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March 1, 2021 - Epoch Times
15:44
Rep. Ralph Norman: Conservatives Must ‘Be Willing to Fight’ | CPAC 2021 | American Thought Leaders
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The left has had the backing and the funding to file lawsuit after lawsuit.
We've got to get the same attitude and learn how to fight.
Because once we lose, it's kind of like your health.
Once we lose our freedoms, it's hard to get back.
You vote your way in and you shoot your way out.
And I hate to see us become another Venezuelan.
Well, we're here with Congressman Ralph Norman here at CPAC. Great to have you on the show.
You were just telling me that you read the Epoch Times in your office and in your district.
John, I go through, I see Republicans all day long.
In caucus, we get together.
We go by the offices.
The Epoch Times is being read by far more people than you would think.
You're telling the facts, and that's rare in newspapers today.
And I can't tell you the positive impact that you're having, and it's expanding.
I'm thrilled to hear that.
You asked for this minute of silence for Rush Limbaugh.
I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the significance of Rush Limbaugh and what he meant for you and other conservatives.
Rush Limbaugh had a following of 20 million listeners, three hours a day, five days a week, and he just identified with the American people.
He identified with we the people.
You don't have that kind of following unless you have a message.
And it's not a message everybody agreed with, but it was a message that he emphasized the greatness of America.
He emphasized the Constitution that has kept this country He's been intact for the last 230 years, and he was somebody that you grew to love, and he had a loyalty with his following.
When he passed, I thought, what better opportunity in the people's house to have 30 seconds of silence.
I asked for unanimous consent, and Jerry Nadler objected.
I asked for a point of personal privilege for the speaker.
She objected.
Now, that didn't really surprise me, but it shows you how they're scared of a man that's telling the American story, did tell the American story for years, and his legacy will continue.
Because what he said, people identified with.
And it's like President Trump.
What President Trump did for this country, he put America first.
Rush Limbaugh put America first.
And a moment of silence?
Is that too much to ask for a body?
There's no shame with the left now.
And they, I assume, I'm going to put it up again and let them object to it.
Also, briefly, you said Rush Limbaugh was America First.
What would you say is his legacy?
His legacy is promoting freedom.
His legacy is supporting the rights of the individual.
That you could be fired five times as he was.
You could not get a college education, which he did not have.
But he followed his passions.
He was somebody who found what they wanted to do.
And he often said on the air, If you love what you do, and if it's your passion, you'll never go to work a day in your life.
It was fun for him, even with cancer.
He was sick.
He was getting chemotherapy, but he was, as Sean Hannity said, dying to get back on the air until he died.
And it's such a tribute.
And we won't see the likes of another Rush Limbaugh, but I think his legacy and what he stood for is what CPAC is all about, the rights of the individual.
Well, and this is obviously a topic very, very important to you.
And I know, you know, when we were talking offline, you were actually talking about your deep concern of, you know, what is the Constitution going to mean five, ten years from now, if the current trajectory continues?
Tell me about this.
If we let the left continue on their radical agenda, if we're going to allow it to be taught in K-12 and any of the colleges, find a college campus now that will allow conservative thought.
And by conservative thought, just two points of view.
Look at what mass media is doing.
I mean, look at what big tech is doing.
They have a monopoly.
They're protected under the 230 Act that we've got to somehow make them accountable through liability.
They shouldn't have liability protection.
But no, we're going to lose our republic.
And I just, I feel strongly that we're going to have to get a voice back and not be, just because we get an article written about us or big tech censors us, which I experienced with the frontline doctors on hydroxychloroquine.
But we've got to take a stand.
We've got to point it out for what it is, which is socialism.
It's socialism with government-run health care, government-run businesses.
I'm from the private sector.
I'm a real estate developer.
Government should work for us, not vice versa.
And government exists to provide equal opportunity but not equal outcome.
And that's what's missing in the narrative today.
The Constitution has provided a lot of protections against this sort of, I guess you're describing it as government overreach or government dominance and so forth.
So where do you see the Constitution being encroached on right now?
Take the last elections.
Per the Constitution, you're supposed to go through the state legislatures to change the elections.
And you can't go through a judge.
You can't go through an attorney general.
You've got to get voted on through the state legislatures.
They did not do that.
They did everything under the guise of COVID. Mass mail-ins.
No verification of signatures.
The Secretary of State in Georgia mailed out ballots to everybody.
Duplication.
They just didn't have time to prove it because the elections should have ended on November 3rd.
How did Florida get it right with 19 million people?
How did Texas get it right?
We just found out Claudia Tenney won her election in New York.
This is February.
You know, this is the last part of February.
This president was sworn in on the 20th.
So they changed the election laws as an example in violation of the Constitution, Article I, Section 2.
And I think we're going to end up in the courts, and the left...
has had the backing and the funding to file lawsuit after lawsuit.
We've got to get the same attitude and learn how to fight.
Because once we lose it, it's kind of like your health.
Once we lose our freedoms, it's hard to get back.
You vote your way in and you shoot your way out.
And I hate to see us become another Venezuelan.
What freedoms do you see most imminently in danger?
Freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech.
Big tech, media wants to tell us what to believe.
And how dangerous is it not to have all of the facts?
I mean, how dangerous is that, to not have all the facts?
That's what you see in communist countries.
China, the treatment of the Uyghurs, they let information out.
As the elite say it ought to be exposed.
And we've got to fight that.
This is a country that exists on ideas.
It exists on people starting, small families starting businesses.
It exists on being the best that you can be and doing what your God-given talent is.
And we simply are losing that, and we're letting the left take it over under the theme of the greater good.
It's the taking of our liberties one step at a time from Second Amendment.
This president is intent on taking our Second Amendment away through lawsuits on manufacturers of guns.
Guns never shot anybody by themselves.
It takes people.
But I'm as concerned now for my children and grandchildren, and everybody ought to be, because the things that made this country great were not government.
The only thing government can spend is what money that it takes from us.
Okay, so tell me then, you know, sort of itemize, what are these top, you mentioned a few of them already, but what are the things that really make America great in your mind, or have made America great traditionally?
What makes America great is the fact that individualism, you know, ingenuity, using your God-given talents, not having, government is not all things to all people.
The states created the federal government.
The federal government did not create the states, and we've got it reversed.
Take CPAC. If they tried to have it in a lot of other states, it'd been shut down.
We couldn't have it in Washington.
Government is telling you where you can go.
Government is telling that child he can't go back to school through the labor unions.
Government is keeping state businesses shut down.
The oxygen that runs businesses are staying open.
There is such a thing as a calculated risk.
There's such a thing as letting us, you know, do what we were born to do and take a risk.
And government is telling us that that's not going to happen.
And, Jan, it's all about power.
This group, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, want power to control every aspect of our lives.
And that's what we've got to fight.
So the theme of CPAC this year is America Uncancelled.
So obviously we're thinking about freedom of speech, but what else does that mean to you?
Well, it just means letting we the people.
The beginning of everything in this country has begun with we the people.
And I just hate that we're slowly under the mantle that the left uses of a greater good, tearing apart a constitution.
Look who's leading the left now.
We're a nation of laws.
That's another big one that they're trying to do away with.
And they're doing it through elimination of the Second Amendment and through how crazy is defunding the police?
How insane is that?
They're somehow getting the buy-ins of the big corporations.
I'm a member of the Freedom Caucus, conservatives.
We're growing in number.
We went to a hotel after many hotels turned us down because we were conservatives.
We were giving them business, giving them revenue, and they turned us down.
Now, what am I doing?
I'm writing the president of an example of Marriott.
They turned us down.
Marriott, which is a great company.
Our company does build Marriott's.
We used to.
Writing them, and I'm writing the board of directors.
It's saying, is this what you really want?
But it's things like that that are eroding our right.
And the sad part about it, y'all, they're doing it through the fear factor.
They're doing it through a fear factor.
And look at the 22 cities that have been destroyed.
Look at the businesses.
Where is the outrage over that?
Where's the outrage of the people who died?
Tell me about this fear factor.
What do you mean exactly when you say that?
Fear factor, if you go to the Capitol today, it's basically shut down.
We've got 10-foot-high fences with barbed wire.
Members of Congress, under the direction of Speaker Pelosi, is having to be searched every time we vote.
We have to go in as if we're the criminal.
I don't think we're...
She's...
Her message is the Republicans are there in danger.
Well, it's just a fear factor.
The mask.
How much have we...
How many...
I mean, I've been vaccinated.
I've got the antibodies.
I can't give it to anybody.
And how much do we know from January of 2020 to February of 2021?
A lot.
Vaccinations through Operation Warp Speed and...
But it's just the mask.
I fully expect the mask will be, double mask will be on for the foreseeable future.
And we'll have other pandemics that affect this country that we'll have to deal with.
And they'll exploit it.
But again, it's up to us to kick back.
In this time, when all these different parts, the administration and Congress, is held by the Democrats, what can conservatives, and I guess Republicans, and more specifically conservatives, do in this sort of a situation?
We've got to be willing to fight.
We've got to be bold.
Being lukewarm is not going to get it now.
The left is so far radicalized.
And we've got to, on a local level, go to that school board meeting and say, put our children back in schools.
Luckily in South Carolina, we've got a balanced budget amendment.
Our governor did not shut us down.
But North Carolina, the state that's adjacent to us, it was shut down.
I know people there.
I'm contacting them.
Write a letter.
Get a group and go meet with public officials saying no new taxes.
We want tax cuts.
No new bailouts for governments.
Governments have been shut down anyway.
Teachers have still gotten paychecks.
The union bosses still get a paycheck.
We, as politicians, still get a paycheck.
Let's put the people first.
Let the businesses operate.
Let's get this country back on a sound, we the people basis.
And that's my hope and prayer.
And the only way we're going to do it is get active.
So basically you're calling out to the grassroots here.
Grassroots, because that's what they can do.
I mean, they can go to their sheriff's department, as I'm doing.
We want to get you a pay raise.
The average policeman on the street makes $35,000.
Is it too much to ask that they get the same pay raise as in South Carolina they gave judges and solicitors who have a lot better, higher base pay?
Is it too much to ask for our police officers to get a pay increase?
No.
We're doing that, and we're getting it through groups getting together, and just in a nice way.
Throwing anything or shouting, saying, why is this?
To that mom who is upset about the curriculum that's taught to their child, call the principal, call the teacher, and get a group of people who are upset and say, why is this in my curriculum?
You explain this to me.
It's just accountability.
What's the harm in that?
How can that hurt?
It can only help.
Any final thoughts?
No, I just appreciate what you do.
It's now more important than ever that the Epoch Times reports facts and lets us decide.
It's important for us to get our voice back and take the consequences of that negative publicity, of the negative articles, because that's what the founders would do.
Well, Congressman Norman, such a pleasure to speak with you.
John, thank you.
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