Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders Show on a Thursday, which means it's foundations of freedom Thursday, thanks to all of you that have been sending in such great questions. You can do that by emailing radio@wallbuilders.com radio@wallbuilder.com can be decoration, constitution, politics, biblical, whatever you got, send those questions in. We look forward to getting to as many as we can today. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. You can learn more about us at our radio website or our main website. The radio site is wallbuilds.show. Wallbuilders.show to catch up on the radio programs or share them with your friends and family. And then wallbuilder.com that's our main website. So that's where you can find out about a lot of the different programs you can download or order a lot of the good swag in the store there. And then of course, all of our programming is there as well. So pastors briefings, we have teachers trainings coming up this summer, student training coming up the summer, our legislators conference in the fall, all of it you can learn about at wallbuilds.com. And you better hurry cause the summer is here. And it is time to get into one of those trainings. Also we have the Patriot Intensive happening this summer at the Patriots Academy campus. That's a full month for young people and even families that want to come spend the entire month with us in July with a lot of cool training happening there as well. That you'll learn about at patriotacademy.com Patriotacadamy.com/institute. That would be the place to learn about that. Okay, guys, lots of good stuff coming. I cannot believe summer's here, guys. We are quite literally, you know, what are we now? Five months down, seven months to go. I had to, I was just talking, this morning and I was trying to remember our days, you to the declaration of independence and I'm like, oh my goodness, we're almost under 400. We're at 402 or three days now. It's happening so fast. So we're going to, we'll, have to talk fast today to get to as many questions as we can. 

David Barton [00:01:54] Hey, Rick, I think in Texas, summer is only here on the calendar because I mean, here we are at the end of May, we should be 95 to a hundred and I'm having nights out here at the ranch that are in the sixties still. And that's kind of more like February and March weather. So I can't prove where in summer by weather out here. 

Tim Barton [00:02:14] Well, with Texas being schizophrenic, we're probably gonna have summer for the next six months. 

David Barton [00:02:18] Yeah, right, right. 

Tim Barton [00:02:19] Texas will always make up for a lack of summer. And then we have, obviously, in the spring, we've had a lot of rain where we are, so much so that not only are the ponds full, there's been flooding, there's road washouts. It's been an unusual year, for sure. But also seem like. 

Rick Green [00:02:35] We had hail just a couple nights ago, yeah. 

Tim Barton [00:02:38] I mean, yeah, there was a tornado not far from where producer Justin and I live.  I mean so much crazy stuff, but again, it being Texas, every couple of years, or maybe ever seven years, every 10 years, we have one of these very, very wet Springs, crazy weather. 

Rick Green [00:02:54] Well, in fact, we even get to have, you know, people always look at me funny when I say, hey, come spend a month with us in July and in the evenings, we'll have some nights around the fire. And they're like, wait a minute, you're going to have a fire in Texas? And believe it or not, there will probably be one or two nights in July where the wind's blowing nice enough. And it's just cool enough that we can do a fire. We just did one last week. Of course, then it was a hundred degrees, you know, the next couple of days after that, but it's just crazy anyway, good stuff. But summer is definitely here and, uh, lots of opportunities for people to come spend time with us. And I go to one of the trainings and then some of it's, you know, in cool places like Boston and, and all kinds of cool stuff. Y'all are doing with the Wildman group and Steven McDowell. So I just encourage people, this is a great year to get out there and see some of these historical places and go to some of these programs as, as you help us celebrate the 250th. But a lot of folks have sent in questions guys. So we'll get to the first one. This one is from Andrew and he's talking about a four, four tie. I don't remember seeing this, but he's at a four four tie by the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling. That a publicly funded religious charter school is unconstitutional. This ruling blocked the creation of the nation's first religious charter of school. What in the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government the right to fund education of any kind, secular or non-secular? And what gives the government the right to determine curriculum and educate children in our nation? So some really good questions from Andrew. I mean, guys, it's been crazy busy. Maybe we even talked about it on the program and I just don't remember this case. And and he's exactly right to ask these questions the federal government shouldn't be involved in education But that's a lot of questions. Maybe maybe an update on the case if you guys are familiar with this case 

David Barton [00:04:25] Yeah, I am familiar with the case. It goes to Oklahoma, and there is so much drama in this case behind the scenes. So we're gonna get into a lot more than just answering the question. But essentially, you're going back to a lot of states now have school choice. And so with school choice, you can choose to put your bucks into, you know, religious or non-religious education, public, home school, whatever. Well, a lot states are also allowing charter schools to come on board. And Oklahoma is one of those that allows private charter schools you meet the standards for the state, but this was a private charter school that was a Catholic charter school. So it's a Catholic Charter School and the attorney general sues to say, no, no, we don't want any kind of state money going to any kind or religious stuff, which if you have school choice it does. But he said, and I've just got to point out, from my perspective, being in, I'm gonna. I'm gonna defer to my Oklahoma friends and say being in South Texas, or being in south Oklahoma. I'm in Texas, they consider that south Oklahoma, so being in Texas and looking at Oklahoma, they've got a lot of issues up there, I think, with their attorney general. We all know Superintendent of Public Instruction up there. And so when you look at what's happening with him and all the things that Ryan Walters has been doing, trying to get the Ten Commandments back and get the hostility gone out of the arena. It's been the attorney general who has fought him tooth and nail all the way. And so the attorney General has been fighting all the religious liberty stuff that we've seen Ron Walters try to do up there. He is now fighting this religious charter school. And it's the weirdest thing ever when the Supreme Court reached their decision and we'll hit that in just a second, but he said that all the tweets I saw from the attorney general, I read them and reread them and re read them, unless somehow they got posted wrong by him. He kept talking about how he was able to save Oklahoma from a radical Muslim school being started in Oklahoma. And it was a Catholic school being started in Oklahoma and he kept calling it a radical Muslims school. But what happened when it went to the Supreme Court and they get to the supreme court, it works its way through the lower courts and the Oklahoma Supreme Court tends to be fairly liberal. They're not like many of the red states and well actually there's a number of red states that have very blue courts. Kansas is another one but you have here in Oklahoma one that has a very red state with a really blue thinking court. And so this thing went through the Supreme Court. They was, it was appealed to the US Supreme Court at the US supreme court, the lower courts had said, no, you can't have a religious charter school in the state and the Supreme court came out with a four, four decision. And so they didn't rule for it. They didn't really against it. Amy Coney Barrett recused herself because she had some kind of a connection with, with some of the lower stuff that was coming up through it, and she said, look, I've got an interest in this, I have a connection with some of these people, I've gotta recuse myself. So what happened, it got to the Supreme Court, and the court did not rule for or against it, which means the lower court ruling stands, which means, the Supreme court of Oklahoma, it's bad ruling on this, is what is now standing. Now, that's the first part, that's how the case got there. The second part is, what's it have to do with the First Amendment, et cetera. This goes back to something we mentioned a couple weeks ago called the selective incorporation the Bill of Rights. This is where the federal government said hey up we're gonna take all the stuff that state area and we're going to pull it into the federal level and we are going to be in charge of all the state stuff we federal courts will now tell the states what they can and can't do with this when you go back to what the constitution says the question is ... Part of the question was what does the federal governor have to do with education the answer is nothing because in the constitution there are the seventeen enumerated powers that as here's what the feds can do. And some people say, well, it's not forbidden by the feds to have a hand in education, it's just not given to the fed. No, no, no. The 10th Amendment says, anything that's not explicitly given to you the fed is to belong with the states. So the fact that the Constitution does not give the fed's education means it is given to these states. It belongs to the states and that's where it's a state. So this should never have gone to the US Supreme Court except we're back into the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s with the Supreme Court said. We're going to reinterpret the federal constitution to allow us to tell the states what to do. So this is really, it sounds like a very complicated answer and I guess in some ways it is, but this goes back to a bad Supreme Court in Oklahoma that was not doing what they should have done at the state level. An attorney general who's been very hostile to religious expression in Oklahoma and then a Supreme Court that came with a 4-4 ruling. I think had Amy Coney Barrett been able to vote on this. Uh... They would have overturned the oklahoma supreme court ruling that the attorney general there's claim in a victory and it's not it's just the supreme court was not able to make a decision one way or the other 

Tim Barton [00:09:18] And to add on this too, it's possible that there was a Muslim school that was trying to do the same thing as potentially this Catholic school and he, maybe in Oklahoma, the attorney general was arguing, well, if this would have happened, it would have let this Muslim school start. So, I mean, there could have been some connection, some tertiary connection, but it doesn't change some of the underpinning facts of the case. And oftentimes we see politicians doing political things that is not always grounded in the facts of that specific situation. But to your point, this is something that surely is not confusing in the constitution. It shouldn't have been confusing in the state of Oklahoma for what's going on and this did not go the direction it should have constitutionally speaking and the fact that you have a split with four to four, again, is a reflection that even though president Trump was able to appoint several justices during his first term, some of those justices do not have the same originalist constitutionalist view, even though there's a lot of people that have been very excited by some of the rulings. And there have been some great rulings, however, there definitely are some more moderate of the appointments that Trump had where you really have three conservatives, three moderates and three liberals on the bench right now. And so it ultimately depends on which way the moderates fall in their decision. And in this situation, there was just not enough of support on upholding the very clear constitutionality of education belonging to the states. 

Rick Green [00:10:47] Excellent, next question is from Emmett. Emmett Bailey said, I'm an avid hunter and fisherman and I'm seeing a lot of uproar about a proposed amendment to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act that would result in up to 1.5 million acres of federal land in Utah and Nevada being sold off. While I understand the concern about accessing land to hunt and fish, I always thought the Constitution did not permit the feds from owning so much public land. What is the constitutional and founding perspective on public land? Thanks and God bless. Well guys, of course, I think he's referring to that constitutional provision. It says the federal government will provide Fishing and hunting land to all Americans. Oh, wait. No, no, I don't I don't remember that. No. I can't find it sorry, I dunno. What do you guys think? 

David Barton [00:11:30] Well, no, remember the founding fathers specifically had that debate in the constitution convention, because you remember John Adams was a great fly fisher, now Thomas Jefferson was really more to deep water fishing, but, but John liked the fly, wait a minute, maybe, maybe that wasn't it. 

Rick Green [00:11:46] The only fishing I could think of would be what you taught on in Constitutional Alive with the what was what was the one where they did the bailouts? Cod fishing. That's right. It was the cod fishing debate over bailing out the industry. Not only did they not think we should bail out an industry, they certainly didn't think we shouldn't hold up millions of acres of land so that people can go fish in HUD. eah, go ahead, man.

David Barton [00:12:08] What has happened here with the Trump administration is they're actually starting to keep the federal government's word because when these and we're talking now primarily in the western states is where all this federal land is held. I think I think, as I recall, Nevada has the most 87 percent of the state of Nevada land is owned by the federal government. So Nevada is really not Nevada. Nevada is the federal government loaning some land in Nevada. I think in Utah, 67 percent. But it's roughly two-thirds of all the Western lands belong to the federal government. That's a real problem because when those states became states, when they went from territory to state, the federal governments said we will give you all the land back, you're now a state, you're no longer a federal territory. And then they said, oh wait, we changed our mind, we wanna hold on to some of this federal land. So what you've done is you've deprived the state of much of its income. States like Texas and others, a lot of Western states. We use that land money to provide for education in the state. So state colleges, state universities, it generally comes out of land income, the income that comes off the land. In Texas, like many other Western states, we've got a big reserve of money and we just use the capital off that, or we use the proceeds off that capital and that's what we use to pay for Texas A&M University. And University of Texas, all these other state schools is out of that land fund. So what happens is the federal government had agreed to give these to the states. The territory went from the federal government to the state. And then the feds said, wait a minute, let us hold on to some of this. Now, I've got to say, and I'm glad that Emma asked the question, what's the constitutional founding perspective on public land? Because I've gotta say, you know, I really do appreciate the fact that Teddy Roosevelt set aside Yellowstone as a national park we can all see and that there is the Smoky Mountain National Park But that's not the constitutional founding perspective. And the fact that I may like to hunt or fish on public land, that's the constitutional perspective. That's a whole different issue. So when you go to what the constitution says and what is proper, it's supposed to belong to the states and that's what the Trump administration is doing right now, is actually doing what's been agreed to for more than a hundred years. They're just simply following through and this is another way that I think they're being very constitutional, although it may not be popular, it's constitutional. And by the way, this doesn't 

Tim Barton [00:14:31] mean that if the land goes to the states that the state can't then make it public land public grounds that people can still come and have access and hunt and fish it just it moves it to local control which is the whole point of what the founding fathers were largely trying to do that the Senate for the founding fathers I was attributed to Jefferson has been attributed to Abraham Lincoln also saying that the federal government should only do for us what we can't do for ourselves and we don't need the federal government to control land for us in this situation. Now at the local level, that can be a different situation because when it's a local, there's a lot better accountability because we see those people far more often than we see whoever the bureaucrats are in Washington, DC that so many of them are not elected. We've never seen the people that are over what kind of environmental things or land or Bureau of Land Management. I mean, all these different agencies that have say in what happens in quote unquote federal land. We've ever seen these people. We don't know who they are. And they certainly don't know us, and most of us that have grown up in the country would argue and articulate that these people who are putting any kind of governance, boundaries, policies, procedures, right, guidelines, laws, whatever we want to call them over the operation of land, most of them have never been out in the country to know the front end of a cow from the back end of the cow. I mean, genuinely, right? We're looking at people in the city telling us in the country. You guys need to do a better job of protecting the environment, etc, etc. And I'm looking at the people in the city going, you have no idea what happens when it comes to land management or population control, management of animals, etc., all of that to say it actually makes way more sense that it comes back to the local level, to the state level. And it doesn't mean that there might not then be a reason or argument to say, okay, well, if it comes the state-level, we want to make sure if it's in Montana, if it's Wyoming, if its in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, wherever it is, that we take some of this land, set it aside for a park where people have been using this as hunting ground for centuries, we wanna make sure it's protected and that the public still has access to it. You can do all of those things. You don't need the federal government to do that and the federal governments should not be able to control what is inside of the state. It should be state run, state controlled, state operated and that is clearly how it's laid out in the Constitution. 

David Barton [00:16:47] And I'll take you guys back even you know I guess it's three and a half decades now three decades back to Bill Clinton remember when they had the EP under Bill Clinton that says hey you know what if water runs across your land and goes into one of the waterways we have control of your land and so simply if it rains on my land and it runs through my land into a river somewhere which is going to that's the way God made the terrain it all goes downhill it's gonna come into some river they they claim they reclaiming control over private land. Where water was simply crossing private land to get into some waterway. So it's been the desire and the practice of the federal government to keep taking more and more and more, and Tim, as you just said, that was not their intent. It was to be part of the states, to go to the states. And so while this may not be something that excites fishermen and those who don't have their own land and won't want some type of park, the states do have parks. There's no question about that. And the states are definitely wanting to protect land and make sure it's available for their people. It's why you have some great state parks. But again, this going back to the question which is a great question because it's what is the constitutional and founding intent for that? And it's real clear that where the government is headed now is the right constitutional and original intent direction. 

Rick Green [00:18:02] Yeah, such a great question. Emmett, thank you for sending that in and great responses guys. So many things y'all hit on, uh, that people need to study more and more of. And, and, and of course, Tim, to your point, the States are still going to do parks. They're still going have hunting places. They're going to. Do all of those things and they do a much better job than the feds. So this is a win, win, when the more we can get it out of the fed's hands, get it into the state's hands. And then the States can sell off some of it. If they want to raise money, if they, you know, there's just so many things that should be those States. And to David's point, that's what was agreed to in the first place. So the feds are finally following through on the agreements made so many years ago quick break. We got time for a couple more questions today we'll be right back here listening to foundations freedom Thursday on the WallBuilders Show 

Rick Green [00:20:45] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Next one up is Christopher. He said, what is the legal and moral position for preaching in businesses and other privately owned properties? Does someone have the right to do that? And guys, I think Christopher might mean not the owner. Like I think we would all assume that absolutely the owner has the right do all these things. He's probably talking about sharing the gospel or in any way expressing your faith or sometimes people are just obnoxious about it and they don't you know recognize there's somebody else's business and so that's i think that might be what he's raising but if you want to address the whole thing whether you're the business owner or you're an employee of that business or maybe you just walked into that business 

David Barton [00:21:27] Well, I'm going to assume the scenario that it's something like a street preacher walking into a cafe and preaching the gospel inside the cafe, kind of what you're describing, Rick. And the real thing here is, can you go into someone's private property and exercise your constitutional rights on their private property, which is their constitutional right? And really the way the courts have dealt with this, which I think is the right way, is you can only do that if you have turned your private property into a public access type of a place. If you've turned your private property and say, hey, I welcome the public to come in and I've become a hotel where we do all sorts of conventions or whatever, then you've really kind of put yourself under the free speech umbrella of, you've gotta open it to all free speech. Now you can still control who comes in there, you can control ruckuses that go on, but you can't necessarily say, I don't like what you're saying, get off my property. Not if you have opened up as a public accommodation type of a thing. And so, if you're... If you're not a public accommodation, and just because you're a restaurant doesn't mean you're public accommodation. But if you have a practice, like a Walmart, of letting anybody come in and doing all sorts of stuff, unless you create a disruption, you can't kick them out and say, well, you're doing Baptist speech, and I only allow Catholic speech in my Walmart. That's not what you can do. So it really kind of depends on whether you've made your private thing into a public accommodation or whether you're keeping it private, like my home. Or WallBuilders or anything else, our businesses, Patriot Academy, we're not open to anybody to come in and do what they want on our premises unless we become a public accommodation type of place. 

Tim Barton [00:23:07] But I think with that, it even doesn't make a difference because a place like a On The Border, an Outback, a Texas Roadhouse, a Chili's, those are public accommodation, but they still have parameters around that. And if somebody comes in and are doing things to disrupt the business, to disrupt the service, to interfere with the customers, then it still would be the right of management or the owner to say, hey, this is not the appropriate time or place for that. Etc. Now, if it went outside of the sidewalk, again, the same thing, the sidewalk public access people coming in and out, is that permissible? Well, yes, so long as you are not preventing people from entering the establishment, it should be permissible, again depends on how disruptive you are. And if it's perceived that that person is driving away the business traffic that would potentially be coming in. So I do think there are a few more factors to consider in this. And it does dad go back to kind of what you were Morning out, it's. It's a level of constitutionality, however, the First Amendment, it specifically deals with the government not being able to tell you what you can and can't say, not a business owner inside of their business, which we've covered this some before too. If we're a business owners, we have the right to say, hey, here's our standards, here's are policy and procedures, here's, our code of conduct, the expectations for people that are gonna be here that work here when we're doing events, when... That is absolutely reasonable for those kinds of things to be in place. And that is very, very different when someone says, wait a second, you can't tell me that I can't use profanity inside your establishment. We'd say, yes, we can. In fact, we're gonna ask you to leave if you don't stop. Well, you, can't, tell me to leave. I have a first member right to be here. Not on private property, you do not. And if they say, well, you can't me what I can and can't say, I'm not the federal government. I am a private property owner. I'm a private business owner. And if you've come on my private property onto my business, then I can actually control and dictate and not to even be more extreme, but Rick, I would think that, and I'm asking you to jump in on this one, I would think that even goes higher and further when it comes to something like you guys do firearm training. And so obviously public can come, they sign up, they can take a course. And we encourage everybody to do that. But there's some pretty strict standards that surround that. And it's not about violating someone's First Amendment right. It's about, as a business owner, here's the way we conduct business for the sake and safety of everybody else. 

Rick Green [00:25:37] Yeah, man, you're exactly right. And, and I think, you know, sometimes not knowing our rights and not, you know, and, and now I'm talking about our people, right? There's sometimes people on our side, I've got a right to do this or right to do that, and they just don't think logically about it, um, and respecting the other person's rights. And certainly that's property owners rights. And, as you're saying, sometimes it's even a safety issue. Sometimes it's just, you know, listen, I don't, I don't owe you a platform, right. So that restaurant that we might want to go into and, you know, they, they haven't built that or done those things necessarily to give us a platform. There's others that might share their platform with us and want to do that. But yeah, it's a, it' part of that, you know, everybody screams about their rights, but remember with every right comes a responsibility. And so that right of free speech or that right, of freedom, religion, or those rights of conscience, that right to self-defense, every single one of them comes with a responsibility to respect your neighbors and respect other people's rights as well. So great questions today, everybody. Appreciate y'all sending them in. Be sure and send those to radio@wallbuilders.com radio@wallbuilder.com. And then be sure to tune in tomorrow. We've got a lot of great news to share with you. So good news Friday tomorrow. And then you can catch all of the radio programs at our website, WallBuilders.show. Thanks so much for listening today to the WallBuilders Show.