Listen now (63 min) | Black conservatives may not occupy the mainstream of American political discourse, but I assure you, we exist. And we come in more than one variety! This week I’m talking with Delano Squires, a writer at Blaze Media and an avowed Black Christian conservative. Delano’s perspective on politics and public morality is one rarely heard in the mainstream media, and while I don’t agree with him about everything, he’s a serious man whose views deserve a broader audience.
I paused at time stamp 5:00 only because of my schedule, will resume later. While I had a father/mother at home, I didn’t have cousins, and feel impoverished by that void. My field of Behavioral Health,(psychology and behavioral science) has a societal obligation to acknowledge the importance of both father and mother in household; which is center from which children view the world. A girl/woman who dates compares candidates to her father. A boy/man when venturing outward beyond the home is informed by former experiences with his father. I believe that comparing outside world to home experience in this manner empowers young people.
Embrace forgiveness and seek reconciliation. A message preached by Christian leaders for two millennia, and echoed by secular organizations (such as the Mayo Clinic). Are the Christian ancestors of the enslaved ready or able to embrace forgiveness? Will the lingering power of ancestral sin prevent reconciliation of yet another generation?
With regards to his comments on whether laws are moral impositions, I am called to mind of when an austere law professor I once had told us that "Whenever you draw a box, someone will be outside of it." I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Squires that there is no such thing as a law that doesn't impose someone's viewpoint on someone who is outside of that box.
It is possible to make Squires arguments about same sex marriage without citing religion. The state recognizes and has always recognized marriage because of the possibility of issue. The state only cares that paternity is certain so that the father will raise the child (ren) and the child will not become a burden to the state. The state does not care about who loves whom but two men or two women cannot produce a child without the assistance of a third party.
Loving v Virginia, often cited as if it supports same sex marriage, in fact does not. Loving says. “Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). Skinner says “This case touches a sensitive and important area of human rights. Oklahoma deprives certain individuals of a right which is basic to the perpetuation of a race—the right to have offspring. “ Our very existence and survival ....a right which is basic to the perpetuation of a race
With respect to abortion - when Roe was decided, the pill was new and birth control was unreliable. Today that is not the case and the decision as to whether or not you want to have a child should be made before you engage in the act that produces it. That said, I believe as a practical matter discretionary abortion should be legal up to 12 or 15 weeks as most European counties have decided. Women have always had abortions and outlawing it will not stop it. There should also be exceptions for gross abnormality of the fetus and life (not health - too ambiguous) of the mother. Many also support exceptions for rape or incest, but those circumstances account for maybe only 1% of all abortions. Reducing the opportunity for discretionary abortions would send a message.
Who bears the cost of that message? How about mandatory reversible vasectomies? That would eliminate most abortions. Men can bear whatever costs upfront.
Yes. Did not mean that to be critical in any way! As a mother of 2 (married) every little bit of money helps. If $50 is all that possible, just supporting, still do it. Oy, it takes way more than that be support thriving child☺️
Squires is a voice that is needed. However, the Christian ideals he holds (right or not) is not one that will sway a majority of the populace. Kmele Foster comes to mind of someone who would be a good foil for this episode. From what I have heard from Kmele, his is a more humanistic approach. Personally, I think we must first view ourselves in our common humanity as it is the one common characteristic we all share. If we focus on that, hopefully we have a chance to get through this mess we are in. But the problem will always be... and Squires alludes to this in the beginning... how is society and the world framed. Someone's ideals and beliefs will be imprinted on that structure. I honestly thought, we were moving towards an ideal structure under the framework we had in the US society, but that framework is under attack... and may not be salvageable from the shambles of its present state.
Since Mr. Squires is an engineer, can I compel him to produce engineering work?
He had good heart, but he also proposes intersectionality. The intersectionality of Religion, Family and Natural Order (and his guilt) - That one has not always worked out so well for 50% of the population. Just saying.
This was just brilliant. What a sensible man. How healthier the country would be if we could have more voices like this to balance the crazy left. Maybe then we’d land somewhere closer to the middle
Or paid for one, in my case. And I will be judged one day for the life that I paid to be taken away.
I *paid*, cash money, for a life to be ended. Think about those words. They're horrifying and satanic, and yet people defend it. Not one adult in my life at the time, 24 years ago, said one word to the contrary, either.
I've had children and been with my wife through 2 miscarriages. I know what I did then, and I know that it was wrong.
People who commit actual murders don’t have as guilty a conscience as you. Lets be completely neutral about it, and say it’s just a thing. Why do people who experience this trauma play the Raskolnikov card? It isn’t really about their guilt, and they still were afforded the right to an abortion. Christian commodification of guilt might as well be the conversation. You say your answering for a murder, and I say you’re wrong. No is defending abortion, and frankly I’m glad no one in my family needed one.
You may not be defending it, but plenty in our society do, with increasingly strident voices.
Christians don't commodify it, they call it out for the objective moral evil that it is. They call it out because it itself is an expression of the commodification of human life in explicitly materialistic, atheistic, terms. "There is no God, all is relative, do as you like, this may or may not be a person from conception, etc...".
I paid for a murder. One that is easy to dismiss because the victim could not speak at the time. If the baby's mother and I hadn't done what we did, the baby had all that it needed to gestate to term, be born, and then to grow up and be a human with all of the potential and dignity that any of the rest of us have. I love to drink coffee - my child could be having a cup right now with me while laughing and conversing, but they aren't.
All of that potential was destroyed for $300 one afternoon at a Planned Parenthood. It's evil, it's murder, and it needs to be called such. We who are guilty of it don't have to wear it like an anchor around our necks with downcast eyes and heavy hearts, but we damned sure can call it what it is, and do what we can to rid the world of it.
I don’t know a single atheist who believes abortion is ok because “all is relative”. I also don’t know a single atheist who is uncertain whether a fertilized egg qualifies as a person or not. They're certain It doesn't.
If you had never used contraception then you might be having coffee with 10 additional children. Some may be laughing and some may be depressed and one might have died later from some genetic disorder. And you most likely would have lost 30 between conception and 6 weeks. These are discussions of probability. Having unprotected sex is x% likely to result in a birth. A fertilized egg is x% likely to result in a birth. Where "objective morality" comes in is when someone believes Gods hand is involved. Christians don't believe a man and women have a baby by entirely natural processes. They believe God blesses them with a baby. Conception is biology + God. At some point in the process God assigns a soul.
In discussions of law, Gods hand should not be a consideration.
I do think there are important debates to be had revolving around the point when a fetus becomes a separate, feeling, thinking, or conscious entity with separate rights. And I will admit that is a very tough timeframe to pin down.
I agree with some of what you say, and completely disagree with other parts. I don't want God's hand to not be considered - I want it, and think that it's impossible to conceive of our inherent worth and dignity without it, and think that the bedrock of Western notions around human worth and human rights is God. We can disagree on that, totally OK, but I'll make it plain where I stand and what I support. Thanks.
Yes our disagreement is totally ok, but if you want to petition the government to force me to live by your interpretation of Gods will then its no longer totally ok.
You can call it a murder, and keep tithing. My word for that is sucker. That’s the commodification I’m speaking of. You listen to me, you don’t owe anybody a damn thing.
The second most fucked up communist trans person I know was a home schooled Christian kid. The first was a mormon. We’re talking prison time, and losing custody of children. This is a book with two ends joined.
It’s possible to make the pro-family argument without attacking people in same-sex committed relationships and laws that extend them the dignity of marriage! Same sex marriage is the exception that proves the rule that monogamy is a superior form of social organization. Social conservatives should beat this drum repeatedly. If the nuclear family was garbage, why would so many gay people fighting for marriage equality instead of same-sex unions?
In fact, I thought the guest's views on same-sex marriage bordered on cruelty -- if the basis of Christianity is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, such harsh interpretations of scripture certainly only represent one fundamentalist form of Christianity. Having taught college students in the Bible Belt, I saw the desolation and loneliness that denying same sex attraction caused in these young people's lives. Most of them are, in fact, married and raising children now in stable and loving environments. (Most of my students were women.) Dr. Loury, I hope your partnered gay son was not hurt by this speaker.
This was a fascinating conversation. I think as usual when the topic of abortion comes up, too much fault is put on the woman. I think most of the potential fathers are just as happy to not have long term consequences to their sexual behavior and not have to take responsibility. I wish more of the conversation was about how to encourage men to look for a wife, not just a hook up, and be a stable reliable partner and/or father, instead of trying to take away choices from women.
Another thing I wish was discussed more is the extent to which single motherhood increases the risk of living in poverty substantially. If the father isn’t supportive, or sufficiently supportive, and we don’t want to create dependency on the government, then there needs to be some way to help single mothers get out of poverty so mother and child can thrive.
Meaning that if women have all the rights with regards to pregnancy and children, they should have all of the corresponding responsibilities.
Virtually any mother should be able to find support enough to provide her children a decent life, though a conventional marriage or other means, or should be independently wealthy enough to take care of a child. That's responsibility. Failing in that responsibility is abuse or neglect.
I don't agree with any obligation whatsoever placed on the father (which puts me at odds with our podcast guest here). Thinking about someone who donates to a sperm bank, I don't see why a father who does it the old fashioned way is really any different. But I also don't agree that there is any role for the government in making up for absent fathers. I'm all for stable families, but that's not achieved through mandated child support payments and punitive divorce law, it's through people forming actual relationships.
I guess, with this position, you must be very supportive of any woman who finds herself pregnant and unprepared to provide for the child having an abortion then…?
I'm probably around the median opinion of having some reluctant acceptance of early-term abortions. I wouldn't say I'm "very supportive".
And at the risk of stating the obvious, the passive language phrase "finds herself pregnant" is quite misleading in serving to suggest that the hypothetical woman is not responsible for this state of affairs.
I did not mean to be critical! Just saying, if all you can do is $50/month it is better than zero. No, not enough for a thriving childhood. As a mother of 2 (married w/resources) I can say every little bit helps. According to 2015 USDA report, cost to raise a child to age 17 is $233,610 ($1,145/month)
Great lines: (paraphrasing) "Uncle Sam is not your daddy." "Three generations of safety net, that's not a safety net, that's a spider's web"
I paused at time stamp 5:00 only because of my schedule, will resume later. While I had a father/mother at home, I didn’t have cousins, and feel impoverished by that void. My field of Behavioral Health,(psychology and behavioral science) has a societal obligation to acknowledge the importance of both father and mother in household; which is center from which children view the world. A girl/woman who dates compares candidates to her father. A boy/man when venturing outward beyond the home is informed by former experiences with his father. I believe that comparing outside world to home experience in this manner empowers young people.
Embrace forgiveness and seek reconciliation. A message preached by Christian leaders for two millennia, and echoed by secular organizations (such as the Mayo Clinic). Are the Christian ancestors of the enslaved ready or able to embrace forgiveness? Will the lingering power of ancestral sin prevent reconciliation of yet another generation?
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/forgiveness/art-20047692
Yeah, I thought it was totally ugly.
One of your best conversations! Please have him on again.
With regards to his comments on whether laws are moral impositions, I am called to mind of when an austere law professor I once had told us that "Whenever you draw a box, someone will be outside of it." I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Squires that there is no such thing as a law that doesn't impose someone's viewpoint on someone who is outside of that box.
It is possible to make Squires arguments about same sex marriage without citing religion. The state recognizes and has always recognized marriage because of the possibility of issue. The state only cares that paternity is certain so that the father will raise the child (ren) and the child will not become a burden to the state. The state does not care about who loves whom but two men or two women cannot produce a child without the assistance of a third party.
Loving v Virginia, often cited as if it supports same sex marriage, in fact does not. Loving says. “Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). Skinner says “This case touches a sensitive and important area of human rights. Oklahoma deprives certain individuals of a right which is basic to the perpetuation of a race—the right to have offspring. “ Our very existence and survival ....a right which is basic to the perpetuation of a race
Didn’t finish but it clearly ties the right to marry to procreation.
With respect to abortion - when Roe was decided, the pill was new and birth control was unreliable. Today that is not the case and the decision as to whether or not you want to have a child should be made before you engage in the act that produces it. That said, I believe as a practical matter discretionary abortion should be legal up to 12 or 15 weeks as most European counties have decided. Women have always had abortions and outlawing it will not stop it. There should also be exceptions for gross abnormality of the fetus and life (not health - too ambiguous) of the mother. Many also support exceptions for rape or incest, but those circumstances account for maybe only 1% of all abortions. Reducing the opportunity for discretionary abortions would send a message.
Who bears the cost of that message? How about mandatory reversible vasectomies? That would eliminate most abortions. Men can bear whatever costs upfront.
Yes. Did not mean that to be critical in any way! As a mother of 2 (married) every little bit of money helps. If $50 is all that possible, just supporting, still do it. Oy, it takes way more than that be support thriving child☺️
Squires is a voice that is needed. However, the Christian ideals he holds (right or not) is not one that will sway a majority of the populace. Kmele Foster comes to mind of someone who would be a good foil for this episode. From what I have heard from Kmele, his is a more humanistic approach. Personally, I think we must first view ourselves in our common humanity as it is the one common characteristic we all share. If we focus on that, hopefully we have a chance to get through this mess we are in. But the problem will always be... and Squires alludes to this in the beginning... how is society and the world framed. Someone's ideals and beliefs will be imprinted on that structure. I honestly thought, we were moving towards an ideal structure under the framework we had in the US society, but that framework is under attack... and may not be salvageable from the shambles of its present state.
Since Mr. Squires is an engineer, can I compel him to produce engineering work?
He had good heart, but he also proposes intersectionality. The intersectionality of Religion, Family and Natural Order (and his guilt) - That one has not always worked out so well for 50% of the population. Just saying.
This was just brilliant. What a sensible man. How healthier the country would be if we could have more voices like this to balance the crazy left. Maybe then we’d land somewhere closer to the middle
We all watched Space Jam 2, we all saw Lebron and his family. That was 2021 and it got a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Everyone I know who is hardcore antiabortion has had one, lets just say it that way.
Or paid for one, in my case. And I will be judged one day for the life that I paid to be taken away.
I *paid*, cash money, for a life to be ended. Think about those words. They're horrifying and satanic, and yet people defend it. Not one adult in my life at the time, 24 years ago, said one word to the contrary, either.
I've had children and been with my wife through 2 miscarriages. I know what I did then, and I know that it was wrong.
People who commit actual murders don’t have as guilty a conscience as you. Lets be completely neutral about it, and say it’s just a thing. Why do people who experience this trauma play the Raskolnikov card? It isn’t really about their guilt, and they still were afforded the right to an abortion. Christian commodification of guilt might as well be the conversation. You say your answering for a murder, and I say you’re wrong. No is defending abortion, and frankly I’m glad no one in my family needed one.
You may not be defending it, but plenty in our society do, with increasingly strident voices.
Christians don't commodify it, they call it out for the objective moral evil that it is. They call it out because it itself is an expression of the commodification of human life in explicitly materialistic, atheistic, terms. "There is no God, all is relative, do as you like, this may or may not be a person from conception, etc...".
I paid for a murder. One that is easy to dismiss because the victim could not speak at the time. If the baby's mother and I hadn't done what we did, the baby had all that it needed to gestate to term, be born, and then to grow up and be a human with all of the potential and dignity that any of the rest of us have. I love to drink coffee - my child could be having a cup right now with me while laughing and conversing, but they aren't.
All of that potential was destroyed for $300 one afternoon at a Planned Parenthood. It's evil, it's murder, and it needs to be called such. We who are guilty of it don't have to wear it like an anchor around our necks with downcast eyes and heavy hearts, but we damned sure can call it what it is, and do what we can to rid the world of it.
I don’t know a single atheist who believes abortion is ok because “all is relative”. I also don’t know a single atheist who is uncertain whether a fertilized egg qualifies as a person or not. They're certain It doesn't.
If you had never used contraception then you might be having coffee with 10 additional children. Some may be laughing and some may be depressed and one might have died later from some genetic disorder. And you most likely would have lost 30 between conception and 6 weeks. These are discussions of probability. Having unprotected sex is x% likely to result in a birth. A fertilized egg is x% likely to result in a birth. Where "objective morality" comes in is when someone believes Gods hand is involved. Christians don't believe a man and women have a baby by entirely natural processes. They believe God blesses them with a baby. Conception is biology + God. At some point in the process God assigns a soul.
In discussions of law, Gods hand should not be a consideration.
I do think there are important debates to be had revolving around the point when a fetus becomes a separate, feeling, thinking, or conscious entity with separate rights. And I will admit that is a very tough timeframe to pin down.
I agree with some of what you say, and completely disagree with other parts. I don't want God's hand to not be considered - I want it, and think that it's impossible to conceive of our inherent worth and dignity without it, and think that the bedrock of Western notions around human worth and human rights is God. We can disagree on that, totally OK, but I'll make it plain where I stand and what I support. Thanks.
Yes our disagreement is totally ok, but if you want to petition the government to force me to live by your interpretation of Gods will then its no longer totally ok.
You can call it a murder, and keep tithing. My word for that is sucker. That’s the commodification I’m speaking of. You listen to me, you don’t owe anybody a damn thing.
I don't think you know what you think you know. Thanks for a good dialogue.
The second most fucked up communist trans person I know was a home schooled Christian kid. The first was a mormon. We’re talking prison time, and losing custody of children. This is a book with two ends joined.
It’s possible to make the pro-family argument without attacking people in same-sex committed relationships and laws that extend them the dignity of marriage! Same sex marriage is the exception that proves the rule that monogamy is a superior form of social organization. Social conservatives should beat this drum repeatedly. If the nuclear family was garbage, why would so many gay people fighting for marriage equality instead of same-sex unions?
In fact, I thought the guest's views on same-sex marriage bordered on cruelty -- if the basis of Christianity is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself, such harsh interpretations of scripture certainly only represent one fundamentalist form of Christianity. Having taught college students in the Bible Belt, I saw the desolation and loneliness that denying same sex attraction caused in these young people's lives. Most of them are, in fact, married and raising children now in stable and loving environments. (Most of my students were women.) Dr. Loury, I hope your partnered gay son was not hurt by this speaker.
This was a fascinating conversation. I think as usual when the topic of abortion comes up, too much fault is put on the woman. I think most of the potential fathers are just as happy to not have long term consequences to their sexual behavior and not have to take responsibility. I wish more of the conversation was about how to encourage men to look for a wife, not just a hook up, and be a stable reliable partner and/or father, instead of trying to take away choices from women.
Another thing I wish was discussed more is the extent to which single motherhood increases the risk of living in poverty substantially. If the father isn’t supportive, or sufficiently supportive, and we don’t want to create dependency on the government, then there needs to be some way to help single mothers get out of poverty so mother and child can thrive.
Normally, rights and responsibilities go hand in hand.
I’m not sure I understand your comment in this context.
Meaning that if women have all the rights with regards to pregnancy and children, they should have all of the corresponding responsibilities.
Virtually any mother should be able to find support enough to provide her children a decent life, though a conventional marriage or other means, or should be independently wealthy enough to take care of a child. That's responsibility. Failing in that responsibility is abuse or neglect.
I don't agree with any obligation whatsoever placed on the father (which puts me at odds with our podcast guest here). Thinking about someone who donates to a sperm bank, I don't see why a father who does it the old fashioned way is really any different. But I also don't agree that there is any role for the government in making up for absent fathers. I'm all for stable families, but that's not achieved through mandated child support payments and punitive divorce law, it's through people forming actual relationships.
I guess, with this position, you must be very supportive of any woman who finds herself pregnant and unprepared to provide for the child having an abortion then…?
I'm probably around the median opinion of having some reluctant acceptance of early-term abortions. I wouldn't say I'm "very supportive".
And at the risk of stating the obvious, the passive language phrase "finds herself pregnant" is quite misleading in serving to suggest that the hypothetical woman is not responsible for this state of affairs.
Even if father can pay $50/month. That would be good. The money is a good way to support help your child.
Of course! I didn’t mean to imply that contributing (and being involved) isn’t important… only that it may not enough for thriving.
I did not mean to be critical! Just saying, if all you can do is $50/month it is better than zero. No, not enough for a thriving childhood. As a mother of 2 (married w/resources) I can say every little bit helps. According to 2015 USDA report, cost to raise a child to age 17 is $233,610 ($1,145/month)