Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's The WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Got a special programming for you this week that is essentially the launch of our Rebuilding Liberty campaign going into the 250th. We've been talking about the 250 a lot here on WallBuilders. We've, of course, been working with the White House and organizations across the country to establish some really cool celebrations, not only on July 4th, 2026, which is the 250. But between now and then, by the way, Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, here with David and Tim Barton. And our goal is to make sure that there's a foundation laid that is strong. We can't just have a renewal of patriotism in America. We've got to have informed patriotism in America, and so what you're about to hear is a brand new course being released by Patriot Academy and WallBuilders and several partner organizations called Rebuilding Liberty. It's gonna be full of action items. It's going to be action, action, action this year, folks, all the way between now and the 250th. So get ready, buckle up, let's dive in to Rebuilding Liberty. The purpose of this course is to make sure that they know why that flag is worthy of being waved. 

Tim Barton [00:01:18] Wherever you are watching from, we're not rebuilding a structure without giving the right foundation. 

Speaker [00:01:27] And our burden should be to transform a moment into a movement. The entire globe is moving towards the right. 

David Barton [00:01:38] Recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States. I thought our founding fathers were much atheists, agnostics, and deists who wanted a secular public square who didn't want the Bible in schools. 

Speaker [00:01:47] Fight like it's your last breath! 

Speaker [00:01:50] But know this, the truth is over the facts that God's not giving you a spirit of fear but of the power of love and a sound mind. What do I want my legacy to be on the way out? 

Speaker [00:01:58] That I was safe or that I was dangerous. 

Speaker [00:02:01] No, this nation is not perfect. I'll take America over any other country or nation on the face of this planet. How about you? 

Rick Green [00:02:16] Welcome to Rebuilding Liberty. 431 days from the time we're filming this class, America is gonna be celebrating our 250th birthday. 250 years. Now, most Americans are gonna be waving the flag. Some of them for the first time in years, some of them, for the time in their lives. The purpose of this course is to make sure that they know why that flag is worthy of being waved. We don't want to just celebrate on July 4th, 2026. We want to know what we're celebrating. We want know what it is that we're fighting for. We want what it that we are passing to our children and our grandchildren. And we've gotten pretty close to losing what Ronald Reagan called informed patriotism. See, it's not enough just to have a renewed patriotism and wave the flag. We got to have informed patriot, understanding who we are and what we are about. And so Rebuilding Liberty is about educating the nation, not just waiting for the 250th so that we can have a bunch of hot dogs celebrations, which we plan to do, but to have a celebration that's based on an understanding of who we are. Ronald Reagan, I said, you know, years ago, warned about this was actually 40 years ago. This was, well, it was January 11th, 1989, almost 40 years ago he said, if we forget what we did, we won't know who we and you think about it, that's kind of what happened to America. We stopped telling the stories of what we did, so we forgot who we are. And so we started falling for socialism and Marxism and all these things that really aren't the American way of life at all. And he saw that coming. We we forgot to tell the stories. We forgot to do the hard work. And so he warned us. He said, I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that would lead to an erosion of the Americans spirit. In other words, it would get rid of the patriotism that we used to have. So we lost our memory and then we lost our spirit and that's what led to the problems that we have and of course that's kind of the natural way of things. I mean that's the cycle of nations. Tough times make tough men, tough men make good times, good times make soft men, soft men lead to tough times and unfortunately that's usually a 250 year cycle. So here we are. We're about to celebrate the 250th of our nation and the question is still outstanding. Will we be celebrating or will we be mourning that celebration? I think all things are pointing towards a celebration. I think if we get this class in enough hands and people get educated about what we're and they act on that? Then we will definitely be celebrating. If you look at what Reagan said to prevent this from happening, he said, we got to start with some basics. We got to have more emphasis on history. So if we know our American history, that will help prevent this. But then he said something I really like. He said, We need to have more civic ritual, if only there was some big date coming up. You know, some some major milestone in America's history, if only it was a document. That we could celebrate and talk about, you know, maybe like a, I don't know, a document that maybe would just kind of lay out the biblical principles of liberty, maybe talk about things like the Creator, maybe talked about truth. Perhaps even talk about life, liberty. It'd be nice if there was just a document that actually talked about when your government gets out of control and starts preventing those things, that you get to alter or abolish it. That that's part of consent of the government. That's our job. If only there was a young 33-year-old wordsmith that would put together a document like that and maybe get 55 other guys to sign the document pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, then perhaps we would have an opportunity for civic ritual. Of course, we've got a great opportunity for a civic ritual! It's the 250th birthday of the nation. Why don't we get the document out and actually talk about what that 33-year-old wrote? Because he actually gave us the formula for liberty. He showed us what we could do, not only at that time, to birth a nation in freedom. But how to preserve a nation in freedom and how to properly pass the torch of freedom. So we're going to break that down as we talk about rebuilding liberty. He started with these words, he said, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political managers that have connected them to another and to assume among the powers of the earth that separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitles them, a decent respect to the opinion of mankind requires that they declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights among these their life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Now, even right there, we've already given the frame of America. Jefferson has already laid out for us why they were impelled to the separation and why they declared to the world it was a decent respect to the opinion of mankind. He talks about the laws of nature and nature's God. He lays out the foundation that we would build this government on. But then he gave us the secret formula for why we get to prevent the fall of our nation and actually rebuild liberty in our nation. He said that when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends. What ends? Truth, the laws of nature and nature's God, the ability to even call upon the Creator or to recognize that our freedom comes from the Creator, destructive of the ends of elections of being able to give or refuse consent, destructive of ability to declare causes, to have the free speech to talk about these things, that when any form of government becomes destructive of these things it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. Now, those might be fighting words to some folks out there, but he was pretty clear you don't have to alter or abolish the whole thing. They had to at that time, but we don't to because they set in place a system where we can alter our government back to the way it was intended to be. We can abolish those parts of our government that are not what our government was intended to be or what we've ever even given our consent for or even if we did give our consent for it and we change our mind, we have the ability to abolish that particular part of government. So the ability to alter or abolish government, and to institute new government laying, as we said, its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms as shall to them seem the most likely to affect their safety and happiness, that means that we get to design our government in a way. Where we know what the principles are that will make it strong, that will give us a strong foundation, and we get to organize the powers. In other words, we get the decide who gets to decide on each issue. We organize the power of our government so that federal government gets to make some of the decisions, state government makes some of decisions, local government, but most of the time we make the decisions. Self-government, the family, the individual unit, the church, the community. And if we organize those powers correctly, we'll experience the benefits of liberty and wealth and prosperity and all the things that everybody says they want. You know, everybody says, I want life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But if we go back to those words, what were the bookends that made that possible? Truth is the foundation. We hold these truths to be self-evident. And then the recognition that there is a Creator. You know as Jefferson actually said that we're endowed by our... You think your rights come from God? Why, are you a bunch of Christian nationalists? I mean, apparently that's what they tell us a Christian nationalist is. These people actually think their freedom comes from God. It's exactly what Jefferson said. He actually said our freedom comes from God, which means we must live our freedom respecting the authority of God. So this idea that there is truth, that there's a Creator, that there a pursuit, not a guarantee, of happiness, that there there is a system that we get to give or refuse consent for, that's the beginning of this nation. That's what we're going to celebrate on the 250th. Now, Jefferson warned, he said, prudence indeed will dictate the government's long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. Accordingly, all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable. Than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. When a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing inevitably the same object events is designed to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is there duty to throw off such government and institute new guards for their future security. I kind of reached that point myself, how about you? We're basically sad, okay, we've dealt with this, we've suffered these evils long enough. And I think the American people did the same thing. I think there was just a collective, enough is enough in this country, where we said we really do need to rebuild liberty. That it's time for us to actually think about what kind of society we want to live in. Because we had freedom for so long, you know, we got spoiled, right? We enjoyed it. We just kind of got lazy. We got fat and happy, right, and we're just enjoying all these things and we weren't having to think about what are the inputs that actually produce the outputs that we want? Well, that's why I believe the 250th birthday of our nation gives us the chance to remind everyone what those inputs are. The semi-sinquintennial, I had to practice that in front of the mirror. A lot this morning. I want you to be impressed because that was seven syllables. Okay, for a country boy like me, they graduated in that half of the class that made the top half possible. Saying any word that is seven syllables is quite impressive. Semi-quin-centennial. Did I even say it right the first time? I think I said semi-sin-quintennial. Anyway, semi-quincentennial is the right way to say you're gonna hear that a lot over the next year. Maybe not me, since I'm gonna mess it up most of the times that I say it. But the point is we have a chance right now to rebuild liberty in this country in a way that I don't think we've ever seen in my lifetime. There's gonna be a focus on this for the next 431 days as of tonight. A focus where people will listen to us as we talk about the right bricks to lay. You know, I've been fortunate enough to work with David and Tim Barton and wall builders for a couple of decades now, and the name of their organization is WallBuilders. And I thought for these last two decades, we were rebuilding the walls. Turns out we've been in the second chapter of Nehemiah convincing the king to let us go rebuild the walls, the American people, of course, being the king in America. And I think they're ready. I think like King Artaxerxes, they're saying, go, go rebuild. I think they're saying, we'll give you the support. We'll even come alongside you and help you build. And so what we're going to do with this course is teach people the right bricks to lay, the right mortar to use, and the right skills for how to rebuild that wall in our country, that foundation in our countries in such a strong way that we don't just get a few golden years. We get several golden generations that we're able to pass this intact to our children and our grandchildren. We're able pass the torch of freedom so that it doesn't go out, but it actually burns even brighter. This is a window of opportunity like nothing we've ever had in my lifetime for sure. So I'm just going to paint the big picture for you real quick and then bring up our first special guest in our course. And in this kind of 30,000 feet view we're going to look at, we'll just kind of show you what the bricks are. In other words, what are the building blocks that are important for us to all be a part of building over the next year or so? And then how do we get other people to do the same thing? How can we be force multipliers so that this thing grows in a mighty way? So with a number one brick. That we start with. The number one building block is right there at the beginning, right there in the declaration. We hold these truths. So we have to begin with truth. And that's the foundation upon which we will build. That's the principles upon which will build the foundation. So we have to recognize there is a truth. You know, this whole moral relativism thing that took root about 60 years ago in this country, that's what led us down this road to where we don't even know what a woman is. We've gotten so confused about even basic biology, and the American people again have said, enough is enough. Let's get back to truth. Well, we have the truth. Now we got to spread the truth, we got to speak that truth and teach as many people as we possibly can about that truth. Second brick we're going to really spend a lot of time on is, of course, the Creator. The fact that God's not just in the equation, that's the only reason our equation works. And of course, we see references to this throughout our declaration that we'll be celebrating laws of nature, nature's God, the fact that all men are created equal, we're endowed by our creator. So we'll spend time on that and we'll talk about the importance of that and how we play that out. And then of course already mentioned pursuit of happiness. That's a third brick. And that's The Free Enterprise System. It's so important for us to recognize free enterprise works. I mean, all you got to do is look at history. And every time that you move towards socialism, you destroy a country. It does not work. It has never worked. Socialism, Marxism, whatever ism name you want to give to it, it destroys a culture. And we've got to get back to having some faith and some belief in Adam Smith's invisible hand. The fact that all of us making individual decisions will produce a better result. Than some government control of our land or our products or our pricing or our labor or any of those things. Government should have nothing to do with any of those things so we've got to restore that pursuit of happiness. Consent of the governed. We've got to equip ourselves once again to say I'm in charge so I got to be willing to give consent and I got be willing to refuse consent. I gotta be willing to stand up and say no to government officials and gotta be willing to do the hard work that it takes to say yes. In other words, I gotta be willing to show up at the school board meeting or the city council meeting or or maybe even run for the legislature or whatever it might be but we've got to learn to give or refuse consent. Consent of the governed is a vital vital part of how our system works in the first place. Instead of being disposed to suffer, we're done with suffering and it's time to stand up. And it's going to it's not going to come easy. So this is not we're not just going to get to, you know, go to go to a class a couple of nights a week and and then say, OK, this is done. No, this. Is our time to say it is our right. It is our duty to do this. We have a responsibility to alter or abolish, which will be one of the bricks that we build with. But we got to have the right mindset. So I say we got the right bricks, got to the right mortar, got to right mindset as well. And building can be a little risky. Being willing to stand up and speak the truth can be risky to our reputation, maybe even to our job, but we got to stop playing it safe in this country. We bought into this safety as an idea that somehow, if we play it safe, that we'll be able to continue to be free. If you value your safety more than your liberty, if you're willing to give up your liberty for safety, then you deserve neither liberty or safety. And so we got stop just loving this, the safety ism thing and, and always trying to play it, safe, play it safe, plays it safe as nothing about the American dream. That happened because we played it safe. It's because people were willing to risk. They were willing to put the elbow grease in. They were willing to to do the hard work and take the chance in order to have the success. And safety is not a value. It can be a goal. I'm not saying we ought to be just stupid about how we do things. But the point is this whole idea of safety is the reason I had to pull over. The reason it bothered me so much is because when I drove by that sign, it was just a couple of months after an event in Texas where because safety had become the highest value. We had a hundred police officers with bulletproof vest and ballistic shields cowering on the other side of the door while a maniac was murdering children in a school because the commanding officer valued safety more than he valued virtue. He wasn't willing to do what needed to be done to stop the threat. If safety is your highest value, you cower in your home. From a virus, you got a 99.9% chance of survival. When safety is the highest value it destroys a culture. So we've got to stop loving safety. Alright, quick break folks will be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilder Show. 

Rick Green [00:18:14] Welcome back to the wall builder show. We are listening to the rebuilding Liberty course brand new course being released by Patriot Academy and WallBuilders and some of our partner organizations. You can get it at PatriotAcademy.com right now. You can sign up free as a host or coach and schedule one of these four week classes. So it's four weeks, less than an hour each week of video teaching with David Barton, Tim Barton myself, Chris Dunham, a bunch of other folks. And and you can even do an online zoom class strongly encourage you to plan one of those for your community but let's dive right back in to the first week of rebuilding liberty 

Speaker [00:18:47] Courage, it's hard to have without fear, without challenge. That's what I tell young people. But know this, the truth is over the facts that God's not giving you a spirit of fear but a power of love and a sound mind. And that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. I love what you said, brother, about being safe. Listen, we'd be doing these missions, boom, boom. I would just hear again and again, be safe, be safe, be safe. And at a certain point, I'm just kind of like, ugh. So I just, I can't be safe. Inherently, the work that I do, what I'm called to as a missionary to do high-risk work is there is no safety in it. If I wanted to be safe, I would stay home. But even still, can I not slip on a curb, back up, get hit, have a bird kamikaze me in my eyeball, I don't know. I just said, look, I'll be careful. But I'm trained and I'm not the one that has to worry. Anybody that comes against me to stop the will of God should worry. 

Rick Green [00:20:00] So we gotta get back to being willing to be dangerous. And what I mean by that is, is you gotta be willing to put your reputation on the line. That's the kind of dangerous I'm talking about. You gotta be willin' to stand up in your community and give or refuse consent and no longer play it safe. Oh, I just wanna be nice. I just want everybody to like me. Ain't gonna work, folks. You're gonna be passing tyranny to your children instead of passing liberty to your children. We gotta be wiling to be danger so if we're gonna save this country. All right, couple more bricks and then we'll bring up our guest for tonight. Alter or Abolish. I love those words in the Declaration of Independence. Again, as I said earlier, we don't have to abolish government completely, but we gotta change our mindset to be willing to go against the status quo. Not to assume that because some government agencies existed for 20 years or 50 years or even 100 years. That it's a legitimate function of government or that we need it to happen. I think there's a moment right now where finally for the first time in my lifetime, people are willing to question not just how much money an agency spends or how well they spend it, but whether or not the agency should exist at all. That's the kind of thinking we got to have. What is the proper role of government? Whether it's federal, state, whatever it might be. I mean, at the federal level, how about we abolish the Department of Education, or as I call it, the Department Of Indoctrination? We don't need the federal government telling us how to do education. In fact, I would argue that anything the federal is doing that we're already doing at the state level, stop doing it at the federal level. We don't need you. Department of Agriculture could go away. The Department of Meddling, which is otherwise known as the Department of Labor, violates the biblical, violates constitutional, violets any principle of liberty, the idea that the government's going to tell you how much you have to pay me to come mow your lawn or to work for you or to sell my time to you and that I have to work for that amount, I can't work for less or for... I mean, it's ridiculous. Let's get government out of the business of micromanaging our relationships. I definitely think we should get rid of the Center for Demented Confusion and Disease Creation. I mean, it's not constitutional in the first place. They've done nothing but mess up everything that they put their hands to. And at the local government, these land control freaks, you know, you've heard the expression control freak, these are land control freak. They actually think they know better than you what to do with your land. It's got to stop, and we've bought this lie for too long. Again, you've got to challenge the status quo and stop thinking that, oh, that local government engineer is saving me from having my neighbor do something that I don't like. No, they're preventing you from living out your pursuit of happiness with your land. These things have got to change. We've got abolish them. All right, I'm getting too far into the weeds for our first night. We'll do that a little later in the coming weeks. You already know this one. Free speech was nearly killed in this country over the last few years. Think about it. Without the ability to have the declaration declare the causes, to list those 27 grievances, that's free speech. That's the ability to say this is what we're against. This is what were for. We've got to have that kind of civil discourse. They literally submitted it to a candid world. I mean, these are the words from the Declaration of Independence that's beginning that concept, those rights of consciousness being ingrained in us as a country. Petitioning for a redress. I mean, this is being involved. You've got be willing to stand up and speak your mind. So we either have civil discourse or we have civil war. And I believe now we're finally veering back towards civil discourse. We were headed towards civil war in this country, and now we finally started embracing free speech. We got people that are willing to sit down together that are very different. Let's have those conversations and talk about why we disagree. OK, two more bricks. Life and liberty absolutely require blind equal justice. That's biblical justice. Biblical justice says neither Jew nor Greek, neither rich nor poor. Right. We don't have we don't treat people different in the courtroom because they belong to a particular political party or because they protested with a particular group. We should treat everybody the same under the law. That's a biblical idea of justice. It's the opposite of social justice. And so we have to get back to the biblical foundations of what made our country great. And that brick is absolutely essential for us to save the country. And boy, we could go through a lot of phrases in the declaration with regard to this one. In fact, just a few of them. He's obstructed justice. He's combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws. I mean, think about what they tried to do to submit our health care to international organizations over the last couple of years. They attempted to do exactly that. Submit us or subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, Jefferson's so good, listen to what he said, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation. I mean that's what it would have been had we allowed that to happen. Thankfully it was stopped, but you know, depriving trial by jury. I mean all of those examples in the Declaration of Independence, there's so many of them that have happened in just the last few years. The last brick, patriotism. This is such an important piece of what makes a nation strong. And like we said, it was dying. I mean, just like Reagan warned, it was dying in our country. And it's on the comeback. So we want to teach a patriotism that is informed. We want to put literally four million more people through our Constitution classes. We've already put a million through our classes. But if we're going to make this thing happen, if we are going to restore patriotism in our country, if we were going to rebuild liberty, there's your metrics right there. We need five million informed patriots. That's 3% of the presidential voting population. That's enough to push the whole nation the right direction. We've already done a million of them. So we only need four million more. We need 100,000 constitution coaches and hosts. That's people just like you, inviting people over to your living room or your church or wherever it might be and doing this class. We've all ready got 30,175 of those. 10,000 candidates. We've got hundreds and hundreds of candidates. People that have gone through our courses and now are serving in Congress. We got about a dozen that are serving in Congress that have been through our classes. We got state legislatures all over the country. We got hundreds of school board members and city council members and county commissioners. We need 10,00. And then this may sound like a big number to you, but here's our goal with Rebuilding Liberty. 5,000 celebrations on July 4th, 2026. Now, that may sound like a lot to you. There's 20,000 communities, according to the Census Bureau, that have 500 or more people, 20, 000. So we're only talking about getting 25% of them to have some sort of celebration on July 4th, 2026. That wouldn't even get you in the Hall of Fame in baseball if you were only batting 250, okay? But we're gonna do it. We're gonna get at least 25%. So I don't wanna hear any, you know, like the 10 spies that came back from any whiners out there saying, Rick, that's too much, it's too hard, the giants are too big, the cities are too fortified. None of that junk, we're going to get this done. God has given us the land. Let's go take the land we need to be like Joshua and Caleb. That's what's going to take to do things this big Our folks we're out of time for today We'll get the conclusion of that first week of rebuilding liberty tomorrow here on the wall builder show and throughout this week We'll be sharing this course with you If you want to see the videos of the course go to patriotacademy.com get signed up as a host or coach And you'll have the entire course in your dashboard and you can stream those videos Anytime and then we've got thumb drives and all kinds of other stuff coming soon You'll be able to get those at wall builders comm or at Patriot Academy Comm we sure appreciate you listening today. You've been listening to the WallBuilder show