Glenn delivered a passionate monologue on Thursday’s radio show calling for people to start taking action. Glenn admitted the struggle this has been for him in the past, as even during the 9/12 Project and Restoring Honor Rally, he saw himself more as a person to set others on the path for leadership. He never wanted to be the leader of this movement. But the time to sit on the sidelines has come to a close, and it’s time to choose. Will you continue to be a sheep? Or will you be a sheepdog?
Start listening at 40 minutes into today's podcast:
GLENN: Yesterday I read a fascinating article on a website, The Art of Manliness, which is a great book, if you haven't read that book. I read it I think last year. It's really great, and a good website. The article mentioned two incidents in New York City in the subway system that happened in the past year.
During one of them that happened in last December, a 58-year-old man was knocked onto train tracks and laid there, and he was unable to get up. Eighteen people stood there on the platform for about a minute to a minute and a half and did nothing. Old man falls on the tracks. Eighteen people are standing there. No one moves.
One guy actually acted. Not in the way you would hope. He actually took out his cell phone and took a picture of the guy laying on the tracks before the train ran over him. Six months before that tragedy, a 49-year-old woman was grabbed and thrown onto the very same tracks. This woman thrown onto the tracks.
This time, her friend chased down the attacker. Punched him. Then went back to help several other people pull the woman to safety before the train arrived. Just the same exact story, a different reaction from the people standing on the platform.
So the question is, what happened? What's different? Why did the first group freeze and the second group jump into the fray, face down the danger, do what needed to be done, risk their own life in the process?
The question is: Why are some people sheep and others sheepdogs?
As I'm reading this article, it pointed out that lieutenant, colonel, and author and friend of the program Dave Grossman has written something really interesting on the subject. He believes that humankinds can be broken up into three different categories: Sheep, wolves, or sheepdogs. Which are you?
Grossman contends that the vast majority of us are sheep. And he's not saying that to be insulting. He just believes that we are in one of three categories, and most of us are kind, gentle, peaceful. We're sheep.
I went to a rodeo last week, That Famous Preston Friday Night Rodeo, I think it's called. It's the biggest rodeo in Idaho, and it's fantastic. And they have kids that are like four years old ride on the back of sheep.
heep are amazing. Because they will run in -- unlike bulls or anything else, they will run in, and then they will just run to the other sheep. And they stand there, and they wait. And they just stick in a herd. And you could be coming at them with a chainsaw, and they just -- I can herd them up and cut them in half. It's amazing.
Rarely if ever are people faced with conflicts that rise to the level of life or death. Most people try to avoid making any waves. Just try to do the right thing. Most people are good. And they don't know how to deal with dangerous and evil people when they fall into something that is unpredictable. They just do what everybody else is doing.
Most people depend on someone else to protect them. Now, according to Grossman, a tiny percentage of humans can be described as true wolves. Wolves are the bad guys in our society. This is a very small number of people. Wolves are the -- the sociopaths that commit violent crimes or ignore our moral or ethical boundaries. They're the ones that take advantage of the defenseless sheep among us. The wolves, he says make up about 1 percent of our population. So when the guy fell on the -- off the platform, the first guy, all the people that were there were sheep. Nobody moved. If one person would have moved, others would have followed. But nobody moved.
That's the last category. Sheepdogs. These are society's protectors. Sheepdogs live among the flock from birth. Helps them imprint on the animals they protect. They blend in. They watch for intruders within the herd. And usually just the presence of the sheepdog will keep the wolves at bay. But if a wolf isn't persuaded to keep his distance, a sheepdog is willing and able to fearless attack the wolf and protect the sheep. So the sheepdog among humans is almost exactly like the canine counterparts. Grossman says there are human sheepdogs that have the capacity for violence, but also the moral compass and a deep love for their fellow citizens. But in times of peace, they look like sheep. They're gentle. They're loving. They're kind. They blend right in with the sheep. For the sheep's part, they often find the sheepdogs annoying when things are going well. When people complain about a police officer giving them a ticket for a minor traffic violation, when a wolf shows up and the police catch him, the complaining stops and the people line up and cheer and celebrate. But that cop, that sheepdog, when it's peaceful -- and we see this all the time -- when things are going well, nobody likes the cop. But once you need help, boy, are you glad they're there.
Sheepdogs make up a very small percentage of the population. Maybe 1 percent. So that leaves 98 percent of the human population, is sheep. People who are not used to getting involved. Who just want to warned and graze. Take care of their lambs. They go to work. They go to school. They like their entertainment. They like to do what everybody else does. They just want to be left alone. They're sheep.
Sheepdogs, he says, are not born sheepdogs. I look at this like Marcus Luttrell. He is a sheepdog. That guy, if there's ever trouble, he's going to get a guy. Now, I've always thought you were born into that. Because I can't do that. Grossman says that we're hard-wired psychologically and sociologically to be sheep. To go along to get along. To become a sheepdog, you have to make a conscious decision to do so. You have to want to upgrade your mental, physical, and emotional hardware from sheep 1.0 to sheepdog 2.0. You have to be willing to move out of your comfort zone and away from the rest of the flock.
Now, it's a lot easier to just believe that, you know, a sheepdog is going to eventually just find his way into, you know, the situations. That we'll find the right person in the White House. You know, somehow or another, it will happen. My vote doesn't matter anyway. I don't know anything about the issues. I'm too busy to know where everybody stands. Besides, there are other people that know much more about it than I do. They'll go to the voting booth. They'll do the right thing. That's what happened in 2008 and 2012. 42 percent of Americans identify themselves as conservative. 42 percent. Compared to the 21 percent that say that they're liberal.
Who won the election?
PAT: Not the conservative.
GLENN: Someone else went to vote. You didn't go to the voting booth. Somebody else will do it.
Look at a crisis. The Middle East. There's nothing I can do about it. But somebody is going to do something. Eventually the sheep cry out. Somebody has got to do something. The problem is, someone isn't doing anything about it. So Christians, Muslims who aren't Muslim enough, homosexuals that are practicing homosexuals, that, by the way, don't exist in Iran, they're stoned to death. They're thrown off of buildings. Children are being slaughtered.
Planned Parenthood, I'm not a sheepdog. I don't know what to do. I just -- I just want to stay here in the pack. This is what I'm asking you to choose -- and I don't know how many people are going to choose to do this in Birmingham, Alabama. I want you to know, this is not an event -- you know, we had really good intentions with the first 8/28. August 28. When was it? 2010?
PAT: Uh-huh.
GLENN: Five years ago, we went to Washington, DC, with Restoring Honor, and 500,000 people attended. But it was pretty easy. I just asked you to go and just see that you were not alone. Now, there were some threats on that. So some people regretted and still tell me to this day, I regret not being there because I was afraid. But 500,000 people showed up at the national mall. But it was easy because all I asked you to do was just come. Just come. I'm not asking you to do anything. I just want you to see you're not alone. We sang. We cried together. Then we went home and we grazed like lambs.
This 8/28 is different. And I don't know how many people will come to Birmingham, Alabama. It's different because it must be different. We are going to Birmingham, Alabama, on August 28th and 29th. And now I've added the 30th because I'm going to be speaking at three different churches. I'm not going to tell you which ones they are. Because one of them has asked me not to because they just want their congregation to hear from me.
But for three days or two days at least, we're going to get our upgrades. We're going to learn how to be sheepdogs. We're going to learn how to stop being sheep. We're going to learn how to protect the sheep. We're going to learn how to march, how to protest, peacefully, lovingly, we are going to learn and demonstrate enough is enough, I will stand. We are going to protect the flock. We're going to stand up and be counted. We are going to declare to the whole world: Never again is now.
We mean it.
I've been a sheep most of my life. When I started the 9/12 Project, I said over and over again, I'm not leading that. I don't want to lead that. I'm not a sheepdog. I don't want to lead that. I said the whole time I was at Fox, I don't -- Pat will verify this. Every day, I don't know how much longer I can do this. I don't want to do this. I grew up in an alcoholic family. I was the pleaser. I was the one that brought everybody together and said, okay, come on. Stop arguing. It's all going to be good. Hey, let me tell you a joke. That's how I grew up. I don't like confrontation. I don't like this role.
I'm not a sheepdog. Let me correct that. I have never been a sheepdog. I am a sheepdog now.
Anyone who wants to join me on this, anybody who wants to change their life and say, I will stand, I will be counted, I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know how I'm going to do it, but if I see someone thrown off a platform, I will be the one down in the track lifting them up. When I see an injustice anywhere, I know it's an injustice everywhere, and I will stop it. I will stand in the gap.
Did you know that in Hebrew, one of the definitions of prophet is that? It's not somebody that sees the future or anything. One of the definitions of prophet is just someone who stands in the gap. I told you yesterday, there are holes in our wall as a country. There are holes everywhere.
We have to put our fingers there and plug the holes. We have to stand in that gap. We need to -- we need to strengthen the links. We need to unify. A house divided against itself cannot stand. I want to tell you something that I wrote last night on Facebook.
We must unify. If you want to join me in Birmingham, Alabama, I urge you -- I had another talk with my family last night. My children said, what do you want us to do, Dad? And I said, I'm not telling you what to do. You need to find it. You're adults now. You need to find it. But this is a family of sheepdogs. We must stand united in love together. You want to join me? This time, it's different. Restoring Unity. In Birmingham, Alabama. 8/28 and 8/29. Tickets can be found at now.mercuryone.org. Now.mercuryone.org. Grab your tickets now while there are tickets left. And we will see you in Birmingham, Alabama.