Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's a WallBuilder show on a Thursday and on Thursdays, we love hearing from you. So send your questions in radio at wallbuilders.com, radio at WallBuilders .com. We call it Foundations of Freedom Thursday. So, you know, gear your questions towards some sort of foundation question. I need a constitution, declaration, some application of biblical worldview to the principles and the policies and the legislation that's going on out there. And we'll get to as many of those as we can. We got quite a few today. We're going to try to get to first one's coming from Nicholas. By the way, I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And you can get more of our programming at WallBuilders.show wallbuilders.Show. And then our main website wallbuilders.com. Well, let's jump into Nicholas's question guys. First one is coming at us from Virginia. He said, good afternoon from Virginia hope you all are having a great day. Wanted to get your take on the penny going away. I know it's just a penny. He says. However, my concern is that one, now everything goes up because it has to be divisible by zero or five, and two, also there are multiple factions that have been trying to push us to an electronic currency, which I'm against. I thought once they are able to get rid of the penny, they will just continue to get rid of physical currency. Thank you, I appreciate your insight. And so guys, yeah, I mean, clearly it is just a penny, but there is definitely this movement towards electronic currency. What do you guys think? 

David Barton [00:01:30] Well, let's start with penny first. Part of the reason for getting rid of the penny is that last year, now wrap your mind around this guys, last year we minted 3.2 billion pennies in the United States. So 3. 2 billion and we did about the same the year before and the year before and year before. What are we doing with our pennies? Where are these suckers going? I mean, the fact that we have to mint 3. 2 billion last year. Sure, we got a rising population, But... Here's the deal, 3.2 billion last year and a penny didn't bring in a penny. It cost us 179 million more than what the penny brought in. So we're losing money with the penny and that's what Trump points to. He says, hey, this is not a good deal because it cost us more to produce the penny than what a penny brings in in the way of currency. 

Tim Barton [00:02:24] To clarify, when you're saying what the penny brings in, it's the value the penny is adding in the circulation. Right. The penny's not making us any money. It's not bringing us in money, but it costs far more than the value of the penny to produce a penny. And that was more of the argument is, we're not spending the 3. Whatever billion dollars to make 3.whatever billion worth of pennies. No, we're spending far more then the value of the pennies to produce the pennies and that's where Trump said, this doesn't make any sense, that we're spending so much money to use something that, you know, kind of to your point, the reason that we having to reproduce these so often is because the penny has lost its value and significance to so many people. It could be because of the inflation value of the dollar, but, and the fact that most people don't pay with cash anymore, there's pennies all over the place and there's not enough value to them in most circumstances for people to even pick them up off the ground when they see them. It's not like when... When I was growing up back in the 80s, if you saw a penny, you could pick it up and literally we had a little general store in the Aledo area where they had one cent and two cent piece of candies that you actually could use pennies and go buy something. That's not where it is anymore. And so the fact that we're having to spend so much more money than what the value of the penny actually is to produce these things that are being used far more often to throw on the ground than they are in any kind of exchange and value and purchase. It actually does make sense. Not that I don't have some of the similar concerns of saying that we're now getting rid of pennies and things will be just be added at more value. The price that will go up, which I think that's already going up regardless of the penny,  but also a digital currency. I understand the concern. I think there's validity to some of them concern, but just to clarify it, you're suggesting I just want to make sure nobody hears the word, and misinterprets what that value add is. We're not adding more or doing something that adds value to America. We are spending dollars and the dollars that we are spending are far more than what the penny is, the value of the penny, is worth. And so I totally understand where president Trump is coming from. And it does make sense in my mind in a lot of ways as well. 

David Barton [00:04:41] Now, within that framework of the fact, Trump's trying to look everywhere he can to cut money anywhere he can that is not being productive, and this is one of those areas. He's not looking at cutting the physical currency or the rest of the coins, just this one, where they're not getting the benefit federally, nationally, out of what they could. But CBDC, and by the way, I'm sorry, central bank digital currency is the non- That's the electronic currency, and it's known as CBDC, Central Bank Digital Currency, and that's been going for a number of years, and a lot of the globalists have been trying to do that type of electronic currency. It hasn't been gaining much, but it started gaining in Europe, and then over the last five or so years, there's been several states try to do something with it, and we've tried to get ahead of that in our legislative network, and so now a number states have passed laws that said, in our state, we will not recognize digital currency as a currency we're not going to get rid of physical money and if you try to do digital currency here this state where there's North Dakota wherever we're not going to recognize it here and so that is a movement among state legislators which they do not want the electronic takeover of money and finances and you can't control your own money and that's kind of a parallel movement but not really tied to the penny but it is a movement that's out there. And it's a movement of concern. It's a moment that WallBuilders with the legislative network, we've been fighting that now for several years. And some states have made good progress on that and other states are also jumping on board. So hopefully we can get that to where it doesn't have any legs anymore as well. 

Rick Green [00:06:21] Quick break, we'll be back in a moment on the WallBuilder show. 

Rick Green [00:07:31] Welcome back to the WallBuilder show. Thanks for staying with us, David. How do we, how do we balance that real quick before we move on to our other questions in terms of, you know, obviously using technology to our advantage and ease of transactions and all of that, what, what would be the principles that we fall back on here and it doesn't really come down to just making sure that you can still have the paper currency and the, and certainly even of course, this could lead into the discussion about the gold and transactional gold that's been adopted by several states i'm just curious like how to how to prepare for the continued push for the ease of the technology 

David Barton [00:08:10] Well, you go back to original intent and the founding fathers wanted you to base this on gold. This is a gold standard because that's something that does have value. Even in their day, at the time of the end of the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson lost some 92% of the value of his money because they went to paper currency. And in the American Revolution, that's the way the states generated money. They needed to contribute money to the military cause and do ships and do soldiers and whatever. And they didn't have the hard currency so they made paper currency and it sent inflation through the roof. So Thomas Jefferson went into debt by millions over the few years of the American Revolution simply because of paper currency. And that's why you'll see after the revolution when they get the constitution convention, they said, no, no we're not doing that. You have to have something hard, physical, and tangible to exchange. And when you move to electronics, it's out of your control. You no longer have something hard, physical, intangible to exchange, People control that for you if they want to shut you out then they can do that because you don't have access to your own assets. You can't get a hold of your own money you can get ahold of your on physical stuff and that's one of the reasons to resist that so paper currency in and of itself is not necessarily a good deal that's where you get a lot of inflation but particularly having gotten off the gold standard and gotten off of really metals to some degree and and you know if it wasn't gold alright, so maybe there's other metals you could use, platinum or silver or something, but those are things that have tangible value across time. Paper does not. And that was something the founding fathers were concerned with and we've allowed the nation to drift into that. Part of that happened back under Nixon, taking us off the gold standard and other things and we drifted that way and people have gotten used to it largely because they don't even understand the basic principles of economics that we used to teach in civics class. So we are not doing things to ensure our own future. And certainly when you get into debt and you're just printing more money to be able to generate more cash to say, well, that's not that big because we have more cash. It does nothing but what we're seeing now where that a cup of tea, I don't know, less than five years ago was under a buck and I paid for some this afternoon that was $3.83 at just a drive-through window on a quick food place. So just look at the price of something as simple as a soft drink or tea or whatever. And just in the last five years, you're looking at several hundred percent increase in that, and that's inflation. And that's the problem with going to a central bank digital currency, is you don't have control of your own money and it can be manipulated even more than currency can be. 

Rick Green [00:10:52] I wondered if you guys were as surprised as I was at how many states did the transactional gold as quickly as they did over the last few months, is that out of concern for exactly what you just said, you know, our legislators getting that and of course, Tim, you were going to all these state legislatures all over the country and probably running into Kevin Freeman as he's out there doing the same thing on the transactional gold bill. But I was just surprised at how much success we had there. 

Tim Barton [00:11:16] I agree. I think there was that much concern from various stage, recognizing what the federal reserve, uh inflation, what so much has happened to the value of the dollar and people are also looking back and seeing that as, as gold right now is incredibly high. Well, it's, it tracking far better with the market than what the dollar does. And so it does seem like There's, there's better security and background for it. I didn't think this year that we're going to see so many states going that direction. Um, and so I was surprised that that many went the direction. I wasn't surprised that there might've been one state, but we've seen several states accept and adopt this and many more that are working for that in the future. Um, so it, it, you're right. I definitely did see, uh, Kevin and Marty and, and some of their team as we were traveling the States. Uh, but I was also surprised how many states move that direction 

David Barton [00:12:10] You know, what's interesting is in most of the states, that measure was introduced by folks from the Freedom Caucus, which you would kind of expect, you know, they're the pro-constitutional, conservative, et cetera. But the Freedom caucus in most states is only somewhere between 10 and 20% of the legislature. There's not enough Freedom caucus guys to pass an economic measure like that. This was something they caught on with mainstream legislators that are not part of the Freedom caucas, not necessarily a conservative, caught on with moderates and others. Which says something about the large concern that there actually is in the states and not just with conservatives, but just people in general over the direction of the economy and the excessive spending and debt and inflation, et cetera. That's what I found fascinating. It was, as you mentioned, how quickly it passed so many states. And it wasn't often on conservative bills, whether it's abortion or anything else, 10 commandments. Sometimes you have to hammer on it three or four or five sessions and slowly gain people to your side until you get a majority. But this is stuff that went through the first time it was introduced, which kind of says a lot about maybe where people are and their thinking is and it might be more healthy than within the we often think sometimes. 

Rick Green [00:13:24] I wish I could have hit the road with you guys in my mind. I was imagining that y'all were hitting all these state capitals and you know, Tim and David are running down the hallway this way. Kevin and Marney are running down the hall with the other way. And Kevin and Marney are saying, Hey, David and Tim come testify on this bill. And y'alls saying, hey, y'a'll come testify, I could only imagine it was a busy, busy time and y'yall were able to get to so many states in a short period of time, just a lot of victories from our pro family legislators is this session. And as you mentioned, the freedom caucus is small, but man, so many of our pro-family legislators had great success with legislation this year. So God really smiled on us on that. Okay, quick break. We got more questions coming up from our audience. If you want to send some of those in, you can email them to radio at wallbuilders.com. That's radio at Wallbuilders.com. We'll be right back on the wallbuilder show. 

Rick Green [00:15:13] Welcome back to the Wallbuilder show. Thanks for staying with us. John Beck has the next question. He said, I recently heard Senator Murkowski make a comment that I fight for my state's interests. I hear that often. Is that really the role of a U.S. Senator? I realized that they represent their state, but it seems that their primary duty is to do what's best for the people of the United States, which may sometimes conflict with their own state. Can you clarify? Okay. Great question here, guys actually gets asked a lot in terms of, you know, when people say I'm just going to vote whatever my district wants. Do they put their principles aside do they put aside what's best for the whole country what do you think the right approach is. 

David Barton [00:15:47] Yeah, this goes back to checks and balances and federalism. The founding fathers designed the state to be able to check and balance the feds. And when they created the bicameral system, the House and the Senate, it really reflects the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in the Constitution. The Ninth Amendment is that it's there to retain the people's rights and the Tenth Amendment is there to retain to the state's rights. And so the House of Representatives was seen as the people body and the Senate was seen as the state's body. And so when you were chosen from the state, you were there to represent your state and to fight for your state and to make sure the feds didn't take over things that deal with the states and keep the fed's in their box. Over time, the fed have become a super house of representatives. That really goes back kind of to the 16th amendment where we started having a direct election of senators. Prior to that amendment, and now when you do direct election senators, it's like running for the super house of representatives But back in the day before that constitutional amendment back in the early 1900s, we've gone a century and a half and it was the state legislatures that appointed the senators to represent that state. So if you're in Texas, the Texas legislature would point the two senators to represent the state at the federal body. If you're In California, if you are in Delaware, if you're any other state, that's the way it worked. So the concept of actually upholding the states is what it was originally designed to do. But what's happened is it has become a super house of representatives since we've gone to direct election senators. And I'm not saying that I want to go back to states appointing them. One of the reasons they got away from that was you started seeing a lot of money happen in state legislatures. And hey, I'll fund all you guys campaign if you'll make me U.S. Senator. And that was just not the way it was designed to be. So as you lose character and you lose the basis that Washington identified as religion and morality and you start appointing people just for economics or because of their own pride or. Because they want to do something great in life or whatever, then you start losing what the original intent was. But the original tent was, this is the safeguard against the federal government getting into the state stuff. And the house was to keep the federal governor from getting into people's stuff. And so that, and obviously they're going to do federal stuff that did to all 50 states, but their primary purpose was to protect the people and to protect states from intrusion by the federal garment beyond that which the constitution allowed. 

Rick Green [00:18:15] All right, well, our next one comes from Matt and I, this is, this is good guys, cause this is a hot debate today. And we always say we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a Biblical historical and constitutional perspective, his specifically has to do with our school system. So Matt says, Hey guys, I love your show. I was reading a book by John Gatto called weapons of mass instruction. That's a great title. Whoever came up with that, I guess John got to did, apparently our school system is not part of what the founding fathers envisioned. What would they suggest if they were alive today? Weapons of mass instruction, guys. Great way to frame it. How did the founders design the school system? 

David Barton [00:18:53] Yeah, you know, it really is what we've been talking about with the previous two questions. It goes back to the constitution and education is a state issue. Founding fathers doesn't have any trouble with government funded education, as long as it was state funding education in that state. And so they had school taxes per se. Uh, back in that day, they had, they have ways of paying taxes, but you had the state, whether it's Massachusetts or whether it was Georgia, whether it is Kansas or wherever. They were the ones that funded education. It just was not federal education. And what we've seen, particularly in the Biden administration that Trump is rolling back, is what the founders feared. And that is the federal government is now being able to control the content of education by offering money. And so all the grants we saw that went for DEI and that went through all the gender stuff, that's how they wanted, really, a federal education initiative to go forward. Is we'll give you money and you do what we ask in content, we'll you give you the money. That is against what the founders wanted. They wanted all of the states to control education. And in some states you do have education that is much more state-centric, and in some states, particularly western states, it's much more local-centric. So if you're in Massachusetts, you're gonna have a state board of education that is onerous and controls everything. And if you are in Wyoming, you're going to have a lot of one-room schoolhouses that let the local community do it. So that was up to the states to be able to do that. The Founding Fathers did not have a problem with education. They had a problem with the federal government funding education. They didn't have trouble with state funding of it and the state operated it and the State controlling it. That was fine, but they definitely didn't want the feds in that area. 

Tim Barton [00:20:38] Well, I think also it's worth pointing out that so much of the pegogy, the way it's done today, dad, not only from the, structure of who's controlling things, uh, who's directing things, but, but even the layout that this week we've, we've been doing teachers conference training over at, at Mercury one all week, we got more training tomorrow goes on through Saturday. And as we're navigating with these teachers, so much of that, the philosophy of what the founders intended has changed as well. The Founding Fathers believed that education is centered around religion, morality, and knowledge, that religion was the foundation. And by religion, they were very clear that it was Christianity, it was the Bible, because that's where those morals came from. It was religion, then morality, and then knowledge. And if you look back to early instruction, the fact that, for example, the New England primer was, or the primer, depending on where you're from, how you pronounce that, but it was, the foundational beginning textbook. And so when you start level one, That was what you had to go through. And it was profoundly religious. All of the instruction, the things they had to memorize, the catechisms they had go through as you continued on and you were learning to read and you went through McGuffey's readers, which sold over a hundred million additions of the McGuffee readers. It had so much religious content, religious stories that kids are getting. And so what you see is especially in the first foundational levels, one through four, that religion and morality were a very core part of the instruction. And it's not till really you get to the upper levels that not only is there a crazy amount of knowledge that students are taking in and processing, but they're doing it after there's been a very religious and moral foundation laid, again, from the Bible and Christianity. And then it's also worth pointing out that for the founding fathers, one of their key themes, understanding and education was teaching students how to think. And this is very different. When progressives took over, they said, we want to make sure students have learned certain things. And so they need to be able to memorize and repeat these things. And instead of teaching them how to think, they taught them what to think. What to repeat. And the founding fathers, certainly they believed in inalienable rights and fundamental truths. They said, we owe these truths to be self-evident. They believe truth existed, but they also wanted to challenge people to be thinkers, not just memorizers and repeaters. And when progressive took over in the early 1900s, They introduce different concepts like a multiple choice, a true fault, a fill in the blank, and they begin programming students to memorize and repeat, just do what you're told, don't think through, don't problem solve. And so these were just a couple of examples of religion, morality, and knowledge, and thinking skills, but as we look back at education, not only would the founders have a different idea of the way education should be structured, but also the way that education should operate, which is fundamentally, incredibly different from the way it's done today. 

Rick Green [00:23:35] Alright guys final question of the day comes from Mikey said, Alexi de Tocqueville wrote a two volume book titled the Republic of the United States of America and its political institutions reviewed and examined translated by Henry Reeves in 1851. David Barton shows a copy of it in his video series, the American heritage series and building on the American Heritage series chat GPT says it's the same as democracy in America saying that the two volume original is included in its entirety in the one volume paper, A paperback democracy in america discussion with. Duck.AI describes the book with no mention of Republic. What's the truth of the matter? Our guy. So I would, he's really getting down to it is did, did Tocqueville use the word Republic, we know he used the word democracy and how did he come up with the difference between those two and describing America. 

Tim Barton [00:24:22] Yeah, his, his writing was actually a two part series and it was the Republic of the United States of America. And the second part was Democracy in America. And both portions are in what in America was printed entitled democracy in America, it has both portions, part a and part B part one, part two. And part one was the Republic of United States, of America, and, and that's where a lot of people today, when they look at America and even And they think that Alexia Tocqueville is supporting the position that they would take today that America is a democracy. Well, that's not correct at all. He was acknowledging that there are democratic principles that allow people the engagement opportunity, that they are part of the system. But this is only after you've gone through the first section of his work, which is the Republic of the United States of America, where he lays out the Republican system and how it operates and functions, etc. And so this is definitely something that, depending on which edition you have, if you have an abridged edition it might not have the title of the two portions because it's just putting them together, but if you go back to any of the early printings and even, even some of the modern printings will still show there are two parts and it will show the Republic of the United States of America, and then it will show democracy in America that is not something that is generally in my mind, debated or controversial. So I don't know why it wouldn't be acknowledged, but yes, if you put it in the Republic of the United States of America, elected to Tocqueville, it would identify that as being part of democracy in America because that was part one of a two-part series that ultimately got the final title when it was printed in America, because remember he didn't print in English. He printed this over in France. When it was translated and printed in America, it got that final title democracy in America. But it does have two parts, and the first part is the Republic of the United States of America. 

Rick Green [00:26:13] Alright guys, out of time for today, lots of great questions, appreciate everybody sending those in. If you've got some, send them radio at wallbuilders.com and then of course share the program with your friends and family. You can do that by going to wallbuilder.show. Just grab the links there, send it out to friends and families, post it everywhere that you can and then go to wallbuilders.com so that you get some of the cool stuff available on the website right now today and then also find out about some of our events coming up throughout the rest of this year. Sure appreciate you joining us today, you've been listening to The WallBuilder Show.