SENATOR TED CRUZ AT THE 2015 NRA ANNUAL MEETING - NASHVILLE

 

Nashville Tennessee National Rifle Association (NRA) meeting, speech by Ted Cruz

Transcript

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god bless the NRA up

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so now is this the ready for Hillary gathered

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you know we had good news ready for Hillary

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had their first tire the head a female security

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so it's very very good plus Lerner now has a job

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you know I started this day this morning

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at Fort Hood at Fort Hood today

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they finally after over five years awarded the Purple Heart

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to the soldiers who were wounded or lost their lives on November 5th 2009

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for over five years

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the Obama administration has insisted that what happened there

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wasn't terrorist the dollar sign

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had communicated with Anwar Awlaki a radical Islamic terrorist

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past about the permissibility of waging jihad

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against his fellow soldiers and then on that fateful day walk through Fort Hood

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screaming Aloha

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are Kabar as he shot his fellow soldiers

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and yet shamefully this administration characterize what happened there

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as workplace violence

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lot tell you one other things that was very proud to do

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last year I introduce legislation in the United States Senate

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to mandate that we give the purple heart to the soldiers deserve it

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that legislation earned unanimous support in the Senate Armed Services

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Committee we brought together republicans and democrats

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over the strong objection to the Obama administration

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and this morning those soldiers received the recognition

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that they deserved

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it is a time for truth you cannot win a war on radical Islamic terrorism

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with the president who is unwilling to utter the words

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radical islamic terrorist

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instead the president who boycotts

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prime minister netanyahu imagine

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America's standing unapologetically with the nation of Israel

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imagine a commander in chief standing up with clarity and saying

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we will defeat radical islamic terrorists

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and under no circumstances well the nation overran

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be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons

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some weeks ago i join with 46 other senators

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signing a letter that we sent to Iran explaining that under the United States

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Constitution

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there are only two way something becomes a law either it is a treaty

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ratified by two-thirds of the Senate or a law passed by both houses of Congress

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signed by the president well the Obama White House when a little bit hysterical

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about that letter

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I went on MSNBC

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on Morning Joe and they went a little bit hysterical about the letter

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they asked do you regret signing that letter

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I said that the only thing I regret is like John Handcock that I did make my

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signature bigger

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so that the ayatollah could read it without his reading glasses

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you know we're at a time a crisis

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here at home millions of people are hurting as the economies in stagnation

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abroad peel bomb a clinton foreign policy a bleeding from behind

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does not work and we're saying an unprecedented threat to our liberties

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each and every day

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from the federal government and yet i want to tell you I am inspired I am

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optimistic I am hopeful

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and I'll tell you why it's because I'm each and every one have you

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NRA the men and women here

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our men and women in action you are leaders to stand and fight

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for your constitutional rights

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this next election in 2016

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is going to come down to a leader who will tell us the truth

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and who will do what he says he will do

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well how do we distinguish there a lotta good men and women

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thinking about running in 2016 and we've been around the

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the block before we understand that a Republican primary one stands up and

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says gosh did lay on the most conservative guy

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who ever lived yet somehow actions don't always seem to follow those words

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I was up in iowa recently a gentleman looked at the ask the question

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how can we trust you the most important question

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you know I'll point out when I ran percent in the state of Texas

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when people went to our website you know every website always has

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an Issues page ABCD any and in a republican primary people say

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word-for-word the exact

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same say I pointed out all the time if you go to our web page

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Ted Cruz .org Ted Cruz doubt or Ted Cruz .org

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what are the first things people notice is we don't have an Issues page

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instead what it says is for far too long politicians have said one thing and

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another

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every one of us should ask any candidate who shows up in front to be a

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you say you believe these principles show me

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one abuse stood up and fought for them

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wanna be bled for them and what have you accomplished

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as the scripture says you shall know them

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by their fruits

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so here's the example I used over and over again in the state of Texas

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the Second Amendment in texas there's a right answer

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I support the Second Amendment

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unless you are clinically insane

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I even if you're a democrat that's the right answer in texts

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now I like to point out that if folks went to our website

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I actually didn't say I supported the Second Amendment

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I didn't say a word about what was hidden in the deep recesses of my heart

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what I did say is that what I was the solicitor general a Texas I led a

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coalition of thirty-one states

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before the United States Supreme Court defending the Second Amendment right to

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keep and bear arms and we won 5-4

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a landmark decision upholding that right

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and then I linked to the 2010

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NRA's Carter night freedom fund award given every year to what are the leading

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to second-amendment defenders in the country

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you know I had a former boss I used to say

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if I'm ever accused being a Christian like they've been up

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evidence to convict me

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the same is true for being a conservative in a republican primary

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every candidate's gonna stand up and say

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I oppose Obamacare the question we ask is great when you stood up and fought to

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stop

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Obamacare

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every cat is gonna say they'll support amnesty

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alright great when did you start up and thought to stop the president's illegal

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and unconstitutional

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executive and missed

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you know we all remember two years ago the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook

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every one of us whose parents it was heartbreaking to see those little

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children

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murdered by that lunatic and yet we also

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remember the president's response to President Obama had an opportunity then

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he could have tried to bring people together in a bipartisan manner

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to say let's go after violent felons

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let's go after criminals let's protect our kids and stop the bad guys

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but instead he used as an excuse

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to try to come after the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens

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I gotta tell you in the weeks and months that followed Sandy Hook

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if you guys were sittin in the Senate Republican lunch

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kidder jumped out the window because the Senate was

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there was this is unstoppable

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this is a freight train it can't be stopped let's get out of the way

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and I'll tell you I was proud to stand with my friends Mike Lee and Rand Paul

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in sending a

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in sending a very short to set this letter to Harry Reid that we said we

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will filibuster

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any legislation that undermines the Second Amendment right to keep and bear

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arms

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now we all know what happened what that did

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is two things it slowed it down

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and it shined a light on what was happening and that's when the men and

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women in this room

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began to take over in the weeks that followed

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each if you and millions of Americans

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lit up the phones started with three of us

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by the end to the next week we were up to 17 senators on the letter

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then we had our first vote we needed to get

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241 we only got to 31

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and all our friends in the media setup

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if failed you only got to 31 but like

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any meaningful military conflict it's rarely one on the first term ish

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that 31 was a whip count

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and suddenly chip you knew every senator that had voted against the Second

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Amendment

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and heaven on earth descended on those senators

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and thanks to the passionate leadership on the men and women in this room

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when it came to the senate floor

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every single wanna President Obama's proposals to undermine the Second

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Amendment

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was voted down on the senate floor

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that is the power of the men and women here

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our country is in crisis yet we're gonna pull back

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and change the path we're on but the answer

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is not gonna come from washington

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even better man it's going to come from

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you

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the only way we will turn this country around is for millions up courageous

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conservatives

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to rise up and say we will defend the bill a bright we will get back

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to freedom and the constitution

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we're building a grassroots army all across this country

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how many of y'all have your cell phones

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if you are willing to stand and fight is part

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that grassroots army I want to encourage you to text

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the word Constitution to the number 33

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7 33 let me give you that

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again the number is 33 7

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33 if you would text constitution what we are working to do

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is energize millions up courageous conservatives to reignite

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the promise of america you know fifty eight years ago

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my father fled cuba

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he had been in prison he had been tortured as a teenager in cuba

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he came to america i couldn't speak English get a hundred dollars in his

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underwear

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he washed dishes making fifty cents an hour

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worked full-time paid his way through school went on

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to start a small business today is a pastor when I was a kid my father said

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to me over and over again when we faced oppression in cuba

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I had a place to flee chip

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if we lose our freedom here where we go

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that is why the men and women gathered here

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are standing up because we're not prepared

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to lose our freedoms in 1835

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the town of Gonzales Texas

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received immediate for Mexican general Santana he demanded that the Texans who

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lived in Gonzales

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hand over their guns

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and hand over the Canon the guarded the city

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well the Texans responded to general Santana

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by raising a flag

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on that flag was a picture

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up the Canon and a simple legend underneath

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Cup comma and take it

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that was the opening battle of the war for Texas Independence and I'll tell you

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we've seen on the news

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this weekend hillary clinton is announcing for president

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well I'll tell you that hillary Clinton is going to join with

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Barack O'bama and a gun grabbers and come after our guns

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that why I say is com and take it

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if they are going to come after the Constitution

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what the american people what we say together

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is com and take it

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and if they come after our liberty our god-given rights that each and every one

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of us our rights don't come from government

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they come from God Almighty

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these are our values these are who we are

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we are fundamentally a center-right country with judeo-christian values

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and this is a time

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for choosing a time for getting back to the principles the free market

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principles

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and the constitutional liberties that had built

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America into the greatest nation in the history of the world

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because %uh view because if your leadership

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I am both humbled and proud to stand with you

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as together we bring back we revive

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that shining city on a hill that is the United States of America

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thank you and god bless you

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