We'll start our program today by letting you hear from Kathy Barnette. She told her personal story at an event in Colorado Springs last October. The audience was riveted by what she had to say. Now, let me tell you a few things about her. Kathy Barnette is a veteran, a former adjunct professor of corporate finance, and a sought after conference speaker. She's also a conservative political commentator. She served her country proudly for 10 years in the Army Reserves where she was accepted into Officer Candidacy School. Kathy's first book was published in 2020. Its title is Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America. Most recently, Kathy has used her influence in Washington, DC, and she is current a candidate for the US Senate in the state of Pennsylvania. Kathy is a wife and a mother of two children. She just finished her sixth year of homeschooling her son and daughter.
The second individual that you'll hear from today is Dr. Ben Carson. As you probably know, Dr. Carson is a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, widely known as being the first physician to successfully separate two Siamese twins who were joined at the back of the head. He ran for president of the United States in 2016, and I believe he'd have made a great commander in chief. He went on to serve as the US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration.
You'll get to hear from Dr. Carson shortly but, first, here is Kathy Barnette. Again, Kathy's book is called Nothing to Lose: Everything to Gain, and we've given that title to her remarks.
Kathy Barnette: The word of God says in Revelation 3, that it is Jesus who has set an open door in front of us. What I open, no one can close and what I close, no man can open. It is Jesus who opens up the doors, but He uses our hand on the door knobs. Some of the people that placed their hands on the door knob of my life is David and Terry Abel, back there in the back. Thank you so much to Herb and Donna. Thank you so much, Dr. Dobson. To me, he became a surrogate father when I was 19 years old, when I gave my life to the Lord. I used to take these long commutes back and forth to college, and I was trying to find desperately some wisdom as I was driving and, lo and behold, it was Dr. Dobson's voice who would come up on that little station where I was. And so, I'm very grateful for him.
Let me just start. Again, in the Word of God, He says in Revelation 12 that we overcome the enemy of our soul by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony. I'm going to share my testimony with you guys today. I was crying and bawling because I wasn't able to do something that I thought I should be doing. Many years ago, my babies were very little and I remember Him saying so clearly to me, "Do you really believe that I am who I say that I am?" And then, I heard it again. He said, "Do you really believe that I am who I say that I am? Because if you really believe that, then the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the way that you think would be radically modified."
Again, lastly, the Word of God says in Revelation 1, Jesus says, "Let me introduce myself to you. I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the beginning and the end. I am the who is, the who was and the who is to come," meaning everything that happens, happens within the confines of a good God, a faithful God. He's a sovereign God. Even though we find ourselves in the throes of turmoil, just want to thank my Jesus. I love Him. He's been so faithful to me. I'm very grateful to Him for taking my hand and walking me through life and creating a space for me before I knew anything.
I am the byproduct of a rape. My mother was 11 years old when I was conceived. It's a hard story to tell. But I have seen the faithfulness of a good God. I had some wonderful grandparents who came alongside my mother and I called them my net, and here's the reason why. When I grew up, I started joining pregnancy crisis centers so that I can be a net to the moms and to those little babies who are born. Someone to catch them. When my mother was very vulnerable and I, too, in my mother's womb, very vulnerable, I had some loving people who came alongside my mother and they caught us. I grew up from that perspective. That was the beginning, and I don't glorify what happened to my mother. Don't glorify it at all. I have a 12 year old daughter and I could not imagine something so devastating coming upon her little body.
Yet there I was, and what did the Word of God say? Before the foundation of the world, He saw me, He knew me. He predestined me and He called me out. What does His word say in Psalm 139? I can't read the Bible the same as most people because when I read it and I see that He was knitting my little body in my mother's womb, I take that very personally. When He says that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, I'm not glorifying what happened to my mother because that was horrific. Pray for my mom.
I get the wonderful privilege today of taking care of my mother. We talk about that sometime that had my grandparents listened to the wisdom of some, I would've been aborted. The pain that had the harm was already inflicted upon my mom. Aborting me would not have resolved the issue or resolved the hurt or the crime or the wrong that had been inflicted upon my mother. Aborting me would not have changed any of that, but aborting me would've made sure there would be no one there to catch my mom at this particular moment in her life. Because, as you can imagine, something like that happening to a young child, it would create a pathology in life. I'm very grateful for my mother, but pray for her.
But, nonetheless, there I was growing up. I grew up on a little pig farm in Southern Alabama. I grew up in a home with no insulation, no running water, an outhouse in the back and a well on the side. But one of the blessed things about being a child is that when you're loved, and I was, you don't know how dire your situation is. I'm just running around, playing with sticks, and I'm like, that's what people do. But we were poor. I mean, we were so poor, we couldn't afford the other O so we were just po'r. We were. It was some desperate times. I remember sitting in the truck with my grandfather. He would go slaughter a hog, and I would sit in the front seat with him and we would drive from neighbor to neighbor sharing a portion of our wealth. They taught me how to take care of your family. They taught me what it meant to be loved. They taught me what it meant to take care of others.
One thing they never taught me, and the good doctor mentioned it, they never told me I was a victim. They never. I don't remember one time anyone looking at me and saying, "Kathy, because you're Black and because you're poor and because you're a woman, all the odds are against you so might as well hang it up." No one ever told me that. Because no one ever gave me a pathology, a lack in my life, I became the first in my family to go and finish college. I spent 10 years in the US Army Reserves where I was accepted into Officer Candidacy School. I spent time in the financial industry, working with A.G. Edwards & Sons and Bank of America Capital Asset Management, on the buy and sell side of mutual funds. I worked in the comptroller's department, an adjunct professor of corporate finance. Spent many years going back and forth to New York on Fox and Friends and other shows, debating Liberals. I love it. I love it.
Authored my first book. Had the wonderful opportunity to homeschool my babies. Very grateful to God for that opportunity. Now, I'm on a different journey in life. I am committed. My family and I, we are committed that if this is the end of this Republic, we are not going to sit on the sidelines watching. We're going to give our last good measure. With all the things that I've gone through. In that little house I describe, my great-great-great grandmother, Rhoda, grew up in that home. She was a slave. I have the blood of slaves coursing through my veins. I've done the hard work of understanding my own personal story and understanding story of this nation. I come to the conclusion that this is the greatest nation that has ever existed. I am so proud to be an American. I love my country.
I am disturbed when I see people using the color of my skin to destroy the greatest nation that has ever existed. Now, why are we the greatest nation? I used to always ask my students, "Why are we the greatest nation?" They would always start off with themselves and I'm like, "No, it's not about you. I know your mama thinks it's about you, but it's not." It's because we've been founded upon the greatest political document ever written, the US Constitution. And yet, I read a lot of the letters that John Adams would write to his wife, Abigail. In one of them, he says, "Our Constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other kind of people." By moral, I mean, people who know the difference between right and wrong. And then, he drops down, and I'm paraphrasing, but he says, "When our nation becomes so filled," with what he called, unwarranted chivalry. People who are tolerant for no reason at all.
Haven't we become a nation tolerant of some of the most intolerable behaviors? He says, "When we become so filled with people like that, displaying unwarranted shivery." There's no reason for you to be so tolerant on some of these things. He said, "When we get to that point, we will begin to move through the Constitution like a whale moves through a net." Are we not moving through the Constitution like a whale moves through a net?
I just heard Jen Psaki say the other day that, "We believe that the federal government usurps the state." I'm like, "Have you not read the 10th Amendment? What do you mean, you believe?" We can look at just the First Amendment. We are moving by rights. We're moving through our Constitution and our nation does not exist apart from that. We have to stand. We have to fight. My story does not take place in any other country. My story takes place here, and we have to preserve it for the next little boy or girl who find themselves underneath the rock and desire to do more for themselves. Thank you so much for your time. Blessings.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, this is James Dobson again, and you've been listening to Kathy Barnette, veteran author, patriot and candidate for the US Senate in Pennsylvania. She has accomplished wonderful things already in her life. I think you should keep your eye on this passionate intelligent woman. She impressed me the first day I met her and I continue to see God working through her.
Now, for the balance of today's program, I want you to hear the comments from Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and author. He's done so many things. In fact, in 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George Bush. I admire this man greatly. Let's listen now to a portion of an address by Dr. Ben Carson.
Dr. Ben Carson: As a kid, I had these great aspirations. I wanted be a doctor more than anything, but I wasn't a very good student. The thing that I hated more than anything was poverty. Some people hate rats and roaches and centipedes, snakes. All of those things, I would happily have tolerated if I could have not been poor. That poverty is something that we find in this country. But the difference is the United States of America is a place where people can change that. It doesn't really matter the circumstances into which you are born, but there are entities in our nation right now that are trying to convince people that you cannot cross those barriers and that you have to stay in the economic class in which you were born. That is a 100% false. It is absolutely not true.
But if you can convince someone that they're a victim, then they are a victim. But what a difference it makes in your life if you take responsibility for what's going on and you actually make an attempt to change it and to change it for the better. It makes all the difference in the world. When you stop and think about it, we human beings are made in the image of God and God is no dummy. You look at a human brain. It's a phenomenal organ system. It's the most spectacular thing in the universe. It has billions and billions of neurons. Hundreds of billions of interconnections can process more than two million bits of information per second. If you learned one new fact every second, it would take you more than three million years to begin to challenge the capacity of your brain. That's what God has given us.
Interestingly enough, if you take a human brain and you put it, say, next to an animal brain. Let's choose a dog. The surface topography is similar. Frontal lobes, temporal lobes, parietal lobes. Occipital lobes, cerebellum, brain stem, but there's a difference. The dog's brain has a very well developed mid brain. The mid brain gives you the ability to react. Have you ever noticed that animals can react much faster than people can? It's because they have these well-developed mid brains. However, the human brain has these gigantic frontal lobes.
Now, what do you use the frontal lobes for? Rational thought processing. We can extract information from the past and the present, analyze it, process it, and project it into the future. We can plan. We can strategize. We can analyze. That's what Dr. Martin Luther King was talking about when he said, "I dream of the time when my children will be judged, not by the color of their skin," a mid-brain function, "But by the content of their character," a frontal lobe function. There are those who want us to act like animals instead of acting like humans and using the tremendous skills and talents and the processes that God has given us. What a difference that makes.
We also have the ability to recognize that what we have in this nation is amazing. Those freedoms that we have in our nation. This was considered a great experiment by many in the other parts of the world. How could you have a nation that is really centered around the will of the people? The reason that you have kings and monarchs and massive governments is because they know what's best for the people. You can't have a system where the people are in charge. It'll never last. That's why, at the end of the Continental Congress in 1887, after they'd done the Constitution, and Benjamin Franklin was exiting the building, a woman said, "Sir, what do we have here? A monarchy or a republic?" Benjamin Franklin said, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Right now, we face perhaps the greatest threat to that republic that we have ever had. The only people who can save our republic are us, the people. You will never be saved by the government because the government is not a bad entity, but governments do what governments do. They're so like a lion. You can't really say a lion is a bad animal because it kills a gazelle and eat it. That's what lions do, and it's what governments do. They grow. They infiltrate and they dominate. That is the reason that our founders worked so hard to give us a Constitution so that the people of this nation would have a tool that they could use to keep the government under control. That's what it is all about. That's what the Bill of Rights, it's all about. It's the rights that the people have.
There's only one problem, in order to use the Constitution, the people must have courage. They must be willing to stand up for their beliefs. It's one of the reasons that I've been so pleased recently to see some of the parent groups standing up to some of the absolute garbage that's being preached in our school systems. But it's going to require that at every level. It's going to require the people of this nation, and I see this happening too, to stand up to the CDC and to other government entities which absolutely refuse to use real science and logic and common sense. They mandate that somebody who has natural immunity and has antibodies has to have a vaccine. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and that's why they can never explain it. They just say, "Shut up and do as I say." That's a problem.
It's not really about vaccinations and vaccines. It's about control. We need to recognize when your freedoms begin to slip away, it's very hard to get them back again. The American Cornerstone Institute emphasizes four cornerstone principles, faith. Our faith is an incredibly important part of who we are as a nation. It teaches us how to relate to our fellow man. Our Judeo-Christian values tell us to love your neighbor, to pray for those who despitefully use you. It doesn't say to cancel your neighbor and to hate people if they don't agree with you.
And then, the concept of liberty, how important is that? Our nation has been the beacon of liberty for the world. The place where people wanted to come so that they could live the life that they saw for themselves and for their family, as long as they weren't interfering with the life of someone else. And then, there is the concept of community. That pillar is so vital and such an important part of how we became a successful nation. We had small communities dispersed throughout this great land of ours. We had people with different skills and different talents, and they were able to work together to make those communities strong and to grow those communities.
If it was harvest time and a farmer fell out of the apple tree, picking apples, and broke his leg, everybody else harvested his crops. No questions asked. You didn't want to know what his political affiliation was. It didn't matter. He was your neighbor. Now, we've allowed ourselves to be manipulated to the point that that person who's lived peacefully across the street from you for the last 20 years is now your enemy because they have a different yard sign. We can't continue to allow that to happen because you must realize that the United States of America is an incredibly strong nation. We really cannot be brought down by Russia or China or North Korea or Iran, but we can be brought down by ourselves. Jesus said it best, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Never has stood. Never will stand.
Dr. James Dobson: With that, we conclude today's unique and very special broadcast featuring remarks from author and Senate candidate, Kathy Barnette, and retired neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson here on Family Talk.
Now, if you'd like a CD copy of today's powerful program, just visit drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. We'll be happy to send you a few to keep or to share. While you're on the website, you can also learn more about both of our guests today, or listen to any portion of today's program that you might have missed. That web address, once again, is drjamesdobson.org/broadcast. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks so much for listening and please join us again next time for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.