It is easy to be against something. It is easy to complain. It is harder to stand with conviction. It is harder to stand for something. On radio this morning, Glenn explained the importance of looking at the other side of conflict and turmoil to find what we stand for instead of what we stand against. That simple change of rhetoric can make all the difference.
Below is an edited transcript of the monologue:
Stop looking at this as a win or lose because it's not a win or lose. It's reconciliation – win or lose. If we are trying to win, someone is a loser. We're trying to reconcile the country and bring the country back to common sense. The founders may have won the war, but that wasn't the end of the revolution. The revolution is still going on today. It is constantly being renewed. It is constantly having to be taught and grown. There is never an end to this. There's never an end to this, you know, and that's the problem.
Look at Common Core or anything else. So many times people say, ‘Oh, good we won.’ No, you didn't. You might have stopped something, but what are you for? And to be for something, it requires us to continually teach it and grow it and strive to be better so there's no real win or lose. And when we have that win or lose mentality that's when we give up.’ I'm just tired of losing.’ I'm telling you, the seeds we are planting right now will start to sprout in 10 to 20 years.
My grandfather, his seeds are really just truly taking root in me now. I'm beginning to understand what my grandfather taught me and beginning to understand the value of those things that he taught me. Well, jeez, he's been dead since 1982. He stopped teaching me a long time ago, but not really.
Is it really a coincidence that my family tried to save our little town of Mount Vernon, Washington which was being destroyed by the big mall and everything else? Everybody said, ‘We got to stop the mall. We got to stop the mall. Stop the mall.’ My folks said, ‘You'll never stop the mall. The mall is coming.’ They tried to pass ordinances of save our farmland and everything else, but it's coming. Instead why don't we take our little town of Mount Vernon and redesign it and make it something entirely different and new and cool? It was right around the bicentennial, they tried to make it into Mount Vernon, as in Mount Vernon, Virginia and make it this cool little brick streets kind of gas lamp kind of area. That's what they were for. Everyone else was against the mall.
In the end, because nobody would see the vision of being for something and they were so beaten down on being against the mall, and the mall was coming in. And then the mall came in, and everybody said, ‘The mall is great.’ And what happened? Mount Vernon still struggles today. And I don't think it's a coincidence that I was raised by a family that was for something magical, something great, something different. And here I am fighting the same battle, except on a national scale.
Stop being against stuff. Let's start being for things.
That is where we need to be. We need to start talking about it. You know, we have to talk about Israel and Hamas. We have to point out with Hamas: What is in their charter is evil? What they stand for is evil. They are standing for genocide. It is in their charter. That's the argument. Somebody on television should be ringing on the hour everybody hour.
Let's think about what we think could be: A strong Jewish state that is secure and allows people to live their religion and live their race for the love of Pete. Live who they are. Living side by side with another state that gets to celebrate who they are. Instead of getting down and arguing about how many missiles and who bombed the hospital and everything else – you'll never settle any of that because that's a distraction.
We have to be rooted in the facts. And we have to stand for those facts. We have to stand hard on those facts. It doesn't mean we're not going to fight for the things we believe in. It just means we got to change the way we're fighting because what we're doing is not working. It's not working. You're going to lose.
If we're not kind and generous and decent and God-fearing and know the best way to serve God is to serve our fellow man, it doesn't work. It all falls apart. Anybody who is calling for an uprising or an end, you're part of the problem, man. You're just giving up. ‘You're just trying to spread love and everything else.’ Yeah, you are darn right. And if in the end I'm judged as a bad man because I believe in decency, love, honor, charity, then, you know what, I'll live in hell If those things are the things that get you sent to hell, then I welcome the days I spend in hell because I'm not going to change who I am.
I have already made too many mistakes in my life. I had promised when I turn my life around, I would do my best. It is not your best. It's not the pope's best. It's not Mother Teresa's best. It's my best. And, unfortunately, my best is not as good as everybody else's, but I've done my best, and in doing my best. I've still made huge mistakes.
Do you want to make a difference? Do you see the road we're on is unsustainable? If you see that this road that we're on is unsustainable, then what are you going to do to change it?
I say let's start looking for a bigger vision. Let's start looking for a vision where we all belong, where we all feel heard. We don't agree with each other. There's no blacklist. There's no list that says you can't be my friend because you agree with me. If someone says you shouldn't be friends with somebody because they don't agree with you, you should question your friendship. If your business is being hurt because you do business with me or I do business with them, you should question, ‘Do you want to do business with those people?’
I learned this as an alcoholic. I lost a lot of ‘friends’ when I sobered up. I didn't lose in the end one friend when I sobered up. Anybody who thought, ‘Oh, Glenn, he's going all goody two shoes’ was no friend of mine. Because right is right.
We don't have to agree on things. We do to have look and say, ‘These things are worth standing for. These things are worth living for.’ I'm not going to say ever again, some things are worth dying for. All the things should be worth living for. Worth dying for is the mentality of Hamas. Worth living for, that's the American principles. Those are the Judean Christian principles. You're going to kill me for it, so be it. But I'm going to live every second. Dietrich Bonheoffer lived as they put the rope around his neck. He said thank you to that man. He lived every second of his life. He didn't die for anything he lived for it all. That's the difference. That's where we need to be.
