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Join Kim Munson and guest Scott Powell as they delve into the significance of Thanksgiving in American history. Discover why this holiday is considered the cornerstone for all other American holidays and how the Pilgrims’ journey reflects the timeless pursuit of freedom and courage. From the perils of the Mayflower voyage to the writing of the Mayflower Compact, this episode uncovers riveting backstories and lessons that resonate in today’s battle of ideas.
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Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
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And welcome to the Kim Munson Show. Thank you so much for listening. You each are treasured and valued. You have purpose. Today’s drive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. My friends, we were made for this moment in history. And thank you to the team. That’s producer Joe, Luke, Rachel, Zach, Echo, Charlie, Mike, Teresa, Amanda, and and all the people here at Crawford Broadcasting. Check out the website, that is kimmunson.com, and make sure that you are signed up for our weekly email newsletter that goes out on Sundays, highlighting our upcoming guests and our most recent essays. And for this week of Thanksgiving, we are prerecording these shows with special guests, special subjects, and pleased to kick all this off with Scott Powell. He’s a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. He’s also the author of a very important book, Rediscovering America, How the National Holidays Tell an Amazing Story About Who We Are. This is a book I would recommend that everyone have at home on their Freedom Library. Have a hard copy of this. And it’s also a lovely gift for those on your gift list. And parents, grandparents, it’s great because you can pull this out for each of the holidays and read this to children so that they have an idea about our national holidays. So Scott Powell, who is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, thank you, Kim. And Thanksgiving greetings to all your audience.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, we have a lot to be grateful for, and we have a lot of work to do here in Colorado and America. But Thanksgiving is Chapter 3 in your book, and you say it’s the first and essential American holiday. Why is that, Scott Powell?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Thanksgiving could be thought of as the holiday that made the other American holidays possible. You know, without the pilgrims having courage, absolute faith in their cause and calling— and a willingness to sacrifice and risk everything, they never would have embarked on the 95-foot Mayflower, which was a ship of questionable seaworthiness. Were it not for their faith and determination to find freedom of conscience, and that’s important to understand what motivated them, freedom of conscience, to live in freedom and truth. and live according to their biblical beliefs, they may never have been, well, there may never have been a July 4th Independence Day or other subsequent holidays that we take for granted and celebrate each year. And I would say that we are now in the same place as the pilgrims were in some ways. We need, you know, our country is under attack on every front, economically, internationally, We all have been educated about the massive amounts of drug operations bringing drugs into this country by sea. We could just go down the list. We have a level of corruption now in our country that really makes our country almost ungovernable. And so we’re in the same place. We have the same place in that we need the same courage, the same determination, uh… that the pilgrims had to find a better way to find a better way in our case our ways already been discovered it’s called the constitution of the united states the declaration of independence and and the constitution they are what give us freedom and uh… and uh… we have had our system undermined from every every quarter and that that’s our challenge today and that’s a citizen initiative because we are a unique country America is, I would remind everyone, that we are absolutely unique in all of human history. Before the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, there was no nation in all of human history that put the power into the hands of the people, that the sovereignty of the nation was dependent upon the people and the people’s choices. People were free, free to make choices, free to choose their government, and that the government was to be responsive to the people and protect the people’s unalienable rights. Those unalienable rights are articulated clearly in the first ten amendments. We call them the Bill of Rights. And no other nation had that in all of human history, only America. And so America… is the most important history, most important country in history. And we’ve seen, you know, all these wonderful, you know, protections to our rights, our constitutional protections, just, you know, chiseled and little by little sort of eroded away. And now we are really, you know, we’re… a shadow of our original self, to tell you the truth. America is not the America of its founding. America is a, in some ways, it is an administrative state. We have unaccountable politicians. They work in government agencies. They obstruct the development. You know, in Colorado, you battle the ability to bring up oil out of the ground, and you have a lot of it. Because why? Because we have anti- We have advocates for the Green New Deal that work in the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior and otherwise. Our agencies are full of people who do not appreciate the Constitution of the United States.
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Well, and so we are at a time. I quite often say that we are in the third founding of our country, Scott, and we are in our 1775 moment. It is a battle of ideas, and ideas are more powerful. I think it’s been attributed to Stalin that ideas are more powerful than guns. We wouldn’t let our opponents have guns. Why would we let them have ideas? And so that’s why this whole idea of America is, is worth conserving and preserving. And one of the great ways to do that is to understand our foundation, which this great book that you’ve written, Rediscovering America, How the National Holidays Tell an Amazing Story, about who we are is a step in the right direction because we are in this battle of ideas that is raging in our country at this particular point in time. I’m talking with Scott Powell. He is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. And we’re talking about Thanksgiving, the first essential American holiday, which is chapter three in this important book. And as we are reflecting upon Thanksgiving and all that we are grateful for, and there is so much, I am so blessed to work with amazing people as sponsors, partners of the show. So this week of Thanksgiving, I wanted to record something about Thanksgiving. And again, the blessings that… that we have as Americans are, they’re so amazing. But what’s your thoughts about Thanksgiving and blessings?
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Kim, I am very blessed, first of all, with a great family, great grandchildren, all of whom are here because of my great great grandfathers and folks that moved here from Sicily back in 1900 under duress to experience the American experience. And I am so grateful for the tenacity that they had to make their way by steerage across the Atlantic Ocean, a two and a half week trip, sleeping outside on the deck of a ship, My grandfather was a single male, and when he got here, he was turned back because there was a quota for single Italian males at that time, so they sent him back. They said, you can return to the United States when you are married and have a child, and he did. He went back to, actually, Italy, not Sicily, and… picked out my grandmother out of a group of eight women in a convent who were all orphans and he married the one he pointed to and they had my Uncle Frank and they came here in about 1903. So I’m thankful for this beautiful country, our Constitution, our forefathers who saw the potential. And that was a really slice of time in history where this American experience and experiment could have occurred. And it could have gone either way, right? Articles of Confederation, states giving up their rights to a central government which they despised because of the king back in the day. So when you think about what could have gone wrong that didn’t, thanks to our founding fathers, we should feel blessed. And we do. I do, for sure.
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Well, I do as well. And Roger, I really think that we are in the third founding of our country. The first, obviously, was the Revolutionary War. And of course, then the Civil War, where we fought a war to determine if we really believe that all men are created equal with these rights from God of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, then we can’t have one man be property of another. And so there was that founding. And then I think that we are in a time to, each of us, to engage in this battle of ideas that is occurring right now so that we can make sure that this great American idea is passed on to our children, our grandchildren, and our posterity.
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You know, let me react to that because I think all of us get so busy with life, raising families, defining our job or our starting our business is we get so wrapped up in survival in this very complex digital society we live in today that we take our eye off the ball. And the ball is paying attention to those we elect and send to the state legislature, Congress, whatever your political affiliation be, are you really engaged in, and if you are, what’s the standard by which you determine your values? your values have to tie into hopefully the constitution the founding fathers rule of law we have really ignored that and and i’m not blaming people i had a professor in college at cornell university one summer who really condemned people because all they worried about was their green lawns and taking care of their houses and i said hey time out those people are the people that have made this country and they are so busy with their life and you’re a professional He was a political science professor. So it’s like, be nice to everybody out there because we’re all busy and elect those people who are really going to represent your values. And that’s, I mean, that’s your job as a citizen to pay attention to who you vote for and send to whatever branch of government, state or government.
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Well, and Roger, that is why we do the show. And I am so grateful for the Roger Mangan State Farm Insurance team for all that they do. Like a good neighbor, the Roger Mangan team is there.
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There’s so much noise coming at us. Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. How can you sift through the clamor for your attention and get to the truth? The Kim Munson Show is here to help. Kim searches for truth and clarity by examining issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. Tune in to the Kim Munson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m. with encores 1 to 2 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM. The KLZ website, the KLZ app, and Alexa. Play KLZ. Shows can also be found at KimMunson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
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And welcome back to The Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMunson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. And be signed up for our weekly email newsletter that goes out on Sundays, highlighting our upcoming guests as well as our most recent essays. And a question for you. Are you ready for financial freedom? Call our friends at Mint Financial Strategies. As an independent firm and an accredited investment fiduciary, they always put your interests first. Mint means more than money. It stands for meaningful relationship. information sharing, a network of smart strategies, and a thoughtful advisor who puts you in control. No cookie-cutter plans. Everything is tailored to you. So call Mint Financial Strategies today. That number is 303-285-3080. 303-285-3080. And we are talking with Scott Powell. He’s a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. And he’s the author of this book, very important book, Rediscovering America, How the National Holidays Tell an Amazing Story About Who We Are. This is a terrific gift for Christmas or Hanukkah. And we’re talking about Thanksgiving and the pilgrims. And it’s a story that we can learn from even in 2025 America, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. I mean, and the backstories of Thanksgiving are so important and will make your Thanksgiving better. So let’s talk about some of the backstories, how it all happened. First of all, the separatists, as they were known, they were later called pilgrims, but they were known in England as separatists. And this comes after the Reformation of Christianity, which was sort of consummated in In the early 1500s, Martin Luther nailed his theses, I think, in 1517 in the church door in Wittenberg, and brought about a reformation of Christianity, a return to understanding the Bible, a return to the Bible. Because the Catholic Church, which had been the main institutional force in Christianity, you know, had really not given… you know, people didn’t read the Bible, and so a lot of things happen, and I believe God arranges all things anyway. But the printing press was invented about this time, and so the Bible then could be printed and bound and distributed, and so this all was foundational for the Reformation. So the Reformation took place, and in England, when the Reformation came to England… basically, the government just decided to sort of transform all the Catholic churches that existed and say, now these are no longer Catholic churches, they are now the Church of England. Well, the Church of England also carried over some of the traditions of Catholicism, and the fact is that when government is involved in religion, there’s usually problems, because the government wants to justify itself through religion. In any case, the separatists didn’t like the trends in the Church of England. They didn’t like some of the holdovers of the Catholic traditions. And they petitioned to start their own church. They were rejected. And so then they became persecuted in England, these separatists. And finally, they decided to flee to Holland, which is a more liberal, politically more liberal and They were confident that they wouldn’t be persecuted in Holland. Well, anyway, so they were in Holland about 11 years. But then they became worried as their children were growing up that the permissiveness of Dutch culture would negatively influence their children. And so they decided this is the time. And it just so happened that in – 1609, the Jamestown colony was established by Britain. That was a British colony, the first British colony. And they got wind of that. That is, the separatists living in Holland heard about Jamestown and said, you know, we ought to petition. uh, the, the Virginia, the, the, the government and the Virginia company, which was sponsored by the government and see if we can get a sponsorship to go to the new world, because there we are sure to have freedom. It’s going to be our colony, no one else. And so it was that they did get a charter. Uh, that is, they got sponsorship and a ship. They got two ships, the Mayflower and the Speedwell. And, um, They had a difficult time leaving on time because the speed well kept leaking. And finally, they had to abandon it. And then the Mayflower got a little bit more crowded because all the passengers that were on the speed well, they couldn’t actually take them all, but they took a good number of them. So there were 102 people on the Mayflower when it left. But it was a harrowing passage across the Atlantic. You know, one that included, you know, wild pitching and broadside batterings by gale force winds, because they now were in the kind of the hurricane season in the Atlantic. Goodness. And the seas were ferocious. And at one point, it caused a splitting of the ship’s main beam. Were it not for the fact that some of the separatists anticipated building homes and bringing the tools to do that, they probably wouldn’t have survived. But there was a house jack. That is a jack when you turn it, it pushes upwards. So they got a house jack under the beam, the main beam on the ship, and put it in place and were able to continue on. But the Mayflower was blown off course from unintended causes. from the intended destination, because the Virginia company gave them a designated parcel for their colony, which was really in the northern part of New Jersey, mouth of the Hudson River, if you will. But they were blown off course, and their provisions were running low, and they were spoiling, and so they decided they were off Cape Cod now, And that’s in Massachusetts. And they made it. They tried to go back, but it was just too difficult. And so they decided we’re going to have to we’re going to have to find, you know, a good place to establish our colony. And so there, of course, the requirements were fresh water stream and so forth and and maybe land that was arable. And and so they did find that place. It was Plymouth, Massachusetts. But before they got there. uh… you know that the and i must explain that really only half of the mayflower were separatists were were were the christian the driving force the the so-called pilgrims constituted about half the one or two passengers on the uh… on the ship and the others some of them were were christians were were christian uh… you had you know you you had uh… protection from uh… Oh, I forget his name now. But you had military protection. You had craftsmen on board, coopers, like John Alden was a cooper. And Miles Standish was the military guy. I now remembered his name. You had an assortment of people, as well as the ship’s crew, which was fairly large, probably out of 102 people. There were probably 10 that were just dedicated crew people, being able to adjust the sails and the anchors and all the sorts of things you have to do on a big ship. But the non-Christians were rebelling at one point, and that’s one reason they decided that they had to find a place to land. And they had to stay together, because if they weren’t going to their designated place, they might land in a place where there would be hostile Indians. They didn’t know. And so it was off Cape Cod, they decided, we need to establish an agreement between all people on the ship that they will stick together… that they will act democratically and make decisions with one person, one vote, and look out for each other. And so it was that they wrote the Mayflower Compact on the ship. It was a one-page document that called for a democratic government, that people would all be treated equally and have equal rights, and if there were changes to be made, it had to be done democratically by vote. So many people have pointed out that this was the beginning of the tradition in America that is democratic, that before we could have the Constitution of the United States, we had the Mayflower Compact, which, while it didn’t have three branches of government, it had the all-important recognition that the people were sovereign, that they had unalienable, God-given rights, and that meant that they had equal rights. And so it was that the Mayflower Compact was its, you know, really, the first accomplishment of the Pilgrims was they had the courage to pursue, you know, life in the New World. They were the first, really, settlers that were singularly motivated to live with religious freedom. That was sort of the unique to the Pilgrims. And then the Mayflower Compact is the second significant, the second significant thing. And so they lay land in… They found a good place to establish their colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. And it was all really arranged by God because there had been an Indian tribe living on that very territory in previous years, not too far before. But they had some kind of an epidemic that wiped them all out. They all perished. So they left this land that had a stream and good farmland. you know, was empty. And that’s where the pilgrims ended up. And they did have neighboring Indians, and it turns out that they were friendly Indians. It’s just remarkable. But the pilgrims had foresight that they best make a peace treaty with these Indians so that the Indians were assured that that they weren’t going to go to war with them. And of course, the pilgrims had, they had firearms. They had things that the Indians had never seen before. And that could put fear in them. And in any case, what’s also unique in terms of recognizing how God’s providence works is that there were two people associated with the Indian tribes who spoke English because in earlier times, they had been kidnapped. They had been kidnapped and taken to Spain in one case, and they ended up in England, and they learned the English language.
SPEAKER 06 :
Unbelievable.
SPEAKER 03 :
They learned the English language because they wanted to get back to their home. And one of the very people… that became the translator for the pilgrims actually came from the very tribe that the epidemic had wiped out. And so he went back, he found his way back to the same territory and found the pilgrims living there. But he could speak English. And so he became the translator for both the Indians, and that was the Wampanoag tribe, was the big tribe. And, of course, Massasoit was the head, the chief sockum, if you will, of the Wapanoags. And so it was that a peace treaty was established. And that peace treaty, while I don’t think they, I think they established it as a 50-year peace treaty, it actually lasted longer than that. And what is unique to the Pilgrims amongst all of the European settlers is is that they had the longest period of peace with Indians of any colony that succeeded them.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
In any part of the country.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow.
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And part of it is that the Indians were a peace-loving tribe. Certainly there were other tribes that were just more warlike tribes. And so it was hard to make peace with warlike people. But in any case, that’s an accomplishment unique to the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag Peace Treaty. That’s sort of the third major accomplishment. Now, what happened— You know what?
SPEAKER 06 :
Let’s go to breaks, Scott Powell. And the name of that Indian was Guanto, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, Guantanamo. Yes.
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We’re going to go to break. We’re talking with Scott Powell regarding Thanksgiving, which is one of the chapters in his book, Rediscovering America, how the national holidays tell an amazing story about who we are. And these important discussions happen because we have amazing sponsors. And for everything residential real estate, be sure and reach out to Karen Levine.
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All Kim’s sponsors are in inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back to The Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMunson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. And I am so grateful for each and every one of our sponsors. And one of those longtime sponsors of my show is Hooters Restaurants. They have locations in Loveland, Westminster and in Aurora on Parker Road. And great specials Monday through Friday for lunch and happy hour. On Wednesdays is Wings Day. You buy 20 wings. You can get an additional 10 for free. So as you are having family in, that’s certainly an option for something to eat. And how I got to know them, it’s a really important story about freedom and free markets and capitalism and those pesky PBIs, those politicians, bureaucrats, and interested parties that would like to try to control our lives. So again, thank you to Hooters. for their great sponsorship of the show. I am talking with Scott Powell regarding his book, Rediscovering America, How the National Holidays Tell an Amazing Story About Who We Are. And Scott, you were talking about the divine provider, God, who has had his fingers on this founding of this country and still does. But with the pilgrims, it was very evident, correct? Correct.
SPEAKER 03 :
It really was. I mean, how could it happen by chance that, you know, that Squanto and Semiset, there were two of them that could speak English. How was it that they could be kidnapped by fishermen, taken back to Europe? And, you know, in one case, I think it was Squanto that was put into chains in Spain. And, you know, and a priest… who came to recognize that this person, this Indian from America, was chained up, he freed that. He freed Squanto. And Squanto then sought out a passage to England where they spoke English because that seemed to be the future that he needed to speak. He needed to be able to speak. to get passage on a ship back to where he came from. And it was really the most likely was the British were now the most active colonists, more so than the French or the Spanish or the Portuguese really didn’t have too much influence except in South America with Brazil. Anyway. So it’s just remarkable that these two people just happened to be right there at the right time to translate this peace treaty that helped them get that completed, but then also playing a role in Thanksgiving itself because after the first harvest, and I’ll describe more about why the first harvest was so meager, but there was a first harvest. But before we tell that story, we need to know that that first harvest came in the very first year that they were there. They landed in December of 1620, and that winter was brutal. And they lost about half of, you know, the pilgrims died in that first year. the first one was absolutely devastating with illness afflicting probably most and over half the pilgrims actually died including four entire families so that was devastating but because of their faith and their commitment they just forged ahead and the spring came and the Indians showed them how to plant and how to fish and hunt and do a lot of things and so it was that When harvest time came in the fall, they wanted to give thanks. They wanted to give thanks that they had survived and that the Indians had helped them survive. And so they invited the Indians to come to this Thanksgiving meal. But the harvest was so meager that actually they needed the Indians, and they needed the numbers. Now they had only about 50 people in the Plymouth colony. They lost half, half of a, you know, 102 people. And so it was that that the Indians showed up with about 100, 100, 100, you know, the chief and 100 of his of his tribes people. And and they had brought, you know, five deer that they had killed. They bought, of course, they’d shot turkeys, lots of fish. lots of provisions, and so much so that they could have a three-day feast. Had it just been the pilgrims, there was barely enough to feed the 50 pilgrims. But anyway, it’s fascinating. So it was a three-day time. Now, the reason for the meager harvest was that the pilgrims were following the charter that had been given to them by the Virginia Company. And in that charter, it called for holding all property in common. that there was to be no, you know, that I suppose the Virginia Company was saying, well, this is really our territory and you’re the representatives of us in this new colony. And whatever you do, you have to do it recognizing that you hold everything in common. And so there was no private plots. They, you know, they farmed, they planted and farmed by, you know, by volunteers and And, of course, some people put a lot of time and energy into the planting and the cultivation and the harvest. And there were others that said, hey, well, why should I work because others are doing the work and I’ll just participate in the harvest. So socialist farming in the Pilgrim Colony was responsible for this meager output. Well, they didn’t change the rules right away. They actually had to go through another second season before William Bradford decided that he’d seen enough, that he knew that the reason for the harvest was that nobody took responsibility for something that’s public anymore. or few people take responsibility and so he decided to break up to break all the territory up into private plot slavery by the third season they all had private plot and guess what they they were selling their food they were trading their food that so much of it so that’s the fourth thing the fourth important lesson of the pilgrim story is the rejection of socialism and the adoption of private enterprise private property and private enterprise and so that that kind of you know an important part of the story um now there was there was a fifth event that happened that i think is important to share that is that is part of this great story the pilgrims they had they had a model relational behavior they learned i think it was in the fourth year there that Massasoit had become, and he was the chief, Sockham, he was the chief, that he had become very ill and that he was on his deathbed. He lived about 40 miles from Plymouth. And so it was that Edwin Winslow, who was kind of an elder, a religious elder, but he also had this orientation towards herbal, natural medicine that he came with and that he practiced. And he… he said, I must go to Massasoit’s side and see if I can’t nurse him back to life and pray over him. And so he took a two-day journey by foot, and he found Massasoit on his deathbed, and he prayed over Massasoit and began to administer some herbal soups or things that could that were healthy. And Massasoit, within a few days, responded favorably and regained his entire health. And he said to them, now I see that the Englishmen are not just our friends, but they love us. They love me. And just incredible. So the model relational behavior of the pilgrims is just testimony to what can happen When you practice the faith of Christianity, when you love, when you give, when you’re outward looking, you want to serve others, wonderful things happen. And so that’s part of the pilgrim story.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and don’t you think that the pilgrim that went to see the Indian chief, that was really at great risk because if the Indian chief died, that might have not turned out so well for the pilgrim.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, that could be, yeah. But, you know, they acted on faith. They did the right thing. If we do the right thing and we act on faith and leave the rest in God’s hands, we can trust a good outcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, most definitely. So as we continue on, they figured out that holding property in common, which could be maybe the root word of communism, that that was not going to work. They almost starved. And when they could keep most of the fruits of their labor, then everything flourished. And those are two key points we need to consider. think about here in 2025 America. Now, right now, there is things that in socialism, as Maggie Thatcher said, at some point in time, you run out of other people’s money. Right now, because of the American idea, there is money to be taken. But at some point in time, that gravy train will dry up if you continue down the road of socialism.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, what’s likely to happen in New York if Mamdani’s agenda is pursued… is that there’ll be capital flight. The tax base of New York will move out. More of it will move out, not all of it. And then you have less money to redistribute. So the whole project in New York is just absurd and…
SPEAKER 06 :
The other thing on that, though, is no federal bailouts. These states that are making these blue states that are making these decisions or these blue cities, we should not be using federal dollars, which is money from their neighbors or money borrowed from our children and grandchildren, to bail them out. They have to be responsible for those choices and not look to the federal government to bail them out.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, that’s right. We learn the best when we make mistakes. So when socialism fails, you don’t want to bail it out. People have to wake up. Young idealistic people, they don’t understand very much, and they can be easily propagandized, as they have been throughout America, into embracing a more you know, a bigger government solution, the largest of government can, you know, can be used for the betterment of all people. Well, no, it ends up always resulting in less, you know, less wealth creation and more poverty.
SPEAKER 06 :
So I think it’s been attributed to Milton Friedman, who he said that if you put the government in charge of the Sahara Desert in five years, there would be no sand. Yeah. And I think the pilgrims learned that. So we’re going to continue the discussion with Scott Powell regarding Thanksgiving from his great book, Rediscovering America. These discussions happen because of our sponsors. And for everything mortgages, reach out to Lorne Levy. He can help you in 49 of the 50 states, just not New York. So if you’re moving out of New York, he can help you with a mortgage in any of those states.
SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
April 26th, 1777. Colonel, the British are raiding Downbury and burning the town. I’ll go tell them. 16-year-old Sybil Ludington mounted her horse and rode 40 miles through night and pouring rain. That’s twice the distance of Paul Revere to sound the alarm.
SPEAKER 02 :
Quickly, assemble at my father’s house.
SPEAKER 13 :
The Kim Munson Show is our modern-day Sybil Ludington, bringing us the latest breaking news in the battle for truth and freedom. Ben’s Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling is proud to stand with Kim. Will you stand with us? Get engaged with the issue that keeps you up at night so that you can influence your school and community with truth and justice. And for quality craftsmanship at a fair price, call or text Ben’s Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling at 303-995-1636. That number again is 303-995-1636.
SPEAKER 01 :
We’ll be right back. To learn more, reach out to Teresa at 520-631-9243. Teresa would love to talk with you again. That number is 520-631-9243.
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. We are pre-recording these shows for Thanksgiving week with special guests, special subjects. But before we get into it, I wanted to mention the two nonprofits that I highlight on a regular basis on the show. The first is the USMC Memorial Foundation. And a great gift for Christmas or Hanukkah would be to buy a brick that will be on one of their pathways of service. You’ll receive a beautiful certificate, which is a beautiful gift. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. usmcmemorialfoundation.org. And then the Center for American Values, which is located in Pueblo, has the most extensive Medal of Honor portraits outside the Pentagon, maybe even more so than the Pentagon. We can’t get in the Pentagon to see it, but you can get to the Center for American Values, which is nonpolitical, nonpartisan, but focusing on honoring our Medal of Honor recipients and then also encouraging continuing to instill in our young people and our educators these great principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism. And that website is AmericanValueCenter.org, AmericanValueCenter.org. We are talking with Scott Powell, who is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, regarding his book, Rediscovering America, how the national holidays tell an amazing story about who we are, which is a great gift for Christmas or Hanukkah. And you should have this at home in your Freedom Library so that you can read to your children, your grandchildren, about each of these holidays. We’re talking about Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is really about gratitude. And we could use a little more gratitude in the United States these days, Scott Powell.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, of course. I mean, gratitude is always, it’s never inappropriate to express gratitude. But it is true that the Thanksgiving holiday Of all the holidays that we have in America, Thanksgiving is unique in that it is truly the holiday where, in the title of the holiday, Thanksgiving, we have impregnated in that is that we give thanks. We are grateful for what we have. And it’s interesting that Thanksgiving comes… really before the holy season of the Jewish season of Hanukkah and the season of Christmas, because really those those two holidays in some ways are the fulfillment of gratitude. You know that we that we have God in our life and we should be grateful for that. So it’s incredible how these holidays happen when they do even. There’s even an order to our holidays, if you will. So Thanksgiving is sort of the prelude to the Holy Season. And I think what we accomplished in the early part of the interview, Kim, is that we learned that there are good reasons to be grateful that are beyond just enjoying the feast. And with our country passing through troubled times, it is worth revisiting the Pilgrim’s five significant achievements, which created the seminal story of America. And they reveal remarkable insight into who we are and the qualities of character we need to overcome our present challenges.
SPEAKER 06 :
And Scott, go through those five things again. I didn’t number them as we were talking about it, but I think it’s worth hitting those again regarding the Pilgrim’s accomplishments.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, the first one was that this was the first group of settlers, colonists, if you will, who didn’t come for economic gain, but they were singularly motivated to live with religious freedom. They wanted to live fulfilling lives, live simply and live in gratitude to God and be able to organize their society around biblical values. And that was the first thing that distinguished the pilgrims from, say, the Jamestown colony. All the colonies were Christian colonies in the end because that was the majority population that was coming to America. Most people in Great Britain, many were Christian, but those that wanted to go to the New World— They were made slightly differently than other people. And what are those qualities? Why would you leave the security and the familiarity of home life in England to go to a new world where you don’t know what’s going to happen, where there are problems? You know, there are wild beasts. There are potentially hostile Native people, Native Indians. So the people that tended to come to America tended to be Christian, and they tended to have the kind of courage and the kind of— recognition that the quality of life was more important, the quality of their lives living in freedom was more important to the comforts of Great Britain. So those are the people who came, and the 13 colonies were very different, and this also reflects God’s creation. You know, the fact is that out of one source of truth, the Bible, lots of different Christian communities developed. They became ultimately something we call sects or denominations in Protestant terms. There’s different denominations of Protestantism, and the colonies were basically Protestant, and they varied from the Dutch Reformed, who colonized in the Manhattan area, in the northern New Jersey area, the Calvinists, who were the pilgrims and the Puritans. They were of a Calvinist tradition. They ultimately changed. They didn’t call themselves Calvinists. They ultimately became what were known as Congregationalists. So the Congregational Church was established from the Calvinist tradition. The Anglican tradition sort of went to Virginia. And I think part of North Carolina, William Penn, who was a Quaker, brought Quakerism to Pennsylvania, and that was the bastion. It’s interesting that Quakerism was the most tolerant of all the Christian sects, of all the denominations. Quakerism embraced a wide variety of people, and that became the capital, the founding city of America. That was a tolerant city.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow. Yeah. OK, so let’s hit these other ones, though, so we don’t run out of time. So they were coming for religious freedom.
SPEAKER 03 :
And then second, the Mayflower Compact was established on the Mayflower ship before they set foot on land. And they did that because they recognized that they were going. They knew not where they were going and what the challenges would be from nature, from ferocious beasts or hostile Indians. And they needed to stick together. and they needed a governing document that empowered everybody equally. And so that was sort of foundational to America and to the ultimate constitution that came to America. The third thing that was done in the first six months of arriving was the establishment of a peace treaty, the Pilgrim Wampanoag Peace Treaty. And the vision was cast for 50 years that they would have peace, and they more than lived up to that, and they were the only colony that maintained peace with the native Indians for such a long time. So that’s unique and remarkable. And then the fourth accomplishment happened, you know, uh… sort of as a result of of observing what happened you know that they made a mistake embracing uh… commonly common property for farming communistic or socialistic approach to farming it failed dismally it failed in delivering enough uh… enough uh… harvest to really feed them uh… and uh… and But that was in the charter, the Virginia charter, under which they felt they should live, called for communal ownership and communal harvest. Anyway, William Bradford gave it two seasons before he utterly rejected it because the results were subpar. And he parceled out the land so that everybody had their own plots, and the harvest became much more bountiful. And then the last one, the fifth one, is that model relational behavior that sort of goes back to the first one. The first one was that the settlers, the pilgrims, were singularly motivated to live Christian lives as they interpreted the Bible themselves. And that resulted in model relational behavior towards the Indians and towards Massasoit when he was on his deathbed. and they went to his aid and revived him, and he was forever grateful, even using, even, there are words recorded talking about his recognition of the Englishmen of being not just friends, but that they loved him. He used that word.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that’s what we’re called to do. We’re called to love each other and help each other, serve each other. So, you know, I guess, how much time do we have left?
SPEAKER 06 :
We have about a minute or so.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so I guess in summary, the pilgrim’s five achievements and the qualities of character that made them exemplary are really as relevant today as they ever have been. You know, a contemporary Thanksgiving makeover, okay, I’m telling you how to have your Thanksgiving, might include rekindling a quest for adventure, talking about adventure, developing the faith to hold on to a vision of of a promised land, no matter what, no matter what happened, hold on to that vision. No matter what difficulties you have in your life, if you’ve got a vision, hold on to it. Persevere. And endure hardship. And, you know, to be able to go against the crowd. I mean, the pilgrims obviously went against the crowd. They left England. They rejected life as they saw it. And they were willing to go against the crowd. And defend the truth. They defended the truth as they understood it. We need that same willingness to go against the woke crowd and to defend the truth and to do it without stopping, without relenting. And we will win because the truth always will defeat falsehood.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 03 :
Remember that. And then, you know, we have the, you know, obviously, you know, we need to maintain our resolve. We need to revitalize respect for and tolerance of people of different beliefs. So this is a delicate balance. We’ve got to be tolerant of people with different beliefs, but at the same time hold on to the truth and promote the truth and insist that people live by the truth. Because when we live by the truth, we’re going to have good outcome. The problem in America now is that all these false narratives have been embraced by our government. And so the legislation that they’re creating isn’t working out very well because they’re based on false narratives. The Green New Deal is a false narrative.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Well, that is why we search for truth and clarity and your great work, Scott Powell. Thank you. I wish you a very blessed Thanksgiving and greatly appreciate it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, Kim.
SPEAKER 06 :
And our quote for the end of the show is from William Bradford. He said this, All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage. So, my friends, stay tuned for hour number two. We will be right back.
SPEAKER 04 :
And fast on a rough road riding High through the mountains climbing Like a new moon rising fierce Through the rain and lightning Wandering out into this great unknown And I don’t want no one to cry But tell them if I don’t
SPEAKER 19 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
SPEAKER 14 :
It’s the Kim Munson Show, analyzing the most important stories.
SPEAKER 06 :
The socialization of transportation, education, energy, housing, and water, what it means is that government controls it through rules and regulations.
SPEAKER 14 :
The latest in politics and world affairs.
SPEAKER 06 :
Under this guise of bipartisanship and nonpartisanship, it’s actually tapping down the truth.
SPEAKER 14 :
Today’s current opinions and ideas.
SPEAKER 06 :
On an equal field in the battle of ideas, mistruths and misconceptions is getting us into a world of hurt.
SPEAKER 14 :
Is it freedom or is it force? Let’s have a conversation.
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome to our number two of the Kim Munson Show. Thank you so much for joining us. You each are treasured. You’re valued. You have purpose today. Strive for excellence. Take care of your heart, your soul, your mind, and your body. My friends, we were made for this moment in history. And I want to say thank you to the team. That’s Producer Joe, Luke, Rachel, Zach, Echo, Charlie, Mike, Teresa, Amanda, and all the people here at Crawford Broadcasting. for their support and for their good work. Check out the website. That is kimmunson.com. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter while you’re there. And that goes out on Sundays. As you know, we look at these issues through the lens of freedom versus force, force versus freedom. If something’s a good idea, you should not have to force people to do it. And for this week of Thanksgiving, we are pre-recording our shows with amazing guests and amazing topics. And I am so pleased to have on the line with me Dr. Alan Gelso. He has moved. He is now the professor of humanities at the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. He is also one of the most accomplished Civil War historians and experts on Lincoln in the country. Dr. Gelso, welcome.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, it’s very good to be talking to you again, Kim.
SPEAKER 06 :
And you are busy. Certainly a move is a big deal, and you have written many books. I wanted to talk with you about one of your most recent books, our Ancient Faith, Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment. And this is broadcasting on Monday, the 24th of November, which is on the heels of the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, which was delivered on Sunday. November 19th. So this is all very relevant.
SPEAKER 15 :
Yes, it is. And when you think about the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, that puts you in mind of the fact that we are now more than 160 years moving beyond the Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s Great Speech there. And yet, at the same time, we feel that a lot of that just seems to have happened in a fairly short period of time. Maybe not quite yesterday, but still, all the issues that came into play and all the things that were important for Lincoln that are captured in the Gettysburg Address are still important and relevant to us today.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, and speaking of the timing on this, Dr. Gelso, I have another radio show where I interview veterans. I went to Normandy in 2016 with a group that accompanied 40-day veterans, came back realizing that we needed to broadcast these stories and record them and archive them. And so with that, I interviewed probably well over 250 World War II veterans. But one of the guys that I interviewed… He lived right here in Colorado. His name was Ralph Whitlock, and he served in the Pacific Theater. But he was in studio. We were recording the interview, and he told me this story, that when he was a little kid, he was at a Memorial Day parade, and there were three veterans in a touring car, old guys. And he said… Who are they? Who are those guys? And they said, those are Civil War veterans. And it took my breath away to think I was looking into the eyes of a man that had seen Civil War veterans alive. And so our history is pretty short.
SPEAKER 15 :
It is. And perhaps this will make it seem even shorter, but when I was born, I’m not going to tell you exactly when, but when I was born, there were still a small handful of Civil War veterans alive. The last certifiable Civil War veteran died. is still alive as late as 1956. There were a few other people who claimed to have been Civil War veterans, although in many cases the claims turned out to be fraudulent. But at least there’s one certifiable Union veteran who was still alive at the time I was born in the 1950s. So there is a connection there. My grandmother, talked to me, no end, about when she was a girl in Philadelphia, and as a schoolgirl, seeing the veterans come on what they then called Decoration Day. We call it Memorial Day today. But the veterans of the Civil War would come to her school. to talk to her and the other students at the George Clymer School in North Philadelphia about the Civil War and about their experience in it and what they thought were the vital issues of the Civil War. So even there, you might say, I’ve got, all right, maybe not quite an immediate line to Civil War veterans, but at least it runs through a member of the family.
SPEAKER 06 :
That is really remarkable. How did you become so interested in the Civil War and Lincoln? And I thank you for sharing all of this with us as well.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, I got bit by the bug, you might say, very, very early on. I developed an interest in history. I can remember this very clearly as early as first grade, believe it or not. I wasn’t doing terribly well in other subjects in first grade, but I liked that. And then when I was in second grade, I remember this very clearly. My grandmother and I were… going to be going to Chicago on the train. And in the big grand station there in Philadelphia, there was a news agency which was selling some comic books. And one of the comic books was A Life of Abraham Lincoln. And I pestered and fweedled sufficiently that she bought it for me. So that, you might say, is how I got started specifically on Abraham Lincoln. Second grade, well, is that early enough? Does that qualify?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I think that that does, for sure. And just so we’ve got a couple of minutes in this particular segment, reflections on the Gettysburg Address, since we are just passing the anniversary of that.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, the Gettysburg Address seems to us to be this great monumental speech in American history. It wasn’t planned that way. In fact, Lincoln was not the primary orator that day at the dedication of the soldiers’ national cemetery in Gettysburg. The principal orator was Edward Everett. who I would probably guess next to no one in your listening audience has ever heard of. He was a prominent political figure, a prominent academic figure. He had been a professor at Harvard. He’d been a member of presidential cabinets. He had sat in Congress, even been the governor of Massachusetts. And he got the ticket to deliver the big speech at the cemetery dedication. And it went on, believe me, for two and a half hours. 13,500 words, and we remember scarcely one of them. Lincoln spoke for two and a half minutes, because all that he was asked to do was to deliver what you might call the dedication, strictly speaking. It’s like the benediction, almost. And he spoke for two and a half minutes, 272 words, and we have been reciting those back to each other ever since.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, OK, well, we’re going to continue the discussion with Dr. Alan Gelso. We’ll talk about his book, Our Ancient Faith, Lincoln Democracy and the American Experiment. We get to have all these great conversations because I work with amazing people. And as I have mentioned, we are pre-recording these shows for Thanksgiving week. And very pleased to have on the line with me, Jody Henze with Mint Financial Strategies, a great sponsor of the show. Jody, welcome.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, thank you for having me, Kim. Always grateful to be here.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, I’m very grateful for you as well and all of these amazing sponsors that I get to work with. But coming in on the end of the year, we recently talked about that people need to make sure that they are ready for their required minimum distributions from their retirement plans because that needs to be done by December 31st. So that’s very important. But Now that we’re into Thanksgiving week, talk to me about Thanksgiving and being grateful.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, I mean, this is perfect timing and kind of building off of what we talked about a few weeks ago with RMDs. Now we’re thinking about how can we build off of that with being charitable and being thankful and ways that we can use our investments in a way generous way, but also in a tax efficient way. So I have two ideas to share with you. The first one is what we call qualified charitable distributions, or what we lovingly call QCDs from your IRA. So many people don’t realize that they can do this. At age 70 and a half, Rather than taking money from your IRA type of account and directly depositing them into your bank account, as an example, and then writing a check to your favorite charity, what you can do is you can have your IRA make that check directly to the charity. That’s called a qualified charitable distribution. And when you do that, basically that’s a tax-free distribution to you. So normally when you withdraw those funds from your IRA, that amount is generally taxable to you. But if you send that money directly to that charity, that’s tax-free to you, and it’s tax-free to the charity. So a great way to be charitable and generous, but also get that tax-free income to you on something that you would normally pay taxes on.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. What’s your other idea?
SPEAKER 09 :
All right. So this is where people who don’t have to be 70 and a half. This is for anybody. It’s a giving stock or a highly appreciated asset. So I have people who, you know, have brokerage accounts or like maybe you work for a company that gives you company stock or you participate in their stock purchase plan. And so what you can do is you can gift that stock in kind. So rather than selling that stock and taking the proceeds again and then just writing a check to the charity. you basically give those shares in kind to the charity. And by gifting that stock rather than selling it, you avoid paying the capital gains taxes on that appreciation. So you don’t have to pay taxes on it. And when the charity gets that stock, when they go to sell it, charities don’t pay taxes on stock, right? Because they’re charities. And so you get the benefit of giving that gift, right? But then you don’t have to pay taxes on it either, right? And if you are one person that itemizes on your taxes, not everybody does, but if you are one of those people who itemize on your deductions, you get the double benefit of not only giving that gift in kind and not having to pay taxes on it, but you also get to deduct that gift at fair market value. So it’s a double benefit as well.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, Jody, I was thinking about you today and how important it is that people have you regarding their financial strategies because there’s so much going on. It’s very difficult for an everyday person to just try to wing it. So that’s why working with you at Mint Financial Strategies is so important. And that first appointment or phone call is a complimentary one. And I’d highly recommend that people… Get organized for 2025 and give you a call.
SPEAKER 09 :
I agree. I mean, people realize that, you know, we don’t charge anything for just a quick conversation. And so I highly advise people just get on my calendar. It’s complimentary. And, you know, we offer that one hour appointment so they can do that by just calling us at 303- 285-3080. Or you can check us out online, which is mintfs.com. And there’s a little connect us or contact us on my website. You can put your information out there and email us and we’ll email you our calendar. And again, it doesn’t cost anything to have a conversation.
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, it makes a lot of sense. And Jody Henze, I thank you so much for your partnership. And I wish you and yours a very blessed Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER 09 :
You guys too.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you so much, Kim. costs to ensure your home, apartment, auto, boat are increasing. Inflation, high taxes, grocery prices are squeezing Coloradans’ budgets. How can you save money? When you bundle your insurance coverage with the Roger Mink and State Farm Insurance Team, you may save money on your insurance premiums. The only way to find out is to reach out to the Roger Mink and State Farm Insurance Team for a complimentary appointment. Call the Roger Mangan team now at 303-795-8855. That number again is 303-795-8855. Like a good neighbor, the Roger Mangan team is there.
SPEAKER 10 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
There’s so much noise coming at us. Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of it all. How can you sift through the clamor for your attention and get to the truth? The Kim Munson Show is here to help. Kim searches for truth and clarity by examining issues through the lens of freedom versus force. Force vs. Freedom. Tune in to the Kim Munson Show each weekday, 6 to 8 a.m. with encores 1 to 2 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m. on KLZ 560 AM, KLZ 100.7 FM. The KLZ website, the KLZ app, and Alexa. Play KLZ. Shows can also be found at KimMunson.com, Spotify, and iTunes.
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is KimMunson, M-O-N-S-O-N.com. And did want to mention the USMC Memorial Foundation and the great work they’re doing to maintain and remodel the official Marine Memorial, which is fantastic. Right here in Golden, Colorado, Paula Sarles, who is the president, she is a Marine veteran, a Gold Star wife, has really made it her life’s work to get this remodel done. And you can help her by contributing at usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We’re also, since we’re getting into the holidays, a great Christmas or Hanukkah gift would be to buy a brick that will be on one of the pathways of service to honor your loved one. And it’s a beautiful gift. A certificate that you’ll receive that you can wrap up and give for Christmas or Hanukkah. Pleased to be talking with Dr. Alan Gelso, and he has made a move. He had been a professor at Princeton. He’s moved to the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida, a professor of humanities. And it’s exciting to see all that you’re doing, Dr. Gelso. But let’s talk about this book, Our Ancient Faith, Lincoln Democracy and the American Experiment. And the descriptor says it’s an intimate study of Abraham Lincoln’s powerful vision of democracy, which guided him through the Civil War and is still relevant today. And interesting. Those were very difficult times during the Civil War, and I many times state that I think that we are in the third founding of America. The first founding was obviously the Revolutionary War, the second the Civil War, but we’re in this big battle of ideas right now regarding the American idea and the opposite of the American idea, Dr. Gelso.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, in the case of the American Civil War, there really were people who had concluded that the American experiment was a null set, had been based on a mistake. And those were the people who formed the Confederate States of America because they went off. They wrote their own new constitution. They had their own separate government. And they wanted to pretend, as the vice president of the Confederacy said, that they had discovered an entirely new basis for government. And that was racial distinction. Everything had to be based upon race. Lincoln’s insistence was, no, no, the Constitution does not recognize any of that. The Constitution does not give people the opportunity to walk away any time they take it into their heads to invent a new principle of government. The Constitution is a permanent arrangement. It was made to create a more perfect union, not a less perfect union. And so when push had to come to shove, Lincoln’s response was that you cannot do this, and I have an oath that tells me that I cannot let you do this. And so the war came. But it was a moment of real crisis, because what it was testing fundamentally was this. Can a democracy, especially a large-scale democracy like the United States, could that really hold together? As soon as you said that you were going to function as a democracy, that you were going to function on the basis of the will of the people, what were you going to do when a sizable portion of those people declared that they wanted to take their bat and ball and go away? And Lincoln’s response to that was, that’s not democracy, that’s anarchy. And democracy is not a free ticket. to back out any time that you want. Democracy is that when there are great questions, a majority has the right to decide. And the obligation of the people who are not in the majority is to yield to those decisions and to recognize them and to obey them. Now, it doesn’t mean that the majority has the right to line the minority up against a barn wall and shoot it, but it does mean that the majority… in any great decision-making, has to be respected as having the authority to move forward with its policies. Now, we don’t erase the people who formed the minority in a particular issue, because it might turn out long-term that they were right. Sometimes that’s been the case with minorities. You might have only a few people, but they have the right idea. Eventually that right idea triumphs. They persuade people. They become the new majority. That’s one of the great flexible things about democracy. When it makes mistakes, it has the capacity to correct them. Lincoln wanted to see that as the process, not separation, not secession, not war. War was forced upon him. We survived that war, but my goodness, we paid. A stupendous price for it. Something in the atmosphere of about 700,000 dead. And Lincoln, one of them, too. And it might have been a crisis that we did not survive. It might have been a crisis that we might not have negotiated, except for Lincoln’s leadership. And Lincoln turned out to be a remarkably effective president in the midst of this crisis. But, Kim, we don’t often appreciate this because we know how it turned out. But for people living then, 1861 to 1865, it might easily have gone the other way. And if it had, if it had, it is creepy to think about the possible results. Imagine the United States of America being comprised entirely, let’s say, of New England and the Middle Atlantic states. And then there’s something else called the Confederate States of America on the continent. And then, quite likely, the Great Lakes states going their way with their own kind of confederation and the Pacific states detaching themselves and setting up their own government. Because once you start the process of secession, there’s no automatic place where you stop. That could easily have been the result of what happened in the Civil War. And if it had, my goodness, what would the 20th century look like? If there would have been no United States to intervene in the First World War, and especially in the Second World War and the Cold War, we would be living, all of us, in such a dramatically different and, I think, impoverished world, had it not been for the leadership that Lincoln gave and his insistence on keeping the Constitution in place intact. That is one of the great contributions that we see coming out of the Civil War era, but especially coming from the leadership of Abraham Lincoln.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow. I hadn’t really thought about just what those ramifications might be. But yes, this great American idea would not have happened. And America certainly has a lot of great natural resources, but other countries, other continents do as well. But some of them are impoverished, even though they have great resources. And I think it’s all because of of their governments on that so we’re going to continue the discussion with dr alan gelso regarding his new book which is our ancient faith lincoln democracy and the american experiment we have these important discussions because of our sponsors and while everybody’s over for thanksgiving you may want to have a pizza night if that’s the case you want to make sure that you reach out to little richie’s from parker to golden little richie’s pizza and pasta is your go-to for the real New York-style pizza, hearty pastas, and unbeatable local vibe. Little Richie’s is serving up daily specials, quick and tasty weekday lunch deals, and a happy hour the locals actually build their plans around. So whether you’re bringing the crew, catching up with friends, flying solo, or getting takeout, Little Richie’s is your neighborhood hangout. And also definitely appreciate the Second Syndicate and the great work that they are doing to protect our Second Amendment for everyday people to be able to keep and bear firearms to protect ourselves against bad actors.
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SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back to The Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is Kim Munson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. And we are pre-recording these shows for Thanksgiving week with amazing guests, amazing subjects. And I’m talking with Dr. Alan Gelso. And he has moved. He is a professor of humanities at the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. And he’s written this very important book, Our Ancient Faith, Lincoln, Democracy and the American Experiment. And Dr. Gelso, we were talking about democracy before we went to break. And. We are. My understanding is, is America is a constitutional republic, democratically elected. But there are those that interchange the word democracy and republic. And then there are those that say that that put in fill in the blank X is a threat to democracy. How do you address all that, Dr. Gelso?
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, I don’t want to split hairs too much, and I also don’t want to sound like I’m doing dictionary definitions, but let me do a little splitting of hairs and a little dictionary definition. A republic is any form of government where sovereignty, the authority to make policy, the authority to make decisions. A republic is any form of government in which sovereignty is in the hands of the people, the people in general. Now, Republics can be more or less democratic. There are some republics in past history which were actually not much different than oligarchies. I’m thinking of the city-states of Renaissance Italy. They were republics because they didn’t have a monarchy and because, technically speaking, people could say, well, authority for government really is with the people in general in, let’s say, the city of Florence. But for all practical purposes, it was the Medici family who were calling the shots. All right. That was a republic, but it wasn’t a very democratic one. It was more like an oligarchy. You can move across a spectrum, though, and this is where I think it’s important to have this in view. A republic really exists on a spectrum from the less democratic to the more democratic. And the more democratic you get, the more the people are actively involved in the governing themselves. The United States is a very democratic republic. So think of democracy as, so to speak, the adjective that defines the kind of republic that we are. And in so doing, what we have developed over the years is a very democratic spirit. So much so that very early on, people were using the terms republic and democracy almost interchangeably. I mean, this even goes back to the 1790s. So it’s not some new development. People are really using these two terms and swapping them out. And Lincoln does a great deal of the same thing. Lincoln will use the word democracy a total of about 138 times in his surviving writings. Now, he only actually gives you a definition of it once. And that’s where he talks about how different democracy is from slavery, because democracy is built upon consent, the consent of the governed. He once called that the sheet anchor of American republicanism. So for him, democracy, republic, we’re really talking about very much the same thing when we’re talking about the United States. One of the great observers of democracy in America was the Frenchman in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville. And he entitled his book about American political life, Democracy in America, not Republicanism in America, but democracy. Because as a republic, we were a very, very democratic affair. And in fact, we were becoming more so In Lincoln’s lifetime, as place after place dropped certain kinds of restrictions on voting, restrictions, for instance, like property holding. There were some states which had property holding requirements in order for you to vote. Well, in place after place, those dropped, by the way. and the percentage of the population that was actually involving itself in, let’s say, presidential elections, the percentages of voters to people, that kept going up and up and up during Lincoln’s lifetime. So by the time we get to the Gettysburg Address, let’s say, people really have gotten used to talking about democracy and republic in America as though the two terms really could be swapped out for each other.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay, that’s a great clarification. The Electoral College is not a pure democracy. I think it’s brilliant the way the founders put that together so that the smaller population states, the smaller states would have a voice. But there are those that kind of go after the Electoral College because it’s not a pure democracy. What would you say to that, Dr. Gelsoh?
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, we’ve never, ever had a pure democracy. If you want a pure democracy, you need to go back to golden age Athens, where the city assembly was composed of all of the eligible citizens. Now, there were only about 3,000 of them, but still, that was all the eligible citizens participating in the city assembly. We couldn’t do that. We’ve got 330 million people to take account of here in the United States. We can’t take a poll of all of them all at once on every issue. Right at the very beginning, we are a representative democracy because we elect representatives whom we send to our state legislatures, to the United States Congress, and they speak on our behalf. And if what they say we don’t particularly like, we have an election and we replace them with someone else. But we are a representative democracy. So you could say that right just on that principle alone. All right. It’s not a terribly democratic democracy because we use representatives. But that’s only if you use Golden Age Athens as the measuring stick for defining democracy. The Electoral College is. really points us to another aspect of the American Republic, and that is that it is a federal union. It is a union of states. And the Electoral College is a recognition of the fact that when we come together to select a president, It’s not simply the people at large voting, but it’s also the states. It’s the people as states who are making this statement about whom they want to have as president of the United States. So what the Electoral College reminds us is that we’re not just one homogenous nation. We are a union of states. And states which retain, even in this almost 250th anniversary of American independence, states which retain a great deal of authority and operating rules of their own. And that ranges all the way from, let’s say, education. Education still is very much a matter of individual state policy, to a variety of other practical aspects of life. So we remain very much a federal union, and the Electoral College is a representation of that idea of being a federal union.
SPEAKER 06 :
Gosh, I had never really thought about that as a federal union, which would mean that each of the states needs to have representation so it’s not just a population thing. That’s a great nugget that I’m going to remember as the federal union. Because of that, Lincoln knew this was a union. He goes to the Constitution. And so the Civil War initially was not really about slavery. It was really about keeping the union together, correct?
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, officially, yes. And I say, and I underscore officially, because strictly speaking, even Lincoln would have been happy to have told you in 1861. Constitutionally, yes. Slavery is a matter of individual state decisions to legalize slavery. And the federal government did not have authority to reach over the wall between federal and state authority to do anything about those state rules or those state laws about slavery. Now, that much said, the reason that the southern states are seceding is because they’re trying to protect slavery. they had gotten anxious with the election of Abraham Lincoln, an avowedly anti-slavery candidate, that Lincoln sooner or later was going to try to do something that would disturb the status of slavery in their states. So they decided, well, we’re going to secede from the federal union. We’re going to set up something to protect slavery. And if you look at the ordinances of secession that are passed by the southern states, just about all of them, specifically mention, we are doing this to protect slavery. So, yes, the preservation of the Union is the official. You might call it, that’s the formative cause. But the ultimate cause of what’s going on, the reason that there’s even a question about this, is this determination on the part of the Confederacy to protect slavery.
SPEAKER 06 :
So, Dr. Gelso, you mentioned that the Confederacy, that they were going to have a government that was based on race. Did I hear that correctly?
SPEAKER 15 :
That is correct, because that is what the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stevens, said in March of 1861. We are the first nation, he claimed. to have discovered this new fundamental organizing principle of human societies and that is racial inferiority.
SPEAKER 06 :
Wow. So fast forward to today, where we see those that really want to define things by race. For example, I saw a headline recently that during the Obama administration regarding air traffic controllers, that instead of hiring regarding competency, that race was one of the main factors. Well, that seems like that’s kind of the same thing as what the Confederacy was trying to do.
SPEAKER 15 :
It simply flips the same coin. And it says, we will make decisions based upon race. And we will do that. It is difficult to disentangle a rule that you make of one decision based on race from a rule that you use to make another decision upon race. Now, there are all kinds of excuses which are offered for that, and that is, well, we’re trying to recompense. We’re trying to make reparations for past discrimination. Well, of course, the Confederacy came up with its rationalizations for doing that, too. But at the end of the day, it still is the same thing. You are making a judgment about people, not on their first and most important status, which is that of citizen. You’re making it on the basis of a qualification that is, in many respects, purely accidental. No one chooses at birth. to belong to a certain race. In fact, if you press the notion of race hard enough, what exactly does race mean? 99.9% of our biology is interchangeable among human beings. We are going to make A point one percent difference. The key factor in moving forward with social policy. There’s something almost inherently irrational or at least non-rational about that when you stop to think about it. And yet this this has become policy in many places and for some purposes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, boy, so, so interesting. And then there are so many parallels between the time of Lincoln and 2025 America. We’re going to continue the discussion with Dr. Alan Gelso, but wanted to mention John Bozen and Bozen Law.
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Thank you so much for having me. To learn more, reach out to Teresa at 520-631-9243. Teresa would love to talk with you again. That number is 520-631-9243.
SPEAKER 06 :
And welcome back to the Kim Munson Show. Be sure and check out our website. That is Kim Munson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com. And as you know, one of the nonprofits that I dearly love is the Center for American Values, which is located in Pueblo. Pueblo is known as the home of heroes because there are four Medal of Honor recipients that grew up there. So one of the things that the center does is honor our Medal of Honor recipients with their beautiful portraits of valor and And I’d highly recommend that sometime during the holidays, take the family down to the Center for American Values. It will change your life. The center is nonpolitical. It’s nonpartisan, just focused on these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism. And pleased to be talking with Dr. Alan Gelso. Regarding his book, Our Ancient Faith, Lincoln Democracy, and the American Experiment, we are pre-recording these shows for the week of Thanksgiving. And tell us a little bit about… Lincoln and Thanksgiving, Dr. Gelso.
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, Kim, one of the things that we almost always assume is that Thanksgiving as a holiday was invented by the pilgrims in New England in the 1600s. And that’s not really strictly true. I mean, the pilgrims, those who survived, so to speak, the rigors of the first New England winter, They did have feasts of various occasions. They did give thanks abundantly. But Thanksgiving as we know it, with a capital T as a holiday, that really was the creation, believe it or not, of Abraham Lincoln. I mean, Lincoln was descended from New Englanders, but really the backstory of how Thanksgiving becomes a national holiday really is more than just simple genealogy. Lincoln had been elected president, of course, in November of 1860, and he issued a Thanksgiving proclamation as early as November of 1861. He announced in that first proclamation that the municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown had appointed a day of Thanksgiving and therefore federal offices would be shut down so that people who worked for the federal government could participate in those ceremonies in the District of Columbia. Lincoln himself stayed home and he invited his longtime friend, Joshua Speed, to a dinner at the White House. I don’t know if they called it a Thanksgiving dinner, but it was something close to that. Lincoln took a more vigorous approach, so to speak, to thanksgiving in 1862 after some substantial union victories he issued some thanksgiving proclamations in august of 1863 after the victory of gettysburg he called for a day of national thanksgiving praise and prayer but then in october of that year this is october of 1863 before he goes to gettysburg to deliver the gettysburg address He issues his longest Thanksgiving proclamation yet, and in it he designates the last Thursday of November to be a day of thanksgiving and praise. And he did this, he was prompted to do this, by the editor of a magazine, Sarah Josepha Hale, who had written to petition for the creation, the designation, of a day of annual thanksgiving… That would be a fixed national holiday. Now, Hale actually didn’t write directly to Lincoln. She wrote to the Secretary of State, William Seward. But Seward then turns and prods Lincoln into issuing a presidential proclamation, and that is what designates a particular Thursday, the last Thursday in November, as a day of thanksgiving. Now, that’s for 1863. He issues another proclamation in 1864 and is going to designate same kind of Thanksgiving. And then this goes on when Andrew Johnson succeeds Lincoln as president, goes on under Ulysses Grant when Grant becomes president. And we’ve been doing it ever since. But quite literally, what we celebrate as Thanksgiving today is really is the product of Lincoln’s designation of that last Thursday in November in 1863, and we’ve been doing it ever since.
SPEAKER 06 :
Do you think that he chose November because of the Gettysburg Address once he’d gotten back to Washington and thought about all this? Are the two connected, do you think?
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, I think he was largely responding to Sarah Josepha Hale’s suggestion that because she was the one who promoted the idea of using the last Thursday in November, and he had actually issued Thanksgiving proclamations in May and September for earlier Union victories. So this does seem to have been, in terms of the exact designation of the day, Sarah Josepha Hale’s proposal, which then Lincoln and Seward take together and enshrine in the Thanksgiving proclamation for the fall of 1863.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay. So maybe more of a coincidence then. So we’ve got a few minutes left. Question, how did Lincoln become such an expert on the Constitution? My understanding is he taught himself to read. He was an avid reader, which our children today should realize that you open books and read. Most everybody that I know that are avid readers of of real books. Is that fair for me to say real books? There’s the fluff kind of books, but books that talk about ideas are really deep thinkers. So how did he get to this understanding of the Constitution so much so that he put so much on the line for it?
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, understand, first of all, that the Constitution is not a difficult document to get into. People sometimes think that the Constitution is such a forbidding monument that it must be very difficult to read and very difficult to understand. Actually, it’s not. It’s really not much more than 4,400 words long. I’m not counting the amendments here. But the text, the basic text of the Constitution, as it was written in 1787, is comparatively short. 4,400 words is not very long. You can sit down and read it in 20 minutes. and it’s very plain and direct in what it has to say. Now, of course, we’ve created a tremendous body of interpretation and commentary on the Constitution since then, but the Constitution itself is a very direct and unaffected document, and it is one of those occasions in which sometimes we’re too afraid. We invent something to be afraid of, and the be read, and it can be understood, and it can be quoted back and forth. You can carry a copy of the Constitution around in your shirt pocket. In some respects, that’s actually not a bad idea. So for Lincoln, he can come to the Constitution very directly. Now, he has what today we would regard as being a very limited education. It probably amounted, all told, to no more than maybe six months, certainly not more than a year. And we’re sometimes tempted to think, well, my goodness, that’s terrible. How could he have developed as he did with such a limited education? But bear in mind that the kind of education he did get was actually about as good as anybody was going to be able to get on the far side of the Appalachians when he was a boy. And what was more, he had a marvelous memory and a tremendous curiosity about And he would go out of his way to borrow books, to read them, and what he read, he remembered. It stuck with him. So for Lincoln to undertake the study of the Constitution and law, as he does in the 1830s, this, for him, this is the kind of thing his mind was made for. And he’s not only reading the Constitution, he’s not only reading law, he’s also reading a number of important philosophical and economic works that are current in his day. We often think of Lincoln as a great storyteller and a great jokester. Well, he was. He could be a very funny man. But that led a lot of people to underestimate Lincoln. this kind of voracious appetite for learning. He was happy, Kim. He was happy to have people underestimate him. He was happy to have people listen to the way he talked because he had a very thick border state accent. He was very happy to have people say, oh, well, this is some fellow from the backwoods. He’s not going to amount to much. He let them think that way. And before they knew it, when they had to cross swords with him in a courtroom, they would soon find themselves all trussed up faster than they could imagine why, because Lincoln understood very quickly, very swiftly, what the ins and outs of a case were, and he’d have them beaten to the punch before they knew what had happened. The same thing is true for his mastery of the Constitution. He understands the details of it, and he understands that he has sworn an oath to preserve, to protect, and to defend that Constitution. And that is what he insists he is doing from the very first day in office right up to the very end.
SPEAKER 06 :
And we’ve got about a minute left. Did he sleep much? What was his personal habits like?
SPEAKER 15 :
He did not tend to have any problems sleeping. If he had health problems, they were comparatively minor. He took some homemade remedies, especially for some digestive problems. He was a tall man, 6 feet 4 inches. Tall people do, I’m sorry to say, tend to have digestive difficulties that way. So you see something of that in him. But otherwise, he was a remarkably strong and healthy man. And that, of course, stood him in very good stead under all the stress that he had to deal with as president during the Civil War years.
SPEAKER 06 :
Boy, I cannot even imagine the kind of stress that he was going through at that particular point in time. But just a remarkable story. So again, the book, and highly recommend that you get this. It is, let’s see, let me get right here to the title. It is Our Ancient Faith, Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment by Dr. Alan Gelso. Dr. Gelso, thank you so much. This has been so informative.
SPEAKER 15 :
You’re very welcome, Kim. And hello and happy Thanksgiving to all of your listeners and the holidays to come.
SPEAKER 06 :
And a happy Thanksgiving to you and yours as well. And our quote for the end of the show is from Lincoln. He said, great men are ordinary men with extraordinary determination. So my friends today, be grateful, read great books, think good thoughts, listen to beautiful music, communicate and listen well, live honestly and authentically, strive for high ideals and like Superman, stand for truth, justice. In the American way, my friends, you are not alone. God bless you, and God bless America.
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t want no one to cry, but tell them if I don’t survive.
SPEAKER 19 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
