Glenn's speech at CPAC is receiving rave reviews! Thank you for watching and for the kind comments. Below is a sampling of what people are saying.
WATCH: Full the @glennbeck speech at #CPAC https://t.co/Da6U8BvRFN
— CPAC (@CPAC) March 5, 2016
Comments From Viewers:
"Absolutely. Amazing. Best speech I have ever heard. Glenn, I hope you can write this speech out, and sell it. My compassion for you grows daily, as does my love for freedom, liberty, and those who are imprisoned, killed, and murdered to protect this liberty."
"Just WOW! I am literally blown away. This is the most Brilliant, Inspiring and Factual speech I have ever heard. How can anyone not agree with every word. Our CONSTITUTION, it IS what America is about. When we lose those principles, we have lost our country and our souls. Whether you like Glenn or not, every American needs to hear this"
"Phenomenal speech! I dare say it was one of the most succinct, passionate, and timely speeches on the necessity of the Constitution and returning to those principles. Perhaps you are our Thomas Paine, delivering "Common Sense" in a time when the Republic desperately needs it. Let it be said that the principles you spoke on transcend party and politician and speak to our individual liberty. Let us return to those principles. Let us look inward and realize they are true. Then, let us turn outward and elect those that emulate those principles."
"Loved this speech! Shared it to my personal page. Very inspiring and honest! I think everyone, no matter who you will be voting for, should watch this. This wasn't just a speech for an election or for Americans. It is a speech for humans everywhere! I've got a golden ticket!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "
"Just finished listening to the speech, I loved it! Now let's take our golden ticket and get our country back on track. Thank you Glenn Beck."
"Glenn, all I can say is WOW! By far your best speech ever; you are a wise and gracious leader. Let's hope this speech unifies conservatives to unite and reclaim the moral high ground, and educates the next generation aspire for greatness.."
"Your messages were spot on, Glenn. This election IS all about saving The Constitution and Bill of Rights. I pray your speech is heard around the world."
"...when you finished one of the most inspirational speeches I have ever heard I wished they had given you a hand held mic. To drop on the stage as you walked away... Like a boss. Not to sound too much like a millennial (I was born in '80 so I ride the fence) but that speech last night was bad @$$. That is all.
"Wonderful speech. The constitution has never before been explained more clearly. Thank you GLENN BECK. We needed to hear these words"
"Glenn, I am a fellow Texan and have been listening/watching you for years. Your CPAC 2016 speech was the best speech of your lifetime thus far! It was masterful, inspirational, and electrifying, and a glorious reminder of our founding fathers' blueprint for a free and exceptional America. I was moved to tears. This is the "golden ticket" we are to "conserve" as Conservatives! May God fearing, Liberty lovers continue to wake up and stand up for our PRINCIPLES! Keep fighting the good fight, Glenn. You are making a huge difference!"
"Just now watching your closing statements, Glenn... This speech was ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL! So well done. I hope as many people as possible will watch this and share it."
"Most inspired, uplifting speech on the Federalist Papers original idea for the U.S. Constitution, and the road map back to our greatness as a people, and nation, in recent or distant memory."
"Absolutely inspiring......countries have poet laureates.......the conservatives have a brilliant story teller laureate......You should be at the top of the list at every college for commencement speaker.....God be with you in all that you do."
"A speech that should be examined carefully and taught in our elementary schools, secondary schools and colleges throughout our nation as Government 101. Everyone should understand the principles taught in this speech."
"Fantastic speech and delivery, Glenn. Every single American needs to hear it...and those not Americans too!"
"Excellent speech. By the time it was over I have hope for our nation. It is we the people and our time is now"
Transcript of Glenn's CPAC Speech
You are coming into adulthood at a time when the amount of debt created by Central Banks and Socialist programs around the world exceeds the value of all combined human wealth and assets. We owe the bankers more in debt than the combined value of every dollar, ounce of gold, every home and car, every factory and every farm. In the US, our combined debt and unfunded socialist mandates now exceeds seven times total GDP.
We steal the future from the young to allow for our own prosperity today. But we need cleaner air, right? We must provide free college for illegal immigrants! We have to pay for abortions for 16 year olds! We have to bail out Wall Street to protect Main Street, don’t we? We have to make sure everyone gets their fair share!! What a pack of liars we all are. And yet in the hallways of CPAC, you see smiles — determination, energy, hope. The young are resilient.
It reminds me of a boy we’ve all read about. He, too, was born into a world where he was burdened by the mistakes and laziness of his parents — Charlie Bucket. Yes, Roald Dahl’s Charlie Bucket, from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Charlie was born into a world of hopelessness. Naturally bright and hard-working, he provides for a family wholly dependent on him for their food and shelter. A family who has left to him the burden of providing for their survival, a burden that is his birthright, his simply because he is capable. But somehow Charlie is still bright and cheerful. Somehow he still has hope.
When Wonka announces that there are Golden Tickets, the world goes into a frenzy. A chance to escape from the dreary 12-hour work days, struggling to get by. Free passes into the candy-filled world behind his gates. Wonka is saying, “There is still magic in the world, Charlie.” Charlie can’t afford to buy the chocolate bars, but is perceptive enough to find a coin dropped in the gutter. He buys a bar. He opens it and discovers one of the magical tickets inside. I’ve got a Golden Ticket!
There is a scene in the movie where a crowd on the street discovers that Charlie has found the last of the Golden Tickets. A mob forms around him, cheering him, tugging on him, patting him, jostling him, tugging at his clothes and hair, wanting to be close to him, or wanting to get his ticket! They are drawn to him, drawn to it. Drawn to the magic of the ticket in his hand, to this thing that can free them from the doldrums of their day to day lives. A man grabs Charlie and tells him to run . . . Run Straight Home, and Don’t Stop Until You Get There! He does run. Runs for home, but on the way he is stopped.
He has his ticket, wants to rush home to his family and share the wonderful news! But he is stopped. Do you remember what stops him? Slugworth. See, in Rahl Dahl’s world, whenever you get a Golden Ticket, Slugworth shows up. Whenever you are given the thing you want, the thing that can give you freedom, the thing you have hoped and wished for, the thing that represents magic . . . Slugworth is always right there. The businessman, with a wry smile and pockets full of cash.
He is there to tempt Charlie, offering to buy the boy’s virtue . . . a chance to double-up his good fortune and exploit the opportunity fate has given him. All Charlie has to do is steal a little piece of candy from Wonka’s factory. Just a single piece of candy, and he’ll be free of the burden the world has left him. Charlie meets Wonka and tours the factory. Along the way, he gives into his temptation and pockets an Everlasting Gobstopper. As you’ll recall, he and his grandpa also break the rules. At the end of his tour, after having seen his fellow tourists picked off by their own greediness, Wonka throws him out for having broken those rules. “You lose! You get nothing!” His Grandpa, in anger, says to him, “If Slugworth wants his Gobstopper, he’s going to get it!”
But Charlie’s principals shine through. He overcomes his greed. After all, he did break the rules. He walks back into the room, takes the candy from his pocket, and places it on the desk next to Wonka. Wonka says, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.” He turns to Charlie and says, “Charlie, my boy . . . you’ve won!”
Why do I tell you this story? What is our Golden Ticket? What is the magical thing that has the chance to free you from the burden’s your parents and grandparents have left you? The past few days, we have heard some great ideas about how to advance conservative initiatives. Tonight, I want to speak to you about ideas that will seem, perhaps, less practical, less . . . tactical. Perhaps they will not do as much to increase our reach on Facebook or improve our email open rates.
They will probably not result immediately in convincing our courts to restore water-rights to our farmers, or result in the repeal of Obamacare next year. But while they may not have any immediate practical effect, they are actually the entire reason we are here at all. We, the self-proclaimed guardians of Libert, are here to protect ideas. Ideas that we often take for granted. We assume that we’re covered just because we’re voting for our Party, or at least voting against the other Party. When do we start voting for the candidate who represents our Principals, instead of voting against the other guy? We’re here this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Well, these are the ideas that we’re here to conserve:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Do any of these sound familiar? Do you think they would sound familiar in most homes in America? In the halls of the White House? In the hallways of government-funded schools? How about our churches? Would they sound familiar around your own kitchen table? Two hundred and forty years ago, our Forefathers pledged to each other and to the people that they would defend those principals with Their Lives, Their Fortunes and Their Sacred Honors. The Sons and Daughters of Liberty bled together to throw off the chains of a Dictator in order to “secure the blessings of Liberty for themselves and their posterity . . .” Do you feel it? Personal Liberty. Individual Rights. Privacy. Religious Freedom.
What is it that unites us as conservatives? What defines our cause? Ask a Fox News or CNN pundit about the core of the conservative movement. They might say something like “Smaller Government”. Fine, but Smaller Government is not a cause, it is an effect. It is the result of dedication to the original principals and an understanding of the rights endowed to us by our Creator, by Nature’s God. Not just for Republicans or Democrats, not just for Independents, but for the entire species of man. The men who founded our nation understood those principals. That we possess free agency. A capacity to choose our own morality, our own faith. We are capable of working with others in voluntary cooperation for the common good. We are also capable of competing with others for resources and achievement. We are individuals. Each of us is a whole entity, distinct from the rest. They knew that our rights are part of us. That without those rights, we cease to be whole. We cease to be human beings. That is why they did not found their new nation as a
They chose instead not to subvert their nature by giving some men power over the lives of others, but rather to allow each man to live as an individual. They recognized that each of us should be allowed to pursue happiness in our own way, according to the verdict of their own mind. The American Revolution was not a war against England. It was a war against the idea that some men have the right to control the lives of others. That was revolutionary. For the first time in world history, a government was created with a single justification for existing: The recognition and protection of each citizen’s rights. Rights that were inherent to them as individuals. Not granted to them by the government, but simply automatic. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men”. That is the reason our government exists: to protect the rights of man. The Founders don’t cite any other reason in the Declaration. The Declaration doesn’t say “To ensure there is a chicken in every pot.” It doesn’t say “To create safe spaces on college campuses where nobody can say anything mean.” It doesn’t say “To ensure everyone gets free tuition, to secure deals for oil fields in the Middle East.” It doesn’t say, “To bail out big banks and Wall Street cronies who pay us the biggest speaking fees.”
I don’t recall seeing that in there.
Progressives in both Parties believe that governments should do more than simply protect our liberties. They are baffled by our love and dedication to the Constitution. To them it is an inconvenience, maybe something that worked when America was a frontier nation, but it doesn’t offer functional solutions to a modern, industrial society. We have Facebook now, and airplanes, inner city blight, and radical Islamists trying to build nuclear bombs.
So many people believe the world is so complex that 200-year-old documents can’t have relevance anymore. They believe that governments should also eliminate poverty, should plant trees, should create jobs. It should control our resources to ensure nobody gets more than their fair share. They find our allegiance to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers puzzling.
Tonight, we’ll dispel their confusion once and for all. And I want each of you to personally think for a minute and rediscover what it means to be conservative. We are dedicated to the Constitution and its principals not because we cling to our Bibles and our guns. We are dedicated to the Constitution and its principals because we are clear-minded. Because we are rational. Because we have courage enough to recognize the self-evident truth: That mankind, by his nature, has an identity. We are endowed by our creator with inherent, unalienable rights. They are ours simply because we exist. If you don’t understand why the Constitution matters, then you’re the one who’s confused. You don’t understand the nature of man. How can you look at yourself in the mirror and not see who you are? You are a sentient being. You’re born with free agency. You’re capable of choosing right from wrong, morality from immorality.
The world tells you that you are powerless, that you need government programs and rules and edicts. I tell you that you are the most powerful being ever created. When we say we are dedicated to the eternal principals of the Constitution, that is what we mean: We recognize and embrace mankind as the powerful beings we are. Man is who he is. A is A. The Constitution is remarkable and will continue to endure because it is factually correct. It recognizes that no man or woman has any inherent power over any other. Rights are ours individually just like our own DNA. And because rights belong to us individually, the rights of five of us together can never outweigh the rights of one of us.
Those who stand opposed to these principals would dismiss natural law. They wish to live in a world where man isn’t man, because you are too imperfect for them. They detest you. They fear you. They believe you are too corrupt, too stupid and too selfish to be allowed to make your own decisions. They are terrified of the real world, because it is not in their control. They wish for a world
where we don’t have unique talents that may allow us to achieve something others do not. In their world, man’s nature should be subverted, transformed . . . bent to their will, always for reasons they claim are for ‘the common good.’
They can’t have us believe we’re individuals. Instead, we are the possessions of the state, to be used to create a better world. And because they believe we aren’t capable of creating this world on our own, we must be forced to live as we are told so the elites can create this world for us. And in the end, those who call themselves our saviors pull out guns and make us slaves. To them, Mao is right: you don’t have power! To them, power comes from the barrel of a gun.
What is the most precious commodity on earth? Measured in terms of dollars, Gold is the highest valued commodity. Oil, perhaps, or water some say. Others have argued that media airtime is the more valuable a digital society, or a million likes on Facebook. But they are all wrong.
The most valuable commodity on planet earth is man. That is what Progressives and Liberals, Republicans and Democrats, egomaniacal businessmen and socialist senators, man is what they wish to control. There is no more valuable commodity in existence than the productive energies, the labor of mankind. The men and women who live in fear of a world they can’t control seek one thing: power over us. They want, they need to dictate our behavior. To use us as resources to enrich those in power, and to make the world feel safer for the elites. Progressives can never be satisfied. Their fear and shame make them want to have power over every man, woman and child forever.
Democracy. They didn’t elect to have a king. They didn’t choose a path of forced cooperation like socialism or communism, and they didn’t place power in the hands of the wealthy or the elite.
The expense of maintaining that power is enormous. That is why we have staggering multi-generational debt, the unfunded mandates of a welfare state that assure every American is a slave. It is vital that you understand this. If you and your spouse have a child this year they are born owing a debt of $1,006,208 dollars, their “fair share.” Lincoln and the Republican party abolished slavery over 150 years ago. But make no mistake, today every child born in American is born a slave, burdened as indentured servants the instant they draw their first breath. And the Republican party, the party of Lincoln, has helped forge every link in every chain.
Why are we even allowing the conversation to be about $40,000 in college debt when our children are born owing millions? We’re all guilty. We’re enslaving our children for our own comfort. They are slaves to the unholy alliance between Big Government, Big Business and Big Banks. Slaves to each other. Slaves to the false prosperity we enjoy today. This is taxation without representation. I seem to recall that wars have been fought over that issue.
From the dawn of man until 1780, the advance of human progress was almost imperceptible. Key measures like life expectancy, household income, total wealth, starvation rates, infant mortality rates. For tens of thousands of years, improvements were so small, they could only be measured over centuries. But from 1790 onward, human progress began to accelerate at an exponential rate. The Industrial Revolution was born here, and America became the technology and production engine of the world. Why? What happened here in America?
It was The Constitution. Our principals. Equal justice. Our Golden Ticket. From the day the Constitution was ratified, America has been rising like a rocket, carrying the rest of humanity with us. Individual Liberty, and a government prevented by law from interfering. That is what made American Great. And that is the only thing that can “Make America Great Again.”
Let’s compare that experience to the alternative. Mankind has spent over a century experimenting with the live A / B test of Liberty vs. Tyranny. What are the results? What was the leading cause of unnatural death during the 20th Century? It wasn’t cancer. It wasn’t car accidents. It wasn’t drugs and alcohol, or terrorism. It wasn’t gang violence in the inner cities. The greatest murderer over the last century was governments. Socialist, communist, fascist and theist governments. During the last century, totalitarian governments murdered over 120 Million of their own citizens. And that doesn’t include the countless millions who died of disease and malnutrition, suffering on government health care plans, and on government food programs — always in the name of "progress." all for the greater good.
While the American people were delivering the cure for polio, nuclear fission, refrigeration, televisions, the internet and lunar rockets, the iPhone, and encryption. Progressivism and socialism were delivering death camps, forced starvation, gas chambers, forced abortions and genocide. If the goal really is to Make America Great Again, we don’t need more government deals or programs. We need the government to do the one thing it’s allowed to do in the Constitution. To get out of our way and let loose the productivity and ingenuity of the American people.
Our Founders recognized that fact over 200 years ago. They pledged their lives to one another, vowing to fight and die to protect each other’s rights against a government that sought to control them. As conservatives, it is our duty to bear that responsibility for this generation and the next. Our time is now. It falls to us, to follow our God-given principals.
I am so honored to be among you at this conference. Our movement isn’t about Parties, it’s about each other. Does either party discuss or claim these principals as their own? Who is even talking about it outside this conference? Have they demonstrated a willingness to actually defend our liberty? The Parties don’t matter, our core principals matter. It’s about what we stand for, not who we stand against. We cannot lose our movement, your movement, to a hostile takeover by a charming Slugworth bearing pockets full of cash. No candidate in this race reignited the interest in Conservatism and brought new people to the party. You did that. The Tea Party generated that interest and began defending Liberty years ago.
Most Republicans believe being a Conservative means you’re unpopular, that you will lose at the ballot box. I say BULL. Because of your efforts, right now there are more Republicans in office at the state and local level than there have been at any time since 1920. Don’t tell me conservative principals can’t work. Don’t tell me conservative principals can’t win. This movement belongs to you. You are the wave that is turning Blue into Red all over the country. Loyalty oaths should never be made to parties. That’s a step toward Fascism. This is far beyond Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative, Tea Party or Evangelical or atheist. You don’t owe loyalty or an oath to any party that fails to defend these principals. And it definitely isn’t an oath to the Government. No, our loyalty and our dedication are owed to the Original Principals, to our God, and to each other. That is what our country is. That is what we fight and die for. This is the core of it. Our nature as beings on this earth and our survival as a nation. It comes down to what we owe ourselves, our children and each other. Look around the room. Really look at the people sitting around you. Our principals are found in each other. Our principals are found in the oath of the declaration it is time to restate them to one another clearly:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ...It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
As we leave here today and move toward this election, let these words ring true for you. Let the Politicians who would seek your vote hear those words and understand that they are your servants, not you theirs. Demand that they uphold the Oath of Office they take above their oath to their party. That they reaffirm their singular vow: To Preserve, Protect and Defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Let the party bosses and Super Pacs hear that they will only have your support as long as they take and uphold this oath with you. Let the media hear it from you in interviews and social media posts, in articles and books that you author. Let the bartender and cab driver hear it tonight. Let your family hear it tomorrow morning. We are all brothers and sisters,
defenders of freedom.
I have great confidence in American because our cause, the cause of freedom and individual liberty, is a righteous cause. Like our rights, it was endowed to us by our Creator. Those who fight against it are battling nature itself, and they will lose. We need only raise our voices, honor our pledge to one another and refuse forever to surrender our way of life.
May you carry that spirit into the hallways of this hotel tonight and into the streets outside tomorrow. These are the principals that we must run home to. This is our Golden Ticket. Let’s have faith in our principals, rediscover them. Have faith in them and in the God who granted them to you. Let it be said of us, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.” So that when we are judged, when it comes our turn to face our Creator and tell him of our deeds, he can turn on his throne and smile at us and say, “You’ve Won! You've won!”
Featured Images: Courtesy of Lange Studio