"Duck Dynasty" stars Al and Jase Robertson blamed "woke" leadership for making American cities like Seattle and San Francisco to become "unlivable."
During the Jan. 8 episode of their podcast "Unashamed with the Robertson Family," Al and Jase discussed the contrast between the Christian ideological concepts of "idolatry," in which human ideologies and worldly values are elevated above God, and "dominion," in which people take moral responsibility and steward society under God's authority.
Al said he viewed Seattle as the "perfect illustration" of how abandoning dominion for idolatry leads to "chaos."
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"You and I were talking earlier, and you'd sent me a note about this new Seattle mayor who's one of these woke socialist types who's taken over the city and, basically she's just said 'Do drugs in the street,'" he said. 'We've unshackled any idea of trying to have some order in this chaos."
Seattle's new mayor, Katie Wilson, recently faced backlash over claims that her administration had issued a directive that offenders would no longer be arrested for open drug use or possession but would instead be diverted for treatment. During an appearance on KIRO Newsradio's "The John Curley Show," Wilson said that the policy regarding arresting drug offenders remains unchanged.
"We have an ordinance in Seattle around drug use and possession. And currently, officers basically use their discretion around when it's appropriate to do an arrest," Wilson said. "You know, we have award-winning diversion programs and those can be invoked before an arrest, before a booking, before a trial… The bottom line comes down to we're looking for an approach which is using the right strategy in the right circumstances and that is making sure that we are getting people the help that they need. And… there's a lot of different situations out there and there's no one-size-fits-all approach. So, that's what we're trying to get to. But we have not made any change in policy."
Al went on to lament what he described as the city's decline during his visits in recent years.
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"I went to Seattle for the first time to go on a cruise out of Alaska," he said. "I happened to go every year for the next several years, doing cruises, most of them for work."
The reality star recalled that he and his wife, Lisa, enjoyed a walk through the city during their first trip.
"It's a beautiful city," he said. "I was right on the water with great restaurants, and we're like, 'Man, what a beautiful city these people have created here.' They created this little jewel, right up in our Northwest, in Seattle."
"The next year we went, it had lost a little luster," Al continued. "There were a few more things going on in the streets that weren't great. By the end of the fifth year, we were afraid to walk the streets of Seattle. Down where all the tourists are. And like, we just wouldn't even get out of our hotel."
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Al said that Seattle is an example of what happens when people stop stewarding creation under God and instead surrender to it.
"You continue to watch this progression and see that there is no order," he said. "We've turned it over to creation itself, and it's just becoming untenable, unlivable and unvisitable."
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"When you watch that, you can see it in real time over a couple of decades in a U.S. city," Al continued. "Imagine the whole idea of humanity in this framework - what happens when something other than God is in charge, when you take away His order, when you take away His light, and all the other metaphors we've been talking about."
Jase told Al that he had noticed similar declines in other major urban centers.
"You see that in every city and area that tries this," Jase said. "When you worship and serve the creation rather than seeing creation as something we cultivate, something we steward, something we exercise dominion over, and you flip that script, the end result is always a death word."
"It's always a city like Seattle… or San Francisco," he continued. "There are so many cities across America that have embraced this ideology, and you see the decline."
"You see the filth," Jase added. "You see the opposite of a beautiful garden that is expanding. Instead, what it is, it becomes a trash dump that is shrinking. Which sounds a whole lot like hell, right?"
