Speaker 1: Welcome back, dear friends. This is Chrish Dunham. I got
Speaker 1: a sip of water to wet my whistle. As my mentor,
Speaker 1: Missus Zigler, said, I was so parched I was burping dust.
Speaker 1: There you go. You got a Southern colloquialism, one that
Speaker 1: you probably cannot use anywhere. But it was one of
Speaker 1: the good ones, I think that we had in the
Speaker 1: days past. So we finished an hour where we talked
Speaker 1: about some of the things, the conversation and all of
Speaker 1: those things, but the basic premise we began this journey
Speaker 1: with was let's talk elections. Let's talk elections. Now. One
Speaker 1: of the things I see on a regular basis when
Speaker 1: I look at Twitter or x what it's called now,
Speaker 1: I'm on very few social media platforms business wise. The
Speaker 1: only social media platform I care to use or use
Speaker 1: is LinkedIn. I got off Facebook and all of those,
Speaker 1: and I was not on Twitter for the longest time
Speaker 1: till Musk bought it. And call me a guy who
Speaker 1: just likes the way that guy vibes or you know,
Speaker 1: they may be parts of his life that I may
Speaker 1: disagree with and parts of his life that are not ASLEI,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's a lot of similarity in some
Speaker 1: of his struggle and his understanding eventually of where we are.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of stuff on X I don't
Speaker 1: think should be there, just because the average person looking
Speaker 1: at that without any filter. You know, any video can
Speaker 1: be posted, and some of the videos that people post,
Speaker 1: I know why they do it. They do it to
Speaker 1: get their clicks and they get their likes. But I
Speaker 1: just wish we'd go back to being a nation of
Speaker 1: what one of my colleagues used to say to me
Speaker 1: at one time, will this really matter? And a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that is posted I think is primarily designed
Speaker 1: to get a rise out of somebody. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot of good stuff out there and a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that makes you pause. So when I look at
Speaker 1: the elections of four years ago and I look at
Speaker 1: some of the statements that are being made now, of
Speaker 1: course they are facts checkers who check them and their
Speaker 1: community notes that come alongside it. So I take everything
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt. I'm not going to believe
Speaker 1: everything that is presented saying Okay, this person did this
Speaker 1: and that was illegitimate and this was not looked at.
Speaker 1: But when I look at the popular cry of what
Speaker 1: is allowed to be presented in the mainstream media. We
Speaker 1: have time talked about that ad nauseum, and I think
Speaker 1: Todd addresses that in as calm and sincere, a manner
Speaker 1: that actually edifies the title of his show, Conservative not bitter.
Speaker 1: I know we are supposed to talk about contemporary issues,
Speaker 1: and I am what you would call a Reagan Conservative,
Speaker 1: and maybe I don't have an absumption of understanding the
Speaker 1: Great Ronald Reagan's policies, but I'm known as a guy
Speaker 1: who during my own lectures and all that. In the
Speaker 1: evangelical world, I'm known as a laughing evangelist, and I'm
Speaker 1: known as someone who can break the monotony with humor.
Speaker 1: And to that end, I credit the Great Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 1: who had that ability before he went and did something serious.
Speaker 1: He says, have I ever told you this story? And
Speaker 1: people almost always know that there's something good that's coming along. Now.
Speaker 1: Having said that, I want to take us to that
Speaker 1: issue of where do we lower our temperature of our
Speaker 1: tonality and do we even want to use the word
Speaker 1: compromise when you talk elections of old The Speaker of
Speaker 1: the House many moons ago was Tip O'Neil and Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan and Tip O'Neil disagreed on just about everything, but
Speaker 1: they were comfortable enough to break bread after it, which
Speaker 1: means you did not you disliked the person's policy, but
Speaker 1: you did not personally dislike that person as a matter
Speaker 1: of existence. Whereas that's where we are now. We are
Speaker 1: in a bitriolic stage right now. Where And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's the conservative side so much, and it
Speaker 1: may be equally parts conservative, but most conservatives who have
Speaker 1: a religious bent to them seem to understand the fact
Speaker 1: that even though I disagree with the person, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to just win the argument as an evangelist,
Speaker 1: I want to win the soul. So my compromise is
Speaker 1: not so much a compromise of my own convictions as
Speaker 1: much as it is trying to compromise my rhetoric to
Speaker 1: the degree that I can stay in the same argument,
Speaker 1: look in the same direction, and eventually have a chance
Speaker 1: to win the soul. Now, this goes back to that
Speaker 1: illustration that many of you have heard before, and it's
Speaker 1: about the little kid who was being tormented by the
Speaker 1: big bully, and the big bully, you know, looks at him,
Speaker 1: and it can pulverize him into smithereens and a bit,
Speaker 1: and the little kid draws a line in the sand
Speaker 1: and says, I challenge you to cross this line. And
Speaker 1: that big bully triumphantly steps over the line, at which
Speaker 1: point the little kid says, good, now we're on the
Speaker 1: same side. So what is the line of your conviction,
Speaker 1: What is the line of your non compromise? So to speak?
Speaker 1: That when you're looking at city hall, when you're looking
Speaker 1: at a government, if you're in a state that is
Speaker 1: historically blue, you're looking at some of these laws that
Speaker 1: make no sense. You're looking at some of the things
Speaker 1: that we have gone through as a people. I mean,
Speaker 1: just post COVID, forget the conspiracy theories, and forget the
Speaker 1: talk about pharma companies and whether the vaccine was needed
Speaker 1: or not. Just look at how stupid some of the
Speaker 1: regulations were. Because you look in hindsight, it makes no
Speaker 1: sense that you can wash your hands at nauseum and
Speaker 1: not stand next to someone for six feet and then
Speaker 1: you get on a plate and you cramp next to
Speaker 1: them eighteen into the parts, pewing into each other's face.
Speaker 1: A lot of these things don't make sense. So where
Speaker 1: is your compromise. Where is that part where you're going
Speaker 1: to say, I'm going to add the love of the
Speaker 1: Great Commandment and make sure that it shows alongside my
Speaker 1: learning and my leverage of the Great Commission. Folks, I'm
Speaker 1: going to take you through a story, and the story
Speaker 1: is of a great Indian gentleman by the name of
Speaker 1: Mahtma Gandhi. If you've heard this before, bear along because
Speaker 1: this will help you. When Mahatma Gandhi was asked the
Speaker 1: question by east Stanley Jones, a Christian. At that time,
Speaker 1: Mahtma Gandhi was the foremost Hindu in India, what does
Speaker 1: Christianity have to do to be considered a mainline worldview
Speaker 1: and not considered a white man's import or something attributed
Speaker 1: to colonialism, which is what it was in that part
Speaker 1: of the world. So when you look at the broader Africa,
Speaker 1: they say the white man came with religion, took our
Speaker 1: diamonds and our resources, and then left us our poverty
Speaker 1: and left us their God. Whichever way they attributed to
Speaker 1: that's how it all began. The whole world was colonized
Speaker 1: at one time, and you had large empires that go
Speaker 1: and most of the Western world was a Christi's world
Speaker 1: that went till we had the Crusades and the advent
Speaker 1: of Islam and all of the other good stuff. And
Speaker 1: we can talk about that, you know, first two Crusades, next,
Speaker 1: you know, whichever way you want to slice that. That
Speaker 1: may be a discussion for a different day. But even
Speaker 1: there we have believed the rhetoric instead of actually going
Speaker 1: and researching for yourself. So where is this compromise? When
Speaker 1: I look around the world and I see people with
Speaker 1: different worldviews, the worldview of east Stanley Jones a Methodist
Speaker 1: missionary who had gone to India with the single purpose
Speaker 1: of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is now
Speaker 1: confronting the greatest Hindu at that time, Matt mc gandhi.
Speaker 1: Stanley Jones left came to India nineteen seventeen. Matt mc
Speaker 1: gandhi returned to India nineteen sixteen after having spent some time.
Speaker 1: He was a barrister from England, went and was practicing
Speaker 1: in South Africa. Saw the deep rooted issues of colonization
Speaker 1: there and the flight of the of the Indian and
Speaker 1: decided to come back to India to liberate a nation.
Speaker 1: Now Stanley Jones and Mattmagandhi became good friends all the way.
Speaker 1: Mart mcgandhi's passing at the rate of an assassination's bullet
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty eight on the thirtieth of January. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm just a history a buff so I'm throwing stuff
Speaker 1: at you. It's just because that's the way I speak
Speaker 1: a mile a minute with a lot of data. But
Speaker 1: one of the questions Stanley Jones asked mart mc gandhi
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty five was what does Christianity have to
Speaker 1: do to be considered a mainline worldview and not considered
Speaker 1: a white man's import or a colonized offering. And the
Speaker 1: results of what Gandhi said were actually published in a
Speaker 1: book called Christ of the Indian Road and international bestseller
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty five. Now we need to be well
Speaker 1: read if you want to compromise. In order to compromise,
Speaker 1: you have to know what the other side thinks, and
Speaker 1: you have to know more about what the other side believes.
Speaker 1: Not just spouting out what you believe a conservative cause
Speaker 1: is good. But if everything is Reagan, and everything is Trump,
Speaker 1: and everything is this, and everything anti is against Biden
Speaker 1: and Harris, then you look like a person who is
Speaker 1: just one sided. But if you're going to ask me questions,
Speaker 1: I probably know in enough about the other side before
Speaker 1: I begin that compromise. Well, here's what Gandhi said to
Speaker 1: Stanley Jones. It will blow your mind. Here are the
Speaker 1: four things. The first thing he said, live like him.
Speaker 1: See Amy Carmichael once said, we all believe to be
Speaker 1: strangers and pilgrims who are stuck in a land we
Speaker 1: want to call our own, and then settle as if
Speaker 1: we intended to stay as long as we could. But
Speaker 1: and then her byline is really clever. She said, I
Speaker 1: don't think Apostolic miracles have died. Apostolic living surely has.
Speaker 1: You know, you can have the Christian identity. You can
Speaker 1: say that this is anti Christian. Jesus would have never
Speaker 1: agreed to this, and homosexuality is a sin, and identity
Speaker 1: is not talked about, and man and woman in Genesis,
Speaker 1: and all of that is Jesus' words, All of that
Speaker 1: is Christian words, all of that is Bible words. But
Speaker 1: a person who doesn't believe that worldview, who has never
Speaker 1: subscribed to the worldview, who never cracked open that worldview,
Speaker 1: doesn't care Apostolic living requires the physic example of sharing
Speaker 1: that which you apostolically bring. I call myself an apostolic
Speaker 1: preacher in the sense I make my tents my day
Speaker 1: and sell them and go preach by night. I've never
Speaker 1: given up my marketplace. Well that's what the fishermen did.
Speaker 1: So some part of our identity should be showing these
Speaker 1: people that I want to compromise with you. But my
Speaker 1: compromise is not going to compromise on my Christian virtue
Speaker 1: and my Christian belief. It's going to compromise on my
Speaker 1: human virtue and my human belief that I need to
Speaker 1: love you as much as I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: teach you. So Gandhi's first words were live like him.
Speaker 1: Second he said love like him. It was central to
Speaker 1: his nature, quite powerful. But the third and the fourth
Speaker 1: were one that really changed my thought process because up
Speaker 1: until then I was this gung ho, swashbuckling evangelist who
Speaker 1: had been saved in the marketplace by the great Zigziglar.
Speaker 1: I confess my sins at a church in Flower Mount, Texas,
Speaker 1: and I was going to go back to India because
Speaker 1: I'd learned diction and conversation and could now raise the
Speaker 1: octaves of my voice and sound like an evangelist, where
Speaker 1: you know, instead of just saying God that a preacher
Speaker 1: would there, I would say God and try to get
Speaker 1: some amplification. There. I thought I was all that in
Speaker 1: a bag of chips till I heard what Gandhi had
Speaker 1: said in his third and fourth statement to the great evangelist.
Speaker 1: First he said, live like him. Second he said love
Speaker 1: like him. Third he said, understand what others believe. And
Speaker 1: fourth he said, don't water down what you believe. It's
Speaker 1: easy not to water down what you believe if you've
Speaker 1: never read what others believe. And most people are afraid
Speaker 1: to crack open a book of holy writ of somebody
Speaker 1: else's worldview because they're afraid it will change their own.
Speaker 1: Frank Turk, who has his own podcast and was the
Speaker 1: co author of the book I Don't have enough Faith
Speaker 1: to be an atheist with Norm Geisler, basically puts it
Speaker 1: this way. He says that we are afraid that our
Speaker 1: faith will be knocked out of us if we read
Speaker 1: someone else's worldview. And if that's your fear, I don't
Speaker 1: think the faith was ever knocked into you. You may
Speaker 1: be a generational Christian, but have not decided for yourself
Speaker 1: whether you believe that the Bible is the true, in errant,
Speaker 1: infallible word of God. Folks, trust me. I have read
Speaker 1: all worldviews. I've read the teachings of Gotama Buddha, I've
Speaker 1: read the teachings of the Ghita, and that Krishna is
Speaker 1: one of their deities. I've read the teachings of Islam
Speaker 1: and Prophet Muhammad's dictation. I've come to this conclusion. In
Speaker 1: any worldview, you take out their pivotal figure, their worldview
Speaker 1: still remains. In Buddhism, you take out Buddha, you still
Speaker 1: have Nirvana. In Hinduism, you take out one of the gods,
Speaker 1: you've got other gods. In Islam, you take out the
Speaker 1: prophet Muhammad, Allah still reigns. Christianity is the only one.
Speaker 1: When you remove Jesus Christ, the whole worldview collapses. So
Speaker 1: it's very important that if we're going to compromise, and
Speaker 1: people are going to challenge you saying, how can you
Speaker 1: vote for someone if you're a Christian, you need to
Speaker 1: ask what being a Christian means. We are the most
Speaker 1: flawed people. Our heroes are the most flawed people. The
Speaker 1: shepherd King, that sweet singer of Israel who became the
Speaker 1: King David was flawed on that balcony of boredom, on
Speaker 1: that veranda of voyeurism. Yet he wrote some of the
Speaker 1: psalms saying, I'm constantly aware of your unfailing love. And
Speaker 1: yet to him, God said, this is a man after
Speaker 1: my own heart. He was a man after God's own heart,
Speaker 1: the creator of the universe. Think about it, if you
Speaker 1: remember that beautiful story, how amazing it was in its
Speaker 1: own presentation, when Saul has fallen out of favor and
Speaker 1: Samuel has asked to go to the House of Jesse.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to get theological here, but as
Speaker 1: a story, it matters because King David, David, the stower
Speaker 1: of David. That is what Israel's lineage is. If you're
Speaker 1: a Christian who supports Israel, you need to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: am I just going to compromise my convictions or talk
Speaker 1: about minutia about the geographical land, or am I going
Speaker 1: to actually delve through the books of history and say
Speaker 1: to myself, Hey, recently, an obelisk was discovered in Egypt
Speaker 1: that is three thousand years old, and on it the
Speaker 1: word Israel is mentioned. You know this all comes with understanding. Well,
Speaker 1: when Saul is out of favor and Samuel is asked
Speaker 1: to go to the House of Jesse, who do they
Speaker 1: line up? The guys that look good, the tall, the brave,
Speaker 1: the mighty, the people who look like a king, who
Speaker 1: look like a president. And that's what we are seeing
Speaker 1: out there, carefully trotted out, carefully Coyford, carefully manicured. Even
Speaker 1: those people on late night TV and people on evening news,
Speaker 1: all of them just look like a million bucks and
Speaker 1: are paid a million bucks. But that's not the look
Speaker 1: of the person you would run across in the grocery
Speaker 1: store or in a Walmart, which I just visited before
Speaker 1: I started recording this. Who was the one who was chosen,
Speaker 1: the guy who was not even invited to the banquet.
Speaker 1: When he came there, he would have probably come smelling
Speaker 1: as a shepherd as likely to have smelt who had
Speaker 1: been out with the sheep in those clothes. And when
Speaker 1: he came, what did the proper say. We're not going
Speaker 1: to sit down, We're not even going to eat till
Speaker 1: he comes. Folks, if you truly believe that America is
Speaker 1: a God or day nation, I want to take you
Speaker 1: back to when the Republic was being framed and they
Speaker 1: were discussing what would work as a seal of this nation.
Speaker 1: One of the choices made by two of the men
Speaker 1: who were the least religious in Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin said, I think the seal should be the
Speaker 1: parting of the Red Sea and Moses standing on a
Speaker 1: rock and the people coming out of slavery. Jefferson said,
Speaker 1: I think the seal needs to describe the lost children
Speaker 1: of Israel, and then Jefferson basically said, I think I
Speaker 1: like Franklin's version better. Neither of them were accepted, and
Speaker 1: we went with a different seal, But that was the
Speaker 1: imagery that two of the people who were the least
Speaker 1: religious thought that this nation should have. When you make
Speaker 1: your compromise, ask yourself, what part of the Bible are
Speaker 1: you going to not negotiate on and what part of
Speaker 1: the Bible are you going to try to allow to
Speaker 1: live out Now. Granted, there may be people listening who
Speaker 1: do not even subscribe to what I'm talking about, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying, as a conservative, I have friends who come
Speaker 1: from all other faiths. I am invited to speak in
Speaker 1: places that worship differently and worship different deities. But when
Speaker 1: they invite me, they say that you come to us
Speaker 1: because you know more about us than we know about ourselves.
Speaker 1: So even when we know you're a Christian, we know
Speaker 1: that you're actually going to talk about God in the
Speaker 1: way God has impacted you and maybe allow us to
Speaker 1: get in touch with some reality. They may not know
Speaker 1: what my purpose is there, and they may not even
Speaker 1: they may doubt my motives. But I have never been
Speaker 1: denied an audience because I subscribed to a certain worldview. See,
Speaker 1: Compromise means being invited in spite of everything. Compromise means
Speaker 1: that even though you're an emperor on that balcony of boredom,
Speaker 1: a king who is supposed to be in the front lines,
Speaker 1: who succumbs to that boyeurism of the moment, and then
Speaker 1: you decide you're going to commit murder after that to
Speaker 1: amplify your indiscretion and your adultery, the God of Heaven says,
Speaker 1: that's a man after my own heart. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: equating any current day politician with David, That's not what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. But what I'm saying is that if you
Speaker 1: are a follower of the Christian worldview and people attack
Speaker 1: you saying how can you and they try to ask
Speaker 1: you to redefine the way you love people because of behavior,
Speaker 1: you need to be pliable enough to say, let me
Speaker 1: go through the annals of Holy writ and explain why
Speaker 1: I am the way I am, and that conviction of
Speaker 1: your own response, that desire of your own heart, will
Speaker 1: allow you to have a different kind of commitment. Now,
Speaker 1: what is commitment? There's an old saying, which is again
Speaker 1: mister Zigler, I quote him a lot. Mister Zigler used
Speaker 1: to say, most people are as committed as a Kamakazi
Speaker 1: pilot on his thirty ninth mission. Now, I know that
Speaker 1: Todd is younger than me, and some of this audience
Speaker 1: is probably going to be way younger than me, So
Speaker 1: maybe I need to explain for some of you what
Speaker 1: a Kamakazi pilot is. But in World War Two, primarily
Speaker 1: Japan's aerial force, of course we know what happened at
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor. If you don't, it was in all the papers.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what a paper is, a paper
Speaker 1: is a document that had printing on it. Go to
Speaker 1: the library. A library is a building obvious, kidding, But
Speaker 1: the Japanese pilots of old that believed in God and
Speaker 1: believed in the country above everything else, and sacrificing for
Speaker 1: your country was the greatest honor used to be called
Speaker 1: Kamakazi pilots, which means their mission was a mission that
Speaker 1: would be one and done, there was no coming back.
Speaker 1: One comedian put it, then, why did kamakazi pilots wear helmets? Well,
Speaker 1: that's why comedians do. And we kind of look at
Speaker 1: stuff and say, okay, that makes no sense. But some
Speaker 1: people are as committed as a Kamakazi pilot on his
Speaker 1: thirty ninth mission. I'll give it something, you know. If
Speaker 1: it doesn't go my way, I'll take my toys and
Speaker 1: go home. But I'm not going to stay in the fight.
Speaker 1: When I'm talking about commitment, I'm talking about having the
Speaker 1: guts to stand and say I believe that if you
Speaker 1: do the time you're going to do If you do
Speaker 1: the crime, you're going to do the time. But then
Speaker 1: have the love to also volunteer in a prison and
Speaker 1: see those that are doing the time because you believe
Speaker 1: that there is a consequence to action. See, this is
Speaker 1: what means but by the least of these, this is
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. So hopefully today I've kind of
Speaker 1: put the whole circle in play. I've taken you on
Speaker 1: a long journey. We started with one thing. But if
Speaker 1: you look at all the words I use alliteratively, we
Speaker 1: began with elections. We said, they have consequences. I said,
Speaker 1: let's have a conversation about who we are in this process.
Speaker 1: Let's look at some of the choices that were made
Speaker 1: for us, choices that we make for others. Let's look
Speaker 1: at whether those choices have altered. Are concerns for things
Speaker 1: that are happening. I mean, I'm invited to some of
Speaker 1: these theme parks because corporate conventions happen there. But I've
Speaker 1: reached a point in my life where I'm very, very
Speaker 1: cautious now to not be seen in places that blatantly
Speaker 1: and vocally blaspheme, the God that I worship. So I'm just,
Speaker 1: and as a result, I have lost some business. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest with you, but I can tell you without
Speaker 1: any fear of error, I've not lost any sleep. So
Speaker 1: what are your concerns? Do your concerns but up against
Speaker 1: the convictions that you hold, Dear are you making compromise
Speaker 1: and are you making compromise on truth convictions or are
Speaker 1: you making compromise on things that are a little more esoteric,
Speaker 1: a little more superficial that it allows you to stay
Speaker 1: in the game. And then as a result of that,
Speaker 1: how is that shaping your commitments going forward? Because when
Speaker 1: we come back and we begin to wind up today's
Speaker 1: work in the two segments we have left in the
Speaker 1: hour two, I want to anchor on some of these
Speaker 1: things that are really really serious business. Like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully we'll be able to do a guarded
Speaker 1: country dialogue in some of the neighborhoods. But I'm truly believed.
Speaker 1: Now I've lived here forty years, almost forty years, thirty nine,
Speaker 1: getting close to thirty nine. We have a home in India.
Speaker 1: We may have a home in another place that maybe
Speaker 1: just hedging my beds, But man, this country was everything.
Speaker 1: When I chose to come here, I gave up everything.
Speaker 1: I landed in New York and I kissed the floor.
Speaker 1: I was processed for two hours, and I was just
Speaker 1: delirious that something like that could happen to an immigrant
Speaker 1: like me. I truly en joyously celebrated that moment when
Speaker 1: I landed in New York City I'll never forget. Many
Speaker 1: years later, I was speaking for a major organization and
Speaker 1: doing a tour all over New York, ending up in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: where I got to stay in a beautiful hotel, the Waldorf,
Speaker 1: someplace I could not have afforded on my own. This
Speaker 1: organization put me up there for the work I had
Speaker 1: done for them. It was coincident with our anniversary. My
Speaker 1: bride and I looked at each other and we thought
Speaker 1: to ourselves, you know, how did we ever get to
Speaker 1: this point where we came from the wrong side of
Speaker 1: the tracks with very little money to our name, and
Speaker 1: here we are. I'll tell you one of the sweetest
Speaker 1: stories of what that commitment does. When we come back
Speaker 1: and we begin to close out day one of our
Speaker 1: time together. Stay tuned, hang in there. This is christ
Speaker 1: dunham More after the break all right. Now. I don't
Speaker 1: know how he does this day in and day out.
Speaker 1: Just doing the recording is wound me up. But I
Speaker 1: do have my notes in front of me, and hopefully
Speaker 1: I'm making sense to you. And I do apologize if
Speaker 1: I get off on a tangent, but I'm passionate about this.
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about this. Hopefully we can have a chance
Speaker 1: to meet each other at some listener meet and greet
Speaker 1: events or something like that. I have great joy when
Speaker 1: I do that in Texas for some of the people
Speaker 1: I help out here on their podcast. It's always good
Speaker 1: to meet the people who make these shows possible and
Speaker 1: the opportunity to actually engage. This is more of a
Speaker 1: diet tribe because it's a recording, but it's being played
Speaker 1: because of somebody who desperately needs that rest. Because he
Speaker 1: comes behind this microphone day in, day out, and I
Speaker 1: remember when he began this show and the desire he
Speaker 1: had to see it grow. And it's such a joy
Speaker 1: to have seen it grow, and the new markets to
Speaker 1: have come on and the segments sizes changing and the
Speaker 1: sponsors increasing. I'm just so grateful that he's having the
Speaker 1: success he has, and I'm also humbled that Todd still
Speaker 1: considers me worthy enough to occasionally come and sit behind
Speaker 1: his microphone and engage with his audience. So I am
Speaker 1: a history buff. I'm an international traveler. I clalk about
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty events a year, spend one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight nights a year, in a hotel room,
Speaker 1: crisscross the globe, have long many million miles, so most
Speaker 1: of what I talk about almost seems like history and
Speaker 1: a travelogue. It's like putting mister Rogers in a plane
Speaker 1: and asking him to talk about discipline in other countries.
Speaker 1: I guess, well, if you saw me and this was
Speaker 1: on TV, you'd probably think I kind of as goofy
Speaker 1: as him. You know, old fashioned sweaters and what I
Speaker 1: do wear a hat that maybe more information than you need.
Speaker 1: But going back to that commitment, I remember my bride
Speaker 1: and I were standing in the Waldorf story line to
Speaker 1: check in and they said, okay, there's a delay, we'll
Speaker 1: call your number. They took our number. So in those days,
Speaker 1: one of the prominent I think it was Carnegie Deli
Speaker 1: or something like that. One of the delis was very
Speaker 1: famous and it's closed now. And so someone said, if
Speaker 1: you're in New York, you have to go and eat
Speaker 1: the pastrami on RDE there. So these are some of
Speaker 1: my things. I'm a foodie. So we went there and
Speaker 1: we took a Broadway show in and New York was
Speaker 1: fun the second time around when I landed with my bride.
Speaker 1: The first time not so had nine bucks to my name.
Speaker 1: She found out she had lost her job. And now
Speaker 1: suddenly you find yourself in the waldorfha story, thinking to yourself,
Speaker 1: good Lord, what did we ever do to deserve this. So,
Speaker 1: as we're just sitting there holding our hands looking at it,
Speaker 1: a lady walks up to us and said, excuse me,
Speaker 1: are you guys checking in? He said, yeah, he said,
Speaker 1: what brings you to New York? He says, oh, it's
Speaker 1: our anniversary. This weekend, we came to do some work
Speaker 1: for a company. All the work is finished, and this
Speaker 1: is their gift to us before we head back to Texas.
Speaker 1: And she says, you know, there's something about the spirit,
Speaker 1: the way you hold hands, the way you look at
Speaker 1: each other. And she just casually said I can tell
Speaker 1: without even asking that you are both believers and you're Christians.
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, that's good. You know, whether
Speaker 1: she believed or not, it's not the issue or whether
Speaker 1: we were believers or not. It was a nice intro
Speaker 1: for her to say, there's something different about your spirit.
Speaker 1: There's a peace of mind about your countenance. And we
Speaker 1: walked over she says, come over here, and took us
Speaker 1: to the Platinum lounge, and I said, ma'am, we're just
Speaker 1: regular people. Someone has paid for this, and so I
Speaker 1: just have to check in. I'm no platinum member here.
Speaker 1: You I don't want to cut line, She says, No,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to do a favor for you on
Speaker 1: your anniversary. I'm going to upgrade you to a suite
Speaker 1: that's a corner suite that overlooks some of the nicer
Speaker 1: streets in New York, and you'll have a beautiful view
Speaker 1: of the skyline. And then I thought myself, you know
Speaker 1: that will the picture I had in my room in India,
Speaker 1: the skyline of New York, the Lady Liberty, the green
Speaker 1: lady with her torch, and the harbor welcoming countless immigrants
Speaker 1: like me, looking at the city that built. When you
Speaker 1: look at the Empire State Building and it goes up
Speaker 1: and it becomes a monumental. Looking at the World Trade
Speaker 1: centers that went up, and then because they were targeted,
Speaker 1: that was a symbol. If we destroyed the symbol, we
Speaker 1: destroyed the heart of a nation. We grind the wheels
Speaker 1: of capitalism. Everything that is beautiful about New York is
Speaker 1: what the rest of the world that would despise America
Speaker 1: would hate about New York, and so it was funny
Speaker 1: to be in that situation. And as an immigrant who
Speaker 1: came here and after nine to eleven, I went through
Speaker 1: a lot of profiling and all that, and still to
Speaker 1: have that experience and to have that joy was just
Speaker 1: something unique to experience and to express. But I remember
Speaker 1: we were looking at my bride and saying to her,
Speaker 1: how can we ever repay this nation for what they
Speaker 1: gave us? She said, I think we are already getting
Speaker 1: because we have never wavered in our love for her.
Speaker 1: When we didn't have anything, she welcomed us. When we
Speaker 1: had a little we thanked her. When we had a
Speaker 1: little more, we served her. When we had a little more,
Speaker 1: we went into our prisons and took care of the
Speaker 1: people who were lost. When we had a little more,
Speaker 1: you started going into juvenile halls. When we had a
Speaker 1: little more, we started volunteering a battered women's shelters. And
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, with every grain and every gain
Speaker 1: we've had in this nation, we deliberately were allowed to
Speaker 1: do something by helping other people. This is what the
Speaker 1: founding of America was. When we do the show on Monday,
Speaker 1: and I take you through the history lessons. George Washington
Speaker 1: was a wealthy man. George Washington's pastime was being a
Speaker 1: stride a horse and chasing foxes on an estate that
Speaker 1: was huge. When the country's call came to him, he
Speaker 1: literally gave up something that he didn't need to. George
Speaker 1: Washington did not need to be a loyalist. He was
Speaker 1: independently wealthy as a result of it. Those who were
Speaker 1: loyalists to Britain were people who were still receiving something
Speaker 1: from the king, and as a result, when they had
Speaker 1: to make a choice between God and country, they chose
Speaker 1: the King's side, and they were called loyalists. But there's
Speaker 1: something fundamentally pure about these founding fathers who shaped this nation,
Speaker 1: because almost all of them three generations earlier, had probably
Speaker 1: come from across the pond, and somehow they fell in
Speaker 1: love with this new unique experience that we called these
Speaker 1: here United States of America. So when we look at
Speaker 1: our country and we look at the commitments, let's go
Speaker 1: back to where we began in our number one, Let's
Speaker 1: go back to talking elections. Let's go back to asking ourselves.
Speaker 1: You know, in twenty twenty six, we will have come
Speaker 1: to the two hundred and fiftieth year, the two hundred
Speaker 1: and fiftieth mark of the signing of the Declaration of
Speaker 1: Independence that July fourth, seventeen seventy six. Ironically, only I
Speaker 1: think two people or maybe one person signed it on
Speaker 1: that July fourth. Majority signed it on August second, and
Speaker 1: a few didn't get to do it till much later.
Speaker 1: But July fourth is the day that we say is
Speaker 1: the day the declaration was signed. So seventeen seventy six goes,
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six goes, nineteen seventy six goes, and now
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six comes two hundred and fifty years well.
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson was asked about the word democracy. He said,
Speaker 1: a good democracy will last two hundred years before it
Speaker 1: starts feeding on itself. That's why I always use the
Speaker 1: word republic. India is a republic. When I go to
Speaker 1: India and people say, you know, India is the world's
Speaker 1: largest democracy, I said, no, India is a republic. They said,
Speaker 1: how do you say it? I said, India has a
Speaker 1: republic day January twenty, we don't have a democracy day.
Speaker 1: You have an independence day. August fifteen. That's the day
Speaker 1: you got independence from Britain. We have Independence Day in
Speaker 1: the United States is July fourth. We don't have a
Speaker 1: republic Day here, But the United States is a constitutional republic.
Speaker 1: The founders were brilliant in the framing of it. In
Speaker 1: a republic, the elected people go to protect your sacred honor.
Speaker 1: Their oath to their constituents, whether they're a congressman or
Speaker 1: a senator, a state rep or a state senator, whatever,
Speaker 1: it is their oath when they take the office, to
Speaker 1: protect all the citizenry of this nation and their constituents
Speaker 1: from all threats foreign and domestic. Is an oath to
Speaker 1: the Constitution, not for their own self preservation or their
Speaker 1: re election. Their oath to the Constitution is defined in
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence. He says, for these purposes, government's
Speaker 1: obmittencestituted among men to protect what the rights of the governed.
Speaker 1: Please read that document, ladies and gentlemen. It's the rights
Speaker 1: of the governed. Who are the governed. You and I
Speaker 1: are the governed. It's not the rights of the governing.
Speaker 1: So when they make arbitrary laws and try to say
Speaker 1: that you can do this, you can do this, or
Speaker 1: every three letter agency begins to have regulations of where
Speaker 1: you can dig a trench and where you can erectify.
Speaker 1: Only Congress can make the laws. At least that's to
Speaker 1: the best of my understanding, what this Lemon law was
Speaker 1: all about, or the Chevron case was all about. That
Speaker 1: they just passed when they said that they're going to
Speaker 1: go back and say, independent organizations and independent institutions around
Speaker 1: the country do not have the arbitrary effort to suddenly
Speaker 1: become kingmakers. But that's the tyranny that seems to be.
Speaker 1: This is what Mark Levin himself talks about quite a bit.
Speaker 1: We seem to have gone away from the basics that
Speaker 1: in our conversation when we talk to our elected officials
Speaker 1: and we ask them, we ask them all these big questions.
Speaker 1: What are you going to do about this? What are
Speaker 1: you going to do with trade with China? What are
Speaker 1: you going to do about this? First question we need
Speaker 1: to ask them, do you believe that the rights remain
Speaker 1: with the governed? Do you believe that you are being
Speaker 1: elected because I am going to give you my sacred
Speaker 1: honor that when you go there and represent my constituency
Speaker 1: and me as your constituent. Every day, when you wake
Speaker 1: up and look in the mirror, your conscience will say
Speaker 1: that I have on my back the honesty, the integrity,
Speaker 1: the lives and the livelihoods of people whose rights are governed,
Speaker 1: and they are the ones. The rights always exist with
Speaker 1: the people who are governed, and no rights exist with
Speaker 1: the people who are governing. That's just so basic. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that a lawyer can take care through
Speaker 1: it and say, I think this is what it means,
Speaker 1: and this is what it means. But when I look
Speaker 1: at the Decoration of Independence and I realize that the
Speaker 1: rights are inalienable, they come from God, I understand that.
Speaker 1: We'll come back after the next segment. All right, dear friends,
Speaker 1: a deep breath and an apology. I think I got
Speaker 1: long winded and I had to cut you off because
Speaker 1: that was a heartbreak there, and hopefully if you miss something,
Speaker 1: all we basically ended was the words of the declaration
Speaker 1: saying the rights are with the governed. This is our
Speaker 1: last segment on day one, hour two, So as we
Speaker 1: talk about elections, I want to take a deep breath
Speaker 1: and probably take you through a little more of a
Speaker 1: tranquil moment, as I probably got a little agitated there
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, man, I do sound like
Speaker 1: some of these other talk show hosts flopping at the mouth.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's why they're never going to put me
Speaker 1: on TV, because I'll come unglued from my seat some days.
Speaker 1: Just someday, I hope I'll get a chance to sit
Speaker 1: among these the punditory of this world, the so called
Speaker 1: news journalists of this world, who with their with their
Speaker 1: fancy haircuts and their designer clothes, sit around election tables
Speaker 1: and talk about this flyover country and how you know.
Speaker 1: One presidential candidate called us the basket of deplorables, and
Speaker 1: now another presidential candidates talking points are we are weird?
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, I said, have you seen
Speaker 1: any of your parades? Have you seen how you guys look?
Speaker 1: Have you seen any of your TikTok videos of who
Speaker 1: you are? With your eyebrows toward one way, your hair,
Speaker 1: one color you've got all times? I mean, you know
Speaker 1: the best one is. I mean, if I ever see
Speaker 1: a person with a tattoo that says nothing is permanent,
Speaker 1: or they say no regrets and regrets is misspelled like
Speaker 1: in that movie, I don't know whether to argue with
Speaker 1: them or just laugh. So maybe in this final segment,
Speaker 1: we'll just take a deep breath and ask ourselves, how
Speaker 1: do you defend when someone calls you a weird? I mean,
Speaker 1: you wear both a shirt and jeans. Odds are if
Speaker 1: you wear shoes, unless they're fashionable. Your old fashioned like
Speaker 1: me obviously prefers socks. If you work in a farm,
Speaker 1: you may wear boots. You probably wear a hat that
Speaker 1: has a flag on it, and that's just because you're
Speaker 1: proud of your country. But why is it that when
Speaker 1: you wear a hat with a flag on it, or
Speaker 1: you have a hat that talks about something you believe in,
Speaker 1: someone sitting next to you on a plane says, I'm offended,
Speaker 1: offended by what common sense? I have a flag that
Speaker 1: I bought. I mean, I have a hat that I
Speaker 1: bought somewhere, which I'm wearing through this election season, especially
Speaker 1: when I'm in public, and it just simply says Washington Adams,
Speaker 1: and it says seventy nine eighty nine Washington Adams eighty nine,
Speaker 1: and nobody, even adults. I'm assuming every Conservative would know this,
Speaker 1: and every Republican should know this. But I'm guaranteeing you
Speaker 1: a dollar to a donut, which is my favorite non
Speaker 1: bet that a majority of people, even with some understanding
Speaker 1: of American history, will look at that and say, oh,
Speaker 1: that must be some local election. Washington, of course, and
Speaker 1: Adams were George Washington first president, John Adams his first
Speaker 1: vice president. That was eight years Eighteen eighty nine was
Speaker 1: the election. People often wonder if we had our declaration
Speaker 1: of independence in seventeen seventy six, why did the elections
Speaker 1: take so long? Well, seventeen seventy six were the declaration,
Speaker 1: I think eighty three was the treaty that was ratified.
Speaker 1: Eighteen eighty seven was the constitution? Was seventeen eighty seven
Speaker 1: the Constitution was framed, and so that first election took
Speaker 1: place a little later. Well, that's just a brief history lesson.
Speaker 1: I may be off on a year here or there.
Speaker 1: But when I wear that hat, people look at me quizzically.
Speaker 1: An Indian immigrant who they're supposed to be nice to
Speaker 1: because apparently I need their pity, is wearing a hat
Speaker 1: that is quasi red and white and blue, and it's
Speaker 1: got the words Washington Adams and it's got a date,
Speaker 1: and they want to ask me what it means. They're
Speaker 1: afraid to ask me because they don't want to sound
Speaker 1: insight to me, and I'll be honest with you. I
Speaker 1: have played into that ignorance and I must confess in
Speaker 1: some way because I'm a brownskinned immigrant from India. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, people will dance on eggshells to to get
Speaker 1: the point across to me. And I actually played the
Speaker 1: card as if I'm just dumb, and then even though
Speaker 1: I make a controversial statement, they end up apologizing to me.
Speaker 1: And it's so much fun to see them squirm. But
Speaker 1: you know, when I wear that hat and someone looks
Speaker 1: at me, it says which election is that? I said?
Speaker 1: Like everyone an important one? And they kind of look
Speaker 1: at me and realize okay, and they just say, oh,
Speaker 1: a nice hat, and they walk on. They have no
Speaker 1: idea what I said, and I don't think they want
Speaker 1: any more to be said. But this season, this season,
Speaker 1: as we look at our elections, let's get away from
Speaker 1: the noise. Let's look in our hearts. Let's look at
Speaker 1: our friends and talk to them in a nice manner.
Speaker 1: Let's do it not through hysteria, but through history. Better yet,
Speaker 1: I'm believer an otadist too, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I'm a Christian. I would rather do it through his story.
Speaker 1: When I look at the history of this nation, not
Speaker 1: all of them believed to the degree that some of
Speaker 1: us would want belief to be written. Not all of
Speaker 1: them may have been as vocal. But Thomas Jefferson himself,
Speaker 1: who was a self professed Dais, they say, wrote the
Speaker 1: Jefferson Bible. Now, what is the Jefferson Bible? He said,
Speaker 1: he disagreed with the miraculous or the divine, but agreed
Speaker 1: with the moral And he just took four of the
Speaker 1: Gospels and from it he pulled out the moral teachings.
Speaker 1: And I think it's called the Jefferson Bible, the Moral
Speaker 1: Teachings of Jesus of naz Now, many people in America
Speaker 1: don't know that such a document exists. So such a
Speaker 1: book was written by a man who was fairly young
Speaker 1: when he decided to take on the needs of this country.
Speaker 1: As we wind up, I want to thank Todd for
Speaker 1: allowing me to graciously be the host again or the
Speaker 1: guest host for his program. Today. We talked about elections.
Speaker 1: I talked emotionally at times, because I'll be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I do have a trepidation in my heart and a
Speaker 1: little fear that the nation I left after living here
Speaker 1: eight years thirty nine now to be glorious is a
Speaker 1: nation that is quite different from the one I'm leaving behind.
Speaker 1: So till we reconnect again, I hope you all have
Speaker 1: a blessed day and a blessed time. Thank you for
Speaker 1: inviting me into your homes and hearts. We'll talk to
Speaker 1: you soon. God bless