Join Kim Monson and her special guest, Bill Federer, as they dissect the threads of history that continue to influence our present-day America. From the pre-King Saul era to the founding ideals of a republic, this episode challenges listeners to reflect on the responsibility of citizenship and the moral compass that guides societal structures. Bill’s captivating narratives from his extensive literary work illuminate the complex tapestry of America’s journey and underscore the critical junctures of liberty and governance.
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It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
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And when government gets bigger, the individual gets smaller.
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The latest in politics and world affairs.
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For thee, but not for me. And I agree that we’ve got to change that.
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Today’s current opinions and ideas.
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If, in fact, you are working for the man, it’s a new form of slavery.
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Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
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Indeed, and welcome to The Kim Monson Show. Thank you so much for joining us. You’re each treasured, you’re valued, you have purpose. Today, strive for excellence, take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. My friends, we were made for this moment in history. And thank you to the team. That’s Producer Joe, Luke, Rachel, Zach, Echo, Charlie, and all the people here at Crawford Broadcasting. I’m blessed to work with amazing people. Check out our website. That is KimMonson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter that goes out on Sundays. And you will get first look at our upcoming guests as well as our most recent essays. You can email me at Kim at KimMonson.com. And thank you to all of you who support us. We are an independent voice. We search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. And we are pre-recording these shows for Independence Day week. And with special guests, so thrilled to have on the line with me, the creator of the American Minute, and that is Bill Federer. Welcome, Bill.
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Kim, great to be with you.
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Well, I can’t believe how many books that you have written. And we’ve talked about the Declaration. And at the end of the show, I normally will share a quote. I thought, well, I’ll see if there’s a Bill Fetter quote that I could share. And then I do this quick search. Oh, my gosh, there’s not just a quote. There’s a book. You have, and I’ve got to order it, America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. So tell me about this book.
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Well, it’s 845 pages of God and country quotes arranged alphabetically by the person. So Abigail Adams is at the front, and Jefferson and Lincoln and Madison and George Washington and Booker T. Washington. It is the one book that I have that people say that I use. The other ones they say, oh, I’ve read, but this one I use. And I’ve had congressmen. I was out in Texas not long ago, and Louie Gohmert came up and he said, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve quoted out of your book on the floor of Congress. Oh, my gosh. Even the Supreme Court had a case in 2003. It was called The City of Greece, New York. where they had a city council open with prayer in Jesus’ name. ACLU sues to stop them, and Anthony Kennedy wrote the decision. He said, even our Continental Congress opened with prayer in Jesus’ name. It’s okay, and gave the prayer, and then gave the source, WFED or America’s Got Country. Anyway, it’s been a resource for teachers and students and papers and newspapers Anyway, it’s our most popular book. It’s sold over half a million copies. Focus on the Family sold several hundred thousand copies of it. But I’ve written about 30 books since then. One’s a series my wife and I did called Miracles in American History. Stories from our country’s past, where there’s crisis, it looks hopeless, and they pray and have courage, and things turn around. Rivers rise, allowing Washington’s troops to escape. Fogs come in. Sergeant Alvin York, capturing 132 Germans, World War I, comes back and starts a Bible school. Patton had his Third Army come into the rescue of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge, and he’s pinned down by the weather, and he gets his chaplain, James O’Neill, and ordered him to compose a prayer. And they printed out a quarter of a million index cards, give it to the soldiers, and as Patton’s Christmas greeting to his troops on the flip side. Well, they pray it, and the next day the sky clears, and they’re able to march and stop the Nazis in their blitzkrieg. And a couple months later, the war ends. And so it’s just a fascinating collection of these stories called Miracles in American History. I did one on the history of socialism, another on the history of Islam, another on the history of St. Patrick, another on the history of St. Nicholas Christmas traditions. One, I went through all the speeches of FDR. I was amazed that he was in office 12 years, got elected four times as president. They since passed the 22nd Amendment limiting a president to two terms. But I read through all of his addresses. He was Episcopalian. He gave out Gideon’s New Testaments and Book of Psalms to all the soldiers in World War II. He wrote the foreword, As Commander-in-Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the Armed Forces. And this was the liberal FDR passing out New Testaments. So since then, both the left and the right have moved to the left. But it’s just a fascinating history in that particular book.
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Boy, absolutely fascinating, but I need to get this because I share quotes all the time on the show, and what a great resource. It sounds to me like it’s one of those books, again, people should have hard copy in their freedom library at home because it can give inspiration. We are, Bill Federer, in quite a time right now, and we’re broadcasting this the day after Independence Day. And I feel that we are in the third founding of our country right now. We are really being asked, who are we as Americans? And that’s why looking at our history and taking hope and inspiration from these stories of our founding and the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1 through July 3. This is such an interesting time. And then the fact that that 50 years after the Declaration of Independence in 1826, that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die on the same day, and then James Monroe, who was one of our presidents as well, he died on Independence Day. This doesn’t seem like it’s by accident to me.
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Right. We forget the fact that we’re unique. One of the books I did called Change to Chains, it’s a play on words there, but I go all the way back to the beginning of recorded human history. Not prehistory, not handprints on cave walls. We’re talking an actual functioning language. And you have Sumerian cuneiform is invented around 3300 BC. You have Egyptian hieroglyphics invented around 3000 BC. Chinese pictogram characters invented around 2600 BC. But you round it out around 3000 or 4000 BC is when what we know as writing was invented and record keeping was invented. And we’re around 2080, so that’s around 5,000 or 6,000 years of human beings writing down human records. But during this period of time, the most common form of government is what? Well, it’s gangs. The default setting for human government is gangs, clans, tribes. And a gang leader with enough weapons we call a king. And they go by different names. Pharaoh, Caesar, Kaiser, Sultan, Tsar. But power wants to concentrate into the hands of one person. And it’s a selfishness. It goes back to Cain killing Abel. The only difference is the weapon improves. Instead of Cain killing Abel with a rock, the kings can kill with bronze weapons or iron weapons or big, long phalanx spears that the Greek soldiers had or a scimitar sword that the Muslims had or gunpowder that the Chinese invented or chips with low keels that the Vikings invented or, you know, The weapon improves, but it’s that same fallen nature of king, kill, and able. And as the centuries go on, the king of England ended up being the most powerful king on the planet. The sun never set on the British Empire. They had India, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, British Guiana, Canada, Barbados, Bermuda, Jamaica, and America. And our founders decided they didn’t like a globalist, one-world government king telling us what to do. And so they broke away and flipped it and made the people the king. So kings have subjects who are subjected to their will. The republics have citizens. The word citizen is Greek. It means co-ruler, co-sovereign, co-king. So when the citizens pledge allegiance to the flag and to the republic, we’re basically pledging allegiance to us being in charge of ourselves. But when somebody protests the flag, what they’re saying is, I don’t want to be king anymore. I protest this system, or I participate in ruling myself. It’s like, okay, somebody else will be happy to tell you what to do. So America is an experiment of bottom-up versus top-down. And when they set up the Constitution, they basically took the power of a king and broke it into three branches, executive, legislative, judicial, pitting them against each other. So James Madison said, there’s no angels on earth to govern us. All we have is humans. We’re all selfish. And so the selfishness in the executive branch. will always try to pull power away from the legislative and judicial. And the selfishness in the legislative branch will always try to pull power away from the executive and judicial. And the selfishness in the judicial branch will try to pull power away from the executive and legislative. So greed checks greed, ambition checks ambition. And it’s actually a stroke of genius. It would be the equivalent of a Sunday school teacher giving an assignment. Go home and design a system of government where sinners keep other sinners from sinning. That’s what I found. It’s greedy, selfish people keep keeping other greedy, selfish people from being greedy, selfish. And so and then they took the power and separated federal to state level. And then they tied up this federal Frankenstein with 10 handcuffs. We call the first 10 amendments. In other words, their whole preoccupation was to take the power of a king and scatter it, take the Tower of Babel and scatter it. They had experienced what it was like being under the most powerful, concentrated power king in the world and in world history, the king of England, they said, we’ve been down that road. Let’s go down the other road. Let’s trust the people. Let’s decentralize it. People may make mistakes, but we’ve been down the other road. We know where it leads. Let’s try this. And so America is an experiment of people ruling themselves. And it only works if the people have morals and virtue. All the founders wrote about this. Plato wrote about this in his Republic. He says that a democracy only works if the people have virtue, and if they give up their virtue, it turns into lawlessness. Then, when there’s lawlessness, people want somebody with enough power to restore order. Then along will come a protector who’s all smiles, who promises everything to everybody, and he’ll start concentrating power. If people cast it in his teeth that he’s getting too powerful, And then he has a choice. Give up the power, which he’s not inclined to do because Plato called him a lover of power or get rid of the people confronting him. And he purges his military, his police, his Department of Justice, of anybody with morals and virtue. And all I want is yes. And then he finally stands up in the chariot of state holding the reins of power. And he’s revealed as a tyrant. So democracies and republics where people don’t have virtue, don’t have morals, where you teach your kids there’s no right, there’s no wrong, you can do whatever you want, every day it changes, and you shove these kids out on the street in this lawlessness, then you’re going to have people saying, government, you’ve got to do something to stop all this random violence and killing. And the government says, we’re happy to. We’re just going to take away your Second Amendment. We’re going to take away your freedom of speech because you might set somebody off. We’re going to take away your privacy so we can track you everywhere. And so… I did another book on the history of socialism. Whenever you have a dictator wanting to take over, the first thing he does is to create domestic crises. Let in illegals and let there be lawlessness and have the currency become devalued. They want to create a lawless situation so that the public begins to cry out for somebody to come in with enough power to restore order. And then they come along as the hero, saying, we’ll restore order, but when the dust settles, you’ve just given up the bottom-up form of government and transitioned to a top-down form of government. So you learn these lessons from history, but at the time of America’s founding, We were breaking away from the most powerful king that planet Earth had ever seen. The sun never set on the British Empire. It’s fascinating. I did another book called Who is the King in America? It’s the people. I go through, where did America’s founders get these ideas? Well, they got them from the Age of Enlightenment. But prior to that, they got them from the New England pastors. And where did they get their ideas? From their little congregational churches, which was different than the hierarchical church. And these churches, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Quakers, they got their idea from the Reformation. They refer to the Bible, but what part of the Bible… that first 400 years out of Egypt before King Saul.
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Okay. Let’s have that as a stopping point for right now. I’m talking with Bill Federer. He’s the creator of the American Minute. How many books have you written?
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About 30.
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He’s written about 30 books. And we were talking about his book, America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. Highly recommend that you get that into your freedom library at home. And we have these discussions because of our wonderful sponsors. One of those is the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance Team. And they know that life can be challenging, so it’s their mission to maximize your financial security as you manage the risks of everyday life. So call Roger Mangan at 303-795-8855 for more information. Like a good neighbor, Roger Mangan’s team is there.
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And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter, and you can email me at Kim at KimMonson.com as well. Thank you to all of you who support us. We’re an independent voice, and we search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. And a couple of great sponsors of the show, goal sponsors of the show, is the Harris family. I so greatly appreciate them. On the line with me is Bill Federer. He’s written over 30 books. You can find him at the American Minute. And we’re talking about several of his books. This America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. I would highly recommend that all of us have this in our homes, in our Freedom Library. And as we went to break, you had just mentioned the Israelites in the 400 years in the Bible. So what was that reference about, Bill Federer?
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Right, so you have the kings of England look to the Bible for their authority, but they look to the King Saul and on part of the Bible, and the Calvinist Puritans and Baptists and Presbyterians and Quakers and Congregationalists that founded colonies in America, they look to the pre-King Saul part of the Bible. This 400-year period of millions of people and no king. So we go back in history. King is the norm. Around 1400 BC, you have an anomaly. You have millions of Israelites coming out of Egypt, and they come into the Promised Land. And for 400 years, there’s no king. It’s totally unique in history. It’s so counter. And it’s not like the Greeks and Romans, right, where they do a trial and error, you know, read through the Greek history and life surges, and they’ll have, like, different, you know, committees of the wealthy and the patricians. Israel was one download. It all came down at once. And it’s a system where everybody is taught the law. And everybody is personally accountable to God to follow the law. The law wants everybody to be fair to each other. And God’s going to hold you accountable in the future. So you’re about to steal. Nobody’s around. You know you can get away with it. And then you think, God’s watching me. He wants me to be fair. He’s going to hold me accountable in the future. Maybe I should hesitate stealing. And it creates something in your head called a conscience. If everybody in the country really believes this, you can maintain complete order with no police. Maximum liberty. Women can go anywhere without fear. You don’t have to lock the door. And it worked for four centuries until the priest stopped teaching it. You say, what? Yeah, here’s Eli, the high priest. His own sons are sleeping with women in the very tent where the Ark of the Covenant is. And then another Levite with a silver graven image in the house of a guy named Micah. The tribe of Dan comes along, steals the graven image and tells this Levite, come along with us. You can be a priest to our whole tribe. And you’re reading the story in the book of Judges, scratching your head, saying, what’s this Levite doing with a graven image? Isn’t that one of the commandments? You’re not supposed to have them. And then the terrible story of a Levite with a concubine. The law says the Levite is to marry a virgin of his own tribe. Here he is with a woman he’s not even married to. They’re traveling. Their house gets surrounded by sodomites. Something about that behavior that appears at the last stages of a people ruling themselves, this casting off the self-restraint. The poor concubines raped to death, and by the time you’re grossed out, you read this line, every man did that which was right in their own eyes. Why? Because the priests stopped teaching them what was right in the Lord’s eyes. They lost the fear of God. They lost the knowledge of the law. It turns into this selfish lawlessness, and they all go to Samuel the prophet. And they say this self-government system’s not working anymore. We want to be like the other countries. We want a king. Samuel cries and the Lord tells him they did not reject you. They rejected me. And so they get King Saul. Now, why is this story important? Because the kings of Europe look to the Bible for their authority. But they look to the King Saul and on part of the Bible, the divine right of kings. God chose me. And the Calvinist Puritans that founded New England, they looked to the pre-King Saul period of the Bible. Millions of people, everybody taught the law, accountable to God to follow it. So King Saul is the divider between England and America.
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Wow.
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And so why is this important? Romans 13. People that go to church might be familiar with this verse. It says, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. It’s like, okay, in a monarchy, the authority is the king. And in a republic, the people are. So Romans 13 is understood differently in a monarchy versus a republic. In a monarchy, subjects submit to the king. In a republic, the citizens are the king. The politicians are your servants. You hire them, you fire them, you vote them in, you vote them out. They’re supposed to do what you tell them to do. So the churches that say, oh, we’ve got to submit to the government, we’ve got to submit to the… They need to pick up and move to China and North Korea. And when Nebuchadnezzar blows the trumpet, they just surrender their control. Okay, I’ll bow. But in America, we’re the pre-King Saul part of the believers of the Bible. We’re where we don’t have a king. Everybody’s taught the law and personally accountable to God to follow it. And the politicians do what we tell them to do. And so when you get into this unique, and John Calvin was the one that pioneered this. So you had the Reformation in 1517, Martin Luther, and then you have large percentages of countries not believing the way their king does. So wherever there’s a king, you have to believe the way the king does or he burns you at the stake or considered treason. But in 1572, Spain controls the Netherlands. And the King Philip II does not like the fact that the Netherlands have now become Dutch reformed. And so he sends the Iron Duke of Alba to Antwerp, Holland, and he commits the Spanish fury. He kills 10,000 of these Dutch Reformed and leaves their bodies lying in the streets. And the same year, 1572, the Queen of France, Catherine de’ Medici, does not like the fact that 10% of France has become Huguenot Protestant. And she’s a little more creative. She organizes a wedding of the main Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre, with her daughter, Margaret. And it’s in Paris. And all the Huguenot leaders are there. A couple days after the wedding, she has her soldiers pull chains across the streets so the carriages cannot ride out of town. And she sends her men house to house. They kill 30,000 of these Huguenots and throw their bodies in the Seine River. And so you had lots of killing going on at this time. You had Catholics killing Protestants, Protestants killing Catholics. I don’t want to get into all that. But in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, you have a guy named John Calvin. And he says, we are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against him, let us not pay the least regard to it. So there’s a caveat there. There’s a situation where you don’t. And it’s like Ephesians 6. Children, obey your parents. But what if there’s a bad parent who tells the kid to sell themselves into prostitution? Is that child supposed to obey that parent? No, the child obeys the parent as long as the parent’s telling them to do something that lines up with God’s word. You obey the government as long as the government’s telling you to do something that lines up with God’s word. Why would God tell you to do something in his word and then tell you to submit to a government that tells you not to do what he just got done telling you to do? Fascinating. It’s exactly what Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his letter from the Birmingham jail, 1963. One may well ask, how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws, just and unjust. One has a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. So these Calvinist Puritans come up with a way to have a government without a king. It’s called a covenant form of government. And you get rights from the creator and you are fair to your neighbor because you’re accountable to the creator and he’s not a respecter of persons. You get blessings from the creator and you voluntarily share them with your neighbor as charity because you’re doing it as under the Lord. It’s not socialism where the government takes away your stuff involuntarily and distributes it to supporters in exchange for votes. No, this is where it’s your stuff. And when you’re moved upon you. And so this covenant form of government is a way to maintain order without a king who rules through fear. So kings rule through fear all the way from Nimrod on. That’s the electricity. That’s the motivating force. The king ultimately can kill you. And and so that’s the norm. You have a bad king. You fight. You get rid of him. You put in a good king. But then his son is bad. And now you’re back where you started and you have to overthrow him. And then you put another good king and his son is bad. I mean, who who’s the best king, David? David’s oldest son, Amnon, rapes his sister, Tamar, and then is murdered by another brother, Absalom, who tries to overthrow David. I mean, this is David’s own sons, right? And so the brilliance of a covenant form of government is you get rid of a bad king and you maintain order with a covenant form of government so that the rubber band doesn’t snap back with the new king. And so it only works if the people fear God rather than fear the government. And so Calvinist Puritans come up with this covenant form of government. It’s taken to New England, and that’s what they set up in these colonies. And so these Puritans would have one building in each town called a meeting house. That’s where the pastor would teach the Bible, and that’s where they would do their city business. The word synagogue means meeting house. That’s where the rabbi would teach the law, and that’s where they would do their city business. Why build a separate building just to talk about a different topic? That’s a good point. The Puritans had a key word, participation. So everybody’s involved in church, just like the pre-King Saul part of Israel. Everybody was involved, the assembly of the Israelites. Just like Jesus said, upon this rock, I’ll build my church. That word church in Greek is ekklesia. E-K-E-K means out of and ekklesia means a calling. So there were 6,000 citizens in the Greek city of Athens, and they would call them out of their homes to the Agora marketplace, and they would all get involved in fixing the city. We’ve got to fix the walls, got to get our Navy going, got to take care of the kids, and everybody is a part. And Jesus chose this word. He said, upon this rock, I’ll build my ecclesia, my calling out, my body. Everybody has to be a part, an eye, an ear, a foot. So it’s a participation model versus the hierarchical model that the king of England had. The king had a clergy-laity model where the clergy does the ministry and the laity is lazy and watches them. You’ve got the king, under him is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop of York, and the deaneries and vicars and curates and rectors and priests, and your relationship with God through this hierarchical structure, and you’re watching them do the ministry. But the congregational model is where the pastor trains the saints to do the work of the ministry. You get involved, and as you’re faithful in the very little, you’re entrusted with more. And everything that grows takes in and gives out. Every muscle to grow has to be exercised. You don’t just hear a good sermon and watch somebody else minister. You hear a good sermon and then put yourself in a position where there’s a need and the Holy Spirit will use you to meet the need. And it’s training the body. And so this congregational model is what the pilgrims and Puritans and Baptists and Presbyterians and Quakers and Congregationalists brought to New England. And so that was the 1600s. It was an amazing century of developing this covenant form of government. But after a century, it got a little dry.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. Well, let’s keep that as our cliffhanger there, Bill Federer.
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All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s kimmonson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
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Where I come from, it’s cornbread and chicken. Where I come from.
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Welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMonson.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at Kim at KimMonson.com as well. And thank you to all of you who support us. We’re an independent voice. We search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you shouldn’t have to force people to do it. A great organization to support, particularly this week of Independence Day week, would be to make a contribution. to help the Center for American Values continue the great educational programs that they are putting together, as well as honoring our Medal of Honor recipients. And so check out all that they’re doing by going to AmericanValueCenter.org. That’s AmericanValueCenter.org. And make a contribution. It’s a great way to say thank you for my freedom. We’ll be right back. One is America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. And we’re going to be getting to silence equals consent. But our cliffhanger, Bill Fetter, was you said in the 1600s, there’d been this covenant form of government, but it was getting a little dry. So what happened?
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. So it’s in the Puritan mindset is God has a plan. He has a plan for government. He has a plan for your life, your marriage, your family, everything. Some took it the next step and said God in his infinite wisdom already knows who’s going to wind up in heaven. So don’t even bother preaching the gospel. And they became unevangelistic. And David Brainerd got expelled from Yale because he said his professor was as spiritual as a chair. And the Yale students got reprimanded because they went into the town of New Haven and they were caught presenting the gospel to strangers on the street. It’s like, oh, how terrible. I mean, they weren’t like tearing things down and setting things on fire. No, no, no. It was considered disrespectful that they weren’t licensed yet to preach. They did not have black robes on. They were not in a formal setting of a church, and it was considered disrespectful. And so when the 1700s came along, you had what’s called the new lights. And these are people that say, look, it’s more than a plan. You have to have an experience with Jesus. And when you do, your life will change, and you won’t do worldly things anymore, like go to bars and brothels and get involved in government. Wait, what was that last thing? Yeah, government. It’s worldly. If you’re really Christian, you’re not going to be involved in government. You’re going to be holy. And it’s like, well, wait a second. That’s different than the first century of America. This first century had participation. You had people involved in church, and you had people involved in civil government. Where now they’re coming along saying, no, no, no, don’t be involved in government. It’s worldly. So let’s unpack where the pietas came from. Reformation starts 1517 because Martin Luther had a personal experience with Jesus, right? The just shall live by faith. So personal, he was willing to stand up to the most powerful government leader in the world, the King of Spain, at the Diet of Worms trial and say to his face, unless you can prove me wrong from Scripture, here I stand, so help me, God. It was very personal to Martin Luther. But some German princes have been waiting for a chance to break from Rome. And they say, this is my chance. Kingdom of mine, I just decided you’re all now Lutherans. And the people in the kingdom are like, great, we’re Lutheran. What do we believe? And so for the people in these kingdoms, it’s not the same personal experience necessarily that Martin Luther had. It’s just a new state doctrine. So a revival movement starts called pietism. that said being a christian is more than doctrine even if it’s good doctrine you have to have an experience with jesus and when you do your life will change and you won’t do worldly things anymore like bars and brothels and food theater and get involved in government and it turned into the german concept of the two kingdoms the kingdom of the government the kingdom of the church the two don’t touch And so where the Puritans said, you can do two things. You can be a spouse and you can be a parent. Two completely different roles, but one person can do both. You can do two things. You can be involved in church stuff. You can be involved in state stuff. But not the pietists. Their key word is withdrawal. They’re like, no, no, no, don’t be involved in state stuff. It’s worldly. And you’re now holy, so you’ve got to withdraw. So that brings up a scenario. If all the spiritual people withdraw from politics… Who’s left to be involved but the less spiritual? And because they’re less spiritual, they’re going to yield to their power-hungry side and ambitions. And so there were even German princes who donated money to the pietists so they would teach their people not to get involved in the prince’s business. Here’s a little more money. Stay out of my hair. I mean, it’s like George Soros and Rockefellers giving money to woke seminaries to teach Christians not to get involved in politics, while at the same time, they’re giving money to LGBTQ activists to get them involved. Well, four centuries of this teaching, this two kingdom teaching in Germany, allowed Hitler to put Jews on train cars. And they’re going right past the churches crying for help. And the people in the church can hear them crying. But their response was, well, that’s the government doing that. And we’re the church and we can’t get involved in government stuff because we’re holy. So let’s just sing praise songs to Jesus louder. It’s like, can anybody see there’s something wrong with this picture?
SPEAKER 13 :
There’s something wrong with this picture. Bill, I want to interject here. Producer Steve had sent something over from a quote by Martha Gellhorn. She was an American novelist, writer, and journalist. It says, people often say with pride, I’m not interested in politics. They might as well say I’m not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms. by future or any future, if we mean to keep any control over our world and lives, we must be interested in politics. And so I’ve kept that around just to read that every once in a while.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, well, the word polis, P-O-L-I-S, is Greek for city. Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Annapolis, Maryland, right? Polis means city, and politics is the business of the city. And in New England, you had churches founding cities, right? And so there were like no non-church members to be lazy and let them run stuff. So everybody was involved in the church and everybody was involved in the civil government. But then the revolution starts and the British send over a military governor, Thomas Gage, and he outlaws meeting houses. Democracy is too prevalent in America. We don’t need the people meeting and giving their consent to stuff. You just obey government mandates. And we’re like, no, nothing happens in America unless we participate, unless we give our consent to it. He’s like, no, you obey government mandates. We’re like, no, nothing happens over in America unless we participate, unless we give our consent to it. He’s like, no, you’re a robot. You’re a zombie. When the government blows the trumpet, you bow to the statue. You just jump. And we’re like, no, nothing happens in America unless we give our consent. Turns into a revolutionary war and we win. And we set up our government where it’s we, the people, government from the consent of the governed. And so our founders did not like governments who ruled through mandates. Matter of fact, the whole purpose of the Constitution was to take the power of a king, separate it into three branches, separate it federalist to state level, tied it up with ten handcuffs. The purpose of the Constitution is to prevent a president from ruling through mandates. I say that again. They wanted to stop there from being another king. They didn’t like top down government. And so this was the miracle of America is where democracies like in Athens, every citizen had to be at every meeting every day to talk about every issue. And if you didn’t keep up with the issues that they’re talking about today, you’re called an idiotus, an idiot. But it could not grow any larger than a city, so they called them city-states, because you physically had to be there. A republic is where you take care of your family and your farm, and you have someone in your place that goes to the market every day and talks politics. They are your representative. And so it’s an easy way to remember the word republic begins with three letters, R-E-P, and the word representative begins with three letters, R-E-P. So a Republican form of government is a representative form. You’re still in charge. You just sort of subcontracted out somebody to go and sit there in your place all day and keep up with this stuff and then report back to you versus a democracy where you literally had to be there. Now, democracies can be swept up easier with a mob spirit. Plato witnessed an admiral who was in a battle. They won, but there was a storm and a bunch of sailors drowned and he wasn’t able to rescue him. And the people of Athens got so stirred up in this mob frenzy that they killed the admiral. And Plato’s like, this thing, this mobocracy, you know, where a republic, since it’s one step removed from the citizens, because they have to take the time, cool down, tell the representatives, and the representatives go and discuss stuff and then come back and report. There’s a little bit of a cooling. The republic governments change slower. And now in America, we have a constitutional republic. So our representatives have limits, have guidelines, have borders. They can only do a certain amount of stuff. And so we have a constitutional republic. But the idea is that we get to rule ourselves. And when we have a crisis, though, that’s when people surrender their freedoms. i um put together a book called socialism and i go through if democracies and republics are attempts to take the power of the king give it to the people what if the king wants the power back does he just ask for it hi i want to be king give me control your life most people are in a hurry to give that up so there’s two ways that the king can take the power back fear and free stuff you can get the whole entire population into fear they will panic and surrender their freedom in exchange for security or you get them to get dependent on free stuff and they’ll incrementally give up their freedom to keep the free stuff coming so it’s a front door back door approach sort of like a drug drug dealer takes over a neighborhood two ways he can come in with guns get everybody in fear and they’ll panic and submit to the mob pay extortion protection money Or the drug dealer is so nice, he’s giving away free drugs until you get hooked. And then you want some more free drugs, you’re going to incrementally give up your freedom until you’re selling yourself into prostitution. So it’s like a hunter catches animals with guns or bait. Guns is a front door approach and bait is this back door approach. And And so those are methods in which the king can take the power back away from the people, the citizens, by creating atmosphere of fear and then or getting the people dependent on free stuff.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, let’s go to break, and when we come back, let’s talk about your book, Silence Equals Consent, because I think that that is probably one of the most important issues that we have. Over the years, I had felt when they said, don’t talk about politics or don’t talk about religion, it was a way of actually – Self-censoring. And I’ve realized how dangerous that is. So I want to talk with Bill Fetter about that when we come back. We have great sponsors, and one of those is Lauren Levy.
SPEAKER 15 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to the Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMonson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at Kim at KimMonson.com as well. Thank you to all of our sponsors. And a sponsor that’s been a great sponsor of the show for many years, as well as America’s Veterans Stories, is Hooters Restaurants. They have five locations, Loveland, Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs. Great lunch specials and great Wings Day specials on Wednesdays. How I got to know them. It is really an important story about freedom and free markets and capitalism and PBIs, politicians, bureaucrats, and interested parties that want to control things. And this was something that happened when I was on city council. That whole story is at my website, KimMonson.com. This is the final segment with Bill Federer. He is the creator of the American Minute. We’ve been talking about two of his books. One is America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. And then his book, and that is Silence Equals Consent. And there’s so many people these days, Bill Federer, that… They don’t want to get involved. They’re afraid that if they get involved, they might rock the boat. Their jobs might be on the line or relationships might be on the line. And we used to I used to adhere to this to not talk politics or religion because they said, you don’t do that in polite company. It’s like, well, wait a minute. What do you talk about? But what I realized what it really was, was a form of self-censorship. So I think all those things are connected, Bill.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. So to those that think they’re being holy by not being involved, what do you do with Numbers chapter 30? It’s the silence equals consent chapter. Half a dozen scenarios. One, if a daughter is still living in her father’s house in her youth and binds herself with a vow and the day the father hears about it, it’d be silent. Her vows stand. But if he disallows it, she’s released from the vow. That’s come down to us as vows in a wedding ceremony. And the pastor tells the church members, if you are silent when you hear these vows, you’re giving your consent. Speak now or forever hold your peace. It’s called the rule of tacit admission, T-A-C-I-T. And it’s in real estate law. You save up money, buy a rent house. If somebody moves in, a squatter or something, and they’re not paying rent and you’re not trying to evict them, They can gain title to your property through adverse possession just by you being silent. It’s in debt collection law. Somebody owes you money, you wait 10 years to try to start collecting. The judge will say you’re past the statute of limitations. If you really thought they owed you money, you It would not have been silent for so long. It’s in trademark law. You design a trademark, somebody flat out copies it. And if you know about it and you do not defend your trademark, they get to use it. It’s in our U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 7. Congress passes a bill, puts it on the president’s desk. If any bill shall not be returned by the president within 10 days, the same is law in like manner as if he had signed it. His silence equals a signature. And so if church members are silent at a wedding ceremony and that’s their consent, if they’re silent when they’re killing babies in the community, they’re given their consent. And so Leviticus 20, any Israelite who sacrifices a child to Molech is to be put to death. But if the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Molech, I myself, the Lord, will set my face against him and his family. I’ll cut them off from Israel. All you got to do is close your eyes while they kill the kid and you’re guilty. Acts 22, the Apostle Paul’s talking to the Lord. And when the blood of that martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there silent, consenting to his death. Paul didn’t throw a stone or say a word, but he knew he was guilty. Proverbs 24, rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death. Don’t stand back and let them die. Don’t try to disclaim responsibility by saying you didn’t know about it. Esther 4, Mordecai tells Esther, there’s a mandate from the government to kill the Jews. If you’re silent, you and your father’s family will be killed, and God will raise up somebody else to deliver Israel. Numbers 20, Moses and Aaron are at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord says, take the rod, gather the assembly, bow, and Aaron, speak to the rock, water will come forth. While they gather the assembly, Moses hits the rock once, hits the rock twice, water comes out. End of the chapter, the Lord spake to Moses, Aaron will not enter the land. because both of you rebelled. And he’s like, both? We just read the chapter. Aaron didn’t do anything. He didn’t say anything. Yeah, that’s just it. He was at the door of the tabernacle. He heard God say, speak to the rock. When Moses lifted up the rod the first time and hit the rock, it probably took Aaron by surprise. When Moses lifted up the rod the second time, Aaron knew what was coming and he did not protest. He was silent. So Moses’ was a sin of commission. Aaron’s was a sin of omission. Leviticus 5, a person sins because he did not speak up, even though he was an eyewitness to a case or knew what happened. Even Martin Luther King Jr. said, he who accepts evil without protesting it is cooperating with it. We all know the verse Leviticus 19, 18, love your neighbor as yourself. The verse right before it says, confront your neighbor directly so you will not be ill guilty for their sins. Another translation says, rebuke your neighbor directly, and you’ll not incur guilt because of them. So they’re loving each other, and they’re rebuking each other. Proverbs 9, rebuke a wise man, and he’ll love you. Ecclesiastes 7, it’s better to hear the rebuke of the wise than the song of pools. John 17, Luke 17, if your brother sinned, rebuke him. And so you can do it nicely. 1 Timothy 5, 1 says, What does entreat mean? It doesn’t mean be silent. You’re speaking up politely. And so they have a woke tactic, and it’s to guilt trip Christians into being more Christian than Christ. You say, what? They say, yeah, if you’re really Christian, you’ll be silent and give your tacit approval to us teaching something that Jesus would never teach. I mean, would Jesus teach the trans agenda? We know what Jesus taught. Matthew 19, he who made them at the beginning made them male and female. I mean, think of it. Here are school counselors who cannot even define what a woman is. If they think they can tell that a little boy is supposed to be a little girl, it’s like you can’t even define girl. It’s totally illogical. Jesus warns, if you allow one of these little ones who believes in me to sin better, that a millstone be put on your neck and be thrown in the depths of the sea. So all these people that think they’re being spiritual by not being involved, we don’t get involved in politics. It’s going to be a rude awakening when they realize by their silence they are giving consent to all the evil that’s going on out there. They’re inviting the judgment of God on their heads. The answer is local. So there’s more people that go to church in an area than vote in a school board race. And the answer is to say, look, we don’t agree with every church on every doctrine, but none of us are happy with what’s being taught. Let’s just vote some mama bear in and then pack out the school board meeting early so they don’t beat up on her. And if churches can just care about the children that live around their church, all the higher races will take care of themselves. And, you know, as more power concentrates into fewer hands globally, God’s counterbalance is to get more people involved locally. Right. We all see the good Soros and Klaus Schwab powers concentrating. Yeah. God’s counterbalances to get more. I’m convinced God wants to have an end time revival. And it’s not going to be through one or two big name preachers. It’s going to be through the body of Christ participating, everybody getting involved. You know, some people say, I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to wait for Jesus to come back. So I have a question for you. Who do you think you’re going to meet when you’re raptured? Jesus. Does Jesus love the little children? Yeah. You think he might wonder why you didn’t do anything to protect him? We’re not in North Korea where you don’t vote. We’re in America where the citizen is the king. And then there’s sex trafficking of children. Jim Caviezel’s movie, Sound of Freedom. And just two months ago, Scott Bottoms introduced a bill in Colorado for minimum punishment for those caught buying one to five year old children for sex. And every Democrat voted against it. And the churches are silent. They’re selling children. The churches are silent. It’s like they’re in Germany and they’re carting the Jews off to be killed. Churches are silent. You know, the Salvation Army started because William and Catherine Booth wanted to stop child sex trafficking in London. They would go to a poor family and say, give us your daughter. We’ll give her an education. As soon as they get her out of the door, they put her in a brothel. And Catherine Booth said, I felt as though I must go and walk the streets and beseech the dens where these hellish iniquities are going on to keep quiet. Seemed like being a traitor to humanity. That’s how the Salvation Army got started. And so I think that it’s a time that we, you know, we’re the bride of Christ, and every romance novel builds up to a decision-making moment. And I think God is pushing the world to a decision-making moment. Some people are going to go with the all others. They’re going to want to be liked and friended and followed. And there’s others of us that says, you know what? I tolerated something I didn’t feel good about, and then I stretched the rubber band some more. But I’m sorry, I can’t be silent when they want to. Do a hysterectomy on a little eight-year-old girl because she went through a tomboy phase. Or they want to castrate a little boy because he played with his sister’s dolls. And you cut the rubber band and it snaps back. And I think God is pushing the world to this decision-making moment where we show on the outside what we really, really believe on the inside.
SPEAKER 13 :
Wow, that is absolutely such great nuggets of wisdom during this interview. How can people find you, Bill Fetter?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, thank you, Kim. My website’s AmericanMinute.com.
SPEAKER 13 :
That is AmericanMinute.com. Bill Fetter, thank you so much. These are such special interviews, and Godspeed on all the great work that you’re doing, and thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you, Kim.
SPEAKER 13 :
And our quote for the end of the show, I went to James Madison, and this is one of the things that Bill was alluding to as our founders were putting together our Declaration and Constitution, that ambition must be made to counteract ambition. So today, my friends, be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to beautiful music, communicate and listen well, live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideals, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. My friends, you are not alone. God bless you. God bless America. Stay tuned for our number two.
SPEAKER 08 :
Like a new moon rising fierce Through the rain and lightning I don’t want no one to cry, but tell them if I do.
SPEAKER 16 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s the Kim Monson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 13 :
The socialization of transportation, education, energy, housing, and water, what it means is that government controls it through rules and regulations.
SPEAKER 07 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 13 :
Under this guise of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, it’s actually tapping down the truth.
SPEAKER 07 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 13 :
On an equal field in the battle of ideas, mistruths and misconceptions is getting us into a world of hurt.
SPEAKER 07 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome to the Kim Monson Show. Let’s have a conversation. Thank you so much for listening. Each of you are treasured and valued. You have purpose today. Strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. My friends, we were made for this moment. And thank you to producer Steve, producer Luke, Zach, Patty, Keith, Charlie, Echo, all the people here at Crawford Broadcasting. We have prerecorded these shows for you for Independence Day week. And we have very special guests, and we’ll be getting to our guests here in just a moment. But check out our website. That is kimmonson.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You’ll get first look at our upcoming guests as well as our most recent essays. You can email me at kim at kimmonson.com. And thank you to all of you who support us. We are an independent voice. We search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. On the line with me has become a fan favorite, and that is Lieutenant Colonel Bill Rutledge. He is retired, United States Air Force. But you’re a great… You’re a great historian, but in this remarkable life of yours, you have this curiosity and this care about people. You’ve always been curious to hear people’s stories. And so the stories that you have that you share are just remarkable. You’ve traveled the world. But today, Colonel Rutledge, I wanted to talk about journalism. George Washington. And you put together some notes on this, but wanted to talk about him. You’re a military guy. So let’s start with how he developed his military leadership.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. George, first of all, as a very young man, he wanted to be a part of the Royal Navy and so he actually took a cruise aboard ship down into the gulf and he got sick he had a very bad case of smallpox and then when he got back his mother also told him that you’re not going to be in the navy i don’t want you at sea so that ended his military career at that stage But he still was interested, and George learned to be a surveyor when he was a teenager. So he did a lot of surveying in the western part of Virginia, all the way out to the Appalachian area. So he was very knowledgeable going west from Williamsburg, which was, of course, the colonial capital. And he… He was approached, well, he became active in what was the militia in those days. And even at the age of 20, George was a captain. And by 21, he was a major in the Virginia colonial militia. So the governor of Virginia learned that the French… were moving forces down from Canada to gain control of the upper reaches of the Ohio River. And by doing that, they would control a huge amount of what now would be like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and all those areas east of the Mississippi. And The British were not in favor of this at all. So George was picked by the governor to go and speak to the commander of the French forces, which had moved to the area which is now Pittsburgh, which was where the Ohio was formed when the Allegheny and the Monongahela River joined. So George made one of three trips to there. His first trip, George was 20, about almost 21, and he just took a few people with him for interpreters. So they went, and it took them many, many days. It was in the fall. It was snowing. It was cold. They had to ford rivers and streams together. But he was an outdoorsman, and he persevered. So they reached the French, and they took a written message over from the governor of Virginia to the commanding officer of the French military force, which had been established there at the start of the Ohio River, now Pittsburgh. And basically, the English were taking a position that this was English territory, whereas the French claimed, oh, no, LaSalle was down here 150 years ago, so we’re claiming it on the basis of discovery from LaSalle. Well, that didn’t work too well with the British. Nevertheless, he wrote out a reply, the commander did, which George took back to the governor of Virginia. When he got back and gave it to him, it made it clear that the French weren’t going anywhere. They were staying right where they were. They had a very strategic position, and they were going to maintain control of the Ohio Territory. So the governor said, I want you to go back, and I want you to take a smaller force to show that we are serious about it. and that we are going to be moving west, and we would like for them to evacuate. So he did. He took a small group, and he had an interpreter with him, because there were several Indian tribes along the way, and they went back. Then, as they approached the French fortress… the French commander, the French officer in charge, was approaching them. And for some reason, and no one knows, shots were exchanged between the French and the British. So those were really the first shots that eventually became known as the French and Indian War in America. But it was also called the Seven Year War on the continent of Europe. Now, there are people who are not in support of Washington who claim, well, George Washington started the French and Indian War. No, that’s not true. The French started it by bringing all those forces south and claiming it was their territory. And had they been willing to go back to Canada, there would have been a war in there. So George had a few casualties, and he did a retreat from the area and returned home. to the governor of Virginia. And he briefed him. So now that we’ve had two trips. So the British then decided we are going to have to assemble a force. So word went back to England what was happening. So a small group of, I shouldn’t say a small group, actually it was between 2,000 and 3,000 British Redcoats came from England under the command of a general. And they came and assembled, but they needed somebody to guide them. So George was picked to be the aide to the general and lead him over back to the area. George did try to counsel them on the tactics that the French used with the Indians. And it was not like they fought wars in Europe where there were direct confrontations between lines of fire. And it was like we know where you shoot from the woods and you use all sorts of techniques. But the general didn’t pay any attention. So George went with him. And the long and the short of it is the French and the Indians set up a situation where they surrounded the British forces. It was an ambush, and they decimated the British soldiers. They killed almost every one of the officers. They killed the general. This was the first situation in which George survived where he should have been killed, where he made a statement later in life that it was divine providence that had protected him. And he was to have several other instances like that that protected our country, and we actually had the July 4th to celebrate by his survival. So George took what British soldiers were left and made a retreat back to… Williamsburg, so he did brief. And he did not go back again. So this was three trips to that area. The war concentration moved north into Canada. So that although it lasted for many more years, it was not in the area where George Washington lived. Okay. So that’s the early days of the French and Indian War and how George learned to be a commander in the field.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. I’m talking with Lieutenant Colonel Bill Rutledge at retired United States Air Force about George Washington. And we have important conversations because of sponsors. Lauren Levy, you are a great sponsor of both the Kim Monson Show and America’s Veterans Stories. And you can help people with everything mortgages, a first or second mortgage, a reverse mortgage. We’re prerecording for this Independence Week, as I’ve renamed it. Independence Day is now a week. And what’s your thoughts about our founding, our Declaration of Independence?
SPEAKER 01 :
You know, when you first told me about this, I was thinking about how I would handle this question with just independence in general. But then I was with some friends recently the other evening as the whole thing with Israel and Iran was going on. And then the U.S. had gotten involved. And he’s an Iranian that moved here many, many years ago with his family and his children are Iranian-Americans. And I was really talking with him and his daughter. And he was talking to me about how he’s hoping that Israel and the U.S. are successful in And he wishes that they would overthrow that government so that the country could go back to what he knew as a child, as a happy place where people could live like normal. But then I got to talking to his daughter, and she didn’t understand because I just don’t think they teach American government the way… We learned it as kids. And I tried to explain to her how we kind of have a policy in America that we don’t take out foreign leaders. We try to get the population to rise up and do it themselves versus us just, I guess you’d call it assassinating a leader. And she didn’t really know that. But she also, as an Iranian young woman here in America, I was like, you know, explaining to her how good she has it. You know, the fact that we can go on trips as families together and she can wear shorts and a tank top. And… get it suntan or go to the pool and drink alcohol as of age and sing and do all the things that she likes to do and be on TikTok and everything that the young people do today none of that would be allowable where she’s from right now and you know girls that don’t wear hijabs and things like that that are put on trial um was she aware of that she knew that they could be covered up there you know that they i’m like like you and your mom go to the mall right now right you when you want to go to a dance or you want to go to somewhere nice you go to the store you need a new outfit imagine if everything you wore was just a black garment with a headdress no more shopping and the men could do whatever they want though like how would that make you feel here would you say She hadn’t given it much thought, right? Because it’s not taught in schools and just hadn’t given it a whole lot of thought. And she’s like, you know what? I totally understand. Those are the freedoms we have here. And that our kids don’t ever have to… When my daughter goes downstairs to get ready to go with her girlfriend, she’s not thinking about… What can I get away with wearing? She’s thinking, you know, before without getting put in jail, you know, she’s just thinking what looks good on her. Right. And the freedoms that we have that other countries don’t have is just amazing.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and 250 years ago, the year of 1775, a lot was happening. Of course, culmination up to 1776, our Declaration of Independence. And you grew up in Boston. A lot was happening at that time, right? Right.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, and it was different. I mean, I understand the Tea Party. I learned all that as a youth. I understand that that was more of us breaking away from taxation and what England was trying to do to the people. It wasn’t so much racial, although there was the whole Protestant breakaway. But it was different. This is about oppression of a different type. And it’s very interesting when you see… When other people of these other countries are given the ability, they will rise up and strike back and take out these leaders because they’ve been lied to for so long, and they do want what we have, even if they just don’t know it yet because of what they’re indoctrinated to in their country and what they’re allowed to hear, what a great time life could be if they had the independence that we have been granted.
SPEAKER 13 :
And we take it for granted, Lorne Levy. We’re about out of time, but over on the business side, you help people try to go after their hopes and dreams by buying property with mortgages. How can people reach you?
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s another independence that we have is home ownership. And I’d be glad to help anybody. And they can reach me by calling 303-880-8881.
SPEAKER 13 :
And again, financial independence is a great thing on a personal level. If you choose to own your own home, that’s great as well. For everything mortgages, you can reach out to Lauren Levy, 303-880-8881. And, Lorne, I wish you and your family a very blessed Independence Day and an Independence Week.
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SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMonson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. And you can email me at Kim at KimMonson.com as well. Thank you to all of you who support us. We are an independent voice, and we search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. I did want to mention the Center for American Values. They’re located right here in Pueblo, Colorado. And it is a really special place. And they have the Portraits of Valor, which are portraits of 160 or over 160 of our Medal of Honor recipients with a quote by each of them. They’ve also created a delightful book with all these quotes as well. You can buy that by going to the Center for American Values website, and that is AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org. And again, just it’s an amazing place. And they focus on honor, integrity and patriotism. On the line with me is Lieutenant Colonel Bill Rutledge, a retired United States Air Force, 94 years young. He will turn 95 in July of this year. We’re talking about George Washington. And during the break, Colonel Rutledge, you said that you’ve got a copy of a document that George Washington had written. So tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, when George got back from his visit, the last visit, the governor or Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie asked him to write from his journal a summary of what his experience had been, what he had told the French and the replies that the French had written and sent back. So he wrote it. Now, George wrote this as a letter, like an after-action report to give to the military commander, meaning the governor, about his experience in combat. And so he wrote all of this with the idea that it’s one-to-one. It’s George to the governor. However, it was so interesting and it had such political implications that it was printed by a printer in Williamsburg in 1774. So it was printed a few months after he had written the letter to the lieutenant governor. And they said that it was the most widely circulated and read publication within the 13 colonies up to that date. So it gave a great image to the readers in all the various colonies that George Washington was not only a man in the field, but he also was a good writer, and that he had the potential to become a good leader. They were not thinking of a revolution at the time. This was in the early 1750s. But nevertheless, it was his start to have public recognition. Then during the decades between the early 1750s and 20 years later, he took a more active role. He became the owner of Mount Vernon by inheritance. He married then a widow who had a lot of money and a lot of property. And he became very prosperous and also very much involved in the political activities of the state of Virginia. And he became the commander of the state. Militia for the State of Virginia. Okay. All of this was a follow-on from those three trips to Pittsburgh.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. And just a clarification, that was published in probably 1754, correct? Correct. Yes, in Williamsburg. In Williamsburg. Okay, great. I have a copy right here. That is remarkable. And it’s remarkable that you can find all that stuff, too. I think you must be good at organizing things, Colonel Rutledge.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I hope so.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay. He is now the commander of the Virginia Colonial Militia. He was in his late 20s. What happens after that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, he then became active even as a member of the House of Burgesses, which was like our state government. It was actually an advisory body to help advise the royal representative who was the acting governor there. So he met many, many people in that capacity. And then when he acquired Mount Vernon and then the estate, the Curtis estate, after he married Martha, he became one of the wealthiest men in the state of Virginia. And because of his prior experience in the military and the fact that he now was the commander of the state which had the largest population at that time, And also, that was one very political environment, and he was in contact with all of these people. He became very famous, very well known. So it gave him a reputation that prepared him for leadership in what was to become the revolution. But he did one other thing, too, that was really interesting. After, well, we had, first of all, we had Lexington and Concord. And this was in April of 1775. And there was a famous poem written about that and about Paul Revere’s ride. So after this time, the Continental Congress decided that they would have to assemble a force because Boston was occupied by the British. And they wanted to counter that. So they were looking for leadership. And, of course, George was one of the principal candidates. He very wisely dressed in his best uniform when he went to Philadelphia. And he’s about six foot two and a handsome man and a very good conversationalist. So he was very easily selected as the best qualified man to go to Boston to try to counter the siege of that was going on there. So, in July of 1775, he took command of the various colonial militias that had assembled around the perimeter of Boston. And he basically, with their support, laid siege to Boston.
SPEAKER 13 :
And I’m just thinking here he’s a very wealthy man. And the journey that he is going on here to then be taking up arms against the crown, there was tremendous risk for him to do that, Colonel Rutledge.
SPEAKER 05 :
There was tremendous risk to him and to every person in the Continental Congress. It was going to be compounded. when they signed the Declaration of Independence, were in one of the signers, or perhaps it was Benjamin Franklin, as I recall, said, we gentlemen, we shall all hang together or we will hang separately for treason is what it came down to.
SPEAKER 13 :
So this narrative out there that we’ve heard over the last few years is that the founders were just these old rich guys that were just trying to protect their Their money. That’s really not the case, is it, Colonel Rutledge?
SPEAKER 05 :
No. No, it isn’t. Now, there were a few that were very wealthy, but most were not. They came from all 13 colonies. They were very versatile. Most of them were landowners. They had to be well enough off that they could afford to be away from their properties for many months sometime at a time in Philadelphia. But they were what we would consider like middle Americans today. They had good values. They were well-read. And they wanted independence.
SPEAKER 13 :
But when they first started this journey, I think they still thought they were going to be part of Britain. But when would you say that it became apparent that they were going to become independent?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I think it started a lot, of course, from the battles around the Boston area. And then when Washington took command, he decided that he must organize his militia into a fighting force. And when he did this, he basically then was encircling Boston and And General Howe, who was the commander of the Redcoats there, decided just to move back into Boston because he could quarter his troops better there. Actually, what they used to do, they’d take over people’s homes. And that’s one of the reasons we have something in our Constitution against that. But they would be quartered in there, and they’d be in good shape for this winter weather season. And they’d also have access, of course, to the port for resupply. So it was a good location for them. But Washington decided that he would continue to keep a force around there and do a siege, but he needed more power, and he needed cannons. And one of the really great stories was the first week that George was in command. And this is the first week in July 1775. A young man came to him, and his name was Henry Knox. He was 25 years old. And Henry loved reading about the military. And he was not a soldier, but he had ideas. And he talked to… General Washington said, I know where there are cannon that you could use. And he found out that what had happened is Ethan Allen from Vermont and the Green Mountain Boys had captured Fort Ticonderoga in northern New York. And they had a lot of cannon. So he approached the… the commander, George Washington, about it. Washington rather cavalierly said, well, Mr. Knox, why don’t you just take charge of this and use your initiative? Well, we’re talking about hundreds of miles away and thousands of pounds of weight. But Knox did. He took charge. And he left Boston in November of 1775. He got to upper New York and December 1775. And they built sledges by cutting down trees all around Ticonderoga. And they also built boats that they could work. And they moved down to Albany. And then they were waiting for the lakes to be frozen over so these sledges could carry these massive weights. And when I talk about massive weights, I’m talking about their estimate was 120,000 pounds, collective weight of these cannon, and I presume with cannonballs and whatever else they had, that had to be moved from… The area on the Hudson River, diagonally across to Boston, 300 miles in the wintertime, moving all this mess. What happened was, he did it. He got all of those guns back over to Georgia by the spring of 1776. And Washington decided… that it was very important that he have these to put up on the Dorchester Heights, which overlook Boston. Meanwhile, General Howe was getting sort of stir-crazy, and he was thinking about taking an offensive action against the colonials. If he had taken an offensive action and defeated Washington’s forces, there would have been no July the 4th. But he didn’t. He was just not quite ready to do that when one morning in March 1776, he looked up and he saw a cannon all across his height overlooking Boston. And he was shocked. And he actually made comments to the effect that the… that Washington must have access to thousands of men in order to do this. Well, it isn’t true what he did. For several nights, he had his men go out and put down gun placements all across high territory when it was dark, so the British didn’t know what was going on. But his theme was, we’re going to get the psychological edge because we’re going to move them all into place one night. And that’s precisely what they did. The general came out and looked at it. He said, I couldn’t get my whole army to do that in three months.
SPEAKER 13 :
And here Washington did it in one night. It is a remarkable story.
SPEAKER 05 :
One night he showed his force. And that was a determining factor in not having a British offensive and also in the withdrawal of the British from Boston to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
SPEAKER 13 :
It is a remarkable story and, again, remarkable man. I’m talking with Lieutenant Colonel Bill Rutledge, retired United States Air Force. We get to have these great conversations because of sponsors.
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is kimmonson.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. And you can email me at kim at kimmonson.com as well. And we are pre-recording these shows for the week of July 4, but we do wish you a very happy Independence Day. I am talking with Lieutenant Colonel Bill Rutledge, retired United States Air Force, and we’re talking about George Washington. And just to kind of button up the Battle of Boston is that George Washington was just 44 years old when this was all accomplished, and that is how he became the father of our country, correct? Correct. That’s correct. Okay. What happens after that, Colonel Rutledge?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, after the British left Boston, Washington recognized the strategic location of New York City and the port and felt that it was very important that he gain control there so that it was not dividing the colonies between So New England was not separated from the Middle Atlantic and the southern colonies. And if they kept control, it would be very difficult for any kind of military force to be united against the British. So Washington took the lead, and he decided to attack New York City. And at the time, he had assembled about 10,000 troops. It’s hard to call them soldiers. They were just farmers and everything else, but they had their own guns. And they were from each of the various colonies in the Northeast. But as they were going down, they had such a short tenure, they would sign up for maybe a month or maybe six months, or somebody would have signed up for a year. Well, as they moved south towards Long Island, Many of them just took off and went home. Now, some of them did this not necessarily out of fear, because it was time to put in the crop. Most of them were farmers. They had things to do, or their family needed them. So many, many left. So by the time he gets to Long Island, he’s lost a few thousand troops already. He still thinks he has an advantage with the initiative, but he was to have shocks for the next few months because he didn’t win anything in New York. He just lost battle after battle. First of all, he lost in Long Island when he thought he wouldn’t. Then he crossed over and went into Brooklyn. And when he got into Brooklyn, he found out he needed to get out of there, but he was going to have trouble getting out of Brooklyn. And this is where the divine providence factor came into effect. He had to evacuate where the British couldn’t tell what was going on. So he assembled a lot of boats to get out of there and to get on to Manhattan. And… What happened was they had a Northeaster that came in, and with fog and rain, it was miserable. But the main thing, it took care of visibility. So he was able to evacuate out of Brooklyn when he was basically surrounded by the British. So he gets over to Manhattan, and his luck is not a heck of a lot better there. So he’s gradually working north. And he gets all the way up the White Plains, and then he gets up even north of there, and then there’s a fortress that they set up that they call Fort Washington, which was very small. But every time when it looked like he had no chance at all… Something would happen weather-wise or good luck-wise so that he was able to slip away. And so eventually, he was able to get out of the New York area, get across the Hudson River, and get into New Jersey. By now, he only has probably 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers total left in New York. So he’s going through an area in New Jersey, south and west, yet New Jersey had more people who were in sympathy with the crown than who were in sympathy with any kind of a revolutionary movement. So he was not going through land where he was being treated well. He was like a hostile force coming through. So it was very difficult for him. But he continued on down all the way south. to Philadelphia, and the British didn’t follow him very closely. They took sort of a leisurely route going down because they thought that Washington could be defeated easily once he was engaged. So he did get down and got to Philadelphia, and then the British were slowly, slowly coming down. And it was, again, a continuation from in 1776. Now, while he was in the New York area, and when things were very low, this is when the people in Philadelphia suddenly decided, well, we’ll sign this thing and we’ll call it the Declaration of Independence. Not a good deal for Washington, because it didn’t make the British any happier towards Washington.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, and just to address this, he was losing battle after battle. And when he’s losing battle after battle, he’s seeing farmers and merchants, his fellow countrymen, well, his fellow men die. And, I mean, he didn’t lose heart. He didn’t give up, which I think we really need to recognize that because that is so important, Colonel Rutledge.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, his leadership was essential. Washington was actually in the field for about six years, five or six years, and scattered all over from Boston all the way down to South Georgia. And they just weren’t winning. He only won three battles. in the whole war trenton princeton and yorktown now actually you might kill boston because he got the british to evacuate but he didn’t have any direct confrontation with him so but he had plans and he knew how to retreat he knew how to use his people And he had the dynamic leadership to keep them together. And he also had a few people who were extremely supportive and good writers and could encourage the people to stay with him. But he was running very hard against upstream people.
SPEAKER 13 :
But he didn’t give up. And if he would have given up, we would have no declaration of independence that we are celebrating today. I think that’s important that we recognize that. And I think we get a little spoiled here in 2023 America and just don’t think about what Washington and Farmers and Merchants of the Continental Army just exactly – what they did for us all these years ago. Continuing on, what do you think is the next thing that we should really talk about?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, we’re all talking about 1776 now, which means we’ve already made the Declaration of Independence in July. The British know that we’re seeking our independence, and they want to get rid of us. meanwhile the british have contracted with the germans the hessians and these are mercenary soldiers and they have sent thousands of them to america and they had one concentration at trenton new jersey and george was across the river in the Philadelphia area and decided he was going to attack the German concentration at Trenton. And the time to do it was going to be Christmas night. And he thought that they would be celebrating the event and would not be as attentive to their security. That didn’t turn out to be true. A lot of people liked the story, but they didn’t let it really happen. George went down across the river, and it was frozen. There were icebergs. It was terrible. And he divided these forces up into three forces. One was to come in to Trenton from the south. One was to come straight across the river. And the other was to go north and then come down, and they would all converge on the the German forces that were in Trenton. Well, what happened was the ones at the south couldn’t get across. There was so much icebergs and everything else, they just couldn’t get their boats across. So that was the largest force, but it never got into action. Then the ones in the middle, they were trying to get across, and they were having trouble also. So George got his forces across from the north, And again, now his whole force has been reduced by at least two-thirds. And right then, what happened was the Germans had actually posted guards way out around the perimeter to be able to alert the commander in the event there were any kind of incursions. Well, this is another one of those divine intervention situations because the weather turned terrible yesterday. They had a blizzard. They had not only snow, but hail and fog. And it covered their presence north of Trenton. So they continued moving forward. And when they got to the edge of Trenton, they had the advantage because they did have a few of their cannon, their field pieces with them. And they… The outpost people finally got to their commander and let him know that before he could get his forces together, Washington and his people were into Trenton and were coming right at them and were using their cannon. And the Germans did come out. They did resist. In fact, a German commander was hit and was killed in the battle. So it was a contested fight. It wasn’t a give-up situation that people kept saying, well, the Germans all were drunk. They celebrated. That wasn’t the case.
SPEAKER 13 :
I’ve heard that, and I’ve actually shared that. So that’s what I’ve thought about that evening, but that was not the case, huh?
SPEAKER 05 :
No. The commander was very much in charge, and he came out and he led from the front and And he was leading. But the problem was he was outgunned and out-surprised at that time. And so the initiative is with the Americans and with Washington. And it took the day. And so they won there. They captured all these people that were surrendered. And then in addition, in the old days, what you’d do is, You’d sign a document indicating that you would not fight against the force anymore. And so consequently, although he had no way to put them in a contained area, they signed that they would agree not to fight against. The Continental Forces. So there was a target of opportunity nearby in Princeton.
SPEAKER 13 :
Okay, let’s keep that as a cliffhanger, Colonel Rutledge. I’m talking with Lieutenant Colonel Bill Rutledge. He is a great historian, just a great, has a great interest in people and a frequent guest on the show. And we’re talking about George Washington on this Independence Day. And we get to do this because of great sponsors.
SPEAKER 17 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
And welcome back to The Kim Monson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMonson.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter. You can email me at Kim at KimMonson.com as well. Thank you to all of you who support us. We are an independent voice. We search for truth and clarity by looking at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. And this Independence Day week, I highly recommend that you honor our founding by going to the USMCMemorialFoundation.org and making a contribution as they are raising money for the remodel of the Marine Memorial out at 6th and Colfax. And my friends, it is so important to honor, remember those that have been willing to give their lives or given their lives today. for our independence. And so, again, go to usmcmemorialfoundation.org to make a contribution. Honored to have on the line with me Lieutenant Colonel Bill Rutledge, retired United States Air Force. We’re talking about George Washington, and he’s finally had a success at the Battle of Trenton. So he decides that he’s going to augment that success, and he goes over to Princeton, correct, Colonel Rutledge?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s correct. And what happened there was he actually was… He had a smaller force than the British, and they did not expect any attack because they had gotten a little bit of word by what had happened at Trenton. But the fact that he had had success motivated his men and his leadership, and he went on to Princeton, and they attacked head-on to the British there and were successful. But this is another case where, again, divine providence played. In this case, it wasn’t the weather. This case was him as a target on a big horse, and the biggest man out there, 6’2″, big, on top of him, and leading the horses in front. He had to have been the target for so many of the guns. His cape, his hat, so much part of his overall attire was pierced with shots. But he wouldn’t hit. He never was shot off of his horse in the whole war. And this is so unusual. And later on, as they were looking over his uniform, as he was, and as he was writing notes and memoirs and things, Everyone was astounded that he had survived this situation. And again, when they asked him, how could he explain that? He couldn’t. And he fell back on this comment so often. It was divine providence. And he didn’t say this was God, this was Jesus, this was some saint. But that was his collective term. And it seemed to fit pretty well to summon the things which were so unpredictable and uncontrollable, like the weather. And how can people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey shoot at a guy on a horse who’s in front of everybody and not hit him? These are just unheard of. Wow. These are things that happened. And now we’re talking about our early 1777. Okay.
SPEAKER 13 :
So what happens then?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, then he’s faced with a situation of having to get back to Philadelphia, having to go back across the Delaware River. And that’s when he went out to Valley Forge. And when he went out to Valley Forge, He was only a few miles west of Philadelphia. And so the British, General Howe and his brother, Admiral Howe, who collectively brought the British forces in and decided they’d just stay in Philadelphia for the winter. So they occupied people’s houses and things all around. And they knew that Washington and his forces were at Valley Forge. But that’s not how you fought wars in those days. In those days, you went into a winter area where you camped, and people didn’t make war very much in the winter. So that’s when we had all the trials and tribulations of terrible, terrible survival conditions for those in Valley Forge that winter time. And the fact that it got down to sometimes slightly less than 3,000 people still out there with George Washington. Fortunately, he had his key lieutenants, who later became very great leaders in the new republic. But it was hard, and it was very difficult. And it was the era when… Payne wrote These Are the Times that Try My Souls. And that publication was written about what was happening in Valley Forge in Washington’s survival. And Payne actually went out there. He was in the Army. And Washington got to know him. And he wrote this document. That was read all over America, and it was designed to encourage the people who were in support of the new republic. And we’ve talked about this one on other occasions. But that one quote describes so much the time that tribe men sold.
SPEAKER 13 :
Isn’t it amazing, Colonel Rutledge, how words are so powerful? Those words from Thomas Paine so long ago. As I look at 2023 America, I’ve got it on my outline that I look at on a daily basis. because we’re in a time now that tries men’s souls. But we can listen to the stories of George Washington and the Continental Army and take great heart from what happened then, and I think apply that to 2023 America.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I think there are certain parallels. One of the other parallels, which was even more frightening to me, is George Orwell’s
SPEAKER 13 :
1984. Yes. And so ideas are powerful. We are in quite a time, but we’ve been in difficult times before. I think prayer is very important, again, throughout our history, whether or not it was George Washington kneeling by his horse and saying a prayer to Patton, saying a prayer in World War II, having the troops say that. I think prayer is very important. I think it’s important, again, for 2023 America. We’ve got just about a minute or so left. How would you like to summarize all this for our listeners, Colonel Rutledge?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I think the key thing people need to appreciate is that America was blessed with a unique leader. And if it had not been for George Washington, we would not have had independence for decades. and the fact that Washington led, and although he’d lost far more battles than he ever won, he finally prevailed at Yorktown in 1781 by his own strategy and his tactics. The British thought that his forces were in New Jersey right across the Hudson because he set up camp and left the fires there and left the tents and did a forced march all the way down to Virginia, where he joined his other army that was coming up from the south that was in pursuit. of the British, so that the British had gone to Yorktown because it was a close place to get reinforcement, to get new forces, get new supplies. But when they got down there, the good luck was that the French Navy, for once in the whole war, actually blocked the British Navy so that they could not get in and relieve the British forces of Yorktown. And that’s why they surrendered there. And although the war was not formally ended for well over a year by the negotiators, that was the last major battle of the war at Yorktown.
SPEAKER 13 :
Wow. Colonel Bill Rutledge, thank you so much for being our featured guest on this 4th of July broadcast. I so greatly appreciate it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you. It’s a pleasure.
SPEAKER 13 :
And our quote for the end of the show is George Washington. He said this. He said, It is impossible to govern the world without God. It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor. So my friends today, be grateful. Read great books. Think good thoughts. Listen to beautiful music. Communicate and listen well. Live honestly and authentically. strive for high ideals, and like Superman, stand for truth, justice, and the American way. My friends, you are not alone. God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 16 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.