Nov. 22, 2022 - Tulsi Gabbard Show
09:23
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| Aloha everyone. | |
| It's hard to believe, but Thanksgiving is here. | |
| Time goes by so fast. | |
| I hope that as we head into the long weekend that you're able to take a little bit of time off and spend that time with those that you love. | |
| I just wanted to take a few minutes today to share a little bit of my own Thanksgiving reflections with you and to send my well wishes. | |
| I really appreciate the opportunity to take a minute to pause and to reflect on what it means to give thanks and reflect on the things that I'm thankful for. | |
| I think that's the opportunity that every one of us has today, that whatever our personal situation might be, that this is the opportunity for us to go within and to look at our own lives and Rather than allow ourselves to get stuck in focusing on all the things that we don't have or the worries or the challenges that exist in our lives, we can choose to reflect on the things that we are thankful for, all the things that we do have. | |
| And let's start with the most basic thing. | |
| It's life. | |
| If you're watching or listening to me right now, we're alive. | |
| That in and of itself is truly a blessing to be grateful for. | |
| Every day that we get to wake up with breath in our bodies is a precious gift. | |
| A gift that's more valuable than any amount of money, any fancy title or car, any material thing. | |
| Now, as each day... | |
| It brings an opportunity for every one of us to learn and to grow and to love, to choose to show kindness to a friend or even a stranger, to respond to someone who may be angry. | |
| We're filled with hate. | |
| Respond to them with love and patience and kindness. | |
| Bring some light into a world that's too often dark, with divisiveness and fear and hatred. | |
| Something that we can be grateful for is our God-given rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. | |
| Our founders fully understood how important these rights are. | |
| It's why they place them in the Constitution, solidifying the foundation for this country, and ensuring that these God-given rights, these freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, that these are protected. | |
| They intended for our country to be a place with a robust marketplace of ideas, whether we're in person, we're online, whatever the form of communication is, that we're free to speak our minds. | |
| We're free to challenge and criticize our own government, get them to do better, get them to focus on serving the people, and that we can do so without fear of retaliation or being censored or punished. | |
| Unfortunately, this vision that our founders had for us, a lot of our leaders have forgotten it. | |
| And we're living now in a time where those freedoms are directly being threatened by those in power, both those in government, those in big tech and social media. | |
| Civil discourse and debate has become rare, being able to disagree without being disagreeable. | |
| You almost don't see that anywhere in our politics today. | |
| Now, for me as a soldier and a veteran, like my brothers and sisters who wear the uniform or who've served, I really take to heart the old saying, I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. | |
| Because freedom is precious. | |
| It's unfortunate how far away we've gotten as a society and as a country from that vision that our founders had for us. | |
| We live in a time now where there's very little tolerance and respect for those who have a dissenting voice, who step outside and color outside the lines. | |
| Today's cancel culture makes it so that those in power and permanent Washington are increasingly intolerant of any view that's not perfectly aligned with their own. | |
| Reacting to opposing views or even people who just ask questions with hostility. | |
| If in the United States of America, a nation literally designed to be self-governed with the government of, by, and for the people, if this nation is to survive, we must be free. | |
| We must exercise those freedoms. | |
| We have to treat each other with respect, not only as fellow Americans, more importantly, as children of God. | |
| We can have passionate debate. | |
| We can have strong arguments, advocate courageously for the things that we care about. | |
| Let's do so with aloha. | |
| Do it with respect, compassion, and love. | |
| I've had the privilege of serving alongside great Americans who love this country. | |
| These are special people who raise their right hand enlisting and volunteering to put their lives on the line willing to die to defend the security and freedom of the American people. | |
| There's a lot of them who can't be home today with their families. | |
| And so I just want to send my aloha to all of them and to their families. | |
| Let them know we're thinking about them, we're praying for them, and we're so grateful for their continued service and sacrifice. | |
| I'm thinking of my friends, too, who paid that ultimate price and who never came home. | |
| and the loved ones they left behind, who never got to say their final goodbye. | |
| I'm grateful for so many things. | |
| I'm grateful for life, grateful to have experienced from a young age that no matter what, I was always happiest when I was trying to be pleasing to God and to be of service to others. | |
| I'm grateful to have had this understanding that no matter what I chose to do in life, if I was motivated by a desire to be of service and make a positive impact, then I would be happy no matter what the outcome might have been or could be. | |
| Now, if we just live our lives for ourselves, No matter how hard we try to find happiness in this world, if we're just driven by selfishness and how I can get more for me and mine, the reality is that no matter how much money or things or fame we might have or accumulate, we'll always feel a sense of emptiness in our hearts, that something is truly missing. | |
| Now, St. Francis of Assisi said,"'For it is in giving that we receive.'" Mahatma Gandhi said, the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. | |
| And so, no matter what you do, whether you're a doctor, you work in business, you're a teacher, if you work in law enforcement, in the military, in politics, no matter what we do... | |
| We can work humbly. | |
| We can choose to be servant leaders. | |
| And we can think every day about what we can do for others. | |
| So, on this Thanksgiving, as we reflect about all the things that we're grateful for... | |
| Let's think about how we can be of service in our own lives and make that positive impact on others. | |
| And understand that despite all of our external differences, whether those differences be our politics or race or religion or all of the things that are so easily used to divide us in today's place and time, Remember that we're all God's children. | |
| We're all one family and we can find true happiness and true purpose in our lives by living our life in that spirit of selfless service. | |
| I am so grateful to God for His unconditional love. | |
| Anything that I do in my life that's worth anything is only possible because of His love and mercy. | |
| My prayer every day is that I may continue to be inspired by His love, hear His guidance and live my life in a way that's pleasing to Him. | |
| I'm so grateful for each and every one of you, for the time that you've chosen to share with me today, and I want to send every one of you my warmest aloha and well wishes. |
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