Washington DC: The Center of Our Republic

Hey everybody, welcome to the Firestone Files. I am Dr. Chris Firestone. Today, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States of America with my trip to Washington, D. C. That's coming at you today on the Firestone Files. All right, well, welcome everybody to the files. This is kind of like part two of a two-part series to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. I took a trip with Champion Christian College in partnership with Judson University to Washington, D. C. a few weeks ago. And I've kind of strung some of that footage together for you. I had students from Champion, we had staff from Champion Christian College.

And our goal was to go to D. C. and to see the Capitol Building. That was our main goal. Uh we were in route, we also saw the Bible Museum and the Holocaust Museum. Not going to focus so much on those because I really want to zero in on the 250th anniversary of the United States. And so, I'm going to focus on our trip to the Capitol and some of the other sights and sounds that we saw as we entered D. C. and and were able to walk around for a couple of days there.

So, uh that's the end game here, to show some clips and to kind of give you guys the vibe of D. C. Some of you may have gone there. I've been there once before to do a tour with the Firestone family. We had a great time. I don't know, it was at least 10 years ago. Uh this time I went with the new family here at Champion Christian College with the explicit explicit intent to get a sense of our great republic and you the United States of America and it's uh various branches of government focused on the end game of a opportunity to get a tour of the Capitol Building with Congressman Bruce Westerman.

That came up kind of late in the game, but he was gracious enough to set that up for us. So, that's what we're going to do. I have a secret goal, a secret I've also seeing uh the White House and the Supreme Court Building just to get a sense of all three branches of government. So, that's what I'm going to try to do. Let me go ahead and just jump right in with you as we look at some of the the the the video from our arrival with laying our first eyes on the Capitol Building. Let's go ahead and roll that one.

Right behind me, I don't know if you can see it back there, is the Capitol Building that's coming at you tomorrow. 250th anniversary of our great nation coming up and uh wow, what an amazing event I get to be here at this time. It's awesome. Looking forward to the tour tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get you guys some footage. Take care. Love you. Bye. All right. Well, you can see you when you pull up and you've got students and you've got staff and you first lay eyes on that Capitol Building. Oh my goodness. Um everyone goes quiet. Uh everything just kind of stands still for a moment as we realize just how good we have it in this great nation.

I've traveled a lot around the world. I lived 4 years in Asia in Hong Kong and visited China, visited a variety of places in Asia while I was there. I've lived in Europe when I was doing my PhD. Um I've traveled throughout the Eastern uh block countries when I've given lectures on philosophy of Immanuel Kant and other things. There is no other nation on this planet that compares with the kind of freedoms, the kind of opportunities that we have here in the United States. Um hands down, best country in the world. Anyway, so we arrived in DC. It took a long time to get there, a long bus ride.

Uh President Kapesi was kind enough to uh put us all in this amazing champion bus. And um after uh you know, a long very long bus ride, we arrived, got into the hotel provided by the group uh partnership that we have with Judson University. And just um just amazed to be there and to be able to see it under these circumstances. Now, the next clip I want to show you is the first thing we did when we got to DC. And that was to go to the People's House. We had hopes of getting into the White House at one point, but hey, the president wasn't going to be there.

And the logistics of working that out fell through. Very hard. You got to do those things 6 months in advance. We had a large group and something happened where that fell through. So, we pivoted and we went to the People's House instead. Now, those of you don't know what the People's House is, it's kind of like a replica of the White House in a lot of ways, or at least it has component uh parts that are are modeled after the White House. It's right outside the White House.

Um and it it really is kind of cool because you can go in there and kind of have free reign of the White House. And so, let's go ahead and roll that my introduction to the People's House. All right, here we are on day three of our trip. We are headed to the people's house right next to the White House. Man, what a day it's going to be. I'm so excited to be able to see some of these places and to just experience the the pageantry and the sort of depth and and beauty of of our great republic. And Hey, we are in the people's house where they have replicas of all the rooms in the White House.

This is really cool. They're not real big, but you can see there's the East Room right behind me. Down below here, the Vermeil Room. Up above, the Lincoln Bedroom and lots of other rooms right on down the hallway here. Um you know, even though we can't get in, we can see what the White House is like here at the people's house. Super cool. Upstairs had a ton of stuff as well. I'm just trying to take it all in. And look at this.

Pretty cool. Not the White House, but a replica of it just across the street here. Everyone say hi. All right. Well, inside the people's house, we had you know, access to replicas of various components of the house and hopefully you got a chance to see some of those in the last video collage that we put together there. Once I was in the Oval Office, I just started thinking about federalism, the separation of powers, the various aspects of what makes our government so great. Let me go ahead and roll some of my thoughts regarding those things while I'm sitting in the Oval Office in the People's House.

Here we are in the Oval Office. Benjamin Franklin run behind me here. Started thinking about the separation of powers, how the legislative branch, they pass bills and create laws, and the executive branch, of course, enforces them. And the Supreme Court, really the judicial branch, um judges on makes rulings on them. What an amazing idea, the separation of powers. All right. Well, you can tell the whole place was coming alive because that replica in the People's House of the Oval Office is fascinating, fantastic, amazing. We spent a lot of time in there.

People just walking around, looking at the pictures, looking at the paintings, looking at the the the uh Oval Office itself, and the desk of the president, and I mean, you if you looked at a picture of me sitting at the desk, uh maybe you can put one of those up there, uh Matthew. It looks like I was there. I've had people tell me, "You were in the Oval Office." You know, you it's hard to tell the difference if you get the right angle.

Uh just an amazing thing they've done there with the People's House. Highly recommend that you go there if you're going to Washington, D. C. Um not only did history and and and and the sort of significance of our government strike me at that moment, but also we were just having a lot of fun. Let's go ahead and roll um my conversation with J. D. Vance at the uh at the desk in the Oval Office. Hello. J. D. , yeah. Firestone here. Yeah. Um Trump's in the White House? He's not in the White House. No, I'm sitting right here at his desk. He's in China, I understand.

He asked me to take over. Yeah. Yeah, come on by. We'll do coffee. Talk about what needs to be done. Thanks. Well, after we had finished our time at the People's House, it was time to kind of make our way around the city. We had to do lunch, and then we had to sort of make our way eventually to the Capitol Building, which was going to be an evening tour around 6:00 or 6:30 p. m. That's what we had set up with Congressman Westerman and his team. But, in the meantime, after lunch, we had an opportunity to do what called the National Mall, and we did a a walk around there.

First thing I wanted to do is see the White House, and so that is what we did. Um Beth and I walked around and along with some other people. I think we ended up meeting with the president and with Jason Van Ness and a few other people from Champion along the way. But, let's go ahead and roll some footage of one side of the White House and then the other side of the White House and some of my thoughts on the executive branch, I guess.

Hey, everybody. Dr. Chris Firestone here, and we have made it to the White House. Oh, that's a freebie for you, the Washington Monument. Some kind of motorcade here just outside the White House. We're checking it out. Thank you to our law enforcement. I think the police are here from all over the country. I remember seeing that last night. A bonus here in Washington, D. C. All right, here we are at the crazy side of the White House. We got protesters. And we got the building itself. And a lot of other people. I don't know how you can argue your case like this, but it is a freedom that a lot of people have died for.

So, free speech all the way. All right. Well, after we had seen the White House, we now uh you know, we'd seen the executive branch of power, the the White House. We're looking forward to getting to the legislative branch, which is the Capitol Building. But, I was still hoping that perhaps we would see the Supreme Court. Well, we walked around walked around for a while and we made our way to various memorials beforehand. I you know, I didn't think I was going to see the Supreme Court. But, those memorials, we had the Lincoln Memorial, we had the um the Jefferson Memorial, we had the Washington Memorial.

I'm going to go ahead and roll some of that footage in sequence, just so you get a sense. Now, anybody who's been to DC knows that this place is not only uh just built up and and it's just oozing with history from uh the early American period in the US government, but it is also pretty big. And so, we ended up walking. I think I walked over 10 mi that day um just to get from site to site to site. It might have been you know, into the teens somewhere. It was a lot I ended up having blisters on my feet at the end of the day.

But, well worth it. Highly recommended. You might want to throw one of those scooters in uh if you want to rent something to get from one thing to another so you don't end up with blisters. But, anyway, uh let's go ahead and roll some of the footage from the various memorials. And hopefully, you'll get a sense of uh all that's happening there in DC on the National Mall. What a legacy to American excellence here at the Washington Memorial, and right behind me the Lincoln one. And of course, we've got that reflection pool in the background. Let's get that cleaned up and looking good.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm all in favor in investing a little bit of money to make this place look amazing. At the Lincoln Memorial, guy held the Union together when it was a most divided. We're living in a time that's divided as well. May we have the strength of Lincoln get through this thing. We made it to the Jefferson Memorial. Another incredible building here, still under some construction and fixes. Beautiful view here, give you a one look at this. Nice. We had seen everything at this point, spent the whole afternoon walking from one place to another.

And then we had to start making our way to the Capitol Building. Um it's going to be a long walk. We're still going to have to do dinner at a pizzeria that we had set up in advance. Um but that was miles away, and we're going to have to make our way over there. En route, you won't believe it, but I bumped into the Supreme Court. Let's go ahead and roll that brief footage. All right, we are making our way to the Capitol Building to get our tour of the legislative branch. But lo and behold, we stumbled into the judicial branch right here across the street.

Oh my goodness. Man, what a place we live in here. This is amazing. Washington D. C. just keeps giving. Loving it here on the Firestone Tires. All right. Well, we done it. We've seen all three branches of government on one journey to D. C. Uh and now it's time to arrive at the Capitol Building. We got there and um I spent quite a bit of time out there as we were waiting for the congressman to uh show up to give us a a tour. Uh ended up being the uh you know, um 30 minutes late, 40 minutes late. But, in the meantime, I couldn't help but shoot some video contemplating some of the symbolism of this great place.

So, this is the U. S. Capitol Building. Look at the majesty of this building behind me as I'm talking through and thinking through some of what makes the U. S. government such a historically significant and enduring legacy. Hey, everybody. We have made it to the Capitol Building. Can you believe this? Got in on the to the campus with one of Congressman Bruce Westerman's aids. Super nice gal. Got us through security. And now we're sitting on the steps here of the highest legislative branch in the country. Here at the Capitol Building downtown Washington, D. C. Place is just oozing with history and we get to see inside and get a tour first hand from the congressman.

The architecture of the U. S. Capitol Building has both Greek and Roman influences. You can see both behind me. The columns are similar to or at least um modeled off of the Parthenon in ancient Greece. And the dome is more Roman in orientation, symbolizing the great republic, the unity, the way it comes together, the various states into one unified whole.

And so we see the Western intellectual tradition informing the foundations of American democracy. All right, we are with the senator. We're going inside. All right, everything will need to come out of your pockets. All right. We've made it to the entry with Congressman Bruce Westerman. He's talking with the champion folks. And uh what a great guy. Just very personable, telling us about his daily life here. Super cool. We are entering the Capitol Building.

All right. Well, once inside the Capitol Building, you know, the jaw just drops. What an amazing place it was to visit. The moment you walk in, the architecture, the attention to detail. Doing so with a US sitting US Congressman, what a privilege that was. We walked inside, we followed him in. He lectured sort of uh you know, in rhythms throughout our time there. So, as we're walking in, we went through various hallways, he was showing us around. And then we stopped in the hallway and he started lecturing us on US history.

What uh what a what an amazing thing to hear a congressman who knows his stuff, who's able to tell us story after story about the founding of the US government and the Capitol Building and everything that's centered around it. So, I want to show you some of that footage, but before I do, there's a an encounter there in the hallway with Senator Boozman. Now, this is an Arkansas Senator. He comes out of nowhere to join us, kind of standing behind us, and he has an interesting exchange with Congressman Westerman. So, I want to show you that footage. This only happens, well, maybe once in a lifetime, but it happened to us. So, let's roll the footage with uh Senator Boozman and uh Bruce Westerman talking and the rest of us just soaking it all in. Just glad to see you over here.

We heard If you don't know, this is Senator John Boozman, our senior Senator from Arkansas. Everybody will tell you he's the the nicest person up here. I promise you he's also the most competitive person. He usually introduces me as the senior citizen from Arkansas. Well, it's good to have you all. Thank you, sir. Nobody does a better job than him. He He does a tremendous job representing Arkansas. We're blessed the delegation works together very, very well. Uh which you'd think every delegation, but that's not the case. So, it's a privilege working with Bruce and representing you all. Thank you, Senator. Well, welcome. Welcome, everyone. Um my name is Bruce Westerman.

I'm the Congressman from Arkansas. This is the fourth congressional district. And uh I love doing doing these tours, and like Senator Boozman said, the Capitol's pretty much empty, and we can take you to places I can't go on other tours. We've got a really special group here tonight. I know if you're from Champion College, raise your hands. Uh Champion College is in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a Usually start down here with the Senate. You'll You when we get to the House, the tile is not quite as fancy. It's not quite as ornamental down in the house because the house is kind of the people's house and sometimes we refer to the Senate as the House of Lords. And the Senate's also called the upper chamber and the house is called the lower chamber. Does anybody believe that's because the Senate is more important than the house?

Good. Well, that's where your tour ends if you That's good. The whole thing, House of Lords, upper chamber, lower chamber, that's all related to it. It goes back to colonial time, pre-Revolutionary War, and in Virginia, at Williamsburg, the state house, which is still there, uh under the rule of Britain's King George, they had a colonial government that consisted of a locally elected representative. They met on the first floor of the state house. Now, the king appointed lords over the colony, and those lords met on the second floor of the Virginia state house. You can still go there today and see that. So, we had the Revolutionary War, which we're getting ready to celebrate 250 years of that.

We're already in the 250 years of the Revolution because there were three battles fought before uh the Declaration of Independence was ever Um you had the Battle of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill that happened before January or July 4th, 1776. Set up a new form of government, and we decided to try something called a bicameral legislature, where you had a house and a senate, equal bodies, uh and one of the three branches of government. And they uh they first done this in Virginia, the state house in Virginia, and they had house members and they had senators, or they had assembly members and senators.

Well, the house members were already meeting on the lower floors, so they decided to put the senators up and make them walk up the stairs to the upper chamber. And when uh the federal government copied that protégé and they had the house and the senate, they take the upper chamber and lower chamber. You can never be appointed to the house, you can only be elected to the house. If a senator dies in office, uh their state can appoint the new senator. As a matter of fact, when the country was first formed, all senators were appointed by the states.

There wasn't an election in the states for senators, state legislatures appointed the senators, and the senators were held accountable by the the elected body of the state uh legislature. That changed with an amendment to the constitution, and now, as you know, senators are elected state-wide. Only in the house can tax bills and spending bills originate. So, you the senate cannot come up with a tax bill and send it to the house. They can't come up with a spending bill and send it to the house. The tax and spending bills always have to originate in the senate. Uh later on the tour, I'll show you where the speaker's office is, and I'll tell you it's prime real estate.

So, uh don't let upper chamber lower chamber fool you, because the constitution probably actually gives a little bit more authority to the house than it does the senate, although the senate can do things like confirmation of judges and treaties that the house doesn't have the power But, it's an ingenious system that our founders came up with. It's lasted for 250 years, and I hope it's lasting as long as time persists on earth. Although I think it's by far the best government that that anybody's ever come up with. Not by any means perfect, but it's done a lot of good things and a lot of good things have come from it.

Well, after those elections in the hallways and so forth, we finally found ourselves in the Rotunda. And once in the Rotunda, uh Westerman blossomed like a flower in springtime. He just started telling us about all the historical significance of the paintings, the sculptures, various other things there. Let's go ahead and roll some footage. Everybody, we have arrived at the Rotunda here in the Capitol Building. Look at the rich history in these portraits. We've got generals, we got presidents, we got famous people. Oh, here's Harry Truman coming up here. General Ulysses S. Grant. And just goes on and on. Look at this place.

Oh my goodness. There's Abraham Lincoln. It's the gate. It's been there a long time. Napoleon rode his troops through it when he defeated the Prussians. And the Berlin Wall was the symbol of the Cold War. And you know, there weren't anybody Nobody was going east out of West Berlin to get in East Berlin. People were coming out of East Berlin to go to West Berlin. President Reagan goes there. I'm a sophomore in college at this time, and he makes this famous speech. He says, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

And I got a whole other story about that but I served in Congress with the guy that wrote the speech and he had a whole whole interesting tidbit that I won't go into all those details. I'll tell you on November the 9th, 1989 I'm a senior in college now and they tore the wall down. And when that wall came down, it wasn't long till the Soviet block broke up. So Ukraine, which used to be a Soviet state, is an independent country. All all of those Eastern block of Eastern European countries that used to be part of the Soviet block that's when they split up.

That's when um really I think we got overconfident in the Western Hemisphere because the communist influence moved out and it wasn't long till communist China was back here along with the Russians. And and you've seen the problems we've had in Venezuela and other South American and Central American countries and even in the Caribbean. So that was a that's a cool story about Reagan but if you look at his statue, see this little layer right here?

That's the Berlin Wall that they pressed out and then in the statue. So they wrote the speech, the politicals wrote the speech and the State Department saw it and went berserk and they said he can't go there and say that but they'd already showed the speech to Reagan and they knew if Reagan saw the speech he would he would use that line. And uh the State Department was having a meltdown. Well get this. After he gave the speech and it was successful, the State Department took credit for writing it. You're moving into the House balcony.

We are going into the House of Representatives. All right. Well, once we were done with some of that, we made our way to the veranda. Now, a little bit about the veranda. The veranda is this outdoor deck, basically, all built as part of the Capitol Building. The architecture and the thought that went into this was extraordinary because the veranda is overlooking the the Washington Monument and you can see the the reflection pool and all of that. It's said to be the most beautiful view in all of Washington and honestly, I think they're right. I have been told that this is the best view in all of Washington.

Okay, I I can't say they're wrong. Let's take a look out here. Look at these champion guys talking up the the representative. Oh oh man. Giving getting pictures with the uh with the congressman. Yeah, I got to get in on that. Well, we're out here getting one of the finest views of Washington, D. C. at the top of the Capitol Building and the congressman is really giving us a history lesson. Um we were in the rotunda. He went around to every statue, every painting and really just uh gave us a history lesson on the founding of the United States of America. Um amazing. I hope pray that all of our congressmen and senators are so well versed in the history of this great nation. So, And I realize that some of these kids this may be the only time they ever go to Washington DC.

It's one opportunity to get to take them in the Capitol and tell them about the history of our country and the spiritual heritage of our country and just let them see it and and really lock. And really being in such divided times now, this is such an important thing, Mac, to know about the history of our country. Um is that are you unique because I hope that all of our representatives and our senators have this kind of understanding of history and our origins.

Uh there's there's some of us I think that get into the Capitol tours and appreciate it more, but I would hope that anybody that ran for Congress would understand the history of our country and and what it is we're we're representing, what it is we uh you know, take an oath to defend and protect. You and I have lived a long time. Some of the stories you told about the Cold War, about uh you know, the Iran the you know, uh incident back in 1979, I guess. Overall stories, this is not we're not living in any special times in that regard. We've gone through this as a nation. It's our time and it's our responsibility to make sure that we are good students of what we have and the blessings that we have and that we leave this to the next generation to keep it going.

Yeah, I you mentioned 1776 and then 1976, the Bicentennial. I was old enough to remember that as well. And here we are at the 250th anniversary. Getting all What it was and what to me be thinking in 250 years now. I mean, what a what a blessing it is to have a nation you know, constitutional republic for that long. And and we we have to keep from remembering I think it was Ben Franklin's words when they asked him about uh our government, he said we have a republic if we could keep it. And that's that's true. Nothing guarantees this.

We've got again tremendous blessings that we can reflect back on, but it's still up to Americans today and tomorrow, however long in the future, make sure we we keep this going. If you look backwards in history, we've got so many things to be thankful for. We've been blessed in so many ways. And I've got an unchosen obligation, I believe. I believe all Americans do to uphold those values that allowed us to experience those blessings. But if we look to the future, we've also got a unchosen obligation to make sure that in future generations have the same opportunities.

So, at whatever point in time we are, I think we have to look back, we have to look forward, and we have to look around us to make sure that we're doing everything humanly possible depending on the Lord's help to us to get the job Right. Yes, and well, you have done us a great favor to show us this rich history here in the Capitol building. We can't thank you enough. Might be a bigger than it is. Oh my goodness. And uh and uh very encouraging to have some people like yourself running the floor here.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for watching. I'll do it. Who gets to do this in life? Oh my goodness. What an exciting time this was. We were just in awe. I could have stayed there all night walking around looking at the paintings, the sculpture, the Senate, the House of Representatives, the veranda overlooking DC. Um just just an amazing opportunity. We did finally have to leave the Capitol building. You're going to notice in these next clips that it's getting dark outside. In fact, it started raining on our way out. I was with the students and um just having a great time reflecting on all that we had seen. All right, we are on our way out. Thank you Congressman Bruce Westerman. Super appreciate it. Looks like we got some rain out there. Going to get wet, but well worth it.

Here's the city. We going to walk to the bus or where is the I think we're going to walk to the bus. And we're still on the Capitol grounds. It's unbelievable. Walking home in the rain. Watch your step. We're trying to find the bus. Lord help us. All right. We'll see if we can get there in the pouring rain. All right. Well, that brings me to a close for this celebration of our great nation. 250 years and counting. I'm not sure I'll make it to the tricentennial. 50 more years. That would put me over 100. Probably not going to make it that far. But, you know what?

What a gift we have been given. I am going to allow my students to close our time here together. So, I hope you've enjoyed this brief tour of DC through the eyes of um Dr. Firestone and Champion Christian College and some of my students. I man, life-changing experience. Highly recommend that you guys get there if you can if you can manage it. All right, that's it for now. Enjoy Noah Horton taking us out on the Firestone Files. All right. Hey guys, Dr. Chris Firestone here today with the Firestone Files. We just got out of a tour from the the capital and it was amazing.

Thanks for stopping by to spend some time with me here on the Firestone Files. I hope today's reflections offered you some new insights and perspective on life. If you enjoyed the episode or found it valuable, I'd appreciate it if you'd take a moment to like, subscribe, and share it with someone you care about. I'd also love to hear your thoughts. What resonated with you? What challenged you? Or what would you like to hear more about in future episodes? Drop a comment below or send in your suggestions to the email in the description. Your input helps shape where we go next. This has been Dr. Chris Firestone. Until next time, keep asking the big questions. And remember, the kingdom journey is always best with your friends. Further up and further in. Bye for now.