The Michael Knowles Show - Kirk Cameron ｜ We Honor The Fallen In The Fight For Freedom

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, happy Memorial Day. I hope that you are all having a good time, you know, drinking,

00:00:06.220 eating hot dogs, thinking about our great American heroes. I marked the occasion by sitting down with

00:00:11.920 the great Kirk Cameron, talking about some American history, where we came from, where

00:00:17.260 we're going, and how to revive the country. Take a listen. Happy Memorial Day, everybody.

00:00:28.720 It's sort of a strange thing to say happy Memorial Day because, you know, we're out, we're drinking

00:00:33.060 beer, we're eating hot dogs, we're at the beach maybe. But we are also remembering people who

00:00:38.200 gave their lives to preserve our way of life, our country, and our freedom. All of which,

00:00:44.700 I hate to remind you, seem more under threat than perhaps ever before, you know, in ideological ways,

00:00:52.980 in some explicit physical ways, people burning down the country, this sort of thing.

00:00:59.080 Fortunately, I am joined by one of the most positive voices out there today. I mean this

00:01:04.560 in his demeanor, but I also mean this in the sort of things that he is doing. Kirk Cameron.

00:01:11.060 You may know Kirk from a whole variety of different places. Of course, if you're a big fan of 80s

00:01:16.420 sitcoms, perhaps you would know Kirk. But also all the wonderful work he's done, well beyond acting

00:01:21.160 ever since then, just a tremendous voice in religious issues, in political issues.

00:01:26.180 Kind enough to join the show right now from what I can tell just looking into the monitor

00:01:30.900 is the single most American place on earth. Kirk, where are you right now?

00:01:38.120 Hey Michael, so good to talk with you. I'm kind of, it's a little kind of a fan guy moment right now.

00:01:45.120 I'm an admirer and so appreciate the work that you do. So thanks for letting me come to you from my

00:01:50.640 backyard. That is very kind. I've not tried to escape the state yet. I'm still here in my backyard

00:01:58.620 with my flag waving and I've got a campfire burning in my backyard, which has been pretty

00:02:04.320 typical of me for the last 100 days. In response to the first 100 days of the current administration,

00:02:11.520 I decided to have a counter of 100 days. I loved when you announced this because one,

00:02:19.860 we're all, we've all been a little down, I think, you know, over the first days of the

00:02:23.640 Biden administration. But I liked your idea that, hey, we don't, we don't need to just go along with

00:02:28.760 this. We can, we don't need to just sit even and complain. We can actually do something positive

00:02:33.440 ourselves right now. We don't need to wait until the next presidential election or the one after that

00:02:38.640 or the one after that or the one after that. So I'm, I'm there. I think that waving the flag

00:02:44.300 in your backyard is officially a hate crime in the state of California now, but you're,

00:02:48.840 you've got the courage to do it. So, so what's the mission? What's the plan? The 100, the Kirk

00:02:54.180 Cameron 100 days. So, so I don't have the best plan in the world, but I want to be a part of some plan

00:03:01.180 and, and, and, and we're, we're, we're here on Memorial Day and it makes me think of my grandfather,

00:03:05.440 my grandfather, Frank Bowsmith, who just passed away. And he was a Navy corpsman fighting with

00:03:12.380 the Marines on the Island of Iwo Jima during World War II. He was a real hero and he was a man of

00:03:18.680 faith. He was a man of freedom. He was a family man. And when I look at so many people making

00:03:25.020 promises, so many talking heads, talking about evidence and, and, and stuff that has been coined

00:03:31.260 as hopium, I, I, I then see none of this stuff materialized. And I said to myself early this

00:03:37.340 year, wait a minute, why don't we join together as we, the people and come up with our own first

00:03:43.560 100 days. And I said, you know, I want to do something. And history tells me that it's always

00:03:51.060 a minority, a, a small group of people outnumbered out, uh, outfunded, usually persecuted who prayed

00:04:01.120 to God, joined together and begin doing things for honorable causes that turns the tide. So I decided

00:04:07.160 for 100 days in a row, I'm going to build a campfire in my backyard. And I'm going to invite

00:04:10.940 people on Facebook live to join me in my backyard to pray, to play, uh, music, uh, to sing songs of

00:04:18.940 worship to God and go through a book that teaches us about what made America so free and prosperous and

00:04:25.000 blessed all these years. It was written by a friend of mine called the American covenant,

00:04:28.500 the untold story. And I'm not here to promote a book. I'm just saying that our forefathers had a

00:04:33.700 different idea. They didn't believe that hope flew in on air force one. They said, no, we're a free

00:04:39.320 people. And our hope comes from the power of God working through the hearts of moms and dads and

00:04:45.380 brothers and sisters and family members. And then we, as people of character and virtue take positions of

00:04:51.240 leadership, not only in our homes, but in our churches, our communities, our States and the national

00:04:56.240 government. And it starts with self-government. And so I've been teaching this for the last 100

00:05:01.240 days in my backyard. It's called the American campfire revival. That's my plan.

00:05:05.580 Kirk, what you've said is something very radical here. You're talking about American freedom and

00:05:10.120 you're saying that it's way too radical out there for California, but it's actually, I think even a lot

00:05:16.040 of conservatives don't quite appreciate what you're saying, because what you're saying is that if we

00:05:22.660 want to restore American freedom, we need to get back to family, we need to get back to community,

00:05:28.640 we need to get back to God. But I think the prevailing view right now on the left and all

00:05:33.820 too often on the right is that true freedom can only exist when I shake off the shackles of my family.

00:05:40.940 You know, for instance, when you take away the necessity of parental consent for the way that

00:05:46.580 your children are educated or the sort of things your children can do. The only way we can truly be free

00:05:51.020 is when we shake off the shackles of God. You know, this country, it's a secular country founded

00:05:57.900 on a firm separation between church and state. And that's true freedom. And you're positing a

00:06:02.540 totally different vision of liberty than that. So who's right? You know, Michael, as you were saying

00:06:09.720 those words, we need to shake off the shackles of family and true faith. I could just smell the

00:06:16.760 fumes of horse manure coming through my computer as you were saying that. Because that couldn't be

00:06:23.060 further from the truth. You see, those are the tenets of Marxism that you're talking about.

00:06:27.960 These are the tenets that are designed to divide a people and make them easily conquerable.

00:06:33.640 And what I've been learning is that our forefathers and our foremothers were not just these religious

00:06:39.200 fuddy duddies who were trying to just run away and be by themselves and create this weird little 0.93

00:06:45.900 religious community. They wanted a full, thriving, flourishing human society. And they understood that

00:06:54.560 it could not be created and freedom could not be achieved from the top down where you had an emperor

00:07:00.260 or a king or a queen or a czar or a shogun or a prince who would who would give you everything you

00:07:06.340 need and allow you to have freedom. It came from the inside when you're when your own heart was

00:07:13.460 liberated from from pride and selfishness. And you began to love God and you began to love your

00:07:21.660 neighbor and you governed yourself. See, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and the pilgrims and 0.90

00:07:28.340 our founders, they said, no, it's it's it's counterintuitive to to to what you see in other kingdoms.

00:07:35.660 The kingdom that is characterized by freedom and blessing begins when you begin to govern your

00:07:41.780 own self. And then as a self-governing mom and dad, you can then govern your family and your children

00:07:47.920 and then children begin to grow up and go into the world and heavenize the earth as they implement

00:07:55.460 these principles of integrity and honesty and truth and compassion and love and mercy. And that's the

00:08:01.420 inside out bottom up strategy that built America and allows us to have limited small government. 0.99

00:08:07.580 If we don't govern ourselves, they said, we'll have no choice but to have someone from outside and up high 0.98

00:08:15.940 come and and beat us back into obedience. And and if we don't voluntarily submit to things like the

00:08:24.660 Ten Commandments, then we will be ruled by the Ten Thousand Commandments of the tyrants.

00:08:30.920 And and I see that happening right now. And so I'm trying to call people back to genuine revival

00:08:37.140 that begins in the heart and in the home. Kirk, how did you get so smart? I mean this and not as

00:08:43.320 flattery. I don't I'm not being glib. No, what you're describing here, you're talking about American

00:08:49.600 history and you're saying that the the popular view on the left but all too often on the right

00:08:55.320 that our our founding fathers were atheists or total secularists, that that's not true. Obviously,

00:09:01.260 you're right that America was founded in this flourishing. Well, and you're getting the whiff

00:09:05.880 again. You know, this this historical anti-historical idea that that our country was founded to be

00:09:13.700 this secular country rather than a shining city upon a hill and from a model of Christian charity, 0.98

00:09:18.300 one of the earliest American speeches. You're knocking down that idea. You're recognizing

00:09:24.120 the philosophical distinction between liberty and licentiousness, which all too often is totally

00:09:29.620 conflated. But but you recognize they're not the same thing. They're actually opposite things.

00:09:33.780 I'm not joking when I say you you are expressing a much wiser, truer opinion than the vast majority of

00:09:43.200 American commentators on this, even even many on the right. How did that happen?

00:09:48.300 Well, you're right. There are so many people on the right, on the left who are brilliant and far

00:09:53.420 smarter than I am. But I'm seeing that that much of it's not working. A lot of it feels like a hot

00:09:58.820 air, a bunch of hot air to me. And I say, wait a minute, wait a minute. In a very short amount of

00:10:03.200 time, history shows us that America became one of the pinnacle nations in the world. And guys like

00:10:08.880 Alex de Tocqueville and others came over and said, what's the secret of the success of this,

00:10:12.360 this new nation? And it's not in their military and it's not in their it's not in their their

00:10:16.800 their economy. And it's not in all of these places you typically want to find it. You know what?

00:10:21.620 Their churches have pulpits that are on fire with the gospel and people's hearts were being

00:10:28.180 transformed and they wanted to do the right thing without having to be told. And when that begins

00:10:33.940 to happen, all of a sudden it's like the Lion King. It reminds me of when Simba, who believed the lie

00:10:42.100 that he had murdered his father, Mufasa, runs out into the wilderness, loses track of his identity.

00:10:47.020 And then Rafiki goes out there and says, Simba, you've forgotten who you are. And he takes him to

00:10:53.600 the pool of water and he sees a reflection of his father and he hears the voice of Mufasa in the sky

00:10:58.320 and says, Simba, remember who you are. You are the rightful son. You are the king. And he runs back

00:11:05.740 and Scar sees him. And who does he think he sees? He thinks he sees his father, Mufasa. And then he

00:11:12.160 fights him. Simba wins, regains his place as the king and all of life comes back into the pride lands 0.97

00:11:18.840 and darkness and the shadows begin to flee. I think we as Americans have have similarly forgotten who we

00:11:25.520 are. We come from a long line of freedom fighters who are not looking for riots and lawlessness,

00:11:31.840 but we're the army of compassion who is looking to bring healing to a broken nation who's so woke

00:11:39.660 that they they've they've fallen asleep to what really brings freedom and truth and healing to us.

00:11:45.140 And if we will we'll move from the heart and get back to these essential principles,

00:11:50.220 which, by the way, I've tried to encapsulate with something that I've made available

00:11:56.460 called the pledge to renew the American covenant. Most people don't even know that we had such a

00:12:02.180 thing called the American covenant. And these are sacred promises made by our forefathers to God and to

00:12:08.300 one another. And and it begins with stuff like this. We affirm as a family to to do these things.

00:12:15.340 And it talks about the personal level, the family level, the church level and the the civic level.

00:12:21.800 And if we'll come back to these things, I believe we'll begin to see life coming back into

00:12:26.820 this land of promise that we've inherited. I think you're right. And I love the Mufasa analogy.

00:12:33.080 You know, I love that. Remember who you are. And you're probably uniquely qualified to perceive this

00:12:38.800 sort of thing as a storyteller, which is we have these national stories and these national stories

00:12:44.060 tell us about our identity. The way we understand our past is going to influence how we behave in

00:12:49.500 the present and what our country is going to look like in the future. So right now there's a battle

00:12:53.920 over American history. You've got the traditional understanding, which this is a good country founded

00:13:00.340 on good principles with good people. You know, got some problems. We're all broken. This is a fallen

00:13:04.500 world, but it's generally a good place. And we like that. And then there's the 1619 project

00:13:09.620 version, which is in their own words, a reframing of American history. They lied about some facts

00:13:15.660 there too, but they're just going to shift the frame like you're moving the camera and they're

00:13:19.340 going to present this picture of America as intrinsically evil and wrong. And we have to

00:13:23.800 be very sorry and ashamed of it. So how do we reclaim the story? I mean, what is the story that we're

00:13:30.540 telling? Well, one of the ways that I'm doing that is by going to more reliable sources than the

00:13:36.560 1619 project or your, you know, your, your typical social media newsfeed. Um, and it's

00:13:42.120 hard to find trusted sources now. And so, um, again, the one that I'm, I'm actually, uh, spent

00:13:47.280 a hundred days of my life in a row, uh, traveling across the country and changing my flight schedule

00:13:52.880 so that I could have a campfire at a hotel or a friend's house or my own backyard is this book

00:13:58.200 called the American covenant. Um, I, I, I hesitate to even show it up cause I don't want you to think

00:14:02.540 I'm, I'm trying to push this, but what it does is it goes back to information that people don't

00:14:08.060 hear anymore. And it's talking, uh, and quoting from people who understand history and, and see

00:14:14.820 the world differently, that history truly is his story, his story. And that there is unseen hero in

00:14:23.700 the events of the world that are being played out on the stage of earth. And Michael, I think you and I

00:14:29.020 everybody else who's alive today have been placed on this stage to play a strategic role. We're not

00:14:36.280 the main character, but we're supporting characters of the one who's working all things together for

00:14:40.720 good. And I want to be wise. I want to play my part. And that's the way our founders and forefathers

00:14:48.040 and mothers understood time in history. Um, let's, let's play our role correctly. Shakespeare said that 0.83

00:14:55.660 as well, all the world is a stage. And if we see this world as a narrative that has been authored by

00:15:02.400 the most benevolent being in the universe, then we can have hope and we can find courage to do the

00:15:08.980 right thing against all odds, knowing that it will turn around and it will be good in the end. Even if

00:15:14.080 we're not here to see it, maybe my kids will. And that's worth it enough for me to put all I have into

00:15:18.860 it. What an important point. When you look at American history and you look at all the great

00:15:23.340 characters, George Washington, Governor Bradford, Lincoln, all these people to, to recognize the

00:15:29.500 most important character who is God. And you, you see the hand of providence. I was going to say the

00:15:35.760 unseen hand of providence, but actually you can, you can really see it. The odds that when the Mayflower

00:15:41.800 lands at Plymouth Harbor, they get delayed. There's all sorts of sabotage in the old world. They finally

00:15:47.220 make it here. They're blown hundreds of miles off course. They land at some random spot and out of the

00:15:52.280 woods pops the two Indians on the entire continent who speak English. One of whom, Squanto, lived in 1.00

00:16:03.640 London and was talking to the pilgrims about the streets of London because he had been captured.

00:16:10.260 He was brought over there. He was freed, probably freed by Catholic monks, brought then to London, 0.91

00:16:15.700 comes back on another ship. The odds of this happening just by random chance are virtually nothing. And yet

00:16:22.260 this is the first moment that allows these pilgrims basically not to just get totally wiped out on

00:16:27.920 their first winter in the new world. What are the odds of that?

00:16:31.520 I think we don't, I don't think we need to play the odds. You, you know, as well as I do, that the

00:16:36.720 hand of providence is, is, uh, is behind all things. And I love the story of the pilgrims. I, I, I think we

00:16:43.200 can go back there and learn so much for them from them. Um, in fact, uh, one of the things that I

00:16:47.600 thought was so fascinating is that when they first landed, they actually landed in a place that they

00:16:51.360 thought was the mainland, but it wasn't, it was a little Island off the coast of the mainland.

00:16:54.740 And I actually went there in a little private little boat and they're there. They realized it

00:16:59.460 was the Sabbath day when they landed. And so they didn't want to do anything for fear that they would

00:17:04.660 do something that might offend the God of providence that had brought them all the way across the

00:17:09.380 Atlantic in a little wine ship that had been designed only to go port to port in England. 0.90

00:17:13.480 The mast had broken. They for sure thought they were going to sink. And so they spent the day

00:17:18.100 praying and reading scripture on a big boulder. They called, they called, um, pulpit rock. And,

00:17:25.780 and again, this is the kind of, of, of wholehearted faith that they had. And they, they switched from

00:17:31.840 a socialistic framework in the way that they did business to a free, uh, capitalistic mindset and,

00:17:40.820 and, and everybody had their own piece of land and they, if they didn't work, they didn't eat

00:17:45.080 and, and, and they changed things around to fit the principles in scripture. And they began to

00:17:50.800 prosper. It began to give thanks. That's where we get Thanksgiving from, uh, those, those first couple

00:17:56.640 of, of, uh, falls and winter, uh, with the pilgrims where half of them died. At one point, there were

00:18:03.140 six people who were taking care of the rest of them who were still living in the winter, most of them

00:18:07.200 women and some of them just laying on top of their children, uh, uh, dead so that they could keep 1.00

00:18:12.580 their children alive. This is the kind of character that we need to see in America again. And I'm

00:18:17.160 hoping that all of this from the pandemic to the economy, to the political things we see happening

00:18:22.540 wakes us up and shakes us up. And that character and virtue and faith rise to the top. And these,

00:18:29.460 I don't think without a revival, these things are connected. I'm glad you brought up the point

00:18:34.380 about the early socialism of the, of the pilgrims, because very often the left writes this off as

00:18:39.300 just some kind of shallow conservative talking point. It's not just some talking point. Governor

00:18:43.480 Bradford writes about this in detail. That's right. You know, they, yes, they did. And finally,

00:18:51.040 they instituted a bit more private property, a bit more private responsibility and what happens,

00:18:55.520 they all start to flourish and they, they tie in together this economic component with the

00:19:00.380 political component. And then what's most important is the religious component. You know,

00:19:04.460 Andrew Breitbart, the patron saint of Hollywood conservatives, he famously said, politics is

00:19:09.100 downstream of culture. And, uh, you know, this is not to deny that politics influences culture too,

00:19:14.120 but certainly we can say culture is downstream of religion. Cult and culture come from the same

00:19:19.800 root word. So how do we revive the country? So Michael, that's such a great point in Plymouth,

00:19:25.880 Massachusetts. I don't know if you've ever seen this, but there is, there is a giant monument

00:19:30.020 it is a hundred and I'm sorry, it's 88 feet tall. It's, um, I think, uh, about 180 tons of solid

00:19:37.240 granite and it's called the national monument to the forefathers. It's the largest granite monument

00:19:41.280 in America. And it's hidden in a forest on top of a hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. If you have a

00:19:46.480 chance to go there, I highly recommend it because it is the, the, the forefathers recipe for how to

00:19:52.460 sustain freedom and prosperity in America. And, and if you look at it, uh, you know, if, if, if my cup

00:20:00.080 here is, is that monument, uh, you would come up to about this high on top of the monument and the top

00:20:06.780 of it is faith and faith then expresses herself through all areas of life, morality, law, education

00:20:13.200 resulting in Liberty. And so you're right. It begins with faith and an internal change of the heart.

00:20:19.300 Uh, this isn't, uh, something that politicians are making up. This is something that we can find

00:20:25.380 in, in, in the, you know, 4,000 year old principles found in the Judeo Christian scriptures. This is the

00:20:33.940 principles that the ancient Hebrew Republic under Moses, uh, flourished, uh, before they got their

00:20:40.360 Kings. This was about representative government. This is about a division of powers. This is all about

00:20:46.240 self-government. Uh, these are the kinds of things our founders understood. They applied it and it

00:20:50.640 worked and we can get back to it. Well, I hope we can Kirk, but all this talk, this has been way

00:20:55.420 too positive and hopeful for a conservative radio show. So I need to bring in a little bit of pessimism

00:21:00.760 here. That's it. Let's shoot. Let's, let's fire shots at the balloon. Well, here's the big problem.

00:21:08.720 Recent polls show every year, fewer and fewer people are going to church. Fewer and fewer people are

00:21:14.720 identifying with religion, uh, the fastest growing religious group in America. It's called

00:21:19.360 the nuns. And I'm not talking about cute little old ladies and habits. I'm talking about N O N E 1.00

00:21:24.880 people who have no religious affiliation. So how are we supposed to get an American revival 1.00

00:21:29.520 when everyone's fleeing church? I wouldn't worry about that. Uh, the solution is not sitting here

00:21:37.080 and crying in our, in our, in our Chick-fil-A soup, uh, as Christians. Okay. The solution is to 0.96

00:21:43.580 understand, uh, you know, if you, if you look at the stock market, you can say, Oh, we're in a

00:21:48.240 downturn. We're in a downturn. Uh, well, but, but you look at the trajectory over time. Uh, the,

00:21:54.500 the Christian faith has been flourishing over time. Go back a thousand years where it was culture and

00:22:00.460 life and, and living as a person of faith better or worse now than it was back then. I wouldn't want 1.00

00:22:05.920 to be alive during the Roman empire when, when people are being thrown to the lions and burned at the

00:22:09.940 stake. Uh, we have more freedom now and we are, are actually winning in the courts at the Supreme

00:22:14.940 court level, uh, and at state levels on religious cases. And we're about to have more freedom than

00:22:20.140 we have had, uh, in a generation because I believe people are waking up at the same time. I think it's

00:22:25.820 good to, to separate the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the chaff. I think it's good to shake

00:22:31.960 the place out and find out who is really in this to win this and who's really playing church for the

00:22:39.900 sake of, uh, you know, keeping a job or, uh, collecting tithe money or, or looking good to

00:22:46.800 your friends. Um, I, I'm not inviting persecution, but if we see challenges come, I say the kite that's

00:22:55.720 really anchored with a good, strong string is going to fly higher. The stronger the winds.

00:23:01.960 A very good point. The blood of the martyrs ceded to the church and sure, I'm sort of hoping we don't

00:23:08.060 get thrown to lions or anything, but a little bit of, of trial, of course, that can be spiritually

00:23:13.960 quite edifying. And that that's true on the national level too. So, uh, I'm glad you've given me hope

00:23:19.740 again. All right. I'm shaking off that pessimism for now. We're looking back and we're, you know,

00:23:24.820 we're trying to find our national future in, in those, uh, the, the faith of our founders and,

00:23:31.860 uh, trying to recover some of that. But one, now we've dealt with the church issue. What about the

00:23:37.220 education issue? Students are simply not being exposed to this stuff. There was a survey that

00:23:41.680 came out now. It's, it was 14 years ago. This was a 2007 survey. Imagine how much worse it is today.

00:23:47.420 It was all the top colleges in America. They surveyed, it was on civics and government and

00:23:52.960 history in the United States. Graduating seniors did worse on the test than incoming freshmen.

00:24:00.420 The students had gotten more ignorant the longer that they were in the schools. 0.92

00:24:03.640 And, and the question is, I mean, I mean, the, the, the, the question I guess is obvious to the 0.87

00:24:11.000 answer is obvious. You know, when we vacate, uh, the responsibility, we abdicate the responsibility

00:24:18.100 of training our children up in the way that they should go. We shouldn't be surprised when they come

00:24:23.820 out the other side of the educational system, uh, without the results that we're hoping for. I think

00:24:28.460 a friend of mine named Bodie Bauckham said, um, if you send your children to Caesar to be educated,

00:24:35.100 don't be surprised if they come back Romans. And that's true. It's a discipleship program for 12 0.78

00:24:40.640 years through high school. And then an advanced discipleship program as we go into higher education.

00:24:46.460 And, you know, that's why I come back to, well, well, what's the right thing? I I'm not even looking

00:24:50.900 to the left. I'm not even looking to the right. I think the choice as Ronald Reagan once put it is

00:24:55.220 either up or down. We either go up to the eternal rules of right and the principles that are found

00:25:00.580 in the scriptures that history show produce maximum human flourishing. Uh, or we go down

00:25:06.260 to the ash heap of totalitarianism. And I think that what we need to do is say, wow, educating our

00:25:13.960 children is a sacred responsibility. I'm not going to just hand it off to somebody else. It doesn't

00:25:17.700 mean I have to be a math teacher and a science teacher and a music teacher. But what it does mean

00:25:22.060 is I can read good books. I can find good sources of information. And I, as a parent understand that

00:25:28.080 that little heart, that little soul, that little mind has been placed in my hands by God, and I'm

00:25:32.820 going to lead their educational path and put them in the presence of good people, not just hand them

00:25:39.320 over to a government babysitter where they're going to undermine everything that I want my children 1.00

00:25:43.980 to believe and to embrace. We've got to recapture education. I think that's where we went wrong

00:25:49.520 40, 50 years ago. And that's the biggest single mistake that we've made. We've got to recapture

00:25:55.220 education. Of course. But Kirk, what do you say to people who say, you know, listen, I'm glad for

00:26:00.480 you, Kirk, that you've got this clear sense of right and wrong and good and bad and true and false and

00:26:05.020 beautiful and ugly. I'm glad you got that. But that's just your opinion, man, to quote the dude

00:26:10.800 Lebowski. And maybe I've got my opinion of right and wrong. It's totally different. And look, you've got

00:26:16.060 your preferences and I've got my preferences. And if you try to appeal to some eternal moral

00:26:20.680 authority, why you're just a theocratic, authoritarian, I don't know, they'll find lots

00:26:27.060 of adjectives to call you. What do you say to those people who say, it is very important for us to

00:26:32.800 indoctrinate children in, say, drag queen story hour, but you need to keep your Bible out of our schools? 1.00

00:26:38.700 No, I would say actually your narrative is actually backwards. The reality is, is that the truth of a

00:26:47.700 good and kind and loving and just God is obvious. The evidence is all around you through what he has

00:26:53.600 made and through the scriptures that he's left for us here and through the evidence of the transformed

00:27:00.460 life of those who have come to know him and walk with him. You're actually trying to indoctrinate

00:27:07.220 a country out of the truth and into your pagan ideas that always produce death and despair. 0.88

00:27:16.280 It always produces bondage rather than freedom. So if you want to make up this narrative that you

00:27:22.100 evolved out of the slime, that we are just a happy accident, we are overarching worms, that there was no

00:27:29.140 design in mind for the birth of my child and your nervous system and your muscular system and your

00:27:37.400 skeletal system and all of the other wonders and miracles found throughout nature. You can keep your

00:27:43.140 head in the sand and you can believe your happy fairy tale that really is designed to get you off the

00:27:48.280 hook morally and try to absolve you of any accountability. But I would rather stick with the

00:27:53.700 time-tested method that has produced the greatest nations on earth and maximum human flourishing and

00:27:59.380 actually allows you to believe those crazy things in this country without being put into prison. Because

00:28:04.960 we believe you were made in the image of God too. And so therefore I'm going to treat you just as kindly as

00:28:10.640 I would like you to treat me, even though you're crazy. 0.93

00:28:13.100 I love that answer. You know, I've noticed from the people who insist there's no such thing as grace

00:28:19.820 or sin. There's no such thing as right or wrong. It's all just an accident of pistons firing off in

00:28:25.080 our head. I always look at them to quote another line from the Bard and say, the lady doth protest too

00:28:31.300 much, me thinks. These people seem sometimes a little wracked with guilt. They don't seem quite so

00:28:36.760 certain of what they're putting out there. Yeah, we have just this wonderful country and I think

00:28:42.780 that we've been living off the fumes of faith that our forefathers and foremothers had. And we need

00:28:52.980 to get back to these principles because the truth is, if there are other principles that produce more

00:28:58.020 freedom, more flourishing, more opportunity for all people, by all means, please go live there.

00:29:05.260 Go there and see what that's like. Why is it that everyone's breaking the law to come here

00:29:10.420 and then they're wanting to then vote for principles and policies that are going to take this country to

00:29:18.060 become more like the place you just escaped from? That just doesn't make sense to me. And I can tell

00:29:23.340 you, and those who have studied history know, that the best places to live are in the places where

00:29:28.520 people genuinely love God and genuinely love their neighbor. And that requires a change of heart.

00:29:33.940 And those who want to use religion to abuse people, and there's been lots of examples of that in the 0.96

00:29:41.100 past, even in our country, that needs to be thrown into the trash heap, just like all the other false 1.00

00:29:48.000 ideas. And we need to get back to something that's true and praiseworthy and honorable. And that's what

00:29:54.580 I'm trying to be about. Yeah. You know, I notice a lot of people who prattle on about humanity and

00:30:00.280 humanity and all this, they go on and on and on, but they don't seem to care very much about their

00:30:04.680 fellow humans. You know, and people who say, we need to, you know, totally transform America.

00:30:09.980 They don't seem to like their countrymen very much. And so I think what you're saying is so true.

00:30:13.880 The countries that are the freest, the most flourishing, the most pleasant to live in are the

00:30:18.620 ones that recognize God, that love God, and that love their neighbors and love their countrymen.

00:30:24.260 Kirk, I've done my best to bring in some typical conservative pessimism here, and you have thwarted

00:30:31.400 me at every turn. I'm leaving this conversation hopeful, and you're doing the thing. You're sitting

00:30:36.400 there, you got a nice campfire, a fluttering, waving American flag, and, you know, looking back on our

00:30:42.840 country and bringing up wonderful memories on Memorial Day. No better way to celebrate than that.

00:30:47.080 Well, I'm encouraged by you. I'm encouraged by the Daily Wire. I'm encouraged by the guy that I

00:30:54.740 just bumped into in the grocery store at Trader Joe's as I was getting some sausage for dinner

00:30:59.760 tonight. And, you know, he had an American flag on his shirt. He looked at me. I didn't have a mask

00:31:05.160 on, either did he. And he said, oh, my goodness, look at this, another free human. And he said,

00:31:11.340 this is wonderful. And he said, remember, what you allow will continue. And we had a great

00:31:17.860 conversation. And those kinds of things inspire me to want to lovingly and courageously stand for

00:31:24.760 the right stuff, just like you're doing. Thank you, Kirk. You have inspired me. Seriously. I mean,

00:31:30.520 you've just done really great work. I've now got to go out and get the American Covenant, by the way. I

00:31:34.460 know you said you don't want to plug the book, but now I certainly do. The American Covenant,

00:31:38.120 got to go order it. Kirk, keep doing what you're doing, man. It's just, it's so, it's such great

00:31:43.340 work. It's so important. And you've even, you've even managed to give some hope to a curmudgeonly

00:31:48.800 conservative, maybe many of us out there today. Thank you. Kirk Cameron, everybody. Thanks so much

00:31:53.460 for coming on. All right, Michael. Great talking with you. Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - May 31, 2021

Kirk Cameron ｜ We Honor The Fallen In The Fight For Freedom

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