Rick Green: 0:11

Welcome to intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders, where we talk about the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, I get to do that here with David and Tim Barton. David's, of course America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders Tim's the national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And I'm Rick Green, former Texas legislator and America's constitution coach, we all three appreciate you much listening. And we encourage you to visit our website WallBuilders.com , that's WallBuilders.com , that name comes from the scripture in Nehemiah that says, arise and rebuild the walls, that we may no longer be a reproach. We're rebuilding the walls in America, rebuilding the foundations, and we're bringing back those foundational principles that made America great in the first place. They are, of course, all biblical principles. And it's all laid out there for us in the instruction manual, if we'll use it, if we'll engage it, if we'll sow it into the culture, everybody benefits. And of course, we teach you how to do that in other programs as well beyond this radio program, you can go to WallBuilders.com today and get some of those different materials, go get some of the kids books, go get the Biblical Citizenship class and start coaching it in, in your home or at your church or wherever else you can. But do what you can to engage in the culture be a part of the solution. Too many people are complaining about what's going on right now. And not doing something about it. Don't be one of those folks, be one of the ones that actually takes action. I figure you are one of those people or you wouldn't be listening to this program, because we rail on you too much about taking action. So thank you to everybody out there that's been participating in your neighborhood and your culture. And by the way, one of the best ways you can do that and get trained and equipped to do it well, is to come to the coach Congress. Show up for Patriot Academy's Leadership Congress, we're going to do it the first week of August at the Texas Capitol. And it's an amazing opportunity. It's actually the first time we've done a Coach Congress while the students are doing their Leadership Congress, and the military veterans are doing their Leadership Congress, we're going to have a coach Congress, which means anyone of any age can come be on the Coach Congress, that means you get to be legislative for five days, it's a chance to be on the real house floor in the real committee rooms experience what it means to be a legislator, all the same workshops, all the same training everybody else gets. That means all the great speakers that we're going to have the leadership training, the speaking, training, communication training, all of those things, you get to be a part of it. Check it out today at PatriotAcademy.com . And click on Leadership Congress and come be a part of it. All right, David and Tim, let's jump into the questions from the audience. First one's going to come from Summerville, South Carolina, Chris said, I recently saw an article about a house bill being introduced to fight state bans on who can own land. It was in the Huffington Post. And I was wondering which side of this issue is biblical? Is it biblical to prevent or limit foreigners from owning land? Or is it biblical to allow anyone to own the land? And maybe you can fill us in on the history of this issue? Thanks, Chris. Chris, I want to thank you, because I saw this happening in multiple states, including our state here in Texas, and all kinds of people have been working on this. And I've been wondering the same thing. And I haven't had any time to research it, haven't looked into it. So I could have asked David and Tim, this question myself today. So thank you, Chris, for sending it in. I'm very curious what you guys have found when you look into this.

David Barton: 3:14

Yeah, it's interesting, because this is really a matter of self defense. These particular laws have arisen really, more recently than anything as a matter of national self defense. And one of the things that's pointed out about the Bill of Rights is the Bill of Rights don't give you the right to destroy the Bill of Rights. In other words, they give you freedoms, but you can't use those freedoms to destroy the freedoms they give you. And so while you have private property ownership protected by the US Constitution, and while the right of individuals to have that property is protected, what's happening is particularly nations like China are moving in and buying up farmland. They're buying land in neighborhood areas that are close to military bases. They're buying farmland in areas where they can produce a lot. They're doing it to undermine America and American security. And they're big threats. And so states, there's about 30 states now that are looking at or in the midst of passing laws to ban foreign ownership of these lands. Now, a lot of nations already do that, anyway. You can't be a foreigner and own land there. And it goes back to biblically, the Bible talks about how that God in Acts 17 talks about how God is the one who draws the boundaries of nations. God says this is a nation he lays it out. We're not all one globalist place God broke them into nations and languages and everything else. And so God recognizes identities of nations and treats nations even differently based on what they do. So the concept of having a nation is a biblical concept. The concept of national self defense is also a biblical concept. God gives nations the right to defend themselves. And so what's happening in America, this has not been a problem until it started being abused by people who would use is the right to own private property to destroy private property in America. And so at that point, the right of national self defense does kick in. Now it's interesting, Israel is a little unique in a lot of ways is even if you're an Israeli citizen, you don't own land in Israel. Israel owns the land, God gave the land to the nation of Israel, every 50 years, with the year of Jubilee, he had it returning back to the original owners, it went back to the original folks. And so he made sure that it did not get sold to outsiders and foreigners. So while there are Americans and others who have some, quote, land in Israel, it's really just leasing the land, they can lease land from the government for short periods of time, but Israel maintains its land very securely. And that's kind of the concept of what America is trying to do, by keeping foreign nations from coming in to destroy us

Tim Barton: 5:49

Well, and specifically to go back to Israel, we have friends over in Israel right now who are Jewish individuals in Israel, and they lease their land for 99 years. And that is the length of a lease you get in Israel, which you would assume, right, it's going to be for your entire life while you are over there, especially if you are taking out the mortgage or that lease or whatever the case might be. And when you're in your 20s, 30s, 40s, that's going to be the remainder of your life, but the idea that the land remains and belongs in Israel, I think Dad, to your point, when you're articulating that you can't use the Bill of Rights to defeat the Bill of Rights. It's not that the founding fathers thought that there should be such restrictions on the freedom of speech, the First Amendment that, well, you can't argue against the Constitution. No, you totally could use the First Amendment to argue against the Constitution. But it wasn't something that now that for example, the second amendment that we have the right to keep and bear arms. Now we'll take those arms and there's going to be this mass murder and you... now we're gonna go kill everybody. Well, no, that's always wanting to be against the law. And so it was just recognizing there still is a legal boundary and a legal parameter. And it goes back to the founding fathers basic premise from the declaration, that government exists to protect our God given rights. And among our God given rights, you do have the right of self preservation, you do you have the rights of private property, some of these things that certainly are called into question, when you look at selling land to foreign nationals, which I mean, with that being said, I have question marks about even Bill Gates and some of these individuals buying up so much of the farmland and cattle land and everything else and wondering what they might do with it. Not to say that they don't have the right to do it on some level. But just I have question marks about that. I, as much as I am concerned about China coming in and taking over some of that stuff, I'm equally concerned about Bill Gates and some of these other individuals that are not in favor of farming or ranching that are buying these out. The people that are saying we should eat more crickets and less meat, I have problems fundamentally, with you taking over and buying some of these farms and ranches. I don't feel like you're going the right direction with that. However, back to your point, the government's primary job is to protect the citizens, protect the rights of the people. And this is something that certainly can be very questionable, of how well they can be protecting the people when they're selling the land that belongs to the nation, to other nations. So I think that's something that is pretty clear from a constitutional standpoint, at least from the founding philosophy of government and, Dad, as you point out even from a biblical perspective of government

Rick Green: 8:15

Well it's not time for break yet guys, but if it was, we would be ordering some chocolate covered crickets for Tim to eat during the break. But since it's not break time, you're saved from that, Tim. All right, next question is coming from Mark and Cindy in Ohio, and I'm going to try this mark and Cindy, tell me if I get even close Chillicothe, Ohio. Chillicothe. I've never been to Chillicothe, Chillicothe, Ohio but maybe I got close there. Anyway. Thanks for sending your question, Mark and Cindy, here it is. Big fans from southern Ohio on a recent trip to the Minuteman Historical Park in Concord, Massachusetts. The park guide said that when the Redcoats marched on Lexington and ordered the patriots to disperse, some of the Patriots began to disperse before the shot was fired. The tour guide emphasized some but not all. We were also told that the first shots fired in the Redcoats was at the bridge in Concord. I never thought about it until our tour. But what does the historical record say about Lexington? You mentioned in many broadcasts that Captain Parker's orders were to not fire unless fired upon. Did they just stand and get fired on or did they return fire at all? And did they begin to disperse as our tour guide said. Everything else the tour guide said seem to line up with the historical record that you've shared on many programs. Thank you, Mark and Cindy. Okay, Mark and Cindy, great question by the way and I know guys we have a, can we say love hate relationship with a lot of these tour guides, because sometimes they do it... get really really, good, you know, they do really, really well. And then sometimes, man, they just go off on stuff that you know, definitely came from some professor in the last 10 years and not historical. So having no idea about this one at Concord, I don't know their background or anything like that. A lot of those at, say Independence Hall, for instance have become really woke folks and not folks that love our history. Even Williamsburg, Colonial Williamsburg, which is such a cool place, man they've gone big time woke. So anyway, I don't know if that's the case at Concord. I've never heard that they dispersed before the shot was fired. I thought they stood their ground and fired back and then immediately dispersed... you know, they were overrun by 800 guys. What do you say, David?

David Barton: 10:15

Well, first off, let's go back to Williamsburg for a minute. Williamsburg is so woke, that they now have a celebration of lesbian life in Colonial Williamsburg. Um, sorry. Yeah, just because two women lived together, they assume they're lesbians. And that's about all they can point to because it was illegal at that point in time and are all American laws. It's just... It's crazy how woke they are. They used to be great historians, and they maybe still are but they're not a good historian on that at all.

Tim Barton: 10:48

And even, to point out that that was illegal back then. I mean, you go back and look at some of the things that weren't the death penalty, and actually sexual, what we would call in the Bible a sexual sin or literally a sexual sin, a sexual perversion warranted the death penalty in the early colonies in America. Adultery, you'd be put to death for adultery in the early colonies, and many of the early colonies in America. So the idea that they have this open lesbian relationship, and this open lesbian lifestyle is just ridiculous, totally, historically inaccurate. But Rick, to your point, we do at times have this love hate relationship with some of these places and locations, where, unfortunately, and many of these old historic locations, they despise the very people they are there to tell you stories about. If you go to Monticello where Jefferson's home is, they don't like Jefferson at all. And I'd say that, maybe there's a few that like Jefferson. The majority the people, you're going to hear from, the tour guides, you're going to hear, they talk about how bad Jefferson was and how terrible he was. Same thing if you go to Madison's house, and really even when... if you're in Philadelphia, Independence Hall, so many of these places, they do not like the individuals. Where I've seen an exception, in many respects, has been on battlefields. On battlefields that I have not seen nearly as much tone, I'm not seeing nearly as much agenda because they're not highlighting as much... some of the maybe cultural wokeness awareness that is promoted at some of these locations. And so I would say, what I've heard by and large, at a lot of the battlefields has been more accurate. Now, certainly if you go back to something like Lexington. There was multiple records from individuals on both sides of the accounts, and not all the records agree and so sometimes you... we will identify that so and so said this, so and so said this, and you might see some disparity but like Lexington, the only place you see the major disparity is the argument over who fired the first shot, because the British officer says well the Americans clearly did. All the Americans are like, Nah, we didn't do none of that. And really, you get the tone and the sense from even reading these writings of the British officers is trying to defend his position because that's not... the position he takes is not substantiated by the available evidence. With that being said, and I know Dad, you have a lot of thoughts on this probably as well. You've researched this way more than I have. At least you've researched it way before I did. I don't know how much more but way, way before I did you were reading these documents. So I mean, and Dad, correct me if I'm wrong on this, but certainly I've read where they were beginning to disperse. Some of them were already breaking away when a shot was fired. And Rick the way that I even described this. For those listening, if they haven't seen... if you haven't seen Lord of the Rings, you should see Lord of the Rings. The extended version is the better version. You just need to take an entire Saturday watch all three they're great. On the Lord of the Rings, there's a place, I think it's the two towers...

Rick Green: 13:43

Now, you can only watch the extended versions, all three on Saturday if you don't take any bathroom or food breaks. It would take all day right? I mean that's like straight...

Tim Barton: 13:51

Right! But you're so riveted you don't need to go anywhere. That's fine, no problem. But there... so for people who maybe not seen this, there's a moment when the good guys are defending this stronghold. And this stronghold is up against a kind of it's a castle, it's kind of up... a there's a wall around it, that the bad guy, the orcs, these monsters, they come up against them. And the good guys that are kind of in the castle, and it's set... it's kind of as dark atmosphere. It's at night. It's really setting the tone, the emotional mood, but there's an old man on the wall and he has a bow and he draws the bow back and they're supposed to wait for the command to fire and this old man has a bow drawn back and he begins to quiver just a little bit and his fingers slip and the arrow flies and the arrow goes and hits one of these monsters hits the orc, and the battle begins. And it wasn't really supposed to happen but it did but I mean it was going to happen anyway. It was kind of okay, but it you know, just came before the command to fire. There's a lot of speculation about the shot heard around world because there is a little bit differing stories and there's not really good documentation that we can point to and say this is the authoritative source, everything this one says is correct. And so just filling in some of the gaps, I think it's totally reasonable that there was a British soldier, that as the Americans, some of them are beginning to disburse, probably the British soldiers were told to draw down, right? Where they're in their positions. And okay, ready, aim. And this is their aim. So they point in, they have their face looking forward, and they have their finger on the trigger. And I think it's totally possible that somebody just squeezes a little bit more than they should have. And it could have even been this this accidental discharge, but it goes off. And then as many people can tell you, whether it's law enforcement, whether it's military, if you are pointed in and somebody shoots, the instant reactions is you think, pull the trigger, shoot, shoot, shoot, I don't think it's reasonable that if there's 800 British, there's 73 Americans, and really, there's at least 700, some say... some reports that there were 800 Plus, but there's at least 700. If 700, British had fired into 73 Americans, there's more than 18 that get shot. I don't think all the British fired, I really think it's arguable, at least. I think it's totally possible somebody accidentally pulled the trigger. And then when that happened, I think probably the next 15 or 20 guys in a line, they pull the trigger, right? Maybe even 30 or 40, maybe the whole frontline volley, they send their rounds, 18 individuals get shot. And at some point, the officer's like woah stop, stop, stop, cease fire! cease fire! And they're holding the line. I don't know that you could even argue the command to fire was given. But certainly it's not questionable that the British fired into the Americans. But I do, I think it's possible that it wasn't even intentional, that it could have been an accidental discharge. And when that shot was fired, it just caused all the line to fire. We don't know for sure how exactly the circumstance went down. But the best available evidence certainly is the British fired, that there are reports that some of the Americans were already leaving, they were already dispersing, when they were fired into and maybe had they all still been standing there, more of them would have been shot than were there. That is a little bit of my speculation from some of the available evidence. Dad, what do you think about this?

David Barton: 17:15

Well just add a couple of factors into this thing, because the evidence is not clear. I mean, you've already mentioned it's not clear. And it does go to really two basic reports. When the report came out in the British papers, the British commander, yeah, the Americans fired first. And it was no big deal. There were no real details. It was just a statement. And it was pretty quickly said and moved on about the report. But Reverend Jonas Clark, when he read that report, said that's not true. And so he did a sermon on the one year anniversary. That was a long, detailed historical record of what happened, what he saw, because he...

Rick Green: 17:51

And by the way, David, this is one of the first gifts you ever gave me. You gave me one of those early reprints of his sermon, I still, I mean, it's like one of my treasured items. And it is, It's like illegal treaties. It's a sermon, but it's like a legal argument for why the British fired first. Yeah, go ahead, sorry, I had to... Thank you. Thank you so much for that.

David Barton: 18:09

That's what he does, because he stands in front of the congregation and said, look, here's what the British said. I was there. I saw it. Here's what happened, first. And he goes through with detail after detail after detail after detail. Now, can it be argued that he doesn't have a perfect perspective? Absolutely. Eyewitnesses often conflict with each other when they report on a crime or anything else. But he has the passion. And he has the specificity of saying, here's the guys, here's the names of who got shot. Here's what happened. And so pastor Clark, even though he is part of that group, I have a tendency to go with his record a lot more than that really quick statement by the British commander that yeah, the Americans fired first and he just moved on. The specificity and the passion with which Clark argues to me is much more persuasive. And if I were in the jury, I would give it a whole lot more consideration than I would the British commander, just because the way it happens. But nobody knows for sure, but it's... that's the way I would lean and, you know, as Tim described it, who knows if it was an accidental pull? You don't know what happened. But every eyewitness that was there, including Clark, every American eyewitness says the British did it first. And that's where I land is that's where the bulk of the evidence is, the way I see it when I weighed the evidence.

Rick Green: 19:26

Well, for those of you that might be curious about more on this, if you go to WallBuilders.com today and get the Chasing American Legends series, we do a whole episode on this and it's called who shot first, we actually go watch the

ride of Paul Revere at 11: 19:39

30 the night before to Jonas Clark's house, which is where he was going with Sam Adams and and Hancock there at the pastor's house, which is a reminder that the pastor's house and the church was the epicenter of that community as it should be. And then of course, we got up early the next morning to watch the reenactment of that first shot being fired there at Lexington and then also filmed over at Concord where the question came from today. So if you want to watch that, go to WallBuilders.com and look for Chasing American Legends. And you can get the the TV series and the workbook as well. Quick break, guys, we've got more questions from our audience, we'll try to get at least one more of those in before the end of today's program, you're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 20:22

Hi friends! This is Tim Barton of WallBuilders.This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. I know, oftentimes as parents, we”€™re trying to find good content for our kids to read. If you remember back in the Bible, 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 wanted to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called, “€œThe 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. There’s a second collection called, “€œHeroes of History“€ in this collection you read about people like Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, 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 .

Rick Green: 21:21

We're back here at WallBuilders. It's foundations of freedom Thursday, so we're getting your questions today. And Debbie's got the next one from Manhattan now, not Manhattan, New York, Manhattan, Kansas. We don't accept questions from... no, we do really, we get a lot of questions from New York all the time. But this one, actually from Kansas, Debbie said, Are there any programs where Rick in the Bartons have covered the topic of government census information, and the constitutionality that, I'm specifically, inquiring about this recent round of census requests for businesses, it seems like I may have heard a part of a program where they were discussing the individual census, but used the website, I could not find or any other programs with this topic. Thanks for your help. Of course, Constitution Alive is where I first always recommend people to go to for this one. And I always use the word enumeration instead of census because that's the word in the Constitution, and it's actually numbers counting, not this crazy how many toilets you got in your house? How many kids you got in your house? How long... They ask all kinds of stuff they shouldn't be asking. But we do rant a little bit about that in Constitution Alive. Where else, guys, could we point people to on the issue of the enumeration?

David Barton: 22:26

Well, I think you go back to the philosophy of why it's there and what... how it's used, it certainly has changed since the time it was originally done. The census is absolutely constitutional, as required by the Constitution, because that's how you determine the congressional districts, how many people are in which district etc. So you have to have that. Otherwise, if you just did it by states, it wouldn't be fair, it would violate what the founders did with the bicameral kind of structure they set up whether you represent both the states and the people, now our bicameral structure doesn't do that today the way they designed it. But nonetheless, that was their intent. But today, because of what's happened with government, and we've let the federal government particularly get outside its boundaries, no longer is it held to the enumerated powers of 17 things that the federal government can do, it does so much more. The census now is used in many other ways. I was talking to one of my good friends in Texas and the Texas legislature. And they actually have to have the census information with some of the details and specificity because not only do they have to do it for the enumeration part of how many congressional districts do we get in Texas, but because they have now been by Supreme Court decree and federal orders, etc., they have to provide education, they have to provide health care for everyone, including the illegals who happen to be here, they have to provide all these services, they've got to know how many people there are that needs services. And so that's part of them having to budget for it. Now, they don't allow those illegal people to be counted for the enumeration of Congressman because they can't be part of how many people in congressional district. But that doesn't change the fact that they've got to provide education for everybody that's they're illegal or legal. If the federal government's not going to keep illegals out, and they get in, they still have to be educated. And the same with healthcare and the same with jobs and so much else. So because of the way that it has changed over time, with Supreme Court decisions, and with the federal mandates that go on, and because the states have given over so much power to the feds, there's a lot of questions in the census that really are important for the states more so than the feds. And so that's where a lot of the extra stuff gets added. Now, you know, Rick, as you mentioned, two toilets, etc. Who needs to know? Well, the federal government thinks it needs to know because they need to know what poverty looks like and whether they need to allocate more money for poverty because there's too many people only that only have one commode in their house. That means you're living in poverty or whatever. And so that's what they... They have so broken down into believing the government should be involved in every area of Life and service that they've gotten into a lot of questions that many of us object to, but I do understand the mandate on the states that they're stuck with, that they do need to know some details about people, the ages of the people in the house because of education they have to provide. Do we need more fifth grade teachers, more eighth grade teachers? Or do we need more sharp teachers? Or what do we need? So that's not a justification for it, because again, I think we've let government get out of bounds, but now that it's out of the box, what do you do to put it back in? And so the census kind of reflects where we are right now? It's a great question, not a simple answer to it just an explanation for why they do what they do.

Rick Green: 25:38

Yeah, and I think the constitutionality part, you know for like you said, the numbering for members of Congress, that's the part that's so important. It's actually constitutional required. Now I always tell everybody, hey, you need to tell them how many you got in your house. You want your district to be well represented, you want your state to be well represented and have as many House members as possible. Man, it's all that other stuff... And like you said, yeah, they got a lot of stuff they want to know. I'm just of the opinion, the rest of that stuff should be voluntary for sure. And they try to fine you, if you don't answer all that other stuff. And man that gets, to me, that gets into a really... it crosses the line of what the government should be allowed to require you to answer versus voluntarily answer. So alright, guys, we're out of time. Lots of good questions today, folks, you want to send them in? Send them to radio@WallBuilders.com that's radio@WallBuilders.com and we'll get to more, we had some we wanted to answer today. We just ran out of time because so many good questions and so such good answers of course, as well. Anyway, thanks for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.