Rick Green [00:00:07] You found your way to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilders Show, where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And it's Thursday, Foundations of Freedom. Thursday is your chance to drive the conversation. So send in your questions. We'll cover those topics. Whether you got a question about the Constitution or application of biblical worldview to what's going on in the culture, or our historical question What are we got? Send it in to radio@wallbuilders.com that's radio@wallbuilders.com and we'll get to as many as we can each Thursday and we'll certainly jump right into that. Today we're here with David and Tim Barton, Tim's and national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders David's America's premier historian and our founder WallBuilders. And I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach and a former Texas legislator. And let's jump in, guys. We've got let's see, Adam Senate in the first question. He calls it wonderful. WallBuilders I don't know maybe. David you just add wonderful at the top of the sign outside at the wonderful WallBuilders That's good Adam I like that. All right. He said in June on one of our programs, we were talking about Supreme Court and about it upholding that the president cannot reappropriate money that he doesn't like. The purpose for the conversation was about how the President takes an oath to uphold the federal law in the Constitution and that the president cannot just do as he wishes as the chief executive, he must faithfully execute the laws that Congress passes. So here's Adam's question, however. What about a president who was trying to uphold the Constitution and Congress was passing laws that he believed were not constitutional? Would that president be able to do things to uphold the Constitution even though they went against federal law? How much independence does a president have when trying to uphold the Constitution against federal law? Okay, guys, so just quick summary. I think I understand what he's saying. He's saying, okay, you know, if Congress passes a law, but the law is unconstitutional or maybe it was done before the president was president, we can't veto it. What does he do if he thinks that law that's on the books is unconstitutional? How does he act at that point? 

David Barton [00:01:59] Well, this is a case where the Biden said he's not going to uphold the building of the wall. Congress appropriated money for the building, the wall, and he's not going to uphold it. Now, he can do that if he can show a constitutional reason why. So they can't just say it's policy. And I believe in open borders and therefore we're going to do it. He's got to be able to show a constitution because he's taken an oath to uphold the constitution and the federal laws enacted there. Now, there are times when you're going to have a real disagreement on on day. I mean, just look at John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, two early presidents, several opposite side of most issues. But they both had constitutional grounds where they thought they should be. They disagreed with each other, but they both could present something from the Constitution as to why they were doing what they were doing. So that's what it requires is, okay, I may disagree with something that was passed in previous administration. There may be a federal law. And I can't just say I don't like it and I'm not going to enforce it because I took an oath to uphold it. So I've got to be able to show constitutionally. And I think this is one of the things, for example, if I can take a recent example, going back to President Trump, he said, look, the Johnson Amendment that was part of that appropriation bill passed in Congress and I think that was absolutely unconstitutional. There's no way you can solace the speech of pastors who want to speak, and there's no way you can silence a speech of any group, be they Christian or otherwise, just because they happen to be Christian. So on that basis, he ordered the IRS not to enforce that that particular law. So that that's one, you know, that he gave reason for. He gave ground for. Nobody challenged him on that because it's if it gets in court, it's going to be obvious that that was a bad law. And even the people who passed at the time said we never intended churches to go on that. That was for other outside groups. That was not for churches. So you take something like that, that's one side. But if you take well, I'm for open borders. Okay, show me the Constitution where that's that's okay. And I don't like where Congress spent the money to close the border. You can't just say, I don't like that. Some some other examples where you can go back and forth is let's say that the Reagan policy, Mexico City policies enacted that and back in you know, when he first took office and the Mexico City policy says we're not going to spend federal taxpayer dollars to do abortions in other countries. And so every Republican president since then has enacted the Mexico City policy. Every Democrat president since then has said, no, we're pro-abortion. Okay, well, you're pro-abortion or you're anti-abortion. But what does the Constitution say about that? And if you go back to Article seven of the Constitution, where it ties in the declaration and the declaration says you have an inalienable right to life, and the founding fathers, the early courts dealt with abortion as they did prior to Rowe v Wade, and they all said, hey, part of the Constitution is preserving unborn, innocent life. You can't just say my policy is pro-abortion and therefore I'm ignoring every policy passed under the Constitution. That's not part of it. So the question becomes not what either party believes, not what you personally believe. It's what does the Constitution say? And can you have a justified constitutional basis for doing what you're doing? And listen, going back to the time of the founding fathers, Founding fathers didn't agree on everything in the Constitution. That's why you had federalist and anti-federalist. But they both could argue from a constitutional position to support their position. And a. You as a president can't do it from a constitutional position. You got problems. 

Tim Barton [00:05:10] Well, and Dad, you're saying that a president shouldn't be able to do just say, well, the Constitution says so, I'm doing it. Then he decides specifically where it is. I think the reality is where we are right now is we do have presidents who say, well, I'm not going to do that. And and this is why. And they might not give a really solid constitutional reason, but this is part of where also there was a checks and balances that were put in place because the president, his option, if he doesn't like something that Congress passes, his option is he can veto it. And if the Congress thinks the president's wrong, they can override that veto. And so this is again, this is where the founding fathers in their brilliance, they did put some checks and balances in play. And even when you look at the fact that maybe some Congress is look and go, hey, these these earlier Congresses, Congresses, rather, they pass some things that we disagree with. Well, then if they want to choose to not fund certain things and and there are ways that they can do things. And again, we might not like it, but the checks and balances were there on purpose. They're there for a reason. And Dad, to your point, if somebody is making a decision, it should be based on the Constitution. If you are the president, if you are in Congress, that is the parameters in which you work. And if you don't write Constitution, then you pass an amendment and you change the Constitution. But but as long as we're under the Constitution, it sets the parameters and there are checks and balances. And so the president's ability to veto something or to to lead in certain ways is is something the founding fathers set up intentionally. But Congress is the one that has the most power because Congress can override that president's decision. And so, again, this is where checks and balances be set up. But the most powerful branch was the legislative branch. Then you add the executive branch where the president and then the least the the least powerful, the weakest of the three was the judicial branch. All of them have some powers, but the most power belongs in Congress because they're the ones that can override the veto of the president. 

Rick Green [00:07:11] Well, I guess. I mean, David, I remember in incarceration a lot of ten years ago when we when we recorded, you talked about the fact that, hey, each branch has some input on constitutionality. They all have ways to weigh in on the constitutionality of things, both when laws are being passed and then after that law is passed. And as as Tim said, when there's conflict, you know, you get you got to figure out a way to solve that conflict. So one of the important takeaways for everybody is to realize that each branch does have a say. It's somewhat limited. And of course, as Tim said, the legislature is the absolute strongest branch. And Hamilton describes that in federal 78. So, I mean, there's a lot of of his historical basis for breaking it down like this. But this also restores checks and balances. You know, too often we let one branch have all the say and they get all the power. Well, we're supposed to do checks and balances. And as David, as you teach and Constitution live, there's checks and balances not just between those three branches of the federal government, but between the feds and the states, and then we the people. So, you know, everybody's got a role here. And it all also comes back to those jurisdictional lines, making sure that we understand those as well. So good stuff. Great question to get us started the day. Thank you so much for Adam for sending that one in. 

David Barton [00:08:16] Let me just kind of interrupt you. I've got an article here that came out and it could have been a good news Friday article, but it had an aspect in it that I thought made it really kind of fit well with Foundation of Freedom Thursday. So let me kind of just introduce this article and what I was thinking and then we can talk about it from there. So the article it's out of Delaware says Delaware Governor John Carney Vetoes a bill legalizing assisted suicide. So with that kind of bill, I was thinking, you know, it's good news Friday because Delaware is not a conservative state. And yet here you have a governor who's not a conservative governor said this is a line I'm not going to cross. I'm not going to cross this assisted suicide thing. So it got me thinking about, you know, not not only the fact that that this happens, but the fact that assisted suicide has become a very common discussion piece today. It's something that that a whole lot of states are enacting and they're trying to move in that direction. And so let me just back it up to some foundational questions. You guys can can, you know, help me figure this out and go through it. But let me just start with some questions that I think are kind of key to this. Is there a difference between murder and killing? 

Tim Barton [00:09:25] Yes. 

Rick Green [00:09:26] Yes. 

David Barton [00:09:27] Which is what? 

Rick Green [00:09:29] Well, sometimes you have to kill in self-defense. And sometimes you have to kill in war, which is also self-defense. And so murder would be a wrongful killing. 

David Barton [00:09:42] What is a wrongful? The fact that it's not self-defense. Sure. Well. 

Tim Barton [00:09:45] I think one of the ways that we've described it before is that murder is shedding innocent blood. 

Rick Green [00:09:49] Innocent life is shedding blood. 

Tim Barton [00:09:51] So not all blood is innocent. And that's where self-defense comes in. If somebody is the aggressor, if they've shown force, if they've shown willful intent, then you have a legal and even a biblical position, We would argue, to defend yourself, your family, in some situations, even your property from that willful destruction. But it's innocent blood versus guilty blood. And so murder is when someone is shedding innocent blood, someone has not shown themselves to be the aggressor or the violent, etc., etc., whereas killing is the equivalent of if somebody showed up and let's say in church, because we all go to church, if somebody showed up in church and was a bad person to do harm, the bad person there that is trying to to murder the church members, the pastor, whoever it is, they're shedding innocent blood. But then if there are church members that draw their firearm and they put down the bad guy, they have killed the bad guy, they didn't murder the bad guy because that was not innocent blood. 

David Barton [00:10:52] Okay. So then when I walk to the Texas state Capitol, I'll look at the Ten Commandments and the command says, thou shalt not kill. What's the distinction? 

Tim Barton [00:11:00] Well, Jesus actually said in Matthew that you have heard it was said, Thou shalt not murder. But I tell you, don't even be angry in your heart. The word kill in the Ten Commandments, if you actually go back and look it up in the Hebrew, it is not the word that we think of with with killing in the sense of of self-defense. It was actually just a translation, but it was that you should not take another man's life, for that man's life was innocent blood. And that's the word that we know as murder. And there are some translations that actually do identify with that actual original Hebrew word that it is murder. It's shedding innocent blood. And also, one of the reasons that we can be very consistent with this and know that that it really was our shalt not murder, that thou shalt not shed innocent blood is because the penalty, if you shed innocent blood was you were put to death. So if God was against removing bad people, then why was the penalty and so many scenarios in the same place in Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy, where where these commands are taught and these laws are communicated, then why would God have required somebody's life to be forfeit if God was against somebody losing their life? It would be inconsistent, but not if the command, which is what it actually is, is you don't shed innocent blood. That's the more proper interpretation, which most English Bibles, they they get it correct in the New Testament where Jesus in the gospel say you've heard it was said, don't murder. I say don't even anger in your heart. They get it correct in other places, but often in Exodus. And that translation from Exodus, they use the word kill instead of murder. But murder is the more correct phrase for that. 

David Barton [00:12:46] Okay, So here's my bottom line question. Is there ever a situation in which murder is appropriate. 

Rick Green [00:12:53] By the way, we've defined it? We're taking, it would be the taking of innocent blood. I can't think of one. 

David Barton [00:13:01] Okay. Now, here's why I think this important. Here's what ties to the article we were talking about. Tim, I was with you. I don't remember where we were a few weeks ago. And you got to do discussion with someone about abortion and how ridiculous it is that they say, no, you're not aborting a baby. You're aborting a fetus. Would you kind of refresh me on that? 

Tim Barton [00:13:21] Yeah. So part of the argument is, right, that this unborn child well, it's really a clump of cells, which is super silly to make that argument because all of us are clumps of cells. Right? So like that. So we're all clumps of cells. Yeah. But they say, well it's just it's not a child is the fetus. And I pointed out that is a really dumb argument because fetus is a Latin word that means unborn child. So all you're doing is you're using a different language to call it an unborn child, which is my point from the very beginning. This is an unborn child. No, no, it's a fetus. Okay. So you're saying unborn child in Latin. You're still acknowledging this is an unborn child. So all of these arguments are are very inconsistent. Some people just don't recognize it. They don't know what the word fetus means. They don't understand that even us as adult grown men are clumps of cells. So they're using these arguments that are are intellectually inconsistent. And if they if they knew what these were, then they would be dishonest in their arguments. Right. They're being intellectually dishonest. But I think they're just being inconsistent. They don't understand what those words mean. Nonetheless, the word fetus is a Latin word that means unborn child. And that Latin word, which is part of the medical field for generations, hundreds of years. That was the word used even in American medicine to describe the unborn child. That was a fetus. But that was a carryover from hundreds of years ago when that was the word from Latin that meant unborn child. 

David Barton [00:14:45] So taking it to the word suicide, suicide is a Latin word. Suicide was covered extensively in the early law books that were used in America elsewhere. Do you know what suicide means in Latin? 

Rick Green [00:15:00] No, I don't. 

Tim Barton [00:15:01] I don't remember. But I know I've looked this up. 

David Barton [00:15:04] Suicide means self murder. So it's murder still. There's no if there's no situation in which murder is justified and correct in the Scriptures, can you self murder? No, you can't. And this is why I was always illegal to commit suicide in the colonies. Because you are murdering yourself. Send us some blood. You haven't done anything wrong. And so it's self murder. And so laws that that allow assisted suicide, it's allowing you to murder yourself. But in a moral sense. Murder in any situation is always wrong. And so that's why I will always oppose assisted suicide bills, because it is murder. It is self murder. Just like we believe abortion is the murder of an unborn child. It's the murder of that clump of cells. So that's why I kind of thought, you know, this this is a good news piece because you got a governor that you wouldn't expect that's vetoing a assisted suicide bill. But from a philosophical standpoint, a foundation of freedom, Thursdays is because of self murder. I mean, this is the right, proper role from a historical constitutional perspective. 

Tim Barton [00:16:10] And I would also point out that when we talk about physician assisted suicide, this is very different than like the right to try kind of bills where there are certain medications that either don't get the, you know, quote unquote, certain approval, then they're not allowed to be used for humans. But there is some technology that some doctors think, hey, if we did this, we might could save the life. And this is where there's a very big distinction because some of the the right to try arguments or laws are about using medicine that maybe doesn't have the best documented track record. So they haven't been able to study this for years or decades to know exactly what causes side effects, consequences, whatever it is. But they think there's a possibility this might help. So the right to try would be very different. And I want to say that because some people think end of life care and and well, if you're against physician assisted suicide and that's also the right to try. Now, those are very different things because physician assisted suicide is where you have the doctor willfully helping someone take their own life. And the right to try is where the doctor is trying to help preserve and save a life, which is really what the role of doctors in medicine should be, not to help someone's self murder, but to help save someone's life. And Dad, you're right. That is it's great that there are governors that maybe we don't agree with and align with in lots of political areas, but they still recognize the value of human life and are working to defend that, which is exactly what medicine should be doing. That's good news. 

Rick Green [00:17:35] Yeah, very good news. And from an unexpected place, just like you said, David, I love it when I love it when that happens. And and the fact that there were so many activists in in Delaware that spoke up, that made the calls, who sent the letters and. And so it's a it's a really good article. We'll have a link to the article today. It's out of Life News.com and written by Steve Ertel. We'll be right back. We've got to take a quick break. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Break [00:17:56]  

Rick Green [00:19:03] Welcome back to Wallbuilders Show. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday, so your questions are driving the conversation. Cinnamon radio@wallbuilders.com that's radio@wallbuilders.com. And our next question is coming from Steve and he said I've been hearing people say that Ronald Reagan was not a good president. They claim he was pro-gun control. Your thoughts? All right, fellas, I'm moderna's getting up here. You ever heard that expression? You know, I. 

David Barton [00:19:26] Got the Rick, pick this question just for you to answer. 

Rick Green [00:19:30] That The. 

David Barton [00:19:30] Dude who did the video on Reagan as part of his own campaign when he ran for state rep, the guy who has has made Reagan a study of his life. Who better to ask the question do than Rick Green

Rick Green [00:19:43] And the kid named after him? Right. I got a name to Kid Reagan. I got another one born on his birthday, February 6th. I used to have a dog named Dutch till he got run over. But that's a different story. No, listen, I. I don't know how, you know, we've done this thing before. We probably ought to do an updated version where we all three rank our our favorite presidents. And I have to admit, Reagan's not number one. He got he got bumped down even after after Trump did such a good job in his first four years. But he's definitely still in my top five. And it is not perfect. It wasn't perfect, by the way, we had, I forget the producer's name that we had on to talk about the movie Reagan. But the movie is really great. People ought to go see the new movie Reagan. Dennis Quaid did a great job playing Ronald Reagan. But yeah, I don't know why you're hearing, Stephen that he was was not a good president. Certainly in the last 100 years, one of the best presidents that we had. But again, not perfect because, guys, I'll just point out his bad stuff. He did the what do you call it, immunity for four vaccine manufacturers. I think he got snookered on that one. And then he also did amnesty. So those are two of the two of the ones that that were not good. But man, when it came to taxes and I don't know I don't know anything about this pro-gun control thing. I know. I know. You know, Brady was was the Brady Bill and all that was because that was his guy. And if you even if you watched the movie, the new movie Reagan, you'll see a reenactment with actual footage actually included in the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. Which one of the great things after that assassination attempt was that he said, you know, whatever time he had left was the Lord's. And it really did focus him in on a lot of the pro-life stuff, even though Nancy and everybody around him was pro-abortion, he remained pro-life and push for pro-life things. So I don't think you could at all say he's pro-gun control, but there were some things that that Brady was able that the pro-gun control people were able to use. Brady And he'll be injured so bad in that assassination attempt. I can't remember the specifics of the legislation on that one. So I'll do a little more homework for you on that one, Stephen. But man, I would say overall, absolutely a great example of a great president, kind of a George Washington type statesmanship and servant leader, but definitely not perfect. 

Tim Barton [00:21:45] Well, I would also point out when yeah, when we're hearing this criticism against Reagan and I'm seeing it for sure now, I talk to the college students that are hearing it a lot about how bad Reagan was and and actually about how bad his economic policy was. And he actually didn't help America. He made it worse, etc., that this would be no different than than some of the modern narrative surrounding President Trump, where we've we've tried to be very honest and we have disagreed with President Trump in several areas, however, where we agreed with them. And the good he did far outweighed where we thought he made mistakes. And it would be very interesting to see if he gets another four years that what he might correct from some of those mistakes for the first time in, he probably will do a lot of things if he gets in office again this next time, that we might not agree with everything he does there. And it would also be really silly to think that we would agree with everything he does. I mean, if all of us were just honest with ourselves, we don't agree with everything we do all the time. Why would we agree with something everybody else does all the time? However, that being said, there is this narrative to try to cancel people that have been on more of the conservative side that have have done beneficial things. And so they want to highlight areas where they might have done something that we disagree with and use that to cancel so much of the good they have done. We've seen that again a lot with President Trump, where President Trump did so many good things and people have tried to cancel him because of a couple of issues that that maybe we even agree weren't the best. But those were not the defining moments of his presidency. The same thing with Reagan. Reagan's defining legacy of his presidency was not something gun control related. It wasn't where people argue that he was bad economically, which is just insane for anybody that is still alive that, remember, is going from Carter to Reagan, then suggesting that Reagan wasn't good economically. Like that's that's an insane proposition. But it's more of the gaslighting and the dishonest history that oftentimes does permeate in academia. 

Rick Green [00:23:45] Yeah, and I was actually wrong about the Brady bill that was pushed at the end of Reagan's presidency by others, but it was actually not passed until Bill Clinton was president. So there were attempts at the end of Reagan then during Bush 41, and then ultimately finally passed. Whenever Bill Clinton was president. 

Tim Barton [00:24:04] And I'm glad you looked that up real quick, because I, I remember in one of the kind of comebacks when people talked about the gun control from Reagan is. Right. What did he do after he was shot? Not pass more gun control. That's right. That's right. Right. I mean, it's kind of like Trump, right? If if this would have been a predominant issue for them after they were shot, after an assassin attempt to take them out, what would they have done If this is something they were in favor of? They would have called for more gun control and they did it. And as you pointed out, the Brady Bill came after him. And I'm glad you brought that up. 

Rick Green [00:24:34] Yeah, and he did he did speak for it in 1991, which was, you know, three years after he was out. I think also where his, you know, his dementia was actually starting to kick. So I think they probably took advantage of him, to be honest with you there. But man. Remember, Reagan was a fighter. I mean, this was a guy that took on in the movie actually depicts this. He took on the communists in the Screen Actors Guild and and fought in Hall. I mean, literally, like took busloads of actors through the picket lines with rocks coming through the windows and all kinds of things. I mean, this was a guy anyway and somebody that the champion, you know, economically and incredibly well. And in my documentary that I did back in 94, that's what I focused on, was the fact that his tax cuts led to the greatest peacetime economic expansion in history and that the deficits from the 80s were not because of Reagan's tax cuts. He actually doubled revenue because of those tax cuts, as he always articulated, because he was an economics major at Eureka College before Keynesian economics. He knew that if people paid lower taxes, they kept more money of their own. They spent it in the marketplace. It created jobs which created more revenue and then created more tax revenue. And so he knew tax revenue would go up at a lower tax rate. The problem was the Democrats tripled spending and that you'd be triple spending. Even if you did double revenues, you end up with with deficits. So yeah. Anyway. Great, Great question. David, Go ahead, man. 

David Barton [00:25:50] Yeah, there's this is context matters. You got to remember that if you looking for Reagan, are you looking at the time when he used to be a Democrat? Are you looking at the time when he used to be a really active union member? Are you looking at the time when he was very immoral? Is slept all around Hollywood as an actor who is more than made 40 major movies? I mean, you can look back to those times and find things to say, here's what Reagan believed, which is not honest history. It's not actually portraying what actually happened. And Rick is used to point out, you go through the majority of what he's done. He doesn't agree. As Tim, you said, we don't even agree with ourselves on everything. But he is so far different, like George W Bush. No, George Bush is pro-life at a time when his wife and his two daughters living in the same White House with him were not pro-life. So Reagan, there's just not the evidence there to be able to make him into the negative feature that they are right now. 

Rick Green [00:26:37] All right, folks, we're out of time for your questions. Send them in and we'll try to get to them next week. Radio wallbuilders.com You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.