250 YEARS OF USA LOVE

It’s our nations 250th Anniversary and I am excited for it. The USA has had many amazing years, trying years, tumultuous decades, and booming times. I love July 4th and I talk about some great memories of mine as a kid. Are we seeing the dismantling of the Democratic Party for socialism? The World Cup is going on and I talk about that as well. Trust in the LORD with all of your heart! 

Transcript

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Faith, politics, and sports. Three things people say not to mix. So here we are. Welcome to GPS God Politics and Sports. I'm Bill Smith bringing you real conversations on faith, political activity, sports, and the issues connecting them all. Well, well, well, welcome everybody to GPS with Bill Smith, and I'm excited to be speaking to you all today. While it's a great time, I'm doing being a little more interactive. I'm sitting here and watching the World Cup. I just saw Brazil score late to knock off Japan. And I'll get to my predictions. Some of my predictions already come to pass. So uh I didn't realize they started playing on um the 28th. So I thought everything started on the 29th and 30th, but they're playing all week. So we've got that, and I know so you all everybody understands GPS stands for God politics and sports, but I want to give you a little thought process of what's going on today. Now, what I started out with today, originally, when I when I said I'm I'm gonna talk about some things, it was all negative. Man, it was all negative. It was talking about democratic socialism and and people attacking the president and verbally and people not loving the country and how people are sounding so unamerican, and boom, boom, boom, they don't like then I just thought, man, I woke up in the morning on June 29th, the 29th of June, Monday, June 29th, and I said Nehemiah 8 and 10 says, The joy of the Lord is your strength. And even though I may touch on those things just a little bit in this time, because it's not gonna be a uh, man, I just want us to enjoy 250 years. Bam! Land of the free established in 1776. Now, this one, of course, mine says I was established 824, 1968. That's when I was born. But I said, we live in the greatest country in the world, and I'm not trying to take anything away from everybody else's country, nor I'm gonna apologize for what I just said. So, all the notes and preparation and the things that I put together, folks, some of it might get touched on and a lot of it won't be. It's just gonna be us talking, it's just gonna be us talking. Because I man, I don't I I saw something that really stood out to me, and it's uh and growing up I've learned this also that when you watch stuff on the news, if you ever notice on the news, you would get, especially growing up in right outside of Philadelphia, it was murder after murder after murder, killing, boom, boom, boom. It's in a row. One good thing, sports, weather, you up out of there. And you would think that the whole planet is falling apart. But at that time period, we didn't have social media. It's 19, you know, it's the 1970s and the 80s, so it was just your own little bubble you may have been in. And everything else you read, you would see Sports Illustrated, uh, People Magazine, Newsweek, all those magazines you would get into. You would look at get you all your news, what's going on nationally, etc. And then it turned into um it turned into with social media, it turned into everything had to be negative. Everything is attacking somebody, and it wasn't like that initially. I really believe social media initially was to be to bridge the gap on a lot of things, but then it's it got taken over, and then everything that could be negative got got uh pushed out, and everything, every little issue, and then you started getting uh social warriors, uh I'm sorry, keyboard warriors. They would get out there, attack people, hide behind their names, that's putting out false everybody wants clickbait. That's one of the biggest things we run into today in in today's uh time period when it comes to social media. Everybody wants clickbait, nobody wants to just tell you the truth. And uh one thing is so true. What you may see on Fox will not be presented the same way on on CNN that won't be presented the same way on Newsmax, that won't be presented the same way on MSNBC. It could be something great, but somebody's gonna try to find it. And I don't listen, I don't care if you're liberal or conservative, somebody's gonna try to find something to poke a hole in something that could be really good. We could have came out of something and they said, hey, this whole country just said boom, etc. And someone will try to find a way, well, you're you're you're being dictators, you're being fat. It's just silly stuff that we we go upon. So I said, no, I'm not I'm not getting all caught up in all that um today. Do I do I think some things are um that's going on around our country, and I and I just say I would hit on some of them. Do I think some of them are are uh not very um pro-USA? Yeah, but so what we're gonna talk about today is we may look at some political ideology, we may look at some of the way that the president might be attacked, some of it. But mostly we'll look at the USA and the World Cup game coming up, the World Cup game that Brazil just beat Japan in, they scored in the 90 plus, uh, so they scored an extra time period to win 2-1. They were losing 1-0, came back in one, scored two goals in the second half. We'll look at Emily uh baseball as in a midway point, and then we'll just talk. I mean, we're just going to conversate and talk. And one of the biggest things I do want to talk about is what you have planned for the 4th of July, and what are some of your childhood and maybe even adult memories with the 4th of July, because we are in in going to our 250th, this is our 250th year as a nation. And I can go back through our history, and not all of it's sterling beautiful things. We've had, you know, we we well once we become a nation and we had a scourge of of slavery that helped form this nation. But I would tell you, as evil as slavery was, this nation should understand that that was then, this is now. Um we don't live in a slave state. We don't live in a slave country. We live in a country that has slavery, but there's not, I don't think there's too many countries on this planet that did not have slavery or did not were not productive, uh had something productive or or something close to it, as far as not that slavery is a good thing to be productive, but what I mean is they had something that resembled or had slavery. I don't think this uh you can't go throughout Africa without it, because what they would do is if one tribe defeated another tribe, they made that tribe their slaves for that time period. Look it up, that's history. We already know about the children of Israel with Egypt and our nation. So we had that. I can go to the wars, I mean, it's just whether it's the war of 1812 uh to finally get England out of here permanent style, um, whether it was the Plains Wars with the Indians, um, whether it was the Mexican-American War uh that led to the Civil War. Um, of course, that was a slavery, the main point behind it. But what I mean by led to it is you have many great leaders in one war that now the Civil War came out that split our nation up, was the Gettysburg Address, uh, the Industrial Revolution that took place in our country, all these great things that uh, man, even going back to peanut butter, that's what I'm talking, because I love me some peanut butter. So all the different things you can do with peanut butter and and the discovery, and knowing that it wasn't just white people that made great discoveries uh when it came to with firemen and the oxygen tank, black man, um elevator, you know, etc. But you had with with the uh light bulb, telephone, grand belt, and I heard some things about that one now. I heard he took it from somebody in Italy. I don't know. I have to look it up, but you see all these great things that were gone in our country. Uh getting in, not that we wanted to be in, but eventually World War I, living through the Great Depression, battling through that, having what they call the greatest, the greatest generation on earth, uh in our history, going through um World War II. Um, and then a great growth across the country financially in homes, etc. And as you could buy homes for a few thousand dollars uh going through in into the 50s, into Korea, through the time period with Truman and Eisenhower, ushering in um the the time, the Kennedy years, even though they were three only three short years. Uh, but you ushered in the Kennedy years. Um and in that are to tumultuous and turbulent times of the 60s with the civil rights movements and and the the uh uh uh assassinations that went on almost habitually, it seemed like um Vietnam. So we go there. But even then you had great music like Motown and the European, the British invasion led by um the Beatles. You had great music that went on awesome movies, movies that were just terrific movies that throughout the 60s that you can still watch now, and and you I mean you can see the special effects. And going back to it, you know, you watched the uh Ten Commandments, I watched, I was cracking up. But the special effects for the 50s was awesome for what it worked in that time period. Into the 70s, uh, once again, music, disco, not everybody liked disco. It was, I mean, it had it, but but RB, the funk, the funk, Parliament and the Funkadelics. You know, the funk was off the chain, the Jacksons. I mean, even the Osmonds, okay, I just do that in there for the for the heck of it. But uh, so all through um, all through that time period in that, whether it was movies, uh, we we had uh the Iran crisis, we had the gas issues, you know, through the 70s, but I still have great childhood memories um through the 70s. We lost some uh I remember one of my favorite uncles passed away in the 70s. Um and and that was that was a big that was a big life changer in our family as a whole, but it was just throughout the set and then the 80s now. That's my decade. The 80s is my decade. The 80s, that's where I roll. That's my high school years, high school years, won college year, rolled into the military, met my beautiful wife, my first daughter was born in '89. So many great things. The last time my team won a my Raiders won the Super Bowl was 1982-83. The last time my Sixers won a championship was the 82-83. Man, I had a good 82-83. Yeah, that was that was pretty good. So um, those were that the times. And then as we get into the 90s, when you know, giving my life to Christ and being sold out to him and and finishing up my time in the military. Um, uh, just so many great things, like my my uh two younger children born. We adopted my oldest son. Um, all this was in the 90s, great time. Change in family structure, change is beginning to grow. Financially, we grew. I I, you know, I went from got out of military in 94, uh, did I end jobs, worked in a pawn shop for a while, was janitor or or what do they call it? Housekeeper VA, and then at 1996 came in the CBP. Um, so 2000s, 2010s, now we roll in the 20s. So all these great things, and even as a nation, Desert Shield, Desert Storm in the 90s, the war uh in Iraq, and I wasn't a fan of it, but I do appreciate all those soldiers, uh, airmen, seamen, uh, air forceman, uh, whoever, uh, all of you that that uh did your job in Iraq and and in Afghanistan. That one I was down with. Going to get Osama bin Laden, all these great things, and I I I didn't I barely scratched the surface on how great this country is, and even the dispariting things in our country, like I said, the uh slavery, um women having the women's suffrage movement that had to move themselves out from one area into another, which was it was great to see, and for them to do the civil rights movement that started, and I'm gonna tell you, it started well before uh Rosa Parks. I know she gets that that that stamp on it for the but the civil rights movement started well before um uh Rosa Parks, it really did. From uh so many great things politically, the the Republican Party basically being started by uh black males um in the South and that whole movement growing. Um we've we've seen so many great things over our nation. So we need to start celebrating that. But part of celebrating that is keeping yourself healthy, so pure vitality. I don't put anything in my body that I know will harm me. Well, outside of butter pecan ice cream, but hey, it has pecans in it, so that makes it good for you. That's my I'm sticking to it. But pure vitality, and this supplement has some terrific things inside of you from Pure Joy uh health products. You can go right online and uh Pure Joy uh Health Product or just type in Pure Vitality. You can just Google pure pure vitality, just put it in your your bar, and it'll pull this up, get you some. And I take this because one, I love to work out, and because I love to work out, I'm gonna put my glasses on for this part, okay? So I know I take them off because of reflection, but because I'm 57, I'll be 58, and I can't see these little letters. I need to see, but anyway, help support energy production, promotes healthy blood circulation and cardiovascular function, supports mental clarity, focus, nerve health, uh promotes muscle function, endurance, and recovery, and contributes to bone health, etc. So you take these, and I encourage people when you take these, cycle them. Take them for 30 days, get off for 30 days, take it for 30 days, get off for 30 days, and see how it begins to affect your body. And I tell you, it's tremendous. I love taking it, um, and I I take it on a daily basis uh for those 30 days. Once the bottle is gone, I cycle off for 30 days, let my body work it through, and then I get back to it for 30 days. So it's great to do pure vitality. Pure vitality. So that's great. So this nation has always been a nation, one nation under God, but there's been different assaults on it in different matters, and a lot of times we will see negative or divisive words, and Proverbs 12, 17 through 20 talks about those divisive words. I'm not gonna read all the scriptures uh today because I like I said I'm not trying to stay um on these things uh too much, but I do want to get to this one point that words that are divisive are not of God. And like I said, Nehemiah 8 and 10 tells us Nehemiah said, Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. The joy of your of the Lord is your strength, excuse me, and understand one thing the world didn't give it to you, and the world can't take it away. So the joy of the Lord is your strength, and I love one thing, and we've been hearing words about not settling. I don't know what everyone understands something. Whatever your pastor, bishop, uh uh um elder, um may be sharing with you, that's what you hold on to. I'm gonna tell you what sharing with at Joyce Center. We've really been hearing a word about not settling, not settling for for where you not just settling on things, but trusting God, moving forward. And one of the things our bishop has said is that we're in the process of seeing one of the greatest financial moves, moves of wealth ever in this country, but especially Christians, we're not getting involved enough in it, we're missing out on it, and we have to get ourselves into a position to hear that to to man to get that wealth that is stored up because to say the the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. Why are we missing out on it? And we have to know that we can't keep missing out on what is stored up for us. We we can't uh um we we can't we can't keep missing out on that. We have got to move in it, we have got to trust God with it, and we have to know that, man, man, God, you you're doing something awesome. I want to be a part of it. I need to be a part of it. I don't know and I don't understand why we we allow ourselves, then we allow our especially as children of the light, we're children of God. Why we allow ourselves to miss out on these things? So that's what we must do. So um how do I put this? How do I put this? Stop sitting in the back waiting for things to change when you can get out front and make that change yourself. Stop sitting around waiting for somebody to do something for you and then you miss out. And stop settling. Stop settling. Stop settling. We have got to stop settling. And especially you're a born-again believer, we have got to stop settling. We have got to start uh we have we have got to start uh what's the word I'm looking for? Taking things back whatever you may have given away or the enemy may have taken, it's time for you to take it back. Take back your family, take back your finances, take back those things that you know are of God. And knowing God is God has placed some great things inside of you for things to get done. And like I said, I did not plan on this part. My whole thing uh originally was to talk about people attacking the president verbally, people tearing other folks down, um, and and how we are uh we are just basically terrible with that when it comes to this nation. I said, I I don't want to get in, but I'm I'm gonna give this one scripture from a month. Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Now, I point I want to point that out real quick because that's something important is we must know nobody's in position without God placing them there. And folks, that means it could be somebody very evil, but they're there for a reason because God's purpose will always prevail. Whatever it's there for, whatever purpose he has, it will always prevail. And we may not, it may not make sense to us and how he goes about doing it, but if you have faith and you're trusting in God, then you're not gonna trip out on how he's doing it. You're gonna find out why, and then you're gonna allow God to begin to minister and share with you and move you around and put you in the place, put you in a place that you can begin to see everything that's going on around you. So the deception in some things, in some areas, I'm gonna touch on this is a little negative, but politically the deception is starting to spread when it comes to uh people saying democratic uh socialism. And the Democratic Party is being I'll say infested, attacked, overwhelmed with it uh in certain areas, it's starting to become more prominent. And this uh this is not something that is everybody enjoys, but critics argue that socialism can harm a country by stifling innovation, creating economic inefficiencies, and limiting personal freedoms by replacing free markets. With centralized planning and redist redistributing wealth, say the system can reduce incentives for people to work hard and lead to widespread shortages. And I've seen plenty of times where people say, hey, by them doing this, certain countries have more socialist things and it seems to be nicer and more fun to be in, etc. Whatever it might be. But we are a democratic and understand something, republic. Okay, we're a republic. And within that republic is capitalism. And when capitalism says you go out and you make your money, you go out and make your money, and within that, you're not sharing, not that you're not sharing, but you're not having to uh you made yours and you don't have to give it to everybody else. So if somebody, and I'm a firm believer, if somebody can work, they should be working. If somebody can get the certain things done, they should be getting done. So, but some of the things with socialism reduced incentive to innovate, uh uh the government, bureaucracy and shortages, government-managed industries often lack the competitive pressure to improve quality. Because if if if I'm in charge of everything and there's no competition, I don't have to fix anything. All right. You know, that happened with WWE at one point. Anyway, that's a whole nother story. So loss of economic and personal liberty. Um if if I'm at a certain point, or it keeps me from growing even more because Joe Blow next to me, we have to stay on that same level. And that's what it's basically uh saying with some of that. So capitalism, socialism, they are opposing economic systems. I'm not tearing either one of them down, even though I'm a capitalist. I'm a firm believer in capitalism. I'm not down with socialism. But the primary difference is who owns the means of production, factory, business, and resources, resources, and how wealth is distributed. Capitalism gives you the opportunity to own. Socialism says the government will own and then we'll hand it out to everybody, piecemeal. Uh, capitalism emphasizes private ownership, and socialism emphasizes collective or state ownership. And I just want to give you the back and forth. I see what people they'll they'll post uh or they'll put things out about um this is what this means, this is what that means, and then this I just want to give you that opportunity to see it yourself and to share that with you. Uh ownership and control, capitalism, businesses are privately owned by individuals, investors, or shareholders. Profit goes to the owners and investors. I own it, I should profit from it. With socialism, major industries and resources are owned or heavily uh regulated by the government or the workers themselves. The goal is to distribute wealth equitably among all members of society. So uh so there's a whole lot of other things that the two of them go back and forth uh against. But what I really want to get into on this part too is though, because we're talking about the U.S. and we're going up on the 4th of July and politics uh and and just to hit on this a little bit, you see a lot of people who talk about that they that uh U.S. citizens talking about that they're not loving our country. Um one congressperson from Minnesota, and you can figure out who it is, uh, she said we're the worst nation on the planet. And that's what kind of set me off right there to say, I'm not, I'm not getting to, I'm not, I was gonna get in all this stuff about what her, etc. I ain't got time for that garbage. We're the greatest nation on the planet, bar none. And I could say, like a lot of people, well, if you don't like it, leave. If you don't like a restaurant, you don't sit up in there. If the movie's terrible, you don't sit up in there. But nobody leaves. So you realize you're still in the greatest country in the world. Bar none. You have people that come from other countries. Oh, I love this. You got people coming from other countries talking about how awesome the United States is. One person said, um, and I saw this, if you want to know how bad our country is, or you want to think how bad our country is, just watch the news. You want to know how great our country is, drive across it. Because I'm gonna tell you flat out unless a person is really trying to get on TV and do certain things, whether liberal or conservative, most people are pretty nice. And you won't even know. You can drive up to somebody's restaurant, eat, have a great time, drive away, and their their mindset be totally opposite of yours. But that's why it's the greatest country on the planet. Unfortunately, you can go to some places, you can express who you voted for, who you like to vote for, and they may not want to feed you. That's pathetic. That's terrible. Remember one thing, and and this goes right back to the God part of this. Everything is temporal. Nobody's in a position, like I talked about before, Romans 13 to 1, I believe, nobody's in a position when a God places them there. So, and who I decide to vote for is my conviction. If somebody decides to vote for somebody, boom, boom, that's their conviction. Now I know, standing on the word, I don't see how some people can vote for certain ways. And before anybody says, well, this person this, this, and this, I shared this before. You go on the Bible, you tell me one leader, one king that didn't have some issues. I'll wait. Okay, there we go. So, 12% of voters who voted for Kamala, only 12% said he loved the U.S. 18% or only 18% of Democrats said they're proud of being American. And then 55% say they'd rather live in another nation, but they stay here. All right, go figure. Uh, 29% of Democrats are only 29% of Democrats are proud of the country. 90% of Republicans are proud of the country. Now, before you say, well, that's only because Trump's there. No, no, no. Go back, I think it was 2009, 2010, and this is when President Obama was in the office. 89% of Americans said that they are proud of our country. They didn't like the president and they weren't gonna vote for him, but they were still proud of our country. That's where I said we have an issue. And that's I'm gonna end the negative part. We're gonna get out of the next or the battling part right there, unless we're talking about sports. But I believe that the separation and the exclusion during COVID ushered in some of this mentality because many people now, college age or younger, uh, even a little bit older, a lot of people were secluded. A lot of people were off to themselves, a lot of people had it did not have that social interaction that I think is very important that you need to have to fully enjoy everything about your country. And that did not happen. And for that almost year period, until we started coming out of it in November, headed to you know, December time frame. And I know I lived it. I went through the hospital through it. Um but I know that the separation I I saw for my child, my grandchildren, and and uh um with school, and and here from my my my nephew, and when he when he graduated, it was just a car and they just drove up, or some people didn't get that much in there. It's just so these things that was all separating out. Everything was separated out. And I really believe that that was a great thing that um created that. And with with people with white people apologizing for things that had nothing to do with um the slow push of of uh Muslim or Islam and and you have too many time periods, uh, especially with us as blacks, we play the victim card. And when you point the finger at everybody else, that will create dissension. But because we're the greatest country on the planet, we overcome that time and time again. All of it, we overcome it. And because we stand on the word and people need to start speaking up more about unifying this nation, about where this nation came from and what we're all about. And when people outside of the nation speak that much highly about this country, we know we have something great. We just can't keep getting upset and putting it down in every way, shape, or form. So enough of that garbage. I'm gonna share, you know what? When I was a kid, let's just talk about some great stuff. When I was a kid, one of the things we used to go to Hillside Elementary School. I didn't go to that school, that's where um our fireworks were. So we would go down to my grandmother's house, great-grandmother's house, and we would pack it out. Sometimes, well, we would start, a lot of times we started at uh Uncle Tom and Aunt El's house on Elbow Lane. Now, the only ones who know anything about New Jersey's, personally Berlin County, you're gonna know what the rules I'm I'm talking about. Everybody else, you're probably saying to yourself, what is this guy talking about? Oh, Germany's about to play Paraguay, but I'll be finished before that game starts. But anyway, you'll be like, Why are you talking about? Anyway, we'll be on Elbow Lane or around the corner, Texas Avenue. Um, my my uh grandfather and and grandmother Smith, my mom and pop off Smith, they were around the corner. Sometimes they'd have barbecue. You start over there, boom, everybody's even getting underfoot on them, et cetera. Then you jump in the car, you drive over to Haynesport Road. I think it was 83 or 89 Haynesport Road. I can't, I think it was one of those, was the address. And you have all the cars parked in the front, parked on the grasp in the driveway, et cetera. And the house wasn't that big, but it seemed like the house expanded. Everybody would be in the house talking in the backyard, and then we start as it starts getting dark, you go across the street, you set up uh your blankets, and you sat and you waited for the fireworks to start at Hillside, elementary school. And that thing went on all the way up until I I don't know if I was in high school when it stopped. I know I was in junior high. I remember one of the last times I went, I was in junior high. It was like seventh or eighth grade. But that was uh a tremendous time. And then maybe they still were going. I mean, that was it was many years ago. So even from that, it just it just began continued to grow. And then uh being in the military, uh, the fireworks that that were out here and the and a lot of fun that we had, and then uh taking my children, different places around uh El Paso, off of Fort Bliss area, they would have fireworks and uh except it wasn't as it was it wasn't as intimate because it wasn't all family. You would just be out there all day and as soon as it gets dark, boom, they start popping them off. But then whether it was at um as my son started getting older, and and even now we do it at our house, uh, my wife spends tons. She'll go out to a fireworks stand and she, and I'm I'm hoping I'm hoping she don't do it this year, but um, I it's probably gonna happen. But she'll drop a couple, she'll drop a couple hundred on it, which I mean we're blessed, so it's it's okay. So the kids have stuff to play with and and light up and blow up, etc. So, but um with all that, within all that, whether it's the baseball games, you love watching. And I talked uh one of the things I love talking about is I love professional wrestling, and that was one of the things that was always big was especially the great American Bash, um came up was was around that time, and that was established by Dusty Rhodes, and he started at in the NWA, and man, love doing that. Baseball games, there's always somebody's games on somewhere on the 4th of July. So this whole week and this whole time period, especially 250 years, think about 250 years, baseball was established in the 1800s. Uh, through baseball, the uh um now look we're at with baseball, and what was once called a national pastime. Boxing over all those years, boxing, the sweet science, how that's developed over in our nation. And at one point, boxing and horse racing were the most watched sports as you get from the tens to the 20s, headed into the 30s. It was the most watched sport in our country, sports in our country. And speaking of sports, this segment of GPS is brought to you by by our sponsor, QCraft Sausage. You can text uh 706-409-3532 or Q uhSCraft Sausage.com backslash Marquez Car at QScraft.sausage.com. So there's just different ways that you can get in there and um get some of that good sausage from Q Craft Sausage, which is one of our sponsors. And you would see so many, you got so many great sports over these 250 years. Lacrosse, which was started by Indians, the Indian tribes played lacrosse first. A lot of people don't know that. They just think it's uh uh, you know, whoever's winning an NCAA tournament or or the pro lacrosse league, it started with Indians. It started in the Indian tribe, started with lacrosse. That's how they settled some of that's how they settle some of their wars. And I'm serious with that between Indians. I wish we would do that now. Instead of people wanting to fight and shoot at each other, just grab a basketball, whoever wins, you get that block. Uh football, baseball, whatever it is. Then you will we'll play you again next week. I I wish we would do that. But uh, she got that soccer. We imported. I have a my heart. My heart. My grandsons are enjoying soccer. We are a football family, we're getting out of that garbage. I mean, I don't want to say garbage because I'm why I'm sitting here watching the World Cup now, so it's not garbage, but we get we gotta get back to the gridiron with them. But no, if it was something that they really enjoyed and they started to excel at, I would back them 100%. I I have no problem with that. Back them 100% with that uh all the way across the board. So you get that soccer and then of course football. Football started off basically as a mosh pit. If you look at the history, and it has grown in such a way to what we have today, it's grown from no helmets to just leather helmets to plastic, literally plastic helmets with webbing on the inside, to what we have all the way up through today. So you have those things. But look real quick, the U.S. is playing Bosnia in the round of 32 on uh Wednesday night. I expect the U.S. to win. And looking at the bracket, they conceivably could get to the eight, and then after that, they start running into some of the, I think either Portugal or Spain, one of them running some of those big guns in there. Canada's already won their round. Um they they won uh their round of 32 match, uh, scored a late goal, and they won that one. So, but I I do have, and I don't know everybody who played, so I'm gonna start with this. I got Germany, France, Senegal, US, Spain, Portugal. Brazil just won and they barely won. Norway, Mexico, England, Switzerland, Ghana. Ghana's my upset, Australia and Argentina going through. Now, I think the first game today was Brazil and uh Brazil and and um Japan. So I'm pretty good with the rest of those predictions as those games get ready to come up. Alright, so some of these matches uh may have been played. Well, hopefully they're well, of course, they'll be played. Uh, the only ones that were played prior to the uh to this podcast was the Canadian one. And so we're I'm looking forward to this round of 62. I mean, I'm sorry, 32, because I really think that the U.S. is gonna do a really good job. And that's and I think that's important that they do because one it opens up the game to everyone more, and two, it'd be nice to see the uh U.S. team do some great things in the World Cup, and not just to get to the 16. I would love to see them get to at least the final eight. At least the final eight. So we already know um uh Japan is Japan is out, Brazil is through, and we know that uh Canada is through, and we are we we're looking forward to the US and what they have to do in their 60. I mean not 64, because that is so NCA tournament, and they're round of 32. And it's this computer's acting crazy on me. So I got Germany, yeah. Germany should win, I got France winning, Canada already beat, um, South Africa, which if you haven't seen it, it was a very late goal. Very late goal, towards the end of the match goal, which would have been a um which really would have been crazy because they had won the extra time. And they don't do they don't do uh they don't do golden goals anymore. So it's not just one shot. You gotta you got two 15 minute halves. So you can lose the first half and come back and win it all in the second half. So that's what like I said, Japan already. Uh the Netherlands, um, they they play it. I I picked the Netherlands to win also, so they play a little bit later on. So they played the last game of the night, the last game of today is the Netherlands. Uh right now, so it's Germany and Morocco. So Germany and Prague. So anyway, that's my picks. That's my picks in the M and the MLB. And then like I said, this this podcast is a little bit different than usual. It's not just the hard-hitting, let's just go for the jugular, because I had all these things written out that would have just been, hey, let's just let's just start throwing blows at each other. But I wanted it just to be a little bit lighter today. We we hit some of those things on the surface, but once again, how can we celebrate the greatest country on the world if all I do is talk about what everyone else wants to say bad about it? So, Major League Baseball, the halfway point, Baton Average, uh Diaz from Tampa Bay, 336, is the leader, Baton Average leader, home run leader is my man from a Philadelphia Phillies. It's over there, you can't see it. From a Philadelphia Phillies, Car Swaber, 30 home runs, RBIs, Kirch. And this is for all baseball, not just America League and National League. Stolen bases. Let me get in that real quick. How many of y'all like me in baseball miss stolen bases? I miss the art of stealing. I don't know if these cacks can get back to it. Everybody wants to hit bombs, but what about stealing a couple bases and then producing runs? So I I I guess so I I miss the Ricky Henderson's and the uh uh Lonnie Smith's and and uh the the uh the the that one that one Cardinal team that just ran crazy in the 80s with Joe Morgan with steal bases, uh Tim Rains was out stealing bases, and you would get guys on uh the Gary Maddox and the Baked McBrage, these cats would get on, and you know they was headed, it was they you know they were headed for for second base eventually. And they just got they started granted the steroid error ushered in, hitting long balls, and folks got away from let's just steal bases and work our way around. Everybody got into no, we're gonna crush it. And within that crushing, we got away from stealing bases. And I I used to love when I played baseball, even we had games over the Fortress Live weekend, where it might be, stealing, get on first base. I didn't have to hit home run. I want to get on first, steal second, steal third, you figure out a way to get me in the uh pass ball, pit, boom, I'm I'm taking home. Um that's all I wanted to do. I wasn't great hitting, but if I got on base, I could bunt good. If I got on base, it was a double. You might as well count as a double. I'm all just he's gonna be on second. He's gonna be on second. He's on first, he's gonna be on second. Because that's where I was headed, unless the coach told me not to steal, but I wanted to steal. Uh but I think we got so far away from that now with baseball. And I wish they would get back to that. Uh that's the same thing I said with basketball. And the WNBA is like, and I'm not, I don't follow the games as much. I know there's a lot of controversy that goes on in those games, especially, especially dealing with Caitlin Clark, but they'll work their way around it because you have that you have that perennial start. And what we need to do is, what they need to do is, they need to take the color off of everything that they talk about. Everything is not about race. And I blame the media for that, especially when it comes to sports. Everything they gave uh uh the one dude, uh the quarterback from uh the Giants, they gave him a crazy amount because he introduced the president. Or, and I this is right, because I gotta hit you with this the Knicks, invited by the president, by the White House, James Dolan says yes, and the first thing everybody does is. Attack any black player who may want to go. Why? Why? The ignorance of that? And that irritates me because the double standards and the hypocrisy that goes on needs to stop. It needs to stop. Because you wouldn't say to those black players it was a black president. But you would get upset if any white player, and it did happen already, if a white player says, I'm not going to the White House to see that black president. Not verbally, but you know they're saying they're doing that. You will be calling him a racist, you'll be saying he's this, he's that. You would just uh eviscerate him. But now you get back and you do the same thing. So what do these players do? They may want to go, but then they don't go. Unless you get a Saquon Barkley who says, screw y'all, I'm gonna do what I want to do. Unless you get a Lawrence Taylor who says, screw y'all, and I know Lawrence Taylor would have gone. And I'm pretty sure, and look at all, you know, and it's all based off Trump, because nobody did it when it was Reagan. Nobody did it for Bush, nobody did it for Clinton, nobody did it for Obama. Nobody did it for Biden. So what's the common denominator? The media, the media's disparaging and hate hate for our current president. That's it. That's it. Bottom line, that's it. We have to find a reason to tear apart. And why? It doesn't make a difference. You don't have to like, there were people that went into that White House who are not pro uh uh LGBTQ, whatever the alphabet is. You have people that went into the White House with Biden who were not pro-abortion, etc. But the fact of it is you're going to the leader of the free world. You respect the office. I don't have to respect the decisions that anybody makes. You go there, you carry yourself in a classy way, and then you leave out. You make a bigger statement by doing that. And then if a but if a black player wants to go in, the amount of attack that he gets from other black players, but I'm not getting into that. Nope, nope, nope. We're we're just enjoying your 4th of July, our 250th year anniversary, birthday of this nation, the greatest nation on the planet, bar none. Nobody can tell me otherwise, nobody can prove otherwise, and I will tell you why, because I don't care where you're from, everybody wants to come here. Not necessarily to live, but everybody wants to come visit here. People like visiting our country. Some people want to come live. Even illegal. We're not doing it. I'm not doing it, I'm not doing that. But God is good, his mercy endures forever. And I praise God and I thank you, Lord, that you raised up a nation such as this. That over these 250 years, we have been nowhere near perfect and never will be. There'll be no perfect nation until Jesus returns and establishes his kingdom and throne on a new earth. Because the old things will pass away. This earth will pass away. But within that, I do want to thank our last sponsor, Spartans, Youth Sports. Great growth, great opportunity for young people to grow. Minds, formed, shaped, spoken to, battle on the field, and in the chair, on the in the in the chair room or courts, wherever chair leaves are at, wherever they're cheering at. But celebrate this nation. You can point out all the bad things you want to, but celebrate the fact that you have the opportunity to speak your mind, no matter how crazy or silly I might think it is at time. You have that opportunity. You celebrate and know that God, politics and sports with Bill Smith strives because we live in the greatest country on the planet. Now, those that are listening in other countries, you embrace your country as well. Because I thank you all. Whether you're in Tokyo, you're Brazil, once again, great win. You're in London, you have great nations also. But I got to hold mine down. God bless you. God politics and sports. Well, folks, that wraps up this episode. Today's episode of GPS God Politics and Sports. Thanks for listening. And as always, stay grounded and stay engaged. God, Politics and Sports.