The below is transcribed from the opening monologue of Glenn's radio show:
151 years ago today, the world began to change again because of America. 151 years ago today, a man rode on a train quietly, just scratching out a few words on the back of a piece of paper. There's only one photograph of this. He appears in the photo blurry. 151 years ago today, a guy who was known as Moses at the time, a guy that the world later compared to Moses, great statues and monuments were made of this man. One is in Washington, D.C. The other one is in the harbor of New York. The Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty is actually made for this man who at the time was known as Moses. Moses, a direct descendent from Father Abraham.
151 years ago this man, tired, beaten. I think lost, confused, a man of profound sorrows, stood up and said:
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, it was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now, we're engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We're met on a great battlefield of that war. We've come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives, that this nation might live. It's altogether fitting and proper that we should do this, but in a larger sense we cannot dedicate. We cannot consecrate. We cannot hallow this ground. The brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It's for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work to which they thought here and so far nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that these honored dead from them we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion and that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth.
One of the greatest speeches given by any man, given by our Father Abraham. Our Moses who freed the slaves.
Our pilgrims came here. They saw themselves as children of Abraham. They saw themselves as picking up the mantel of Moses and the lost children and tribes of Israel and coming across the great ocean, coming across the great sea, led by God, to come here, our pilgrims. Our pilgrims that on the second slave ship went and took the slave ship, freed the slaves and imprisoned the slave ship masters. Our pilgrims who were not the great terrorists, who were great friends to the Native Americans. Others came, but our pilgrims came with God in their heart.
Some of our founders were bad, bad people. But most of our founders were great, great men. They wrestled with slavery. But they knew that there was hope. They chose hope in us. They knew in their generation, they could not get it done. For all the Progressives that are expecting our founders to be perfect, may I remind you that your label "progressive" means exactly what they did. We cannot get it done in this generation. But we will move the flag as far as we can down the field and we will make progress.
Finally a man who had been abandoned by his father, a man who was loved by his mother until she died, a man who had to raise for a year in the wilderness his little sister, alone, eating twigs, nuts, berries, anything that he could find. A man who was so afraid of his father when he returned a year later and said, this is your new mom, that's how he introduced his wife -- this is your new mom. That he ran to hide behind the skirt of this total stranger because he was so afraid of his father, a father who said you're not going to read. There's no reason for you to read. But he learned and he was taught by his stepmother. A man who later said, everything I am I owe to my mother. The man who went through profound sorrow, found himself on the field of Gettysburg after losing every single battle. How he must have prayed, Lord, how can this possibly be? I'm here, I'm here. I'm trying to free the slaves. How is this happening to our nation? I understand, Lord. I understand. If every drop of blood that was drawn by the end of the lash of the whip needs to be paid for by the drops of blood drawn now by the sword, if that is the payment required, I understand. We will wash ourselves in blood. We will make ourselves clean in the blood of the lamb. Onward Christian soldiers.
He believed it was right. But it wasn't until Gettysburg that pushed him down into the ground. Losing battle after battle, asking, why, why, why, Lord. General, tell me why. What is it? Why won't you fight? What is it that you refuse to do?
It was after Gettysburg that he declared a day of fasting, a day of humility, a day of prayer and a day of thanksgiving. He said, we must humble ourselves or we're going to continue to lose battle after battle. We must understand, we don't have any of the answers, none of the answers. We've tried all the answers. Man has tried. We have tried to get rid of slavery. We have tried to set men free. We have a chance, for the first time in human history, we have a chance of changing the world. Look at what we've already done. And look at this cancer that is eating us from the inside. For the first time in human history, a nation had a claimed to be a Christian nation and actually was a Christian nation had split itself on the Bible and half of the people said, well, the Bible says I can have slaves. The other half knew better.
The other half listened to the pilgrims and said, no, no, that's not what the Bible says. It's immoral. Listen to this. It is immoral for you to take the bread earned by the sweat of another man's brow. Now, we say that's slavery.
But I just want you to listen to what they said. It is immoral for you to take your bread that has been earned by the sweat of another man's brow. How many of us are doing that now? How many of us have sold our children into slavery because we want the bread that is being earned by another man's brow. And that doesn't mean somebody who's out in the field being whipped. That means our children or our grandchildren or our great-grandchildren. We're approaching a century. We're approaching a century of our entire GDP. If we take everything that we make in a country, in this country, for 100 years, we will finally be debt-free. Every dime we make. That doesn't -- we don't pay for our food. We don't pay for our energy. We don't pay for our housing. We don't pay for education. Every dime we make for a hundred years we go to pay down the national debt. In 100 years we'll have it paid off. Congratulations. It's immoral. It's immoral to take your bread that has been earned by the sweat of another's brow.
But here's where I get hope today. Because today I ask you to do one thing. Today I ask you to really take into consideration one thing that I believe is one of the more true things that I've ever, ever seen. And that is that which you gaze upon you become.
What is it we're gazing upon?
We spend every day looking at the problems. We spend every day looking at Washington. What are we doing? We're becoming just like the problem. We're becoming angry. We're becoming vengeful. Some are becoming win at all cost, any cost, doesn't matter. Ends justify the means. Well, they're doing it. We better play that game, too. That which you gaze upon you become. And we become hopeless.
Darryl Strawberry was on with me last night. You want to talk about hopeless. Here's a guy shoving needles in his arms. Here's a guy taking heroin. He said outside, I had everything. Inside I had nothing. I didn't even know who I was as a man. I knew who I was as a ballplayer.
I know who I am as a broadcaster. Who am I as a man? Are you a car salesman? Are you a salesman or a rep? Are you a business owner? Are you a teacher? Are you a doctor? Are you an attorney? Who are you as a man?
I ask you today to change your attitude just for 24 hours. That which you gaze upon you become. I choose hope. That's what Abraham Lincoln did after he gave the Gettysburg address. He said we need to humble ourself. We need to choose God. We need to know where hope comes from. After he did the proclamation of thanksgiving, after he dedicated everything to God, rededicated, made a new covenant with God, just as a man named Abraham had done before, we won every battle after.
I choose hope.
