Rep. John DeBerry Is Back on the Ballot and Explains Why the Constitution Matters and the Importance of Freedom

 

Before I go any further I would like for you to indulge me because there are some men and women in this room that I have to thank. Thank you because I am on the ballot on November 3rd. It’s because of them when I was taken off the ballot and this is not part of my speech so this doesn’t have enough time.

When I was taken off the ballot it was done in such a way that the filing deadline was passed and I could not run as a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent. My only option was a write-in which we all know is a shot in the dark and the members of the House and the Senate they just surprised me they blew me away when they changed the law to where an incumbent that is removed from the ballot after they have qualified because I was qualified to run.

When an incumbent is removed from the ballot after they have qualified they can run as an Independent. So I am on not on the ballot because of my own powered authority I’m on the ballot because there are men and women of integrity and character on the floor of the House of Representatives.

These are my colleagues and my friends I would like for them to stand. Glenn and Mike and Senator and all of all the members of the House if you could indulge me one more time I want you to look at these folks. (Applause)

I also want to say it’s good to see Ted tonight who is a fellow member of the board at

Before I go any further I would like for you to indulge me because there are some men and women in this room that I have to thank. Thank because I am on the ballot on November 3rd. It’s because of them when I was taken off the ballot and this is not part of my speech so this doesn’t have enough time.

When I was taken off the ballot it was done in such a way that the filing deadline was passed and I could not run as a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent. My only option was a write-in which we all know is a shot in the dark and the members of the House and the Senate they just surprised me they blew me away when they changed the law to where an incumbent that is removed from the ballot after they have qualified because I was qualified to run.

When an incumbent is removed from the ballot after they have qualified they can run as an Independent. So I am on not on the ballot because of my own powered authority I’m on the ballot because there are men and women of integrity and character on the floor of the House of Representatives.

These are my colleagues and my friends I would like for them to stand. Glenn and Mike and Senator and all of all the members of the House if you could indulge me one more time I want you to look at these folks. (Applause)

I also want to say it’s good to see Ted tonight who is a fellow member of the board at Freed-Hardeman. I know you’ve been here for a while so I won’t talk very long. I’m a politician and a preacher so you know that’s a bad comment. (Laughter) In 1956 at Dunn Avenue School I had the privilege and the pleasure of doing something in public that my father had taught me to do in private in his study.

He had a flag hanging on his wall. He had his army uniform that was hanging right there prominent in his study. He had a confederate and union soldier’s hats upon the wall. He had con he had paraphernalia and regalia from different uniforms and different wars.

And he taught me and my brothers and sisters how to say the pledge of allegiance. In 1956 to Dunn Avenue School of Miss Riley’s class I stood beside my desk for the first time in public put my hand over my heart and said the pledge of allegiance to the flag.

It was a wonderful day and I remember that experience like it was yesterday. And when I think about this I’m reminded of something that was said by Joshua near the end of his life. And after his death rather that in one generation the children of Israel had lost God. They had lost sight of who they were.

Whose they were of their history and their past. They forgot about Moses and the Crossing of the Red Sea. They had forgotten about the wilderness journey and how they had received Canaan. And how God had made the walls fall in Jericho. And all the stories that you and I have studied in Sunday school all of our lives. They had lost all of this.

And the statement was made in those days there was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes. You could substitute that word king with standard. And when we look at America today in the space of one generation we are about to find ourselves in the same situation because we have the most spiritually illiterate and the most historically illiterate generation in the history of this nation. They don’t know who Jesus is and they don’t know who George Washington is either.

And if they do they don’t appreciate either of them. Why is that? There is something that the Lord said during his parabolic teaching if you don’t mind me I’m referring to the scripture. He said while men slept, while men slept an enemy came in and sold tears while we’ve been sleeping for all of these decades and while we have allowed teachers to come in from other countries.

Not to immigrate and merge and become Americans but to destroy us from within. And we go back and we remember in the Cold War as one of our enemies said very clearly that we’re going to take this nation without firing a shot. Because we’re going to divide you from the inside. From the inside, we’re going to divide you.

We’re going to make you fight one another. We’re going to make Blacks fight Whites and Whites fight Blacks and North and South and the rich and the poor. We’re going to divide you from within and we’re going to take your country without firing a shot. I remember talking about that in class.

Understand something as we see what’s happening around us. America is a child of controversy. It is a child of revolution. It is a child of men standing up and speaking. It’s in our DNA speaking our mind and fighting for what we believe. Protesting. Not standing or laying down and allowing others to walk upon us. That’s part of who we are.

We have never simply stopped free speech and the right to assemble. We have always fought for those. When I marched with my father years ago a few rows behind Dr. King right there in Memphis, Tennessee. I can remember on those days as those men and women as I said are back here earlier in Nashville when those men and women with courage and class and maturity and virtue and integrity.

When they stood up and faced the dogs and the billy clubs or whatever was in front of them. And they did it in such a way that they changed the world because they knew what they were fighting for and they understood what was behind them.

The American Constitution as we look at it and as it has been referred to tonight We the People of the United States of America in that preamble it tells us exactly why those men and women stood on that day. They weren’t begging for anything. They were demanding what the Constitution promised. 

A more perfect union that’s what we were all trying to make. Establish justice to ensure domestic tranquility. Provide for the common defense promote the general welfare. Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves our posterity do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

What have we lost? Somewhere over the years, we have taken for granted everything that those men stood and fought for in the beginning in the revolution when Black men White men and women put their lives their treasure on the line to fight the most powerful nation on the planet, the British empire. John Adams said when they were in the middle of the Revolution John Adams spoke of the great cost of freedom.

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