Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the film.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I just put on the app fifty five KRC the
talkstation A six if you buy KRC de talk Station
Happy Friday. He one thing that's for sure. Bottom of
the hour, we're gonna hear from my heart meaty aviation
expert Jay Rattle. Have a lot to talk about with Jay,
and I have feelings he's gonna have something to say
(00:20):
about the big snow coming this weekend. Hop today's anyway
without further ado, and it's been too long since we talked.
Thank you for your service to our country. Retired Marine
Jim Lewis one of the men behind Building Blocks for Liberty.
He noticed there is a huge hole in r K
through twelve education system because sadly, we live in the
United States of America and they no longer teach civics,
(00:41):
They no longer teach the Constitution, they no longer teach
the reason we've had a revolution against the king and
started our own country. Jim Lewis knew that, and that's
why he started Building Blocks for Liberty. Welcome back to Jim.
It's always a pleasure having you on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Well, thank you so much, Brian. I really appreciate y'all
having me back on and I always enjoy being all
with you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, you're doing great work out there in the world
and again filling that massive hole in our education system.
I mean, I just I have to observe that. You know,
we live in the United States of America celebrating two
hundred and fifty glorious years. Not perfect, I will agree,
but making progress better and better every single year of
our existence. And here we are and we don't have
a country or we live in a country where state
(01:24):
legislative bodies have to pass laws forcing K through twelve
education to actually incorporate civic classes into the curriculum. That's
that's batcrap, and saying Jim Lewis.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
That is just sad, and it makes you wonder why
they're not teaching.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It because they're not proud of who we.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Are, right, But we have to, you know, take what
we got and we're moving on with it. And we
work hard work trying to work with kids. I teach,
you know, two days a week at a Christian homeschool
group now, you know, and you teach American history and
world history to them, and it's really great. We're now parent.
(02:08):
We've really been doing a lot of work over the
last year, and we're finally we're we're working with Wright
State University now their Civics department, and we are going
to be doing a boot camp up there next month,
and then we're going to also do one of our
we've got liberty lessons. We're going to be doing one
liberty lesson a month at Wright State University for the
(02:30):
rest of the year.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, that's like going into isn't that going into like
occupied territory. You're sneaking behind commedy lines in order to
teach American political philosophy the way it should be taught.
I mean, how did you get your foot in the
door of a university, Jim Lewis. And of course building
blocks of liberty is behind the whole idea of the constitution.
Boot cam, we've got one coming up we're going to
talk about. But I mean, I would like to think
(02:51):
that Wright State is one of many down the road universities.
You're going to get this information back in the in
the class.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, there's there's argued to have state man data. Of course,
c civics that offer an alternative voice to the students
and so you know, bad bless them that's getting us
in there. Now. We've been working with them for the
last ten months on you know, how do we get
into the end of the air. So we're actually going up,
(03:21):
you know, we're doing it right on campus. It's going
to be great, Well.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
It will be great. And of course I'm thinking that
these are these are young people. They're adults if they're
in college for the most part. You know, I turned
eighteen as a freshman, that you see. But adults, they
should have already had a solid foundation in constitutional history.
And yet they presumably at least everything I've been reading,
they have been indoctrinated in this woke leftist, pro socialist,
(03:48):
anti American ideology. It's been steeped into the curriculum for
K through twelve education across this country. So you're facing,
perhaps and maybe not a challenge bringing about this very
factual information about what exactly our constitution means.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah, well, but the words you said very factual. That's
what really helps us. And you know, we have no
fear of going in there because we're going to present
the truth that's verifiable. Whereas when they start questioning what
they've been told, they're not going to be able to
verify it. So it makes it kind of easy to
change minds if they want to have an open mind
(04:28):
and actually want to, you know, do a little checking
for themselves.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, and I assume, based upon your philosophy of life,
you you won't mind any questions in class when you're
teaching this on a college level either.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Love having questions. That's how we bruth out, that.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Is, that's where you make your points. Man. You know,
open form, ask any questions you want. You're on solid
We're on rock solid ground. That's beautiful. Exactly, so exactly
you will be expanding this and I'm focusing on this, this,
this broader expanse for building Blocks for Liberty dot org
because you are a five O one C three nonprofit.
But something tells me you're not the kind of five
(05:06):
O one C three nonprofit where you, Jim Lewis, are
making half a million dollars a year on the donations
the building Blocks for Liberty.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Oh I wish No. We've been doing this now for
fifteen years and we've never taken a diamond tay any.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Of us listening audience. Did you hear that.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We live on donations? You know, whatever people donate to
us that is what enables us to do things, you know,
like go on to the Wright State University and have
enough fund so that we can buy books. Because when
students attend our class attend to our classes, they attend
for free, so we have to put the bill for them.
(05:48):
We pay for all their books and everything. So and
we don't mind doing that. But you know, donations are
you know, really helpful to help us do that provide
booked and materials to students.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
I have learned over the years, I have a very
very generous listening audience. When it comes to truly important
and worthy causes, they typically step up to the plate.
So I'm really going to encourage those you are listening
to my voice right now, building blocks for the brother
word for building blocks for liberty dot org, help them
out and help them spread the just the unbelievable beauty
(06:21):
and awesomeness of the founding documents in our country and
pivoting over You're going to be doing even doing these
constitution boot camps since twenty eleven, right, isn't it the
first year you started?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That's correct, twenty eleven when we first started doing them,
and we just keep doing them, and I think they
keep getting better and better. We keep incorporating information that
people want and they need to hear. So yeah, we're
just excited about it. We've got one coming up this Saturday.
It's going to be in Huber Heights. It's Concerned Veterans
(06:56):
for America sponsoring it.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Good fight. Yeah, we're doing one.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Then then we've got a liberty lesson on the thirty
first in Sharonville on the pursuit of happiness and answering
common misconceptions about the American Founding. That's being done by
one of our newest members, Mark Burrell, who's written two
books on these subjects of the Declaration and things like that.
(07:24):
Then we go back up to like I said, Fairborne,
up to Wright State on the twenty first of February
to do a boot camp, and we've got another boot
camp in eleven In on the twenty eighth of March.
That's what we've got scheduled so far. We've we've got
a lot of stuff that over the next two or
three weeks, we're gonna have a lot of stuff scheduled.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Absolutely, I'm so pleased to hear that that is all
going on, and maybe even more. Jim Lewis pause. I'm
going to bring you back talk a little bit more
about the boot camp. What people are going to, you know,
go in and find out what they're going to get
when they're there, what they're going to learn. But also
I'm going to press you litle bit on this Pursuit
of Happiness seminar. You're doing building Blocks for Liberty dot org.
(08:05):
Check it out, get all the information and yeah, hit
that donate button. Jim Lewis. Pause, will bring you right back.
It's eight fourteen right now, fifty five k s the
talk station. Here's what's happening, Greenedy Talk station. Barn Tim
is talking with Jim Lewis. He's the man, one of
the people behind. He's not taking full credit for building
Blocks for Liberty to do. Constitution boot Camps, next one
taking place Saturday. It's not too late to sign up.
(08:27):
Concerned Veterans for America is the sponsor. Forty four to
sixty two. Brandt Pike nine am to three pm. You
get more Constitution, more US founding documents, history than you
can manage. They're going to teach you how to talk
about it, how to discuss the Constitution, so you're prepared
to engage with people who are ignorant to the beauty
of our United States Constitution. But they're also going to
(08:48):
get for the lolo price of thirty bucks to get
into the class, a free lunch as well as copies
of the Federalist papers and the handbook for We the
People and a Constitution as well, right exactly, So get
it all, okay. And I also you mentioned the word sponsor,
Concerned Veteran American as a sponsor. You're looking for other
(09:10):
organizations to host a Constitution boot camp. I'm checking out
your web page. You got upcoming events. You're soliciting people
out there in the world to get in touch with
you to do a boot camp.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Am I right, Yes, we do. We do. We start
doing that in November for the fall, you know, the
next year, and we continue doing it. And you know,
that's how we got the Concerned Veterans folks. And you know,
I think we start picking up other groups like that,
church groups and things like that that want us to
come in and you know, put on a class in
their church. You know, we look for locations that are
(09:43):
going to be free. You know, we to minimize our
costs and everything that we do. And sometimes the groups
are sponsoring us will actually provide the lunch, so we
don't have to you know, pay out our pockets for
that too. So it works out real nice.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
That sure does so, church group. And I know from
your materials you even have introductory materials that, uh maybe
a parishonal parishoner can present to the pastor the church's
governing board, for example, to explain exactly what you want
to do. It kind of agreeses the skids, get your
foot in the door, and this is all a noble
noble cause. Now I got to ask you, and I
(10:21):
sort of half jokingly but more seriously state, I don't
think these crazy leftists that are running around screaming at
everyone all the time, I don't think they're capable of happiness.
It seems to me if you gave them everything they want,
they would still be angry and mad as hell about something.
But you talked about the seminars on pursuit of happiness
just boiled down. Jim Lewis, what what does that talk about?
(10:43):
What do you what do you engage in when you
do when you do those classes?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Well, you know, Mark Burrell does the class, and like
I said, he's written two books on the declaration and
you know, pursuit of happiness that comes from the Declaration
of Independence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And
what Mark does is he basically breaks it down. You know,
what did the founders mean when they said life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. You know, he wants to
(11:11):
unpack the total, the full meaning from that phrase and
this connection to the freedom we enjoy when we have
these rights protected by government, which is supposed to do.
So he kind of gets into the whole thing and says,
here's what it is, here's what it means. And oh,
by the way, did you know government's supposed to protect
(11:31):
these rights from us? And explains goes down that road too.
So it's really pretty full.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I'm sure it is, and a lot to unpack here.
You will be doing a dive. I mean, I know
they get a copy of the folks who attend the
building blocks classes on constitution. Boot can't get the federalist papers,
but those are critical documents when you need when you're
trying to understand the Constitution itself.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Well, you know the Federalist papers. That's you know, your explanation.
Here's what everybody says well, what did the founders intend
when they wrote that? Well, look at the Federalist papers.
That's what they were written for, to tell you what
their intentions were. When the Constitution was crafted and constructed
in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven, James Madison, you know
(12:18):
called the Father of the Constitution, along with Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton,
and John Jay sat down and started answering questions being
asked by folks who came to be known as the
anti Federalists because they were asking questions saying, the Constitution
leaves the doors open for this, this, and this, and
they would answer back, no, it doesn't, and here's why,
boom boom boom. So you know, it's kind of like
(12:40):
the addendum to a contract. The Constitution is a contract.
The Federal's papers in my views, like that, you know,
the addendum, the opposing lawyer answering the questions that you
know the other person's asking about what the contract says.
So you've got to have the Federal's papers and you've
got to know how to use them. And that's what
we teach is what are in the federals papers and
(13:01):
how do you use them in connection with the Constitution.
We teach that in this class.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
It's like an appendix to the Constitution, s like a
definition or a bibliography that goes along with it. Exactly
building blocks Celebrity Constitution boot Camp. It's the informations on
my blog page V do you five car sea dot Com?
And ideally, Jim, what's the age group you're you're you're
hoping to best serve by for folks attending the class.
(13:27):
I mean, is there a cutoff like I don't want
anybody over the age of twenty or something? Or is
it all comers? What's what's your focus? What's your rope?
All comers?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
All comers? I wouldn't bring kids younger than ten or
twelve because they're going to get bored.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
That fair enough statement managing expectations.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Twelve we're over y'all, come.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Get them on in there. Made it real easy to
do that, Jim. Joe Streker put your information up on
the blog page. VI do you fi have cars dot Com?
Jim Lewis, you know you always have a spot here
in the morning show to spread the low love about
what you are doing in the interest of American history
and American education and an effort to well protect what
we have here which so many people seem to want
to throw out the door. Jim Lewis, thank you for
(14:11):
your service to our country and your ongoing patriotism and
service through the building blocks for liberty dot org site.
Thank you always a pleasure