Remember The Alamo, Remember Your Vote

A date carved in history becomes a mirror for our moment. We draw a straight line from March 6, 1836 to the choices facing every county today, asking what it means to cross the line for liberty when pressure tells you to sit down and stay quiet. The Alamo isn’t treated as trivia; it’s a moral compass that points toward courage, accountability, and the belief that ordinary people can still turn a tide.

We sit down with Larry Doherty to unpack why so many Republican voters in Fayette County feel shut out by their own party. Larry lays out a simple, stubborn plan: open the doors, ask real questions, and carry the answers to the state committee without spin. He talks candidly about gathering signatures, the rise of “We the People” candidates across Pennsylvania, and why the GOP committee must answer to voters, not insiders. Along the way, we dig into what public service costs, from time and travel to the emotional toll of personal attacks, and why respect in politics isn’t naïve—it’s necessary.

Faith runs through the episode as a source of backbone, not a crutch. Scripture becomes a spur to stand firm, reminding us that fear is the tyrant’s language while courage is the citizen’s. We challenge the quiet forms of control—rules twisted in small rooms, committees that forget who they serve—and make the case for transparent processes, honest debates, and leaders who treat authority as a trust on loan from the people. If men once faced cannons for liberty, surely we can face a board meeting, a ballot, and a hard conversation.

Listen for a clear call: use your vote, lift your voice, and measure every leader by whether they put power back in the hands of the people. If this resonates, share it with a neighbor, subscribe for more straight talk, and leave a review so others can find the show. Your voice shapes what comes next.

Transcript

Sponsors And Setup

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Hey everybody, this is John Murrietta, and I'm having another fantastic day down here in southwestern Pennsylvania. Today's show is being brought to you by Burns Krause Funeral Home, Advanced Equipment Rentals, Solid Foundation Ministries, Thundering Hills Feed and Supply, JB's Market, Bay A County Recovery Storage in Uh, Mung's Auto Body and Repair, Meuser's Garage and Tire Center, Humbert Sanitation Deceptic Service, The Ink Spot, Highline Motorsports, Southwestern PA Logging and Tree Service, Power Line Power Line Speedway, Meribeth's Towing, and Pine Creek Structures. I want to thank everybody that uh is tuning in and tuning into the new podcast. I want to really appreciate it. Uh we're we we have we were having a little bit of a glitch here today, so you're gonna get this one recorded. It'll come back to you in a little bit. Um but it'll look like it's live, anyways. Uh, I want to appreciate all of it. I got Larry Doherty with me right now. We were supposed to have a couple other guests and it's not working out for some reason. I don't know what's going on, but we'll get it, we'll get that worked out as time goes on. So let's get started. The Alamo fell on March 6th, 1836. But that date is more than a line in a history book. It is a day when men gave their all rather than live on their knees under tyranny. That draw, that dawn dripped with smoke and blood, and it was and it also rang with the kind of courage hell cannot understand and heaven does not forget. Let me lay it down for you, like a preacher talking to his country flock. On March the 6th, 1836, after 13 hard days of siege, the storm finally broke. The Mexican army under Santa Ana surged against those battered walls like a dark tide. His will, the only law he cared about, his pride, swollen bigger than the lives he was crushing. He didn't want citizens, he wanted subjects, he didn't want voices, he wanted silence. In San Alamo were farmers, blacksmiths, lawyers, wanderers, ordinary men with dirt under their nails and fear in her chest, but steel in her souls. They weren't perfect, they weren't polished, but they had settled something with their maker. God did not put us here to live as another man's cattle. They heard the cannons booming day after day. They saw the numbers and they knew the math didn't work. But there comes a point where a man stops counting enemies and starts counting what's worth dying for. History tells us that the line scratched in the dust, a commander saying, in so many words, if you're willing to stay and fight, cross over. That was more than a military choice. That was an altar call and dirt and gunpowder. Every man who stepped across it preached a silent sermon. My life is not my master, but the truth is, my comfort is not my master, but liberty is. And if I must pour out my last breath to stay, to say no to tyranny, and let it be today. Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong. That's 1 Corinthians 16, 13. And I believe words like that were carved into their hearts long before we carved them unto paper. Joshua 1.9 thunders, have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous, not be afraid, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. These men stepped into March 6, 1836, with a kind of courage burning in their bones. When the final assault hit before dawn, hell came crawling over those walls. They could have tried to slip away in the darkness. They didn't. They loaded what powder they had left, fired through the smoke, they choked their lungs, fought room to room, step by bloody step, knowing each heartbeat might be their last. The world wrote, they were defeated. Heaven wrote, On this day, men gave their all rather than bow down to tyranny. Santana walked away from that smoking ruin, thinking he had written the last line of the story. He believed the fall of the Alamo was the end of resistance, the final proof that his iron hand would rule unchecked. He thought March 6, 1836 was the day he broke the back of freedom in that land. But men make plans, puff out their chests, and God just smiles. The cross looked like defeat too, until a stone rolled away. The Alamo may have fallen, but the God who rules history had different plans. Out of those ashes, he raised a fire in the hearts of a people who would not forget, a cry that shook a nation awake. Remember the Alamo. What the tyrant thought was the end, heaven had already scheduled as a spark. That defeat became a rallying cry at Sanco, where the shout of Remember the Alamo wrote on bullets and bayonets and turned the tide against the very man who thought he had ended it all. And now, here's where I stop talking about them. And I start talking about us. March the 6th, 1836, is not just a date. It was a declaration. It says to every generation that watches from a safe distance, this is what it looks like when ordinary men decide there are things worse than dying. This is the day they spend everything they had rather than sell their souls cheap. Tyranny doesn't always show up in a bright uniform, drums, banners. Sometimes it sinks in wearing a suit and a smile, signing papers in back rooms, twisting rules, hiding behind committees, and legal jargon. It shows up in officials who think they are the lords over the people instead of servants under God. It whispers, don't make trouble. Don't speak up. Sit down and let the grown-ups handle it. This is that is Santa Ana and a necktie. Think about it. But the same spirit that burned at the Alamo can burn in a little in every little county in this state. It says, we will not bow to corruption. We will not trade our God-given rights for comfort, grants, or threats. We will not let fear run our country, our homes, or our churches. Scripture reminds us, for God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind. Fear is the language of tyrants, courage is the language of free men. Those men at the Islam stood there, ground, muskets and cannon. You and I are called to stand our ground with truth in our mouths, backbone in our spines, and knees bent only to God. They face the dictator's army. We might face the blow to bureaucracy, a crooked board, or an arrogant official who thinks your tax dollars are his personal kingdom. But the moral choice is the same. Bend the knee or brace your feet. So when I speak today, March 6th, 1836, I'm not giving you trivia. I'm drawing a line in the dirt of this very county. I'm asking you, when your day comes, when they tell you to hush up, sit down, you leave it to the experts. Will you cross that line? Will you stand up for what is right when it costs your friends favors? It can cost you friends, and it will cost you favors, and maybe even your job. Alamo fell on March the 6th, 1836. And Santa thought that was the end, but heaven knew it was only the beginning. That day men gave their all rather than live under the boot of tyranny. And if plain men back then stare down a tyrant with little more than powder, grit, and faith, then by God surely we can stand up today with bows, with voices, with open Bibles and open eyes, and declare to every would-be Santa Anna, you're not our master. We will fear God, not you. Okay, we're back, we're back to uh Larry again. Um, Larry, I'm I'm glad you was able to stop in today. I appreciate it. And uh I know you've been busy over the last couple weeks getting signatures, doing what you need to do. And um, I won't ask you the number yet because I don't think you probably even know what the number is gonna be till probably not until Monda evening. Yeah, and uh I know there's a lot of people passing out and trying to get signatures for you. Um, there seems to be uh three different facets in the county in Fayette County that's running for uh uh for uh state GOP chairman or uh committeeman rather. And I I really I think uh that uh the time has come that we have to change these people because the people that we had before have hidden things, done things, done things so we we really got to think about what we're doing. And um I think we gotta keep keep on keeping on. And um I guess I I guess what I want you to do is is uh I want uh I want you to tell us a little bit about this path that you've been on for the last few weeks here, uh, and what you've been doing, and then uh why you think that we need to change things.

Local Corruption And Civic Backbone

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Well, I I think the biggest thing is that before I get out and talk to voters, the voters definition of humanity is the same thing over and over again. And uh the uh when when the voters feel disconnected to the party, then you have it. They're not going out and talking about they're not abiding by aligning with other folks that they shouldn't be aligning with. You know, the bottom line is it's about Republican voters, not the leadership. In my opinion, the GOP committee uh answers to the voters. Republican voters. You know, when you start disconnecting yourself as a leader from your voters, then uh the the party fails. That's what we have right now. The party is failing horribly poor citizens of county, the Republicans. And whenever they stop uh they start uh thinking that they don't have a voice, that's wrong. Can't can't let that go any further. I know Melanie Street with me, they feel exactly the same way. And um you know, i again, you know, folks that are in there I feel personally that they haven't done. Akron deals a lot of things are coming to light. I'm not a politician, Lord knows I'm not. And uh but the thing is is I'm seeing things, everybody else is seeing things too, and whenever I'm going out and beating doors down talking to voters, they're saying the same thing.

Larry’s Mission And Voter Disconnect

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Let's move your mic a little just a little bit closer, Larry, and tilt it up so let's see if that helps out anything. Um it seems like the internet is just giving us a problem here today, but we'll we'll get it, we'll we'll try to work our way through it. Um, anyways, did did um I I know you served, Larry, and uh like you said, uh you got dropped off in a place where everybody, every everybody there wanted to kill you. So um you were in Afghanistan? Uh Iraq. Iraq. Okay, and uh I think that uh that's that's part of the people don't understand, and that's why I started out with the Alamo today. Uh there was the men down there stood on a wall, and they knew that they were gonna die that day. There was no doubt about it. I mean, they they knew they were they they uh they they were uh it was 20 to 1 against them, but uh they managed to take about 900 of them, 900 Mexicans with them. So uh and I always I always think that that's a whole lot better. Uh not not a whole lot better, but I think that's what I'm trying to say is is it took a lot of it took a lot to stay right there. I mean, you know, and and of course there was a lot of uh you know, I mean, Travis and Jim Bowie was there, and Crockett was there, and and there there was other ones, other people there. And um actually uh it's never been proven, but they believed that uh Crockett was sent by the president because they wanted they wanted to make sure that Texas didn't they wanted to eventually get Texas in the Union. That's what happened. It took a while, and but then evidently Texas became a state. At that time, Texas was trying to become a nation. They were trying to they were trying to uh lose Mexican um rule. But what I'm what I guess I'm saying is is we know that here in um in the county things uh aren't aren't perfect to fay a county, they're not perfect anywhere. But but we have we have an underlying uh disconsent, I want to say, or that people are trying to do everything they can because they want to hold on what power they have. And you've and you've you've actually you've seen this. And and when and when the two of us got together and met for the first time, um you you understood. You understood where where the all these people were coming from. But they there's an evil that abides in these people, and they and they don't want nobody to cross that line, they don't want nobody to stand up against them. I mean, the Republican Party right now in Fayette County is is got about 12,000 more people voting on the Republican side than the Democrats, and I can remember when it was the other way, when it was 10 to 1 almost in Fayette County, it was six or seven to one, really. But I remember that's the way it was. And and if you if you wasn't a registered Democrat, you didn't have a chance, you didn't have a chance of doing anything.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

Well, here's the thing I don't understand is whenever you're saying that the people with power well, the people that have the perceived power, exactly, and the thing is is that the power is the voters, um, and and and and then that's the the disheartening thing of our thing is because there is no power in the GOP committee without the vote, exactly, and and that's why we need to get the uh voters back in and polls also need put good people in there that actually understand what the voters' needs are.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

One of the things that I did when I ran, I told the first time I told everybody I was running for order of deeds the first time, first thing I was told, I said my name wouldn't be on my my name wouldn't be above my office door, it would be on my office door. So the first thing I did, and uh I got I got criticized terribly for it from some of these people, I I had put on the office door on the glass. I had somebody come and they they they did a it's like etched in the glass, but sort of, and what it what it done is what they did was it says the recorder of deeds for the people of Fayette County. That's that's the people's door. It isn't my door, that's not my office. I only I'm only they elected me to do the best I could for. And I think that that part we lose. And and what I'm saying is, is people vote people in and they expect them to do the right thing. Turn around, and this is what happens. They they they think, oh, well, they'll never find out about this, or they'll never check on that. And and what happens is a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time, there's corruption and it and it grows. And that's what we're seeing with this with this uh committee run with these people. We're seeing that they are scared to death that that the power is going to slip through their fingers, and it especially with it's and so now you have you have two three factions. You have you have uh that are that are running for state committee. Um, and I I really believe that uh the we the people faction is the one that we have to keep we have to keep moving forward. Um because it isn't about just Republicans, it's about the people. I mean, I was elected to serve everybody, and I will serve everybody. I mean, uh uh, and that's how that's how it is. Um, and I know that you're gonna be elected as a state representative or uh representative for Fayette County to the state for the GOP. Uh you have to keep you have to keep moving forward with that. I mean, you got I mean you gotta do what what the people want you to do. You can't listen to a certain sect, it has to be everybody.

Service, Sacrifice, And Respect In Politics

SPEAKER_03 19:25

And and the thing is too, is that you know, my goal uh when I'm elected is to go out and actually meet. I mean, to not just meeting them now for the signature stuff like that, but you know, constantly asking for their input because that's what we need. We need we need the Republican voters come to us or we go to them and say, hey, what do you need? And and these meetings need to be because it's not a private exclusive club, it's it's it's for the Republican voters of Fayette County, and they all need to be able to come in, open doors, sit down, and respectfully ask questions of their elected people that they have in office. And that's you know, it hasn't been done and needs to be done.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Well, I I really appreciate everything what you're doing, and people don't realize until you step over that line and try to run for office how much you expose yourself. I mean, it does. I mean, you you're you're exposing your you're exposing yourself, and then with certain people, they'll they they'll attack your family, they'll attack your children, and and uh um I I see it. I see it over and over.

SPEAKER_03 20:35

And that's the bad thing, too, is that there's you know, it should be hands-off, it should be about your policy, it should be about what what the platform you're running on, but it's gotten down to the point where it's it's personal attacks. But the thing is, is is like an old NCO told me one time, if the military wanted to issue feelings, it was done so at boot camp. So myself and my wife are pretty much hardened as far as you know, with the feelings and things like that, and letting things run off water like a duck's back. But you know, the thing is is that when you start attacking people and private citizens and things like that, then you're exposing yourself to what you really are. And because you you're nervous about you know uh somebody get, you know, like you say, getting in and taking away your thunder and whatever power they may be. But and and that's the thing, you know, there's no respect. I mean, I remember back in the 80s and even early 90s, there was respect among people running for office. So, you know, there was there was uh you know uh the the debates and things like that, and there's nothing like that now. There's no respect um from different, you know, different sides and things like that, and it needs to get back there, maybe old-fashioned, but on the other hand, it needs to get back to where it's common sense and respectfulness, and you know, it's okay to to create a disagree.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Well, I I think that uh that's that that's true. And I I think that uh what it and what has happened is is they're so scared that they're gonna lose whatever little bit of power they're talking about. If you're running for an office, it's actually gonna cost you money to be in. Yeah, it's not paid for. I mean, I mean, you know, you don't get paid, you've got to go to Harrisburg. Uh the I know the Republican committee will probably uh help out with uh paying for a hotel room or whatever, but basically, I mean you're gonna be using your own gas and you're going out there and you're you're going out to represent Fayette County. That that that I I I commend you for that. A lot of people don't realize that uh and don't realize that that's what that's what this is about. You're gonna represent the Republican voters for Fayette County at the state committee.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

And uh, you know, your your vote will your vote will probably um your vote will have to dictate what the people back here want. Uh the other thing is I want to tell everybody, uh, I'm getting phone calls from all over the state, uh uh which is which which amazed me. Uh there's there's a lot of there's a lot of grassroots movement, a lot of we the people folks running for these state offices. And I really I I really think that that's what we gotta keep on doing. Um we gotta take back what's ours.

Power Belongs To Voters

SPEAKER_03 23:19

Yeah, exactly. And it's all about the voters. It has nothing to do with politicians, it has nothing to do with the GOP. It's about the people. The power needs to be put back in the hands of the people. I mean, they they are the bosses of the politicians. You know, the politicians, uh the voters don't work for the politicians. Politicians work for the politicians. That's the same with the GOP committee or you know, any board. Work for the people.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Well, Larry, um, I really thank you for coming in today. Uh um, we've got a new studio working, we're gonna work out of. We've got a few glitches we're gonna have to fix up. And I I want to thank you for coming in today. Um, we're gonna be back on on Tuesday uh at uh um four o'clock. Uh, hopefully we'll be able to get the internet taken care of by then. Uh looks like uh that's what the problem is. It's something to do with the slow internet, but we'll get it, we'll get it figured out. And uh is there anything else you want to say before we close up?

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Yeah, rather you vote for me or or Melanie or Dale or you vote for somebody else. Just get out and vote and use your voice. That's the biggest thing. That's your right as an as an American citizen to get out and vote.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Um, and I I'm backing all three of these people. I want to I'd like for them to get uh um I'd like for them to get elected. Um I'm thinking they're gonna get elected. And I really believe they will. We got a lot of people behind them. Um I know that there's uh several churches pulling for for people. And uh I want really I really think that this is gonna be a good thing. We're gonna we're getting the signatures and uh to get them on the ballot. And uh by Monday night we should be able to see where we're at and we'll be able to get that taken care of. And uh I know there's gonna be a trip to Harrisburg, and uh everybody's gonna try to get in, probably be a long line, I would imagine. But anyways, they they have uh I'm under the understanding that they have uh they can do it, they they scan all the signatures in right now on which better blow up quicker. So, but anyways, I'm gonna close up the show today with this. Uh, I always close my Friday shows the same. Life is short, live it. Love is rare, grab it. Memories are sweet, cherish them. Faith is being tested, stand firm. Time is precious, make the most of it. Make the most of it. Trust God and take the ride. God bless each and every one of you, and God bless America. I am John Marietta, and I am the hill building.