Marxism And The Myth Of Constant Change

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the Wall Builder Show taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Later in the program, K. Carl Smith will be joining us to talk about Douglas versus Marks. That would be Frederick Douglass versus Carl Marx. Going to be an interesting interview, uh, new book coming out. Uh, wallbuilders.com is our main website. That's where you can learn more about us and about all the programs and different events coming up this summer. And then WallBuilders.show, if you need to catch up on some of the programs you might have missed last few weeks and months, and then of course on all the podcast apps out there, share with your friends and family. Be a force multiplier and get the truth from the Wall Builder Show in the hands of as many people as you possibly can. Okay, guys, so this is uh this is an interesting book because it's not a debate that ever actually took place between Douglas and Marx, but it's it's basically taking their words and just trying to show the two different worldviews, what communism does versus what a biblical worldview does.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Well, you know, it's it's interesting to me just on the whole worldview thing, because I I would go even beyond communism, or at least before communism, and go back to Marxism. I think Marxism kind of is uh a mean form of communism. It's the philosophy that that really set up communism to become what it has been, which is the destroyer of life, destroyer of freedom, destroyer of nations. Uh, but the philosophy of Marxism really kind of predates what we know as communism. And I've just been thinking about the influence that Marxism has had uh on the last two to three generations, particularly the most recent generation, but the one before that and the one before that. Uh so that's kind of back in into my my latter days when I was younger, that it was coming in at that point in time. And it was kind of started as socialism, and socialism is kind of like a soft introductory uh gateway drug for uh harder stuff like Marxism. And so you start with this kind of joint philosophy that you know society needs to change, it needs to evolve. It all is part of progressivism, and progressivism certainly postates Marxism in terms of identification of that movement, but they all go together and they all have to work together. And so if you take Marxism out of that, you you certainly have the intellectual underpinnings of socialism, although socialism goes all the way back to the book of Genesis, as as do all these philosophies. There's nothing new under the sun, but in in our in our kind of lifestyle or in our in our younger American history, I say younger American history, not as old as the Bible, you've got the the introduction of Marxism, and then you have the growth of socialism, uh then you have really the the introduction of communism, and and then you you get so much more into progressivism, but but the whole premise of all of those is one thing, and that is that nothing is to remain the same, everything changes, everything has to move, nothing can stay fixed. If it stays fixed, it's a drag on society, you have to change everything. Now, the reason I bring that up is having gone through, you know, my background was math and science, that's where my scholarship was in college, etc. I I just try to reconcile that with things like the laws of gravity or or the the speed of light, or things like I don't know, even human nature. We haven't seen human nature change in in you know however many thousands of years you want to point to. It's got the same problems, but I I was just thinking the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of motion, the laws of electromagnetism, the laws of quantum mechanics, Kepler's laws of planetary motion, Boyle's laws of gases, and Newton's laws of motion, the law of polarity, the law of rhythm, the law of cause and effect, all these laws. You're telling me that everything evolves, that nothing is fixed? I mean, these guys wouldn't even have a universe from which to put out their Pablum nonsense if it wasn't for fixed laws that do not change over time. And just just coming to reality with that, man, if we if we could get people to understand that their whole premise is everything always changes, and that's contrary to the laws of nature and of nature's God, we would have a whole different nation if we'd had that philosophy in universities even three generations ago, two generations ago, or particularly the current generation.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

Yeah, and I gotta admit, guys, I I tend to I I tend to throw all of it into the same box. Like you're saying, it all comes down to a basic rejection of God and and making government God and controlling people. Um but the difference between Marxism and communism, I haven't really made that distinction. I've just always thrown those two in the same bucket, and socialism always thought of it as, you know, like you said, the gateway drug to those things.

Early America Tries Socialism And Fails

Why Ignoring History Fuels Marxism

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Well, and and I think, Rick, in fairness, uh, that they are different things, but it's kind of like uh choosing which gun you want to be shot with. Um all of them are gonna have kind of the same negative consequence, it's just a matter of how you get there. If you live in a Marxist nation, a communist nation, or a socialist nation, you're gonna lose your property, you're gonna lose your savings account, you're you're gonna lose the the same general kinds of things, it's just you lose them in different ways and different avenues. And and this is something, Dad, uh you kind of alluded to if you track some of the influence of these things in America and the arguments don't really change. Uh in recognizing the the underpinning worldview problem it is, uh one of the things we've talked about for years is how in early America they experimented with socialism. Jamestown experimented with socialism, and by experimenting, they tried it. That was their experiment. They they implemented and applied socialism the first couple of years, and it led to the starving time. It's the reason initially early on, uh, Governor Smith passed the law where he said, if you don't work, you don't eat, which is borrowed from the Bible. Second Thessalonians 3:10. They were following biblical advice because it wasn't working. Uh, of course, the story of Jamestown unfolds, they remove the governor, they end up having the starving time, they turn to cannibalism. It was a terrible failed experiment, and again, experiment being relative, they tried it for a couple years, but they they tried to apply socialism and they didn't like the consequence. Similarly, if you look at Plymouth, they they tried socialism, and again, it was an utter failure. So, socialism has been tried over and over, and one of the things that we are told with socialism in general is that the reason it hasn't worked now, and and this is what the the advocates for socialism say is well, we haven't tried it the right way. If we would do it this way, then it would work. And of course, if you ask them, well, how is your new modern version of socialism different than the other ways it's been applied? And and and it can't really give you an answer because it's not that this is this is a broken failed concept from the beginning. Well, Marxism is even worse because Marxism is not a voluntary thought. It Marxism and communism, uh, some people would argue socialism and communism are more similar. I think communism and Marxism have more similarities, even though they're very different, but it's because it is a mandated, created thing. Ultimately, now Marxism doesn't start there, it ends there, uh, which you could argue the same thing for communism, but both of them are far more intrusive and mandated. And Karl Marx's idea was that ultimately Marxism it's something that should seek to always overthrow the current government. And he said, to do that, you at times you you really have to pit classes against each other. And the two basic classes were the oppressed and the oppressor, and kind of where Marx landed, he said sometimes you have to teach people they've been oppressed or they won't seek to overthrow the oppressor. And this is the reality of what we're dealing with. This is what's been going on in academia, and not just that that people are being taught a socialistic idea that we should redistribute the wealthy uh individuals' money and assets and that we should all be equal together. It's far more evil than that. We are watching academics tell people, tell students that if someone has money, it's because they're evil and and therefore you should oppose them. And and we are literally trying to educate people into believing that they have been oppressed and believing that the moral good is to overthrow the oppressor, and at times with great violence, and and so there there are unique differences to all of them, all of them end in very negative consequences and outcomes, so it all goes the same direction, but but many of these things have been tried in America before, they were utter failures. Marxism hasn't been fully tried, but Marx is at least not in America, Marxism has been fully tried in many other nations, and it led to the deaths of tens of millions of people from those nations. That this should be one of those lessons we can look at other nations and learn from their mistakes and not have to make the same ones ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

You know, Tim, going exactly what you're saying, the one thing that struck me about the growth of Marxism in our universities is the decline of the teaching of history. Um when I checked just a year or so ago, there's not a state in the United States that has an end-of-course test for history. And of course, teachers teach to the test. And if you're not gonna test on history, we're not gonna teach history. But if you taught history, then you would know what works and what didn't work. And as you pointed out, Tim, it's never been fully tried in America, but it's never worked in any other place where it has been tried. If we actually studied history, we would know that. And we wouldn't go down the road of three generations of telling people that something's gonna work that never has worked.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah, dad, to that point, it's like saying, Well, you know what? Everybody that's ever been shot in the face with a 50 cal has died, but we've never tried it in America. And you're like, You're a moron. You're not gonna survive that. This is the worst thing ever. But academics don't want to talk about the consequences of what it's produced. They instead want to focus on no, there's certain really bad people that aren't in the cat class or category we want. And so we're teaching people they've been oppressed to help them rise up and overthrow their oppressors. And again, teaching them that violence is an acceptable mean to do this because the greatest moral good is for the oppressed to overthrow the oppressors, etc. This is one of the big challenges we are navigating from the academic realm today.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

You know, this philosophy that goes back to the 1840s, and I I love the concept that Carl Kay Carl has done here in the set concept that he's taken Marxism from his introduction to the 1840s and said, even back at that point, it was rejected, and there were different views of that point as you get with Frederick Douglass. So, what a great place to go, what a great way to look at it. Let's go back in history, even to the time this crazy philosophy was introduced, and let's see what the thought was at that time. It's a great way of going at it.

unknown 10:56

K.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Carl Smith, our guest. When we return, you're listening to the Wall Builder Show.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

This is Tim Barton from Wall Builders with another moment from American history. The year after the American War for Independence ended, we began addressing the issue of Muslim terrorists in North Africa who were attacking American ships and killing and enslaving American seamen. Congress dispatched John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to negotiate peace, and when they asked the Muslim ambassador the reason for the unprovoked attacks, he told them that it was written in their Quran, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them whenever they could be found. Sixteen years of negotiations failed, and in 1801, America sent its military to crush the terrorists. When that war ended in 1805, the first American edition of the Quran was published, urging Americans to read the Quran to see for themselves that its teachings were incompatible with the safety and peace of non-Muslims. To see the first American Quran and to get more information about America's first war on Islamic terror, go to wallbuilders.com.

K Carl Smith Builds The Debate

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Welcome back to the Wallboard Show. Thanks for staying with us. Kate Carl Smith back with us been way too long, and man, I saw the sign for your new book. We're at the Liberty Pastors event. And I can't think of a better topic than Douglas versus Marks. You put together a debate between these two guys. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Well, you know, the Douglass and Marks were contemporaries. Both of them were born in 1818, but they never met. So we said, wait a minute now. What would Frederick Douglass being America's greatest liberty messenger? If he had a face-to-face meeting with Karl Marx, the father of communism, what would he say to him?

SPEAKER_03 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Well, there's no history of that because they never met. So we put together this uh 31 dialogues, where they're in a room, they're going at it. Now, here's the thing that people need to know. The content of what they said, it's nothing we did not make up. It's based on source documents. It's based on what Douglass said, what Douglass wrote, his actual beliefs, and the same thing that Karl Marx, his actual belief. So thank God we have a literary legacy where Frederick Douglass wrote about free speech, the role of government, uh, personal responsibility, private property, rights. All the claims of Marxism, Douglass wrote about that before Marxism existed. How so? Well, think about it. The slave master and the slave government. Same techniques of oppression.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

So when Douglas wrote about what he experienced on a plantation as a slave from the slave master, is identical to the same techniques of oppression used by Marxism or slave government. So Douglass was a very strong. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Because matter of fact, one of Douglas' powerful speech, he's uh his lectures called The Nature of Slavery. And in that speech, Douglas said the first aim of slavery is to take God out of your life. That's the first aim of Marxism. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

Yeah. And so so now back up, you you you bet you literally took their words, took their words picked a topic that they both spoke to or about.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yes, and the claims of Marxism. Everything, because Douglas' life and his right refutes all the claims of Marxism because that's why the left don't don't don't lean on Douglas. Yeah. Douglas refutes everything about Marxism. Douglas talked about our God-given rights.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Founding fathers, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

So the left has no answer for him. So Douglass is not a museum piece, in my opinion. Douglas is a weapon to defeat Marxism. The sad thing is, most people do not know about it.

SPEAKER_03 14:43

That was actually my next question. Why have we somewhat lost Frederick Douglass? I remember at the State Board of Education a couple weeks ago, that was part of our arguments was we wanted Frederick Douglass to be one of those guys that we spent more time on in the classroom. And the left hates it because of exactly what you're saying, because he teaches things that destroys their arguments. Um do you think it's coming back? I mean, it's part of what you're devoted to, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Oh, yeah, because see, it is coming back because in my book, it's not Democrat versus Republican. It's not left versus right, it's good versus evil. Yeah. You mentioned that the other day when you score. It's really good versus evil. Yeah. And people want to know the truth. So thank God we have the literary legacy of Frederick Douglass to refute the false narrative and the claims of Marxism. We just have to be wise enough to leverage that. Tell me about the book, when's it coming out?

SPEAKER_03 15:32

The book is out.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

It's already out. Okay. But don't go to Amazon, don't give Bezos any more money. You got it. But uh come to my website and it's a little bit long, D R L, but it's K Carl K-C A-R-L dot company dot site s I T E. Okay, do it one more time. K-carl, K-C-A-R-L, K-carl dot company dot site, S-I-T-E.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

S-I-T-E. So wait a minute. K- Carl. So see, every time I mention my wife's name, Kara, it's always, is it a K or a C? And so with K- Carl, it's both.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

It's both. I gotta get a history on it. So my given name is Keith Smith. Okay. Keith Carl Smith. And several years ago, my daughter said, Dad, Keith is not a hard enough name. It's not like Rocky. So let's let's eliminate the last letters off your first name. So take the K, put it with my middle name, Carl, with a C. So publicly I go by K Carl as one word. And how old was your daughter when she came up with this? She was about 17 years old.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

I love it. All right, now tell me before we go, what are you gonna share with pastors tomorrow?

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Well, I'm gonna really talk about the essence of if we're gonna defeat Marxism, CRT, um, and DEI, you gotta understand first that CRT and DI are derivative from Marxism. Yeah. So the best way to defeat Marxism is with Frederick Douglassism. We gotta take the liberty message of Frederick Douglass, which we have now, and take that message, understand it, to articulate the importance and the value of liberty to the minds of people, because people know the truth. But never they never heard the counter-argument, especially from the writings and life of Frederick Douglass.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Well, give us a little quick history on Douglas. Uh because I've heard David Barton talk about him quite a bit and give some of the bio, but I mean he was incredibly accomplished. Didn't he have he had access to multiple presidents? I mean, what were what were just some of the things that he did?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yeah, David's right on point. Uh Frederick Douglass was an advisor to five Republican presidents. Five. Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield, Ruth of Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison. Zero days of formal schooling. He was all homeschooled. He started his own homeschooling program. No kidding. To learn how to read and write, because why? He rejected the slave master's coming core curriculum that he had set out, so he rejected that, right? Call me the slave master's coming core curriculum. So, but the tidbit about Douglas' light that really blows your mind. Um, I remember when David, uh David Barton said that, you know, Frederick Douglass wrote three autobiographies. And David said, I don't know, everybody has three autobiographies, but Frederick Douglass had three autobiographies covered at different times of his life. But at the time of his death, 1895, Frederick Douglass had$300,000 in savings. That's after being a slave for 20 years, which is equivalent to$10 million today. Wow. So that's why the life and the liberty message of Frederick Douglass is the message, the most effective counter message to the feat. He lived it.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

He was just theorized. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

You're exactly right. Karl Marx was a theorist about oppression.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

He never lived it. He was a deadbeat dad. He he he he he you know did nothing to help his family. He couldn't hold down.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

As a matter of fact, in one of the debates we have, we came up with, but brother, we actually role-played these things. That's how we wrote it. He was Marx, of course, now it was Douglas. In one of the debates, Frederick Douglass confronts Karl Marx regarding his lack of work ethic. And Frederick Douglass basically said any man that does not financially support his own obligation, his family, has no need trying to lead a nation. Wow. Wow, I love it. So so the point I want to bring up before we leave here. So you have these 31 debates. Every debate is followed by a reflection, the moral of the story, talking points. So now you can take this debate and come with these talking points that help you articulate better your your view on those subjects.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And also there are discussion questions with guided answers. It's really a curriculum.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Okay, Carlos, it's such good timing because the, you know, I work with a lot of youth, and and there is a there's a fascination with socialism right now. They don't even call it that necessarily, but they're facing they're drawn to the same things that Marx was for. And so now's the right time to get this book in front of them and to have the discussion to be able to get them to think through it, not just read the words, yeah, but then think through it. I'm so glad you did that part.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

And also what it does, it helps them to prepare them. When I young people go to these college campuses, which is nothing but a um Marx's indoctrination boot camp, we gotta equip them with the intellectual tools. So before they walk in that classroom, yes, and that professor says something, you bring Douglass to the conversation because Douglass probably wrote about it.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

I should, I just as you're saying that, I'm just picturing classrooms all over America on college campuses where we equip these young people, and you've got a Frederick Douglass type person sitting in that classroom to counter the professor.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

We can save this nation, one or two election cycles.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

I love it. I love it. Okay, Carl, thank you, man. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks for being a part of Liberty Pastors. Folks, stay with us. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

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 that's called the Courageous Leaders Collection, and this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Rye Brothers. And 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.

Why Douglass Threatens Modern Narratives

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Kate Carl Smith. What great work, Douglas versus Marks, The Battle for America's Soul. I love the last line on the back. It says this is not a history book, it's a tactical manual for the soul of America. Frederick Douglass has been the answer all along. I you know, uh David, I gotta admit, I know I've uh uh I often confess my um the holes in my in my education uh here on the program and I was so utterly unfamiliar with Frederick Douglass until I found you and started listening to your cassette tapes yes that long ago and you would refer to Douglas and I and I got so curious about him and the things that you shared and talked about from his faith to this influence on presidents and where he came from just the fact that I went to you know pretty decent schools one of the best law schools in America you know all of those things and was unfamiliar with Douglas tells you how bad the education system is at at holding up one of these heroes with these great philosophies and I know you've been working on textbooks and in a lot of different states and we've got a big battle coming up in Texas but that was one of the things I heard in the testimony when we went down to the state board of education was trying to get Frederick Douglass you know back to being highlighted in in in the textbook. So I thought about that as K. Carl was was talking about this. So I just want to say thank you to you for constantly finding these heroes not just in the founding error but you know here you have what 50 years after the founding error this guy coming along and and putting out so much great information that we need to be teaching kids today.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

But look how how can progressives teach teach anything about Frederick Douglass because he was an advisor to five different Republican presidents and served in four different Republican administrations. And you can't have a black guy doing that and teach that in class to today even if that is historically accurate. And so what what they do teach is how bad he was toward the American flag but they don't even give the rest of the story on that. That was one of three pieces he did on it in his evolution of life.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Well yeah Dad I was gonna say you know actually the academics do at times talk about Frederick Douglass. They talk about how he acknowledged the Constitution was racist. So they they do tell some of things about Frederick Douglass they just they just don't tell the whole story about Frederick Douglass.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yeah and Tim to that point that's he wrote an autobiography when he was young and he was very much in the racist mode because he'd been taught by the Massachusetts abolition society and he'd been taught the Constitution was anti-black etc and then he says in his second autobiography that he read the Constitution himself and couldn't find any of that stuff in there. And so he started not believing what he was told even by guys that we would say are on the right side and that's what's what you did by the time he got to his third autobiography it's a whole different tone. He's grown over that time but that never comes out the way academics teach it.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Yeah he he he acknowledged that uh because the Constitution allowed slavery he was taught it's therefore a racist document but he says when he finally read it there was not a shred of racism in it that there was nothing uh of the despicable reference to slaves or slavery. He said it's a glorious liberty document. You know the irony when you read the thing that people are criticizing uh and and he believed it because he was told something incorrect. But again if you actually knew more of Frederick Douglass's life you would realize that he he's not even the person he's often portrayed to be by academics today. And the reason they don't tell his whole story is because his story contradicts so much of their narrative and as was pointed out that the the fact that when you look at at someone who was didn't have a formal education and yet he was able after slavery 20 years later he has$3000 saved up the equivalent of like$10 million today it his life is the complete contrast and again this is why it you know he's he is the great antonym for some of this Marxist ideology if we just went back and studied these guys' story whether it's a Frederick Douglass or Berkeley Washington whoever else it so contradicts the narrative but Frederick Douglass is a great example because he and Marx having a similar uh era really gives a good contrast for him.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

You know and having started this thing with philosophies at the beginning that didn't work I want to end it with something and I think one of the most profound points he made in the interview was he said remember that Karl Marx was a theorist. He was a theorist this was all theory to him it had never before been tried and now that it's been tried it's never worked not even once we got to remember that Marxism came from a theorist who never tried never applied never proved anything and it still hasn't worked even once so that's a great point too it violates all the all the laws of science it has never worked once it's got to be rejected.

unknown 26:27

K.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Carl Smith appreciate him coming on today Douglas v Marks is the name of the book and be thinking about it not just as a a book to read but literally like a textbook like something to to teach the family and to and to study together. That's the that's the way it's written and intended to be used. So appreciate K Carl coming on today. Thank you so much for listening you've been listening to the Wall Builder Show.