Historic Quote:
Thomas Jefferson said the Constitutions of most of our states and of the United States assert that all power is apparent in the people, that they may exercise it by themselves, that is their right and duty to be at all times armed, and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property and freedom of press.
Rick Green:
This is the intersection of faith and culture. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. It's WallBuilders and I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach, along with David Barton and Tim Barton, David's America's premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders, Tim Barton's national speaker and pastor and president of wall builders. All three of us appreciate you listening today and hopefully you're going to learn something that you share with people, and you may even you may come up with a question today. You know some of the topics that we're covering may spark something that you've been curious about regarding the founding fathers or perhaps the application of the constitution to some debate going on in Washington DC, or perhaps they're in your own state or at our border, or whatever it might be. If that's you and you come up with a great question, send it on to us. We'd love to cover it on the program. You can send those questions into radio@wallbuilders.com. That's radio@wallbuilders.com, and then make sure, of course, you visit our website today, wallbuilders.com. Great place for you to make an investment in freedom. This is a time for lives, fortune, sacred honor. That means we got to give of our life. That's our time. So we got to get out there and host constitution classes, run for office, help candidates, make sure we're doing voter registration drives in our churches that were engaged in the process. Our fortune so that's our life, our time. Our fortune, of course, is our money. It means investing in freedom, investing in good causes, good candidates, making sure we're doing all that we can to fund good purpose out there. And and one of the best ways you can do that is donating at WallBuilders. Today, as you know, we speak truth, we bring truth to folks by giving them that biblical, historical and constitutional perspective they can then go apply that in their communities. So every time you make a donation at wallbuilders.com you're helping the cause and you're amplifying our voice. You're helping us reach more people through either additional radio stations or perhaps through special events, or maybe doing our pastors briefings that we do in Washington dc or the student and teacher trainings that we do in the summer. All the different things we're doing. You're a part of that when you come alongside us with a contribution. So consider doing that at Wallbuilders.com today. Our guys. First question up today is from Joseph Miller. He said through The WallBuilder Show I've learned the importance of Hebrew words that do not exist, such as adolescents or retirement. I had heard that one of these words is right as in right to privacy, right to vote, etc. Is this true, and do you know of any founding writings that support this view of quote unquote rights? Thanks for all you do, WallBuilders. Ps, Rick, I'm excited about what you're doing with patriot brew. Have some suggestions for a slogan? How about not woke, just awake? Or upgrading your morning constitutional? I hope these are taking to the manner they are meant. Much love and keep fighting the good fight, Joseph. Thank you, man. Go over there and get you a a good cup of patriot brew and make sure you read the back and learn some good constitutional phrases. Like we hold these truths to be self-evident that not all coffees are created equal.
David Barton
If you don't like coffee, what do you do?
Rick Green
Well, you just. You just donate for coffee and then give it away to your neighbors. That's what you do now.
David Barton:
I'd rather donate for Dr Pepper, the national drink of Texas
Rick Green:
Let's see what would we call that patriot pepper? We're gonna that's a. We'll have that out by next week, David. Just for you, patriot pepper, it's going to be basically mr pib and dr pepper in between, somewhere. I don't know. Alright guys! What do you think about rights? I've never thought about that. Whether or not -I guess we take of it as an entitlement. Um, you know, it may be a little bit, but, but I guess I kind of view it as that's a God-given thing and it's something that he in doubt. Of course, our declaration says that we're in doubt with these rights. So what do you think it? What would? What would we look? Where would we look in the old testament for that?
David Barton:
Well, just specifically starting with the concept of rights, I'll acknowledge up front I'm not a Hebrew speaker. I don't know about that when it comes to privacy and other things. And to go back a decade or so ago, I also did not sleep at a holiday and express last night, so I probably can't start speaking Hebrew. So from the Hebrew standpoint, I don't know what does or doesn't exist. But when you look at things like right to vote and right to privacy, you do have that in founding writings. The right to privacy would be all about those Writs of assistance. That was argued by James Ottis back in 1761. The British do not have a right to go into a house without an explicit search warrant based on probable cause issued by a judge. On the evidence that probable cause. There's a big part of the constitution that gives you a right to privacy. Now, whether they call that a right or not, they certainly protected privacy and they did call it an alienable right, so it is a right. Now, if you look for the phrase right to privacy, I don't think you'll find that the founders writings. But you do have a right to your own home and not to be intruded into by others, and government can't come in. So that's a right that's there. But when it comes to a right to vote, I don't think I've ever seen a phrase right to vote. I've only seen duty to vote, and the founders do have a lot of writings that to every right there is a corresponding duty. So if you have an opportunity to vote I'm not even going to say right to vote If you have an opportunity to vote, you have a duty to vote. And that was their perspective and they made it really clear that not only is it your duty, God's going to hold you accountable for it, and I don't think you want to stand in front of him and he says I gave you a vote, what did you do with it? And you said well, I didn't do anything with it. That's just not a good scenario. So, in looking at things like the right to vote and the right to privacy, yes, to a degree. That's in their writing. Certainly, the concept is there very clearly. But when it comes to things like the right to vote, that was a duty, that was a responsibility, that was an obligation of every citizen to do that, and so they would use that with others. Just like there's a right to self defense, there's a duty not to shed as a blood or responsibility. So they saw with every right there was a responsibility. And, going back to something you mentioned earlier, it's right to become something self gratified. This is my right, something you owe to me. Leave me alone and don't require me to do anything. I have a right to whatever. And that's not a concept that they had. They saw it as stewardship and as responsibility. So that's probably the way I would answer that. And again, I don't know from the Hebrew side, but I do know the Founding Fathers took a very biblical approach to it and I totally, totally, totally agree with Joseph about how much is there in Hebrew words and we learned from Rabbi Lappen things like adolescence and like retirement and things like fair and so many other words that don't exist. There's a lot there.
Rick Green:
And even the way we think about rights, and I think you teach this. I know you do it in Constitution Alive. I can't remember if we kept that in biblical citizenship as well but you talked a lot about how we get spoiled and only think about our rights and not the corresponding responsibility that goes with that, and that when we're exercising that right, like you said, it's a duty and there is a responsibility that comes with it. There is an attitude about this right Instead of this entitlement, you know that, man, I just deserve this and everybody owes this to me. It's hey, this is a talent, this is a gift God's given me, and I want to be the good and faithful servant, not the wicked and slothful one, so I'm going to use it in the right way.
David Barton:
You know I'm not speaking for the Founding Fathers, but I think, based on what I've read of them, I don't think you would ever see a campaign about exercising your right to vote, which we have pretty regularly in America. I think you'd see a campaign that says you need to fulfill your responsibility, of your obligation to vote. They would say you have an obligation to vote, go fulfill that responsibility. So they would have completely turned things around on things like that. And we have so centered on rights that we, you know, we kind of make that a casual thing. Well, I don't think it's casual. I think we try to get people to vote, but I think we often appeal to the wrong instinct. It's not a right, it's an obligation. You have a duty and you'll answer to God for it.
Tim Barton:
Well, and keep in mind too, where America is so unique and different is; the reason we have a duty to do that in America is because in America, we, the people, are in charge. Right, one of the most unique features of American government is that people are the rulers, we are the leaders, and we simply choose people to represent us, to make decisions on our behalf, but they are our representatives, that they work for us, they serve us. We, the people, are in charge. So this isn't something like where some people think of a democracy and in America is often called the democracy. We're not. But when people think of that, they think of well, anybody can vote, or even the argument that some might say well, why should we vote if we know the system's rigged? If we know that there's these, you know fraudulent ballots or mail-in ballots and there's ballot harvesting or there's machines we can't trust, why should we even vote? There's a responsibility we have because we are the ones in charge of this government, and the reason our nation's in so much trouble right now is because the adults have not been taking care of the chaos the teenagers have been doing in America, and we need the adults to show up, come back home and say, hey, we're done doing this. We, the people, have to be in charge again. But dad, to your point. That's why they wouldn't have called it the right to vote. It's a responsibility If you're the leader, if you're the boss, if you're the one in charge and your company's not going the right way, your employees aren't doing the right thing, it's your responsibility as a leader to navigate and take care of that. And that is what we are as American citizens. We are the ones in charge. The elected politicians work for us, and if they're not doing a good job, we have to change what they are doing, how they're doing it. We have to be the solution, and so that is a responsibility, that's not a right.
David Barton:
And I would add one other thought with that. It's just a personal thought, but if I knew with a hundred percent certainty that this year's presidential election was fixed and that my vote was not going to count and that it's already decided that Biden is gonna be reelected. If I knew that with a hundred percent, I still would go vote, because I don't vote to elect the right president. I vote because that's my duty before God, I'll answer to him. I want to elect the right president, but I don't vote simply because I'm going to elect the right president or think I can. I vote because it's my duty to do so and I'm gonna choose the best candidate. So even if I knew it was a hundred percent rigged, that will not deter me at all from showing up to vote and doing what I can.
Rick Green:
Man, I love that. I think we adopt that word obligation. I'm gonna start using that more because it does. It changes your whole mindset. It means no matter what the circumstances are, you don't get to decide, well, I just don't think it's gonna make that much of a difference, or they're gonna steal it or whatever excuse, right? There's no good can is. Whatever the reason is, if it's a, if it's a right, it's something you can choose to do or not do. An obligation is I'm gonna go fulfill this obligation and the circumstances for that particular election don't let me out of that obligation. All right, guys. Next questions from Paul Engel. He said David and WallBuilders are the reason I started studying the Constitution. On a recent episode, you claim the Constitution requires all Spinning bills originate in the house. What article, chapter in verse states that? Because article one, section seven, clause one, states all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. Raising revenue, not spending. All right, interesting distinction there, Paul. So, guys, let's see if the clause for actually raising revenue does that also mean spending revenue?
David Barton:
Yeah and mia coupa, because that's exactly what I said and it is based on that raising revenue. But my thinking is that they don't raise revenue to have a savings account. They raise it to spend it. And if they're raising that money and that's the reason for taxation and government raising money it is for expenditures. And if that has to start in the house and that's the central control place, that was my thinking behind it.
Tim Barton:
Hey dad, I want to go back to where you started from Rick's question, because I don't know what the audience heard it sounding like you had maybe like a hiccup, something happened because you see a mia copa, and so just what? You probably need to restate those words again and clarify by what you were saying.
David Barton:
Actually it was a hiccup because me a couple doesn't make sense in English unless you know Latin, so I was actually speaking any foreign languages. Why it sounded so weird? And that actually goes back to several presidents ago, which there's gonna be a few generations since then, so I made an assumption there that probably wasn't a good one. But me a couple means my fault.
Rick Green:
Hey, if we're learning Hebrew words today, we're learning Latin words today. This is your foreign language program, folks, that's right.
Tim Barton:
I'm flabbergasted, which is the English word of the day. So that was my contribution.
Rick Green:
All right. So so does that mean you have done a mea culpa at this point, david, or does that mean you were thinking about it depending on what people understood from what you said about the Constitution? Are we sticking with the? If you're raising revenue, that's so you can spend revenue? Because I think that still makes sense, like I don't think you should back off of what, how you described it, because I think we've all kind of always understood it that way that the spending bills have to originate in the house. Maybe, maybe I missed that, me when I was in the Texas house, which obviously US Constitution doesn't control that, but we did have a ways and means committee and an appropriations committee. So one of them is is, I guess, dealing with revenue and one is dealing with spending, but they still, you know, those things would start in the house, on the house side of things, not the Senate
David Barton:
and Paul is technically right, because a raising revenue is a taxation bill and so a taxation bill has a start in the house Spending maybe, maybe not, but always those two things have gone together and so it's been pretty much considered that now there's no question, the Senate does spending bills, the Senate does tax bills too, and then they force them into a situation where you have to work it out in conference somewhere or those attach it to the NDAA, the Military Defense Act, and force Republicans to have to go along with the tax increase in order to fund the military. So the Senate manages to get around that in a lot of ways, including the raising revenue clause. But Paul's right, it does say raising revenue. It's just that typically that's been associated with the spending powers as well, and that power the purse we talked about in a previous episode. That's kind of where it goes, that the house has always been seen as the one in charge of the purse. Stuff originates over there. But again, the Senate finds ways to get around that, and has for the last several decades.
Rick Green:
Yeah, guys, and even just going to the sources, you know I was looking at one article that was talking about in in England there was an England requirement that, quote, money bills would commence in the House of Commons because that was closer to the people and the Framers of America, they in the Constitution, they thought that that origination clause that we're talking about, article one, section seven, that Paul emailed in about that very section, you know is thought of as quote, the power over the purse and I know we've often said, you know, congress has power, the purse, not the president, not the court. But it's also, the side of Congress, that the chamber in Congress, that's closest to the people and we would all agree, I think, that the house is closer to the people because they're only elected every two years got to come home. There's smaller number of people typically that elect them, except for really small states. So anyway, I think this still, definitely makes sense in the, in the. What do we say? You know the spirit of the Constitution, not just a letter of the Constitution, that it's not just raising revenue but it is the money, the power of the purse. All right, guys, we're gonna take a quick break when we come back. We've got more questions from the audience. Stay with us, folks. You're listening to wall builders.
Historic Quote:
Abraham Lincoln said we, the people, are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
Tim Barton:
Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is the time when most Americans don't know much about American history, or even heroes of the faith, and I know Oftentimes for parents we're trying to find good content for our kids to read and if you remember, back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outlined the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that, as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well. I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called the courageous leaders collection, and this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers, and there's a second collection called heroes of history, and this collection You'll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, friends the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it's a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at WallBuilders.com that's www.wallbuilders.com.
Historic Quote:
Thomas Jefferson said in questions of power, then let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
Rick Green:
Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday. About to go to some more questions, but, guys on the break, I was looking a little further on this. I forgot. Actually I didn't remember this being in Federalist 58 at all, but it's actually got a great quote on this very thing. It says the House of Representatives can not only refuse, but they alone can propose the supply's requisite for the support of the government. This power over the purse may in fact be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people for obtaining a redress of every grievance and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure. So going back to what we were saying about, you know the House is the closest to the people. They get, elected every two years. We talk about that in Constitutional Live how, that's who you want to have the most power. And apparently they made that argument in the sales pitch on the Constitution, which were the Federalist papers. So pretty interesting guys. Okay, let's jump over to Joe. He says my pastor mentioned during service yesterday of a bill being introduced that would limit the amount of security team members A church is allowed to have per service. Have you guys heard of this bill and is it constitutional? And why is it specifically churches and not mosque temples or synagogues as well? Love you guys. Keep doing great work for the Kingdom and the nation. Joe, great question. Thanks for sending that in. What do you think, guys? I think this may be a broader bill than just churches that he's talking about.
David Barton:
So this refers to a bill that was introduced in the middle of February and it's a bill that was introduced by the US Senator from Massachusetts, US Senator from California. Imagine them getting together on anti-gun stuff and it's called the Preventing Private Military Activity Act of 2024.
Rick Green:
Wait, David, I think you were beginning to start a joke there. A Senator from California and a Senator from Massachusetts walk into Congress and okay, sorry, go ahead.
David Barton:
And they unbelievably proposed an anti-gun law. I just can't imagine they would do that, but they did and that's what they did. And so this law that they have proposed law it's not a law yet this proposed law would define a paramilitary group as any group of three or more persons who function under a command structure or who function as a security services unit. So in every church where you have a security team and there's somebody over the security team and I was in a church just this past Sunday and they had eight guys in the security team and those eight guys are under the pastor and the pastor has a guy appointed over that team that would be a paramilitary group and this law would apply to it. And this law it makes it quote if they publicly patrol, drill or engage in techniques capable of causing bodily injury or death, like shooting an active shooter, then this bill would have all sorts of penalties and it could result in five. If they were to shoot an active shooter in the church. They would get from five years to life as the penalty for engaging an active shooter. And so they say even the act of training to engage in an activity is illegal and if they even train to engage in active shooter, it is a violation of the law. Now the law is right now being introduced in the house. There's, I think, 14 members of the house doing it, but that's the law he's talking about.
Tim Barton:
Because already, whether you train or not, if somebody comes into your church and you take them out, you are already liable, right? There's already an investigation is gonna take place and if you're found to be guilty, negligent, whatever it is, there's already an incredible responsibility. There's a lot of legal risk to carry firearms. To use a firearm even to stop a bad guy. There are legal risks associated with that. However, this is very, very clearly unconstitutional. It violates the basic premise of the Second Amendment, which is self-defense of individuals, of families, of communities and certainly of religious organizations. And the idea that you can own a gun but you shouldn't train with a firearm is ludicrous. And we do have so many examples right now from the Supreme Court, with decisions from Washington DC to New York to Chicago, acknowledging the right of individuals to have firearms, to possess firearms, and if you have the ability to possess, to keep to carry firearms with the Supreme Court has ruled over the last two decades very clearly on then you obviously have the right to train with those. This is absolutely an unconstitutional position. But this is really what a lot of Democrats are doing these days. They are proposing legislation that would strip and remove God-given rights of self-defense, of self-preservation in constitutionally-secured and shrine rights, saying the government can never violate these. They're now saying we want the government to violate these untouchable rights.
David Barton:
And, Tim, to go even further, what you were saying the Constitution of the Second Amendment would have protects that right. It also says a well-regulated militia. So those are groups that do train, and so the Constitution of the Second Amendment protects explicitly groups that train together. And that's what a well-regulated militia is. And so I mean there's explicit training. But this really goes back to the law that was introduced. What was it two, three weeks ago in Hawaii where they banned anybody in Hawaii from owning guns? And they said it's because we've evolved past the Constitution. So since we've evolved past that, we don't need the Constitution anymore. We're not gonna have guns at all. And it just absolutely amazes me that we have people in Congress who take an oath of office every two, four, six years and then blatantly do this stuff. They don't even know us in the Constitution, nor do they care. That's just perfunctory and so really they're committing perjury as they're sworn in. They're never gonna be enforced that way. But citizens really need to get serious about this. If you have anybody I don't care with a school board member, I don't care with this dog catcher that doesn't know the Constitution, doesn't read it the problem is if you don't take them out of office when they're in lower office, they're gonna work their way to a higher office. They're gonna go from dog catcher to city council, to mayor, to state rep, to state senator, to US congressman, us senator. You gotta keep those guys from even getting in office at the lowest levels, and this is one of the real good- litmus test is where are you on the right of self-defense? Cause that is a God-given, biblical, constitutionally secured right
Tim Barton:
This is also, too, where there's a important distinction about someone that's ignorant or someone that's intentional, because it could be, they just don't know what the Constitution says. Well then, you can educate them, right? You can actually, there's courses WallBuilders even offer some of those courses that you can do a constitutional life and you can learn about the Constitution. But if there are people that don't want to learn and instead they just want to promote their agenda, their ideology, those are the kind of people that should not be elected officials, and they're the ones that when, dad, you're saying we need to remove them from office, probably not the way that some Democrats or others like to think of removing people from office, but really we need to find people that do believe in the Constitution, that are willing to run against them, and actually that's even part of what Biblical Citizenship that course is all about, Rick, as you were working to put that together. It was to help equip and train individuals to know what is the biblical position, the biblical foundation, what's our responsibility and how do we do this. And of course then, Rick, with Patriot Academy and Leadership Congress, you do so much to help, try to train and equip people for this very reason.
Rick Green:
Then just come into Fredericksburg, to the campus and doing very much exactly what they're trying to outlaw here, which is citizens learning to defend themselves and then be able to work in concert in your community or at your church, bringing a full circle as we close guys instead of right. How about obligation? You've got an obligation to be ready to defend yourself and defend your family and defend your church, and it's a responsibility as well.
Tim Barton:
And, Rick, one of the things that just for those listening right, because there might be some listening going. Hey, I'm not sure about Second Amendment. I think one of the things we can show biblically is that you are not obligated biblically to defend yourself, but there is an obligation biblically to defend those that can't defend themselves.
Rick Green:
Mm that's good
Tim Barton:
The reason as a parent, you defend your kids. The reason as the leader, you defend those you are leading, especially if you're like the teacher over students. The Bible talks about speaking up for those that can't speak for themselves, defending the defenseless. There is an obligation to protect and defend those that are vulnerable. If you wanna be the martyr, lay yourself on the line. I think, biblically, you have the right to do that, biblically speaking
Rick Green:
Could be like an MLK situation right, where he chose not to carry a firearm even though he believed in the Second Amendment. He said if I were to defend myself it would ruin the movement. So he made the choice to be essentially say I'm willing to sacrifice myself if I need to for the movement. So there is, you're right. I mean there is a time where you may not defend yourself. But I love how you drew that distinction. There is an obligation to defend others. All right, folks, in fact, come visit us, come to Fredericksburg, go to patriotacademy.com, get signed up, come do some training with us. You will have a great time, best instructors on the planet and good fellowship as well. Thanks so much for listening today, you've been listening to WallBuilders.
Historic Quote:
Calvin Coolidge said the more I study the Constitution, the more I realize that no other document devised by the hand of man has brought so much progress and happiness to humanity. To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.