You are listening to the Patriot Pastors Podcast, where we talk about today's issues from a pastor's perspective, as well as calling America back to the faith of our fathers. Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under. Here's your host, Wade Lentz and Harold Smith. Welcome to the Patriot Pastor podcast. It's great to have you on. My name's Harold Smith and I'm joined today by my co-host as usual, good friend, pastor of Barrel Baptist Church and world renowned balloon gazer, Wade Lentz. Wade, have you seen any balloons lately? I have matter of fact, look at this right here. Harold was found floating around my office on Monday. I came in, uh, to my office Monday and saw it circling. It was attached to my ceiling fan. And, um, so China China spy on my office, or I have some church members that are giving me a hard time, but, uh, any, any, you know, nobody has confessed to this yet, but. I know some church members that are capable of doing such a dastardly deed. I know where the problem started. Was it two Sundays ago that we ordained two new deacons and two new elders at Beryl? Yeah. And then next thing you know, there's spy balloons in your office. So I don't know if there's any correlation to that or not. There probably is. I would start tracking there. It's funny. Yeah, this China spy balloon is probably the most bizarre thing that we could ever think of what would happen in 2023. And we're just so early in the year. Lord knows what we'll have in the months to come. Oh, man. You know, you think about all that has transpired and China spying on our surveillance and all of the things that they say that they were capable of doing, who knows? But we're going to talk about something today, and it's not so much a foreign government. It's our government. And the implementation of their ever numbering laws and regulations that, uh, that just seems to keep adding up. And this was all brought about, and you can tell our listeners how this was brought about how this episode has come about was by a Facebook post. One of our friends shared. We have a good friend, a mutual friend, and a lot of our listeners know him. He listens to the podcast occasionally when he gets bored and can't find anything else to do. Quatro Nelson, or Alan Nelson, as you may know him, and he is the pastor of Second Baptist Church in Perryville, and he put a picture of his city limit sign, you know, just, I guess, is telling people this is where it's at. You know, I'm, I love Perryville. I'm going to reach Perryville with the gospel and this is my home. You know, this is where, this is where we're ministering at. And he didn't, he just put, he just put a picture of the city limit sign with the population up and without comment. And you and I just instantly noticed some things that were not on our city limit sign. And what we noticed was underneath the Perryville population. 1460 was three other black and white signs with rules on them. And so that got us thinking, we need to do a podcast of this. We need to, we need to discuss this. So let me tell you what's on the parable sign. And if you're not, um, if, if you, uh, are you not watching the video, you're listening, um, underneath the population sign and big letters on a black and white sign, it says maximum speed limit. on city streets that's black background white writing underneath that is white background black writing 25 unless otherwise posted i'm like okay that's kind of odd and then there's a common sign it's like engine braking prohibited and that's big bold letters and then On the other post, it says in black background, white letters, juvenile curfew. And then underneath that in fine print. I mean, there's no way you could read this drive by. You'd have to get out. I'm zoomed way in to read it. Yeah. It says no juvenile or minor under the age of 18 shall be on the city streets of Perryville between the hours of Friday and Saturday. 1 a.m. To 5 a.m. Okay. Whoa, whoa. You've, you've limited them for what? Four hours, four hours on the weekend. You have to be in your own yard. And then Sunday through Thursday, 11 PM to 5 AM. And then here's the thing that got me tickled ordinance two zero zero three dash four. And I'm like, there's there's so many laws in a town of 1400 people that we categorize them with thatches and six numbers. I mean, this is just silly. So you were like, Oh, you know, what was your comment on that? Uh, I think I said, uh, I got them right here. I'll just read your comments. Um, you said, I thought Perryville was a lover of freedom and liberty. And I said, do y'all have a dictator or a mayor? And then, uh, our buddy Dennis Gunderson said, uh, any other rules you guys need to let us know about, there's still room on the pole for one more side. Yes, there is. So anyways, we saw that and we were like, man, rules are just getting ridiculous. I mean, it just seems like there's constantly some little petty rule. And the petty rules don't typically come from the federal government. They come from usually some smaller group like the city government or some county law or like a homeowner's association. There's a really small form of government that you have to submit to to live in an area. What are your thoughts on this, Wade? I've been talking, describing that glorious sign for so long. Poor Alan, you know, he didn't, he didn't mean nothing by that. That sign just like you said, just showing, showcasing where he's a ministering at and he loves his town. But I did notice that it looks like the sign of Perryville has been shot a few times, but. It is on city streets. But this is a big deal because, you know, we complain about the overregulation in D.C. We can complain about the laws in Washington. By the way, did you know that we have over 30,000 laws in our books in the last five years? We have averaged they have passed on average in the past five years over a thousand new laws. Is this nationally you're talking about? Yeah, nationally. Yeah, federal law. Yeah, and we hate that. You know, we would, everybody in Perryville would, you know, hey, we don't like that. That's too much regulation. Well, what are you doing? What are you implementing upon your people to saying, okay, You can't do this. You can't do that. And pretty soon you find yourself in bondage in essence. And it's not that these laws are bad. It's just that what has happened to our individual freedom and liberty. Yeah. Pretty much the reason why you don't have Jake breaking in Perryville is because somebody is complaining about the noise level. Yeah. You know, and that's pretty much And all the log trucks were out in the log woods working and they wasn't down at the city council meeting at two o'clock on Thursday afternoon to protest that, Hey, I need a Jake break so I can shift gears going through your windy Kirby town. Yeah, that's right. But it's just like you said, though, somebody got upset that some kids were in the parking lot laughing and having a good time at the gas station at midnight on Tuesday. And they said, hey, look, we need some kind of law because mom and dads aren't doing their job. We need to make the local government mom and dad of all the kids and send them home. And this is really this this is an infringement of freedoms. And I'm not just beating up on Perryville. I know they're not the only city to have some kind of juvenile curfew, but they put it in black and white on their sign. They want you to know it at fifty five miles an hour when you come into town. You need to read 2003-04 and be familiar with it. Yes. But I mean, Wade, just go beyond the city government. Mankind is in the shape he's in and allows all these laws to be prohibited because we have or be prohibited allows these laws to be enacted because Exhibit A is the homeowners association to buy a home or build a home in this neighborhood. You have to agree to all of these extra rules. Yeah. In these extra rules. I mean, this is not uncommon in a homeowner association for you to have to get majority approval from your neighborhood if you want to change the color of your paint on your house. Mm hmm. You have rules as to how many cars can be parked in your driveway. You have rules as to if your garage can be open facing the street or not. Really minute rules. When your Christmas lights can go up, when your Christmas lights can come down and how many Christmas lights you can have. All of that people willingly submit to in order to live in a community like that. So what do you do, Wade, with people who live in communities like that and they don't like it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you have the option to what you get an option to move. You know, um, this kind of takes us back to this, uh, this scenario here. Let's say that you live in an area, you have a neighbor that has a very junky home. He's not I mean it is awful a house is falling apart. There's you can't see the green grass because of all the junk Yeah, well you get upset and you complain to your county officials or your city officials, whatever the case may be Do they have a right to tell that man to clean up his junk or do they not well? I If you're in a homeowner's association, you do because you signed over those rights. If you live in the city, they have the right to because you've agreed to live in that municipality. But if you're like me and you want real freedom, you don't want anybody telling you when to cut your grass or whether you can have chickens or roosters or no chickens or no roosters, or you can even raise a hog in your backyard. If you want that kind of freedom, You have to come out in the county. And if you really want that kind of freedom, you have to go to a county of a state that has those freedoms. So let me tell you what I trade off for the freedoms I have. I live back in the woods. I mean, you cannot see another house from my house, OK? I wanted that. But the cost of that is I have to have some equipment to maintain my own driveway. If we get enough snow that we have to dig out, it's not the county snow blade, the snow grater that comes by and cleans my street, it's me. So I've got to maintain my driveway, I've got land and property to maintain in order to keep that boundary at bay, otherwise somebody can build right next to me. So I pay more in taxes from the land that I have. I have to maintain that land and maintain that distance from my neighbors, but I still have problems with my neighbors about a quarter mile down the road, maybe a half mile down the road. This guy's in the stock car racing. So on Friday night, he's down there tuning up the Ford Taurus, you know, getting it ready for dirt. You know, he's just, I can hear a stock car revving up. And I'm like, Oh man, load that on the trailer and go to the races. You know, he's down there tuning the engine with no muffler on it. So then he's gone. Well, then he comes back and then Sunday after the races, he's out there with a hammer beating all the dance out of his stock car. And I can hear him banging on it a half mile away. Hmm. I'm not going to complain. He he's not in subdivision. We're not, we can't shake hands across the back fence. That's just part of living in the country on the other side of me. The guy has a, his own gun range. Yeah. He shoots guns into the night. He has lights. He'll set up lights and he'll shoot at night after dark. Well, sometimes I'm like, man, it's dark. Go to bed. But that's part of living in the country. The freedom that he wants is the same freedom that I want. I'm willing to deal with that in order to have the freedoms that I have. If I don't like it here, if the stock car racing and the gun shooting is too much, I've always got this option. Stick a for sale sign in the, in the front yard and move to a place further out. Mm hmm. That's that's right. You know, we think about this overregulation. We think about all these far overreaching laws. Hey, listen, one of the complaints that our founding fathers laid against King George in the Declaration of Independence was that this is what it says. He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. And so the country was founded upon the idea that under most circumstances government ought to leave us alone. And we're slowly but surely losing that and for the most part have lost that. So much so that, remember, I believe one of the greatest presidents that we've had, Ronald Reagan, this is what he said. He said, government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves. Listen, it is not the government's place to protect us from what they deem may harm me or you. Right. That's our liberty. That's our freedom to choose such as if I should wear a seat belt or not. Yeah. Now, common sense may tell me I need to wear one, but the government who does not pay for my car that does not pay for my insurance should not make it a law declaring me to wear a seatbelt. Yeah. That's an overreach. I mean, other than me being a 250 pound bowling ball thrown through my windshield, skipping down the interstate, that's the only danger there is of me not wearing a seatbelt. Right. I'm not endangering anybody else. They're they're protecting me from me. Mm hmm. And you see this over and over and over, especially during covid. Yeah. Telling me I have to stay inside for my own safety and protection. Mm hmm. Sir, I'll be the judge of that. I'm willing to take the risk, and I'll tell you one of the things I did during COVID, Wade, and I'm so glad I did it. I think I went to a total of seven national parks during COVID. They were empty. They were ghost towns. There was nobody in them. The gates were open because people said, Hey, this is our land. You can't close our land. Yeah. There were just no park attendants. There was no, uh, admission fee to get in. And people were like, you're nuts traveling there in the pandemic. And I'm like, dude, I'm seeing sites. Other people wait in line all day to see I'm driving right up to the edge of the cliff and looking down in there and I'm willing to risk getting COVID to do that. But. If all of these little petty governments had their way, they would restrict us. We don't want anybody coming to our town. We don't want anybody traveling through here. We don't want gas stations to be open. We don't want anybody in town after 11 o'clock. I mean, they want to regulate everything. Right, right. And that's really what spurred the American spirit. That's why we had pioneers. They were fleeing from the city. They were getting out of the town. They wanted Room to breathe. They wanted to be away from regulation. They wanted to be out from under a bunch of little laws. And Wade, you're seeing that in our day with people leaving California, leaving New England, trying to get away from these oppressive governments and are coming to places like Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma. And our biggest fear down here is that they're bringing some of their policies with them. Oh, yeah, they want our freedom, but they also want to bring their safety and protection. And that's what that's what cities offer you. They offer you a police department. They offer you a fire department. Our fire department's volunteers. Our county is huge. And at night, there's only, I think, two deputies in it. Yeah, city, you would have a half a dozen officers at your disposal all within a couple minutes drive of you. I can have an officer 45 minutes away and still be in the county. Sure. But I take that risk because the reward is I can beat on a stock car or shoot guns in the dark and nobody can say anything about it. My dogs can run loose. I can have hogs in the backyard and chickens in the front yard and nobody can tell me not to. Yeah, it's a trade off. And so if you choose to live in a city or you choose to live in a homeowners association, you got to abide by those laws or option number two, change those laws. Yes. And I think that's something we ought to discuss for a little bit. You know, if you if you can't move, than get active because these small governments make these crazy rules because most people aren't able to participate in city government. That's right. That's right. And those rules start out relatively small, but they keep on infringing upon our rights, such as if you go to the deep blue state of New York and then you go to the even deeper blue city of New York City, There you have Mayor Bloomberg years ago, a few years ago, wanting to regulate soda pop and regulate plastic straws for our health. Then you go to San Francisco, the land of fruits and nuts over there, where they have banned McDonald's Happy Meals for kids. Really? It's for your health, yes. Why don't they ban pooping on the sidewalk? Because that seems to be a problem in San Francisco. Exactly. Yeah. Now they have, they have a drug centers where people can do the drugs in a safe place, but kids can't have a happy meal. Wow. Yeah. I mean, that's that's the that's the mindset of it's really control you. It's control. It's government control. It it leads down a horrible path. I know. I know. Really, the only way to fix it is to get involved. And then that that's going to be a long process because the people that are in power, Like staying in power and they don't want to step down and it really, and it can be discouraging. You know, I've had several people ask me to run for office and I'm like, man, I'm, I'm too busy preaching and pastor in churches. And I don't have time for politics. Yeah. And then you start looking at what all it takes just to run for office, all the money you've got to generate, the campaigning you have to do. And I'm like, all that and what? You're the one conservative vote out of 12. You know, you're going to go to meetings and get shot down repetitively. I mean, you have to. There's 12 people on city council. You need seven, you know? And so it's it's a lot of work. And what it leads to is people just Doing what our forefathers did, they left England and went to the new colonies, the new colonies and went to the Appalachian mountains. And when they made the Appalachian mountains, the boundary, they went on the other side. And when they made that the boundary, they crossed the Mississippi. When they made that the boundary, they crossed the, I mean, they just kept going West and what they were fleeing from is government. Right. And what they risk was the native tribes that were already there. They trespassed on their land. They moved in lands. They didn't have permission to be on, but they changed the government regulations and people and crowding them for risking their lives amongst, uh, you know, enemy tribes that saw them as, as trespassers. Right. Right. I just don't think Americans have the I think they want freedom, but they also want the protection that goes along with it. And I just can't see modern day Americans, not many of them anyways, willing to give up the easy access and the convenience. So the dollar general is advancing the spread of Americans to places they would not have lived. Cause there's a dollar general on every, you can be driving out through a cornfield in Iowa and round the corner and there's a dollar general. Right. Right. Yeah. I think the biggest issue that we have here is that the generation that is children who are children now are going to be so used to this government regulation that they believe that's the normal. Yeah. And, um, more, uh, fewer and fewer people are even noticing these things of this overreach and therefore nothing happens. And let me just say that. Harold and I are not libertarians. Okay. We're not saying there should be no laws whatsoever. We, we do believe in law and order, but we do believe that it's therefore really for the protection. Uh, like Reagan said of one another, the government is not there to, uh, implement laws that they deem ought to, um, protect ourselves. Yeah. And, uh, We're for a strong government. We're for a strong military. These would be things that libertarians would be against. I'm okay with all that because that is for the betterment of my country, for the protection of my country. A strong military, a well-funded military is a deterrent for anybody wanting to mess with us. But what we're dealing with today is a weak military and everybody's picking on us. China's floating a balloon over the top of us. Russia's disregarding anything that we say and doing whatever they want. And the bolder and bolder they get, the more the closer and closer we get to somebody just saying, oh, let's go over there and see what they do if we step on their own land. Yeah, right. We think I'm crazy, but that's where we're headed. As soon as you lose your ability to defend yourself, you're open to the victim of world bullies. and there's several of them floating around who would love to get their hands on us. Yeah, so we're men of law and order. We're not saying that there should be no laws. Matter of fact, if you look at the nation of Israel, God is a God of law and order. If you look at the civil laws that he implemented upon Israel and the moral laws, ceremonial laws, there were like 613 laws in the Bible. And so it's not that God is not a God of law or we're not men who uphold to that. We do, but it's just the overreaching to where it crosses the liberty of conscience. Right. And, uh, which we saw with the vaccines we saw with the, uh, the masks, you know, um, there was this pushing of, Hey, you need to do something, whether you feel like you need it or not. And, um, that's dangerous ground there. I liken our position to a group of people during the Revolutionary War called the Over-the-Mountain Men. If you're not familiar with this group of men, they were settlers and pioneers that crossed over the Appalachian Mountains and they settled in and hunted in Tennessee and what is modern day Kentucky, modern day Tennessee. And they didn't want to participate in the Revolutionary War and they wanted just to live their lives. Well, the British sent word out there that they either need to surrender allegiance to the British or they're going to come burn their houses down and carry all their goods away when they finish with the colonies. Well, these men got together and said, hey, look, we're not going to be threatened. By this government, our lives and our families are at stake. They banded together, crossed over the mountain. That's how they got the name over the mountain track down the guy that made these threats. His army surrounded him at the battle of Kings mountain and annihilated the entire army. And when that, when the threat was subdued and all that was put away, they got back on their horses and marched back over the top of the mountain, went back to their homeland. Wow, that kind of a response. That's a unified response, even by men who realize, hey, we want to live out here and live free. We want to be you know, we don't want all these little petty laws. But at the same time, there's still times when we have to come together for the betterment of our fellow man. We have to work together. We even have to risk our own lives for the betterment of our fellow man. Sure. And so we're not saying there shouldn't be any laws like you were saying. We're not libertarians. But at the same time, do we really need all these petty little laws? Do we need them nailed up on a street sign when we come into town? You know, do we do we need to sign a nine page contract of what we can and can't do to move into a home that we're purchasing? You know, somewhere in the middle here, It's some happy ground where there's freedom and there's some restriction for the betterment of mankind. Each person has to determine where that is for them. Is this too much for me or is this something that I'm willing to go along with? For me, I could never see myself living in the city limits. I always want to live in the county. I always want to live in the country. I just want to be left alone. Yeah, you want you want to pay off your back porch and my front porch. Yeah, it's not enough. I hear you go in the privacy fence in the backyard. I don't want anybody looking at me except for a Chinese spy balloon. Yeah. Yeah. You've been caught. Yeah. I let me know. That's a meme I didn't see, Wade. I saw people like throwing beer bottles at. I should have done a meme of me like peeing off the back porch, looking over my shoulder. That's funny. Oh, man. Well, let me just reiterate what you said earlier. Get involved in your local government. It starts there. You're never going to reform the national government if your government where you're at is in turmoil with all these regulations and And I just read recently that 30% of the workforce has to require some license from the government before they're able to even do the particular job that they have. And that goes from florists to funeral homes. So it's just this overregulation. Well, get involved in your city government, your local government as much as you can and voice your opinion. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to us gripe and moan here on Patriot Pastors podcast. We do hope it's a help to you and we pray God's richest blessings upon you. God bless.