Happy Fourth of July: Pray For Your Leaders

I was 11 years old in

1976 when America turned

200 years old. And I'm here to tell you,

everybody was just so happy for our

birthday, and everybody was wearing T

shirts that had flags. Fifty years later,

a lot of people can't stand America, and they

live here. Let's talk about it.

Feeding my faith.

Well, God's word is made simple.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

It's hard to talk about this without getting political,

but we are talking about politics because that's what's stopping

people who live in the best country in the world

from. And they're complaining about it. I don't get this.

One of the things that's been great about the World

cup being in America are all these people from different

countries who only hear that America's bad. If you go

there, you're probably gonna get raped or robbed. And

they're finding out that, wow, look at this beach. And this is

just as good, if not better, than anything we have in Australia.

And the one person said, this is like a museum.

They were amazed at everything that was in there. And you're like, really? Where were

they? At a Walmart? And

it's just amazing. And so let's. Let's see what the

Bible says here in First Timothy

2:1:3 says, I urge you, then.

So this is coming from the Apostle Paul. I urge you then,

first of all, first, that

petitions, prayers, intercession, and

thanksgiving be made for all

people, for kings and all those in

authority, that we may live peaceful and

quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

This is good. And pleases

God, our Savior, who wants all people

to be saved and come to a knowledge of

the truth. And so it's weird

because it seems like if you watch the media, of course,

that America is ripping at the seams. And one of the things that

was kind of interesting, I've not been to a lot of concerts

in a while, and I took my sister

because she loved Rick Springfield back in

the 80s and he was opening for Sammy Hagar.

And so I took her to Blossom Music center here in Ohio.

And what was interesting is there were certain songs, of course,

where the different acts would have the audience sing

along. And in many cases, without even being prompted,

everyone was singing along. And that always makes my heart

kind of grow a size or two when you hear a

bunch of people unified together

singing Jesse's Girl or whatever it was.

But it seems like all we hear is how we hate each other.

And for the record, when it comes to politics,

I am convinced that all politicians are corrupt.

And lobbyists have way too much influence on

politicians. I believe in some cases, the lobbyists

are actually writing the policies and then the

representatives just sign off on them. For more information on that,

listen to Congressional Dish. That's my buddy

Jen Briney, who used to be a little more

fair and balanced to use the Fox thing. She's leaning very

left these days, but she does read the bills that go through Congress. But

nonetheless, here's the thing that's always

interesting. We can have somebody do something great

and somebody will find something negative about it.

So here's something you may not know. First of all, you've heard

the saying that the winners get the right the history book.

And that's well true, but we often miss

facts. And I didn't know this, I never heard this growing up

in public schools here in Ohio. In

1850, Abraham Lincoln supported

the American Colonization Society. All right,

what were they all about? Well, they wanted to send all the slaves back to

Liberia. What? Yeah.

In fact, he continued to pursue, look it up

on. He continued to pursue colonization

and even included provisions for

resettlement in the early drafts of the Emancipation

Proclamation going back to August

1862. So that's 12

years. Now. Obviously that didn't happen.

It was changed. And maybe that's why we don't learn about it in

school. But there are a lot of people when you bring up Abraham Lincoln

that'll go, hey, man, he wanted to ship the slaves back. And you're like, wait,

what? Just to say something negative. Let's not focus

on the good thing that happened in the end. Let's focus on the

weird thought process that happened before it did. But right

now it seems like, like it's cool

to hate America. It seems like a

lot of our children don't feel like they fit in until they get to spit

out some letters, oh, I'm ADHD, K, double H or

I'm LGBTQ plus XYZ and sometimes

Y. And less than one

in four Democrats. And here's the key.

Under the age of 30 say they're proud to be an

American. So less than one in four.

Like, I'm not saying I'm proud to be an American. In fact, 59%

of self identified liberals say there have been times they've

considered leaving America permanently.

So they're like, that's it, I'm out of here. In fact, Cher, Barbra

Streisand, Sharon Stone, Miley Cyrus, George Lopez,

Bryan Cranston, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie

O' Donnell all said if Trump wins I'm leaving.

And of that giant list, only two did.

Which I wonder sometimes if they were just saying that for, you know,

headlines and clicks. It's also interesting

that. And people are gonna think, oh, here goes Dave. You know,

he's one of those Christian guys. He's gonna bash the

LGBTQ plus. Well, it is.

I'm not for the record. That's between them and God.

But Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O', Donnell, who did leave, are

both gay. Well, here's the thing, because, you know,

America is so horrible. That's all we hear.

Well, I wonder if they know that now. I think Rosie

moved to Ireland. I think they

are Scotland, one of the two. But 66 countries

make being gay a crime.

Not in America. Uganda can impose the death

penalty for same sex relations.

The death penalty, in fact, Burundi's

president called for citizens to stone

gay people. I've never heard that in America.

I've never heard of the death penalty in China.

They have 50 different crimes that you can get the death penalty

for. And if the atheists are like, screw America,

I'm out of here. This place is nuts. Take your Jesus and I'm getting out

of here. Well, have fun. You better pick your countries wisely,

because 13 countries punish atheism with

death. 61 countries

impose restrictions on women's clothing. So when you leave, you might

want to bring a scarf with you. And while you're

criticizing America, paramilitary groups have

killed government critics in Argentina,

Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela.

So be careful where you're criticizing your

new, you know, chosen country. There's

arbitrary detention in Cuba,

Ecuador, El Salvador and Nicaragua. And

in fact, if you're in Russia and you refer to the

Ukraine conflict as a war,

it can result in a 15 year

prison sentence. Now, in

America, you get a jury trial

in Saudi or Nigeria or the Sudan,

and you're a thief, you get your hands cut off.

But America is so horrible.

Why do so many young people hate America?

I was watching a. They call them

new rules. And this is from Bill Maher, who leans

very left, and he pointed out that in

Portland public schools, there's curriculum that says

when the United States was colonized by white settlers,

their views around gender were forced upon the people

already living here. That's in

again the Portland public schools curriculum.

And it's always weird when I

see lesbians standing up for

Palestine because they

just have no clue what they're talking about,

and yet they're so passionate about it. Why? Because they're getting

schooled by Tik Tok. And I wonder Sometimes

if other countries aren't feeding

propaganda on TikTok, because

if they are, it seems to be working. But they don't know that

for 2000 years Palestine was a space that really

nobody wanted. It was kind of this orphan

providence. And then after World War II,

Jerusalem was made an official country.

And here's the thing, even if you think the Bible

is a bunch of hooey, as that's a phrase

my grandma would use, ah, it's a bunch of hooey.

But geographically it's pretty

solid. And in 1947 the UN

dubbed Jerusalem a country and they dubbed

this other place for the Arab countries. And the Arab

countries didn't agree and pretty much have tried to kill Israel

ever since. Six year war, this war, that war, this

war. It's just, they just have never accepted it.

And the Jews again have always lived in Jerusalem. Now if

you ask a young person, they might

say, well, they're a bunch of colonizers. You know, the Jews are

a bunch of colonizers. That's like calling the native Americans here in

America colonizers. No, they were here

first. And if you look at every people talk about, oh, you're living

on stolen land, do some research.

Every country was stolen from somebody.

Holy cow. And if you think it's oppressive

to be, you know, gay living in the Midwest or

how whatever you are and you think a certain way I'm being

oppressed reminds me of the Monty Python movie.

Try living in the Middle east. You'll move back to the middle

the Midwest really quick because that stuff isn't going to fly in

Gaza. Hamas is a terrorist group that took

over Gaza. The Revolutionary Guard is a terrorist group that has

taken over Iran. The Taliban, you may have heard of them, is a

terrorist group that took over Afghanistan. ISIS is a

terrorist group that took over Iran. And Iran sponsors

Hamas is and Hezbollah.

And none of those be though none of those groups are really

crazy about the things that you're standing up for.

But America is so bad. Oh really?

In Iran their regime has killed

600 protesters. Well, what were they

protesting? Well, a 22 year old woman

had died in captivity. Really? What had she done?

Well, she wasn't wearing her head covering correctly.

22. So they protested

because that's nonsense. And 600 people lost their

lives protesting that. Yeah, sure,

America's so bad. And it just seems

like so many of our youth are under

educated and over sensitized.

Meryl Streep, who is not under 30 said

this when she spoke at the UN. She said today in

Kabul, a female cat has more

freedoms than a woman. A cat may go sit on her

front stoop and feel the sun on her face. She may chase

a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights

than a girl in Afghanistan a day. A bird may sing

in Kabul, but a girl may not. And

so America is celebrating 250 years.

One report said the average lifespan of a country is

336 years. I know. I think it

was Rome was somewhere between 4 and 500. But not

all countries last forever. So a

nation's real strength is, comes from

righteousness, humility. In fact, in

Jeremiah 29 00:14:42

7, it says, also

Jeremiah 29 00:14:45

seek the peace and prosperity of the city

Jeremiah 29 00:14:49

to which I have carried you into exile. Pray

Jeremiah 29 00:14:53

to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you

Jeremiah 29 00:14:57

too will Prosper. In Proverbs

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34, it says, righteousness exalts a

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nation, but sin condemns any

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people. In Philippians

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3:20. But our citizenship is in

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heaven, and we eagerly await a savior from

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there, the Lord Jesus Christ. So while we are

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citizens here on earth, we're really

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citizens in heaven. And

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so with access to the Internet, I'm amazed

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how people are so ill informed when we are

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just drowning in information. And

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granted, some of it's hard to tell what's

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real and what's not. But when you look back

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just a few years to let's say 1976,

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now there are 14 million women owned

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businesses, 17% of black women

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are starting businesses, which by the way, is faster than white women.

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And while you may be killed in other countries for being gay,

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49% of gay Americans own property.

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And I know, but Trump, Dave Trump is

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this crazy guy and he's, you know, he's a king.

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He's crazy. Okay, well, let's, let's step back a

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second, let's take a breath because

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it turns out America actually works.

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What. What do you mean by that? Well, think about it. He didn't

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concede in 2020 that he lost the election. And that

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is true. He's still saying that. But in

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2016, he still left. Right? He left.

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He wasn't happy about it, but he left. And

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most of the actions that the President has taken

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are more often than not stopped by the courts,

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winning fewer than one in 10 court cases in which a

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court has ruled on challenges involving his administration.

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I do not get the whole no kings thing, because

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he's not a king. There's a

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Congress, there's all sorts of stuff. In fact, the huge budget

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cuts request, remember, we're going to do this and we're going to do that and

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cut this and cut that. Yeah, none of them went through.

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Not really. It was kind of, unfortunately, business as

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usual again. See lobbyists.

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Trump doesn't own the country. He's a

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temporary caretaker. He's an employee.

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And the one thing that always makes me so

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confused is the same

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politician who wants to open our borders

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super wide, then explains how awful

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America is. Well, if America is so awful, then why

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do so many people want to come here? I

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don't understand that. So if we go

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back to 1976 and we're

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rocking out to some fog hat, you know you are,

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and we compare it to 2026, higher

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incomes. Now, granted, you could argue, yeah, and things cost more,

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but there are larger homes, there's better technology.

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Just look at video games. 1976, you had

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a. This little Mattel football thing with a little red led.

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Now you got. I remember once I was in Best Buy and they

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had, I think it was some sort of Madden game on one of those 4K,

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you know, big giant TV screens. And I thought it was a football game. I

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sat there and watched it and it dawned on me. I'm like, oh, this is

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a video game on demo. Now there are more entertainment

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choices. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But,

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you know, when I was growing up, there was abc, NBC,

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cbs, and then some channel on UHF that if you

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pointed the antenna just the right way, you know, eventually we got Fox. Now

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you got Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, you

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know, Paramount. Plus, there's no way anybody can be

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bored now. Granted, most of the stuff on those

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channels is not really something I want to watch.

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There's also a lower infant mortality

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now. We'll talk more about that later. Women can obtain

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credit independently, which is amazing that in the 70s they couldn't.

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That's not that long ago, but now you can. Women now serve

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on the Supreme Court. How many people were on the Supreme Court?

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1976, women. That would be zero.

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2026, we got four. And

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now more women serve in Congress. In 1976, there were

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19. In 2026, 150

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women now serve in Congress. That's about 28%.

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I remember growing up hearing about smog,

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but if you look at places like California, there are definitely less

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smog days. There's been removal of lead from

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gasoline. We've removed asbestos from

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everywhere. Basically, there's a much greater awareness of drunk

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driving. In 1976, it was like, ah, it's just boys

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being boys. Or whatever. Now there's serious

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repercussions for that. There are safer automobiles.

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Anybody remember when the Pintos were blowing up? Yeah.

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We are kind of ignoring the fact that

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the electrical cars, like, what are we going to do when the batteries go dead?

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And what are we going to do when these things

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catch on fire? Because it's really hard to put out

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an electrical car on fire. So we'll talk about ways we

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can get better. We also don't smoke on planes anymore.

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And thankfully in restaurants. That was always dumb.

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You're in a booth in a restaurant, and the booth on the other side of

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you to your back is the smoking section. Yeah. That's

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not going to fall over. Or in a plane. You're in a giant tube going

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across the planet. Yeah. Yeah. Your smoke isn't going to. Yeah.

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That's so stupid. So, again, I

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realize America is not perfect

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at all. We got a lot of things to work at. You know, I mentioned

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we have a better infant mortality, but we're still 54th in the world.

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We're behind Cuba, not known for.

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Well, they're known for having old cars and cigars.

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You know, we're 19th in literacy,

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which is behind Russia. We're

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72nd in female representation

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in government. That's behind Iraq.

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How is that possible? Free

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speech now, this is kind of a global thing, but if

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it's happening across the planet, it's probably coming this way,

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but it's under attack. There was a thing in the UK

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where they had allowed all these immigrants that were

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causing some issues. And so a bunch of people stood

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up and said, hey, we. We need to do something about these. And they were

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holding up the flag of their country, and they were

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getting arrested because, well, holding up the flag was

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offensive to the immigrants. And I was

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like, wait, what? Yeah.

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Meanwhile, children are in our countries. You know, they're in other countries.

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They're learning, you know, this odd stuff like reading, writing and

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arithme, where our children are learning about proper use of

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pronouns. And if you ask, if somebody asks you what is your

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preferred pronoun, just say, I don't have a preferred pronoun. I go by

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my sex. I'm male or female, if that's what

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you do. But Satan wants you

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to think that it doesn't matter

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if you pray for your leaders. And I know,

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I hear that in my head. I told you at the beginning, I think they're

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all corrupt. It's lobbyists, and it's never going to change. It's

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only going to get worse. And I'M pretty sure I know where that message came

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from. So Paul says again,

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I urge then, first of all, that petitions, prayers

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and intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people,

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for kings and all those in authority, that we may live

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peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

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This is good and pleases

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God our Savior, who wants all people

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to be saved and to come to the knowledge

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of the truth. So

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if you're around people that are like, well, I'm not going to go to the

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4th of July party because why would I

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celebrate such a horrible country? You might want to

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check yourself and do a little research. We're

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not perfect. We got lots of room for improvement, but

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it could be a whole lot worse.

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Simple ra.