Bob McEwen: 45 years.
Dr. James Dobson: And you have four-
Bob McEwen: We have four children.
Dr. James Dobson: Grown sons and daughters.
Bob McEwen: And nine grandchildren.
Dr. James Dobson: The four kids that grew up, they're all adopted.
Bob McEwen: That's what they tell me.
Dr. James Dobson: And these nine grandchildren, how are they doing?
Bob McEwen: Absolutely wonderful. They're all under 11. That's a great time of life.
Dr. James Dobson: That is, I only have two so I'm kind of jealous of you. One of the things I did not mention in my introduction here is that President Trump appointed you to the 1776 Commission. Tell us what that is.
Bob McEwen: Well, as you know, Jim, if I want to change your mind on something, I can't just come in and say, "Oh, by the way, America was formed in 1619." I have to take it apart and I have to take away what you stand for and get a blank sheet and then I can teach you new things. And so we haven't taught history. And now there's an effort by the New York Times and the left to say that America was founded over a century before George Washington was even born. They had slavery and that therefore, because they didn't pay their workers under slavery, that's what made America great. And believe it or not, they're teaching that in grade schools across the country. And so President Trump said, "I've got a great idea. Why don't we just teach the truth that America was founded on July 4th, 1776, and have a commission to encourage the school boards of America, which means the taxpayers, you and I, the voters to vote to tell the truth of 1776, that that's when America was born."
Dr. James Dobson: 1619 is being taught.
Bob McEwen: Is being taught across the nation and has grown exponentially. And that's why it's so important now as we've been out of school for over a year and children are falling further and further behind that with homeschooling and people being able to teach the truth, we want to be able to accomplish that. There were two great events in world history when people found our solution, our salvation, and that when Christ came to this earth and gave his life. And from that day, we now mark the calendar as when the world was given an opportunity to be restored to life. The second greatest day in the history of the world was the day in which they had had slavery, but it all changed on one day, July 4th, 1776. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, among those are life and liberty."
And that day is such that every official document in the United States of America, Congress can be declaring Groundhog Day, when they're all finished, they say done, in this the year of our Lord, the 2021st, and of the independence of the United States of America, the 245th. Because those are the two days in which the world has changed. And that's what they want to wipe out, first God and then America.
Dr. James Dobson: Bob, there are many things that I love and appreciate about you. And one of them is how you feel about America, how you feel about its history. You once told me that when you were a little boy, I think you said you were about eight years of age, you begin reading history and especially the history of our country in preparation for what would be a life of-
Bob McEwen: Public service.
Dr. James Dobson: Involvement in government and things that relate to our country. Tell me about that.
Bob McEwen: Well there's a little place on the globe, only 4% of the population of the world live there. They're the people have the highest privilege to call themselves Americans and that little 4%, every year, write more books, more plays, more symphonies, more copyrights, more inventions than the other 96% combined. I was standing on the street corner a couple of weeks ago with some folks in Ukraine and we just saw an airplane go over and we point out the fact that that airplane is there because that 4% Americans invented the airplane. And you see tires, they land on a landing strip. Those tires, the vulcanization process developed by Charlie Goodyear from Akron, Ohio developed by Firestone, Americans invented the tires and inside the airplane, it's cool. Fortunately, because there's a wonderful thing that was invented called air conditioning by, by Willis Carrier.
And they heard lights you see flashing on that airplane. And those lights are because an American invented the light bulb, and it's flying on a course of a global positioning system that the entire planet is dependent upon. If you're parking a ship and in Singapore or Hong Kong or flying an airplane over the Andes in South America, you use a global positioning system conceived and invented and maintained by Americans. If you want to cheat, if you're some country and you take over Bernai or something, and you want to inflate the currency and make false accusations against various nations, there is one nation on the earth that stands for righteousness and stands to keep the financial system secure, that's only America.
If a ship is attacked on the high seas, as happened over 300 times last year, there's only one place to whom you can appeal. If the tanker for the British empire, that once ruled Britannia, Britannia rules the waves for 250 years, but today, as happened just a few months ago is attacked in the Straits of Hormuz by some Iranian bandits to whom can they appeal? Only the 327,000 Americans that wear the uniform of the United States Navy.
If a yacht is attacked in the Caribbean or in the south Pacific, 70% of all the maritime traffic, of all the goods and services on the entire planet go through the South China Sea, who prevents them from being raided? Who prevents them from being attacked? If China is the strongest nation on earth, it can say, "I don't want any oil going to Israel." And there's no one that could stop them. But because America, these good people, these Americans maintain the sea lanes of the world, then people can live in peace and prosperity. No nation has ever the blessed the world the way this nation does. Our daughter was in Rwanda, 80% of the people in Rwanda are Hutu, 20% are Tutsi. Now they didn't have a government like we have, we have a Constitutional Republic and a Constitutional Republic limits what people can do.
We democratically elect people, that means we go to the ballot box to choose people to operate the republic, but we're not a democracy. In fact, the word democracy does not appear in any of our founding documents or any of the Constitutions of the 50 states because in a democracy, the rights come from the majority. And so in Rwanda, 80% of the people voted to kill the 20%. And of course, over 90 days with machetes, they chopped a million people to death. If a tsunami hits the largest Muslim nation on earth in Indonesia, to whom do they appeal for aid? They come to the Christians in America that immediately come to their aid. And so as we were visiting her in Africa, we went out in the countryside, down this path until the car couldn't go in further and we walked clear back in the woods.
We went across a stream on a log and we ran into these little folks, African children, carrying little plastic bottles. And I said, "Where are they going?" He said, "Well, we're going to the fountain." And we go back to the fountain, where is the clean, clear water and they're standing in line to take the water, to go back to the grass huts where they lived. And there above it the water fountain says, "This, a gift of the people of the United States of America." There's never been a place that blessed the world like this nation does day after day after day.
Dr. James Dobson: Why Bob, what was different about us that made us unique?
Bob McEwen: Jim, that is the point of the whole thing. Americans are not different from other people. Americans are other people and Americans, as you know, have won more Nobel Prizes than the other 96% combined. So what happens, are we smarter than other people? And they say that at the Olympics, when they say running or jumping or hitting for the American and you look, and you're going to see someone with American flag on their shoulder, but you have no idea what that person's going to look like. But when you say a person from Finland, you know what they're going to look like. You say a person from Ethiopia, you know what they're going to look like. But in America, America is not physical. America is spiritual. Anybody can become American because American is a condition of the heart in which they believe in certain things. Now, what are those things?
What makes that such, that on one side of the Rio Grande River are beautiful golf courses and gorgeous homes, and on the other side, Rio Grande is poverty and destruction and death. Well, it happens to be our Constitution based upon, as John Adams said, when they finished writing it, "This was made for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Dr. James Dobson: That's John Adams.
Bob McEwen: And those folks that would say, well I don't know if that's necessarily the case. We actually have proof of that. And that is that a handful of slaves decided in the early 19th century to go to Africa and form a country. And they wanted to be like America. And so they chose as their flag, the stars and stripes, they named it Liberia. We're going to call it Liberty, we're going to name the capital after the president, President Monroe, Monrovia is the capital. We're going take their flag, their capital, we're going take their Constitution.
But the Constitution was made for a moral and a religious people. It's wholly inadequate to the government of any other. So what made America different? That is that we don't believe is in a democracy, that rights come from the majority. The rights don't come from the majority, they come from God and that God gave us life and liberty. So there is a constant spiritual battle of those who want to eliminate God from public discussion, eliminate God from the classroom. And if you're able to eliminate God, then there's standard for right or wrong. Then it's your opinion versus my opinion. And we can just sit and contemplate them as much as we want. And when you do that, without God, there is no protection for life.
And so first they eliminate God and we've seen a political party that does that. And that's the fight in America. A political party eliminate God from their platform and from any official occasion. Then they go after life. And when I was elected to Congress, probably a third to half of all Democrats voted pro-life, that's no longer the case. They've now done away with life. And then the bottom line is any politician who will take innocent life will not hesitate to take your liberty. And so we're seeing what's happening. So in answer to your question, what was the difference? The difference is this nation was based upon God. And that's why we fight this effort to preserve that standard for truth.
Dr. James Dobson: And it's under attack.
Bob McEwen: It absolutely is. And it always has been. And that's why you and I need to constantly be alert. Without God, there's no standard. That's what we call truth. And so the effort is to do away with truth. And that I can say that if I feel like I'm an animal today, and then I feel like... And there's no truth, there's no right or wrong. You say you're not a hippopotamus, son, straighten up. And let me explain. I can say this room is 15 feet wide. You can say it's 22. Somebody else can say it's 17. Somebody else will say it's 12 and we're just all pleased as punch until someone comes in and measures it. And when they measure it, that measurement is truth. Everything else is just opinion. And so a little girl comes in and she measures it, it's 13 feet wide. I said it was 15. That means that everybody knows that what I said was not true. Therefore, error hates truth because truth reveals error.
So, what is the standard of truth? Well, Christ said that He is truth. And what does that mean? That means what God says is true. Everything else is just opinion. And so I can be invited to pray in front of inaugural and I can pray in the name of mother earth and pray in eagle feathers and nobody cares. But if I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, all hell breaks loose. Why? Because He is the truth and truth not only reveals error, here's what it does, Jim, more than that, truth overcomes error. So you're prosecuting a fellow for stealing an ATM machine and his defense council gets up and says, "Why, he wouldn't do such a thing, why he loves his mother and he was out in Portland, Oregon having dinner with his sister. And here's the receipts from the restaurant."
And you don't care what she says, because when she's finished, you're going to show a security camera of him driving his pickup up to the ATM. And you'll see him put his chain around the ATM. The camera in the ATM has his face as he leans over the ATM and the fingerprints as he grabs a hold of it. And the truth will overcome the error, such that the only way she can succeed, she has to prevent the presentation of truth. So you can go to college campuses and you can say every crazy, idiotic, dumb thing in the world. But if you come with truth, if a conservative shows up, brother they bring out the police and the bar and they chant and scream and shout down. Why? Because truth overcomes error. And that's what we're entitled to. And that's what America was founded upon. And what is truth? It's not your opinion and my opinion, it's what God says.
Dr. James Dobson: Talk about the Constitution and how it was formed and why it is still so critical today. It's not being taught in school. When I was 23 years of age, I taught 200 eighth graders every day. And as the whole, the series of programs developed around the Constitution, we had the responsibility to make sure every student understood it and if they didn't pass that test, they didn't go on to the ninth grade. That's no longer true. What's happening to the Constitution now?
Bob McEwen: Well, what happened was America was formed or it got its independence and then it had just a handful of countries, 13 countries had their own foreign policy, their own currencies, and it wasn't working real well. And so 11 years after the declaration had declared their independence, they met back in the very same room in which they had signed that declaration and changed the world for all time. And let me just divert just for a moment here, because there's an effort to take down our founders, because if I can diminish the founders, then you don't respect what they say. And so what those people did was prior to July 4th, 1776, slavery was ubiquitous all over the world, everywhere. After July 4th, 1776, those 56 men changed the planet forever. And after that day, slavery has been anathema and they turned the corner during their lifetime. Now there's still slavery, 94 of the 200 countries owners still permit slavery-
Dr. James Dobson: Even some of those founders had slaves.
Bob McEwen: They had slaves at the time.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah.
Bob McEwen: And they changed it during their lifetime. That's why we honor them because they're the one... The people today that go storming around, tearing down statues and things, they haven't done a thing to prevent the millions of people living in slavery at this very moment, the 94 nations on earth that still permit slavery. But the United States is the one that began the effort to stop it, and indeed they did. And they put in that Constitution, they wanted to end it immediately, but they couldn't do it immediately. The one thing they could do was give land in the Northwest Territory. They said there could be no slavery there. They said that you can't end the slave trade for 20 years, which would be 1787, 1797, 1807. So the United States was the first nation, and an act of Congress signed by President Thomas Jefferson to end the slave trade.
You couldn't bring any more slaves after that period had... And we began a course of excellence for the rest of the world and this little spot of nothing, a bunch of poor people, then built the greatest nation in the history of the world. Since that time, the rest of the world has recognized and begun to follow along behind it. In fact, we didn't even have a Navy, but we put some ships together along with the British to try to stop the slave trade from coming from Africa. The Africans were selling people into the slave trade all over the world. Slavery didn't make America because we stopped it. There were slavery going on still for years and years in the Caribbean, 10 times as many slaves landed in Brazil as landed in North America. If slavery made you rich, then that would certainly do it.
That's why the 1776 Commission wants to get back to the facts because if people don't know the truth, then they'll fall for this thing. But you mentioned as the Constitution got together, as they tried to meet, they couldn't agree on anything. And slavery was part of it because if you're going to join the country, you're going to have to go out of business. And so that's why they had that transition period. Another one was that half the people lived in three states, half the people lived in 10 states. Now there's no way around that, little states aren't going to be dictated by the big and vice versa. And so, as they're about to fall apart, George Washington's next door neighbor, George Mason had given up. And so he gets in his carriage and starts to leave, Washington walks along beside him all the way to the edge of Philadelphia, asking him to stay.
And he says, "I can't talk about politics all summer. I got other things to do, George." He said, "Let's try." So they go back to this room now called Independence Hall. It was the Statehouse for the state of Pennsylvania at the time, and a fellow by the name of Benjamin Franklin asked to speak. He was the oldest man there. One of only four in the room that had signed the declaration 11 years before. The most respected man in the world, by the way, greatly admired around the globe. And he asked to speak and he got up and he said, "I am an old man. But one thing that I have learned is that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall without his notice, is it probable that an empire could rise without His aid?"
He said, "We've been instructed in the sacred writings, 'Except the Lord built the house they labor in vain that build it.'" He said, "Well, I feel that we shall be no more successful in the building of this political building than were the builders of battle without His aid." And then he mentions other things in the struggle with Great Britain. We had daily prayer in this room. Our prayers were heard and they were graciously answered. And then he said... Now this isn't 200 years later, this is 11 years later. He said, "Have we now forgotten this powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need him?" And then proposes beginning from then on, that they first call upon the source of wisdom for counsel, that they begin each session with prayer. And so they voted, they agreed, they recessed for the weekend, met back the following Monday morning for three hours on their knees.
And then over the next five and a half weeks, they wrote the Constitution of the United States of America, creating the oldest government on the planet. This country was barren. People didn't sell their castles and get in their clipper ships to come to America, to eke out an existence in the forest. People came here hoping for one thing, they didn't have a bloodline that they had property or under the feudal system, they came here to form a capitalist system where you could work hard and produce something. And you were treated equally based upon how you blessed other folks. And from that beginning, that nation is now the oldest government on the planet. Every government on earth has changed repeatedly since that time. In fact, it's been available as a template for them to use, and yet no one has been able to do it.
And so, the founders said, "Well, this is good. We shouldn't forget that. Down the road, some people might think that they were the ones that were so smart. They were the ones that had all these inventions and all these creations and all this wealth, therefore Congress shall never meet without first calling upon God in prayer." And so Congress has never met, from this day without first acknowledging. And number two, that is that there has to be a starting point. There has to be a sense of truth. It's not your opinion or my opinion, what is the standard for truth? How tall is that mountain? We're going to measure it by the sea level. There has to be a starting point from which we begin, and that's the word of God. Therefore, no person shall hold a position of public trust unless they first swear allegiance to God on the Bible.
And then every official document, as I said, shall acknowledge Him. And from having done that, and every member of Congress has been willing to be sworn on the Bible, except now two, we have that from Minnesota and Michigan that refused to touch the Bible and were sworn in on the Quran. But this nation that has been based upon those godly principles has been the blessing to the entire planet. That if you're being attacked and your freedoms or being stolen in Hong Kong, what do you do? You grab the symbol of the United States of America and you wrap yourself in a flag because that stands for liberty and hope and opportunity. If you're being abused on the streets of Havana, just a couple of weeks ago, what do you do? You get an American flag. Now, everyone that's grown up in that place since 1959 has been told how evil America... But they know where freedom is.
Freedom is where the American flag is. And there is a political effort to take down America, to abuse its flag, destroy its birth. As I said, 85 cents out of every dollar that goes for the cost of global evangelism comes from this 4%. We're the most generous in the world. This is the lighthouse for the gospel. The Scripture says, "If you take a city, you must bind a strong man." There's only one strong man in the world, it's the United States of America. You take down America, the rest of it's a piece of cake. You can steal off any steamer in the South China Sea.
You can inflate any currency you want to; you can cheat on the copyrights of any book or any patent. The world would go into chaos if you can just take down America. And you and I watch it on the news every day of those who tear down our statues, who spray paint and shout at those who favor America. When they see the flag, they spit on it and stomp on it rather than revere it. And that's the battle in which we're engaged. It always has been that way. And we will continue to win.
Roger Marsh: Passionate words from the honorable Bob McEwen on today's edition of Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. And that was part one of Dr. Dobson's conversation with Bob McEwen on the topic of what's right about America. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time turning on the news these days, there are so much division, destruction, even death every day. It can be hard to stay positive when you're being bombarded with negative images and messages and stories. Well, Bob McEwen and Dr. Dobson had this in mind when they sat down together recently. They decided that they wanted to spend their time focusing on all the ways that America has blessed us and continues to bless the world as well. In Proverbs 16, verse three, we read, "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans." It's obvious that our nation's founders were dedicated to keeping God at the forefront as they established these United States.
And because of their commitment to Him, the Lord has blessed our nation. Now to learn more about Bob McEwen or to listen to any of today's broadcast that you might have missed, visit our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. That's drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. And while you're on our website, make sure you also sign up for our public policy emails. Every week our public policy team breaks down the policy issues in our nation that affect the family and then wraps them in a biblical worldview and sends them out to you. We want to equip you to think critically as well as biblically about what's going on in our nation so that you can understand the truth and then get involved. To sign up for policy emails, go to drjamesdobson.org/policy. That's drjamesdobson.org/policy. For all of us here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, I'm Roger Marsh. Join us again next time for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
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