August 4, 2022 • 38 mins
We keep coming back to this question. Where have all the great Statesmen gone? (Think George Washington) What does America need to rediscover the principles that made us great?
Richard Raines, a former elected County Board member during the Tea Party movement is here to share some wisdom, thoughts, and inspiration from his experience in politics, training in theology, and through the writing of his new book: Finding Washington: Why America Needs to Rediscover the Virtues of Her Most Essential Founding Father.
Guest Bio:
With all the social, moral, and ethical turmoil in this country, what can Americans learn from George Washington that will help restore the values we hold so dear? In Finding Washington: Why America Needs to Rediscover the Virtues of Her Most Essential Founding Father, Richard Raines masterfully examines George Washington's life by retelling familiar stories and introducing stories most have never heard. Richard uses these historical accounts to identify virtues displayed by the first president and, through the use of humor, personal anecdotes, and social commentary, walks the reader through ways to revive these virtues in contemporary society.
In Finding Washington you will discover
• how Washington's biggest failure can help modern Americans,
• how Washington's choice of clothing said more than words could ever say,
• why Native Americans issued a prophecy about Washington,
• why Washington's choice to race toward the British alone reveals the type of character needed in modern culture, and
• how Washington stared down a would-be assassin and how his example of courage can inspire us.
Finding Washington: Why America Needs to Rediscover the Virtues of Her Most Essential Founding Father is essential reading for those desiring to turn the rising tide of immorality in America and revive the virtues exhibited by George Washington. Readers will laugh, think, and be inspired as Richard invites you to join him and a growing chorus of like-minded people on this journey towards cultural change.
Save your kids from the government run indoctrination camps called public schools and get your kids into a good private Christian school or homeschool. To help out with making sure your kids know the truth about issues and ideas, check out the Tuttle Twins children's books and magazines!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:02):
fighting back against the left's non stop attacks on
liberty, freedom. And America,America. This is don't tread on
liberty. Jason Davis is on theair. Hey, welcome back
Richard Raines (00:21):
to don't turn on liberty. Thanks for being here.
Jason Davis back. And you mayhave seen one of my recent
broadcasts was all aboutstatesman and my latest blog as
well. We're trying to findpeople that actually want to do
the right thing and the righttype of character to actually be
in government. It's kind of hardto come by these days. So my
(00:44):
guest today is kind of on thesame wavelength. He actually
went so far as to write a bookabout this. He's the author of
the book finding Washington, whyAmerica needs to rediscover the
virtues of her most essentialfounding father, Richard Reigns
is here. Thank you for beinghere. How are you?
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Ireally appreciate it. Of course,
(01:07):
thanks for being had. That'swhat I always say. So it's
pretty interesting. I can't waitto get to the book. George
Washington is my favoritefounder. I think by far the most
courageous of all. But before weget to that you are a former
loudness county board member.
Back in the Tea Party days in2011.
(01:29):
That's right. Yeah.
That is fascinating to me, for acouple of reasons. But first,
tell me about that. Like whatmade you decide to run for the
board?
Yeah, so that's a greatquestion. So it's, it's Loudoun
County, Georgia, which is thesixth largest county in Georgia.
It's in southern Georgia. If, ifyou've ever traveled through
(01:52):
Georgia to Florida, you wentright through Lowndes County,
it's Valdosta, Georgia. So ifyou follow high school football,
that's where the Valdostawildcats are if you saw the
Netflix show on the ValdostaWildcats that's in Lowndes
County, Georgia. So, but yeah,so this was in 2011. I was
working as a pharmaceutical repworked for a great company, a
(02:13):
small Japanese company that gaveus a lot of freedom to do a lot
of things. And, you know, it'spart of part of my faith is
really a, you know, to beservice oriented. And my wife
and I discussed some ways that Icould get involved and, you
know, tell my wife, I said, youknow, I think I'd like to run
for office, which is, I don'tmind telling you, and that is a
scary thing to think about.
Because there's one thing totalk about it with all your
(02:34):
friends like, yeah, man, Ishould run but then to like,
actually put your name outthere, you're like, oh, my gosh,
this is this is the most, thisis the worst kind of popularity
contest, right? Because it's,it's, you know, it's full
contact. But so, um, I lived indistrict two, which is the
northern end of the county, andwe had a longtime Commissioner
(02:57):
there, his name was Richard aswell. And my wife called me one
day I was in the car. I wastraveling in South Georgia
somewhere. And she called me andshe said, Eric Dickey said,
Vicki's not running forreelection for county
commissioner. And so let's talkabout when I get home, I didn't
(03:17):
really need to talk about it,because we both are on the same
page. And so in just a couple ofdays, I announced my candidacy
to the newspaper. And the racewas on it was an open seat,
traditionally a Republican seat.
And so there were five otherRepublicans that are four other
Republicans that put their namein the hat. And really, I was
(03:41):
really the only one that wasaffiliated with the Tea Party.
Now 2011 Tea Party was a, youknow, it was a concept, right?
You had people that were goingto rallies and things like that.
And we had a very organized TeaParty, and allowance County. A
couple the last name is Cox, coX, very, very active in the
Republican Party, but really,we're heading up the Tea Party,
(04:01):
there allowance County, and theyreally embraced me and allowed
me to come in and there was somuch Jason, there was so much.
There's so many misconceptionsabout what the Tea Party was, it
was so interested in meinteresting to me when I was
running all these people thatwere Republicans, you know, when
it kind of became clear that Iwas the guy really wanted to
(04:23):
meet one on one like, Okay, tellme about this, or are you crazy?
I'm like, oh, man, it's justit's really a return to, you
know, to the more essentialLiberty values that that of
course I still think defined theconservative movement. So you
(04:43):
know, as I get older, I'm 51.
Now as I get older, I less andless identify as a Republican
and I'm more and more identifyas a conservative because I do
think there's a there's adifference in some places.
There's not a big differencebeing away. So we all started
running and I came in firstplace and in the Primary but
didn't get 50% of the vote sohad go to a run off one that and
then ran against a very niceDemocrat, she very popular. One
(05:10):
of the nicest, kindest peopleI've ever met, she and I got
along very well in the, in thecampaign and but it was really,
you just knew that it was goingto be a Republican to win and I
won pretty handily and, andserved for four years, I made a
promise when I was running notto serve more than one term. And
so when my term was up, I said,you know, I'm not going to do
(05:32):
this anymore. But I'll be honestwith you, I wrote about it in
the book a little bit, it wasprobably one of the it was for
the most fulfilling years of mylife, I've really enjoyed it
having an opportunity to serve.
I love serving with my othercommissioners, not really wasn't
really as political as you know,national politics are, you know,
(05:53):
county commissioner is really a,you know, where the rubber meets
the road, sort of. It's theessential government in almost
every state like in Georgia, forinstance. Every county has to
have a commissioner state ofcities can or cannot exist.
There's no constitutionalimperative for a city to exist,
(06:14):
but there has to be a county. Sothe county government is really
the central government. And inthe state of Georgia, it's a
state really is a state office.
So as a county commissioner,it really the only elected
official that supersedes acounty commissioner would be the
governor. But anyway, so a lotof zoning, a lot of planning a
(06:34):
lot of roads and bridges, a lotof people calling us saying,
hey, you know, my ditches needto be re dug or my dirt road, I
can get down a dirt road. Andyou know, a lot of really
digging into the local economy.
I'll tell you one of the thingsI learned. And I, you know, I
suspected this, but once you getinto county government, you
(06:56):
really realize that, you know,when I was growing up, if you
want to be successful, you go tocollege, right? You graduate
from high school, you go tocollege, you get a good job, and
you become successful. And thenI become a county commissioner,
and I start getting involvedwith what it means to run a
local economy. And if you gaveme a choice of building a four
(07:19):
year liberal arts universityversus building a two year
Technical College, I would votefor the technical college 100
out of 100 times, because peopleare making more money a lot
sooner with a lot less debt. Andthat's what fuels the economy.
So you know, things like that,that I was able to get involved
with, is really a is a greatexperience for me.
That's excellent. And so here'sthe question for you. What
(07:42):
happened to the tea party?
So I think the Tea Party wasreally a response to sort of the
radical. So if you so let's justback up, right, let's back up to
the 70s. You had Carter, who wasa liberal, but a social liberal,
(08:03):
sort of a social conservative,right. Just had horrible
economic policy, tried it justjust a bad president. Right.
Followed by Reagan. GreatPresident Bush, great president
and then Clinton, who wassocially very liberal, but the
economy really boomed underClinton, Clinton adopted, you
know, what did what did he Indicmores call that?
(08:25):
Well, Newt Gingrich was theSpeaker of the House and they
basically and they basicallycoerce Clinton into balancing
the budget. Rochus somethingthat has not been done since.
Right. So then, so the nextliberal, you know, the next
liberal don't go into the WhiteHouse was, was President Obama,
who was in by every measurementradicalized when he was younger,
(08:49):
you know, Saul Alinsky, theyjust II represented the most
radical form of leftism. And itjust I think it it just struck a
chord with people that realizethat not only were we seeing
this radicalism on the left nowin the White House, but you had
this ineffectual RepublicanParty that seemed to be content
(09:11):
to just be the party ofopposition and not really get
things done. And so I think theTea Party was his way of
resetting the narrative andsaying that there is a there is
another approach. Yeah,I totally agree with that
assessment. I'm just wonderingwhat happened to him. I mean,
the situations that youdescribed have not changed. In
fact, they're way worse now thanthey were when Obama was in the
White House.
(09:33):
So that's a good question. And Idon't I don't, I was, you know,
I didn't really answer yourquestion. I think what I was
trying to say was, the Tea Partyformed out of necessity or
perceived necessity. And thenwhen President Trump was
elected, I think that thenecessity appeared to maybe wane
a little bit. But I think whathappened instead was you know,
(09:56):
President Trump's a prettystrong personality and there's a
You know, there, there was a,you know, a cult like attachment
to President Trump that thatreally drowned out any other
voices. I think and that's not acriticism of President Trump.
That's more of a criticism ofhow we respond to elected
leaders. But I really think itwas born out of necessity. And
(10:19):
there was this, this feelingthat okay, because listen, I
mean, in the book, I say thereason I wrote the book had a
lot to do with 2016 primary, andwe can talk about that if you
want. But, and I wasn't, youknow, I wasn't during the
primary. I wasn't. I didn't, Ididn't support Donald Trump in
the primaries, I supported othercandidates. And so I wasn't
(10:43):
excited when when candidateTrump was campaigning is a much
better president than I thoughthe would be. That's for sure.
But I wasn't very excited abouthim. But the excitement and the
fervor about him, I think,really replaced the Tea Party
forever. Am I?
Yeah, I mean, that's definitelypossible. It's funny, though,
(11:05):
there was a big wave of these ofthese guys that were elected
right into into US Congress. Andtoday, there's only a handful of
them that remain Rampaul, MikeLee, maybe a couple others, and
the rest of them are gone. Soyeah, I just think it's very
interesting that the wholemovement just kind of fizzled
(11:25):
out. So I think it's, if I justsay this, one more thing about
that.
I don't think the ideology hasfizzled out. I think that the
the fervor for the protest armof it, potentially has an essay
protest in terms of going torallies and having meetings and
things like that. Becausethere's a lot of education that
(11:47):
went along with the tea parties.
Well, I learned a ton, aboutgovernment going to these tea
party meetings in LowndesCounty. But so I don't think the
ideology has waned. I think thatthere are some folks that are
elected, you know, just listen,I've kind of checked out a
little bit on politics. Butthere are some Republicans,
newer Republicans that I thinkappear to, to model that
(12:09):
ideology. Maybe Lauren bover. Idon't know a lot about her.
Maybe her maybe this isn't MyraFlores, the Mexican Americans
was just elected, you know,fates, very important liberties,
very important. So. So I thinkthat there will always be a
remnant of that ideology. But Idon't think we'll see the fervor
again until something badhappens, unfortunately.
(12:32):
I don't know how it could getany worse than what it is right
now. Even though I think they'replanning much worse. Let's get
to the book, finding, findingWashington. And as I mentioned,
at the top of my programminghere recently, it was all about
finding statesmen. And I wouldsay George Washington is the
(12:53):
epitome of a statesman. Wouldyou agree? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So
what caused you then to writethis book? And how did you come
to pick George Washington forthe topic?
Sure. So Well, first of all,that I've been a writer for
several years, and my trainingis in theology. So I have a
couple of master's degrees intheology, one in the history of
(13:15):
Christianity and one inChristian theology and pursuing
a PhD in theology. So So I'vealways done theological writing,
I wrote a newspaper column foryears, I've, you know, done some
stuff for magazines, and I'vealways wanted to write a book,
but I didn't want to just writea book. I wanted to have
something to say. And so thatwas really interested in
(13:36):
Washington. And a couple ofthings happened that really
drove my interest a littlehigher. But as a as an
evangelical Christian in the220 16 election. You know, when
the primaries ended, theDemocrat and the Republican
primaries ended. I looked at thecandidates, and I was like,
Okay, I feel like this is theworst presidential candidate of
(13:59):
my lifetime and the second worstpresidential candidate in my
lifetime. Like, I've got atrader who, you know, who
deleted emails and destroyedphones with a hammer, and then
got a guy that I couldn't leavein the room alone. My daughter's
right. So this was all thefeelings I felt in 2016. And
again, I think Trump was abetter president than I thought
(14:20):
he would be. But this is how Ifelt in 2016. I'm like, okay,
here I am, and Evan Jellicle.
Christian with nobody thatreally reflects my values. And I
think we have a value problem.
In this country, we have avirtue problem in this country,
a lot of problems. But, youknow, my two cents worth is that
a lot of problems we have arerelated to our lack of virtue.
(14:41):
So I started researching GeorgeWashington found out that there
are 900 books in print todayabout George Washington. So for
24 hours, I was like, nope, notgoing to do that. But then I
thought, You know what, I reallydon't see. I don't see people
that address his virtue. Solet's explore that. So I started
reading it I gotta tell you,man, if I was a fan of George
(15:02):
Washington when I started, like,I've been reading through the
book a little bit getting readyfor all these podcasts now that
we've launched the book, andlike today, I didn't, I had
lunch by myself today, and I wasreading through some of the
parts of the book. And manalmost started crying and grown
man sitting in, you know, ahospital cafeteria, like, you
know, about to start cryingbecause of the things that he
did and what he represented. Andso. So as we go along in the
(15:25):
book, what I do is I tellstories from George Washington's
life, a lot of stories, evensomeone like me, that's a, even
though I'm a Christianhistorian. There's a lot of
inner, you know, intersectionwith American and world history.
So I kind of get it right. Andso even as someone who's, who's
a historian, a lot of storiesthat I was not aware of that
(15:48):
really highlighted things abouthim that man, you just don't,
you just don't get in eighthgrade civics. Right? And so, so
I'll tell the stories, and thenidentify the virtues that he
displayed in those moments. Andthen I'll make an argument for
why we need to revive thosevirtues and how we can revive
those virtues in our culture. Sothat's the book. Yeah, I
(16:11):
totally agree. We have a bigvirtue problem. There's no
doubt. Is that is that inessence, why you think there are
so few statesmen today? Or isthere some other reason why we
don't have any statesmen?
So it's, I think it is a multisymptomatic disease. But I think
(16:33):
if we could focus on the bigpicture, let's take Bernie
Sanders as an example. Like aself event. So I mean, so Bernie
Sanders believes what hebelieves, right? I don't believe
what he plays. Right? And, andhere's a guy that the only thing
he's ever done is, is hisgovernment. Right? That's really
(16:55):
the only job he's ever had theVinny substance. And this guy is
a multimillionaire with hugehouses. So I think that part of
the problem is, man go intoCongress's great work, if you
can get it. That's why it's, youknow, that's why it's such a
such a contact sport to getthere. Because these people go
there. They're paid $175,000,plus some other expenses,
(17:18):
housing expenses, and stuff likethat, whether they're probably
ends up being what to 25 to 50.
That's a lot of money by anystandards, when the median
income is what 30 or 40, in thiscountry, and then you serve for
16 years, and you come out andyou're a millionaire. Like that.
I think that's part of theproblem. I think that there's
the celebrity aspect takes awayfrom it. But I think that the
(17:40):
other aspect is it's, we are avulgar, narcissistic society.
And we are a society that, thatif the, the, the most pressing
concern is whatever my personalconcern is, and there's very few
people who, and I addressedservant leadership in this book,
(18:01):
Washington was a servant leader.
And he proved at Time and again,and so. So I think the lack of
statesman has a lot to do withnumber one, the diminished
importance of faith as afoundational aspect of our
country, whether you are aChristian or not, this country
was formed with a with aChristian virtue and a Christian
(18:26):
world view. And so when you tryto separate faith, so we're just
a fake, right to make it simplefor people that may not believe
in Christianity. So if you tryto remove faith from the
American experiment, then youhave separated in my opinion,
one of the most importantelements from that experience.
And now what you're trying to dois you're trying to have America
(18:47):
without maybe perhaps its mostessential elements. So in the
book, what I'm trying to do isI'm trying to say here are the
elements that needs to bereplaced. And the elements are
integrity and character, whichare two different things.
conviction, servant leadership,courage, we talked about courage
a lot. So I think that theabsence of all of those things,
(19:10):
is what has put us in a placewhere you and I have to think
hard about who the state Smar treally quickly. As part of the
book when I was writing it, Iwas writing about who influences
us. I was trying to think aboutthe kind of influence that that
George Washington had. And soI'm like, I wonder who's
influencing us? So I have fivekids ask all my kids, broadly
(19:33):
speaking, who influences you? Sothe answer came back, either
nobody or you and mom. And thenI think he's 18. Now my 18 year
old son said,Dwayne Johnson, inspires me not
inspires, because his workethic, some like, Well, those
are some sucky answers. So Itexted 23 of my friends who
(19:56):
inspires you Got one answer? Myparents. So I hit the other 22
up and said, Hey, thanks for notanswering me, who inspires you?
And I got these texts back thatsaid, Well, I don't really think
about it. Nobody really inspiresme. So I went to Twitter. And I
paid $50 for a Twitter ad tosay, text me back with who
(20:18):
inspires you guess how manyresponses I got? If you guessed
zero, you're absolutely right.
So unlike we have a, we have adeficit of people that inspire
us, except for celebrities. AndGod help us if if celebrities
(20:41):
are the primary influences. Andso we've lost that. I think some
in our culture, where where weare. We're not inspired by
anything. We're not inspired byothers. My dad had no, like, my
dad didn't care about politicsat all. But he remembers when
(21:01):
John F. Kennedy said, Let's goto the moon. He remembers that
and my dad's been dead forseveral years. This is a story
he told when I was growing up.
My dad was like, man, when hesaid that, at school, the next
day, we were all going to beastronauts, all of us, like we
were ready. And I think about mylife. I grew up in the 80s. And
I'm telling you, man, when Ithink about it, now, I get to
(21:23):
moms. I was sitting in my livingroom. I was 18 years old,
watching MTV when MTV playedmusic videos, and I watched the
Berlin Wall, come down on MTV.
And I remember Reagan eventhough that didn't happen under
Reagan. You know, just what ayear before that two years
(21:45):
before that, he said, Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Like Reagan inspired me. Youknow, JFK inspired my dad, but
now, who inspires you? I don'tknow. The guy that used to do
fake wrestling.
Yeah, that's, that's veryinteresting point. I'm, I'm very
close to your age. And I cantell you when I was a kid, you
(22:07):
know, my dad and some otherpeople that were kind of father
figures to me really did inspireme, but today. I don't think I
could name one either.
Yeah. And I'm there with you. Imean, I'm, I'm in that same
boat. And I think part of theproblem is, our lives are
(22:28):
digitalized. Now we, you know,less interaction with people and
more interaction with, you know,you know, people's highlight
reel on social media, and I'mnot a dog in social media. I'm
not that guy. I'm not, you know,the old guy. You know, the new
version of Get off my lawn isput your phone down. Right, but
(22:50):
not that guy. But I do thinkthat, that there's a personal
element that we've lost. And wehave to regain that and I
discussing the book ways, Ithink we we can do that. Yeah,
that's a good point, for sure.
Now, you mentioned something afew minutes ago, and I want to
go back to it. You were aprofessor of theology and church
history. And you mentioned faithspecifically. So I'll ask you,
(23:14):
Professor. What role do youthink the church is having all
this? I mean, when I look backover the last two years I, I'm
almost speechless. As to theresponse from churches. They
allowed themselves to beshuttered. None of them. I mean,
(23:34):
barring very few, I mean,there's Pastor John MacArthur
and a few others actually foughtback. But most of them did what
they were told didn't say a wordand are preaching fear instead
of faith, what are your thoughtsabout that?
(23:56):
So the church that I go to Ilive in Northeast Florida and a
church I go to is in inJacksonville, all the flux to
Jacksonville during COVID. Ourour response as a church during
the quarantine was as long as aslong as the laws of men don't,
(24:25):
don't contradict what weperceive to be the the direct
commandments of God will workaround anything, which is what
our church did, we beefed upour, you know, our online
presence and things like that.
And so in Florida, it was alittle different in Florida. We
didn't generally speaking, wedidn't feel in Florida, like the
(24:48):
government was trying to shut usdown.
Because you have a governmentwith a brain there you have a
governor thatand you guys yeah, you haven't
had the Santas yet. DeSantis isours leave DeSantis alone. We
get four more years with a guy.
You can have him after that, butdon't take our governor,
you know, he's gonna run forpresident. Oh, yeah, you know he
is oh, man, Ihope so I think the guy has the
(25:08):
Reagan potential but but thenyou have the People's Republic
of California over there thatalready don't they don't want
people meeting in churchesanyway. So I think that it's the
old boiling the frog analogy,right that you boil it a little
bit of time, it doesn't knowit's being boiled. And so I
think that I think that what youhave and again, this is
(25:30):
multifaceted, just to make sureI answer your question. So I
think there comes a time whenthe church has to push back
against the government, but notpush back in a way that it's not
about pushing back for pushingback sake, it's not about
saying, we're going to dowhatever we're going to do. But
it is about saying thatreligious liberty is a
(25:56):
foundational concept. In ourcountry. It is foundational.
It's, it's, you know, the firstamendment right First Amendment,
the United States Constitution,right, like when we're thinking
of amendments to theConstitution is the first right
is not down at the bottom. Andso I think that, that what
churches do, they just, youknow, it was part of hoping that
(26:19):
this is just going to end soon,and we can avoid the conflict.
Partly that and partly it's it'sChristian leaders that that
aren't strong enough to lead.
And I think that the other partof it is, it just all happened.
(26:40):
You know, if you remember, thejoke was two weeks to slow the
spread. Remember that sir, bythought was going to be over
sooner. But I do think thatthere were two years into two
weeks to slow the spread, right.
Professor Van COVID, has beenover in Florida since November
of 2020. And that is the truth,man. Like, I interact with
doctors all day long. And I weara mask sometimes, you know, in
the offices in the hospitals.
(27:01):
I'm telling you, COVID has beenover down here since November
2020. I went back to work inNovember 2020. But anyway, so I
do think that the Christianchurch, in a couple of ways, has
has some introspection that ithas to do. So number one, I
think that churches are reallystruggling to decide whether or
(27:25):
not they want to pursue thekingdom of God, or whether they
want to pursue the kingdom ofmen, meaning our church is going
to be about politics, or ourchurch is going to be about the
gospel. And churches are reallystruggling to figure that out.
And obviously, I hope that youcan tell by, you know, the
things I've said so far that thechurch is about the Kingdom of
(27:47):
God, not politics. And sothere's, in my opinion, there's
really, there's, there's there'sno way forward, but for churches
to push back, especially againstgovernments that are that are
just out now. hostile towardsChristianity, because listen,
(28:07):
you know what they're not doing.
They're not telling. They're nottelling, you know, mosques that
you have to close down, right?
They're not saying to theBuddhists you can't meet in your
temples, right? They're notsaying they're just basically if
you're a Jew or a Christian, youbetter not violate the law or
wait your door down?
Well, you might remember. Yeah,you might remember back in the
presidential campaign. TheGeorge Floyd protests where they
(28:33):
burned down a bunch of buildingsand stuff and like police cars
on fire. That was okay. But whenyou had a Trump rally, then that
was a super spreader event. Youremember that? Right?
I do. And like it, I stillstruggle a little bit because
I'm like, I just I don't. AndI'm being genuine when I say
(28:54):
this. I don't know. If it's justthe worst kind of stupidity.
Right, I'm serious. Is it? No,it's, is it the worst kind of
stupidity or is it? Is it astrategy that they are employing
(29:15):
within bingo?
It's a strategy. It's all ofthis is completely intentional
and out of bricks. All of thisis completely intentional,
everything, everything that'sgoing on, it's all related. And
it's all intentional. And I canprove it. I mean, look, I'm a
trained investigator. I'm not anidiot. I know what's going on.
But last, last question, becausethat's another topic for another
(29:40):
day. But one, one question onWashington. Before we go. You
talk in the book aboutWashington's biggest failure.
Whatis that? So there's so we'll set
slavery aside because I thinkthat Washington failed himself,
he felt his slaves and he feltthe country as a slave owner and
(30:01):
I can have a really extendedconversation about slavery and I
address it really. I address itreally aggressively in the book
because it's the title. I'lljust give you a hint. The title
of that chapter is baby andbathwater, right? Like he was,
he was a slave owner, but youdon't throw the baby out the
bathwater. That's not how you'relooking at history. Right? But
But Washington's Washington'sfirst, military engagement was a
(30:25):
monumental failure. He startedthe French and Indian War he
did. He's the one that thatstarted that war. So he's put
out into the, to the westernfrontier, which is basically
Ohio at that point. And put overa fort Fort Necessity gets
there, the forts run down thethe managing Imran. And so, you
(30:47):
know, he's trying to get thefort back into shape, trying to
get supply goes out looking forthe French and the Indians, and
then can't get any of theIndians to help him. So he's
like, look, we'll just fortifythe fort. We'll wait here, and,
and we'll crush the French andthe Indians when they attack. So
they attack, the guys not readyfor it, he can believe that the
(31:12):
French aren't marching out intoopen fields, like good civilized
Europeans are supposed to dotheir shooting from behind the
trees, it's raining, his powderis wet, and a third of his men
are killed. So it's raining, theguns, the gunfire stops. And the
French send a wet note that isis not well interpreted by
(31:32):
Washington's interpreter. But itsays basically, if you agree to
leave, we'll let you leave, butdon't come back. So Washington's
like, Roger that. Right? And hetakes off. So. So that failure,
you had men that didn't go hometo their wives, you had fathers
and didn't go home their kid. Itwas a monumental failure. It was
(31:53):
his first big assignment. Butwhat that washed everything that
happened to Washington and thatfailure he took with him to the
Revolutionary War. And thatsurrender at Fort Necessity was
the only time he surrendered inhis entire military career. That
was it. And for instance, helearned how to escape, like,
(32:13):
into the rest of his time as amilitary official. When he
engaged the enemy, he had anescape plan. And if you look at
the history of the RevolutionaryWar, George Washington spent way
more time running than he didfighting by basically he just
ran around, you know, NewEngland, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, running away from theBritish and then turn around
(32:35):
fighting and running again. Andso it was a huge failure. But
what Washington did was helearned from that failure. And
it wasn't too long after that,that Washington had an
opportunity to redeem himselfand the British come over to
engage the French and theIndians. General Braddock is not
happy with Washington basicallystripped him of his authority
(32:55):
and, and installed him as anaide de camp, which is a really
fancy way of saying, Assistant.
General Braddock doesn't takeany Washington's advice.
Washington says Braddock they'renot don't you march these
Redcoats through the woodsbecause they're just gonna get
picked off and brightest slide.
Thanks for that. But I'm the youknow, you're a columnist and I'm
the British. I got it. Just stayback here with me. Well,
(33:17):
Washington was correct. Theystart firing from the trees at
Monongahela. The British startretreating. Braddock is shot
almost immediately. He's dying.
Washington is taking care ofBraddock. Braddock looks around
and doesn't see any otherofficer except Washington, who's
technically in the militia, theVirginia militia, and says to
Washington, I need you to orderI need you to gather the troops
(33:41):
and attack. And I'm telling you,the guy that almost died at Fort
Necessity is not the guy thatleft Braddock side, and
Monongahela which is where thatbattle was. So Washington, six
foot two, the average person isfive a Washington gets on a
horse and fights from a horsefor 12 hours. At the end of the
(34:01):
battle. He's he's had threehorses shot out from under him.
He's on the fourth horse. Andwhen he takes his coat off, he's
got four bullet holes in hiscoat, eight foot off the ground,
the tallest guy out there,everybody's shooting at him. And
Washington leads a lead to abattle from the back of a horse
where they drive the Frenchback. Now the interesting thing
(34:22):
about this is years later, afterthat battle after the French and
Indian War is over, he's in Ohiowith a friend of his looking at
land that he's been granted as apart of that war. He was a
military officer, so he had aland grant. He's checking it
out. And an Iroquois Indiantribe, invites him to come to a
meeting. We want to meet you. Sohe goes he sits down with them
(34:44):
and all of these Iroquois chiefssaid they were there at
Monongahela.
And all of them said theyremember him because they all
fired their weapons at him. Andnone of their weapons hit him
and this is Liz To know whathappened, this is fascinating to
me. So they go back. And theytell their people about this
(35:08):
white man, that was, that washead and shoulders above
everyone else on a horse leadingthe enemy. And the religious
leaders in the Iroquois tribe,issue a prophecy about George
Washington. And they say intheir prophecy that this man
will be the father of a greatnation, and will lead people.
(35:32):
Now Washington never told anyoneabout that. But his friend that
was with him, wrote it in hisdiary. And after Washington
died, it became part of a playthat was written about George
Washington. But this guy wentfrom almost getting all of his
people killed, barely escapingto taking that lesson to
Monongahela and becoming thissuperhuman hero. That sounds
(35:54):
like is a fake story made up.
But as far as I can tell, everysource I checked, it's a true
story about Washington. Soyeah, totally fascinating in his
life, and his story is reallyincredible. Oh, yeah. But yes,
the book, Why America needs torediscover the virtues of our
most essential founding fatherfinding Washington. It's
(36:17):
available on Amazon, right?
Right,Amazon, Barnes and Noble. If you
like, iTunes, you can get theyou can get the audiobook off of
iTunes or Amazon so ebook.
Paperback hardback? I would getthe hardback, though, just FYI,
(36:37):
to to your to your audience. Idon't think it's a great value.
I think it's overpriced. Theydon't let authors price it the
publisher does. But um, butyeah, check it out. And my
email, Richard at findingwashington.com is all throughout
the book, I want the readers toengage with me. Because what I'm
trying to do is I'm trying tocreate a conversation, and I'm
trying to affect change the bestway I know how, and I know how
(36:59):
to write books. So I'm writing abook.
Well, we need some statements.
So I think everybody everybodyneeds to read this book and
learn about a good one. Richardreigns finding Washington
everybody check it out. Thankyou for being here. We
appreciate your time.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Intro (37:18):
Thanks for listening to don't tread on liberty with
Jason Davis. Subscribe on GooglePlay iTunes or your favorite
platform. For more liberty news,check out www dot don't tread on
liberty.com And subscribe to theblog or join the conversation
fighting back against the left's non stop attacks on
liberty, freedom. And America,America. This is don't tread on
liberty. Jason Davis is on theair. Hey, welcome back
Richard Raines (00:21):
to don't turn on liberty. Thanks for being here.
Jason Davis back. And you mayhave seen one of my recent
broadcasts was all aboutstatesman and my latest blog as
well. We're trying to findpeople that actually want to do
the right thing and the righttype of character to actually be
in government. It's kind of hardto come by these days. So my
(00:44):
guest today is kind of on thesame wavelength. He actually
went so far as to write a bookabout this. He's the author of
the book finding Washington, whyAmerica needs to rediscover the
virtues of her most essentialfounding father, Richard Reigns
is here. Thank you for beinghere. How are you?
Yeah. Thanks for having me. Ireally appreciate it. Of course,
(01:07):
thanks for being had. That'swhat I always say. So it's
pretty interesting. I can't waitto get to the book. George
Washington is my favoritefounder. I think by far the most
courageous of all. But before weget to that you are a former
loudness county board member.
Back in the Tea Party days in2011.
(01:29):
That's right. Yeah.
That is fascinating to me, for acouple of reasons. But first,
tell me about that. Like whatmade you decide to run for the
board?
Yeah, so that's a greatquestion. So it's, it's Loudoun
County, Georgia, which is thesixth largest county in Georgia.
It's in southern Georgia. If, ifyou've ever traveled through
(01:52):
Georgia to Florida, you wentright through Lowndes County,
it's Valdosta, Georgia. So ifyou follow high school football,
that's where the Valdostawildcats are if you saw the
Netflix show on the ValdostaWildcats that's in Lowndes
County, Georgia. So, but yeah,so this was in 2011. I was
working as a pharmaceutical repworked for a great company, a
(02:13):
small Japanese company that gaveus a lot of freedom to do a lot
of things. And, you know, it'spart of part of my faith is
really a, you know, to beservice oriented. And my wife
and I discussed some ways that Icould get involved and, you
know, tell my wife, I said, youknow, I think I'd like to run
for office, which is, I don'tmind telling you, and that is a
scary thing to think about.
Because there's one thing totalk about it with all your
(02:34):
friends like, yeah, man, Ishould run but then to like,
actually put your name outthere, you're like, oh, my gosh,
this is this is the most, thisis the worst kind of popularity
contest, right? Because it's,it's, you know, it's full
contact. But so, um, I lived indistrict two, which is the
northern end of the county, andwe had a longtime Commissioner
(02:57):
there, his name was Richard aswell. And my wife called me one
day I was in the car. I wastraveling in South Georgia
somewhere. And she called me andshe said, Eric Dickey said,
Vicki's not running forreelection for county
commissioner. And so let's talkabout when I get home, I didn't
(03:17):
really need to talk about it,because we both are on the same
page. And so in just a couple ofdays, I announced my candidacy
to the newspaper. And the racewas on it was an open seat,
traditionally a Republican seat.
And so there were five otherRepublicans that are four other
Republicans that put their namein the hat. And really, I was
(03:41):
really the only one that wasaffiliated with the Tea Party.
Now 2011 Tea Party was a, youknow, it was a concept, right?
You had people that were goingto rallies and things like that.
And we had a very organized TeaParty, and allowance County. A
couple the last name is Cox, coX, very, very active in the
Republican Party, but really,we're heading up the Tea Party,
(04:01):
there allowance County, and theyreally embraced me and allowed
me to come in and there was somuch Jason, there was so much.
There's so many misconceptionsabout what the Tea Party was, it
was so interested in meinteresting to me when I was
running all these people thatwere Republicans, you know, when
it kind of became clear that Iwas the guy really wanted to
(04:23):
meet one on one like, Okay, tellme about this, or are you crazy?
I'm like, oh, man, it's justit's really a return to, you
know, to the more essentialLiberty values that that of
course I still think defined theconservative movement. So you
(04:43):
know, as I get older, I'm 51.
Now as I get older, I less andless identify as a Republican
and I'm more and more identifyas a conservative because I do
think there's a there's adifference in some places.
There's not a big differencebeing away. So we all started
running and I came in firstplace and in the Primary but
didn't get 50% of the vote sohad go to a run off one that and
then ran against a very niceDemocrat, she very popular. One
(05:10):
of the nicest, kindest peopleI've ever met, she and I got
along very well in the, in thecampaign and but it was really,
you just knew that it was goingto be a Republican to win and I
won pretty handily and, andserved for four years, I made a
promise when I was running notto serve more than one term. And
so when my term was up, I said,you know, I'm not going to do
(05:32):
this anymore. But I'll be honestwith you, I wrote about it in
the book a little bit, it wasprobably one of the it was for
the most fulfilling years of mylife, I've really enjoyed it
having an opportunity to serve.
I love serving with my othercommissioners, not really wasn't
really as political as you know,national politics are, you know,
(05:53):
county commissioner is really a,you know, where the rubber meets
the road, sort of. It's theessential government in almost
every state like in Georgia, forinstance. Every county has to
have a commissioner state ofcities can or cannot exist.
There's no constitutionalimperative for a city to exist,
(06:14):
but there has to be a county. Sothe county government is really
the central government. And inthe state of Georgia, it's a
state really is a state office.
So as a county commissioner,it really the only elected
official that supersedes acounty commissioner would be the
governor. But anyway, so a lotof zoning, a lot of planning a
(06:34):
lot of roads and bridges, a lotof people calling us saying,
hey, you know, my ditches needto be re dug or my dirt road, I
can get down a dirt road. Andyou know, a lot of really
digging into the local economy.
I'll tell you one of the thingsI learned. And I, you know, I
suspected this, but once you getinto county government, you
(06:56):
really realize that, you know,when I was growing up, if you
want to be successful, you go tocollege, right? You graduate
from high school, you go tocollege, you get a good job, and
you become successful. And thenI become a county commissioner,
and I start getting involvedwith what it means to run a
local economy. And if you gaveme a choice of building a four
(07:19):
year liberal arts universityversus building a two year
Technical College, I would votefor the technical college 100
out of 100 times, because peopleare making more money a lot
sooner with a lot less debt. Andthat's what fuels the economy.
So you know, things like that,that I was able to get involved
with, is really a is a greatexperience for me.
That's excellent. And so here'sthe question for you. What
(07:42):
happened to the tea party?
So I think the Tea Party wasreally a response to sort of the
radical. So if you so let's justback up, right, let's back up to
the 70s. You had Carter, who wasa liberal, but a social liberal,
(08:03):
sort of a social conservative,right. Just had horrible
economic policy, tried it justjust a bad president. Right.
Followed by Reagan. GreatPresident Bush, great president
and then Clinton, who wassocially very liberal, but the
economy really boomed underClinton, Clinton adopted, you
know, what did what did he Indicmores call that?
(08:25):
Well, Newt Gingrich was theSpeaker of the House and they
basically and they basicallycoerce Clinton into balancing
the budget. Rochus somethingthat has not been done since.
Right. So then, so the nextliberal, you know, the next
liberal don't go into the WhiteHouse was, was President Obama,
who was in by every measurementradicalized when he was younger,
(08:49):
you know, Saul Alinsky, theyjust II represented the most
radical form of leftism. And itjust I think it it just struck a
chord with people that realizethat not only were we seeing
this radicalism on the left nowin the White House, but you had
this ineffectual RepublicanParty that seemed to be content
(09:11):
to just be the party ofopposition and not really get
things done. And so I think theTea Party was his way of
resetting the narrative andsaying that there is a there is
another approach. Yeah,I totally agree with that
assessment. I'm just wonderingwhat happened to him. I mean,
the situations that youdescribed have not changed. In
fact, they're way worse now thanthey were when Obama was in the
White House.
(09:33):
So that's a good question. And Idon't I don't, I was, you know,
I didn't really answer yourquestion. I think what I was
trying to say was, the Tea Partyformed out of necessity or
perceived necessity. And thenwhen President Trump was
elected, I think that thenecessity appeared to maybe wane
a little bit. But I think whathappened instead was you know,
(09:56):
President Trump's a prettystrong personality and there's a
You know, there, there was a,you know, a cult like attachment
to President Trump that thatreally drowned out any other
voices. I think and that's not acriticism of President Trump.
That's more of a criticism ofhow we respond to elected
leaders. But I really think itwas born out of necessity. And
(10:19):
there was this, this feelingthat okay, because listen, I
mean, in the book, I say thereason I wrote the book had a
lot to do with 2016 primary, andwe can talk about that if you
want. But, and I wasn't, youknow, I wasn't during the
primary. I wasn't. I didn't, Ididn't support Donald Trump in
the primaries, I supported othercandidates. And so I wasn't
(10:43):
excited when when candidateTrump was campaigning is a much
better president than I thoughthe would be. That's for sure.
But I wasn't very excited abouthim. But the excitement and the
fervor about him, I think,really replaced the Tea Party
forever. Am I?
Yeah, I mean, that's definitelypossible. It's funny, though,
(11:05):
there was a big wave of these ofthese guys that were elected
right into into US Congress. Andtoday, there's only a handful of
them that remain Rampaul, MikeLee, maybe a couple others, and
the rest of them are gone. Soyeah, I just think it's very
interesting that the wholemovement just kind of fizzled
(11:25):
out. So I think it's, if I justsay this, one more thing about
that.
I don't think the ideology hasfizzled out. I think that the
the fervor for the protest armof it, potentially has an essay
protest in terms of going torallies and having meetings and
things like that. Becausethere's a lot of education that
(11:47):
went along with the tea parties.
Well, I learned a ton, aboutgovernment going to these tea
party meetings in LowndesCounty. But so I don't think the
ideology has waned. I think thatthere are some folks that are
elected, you know, just listen,I've kind of checked out a
little bit on politics. Butthere are some Republicans,
newer Republicans that I thinkappear to, to model that
(12:09):
ideology. Maybe Lauren bover. Idon't know a lot about her.
Maybe her maybe this isn't MyraFlores, the Mexican Americans
was just elected, you know,fates, very important liberties,
very important. So. So I thinkthat there will always be a
remnant of that ideology. But Idon't think we'll see the fervor
again until something badhappens, unfortunately.
(12:32):
I don't know how it could getany worse than what it is right
now. Even though I think they'replanning much worse. Let's get
to the book, finding, findingWashington. And as I mentioned,
at the top of my programminghere recently, it was all about
finding statesmen. And I wouldsay George Washington is the
(12:53):
epitome of a statesman. Wouldyou agree? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So
what caused you then to writethis book? And how did you come
to pick George Washington forthe topic?
Sure. So Well, first of all,that I've been a writer for
several years, and my trainingis in theology. So I have a
couple of master's degrees intheology, one in the history of
(13:15):
Christianity and one inChristian theology and pursuing
a PhD in theology. So So I'vealways done theological writing,
I wrote a newspaper column foryears, I've, you know, done some
stuff for magazines, and I'vealways wanted to write a book,
but I didn't want to just writea book. I wanted to have
something to say. And so thatwas really interested in
(13:36):
Washington. And a couple ofthings happened that really
drove my interest a littlehigher. But as a as an
evangelical Christian in the220 16 election. You know, when
the primaries ended, theDemocrat and the Republican
primaries ended. I looked at thecandidates, and I was like,
Okay, I feel like this is theworst presidential candidate of
(13:59):
my lifetime and the second worstpresidential candidate in my
lifetime. Like, I've got atrader who, you know, who
deleted emails and destroyedphones with a hammer, and then
got a guy that I couldn't leavein the room alone. My daughter's
right. So this was all thefeelings I felt in 2016. And
again, I think Trump was abetter president than I thought
(14:20):
he would be. But this is how Ifelt in 2016. I'm like, okay,
here I am, and Evan Jellicle.
Christian with nobody thatreally reflects my values. And I
think we have a value problem.
In this country, we have avirtue problem in this country,
a lot of problems. But, youknow, my two cents worth is that
a lot of problems we have arerelated to our lack of virtue.
(14:41):
So I started researching GeorgeWashington found out that there
are 900 books in print todayabout George Washington. So for
24 hours, I was like, nope, notgoing to do that. But then I
thought, You know what, I reallydon't see. I don't see people
that address his virtue. Solet's explore that. So I started
reading it I gotta tell you,man, if I was a fan of George
(15:02):
Washington when I started, like,I've been reading through the
book a little bit getting readyfor all these podcasts now that
we've launched the book, andlike today, I didn't, I had
lunch by myself today, and I wasreading through some of the
parts of the book. And manalmost started crying and grown
man sitting in, you know, ahospital cafeteria, like, you
know, about to start cryingbecause of the things that he
did and what he represented. Andso. So as we go along in the
(15:25):
book, what I do is I tellstories from George Washington's
life, a lot of stories, evensomeone like me, that's a, even
though I'm a Christianhistorian. There's a lot of
inner, you know, intersectionwith American and world history.
So I kind of get it right. Andso even as someone who's, who's
a historian, a lot of storiesthat I was not aware of that
(15:48):
really highlighted things abouthim that man, you just don't,
you just don't get in eighthgrade civics. Right? And so, so
I'll tell the stories, and thenidentify the virtues that he
displayed in those moments. Andthen I'll make an argument for
why we need to revive thosevirtues and how we can revive
those virtues in our culture. Sothat's the book. Yeah, I
(16:11):
totally agree. We have a bigvirtue problem. There's no
doubt. Is that is that inessence, why you think there are
so few statesmen today? Or isthere some other reason why we
don't have any statesmen?
So it's, I think it is a multisymptomatic disease. But I think
(16:33):
if we could focus on the bigpicture, let's take Bernie
Sanders as an example. Like aself event. So I mean, so Bernie
Sanders believes what hebelieves, right? I don't believe
what he plays. Right? And, andhere's a guy that the only thing
he's ever done is, is hisgovernment. Right? That's really
(16:55):
the only job he's ever had theVinny substance. And this guy is
a multimillionaire with hugehouses. So I think that part of
the problem is, man go intoCongress's great work, if you
can get it. That's why it's, youknow, that's why it's such a
such a contact sport to getthere. Because these people go
there. They're paid $175,000,plus some other expenses,
(17:18):
housing expenses, and stuff likethat, whether they're probably
ends up being what to 25 to 50.
That's a lot of money by anystandards, when the median
income is what 30 or 40, in thiscountry, and then you serve for
16 years, and you come out andyou're a millionaire. Like that.
I think that's part of theproblem. I think that there's
the celebrity aspect takes awayfrom it. But I think that the
(17:40):
other aspect is it's, we are avulgar, narcissistic society.
And we are a society that, thatif the, the, the most pressing
concern is whatever my personalconcern is, and there's very few
people who, and I addressedservant leadership in this book,
(18:01):
Washington was a servant leader.
And he proved at Time and again,and so. So I think the lack of
statesman has a lot to do withnumber one, the diminished
importance of faith as afoundational aspect of our
country, whether you are aChristian or not, this country
was formed with a with aChristian virtue and a Christian
(18:26):
world view. And so when you tryto separate faith, so we're just
a fake, right to make it simplefor people that may not believe
in Christianity. So if you tryto remove faith from the
American experiment, then youhave separated in my opinion,
one of the most importantelements from that experience.
And now what you're trying to dois you're trying to have America
(18:47):
without maybe perhaps its mostessential elements. So in the
book, what I'm trying to do isI'm trying to say here are the
elements that needs to bereplaced. And the elements are
integrity and character, whichare two different things.
conviction, servant leadership,courage, we talked about courage
a lot. So I think that theabsence of all of those things,
(19:10):
is what has put us in a placewhere you and I have to think
hard about who the state Smar treally quickly. As part of the
book when I was writing it, Iwas writing about who influences
us. I was trying to think aboutthe kind of influence that that
George Washington had. And soI'm like, I wonder who's
influencing us? So I have fivekids ask all my kids, broadly
(19:33):
speaking, who influences you? Sothe answer came back, either
nobody or you and mom. And thenI think he's 18. Now my 18 year
old son said,Dwayne Johnson, inspires me not
inspires, because his workethic, some like, Well, those
are some sucky answers. So Itexted 23 of my friends who
(19:56):
inspires you Got one answer? Myparents. So I hit the other 22
up and said, Hey, thanks for notanswering me, who inspires you?
And I got these texts back thatsaid, Well, I don't really think
about it. Nobody really inspiresme. So I went to Twitter. And I
paid $50 for a Twitter ad tosay, text me back with who
(20:18):
inspires you guess how manyresponses I got? If you guessed
zero, you're absolutely right.
So unlike we have a, we have adeficit of people that inspire
us, except for celebrities. AndGod help us if if celebrities
(20:41):
are the primary influences. Andso we've lost that. I think some
in our culture, where where weare. We're not inspired by
anything. We're not inspired byothers. My dad had no, like, my
dad didn't care about politicsat all. But he remembers when
(21:01):
John F. Kennedy said, Let's goto the moon. He remembers that
and my dad's been dead forseveral years. This is a story
he told when I was growing up.
My dad was like, man, when hesaid that, at school, the next
day, we were all going to beastronauts, all of us, like we
were ready. And I think about mylife. I grew up in the 80s. And
I'm telling you, man, when Ithink about it, now, I get to
(21:23):
moms. I was sitting in my livingroom. I was 18 years old,
watching MTV when MTV playedmusic videos, and I watched the
Berlin Wall, come down on MTV.
And I remember Reagan eventhough that didn't happen under
Reagan. You know, just what ayear before that two years
(21:45):
before that, he said, Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Like Reagan inspired me. Youknow, JFK inspired my dad, but
now, who inspires you? I don'tknow. The guy that used to do
fake wrestling.
Yeah, that's, that's veryinteresting point. I'm, I'm very
close to your age. And I cantell you when I was a kid, you
(22:07):
know, my dad and some otherpeople that were kind of father
figures to me really did inspireme, but today. I don't think I
could name one either.
Yeah. And I'm there with you. Imean, I'm, I'm in that same
boat. And I think part of theproblem is, our lives are
(22:28):
digitalized. Now we, you know,less interaction with people and
more interaction with, you know,you know, people's highlight
reel on social media, and I'mnot a dog in social media. I'm
not that guy. I'm not, you know,the old guy. You know, the new
version of Get off my lawn isput your phone down. Right, but
(22:50):
not that guy. But I do thinkthat, that there's a personal
element that we've lost. And wehave to regain that and I
discussing the book ways, Ithink we we can do that. Yeah,
that's a good point, for sure.
Now, you mentioned something afew minutes ago, and I want to
go back to it. You were aprofessor of theology and church
history. And you mentioned faithspecifically. So I'll ask you,
(23:14):
Professor. What role do youthink the church is having all
this? I mean, when I look backover the last two years I, I'm
almost speechless. As to theresponse from churches. They
allowed themselves to beshuttered. None of them. I mean,
(23:34):
barring very few, I mean,there's Pastor John MacArthur
and a few others actually foughtback. But most of them did what
they were told didn't say a wordand are preaching fear instead
of faith, what are your thoughtsabout that?
(23:56):
So the church that I go to Ilive in Northeast Florida and a
church I go to is in inJacksonville, all the flux to
Jacksonville during COVID. Ourour response as a church during
the quarantine was as long as aslong as the laws of men don't,
(24:25):
don't contradict what weperceive to be the the direct
commandments of God will workaround anything, which is what
our church did, we beefed upour, you know, our online
presence and things like that.
And so in Florida, it was alittle different in Florida. We
didn't generally speaking, wedidn't feel in Florida, like the
(24:48):
government was trying to shut usdown.
Because you have a governmentwith a brain there you have a
governor thatand you guys yeah, you haven't
had the Santas yet. DeSantis isours leave DeSantis alone. We
get four more years with a guy.
You can have him after that, butdon't take our governor,
you know, he's gonna run forpresident. Oh, yeah, you know he
is oh, man, Ihope so I think the guy has the
(25:08):
Reagan potential but but thenyou have the People's Republic
of California over there thatalready don't they don't want
people meeting in churchesanyway. So I think that it's the
old boiling the frog analogy,right that you boil it a little
bit of time, it doesn't knowit's being boiled. And so I
think that I think that what youhave and again, this is
(25:30):
multifaceted, just to make sureI answer your question. So I
think there comes a time whenthe church has to push back
against the government, but notpush back in a way that it's not
about pushing back for pushingback sake, it's not about
saying, we're going to dowhatever we're going to do. But
it is about saying thatreligious liberty is a
(25:56):
foundational concept. In ourcountry. It is foundational.
It's, it's, you know, the firstamendment right First Amendment,
the United States Constitution,right, like when we're thinking
of amendments to theConstitution is the first right
is not down at the bottom. Andso I think that, that what
churches do, they just, youknow, it was part of hoping that
(26:19):
this is just going to end soon,and we can avoid the conflict.
Partly that and partly it's it'sChristian leaders that that
aren't strong enough to lead.
And I think that the other partof it is, it just all happened.
(26:40):
You know, if you remember, thejoke was two weeks to slow the
spread. Remember that sir, bythought was going to be over
sooner. But I do think thatthere were two years into two
weeks to slow the spread, right.
Professor Van COVID, has beenover in Florida since November
of 2020. And that is the truth,man. Like, I interact with
doctors all day long. And I weara mask sometimes, you know, in
the offices in the hospitals.
(27:01):
I'm telling you, COVID has beenover down here since November
2020. I went back to work inNovember 2020. But anyway, so I
do think that the Christianchurch, in a couple of ways, has
has some introspection that ithas to do. So number one, I
think that churches are reallystruggling to decide whether or
(27:25):
not they want to pursue thekingdom of God, or whether they
want to pursue the kingdom ofmen, meaning our church is going
to be about politics, or ourchurch is going to be about the
gospel. And churches are reallystruggling to figure that out.
And obviously, I hope that youcan tell by, you know, the
things I've said so far that thechurch is about the Kingdom of
(27:47):
God, not politics. And sothere's, in my opinion, there's
really, there's, there's there'sno way forward, but for churches
to push back, especially againstgovernments that are that are
just out now. hostile towardsChristianity, because listen,
(28:07):
you know what they're not doing.
They're not telling. They're nottelling, you know, mosques that
you have to close down, right?
They're not saying to theBuddhists you can't meet in your
temples, right? They're notsaying they're just basically if
you're a Jew or a Christian, youbetter not violate the law or
wait your door down?
Well, you might remember. Yeah,you might remember back in the
presidential campaign. TheGeorge Floyd protests where they
(28:33):
burned down a bunch of buildingsand stuff and like police cars
on fire. That was okay. But whenyou had a Trump rally, then that
was a super spreader event. Youremember that? Right?
I do. And like it, I stillstruggle a little bit because
I'm like, I just I don't. AndI'm being genuine when I say
(28:54):
this. I don't know. If it's justthe worst kind of stupidity.
Right, I'm serious. Is it? No,it's, is it the worst kind of
stupidity or is it? Is it astrategy that they are employing
(29:15):
within bingo?
It's a strategy. It's all ofthis is completely intentional
and out of bricks. All of thisis completely intentional,
everything, everything that'sgoing on, it's all related. And
it's all intentional. And I canprove it. I mean, look, I'm a
trained investigator. I'm not anidiot. I know what's going on.
But last, last question, becausethat's another topic for another
(29:40):
day. But one, one question onWashington. Before we go. You
talk in the book aboutWashington's biggest failure.
Whatis that? So there's so we'll set
slavery aside because I thinkthat Washington failed himself,
he felt his slaves and he feltthe country as a slave owner and
(30:01):
I can have a really extendedconversation about slavery and I
address it really. I address itreally aggressively in the book
because it's the title. I'lljust give you a hint. The title
of that chapter is baby andbathwater, right? Like he was,
he was a slave owner, but youdon't throw the baby out the
bathwater. That's not how you'relooking at history. Right? But
But Washington's Washington'sfirst, military engagement was a
(30:25):
monumental failure. He startedthe French and Indian War he
did. He's the one that thatstarted that war. So he's put
out into the, to the westernfrontier, which is basically
Ohio at that point. And put overa fort Fort Necessity gets
there, the forts run down thethe managing Imran. And so, you
(30:47):
know, he's trying to get thefort back into shape, trying to
get supply goes out looking forthe French and the Indians, and
then can't get any of theIndians to help him. So he's
like, look, we'll just fortifythe fort. We'll wait here, and,
and we'll crush the French andthe Indians when they attack. So
they attack, the guys not readyfor it, he can believe that the
(31:12):
French aren't marching out intoopen fields, like good civilized
Europeans are supposed to dotheir shooting from behind the
trees, it's raining, his powderis wet, and a third of his men
are killed. So it's raining, theguns, the gunfire stops. And the
French send a wet note that isis not well interpreted by
(31:32):
Washington's interpreter. But itsays basically, if you agree to
leave, we'll let you leave, butdon't come back. So Washington's
like, Roger that. Right? And hetakes off. So. So that failure,
you had men that didn't go hometo their wives, you had fathers
and didn't go home their kid. Itwas a monumental failure. It was
(31:53):
his first big assignment. Butwhat that washed everything that
happened to Washington and thatfailure he took with him to the
Revolutionary War. And thatsurrender at Fort Necessity was
the only time he surrendered inhis entire military career. That
was it. And for instance, helearned how to escape, like,
(32:13):
into the rest of his time as amilitary official. When he
engaged the enemy, he had anescape plan. And if you look at
the history of the RevolutionaryWar, George Washington spent way
more time running than he didfighting by basically he just
ran around, you know, NewEngland, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, running away from theBritish and then turn around
(32:35):
fighting and running again. Andso it was a huge failure. But
what Washington did was helearned from that failure. And
it wasn't too long after that,that Washington had an
opportunity to redeem himselfand the British come over to
engage the French and theIndians. General Braddock is not
happy with Washington basicallystripped him of his authority
(32:55):
and, and installed him as anaide de camp, which is a really
fancy way of saying, Assistant.
General Braddock doesn't takeany Washington's advice.
Washington says Braddock they'renot don't you march these
Redcoats through the woodsbecause they're just gonna get
picked off and brightest slide.
Thanks for that. But I'm the youknow, you're a columnist and I'm
the British. I got it. Just stayback here with me. Well,
(33:17):
Washington was correct. Theystart firing from the trees at
Monongahela. The British startretreating. Braddock is shot
almost immediately. He's dying.
Washington is taking care ofBraddock. Braddock looks around
and doesn't see any otherofficer except Washington, who's
technically in the militia, theVirginia militia, and says to
Washington, I need you to orderI need you to gather the troops
(33:41):
and attack. And I'm telling you,the guy that almost died at Fort
Necessity is not the guy thatleft Braddock side, and
Monongahela which is where thatbattle was. So Washington, six
foot two, the average person isfive a Washington gets on a
horse and fights from a horsefor 12 hours. At the end of the
(34:01):
battle. He's he's had threehorses shot out from under him.
He's on the fourth horse. Andwhen he takes his coat off, he's
got four bullet holes in hiscoat, eight foot off the ground,
the tallest guy out there,everybody's shooting at him. And
Washington leads a lead to abattle from the back of a horse
where they drive the Frenchback. Now the interesting thing
(34:22):
about this is years later, afterthat battle after the French and
Indian War is over, he's in Ohiowith a friend of his looking at
land that he's been granted as apart of that war. He was a
military officer, so he had aland grant. He's checking it
out. And an Iroquois Indiantribe, invites him to come to a
meeting. We want to meet you. Sohe goes he sits down with them
(34:44):
and all of these Iroquois chiefssaid they were there at
Monongahela.
And all of them said theyremember him because they all
fired their weapons at him. Andnone of their weapons hit him
and this is Liz To know whathappened, this is fascinating to
me. So they go back. And theytell their people about this
(35:08):
white man, that was, that washead and shoulders above
everyone else on a horse leadingthe enemy. And the religious
leaders in the Iroquois tribe,issue a prophecy about George
Washington. And they say intheir prophecy that this man
will be the father of a greatnation, and will lead people.
(35:32):
Now Washington never told anyoneabout that. But his friend that
was with him, wrote it in hisdiary. And after Washington
died, it became part of a playthat was written about George
Washington. But this guy wentfrom almost getting all of his
people killed, barely escapingto taking that lesson to
Monongahela and becoming thissuperhuman hero. That sounds
(35:54):
like is a fake story made up.
But as far as I can tell, everysource I checked, it's a true
story about Washington. Soyeah, totally fascinating in his
life, and his story is reallyincredible. Oh, yeah. But yes,
the book, Why America needs torediscover the virtues of our
most essential founding fatherfinding Washington. It's
(36:17):
available on Amazon, right?
Right,Amazon, Barnes and Noble. If you
like, iTunes, you can get theyou can get the audiobook off of
iTunes or Amazon so ebook.
Paperback hardback? I would getthe hardback, though, just FYI,
(36:37):
to to your to your audience. Idon't think it's a great value.
I think it's overpriced. Theydon't let authors price it the
publisher does. But um, butyeah, check it out. And my
email, Richard at findingwashington.com is all throughout
the book, I want the readers toengage with me. Because what I'm
trying to do is I'm trying tocreate a conversation, and I'm
trying to affect change the bestway I know how, and I know how
(36:59):
to write books. So I'm writing abook.
Well, we need some statements.
So I think everybody everybodyneeds to read this book and
learn about a good one. Richardreigns finding Washington
everybody check it out. Thankyou for being here. We
appreciate your time.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Intro (37:18):
Thanks for listening to don't tread on liberty with
Jason Davis. Subscribe on GooglePlay iTunes or your favorite
platform. For more liberty news,check out www dot don't tread on
liberty.com And subscribe to theblog or join the conversation
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