During Tuesday's morning meeting, Glenn expressed a lot of concern over the comments he was seeing on social media calling for an armed response in the conflict between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government. The concern wasn't over the comments necessarily, but the overwhelming sense that good people who believe in freedom and small government will be caught between violent, anti-government fringe groups who offer chaos and progressive, big government people who will offer control under the guise of safety. And that's why in the meeting Glenn decided "it is more important then you can understand that we are messengers of peace at all times, that we are very clear at all times, that I think the show today needs to focus on that message of peace that we have declared over and over and over and over."
And that message of peace and it's history as part of every project and event that Glenn has worked for more than five years was the focus of Tuesday's monologue.
It’s an interesting time to be alive, but there is a question that I want you to answer right now if you haven’t answered it already before. And it is this, and I want you to really think about this because we have always thought of the ends justify the means. We always say no.
But it’s always been because we’re looking at the Progressives. We’re looking at the Bill Ayers. We’re looking at the Barack Obamas. I want you to look at your circumstance. Is there any circumstance where you are willing to violate your principles in order to achieve a desired result? Would you ever steal, cheat, lie, murder? This is the question that Dietrich Bonhoeffer dealt with his whole life, frustrated and just so torn apart in the end.
If you thought, really thought it would lead to an overall better ending, remember, Moses did this, he killed the Egyptian because it will lead to a better ending. But it didn’t. If you think that it will lead to a better ending, would you do any of these things? We’re called to be honest, faithful, kind, peaceful, still have a spine, still stand up, and it is hard to follow those guidelines during times of prosperity.
I mean, people are having a hard time doing it now. But what happens when your options are stripped from you, and your back is pushed up against the wall? I have told you in the past that there would come a time when you will have to choose. I’ve been saying it for a while.
Glenn (2011): It’s up to you. Will you link arms? Will you reach across the aisles? Will you defend the defenseless? Will you stand up against the lies? Will you do it with peace and love? Read Gandhi. Read Jesus. Read Martin Luther King. Will you stand up?
That was two days after the event in Washington, D.C. We chose peace. I’ve chosen peace, and we’ve been in this really easy…I know it hasn’t seemed easy, but we’ve been in the easy part. We have had the patriot movement, if you will, kind of be this one big block where we all kind of agree with things. But I knew there would come a time when that would start to break apart because we’re not all alike. There are those that do want revolution.
That’s been my message from the start of be peaceful, and it began with the 40-day and 40-night challenge while we were at FOX. We committed, and I asked you to commit yourself to the pledge of nonviolence of Martin Luther King, and people didn’t understand why I was doing this. I was laying a foundation, and I was lucky enough to be able to do it with Alveda King.
I remember seeing a picture of Martin Luther King with his son, and he was taking out a burnt cross from his front yard the next morning. And his son was sitting right behind him, this big, and I thought to myself wow, that takes a great man. And I don’t know if I’m a good enough man to be able to make it, but I will if I plant the roots deep in honor and courage and love. And this is what we’ve done for the last four summers.
Think of this, I want to show you these, and listen to the words I said in the last four summers, first at the mall in Washington, then in Jerusalem, then at Dallas Cowboys Stadium, then in Salt Lake City with the Man in the Moon. Listen to the words.
Glenn (Restoring Love, 2012): We must be better than what we’ve allowed ourselves to become. We must get the poison of hatred out of us. No matter what anyone may say or do, no matter what anyone smears or lies or throws our way or to any Americans way, we must look to God and look to love.We win because while their conviction is rooted in hate, our conviction is rooted in love. And love always wins in the end.
With malice toward none and charity toward all, let us tonight restore love, for love will hold us together. Love will make us a shelter from the storm. I will be my brother’s keeper, and the world will once again know that they are not alone because again, the Americans have stood up and arrived again with honor, courage, and love.
That was the Restoring series. The theme of that was always love and peace. And then we went into a new phase, and we started trying to make that message more accessible to people. And that’s why I did Man in the Moon. But I want to show you just this last clip. This was the point, the message of the moon. Listen.
Man in the Moon (2013): Tonight, you will go home and kiss your little beasts, and they shall kiss you. If I have done my job, your light shall burn just a little brighter, and when you awake, you will again choose and begin to write the next pages of this amazing story yourself. And so will all those around you. Help each other. Be good to each other. Love one another.
I will tell you that I didn’t realize when I was writing that that it was as autobiographical as it turned out to be. It wasn’t until I had the moon makeup on, and I read those lines, “if I have done my job, your light will burn a little brighter.” I wrote to my wife this morning, and I asked her to pray for me because I fear I haven’t done my job.
Somehow there are those in this audience and millions in America that did not hear the message of MLK, not from me but even MLK himself. Quote something from Gandhi, can you? Tell me something Bonhoeffer said. We know them, but they’re like cartoon characters to us. We don’t know really what they said. Their message today is as clear and as new as anything I could tell you myself, and it is the message of our day and the message of our coming days, months, and years.
And it is a message that I ask you to share with everything that you have, everything that you are. Live it, learn it, live it, and share it because the time to make a choice is now here. The hatred is spreading. In Nevada, one of the guys, he was a former sheriff, he was on television, and he was actually talking about how they were going to put women in front of the protests so in case somebody shot anybody, it would be the image of a dying woman on television, and that would help their cause. Watch.
Ex-Sheriff supporting Cliven Bundy: We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front. If they’re going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.
I don’t think appalling even begins to describe that. Do the ends justify the means? If there is violence, well, as long as it’s violence with them shooting women and kids, then it will be good for the cause. They’re not saying they want to get them to shoot them, but if they’re going to shoot, let them shoot women and children. It is evil. It is the same kind of thinking that the Progressives have. This is not George Washington. That is George Bernard Shaw.
Three were shot dead in Kansas right before, Passover is tonight, last night. I mean, just as the suspect yelled Heil Hitler, shots rang out. You know that we’ve had yet another killing, another tragic shooting at Fort Hood. And it’s also today the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing today. All of those people, the Heil Hitler guy, the Boston bomber, they all were terrorists. They thought they would win.
Timothy McVeigh said this, that he hoped that he would prove some point, and it would be a tipping point. And all of a sudden the people would rise up. It doesn’t work that way. It never will, and if it does, remember what happened to Hungary. Remember what happens every single time. Remember what happened with Egypt. It is the fallen and the injured in those attacks who are the true victors, not the people who started it.
Their memories and stories of overcoming whatever it is are our rallying point. They inspire people, not the people who set it up. I mean gosh, you talk about a false flag, my gosh, who in their right mind says put women and children up front? Who says that? Bill Ayers says things like that, Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers bombed buildings, attacked police, spit on soldiers. Is that who we are?
It is those who put themselves in harm’s way peacefully. Remember, “Don’t break the ranks,” said Martin Luther King. Let them beat you on camera. Do not swing back, don’t, don’t. Don’t taunt them. Don’t be Occupy Wall Street. Those will be the true victors, not the terrorists like Bill Ayers or the Boston bombers.
My gosh, I think of that picture of Martin Luther King with his son, do you really think that you have it worse than Martin Luther King and blacks in the 1950s did? Do you really think so? Have you done everything in your church? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to lecture you because you’re here, and you know this. We are not the violent revolutionaries in the Middle East, Ukraine, Greece, Occupy Wall Street, those people fueled by hate, anger, and vengeance – give it to me!
It is so easy to be consumed by hate. I have seen it happen with my friends. I have. Please, get the poison out of you, please, please, please. You will regret this. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. Let me tell you something, there is somebody who I had a real problem with, and it’s not worth telling, but I had a real problem with this individual. And my wife and I got down on our knees every day. It took us four years, four years, to forgive this person. And there’s constant injury going on on top of it.
We got to the point to where we weep for them because we see what pain they must be in to cause this pain. It is tough, but we’re required to do it because vengeance is a losing battle. Vengeance is His and His alone. I was in that meeting this morning, and I brought this up. And Pat, my partner on air, said Glenn, why are you bringing this up? Because, you know, the Nevada thing is passing. I said, you know, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, I don’t know, but what I do find so alarming is that there are so many people on the left and the right, people who claim now to be fans of mine, posting on my Facebook page.
Please, defriend me. Please defriend me. I want you to unfriend me, defriend me, whatever the hell it’s called, click that button. I don’t want you to be my friend. If you believe vengeance is yours, I don’t want you. It doesn’t belong to you. One guy wrote, “Well I guess I am no longer a fan of yours because it’s time we the people make a stand and fight.” No, it’s not. No, it’s not. Who are you, we the people? How dare you speak for we the people. I’m one of the people. I don’t agree with you.
You were never a fan of mine. If you were a fan of mine, you wouldn’t have missed the message of Restoring Honor, Restoring Love, and Restoring Courage or the Man in the Moon or how many shows have I done? The message of love and peace is at the core of everything that I am, everything that I am as a human being, so no, you have not been misled. I have not defrauded you. You deceived yourself.
You’ve been itching for this fight. I don’t know if I’m in the minority or if they’re in the minority. I think that this is a really, really, really, really, really tiny minority on Facebook, but I will tell you this, even one person calling for violence is too many, and you must separate yourself. You must be very clear, if that’s who you are, I am not with you, and you must work to defuse that as much as I do. You must be vigilant on calling it out, the ends do not justify the means.
Angry people, violent people claiming to be fans of mine, calling for armed insurrection, are not fans of mine. Unfriend me. I’m almost up to 3 million friends on Facebook. I don’t care if I have ten friends on Facebook. I’m a recovering alcoholic, do you know how many friends I lost when I sobered up? All of them, all of them. I’m fine.
We can agree that the government is corrupt. We can agree that they are usurping the Constitution. We can agree they’re bloated, out of control, they are spending our children, children’s, children’s, children’s money. We can agree that they’ve pushed us to the brink. They’ve poked, they’ve prodded, they’ve taxed, they’ve regulated, they’ve lectured, they’ve mocked us. They have done everything, everything, except set us on fire.
I get that. I get it. But if you are for provoking violence against the Bureau of Land Management, the post office, the dogcatcher, I don’t care, we don’t have anything in common. I know you’re frustrated, I know, but your frustrations cannot be allowed to boil over into anger, hate, and rage. That’s what makes us human. The ends never justify the means, especially when they’re violent means. Love and peace are the lasting answer. They always have been the answer. They always will be the answer.
