Rick Green

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilder Show and we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And today we're going to be talking about once again, as we did yesterday, what's going on on the front lines in our communities all across the nation, Having that conversation with Tina Descovich. She's co-founder of Moms for Liberty. If you missed yesterday's show, it was the first part of what we're going to share from my interview with her in the Tavern. The Tavern is my show on Warrior Poet Society Network and it's just a chance to have those discussions about the revolutionary strategies and tactics that it takes to save a nation.

Of course, a lot of American history in the Revolutionary War took place in taverns. The Constitution was first ratified in a tavern in Delaware and then, of course, that's where George Washington said goodbye to his troops in a tavern. It was just. It was not just a bar, it was actually a place where people gathered. It was actually a community place to come together and talk about what was going on. The mechanics, basically the early intelligence agencies, if you will, that were started by folks like Paul Revere, were gathering in taverns. So, anyway, that's why we call it the tavern.

It's just a fun way to bring people together to discuss these things, and Tina Descovich from Moms for Liberty sat down with me in the tavern and we had a pretty long discussion. We shared part of it yesterday here on Wall Builders. We're going to share another part of it today. You can watch the entire interview at Warrior Poet Society Network or at PatriotU, that's patriotacademy.tv. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, normally here with David and Tim Barton, David's America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of Wall Builders, and they will be back with me tomorrow for Foundations of Freedom Thursday, where we'll be taking your questions, which you can send in to radio at wallbuilders.com. But for now let's take a quick break and when we come back we'll jump into my interview with Tina Descovich.

Break

Rick Green

Before the election and going into the sessions, the legislative sessions next spring, to raise awareness that your own children are at risk for what's being fed to them in their brain, to what's being done at schools. This is the moment to do the first March for Kids.

Tina Descovich

It absolutely is. It's going to be at the Jefferson Memorial, so it's going to be very unique. We picked the Jefferson specifically because anybody that's researched Jefferson. Again, you're a history buff Expert. Can I call you a historian? Can I call you a historian?

Rick Green

That'll scare a lot of people, but yeah, I don't know.

Tina Descovich

I don't know those things. I'm sorry, but I think people look to you that you are an expert in American history and so when you study Jefferson, he is, you'll see, behind me. Monticello is right there. I've been to Monticello more times than anybody really should visit.

Rick Green

Did you know that we're rebuilding Monticello at the Patriot Academy campus? What we're building Independence Hall and Monticello it's going to be amazing.

Tina Descovich

I'm sorry, go ahead Can you please invite me out there, I have not seen, even what you have now.

Rick Green

I think we need a Moms for Liberty satellite office in Monticello. I think that would be just amazing.

Tina Descovich

Oh my gosh. I mean, I have Monticello up on my wall, propped up on my wall back there.

I'm a big fan of Monticello and Thomas Jefferson, and so I walked the mall a year ago when I started thinking about this march and just trying to figure out where it would be. Everybody does the Lincoln. It's historic, it makes sense. I got over to the Jefferson and it took my breath away. I've seen it before, obviously, but it was like five or six in the morning. I could see the White House, I could see the Washington Monument from the steps of the Jefferson and I just sat there and I just thought. Quotes came to my mind about him and the importance of education and an electorate that is educated, and it's what we've been fighting for and what we're fighting against for the last years. And so I said this is the spot.

Rick Green

I didn't even realize that that's perfect. We filmed there a few times. I love the Jefferson Memorial and the first time I went there I was a lot younger, obviously, and I didn't know at the time, until I started looking at some of the dates, that he was 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence Absolutely incredible. And then, of course, you can't help but that you know that bronze part that goes around the top where it says I have sworn on the altar of God Almighty, eternal hostility against all forms of tyranny over the mind of man. I mean, I think you picked exactly the right spot, so this is going to be incredible.

Tina Descovich

I'm speaking to you about it. I guess it's you get it, I get it and it's just, it's almost overwhelming when I think about it, when I think about him. Have you seen that? It's totally off topic here a little bit, but have you seen the I think it's HBO special, the John Adams series?

Rick Green

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tina Descovich

There's a moment in that I mean, it's been a few years since I've even seen where Thomas Jefferson is sitting there and I think John Adams is standing and he gave him the draft of the declaration and Adams goes this is remarkable. He said all men are created equal. You know, like he was like like this is the most astounding thing that anybody has written and it's just played so well, because John Adams is like yes, exactly, all men are created equal. And Thomas Jefferson's like yeah, oh yeah, I wrote it.

Like you know that's good and it's just. We take it for granted because in our lifetimes those are just normal words. All men are created equal, you know. But that was a new idea, that all men were equal.

Rick Green

Even just the idea that that creation and that the I mean what Jefferson articulated so well in saying that we're endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights was literally a slap in the face of every government on the planet at the time, because every government on the planet was freedom from God. But it went to the king and then the king decided what we got, and Jefferson's literally flipping that really first time in history to say hey, no, no, no, God gives it to you and then you create government that to secure these rights. Governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. So he was literally creating our—and granted, he's pulling from a lot of different things, and Locke and everybody else in the Bible too, but he's literally the first one to put it all together and create and lay out a system and a philosophy that would become the greatest nation in the history of the world. And if we're going to restore that, this is another reason. See, I can't believe I didn't know this, that this is where the march was going to take place, because we're a partner and everything, but I just didn't realize it.

I've been saying for the last year and a half that we've got at this point now. We've got less than two years to the 250th anniversary so the Declaration of Independence that we are going to be standing there with the author’s statue, we have less than 2 years to restore the frame. My first book, tina, is called Freedom's Frame and it's about the 56 words out of the heart of the Declaration and what Jefferson was actually creating with those 56 words. That that's the frame that holds our picture together, that makes American freedom possible. So we're going to get to stand there that day and say this is what we're restoring. If our children are going to live in freedom, we've got to take what he put in place and that the other 55 guys pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to. But it's right there the principles of the Declaration. That is the secret sauce, that's the formula that makes America what it is.

Tina Descovich

So my eighth grade teacher, history teacher, made us memorize. We hold these truths to be self-evident.

Rick Green

No kidding, good for your eighth grade teacher.

Tina Descovich

Is that your 56 words that all men are?

Rick Green

creating. Did you know that my signature piece of legislation that I passed in Texas 23 years ago called the Celebrate Freedom Week Act or Teach Freedom Act? That's what it requires is that the 56 words. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal. That they're endowed by their creator with certain unenabled rights. Among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, government and the pursuit of the wrong men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That's it, man, that's the frame of America. And so every kid in Texas has to learn that. But they have to at least study it so they understand the formula. So whoever your eighth grade teacher is, if they're still around, I want to send them a copy of my book.

Tina Descovich

She is still here. She's still here. Evelyn Scrametta lives in Brevard County.

She actually went out and signed waived for me in 2016. I went and found her. She had us. I had saved all of those years. She had us do mock voting. She had the Supervisors of Elections come into our classroom and set up little voting booths, gave us student voter registration cards and I saved mine all of those years. I showed it to her. It was a really great moment because I didn't keep in touch with her for like 25, 30 years and then we reconnected and it was really a beautiful moment.

Rick Green

What a champ. What a champ If we had more teachers like that. Right, I mean that's, that's what not? If, when we have more teachers like that, then we will create good citizens instead of creating these ungrateful brats.

Tina Descovich

Can I say Rick, I don't know. Like she is associated with very liberal people, I think she's either middle of the road, she may be a Democrat, I don't know what she is. She's a good person who believes in America, you know.

Rick Green

I'll tell you what, tina. That's something we need to make sure people know it's not just Republican. When I passed my bill, I ended up with over 100 co-authors and my joint authors, which are your top four people that are really helping you pass it in Texas. How they do it. Most of them were Democrats. In fact, the guy sitting next to me, a black Democrat from inner city Houston, that literally when I told him about my bill he started reciting those words right there on the floor and he said the same thing. He said Ms So-and-so. Whoever his teacher was when he was in school made us memorize that and he said absolutely I'll support your bill. We need to be teaching that and we should be able to agree. All Americans should be able to agree. Don't we want to be treated the same? Don't we want to recognize that we have equal rights? Don't we want blind equal justice in our system? I mean these principles should be agreed upon when the rhetoric and the hate and all of that gets pushed out of the way. We talked about Alveda King. I mean hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. I mean let's go back to what MLK said not being judged by the color of our skin, but the content of our character.

The principles are all there. We just have to learn how to articulate them and bring people together. I'm sorry, I'm preaching again. You're supposed to be the interviewer and here I am going off on

Tina Descovich

 Great conversation. I am enjoying this conversation so very much.

Rick Green

I'm dead serious about wanting to send your teacher a book, so you got to get me her address and I'm going to tell her thank you for creating a wonderful citizen in Tina. All those years ago I shouldn't say all those years ago. It was probably only like 10 years ago when you were in eighth grade, right? Yeah, I was in middle school 10 years ago. Yeah, that's right.

Tina Descovich

So what I want to add to that, though, is, just the other day, we put up quotes on our Facebook page often the Moms for Liberty Facebook page or in our social media from founders, and one of them recently just in the past week was something about your rights are derived from your creator, and the comments were so disheartening, Rick.

Rick Green

You Christian nationalist, you think your rights come from God, not Congress. Tina, where did you get such a? Oh wait, Jefferson might have had something to say about that.

Tina Descovich

The name calling is one thing. You Christian, you know. You Christian not all these names like they can roll off me. It was people that were really fighting and arguing, saying your rights don't come from somebody in the sky, they come from the Constitution. You come from the men that created the constitution. And so, luckily, people were chiming in and fighting back and saying, well, if that's the case, they could just take them. And the fights back were well, they have taken some of them and I'm like they may have taken them through laws and tyranny and such, but they're still my fundamental rights. I can still get them back, I can still fight for them. I have an obligation to stand and fight for them because they came from God and they're mine and you can't have them.

Rick Green

This is it, though. This is the linchpin.

One of my favorite things to say is that the petri dish where bad government and tyranny grows is called civic and biblical ignorance. So if we don't know what our rights are, if we don't know where they came from, if we don't know how the system is supposed to work, then we fall for the lie. So all those people that were commenting on that, that's what they've been taught. So they've grown up in a civically ignorant population. And so you know.

Ronald Reagan said, probably 45 years ago, he talked about how the difference in the Russian constitution and the American constitution. They both talked about freedom of speech and freedom of all these things. But in the Russian constitution it was the source was government, government gives it to you, government can take it away. In the American Constitution, and of course, the Declaration, the Bill of Rights, was not given to us by the Founding Fathers giving us freedom of speech, giving us these things. It was saying these are God-given and our job is to protect them and make sure that they're not infringed.

That's the, the ignorance, and I don't mean people that have listened to me for very long know I don't mean that as an insult. I am ignorant about a lot of things, it's just simply not knowing. But ignorance is curable and we can cure that ignorance if we just get people to study these things. And that's part of why we're partnering up is to get more people into a Constitution class, learning what those rights actually are, making it fun and entertaining by having people like Alveda King and others in those classes and in those programs, because once they realize it, it changes their actions as well. You treat your neighbor differently when you realize that their freedom and your freedom comes from a higher source. I don't get to take away yours, I'm not the source of yours, you're not the source of mine. It causes our whole society to act different. So this is the linchpin to restoring freedom and liberty in this country 

Tina Descovich

100%, and so we're looking forward to partnering with you.

I will tell you that during COVID during that period after my election, before Moms for Liberty was officially started, I called friends because nobody was getting together. It was during COVID. Everybody was still acting weird and everything was canceled. And I didn't want to be weird and I wanted to be around my people, and so I invited everyone over to my house to read the Declaration of Independence together. It took us.

Rick Green

We are meant to work together. Oh my gosh, Did you really?

Tina Descovich

It took us almost nine months to get through the Declaration of Independence, which most people can read in about 20 minutes. We literally read it line by line about maybe less than 10 of us it was like maybe seven or eight of us. And then we'd research and we'd Google stuff and we discuss and we dig in. I think we called it Life, liberty and Chocolate. I mean you couldn't call this the beginning of Moms for Liberty, because everybody had to bring a chocolate dish, because that's my favorite and we all had pocket constitutions. And then we got these books that were written to help us study the Declaration a little bit better and we use those now at Moms for Liberty. We send them all to our new chapter chairs to help study. But I feel like our partnership with you now is going to take what we call it. We call it our Madison Meetup program and the Madison Meetup program is get together with your friends and read the Declaration and the Constitution.

There's not a lot of not a lot of structure, there's not a lot of guidance, there's not a lot of counts. So we have a little brochure, we send them and we're like go figure it out. Um, what we've realized over the last year is people need a little bit more help there, and so this partnership with some sort of a track to run on, basically you know something yeah this partnership with you.

I think is is perfect. It it's going to take our Madison meetups to a whole new level. They could still call them Madison meetups if you're part of Moms for Liberty, but you're going to be doing the Patriot Academy classes as your Madison meetup 

Rick Green

You know our mindset is exactly the same though because all those years ago and now we've got six or seven states that have passed it.

 You guys could be the perfect partner for us to get that passed in all 50 states so that now every kid in America is reading the Declaration and the Constitution. Every year they're going in, and even if you're not able to—control's the wrong word—but you're not able to direct the curriculum and what the teacher's going to say about it, if they at least read those words and you're actually reading we're endowed by our Creator. Oh wow, there's a God. You're introducing the basic concepts that make it possible for people to be free. So even when you initially told those Madison meetups, just go read the Declaration of the Constitution that's exactly what we felt like was the beginning. At least get them exposed to the ideas. And now we can come back and say well, why did Jefferson think that? Where did that concept come from? And what does it actually mean when we say life liberty? What did he mean by pursuit of happiness? Why did he change Locke's life liberty and property to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness? Well, he tells us in his essay on human understandings. There's a whole section there and it's all about having the ability to have 300 million people make the decisions instead of just a bunch of bureaucrats. Anyway, having the opportunity to go into that in a more detailed fashion, that's a great next step.

But the fact that you guys even had them read it you know how many people have never actually picked up the Constitution and the Declaration and read it that's huge, huge, huge, huge man. I'm stoked and I can promise you you know we talked about this off air, but I can promise you we know after now I thought it was 7,000 classes, I just found out yesterday we're probably over 10,000 classes that have happened. But we know what happens when people get together and they start reading this stuff and they start hearing all these quotes from the founding fathers and they start learning these historical facts, and you do it in a fun, entertaining way. All of a sudden they're going wow, there are solutions, wow, there's a way to turn this thing around. And it's hope and what you said earlier they're not alone.

You look around the living room, there's five other moms or families or whatever. You go to your church and you're sitting with another 50, 60 other people. You go man, we can do this. It gives them hope. And then you guys have the machine in place to actually go take action in the community. We're kind of the Air Force, we're going to drop the bombs of information and education and inspiration. Y'all are the Marines man, you're on the ground, you're actually going into those communities and making a difference. So I mean, I couldn't be more pumped. This is, this is. I think the synergy we're going to see in 2025 as a result of this partnership is going to be off the charts.

Tina Descovich

I'm very excited about it and, as you said so, we have legislative committees in each state. Each chapter has a representative. They meet, they have legislative agendas. That's how we've gotten the 42 bills in 12 states across the finish line the last two years, which is a remarkable if you look at other like think tanks and all these organizations that are trying to drive their legislation the fact that we have gotten 42 bills in 12 states in two cycles of inflation is,

Rick Green

 people don't realize how hard it is to pass a bill.

I mean, when you say that if you're watching at home and you're going, yeah, okay, 50 states, well, that's not even one of the folks. I'm telling you, some legislation takes five, six, seven sessions to win enough people over to finally get it passed. The fact that y'all have been around three and a half years and you've already passed 42 bills, I don't know of anybody who has done that. That’s incredible! 

Tina Descovich

Thank you! It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of different people doing the work, putting in the time. But to that in Florida, our parental bill of rights bill went up three years running and as I’ve said in the beginning, Tiffany and I did not know each other, we were in different counties. Both of us were fighting to get that bill passed separately the first year and the second year we did not know each other. The same year that the same representative here in Florida brought it forward, Mom’s for Liberty was formed and we carried that bill to the state, held a press conference on the steps and that was the year it was signed into law by Governor DeSantis and so you get a force like Mom’s for Liberty behind your bill and your bill like for kids to have to learn the 56 words of the Declaration.

Rick Green

Boom! That’s it, Tina, right here! That's why we gather in the tavern. We're launching this. We're going to get that bill done in all 50 states.

Who could disagree with studying the Declaration of Independence? But you know, it's funny because I still remember to this day, this guy on the floor of the Texas house says I'm trying to get this bill passed and he's objecting to the fact that his kid's going to have to read the Declaration of Independence. Now I would love to say he was a communist, but he was a communist, but he was a Republican communist. This was a Republican communist. Oh, anyway, I okay, I hadn't planned on that being part of our topic, but you just got me really, really excited because you're right, that's exactly what would be the force behind this, because we've had, you know, we've got all our coaches across the country and some of them have kind of taken this on and try to do it in their state.

But what you're talking about when and I just know this from experience if, if, if two or three moms show up in a legislator's office and they have a you know talking points and and they're able to talk about the fact that Moms for Liberty is supporting this, then that legislator knows this is not just two of my constituents. This is an organization that has moms all over the state that's coming in. I can be the hero for this organization if I support this bill, or I can be the goat and they're going to be coming after me in the next election. I mean, that's just the reality of how this system works.

So this is

Tina Descovich

 yeah, you say two or three moms, which is what happens, because each chapter gets a vote. They their legislation, uh you know. And then they go back and talk to their legislators in their communities, but you say two or three moms. What I'm telling you is each state has a day at the capitol and they bring hundreds of moms and they stay at a capitol. They have a rally here in florida, we do. Every single one of those legislators has to walk in front of us during that. We do it first thing in the morning so that they have to all walk by us. And you know we've got cowbells and bullhorns.

Rick Green

Oh my gosh, I love this.

Tina Descovich

But we are out there with our issues, letting them be known loud and clear, and I've known enough legislators in my life that you can watch their knees knock as they're walking by and you don't even have to be mean, you're just like, oh, we better listen, or the moms are coming.

Rick Green

And so they don't see the light until they feel the heat.

Tina Descovich

Right, that's how it works. 100%. I know how this works.

Rick Green

Oh my goodness, Tina, that's awesome. Okay, this is a perfect example of what can happen when we start getting together and sharpening each other's countenance and man God's going to team this thing up. This getting together and sharpening each other's countenance and man God's going to team this thing up. This is awesome. Listen, actually, for people that maybe they can still make plans this late in the game to be there for the March for Kids is that something you said? I guess they just go online to sign up or do they just get information online? You don't really register for it, I guess.

Or do you yeah.

Tina Descovich

So the March for Kids? Again, it's a separate, it's a whole separate entity, it's this coalition, because y'all brought together, you brought together.

Rick Green

I mean, I don't know there's like 40, right, yeah, 50 organizations, yeah, 

Tina Descovich

40. Absolutely, it's not too late. People are still renting buses. We got a call from Loudoun County the other day. They want to rent a bus and bring some people. You go ahead it’s great so yeah, now is the time. You go to marchforkids.com. You do sign up so that we can have some idea because we have to have port-a-potties and all of the things ready for the number of people who will arrive so please. 

Rick Green

Now Tina so all of that cost money and this is free to people who are coming so to pay for the port-o-potties to pay for the security to pay for all the stuff that’s got to happen that’s a ton of money to do this in Washington DC so everyone watching this right now, we are going to put this on the bottom of the screen. What is the place to donate, if they can’t come, so listen, you got probably a thousand people for everyone that might possibly be able to come, that will watch this. Ok, you nine hundred ninety nine that aren't going to go to Washington DC, you can go give ten bucks, or you can go give 10 bucks, or you can give a thousand bucks. You can help to pay for the porta potty for that person that's going to get there and need a place to go. You know, because you just got to go. Anyway, tina, what's the, what's the place to donate for this?

Tina Descovich

If I can preface this just a little bit, yeah, sure. There's two candidates that are running for president and vice president right now that are the most anti-parent, anti-family candidates we've had in a very long time. The policies that the vice presidential ticket right now in one of those parties has in his Evil it's evil Signed into law. If that is taken to the federal level, our families are really at risk.

Our children and 

Rick Green

Tina just to drill down on that for a second not only for gender modification, for redefining pedophilia, making it a sexual orientation, all of these steps towards legalizing pedophilia. You just watch the guy and you can tell there's something ain't right with this fella. Talk about the opposite of masculinity, but the stuff he did in Minnesota absolute tyrant. The hotlines to you know, tattle on your neighbors, the stormtroopers walking down the street shooting people with paintball guns just because they stepped out on their own porch or in their own yard. This guy, it's off the charts bad. But the parental rights stuff is really, really bad. This is the communist takeover of the family. And if these people get into power in Washington DC with this guy, it's going to be even worse than what we've seen over the last three and a half years. And I know we're both. Our organizations are nonpartisan. I always tell everybody you know, listen, we're not going to tell you which party. You can be Republican or communist, it's up to you. So anyway, go ahead.

Tina Descovich

I love that. Yeah, we do not endorse in the presidential race. You know we, our organization, was created to fight at the most local level, so we endorse in ward races only. But we have come together and we are speaking out against this presidential and vice presidential candidate because we cannot be silent. So anti-parent, against everything our organization fights for.

Now is the time to stand. I cannot be more clear. 2024 is the time to stand for the family and for children. Children have been decimated the last few years the lowest test scores in the history of the United States. The lowest reading score since the 80s. The lowest math scores ever in the United States. Gender transition laws are being passed that kids are allowed to be on puberty blockers and have their genitals cut off. Like we are in bad shape when it comes to children as a country right now, and it is not okay. This is the year to stand. We have put everything together to give you the opportunity to stand in a positive, cheerful, joyful, uplifting way at the March for Kids. Yellow umbrellas is the theme of protection and joy and sunlight and happiness. We are there to be joyful warriors and to show love and kindness for our kids and our families. But we do. It does incur costs. Like I don't have the money, I'm just going to speak directly to all your viewers right now to put this on. We need proper security.

We need all of the things to pull this off, 

Rick Green

all right, that was Tina Descovich joining me in the tavern for an extended discussion about, well, her summit coming up for Moms for Liberty, the March for Kids and then just in general, what people can do on the front lines to restore liberty in your community. Hope that you've enjoyed it. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for Foundations of Freedom Thursday, and then on Friday for Good News Friday. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show