The Church, Politics and You: Influencing Change (Part 2 With David Leach)

Get ready for a captivating journey through the intricate world of local politics and faith. We promise your understanding of community involvement and its pivotal role in shaping national policies will be entirely transformed. Delving into the heart of local governance, from school boards to town councils, we reveal the true power you hold as an individual to influence change. We also talk about the power of incumbency, its impact on democracy, and its role in upcoming elections. 

Brace yourselves, as we take you on an intriguing exploration of potential candidates and their impact on the future, featuring political figures like Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and potential Libertarian Party candidates. We also bring the church into focus, emphasizing the importance of prayer and the role of the church in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Join us, as we unravel the essence of staying true to the gospel and how your involvement in local church can inspire a wave of change. This episode promises to be as thought-provoking as it is enlightening. Let's navigate these waters together! The Strident Conservative ™ - Politically Incorrect | Always Right ™ %

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

It may sound overly simplistic, but really it does start locally. Almost every person working in Washington was a local politician first. There are a few exceptions to that rule, but generally speaking, local politics and I mean local local, not just your state I'm talking about, like your city your local school boards. It sounds overly simplistic, like I said, but really it kind of starts there, because if you start locally, eventually and it'll take time it took a long time for us to get where we are today in Washington and it's not going to be turned on a dime tomorrow either. It's going to take some work. I might not see it in my lifetime, but I'm going to work on trying to put together a foundation anyhow, so that hopefully the next generation or those people who follow me will see where we're supposed to be going and then pick up the mantle and take it to the next level until they're gone. But it starts locally. So I mean your local school boards. That can be incredibly impactful. I mean, look at all the news that's going on right now.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Like you said, I write about a lot of topics. I write a lot about the CRT movement and the LGBT agenda in our public schools and if you can get involved in your local school board, you might be able to make just a little bit of a difference. You might save one or two kids from the inevitable outcome that I see coming if we don't change. So you can start on the school board, your local town council Again, it seems small, but town councils are basically they're the end line of federal dollars. So federal government doles out money to states and local governments for various purposes all the time. So if you're involved in local government, your city council, your board of commissioners on the county level, something locally that can make a difference and you don't even have to pursue higher office.

Speaker 1: 2:13

The point is is that if you can get in there and you can try to, you can turn the direction of things, even just a little bit. If it's one or two degrees even, you got to look at where that one or two degrees will eventually end up years down the road, because that one to two degrees looks small here at the beginning, but over time that'll get really big and so that's kind of where I see that's the only. That's really the only way. Unfortunately, getting back to the matrix analogy, the machine world runs the world and so everything's always said. How many times do you read about the power of incumbency? If you're an incumbent, I think you're like 80% likely to keep your job, doesn't matter what you did or didn't do, and that's because of the system. The system's rigged. You have the Republicans and Democrats controlling how districts are laid out, and so you gerrymandered districts to favor your party one way or the other, and so that way you can basically stay in office forever.

Speaker 2: 3:25

Forever.

Speaker 1: 3:25

yeah, clearly, Clearly we have blocking costs there. So that's what the big thing is to start locally. As a Christian, I also believe that there's lots of things we can do just through prayer. I mean God swallowed armies just because somebody prayed, I mean. So it is possible to change the course If there's somebody, for example this is the kind of prayers I pray If there's somebody in office who obviously doesn't represent conservative values, the Constitution, our traditional morality in Christian beliefs. They don't have to be Christians, but I mean at least running things the way it was run when we were started, I prayed the Psalm that their days be short and let another take their place. So I mean it's like I just I literally pray that. I don't pray that they die, I don't pray that they get sick. I don't want anything, I'm not, I don't do anything like that, although David prayed for the death of his enemies all the time in the Psalms. So I don't know, maybe there's a biblical defense for praying that way. I'm not advocating pray that way, don't misunderstand so right?

Speaker 2: 4:46

No, I understand.

Speaker 1: 4:48

I mean it's. I mean you know so prayer can also make a difference, and you know what that gets to. Another issue too. I mean, the church is so pathetic today, the Christian church. I give you my website. You'll find a tab, the fellowship of the Pharisees, and these are, these are people that that's my own tag, that I gave them. But you have all these national Christian leaders who came to light mostly when they were endorsing Donald Trump and they were winking at his adult tree, and adult tree, I mean and and his crimes, and, and you know, just say, oh well, he'll give us conservatives on the Supreme Court, so we just need to, and he'll defend our Christian faith and you know so. Anyhow, the fellowship of the Pharisees, we there's another tab.

Speaker 1: 5:40

And I was just going to get ready to say, though, we're acting locally in politics, you can also act locally in your local church. You need to get involved. You need to make sure that your leaders are people who believe in the inner truth of the gospel. You know, the Bible is the Bible. It says what it says, and if we don't understand something, that doesn't mean it didn't say what it said. It just means we have to figure out why we're confused. The Bible isn't confused, we're confused, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Well you know that's another way that you can make a difference is also, if you don't want to get involved locally in politics, then get involved in your local church and and work on spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, because that'll definitely change the world if nothing else will.

Speaker 2: 6:24

That's a great message and, and you know one, people really should take the heart, because I think that you know, generally speaking, people get in this mindset of that. It's so overwhelming when you look at the big picture of everything that's happening in our world and that has already happened and it feels like it's unstoppable because it's so far gone and you get this world, weary people, weary Mentality, and you just kind of people just give up. They're like I can't, I can't do anything about it, so I'm just gonna tune it out and not listen to it and just live my life and pretend it's not going on. And you know, you're, you're so right, you have to start small. It's and it's the ripple effect. I think if you want big change, you do have to start small. You know, and to be cliche I'm gonna be cliche because I love cliches If you want to see the change, you have to be the change.

Speaker 1: 7:21

That's right, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 7:24

Clichets are great because they're right and they're true, you know, and that's one of those things that well, as you do have to.

Speaker 1: 7:31

As Zig Ziglar used to say to along those lines. He says, he says, if it is to be, it's up to me. I like that's, I mean that's, that's another really, and I say that a lot. You know, it's especially when I'm facing those times like well, I'm really tired and sometimes you just need to take a break. I mean, you know, I'm not saying that this shouldn't be a 40-hour week occupation for people. I'm not saying anything like that. But yeah, we do have to understand that if we're not willing to be the instruments of change, then we're not likely to see the change we need to see to save America.

Speaker 2: 8:03

Yeah, absolutely Mentioned 9-11 a couple of times and, yeah, and because it is 9-11, the anniversary is 22 years today, which is crazy to me, so crazy. I just want to take a moment and and recognize that and and recommend to people that they go and read your article and, you know, go in with that open mind to not that defensive mind, and really pay attention to what David's saying in that article. I think I think you will pull something out of there of value, whether you like it or not. You will pull value out of it and I think that's important To do. And you know, like I said before, you know I make a point of reading things that I don't like or necessarily agree with, because I feel like it's important to know, and I think that's important for everyone to do, whether they agree with something or not. Now I noticed something else on your website you are writing a book. I want to talk about that for a minute. Tell me about that.

Speaker 1: 9:02

Oh well, thank you. Thank you for mentioning that. Um, yeah, I'm doing a little funding thing there to try to help pay for it. One of the problems with my approach to conservatism is that the mainstream you know Daniel Horowitz refers to it as conservative incorporated, it's kind of become a more of a corporation than a cause, and so a lot of the places that were my book topic would have been welcome. It's not gonna be welcome anymore, and so I'm self publishing. I know the road ahead of me in that regard. My wife is in the publishing industry. She's an editor, so I know that I've got a road to a road to hoe there, but it is.

Speaker 1: 9:45

It is on the things we've been talking about. It is basically it's the working title right now is Heart of Liberty, because that is. That is basically that's America. I mean it. Forget everything else. Forget the, the decorations, forget the white European part, forget. Forget everything else.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Why did America happen? It happened because we were searching for a way to live in liberty and we weren't able. You know, they weren't able to do it under King George. They weren't able to do it Through other types of things like communism and socialism. So they came to America and they started their own country with the purpose of liberty, and so that's that, that was.

Speaker 1: 10:32

I think the title is probably going to change, but in a nutshell the book is basically it kind of goes back to our roots. I defend the fact that liberty is basically foundational to our existence. There's even some scriptural reference. Paul tells us in the scriptures to guard our liberty, and he's talking about our Christian liberty, because as Christians we're free to do whatever we want to do, but not everything is necessarily fruitful to do so. So there's that angle, and then there is just some practical steps on how to get back into, get back into liberty, some of the things we talked about, some how to get involved.

Speaker 1: 11:17

It's going to be not agenda-specific or not agenda issues specific. In other words, I'm not going to bring up, for example, covid, which was basically the continuation of what happened in 9-11, although we were doing it in the name of COVID instead of in the name of international terrorism, but so I won't be bringing that up. But what happened during COVID will be in the book, because our government took liberties away from us that they had no right to take away. You can debate all the other again. You can debate the window dressing. So right now, that's what the book is about. Heart of.

Speaker 1: 11:57

Liberty is the booking title and we are due to we're launching. I'm working with a great organization called Storytellers who is going to help me do this. They've been responsible for bestselling books with politicians and a lot of the conservative people in conservative radio, and so Bill Blanchine is his name. He's going to be working with me and we're starting officially this week and we hope to be in print in time for the primaries. So we're shooting for like March or April, because the subject of liberty is going to be my issue going into 2024, or regardless of party affiliation. If liberty is in danger, you're not going to be somebody I support.

Speaker 2: 12:45

I like that, and if more people had that mindset, I think we probably would have a lot better outcomes with everything, and and people would stop voting on the basis of you know, or I'll use the Trumpism you know as the example. There's the never Trumpers, there's the never so and so. So you know, essentially and quite literally saying I will vote for a you know dead tree in the woods instead of this. You know I will vote for any down and why I came up with that one, but that's what I came up with, you know. So we need to stop doing that. We need to stop voting on appearances. I like the way he speaks, I like the way he looks or she. We need to vote on issues and how they affect and what they're really doing and what they have done. And you know not and, like you said, not on party anymore. I wanted to. So are you OK if we go over a little bit, because I just have so many questions for you? I have.

Speaker 2: 13:42

Oh sure, sure, ok I mean, if I have to split this into two parts, and so be it, but my gosh, there's just so many things I want to ask you. I'm going to try and like sum it up and like essentially one question Is there anyone right now that is, you know, we got a little ways to go, there's people going to drop in and drop out Is there anyone right now that you are looking at that you're thinking this, this guy or woman, they've got some potential here, there, there are possibilities or anybody that you're looking at right now that you'd say potential to Ask you?

Speaker 2: 14:20

a question that's a tough, it's tough right, I'm going to tell you I honestly don't know.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Well. Ok, if you allow me the liberty to explain why I'm taking the position I am on some of these candidates. Ron DeSantis is really big as a kind of a rising star. There are a few national conservative talking heads who are endorsing him already. If you go to my website, I've written four or five articles, though that DeSantis is in that populist camp that I was talking about earlier.

Speaker 1: 15:00

He doesn't have a problem with using the strong arm of government to knock down somebody he doesn't necessarily agree with His saying. With Disney, for instance, I wrote an article when that happened. I'm not a big fan of Disney's wokeness. I mean that's that's bad news. It's bad news for our kids, because Disney targets their product toward kids. However, having I don't agree with somebody abusing their power as the governor of the state or his party in the legislature, basically breaking all written agreement, breaking the law by breaking all written agreements with Disney in order to try to punish them in some way, not for what they did, but because they spoke out against a policy of dissent, I wrote an article.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Actually, I have on my website that it's called the GOP Hall of Shame. Gop stands for gutless on principles, not the grand old party, but it is also always about it's always about Republicans. Desantis was my most recent inductee into the gutless on principles Hall of Shame because he's got some fascist leanings to me that I find to be very troubling from the perspective of the Constitution. I'm not second guessing why he's doing what he's doing. I understand his motivation, but how he's doing it is totally a bad. It's bad news in my opinion. That's just my opinion, so I'm not really not a big fan of DeSantis. Nikki Haley, right when I would like to like her, she usually does something silly. When she was still governor, I kind of I had a problem with her decision to go ahead and take the Confederate flag off of the state flag.

Speaker 1: 16:53

It was a small portion of the flag and again what she did. I understood why, how she did it. I had a problem with that. And also too, when she went to work for Trump as our ambassador to the UN. I don't know. I just Nikki seems to be way too comfortable with whatever way the wind might be blowing at any given time for my comfort. She has some potential, but she kind of plays the politics game. I don't like any of the other candidates. I mean, nikki and DeSantis are kind of like the two, but I don't like Vivek. I think he's a nutcase. I don't like Pence, not because he used to work for Trump, but I wrote about Pence when he was governor of Indiana. He's a vast. I call him Pusil animus Pence. He's a he's. He vacillates on anything, I mean, and he kind of again, he kind of goes with whatever is politically popular at any given time. The other candidates, well, like I said, I just really don't care for any of them.

Speaker 1: 18:04

Yeah so yeah, we've got them. That's the Republican Party. I don't like any of the Democrats, although I will say, I will say and I know I know I'll get trouble for this but Robert F Kennedy Jr he's, he's a liberal, so I mean he's already kind of in a camp where I don't particularly care for it, but he has some libertarian leanings on some really important issues that I find very attractive. It's like if I could take his libertarian issue leanings and put them in Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis and I think I'd have my perfect candidate. So I don't I'm not saying I'd vote for RFK Jr, but I'm just saying that I wouldn't rule out a Democrat just because a Democrat is a Democrat. Right, there were some. There were some really good Democrats in history. J F K was a great Democrat, I mean because he was a good president. He was. He wasn't a liberal, he wasn't the progressive Democrat that the most Democrats are today. So that's right.

Speaker 2: 19:10

Yeah, he's an interesting guy, I find him very fascinating and but yeah, I kind of feel like I'm in the same boat as you. You're just you. You have a lot more knowledge on all of them than I do, and you know, and I agree with you on the Vivek Ramaswamy.

Speaker 1: 19:27

I would. I would like to real quick. I would like to say that if he would decide to run again, he entertained it in 2020. I would, I would be very in favor of Justin Amash if I could get, if he would, if he would decide to run again. He's very libertarian and he's kind of too libertarian for me in some ways, but overall, I mean he's he's right on pro life, he's right on the Constitution. I don't particularly care for some of his foreign policy points of view, but you know those kind of things tend to be done more in Congress than in the presidency anyway. So I would like to. In fact, I'll send the copy of this show to his. I'll post it on his Twitter account and see if he reposted, because I would go for Justin Amash if he would decide to run again.

Speaker 2: 20:16

Nice, very, very interesting. Do you ever think that? So the obvious statement is the Republican and Democrat party. They are the strongholds, obviously, for elections and mindsets of people. Do you see a point where the libertarian party is ever gonna be able to surge forward? Is that even a possibility? I mean, it seems like it could be.

Speaker 1: 20:45

I think it could be. You know, one of the reasons Amash was going to run when he put up his exploratory committee, he was gonna run as a libertarian. The primary reason for that was that the libertarian party is on all 50 ballots, on the ballot in all 50 states. The challenge right now? And that's because of the machines. The machines run the system. So the Republican Democrat machine has pretty much made it very, very, very hard for anybody who's not a Republican or a Democrat to try to win any kind of an election. There have been some successes with people who have run under a party label and then became independent afterwards. Unfortunately, those were almost always Democrats and they became unaffiliated so that they could be even more liberal. I mean, you know, bernie Sanders is a case in point. I would say, yes, they could happen.

Speaker 1: 21:46

Part of the problem with libertarians libertarianism for me is taken as a 100% package. It's not acceptable. Because I mean pure libertarians want to legalize prostitution, they want all drugs deregulated. I mean, you know, because this is all in the quote of individual liberty. Well, that's true. But now let me go back to my, let me put my Christian hat on. Paul says that we have to guard our liberties, not everything that we. We're free to do whatever we want. But just because we're free to do whatever we want as Christians doesn't mean we should, because not everything is profitable. So, yeah, I'm in favor of more liberty, but I'm not in favor of that being done at the expense of our morality. You know the impact.

Speaker 2: 22:36

Ultimately, david, you know we're all just deep down in our hearts and our minds too. I like to believe that. You know we all just want that one simple word that is so elusive, it seems, in every walk and phase of life balance. I mean, can we just get balance? And you know that pendulum is constantly swinging from one extreme to the other and we never hit that middle point, and I certainly don't know if we ever will. But I don't know about you, but I sure as heck hope that I live to see a day, that we all live to see a day where there is actually this balance that occurs. And you know I won't put words or thoughts on anybody else's mind but mine. I would say we can't have that until we bring Christ back into everything for our lives and our society and everything. You know I don't know if we're gonna ever see that happen in our lifetime, but it's something worth it.

Speaker 1: 23:36

I don't remember which one of the founders said it I think it was Mason, but I don't recall but I do remember the quote. And he said our Constitution was written. See, everything for me is about the Constitution. But he says the Constitution was written for a moral people and it's wholly inadequate for any other. And so, basically, it's like the Constitution is great, it's described, it explains what we're supposed to be, free, all of our rights come from God. But we have to balance that, using your word, we have to balance that with the fact that it is only, it can only be applied correctly if it's, but if it's applied by people who have a moral compass.

Speaker 2: 24:21

David, I really, I honestly cannot thank you enough for taking the time, especially giving me some extra time here to talk about all these things. Again, I feel like we could barely scratch the surface of topics here to talk about and once again, I will send everyone over to the straightinconservativecom. That's correct, right? Yep, okay, good, I go there. Read these articles. Take a look. You don't have a pre-sale up for the book yet, but keep an eye out for that. Donate so it can see the light of day. I think what you're doing is really important and I think it's really important for people to check out. So thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 25:04

Thank you again for having me on. It's been a real pleasure.

Speaker 2: 25:07

Awesome. Thanks again. All right guys. Thank you so much for tuning in and joining us for this episode. I look forward to seeing you guys in the next one. Take care.