Rick Green [00:00:07] You found us at the intersection of faith and culture. It's the wall builder show on a Thursday, which means we're doing foundations of freedom Thursday. If you would like to help drive the conversation, you can send your questions to radio@wallbuilders.com radio@wallbuilders.com. It can be a constitutional question, maybe something that Trump administration's doing or your local government question about the jurisdictions of government, whatever it might be, send it on radio@wallbuilder.com Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And they are gonna take a stab at each of these questions we're gonna try to get to today. The first one's a short question, guys. Carl said, what are the true origins of the left-right political associations in the US? So how did we come up with the concept of left, you're on the left or you're the right? And of course today most people associate Republicans to the right and Democrats to the left, but where did we get this whole left- right thing? What created the intersection? 

David Barton [00:00:59] Well, you know, it's a great question and it is a really a subjective answer in a lot of ways. If you're in the U.S. House of Representatives and you're a member of the House and you are looking up at the speaker, then those that are on the right, as you look at the speaker, are the Republicans and those on the left are the liberals or the Democrats or whatever we want to call them now. But if you turn it around and you're the speaker looking out When you look at your Republicans, they're on the left. And when you look at the Democrats, they are on the right. So the perspective is who's looking at it and from where. So this really goes back to the American Revolution but it doesn't have much to do with America. It has to do with the downstream effects of the American revolution. After the American Revolution, other nations started saying, hey, this is a good deal. Let's get rid of our king. Let's go to a representative form of government. One of those nations was France, who had been our ally. And so France came up with their original constitution in 1789. Now, the deal is, even though they got rid of monarchs and they went to representative government, they've had 15 constitutions in the same time we've had one. We both did our constitutions at 1789, ours has worked, theirs hasn't. Big difference there and foundations are a lot of it. French absolutely rejected religion and morality. George Washington said, ours won't work if you reject religion and morality. That's the big difference. But going back to the French, as they were debating on getting rid of the king is not necessarily killing the king, although they eventually did that, but they're debating on let's not have a king anymore. Let's have an elected government. At that point in time that the speaker over the French assembly, when he looked out, those who were supporting the king and this was Louis XVI at the time, as he looked at over that assembly, those guys were on the right. And they were the ones that wanted to keep the king. They wanted to the status quo. They were known as conservatives. And conservative meant that they didn't want to do anything really new and different. So those on the right were supporters of the status quo, let's keep the King. Those that were on the left were the revolutionaries saying, no, no we don't want the King, we want our own constitution, we want to do it differently. And so that's really where the left and right kind of started in political parlance. Was, now there's early examples going way back, but it was really the kind of the French Revolution that kind of solidified the left and right. And so, you know, back then at that point in time, I would have been on the left because I would want a constitutional form of government. I didn't want a king ruling me. But today, I would be on the right, because I want to preserve the status quo. I want it to keep the Constitution. I don't want a new form of government. I don't want a socialist form or a dictatorial form. So left and right is very subjective, but that's where it comes from. And so today, left kind of means non-traditional. Let's do something new. Let's try something different. Right means, hey, status quo is pretty good. We like the Constitution we've got, which is exactly opposite of what it meant when it started. 

Rick Green [00:04:04] So in other words, if I were to say this, um, in Johnny Cash terms, the one on the right is the one on left and the one in the left is the one in middle, the one of the middle or something like that. So I just surprised that David Barton just said that he is, he would have been on the left. I mean, I just see all of our, um not so, not actually friends. People would say our friends over there. Loving to take that one out of context, brother. 

David Barton [00:04:27] Yeah, that's a sound bite that they could use for a while. That's for sure. But the difference is we were driven by principle. And the principles caused us to align with whatever represents the people, whatever gives the people most freedom, whatever gives a written constitutional republic. That's where I'm gonna be. 

Tim Barton [00:04:45] Well, and I think what the point you're making is those that try to preserve and conserve what has been, those would be considered the ones on the right. So it depends on what you're trying to preserve or conserve the idea of being a conservative, there's things that you're to preserve and conserve. And so then this question of, well, what are those things if you're trying to reserve the constitution, that the traditional family unit. Things that we would look at and think well, that's Foundational and fundamental to America that the religious and moral underpinnings of the nation we want to preserve conserve those things and If you are someone trying to preserve and conserve it puts you on the right if you're someone trying To change what has been it puts on the left So it really does make a difference if we're right or left based maybe on what the issue is we're not trying to Preserve and conserve the abortion right but There should not be as much subjectivity and nuance in this, but this is, to your point, Dad, kind of the way it's been viewed over time. But certainly, big picture, I think, easy understanding. If you're trying to preserve and conserve what has been, that puts you on the right. If you are trying to change what has put you on left, the important question is not are you right or left. It's what is the thing we're trying conserve or to eliminate, and that should make a what side do we want to be on? 

Rick Green [00:06:05] Isn't there also a Bible verse about, you know, the fool to the left or something like that? That's right. I've tried it. I can't remember where it is, but I remember there is one. 

David Barton [00:06:14] The heart of the fool inclines to the left and out of the righteous toward the right. So that is a Bible verse, absolutely. 

Rick Green [00:06:22] All right, all right. Well, let's let's head over to North Carolina. We got Rob in North Carolina He said I'm a conservative Christian who voted for President Trump rarely Do I agree with criticisms of President Trump that I've heard from my family and friends. However Recently, I heard about a post that President Trump made on his truth social page about improving a pro-america image at the Smithsonian It seemed that his rhetoric was saying that slavery was not that bad the idea of this administration rewriting history to show America and a positive light looks more Woodrow Wilson I would like to know what the guys at WallBuilders have to say about this comment. Alright guys, so I know I saw the post and some of our friends in the White House have been pushing to make sure the history at the Smithsonian and the other national parks and all these other areas is accurate, just tells the whole story. I don't remember anybody saying in any way that slavery was not bad, so that part I definitely don't think may be a misinterpretation of some of the things that were said, But what do you guys think about what the president's doing over at Smithsonian? 

David Barton [00:07:19] So President Trump's really concerned about the way America is being presented and the lens and the filters it goes through. And it's not necessarily a true and historic view of America. And so over Smithsonian is and when was it, Tim, a couple of months ago, we had a bunch of legislators and we went through the Smithsonian and we asked the legislators, hey, point out the things that that show this bias against America, this anti-American bias. And, man, they came out with a whole bunch of stuff. 

Tim Barton [00:07:47] Yeah, and really, it was just a question of, when you go through, just see what is being said and see how much do you find that is pro-America, how much you find it is anti-America. And actually, part of the reason this came up is in this legislative trip we took around D.C., we actually went to Mount Vernon and there were several legislators. They got very frustrated and I will say, justifiably so, because at Mount Vernon, For example. They acknowledge, and I'm saying the legislators, they acknowledge when... You look at the data that was presented the stories that were told there were far more stories about the enslaved people at Mount Vernon than there was about george washington himself. And even when they told things about George Washington they didn't tell a single story about why he was. Arguably the greatest American there ever was. They didn't tell a single story about why he was a great military leader or commander, about why was he chosen to be in charge of the military, about why, during the American Revolution, about why it was chosen to the president of the Constitutional Convention, about why unanimously, or even the fact that he was unanimously elected through the electoral college process to be the very first president of America. None of this came up. Instead, the majority of their focus was on the quote unquote, enslaved persons and their experience at Mount Vernon. And so part of the frustration they felt was they're not talking about why George Washington was incredible, what these contributions were. They're taking far more of this modern Marxist approach of How bad he was because of slavery and by the way, this is not a downplay the fact that he had slaves But that's not even a disputed fact The reason he was considered the the most significant american the indispensable man that the father of america It's not because he had slaved or because he didn't have slaves rather. It's because of what he contributed In spite of what all his shortcomings were and they didn't highlight any of that which led us to their frustrations we said hey this is not surprising up in Washington DC or in academia this is the way a lot of academia presents stuff and we said when we go through the Smithsonian just kind of look and see what's there And let us know what you think and by the way we didn't even go through the smithsonian museum of african-american history we went through the. Smithsonian museum or the the american history smith sony museum the one that has the star spangled banner a big american flag from. The war of eighteen twelve the france scott key sees when he writes a star spangled banner the one from fort mchenry. A lot of cool stuff there but even there this very allegedly pro american smithssonian. They found far more things where it was critical of America than where it praised America for doing anything right. And that's the kind of stuff that has caught President Trump's attention because what we are doing academically for rising generations and for Americans all over the nation is we are portraying America as a fundamentally fraud and evil nation. Instead of acknowledging the honest realities that even though yes slavery was part of America's story but that's not the defining part of america's story and and i'm using this as just one example when when the story is being told that this is the most significant thing for american history it's a very dishonest and disingenuous approach because there's so much more to the story than the fact that we had slaves for less than 100 years in our nation's history that that should be really something celebrated. That we had slavery for almost the least amount of time in any nation's history. In the history of the world, that's a pretty big deal. The fact that we fought a war where white people fought against white people and at the end of the war, they freed all the black people. I mean, we can go down the list of why America ending slavery was quite impressive, but that's not the position that any of the Smithsonian's take. It's not a position that academics take. And it was that kind of stuff that caught President Trump's attention, saying we don't want to tell. The rising generations, how bad America is, and that America is fundamentally flawed, stained, and is not redeemable, that that's not a story we want to tell. Instead, we want to show why is America different? Why are we special? What's made America great? And we can be honest about where we have had shortcomings, but when you spend all of your time talking about the shortcomings and not the reality that there's a reason more immigrants want to move to America than anywhere else in the world, right? It's not because we are fundamentally flawed in an evil nation. No, it's because there's something unique about America, but that's not the story the Smithsonian's were telling. 

David Barton [00:12:20] You take that whole culture, and this is part of what Trump's been fighting anyway. Look at what he's been doing at the universities, trying to get rid of their emphasis on things like this. And by the way, just backing up, if you remember the 1619 project, I mean, that's now six years ago, but they rolled that thing out, and it was all about how that America was founded on slavery, and Jamestown was founded slavery, and everything is about slavery. And boy, did they get the historical facts so wrong with that. But they created a narrative that... That goes with this thing of dividing America. It's got to be in groups. You've always got to have one group fighting the other. That's the only way the nation can be strong is to have internal fights. That's Marxist philosophy going back to 1848 with Karl Marx. And then Stalin kind of puts it under steroids and makes it Marxist-Leninism, which is even stronger than just Marxism. And from that basis and from having been taught that kind of conflicting thing, that this is healthy for a nation to have a good, big fight, this is what makes you strong. Critical race theory. And so critical race theory sees everything through the eyes of race. This is the issue you're going to fight over. Well, that's the kind of stuff that's gotten into the museums. And so as you go through the museums, it's not that we talk about slavery, it is that we have an obsession with slavery. And everything is presented with how did this affect, and you can't have a shirt without thinking about cotton. You can't cotton without thinking about the cotton pickers. You can have the cotton picked without thinking about slavery, and you have slavery thinking about what the white people did to the black people. So anything goes somehow back to slavery. And that's the kind of stuff Trump is seeing in the museums is this obsession with race because there's so many other good things to say. And it's not that, as Tim said, We tell the good, the bad, the ugly, we'll cover slavery in Jamestown, except we're going to cover what historically happened, not what 1619 Project says happened as a result of critical race theory, which has this wild obsession with slavery. So Trump is not negating the fact that we had slavery in America, we fought a civil war over it. He's really concerned with the fact the way we present America has this filter of critical race there, and that's turned into the DEI kind of stuff that we see campuses and colleges. And he's absolutely stopped funding colleges that are teaching this divisive thing that can only point out negative things about America and it's gonna break it up. And that's, I mean, he's a pro-American president. So when he did that discussion and that's where people said, oh, he is glossing over slavery. No, he just refusing to be obsessed with slavery is the only thing that defines America. And so what he did in the Smithsonian was order a review of all the placards, all the displays, all the descriptions to make sure that we're not beating the brains out of America. That when you go to the Smithsonian, you can come out saying, man, we are a special nation. We're remarkable. We've done things no other nation's ever done. You know, I was talking with some folks just in the last couple of weeks that were from a different country and pointed out that we were coming up on our 250th birthday. And by the way, we've got now nearly 200 and what's it 38 or 39 under the same document, the same declaration and nations like we were talking France a minute ago, France has gone through 15 constitutions that same period of time. We are special, we ought to be pointing that out. And so that's really what happened to Smithsonian and any kind of, and I saw the left react to it and they went crazy and they're saying he's denying slavery, he's denied the race problem, he's not, he just refuses to be obsessed with it. And that's the big difference. So don't pick up the concern of the left on that, because when you look back at what he said and did, and by the way, Tim mentioned the Smithsonian Museum in African-American history. I was up at the White House a week ago and told them, by far, the most racist and most historically inaccurate museum in Washington, D.C., by far has got to be the Museum on African- American History. The way they portrayed things, the way they present it. And it's not that slavery is not a part, because we cover that, we know that, we study that, but we also know the other side of it that they don't present. And so as they're looking at cleaning up all the Smithsonian's, there are so many that are focused on CRT or DEI, breaking into groups. The Museum of Native American History has the same kind of flaws. They only see things in groups and not as individuals or people. And it is something he's focused on. So long answer to a short question, but it really is not a bad thing that he's doing. The objective is very good, and the portrayal of what he said and the way he approached it was framed by the left, and it's just not accurate. 

Rick Green [00:16:54] You know guys the only problem with cleaning all that up at the Smithsonian especially the african-american history museum is if you're a democrat how do you hide the fact that it was your party that was pro-slavery white only primaries all how do you hide that your party is the racist party unless you create all this crazy stuff that's not true right that's kind of been the game plan. 

Tim Barton [00:17:15] Well, and this is why they came up with the creation of the great switch, right? To say, well, that, that was, that was the Democrats of old that's on us anymore because the party switch and the, the modern Republican party is who the Democrats used to be. Cause we just basically, we just switched teams halfway through. And you know, that's not who we are anymore. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln. Now, all this is a crazy fabrication. It doesn't take very much research at all to realize how ridiculous these claims are. But this is the problem with the modern education academic setup is we have trained. Students and all those students now are by and large adults, we've trained them to memorize and repeat that that's what school has done. We haven't trained them. To be thinkers, we haven't train them to be problem solvers and have this critical thinking ability. Nope. Largely what academics has done by in large is memorize and repeat. And because of that, there's a lot of people memorizing and repeating things that are not historically correct, that aren't grounded in any kind of truth or reality. But this is how they get away with it because they've created people aren't really thinking through what they're saying. They've just heard these things long enough. They've been trained to memorize and repeat. And so enough Americans have parroted these things for long enough, a lot of Americans now think, well, this is just the way it was. Of course it's not true. But again, this was what President Trump has seen and identified. And this is part of what he's pushing back on. And when people accuse him of being this tyrant and this dictator, right. The greatest irony when there was the no kings rally, first of all right his post on true social afterwards was one of the greatest trolls ever on the new kings rally but. If you have any common sense whatsoever. Did you know the one place you could not have a no kings really is a place where there's an actual king because that king would stop you from doing something like that the fact that you are able to pull that off indicates we don't have a king we don't have a dictator but. Because again, we've trained academically students to learn to memorize and repeat. If they're told, well, here's the new thing, memorize and Repeat, that's a lot of what we've seen. And again, this is part of what the battle has been to help re-educate people and to stop the programming of propaganda that's been by and large coming from the left in this ultimately Marxism that's being covered up to look like something other than Marxism, but it's just Marxist propaganda. 

Rick Green [00:19:42] Alright, quick break, guys. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilder Show on Foundations of Freedom Thursday. 

Rick Green [00:20:53] Welcome back to the WallBuildersShow. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Getting back into your questions. Scott in San Diego is up next. He said, I love the show, guys, but with the heat here in San Diego, we could sure use some more Christmas music to remember cooler times. How about it? Let's stop. 

David Barton [00:21:07] Hold it, let's pause right there and let's just let's think about what was just said. Let's contemplate that. We have we have Lister in demand for more Christmas music. 

Rick Green [00:21:19] Tim, I apologize for not editing the question before I got it out, my fault man, my fault. He said, I would like to hear a discussion of article four section four the Constitution guaranteeing a Republican form of government where I live in a socialist if not communist state. President Trump is withholding federal funds from sanctuary cities and trying to fight the invasion of to the National Guard in cities, not D.C., to quell... Democrat domestic violence so I think he's given all these different examples a court stopping the withholding of funds and people are saying that the use of the guard is a violation of the posse comatose act My reading of the Constitution gives a president wide range of powers to deal with hard situations please discuss this section of the constitution. Thanks to keep up the good work. It's paying off Scott and San Diego. Okay. Yeah, so I would think if you live in a blue city that is overrun by crime right now and you're watching what the president is doing in DC, which of course he can do under article one section eight because the federal government supposed to run DC and now he's talking about Chicago and some of the other cities. You're probably thinking, okay, how far can he go with this because we'd like our city cleaned up as well. So it's a great question because you know, we're not for the federal government encroaching or doing more than it should. But is this a good article for section four guaranteeing of a republic action by president or some other area. 

David Barton [00:22:40] This goes back to an earlier philosophy of government because Article 4, Section 4, does require a Republican form of government, which means the states are in charge of the states, the feds are in the charge of 16, 17, and enumerated powers, and that's where you draw your lines between state and federal. But it also goes back earlier philosophies like that of John Locke when we wrote the Declaration of Independence, like that William Blackstone, like of Charles Montesquieu, who were great influencers that influenced the Founding Fathers' thinking when they wrote it. The number one priority of government is laid out in Romans 13, is to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. And when government doesn't do that, you've got a problem. Then when you have officials that take an oath to uphold state and federal laws, and they refuse to do so by having sanctuary cities, now you have people in office. They may be in state office, but they have really actually abdicated their pledge of government to uphold the laws, uphold the Constitution. And so. What happens at that point in time, the federal government needs to step in and not enforce its viewpoint, needs to steps in and enforce the Constitution and the laws. And until those laws are taken off the books, it's the responsibility of the government to uphold the enforcement of laws. And that's what it is to do. And so that's, what's happening. I think this is actually a debate that precedes article four, section four, because the founders, I don't think, anticipated a point in a time at which you were going to have people and absolutely ignore. Laws preserving life, laws on crime, and laws on the other things, and I will say I'm just absolutely amazed at what Trump has done with all the deportations. So far those deportations have been focused on people who have broken the law, have committed criminal acts, they're not just going through neighborhoods and taking out illegals, they are taking out people who somehow have been involved in criminal And that's what should have been going on in the states anyway. So you now have someone enforcing criminal law, which is significant. And we're not talking administrative law where it makes a lot of stuff crimes. We're talking about actual physical damage, physical injury, hurting a person, hurting property, stealing, whatever. And so this is this is actually debate that precedes Article four, Section four. Now, we have had this at times where the federal government stepped into southern states, where southern states refuse to stop the Ku Klux Klan and refuse to stopped the violence. And the federal government did the same kind of thing, stepped in and said, well, we've got to protect citizens and their property and we're going to go after the Klan. So bills like the FORCE Act in 1874, 1875, things that brought the federal Government into what traditionally had been state affairs, because states were absolutely refusing to do what the fundamental purpose of government is. And so that's a lot of what's happening with Trump stepping in and police powers. With Trump stepping in to going after sanctuary cities and states is basically upholding fundamental laws protecting the rights of property, life, liberty, and property. Those three fundamentals from back in the founding fathers' debates, we're having to go that far back instead of being able to focus on the Constitution, which took us forward a great bit. Now we're going to have to go back to the absolute fundamental basics and nobody thought we would have to roll back so many things to get back to basic law. 

Rick Green [00:26:01] It sure is setting up an interesting debate for the midterms as well. When the Democrats are having to, you know, basically make their constituency illegal aliens, criminals, you, know, all the people that, that Donald Trump's trying to either deport or put in jail. Um, and so I just, I don't see how that's tenable for them. Uh, it's, uh, it, it it's masterful, I think, on, on president Trump's part, and frankly, just a, an answer to the cry from people saying this has got to stop, you now, if you're, if it's your neighborhood that's being TERRORIZED you want the president to step in in these situations. So we'll, we'll of course hit that subject more, but tomorrow we've got a lot of good news to share with you that's been happening in the last few weeks and months. We'll catch up on as much good news as we can on our Good News Friday podcast. Thanks so much for listening today to The WallBuilder Show.