Why Mason Matters Right Now

Rick Green 0:07

This is the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders show where we take on all the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green with David Barton and Tim Barton, websites wallboarders.com and wallbuilders.Show, wallbuilders.Show for radio, wallbuilders.com for everything else. Uh, we were we were just getting off the air yesterday, the day after the election, and uh, Tim, you said something about George Mason and that good quote about uh fundamental principles, man. You don't have a free people, nobody gets the blessings of liberty if you don't have a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. So here it is Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Great time to be reminded of the fundamental principles that produce a free society. And uh maybe a lot of folks, I hate saying it, not just in America, but in Texas, need a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles. Now, Rick, I actually think we were off air when you and I talked about that.

Tim Barton 1:02

So we were. No, I said that when we got off the air. I was pointing it out because I don't think the audience knows the quote from George Mason.

Rick Green 1:10

Yeah.

Tim Barton 1:10

So wait a minute, time out. Who's George Mason? Explain the dude. Good point. Yes, Dad, I'm happy to explain to you who George Mason was. Right. Um, so so George Mason, Dad, he's known as the father of the Bill of Rights. And he's the guy at the Constitutional Convention who said, uh essentially, as he's helping ride it, that he wouldn't sign it because it didn't place enough limits on the federal government. And so he is advocating for the Bill of Rights. So he's known as a father of the Bill of Rights because it was a lot of his charge and drive that led to it. And he did a lot of things in the state of Virginia, a lot of important writings and notes that he had uh for the state for development, very influential guy, but uh Dad, he was one of the founding fathers at the constitutional convention. So that's who he was.

Rick Green 1:59

Got it. Okay, got it. Good. Yeah, so since we have this special guest, David Barton, with us, and clearly we're having to educate him on the founding fathers and who they are and what they said. Kidding, of course, but um I this was actually one of the first ones I picked up from you, David. I think I've led with ver almost every presentation I've ever given because it is such a good setup for why we need to study these things. So so so it was it's it's basically no free government. So we've got a constitutional republic that's built on a system of free government that's not gonna last. That's what he's saying. No free government nor the blessings of liberty. So we know that if we put good stuff into the culture, we get the blessings of liberty when we're lined up with the laws of nature and nature's God. No free government nor the blessings of liberty can be preserved, so it's not gonna last for any people. We've enjoyed it for 250 years, but it's not gonna last, not gonna be preserved. No free government nor the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people but by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles or of fundamental principles. So he's saying if you want those things to last, you have to frequently remind yourself what are the inputs that produce it. So that's that's George Mason. It's a great quote. Uh Tim, I think when you were saying that off-air last night after our Show, it was kind of like, okay, election was bad. Now what do we need to remind people and what do we need to teach them on a foundations of freedom Thursday to get back to the blessings of liberty and to have that that free government?

Voting As A Civic Duty

Rick Green 3:20

So that's basically what we're gonna cover today. I don't even know if we'll go to any questions from the audience. We may, we've got some lined up here if we need to, but um I maybe I asked the question, David, what would you summarize?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

I I'm gonna back up to something I just kind of learned after the election. We're starting to see some of the results of the the polling afterwards and and the breakdown. I'm gonna say the first thing that that is required for preserving freedom is you gotta go vote, especially if you're a person of faith. I was just talking to one of the former senators, U.S. senators, and he points out that the exit polling shows that normally evangelicals, and those who are described as people who are serious about their faith, who believe the scriptures, et cetera, normally vote about 24% of the election. As it turned out, they only voted about 17% of the election. The other group that really underperformed was the rural counties. The rural counties showed up only about 40% of what they normally vote. So they were, and that's an off-year election. They're 40% lower than an average off-year election. So the rural counties, which tend to be more conservative, and the faith people, which tend to be more conservative, did not Show up. And the other thing that did Show up is the early results that they've got so far showed that about 40% of those who did vote were atheists and agnostics. So you definitely have the faith people sitting it out, kind of the God-fearing farmers and country folks and evangelicals, and 40% of the electorate being being not God conscious. First thing, if you're gonna return to recurring principles, you got to get back into doing my duty as a citizen, doing my duty before God and man. And that's where I'd start, because I was shocked by that, that information. So that's that's that's the first thing that drives me to say, hey, here's a recurring fundamental principle. You gotta go vote when there's an election and you got to vote constitutional and biblical values.

Rick Green 5:19

Yeah, man, it's just a responsibility issue. And of course, it's something we've harped on a lot that even even if you don't like the candidates, even if you're not happy with where things are, you know, uh options or or who's in control or all of those things, it doesn't change your duty. So it's for so many to sit out means that they let discouragement because whatever part of the Trump agenda or or whatever other agenda didn't happen as fast as they wanted it, or or something happened that they didn't like, they allowed it to to to cause them to literally sit out and not even be engaged. So you're right. First step is showing up, actually being involved. Our our uh our friend that's uh in glory now, uh Dan Flynn, remember he would always say that state rep from Texas, he would always say, um, the the half the battle is just showing up. And I think he got it from you anyway, David, but um so so yeah, let's let's talk principles though. Just kind of generally speaking, um, there's a lot of a lot of people that are going to be championing now socialism. They're gonna be championing, you know, more government interaction in people's lives. And they're I mean, just the basic principles of of how our free society works are on the table now based on what's a lot of these people campaigned on and what they have been for in the past that are now going to be in charge. And you've got a totally different philosophy about freedom and the principles uh that will now govern Texas for at least the next few years. So I think it is a good time for us to remind people of of and have that frequent recurrence. And so showing up, obviously, but then what do you do when you Show up? What are what are what are kind of some biblical principles of liberty or foundations of freedom that we could point out today?

Seven Conservative Principles Explained

Tim Barton 6:47

Well, guys, one of the best breakdowns of this that I that I've ever seen comprehensively put together came from Mike Johnson. Before he was Speaker of the House, when he was a congressman, one of the things that that he identified, and this was several years ago, he said, I'm afraid that too many conservatives are are at this point becoming known for what they're against. And and people don't know what we advocate. And I think, by the way, that's definitely true. When you look at what happened in this midterm, I think there's a lot of Americans that don't know what conservatives were actually trying to accomplish. Now, we have talked off-air about how bad the messaging was, how bad the branding was. A lot of issues that we could point to that Americans had no idea how many positive things have happened in the last two years under the Trump administration. Crime rate at an all-time low, right? The border more secure than we've ever seen. You investments and like you kind of go through the list, things that ultimately are going to bear more fruit in the long term, but didn't have the immediate effect on the gas and grocery prices because there was a war. And this is something too that we, I mean, we definitely could dive into uh on this because there's a lot of your kind of Tucker Carlson uh conservative movement that's going, man, we we should never be involved in any conflict ever. Uh, you know, unless it's something on American soil, we only protect from American soil. We could talk about the details of strategy and why I don't think that's the best strategy, but we also can get into what makes sense in war, not to digress. There was a lot of Americans that were very bothered by that, not thinking about the fact that President Trump might be playing a long-term game where every every single president in our lifetime, virtually speaking, has identified the problems with Iran and no president was willing to do it. And then a president does, and people forget all of the positive things that have happened. The president that actually did what every president said needed to happen. At this point, people go, wait a second, my my gas is up, my groceries are up. Although it's still lower than when Biden and Obama were president. Not again, not to digress too much in this, but the backing up to the reality, most Americans don't know what conservatives actually stand for. And this is where, guys, uh the founding fathers could lay out uh a whole slew of things, um, life, liberty, property, etc. But Mike Johnson did this uh several years ago. And if people want to look it up, it's called the Seven Core Principles of Conservatism. And I think this is one of the best lists. We can dive into this a little deeper and uh unfold, kind of unpack this bag a little bit. But number one is individual freedom, number two is limited government, number three is the rule of law, number four is peace through strength, number five is fiscal responsibility, number six is free markets, and number seven is human dignity. And again, we can break that down. And Dad, I'm sure that there's other things we could add to this list uh that that are not on here when it comes to some of the basic andalienable rights and government exists to secure those rights, and what does that look like? But I think, very, very simply put, these seven core principles of conservatism, uh I think all of us would agree probably with all seven of these. And we might say there's uh things we could add and nuance in it. But the idea that we believe in individual freedom, that that God has created mankind free, we believe in limited government. Government should only do for us what we can't do for ourselves, and that's to borrow from Abraham Lincoln, who uh allegedly was quoting Thomas Jefferson. We believe in the rule of law that laws exist and laws should be upheld. We believe in peace through strength. So we don't want to remove military. We don't want to remove some kind of law enforcement. No, we want a strong military. Uh, we believe in fiscal responsibility. We we acknowledge the government is spending so much money on things they shouldn't be doing. There's so much waste and fraud and abuse when it comes to spending. We believe in free markets, that the government shouldn't put their thumb on the scale, they they shouldn't do things to elevate and prop up certain businesses or causes and do things that restrict or hinder other businesses and causes. And then human dignity, that this is something that we have largely lost the conversation and lost this argument in modern culture. But human dignity starts with the unborn. And the fact that right now you have an awful lot of Republicans who are not in favor of ending all of abortion. By the way, even some pro-life organizations who have some nuanced definitions of how they want to end abortion and how that should go. But the reality is, it used to be we understood that we were created in the image of our creator, and it that you can go back and borrow from the declaration that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator. We acknowledge we're created and we have a creator. This to borrow from Genesis, uh 1, 26, and 27, we were made in God's image, male and female, he created them. This was something that used to be a very core thought in conservatism. And unfortunately, it's it's lost a lot of uh its its status in the conservative movement. But those are seven core principles, and again, we can talk way more about those. And if people want to actually read more about this, Mike Johnson had a write-up on all of these. Uh, you can look up the seven core principles of conservatism, but I would say those are some of the core components that we need to go back and help remind and refresh people on and then promote. Here's what we want we don't want a government that solves all of our problems, quote unquote, because a government that's able to give you rights can also take them away. We we we need to start explaining the ideas behind this and maybe even re-explaining what the American dream was. It was the pursuit of happiness, it's not a socialistic guarantee that nobody ever fails and everybody's the same, and we're gonna tax the rich and give to the poor. That that that's not the American way of life, it's not the American dream, it's not the American ideal, and it's not a core principle of conservatism because what that ultimately leads to is destruction. We want to stay away from it. So I would say that's a really what Mike Johnson did is a really good intro to some of the principles that to borrow from George Mason, we need to have a frequent recurrence to these fundamental principles. Remember, here's things that we should fundamentally believe and try to conserve at this point, try to reteach and restore, maybe like wall builders, rebuild those foundations of the conservative movement. But I would say those are seven things that definitely jump out of my mind.

Rick Green 13:21

Well, uh, Tim, I just think you haven't listened to enough recent speeches because I thought for sure the declaration said life, liberty, and the guarantee of happiness. Isn't that what all these people campaign? Actually, I think some of them campaigned on life, liberty, and the redistribution of happiness. So anyway, no, great reminder. I'm glad you reminded us it's pursuit of happiness. A lot more of these principles we'll get to when we come back from the break. Stay with us, folks. You're listening to the WallBuilder show.

Jefferson Draft Declaration Resource

Tim Barton 13:47

Hey guys, this is Tim Barton from WallBuilders. I'm gonna let you know about a new resource that should be a tool in your toolbox. This is the reprint of Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Now, there's lots of reasons it would be cool to own a reprint like this, but one of the things that I want to highlight is not only is this a reprint that is in Thomas Jefferson's own hand in cursive, it shows some of his edits along the way, which is really fun, but it also shows what Thomas Jefferson thought was the most significant grievance in the original draft. It's the longest grievance, it's the last grievance. It was a grievance against the slave trade, arguing actually also against slavery, and arguing for the humanity of all that were in slaves. Thomas Jefferson thought that was the most important. Now, it didn't make it the final draft, and we will explain why in the resource pack that you get when you order one of these copies. But friends, this is something that you want in your collection. Go to wallbooter.com and look for Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence.

A Listener Wins Locally

Rick Green 14:49

Welcome back to the WallBuilders show. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday, doing a little bit different considering the election this week. We need a remembrance. Uh, go back to those principles, as George Mason told us to have that frequent recurrence. And and guys, one one quick piece of good news before you jump back in on the principles. This is a great email one of our listeners sent yesterday after the election. If y'all don't mind, I'm gonna read it real quick. It's it's uh from Sheila. She said, Thank you, gentlemen, for all that you do, for the reminders and the encouragement that God is on the move. I'd like to take a minute to share my story with you, as perhaps a small bit of good news in light of the overwhelming, shocking news we received last night. She sent it yesterday or day before yesterday, whatever it was. Anyway, she said, I've been listening to y'all since 2020 when COVID hit. I was connected to you through convention estates. So glad that I was because of you. I became a Constitution coach and I teach biblical citizenship at my church. So she's teaching those principles we're talking about today. She said, in addition, in 2022, I ran for our local school board and lost. Came in dead last. Two open seats, seven candidates dead last. I was very disappointed to say the least. I definitely made some ground. I wasn't sure if I had it in me to run one more time. I had a new job. It was going to be difficult to be at the polls, but I gave it one last shot. God sent me helpers, people who were willing to get my signs out for me, stand at the polls when I couldn't, people who believed in and supported me. I stood out at those polls one last time on election day for 13 hours, talking to as many people as I could, and after four years of trying, always in God's perfect timing, it paid off. I was one of the two open seats that had uh six candidates running for it. I will now start my four-year term as Davidson County's Board of Education's newest member. Thank you for staying the course and doing what you do. It's making a huge difference, especially in small communities, your sister in Christ, Sheila. Guys, come on. I mean, I know it's not U.S. Senator, I know it's not, you know, Congress or whatever. We've said forever it's local, local, local, and stay in the fight, be faithful, stay in the fight. Um, get back in there. If you have a loss, you don't, you know, let let it uh yesterday we talked about not being too elated or or down uh depending on victory or defeat. Wow, what a great example, Sheila. Thank you for sending that in to us. Uh let's get back to the principles, guys. But I just wanted to share that good news with y'all. I knew you'd enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

You know, I I think that that's really good news, and that shows that you get healthy from the bottom up. Because she's going to stay involved. The people that got her electoral stay involved, and that's where you get healthy, it's bottom-up, not top-down.

Grassroots Beats Air War Politics

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Uh, I really do put a lot of what's happening now back on Carl Rove, uh, back when he was the consultant for George W. Bush when he became president, knew Carl Rove when he was doing Texas politics. He was kind of the big consultant, and he's the guy who really got away. He said, Look, what you need is good media stuff. And and he got away from the grassroots and and the basic fundamentals and the GOTV stuff, we call it get out the vote. And he started, and he became a big-time consultant. He said, Look, I'll do I'll do your campaign for free. You just have to pay me the the percentage on on the ads. And so he took everything to the airwaves and he would get like 25%. And so, you know, he could he instead of charging $400,000 for a race, he just he'd run a million and a half dollars in ads and he'll get his cut off of that. And so your campaign is free. Well, that's that bypassed the grassroots. It bypassed the base and started doing everything on the airwaves, and that's really what we saw in this election. Everything was airwaves. Look at the what is it, $11.7 billion? And most of it was spent on on advertising. And that's that's part of the problem where we are right now is we're getting away from school boards and focusing on that and getting people to work and put up your science and all the stuff. That's that's where you get healthy. So hopefully we're gonna we're gonna get kind of purged from that Carl Rove kind of approach to politics. And we've seen that particularly destroy the National Republican Party in the last two to three cycles. Uh they do nearly nothing in the states anymore. They're just giving out money for ads and and and air, air, air war kind of stuff, and that's got to change. So going back to the seven principles that Tim covered for Mike Johnson, which are awesome principles, I would back up one step and say, hey, let's build a foundation that those principles apply to. Because there clearly are a bunch of worldviews out there, and I'm gonna go to Washington's farewell address.

Religion And Morality As Bedrock

SPEAKER_00 19:09

You have to start everything from the the lens of a religious and a moral foundation. Because if you if you stand for individual rights, which is good, but if you do that apart from religion and morality, I have the individual right to kill my unborn child. I have the individual right to to choose my gender and change it if I want to. And so individual rights work when they're within that Judeo-Christian framework of religion and morality. So I I would say that what we have to start with is you got to choose the right worldview. And the worldview is that that God created everything, he's in charge of everything, he want, he has the moral authority to tell us what's right and wrong. And so, Washington, where he says the indispensable supports of political prosperity are religion and morality, we have to start there. And it can't be w we're not talking about the Islamic religion, and we're not talking about the United Methodist Church religion that Adam Hamilton has as the new senator of Kansas. We're talking about basic biblical, moral, and religious beliefs. Not and and I just was on a program earlier, um, just in and I guess it was yesterday, today, whenever it was. I've been on so many, but they looked at the 14 people in Congress who have ministerial degrees, and only about four of them have a biblical viewpoint. There's about 10 ministers in Congress that do not believe the scriptures, do not adhere to the scriptures, and yet they are recognized as Christian ministers, but with no biblical belief that that we can tell. I mean, well, their denominations certainly don't have it, and their voting record is not there, whether they've done it before they got in Congress or in Congress. So that that's the other foundation I would say. You gotta you gotta lay down the foundation of George Washington's religion and morality, and you have to interpret that within the biblical meaning of what that is. And then once you do that, you can take those seven principles that Mike Johnson lays out, and you'll get the right application out of those principles. Uh you just you have to choose the right worldview before you start.

Tim Barton 21:10

Well, and Dad, I would also point out that for for those, if they want to look this up again, the seven core principles of conservatism, when there's an explanation of individual freedom, here's what Mike says. He says the birth of our great nation was inspired by the bold declaration that our individual, God-given liberty should be preserved against government intrusion. The same conviction informs our conservative policy decisions still today. In America, we proclaim the self-evident truths that all of us are created equal and granted by God the same inherent freedoms such as natural and inalienable rights to life, liberty, conscience, free speech, and the free exercise of religion, and the ability to pursue happiness, own property, build wealth, defend ourselves and our families, the purpose of governance to secure these rights, on he goes. But I say it because his starting place is literally explaining the declaration that these come. From God. These are God given rights. And so to your point, and I think this is where there is some confusion, even among Christians today, uh, about what our God-given rights are. It shows that we are poorly informed and very biblically illiterate, even to your point of the pastors that are at this point, there's pastors in in in Congress, there's pastors in the House and the Senate that are actual pastors on staff at churches that do not believe in the inerrancy and accuracy of scripture. They don't believe in basic biblical truth. And so when we talk about what are these God-given rights, there's people that probably have all kinds of different ideas. James Talarico probably has a very, very different idea than Pastor Steve Toth, our friend congressman, uh newly elect from down in uh the South Texas region. All of that to say is Mike Johnson does spell out a little bit in his explanation of what you're saying. The worldview matters, and the worldview that our individual freedom was acknowledged and established under, outlined in the declaration, was a biblical ideology, understanding who God was, what God had done in his created order, and how that applied to us.

Principles Over Issues Then Rebuild

SPEAKER_00 23:16

So when you look at the seven principles that Mike identified, one of the really important things is to remember to vote principles, not issues. And one of the things we saw in the exit polling data was, oh, data centers. That was really big. Wait a minute. What principle are we talking about here? Or the price of gasoline? What principle? And what happens is people start putting immediate issues above long-term principles. When you can think in principles, it's more transcendent. It's going to last over time. Uh, if you're going to vote issues, it'll change every single election and you'll go back and forth and be like trying to pop balloons. They're all around you. So getting that principle-driven stuff instead of issues, that has to be something that our people get onto is principle-driven voting.

Tim Barton 24:00

Well, and to maybe add clarity for people that are listening, uh, when you're talking about the core principles, this is the fundamental values that we are establishing right and wrong, looking at at that like a biblical hierarchy, because gas prices is important, but there's no way gas prices are more important than the abortion issue. That's right. If you have a candidate who's going to lower gas prices, but who's going to max boost abortion, uh no limits, let's get as many abortions as we can. It doesn't matter. They're going to lower gas prices because they violated a fundamental, to your point, principle, even though somebody might look and go, but but I care about the issue of gas prices. We have to do a better job, as you're saying, distinguishing between issue and principle. But ultimately, we have to define what the principles are. We have to have a hierarchy because some principles are more significant than others. When you look at creation, God created an ascending order. And in God's creation, I know this is going to bother some people, the environment was not as significant as the human being, right? The bird was not as significant as Eve was. You look at God's created ascending order, there's a hierarchy to it, and not everything was created the way that we think equal. No, all humans are created equal, but humans and snails are not equal, right? Those are different things. And so, to your point, one of the things that we have to go back and restore, and I would encourage people listening, you need to make a priority list. What are the core values and principles? And how would you rank and order them and maybe actually have a little conversation with some friends, see if they agree or disagree. This is the healthy discussions that was happening in the founding era that we have to once again restore to know what are the core values that we believe in, we promote, and we will defend. And then we have to help engage the rising generation to know what are the core principles and values that we promote, believe in, and defend.

Rick Green 25:57

Amen. A lot of work to do there, but you know, it's very doable. And for all the people that are out there going, oh, this is the worst thing ever, it's not at all. It's not even near as bad as, you know, some of the uh years of the of the of the Biden years during COVID in terms of numbers and who's in control and the kind of things that would happen. So keep your head up, keep your chin up. Let's get educated and let's educate our friends and family. Stay in the fight, folks. It's time to just, you know, and it's a metaphor for those that are gonna take this out of context. Hey, reload and re-engage. It's just time to get intellectually reloaded and intellectually re-engage. And find some young people in your life that you can invest in so that we prepare the next generation with everything David and Tim have been talking about today. Thanks so much for listening today. Don't forget tomorrow's Good News Friday, and I bet you need it. You don't want to miss tomorrow. Good News Friday right here on the Waffle Dorot show.