The real problem facing America has nothing to do with globalization or globalists. It has nothing to do with nationalism or internationalism. Our real problem is ideas in direct conflict with the Constitution: socialism, communism and progressivism. These misleading labels basically mean the same thing --- total and complete government control.
Many people are asking the wrong questions to resolve our problem.
"I contend we are having the argument that Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt were having 100 years ago. Is the national socialist better or the international socialist better? The question has to be: Is the Constitution the answer?" Glenn said Thursday on radio.
The Constitution is the framework that outlines and defines what our government can and cannot do.
"The Constitution will stop you from doing all kinds of things, like meddling in people's lives, like telling them who they can and cannot marry, or how they can and cannot run their business, unless it's dangerous. The Constitution stops the meddling in international affairs and stops globalism dead in its tracks," Glenn explained.
Read below or listen to the full segment for answers to these equally insightful questions:
• How do we get beyond personalities and talk about the issues?
• Why did Lenin coin the term 'democratic socialist'?
• How is the Constitution like a combustion engine?
• What does 'Nature's Law' mean?
• Is the Bill of Rights part of the Constitution?
• How did the words in the Declaration of Independence help free slaves?
Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:
GLENN: I want to talk to you a little bit about -- we had a guy call us a few minutes ago. And he wanted to give me a lesson on the reason why the Republicans are great -- or I think he may have said Donald Trump. But we weren't talking about Donald Trump. We were talking about the left and right. Let's get beyond people. And he said, "Because they are now nationalists." And the real problem is globalization and globalists. No, that's not the real problem.
And there are a lot of people right now that are being convinced that the argument is between nationalism and internationalism or globalism.
And you can look at it that way. Two people that did look at it that way were Stalin and Hitler. He was a nationalist, and Stalin was an internationalist. They both believed in giant government state control. One said, "We're going to do this through the international community, and we're going to lead the international community and anybody who gets in our way, we're going to kill." And Hitler and Mussolini thought, "We're going to do this for the good of our own nation because our nation is so great. And we'll just do that. And it will spread to other nations. And we'll bring it to those other nations, whether they like it or not."
Nationalism and internationalism is not our problem. Our problem is socialism, communism, or progressivism. That is the idea that is in direct conflict with the other idea of the Constitution.
A lot of people who were progressives don't like the idea that -- that they would be labeled, along with socialists -- not so much anymore -- or communists. But socialism, if you know your history, your was only -- I'm sorry. Progressivism was only labeled that because they didn't agree with the one thing of -- of -- of communists. And that is, revolution.
Socialism is the step between capitalism and communism. And it lead to it.
If you don't believe me, read the words of Lenin before he got into office and they had the bloody revolution. He knew people were afraid of communists. And so he is the man, Lenin, that coined the term "democratic socialist." We're not communists. We're democratic socialists. The people will vote. And they'll vote for socialism. And they did.
And then they're free to say they're communists. Now, this is, again, all earlier 20th century. But you have to know the roots of it. And Theodore Roosevelt was a nationalist and a socialist. Believed in big government progressivism. Woodrow Wilson was even more. And he was an internationalist. League of Nations. United Nations.
I contend we are having the argument that Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt were having 100 years ago. Is the national socialist better or the international socialist better?
The question has to be: Is the Constitution the answer? Because the Constitution will stop you from doing all kinds of things, like meddling in people's lives, like telling them who they can and cannot marry or how they can and cannot run their business, unless it's dangerous.
The Constitution stops the meddling in international affairs and stops globalism dead in its tracks. The Constitution is the reason we didn't have a set flag. We didn't -- listen to me, we didn't have a set flag, I believe until Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt. It may have even been Wilson. You could arrange the stars any way you want. Why?
Because we won't so damn jingoistic. We believed in the concept of the flag, and it meant more than the flag itself. And it was Wilson, I believe, that went in and said, "No, we have to nationalize everything and federalize. And now here's exactly how you treat the flag." It was Wilson that gave us that, who gave us the -- the Star-Spangled Banner. FDR. We are defending these things as if they came from the Founders, when the Founders themselves didn't establish a national anything.
They respected everyone to rule themselves under the Constitution. Now, progressives will always say, "Well, the Declaration of Independence has nothing to do with the Constitution." You need to understand that the Declaration of Independence has everything to do with the Constitution.
Without the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution can be anything anyone wants.
For instance, let me give you an example because I know progressives hate the Declaration of Independence. They hate it. It has nothing to do with it.
It is something for that time and that time only. Why would they be against that? Why would they be against that?
Because the Declaration of Independence is what freed the slaves, not the Constitution. The Constitution gave the ability to free the slaves. But it was the Declaration of Independence that did free the slaves. Because the argument was -- in our own documents, it says, "All men are created equal."
That was the argument. So let me show you.
I want you to think about the Constitution. Because everybody says, "God's not in the Constitution. It's nowhere in the Constitution." Of course, it's not.
The Constitution is nothing more than an engine. You know our Constitution is the most reused Constitution in the world. Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution has been used by more countries than any other document to establish governance in the history of the world.
But wait a minute. All the countries are not like America. How come?
Because the Constitution is the combustion engine. That's all it is. But I can make a truck, using that engine, and I can make a sports car using that engine.
What do you want the engine to do? Do you want it to just run some belts, to run a turbine, to put some lights on? Do you want to use it for an aircraft? Do you want to use it for a race car? Do you want to use it for a crane to help build buildings?
It is the framework. It is the principles, the framework that helps you do whatever it is you want to do.
The Bill of Rights, that's something separate. The Bill of Rights is something entirely different from the Constitution. What rights are in the Constitution? Well, actually none. They're found in the Bill of Rights, which is just as separate, came years -- in fact, I think it was Connecticut, wasn't it, or one of the states that wasn't until 1939 that they ratified the Bill of Rights.
It came years later. Separate, yet part of it. And without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution doesn't work.
Well, it works. It will create all kinds of stuff. But it won't create things with rights.
So let me take you back to the first document. Because the first document tells you what we're building. The Constitution tells you how to build it. The Declaration of Independence tells you what we're building.
There's seven things in just the opening two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence that tell you everything you need to know about America.
One: The opening -- can you read the opening line, when in the course of human events, Pat. It becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands that have tied themselves to another people.
PAT: That have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them.
GLENN: Okay. What does that mean? Separate, but equal station? They're going to assume -- what they're saying is, there comes a time -- if we're going to disband ourselves from a government, a king, somebody else that's ruling over us, we -- it's -- the only right thing to do is to state why. Why are we doing this?
We need to tell the world, and we need to really remind ourselves why we're doing this. And assume the separate, but equal stations.
So they're saying, "We're not better than the king of England." But he's not better than we are. It immediately establishes humility for our nation. We're not better than everyone else. Our Declaration of Independence says the separate, but equal station. Nobody is the boss of us. And we're not the boss of you.
But there's a more important thing that I haven't addressed in that line. And that is this: The separate, but equal station, which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them. We'll come back to that.
Then the next paragraph is -- this is why -- this is why we're breaking away from the king. Okay? Because -- listen. We think that things are pretty clear. Let me state it this way: We hold these truths to be self-evident. We think everybody knows this. But nobody has ever said it before, let alone write it down.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. And that among these are life, liberty, and I'm going to use the original word, property. Why would I use that? Because pursuit of happiness -- replace the word property -- because they felt if they put property in there, then the left -- or, I'm sorry -- then the South would say, "Well, it's in the Declaration of Independence. We have a right to property, and slaves are our property."
And then we would have had the argument, are they property, or are they men? And that would have slowed everything down. So don't give them the tool of saying that they're property.
So they changed it to something enigmatic: The pursuit of happiness. Meaning, your right to go and be your own businessperson and do what you feel and follow your spirit and go paint a cloud.
Life, liberty, and property. Here's another important part: That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. The government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. And that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to those ends -- which ends? Destructive of which ends?
It is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. Now, let me go back.
They have certain unalienable rights, meaning God gave them these rights, and nobody can change them. Unalienable or inalienable. Whichever word you choose to use is -- it means you cannot change them. No one can change them. They are universal. They are -- they are the laws of nature and nature's God.
What does nature and nature's God mean?
Let's use the Second Amendment. That's not a law of God. Where in the Bible does it say you have a right to have guns, you have a right to protect yourself?
I guess you could read it through that, but it's really clear in the laws of nature.
In fact, you could use the laws of God to say, "Well, maybe you don't because he says thou shall not murder, and you can use a gun to murder." So they want to be very specific.
The laws of nature. That's the first one. Can you find that right in nature? Yeah. Nobody is going to say to me, but they'll say it about humans all the time.
Nobody is going to say, if I walk into a cave with a bear and I just want to go hug the little baby bear and the bear mom kills me, nowhere -- nowhere in the press are they going to say, "Oh, my gosh, we should destroy that bear. That bear is evil. We should declaw all bears."
They'll say, "That stupid guy went into a cave, and the bear -- the mama bear thought he was threatening the children. Of course, she tore him apart." That's the Second Amendment. Nature's law gives you the right to self-protect and to protect your family and your home.
Featured Image: The exterior of the National Constitution Center displays the opening words of the United States Constitution. (Photo Credit: Jeffrey M. Vinocur)