The World and Everything in It: February 11, 2025

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Trump administration is floating a real estate fix for Gaza.

WALTZ: You can't give these people a better life if you've got 1.8 million people living in absolute squalor.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll talk with a national-security expert.

Also today, how are legal immigrants responding to deportations and the crackdown at the border?

And later amateur astronomers keep track of the asteroid NASA calls “city killer.

MARCHIS: It is a very weird feeling when you are one of the few 100 people on this planet that have the idea that something that big could happen.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, February 11th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time now for the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Tariff announcements »  President Trump is reinstating 25 percent tariffs on steel imports and raising aluminum tariffs from 10 to 25%. He says that applies to imports from all countries.

TRUMP:  We were being pummeled by both friend and foe alike. Our nation requires steel and aluminum to be made in America, not in foreign lands. We need to create in order to protect our country's future.

Trump says the move will bring a lot of jobs back to the US:

Reporters at the White House pressed the president about whether the tariffs could lead to higher prices for Americans on a wide range of goods. He said they might in the short term.

TRUMP:  We're going to ultimately have a price reduction because they're going to make their steel here. These foreign companies will move to the United States, will make their steel and aluminum in the United States. Ultimately, it'll be cheaper. But we'll also have jobs.  

This week the president says he'll announce plans to impose more import taxes what he describes as reciprocal tariffs on other countries.  He says he's considering additional tariffs on vehicles, pharmaceuticals and computer chips in an effort to bring more manufacturing back to U.S. soil.

Hamas halts further hostage releases » The president also reacted to news that Hamas has halted further release of Israeli hostages. Trump said Hamas is in violation of the ceasefire agreement. He added that it’s Israel’s decision to make, but in his view:

TRUMP:  If all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12 o'clock, I think it's an appropriate time. I would say, cancel it and all bets are off.

Meantime in Tel Aviv … 

SOUND: [Protesters chant]

Relatives of Israeli hostages protested some accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of sabotaging the ceasefire deal.

And inside Israel’s parliament building:

Pandemonium as some opposition lawmakers were dragged out of parliament after shouting down the prime minister also blaming him for the potential collapse of the ceasefire.

NETANYAHU: [SPEAKING HEBREW]

But Netanayahu said all the shouting could not hide the truth.

He went on to call last week's visit with President Trump a historical achievement, and says a new era lies ahead for Israel.

Federal workers buyout » A federal judge is temporarily blocking the Trump administration's buyout plan for federal workers. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has more.

BENJAMIN EICHER: The Trump administration, looking to cut costs and shrink the size of the federal workforce … made an offer to some 2 million federal workers. Under the so-called “Fork in the Road” program … employees could quit now … and still get paid through September.

More than 65,000 federal workers have already accepted the deal.

But … those employees will want to keep clocking in for the time being.

U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole says he still has to decide whether the Trump administration has the legal authority … to continue paying workers no longer on the job … for another eight months.

Federal worker labor unions sued over the plan, arguing that the administration does not have that authority.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

Birthright citizenship order » A third federal judge has issued a ruling temporarily blocking President Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. Trump’s order states that being born on U.S. soil does not automatically make someone a U.S. citizen under the 14th Amendment regardless of the mother’s legal status.

GOP Congressman Brian Babin says of that amendment:

BABIN:  It has been the most misunderstood, misinterpreted, uh, thing I think in the federal government. It's been around since 1868, uh, the 14th Amendment.

And he says of the president’s order:

BABIN:  What this does is clarify who gets birthright citizenship.

But those suing over Trump’s order say the Constitution is perfectly clear already that anyone born here is a citizen.

District Judge Joseph N. Laplante issued a preliminary injunction Monday blocking the executive order. That follows two similar rulings by other federal judges.

The White House says it will appeal.

Senate confirmation proceedings » The U.S. Senate today could confirm Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence. She cleared a major hurdle on Monday. Senate Majority Leader John Thune argued on her behalf, highlighting her military experience.

THUNE:  Ms. Gabbard has been a consumer of intelligence. She knows that good decisions depend on having the best information, and she knows that the cost of bad information is measured in lives lost.

The Senate voted last night to advance Gabbard’s nomination to a final confirmation vote this week, possibly as soon as today.

But some Washington insiders believe she is the Trump nominee most at risk of losing a final confirmation vote. Multiple Republicans have voiced reservations over things like her past support for government leaker Edward Snowden.

Sec. Duffy I-40 rebuild » Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the rebuilding sections of Interstate 40 in North Carolina damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Helene is a massive undertaking.

Portions of the highway crumbled into the raging torrents below last September.

DUFFY:  You have a river on the other and when, uh, you see the slides of rock, the mountain fall back into the river, it becomes very complicated to engineer your way back to, to build a road like this.

He said it will take billions of dollars and lots of time. But he says the Transportation Department is partnering with the Forest Service to source local rock to rebuild the roadbed.

DUFFY: We can get access to rock that'll drive down the cost and the time frame for which it'll take to rebuild this road.

That rock, he said, is just over a mile away. Normally, the materials would be trucked in from 20 to 50 miles away.

I"m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: U.S. interests in rebuilding Gaza. Plus, watching out for rogue asteroids.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 11th of February.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Up first, the future of Gaza.

Three weeks into a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, Gazans are returning to what’s left of their homes. The war is not over, but President Trump is already floating a vision for rebuilding.

Here he is speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday:

TRUMP: I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza.

EICHER: The president’s proposal is for the U.S. to take the lead in clearing the wreckage and unexploded ordnance, while Palestinians temporarily relocate to Egypt or Jordan.
Israel’s neighbors rejected that plan…but U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told NBC something has to give.

WALTZ: You can't make this the Paris of the Mediterranean like Beirut was back in the 70s and give these people a better life if you've got 1.8 million people living in absolute squalor in mountains and mountains of mountains of debris. So for anyone, the media included, that doesn't like what he is proposing, come to us with a better plan.

EICHER: Joining us now to talk about it is Will Inboden. He’s a former member of the National Security Council staff now teaching at the University of Florida.

REICHARD: Will, good morning.

WILL INBODEN: Good morning. Mary. Great to be with you.

REICHARD: Will, since day one, it seems that President Trump’s strategy has been to put a seemingly outrageous bid on the table when his actual goal is something else. The Art of the Deal methodology. I’m thinking about the tariffs on Mexico and Canada aimed at border security improvements, for example.

What do you think his goals might be for Gaza?

INBODEN: I think you may be on to something that this is a classic Trump disruptive move of: toss out a provocative idea that is not what most of the conventional wisdom is thinking about. But with that idea, he is highlighting some of the real problems with Gaza and the opportunities, right? The problems are decades of failed governance. Nothing has worked there very well before, certainly for a better life for the Palestinian people or for reining in Hamas. And also he’s reminded us that it is oceanfront property, right? It actually is, just in terms of the real estate geography, a fairly desirable location with a lot of potential. I personally think that an American massive occupation and reconstruction effort there would not be a good idea. So I hope the president doesn't actually follow through on that.

But I suspect that what he might be doing is trying to change the paradigm and remind other key countries in the region that, hey, everything that we’ve tried in the past in Gaza has failed, so let’s think outside the box, and hopefully this is a gambit to get other countries in the region, the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, you know, some of the friendlier Arab Arab states, to step up and do a lot more, and to envision a better life for Gaza that provides opportunity for the peaceful Palestinian people who are there while preventing any return to power in any way, shape or form, of Hamas. And so I hope that’s the end state that he wants to get to. I don’t think it’s going to be a massive American stabilization and reconstruction effort. I think that we’re through those things for now.

REICHARD: Well, just to put a fine point on what you just said. How does all this square with Trump's previous comments that the U.S. is getting out of these forever wars and that we won't put our own troops on the ground?

INBODEN: Yeah, exactly. That’s why I suspect this may be more of a provocation on his part than a really serious proposal, precisely because everything else we’ve seen of him is: he wants to reduce the American footprint in the Middle East. He wants to reduce the American presence there, and certainly not take on a massive new obligation.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about the Arab response to Trump’s idea. America’s partners in Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates have rejected it out of hand. Even though Arab nations in the past took in Palestinians for resettlement, they haven’t this time around. Why is that?

INBODEN: Yeah, well, this has been a problem going back decades to when the terrorist Yasser Arafat was leading the Palestinian cause, right? The Palestinian Liberation Organization. And no other country in the region wanted them. Wherever Arafat and his minions were going, whether it was Jordan or whether it was Lebanon, they were supporting terrorism. They were undermining the local government. They were picking fights with Israel. They were sometimes attacking Americans. They eventually got expelled to Tunisia. And so it has been a problem for the region. I do think other regional states do need to step up, have failed in the past to provide a better pathway and opportunity and support for the Palestinians displaced population. So they do need to do more, but it’s also incumbent on the Palestinians to take some responsibility for building a better future for themselves also, and show that they’re committed to selecting leaders who don’t support terrorism, who accept Israel’s right to exist, who are committed to a peaceful pathway of opportunity and growth. So the failure, the failures of the Palestinian people have experienced are massive. There’s plenty of blame to go around. But instead of more finger pointing, we need to see them step up and start offering some solutions.

REICHARD: Another thing I want to speak to you about is, this past Wednesday, President Trump expressed interest in negotiating a new nuclear deal with Iran. He pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 deal that President Barack Obama had negotiated, but now he's saying the U.S. could negotiate a verified deal to keep Tehran from developing atomic weapons. And at the same time, Trump revived his maximum pressure campaign of sanctions against the regime. What's the strategy there?

INBODEN: Again, I think this is potentially a very effective strategy of increasing pressure on Iran to create better circumstances, to negotiate from a position of strength and hopefully get a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear program. It’s notable that President Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum number two focused on Iran. I say it’s notable because that was the second one he issued. The first one was just about how to organize his national security system. And so this is the first one he did focused on any particular country. It tells us what a priority Iran is for him and addressing Iran’s support for terrorism and for its nuclear weapons program. 

And the previous Trump strategy, I think, was pretty successful about increasing that pressure on Iran, but if we do that again this time, hopefully it could also lead towards negotiating from a position of strength and possibly a verifiable deal. I will say I’m very skeptical that Tehran, that Ayatollah Khamenei and the revolutionary government there would be willing to do one. The reason they signed the deal with the Obama administration was because it had such good terms for Tehran, didn’t have intrusive verifications and inspections that it did allow them still to have a pathway delayed and slowed a little bit, but still a pathway eventually to a nuclear weapon. And they are a lot closer to one now, and it’s very worrisome, and I know that Israel doesn't want to see that, the United States doesn't want to see that. And you know the new NSPM also includes a credible threat of military force, and Iran needs to know that that’s a real possibility, and hopefully that will be enough to induce them to come to the negotiating table.

REICHARD: Final question here, Will. President Trump has done a lot since taking office, breathless pace, any foreign policy actions that interest you in particular that we've not talked about today?

INBODEN: You know, I will say, since I’m a real China Hawk, I’m obviously very concerned about the threat from the People’s Republic of China to the United States and to our allies and our interests. It’s still not clear what his China policy or strategy is going to be. I know he’s obviously looking at imposing some more tariffs on China, which I would certainly support. But I’m also worried about what seems to be him stepping away from support for democracy and religious freedom and human rights in China. We got a lot of Chinese Christians there who want more support and encouragement from the United States as they just want to be able to worship freely and see a better government for themselves. And so I’m watching that space carefully to see where President Trump comes out on our military balance with China, the overall competition with China, and then support for religious freedom and human rights there.

REICHARD: Will Inboden is a former member of the National Security Council staff and a professor at the University of Florida. Will, thanks so much for your time!

INBODEN: Thanks Mary. Great to be with you as always.

NICK EICHER, HOST:  Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Immigration enforcement.

Protesters in Los Angeles and Phoenix took to the streets last week after Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out raids to round up immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally.

AUDIO: No more ICE, no more ICE…

MARY REICHARD, HOST: But some immigrants now living with legal status in the U.S. believe the problem is found somewhere else.

WORLD’s Paul Butler has the story.

GONZALEZ: I want to have a better life.

PAUL BUTLER: Juvenal Gonzalez was sixteen when he first tried crossing into the United States, looking for work in the 1980s.

GONZALEZ: I tried like six or seven times.

Each time, border patrol caught him and returned him to Mexico until the day he got through undetected and worked his way to the fields of Washington state.

GONZALEZ: I knew that I was illegal. And I knew that if they caught me they're gonna return me. So when I started working I always have something, cash in my pocket.

The Center for Migration Studies estimates nearly 12 million people were living in the country illegally as of July 2023. Some, like Gonzalez, enter the country hoping to avoid getting caught by Customs and Border Patrol. Others enter the country on tourist visas, and apply for residency.

GUTIERREZ: We came to be with one of my mom's family members here in the US.

Marcos Gutierrez came to the United States from Panama when he was 10 years old. Gutierrez and his family worked hard while their application was being reviewed and could relate to the passage in Matthew 6 about God providing for the birds of the field.

GUTIERREZ: It definitely felt like he was providing for us and giving us our daily bread, but I think it felt like a place of vulnerability and instability of constant trust in God to take care of us.

The family’s tourist visa expired long before they found out whether they would be approved for residency.

GUTIERREZ: And so we were here with no legal status. It took about 20 years before they let us know that the visa wasn't approved.

Problems with the legal immigration system have led many to try a faster path claiming asylum.

The asylum program exists to give people escaping political or religious persecution a pathway to safety.

GONZALEZ: When I see the Russian people leaving Russia because of the bomb and the war that is going on, and also the Afghanistan people leaving Afghanistan because they've been persecuted because of their faith, I said, "This is the kind of people that need asylum."

The problem now is that thousands of immigrants in search of economic opportunity and a better life are also claiming asylum and that clogs the system.

GONZALEZ: There's only five things that make the person qualify for asylum and persecution and fear and all that. But being poor is not one of them.

Gonzalez lived in fear of being deported until 1986, when President Ronald Reagan signed The Immigration Reform and Control Act. The law granted amnesty and residency to migrant farmworkers and their families who could prove they’d been working in the fields for at least 90 days.

REAGAN: Future generations of Americans will be thankful for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship.

Gonzalez applied for a one year work permit, and renewed it year after year.

GONZALEZ: Then later I applied for the citizenship.

He was naturalized in 2003. Now he is a pastor in North Carolina and also runs a ministry hosting asylum-seekers in a home he owns in Tijuana, Mexico. Families applying for asylum could stay in the house while waiting for their interviews with Custom and Border Patrol agents at ports of entry. Then came Inauguration Day.

GONZALEZ: After January 20, every CBP-1 appointment and the CBP-1 application, it got canceled.

The asylum program remains on hold along with the refugee resettlement program. Gonzalez says it makes sense that parents want to find a better life for their families, but claiming asylum just because it is on the table is wrong.

GONZALEZ: I think that a lot of people abuse the program. And United States is right. Say, hey, we need to be careful who do we give the asylum application and the status.

Meanwhile, many of those in the country illegally are at risk of being deported. Border czar Tom Homan has said the administration will prioritize catching and removing dangerous criminals, but critics warn the net will likely be much wider. Gonzalez says immigrants working and living in the U.S. illegally should not be surprised.

GONZALEZ: If we're not legal, if we don't have visa, then we're going to pay a price.

Gutierrez is concerned that uprooting families who are investing their skills and lives in the United States will have consequences.

GUTIERREZ: We pay taxes. Like, we're contributing to the economy. We're doing essential jobs that a lot of people are not willing to do.

That includes jobs in agriculture and construction.

After the government denied Gutierrez’s family a visa, he was later granted amnesty under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He became a citizen in 2021. Gutierrez says the ideal would be for Congress to fix the immigration system in order to process visa applications faster than the 20 years his family experienced.

GUTIERREZ: But at the same time, I do think if I was to be sent back, then I would have that this is the right thing, because I broke the law.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s never too early to start thinking about spring he says, staring down half a foot of snow in the forecast.

So let’s talk warm thoughts—like the 2025 International Cherry Blossom Festival in Macon, Georgia where organizers are gearing up to toot their own kazoos in a Guinness World Record attempt.

They’re hoping to shatter the record by gathering 5,191 kazooists. 

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Is that even a word? 

EICHER: Oughtta be.

In any event, the standing record is 5,190—set in London back in 2011.

AUDIO: —it’s a very nice atmosphere, there’s a bit of a buzz! (laughs)

Save the date: March 28th. If you want in it’s five bucks to join, with proceeds going to charity. But if you plan to be within spittin’ distance … well, consider yourself warned.

AUDIO: I was in the front row, unfortunately, which meant that quite a lot of spittle comes out from the bottom of the kazoo.

Might want to pack a poncho!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 11th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Hunting asteroids.

Last month, NASA announced it found an asteroid with the potential to hit Earth in 2032 and do some damage. It’s just a one percent chance, but between the size and the likelihood of impact, the asteroid is at the top of NASA’s watch list.

REICHARD: The space agency spotted it using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, yes, that is its technical name, and they’ll track it as it moves away from Earth and around the sun.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy talked to an astronomer who’s trying to find these asteroids and head off disaster.

She’s out sick today, so Kristen Flavin has the story.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: In 2004, Franck Marchis had just started a job as a researcher, observing the stars in California. But on Christmas Eve morning, Marchis and his wife were at home, painting their kitchen. Marchis was also scrolling through an email chain with amateur astronomers.

MARCHIS: and some type some some subject line was a threat asteroid, potentially impacting our planet, blah, blah, blah. So I say, Okay, this is something serious. Let's have a look.

The asteroid was big. Big enough to destroy a city and leave the rest of the world with repercussions.

He explained it to his wife, but told her not to worry, that it probably wouldn’t happen.

MARCHIS: It is a very weird feeling that when you are one of the few 100 people on this planet that have the idea that warning that something that big could happen.

But he couldn’t do anything about it. So they kept painting their kitchen.

MARCHIS: It was good I waited because two hours later there was no more impact.

Earth was safe, for now. But it got Marchis thinking.

MARCHIS: I used to make fun of people who were looking for asteroids to be, to be very honest with you, and saying, ‘Oh, this will very unlikely to happen.’

But it’s not that unlikely.

Our planet and the moon show signs of impact from large asteroids and NASA estimates a football-field-sized asteroid hits Earth about every 2,000 years.

So, Marchis wanted to know about the system for detecting them.

It turns out, NASA and other space research organizations have telescopes pointing at the sky from all over the world.

But they’re hard to access.

MARCHIS: I mean, you cannot go in on the top of a mountain and say, ‘hey, there is an asteroid going to impact our planet, observe it.’ This is not going to happen.

You need a proposal, a research organization, and a structure. And you only get a few nights of observation a year.

MARCHIS: So it's not enough, so I started using smaller telescopes.

And then, in 2013…

ABC: A blinding flash of light streaking across the sky. And then… [explosions sounds]

An asteroid hit Chelyabinsk, Russia… a city with a population of about a million.

PBS: More than a thousand people were injured.

MARCHIS: Imagine the same would have happened above cities like New York, Washington, DC, Paris and so on.

They needed an early warning system.

He went through a couple different strategies before landing on one in 2017—put telescopes in the hands of amateur astronomers and then link their data with an algorithm that can hunt for asteroids.

Sifting through other people’s findings is most of what he does these days.

MARCHIS: The network has 15,000 telescopes available now. We have 3000-3000 citizen astronomers actively doing observations.

There are just a few dark spots left in their network…

The system is paying off. Last year, they detected an asteroid that would enter the atmosphere near Berlin.

Marchis messaged a friend who lives there.

MARCHIS: It was midnight, and I told him, Hey, look up toward the west at 1:32am tonight, you will see a meteor.

Sure enough…

AUDIO: Whoa…

The video shows a fireball in the atmosphere

That asteroid was small and burned up before it hit the ground. But what happens if they detect one that could do major damage?

First astronomers calculate the trajectory.

MARCHIS: If we extrapolate this and it will happen in 10, 20, 30 years, we have time to think about it.

And possibly do something about it.

AUDIO: [Sound from right before impact]

In 2022, NASA tested whether it’s possible to change the trajectory of an asteroid by shooting something at it.

AUDIO: [Cheering]

It worked! But not every astronomer thinks nudging an asteroid is a good idea.

DANNY FAULKER: You better do it early, rather than late.

Danny Faulkner is an astronomer with Answers in Genesis.

He says tracking asteroids is difficult and knowing the asteroid’s trajectory far enough in advance to change it may not be possible.

FAULKNER: It may turn out you might nudge it to collide with us. So it's a real problem either way

Depending on how far we know about an asteroid in advance, it might be possible to evacuate the area where it’s going to hit or at least tell people to go into their basements or a storm shelter to avoid the shockwave.

FAULKNER: It comes back to God's providence. If God doesn't want us to be wiped out by an asteroid, it's not going to happen. If he does, it's going to happen. Either way, we don't have much say.

But Faulkner says it’s honoring to observe and try to understand creation.

FAULKNER: We have direct revelation coming from the Lord about what we need to know, but you know, that doesn't tell us. The Bible doesn't tell us everything that we may want to know. You know, the Bible doesn't tell us what shape the earth is. And so how can we find that out? Well, we can find it out by studying the creation around us.

Marchis isn’t religious, but his network is about more than planetary defense.

MARCHIS: Having people going outside, chatting with their friends, sharing a moment around a telescope, looking at the sky, talking about the questions like, Are we alone? Why are we here? It's way more valuable.

His work has changed from a one-man job, to a thousand-man job, everyone working toward a goal together.

MARCHIS: We can have great challenges, and can overcome those challenges. And you, each of us at our level, by taking our telescope outside to observe an event from a tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We can contribute to this. We can contribute to that.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 11th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. On January 20th the White House announced that President Trump had signed an executive order titled “Protecting Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” WORLD Opinions contributor Craig Carter says you cannot ignore the Creator’s design, and public backlash for ignoring that is a good sign.

CRAIG CARTER: We’ve been told that there are anywhere from 11 to more than 263 genders. We have been assured by so-called “experts” that gender is so fluid it cannot be pinned down. A person’s gender tomorrow may be different than it was yesterday.

But President Donald J. Trump begs to differ and he signed an executive order to prove it. The vast majority of Americans apparently agree with him.

We live in postmodern times when everything once thought solid is now liquid. Individual choice and personal autonomy are of supreme value. Consent is the only limit. Be who you really are. In these heady days of self-invention even our gender is up for grabs. The beckoning frontier is transhumanism and cyborgs. In the pursuit of immortality, we seek to merge with the machine and evolve.

If naturalistic evolution can turn chemicals into living cells why can’t mortal life become immortal? Compared to that idea, man becoming woman seems like a rather minor step…until you bump into natural law.

For most of the history of Western civilization philosophers and lawyers have believed and debated natural law as integral to a just legal system. Positive law must be based on natural law to have legitimacy. Natural law provides a basis for challenging positive laws deemed unjust. If you can prove a law contradicts the natural law, you have a case for challenging it.

For centuries our ancestors took natural law seriously because they saw nature as created with a purpose by a personal God. When you start from that premise, natural law seems to be an obvious implication. But what happens when you start from nature as the product of accidental evolution? What if the way things are is just random, rather than designed? What if we currently occupy a waystation on a long and winding road to immortal cyborgs?

Natural law has something to say at this moment. Perhaps it may surprise you to learn that I believe that we can know with absolute certainty that society inevitably will embrace natural law in general, and the fact of two sexes in particular. What makes me so sure?

Because it’s based on reality. Reality just is. It does not change because you will it to do so or because you took a vote on it. It just is. A society that twists it too far finds that it breaks and things collapse. Humans are flexible and adaptable, but not infinitely malleable. If we go too far with our fantasies, we crash into the rock of reality, and it hurts. A society that refuses to do business with reality will crash and burn. Many cultures throughout human history have already done so and more will do so in the future.

Human nature remains constant. Sinful human nature can be meliorated up to certain limits. But delusions of Utopia or the perfectibility of human nature inevitably turn out to be dystopian, destructive, or both.

For human beings, existing in two sexes is part of the permanent, unchanging truth about human nature. A society that pretends otherwise will eventually become so dysfunctional that it will fall apart and be replaced by one that recognizes biological and psychological reality. Just look around! That is why I can be so certain.

The only issue to be decided is whether our society will be wise enough to recognize its need to bow to reality before it is too late. Will we dash ourselves on the rocks and sink the ship of state or will we drop anchor in the sea of ancient wisdom in time? We shall see.

I’m Craig Carter.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: The Department of Government Efficiency. Many are cheering it on as it slashes budgets and exposes waste. But what is its legal authority? We’ll explore that question on Washington Wednesday. And, women supporting the Make America Healthy Again movement. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

WORLD’s Harrison Watters wrote our immigration story today, with reporting assistance from Addie Offereins and freelancer Carlos Paez.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible records that after Jesus was born, “...an angel of the Lord appeared to [the shepherds], and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’” —Luke 2:9-11

Go now in grace and peace.

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