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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 19 January 2026

Does it seem to you that public officials are becoming increasingly crass, crude, and aggressive, maybe inclined to violence, in their pronouncements?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #245 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Recently, Jacob Frey, Mayor of Minneapolis, responded to the shooting and killing of a resident by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent by demanding publicly that ICE “get the f--- out of Minneapolis.” He went on to emphasize his profane interpretation of the deadly incident and called for resistance to what he considers unlawful activity by the federal agency.

In recent American experience, elected officials across the political spectrum have repeatedly encouraged citizens to ignore, resist, or defy laws—sometimes through lawful non-cooperation, sometimes through civil disobedience, and occasionally by challenging the legitimacy of the law itself.

Elected officials have urged residents and local officials not to cooperate with ICE and encouraged illegal immigrants to remain in place and use local protections. Oregon officials, particularly in Portland, have actively encouraged pushback against federal government actions. U.S. Senators Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) along with Representatives Jason Crow (D-CO), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) released a video urging members of the U.S. military and intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.” None of them named a specific order they considered unlawful, and none of them have been able to name one in subsequent challenges by media or congressional colleagues.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson encouraged citizens to "resist" federal immigration enforcement, particularly ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), by signing executive orders to limit local police involvement in federal operations and create "ICE-free zones" in city spaces, asserting that Chicago would challenge federal overreach in court, leading to controversy and accusations from critics of siding with criminals over law-abiding citizens, while he framed it as protecting immigrant communities and constitutional rights against potential federal crackdowns. 

Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was convicted last month of obstructing federal agents attempting to arrest an illegal immigrant. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz recorded a “six-minute-long address to Minnesotans where he called on President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to ‘end this occupation.’” He went on to say, “If you see these ICE agents in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record. Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.”

Either these officials do not realize, or they know exactly what they are doing, is that what a public figure says is often magnified, taken to another uncontrolled, unexpected level. This is called a stochastic effect wherein a public figure makes a broad, charged statement or sets a goal. Unpredictable individuals interpret it as a call to action. The leader does not specify violence or extreme acts, but some followers escalate far beyond what was explicitly said. The leader’s statement lowers social or moral barriers, making actions feel justified or acceptable. Followers feel “authorized” even without explicit instruction. The outcome is statistically foreseeable but individually unpredictable.

My interest here is not per se the specific issue, i.e., immigration, deportation, ICE debate, but the idea of elected officials calling for resistance. I am not defending ICE or claiming all their actions are justified. Nor am I attacking them. I am more interested in what seems to be an increasing number of elected officials directly encouraging citizens to break the law.

American politics has always been rancorous and insulting—actually from the very beginning—including during George Washington’s lifetime. Notorious slogans, insults, and arguments are not a modern novelty. Nor is the idea of state and local public officials calling for citizens to reject federal law.

There are many well-documented moments in U.S. history when state or local officials openly defied federal law or federal authority—sometimes framed as principled resistance, sometimes as obstruction, and often later judged very differently with hindsight.

One of the earliest was called the Nullification Crisis (1832–1833), in which the South Carolina state government declared federal tariffs null and void within the state. President Andrew Jackson threatened military force; compromise on the tariff ended the crisis. This was the first major constitutional showdown over federal supremacy.

During the Antebellum Period and subsequent Civil War, certain northern refused to enforce or actively obstructed federal fugitive slave laws. Southern state governments, became the Confederacy, claimed authority to secede and defied federal sovereignty entirely. One hundred years later during the Civil Rights Era encompassing my youth, in 1957, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block desegregation. In 1962, Mississippi state officials blocked James Meredith’s enrollment at Ole Miss, defying Supreme Court rulings (Brown v. Board of Education) and federal court orders. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops or marshals to enforce compliance. In 1963, Alabama Gov. George Wallace famously stood in a schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama to block federally ordered desegregation.

Now, it seems, we are being treated to a host of examples wherein local or state officials defy federal law, e.g., challenging or refusing to enforce federal vaccine or workplace mandates during the COVID-19 crisis, marijuana legalization by states contravening federal law, states or communities creating so-called “Second Amendment sanctuary” jurisdictions refusing to enforce federal gun regulations, immigration enforcement.

So, American history has repeatedly shown that state and local defiance of federal law is not an anomaly but a recurring feature of constitutional conflict. Defiance of federal authority has occurred, from slavery to civil rights, from tariffs to marijuana, from segregationists to sanctuary cities. Sometimes history later judges these actions as courageous resistance, sometimes as unconstitutional obstruction—often depending on moral context and outcomes.

But this said, there seems to be a difference now. What’s changed is the intensity and a direct embrace by progressive officials of a morally relative, lawlessness in the name of compassion, non-discrimination, or in their words, freedom.

Reports and analysis suggest rising anti-government sentiment and lawlessness in the U.S., often tied to political polarization, particularly concerning the Trump administration's actions on immigration and federal power, leading to increased protests, challenges to legal processes, and concerns about politicized law enforcement. It seems like hyperbole, but there are times when it feels like our country is tottering on the brink of anarchy.

“America suffers from a raft of lawlessness that is eroding social cohesion and democratic norms. From the little crimes to the big crimes, an epidemic of excuse-making by political elites allows lawlessness to run rampant while good-hearted and law-abiding citizens get played…in America’s eroding social contract.”

I first noticed and commented about this during the COVID pandemic. While I often objected to what I considered state governmental officials’ overreach playing fast and loose with respect for individual liberty, I also noted how some local officials—for example elected county sheriffs—stating publicly they had no intention of enforcing statewide pandemic mandates. I may have agreed with their view of the mandates, but I was uncomfortable with their selective approach to law enforcement.

Now, we have governors and mayors making big media splashes proclaiming their progressive bona fides by declaring what federal law they will either ignore or actively encourage citizens to defy. Mayors tell police forces to stand down, not to go to certain immigrant neighborhoods, not to do their jobs. But they would do well to temper their comments to avoid the stochastic mobilization of gullible or fanatic followers.

To form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, we must maintain the rule of law.

Ordered liberty is essential for security, well-being. True freedom depends on order, because without order, freedom collapses into chaos, that is, anarchy, and without liberty, order collapses into tyranny, that is, despotism.

Right now, we don’t have domestic tranquility. The social experiment we’re enduring is bringing us increased lawlessness. It’s dysfunctional, dangerous, dystopian, and sadly, for some, deadly.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best.

If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2026  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 11 September 2025

What has the recent killings of a young Ukrainian refugee and conservative activist Charlie Kirk taught us?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #225 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

“Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska looked up at her killer with terror in her eyes after he repeatedly stabbed her with a pocketknife, as no light-rail passengers came immediately to her aid.”

“The Aug. 22 attack on the Lynx Blue Line train in Charlotte, North Carolina, shows the 23-year-old cowering in fear and covering her face with her hands after the shocking, unprovoked attack, allegedly carried out by homeless repeat felon.” The entire horrible violence is available for all to see on train video, including her collapse to the floor and the killer’s aimless walking about the train for several minutes as other passengers simply watch. Only one man eventually tried to help Iryna.

Sept 10, 2025, Charlie “Kirk, the conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was giving a presentation at Utah Valley University when he was fatally shot” from long distance with a high-powered rifle. He was sitting under an open-air tent canopy responding to a student question in front of a crowd of some 3,000 students. The entire horrible violence is available on video, including Charlie recoiling from the hit, bleeding, and falling to the ground.

Understandably, these killings, more than others that occur every day, have captured America’s attention. Why is that?

One, because they are on video. This isn’t cinema; it’s real. And two, because both these bloody assaults on human life portray senseless, sad, sick, sinful, unprovoked violence that could happen to any of us.

Iryna was simply riding a commuter train, reading her phone and was attacked from behind. Charlie was a public figure in a public venue.

He was doing what all those anchor people on cable news, celebrities, entertainment figures, and politicians regularly do—speaking into a microphone with nothing between him and a bullet. The news anchors know this, especially the ones on Fox News who knew Charlie well. This could be them. Understandably, you can hear the frustration and fear in their voices. As Bret Baier said on his evening report, “This one feels different.”

It was like that after 9/11, the anniversary of which ironically came the day after Charlie was martyred. I remember watching David Letterman and Dan Rather talking on air a night or two after. Tough-persona Dan was visibly shaken, and prince of goofiness David was uncharacteristically quiet. This was too close. Their world had been shaken. They did not know what to say or do, had no explanations.

This Charlie Kirk tragedy is like that. As Bret said, “This feels different.”

I’ve written and presented two podcasts along the way called “The Death of Discussion” and “Revisiting the Death of Discussion.” In those podcasts, I noted that we now live in a “post-truth culture in which politics and polarization are so pronounced we can no longer communicate, resulting in a virtual inability to discuss, much less debate, any social-political issue without it exploding into defensive partisanship, ideological condemnation, or lack of civility.” And that “the death of discussion is a real and a sad phenomenon, a capitulation to a disappearing understanding among the public of what Freedom of Speech means in a constitutional republic.”

How do we conduct discussions in fear of our lives?

The murder of Iryna Zarutska feels like the death of public safety. The assassination of Charlie Kirk feels like the death of free speech.

Political violence, once the experience of Third World countries, is increasing in the United States.

Shortly after Kirk was shot, former Democratic Rep Gabby Giffords said, “Democratic societies will always have political disagreements, but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence.” Giffords herself was shot in the head by a gunman in 2011. In the 14 years since, attacks and threats against political figures have surged. Just three months ago, a masked gunman shot two Minnesota state lawmakers, killing one.

Two months before that, an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion while Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family slept inside…In the heat of the (2020) presidential campaign, (then candidate Donald J.) Trump was twice targeted by serious assassination attempts,” one coming within a centimeter of taking his life.

The murder of “Charlie Kirk marks a watershed moment in a surge of U.S. political violence, one that some experts fear will inflame an already-fractured country and inspire more unrest…In the first six months of the year, the U.S. experienced about 150 politically-motivated attacks — nearly twice as many as over the same period last year…Last year at least 300 cases of political violence across the U.S. between the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and the 2024 presidential election, marking the most significant and sustained surge in such violence since the 1970s.”

As they often do about school shootings, political leaders generally end their comments about these tragic shooting and killing events with the statement, “This has to end.” Agreed. But what is causing it and how do we stop it?

We can point to multiple sources of such crimes: polarization in the American political system, increasingly heated political rhetoric that takes on tones of personal animosity, more people in the US who do not embrace fundamental American values about life and liberty, a growing tendency to hold political viewpoints with a “religious,” i.e., uncompromising, morally superior, zeal, and a philosophy that divides American society into oppressors and the oppressed or victims.

From a Christian perspective, we may conclude that any culture like our own that rejects God and denies the existence of truth, i.e., embraces moral relativism, will begin to fall apart.

Prov. 29:18 says, “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.” Without a foundation for our public moral consensus, there is no consensus. We’re left with no center, just centripetal forces tearing us apart.

And in recent years, like Europe before us, many American leaders have promoted the weak philosophy of “multiculturalism,” the idea that all cultures, values, and practices, are relative and none can be judged or determined to be wrong, bad, or unhealthy. This along with open borders means we end up with a mish mash of people who hold disjunctive worldviews, some of which are dangerous, even deadly, and, well, there’s not much we can say or do about it.

We just need to tolerate, live and let live.

Problem with this is that some of those cultures do not themselves believe in tolerance, live and let live, and adherents from time to time act out their views in crime and violence. This is what’s happening now in Europe, and this is what’s beginning to happen in the USA.

But this country was founded and flourished upon clearly understood Judeo-Christian values that valued life and liberty, believed in the Ten Commandments and certainly considered murder a reprehensible wrong, believed in accountability and justice, and promoted freedom of speech.

Charlie Kirk believed in these things and in the providence of God gave his life for them.

We need to recover our moral center, for without it there will be more unrest and more violence. God grant America a spiritual great awakening, and a revival of biblical values and civility.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. For more Christian commentary, see my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com, or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2025  

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/ or my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 27 November 2023

If you’ve lived a few years as an adult, you’ve likely noted how many things once considered wrong, are now considered acceptable. So, what is contributing to this redefinition of poor choices?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #120 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Defining Deviancy Down is “an expression coined by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1993…The senator applied his slogan to the ‘moral deregulation’ that had eroded families, increased crime, and produced the mentally ill ‘homeless’ population” people were observing in America.

“We are getting used to a lot of behavior that is not good for us,” said (Senator) Moynihan, a Harvard professor of education and sociology and then U.S. senator, in his celebrated 1993 American Scholar essay “Defining Deviancy Down.” The nation had been “redefining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard.”

Senator Moynihan’s “thesis was that American society since the 1960s had undergone a shift in what it understood as deviant behavior. As a result, society was beginning to excuse actions, attitudes, and lifestyles once understood to be bad for social cohesion. Thirty years later, the refusal to define deviancy is as strong in progressive circles as it was in Moynihan’s time. But now, there are almost no Moynihans on the left willing to heed his obvious lessons. The results have been predictable.”

“The insane and wayward—increasingly freed from stigma and shame—today terrify functional America even more so than in his time, on account of their shamelessness as well as increasing prevalence.”

“Violent music, video games, and depraved entertainment are cash machines. Electronic tools provide America’s youth—and their parents—with easy, possibly irresistible portals to the dark side. The weakening of families and religion-based communities contribute to the void. So do social media and porn. 

Unstable adolescents, if they are identified and treated, get medicated on the chance that anti-depressants or uppers will do their mood magic. Drugs—legal and illegal and everything in between—are palliatives for Americans of all ages.”

Think about this short list of behaviors once considered morally deviant:

1. 1973, the US Supreme Court approved abortion in Roe v Wade. In 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, contrary to what the prochoice lobby says, the Court did not make abortion illegal but simply turned it back to the states to decide. America continues to eliminate its future in the name of privacy, women’s freedom or healthcare, convenience, or simply sex without consequences.

2. Gambling had been decriminalized, beginning in 1988 with the Federal Indian Gaming Act, then in 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States allowed national sports betting in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. The result:  professional sports have invested significantly in gambling so that now you can’t watch an NFL game without being periodically reminded to get on Fan Duel to place your bets. 

3. In 2015, the US Supreme Court said in Obergefell v Hodgesthat same-sex marriage was a fundamental right found in the US Constitution. Also in 2015, former Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner came out on the cover of Vanity Fair, “Call me Caitlyn,” as transgender. I’ve often thought that Satan could not have chosen a better poster child for transgender ideology than Bruce Call-me-Caitlyn Jenner. Think about it, a gold medalist in the decathlon so he’s considered the “world’s greatest athlete,” a handsome, “hunk” kind of guy who dated models and eventually married Kris Kardashian. Then he’s part of the “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” TV reality program, fathering two of the younger sisters, making a total of five Kardashian-Jenner clan who along with their mother are now worth multiple billions of dollars and count among the highest social media followers. Then there’s Bruce in the middle of this, increasingly emasculated, a caricature of his former self, deluded, emotionally twisted, and finally coming out as a trans woman. Why did Satan use him? Worldwide fame.

4. Marijuana has been gradually decriminalized. “Voters in Colorado and Washington legalized marijuanafor recreational use in November 2012…Other states have since followed their lead. This includes Alaska and Oregon (both in 2014) and California and Massachusetts (both in 2016). Now, at this time, 23 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have legalized recreational marijuana possession in small amounts. Each state sets the age for recreational possession and use at 21.”

5. Politics has always been rancorous, but like standards in the 50s-60s for what could be said or acted on television, there were certain political mores or parameters beyond which most politicians would not go. Now, like television where almost anything goes, so too in politics where elected officials lie with impunity, unilaterally ignore the law or don’t do their jobs, act with an increasing hubris or narcissism, demagogically make reckless speeches aimed at advancing themselves at the expense of democratic institutions, or simply serve not the people but ideology. And the populace puts up with this in both political parties.

6. If we had time, we could talk about more than changes relative to sexuality or We could talk about mainstream media that no longer presents objective reports on “the news,” but rather have given themselves over to advocacy, partisanship, ideology, and an ends justify the means mentality that allows them to lie or misrepresent and feel good about doing it. We could talk about how with COVID and the subsequent Black Lives Matter-juiced reaction to the death of George Floyd, we got a societal disavowal of law and order and criminal justice, and a rejection of police in the foolish “Defund the police” movement.

“Deviancies defined down aren’t only in the realm of criminal behavior. In Senator Moynihan’s original report, he noted that the proportion of white children born to a single mother had increased from one in 40 in 1962 to one-fifth 30 years later. For black children, the increase was from one-fifth to two-thirds. Today, one-fourth of white children and two-thirds of black children are born to single parents. Yet outside of conservative circles, there is little push to reduce the number of single-parent households. Instead, the solution since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs has remained the same: more federal subsidies.”

“There are some differences in the deviancies discussed…but the root of each is that some cultural understanding is being changed.” Localities and states changing their criminal codes reveal a willingness to tolerate crime by trying to redefine it away.

A line must be drawn. There is virtue in defining what is and isn’t deviant behavior. It allows us to highlight what is truly good. Preserving civilization requires us to be able to define what it is, and what it isn’t. It is not cruel to say that, (for example), carjackers should be punished, or that drug users should not be tolerated; it is a statement of social understanding that those who do not carjack or abuse drugs are better than those that do. It is not wrong to say that single-parenthood is a social problem, or that government policy should favor two-parent households; it is just, because it recognizes that two-parent households are the best model for families, the core unit of all societies. Without a shared set of social standards, civilization cannot continue. Whether it is being sympathetic to crime or ignoring the virtues of marriage, the Left is determined to undermine those social standards by refusing to define deviancy. Daniel Patrick Moynihan understood the problems of this approach in his time and argued against it.”

Christian Scripture tells us human beings are created in God’s image with moral agency. We have the capacity and the opportunity to choose. Since we live in a fallen world and we have deceitful hearts, we often choose sin. A culture that rejects God and the idea of sin is on the broad road to destruction.

We now see or hear something every day in which deviancy has been defined down.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023    

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 28 August 2023

Does it seem to you that lawbreakers of one kind or another seem to be having a field day in America? Have you wondered whatever happened to the rule of law?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #105 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

If you are a certain age, you’d be forgiven for wondering, whatever happened to accountability, law and order, and blind justice?

You might even wonder what happened to Pres. George H. W. Bush’s call for a “kinder, gentler nation.”

And remember the words of John Winthrop in the year 1630, quoting from Matthew's Gospel (5:14) in which Jesus warns, "a city on a hill cannot be hid," 

Winthrop warned his fellow Puritans that their new community would be "as a city upon a hill the eyes of all people are upon us." 

Two hundred fifty years later in 1980, Candidate Ronald Reagan said, “I have quoted John Winthrop's words more than once on the campaign trail this year—for I believe that Americans in 1980 are every bit as committed to that vision of a shining city on a hill, as were those long ago settlers...These visitors to that city on the Potomac do not come as white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still… a shining city on a hill.”

Or remember the words of Katharine Lee Bates’ poem later put to music to become an iconic patriotic hymn:

“O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!” Quite a vision that does not seem to align with what we’re experiencing today.

More recently, what we see happening in America sadly falls short of these powerful ideals.

Following the tragic killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the country was subjected to urban riots that destroyed stores and neighborhoods, resulted in billions of dollars of destruction, and wrecked the economy and livelihood of many people living and working in cities across the country. Ostensibly, these riots – some commentators refused to call them riots, using only the word protests – were a cry for racial justice. And there were a few people and instances in which legitimate peaceful protest took place. But still, the arson, looting, vandalism ruined peoples livelihoods and properties, many of the minority owned. Lawlessness in the name of justice.

America has experienced both a crime wave and a violence wave. Looters, sometimes in broad daylight, break upscale retail store windows and doors in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, then run off with millions in goods in so-called “smash and grab” endeavors, many coordinated by gangs. But perpetrators face few consequences because “there is no political will to prosecute.” The “defund the police” movement has sapped some officers’ morale. “Decriminalization of low-level offenses in some states (like California) has created opportunities for criminals to manipulate the system.” Progressive district and prosecuting attorneys, mayors, even governors announced they do not intend to prosecute and thus do not hold perpetrators accountable.

“American citizens who try to defend themselves and their property from violent looters, arsonists and criminals are immediately labeled ‘white supremacists,’ ‘vigilantes’ or worse by the media.” 

American cities are declining. People and businesses are departing in droves, especially in criminal-friendly states like California. Central downtowns in cities like Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Sacramento, New York, Austin, Washington, DC, and several more are turning into a sad mix of the very wealthy living above and the abject, abandoned, addicted, and abused living below, similar to what can be found in cities around the world located in countries without the social welfare programs or healthcare available in the United States.

Homelessness – with multiple root causes – now plague cities with makeshift shelters, tent cities lining sidewalks, tarps covering broken-down cars, and sleeping bags tucked in storefront doorways. Some say it is drug addiction, some blame mental illness, some argue homelessness is economic, others say it is lifestyle choices, some say these homeless tent cities within cities are hotbeds of crime, abuse, and general lack of safety for the neighborhoods affected, some contend many homeless should be in mental health or drug addiction facilities, or in jail.

Whatever it is, human feces and urine, drug syringes, filthy used condoms, beer and liquor containers, and fast-food waste are evident in America’s alabaster cities.

Altercations in public schools are increasing and increasingly violent. Yes, school shooters, the lone gunman, a genuine anarchic threat to free society and our children, but there’s more, violent outbreaks among students, the product of our toxic, divisive times and dysfunctional families that give these youth no support, no hope, nothing but angst, anger, and anomie. Teachers and staff are now regularly subjected to violence in schools.

What is the source of this violence? It’s the culture – students are coming of age in a society that rejects truth, disdains authority, argues for “fairness,” a euphemism for “everything must be the same,” a constant barrage of social media, political, and social inputs demeaning the nation’s history, its values, and its aspirations, and in its place, giving youth and an increase number of adults a demanding sense of envy, alienation, and surliness.

Brawls, random brawls involving adults are becoming commonplace on airplanes and at sporting venues. 

A woman swore at the flight crew and threw a bottle on a recent flight after the attendant reportedly asked the woman to take her dog off her lap.

“A Disney World visitor took their frustration due to a ride’s technical problem out on a Cast Member, sending them to the hospital.”

A man became so violent on a Paris to Detroit flight he was put in restraints.

“A Dodgers fan got knocked unconscious during a brawl outside Dodger Stadium,” after a game with the Twins.

“Two Alabamians were suspended from a Tennessee park after a brawl, arrests at softball game.”

Tourists in national parks seem to now believe they should be permitted to do whatever they want to do, including place themselves at risk in the close proximity of large wild animals like bison, grizzly bears – yes, grizzly bears, with cubs no less. Or the tourists ignore park warnings not to deviate from established walking trails or not to put their hands into incredibly high temperature natural hot springs like those found at Yellowstone. Often, when these kinds of incidents occur, other tourists or park rangers are put at risk as well, attempting to assist or protect the tourist acting out their behaviors.

Many of these pictures with animals or on the edge of cliffs featuring precipitous hundred-foot drops are motivated by people wanting selfies or taking videos to post on Tik Tok or Instagram. “Hey, look at me. I am placing myself in extreme danger. This means I am, a) uninformed, b) brave, c) not smart, possess no common sense, and think the world revolves around me.”

Another example of lawlessness in America is sponsored by the United States government, or more precisely President Joe Biden. It is the near unrestricted immigration on the nation’s southern border.“The only White House strategy seems to be: Keep the flow going, fly migrants around the country to spread out the impact, trust the media not to report on it — and pretend nothing is really happening.”Some 66% of Americans disapprove of the Biden Administration’s exceptionally lenient southern border immigration policy that allows hundreds of thousands to enter the United States without benefit of legal process.

I have always been, and I remain, pro-immigrant. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants after all. But I am pro-immigrant via legal means along with a legal process toward citizenship, not come one, come all, including child traffickers, fentanyl drug pushers, and many others with criminal records.

Lawlessness is now not simply a matter of murders and sex crimes. Lawlessness is now prevalent in how some Americans believe they can behave.

During COVID, I did not like it when conservative county sheriffs announced they would not enforce legitimate state approved laws or executive orders from the progressive governor’s office. It did not matter that I agreed with their point of view about the new law or order. What mattered is that if anyone can do what’s right in his own eyes, then we have not law and order but anarchy and chaos.

This is not a recipe, in the words of the U.S. Constitution, for a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Lawlessness is no longer the activity of the outlaw. It is what average Americans do when they don’t get their way.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023    

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 24 April 2023

Does it seem to you that criminality, mass shootings, and threats against persons in public spaces are increasing? Whatever happened to crime and punishment?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #82 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Recently in downtown Chicago, an event occurred that media called “Teen Takeover.” It was a social media fueled mob of youth, apparently from throughout the metropolitan area, who simply decided to run amok under the Loop and on Michigan Avenue.

Numerous videos are available online showing hordes of young people breaking windows, jumping on cars, trashing whatever was in their path, firing guns in the streets, even assaulting innocent bystanders and tourists.

In videos, “teens can be seen jumping on top of a bus while others start a massive brawl. A Tesla, said to be worth $120,000, was vandalized.” Two teens were shot during the incident. Fifteen teens were arrested.

Teen takeovers have happened before in Chicago. It’s a deadly hobby. So is violence in general in Chicago, and in other major American cities where law and order is on life support.

“The weekly shootings and murders in Chicago have become so routine that it rarely makes national news. Newsweek noted: ‘The number of homicides in Chicago hit a 25-year high in 2021 with more than 800, according to the Chicago Police Department. That number decreased to 695 last year but is still far higher than when (outgoing Mayor Lori) Lightfoot took office in 2019. Crimes including carjackings and robberies have also increased in recent years.’"

Meanwhile, two elected officials’ response to the teen takeover is telling:

Robert Peters, an Illinois State Senator who represents part of Chicago, tweeted, “Since I’m a glutton for punishment and I’m sure I’m gonna get the most unhinged, crime weirdo replies but: I would look at the behavior of young people as a political act and statement. It’s a mass protest against poverty and segregation. Rest in peace to my mentions.”

In other words, this violence against property and persons is a protest about poverty. One problem with that argument is that the U.S. has a large body of law dating to the 1960s that clearly delineates how social protests can take place, how freedom of speech can be exercised and is encouraged under the First Amendment, as long as property, people, and the public’s right to free thoroughfares is not violated. Point is, the minute violence ensues, the action is no longer a legal protest but an illegal riot.

Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, the progressive who will succeed ineffective Mayor Lori Lightfoot, said, "In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend. It is unacceptable and has no place in our city. However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities."

In other words, to hold youths accountable for destruction of property, assaults, and breaking other laws is somehow to “demonize” them. Mayor-elect Johnson’s solution, by the way, is not to employ more trained police officers. No, he said, “Our city must work together to create spaces for youth to gather safely and responsibly, under adult guidance and supervision, to ensure that every part of our city remains welcome for both residents and visitors.”

What spaces is he talking about? Does he really believe youth would go to some controlled space under adult guidance and supervision?

How can these political leaders think this way? Sadly, they are not alone. Many so-called “woke” individuals have been elected in recent years, or those in office have jumped on this bandwagon in the name of race relations, only to make race relations worse.

“State and city district attorneys, and county prosecutors seek either to release violent criminals without bail or reduce their felonies to misdemeanors. Critical legal and race theories are their creeds. So, they argue that crimes have little to do with individual free will. Criminals are not deterred by tough enforcement of the laws. Instead, ‘crime’ reflects arbitrary constructs of a racially oppressive hierarchy.”

But, “rhe cure to lawlessness is not to indulge the lawbreakers by justifying or seeking to explain their behavior. It is to enforce the law. Doing so serves to tell others there are consequences for illegal behavior and justice will be swift and certain. Without law enforcement there is no glue that can hold a city or a society together. Hundreds of Chicago police officers have left the force and the city is having trouble recruiting replacements. Is it any wonder with the ‘defund the police’ movement and growing disrespect for those who feel called to protect and serve?”

“When lawless behavior is tolerated and leaders who are supposed to keep neighborhoods safe effectively see lawbreakers as depraved because they are deprived, to quote lyrics from ‘West Side Story,’ it is a virtual guarantee that some will run wild. As the Proverb says: "Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint" (Proverbs 29:18).

What is happening?

1. As I’ve noted before, America is engaged in an unnamed Second Civil War, pitting those who do not believe in God or at least one who to whom they are accountable, and who reject the idea of objectively determined right and wrong, individual responsibility, and law and order 

against those who still believe in God, absolute truth, morality, and righteous justice for all.

2. The practice and rule of law and order, blind justice, and accountability are under attack.

“Take illegal immigration. Nearly 6 million people have poured across our borders illegally since President Joe Biden took office…In blue state cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York and Chicago, laws protecting private property, public safety and public health are routinely flouted; the consequences are felt only by law-abiding citizens…Retail theft is no longer prosecuted, so bands of thieves walk into stores and steal with impunity. Small businesses are forced to close or move. Even large corporations like Walgreens, Walmart, Target, Macy's, BestBuy and REI are…leaving, citing theft and crime that is undeterred and unpunished. In 2020, under then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot's tenure, mobs of vandals did millions of dollars in damage and theft to the upscale stores on Chicago's Magnificent Mile.”

This crime wave evident across our country and culture is not pure happenstance. It is the result of a society reaping what it sows in discarding time tested, moral standards, mores, and values. 

I’ve heard it said that “Nowhere is safe today,” or “We’re experiencing diminished personal safety like never before.” I know what they mean, because there was a time in my lifetime that if you exercised good judgment and avoided places you knew were prone to “bad things happening,” you could move about relatively safe and secure. This time seems to have passed.

There has always been crime and there always will be. What we have now in American culture is ignored or approved crime.

Now, you cannot be sure if you go to an athletic stadium, music concert, mall, campus, even church, that you will be safe. We are retrogressing to a time when individuals and families did indeed care for their own safety. In frontier times and later in the Old West, everyone carried a gun or was with someone who did.

In days gone by, the place where you did not carry a gun or worry about protecting yourself was what they called “civilization,” meaning localities back East that had established right and wrong law and order.

What’s now disappearing in America is just that, “civilization,” an advanced state of human society based upon moral standards, mores, and values that respects and protects life.

The principles that undergird the United States of America -- indeed, what we think of as "Western civilization" generally are being dismantled.

Our living assignment remains the same:

To know truth and to make it known.

To speak the truth in love.

To be ready always to give an answer of the hope we have within us.

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

In so doing, you also need to become more aware, more conscious of your surroundings, more capable of protecting your family and friends if you are called upon to do so.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.