This might be the most important secular question of our time: what is an American? I'm frustrated that I love this country in my bones, but am unable to articulate a proper answer to that question. But we should be prepared to make a defense of anyone who asks.
Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. I want to bring over a very important question that we asked on the SiriusXM Breitbart show. And I want to bring it here to you because I think you will have the best answer for it. I think if you're listening to this podcast, I think you have the key. I'm going to skip over some of the backstory and cut right to the chase here. The question is, what is an American? Matt Walsh wrote,
this is why what is an American is the new, what is a woman? Or Matt Walsh had that wonderful documentary entitled, What is a Woman? And really gave a platform for the people who are pushing this transgender stuff to just
beclown themselves. And it was great. But now we have a more important question or not more important. It's like next level. We're ready to move on to the next question, which is what is an American? He said these people want to be embraced as Americans and even become political leaders
in America. But to them being an American means absolutely nothing at all. He's referring to this interview with Democratic representative congressperson Delia Ramirez. She's a congresswoman from Guatemala. She represents the people of Illinois, one of the most gerrymandered
districts in the state and the country. Third District of Illinois outside Chicago. We I don't think we played it here, but there was a clip of her about a week or so ago in some foreign country talking about how she's more proud of being Guatemalan than she is an American.
And she's a congressperson. Her mom came across the border illegally while pregnant, plopped her out and she's an anchor baby. And now she's a congresswoman. Here is what she said the other day.
I wanna ask, it seems like a really broad question,
but what does it mean to you to be an American? What is it for me to be an American? For me being an American is the ability to dream, to love, to have dissent.
Okay, so already, so dream and love that's like nothing, it's like pablum, and then immediately into negativity.
To be able to organize and build a kind of solidarity that recognizes the good and the bad of the formation of this country.
Yeah, so I shouldn't say negativity, right into bad mouthing America. It's even worse. Dream, love, America's awful. That's what it means to be an American. Dream, love, and we're the worst.
That is willing to reckon with how we have used colonialism to harm others, especially in the Western Hemisphere, and begin to think about and imagine creatively what reparations look like, what building solidarity looks like, what bringing all of us together means. To be an American, for me, is the ability to love and also
push back, the ability to be able to fight back and also build community. And to me, this precise moment is a time for us to ask ourselves, who are we as Americans? And let's be frank, we haven't always been great. And let's be frank, our history says a lot about what we've done and who we've done. This country has never been great for poor people, for black people, for indigenous people.
And so to be American for me is to be able to live into what we should be, not what we have been.
So we all know that's a terrible answer, but if we can sit at a rock bottom moment, okay, let's use it for good. But I'm thinking, geez, if that woman asks me, what is an American? I don't know if I would give a satisfactory answer. I'd do better than that. But I don't know if I'd give
a very satisfactory answer, actually. So Matt Walsh said, if someone, I could tell here, I know, like I know it in my bones, like I know it deep down, but I'm not able to articulate it. Matt Walsh said, if someone answers what is an American without any mention of tradition, culture, ancestry, language, borders, or even legal documentation, at least, then that is a person who thinks America doesn't exist.
And being an American means precisely nothing. So I grew up in the very beginning of woke very be so where there was an era where, for example, we were taught that Christopher Columbus was amazing and now kids are taught that Christopher Columbus is a murderer and the worst person ever to have lived. I was in the middle where we just didn't learn about Christopher Columbus.
I said, so it's there was an era where it's America's amazing and now we're in the era of America invented slavery and I was in the era of just don't learn anything about this country and because of that because I was never given the tools to think properly about America I can't think clearly enough about it and I can't articulate therefore what is an? Not like I want to be able to. So I want to ask you, what is an American?
How do you define it? What is an American? How do you answer that question? What is an American? Now here's where I want to push back. And this is what we did on the radio.
We did this for two hours a day, and we're going to do it for many more hours because we got to get this right. You can't, if you can't define it, you can't defend it. That's gotta be true. That we're just coming out of 20 plus years of fighting terrorism. We couldn't, we didn't define the enemy.
Terrorism is a tactic. It's not an enemy. It's like you're fighting a war against like people attacking the right flank or something. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. Because we wouldn't say Islamic extremism. We wouldn't define what the enemy was. And same thing here, if you don't define it,
you can't defend it. If you can't define America, what is an American, then you're gonna lose it, and we are, in the process of losing it. But here's what I wanna push back on, because all these phone calls came in,
and everyone, and we she did in the beginning. She said, oh, it's love and dreaming. What? And we had a lot of people calling that was like a little bit of that, but it was like, oh, it's the freedom to do whatever you want. Is it?
Because then the Somali comes over here and says, I'm a Muslim and I'm going to kill my daughter because she wants to wear a skirt and you can't do anything about it because I'm free to do whatever I want like, oh, that's not what we mean. What then do you what do we mean? What do we mean? It's a real example and they rubbed it in your face.
There's a bunch of Muslims who are building this Muslim community in Texas and they're naming it's like it's a like a housing development, but just for muslims and they're keeping christians out by building this huge mosque and all the hoas go to the mosque. So that's all i keep and all the streets are named after muslim conquerors before the crusades and the guy was on the podcast the muslim guy behind this and he said yeah and if anyone criticizes us we just use their freedom of religion against them. They knew what they were doing.
So it's got to be more than just freedom to do whatever. And I'm not satisfied anymore with any answer, and again I mean this nicely, with any answer that also applies to other countries. Like oh it's the freedom to go where you want to go. Well like in France you could do that. Or it's the freedom to love who you want. It. Well, like in France, you could do that. Or it's the freedom to love who you want.
It's like, okay, you can do that in Spain. I don't like, I need something, I don't know, deeper, more unique, more specific. Maybe that's a better word for it. I just need something more specific than that. Now, okay, so we kept digging.
People were adding these great elements of it. We're like, okay, let's go a little more. Let's go a little more. Okay, well, the freedom to live in the vision of our founders. I got an email on that. Great. Love that. What's their vision?
All right, it's free to live up to our founding values. Okay, awesome. What are they? We need to be able to define those found those founding values. Finally, someone called in and brought up Christianity. It was about an hour and ten minutes before someone did, so it's interesting and I don't know if it was people who are
unable to bring that to the table or they were afraid to so instead they couch it as founding values, but I got any more than that or or they'll couch it as something even Judeo-Christian values. It's like no. Pilgrims didn't come over to spread Judeo-Christian values. That's not what they came here.
They came here to create a new promised land, a new, leaving, and that was a second Exodus from tyranny to a promised land, to spread Christianity or to live their Christian lives. So we need to be as specific as we can. Slater at brightbar.com, I got a ton of emails on this.
So if you can send an email with your answer, Slater at Breitbart.com, I would really appreciate it as we try to figure this out. And I want as precise, and as we keep doing this, I want to get to something that is precise and as specific as possible.
Because I don't know what an American is, but I do know and I'm certain that Christianity is a defining aspect of it. And again, not just do Judeo-Christian values, Christian. The biggest lie that the devil has pushed on the American people in the sense of our history and specifically to our history is that we were not founded as a Christian nation. It is so it is as absurd as saying the earth is flat.
That is how that statement should be treated. The more you read about our founders and our and from our founders and our founding grandfathers all the way back to the pilgrims, these men and women were profoundly devout Christians beyond anything we see today.
Beyond anything we would believe today. And for 250 plus years later, 400 years later for the pilgrims to say that they weren't Christian is so ludicrous. I provided three proofs on today's show that I just want to present to you here. This is kind of a fun one. So we talked about Trump taking over DC, renaming it Washington DJT. He hasn't actually done that, but I don't know why that hasn't taken off more Washington DJT. Come
on. So CNN did a report from Union Station, the train station in DC. It's this beautiful building and we went over the whole history of the building in on today's show. I'm not going to do it here, but in front of the train station is a giant statue called the Columbus fountain. And that statue was dedicated on in 1912 by president William Howard Taft. And he gave this wonderful speech about Christopher Columbus. I highly recommend it. Just search for William Howard Taft,
a Columbus memorial or Columbus fountain dedication, or it'll pop up. Beautiful speech about Christopher Columbus. Again, we used to celebrate Christopher Columbus. Now we rip down his statues, but just I wanna share one quote from it
that's relevant here, the opening. He said, we are gathered here today to dedicate this beautiful memorial to the greatest mariner of history, who for centuries and two decades ago, opened to the possibilities of Christian civilization, nearly one half of the geographical world. Uh-oh. Christian civilization. Muslim civilization? Chinese civilization? Middle Eastern civilization? Judeo-Christian civilization? Nope. Christian
civilization. That's the first point. Second, before the revolution, I know I made this point before, I'm doing it again. Before the revolution, every colony had their own religious tests in order to hold office. And they were as blatant as you could possibly believe. This is Delaware. This was the oath of office you needed to take before you got into an elected or an appointed position.
The oath was, I do profess faith in God the Father and Jesus Christ, his only son. And in the Holy Ghost, one God blessed forevermore. And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.
There are some churches that barely require an oath like that anymore to join the church. And this was just to be like the state treasurer or anything in the state. That's what you had to talk about. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, and and you you say that the old and New Testament were divine inspiration just to hold office
Someone called in today It's maybe the first maybe the second person to talk about Christianity on the show And he talked about the freedom to worship. I think he just said the freedom to worship. That's right It's the freedom worship and I said, okay, okay freedom to worship. I think it just said the freedom to worship. That's right, it's the freedom to worship. And I said, okay, okay, freedom to worship what? Right, because now you get all the people that are like,
oh, you're free to worship whatever you want. And it's like, a bail? Right, well, you're free to worship bail? And yeah, I guess in America you are, but that's not what it means. That's not what American culture is. That's not what we should be striving for to get back to bail worship.
So I asked him, I said, what free to worship what? And he said, God, I said, what God? He said the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Bingo.
Last proof. John Adams wrote in his diary, 1756. It's before, before the revolution. He said, suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book. And every member should regulate his conduct
by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry. You just got some virtues here. So now we're talking like, we're getting closer to some real things.
Like you are freedom to do whatever you want. No, freedom to be frugal and industrious and temperate. Right, it's like, oh, well, that's not freedom. Freedom should be, right? No, no, that's not our founders perception of freedom was it to do whatever you want.
This is why it's a life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Pursuit back then meant practice of and happiness our founders knew could only be accomplished through virtue. So it's life, liberty, and the practice of virtue. That's what you're free to do.
What virtues? Temperance, frugality, industry, to justice and kindness and charity towards fellow man, and to piety and love and reverence towards almighty God. So it's not as the, go back to the Congresswoman, what does it mean to be American?
To dream in love. Well here's Thomas, excuse me, John Adams talking about love, but it's not just love. It's piety, love, and reverence to Almighty God. In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness, or lust. So now we're against vices. No man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards or any other trifling and mean amusement. No man would steal or lie or in any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and goodwill with all men.
No man would blaspheme his maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. What a utopia, what a paradise would this region be?" It's John Adams. Our founders weren't Christian. What an absolute joke. As I was reading that quote, it popped in my head, the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord the fear of the Lord our Founding grandfathers, I think of like the pilgrims they had a fear of the Lord. That should be part of the definition I don't want to put anything in your minds. Let me let me write that down
I don't want to put anything in your head yet. I'll write that down for Monday show as we continue on this Okay, I'm gonna do more study on that in the Bible and of our founders saying that, okay. I'm not saying Christianity is the only aspect of what it means to be an American,
but it's gotta be part of it, has to be, right? So I'm gonna throw it to you now. I've said enough. Fundamental question of our time right now. Our ability to define this, our ability to answer this question.
It's like our American version of being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. What is an American? Please send me your answers at slater at breitbart.com. Put these together and we'll get closer to the truth here.
Slater at breitbart.com. My website is my, the website where we put these is mikeslater.locals.com. There's a transcript there and a commercial free on the website. Mike Slater. There's a transcript there and a commercial for you on the website. There's a transcript there and a commercial for you on the website. Mike Slater.locals.com