Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders Show on a Thursday. So, we're doing Foundations of Freedom Thursday, which means if you're listening, you get to drive the conversation, send your emails into us, radio@wallbuilders.com, radio@wallbuilders.com. Any question you got about the Founders, about the founding documents, about legislation being considered right now, the principles, you name it. You get to ask any questions about the foundations and, and we will try to get to as many of those as we possibly can. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And our first question is coming from Marie. It has to do with Kansas and the judges there and how they're chosen. Here we go, guys. She said Kansas is the only state in the country with a quote bar-controlled method of judicial selection. A committee of lawyers selects the state's Supreme Court Justices. There's a ballot initiative this August to change it back to a direct election of Supreme court judges. I would think that a direct election would be the most democratic way to select judges, but opponents of the measure are already positioned in an election to mean the judicial candidates will be bought. I would love to hear your opinion on this measure and get your help in understanding why it changed to selection by committee back in 1958. Thank you all for all you're doing to educate and inform. God bless y'all. Okay. Man, Marie, thank you. Great question. And guys, if I understand it right, it's a little bit different all over the country. There's some that are elected, some that are appointed by the governor. And then sometimes it's, a committee that maybe gives the governor's names. I didn't realize in Kansas; the committee quite literally selects them. I'm assuming there's gotta be a, is there not a gubernatorial involvement in Kansas? 

David Barton [00:01:40] No, and what you're talking about, as she mentioned the Missouri plan, but there's also the modified Missouri plan. There's also Missouri-Tennessee plan. There's a modified Missouri- Tennessee plan. There's about two dozen states that do something like this. There are little nuances along the way, but essentially what it means is the governor does not have direct control. The legislature does not directly control. There is some type of administrative body that takes recommendations to the governor. Or sometimes the administrative body may choose those people and it tends to be people out of the ABA. And by the way, may I point out one of the things that recently happened with the federal government is they no longer will recognize the American Bar Association as the only agency in the nation that can accredit attorneys and law school. Which is really good because ABA has been liberal for a hundred years. They've been way off the reservation. People respect them because they're attorneys and they produce judges and no, they're progressives and have been all along. So the fact that the federal government is now opening the door for competition in the legal community, so it's not all progressive. But it's these experts that go back literally into the fifties said, hey, the people are just too dumb to choose their own judges, because this is especially you have to know the law and only those of us that know the law can really tell who's good in those positions and the people aren't qualified to know who. And so, what happens is you have a completely unaccountable branch. I've been encountering with some professors in the last few weeks. They love the Supreme Court decision, Marbury-Madison, and they've been taught that this is why the Founding Fathers gave us judiciary so we can check and balance the other two branches. Well, yeah, it's supposed to check and balance, but it's not supposed to have the final say on the other branches, and that's the problem with the Marbury-Madison decision. At the time it was given in 1803 when the Supreme Court told President Jefferson, here's what you're going to do. Jefferson absolutely refused to do that and said that's a perversion of the law for you to tell the president what to do. And he did not do it. James Madison cited him the Secretary of State often called the Father the Constitution, he said yeah, that's the perversion law court doesn't tell the other branches what to do. Well now with progressives in 1900s they start saying oh look Marbury- Madison, this is the way they Founding Fathers wanted to work judges are supposed to tell the other two branches what to do. So, this, and I'm going to use the term, this stupid Supreme Court in Kansas, I mean, we got involved with them probably 15 years ago, trying to get people to throw the judges out because they do have retention elections. And at that point in time, we had the highest voter dissatisfaction in that election, but they still were all elected. Generally, they go back in retention elections with 98, 99% support of the people because there's no one running against them. There's no one pointing out what they've done wrong. They're the only ones running. You either vote yes or no to keep them or throw them out. So, Kansas, there was a constitutional amendment added to Kansas. All right; you guys get that constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court of Kansas ruled that the Constitutional amendment was unconstitutional. I mean, that's, you, you can't do that. It is an amendment to the constitution becomes part of the Constitution. Well, we don't like it. So, we're throwing it out. And that's how crazy that, that court in Kansas has been for a number of years. What they've done with the death penalty, even though the legislature established that they didn't like it, they threw it out. So, there's so many crazy things that go here. And for the argument, this is the argument they use. Well, you know, if you if you have elections, money is going to come into it and that'll ruin the whole process. Well, guess what? The other two branches have elections and money comes into it. It may have ruined the process. But you know what? The people get the final word. We get the Final Word on our governors, our presidents, our senators, our representatives. We may not like them all the time. We may, not like what our fellow citizens choose, but we are the ones who ultimately make that choice. In Kansas you don't have that option. So yeah, maybe, maybe you're going to have these judges bought. Well, that may be, but at least you can get at them and get them thrown out of office. And by the way, Rick, you remember when we had that in Texas, we had for a period of time appointed judges and they were so terrible that, was it under governor Mark White, I think? So terrible. That we went back to elected judges, and Texas has not had any kind of a bad reputation. Matter of fact, we've had a very good reputation across the nation since we've gone back to elected judges, so that's kind of the bottom line. I just put up last night on our website a paper on this, it's called the Missouri Plan. You can go to the website, wallbuilders.com. You can see the background and history of how this came to be, of how bad it is. Man, if you're in Kansas, you need to fall on the sword over this one. You need that change in the election coming up. You want to change that system so that you guys can get your state under control. You're a very red state with very blue policies because your unelected, unaccountable judges keep telling you what you have to believe regardless of who you select. So I hope Kansas really does something to turn this around. Again, wallbuilders.com. You can look up the Missouri Plan there and you'll see the paper that we did for other state legislatures on this very topic. 

Rick Green [00:06:47] Yeah, I'm really glad Marie sent this question in because it's such an important issue and it's always better to have ultimately the people be able to decide. If a politician, and I mean judge, legislator, whoever, anybody in public life, if they're for sale, they're for sale. And so even in these appointed situations or these committee of lawyers or whatever, if that judge is corrupt or are capable of being corrupted, it's going to happen through that appointment process, through that committee even more so than through an elected process where the people actually have the opportunity to make that final decision. So, yeah, Kansas, come on. Y'all show up for this thing and get your right to vote for your judges back in your hands. It definitely makes for a better system doing it that way. All right. David Young has our next question. David's from Aledo, actually. So he's right next door to you guys. And he says, after hearing about the protest that disrupted a church service in St. Paul, I feel disappointed, not just by the disruption itself, but by the missed opportunity and how the church responded. Of course, physical safety in worship spaces matters, but it made me wonder whether churches also need this kind of spiritual readiness for disruption, especially in a world where opposition, verbal or otherwise, feels more likely. Instead of responding with offense or a victim posture, what if moments like that were met with confident, unified worship, something as simple as the congregation singing together, louder than the disruption, could turn confrontation into witness rather and retreat. I don't pretend this is simple, and I respect the weight pastors carry in real-time decisions like these. But I do think there's a balance to be found between protecting people and being mentally and spiritually prepared for challenge. To me, the protesters got exactly what they wanted by provoking offense. It reminds me of the book, The Beta Satan, which talks about how offense is used to trap people. I wish more pastors thought offensively rather than defensively. By leading their congregations to respond in worship, unity, and confidence instead of fear, what are your thoughts on the church missing an opportunity like that? Alright, guys, lots of directions we could go with this, obviously, because you do need church security. You do need to be able to respond. There are ways to take advantage of even in real time in a situation like this. And frankly, now churches are thinking about this. I think that church up there was just shocked that this happened and wasn't really prepared for it. What do you guys think? 

David Barton [00:08:53] I don't think there's any way that anybody saw a protest against ICE popping up in an evangelical church. Now I guarantee you that from this time forward, churches all over the nation are now preparing for what happens if that occurs. They're now thinking this. This is a first impression; it's never happened before this way. And so, nobody was really prepared for it, but I bet you they are now. But I love the thought of have a response ready. Yeah, sing a hymn louder that they can shout their chants. Okay, if we get disrupted, we're all going to sing this hymn, and it reminds me of Romans 12:21, where the scripture says you overcome the evil with the good. So, if they want to chant something evil, we are going to be singing something really good or we are all going quote a Bible verse or whatever it is. There's now plans, I guarantee you, underway as church planners have never thought about this before. I don't think anybody saw this coming. 

Tim Barton [00:09:43] Well, yeah, I agree with everything you're initially assessing. I think it's first of all, great that when you look at what happened, it was very unexpected. And yet the pastor was able to have such a good response of, look, we're just here like to worship Jesus, to lift up His name. It was a really, really good response from the pastor. And I think Rick and Dad, both of y'all have alluded and acknowledged that there's going to be more churches that are aware of these possibilities now. And so having some kind of coordinated response does make more sense. But I think there's also the balance that we've also seen shooters going to churches and when you have people come in, you don't always know what they're coming in for and based on what they do, there is appropriate responses that are different based on the actions of the protesters that are coming in. Now, first and foremost, right? This is a violation of private property. It's a violation of inalienable rights. And so, this notion of Christians being able to respond appropriately, there is a self-defense appropriate level that can be utilized in this situation. Certainly, there were pictures and videos of some of the protesters that were getting in people's faces and cursing and yelling and screaming, and even though that is dramatic and traumatic, that is maybe a fine line depending on who you talk to. Right, about is that somebody slapping you on one cheek and you turn to them the other cheek? Like what is the appropriate response? But when you saw, for example, that the little five-year-old boy that was terrified, he was being terrorized, and his parents are trying to hold and console him in the midst of that. At that point, like I can totally understand justification of a dad getting up and being like, you get out of here right now, and somebody gets in his face and he takes a swing in their mouth, like, I- I totally get and understand that at that point when you're wanting to defend your family and your kids and the trauma that's happening to them. So, I do think there is an interesting balance for this. Also where, you know, one of the things guys that and I'm sure that from our listeners, knowing that we have people from multiple denominations, religious backgrounds, there's a lot of different thoughts on some of these topics where for some people, and to be very clear, none of us on this show are pacifists or extreme pacifist. We talked earlier in the week about the reality that we believe in the Second Amendment. We actually, all of us, we carry our firearms. We're concealed carry permit holders. And it's very unusual you find us without us having that on us. With that being said, it's something that Christians have debated for a long time of where is the line of being a martyr for your faith? And where's the line of opposing and resisting evil? And if you're in the midst of a church and somebody comes in, well, certainly I would want to be the person that stops evil from happening, especially if someone is there to take a life. And I'm saying all this in the balance of the question of, you know, well, what if we add this song that we all sing together? I don't think that's wrong, but I do think there, there's some fluidity in the response based on the activity of the protesters and what it is? And what the appropriate regards is. And I say this now backing up the theological question, because some people would say, look, I didn't matter if they're there to kill us, you know, we're going to die as martyrs because that's what Christians should do. And I think this is where you can have a deeper theological discussion of, what is the difference between being a martyr for your faith and martyring your family for your faith, right? And not to get in the theological weeds of this, but maybe just a little bit. I think it's one thing for sure if I'm on a mission’s trip. It's another totally different thing. If I'm on date night with my wife and something happens, those are very different mindsets of what I am doing and why I'm there, but also even if I was on a mission trip, if I saw people assaulting and harming somebody, I would want to stand up and defend that person. That's something that God has put in us, the right of self-preservation. And also, even the Bible talks about, if you see someone being led to the slaughter, you should speak up, stand up on their behalf. And I'm saying all this just to not muddy the waters, but add some contextual thoughts to this. That I think there are times when it's absolutely appropriate that, you know, almost like the, the martyr Stephen that in the midst of it, he's like, man, I see heaven open, and I see the Son of Man standing in the right hand of God. Like there's a moment when we are not fighting and resisting when we are martyrs for the faith. But there's also moments when I think it's totally appropriate to resist evil when it's trying to be oppressive and what's going on. So, I think there is a balance. And where that is, again, these are deeper conversations. And actually, I have a friend we might have on the program in the coming weeks to maybe dive into this a little bit more because he has a organization and they train church security. And so where is the balance of wanting to reach the loss but also protect the flock? You know, how do we balance that out? It's an honest question that should be discussed. But I say all of that to say that there is a little more nuance in the answer. It's not only if somebody comes in, we all start singing this song. I think it does depend on, on what those protesters are doing. And that maybe could indicate the level of response that would be appropriate. What do you guys think? 

David Barton [00:15:09] Well, you know, you're talking about needing a deeper theological discussion. Absolutely right. Cause this is, this is all first impression kind of stuff. We've not been here before, but the one I want to hit is this also needs pretty serious constitutional discussion. Don Lemon, who kind of initiated this thing, got it going. And the, the protesters and the web was the, all social media is going crazy after this thing. They can't arrest those guys. They have a First Amendment right to go into that church and say what they....No they don't. First Amendment does not apply to private property and private rights. It applies to limiting the government. It does not apply to limiting to individual. And so, there's no First Amendment right to go inside a church and violate their first amendment rights. First Amendment does not give you a right to violate the First Amendment. And so that's the, it was just amazing to me how many reporters picked up on that, which tell tells me they know nothing about the Constitution. How Don Lemon had the lack of mental brain power to even know that basic stuff about the First Amendment. So, they think the Constitution is their tool to be able to violate everybody else's rights, and that's absolutely wrong. The First Amendment does not give you a right to go onto private property, does not gave you a right to be able to violates someone else's freedom of worship, et cetera. And so, I'm kind of disappointed now that a judge has stepped in and said they can't arrest the other protesters, there's five they're trying to arrest now. Federal judge has said, no, you can't arrest them because they didn't do any violence. Well, they trespassed, they interrupted a worship service. There's the FACE Act, all these things they did violate. So, it's still crazy ongoing. But just to be really clear, there is no constitutional violation in what the church did or wanted to do or with the federal government in arresting those protesters. There's no constitutional violation of that. 

Tim Barton [00:17:00] Well, Dad, I do know that the DOJ, and I think the Trump White House has acknowledged, they're gonna appeal some of that as well, because they feel the same way. They feel like this is a clear violation, and if you don't stand up against it now, ultimately, all you're doing is encouraging this nonsense to continue in other places where people know they can do this and not get in trouble. And so, I do think there's gonna be some appeals and challenges trying to make sure that they can penalize appropriately for the people that clearly trespassed, that clearly traumatized and terrorized on private property, didn't leave when they were asked to, etc. So, I don't think this is the end of it yet, but one of the other challenges because the legal process can take a long time, it might be months or even years before this is ultimately resolved. And so it might not be the deterrent that we would hope it would be for now. But it could be interesting because we know that at least with Don Lemon that there is an appeal and that that could change and Don Lemon actually might be arrested which of course the left will lose their mind over but that would be a pretty good shot across the bow that people are not supposed to be above the law and if you're hanging out with the instigators, which Don Lemon was, the people that were leading this. And he's interviewing them before and oh you're gonna do this now? So, he wasn't just there to report on it, he literally was praising them on his channel before they do this, highlighting what they're doing. Hey, we can't tell you where we are, but here's what we're about to do. You're not just there reporting; you are there celebrating and participating in. And so, I do hope he's held accountable for his participation and activity in that quote unquote protest. Which is really just illegal trespass and violation, not only the FACE Act, maybe even the KKK, intimidating people of their religious belief in their religious house of worship. So really interesting to see how this unfolds. 

Rick Green [00:18:49] Yeah. And he even said, you know, after it was over, the intimidation was what they were after. Or as he said, it making people uncomfortable and all of those things. So, no doubt. Yeah. As we're going to break, I just want to say, man, I agree with everything you guys have said on both fronts. The constitutional front, First Amendment doesn't give you the right to take away somebody else's platform. It just prevents the government from destroying your platform or preventing you from being able to use your platform. But you got to go build it. You don't get to go into somebody else is church and, and just assume that you get to take the microphone or to, or take over that room for sure. And Tim, to your point, yeah, you've got to have some situational awareness, and these security teams need to be trained to be able to discern what this is. Is it a physical attack? Is it an assault in different ways? So man, let's pray for discernment, but I'm just glad they're talking about it. And this fits everything we always say about even regular personal self-defense. Proverbs 27:12, a wise person foresees danger and takes precaution. A simpleton or a fool walks blindly on and suffers the consequences. So, churches, see that danger and start preparing for it. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with your questions. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:20:59] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Next up is Gene. He said, what relevance does U.S. Law has to the Maduros to justify abducting them, both Nicholas and Cecilia, by force as a law enforcement operation? Thank you. Okay, guys. So we talked a little bit about this right after it happened, but good, good topic for Foundations of Freedom Thursday. What do y'all say? 

David Barton [00:21:19] Yeah, this this is one that really is a jurisdictional thing. We're not the world's police. We don't go across the world cleaning up messes because people are doing things wrong, they have to be messing with America. And so we have not gone into Mexico and arrested the president of Mexico because of all the drugs that come across the border because she hadn't been doing that, she hasn't been facilitating that. We haven't gone to China and arrested Xi because we don't like what he's doing. We haven't done that with Putin as much as we disagree with him. We just haven't that. But what you had with the case of Maduro's, they had a US arrest warrant because of their activities within the United States. So, Maduro had a federal warrant for his arrest, not because of what he's doing in general, but because he's doin' it in the United States. If you're the person responsible, we're going after you. And so, this wasn't Trump trying to be the world's policeman and enforce the world, and we didn't like this guy, we were going after- it's because of what he was doing inside the jurisdiction of the United States that we have the authority to go after him.

Tim Barton [00:22:20] And Dad, again, it's worth pointing out that even the Biden administration had a very large number, was it 25 million was the bounty from the Biden ministration for Maduro? Because I think then did Trump up that to 50 million? Is that what happened?

David Barton [00:22:37] Trump had it first, and Biden upped it, and then Trump topped. So, I guess it was a poker game, the going on. They trumped each other three times. 

Tim Barton [00:22:43] I don't remember if it was 15 million or 25 million from the Biden administration, whatever it was, is an incredibly high number of millions. Why would they put that on his head? Again. cause this is not from Trump. This was from the BIDEN administration, but it's because of what Maduro was doing. Now, Dad, to your point, we don't do this with other world leaders. But, you kind of suggested, other world leaders aren't doing the same level of drug trafficking into America and people might go, now wait a second, Mexico has, you're right. And this is why there were tariffs put on Mexico and this is now the Mexican military is actually helping enforce the southern border. They're stopping the caravans that are coming across. There are things that they have done. And Trump had the same conversations with Maduro where he said, hey, you got to stop this or there's going to be consequences. You can go back and go review what Trump said. There were press conferences. There were Truth Social posts. Trump talked about this, having lots of conversations. He better listen. He better, listen. And Maduro essentially said that I'm untouchable. I'm in this military compound. You can't reach me. You can touch me. We're going to keep doing what we want to do. And so, the tariffs, the conversations, none of it stopped him. And Trump said, you're killing American people. We're to stop you if you don't stop yourself. And this is why Trump did it. The role of the federal government is to protect their citizens. And there have been more people dying from this drug trafficking coming into America. Then virtually any other category. Drugs are one of the top killers of Americans. And so, the federal government has the constitutional authorization to protect its citizens from other entities that are trying to damage and harm its citizens. And Maduro could have said, hey, I heard you in the conversation, I'm gonna take it to heart, we're gonna stop smuggling drugs into America and he doubled down. And again, this is why Trump was bombing the drug boats, giving clear indication like, hey bro, we know what you're doing. We know where you're going this, you need to stop it. And Trump is not the guy, and this is, I think Marco Rubio said this very clearly. Even before this, but after he said it again, that, hey, world leaders, you need to take note, like when Trump says something, this is not the normal American politician, he actually means what he says, if he says he's going to do something, he's, going to do it. You need to listen to him. And this was the indication that Trump very clearly had given multiple warning, had been bombing the boats again, clarifying, we're not going to let you do this. And Maduro says, yeah, you can't touch me. I'm going to keep doing what I want to do. And that's when Trump says, all right, go, go bring this guy in. Well, we have the military team and technology. We could have gotten this guy years ago. But it took someone with a backbone and the willingness to protect American citizens to put a stop to this. And that's what he did. But again, Dad, as you point out, Trump is the one that first put a bounty in this guy's head, but the Biden administration upped it. Cause even the Biden ministration recognized how dangerous this guy was to America. 

David Barton [00:25:49] Yeah, it was 15 million in the first Trump administration. Biden raised it at 25 million. Trump came back in. He raised it to 50 million. And I think a point to be, be made here is also the significance of the number of lives lost. I don't think people think in the right terms. I mean, we think of drug distributors in New York city or Baltimore, wherever, and you know, we don't, we, don't go do this to them. No, the two numbers that I've seen associated in an annual basis with drug use coming out of Venezuela, the drugs are smuggling in. Is once at 105,000 Americans lives lost in one year, once at 107,000 American lives lost. You're talking more than 100,000 American lives loss, you can't just turn your back on that and walk away from it, and Trump didn't. 

Rick Green [00:26:31] And of course, we didn't even touch on the Monroe Doctrine, which David, you did a whole teaching on that here on the program. When this first happens, the folks can go to wallbuilders.show to find that program and listen to it as well. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.