070924 Lee Habeeb

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Have you here on the show.Jimmy is my name? Jimmy Lakey pleasure,
pleased and thrilled to be here.Evidently, the House Democrats are now
holding another closed door meeting. Theyhad a conference called on Monday that said
the committee chairs did and now thewhole caucus of Dems getting together behind closed

(00:20):
doors in the House meeting groom,and they're having a conversation about Joe Biden,
their president. And also the SenateDemocrats, I guess, are getting
together on Little Joe today and havinga little private conversation. So we shall
see what happens. President Biden injust a little bit bit of time,
I think is going to make anopening speech at the NATO summit via the

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teleprompter. And then Thursday, kareeinJohn Pierre says he's going to have a
big boy press conference. So alot of moving parts here. Keep a
sharp eye on it. And againthe House Dems are holding a closed door
meeting. The Sunday meeting was justa that was just the committee chair people,
ranking members, so not chare people, they're in the minority, ranking
members. So this is the wholecaucus skin together. So watch it.
I'll keep a sharp eye on itas well, because you're driving to work

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this morning, so I don't wantyou to have a crash. It'd be
a bad thing. Could I pleaseWelcome to the program, Lee Habibe.
He's a creator and host of OurAmerican Stories. You hear it right here
on six hundred K cool. He'salso the one the co founded Laura Ingram's
national radio show in two thousand andone, moved to Salem Media Group in
two thousand and eight vice president ofContent. He was and launched Our American

(01:26):
Stories in twenty sixteen. University ofVirginia Law School graduate and writes a weekly
column for Newsweek. Please welcome OurAmerican Stories, Lee Habibe, Lee,
welcome back to the program, sir, Hey, thanks for having me on
again. Great times we're living in. It's fascinating times, and I always
love listening to Our American Stories kindof just to sometimes just escape onto a

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history lesson. But you put somethingout around the fourth of July about Calvin
Coolidge, and I thought it wasfascinating. We're watching political dysfunction at its
heighth and as much as you canwatch right now in our presidential cycle or
election. The saga with Joe Bideny, it's chaos everywhere. And Calvin Coolidge
go back a while he wrote,he made a speech for the ages,

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and I think it's a kind ofa grounding, centering moment for all of
us. Well, you know,he writes about the founding documents and particularly
Declaration, and he writes about himon one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. We're
about to head into our two hundredand fiftieth and the fights we're having right
now in America are identical to thefights we were having in the eighteenth century.

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The distant power ruling us was Londonand the Parliament and the king.
We wanted to be sovereign. Nowthe distant power is Washington, d c.
And unelected elites, right, Andthat's the EPA, the Administrative State,
Brussels, the World Health Organization.The average America is watching. The
head of the EPA a year ortwo ago announced to all of us,

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the servants, his servants, thatwe're going to be driving X amount of
cars by x state. He's tellingall the manufacturers that. And I'm sitting
there watching along with most of theAmerican public, and going who made that
guy? The King of automobiles,the King of automobiles. I mean,
he's dictating to manufacturing companies, privatecompanies, what kind of cars they'll make

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and when they'll make them by withoutany demand. I was waiting for him
to come in and say, thisis how many hamburgers you won't make and
you'll be using fake meat by thisdate, because why not. That could
be the FDA telling us that weshould meet anymore because it's not good for
us. So this is not apolitical statement right versus left. And this

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has explains the rise of Trump rightbecause Trump is not a traditional conservative.
Anybody who knows his policies knows thathe's not a free market guy. He's
a fair market guy. He usestariffs. Oh my goodness, the freedom
people who say, you know,unlimited trade and global trade is a god.
So Trump's this unusual guy, likehim or not. The Declaration of

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Independence, when you read it,you can't help but think of this uprising
from the ordinary American worker, reconnectingto the very spirit that was happening with
the ordinary workers, shopkeeper, innkeeperback in the eighteenth century, Like,
we don't want this anymore. Weneed a document, we need a declaration

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that's final. And that's what Coolidgewrites about. It's the finality of this
proclamation that all men are created equal. It's final. You can't have more
progress than that. You can't advancebeyond that. That's what his speech was
about. Because a lot of modernprogressives love to tell us, oh,
that constitution so old, it's soquaint, but it just doesn't make sense

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anymore. That declaration was written bya guy who owned slaves, and because
he owned slaves, ah, thatdocument's really not to be trusted, because
he just was and a very niceguy. And so the work on behalf
of the progressives to make us notlead the declaration, to not love what
happened there, and to revere itand fight for it, and to wage

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a political warfare over it. AndI don't mean with guns, please don't
misunderstand me. I mean with votes, with voices. But going to the
school board and running for school board. It's our school district, it's not
someone else's. It's ours. We'reallowed to go to the school board and
say we don't want you teaching thatstuff to our kids. Yet it doesn't
make us racists or censors. Itdoesn't mean we're for censorship. It just

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means my kids in first grade,and I don't want Tom hearing this stuff.
And this is a democracy, andin the end, it's a constitutional
republic. And that's what Coolige reallyreminds us of that we're not a democracy,
we're a constitutional republic. And democracyis mob rule and constitutional republics,
well, that's America. And soif you wouldn't mind, I wanted to

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read one part of this to youraudience because it's so good. He sets
it up by talking about the factthat there are people trying to explain that
all of this modern and material prosperitywe have somehow came from nothing, and
he says something special. He says, all of this wealth and accumulation of
material things did not create our declarationof independence. Our declaration of Independence created

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them. And these things come ofthe spirit first, he said. And
unless we cling to that spirit,our material prosperity overwhelming, they, although
it may appear now, will turninto a barren scepter in our grasp.
Then the best part he said aboutthe declaration, there is a finality that
is exceedingly RESTful. Is often ascertain that the world has made a great

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deal of progress in seventeen seventy six, that we have had new thoughts and
new experiences which have given us agreat advance over the people of that day.
But that reasoning, he said,cannot be applied to this great Charter.
If all men are created equal,that is final. If they are
endowed with an alienable rights, thatis final. If the government drives their
just powers from the consent of thegovernment, that is final. No advance,

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no progress, can be made beyondthese propositions. And if anyone wishes
to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can
proceed historically is not forward but backward. Those who wish to proceed in that
direction cannot lay claim to progress.They are reactionary. Their ideas are not
more modern, but they're more ancientthan those of the revolutionary fathers. What

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a statement about our declaration and thepeople so called moving us to progress.
Yeah, the voice of lee Habib, the host of our American stories.
They're another part of the coolage,writing I like and you reference the word
spirit. But he says as adeclaration, not a material but of spiritual
conceptions. That probably causes us someheads to explode. In the modern day,

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at talking about spiritual connections. Itsounds like he truly believed that this
was These rights that were bestowed uponus were not from man. They're not
from man. And look at it'snot like Jefferson was some kind of you
know, born again Christian. Hehad his own Bible, but he understood
there was a God. And todayhe'd be called a daists. But there

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were a lot of Christian men theretoo, and they understood one thing.
If our rights don't come from God, then that means they'll come from government.
And if government will give you theirrights, they'll take your rights away.
So this is why God is thecenter of everything. You can believe
in God or not, your listeners, but boy, you better believe that
God was the author of your rights, because if not, good luck,
then Joseph Stalin is the author ofyour rights. And there was a rights

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declaration in the Soviet Union. Theyhad a huge list of rights, but
they were parchment rights. They wererights on paper. Castalin decided whether you
had them or not, and shedecides in China whether you have them or
not. And even in Canada,you don't have a right to your free
speech anymore. It's been taken fromyou in Canada, so it means it

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could be taken from us here.The voice of Lee Habib our American Stories
is a fantastic piece at Newsweek,one of his weekly columns there. I'll
put it up on my social sitesas well. Lee, It's always a
pleasure, we always I always lovelistening to Our American Stories. One of
my favorite shows outside of my veryown that I get to listen to.
So thanks for hopping on the programsir. Anytime, anytime you got a
Lee Habibe host of Our American Stories, you can hear it right here on

(09:28):
six hundred K. Cool with itwhen it's on. I just picked it.
I just I love it. It'sa good thing. I listen to
the Yeah, I'll put the Newsweek'sPeace up as well. You got to
read it the words of Calvin Coolidge. Everybody stand by a six hundred K col m