Privatizing TSA And Airport Security

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builder Show. We take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. We appreciate you coming along for the ride and for helping with the direction by sending in questions. You can send those to radio at wallbuilders.com, radio at wallbuilders.com. And on Thursdays, just like today, we'll do Foundations of Freedom Thursday, which means we'll answer as many of your questions as we possibly can. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and then to listen to the radio program or share the radio program, go to wallbuilders.show. Well, I guess you can actually listen there as well. But if you'd like to share links with your friends and family, that's the easiest place to do it at wallbuilders.show. David and Tim, we got lots of questions to get to. First ones from Nicholas. He said, Greetings, Wallbuilders Trio. Hope you are all having a great day. I appreciate all you do. My friends were talking recently with the issues going on with TSA, with them not being paid. At what point do you think airports are going to stop taking federal money and start privatizing? How would that change things? Is that constitutional? Thanks. All right, Nicholas, great question. I know, guys, as much as we travel, now I don't know about the two of you. I haven't asked you the last few days. I've been so blessed. I didn't have anything on the calendar over the last week. So I've been at the campus all week long and didn't have to fight the lines. How about y'all? Have y'all had to deal with a lot of TSA lines during all this?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

So for me, I haven't seen really any change. I I mean, I I've been able to go through the lines. The lines have been short. And with the ice guys now coming in, they say that it's probably gonna be about the same, except now the ice guys will be able to arrest illegals and arrest people with criminal records, which TSA couldn't do. So I I guess this is a new way of also expanding the ability to pick up criminals who are walking freely in the streets. So we'll see what that does. You know, that'll be kind of interesting if you see an arrest going on an airport. That's gonna be kind of unusual and new. But nonetheless, I don't see much difference in it. Tim, have you seen difference?

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Well, and I do want to clarify, we have seen, not personally necessarily, uh, but but people do get arrested at airports sometimes. They get unruly on a plane, they get drunk, they're ridiculous. And so arrests do happen. And I say that because uh there was a big social media viral thing this week of somebody being arrested by ICE at an airport. Uh, but as the report indicated, it had nothing to do with ICE helping with TSA uh get people through, et cetera. And I say that again because there are some people, I'm hearing Republicans right now saying, man, we're in a police state. It's it's crazy right now, and and Trump is being this communist, fascist, et cetera. And again, this is coming from people that have long been identified as conservative and Republican. And that's absolutely not what's happening with ICE going into airports. We see in many cases and in occasions this week, the videos that have been posted, you see ICE actually handing out bottles of water to people as they're coming through line. You see people, many of them that that look like maybe the America was not the nation of their birth, that they have broken English, but they're now American citizens and they're saying we love ICE, we're so grateful for ICE. So I I have not, first of all, I have not seen the the interruption because in Dallas Fort Worth uh they're thank God are enough agents who and I I I don't know how they're doing this, uh, not getting paid. We've seen reports that people are having to sell their vehicles to continue to pay their mortgage, that they're having to go to food and soup kitchens to get food to feed their family. So it's horrific conditions, uh, which we'll get into later of why that is going on and really who should be at blame and what the solution is. But I haven't been delayed necessarily. Uh the couple of flights I've done in the last week or two uh have not been as bad as some of the airports where they're reporting the several hours of delay. So bless the Lord, I've not had to deal with that yet. Um, but also that as you're saying, you know, ICE is able to arrest some of these really bad people. Police officers are made arrest already before ICE was there. And again, I'm saying this to diffuse the the argument and accusation from conservatives or Republicans that says Trump is now being a fascist because he has ICE there, etc., etc. It's as silly to me as when some of the Democrats say, well, we don't want ICE anywhere near a election poll site because we don't want them to interfere with elections. And if all they're doing is making sure it's Americans in their voting, well then who do you think they're gonna interfere with? It's just some of this is just silly, accusatory, political uh kind of positioning that's not reflective of reality.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

And by the way, I've got to throw out those who are thrown around the definition of fascist don't know what it is. Because fascist is not because you strong arm or something. Fascist means is the government cooperating with private entities to do government business. And that's not what you have with these public airports, that's not what you have with Trump doing this. That is not uh the government taking over private enterprise or private entities because the TSA agents were also government agents as well. So I'll just point out that's a really bad use of the term fascist, and it just kind of indicates that people really don't know what that is anymore. They're just throwing it around as a pejorative kind of an insult.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Well, so let's go to the constitutional question, guys. What about the TSA and privatization? I I'm hearing more and more of this. Mike Lee's been uh posting quite a bit about it. Uh Senator from uh Utah, the one that's actually pushing the Save Act right now, uh just talking about, you know, hey, this should this should be going back to the to the uh airport security and the airlines paying for it, and um, you know, that that uh they they I I think I saw one post, might have been Matt Walsh, I can't remember who it was, said, I don't know if this is true or not. Um basically 80% of the test, what do they call it, when they basically stress test a system, and 80% of the time the weapon got through the, you know, through the line, which I can't tell I I don't want to admit how many times my boys or me have had a pocket knife get through security on the other side and realize we've got it and going, oh, wow, I'm glad they didn't catch that. What do I do with it now? Anyway, um big topic here, I guess. I I don't know. I I've never asked you guys what you thought about TSA and whether or not the Fed should do it or the airport security or what's best.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Well, guys, one of the things that we have long held and still believed is that one of the things I think Jefferson was attributed to saying this, uh Lincoln repeated it, that government should only do for us what we can't do for ourselves. And anytime the government gets involved, you know, a little bit like what uh Ronald Reagan said, the most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Generally speaking, the government does not solve more problems, they create more problems, especially when they get outside of their biblically created jurisdiction and their constitutional boundaries. And certainly if the the idea that we want to be secure makes total sense. That's part of the role of government. But what's happening with TSA is not effective, Rick, to your point, not just pocket knives. There was a couple of years ago when I showed up at an event in another state and I looked at my bag and I had a loaded mag in my bag. And I literally, and it was it was the fence rounds. And so at the event, I asked the event host, I was like, hey, who here shoots nine millimeter and would like you know 15 rounds of You should have done it, you should have done a trivia question like from the states.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Hey, I'm gonna give away this magazine if you can answer who this founder was.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

I mean, I that that would have that would have actually been awesome. I should have done that. Um, I did a low key because I was like, I can't believe I just I found out my bag and I was flying out the next morning. But to your point, it's not that the TSA agents are bad people, but the the the whole infrastructure government system, when government is operating, controlling, directing things, especially outside of some of their bands of jurisdiction, it's not great. But even within the lines of their jurisdiction, Milton Friedman used to talk about this all the time about how anytime the government does something, it's going to cost twice as much and be less effective and efficient than if it was privatized. So, to Senator Lee's point, I think there absolutely is a way that this could be privatized. It could be done very well, very effectively, and not only save taxpayers' dollars, but be more efficient in the whole process. One of the great memes I saw around this week was uh I think Babylon B is the one that did it, is that the way to solve the TSA problem is just put Chick-fil-A employees in charge of the lines. And, you know, they would just they would streamline that thing, no problem.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

But they'd say my pleasure after you went through instead of you filling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

That's it. Well, yeah, the patents might be different coming from Chick-fil-A employees and TSA, not to digress, but uh yeah, certainly it I think the position that I hold and I would assume the rest of us do is anytime you can remove things from the federal government and get them in private hands, you're gonna tend to be more effective and efficient in the whole process. Dad, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Well, it's interesting because going back even what Mike said, Mike Lee, that you know, the the the airport should pay for this, the the airline should pay for it. Even he is not saying take it away or take it out. He's just saying, hey, let's shift the burden to who pays for this. And this is an interesting thing because when you get into this public-private uh kind of argument that Nicholas has raised here, we already have a ton of private airports. Like I have a private pilot's license and I can fly out of private airports all the time. It's the public airports that have all the regulations to them. As you have a lot of traffic going through, a lot of public traffic going through, there's public safety stuff. But still, even in private airports, uh I I've got requirements. I I mean, my plane, every 100 hours or once a year, has to go through an annual. They have to do an inspection check on it so that while I'm flying somewhere, it's not going to be in such bad shape like some pickups going down the road that's going to fall apart in the air and rain on somebody's house and kill a family or whatever. So there's all these safety requirements that are generally out there. The fact is, though, you don't have TSA at those private airports. You have TSA at the public airports where you have a bulk of people going through. And we do this in other things. I mean, we even do it on our interstates. The local communities can decide what the speed limit is, but they can't decide which side of the road you drive on. We have some uniform laws that that bring some consistency, but then past that you have local local choices.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Well, and dad, too, I think it's different to say uh maybe different standards, different airports, which is not what the argument would be from us. But rather, if you're looking at who who is in charge of TSA, when the federal government is in charge, there's different levels of accountability, right? The accountability structure is different, the efficiency, the effectiveness is different. So even if you kept TSA, but you put somebody else in charge, it's a little bit like when Elon Musk took over Twitter, right? It's it's virtually the same app, but when you have different leadership and you have different standards, you end up having a very different outcome. And as he went in, right, with the kitchen sink, which was just great walking in, showing right what he was gonna do. I remember that scene. Yeah. Uh was so great. And and he removed so many people from Twitter, he removed so much of what they were doing because he saw how ineffective and inefficient it was, how much money was going to employees who were virtually doing nothing for the company. And when he removed a lot of the the woke, the virtue signal, the DEI, et cetera, et cetera, not only was he able to maintain, he improved what was there, even though it was, again, X largely Twitter, so largely the same thing. And and I think you could do something very similar with TSA, but if you remove it from government kind of autonomy where government's controlling it and you privatize it, then you could have different people in charge. It would run differently, effectively, more efficiently, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't disagree with you that we don't want there to be different standards at different airports necessarily. I think it makes sense that there's a uniform standard to some extent. But when you have a different entity that's in charge, and maybe they have a little bit more of the doge mindset of the business structure, the effectiveness, the efficiency, et cetera, I think there could be a very different and a better result, certainly than what we have now.

Senate Standoff And Voting Responsibility

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Well, before we leave that one and go to our our our next question, uh, what do y'all think about just this the Senate deal or the process that they're going through right now? I mean, it people need to be reminded these lines are happening because Democrats literally want to stop our government from deporting rapists, murderers, you know, gang members, other illegals. That's what this whole fight has been about. So this lack of funding for DHS and TSA and and ICE and everything is it's all really about Democrats wanting to stop the deportation of the worst of the worst illegal immigrants. Um and apparently the deal that's that might be made will fund TSA, but not fund the immigration uh you know uh enforcement that uh President Trump's trying to do. So uh before we leave the question, your thoughts on where that's at in the Senate and just how crazy this is because Democrats 20 years ago would not have done this. That they they were also saying that we should not allow for these people and should be deporting them. So it's just a weird moment. But anyway, the Senate process for getting this done. Thought y'all might address that.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Well, it it's a weird, a weird moment, it's a weird process, it's weird thinking that we're even talking about we're not going to fund law enforcement because we want people to break the law and get away with it and not be punished for it, which literally is what the Democrats are doing. But they will be able to keep doing that unless they get punished in the elections, unless uh the country itself. I mean, we had a special election this week in Virginia uh where that a Democrat was uh elected to Congress to fill out the term of a plus eleven Republican district. And if you're going to have results like that, Democrats feel empowered and they'll keep doing stupid stuff as long as people allow them to do stupid stuff with no consequences. So at this point, I I think that whether, in that in my opinion, what the Democrats are doing is very bad, not enforcing laws that are proper laws that are actually punishing lawbreakers. I know I can be a lawbreaker for reading the Bible if there's a law that says I can't read the Bible. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about where you literally violate the rights of others, and we have the high percentage of uh illegal immigrants that that are committing crimes and are being deported, and even Democrats are you know protecting them and they're getting them released back in the community even after several convictions. That's a whole different thing. But whether they can get away with that, and at this point, I have seen nothing that would cause the Democrats to think that they're going to pay a price for the position they've taken in the Senate. And if they're not going to pay a price, I don't see anything changing, particularly in the Senate on this. This is a philosophical logjam. And the old axiom goes, you don't you don't see the light until you feel the heat, they have felt no heat. And so they're not going to see the light yet or feel like they need to alter their positions until they start feeling some public heat.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Well, guys, one of the things I I think too, in in the midst of this analysis, is that there's a lot of discouragement and suppression on the Republican side, and and partly because you have, you know, these so-called conservative voices that have become very anti-Trump, uh, or they're saying that, right, he's stolen MAGA and he's not the real MAGA, et cetera. And so there's there's a suppression on the Republican side. But the reason, Dad, I think this matters, is when we talk about politicians, oftentimes they they need to feel the heat, right? That they need to feel the pressure before they see the light. Well, right now, it's overwhelming. 70, 80% of Americans support having a voter ID to vote. And yet, even though that's where the majority of the American people are, dad, to your point, the Democrats have not changed their position because they have not felt the consequence of their different direction by any kind of electoral process. So because people are still voting for them, they don't feel a reason to stop being crazy and start supporting what the vast overwhelming majority of Americans support that you're a U.S. citizen. You have a voter ID, and those two are basic requirements for you to be able to vote. It shouldn't be controversial, but because, dad, to your point, they are winning elections, maintaining crazy positions, they're not incentivized to change, even though the majority of American people are. And at this point, I would really encourage and challenge Christians who are listening. And I'm not saying Republicans or Democrats, I'm saying Christians, although I would challenge, I don't know how you could be a Christian and support some of the Democrat positions. I I don't know how you can be a Christian and support uh abortion and transgendering kids and right the gender mutilating surgeries, et cetera. I don't know how you can be a Christian to support that, but not to digress in that. If Christians just recognize their call, their God-given duty and responsibility to say, I've been given a stewardship of the place where I live. I want to steward it well. So I'm going to choose the best of these candidates, which is always going to be the lesser of two evils. But who's the best of those two options I have? Or if it's a primary, you might have many more options. But when Christians don't show up and vote, it allows nonsense to progress and continue. Because, Dad, again, to your point, when people are winning elections, having crazy positions, and doing ungodly things, they have no incentivization to stop because they keep getting elected. And this is where, again, I would point back to Christians and say, everybody, just a reminder, some states are still having primaries coming up. Uh, some states have gone through primaries like in Texas. We have runoffs that are coming up. We need to make sure that we don't sit out of an election because we're frustrated, we're discouraged, we don't like somebody. We've been given a stewardship and we are responsible to steward well this responsibility we have for helping lead our free nation because the constitution identifies we the people are in charge. We are the ones that determine the direction of this nation. But if we don't vote, if we don't help put the right people in place, then ultimately what we are doing is we are turning it over to people that have a different worldview. Generally speaking, we would say they're ungodly people that are choosing these elected officials that promote ungodly things, and that's why our nation is in trouble. We can't sit out because we're frustrated or discouraged. We have to make sure we keep showing up to vote.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

That is certainly foundational and a good topic for Foundations of Freedom Thursday. We're going to take a quick break. We come back, more of your questions as we're going to break, you know, just pointing out hey, immigration, you know, securing the border, removing illegals, that's a legitimate function of the federal government under the Constitution. That's one of the things that's unquestionable they should be doing. While the TSA thing we could debate, but man, the one of the few things they're supposed to do and the Democrats don't want to fund it. Crazy, crazy. All right, let's take a break. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Hi friends, this is Tim Barton of Wall Builders. This is the time when most Americans don't know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes for parents, we're trying to find good content for our kids to read. And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the Faith Hall of Fame where they outlined the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well. I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called the Courageous Leaders Collection, and this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Keith, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Rye brothers. There's a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you'll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman. Friends, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read, and it's a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at wallbuilders.com. That's www.wallbuilders.com.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Today, uh, let's see. Next question comes from Nelson in North Carolina. Nelson, now this might be Nelson Long, great friend and supporter of uh both of our ministries, and uh and I love the fact that he has huge flags outside his business. I've seen the pictures. So uh Nelson, if that's you, thank you for what you're doing. Great question, too. The declaration recognizes that God entitles the people with the laws of nature. One law is the right to defend ourselves. What are some of these other laws of nature? And is there a book to learn more about the laws of nature? So, guys, he's referred, of course, to that that uh in the first paragraph of the declaration, the laws of nature, nature's God. What do we say?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

You know, the laws of nature, nature's God. I I think it's really interesting. I I think a lot of that is observable by by observation. Um the scripture tells us there's nothing that we can't know about God through studying what He's created. So the scriptures are real clear on that, but very rarely do we sit down and take time to contemplate. You know, if we got time, we're on social media, we're we're busting through emails, we're whatever we're doing. And very rarely you just go out and, for example, sit down at the corner of a cow pasture and look over the pasture and sit there for two hours and think about all the things that you can see, and what do they tell you, and what do you do? And so the the time to contemplate, uh I I would say that growing up um farming, ranching, country life, the kind of stuff we've had, I've seen a lot of things that that stir me, but at the same time, I'm always looking to see what I can find. So I I don't really know that there's a good work on the laws of nature, nature's God. Much of that is observable. The founding fathers wrote about it based on observation, they would point to creation as as indications. But I was just you know, with Nelson asking this question, I just went through and started writing down things that I know from nature that are laws of nature and nature's God. Um, self defense is one. In nature, I don't care whether you're a mouse or whether you're a lion. If if somebody tries to hurt you or mess with you, you're going to fight back. You're you're going to do that. So law of self defense is one.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

And dad, for everybody who is listening, if you want to go read the founding fathers, they called it the law of self-preservation or the right of self-preservation, which ultimately is what self-defense is. But uh the reason I bring it up is a little bit like one of the reasons we will read the King James Bible often in our Bible reading and Bible study, it's not just because we like the King James Bible, although we do, uh, but it's because that is the Bible the Founding Fathers were the most familiar with, that utilized the most. And so much of the their quoting of the Bible is in the King James language. And so when you're familiar with the language they use, it's easier to see, identify, and recognize. And so if you're reading the founders' writings, look for when they talk about self-preservation. Sometimes they say self-defense, but self-preservation is one of those things that is very evident in their writings.

Job 38 And Learning From Creation

SPEAKER_00 22:46

You know, and it's interesting too, if you go to the last chapters of Job. After Job and his friends, if you know the story of Job, Job is the righteous, godly guy. He went through some terrible tribulations because Satan in heaven had a conversation with God and said, Well, you know, if you'll turn against Job and hurt him or hurt his family, he'll turn against you. And God said, No, he won't. I know Job better than that. So Job went through a lot of things that are inexplicably unjust to us. If we were just observing and saying, Man, I can't believe Job just lost his whole family. I can't believe Job lost his health. I can't believe Job lost his wealth. We wouldn't know what was going on in heaven were that God saying, see, I told you he's not going to renounce his faith just because of what happened. So if you don't, if you're not aware that there are oftentimes spiritual things going in the heavens that you're not aware of, then you can't understand what seems to be fair and unfair and just and unjust in this life. So after all this happens, you go through 387 chapters of Job just getting his brains beat in by every possible scenario situation. His friends turn against him, his friends say, You must be ungodly to have this much bad stuff going in your life. It's all there. And then God finally shows up in chapter 38 and says, None of you know what you're talking about. And he says, Don't you understand? And so from Job 38 to the end of the book, all he does is give them lessons out of nature. He says, Haven't you ever seen the way the horse does this? Haven't you seen the way and he just goes from animal to animal to animal, giving lessons, and he didn't give them a theological treatise. It became a theological treatise, but he did it by pointing to his own creation and the lessons he had put there. And so that's one of the great books. If if you want to get kind of introduced to the laws of nature and nature's God, read the book of Job and get frustrated for 37 chapters, and then let God show up in chapter 38 and sit you straight by pointing you to nature and so many examples. And so the founding fathers did that. Other things that I've noticed is once there is conception, you have a right to be born. I don't know of anything, I can't find an example in nature of once something is conceived that is terminated through an unnatural process. There may be miscarriages or other things, even in nature, that happens with cattle and other things, but there once there is conception, there is a right to be born in nature. Um there's only two genders in nature. All mammals, there's only two genders, there's no other options. Um there's uh uh procreation and and it's in the sense that they produce children. Producing children is a natural part of nature. Uh you don't see single solitary things unless you're an eagle that loses your mate, and then you'll be single for the rest of your life. There's some species that are monogamous. They they mate with the same for life, others don't, but there is they do have children, and that that's part of the laws of nature. They also form a society. They're not they're not isolated, solitary. Uh they they will have interactions with others of their species, and so there's this social element that of the herds. They also have self-determination. Um, they determine what they're going to do and what they're going to be, and if they get out of bounds, there is accountability. Other others in that herd will discipline those that get out of bounds. Um, so that there's just so many things you can point to. I mean, savings accounts are part of nature, whether it's alligators or whether it's beavers or mountain lions or ants, they store up their provisions so they have savings accounts. They understand they're going to need stuff on in the future. So there's just a lot of things you can point to from the laws of nature. I don't know of a great book, but observation is a great starting place. And then reading the Bible and Job 38 own and then other books about the laws of nature would be good places to start.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

And wallbuilders.com, of course, go there and uh search through those articles as well. And in Constitution Alive, I recall David teaching on this when we were first recording that years ago. So good stuff in there as well. All of it available at wallbuilders.com. Thank you for the questions today, folks. We are out of time. We've got more questions, we'll hit next Thursday. Don't miss tomorrow. Got a lot of good news to share with you on Good News Friday. You've been listening to the Wall Builders Show.