Delving into the Ethical Fabric of Political Leadership and Civic Duty on Foundations of Freedom Thursday

Child

President, Thomas Jefferson said I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves. And if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

Rick Green

This is the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's Wall Builders. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. You can check us out at our website, wallbuilders.com. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach and a former Texas legislator. Here with David Barton, America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. You can get copies of the programs, the archives, share them with your friends and family, get some good tools that will educate, equip and inspire you and your family, all at WallBuilders.com.

That's WallBuilders.com, and if you're not familiar with the program or never heard of it and you're wondering, what do these guys do, do they actually build walls? Yeah, we rebuild foundations. That's what we do. So think about the scripture in Nehemiah that says arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach. Back then, if you didn't have the outer walls, you were run over. I mean, you couldn't defend your city, you couldn't defend your nation, and for us, it's the foundation, it's the principles that have been destroyed, and without those we lose our nation and obviously are not even defending our nation at the southern border. So we're all about rebuilding the walls, meaning rebuilding the foundations of America, which means you got to go back and know what the foundation is. You got to study who we are as a nation. You got to study our founding documents, study the founding fathers.

What was the mindset that went into creating the nation? Why did they think equal justice was so important? Not social justice, but equal justice, which is biblical justice. Why did they think it was so important for you to have due process? Why did they think it was so important for you to have the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the ability to be the press or to have a free press, the ability to petition your government for a redress of grievances, the ability to assemble all of those things? There was a reason that they put that into our Constitution. There were reasons that Jefferson even used the language in the Declaration of we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that we're endowed by our Creator not Congress, not government, not our neighbors. So all of that it's for a reason and it builds a strong nation and it's why America became the greatest nation in history. And running from those things is why we're falling apart. So we've got to get back to those foundational truths. So we call Thursday programs Foundations of Freedom Thursday, because it's a chance to talk about whichever one of those foundational truths you want to talk about. So be sure and send your emails in, ask your questions and we'll get to as many of those as we possibly can. All right, David and Tim, let's get to our questions today. Folks, if you want to send one in it's radio@ wallbuilders.com radio at wallbuilders.com First one up, let's see. Christy says hi, David, Tim and Rick. My state, Missouri, changed the way that they choose who goes on the ballot for president for this year's general election. All my adult life we've had a primary in April or August for the November ballot. This year it's a state caucus. The state has done a poor job advertising this change. Will you explain what a caucus is and does, and is it better or worse than a primary?

Seems like a bad idea to me, as everyone who gets invited the public, everyone shows up at this caucus meeting to argue seems chaotic for who they want on the ballot. The caucus for our county met at a public high school gym at 10 am. Republicans in one gym, democrats are meeting in the same gym and the other gym on the same campus. It seems chaotic. God bless America, Christy. Okay, guys, man, I think I should shut up and let y'all give your opinions first, because I am torn on this. I've enjoyed going to a caucus and thought, wow, this is cool, everybody has to come out and participate. But I just don't know. I guess I haven't really ever analyzed which is better, caucus or primary. What do you guys think?

David Barton

You know, what happens generally with the caucus is your activists show up and your activists a caucus let's just kind of put this in perspective with a primary anybody that wants to that's registered in the party or some states that's open primaries you go and you vote and you don't have to be well-informed or anything else. The thing with the caucus is it usually is a much smaller group. You can get in a gym. There's no way you're going to get the city of St Charles in a gym on a primary. You're going to have thousands, probably tens of thousands of votes, but you can get a few hundred people. So generally what happens in a caucus is your activists who show up more than others. Now, granted, a candidate may work really hard to get all of his friends there and vote for him. So what happens is in the caucus you get in a gym or you get in an auditorium or you get in whatever holds you and the activists get together and vote for who they want to be the nominee for the party. Now what happens is generally in a party situation the more active you are, often, the more out of touch you are with where the general public is, a lot of the people that are chosen in caucuses don't always do well in the general election. Sometimes those that are chosen in primaries do better in general, because they kind of reflect more of the general voting pattern, because you had more people vote.

So what you get is in a caucus, your activists are usually a lot happier about it because they get the most conservative person they want generally. In a primary it's not necessarily that you get the most conservative person they want generally In a primary. It's not necessarily that you get the most conservative person, and that usually frustrates the activists. What this is this is really a battle, often between the activists in the party and the more general population that is not as active in the party. Maybe they're Republican or Democrat voters, but they don't go to Republican or Democrat meetings per se. They don't get involved in the state party, they don't do that type of stuff. So that's generally the difference. Now this can really be different. This is nothing but a generalization, but generally your caucuses are much smaller and they're much more composed of activists and your primaries are much larger, much broader, and they generally don't choose necessarily the most conservative candidate as the person to move forward in the general election.

Rick Green

And I'm curious guys and I may not be remembering this right, I can't document it, I don't remember where I got this, but wasn't there a time early, maybe even in the revolutionary period or in the early parts of even under the Constitution, that when you went to vote it was kind of like a public thing? I mean, you walked up and basically said who you were for, or put your ballot in a box I can't remember what it was, ring a bell, I don't even know, but it just seems like it used to be. You had to stand by what you were voting for and it made you like in this case with a caucus, you had to show up on that day that the vote was taking place, that caucus, you had to show up on that day that the vote was taking place. That seems positive to me. Like you're saying, David, it kind of weeds out the low information voter and it's those who are more well-informed that are going to show up on average.

David Barton

Yeah, oftentimes in the very early elections. Now, as parties got developed, you get in the 1830s, it starts to change. But in the early elections, back in the founding father kind of days, you really didn't have ballots, you had slots. All right, we've got to choose somebody for our state rep or House of Burgess, we've got to choose somebody for our mayor or alderman. And you would walk up with a ballot that has lines beside the title of the office and you would write who you want to be that person. So here's who I want for. In our case we'd say, here's who I want for president of the school board. Or here's who I want for president of the school board. Or here's who I want for mayor or city council, whatever. And then after all the names are tallied at the end of the day they would go to that person and say hey, the people want you to be school board president. You gonna do it. You didn't even know you were running and they chose you for it.

And so generally that was and the founding fathers are very adamant afford for office. But if you're chosen for office, you should never say no. If the people say we need you to serve us, God puts you here to serve other people and it's not your choice to say no. If they say we need help and you're the help we need, you're the help we need in city or house of burgesses or legislature, whatever. So the founding fathers have a lot of writings on that and how it was done. But generally give us an open ballot and you just wrote in who you thought was best qualified to do it out of all the people you knew and the one who got the most votes. They would go to them and say well, they've chosen you, you're going to do it. So that started changing as parties got a lot more organized after Andrew Jackson, but prior to that it was kind of open ballot all the way.

Tim Barton

Well, and Rick, I think too, what you were highlighting is, when you look at caucuses, there definitely are committed people that show up. But I do like going back to the position where you know in some states you have four weeks of early voting and I don't know, there could even be six weeks of early voting in some states. Now, I hope not, but it's getting ridiculous and because of it, the more time there is in the voting or the more voting opportunities there are in a race, the more opportunities there are for people to potentially do dishonest things and be dishonest. In a caucus, I think it's a little harder to be dishonest when you're counting the heads in a room and it's pretty easy to see how many people showed up and who's there. I think then, on the other side of that same coin, where it can become a challenge is you can have people that are very led by emotion that show up, and they, you know, whatever the moment is, whatever the issue is, whatever this candidate is, they can be very driven by emotion. The founding fathers were very cautious against emotion. Now, having emotion drive in a caucus doesn't mean that candidate is going to win the general election. It doesn't mean that emotion is going to continue on going forward. So I don't know that's a big negative, but there definitely are some things I like about the caucus.

And then, on the other side, I appreciate the convenience of having early voting. I appreciate the convenience of having more time, even if it's just on voting day, having from 7 am to 7 pm or whatever the case might be, that you can go and during your day at your convenience. I appreciate that convenience. But I do wonder if it might be a little cleaner and easier. Going back to, there's one moment, there's one day, and this is when it happens. It certainly, at least from a fraud perspective, it seems like it might eliminate more fraud in the process, or at least the attempts of people to do fraudulent things, to cheat along the way. So there definitely are components about the caucus I really like. In Texas, obviously, we don't do a caucus, but it certainly is a fascinating thing.

Rick Green

I remember going up for the caucuses in Iowa when Rick Perry ran for president. I can't remember if it was 8 or 12, but have you guys ever played the game groupies? No, you know where you got like a crowd of people. It's like an icebreaker and you yell out a number. So let's say you got 800 people in the room and you say you know five. Well, you have to like hug four other people and get in a group of five and somebody gets left out. They're out of the game and you just keep doing that. You might 12, you got to hug 12 people and if you get, if you're like the 13th, cool. It was like you run over to the group that you're with or you go speak to the group for your guy or gal that you're campaigning for and everything.

You guys have said exactly the thoughts I've had. You know, not living in a state that has one, I don't have personal experience other than running up to Iowa that one time for that caucus. But I love the concept of just- I just always thought it ought to be harder to vote and this whole idea of motor voter and making it super easy takes out the you know the effort that we should have to put in for this sort of thing. So it seems like it would move that direction at least and you'd have to put some effort in. And, as you're saying, Tim, it could cut down on this whole you know, four-week voting process and have it at one night. That's the night you plan for, and if the people in Iowa can come out and ice storms and snow storms and do it, the rest of the nation could try it.

Well, great question, Christy, a really good question. Folks, and you know you might have questions about something in the Constitution now, or just like Christy was asking how elections work or how to apply a biblical principle to some of the issues out there. Send those into radio@ wallbuilders.com. All right, guys, I think we get one more in before our break today. Next one is from James. He said I've been told that the president and vice president cannot be from the same state.

Yet many are saying Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis could run together as a ticket. When I read Article 2 and the 12th Amendment, it says the electors vote for president and vice president, one of whom, at least, cannot be from their state. If this would be the ticket, would this void Florida's electoral votes, or is it that can two people not be from the same state? And I think what he means, guys, is can two people not be from the same state, no matter what, like they're barred from running together, or is it just that they lose that particular state's electoral votes where they both happen to be from?

David Barton

I'm going to call a friend, I'm calling Constitution Coach. What's my Constitution Coach going to say?

Rick Green

Phone a friend, Regis, before we ask the million dollar question. Now, a lot of our listeners probably never watched who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I was joking about this about you the other night, David, at some event I don't remember where I was Somebody asked a tough question. I said I need to phone a friend. I'm calling either David or Tim Barton. Hang on, no listen, it's exactly what.

What I think James assumed that it would be. You just lose that that one state. But Florida obviously is critical. You couldn't win the Electoral College for a Republican, so there's no way that Trump and DeSantis would be on the same ticket because they can't win without Florida. Now maybe Donald Trump could, you know, switch his voter registration to New York real quick, sort of like. Remember when Dick Cheney ran up to Wyoming to switch his voter registration whenever George Bush named him as VP? They were both living in Texas at the time, and so Dick Cheney was like, oh, I got to get back to Wyoming real quick and change his registration and that way they didn't lose the Texas electoral votes.

Tim Barton

Well, guys, one of the names, too, that people are throwing around is Marco Rubio, who is another Florida individual, and Rick, as you mentioned. I've thought several times Donald Trump did not live in Florida, or has not lived in Florida all that long, and he has pieces of property all over the US. I've often wondered how long do you have to live somewhere before you meet a resident there, if you already own property there? Is it as simple as you're changing your mailing address or your voter registration? I don't know what those requirements are, but certainly it seems like it would not be too difficult for him to relocate if that was a ticket, but I certainly don't think DeSantis is the guy he would go with right now. That would really shock me if it was.

Frankly, I'd be shocked if it was Rubio at this point as well, but there's a lot of people throwing around various names. It certainly is interesting. We've talked about before, I think, on and off air, about who we think are potential VP candidates and likely candidates, and we, I think, all kind of agreed that DeSantis was not a likely candidate. Rubio's name was not even mentioned at that time, but I've heard several people mention it over the last week or two, which is interesting but definitely a pertinent question, considering some of the conversation going on right now.

Rick Green

Yeah, I was laughing about the idea of when I even, as I said that, I was laughing inside when I said Trump could run off to New York and re-register. Does anybody in their right mind think that Trump would be like, well, I want this guy so bad that I'm gonna go change my registration? Nope, the only way Trump would do it is if whoever it is that he's naming they go change their registration. So I agree with you, Tim, not very likely at all that that's going to be the guy, uh Rubio. I hadn't heard uh thrown around, but I could see. You know, I don't think there's any. Well, he did have some negative blood with Rubio back in 16, but hasn't been for, you know, seven years so that could happen.

David Barton

Guys, it really is a campaign tactic. You choose favorite people in a lot of states and you just throw their name out and people who like Rubio say, oh, that's great, Trump's talking about Rubio or DeSantis or, you know, Kristi Noem or whatever, and so he's going to have a list of about 148 different candidates, so that the media in that state is going to talk about Trump and their favorite son or daughter in that state. So it really, as much as anything, is a campaign tactic to build a lot of support as the campaign goes forward, because then people who like the potential VP will think, well, Trump likes my guy, that's good, I like Trump. So I think it's just part of a campaign thing as well, and I don't think we're done here. I have not heard Rubio, but it doesn't surprise me at all, and it doesn't surprise me we're going to hear a whole bunch more before there's a final announcement, when that time comes.

Rick Green

All right, guys, let's take a quick break.

We've got more questions coming to you folks when we come back on WallBuilders. 

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastors briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the spring, we do one in the fall. This spring it's April 16th and 17th. This fall it is September 10th and 11th.

This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in. It's in Washington DC and Tuesday night we do an afterhours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them and, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual heritage of the nation or what God is still doing moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor, ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at WallBuilders. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and look for the pastor's briefing.

Child

President 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.

Rick Green

Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. So we're taking your questions. Next one comes from Scott. He says as all spending is to begin in the House, how is it that Biden can fund his own programs on his own? Likewise, the Supreme Court said he couldn't forgive student loans, and yet he does it anyway. Shouldn't Congress stop that? Well, Scott, it's almost like the court and Congress is standing up saying stop that, stop that, and he just doesn't stop, he just keeps doing it. So, yeah, guys, great question, I guess. First question is just in terms of spending, federal spending, constitutionally, and that it's supposed to be, you know, congress that leads the charge on that, specifically the House how is it that Biden can, as Scott said, basically fund his own programs? Is he pulling that money from other appropriated dollars? Or maybe Scott means specifically the forgiving student loans? I don't think so, though I think he's saying what about some of these other things where he just says, hey, we're going to spend a billion dollars over here?

David Barton

Well, he's got so much discretionary money that's given him in the budget. There are so many programs he can pull from. So if he's doing an education program and they say, oh, you can't do it out of there, he's got about a thousand other education programs he can go pull money out of and say, well, I'm going to forgive it out of here. And so he has the ability I say the ability.

Unfortunately, he has the opportunity to go to other places because there is so much money appropriated for so many different thousands of agencies, most of whom guys in the federal Congress don't even know what that agency does, much less than the executive department.

And that's where you get all these rogue agencies doing their things, because there's no real control over them. So he's going to find money for whatever he wants to find money for. There's just so much discretionary money that's in the budget itself and even though they appropriate and they budget for certain parts of the government in certain amounts, there's just a lot of ways to kind of cook the books and move that money around. So he's going to always find a way and if the Supreme Court says, oh, you can't use this fund, he'll go to another fund and do it a different way. He's going to find a way to get done what he wants to do, and unless it is something so specific that the Supreme Court can nail him down on one single program, it's probably going to be hard to stop him from doing what he wants to do 

Rick Green

Yeah and I guess to put a little bit of a fine point on this, we have no problem with a president if he has been given discretionary funds and Congress has intentionally said spend this how you want within these areas, that’s kind of like a Constitutional executive order we would defend as being the execution of the law that congress passed. What we all have a problem with, of course, is when the president decides oh well, they didn't really appropriate money for this, but I'm going to spend money on this and just slide it over from somewhere else. The whole thing about the forgiveness of the student loans. There's been zero bill passed to say we're going to forgive those loans. He's literally made that up, and so that would be very unconstitutional, I would say, on the other hand, trump remember when President Trump on the border wall, he took funds from other areas that had been appropriated but were still about national defense, still about homeland security, still in the arena of what the wall was intended to do, and so there was debate about whether or not that was an appropriate use of those funds that had been appropriated. Pun intended, I guess, and it seemed to me like he you know he had to thread the needle, but he did thread the needle and I thought he did that well. I think it was like five billion. Imagine that, guys. He had to finagle and find a way to find $5 billion to do the wall. And we've given what? How many hundreds of billions to Ukraine for their border defense? Anyway, didn't mean to go there, but great question from Scott. Anything else on that one, guys, or do you want to go to another question?

Tim Barton

 Let's hit the next question.

Rick Green

 Next question is let's see, I don't see a name. Yeah, there is a name, Joe, here we go. He says. One reason I believe the American people have lost faith in our government is because we hear of all these alleged illegal things done, such as Hillary Clinton's emails, Biden's laptop. I mentioned the Democrats, but I'm sure there are Republicans out there as well. All of these things seem to happen, but no one is ever held accountable. There's never any prison time for anybody, except maybe some low-level fall guy. My question is why is this and how do we fix it? Joe, all right, guys, and as I toss this to you, I share his frustration and I know we talk to people all the time. That's part of the frustration and lack of trust and faith in the institutions, because no one's ever seems like no one's ever held accountable. You know, Sandy Berger, going in and stealing documents and just things like that, you end up starting to go. You know, listen, is everybody in the club in Washington DC? Does anybody ever actually get held accountable if they're in the swamp and they do something wrong.

David Barton

I think George Washington answered this one in his farewell address. He warned the Americans that you have to have religion and morality if you're going to have political prosperity. I don't think any of us believe that we have political prosperity right now, and when you look at the corruption that's there, we know we don't. The answer to that is religion and morality. When people are conscious of God and they have religion and morality as the basis and they're God conscious, that is a restraint on bad behavior. People restrain themselves. It doesn't matter whether people find out what they did wrong. They know what they did wrong, they know that God was watching and they're not going to do it because they answer to God, not necessarily just the people. And so unless you have people who have that type of religion and morality that makes them God conscious, you're just not going to fix this with any government program or education program.

Tim Barton

Well, one thing, too, I think that we have seen, especially in recent days maybe last year or two really, but we've heard a lot of talk about these George Soros district attorneys, and we've seen, in certain states, these district attorneys. They don't press charges and therefore these criminals are doing awful things and they're being released. And we've seen, in some cases, people that have crossed the border illegally have done awful evil things, whether it be murder, rape you can go down the list of this awful evil things that have been going on, and oftentimes these DAs are releasing them no bond, they're back out on the streets. I mean just awful stuff that's happened. Them no bond, they're back out on the streets and just awful stuff that's happened. And one of the things I think now that we can apply on a larger level, we're beginning to recognize some of the areas where it really does matter that you have the right kind of people, that, as you mentioned, we have to have a society where there is a moral foundation. You have to have elected officials where there's a moral foundation. The Bible tells us that when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, the people groan. And we have to have people that have righteousness right, this moral, religious foundation that we can rejoice and not have to groan like we're doing right now and have been doing for so long, so often.

But one of the things it brings me back to is we've now recognized in some of our cities if we're having some of these issues. One of the things we need is we need better district attorneys. This is also one of the lessons I think is very helpful that President Trump has seen and learned from even his first term in office, and whether President Trump is elected again or not is not necessarily the point, Although I think we have to have somebody other than Joe Biden for some of these issues to be resolved. So I mean really we need a different leader, a conservative leader, somebody that has more of those Christian values and more religious underpinnings in the policies they promote. But one of the great things is Donald Trump learned the lesson of how deep that swamp was and learned a lot of who he could trust and couldn't trust and a lot of positions that had to be replaced.

And I think, as we go forward, once you begin replacing the wrong kind of, for example, district attorneys in some of these cities, then you can once again begin enforcing law punishing criminals and have more safety and security on the streets. Once we start getting people in these right agencies, in these right places in the administration, we can once again begin enforcing these rules, this law. That justice is supposed to be blind. And it doesn't matter who you know, it doesn't matter how much money you have, If you're Hunter Biden or not, it doesn't matter who you know, it doesn't matter. If you break the law, you should be prosecuted to the same extent as anybody else in America. But we have to have the right kind of people in the right places, and I think the good news is there are now people that are beginning to process and understand what those positions are and really who should be replaced going forward to make sure we can restore justice in America again.

Rick Green

All right, folks, if you didn't get your question in today or you haven't had it, send it to us yet. Be sure, and send it to radio at wallbuilders.com. We'll get to as many as we can next week, but of course, tomorrow we're going to have Good News Friday, so you never want to miss Fridays. The other four days of the week it's just practical things going on in the world. Interviewing people that are on the front lines Friday is rapid fire. Good news. David and Tim will be sharing a lot of good news stories with you tomorrow, so don't miss those. It will encourage you going into the weekend. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders. Thank you.