On today's radio show, Glenn took the opening moments of the show to look at the direction of the country and to elaborate on his recent cautious optimism. He spoke broadly about the historical cycle that countries go through - from nothing to greatness and back to nothing - before explaining why he thinks America could take a different course. Why does he think Americans can defy history and return to greatness? It has nothing to do with the government and everything to do with people.
"I want to talk to you a little bit about your faith in the country. What is it that you believe in? Who are we as a nation, as people? Where are we headed? Why do you believe that America's better days are ahead of us, or do you?" Glenn asked the audience.
"You know, there's survey after survey that is showing now that Americans believe that things are not going to get better, that our better days are behind us. I'm tired of that lie."
Glenn explained that when looking at the past successes and failures of America, it's important to recognize that people today cannot take the blame or credit for things that didn't happen in their lifetime.
"It's not my fault about slavery, it's not my fault on what happened to the Native American, it's not my fault what happened to the Jews. However, if those things happen again in my lifetime, it is my fault. I can't take the credit for stopping the Nazis. I can't take the credit for the Industrial Revolution. That was all accomplished by somebody else at a different time. We can't really even take credit for freedom in America, but we will take the blame for its loss," he explained.
"So we have to decide: Is America over? Are our best days behind us? Is there any reason to believe that we can pull this thing out?"
Glenn explained that in the history of the world, most great civilizations have all inevitably risen, only to be erased from history.
"Every country has always hit this point, declined, and erased. Every time. However, no other country has ever given the world the light bulb, the washing machine, the television, the radio, the Apple iPod, iPad, the telephone. No other country has ever done what we've done. No other country went to the moon. We did."
"Past performance does not guarantee future success, but past performance should give you an idea of who we are when we set our mind to it. So who are we? What do we choose to do?"
"I'm telling you, right around the corner, just over the horizon, a cure for cancer is here. A cure for cancer. I know three cancer institutes that I think are very close, and I don't mean some cancer. I mean all cancer. It's close. If you talk to people like Ray Kurzweil, he's a futurist, he'll tell you now don't buy think solar panels. Buy solar panels in about ten years because solar panels will change the way we have energy. We're approaching the point of singularity. Now, that can either be horribly, horribly wrong and bad, or it can be unbelievably magnificent. But it won't be the technology that decides this, the point of singularity, when everything just starts to work. It won't be technology that decides whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It will be people. And right now we have chosen to go down an easy path, but nothing worth anything comes easy. Nothing. "
"The only things that are worth anything in life are the ones that you really sweat over because that's where you stretch your muscles. That's where you grow. Nobody is asking you to reach anymore. They will bail you out. There's no struggle. Struggle should be gone. No pain, no gain. There's a lot of pain that is coming. There is. We'll show you some stats today on just the price of bread. Wheat bread's up 56%. They'll tell you that there's no problem with inflation, but try to make a sandwich for the same price that you did two years ago. There's no way. You'll pay 40% more just in the ingredients of that sandwich. And things are going to get worse. Do you see how many people are buying gold now? Russia just put a whole bunch more money into gold. China did the same thing. People are preparing."
"Now let me ask you a question: Is your state preparing?" Glenn asked the audience.
"I came to Texas for a reason because the people here not just are well armed and will defend a republic. More importantly, I came here because the people here are good and decent, God‑fearing, they still will help their neighbor. And they'll still allow you to be free to create in Texas. Texas is preparing. Whether even Texans know it or not. Several states are. Do your own homework. Find out. What is your state doing? Does your state even have its assets? If your state has any gold, is it in your state, or is it sitting in the bank at the basement of the vaults of the Federal Reserve in New York City? If there's a problem, does your state get that money from the Federal Reserve? See, everybody trusted the Federal Reserve, "Yeah, you just keep it because it will be safe there. Texas moved their gold, or at least the University ofTexas moved their gold to Texas. They said we want it all. They're guarding it themselves. How many states have done that? Has any state done that?"
"We used to have ‑‑ I have in my office some civil defense signs, the fallout shelters from the early Fifties, Sixties, and early Seventies. I have a Geiger counter that was made in the 1960s right out of ‑‑ brand‑new out of a box. It was sitting in some fallout shelter. The federal government prepared us before. The federal government made sure that we had food. Does your state have food? Because if there is, God forbid, a breakdown in the banking system, I've told you to be prepared. But if you look at that survey that came out a couple of days ago, he we told you where the most charitable people are, you'll see sections of the country. For instance, the Northeast, the least charitable area of the country and some of the greatest wealth of the country is in the Northeast. They don't understand charity anymore. Their charity are taxes. That's why taxes are so high. Because they're not going to church anymore, they are not linking arms with their charities and their churches and their neighborhoods. They're paying taxes. That's the way they understand charity."
"So if the federal government and the state government can no longer provide, what happens to that society? They get angry. What happens to the society that can't make it? What happens to that society? Well, depends on where you live.
"Let me tell you about a story that we found in Kansas. The farmers are experiencing a drought. In Kansas there was a summit where they talked about what was happening to them. I sent a reporter out from The Blaze. There's a new story up that you have to read. It is inspiring. I didn't want to find the bad stories of the drought. Everybody knows. Prices are going to go up."
"There was a story this week where there are farmers actually feeding cows out‑of‑date candy because it has some nutrition, nutritional value. They can't afford to feed the cattle. The drought is off the charts bad."
"I instructed our reporter from The Blaze to go there, to find the story of the real people of the drought. He went to Oklahoma, went to Kansas. I talked to farmers. His solution ‑‑ they asked for Americans to help. The solution that he found was universal: Please pray for rain. Please pray for us. That's the only thing we need: Prayers for rain. See, the people in these states, they have faith and that's why some of these states are the highest in giving. Because the people are still connected to one another. They're still connected to the neighborhoods. They're still connected to their neighbors. They're still connected to their family and to their God and to their church. And that's why at this summit when they were talking about what was happening to them, the drought is worse than it's been in half a century, water is extraordinarily valuable and scarce, and in Kansas they've set things up between senior farmers and junior farmers. Senior farmers have direct access to the irrigation system, and they take what they want. The junior farmers get what's left. And usually there's enough to go around for everybody. They just take it off the top and then whatever's left goes to the junior farmers, but now there's not even enough water in Kansas to be able to grow a full crop for the senior farmers and that would kill everything for the junior farmers."
"But here's what they've done: Without any regulation, without any state or federal enforcement, without anybody coming and making grand speeches, without Congress passing a single bill, the senior farmers who have access to all of the water decided to give the junior farmers enough water to get a crop. The senior farmers are already getting very little profit because of the reduced water supply. This agreement means they are going to get even less. Some of them will go out of business. But they still realize that they are neighbors. They still have enough American decency in themselves. They know they have to live together. They know they're in this together. It's still the greatest American generation. It's people like these farmers in Kansas that are still willing to help each other without being told what to do. They don't need to be hold."
"I found this out firsthand. I have a farm. It's in the Mountain West. There's something about driving a truck. My wife just said to me last night, she said, I've got to get the car cleaned. It's just driving me crazy, there's so much dust on it. She ‑‑ at the farm she said that for about the first week. There's to way to get it clean. It will never be clean. There's nothing that's clean, especially when there's no rain. It's dusty. Everything is dusty. Your clothes, your ‑‑ everything. But there's something about the soil. There is something about being rooted in the American soil that just makes everything real. It roots you. And you start thinking about the person whose dust is blowing now in your house. It's from their farm. And you realize, we are not alone. How is the neighbor doing? We're in this together and we're going to succeed, if we always remember who we are. We always remember that we are in this together, that we don't hate each other, whether you're a senior farmer or a senior farmer. We're in this together. And so we'll make it through the droughts, we'll make it through the tough times because that's what Americans do. And then when it begins to rain again, Americans will grow crops better and more plentiful than anybody on Earth. Because that's what we do when it rains."