Rick Green: 0:09
This is the Intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks so much for joining us today on WallBuilders Live. You can also visit our website, WallBuildersLive.com. WallBuildersLive.com that's our radio site. We also have WallBuilders.com that's our main site where you can go to sign up for all kinds of programs, get all kinds of great material. We'll be talking later in the program about the American Journey Summer Institute, which is where David and Tim are right now having an incredible time, but there's another chance to go later in July if you would like to be a part of that and you're 18 to 25 years old. I'm Rick Green. I'm a former Texas legislator and America's Constitution Coach Thrilled to host this program with David and Tim Barton. You can learn more about all three of us at WallBuildersLive.com. David is, of course, our founder here at WallBuilders. He's America's premier historian, author of many books and incredible videos all that material available at WallBuilders.com. Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, also author of many books and great videos and again, you can learn more at WallBuildersLive.com. And I would encourage you to book these guys to come in and speak at your church or your community or even your corporate event to educate people on founding principles, educate them on the principles of liberty that are desperately needed in our culture right now, and if we don't restore those principles of liberty, we're going to lose the nation. The good news is and it is Good News Friday but the good news is that the principles still work. Every time they're tried, as Bob McEwan says, we've got to put them back in place, and that's why, on Fridays, we bring you all this good news, so that you realize the system does work. If we work the system, if we're engaged, if we do our part as Caesar, that's right. You are Caesar in this particular nation. Under our Constitution, we, the people, are ultimately in charge. So if you're going to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's, as Jesus said for us to do, you've got to know how to play Caesar well, how do you become a biblical citizen and influence the culture around you. That's what we teach here at WallBuilders. So today we're going to be bringing you a lot of good news, stories that you probably haven't heard about, but that we try to make sure that we highlight so that you realize the system works. And David and Tim scour out there to find this good news actually comes into them. Most of the media, though, doesn't cover these things, but we want to bring them to you for sure. Alright, David and Tim, let's dive into that good news, David Barton, with our first piece of good news for this Friday.

David Barton: 2:16
Well, I've got a double piece of good news to start, but I'm going to call it one piece of good news because both of these involve the US Supreme Court. Recently, the US Supreme Court handed down two decisions that kind of went without notice in most of the public reporting. I mean this wasn't a big deal for a lot of people the way that the Dobs decision was on abortion or something else but from my viewpoint this is a super big couple of decisions because of what it does to try to bring government back into constitutional boundaries. Both of these were decisions that told the government what it was doing was wrong and you need to get back inside the fence and stay inside the constitutional fence. So for that reason I see these as really really big decisions. One deals with what happens with civil asset forfeiture. I was talking to some state reps in Texas and they're pointing out that a lot of police departments now up to 80% of their funding comes because they're taking property from people. They've got your drug owner, okay, we're taking all five of your cars. We're taking your house, we're taking your bank accounts and they use that to fund their police department. So they're going out and looking for things to take from bad guys, whether they've been proven to be bad guys or not. And so Texas is trying to do some of this civil asset reform stuff, seizure of civil assets, and so it's going in a lot of areas. But the Supreme Court did it with the IRS and the IRS actually there was a 94 year old woman that owed $15,000 in back taxes, wasn't able to pay, so they went out and seized a piece of her property that was worth $40,000. They took that property, that retired the debt of $15,000 and they just kept the other $25,000 because they seized the property. So it's now their property. And so here we got, government making money by seizing private property from citizens. And the US Supreme Court said absolutely cannot do that. That is a violation of the Takings Clause, the Fifth Amendment, government can't take that property without due process. And simply the IRS saying that we need her to pay the fine and we're going to take whatever it takes to do that and we'll keep the difference. You can't do that. So this is a really good decision for property rights, for individual rights of citizens, their property against government seizure. It's again it wasn't a heralded decision, but it's a great decision for the supreme court to say, no, you don't have. You can't ride rough shot over citizens just because you want some of their money. The second decision came out the same week and it deals with what's called the wetlands. This was a big deal back under clinton. I don't know when this came in, but it gave the environmental protection agency the right to go in and seize private property and regulate private property. If they called it wetlands, and because there were certain I don't know fish, animal snakes, snails, whatever it was that they wanted to protect in the wetlands, they gave the federal government all this authority under the environmental protection agency for endangered species and so they have gone into even desert areas and declared it to be a wetlands so they can get control over that. Well, they were doing this to a lot of private property owners where they wanted control over their property, calling the wetlands and yeah, sometimes when it rains there's a puddle that stands there and that doesn't mean it's a wetland. Because a puddle was there one time or because there was a flood and water stayed there for a month after the flood was gone, that doesn't mean it's a wetlands. And so the US supreme court said no, no, you don't have a wetlands unless it's a hundred percent underwater all the time. That's a wetlands. Not the fact that it may be even three months a year, that's not a wetlands. And so this gives I can't tell you how many millions of acres comes back into private hands, private control and out of the EPA's control. That the the supreme court said you can't just create regulations and interpret them and give your own definitions, which is kind of nice anyway. We're in a generation where everybody gets to to identify what they want to be and define themselves the way they want to be, and federal governments doing the same thing. Except the US supreme court said no, you can't make a definition, you have to use a definition. If you're not going to make the right one, we'll just tell you. If it's not underwater all the time, it's not a wetland, and that's really good news for private property.

Rick Green: 6:33
It's very good news and, you know, hats off to Pacific Legal Foundation. That's something like a third win this session. They've been really fighting these cases and I'm a little biased because we got a Patriot Academy grad working for them. That happens to be my nephew as well. So I'm just saying they, you know, congrats out there, kyle, congrats to Pacific Legal, you guys are doing a great job. I actually got to tell you guys Scalia's opinion. I don't usually disagree with Scalia on anything, but he actually said in the opinion that you know over the years that these Wetland acts had actually done a lot of good. I'm sorry, I don't agree. Federal government should have never been involved in any of this. Leave it to the states. They could have cleaned it up on their own. The political will was there. They would have got it done. Get out of our business feds and let the states handle this. But Alito said you know some things in the opinion that I actually disagree. I usually agree with Alito and I just don't like pandering like that. Okay, next piece of good news Tim Go ahead, man, all right, guys.

Tim Barton: 7:21
Well, this one is going back to the Supreme Court and this is something from just a last month, when title 42 was was Finally removed and and this was something that back during COVID, title 42 was put in place President Trump did it and it was used to stem the flow of Immigration, illegal immigration, coming across the southern border, and it was done under the name of COVID, where we said hey, it's COVID, you guys can't come. So sorry, right, if you, if you're not doing it, the legal process, if you're not coming seeking asylum or green card or right, well, whatever it is in this legal Spectrum, if you're not doing that, then it's not really going to work for you to come. Well, this was something that President Biden Also used it for a couple of years and then it was said to expire and there were Republicans who took this to the Supreme Court Saying wait a second. Biden can't get rid of this. It's too important for immigration control and one of the great things that came out from the Supreme Court. In this, neil Gorsuch, one of the newer justice on the Supreme Court and Gorsuch in part of the decision he was explaining that Title 42 never should have been utilized in the first place and so they can't sue to keep it here. It was something that was wrong from the very beginning, and part of the explanation of why it was wrong he said it's the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in peacetime history. It's the concentration of power in the hands of so few, maybe efficient and sometimes popular, but it's not tend toward sound government. However wise one person or advisors may be, that is no substitute for the wisdom of the whole of the American people. That can be tapped in the legislative process on and on his decision goes, but what he was very clear about is we had an overreach of power that is totally unconstitutional to happen during COVID. Now, looking at Title 42 being removed why that is sad is because of what it was doing. It was helping stem the tide of illegal immigration coming in and, of course, under President Biden, more than six million illegal immigrants have come into the nation. It is an absolute invasion at the Southern border. Just the sheer volume, the amount of numbers, the fact that we're not enforcing the laws that are already on the books, and they were using Title 42 to help maybe uphold some level of standard. What is great news about this? Disregard the Southern border for a moment. What is great news about this is you have the Supreme Court acknowledging what happened during COVID, when you had governors, when you had mayors who became the dictators of their own states, of their own towns, of their own areas, that this was an absolute abuse of power, something that many of us were saying from the very beginning. This is an abuse of power. It never should have been going on. They don't have the power and authority, and the governors wouldn't call the legislators back in a session. Of course, the legislature are the ones who are supposed to make the laws and even though there might be emergency powers the emergency powers that a government holds they hold the power until the legislature is able to reconvene. And once the legislature reconvenes, then the power shifts back to the representatives, who are the ones most directly responsible to their constituents and to the people of the state. It's just great that you finally have something coming from the Supreme Court that is revealing the standard that most of us, many of us knew from the very beginning. Now it is something that's actually a Supreme Court decision. So, even though there's still a mess in the Southern border, there's lots of problems that need to be resolved. It's at least great that there is now something we can point to. If God forbid there's some other moment when governors or mayors and leaders in our states and our communities are going to try to usurp power, are going to try to be their own, the dictators of their own kingdom, we now can have some legal standing to point to and say, guys, you can't do this right. The Supreme Court decision acknowledged this was an abuse of power. Never should have happened, never should have stood. It's just great to finally have that coming from the highest judicial court in the land, the US Supreme Court. Long overdue. We sure heard this long ago, but it was great to see this coming down, a decision coming from Justice Gorsuch.

Rick Green: 11:39
I feel like we should be calling this Good News Supreme Court instead of Good News Friday. Good stuff, guys. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to WallBuilders. ["good News?

Tim Barton: 11:50
Supreme Court"]. Hey guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders, called the American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that's just not known or not told today and, we would say, very providentially, in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 Project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we're against everything that America was built on and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There's so many things attacking America. Well, is America worth defending? Well, what is a true story of America? We actually have written and told that story, starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln. We tell the story of America not as a story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It's a story you want to check out, WallBuilders.com the American Story ["The American Story"].

Rick Green: 12:56
Welcome back to WallBuilders. It's Good News, supreme Court. I mean. It's Good News, Friday. I mean it's a lot of good news from the Supreme Court on Friday. I'll get it straight at some point, David, are we still at the Supreme Court, or where is our good news going now?

David Barton: 13:07
Well, we're still with the federal courts not the Supreme Court, but the federal courts and this one deals with. Recently, in the last few weeks we kind of had graduation season across the United States. So high school graduates, college graduates they've been getting out in the last few weeks and getting their diplomas, et cetera. And there is an incident in Mississippi that went to a federal court and it dealt with the fact that school in Mississippi, schools in Mississippi said no, you have to dress according to your biological gender. So that's the, that's part of the school code and part of what they've got there and part of what's been passed. And there was a graduating senior in one of the schools that says, well, I may be a biological male, but I want to be a woman, so I'm going to wear a dress in high heels to graduation. And the high school said, no, you're not, there is a law on this and you dress according to your biological gender and not according to your mental gender. And so took it to federal court and in the federal court the federal judge upheld the law and said no, this is, this is the law, and you can't just have individual expression because you don't like the law and because you want to do something different. Now, all of that to say. Here's what really struck me out of this. And when I see this kind of stuff and I'm going to try to be really careful with what I say here because I don't want this to be taken out of context but when I see confused young people, one of the first things I think about is did their parents not make clear right and wrong? Did the parents not? And I understand that there are some people that parents may have done a great job trying to do its right, and sometimes kids don't turn out the way the parents wanted. But that's always. My first question is did this child not have any concept of right and wrong and genders when they were being raised? And so, in one way, it's. If that's the case, if this 17 year old had not heard this from parents growing up, I don't think the court should have been the one being the parent, but at least there was somebody in the kids lives saying hey, no, there are laws by which you have to live and I don't want the federal courts becoming the parents in any way, shape, fashion or form. But as I was thinking through this, you know there's a few verses that came to mind and and boys this is so kind of out of vogue for where the last couple of generations generally have been taught to go. But when you think about what's in Proverbs 29.5, it says that a child left to himself brings his parents to shame. When you allow a child to just be raised with their own beliefs and their own thought and discover themselves and and there's no one to give guidance, they will bring shame on the family. And you know, certainly people on the outside will, will maybe look at this kid or this family and say, wow, how confused and how crazy is he. But that starts with someone having left that kid to himself. Generally, at least that's what the scriptures indicate. And then the scripture also says that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. Crazy thinking is bound there. But the rod of corrections what drives it? Far from it. And we've gone through a couple of generations where we didn't want to correct kids, didn't want to challenge them, didn't want them to to feel bad about something. So we let them believe what they want to believe, and and so we've come to this point where that everybody makes their own reality now. And you can't have that that doesn't work for a nation, it doesn't work for a family, anything else. And so I saw this case really good that the court came down the way they did. They upheld the state law. The state law was really clearly based on two biological genders, which is a biblical teaching. It's not theology, but it's a biblical teaching. It's not theology in the sense of denominational theology. It's not Catholic or Baptist or Methodist or whatever. It's a Judeo-Christian standard. That is pretty clear. And you know, as we look at this kind of stuff and people say, oh, you're trying to impose theology. No, no, no. This is what the Declaration called the laws of nature and nature is God. Nature itself shows this biological difference, shows male and female. Now the scriptures also say and God made them male and female, four times in the scriptures. But this is also a biological, scientific law. That's out there. It's with chromosomes. You know, when they have an autopsy on people after they may have been dead years and you can't physically tell the structure, the DNA tells you whether it was a male or female. Maybe you can't see those physical distinctions anymore. Science, nature says that and so it's just. You know, hopefully people will get some courage again. And if you've got young kids, man, don't leave those kids to themselves to be raised the way that they want to be raised. That's why God put them in your hands. You're the adult supervision. Give them some guidance. Don't lead them to themselves that says it brings the parents to shame and eventually it will. Over a period of years You'll regret what that child may have done. So use discipline. The Bible affirms it. You know we're not talking about getting out of bounds here, but you've got to have rights and wrongs and that's just a good thing for families. Remember, I thought this was a good case to just kind of reemphasize that.

Tim Barton: 18:12
Well, and Dad, let me throw in too, this is something that you know. I think for a lot of people listening they would go oh yeah, we totally agree, and our kids are good. I think a lot of parents don't realize how much garbage is infiltrating their kids' lives and their minds, and this is where we have to be very careful that we are on guard, that we make the most of times. The Bible says redeem the times, knowing the days are evil. We have to make sure that we are being intentional in having these conversations. Don't assume that your kids understand basic biological reality. They understand the laws of nature and nature as God. That creation shows the reality that there's male and female, and the Bible says it. So our kids surely must know it. We need to be probably more intentional than ever before about making sure we are communicating basic truths with our kids, because culture is telling them the exact opposite of what is basic truth and basic reality, what is basic biology? And so if we as parents have the assumption that well, I mean, we've talked about it right, we've read the Bible there are a lot of things you might be very disappointed in the future when you see your kids begin to embrace things that do not reflect your values, because there was assumptions of understanding and knowledge that our kids know this, and our kids are good on this. We need to have greater levels of intentionality than ever before, understanding what culture is doing. It also goes back even to the idea where the Bible tells us about the sons of Issaacar, that there were leaders from the tribe of Issaacar who understood the times and knew the best course for Israel to take. Well, we have to be as parents, we have to be leaders who understand the times, and understanding the times means understanding the threat, understanding the world our kids are going to have to navigate, and maybe right for listeners right now, maybe your kids are growing up in an environment where they don't have to deal with some of this nonsense. Well, that's great, but one day they're going to leave your home and they're going to have to know how to navigate all of this nonsense. How are we being intentional about helping make sure our kids know basic truth, basic reality, basic biology, right biblical foundations? We need to make sure we're being intentional with this so that we don't one day become very disappointed that our kids are embracing things that we thought they knew better than and we didn't maybe give as much attention to it as we should. So I just want to give that encouragement and make sure we are being intentional in the midst of the culture we are living in, because the other side is being very intentional about the message they're promoting. So, as Christians, we have to be just as intentional in how we are raising our kids.

Rick Green: 20:46
Yeah, 100%, guys. So we've got good news happening across the country. And then what you're saying, Tim, is hey, we want to keep that good news coming. It begins in our homes. So all this good stuff coming out of the Supreme Court, out of, maybe, the state house not so much from the White House, but the most important good news is what's coming out of your house. So let's make sure we're doing exactly what Tim's talking about. Alright, I don't think we're out of time, guys. We could get in another piece of good news or two here. Tim, what do you got?

Tim Barton: 21:08
Well, this one is coming from. Down around the Houston area there was a regional playoff softball game last month between two large public schools and as it was going on, the announcer for the game Told all the fans that they were no longer going to do the national anthem. And actually the announcer said, out of respect for the Individuals who were there, they were not going to do the national anthem out of respect.

Rick Green: 21:36
No national anthem, yeah, no, no disrespect to all who died for that flag in that way of I'm sorry, anyway, all right.

Tim Barton: 21:42
So. So parents began to write, many of them boisterously, began asking, like, out of respect for who, which is a good question, who are we trying to respect by not singing the national anthem? And so there was a bit to do. Well, parents took it upon themselves, and so parents from both teams stood up and they began belting out the star spangled banner, the national Anthem. Well, as they do, the umpires stayed together at home plate, they took off their hats, they held their hat in their hands, crossing their heart, and so they were able to go on and do this. And this is this is something that we are seeing more and more and more Parents waking up and pushing back against a nonsense happening in culture around them. Why we're seeing parents running and getting involved in school boards and paying attention to local elections. It's why we're seeing actually more and more parents even pulling their kids out of public school, because the more parents are paying attention to what is being taught in public school, the more parents are becoming concerned for their children, rightfully so. In so many situations and this is again just another example where we are seeing people embrace wokeness and and basic Americans, just normal people, are saying this is ridiculous. What are we doing? This is going too far, and so this is encouraging to me. This was great news to see parents standing up singing the national anthem and even the umpires there Appreciating and standing for the anthem, taking their hats off it. It's something that I think we are seeing a pushback across the nation and so many regards that so often we see the drama on everyday news and we're going. Man. There's so many problems, so many issues and and we don't always realize that there are more and more people standing up every single day All across this nation pushing back Against the wokeness and the nonsense. This is just one more example, and it's really good news.

David Barton: 23:35
Well, I'll just pile on to that, Rick, because I've got this same kind of story here. We talked in the last couple weeks about what's happened to Bud Light. The people are pushing back on Bud Light when it decided to go crazy and, and you know, do a special addition of their beer Featuring transgender. They just Bud Light has crashed since then. I saw at one point down 28%. They're actually trying to give away free beer to get people to come back. They're doing all they can. And, as if that wasn't a clear enough lesson, target decides to kind of move in that same direction, certainly not with beer, but with this product. And so, june being Pride month, target decides well, that's the time when we should really celebrate all this LGBTQIA plus. Pride month used to be based for Homosexuality, not includes every gender diversity out there, and so they really went in for a lot of transgender stuff and gender stuff, and they had transgender stuff all the way down to infant level more than 2,000 products in the store. That was really pushing not just celebrating, but really pushing. And Target has been for a good while, kind of a more liberal store with this position. They they have always leaned that way when there were boycotts going 10 to up 15 years ago. They didn't go. They didn't learn that lesson and, and you know, they kind of stayed on the liberal side. Well, even with that, they've had decent, decent amount of business, and now they've even made the liberals who go to Target mad. Now, conservative still go there as well, but they tend to be a more liberal kind of audience store and as a result last I saw just in the last couple weeks Target stuff has fallen 11% and they're trying to figure out how to recover from this. So, and it's not that other stores out there aren't kind of woke as well, but at least they know enough about the clientele to know this is not where America is. Even when you think you have a little more liberal kind of clientele, that's not even where they are. So I see that is really good news that that not only Bud Light but Target and others this is a really clear message for retailers. You need to stay within the value system that's been traditional in America for a long time Regarding gender and sexuality, and so both Bud Light and Target are the most recent examples demonstrating that.

Rick Green: 25:55
Thanks for listening today. Folks, you've been listening to WallBuilders Live. There is more good news on our website at WallBuildersLive.com. That is also the place you can make that one time, our monthly contribution. That's also a great place for you to share the programs with your friends and family, whether it's today's or if you click on the archives, you can get shows from earlier this week or even in previous weeks. Share that with your friends and family and then also consider signing up to be one of our Constitution coaches right there at BiblicalCitizens.com. You can get access to the class, but do something in your community to help restore our constitutional republic. We've got lots of ways for you to do that. Check it out today at BiblicalCitizens.com. Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders.