Episode 15: Moral Relativism, SPLC Indictment and Yet Another Assassination Attempt

This week on Not Gullible: What do dystopian stories and current events have in common? The unthinkable becomes thinkable and even applauded. The SPLC indictment reveals how little racism there really is. And Cole Allen was convinced he was a hero. Why wouldn't he believe that? "Useful idiots" and propaganda go hand in hand. 

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Transcript

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Welcome to Not Gullible. I'm your host, Vanessa Hunt. And each week we'll be discussing faith, news, and the stories that matter, all from a biblical worldview. In his book, Time for Truth, Oz Guinness says, If everything is endlessly open to question and change, then everything is permitted, nothing is forbidden, and literally nothing is unthinkable. As we dig into the stories I'll be covering this week, I want you to keep that quote in the back of your mind. A society that allows moral relativism to become the norm will never survive. It literally can't survive. Once you remove the guardrails of objective truth and morality, it's open season on every kind of evil. When reality itself becomes subjective and the content people consume all day, every day intentionally inverts and subverts the truth, it's no wonder that they become radicalized. After that, what was formerly an unthinkable act of cowardice becomes a demonstration of courage and fidelity to the spirit of the age. And the more it occurs, the less radical it seems. Imagine with me for a moment that you live in a town where there is a designated organization whose sole job is to investigate arson. When it first began, it seemed as though there was a legitimate reason to have such an organization because there had been a handful of fires that required deeper inspection. And the promise was that this would help to prevent more arsonists from starting fires. The citizens are so happy that the investigators are solving this problem, that they are more than thrilled to donate money to them so that they can keep on uncovering those terrible arsonists and maybe even stop them before they do any more damage. As more money is raised, the investigators begin to really enjoy the benefits of their job, which include praise and notoriety from the media and even the government. But soon the arson investigators encounter a major problem. There just aren't enough people starting fires. And if there aren't fires, then the organization doesn't serve any purpose or get any more funding. So instead of acknowledging the fact that the town has rid itself of the criminals who keep starting fires, the arson investigators decide to just light those fires themselves. Now, they don't actually strike the match, but instead they pay people to do it for them. And they also find people who seem like they might want to light a building on fire, and they strongly encourage them to do it. Suddenly there are more fires starting all around the town, and the arson investigators are more than happy to point to them as evidence that the citizens of the town definitely still need them and definitely need to keep giving them money. The town government even begins to use these fires as evidence that more laws are needed. The big companies in the town even write policies and make hiring decisions based on the evidence of these widespread fires. Elderly people are happy to fork over their social security check to the arson investigators because they know that it's going to such a great cause and they're obviously needed. But all the while, the demand for arson investigations was greater than the supply of legitimate arson. Where am I going with this? Well, early last week, a federal grand jury returned an 11-count indictment charging the Southern Poverty Loss Poverty Law Center with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The allegations stem from an investigation which revealed that from the 1980s until now, the SBLC operated a covert network of informants who not only infiltrated extremist groups like the KKK, but actually instigated many of the violent acts, which would then be attributed to that group. Now keep in mind that the SBLC is not a law enforcement agency. So this isn't the same thing as, say, the FBI or the CIA going undercover to root out a terrorist cell, for example. They also secretly funneled over $3 million in donor funds to various individuals linked to these groups while publicly denouncing them as part of the SPLC hate tracking and anti-extremism work. The scheme defrauded donors by misrepresenting how the funds would be used, and it involved creating fake bank accounts in order to disguise the payments that were made to these informants. Now, it's important to keep in mind the arson investigation analogy I shared at the beginning of this segment so that you can understand exactly what's been happening. The SBLC began as a nonprofit organization with the supposed purpose of rooting out racism, providing funding for litigation, and keeping track of quote-unquote hate crimes, as well as people and businesses that they deemed to be racist or bigoted. That list just grew and grew and grew over time. And of course, the definition of hate and racism expanded too, until you ended up with people like Charlie Kirk, TPUSA, Moms for Liberty Liberty, and many others in the conservative movement on their list, as well as ministries like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. In 2012, a gunman attempted to get into the offices of the Family Research Council with, according to him, the intention of shooting as many people as possible. He shot a security guard who managed to stop him from shooting anyone else. The gunman cited the SPLC designation of the Family Research Council as a hate group as his reason for his attack. It's important to note that the SPLC was also really angry when Antifa was designated as a domestic terrorist organization. And the SPLC praised Antifa for doing what they say is important work to fight fascism in America. Oh, the irony. Probably the most egregious action taken by the SBLC has to do with what happened in Charlottesville in 2017 at the neo-Nazi Unite the Right rally. The new revelations show that the SPLC had at least one source who was part of the leadership of this neo-Nazi group. So one of their own sources was leading it. And that person actually planned the event and was directed by the SPLC to make racist postings about it online. The SPLC even helped to pay for and coordinate transportation for them to the rally. If you remember, the rally became a flashpoint during Trump's first term, especially when his speech was clipped and circulated to make it seem like he called the neo-Nazis quote unquote verifying people. Even Snopes, which is definitely not a neutral watchdog group, even Snopes debunked the claim from the left that Trump was praising Nazis. But the damage was done and the SPLC was largely responsible. The narrative they paid for was used by Biden to campaign and fundraise on this notion that Trump had praised racists, racists, and that the Democrats had to win in order to fight white supremacy. After he was in office, the Biden administration met with officials from the SBLC at least 11 times. Now, I'm not saying that there is no racism anymore. Racism, like other sins, will always be with us because we are human beings. But the demand for racism is greater than the supply here in America, which is why those who want to see this country destroyed have to expand their definitions of terms and pay for fake hate crimes. It's vital that we stop being so influenced by the propaganda and stop being so gullible. One of my daughter's favorite genres of books and movies is dystopian stories. She's read 1984 and Animal Farm, and I think we've watched pretty much every dystopian film ever made. And something I've noticed is that very few, if any, of the dystopian storylines start at the beginning. They seem to always start in the middle, where we see that the people are already fully living in that world. Sometimes you'll get flashbacks to a time before everything became so horrible, but you don't usually get to see how it all really began. But there had to have been a beginning, a time when that society had shared values and cohesiveness. Because the erosion always happens slowly at first and is barely perceptible. It's only when the signs become more obvious that people look around and wonder how they got there. Suddenly there's a divide and division creates opportunities for those who want to break apart the foundation of a society. Propaganda becomes the ultimate weapon, but actual violence is also used in order to keep people scared and less likely to want to fight back. The phrase useful idiots is common in dystopian stories and it's been around for a long time. And it describes people who are passionate about a particular cause, but who are considered to be only useful to the leadership of that cause as long as they can control them. We can see these people portrayed in that genre of books and films. The leadership or elites will use propaganda to stoke fear and urgency, knowing that these useful idiots are likely to take action. They so firmly believe that they are fighting for the cause that they don't recognize what's really going on. Cole Allen is a 31-year-old graduate of Caltech with a degree in engineering and a master's degree in computer science. He's a video game developer, runs a tutoring company, and was named Teacher of the Month in 2024. And on Saturday, he attempted to assassinate President Trump and other administration officials. 10 minutes before the attack, he sent a manifesto to his family, where he explained to them his plans to kill the president and as many of the cabinet members as possible. And rather than sounding like the unhinged rantings of a lunatic, the rest of the manifesto actually sounded almost identical to what we've heard from mainstream media, local and state representatives, school teachers, and so-called comedy shows for the past 10 years. Cole Allen regularly posted on social media about his hatred of Trump, hatred of conservatives and hatred of Christians. But the statements he made were not very different from those you'll hear on the nightly news or from the ladies on The View. Those who consume that content have it drilled into their minds that Trump is literally Hitler, literally a fascist, rapist, tyrant, racist, bigot, and of course, their favorite, a threat to democracy. He's going to destroy America if he isn't stopped. Cole Allen believed all of this to be true. He was loyal to the cause, a useful idiot who thankfully was stopped before he actually killed anyone. And he'll now spend the rest of his life in prison because he did the only thing he could think of to stop the person who was, quote, literally Hitler, from destroying the country. Because who wouldn't stop Hitler if they had the chance, right? In Cole Allen's mind, he wasn't doing anything wrong. In fact, he was being heroic. A few days before this latest assassination attempt, the New York Times published a conversation with a man named Hassan Piker, who is a radical socialist communist, although he grew up rich, of course. But he publicly called on his followers to kill capitalists. He said, quote, kill them and let the streets soak in their red capitalist blood. Regarding the attempted assassinations on Trump, he said, someone's got to do it. The New York Times gave him a platform and he's using it to call for the murder of Republicans. Three weeks ago, Saturday Night Live joked about Trump being assassinated like President Lincoln. Last week, Senate majority minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called for quote maximum warfare everywhere all the time, as he stood in front of a dramatic image of an angry-looking Trump against a blood-red background. Teachers, healthcare professionals, heads of colleges, and corporations have been sharing on social media how very upset they are that Cole Allen missed. They lament the fact that the president wasn't assassinated. And they do it openly. They want him dead and the vice president dead, the cabinet members dead. And it's not a huge leap to think that maybe they want anyone dead who aligns with this administration in any way. The celebration of and calls for violence have become so commonplace that most people weren't even shocked by this most recent attempt on the president's life. And if you have people who are trying to tell you that this is a both sides issue, I want you to know that the majority, if not all, of the quote unquote data being given and spread around is all part of the propaganda. Journalists have now dug into the numbers that the mainstream outlets trot out and have found gross inaccuracies. In fact, most of them left out Charlie Kirk's assassination. They left out the deaths that occurred during the George Floyd riots, which led to dozens of people dying and $2 billion in damage. Some of these sources even left out the previous assassination attempts on President Trump. It's all part of the gaslighting. We aren't supposed to believe what we see with our own eyes. But this is the moment in the dystopian story where the tide can turn. We're further along in the plot than I wish we were, but not so far along that the loss of everything that makes this nation so great is just inevitable. And if you've ever wanted to yell at the characters in a movie to wake up because they are either completely oblivious or lazy or cowardly, then this is that moment for us as a nation. No matter how many times you've been told that America is just an idea, the reality is that that is simply not true. America is a nation built on principles and values and ideals. It began with shared standards based on objective truths. This downward spiral into moral relativism and nihilism has only proven just how dystopian things become when you remove the framework of a biblical worldview. We've seen that warning play out in real time with organizations like the SVLC manufacturing the very hate they claimed to fight. And last weekend, a young man with every advantage going for him, a good education, a career in a field he loved, a family cared about him, he became convinced that assassinating the president would be an act of heroism. But as Christians, we don't live as people without hope. We know the author of this story of creation and humanity, and the same God who established objective truth, who gave us the Holy Spirit to guide us, and who calls us to love what is good, we know that He will equip us to stand strong in this moment. First Timothy 1 5 says, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. If followers of Christ will live as people with chests, to quote C.S. Lewis, with strong hearts filled with God's truth, minds rooted in reality, and courageous hands ready to do what is right, then we can point the world back to him. Always remember that the guardrails of truth didn't disappear. They've just been abandoned. The principles on which this nation was founded are stronger than any political party and can be renewed through people who are more devoted to the Lord than to the spirit of the age. Every day we have opportunities to do this as faithful followers of Christ, whether it's in the tasks we do around our homes, discipling our children, we're bravely speaking the truth every time the opportunity arises. Let's head into the next week with a renewed commitment to hold fast to what is good and true and to pray for wisdom and courage in the days that are ahead of us so that we will be women who are not gullible.