U.S. Senate Candidate Dr. Greg Brannon: A Government of Thieves Is No Government At All

Mandeville, LA – A CRUSADE Channel, Exclusive Transcript & Audio Feature – “What I want to do is really express the idea that the individual is free.  The government is our tool not our master.  Everything you talk about – I’ve listened to you for years.  Everything you educate, the books you got me to read, and this idea of freedom – as a believer, 2 Corinthians 3:17 says: The Lord is Spirit, and the Spirit of the Lord is true liberty.  This is a battle of the – we’re made in the sovereign’s image.  We have to understand our position in this.  A government is not to redistribute wealth; that’s thievery.”   Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  . . . putting Dr. Greg Brannon back up here.  Dr. Greg, we were right in the middle of a discussion about your re-launched candidacy against Richard Burr of North Carolina.  Tell the listeners when the election — is this a primary?  Are you primarying him?

Dr. Greg Brannon:  I’m primarying the incumbent.  It’s 84 days from today, March 15.

Listen To This Mike Church Show-Crusade Channel Exclusive Audio, Click Here

Mike:  And you are, I’m just guessing here, running the same campaign that you ran when there was an open seat, well, there wasn’t an open seat, but it was an open primary.  Of course, we have Senator Tillis now as a result of that.  This will be pretty much the same process then?

Brannon:  Yes, sir.  We really want people to know who Greg Brannon is as well, as the person, the doctor, the mission work, my seven kids.  Understand, too, that this whole idea we’re running for is we’re looking for people not for their opinions.  We have opinions.  It’s called the Constitution.  We’re looking

[private |FP-Monthly|FP-Yearly|FP-Yearly-WLK|FP-Yearly-So76|FP-Founding Brother|FP-Founding Father|FP-Lifetime]

for people with judgment.  I make life-and-death decisions every single day when I cannot waiver on principle.  That’s what we’re doing right now.  We’re bleeding and we have people that are – this is exactly Bastiat [??] talk.  We love education.  We love healthcare.  We love all that stuff.  We just don’t want the government involved in the stuff.  It’s liberty we’re fighting for.  This is an historic time, and history demands an answer.

Mike:  I just tweeted something out and I copied it to the Tenth Amendment Center.  This is another one of these issues here that has received a new shot in the arm, some new life lately, and that is, with the work the Tenth Amendment Center has done, some of the scholarly work that’s been done by Professor Gutzman and Professor Woods and others, I don’t think that the Tenth Amendment and the knowledge of it and what it is supposed to do is on the wane.  Yet here we are, I’d say almost a decade into its resurgence, and I still don’t see much evidence of it actually being used as it was intended.

Brannon:  No, sir, not at all.  You had Romney running around saying Romneycare is okay because of the Tenth Amendment.  This is hysterical when Gruber wrote both of those.  I was honored enough to be endorsed by you and by Mr. Woods last election.  Mr. Gutzman has offered it this time.  What I want to do is really express the idea that the individual is free.  The government is our tool not our master.  Everything you talk about – I’ve listened to you for years.  Everything you educate, the books you got me to read, and this idea of freedom – as a believer, 2 Corinthians 3:17 says: The Lord is Spirit, and the Spirit of the Lord is true liberty.  This is a battle of the – we’re made in the sovereign’s image.  We have to understand our position in this.  A government is not to redistribute wealth; that’s thievery.  You know what I’m talking about because I’ve been listening to you and reading all your stuff.  Professors Gutzman and Woods, these guys are just brilliant.  We’ve got to do – again, the education part is there.  At the same time, now we’ve got to take the power of the structure away.  I don’t want to be power over anybody.  I want the State to decide – just picture, if I’m the ambassador of North Carolina to the mafia in DC and I say: No, Article VI, Clause 2, this is not in the Constitution.  No, this is not the Tenth Amendment.  No, this is not the Ninth Amendment.  We stand that and I use that bully pulpit.  I believe we can make history.  I still think America has been at its best.  We have the potential to do that if we don’t waiver on principle.

Mike:  Principle is – people say principle and they immediately think of certain principles that apply to what we call limited government.  I think this is another one of the things that has not been explained well enough and is just not well understood enough.  That is, government always should begin and should act – Jefferson actually wrote a couple letters on this because he was asked about it after he had retired from the presidency and was allegedly trying to retire at Monticello, although he never really did retire.  He wrote a couple letters about republicanism.  He was asked the question: What is it?  His theory on the matter was that government ought to only act where it is closest to the people that it’s acting upon.  It should only act in those spheres in small environments.  In other words, he was disagreeing with Madison.  Madison said: No, no, Montesquieu was wrong.  You can have very large republics.  Of course, I don’t think Montesquieu was wrong.  I think Montesquieu was correct and Madison was wrong.  Jefferson said that the size of a New England township is about right.  I don’t know how you apply that to modern times because there aren’t very many towns that are the size of a New England township at the time of Jefferson, which would have been 5,000 people maybe.  I don’t know how we apply that or get it back.  It is the age – I do know the methodology, and you know it, too.  It is the age-old Christian practice of what is known as subsidiarity.  That’s where it really begins.

Brannon:  That’s exactly correct.  That’s why I think Madison today would have said he made a mistake.  I believe that because 1913 destroyed us.  We know they passed a bill in 1911 that actually, in the first election of 1912, where they kept the representatives at 435.  Now instead of 1 in 30,000 representatives, now we have 1 in 700,000.  We’re not going to change those structures.  You know and I know this idea – your book on Henry that you published was phenomenal.  We went to war because they were taxing us at a burden that was overbearing.  Our founders would go to war against the biggest empire the world has ever seen because we were being taxed at an ungodly rate of one percent, one percent.  That was worth going to war, stamping our Bibles, stamping papers.  We said no.  Look at the general warrants.  We have that now with the NSA.  The FISA court is unconstitutional.  When I say principles, the principle is that you’re made in His image and you’re free.  That’s not do what you want to do.  That’s not impressing your opinions on other people but a free society.

What I really believe now that we need more than anything right now is courage.  We have Republicans up the wazoo.  We have them everywhere.  What do they do?  They fund Planned Parenthood.  Just think about that.  The dissections of live babies has been seen and verified, and this Republican Senate and House literally funded Planned Parenthood.  This is why –

Mike:  They just did it again.

Brannon:  That’s what Burr, my opponent, he voted – what could kill the omnibus bill – it was in a cloture vote.  People have to really understand that.  The Senate has a lot of power because it is the ambassador of the state.  If they cap it at 60, that bill had to be modified.  He votes yes there and then no on the floor because he goes: I voted against the bill.  We have to expose that.  His record of 20 years in DC and my 20 years of protecting life, I’ll have that debate anytime, anywhere.  They want to attack me.  They want to destroy me.  I don’t care.  You know why?  They don’t dare to speak out.  That’s all this is about.  We have the education.  We have the passion.  I believe this election cycle is beautiful.  I’m not here to endorse Trump or Cruz or Paul or Carson, but they’re outsiders.  They’re asking questions.  We have to expose this whole façade.  There are two parties in America, the one that believes in individuals and the one that believes in progressivism, collectivism.  I believe in America’s fiber, the DNA is now being exposed who we really are.  We are the explorers, the pioneers.  We’re the ones that dare to ask what if.  I believe when you do that, you have a courage.  What do we have to lose?  Nothing.  We have to expose this, take this to people that understand it in a loving, kind way, and have policy based upon those principles.  You know that the Constitution is six pages.  The best part I love of the Bill of Rights is the declaratory statement.  It says in the beginning: Understand, you can’t touch these.  That’s what it’s about.

Mike:  In the declaratory statement it says, “The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.”

Brannon:  The Constitution binds the federal government.  The Bill of Rights is a list of God-given rights the federal government can’t even have an opinion on.  But then we’ve got Burr voting on the cloture to actually debate the Second Amendment and the First Amendment last year.  This kind of stuff, we have to expose this.  That’s what we’ve done.  That’s why they can attack my character, they can attack any way they want to attack, I just don’t care.  We’re going to expose the truth.  We’re going to become the ambassador of North Carolina.  I know the system is not the way it was, but the idea of what true federalism is.  I stood on the board of North Carolina and said: Okay, governor, okay, legislators, where is healthcare and education in Article I, Section 8?  It’s not there.  I’ve written papers on this.  I’ve written speeches on this.  You guys, you handle this.  The free market is the answer.

Mike, I wrote a paper in 2010 saying: How do you do healthcare in America?  First off, the Commerce Clause meant to make regular.  At that time there were 267 health insurance companies in the United States.  If all of those were in North Carolina, what happens?  Quality goes up, prices go down.  But no, Tillis supported it and got through the whole plan here to have exchanges.  Senator Burr, his answer was the [??] plan was to keep Obamacare, just change the ratios.  Garbage.  That’s where principle matters.  Principle is everything.  Without that, you can’t build anything.

Mike:  We have candidate for the North Carolina Senate, Dr. Greg Brannon, on the Dude Maker Hotline with us.  Of course, Dr. Brannon will not be a stranger to many of you who were listeners to the old channel and the old station in the old country, or who are North Carolinians.  Is the website and all that information, how to get in touch with you, is that –

Brannon:  It’s GregBrannon.com.  We made it very interactive.  We have all our videos, all our speeches.  I wrote papers that are detailed and I wrote papers that are summaries.  We want to make sure we have everything.  I can put a paper, after reading Professor Gutzman’s or Professor Woods’ papers, articulate that and put that down there.  At the same time, get the principles.  It’s a very simple message.  That’s why right now it’s time for courageous leadership.  I’ve been a servant citizen – I’ve been an OB since 1988.  I’ve never wavered on these principles of life.  You see groups that actually waver on that.  It’s not going to happen.  GregBrannon.com has everything in there.  We have a beautiful network on social media.  We have commercials coming out and videos.  We’re going to do this that people get our message out and know who Greg is, and know that we’ve been there.  We’re not going to waver, Mike, there’s no way.

Mike:  Of course, you have the benefit of having just run – I say just run, a year ago or two years ago?

Brannon:  May 6 of 2014.  After that time, as you know, I continued writing papers.  I continued internet shows, keeping TV shows, speeches.  We never stopped.

Mike:  You stayed active, that’s right.  In 2015, on the eve of 2015 when we did our political predictions for 2015, me and Ari Ravenhoff of the Progress Channel on Sirius XM, I brought you and Dwayne Stovall and Rob Maness in and called you the Three Amigos.  All three of you were running for the Senate at the time.  It’s kind of fascinating, but you’re running for another Senate seat, and Colonel Rob Maness is now seeking the seat that will be, or the vacancy that will be made by David Vitter stepping down.  It won’t be the three amigos, unless Stovall decides he’s going to move to another state and run for Senate.  It won’t be the three amigos, but it will be the dynamic duo this spring.

Brannon:  Mike, when you’re in the battle – this is not about a political office.  I’d rather just hang out with my kids and do that kind of stuff, do mission work and play golf.  You’re an avid golfer.  I love that.  As you and I really believe, we’re in a battle.  We’re in a battle for our future.  What do you do?  There is no time off.  Yes, I love life.  I love laughing.  I love enjoying everything.  We can’t do that unless we partake in the system.  We’ve got to take the system and make sure it’s what it’s supposed to be.  That’s why I’m never stopping.  I do believe we built a – we came out of nowhere, nowhere.  For people like you that gave us the exposure, literally two points from a runoff against a Karl Rove candidate backed by Bush and Romney when I was supposed to be a nothing.  Now they’re scared to death of us because they know we have this – it’s not Greg.  It’s the team.  It’s the grassroots.  We have now elected officers that have backbone to stand up.  This is going to be a phenomenal fight.  His record shows he’s a progressive.  It’s always about what they’re voting on.  We built that.  God’s timing is his timing.  History is asking for an answer right now on this exam.  I’m not running away, Mike, there’s just no way.

Mike:  It’ll be instructive to see what the Republican machine, whether or not they decide that you’re worthy of another dose of Karl Rovism, and they swoop into North Carolina to try to swing the primary vote towards Senator Burr because they desperately need to hang onto that seat of power and that vote, that yes man for all that is done in the name of conservatism from Republicans in the Senate these days.  I suspect that they’ve got their hands full trying to figure out how they’re going to get rid of Donald Trump that they’re not going to have time to worry about you.[/private]  This will be in May.  That’s another question here, and then I’ll let you go because I know you’re busy.  Is your primary then the same day that the presidential primary would be?

Brannon:  It sure is, March 15^th.  Just picture the Trumps, the Cruz, the Carson, the Paul people showing up.  We’ll just consider them as a group as being basically the anti-establishment.  They’ve been called that by the local people here.  The key is, this is easy.  The DC cartel, the media, academia, all those kind of people tell you that your ideas, our ideas are wrong.  We know they’re true because they’re in our fiber.  Let’s have that fight.  I cannot wait for March 15^th.  I’m hoping there’s two things, either they’ll ignore us or attack us.  Either way is fine.

You know what I’d like to do?  Let me have a debate, no moderator.  Let’s discuss these issues, sir.  He’s making our country weaker by the NSA spying, the analysis.  He’s making us completely weaker with his amnesty.  We’re going to show that he has no respect for the sovereignty of our country.  We’re going to show that and make that clear.

End Mike Church Show Transcript