decrees. And Joe Biden tried to do that. The American Bar Association not only supported him in that, but they still insist that that constitutional amendment is now part of the Constitution. So if people who don't understand constitutional law at that basic of a level like this, we're talking the three leftist justices on the Supreme Court who hate the Constitution, use it all the time as toilet paper. They didn't even give that the time of day. Right. But the American Bar Association absolutely did. And they still are out there saying that this is a real thing. It's like they lost their minds. Um, so that's one just example of their complete derangement.
Reuel Sample:Before before you go, before you go on, I would I would pay good money to see somebody argue something like that in front of Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito.
Joy Pullmann:I love Clarence Thomas. He's my favorite American. He's just the best, you know, one of our like, a living legend, right? You know, um, yeah, I well, you know, he's he's famous for being relatively quiet on the Supreme Court. You know, only recently, I think it was after, um, Scalia's passing that he started even speaking during oral arguments. Um, so I'm not sure he may maintain his gravitas if that were brought to him, but I know that in private, he would probably be chuckling very loudly at how ridiculous, what a kangaroo court that, that that is. Um, or, you know, kangaroo court situation. The second thing that the ABA did recently, super extreme as they say. And this is on pause because of President Trump's executive orders. But they control the accreditation of all the law schools in the country. There is no competitor. They are a monopoly. So every person, in order to become a lawyer, they have to be trained by curriculum and professors shaped, controlled, influenced by the American Bar Association. And they had recently passed DEI. They increased. They already had DEI requirements, but they increased them. And for example, in the state of Indiana. Indiana University was one law school that was going to, as a result of these rules from ABA, get rid of its constitutional law courses and replace them with diversity, equity, inclusion, and which are anti-constitution so-called law courses. Right? Those those are irrational and they are anti-American policies, right? Because they privilege people based on their membership in classes and groups. Americans have rights, natural rights given from God that are for all people equally with no substitutes. Execute. You know, you don't get more rights because you're an American woman than you do because you're an American man, for example. That's un-American to treat people that way and create those classes. But, you know, but the ABA was going to do that to every single law school in the country. And we already have 90% of the legal profession donates to leftist candidates. Right? They are well known. Democrat party basically passed through huge amount of money. Trial lawyers, lawyer lobbies give to the Democrat party. Um, and like I said, 90 to 10% is the current distribution approximately of the legal profession against Republicans and conservatives. So that would have, you know, tighten and reduced even that tiny, you know, the already ridiculous asymmetry between leftists and constitutionalists in the law profession by by passing those, those regulations. And so, I mean, and there are many, many more things, the ABA is really kind of a nutty organization, but it doesn't. So it doesn't deserve the the control that it has over lawyer credentialing, advancement and training.
Nikki Bascome:Most definitely. And you kind of touched on it a little bit. Um, during some of that, are there any alternatives to the ABA? Where do we go from here? How how do we wrangle them in? How how do we make it more of a fair system?
Joy Pullmann:Well, there have been some efforts in that. Like I mentioned the Trump administration by saying, look, we're not going to fund institutions that are racist and sexist. Um, you know, the ABA had to put a pause on those requirements, which, by the way, had already affected curriculum in many schools. Right? They were already moving into place. And I and since they are such a rabidly left organization, I would expect them to do what a lot of corporations have been doing in the face of the Trump policies against DEI would rebrand them, rename them, call them something else. And that's what a lot of schools did in response to the Supreme Court ruling saying, yeah, no, it's not actually it's against the Constitution to be racially discriminatory in school admissions. A lot of universities just decided they were going to continue being racially discriminatory, but just call it different things and use kind of more, hide the practice a little better. So I would expect that to be happening with the American Bar Association, because they're all 100% committed to totalitarianism, you know, practices like DEI. Um, so, so so I do. Obviously, it's a good thing for the Trump administration to be taking steps like that. States should also do the same thing. I really think I believe it was 19 state attorneys general who opposed, you know, publicly said we, you know, the ABA shouldn't be doing these DEI things. I think they should be getting together and coming up with an alternative system. And the Trump Department of Education should be reviewing the accreditation status of the ABA and try and basically standing up at least another competitor within the law school realm. You know, the ABA shouldn't be the only possible way that a law school can be accredited. Um, for example, Florida is looking at being a having a state run accreditor for some of its universities. Other states could do exactly the same thing. Right. So, um, and even maybe use each other's state accrediting agencies. So if Florida creates its own higher education accreditation, you know, entity, why couldn't Indiana or Kentucky or Tennessee use that one? Right. If it's a good one, if it has good requirements? Um, so I think there we have we basically need a lot of entrepreneurial policy making in this area because, um, the ABA being a monopoly has squashed all, you know, potential competitors. And that is a non that is a not an acceptable situation for the American people. So people who are elected to steward taxpayer resources to guard the judiciary, such as state attorneys generals, they should be creating new institutions, working with state lawmakers to make that happen as quickly as possible, so that the American legal system doesn't have to be controlled by wackos.
Reuel Sample:Part of the problem with that, though, Jpy, is that to change these laws, you've got to go through legislatures who are themselves a product of the ABA.
Joy Pullmann:100%. That's the same thing with education reform. You know, you noted in your introduction that that's what I focused on most of my reporting career. You know, one of the things that dooms education reform all the time is that, you know, the same people who failed at making this, you know, there's there's students can't read coming from their schools. Those same people are given the power to control so-called reforms. So you're pointing out, right, that personnel is a problem, but and and personnel is a problem. But there are, you know, that 10% of lawyers because they are um, so, uh, because there's such a discrepancy between them and the legal profession, they are really battle hardened, and therefore they are much scrappier than the 90%. And so there are people who are conservative lawyers who are available. Who do you know who? And there's professors. For example, a couple of them stood up publicly to oppose the ABA changes. They could be made, you know, new deans of law schools, you know, people who led, who stood up and have an understanding of what a good law school curriculum could be. And, you know, state attorney generals and their staffs or, you know, or previous ones, you know, there have been some turnover in the last decade between some very good state attorneys general, you know, they could be tapped and called on to provide their expertise. So personnel is absolutely a problem. But we, you know, just we have to use what we have. And another thing here is that, you know, a lot of the legal system and the bureaucracy is so bloated that you need fewer people to do a competent job than are currently being employed. So a lot of people could be fired and you leave behind, and you use the few competent ones to do the work that actually needs to be done. And if they are actually working, you know, a full day, a full workweek. They can do a lot more than all the other people who are there just being grifters.
Reuel Sample:I find it interesting, and this is from the Daily Wire today, that the San Francisco Gay Pride Week or something like that. I don't follow necessarily, things like that. Nikki might, but I don't. Is that, um, they actually have to cut their budgets substantially because they are losing major corporation funding for this. But it seems like the ABA continues just down this whole leftist thing. They are doubling down on fighting anti DEA, the DEA policies.
Joy Pullmann:Well, it's easy to do that when you're the only accreditor that exists, right. When you have a monopoly you can do whatever you want. You know teachers unions follow the same principle right. Or you know, if you you know, telephone companies, right. That's why, you know, they broke up famously. Ma Bell telecommunications companies. Et cetera. Right. Because monopolies can jack up their rates and provide terrible service because people have nowhere else to go. So clearly the monopoly of the ABA needs to be broken and it needs to be, you know, replaced as quickly as possible. And I would say probably based on that principle with more than one replacement, you know, maybe, maybe there could be a professional society for continuing education for lawyers that is separate from an accrediting agency for lawyers. Et cetera. That is, separate from it is multiple independent groups that provide judicial reviews of people who may be considered being nominated or appointed to higher offices. I don't see, for example, why state policy organizations that are already established, already working on policy issues, you know, they could hire someone who is competent enough to review the rulings of judges who are up for nominations by governors and presidents and so forth.
Reuel Sample:And so you're saying that President Trump should has he? Maybe he already has, that he should just dump the recommendations of the ABA because because they they are always consulted for judges in the past, aren't they?
Joy Pullmann:Right. So I believe it was under George W Bush that like finally noticing how partisan they were, the ABA wasn't given the exclusive ability. You know, they were not basically relied upon as the sole writer of federal judge appointees, but they still continue to be a part of the process in a number of people who have been involved in that process. I think most notably, perhaps Michael Fragoso, he's he helped vet and the judicial appointments for Mitch McConnell during the first Trump term. So he's been out there saying we should ditch them completely. You know, they they have rated as competent judges who can barely write their own names on a napkin, constitutionally speaking. Um, so, you know, so they just are just self discrediting and it's time to it would be better to have no rating of a judge than to be, you know, accepting their terrible ratings of judges. But I do think, you know, the Federalist Society, for example, has been well known as a participant in helping find and vet judges for President Trump in previous terms. They could be relied on as well. But I also, like I said, I think there's a opportunities for other actors to get in on it. It's not like the Federalist Society has, you know, the only judge evaluating people available in the whole country. You know, like there's there's other people who are participants in the legal world. They're, you know, they, uh, you know, litigate before certain justices and so forth, and they can be called upon to make those evaluations a part of the process for people who need evaluations of judges when they're appointing them, like typically governors and presidents.
Reuel Sample:I like what you say, this is an opening for an entrepreneurial association to get in there and start and start doing something themselves. So, uh, and with, with the dissolution of the hopefully the dissolution of the Department of Education that will send all this stuff back to the States, hopefully. You know, the ABA will be disempowered as well. So before we let you go, I want to bring in, uh, I did this before, so let me see if I can't get it up here. Uh, yes, here it is. Your book. And I was sharing this with with Nikki beforehand. Uh. False flag. Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America. Again, some more strong words. Uh, joy. Uh, um.
Joy Pullmann:Just a second, I have interlocutors. A little guy in a superhero suit looking for his sword.
Reuel Sample:Oh, I see, you know, there's. Did he find it?
Joy Pullmann:Uh, no. But I will get back to him in a little bit. Sorry about.
Reuel Sample:That. That's fine. See, this is what we do for this.
Nikki Bascome:It's usually me or my dog that just interrupts everything.
Reuel Sample:So this is your latest book, Joy False Flag Why Queer Politics means the end of America. I want to actually unpack that. What exactly is queer politics?
Joy Pullmann:Well, I describe it. I actually tie together transgenderism and feminism because I think it's easier and both emotionally and mentally for Americans nowadays, nowadays, to see how grotesque and unnatural transgenderism is. But I think that feminism does the same thing by treating male and female as interchangeable and having no distinctions and differences that we can acknowledge. So I actually think the root of transgenderism is feminism, and that's why I describe it as queer politics, the idea, you know. So you've probably and maybe listeners have heard of queer theory in the academic world, queer theory is the way to describe basically making everybody androgynous. And that is a conscious project of people who call themselves Marxists. And so, you know what people you know, they've been called cultural Marxists, identity politics, all kinds of names that we have. But the idea behind it, the root of it is to basically end the family. And the family is the engine of stability and sanity for a society. You know, people who do not grow up in a home where their both of their biological parents are married, have all of these kinds of life risks. It's maybe the number one risk factor for all kinds of terrible things, ranging from anxiety, you know, attachment disorders, depression, violence, poor performance in school, you know, not having a job. It basically every terrible thing that inflicts costs on society that you can think of. The number one factor contributing to it is the lack of cohesive families, married mom and dad that created this person biologically. And so the whole goal of the queer project is, you know, the is to destroy the family, right? So when we saw, for example, in the 2020s with the BLM movement, they put they were, you know, led by people who call themselves trained Marxists and part of the BLM platform was destroy the nuclear family. And that's because, I mean, they call them they are communist. Communists believe that one of the main impediments to totalitarian government is the institution of the family. And that's right, because people who grew up in a cohesive, natural, biological family have a strong sense of self. They are self-reliant. They get their needs met from their own self-created community of their family. They don't need big government people who are atomized, whose families are destroyed and distressed. They have needs that they cannot fulfill with within their families and their extended families. And they need a big daddy. They need a big brother, you know. So the welfare state basically services, for example, single mothers were all aware of this. Um, and so all of those things tie together because if you destroy the family, you destroy the society. And so I talk. So there's a lot more behind the queer project than just, you know, creepy people cross-dressing and dancing with waggling their naked bits in the street in front of children. Although, you know, that's bad enough. But, you know, the really the goal is to destroy societies, the societies, everything that creates a society that is self-governing and self ordered, which is the only way we have an American style of government. You can if you don't have people who can run their own lives without the government. You don't have an American society, right? You have a welfare state, you have a socialist communist state. And so really, there's two competing systems of government, and queer theory feeds totalitarian government. And so obviously there's a lot of ideas in the book, but I'm really pulling in together how family is at the root of society, how queer culture and theory aims to destroy the family. And the end goal of that is to totalitarianism, a total state where you don't have a real daddy and a mommy. It is basically, you know, your mom and your dad are substituted for badly by an abusive government whose job is not to parent people and to do the things that mom and dads do. And when they try it, they always do it badly. So, um. Yeah. So, so that's, that's kind of the collection of ideas that are inside the book.
Reuel Sample:Well, you know, Bishop Usher, who wrote several hundred years ago, said that the the heart of civilization is the family. And when you take away the family, you take away civilization because it's in the family where you are taught about order, you are taught about legality. You talk about authority. You're taught, you are taught everything in the family. And when you take that family away, like we've done now, you run into disorder.
Joy Pullmann:Make people unhappy. Exactly. If you've ever, you know you know, I come from I'm a child of divorce, you know. So I have a lot of personal attachment and understanding of the idea that when the parents separate, the kids always pay for that. It's very difficult. I mean, not, you know, I have a good, happy life. I have a good, happy family and a good, happy marriage. Obviously you can repair from that. But again, why would we encourage and things that make people unhappy and have to struggle? We should encourage things that make people happy and again able to stand up and solve their own problems on their own. So a lot, a lot of my, my focus on this comes actually, again, as being an education reporter and looking at all the research on child development, you know, the number. I mean, one of the key things that people never talk about, um, with small children is their relationship with their mother is extremely important to them. If they don't have attentive parenting, you know, there's all these things, you know, that children can that puts them at risk for growing up, too. So, for example, a child who is neglected, a child, you know, who whose mother is, is not present for him when he's having a difficult time. That just creates these sorts of lifelong habits that can really, you know, my my concern with, with that is that not only I mean, the number one concern is just like people's unhappiness, right? When people are lonely, they're unhappy. We are made to be in natural families and societies and with friends, and having loving groups of people around us to support each other with our needs. People have needs. We're not islands. We can't, you know, live a happy life all by ourselves. We can't, you know, provide everything that we need for ourselves. And we shouldn't have to. We should have people we can fall on, you know, back on when we're sick, when we have a difficult time, when we lose a job, when we're young or when we're elderly. There should be people to care for our needs that we have. And society has always been happiest when those needs are provided for by people who love you, not just people who are paid a wage. You know, to throw some food on a tray and shove it your way a couple times a day. But a mother who is feeding you and, you know, adding a little side of love in and a pat on the back, or when you skin your knee, she shows up for you, you know? Or as a mother, you know, when you have a baby or an infant, somebody shows up and says, this is a difficult time in your life. You know, you need a nap. I'll watch your baby for you. Right. Or. Oh, man, I bet you haven't had a shower for a couple of days. You know, the baby's really demanding. I'll take care of that for you. Right. So people are happiest when we are showing up for each other. And in having that interdependence and providing for those needs by ourselves. Um, and when we don't have that, and when our families are not providing that people's needs, they it creates a demand for big government that takes from everybody else. So if you do not have an ordered family, if you don't train your kids, you know, if you don't help them to be happy and satisfied and self responsible, they're going to grow up and they're not going to be good people to live next to you. They're going to be more likely to, you know, say, hey, pay for my medical care. Hey, you know, oh, I'm not really getting a job. So you also have to pay for my food and my housing. Right. So every single one of us who, you know, needs to care about family policy, because if the kids aren't raised well, they're going to take stuff from you or they're going to need more police presence. Right. So I think a lot of times people, especially on the right, really want to avoid family issues because it's touchy, right? We all have dysfunctions in our own lives. We all have dysfunctions, you know, that are related to. And it's hard to talk about that in a way. Right. Because, you know, people feel personal about that. It gets all up in our business or whatever. But the problem is that our individual difficulties don't only just affect us if someone is depressed, if someone is uncared for and is in love, that person is going to have a need and that they're going to demand to be filled by other people in more dysfunctional ways. And so if we want to live in a society in which other people are not stealing our stuff, you know, being violent, um, marching out on the streets because they are have, like, psychic needs for loneliness and alienation to be met that their family didn't need. So they're using it in political activism. We really need to care about family policy if we want a smaller government.
Reuel Sample:The book is False Flag Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America will make sure that there is a link to that in the show notes. And and when Joy talks about motherhood, you're looking at a mother of six children.
Nikki Bascome:Wow.
Reuel Sample:6!
Nikki Bascome:That is awesome. And I wanted to I wanted to touch on something else that you talked about. Um, I have a real issue. I have four children, and what I have an issue with is, um, we hear a lot with our young children. Trauma information. I feel like a lot of our literature is gearing towards this trauma information, and I feel like it's doing a real disservice because it's Normalizing some of the trauma that these children are feeling. And in a way, telling them, oh, you're going through this stressful time in your life. Your parents are getting divorced, or you're dealing with sexual abuse, or you're dealing with whatever it is that they're dealing with. And guess what? It's normal. It's okay. Don't worry about it. And I think it's taking away from, oh my gosh, this is not normal. And we need to reach out and find how to get through this. Um, well, that's.
Joy Pullmann:Yeah, I mean, I would say that something that's I mean, not only has family really been eroded by, you know, the left in this country, the other source of stability that isn't government has also been chased away. And that's the church, right? If your family isn't working well or if you need support or you need to find a community of people you know who can support you. Churches have always provided that in America, and it's one of the reasons for America having been so strong. It's another non-governmental institution that helps fill in the gaps for people, and it also guides families in what are the ways to treat each other so that we can be happier. Right? It says, you know, husbands, you shouldn't be mistreating your wives, wives, you should be respecting your husbands. You know, the church provides instruction for a well-ordered life in all these intimate details, in the way that it's totalitarian. If the state were to do it right, I don't really want the state coming in and telling me how to parent my children. You know, besides the real outside boundaries, like you shouldn't be beating them with a two by four. But we all know that, right? You know, the state shouldn't be, you know. Well, you know, someone who's not a psycho, you know that. You know, that's mistreatment. Everybody knows that who isn't insane. Um, but but the more detailed things. Right. Um, the smaller that should be really handled by people who are in person and don't have the police force behind them, you know, that are going to punish you who are educating, leading, inspiring, encouraging and walking alongside you in everyday life so you know the available institutions for that are family and church. And those are two things that also compete with the government. And you know, if you if a government wants to be big and has to displace the family in the church, that provides those things to people. So, you know, while you're talking, Nicki, I do I do think and this is in my book, too, I think a lot there is for. So just to the main topic of my book, there is a lot of research that's not talked about that I link to. I, you know, provide footnotes for in the book that a lot of the majority of people who identify as queer in some way have trauma. And so trauma is defined as, you know, one of the easiest kind of metrics that's commonly used is the Aces adverse childhood experiences. So that would be, you know, actually one of them is divorce or, you know, you don't have a married mom and dad. That is a very significant trauma to a child that we all just act like it's totally okay and not, you know, not everyone, but a lot of Our society is trained to not have judgment about abusing your child in that way, by separating the child from his one of his biological parents. But other other adverse childhood experiences, for example, include neglect. You know, being in a home with an abusive parent or step parent or boyfriend. You know, all the things you would think of being, um, you know, not knowing where your next meal might come from. You know, people can look that up online. But the truth is that the more families disintegrate, the more children are experiencing those sorts of, um, traumatic, truly traumatic, genuinely terrible child and childhood experiences that do tend to stay with them and affect them for the rest of their lives. So I and I absolutely do accept that that has increased in our society, because how could it not with the I mean, the United States has the most amount of single parenting in the world. You know, we even have more than Europe, right? Number one, that's really not a great statistic for society. If you want happy, well ordered, self-governing people. Um, so I, do so so I mean so and identifying is queer is one way I see that as a cry for help. You know, for so and then there's so many other ways that young people give cries for help. Right. And when I was a teen, you know, cutting used to be a thing, right. That's a cry for help. It's saying I have a lot, you know. So so we kind of go through these different fads. But I do think that the pain there is real of the young people and that a lot of the young people, our society really preferences adults at the expense of children. And when the young people give cries for help like that, you know, rather than saying, wow, what's going on in their lives? Who needs to press in and see how the parents are doing in that home? We just try to treat the symptoms of that rather than looking at the root cause. I so I know that some of the, you know, um, some of the trauma talk is really fluffy and stupid, you know, or the soul, like, it can create victim sort of. Oh, well, you know, I had this bad experience, so now it's okay for me to respond in a terrible way, you know, so there's a lot of like dysfunction that can be perpetuated based on that. But I think instead of pretending that that's not going on our society, that people like us need to really come up with and think about solutions that address those root causes for why there are so many cries for help from our young people, from our families, they shouldn't go ignored. And partly and again, even if you're a cold hearted person who doesn't care about the human side of this, which you know, which it's hard to care about people that you're not connected to, I think you should just care about the fact that these people are going to, you know, demand mental health services. They're, you know, requiring overdose drugs. They're contributing to the homeless problem. You know, all of these things, they're going to affect your life in some way. Um, you're not an atomized individual. It's going to come and, you know, tax, tax, your wallet book and your and your main street and your, you know, where you want to live. Um, so you might as well get involved and try to help in a healthy, proactive way that really gets at the root problems. And I think the two root problems really are the malfunctions in those two core institutions, which are family and the church. People aren't going to church. They aren't having existential solutions, you know, for that that need that we all have. We all have spirits. And they all we also are families, you know, are not supportive and not encouraged to stay together and solve their problems on their own.
Reuel Sample:I actually just preached on this a couple of weeks ago where I talked about how America views the church, and 30% of people trust the church, which means 70% of people don't. We have the lowest church attendance ever. And and in quite a few ways, the church has actually brought it on itself. It's made itself margin. It's it's put itself at the, at the outside and said we don't really matter at all. So Joy Pullman.
Joy Pullmann:I mean, there are some not great churches out there, that's for sure. But don't go to one of those, you know, find, try try a couple till you find a good one.
Reuel Sample:That's right, that's right. Exactly. We're we're. You know, there's always one. The one room for one more hypocrite. So come on in. And, uh, we'd love to have you, you know, so you don't have to be perfect to to come in. So, I mean.
Joy Pullmann:People have terrible bosses, right? And they don't say, I mean, on average, right? Oh, well, work is just ridiculous. No one should work, you know, because I had a terrible boss. You know, they do that with marriage. They do that with church. That's a completely immature and, you know, nonstarter in my opinion. Um, you know it, pigeon. I mean, find a place that isn't, you know, there's always going to be imperfect people in any marriage and any church and any family, you know, but find out where you can contribute and find one that is good enough to go to and be a part of that and that. And people are asking too much from government because we've erased those two other pillars of society.
Reuel Sample:I have a perfect podcast host, so I never have a problem with Nikki except for the potted plant behind her. So, uh, Joy Pullman, I know you've.
Nikki Bascome:Reuel, do you need something? Is that what you're doing?
Reuel Sample:No. That's fine. Joy, I know you've got. I know you've got somebody looking for a lost sword or something behind you. So we're gonna let you go. But so thankful for you being on board. What do you. When's your next book out? What are you working on next?
Joy Pullmann:Well, I do have two books under the. I mean, I'm working on, but I don't really know when they're going to come out because they're kind of experimental projects.
Reuel Sample:Oh, okay.
Joy Pullmann:So one is fiction. I'm actually I mean, I don't know if this will ever turn into, you know, I'm working on exploring the like the mother absence and the sort of daycare, um, issue from a fictional perspective. Um, I'm just. And another one is, well, I'm not. The other one is a more practical, like, family life mother sort of book. But, um, I don't know where those will go, but I'm doing them for my own professional development.
Reuel Sample:Well, I think you've got the motherhood down one. I mean, that's you probably have stories and experiences that you could tell. Joy Pullmann from The Federalist and so glad that you are on. Thanks for all the work that you're doing and for your insights. Uh, thanks. Thanks so much. And if you ever want to come back on the show, that would be great. So all the best to you and happy Easter to you.
Joy Pullmann:Well, thanks for having me.
Nikki Bascome:Thank you.
Reuel Sample:We're going to put you back in the green room and we will talk to you soon. So thank you again. Well, a banger of a show, a banger of a show. So she's fantastic, isn't she?
Nikki Bascome:I'm so excited about. Well, you know, after after being in early childhood forever. That's what that's my education and background is early childhood owning a childcare facility. So, um, I'm really interested to hear about her fictional book. Maybe. Maybe she'll let me help with that. I would love. H ey, Joy!
Reuel Sample:That's right. Yeah. Between the the two of you. You raised a you know.
Nikki Bascome:A lot of people.
Reuel Sample:A lot of people.
Nikki Bascome:So I'm about to raise a grandbaby.
Reuel Sample:Yeah. That's right. That's right.
Nikki Bascome:I did so my daughter lives in Ohio, and I did tell her yesterday that when I come up, that baby's coming back with me, and she's like, mom. I'm still working that angle, though. We're working.
Reuel Sample:Just give her two months and then she'll. Yeah, she'll she'll send the she'll, you know, after two months of no sleep, she'll send the baby away with anybody just for, just for to get a couple hours of sleep.
Nikki Bascome:Oh, yeah. Well, you know, Joy. Joy hit on it when she was talking about, you know, having a newborn baby and someone coming over and saying, wow, you know, you look like you need some rest. You look like you need a shower. And that's what I. You know, she's having the baby the beginning of July. I'm not going until the end of July. August when all the, you know, everybody's excitement kind of dies off. And then she realizes, oh my God, I'm really tired. That's that's when I'm going, I got it, baby, I got it. Mama's coming.
Reuel Sample:Well, folks, uh, high quality podcasts like this, only, uh, result is part of folks supporting us. So please, if you if you like, uh, if you like this podcast, you could have been a live part of it and asking joy questions. Uh, because every level of our Patreon account gives you access to the live feed. So, uh, check us out. Uh, head on over to our website at the Wilmington conservative.com, and you can see ways that you can support us. So please check that out. And we really do appreciate your help. So for the Nikki and Reuel Podcast Experience, as always, I'm Reuel Sample.
Nikki Bascome:And I'm pretty sure I'm still Nikki Bascome, but I'll let you know.
Reuel Sample:You never know. Or it's a potted plant. So, uh, thank you all for listening.
Nikki Bascome:Bye.