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Oct. 24, 2022 - Doug Collins Podcast
29:19
Last full measure of Devotion
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
This house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Doug Collins Show.
Got a lot going on.
We've been doing a lot of politics lately.
We've been doing a lot of discussing.
And one of the things that I've been going back to, and I've had a lot of people request and talk about the speeches, when I break down speeches and look at them from a historical perspective, and then apply them to today.
And one of the speeches that actually came up, and I was traveling this past week down in Florida and some other places, a speech that comes up, and people have asked me about, is the...
Famous speech from Abraham Lincoln, which is the Gettysburg Address.
Now, we've done Abraham Lincoln speeches as a president from an inaugural perspective and others, but we've never done the Gettysburg Address, which is an interesting, in the midst, and I think some of this came up in a discussion one day, is what makes a good speech?
And, you know, when you're out and talking about speeches and when you're giving speeches, you get into these things.
And, you know, they'll have the joke some people say is, you know, my former instructor told me the best speech is to have a great ending and a great closing and have them very close together.
You know, it's funny, people laugh, but the reality is what makes up the dynamic of a speech, and I wanted to talk a little bit about this before we get into the actual Gettysburg Address today, is it's not It's not always the length.
It's not always the content.
It's not even the opening or the closing.
It's how, number one, it's delivered.
Number two, it's what is being said.
And number three, actually connecting to the audience.
In a very real and tangible way.
Now, sometimes that can be done, and I've used this to great effect in using a speech in which I use humor, and sometimes self-deprecating humor.
Others is just, you know, you're getting people laughing.
I believe that speeches so many times are really good when you have a humor element in those speeches, because when people laugh, they learn.
It's just, they're relaxed.
It doesn't It breaks up, you know, many times the monotony of listening.
But that doesn't mean all speeches have to have humor in them.
It doesn't mean that all speeches have to be boring either.
In fact, we've heard our fair share of boring speeches.
I'm sure all of us have in that regard.
So what I really wanted to think about when we think about a speech, and we've done some of the longer inaugural speeches, we've done some of the speeches of different presences we've gone through.
To look at what they were saying for the future.
The Gettysburg Address, though, and as we come into next month into November, we look at Veterans Day, we look at our country, we look at elections, we look at the strife that's going through.
I mean, I hear so many people say, oh, this is the worst it's ever been.
No, it really isn't.
It isn't the worst it's ever been.
The worst it's ever been is when we had half of our country divided against the other half of our country, and literally families were fighting families.
I mean, that is the ultimate problem that we have had and the ultimate sacrifice that was given to keep this union together.
At the middle of that, in the very center of that was the glue, was Abraham Lincoln.
He valued the union and valued our United States and valued the principles, our founders and all that kept our country together in such a very difficult and uneasy time.
So in looking at this, one of the things that I want to think about here is how do we make this, you know, we look at this speech and taking all these other speeches, you know, we often, you know, In today's political environment, it's looked at as you've got to give a wordy speech.
It's got to go 20, 30 minutes long.
You've got to make a point.
And as an old pastor, believe me, I get the desire to make your point.
The question is, how do you make your point succinctly and to the point?
That's one of the things that I want to emphasize as we talk about the Gettysburg Address.
Now remember, the Gettysburg Address was in November 19, 1863. If you study the Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg was really a turning point in the war.
It was a bloody battle, many lost, but it was the stretch or the furthest stretch up of this Confederate army into Pennsylvania.
Really, what hinged on that battle was, you know, really how far up the Southern Army would go.
Could the Union Army stop them?
At this point in time, there was, frankly, the Southern Army was making a lot of headway in through Virginia, through up in, and they had to move on into Pennsylvania.
We were seeing, you know, just the beginnings of the battles on the West.
This would be where Grant came out of later.
But You know, November 19th, 1863 was a turning point in the war, and the victory for the Union Army there was very important in what eventually became the defeat of the Confederacy and the defeat of the Confederate Army.
But it took a great deal.
There's so much we could go into.
I mean, I'm one who enjoys studying battles and history moments.
I've also been asked at times to talk about doing a podcast, events that changed history.
Things like what had happened if the battle at Pickett's...
These went differently at Gettysburg.
What if the German army had decided to not stop at the English Channel, had went ahead and had a full-blown invasion of England?
There's so many historical thoughts.
I mean, Japan and not stopping at Pearl Harbor, but continuing on in different ways along the west coast of the United States.
All of these things that didn't happen, but If had, what would they have done to change the world?
These are the kind of things that are fascinating to talk about, to see what they could have been.
The Gettysburg battle was one, though, that the way it came out did solidify what would be our union from here to come.
So in looking at this speech, it's not a normal speech, number one.
In the sense of, you know, today, you know, there's only 270-something words in this speech.
You know, 72, 75, depending on which way you count the words.
This would be more remarks in today's language.
This would be, you know, the very simple remarks given at an event that You know, people wasn't expecting a whole lot.
It was interesting enough that this is probably one of the most memorable speeches given by Abraham Lincoln in the world.
If you look up...
I mean, all you gotta do is look up the speeches in...
In world history, and you begin to see that the Gettysburg Address is one that's always ranking in the top 10. As we look at that, this is why the speech matters so much.
So let's dig into it as we get into it.
Now, one of the interesting concepts, and before we get to go through the speech itself, one, Lincoln was very torn by the carnage that was going on in the United States during his time.
It racked him Constantly is the death that was going on.
And frankly, he felt for the war itself on both sides.
That was very felt personal.
But he was very committed to making sure that the Union would prevail, that the United States would again be the United States.
And he made really something that was really a concept that came out of this, is that America was both a place and a concept.
I've heard this expressed, you know, it's a physical location and an idea.
When you think of America, it is not just the location that we're in, but it is a concept of freedom and individuals and we the people.
And there's so much that goes into that that can't be related to a single place a single time.
And Lincoln was one who believed that.
You saw it in this speech.
Let's break that down, because I think it's so important today.
When I see the political infighting, when I see both Republicans and Democrats going at it, and what is sometimes outside the branding of civil discourse, outside the branding of normal debate, we've got to get back into the idea that we can debate issues, debate ideas, and at the end of the day, disagree with each other.
We might not want to go have dinner with each other, but at the end of the day, realizing that except in the most You know, this is not an issue of evil and people being inherently evil because they hold views that are different from mine.
Now, there are certain ideas that I frankly hold that, you know, especially when it comes to life and those kind of things that I do believe that are not proper, but at the same point in time in a court's Like we have in our United States, this is the kind of discourse that we have.
We've got to convince each other of our right ideas.
They may be things that we can't understand and they may be evil in our sight, but at a certain point in time, we've also got to remember we're a society in which the idea and the concept, the idea of America is that we have these freedoms that come together and mesh into one.
So let's take a look at this, you know, again, the things before we start, and I'll hit it again in the speech, is, you know, Lincoln says in this speech, actually, that, you know, that he's not sure the world would even remember what he says here.
That's, again, an interesting point for what became a speech that everybody understands.
So as we're looking at this speech, thinking about it in terms of political discourse today, thinking about it in terms of who we are as a country and the values and freedoms that we fight for, this is understanding that we are a sovereign nation of land and borders, but yet we are also a concept that is actually shown more to the world than anything that our borders could ever have.
He began, of course, in the famous fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now, just in that first sentence right there, he sets the concept of America.
He says the concept, and not in a land dispute, he didn't set it in a breaking away dispute, but he said what was on this continent, in this place, a new nation, different than others, was conceived in liberty.
Liberty and freedom We're intertwined here, that liberty that came from being able to be who God created you to be, that liberty that gave you the freedom to start businesses, to grow homes, to find homesteads, to eat and begin that life that you were called to through the freedom to participate in the communities and society.
Freedom to participate in your religion as you saw fit or participate in no religion as you saw fit.
That was the liberty it was conceived in.
And they could not conceive in something which restricted the freedoms.
This was what the founders brought forth.
And it was dedicated, as Lincoln said, to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Again, very interesting use of wording here, given the fact the Civil War and the backdrop of slavery and the issues around slavery and states' rights that began this bloody war to start with.
This is where the proposition, and again, When we talk about America as a concept, and I want to see this in our society today, there are things that we must come together.
We have been blessed in this world.
When you compare the United States to everywhere else in the world, there is real no comparison of freedom and liberty and the economic possibilities that are available here in the United States are just not available anywhere else in the world.
That's why everybody wants to come here.
It's funny that I hear we fight about the ideas that we have in this country, but it is the rest of the world that may look at it and don't understand what we're fighting about.
In fact, I've traveled overseas and it's often brought up to me when I've traveled to other governments and spoke to other elected officials in different countries.
They don't understand the fighting or they don't understand the discussions in America about is America a good place?
Is America an example?
They believe it to be.
And this is something that I think we've got to, you know, I hope we would get better as a country, realizing that not only the country we have, but the ideas that founded this country go far beyond our borders.
He goes on and says, now we're engaged in a great civil war, attesting whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure again.
Liberty and freedoms are fragile, folks.
You've got to fight for them.
The saying is that freedom is only one generation away from being forgotten.
And if we don't, if we begin, and I'm concerned more and more of what I see in the United States at this point, that there are people more and more trading their freedoms to the government for what they believe is security.
And folks, if you continue to do that, then you will not have freedom and you will not have security.
You will have a government that is overbearing, overburdened, and really not based on the principles of which the proposition, as Lincoln said, this nation was conceived in.
And if that's not true, then we're not going to endure.
If we miss the fact that we're more than just a landmass, if we believe that we're just a landmass in which all these people, everybody can do what they want, everybody is separate, everybody is, you know, ideas of what America should be, instead of saying that we're conceived in liberty and dedicated, that all men are created equal, we've got to take that to heart, otherwise we're going to lose everything.
You know, where we are.
It says, What
a powerful statement from the president here on realizing, standing in this battlefield, fresh with the stain of war and the stain of death and the problems that were in this war and the struggles and the strife and the pain that it has caused our country.
He recognized that Those who were there, those in the battle, in the moment, are the ones who consecrated that field.
They were the ones who fought for our country to live.
They were the ones that deserved the praise and the attributes.
But also, at the same point, he said it was them that made this battle what it was.
It was them that made this country Have a hope because they sacrificed on that battlefield and nothing we can add to it would actually consecrate that more.
Again, it goes back to a concept, and I'm going to take this a little further than Lincoln's speech.
It goes back to the fact of recognizing not just in this battle, but in life itself, it is, as Theodore Roosevelt later said, it's to the one who gets in the ring.
It's to the one who's in the arena that fights the battles.
That is the hero.
They're the ones that lift us up.
They're the ones that actually should be praised.
And instead today, it's almost as if those who get into the arena of public life and public service are the ones who are consistently being attacked and downgraded.
Do some people in public life do bad things?
Yes, they do.
Do some people in public life dishonor the trust given to them by their voters and by their constituents?
Yes, they do.
But do all?
No.
In fact, the vast, vast, vast majority of the 99, I would say 99.9% are there for the right reasons.
Some make mistakes and you have that and you see that as you go forward.
But, you know, you have to admire the ones who step in the ring.
Even if I disagree with them, you have to admire the ones who are willing to say, hey, I have an idea, I have a thought, I have a proposition, I have a belief that I want to put forward, and in this country, I have the ability to do so.
Lincoln was actually recognizing, you know, the fact that those who were in the fight, in the battle in this time were the ones who had actually made this place a special place, made it one in which people would remember not what his speech would say, but what they actually did there.
And I think we need to remember that all along in our country, just because, you know, sometimes we don't get our way in politics.
It's not just simply a reason to step off the field of engagement when it comes to politics or that there is something that we can't participate in.
We need to continue the fight for ideas in our country, because that's frankly what, for hundreds of years here in our country, we have fought and died for, our citizens have for that right.
This is where he makes the statement.
He says, the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
And I think that's a continuation of what we just said.
It is the actions of those in the ring that people remember.
But, he said, That's just such a powerful turn of phrase right there.
The last true measure of devotion.
Back in May, we represent and we celebrate or remember Memorial Day when those who gave, as Lincoln said here, that last full measure of devotion, they gave all that they had For the country that they believed in.
And that is what has kept our country enduring over 200 plus years now in the ideas that it is us as a country, us amalgamated in from all different parts, all different backgrounds, under the founders, as he said, as he started this off.
That this new nation was conceived on this continent and a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
That last full measure of devotion, folks, is giving all for this country, for the freedoms, for the rights, and for the beliefs that we have.
And that is something that we cannot let go of.
And I don't want to see that.
Unfortunately, I began to see more and more of a now mentality and not a historical mentality.
One of the things I think What Lincoln does in this address is he properly balances what had been done with what can be in the future.
And that's what he's saying here.
He said what happened here should not be just something we stop and remember, but it should be actually the battle cry, if you would, for what we do moving forward.
It should be the idea that as a nation, we take up...
These who gave the last full measure of devotion, and we give of ourselves that full measure of devotion to a country that has given us the ability to do and to be a part of what we want to do, feel like God has called us to do.
After he says that they gave their last full measure of devotion, he said that we are highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain, but this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth.
Abraham Lincoln knew that this country was worth fighting for.
Although he abhorred the fighting that was going on, although he would want any way to get out of the fighting that was going on, he was looking, I mean, if you go back and look at history, he wanted to avoid a civil war.
He wanted to avoid secession.
He did not.
He was willing to make agreements to keep this country together and keep this country strong, even if the dismissal of many who wanted him to go into this war because they believed that the slavery and the Southern intentions of the state's rights were something that were abhorrent to the cause of our country.
He wanted it with all his might to avoid war, but he couldn't.
The war came upon him.
He fought it, though he did realize in his time that this union was worth fighting for.
This union that was not even 100 years old at that point was worth the fight, worth the loss, worth the struggle and the pain if it could be kept.
And he says, you know, That the way you move forward from a battle like Eddysburg, the way you move forward from the Civil War that was being fought over these disparate ideas of how a country should be shaped, is that you don't let their memory die in vain.
You don't let the idea the founders spoke of in the very first sentence of this speech that the Freedoms under God and the new birth of a nation and the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.
Again, it goes back to the concept that Lincoln very much believed that our country was not just boundaries that were stuck in A certain fixed account of the borders, but also an idea.
And that it is that idea that we must move forward on.
Folks, I can't emphasize this enough.
The ideas that Lincoln were speaking of are the very freedoms, the very things that we represent today.
It amazes me today when people are protesting or take offense to others' freedom of speech while exercising their own.
And the idea that we silence others' speech, the idea that we silence others' opinions, the idea that we, not just in our society today, instead of living in a place that is free and a place where liberty is pursued, we want to actually take out or cancel or not hear from those that we disagree with.
That is the very antithesis of how our founding fathers started our country.
And if you see it in the very First Amendment of our Constitution, that freedom of speech, there was this idea that you don't need freedom of speech Except for the speech that you don't like.
The speech that you like, you don't need protection from.
It's the speech that you don't like from those who disagree with you, from those who think differently from you.
That is the protection of speech.
And I'm seeing more and more in our country this moving away from these principles, these very principles of this dedication of conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
And that we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Now, I'm also going to say something else for some that may or may not like this.
You being with the people doesn't mean that your opinion is the only right one.
Because there are others of we the people that may have a differing opinion that they believe in, and just because their view is different from yours doesn't mean that your view is the only right one.
The question is, is can we the people, the collective group of those of us who call ourselves Americans who were born here, who have been or have come here and naturalized, who come here to live a life, who to take of the benefits of America, of the United States of America, can we come together And can we be in a position in which we listen to each other, we find ways of solution with each other, that are upholding the very principles in which we were founded?
That is that freedom of liberty, the freedom of the graces that we've been given as a country, the vast resources, a government that is stable, a constitution that provides rights and freedoms for each and every individual in our country.
Can we get better at how we treat everybody?
Can we get better at perfecting how our government works?
Sure.
That's the great part of America.
We're the ones that actually can look at mistakes and then correct those mistakes.
But unless we remember where we've come from, remember that this country was fought for, not just simply the boundaries of this country, not simply which states will be where, but the very concept of our country and the freedoms that it possesses, that is the biggest issue that I believe is its struggle here.
We talk about many times in the press these days, they're talking about the rise and the struggle for democracy.
The democracy is using your vote, being a part of your vote, making sure that you are out participating in the public arena, because it is your country.
And there are going to be others who agree with you, there are going to be others who disagree with you, but it is being a part, actually striving, if you would, for this country, striving for the ideas of liberty, striving for the ideas of freedom and principles, and that all men are created equal, and that there's no one here should be denied those rights as American citizens, because that is the very foundation on how We reformed.
When we understand that, when we grow in that, then we make progress.
When we miss that and we want to constrict, we want to give government more power than it should.
We want our liberties constricted because we think that it makes us safer or secure or we're free from the ideas that we don't like.
Then we're running away from the very country that we have seen developed that protects those ideas, that protects those freedoms and helps us to be the best country that we possibly can be.
So, folks, in this middle of this election season, I know it's going to get heated here in the next few weeks.
We've already seen this in many of the races.
I'll just remind us all that elections come and go, but America is here.
The principles and ideas on how we were founded, our Constitution, are very solid.
If we continue to keep that, then we can make a difference in our country and in our society.
What do you think?
Maybe go to the Doug Collins podcast.
Go to that website.com and hit the email button.
Send me a request.
Send me an idea for a show.
Tell me what you think about this and the principles laid forth by Lincoln here in the Gettysburg Address.
These are ideas that I believe are important in a time of election.
They're important in a time of non-election because it goes to the heart of who we are as people and what we are as a country.
We're an idea that freedom has sparked.
Hope around the world.
The question is, will we keep that light lit for those around the world?
We'll see you next time on the Doug Collins Podcast.
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