Thank you, everybody, for sticking around here and listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I am Eric Erickson.
The phone number here, 800-282-2882.
You can always get me on Facebook and Twitter at EW Erickson.
Email is ericeric at redstate.com.
My buddy Brad Thor, I just saw him tweet this out.
I missed this.
Chicago has decided to enact a cloud tax, 9% tax to stream Netflix, Spotify, I guess Apple Music now.
They're going to tax you for using the internet essentially for streaming services and entertainment tax.
They already tax you if you go to the movies or buy tickets for sporting events.
The left will not be deprived of tax revenue.
They will come up with new schemes.
It is only a matter of time before they tax you if you use more than one sheet of toilet paper at a time.
It's only a matter of time.
They will continue to come up with new ways.
It is another failure of leftism.
The fact they have to tax your Netflix account.
Unreal.
Okay, I got to move on to Donald Trump because there are a slew of stories out there about Donald Trump and there is mass panic among Republicans.
Where is this in this stack of stuff?
Oh, whoa, yes.
All right.
So we got Rich Lowry says, sorry, Donald Trump has a point.
You got this headline from David Drucker, the Washington Examiner.
Do Republicans fear the Trump NATO?
And then Lauren Fox at National Journal has, why is Donald Trump polling so well?
I can tell you why.
A friend of mine texted me yesterday, and I want to read you his text.
I will spare him his name because given what he does for a living, it would ruin him.
This is what he texted me.
Trump is an imperfect vessel for a massive vacuum of populism that nobody else has figured out how to fill.
I think there's a lot of wisdom in that.
I don't get the Republicans who are having heartburn over Donald Trump.
Let me tell you why Trump is doing well.
Because he's saying the stuff that people think.
And we live in a society of politically correct campaigners and presidential candidates who want to offend no one.
Trump doesn't care.
And you can disagree with what he said.
You can disagree with everything he says.
But the fact that he doesn't care, I like that.
I had a caller to my own show the other day, and I wrote about this, I guess, two weeks ago in my syndicated column, that one of the things people like about Trump is that they don't think he's for sale, that he's got billions of dollars.
He's rich.
He's very rich.
Just ask him.
He'll tell you.
And so he can't be bought.
You got guys like Harry Reid, poor boxers from Nevada who suddenly go to Washington, D.C. and get a condo at the Ritz and become very wealthy in public life, in public office.
People are tired of seeing politicians go to Washington, not do what they say they're going to do, and get wealthy.
They're tired of the Hunger Games.
They're tired of the Capitol doing well while no one else does.
Here's Donald Trump.
He does not care if he offends you.
He's willing to tell it like he sees it.
And he's willing to go to Washington, D.C. and blow it all up.
He's willing to attack Democrats.
He's willing to attack Republicans.
Rich Lowry in the Politico.
He's the editor of National Review.
He's got this piece in the Politico.
The headline is, sorry, Donald Trump has a point.
The shunning of Trump is in response to his memorable presidential announcement that included comments about the alleged criminality of Mexican immigrants that were typically crude.
Trump could make a statement about arcane tax policy details related to accelerated depreciation for business investment and still make you want to take a shower afterwards, although it isn't anything new.
The companies fleeing from Trump were happy to be in bed with him for a very long time.
As it happens, Trump's new enemies are doing him an enormous political favor.
But he goes on to say Trump's statements, when Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best, that this is obviously correct.
We aren't raiding the top 1% of Mexicans and importing them into the country.
Instead, we're getting representative Mexicans who, through no fault of their own, of course, come from a poorly educated country at a time when education is essential to success in an advanced economy.
Trump's comments made it sound as though Mexico is sitting as moral defectives.
That's not the larger problem.
Although gangs certainly exploit the border and their criminals in Indian population, immigrants are willing to work.
It's just that a lack of education is an anchor around even the hardest working person in modern America.
Immigrants here from Mexico have the lowest levels of education.
Nearly 60% of them haven't graduated from high school.
Only 10% have some college.
Nearly 6% have a bachelor's degree or higher.
By way of comparison, the situation of immigrants from Korea is almost exactly reverse.
More than 50% have a bachelor's degree.
Less than 4% have failed to earn a high school diploma.
Trump has a point.
Here's my concern with Donald Trump.
And I do have a concern, and I like Donald Trump, and I've written this.
He actually sent me a note, said he thought it was a fair, what I wrote about him.
Donald Trump is a salesman and a showman, and he's an expert at it.
And he knows how to get attention.
And my concern is that the other candidates in the race are going to say, hmm, Donald Trump, he's bombastic.
Let me be bombastic and say zany things, and I'll get the press attention that Donald Trump is getting.
And the Republicans will get into a rhetorical ghetto.
That's my concern with Trump.
Trump knows what he's doing.
The other candidates said they don't.
Again, he's an imperfect vessel for a massive vacuum of populism.
No one's figured out how to fill.
Then you got David Drucker at the Washington Examiner.
How do you solve a problem like the Donald?
Top Republicans are flummicks by billionaire businessman and entertainer Donald Trump, 69, unsure just how worried they should be at his penchant for making offensive, controversial comments that could crater the GOP brand and damage their prospects.
Republican operatives working the trenches of the primary campaign fret that Trumpism, such as calling illegal immigrants from Mexico rapists, as he did last month, could doom the party with minorities and independents.
But many veteran party bigwigs aren't concerned, dismaying the New Yorker as a clown whose campaign will be overshadowed by the depth and quality of the GOP's White House field.
I don't know that Trump is going to get to the Iowa Caucus.
He may stick around for a while.
I do think it's worth pointing out that all these companies publicly severing ties with Donald, they had to do it.
They're using his statements as the excuse, but they had to do it.
He's running for president.
He filed.
None of them severed ties with Donald Trump until he actually filed his federal paperwork.
Now they're saying publicly, oh, we're doing it because we're outraged, outraged by Donald's comments.
They didn't do a thing until he actually filed his federal paperwork.
NBC had to then severitise with him because of equal time rules.
They couldn't have Donald on promoting Donald.
What about the rest of the candidates?
Macy's can't run newspaper ads for Donald Trump suits.
There essentially would be advertising for Donald Trump while he's a candidate for president.
The same with CERTA.
All of these people, they had to do it.
They're just chickens, and they're trying to use the publicity for themselves to say, hey, we're not a bigot like Donald Trump.
We're distancing ourselves from that lunatic.
Oh, they were perfectly happy making money for Donald Trump.
They were perfectly happy making money off of Donald Trump.
But now that they can't make money off Trump because he's a presidential candidate, now they're throwing him under the bus.
The essence of cronyism.
They're perfectly happy to use him until they can't and then try to ruin him.
Trump has a bigger microphone than them.
My concern with Trump, though, is how the other candidates respond.
And my suggestion is that, yeah, a buddy of mine just texted me.
The other guys, they don't have a spine.
That's the difference.
Yes.
Trump's willing to stand up.
You know, in 2012, Trump, whether you like him or not, Trump put the White House on defensive over the president's birth certificate.
Do you remember that in 2012?
He wasn't even a declared candidate for president, and he was out there every day saying, where's the birth certificate?
Where's the birth certificate?
Now, I'm not a birther.
I think Barack Obama is not a closet sleeper cell Manchurian candidate from Indonesia here to infiltrate us for the Muslim Brotherhood.
I think he's just an atheist socialist from Hawaii who grew up in privileges trying to pretend that he's not.
But Trump put him on defense, made the White House scramble.
The entire news networks of America had to cover the release of the birth certificate.
Donald Trump is the only guy who's been able to put this White House on the defensive.
All of the other Republicans bend over Bohica, let the White House do it all over again to him whenever they want.
Not Trump.
He fights.
It's like Lincoln during the Civil War about Grant.
Well, it was Grant, wasn't it?
He fights.
Can't spare him.
Donald Trump fights.
If the other candidates are afraid that Trump is dragging them down, if the other candidates are afraid that Donald Trump is overshadowing them, well, they don't need to be bombasts.
They don't need to be Donald Trump, but they need to fight.
They need to do what Rick Perry did yesterday and say the president must be held accountable for the plight of black families in this country and the decline of race relations in this country.
The president must be held accountable.
Berry's been able to get huge media attention by doing that, by standing up.
The left has gone apoplectic about Rick Perry today.
I can't believe he said that.
He did say it, and he's going to keep saying it.
He also said he thinks Trump is wrong in the crassness of his comments.
But Perry's been able to stand up and be bold and speak in real terms and fight the president.
These other guys who are worried about Trump, the reason they need to be worried about Trump is because Trump calls it like he sees it.
He's not going to nuance.
He's not out there to be loved.
He's not going to paint over the Confederate battle flag on the general lead because people are outraged on Twitter.
Trump's out there calling it like he sees it.
If Republicans are upset about that, well, they should understand that the reason Trump is doing as well as he is is because they have failed us.
They have failed to fight.
They have failed to call it like they see it.
They have failed to stand up.
They have failed to speak to the concerns and fears of the American people.
They have failed to speak about the American dream.
They have failed the middle class.
And Donald Trump has filled the void that they refuse to fill less people in the media say night things about them and don't invite them to cocktail parties.
Trump doesn't care about getting invited to the cocktail party.
He's a cocktail party in and of himself.
He stood out.
If they want to stand out, they need to take the fight to Obama, just like Donald Trump.
Eric Erickson, in for Rush Limbaugh.
Welcome back.
Eric Erickson here in for Rush Limbaugh as we head into this Independence Day.
I want to remind you again, because it's important that we all be reminded of things.
I'm a Rush 24-7 subscriber.
There have been days when I'm preparing for, am I allowed to admit this when I'm preparing for my show?
Oh, Rush had a great point.
What is that article?
And I can go to Rush 24-7.
I mean, this is what most of the news networks in America do.
I'm pretty sure they're all subscribers to Rush 24-7 because it's show prep for them.
So they have stories to talk about.
You should be a subscriber to Rush 24-7 and get the Limbaugh Letter.
I mean, great interviews out there.
You know, one of the cool things I love about how Rush does the show is he doesn't do a lot of interviews on air, but he does great interviews in the Limbaugh Letter.
You can find out all sorts of stuff.
And occasionally he throws them on air and mentions them, but you've got to get the Limbaugh Letter to get the details.
So you should get both.
You got a friend or relative?
Give them the subscriptions, too.
It's well worth it.
Let's go to the phones.
I want to go to Steve in Ormond Beach, Florida.
Speaking of Trump, Steve, welcome to the program.
Yes, sir.
Eric's doing a great job.
Two quicks.
Thank you.
One, I think it's ironic that everybody's surprised that Trump is so popular.
Well, somebody about 30 years ago in Sacramento started out saying what people thought but wouldn't say, and you're sitting in his chair right now.
Oh, well, there you go.
That's true.
And number two, the reason I called is back in the 60s, I was an army officer.
I know that's an Oxymoron serving in Germany, interrogating people escaping across the border.
But we also interrogated a second group of people that the Germans, each Germans called Auskeschrogener.
They were undesirable criminals, sick people, indigents, and they just brought them up to the border at a moment's notice and said, you're free to go to West Germany.
They'll take care of you.
And you call screen and reminded me that that's what Castro did some years ago with the boat people.
Yes.
Here we go again.
And I can't prove that the Mexican governments are pushing people across the border, but there's a lot.
I don't see too many rocket scientists coming to us or PhDs.
Yeah, and they're certainly, they're turning a blind eye to the people crossing the border.
They don't want to secure it either.
That is a very good point.
It really is, that they're shoving people across the border.
At the same time, we should be mindful that a lot of people who are coming across the border, because of just Mexico is completely destabilized.
And they're fleeing and trying to send money home to their families to take care of.
It doesn't make it right, mind you.
But there's a lot of that as well.
Rich Lowry's point about Trump is a lot of the people who are coming across, it's the exact opposite of a lot of other immigrants.
A lot of Mexican immigrants, the majority of them, don't have college or high school degrees.
They're coming over, doing menial labor, and it's reflected in society and it requires an expansion of the social safety net by our government to help take care of people who are here.
You know, we are a good nation, Steve.
Thanks very much for the phone call, by the way.
We are a good nation.
We are a kind people.
We want to take care of people.
We don't want people to live destitute lives.
And so when immigrants come, we want to help them.
We want to help them experience the American dream.
What that used to mean, though, was that we helped stand them up, give them a good education, and let them go to it and not only share the American dream, but through the fruits of their own labor, the rest of us benefited.
A lot of our great inventions of the day were from immigrants.
A lot of great ideas in this country from immigrants.
But nowadays, we just want to leave everyone piled up on the social safety net and punish those who dare to think they may be able to get off of it.
Pete in Pittsburgh.
Wait, Pittsburgh, California, Pete?
That's me.
Yes, sir.
Where is Pittsburgh, California?
Oh, between Antioch and Concord on the east side of the Bay.
Okay.
All right.
You are exactly right.
As the other caller, and I'm glad you cleared him up that they're distracting us.
Trump is doing well for exactly that same reason.
He's willing to say what's right.
He doesn't want to be loved.
And our founding fathers, the majority of them, were very wealthy people that did not want money from the country.
They had money.
They were willing to give their lives and their wealth to grow this country.
Everybody on the left now wants the country to give them the world, and they don't give a rat's tail about us.
Right.
It's really hard to imagine the current Washington establishment pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for something.
I mean, their fortunes, no, they've gone to Washington to get their fortune.
They're not going to give it up.
They worked hard to get to Washington to get it.
And that is, the number of people, I said that on Twitter a little while ago, and the number of people who have responded on Twitter saying, that's exactly it.
Trump's willing to say what he thinks.
He's willing to say what the rest of us think.
And he's going to Washington not to get rich because he already is rich.
You can't imagine the people in Washington, Republican or Democrat, pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.
What's that?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's a good question.
Pete, thanks very much for the phone call.
We got a hard break coming up.
I got to let you go there.
But yes, you can't imagine them doing that.
You can't imagine the people of Washington, D.C. doing what the founders did.
I mean, they want a revolution these days, but they want to force the revolution outside of Washington.
They want to force us to conform to them.
There's a story over at Vox.com, and I'm not going to link to it.
I hesitate to send out links to Vox or to Salon because they write the wildest wackadoo things to try to make money because they're dependent on clicks.
But they're saying that the revolution was a mistake.
The revolution was a mistake, they think, because they don't understand it.
They want to do revisionist history.
Our founders pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to build a new nation that was founded on the idea of a principle, not just geographic equation.
Snerdley says I should remind you people or mention it to y'all, y'all.
Y'all are so much more endearing than you people.
You people are very Yankee, I guess.
So I'm the editor of RedState.com, and several years ago, I just decided, you know, instead of being online all the time, I'm a real believer in community.
And that's one of the things I think is as you're worried and troubled and doubting these days, remember community, remember the power of breaking bread with people around your table, having non-political conversation with fellow believers, making sure there are people there to support you and encourage you and you, them, praying for each other, eating together, all that.
And I just, I wanted to take the political discourse offline and see people face to face at Red State.
So I started this event, the Red State gathering.
We're having our seventh one in Atlanta this year.
I've invited Donald Trump, and to my knowledge, he's coming for sure.
Along with Ted Cruz is going to be there.
Rick Perry is going to be there.
Bobby Jindal is going to be there.
Scott Walker's going to be there.
Carly Fiorina is going to be there.
Who else is going to be there?
We've got a bunch of them.
Most of the Republican presidential candidates are going to be there.
If you go to RedState.com, you can click on the graphic and find out how to come.
We're also going to do a big debate watch party Thursday night, and we're going to have an event.
We rented out the College Football Hall of Fame here in Atlanta, Georgia.
And we're going to have a shindig that night.
It should be a lot of fun.
So go to Red State.
You can check it out.
An alligator has killed a 28-year-old man.
He died during a late-night swim at a Southeast Texas marina.
He decided to swim in a bayou.
There were signs saying don't swim, but he decided to do it.
Clearly, he thought he was entitled to do it.
And he didn't think that there were going to be any alligators out there to stop him because it was his right to get in there.
A 28-year-old.
I'm assuming alcohol was involved.
I mean, it is the middle of the night in Orange, Texas, which I have driven through many times on my way from Louisiana to Texas down I-10.
I'm guessing there was alcohol involved.
And, well, the Gator got him.
My goodness.
All right.
You know, I think I will do a cooking workshop.
I've had listeners to this program today, including Jim from out in Washington, ask me to update the listeners on my experiments with pizza dough.
My wife and kids got me a pizza oven, one of those propane pizza ovens for outdoor use from Amazon for Father's Day.
Snerdley asked me if they got me an easy bake oven, people.
They didn't get me an apron.
Snerdley says he's going to send me a rainbow flag apron just so people think that I'm putting all the love into my food and cooking.
My pizza dough is going.
I'm having a hard time actually still shaping it.
I got to figure out the shape.
But I made one for the kids and my wife.
They all liked it.
My wife liked her cowzone.
So now I got to keep practicing there.
Lots of pizza eating in our house.
Yeah, I do not do cupcakes, sweetheart.
I don't do cupcakes.
My wife does the cupcakes.
Actually, my nine-year-old now does the cupcakes.
Should we put her in a after or a summer camp at school on how to learn to make cupcakes?
Because, you know, being an evangelical, I believe she's got to be in the kitchen cooking with her dad.
I do the grilling, though.
All right.
I'm going to go to the phones again.
Dave in Bonita Springs, Florida.
Save me from Snerdly.
Hey, Eric, you opened the show detailing the fact that the government was encouraging citizens to tell on their neighbors.
And I think that's actually a good idea.
I think, you know, when someone down the block is on permanent disability and they have a side job that they're working, not paying any taxes, doing a little fishing on the side, biking.
I think that's something that should be told to the government.
Also, you know, you have someone on food stamps, on, you know, unemployment, spending a large portion of their money to support their alcoholism and then using their Obamacare to fund the rehab of that.
How dare you stereotype, Dave?
I mean, it's all over the place.
I mean, okay, Dave, I got to tell you something.
There are people that have been injured and poor kids.
We need to take care of these people.
But the rest of them, let's let everyone know what's going on.
I got to tell you a story.
My neighbor had a column in the local newspaper, and he caused mass outrage because he went to an assistance office where you could get subsidized assistance to pay your gas bill.
And he documented all of the Mercedes, Lexuses, and BMWs in the parking lot of people who were signing up for assistance and noted, you know, if you bought a cheaper car, you probably wouldn't need that assistance.
And of course, he was immediately labeled a racist for having done that.
He was immediately labeled a bigot for daring to point out that, you know, some people, they're making life choices that make it more difficult for them to pay bills they otherwise would be able to pay.
But you're not allowed to point that out these days, apparently.
I personally, though, have a real hesitation on turning in my neighbor for anything.
It's so socialist.
I mean, that was a big red flag when the Obama administration first kicked off wanting you to turn in your neighbor if they dared say anything negative about Obamacare.
Or, I'm sorry, misspoke, didn't tell the truth.
It just, it's creepy.
All right, let's go to Jeff in Mansfield, Ohio, next on the EIB network.
Eric, how are you doing today?
I'm well.
How about yourself?
Good, good.
Hey, you know, you're talking about why Donald Trump is so good.
As a 29-year military veteran, I'll say this.
He is standing up against the Democratic Socialist Party.
And that's what's something, you know, that that's what this country needs.
A non-politician finally saying, look, we're done with politics.
Congress has its lowest ratings.
The president has, you know, the ruling party has its lowest ratings.
And even the military is tired of this stuff.
We need somebody in there who's going to say, look, we're done with this.
We support you.
We're done with this.
We're going to turn our military loose and say, look, if you come against us, the war on terrorism is not over by a long shot.
We have to go in there and set other countries free, get their governments back up and running, protect them.
Just like Iraq, we conquered that country.
But by international law, we are still responsible for that country until that country has a government that can protect itself.
Obama pulled out before it could actually prove that it could protect itself.
Therefore, he is responsible for that.
He is, listen, I mean, Barack Obama has been a master of withdrawing before we've actually, well, I mean, of losing, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
We won in Iraq.
Now, I know the left hates it when you point that out.
Even some Republicans these days want to walk that back.
But the fact of the matter is, we won in Iraq.
The country was stable.
Its government was doing what it needed to do to continue to build and grow.
And Barack Obama pulled everybody out.
ISIS did not exist before Barack Obama became president.
The left would love to blame George W. Bush for ISIS, but it did not exist until Barack Obama withdrew, until Barack Obama decided that he needed to destabilize Assad and Syria without any sort of game plan for replacing him.
This is, we're dealing with Barack Obama's mess.
They would love to blame Republicans for it.
And the media is going to try to blame Republicans for it.
This is one reason why I think Hillary Clinton is going to have a hard time in 2016, because she's going to have to own his foreign policy, and it is continuing to deteriorate.
Eric Erickson, in for Rush Limbaugh.
We'll be back.
News reports are suggesting Joe Biden may get into the race for president.
You know, he he lost his son last month, Bo Biden, from a long struggle with brain cancer, but his sons Bo and Hunter Biden have been encouraging him to run for president.
Now, Democratic strategists and some fundraisers are saying he may get in.
He Hillary's vulnerable.
Nobody trusts her.
Even the Republicans are making a trust issue.
Bernie Sanders is starting to gain traction.
It's kind of funny.
Certainly and I were talking to you earlier, right?
Martin O'Malley, everybody was looking at him until he actually announced for president, and now everybody's ignoring him.
That guy could never be president after what happened in Baltimore.
I mean, he kind of instigated the police policies that led to what happened and are getting blamed for it, and he's not going to be president.
But Bernie Sanders, the socialists, the AFL-CIO, is in panic because its members love Bernie Sanders, and they're trying to undo a survey that showed major support for Bernie.
They want to pledge their fealty to Hillary Clinton.
And now Joe Biden might get in.
I think that's pretty awesome.
Jim Webb, too, is getting in.
I was listening to TV earlier, and some analyst on TV was saying, well, he's not going to gain traction in the Democratic Party because he's white from the South and defended the Confederate flag.
It's game over.
But business guys love Jim Webb.
I mean, they just, it's kind of like the Chris Christie effect.
The news media people.
Jim Webb, he's a senator, was a senator from Virginia.
I mean, he was a yeah, exactly.
He was in the Secretary of the Navy or some post in the Department of Defense years ago.
Nobody remembers Jim Webb.
He's not going to be president.
But the fact that people are now starting to get into the Democratic race is a big signal for Hillary.
She's got issues because nobody trusts her.
Nobody trusts her.
I don't blame her.
Don't blame them.
I mean, why would you trust her?
And the emails.
Just ridiculous.
Chuck, Fort Myers, Florida.
Let's get to you today.
Welcome to the EIB network, Chuck.
Yes, sir.
It's the Florida kind of day.
Great to speak with you, Eric, and I'm thrilled to be here with you.
Thank you very much.
That was a nice touch earlier when you said that you all instead of you guys, because you guys, of course, are politically incorrect.
Yes, not allowed to say guys anymore.
I'm just a hateful bigot, I guess.
I can't say you guys.
Youth guys up north.
Anyway, you know, the reason I called is because I've probably been bummed out all day for a lot longer than that, quite honestly.
But, you know, and nothing against Rush.
He's my political guru without question.
I think he's awesome.
But he said yesterday that he indicated that there's really nobody doing anything.
All this is going on and nobody's doing anything.
Well, personally, and there's millions of people like me, I like to think, you know, I'll call, I called up Macy's and said, well, I won't be there anymore.
I'm sorry.
You guys are idiots.
I'm not going.
I tell you involved in Medicare.
I tell people $716 billion have been stolen from you and put into Obamacare.
I send all the petitions that come onto my internet out.
I call the congressmen.
I call people.
I've even called, unfortunately, the White House and said things I can't even repeat over the phone.
Good for you.
But, you know, so short of some kind of, I'm not proposing it, but short of some kind of an uprising, what in the heck are we supposed to do?
I mean, we're trying everything and under the sun.
You know, my wife and I have been married for 46 years.
It was called the sacrament of marriage.
It was called holy matrimony.
And I'm telling you, if I go to church and somebody wants to do one of those weddings, I won't be going back to that church.
Chuck, you know, there's the thing.
I think we do.
I mean, I think we're going to be able to do that.
Let me tell you what else people need to do, Chuck.
And I appreciate this phone call.
And let me get this off my chest because I know a lot of political activists.
I'm one as well.
And we call, we support candidates.
We want to protest.
We want to show our support.
We do phone banking.
We get out and knock on doors.
There's something else that I think political activists need to do.
And I feel very strongly about this.
And that is invite friends over for non-political conversations.
Just invite people over for dinner.
Rosaria Butterfield, she is a, I was listening to her a couple of weeks ago.
She was a lesbian.
She's a professor now, women's studies and English, I believe.
She was writing a book to denounce Christianity and had to read the Bible in the process and wound up actually converting.
And she made a statement a couple of weeks ago that what people don't understand about the gay community is that there's real community there.
There is real community.
People aren't worried about the cat hair on their couch.
The door's open.
Come in, have a meal.
Don't be lonely.
And I think a lot of people in society have lost a sense of community.
And that's something I think political activists, people of faith, they got to do.
You stop making excuses.
Stop saying, oh, well, the house is a wreck or there's nothing to eat.
Go across the street and get a bucket of fried chicken if you're in the south or whatever you people up north eat.
And just have people over.
You don't have to talk politics.
It is important for you to surround yourself with other people who are like-minded.
People want to say you got to surround yourself with people of desperate opinions today.
No, surround yourself with people who think like you, who believe like you.
You don't have to have the conversations about those issues.
Just have people over.
Build a sense of community locally.
Because I think where we're headed right now, where the country is right now, for ourselves, for our children, making sure that we are surrounded with people who think like us and that our children realize that our values are sound and we're not oddballs or we're not alone.
That's important for the future of the country to make sure we know this.
Eric Erickson in Farushland Book.
239 years ago, the founders of this country pledged their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor for the endeavor they were about to go into.
Something that had not been seen before, a written declaration of independence, breaking away from their motherland.
There had been revolutions before, none successfully.
You've got people today in the United States, left-wingers saying, oh, the revolution was a mistake.
You know, Catherine the Great told George III fighting the Americans was a mistake.
She was right.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That was a novel idea at the time.
It was also a conservative revolution.
See, the Americans believed they were English citizens entitled to the rights of the Glorious Revolution from 1688 and the Bill of Rights.
It was not a radical revolution trying to overthrow an old order in favor of something new.
And that's why the left has never liked the American Revolution because it was a conservative revolution.
It was a revolution to claim what they already had, what they believed they were already entitled to, not to set up something new.
The left ever since has wanted to overthrow it and set up something new.
There are a lot of you who are worried about the state of the country.
I would submit to you this weekend that you should celebrate the American independence, a conservative revolution.
You should celebrate what this country was founded on.
You can be worried about where we're headed, but you should always remember why we were founded, what it was all about.