A Week of Thanksgiving, Day Two – With Garritt Hampton: How did one 8 year-old entrepreneur prove the free-market system actually works? What is TN Gov. Bill Lee doing about vaccine passports? What are studies showing concerning natural immunity? What can we learn from the New Jersey election? May jurors hold religious convictions? It’s “Good News Friday” all week long this Thanksgiving week! Tune in to hear these stories and more, as well as a special interview with Garrett Hampton, director of Schoolhouse Rocked!

Air Date: 11/23/2021

Guest: Garritt Hampton

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

 

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, where we’re looking at things from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Glad that you’re joining us today. You can check us out on our website at wallbuilderslive.com. That’s where you can get archives of the program, make a one-time or monthly contribution, and also learn more about us as the host.

I’m Rick Green, former Texas legislator, and America’s Constitution coach. And I’m here with David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian. He’s our founder at WallBuilders. And Tim Barton’s with us, he’s a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. Again, wallbuilderslive.com, and you want to get as many of those previous programs as you can. They will equip, inspire, and educate you. 

In fact, they’ll give you information you can share with your friends and family as you visit with him this week for Thanksgiving. I mean, what a great opportunity as you sit around the table for Thanksgiving to bring up these topics, to talk about these things that unite us, these things that we can agree upon. So we really do encourage you to share these programs with your friends and family.

In fact, all this week, throughout Thanksgiving week, we have taken the advice of some of our listeners who asked us to do Good News Friday programs five days in a row during Thanksgiving. So we’re given a lot of things this week, and we’re glad you’re here to be a part of it.

Alright, David, second day of Good News Fridays on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, it’s kind of weird, I know. But it’s just good news, right, good news all week long for Thanksgiving. What’s our first piece of good news on day two of Thanksgiving week?

David:

It starts with the free market system actually works. Now, that’s a shock for a lot of people who have been taught otherwise. As matter of fact, we saw a poll even last week where that 48% of millennials currently think we should have socialism over capitalism. And you know, the reason that in previous generations when Marxist tried to bring up this division they did, they have critical race theory now. But they’ve always tried to divide us some way.

And a lot of times they tried to do it by classes, the rich versus the poor. And that really never worked because you always had upward mobility in America, and it was easy to move out of poverty and become a success. There were so many who did so.

And so it’s never really worked. And yet, people are still kind of stuck on the socialism thing. But I got a great story here on the free market. And it starts “Two years ago with an eight year old boy in Philadelphia who set up a lemonade stand, and his lemonade stand, he also sold iced tea there.” And he just knocked it out of the park. People, just they came to him, they bought a stuff, they really liked it.

And so as COVID came on it, his business went down because people, they were all concerned about germs and whatever, and so he tried to put as lemonade and iced tea and bottles. And that was too expensive because it costs too much to buy the bottle. So he went to plastic cups with lids on it. And so that’s what everybody wanted. They felt like they were safe, it hadn’t been covered-exposed.

And so like in a day, he would go through 1,500 cups of tea in lemonade just selling to people. And so I love what he’s done here. So he decides he needs to expand the business. He’s now 10-years-old. So what he did was for $4,000, he went out and bought a minibus to make it into a food truck. Now can’t drive it anywhere, way too young to drive anything, but he’s gone out and bought a minibus for a food truck. And then he put another $10,000 into it to convert it to refrigeration and all the stuff inside to make this food. I mean, I love this. You got a 10-year-old, who’s already made that much money just on his own initiative, and he’s already buying a school bus for a food truck. This is great story.

Tim:

I want to know if as a 10-year-old, if you are exempt from some of these different taxes, right, that might be in place. Because if so I can see parents having a laundering scheme going oh, yeah, no, my 10-year-old totally bought all this stuff, it was totally his money. Wow, that is crazy.

Free-Market Works

David:

That is absolutely crazy. You know, what a forward-thinking kid. This is a really great story. So over recent months, we’ve covered several lemonade stories where people done really good but the city came in and shut them down and shut down a couple of girls or shut down a kindergarten or whatever. 

And the people rose up and then the city said okay, we’ll give exemptions for kids with lemonade stands. So we saw the free market come back that way. But this is a great story about an 8-year-old entrepreneur that by the age of 10, can’t drive anything but can go get a school bus and turn into a food truck, really good story.

Rick:

We need more stories like that. And I bet if we published the kid would probably get a job at 10 or 12-years-old at a major Fortune 500 companies, going to be running one of those before it’s over. So a really good piece of good news to start with today. Tim, what’s next?

Tim:

Alright, guys, well, we did not have time to cover a lot of the vaccine-related stuff yesterday, so picking up kind of a real left off. In Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee signed a piece of legislation that banned all COVID-19 passports and then restricted some enforcement mask mandates.

But guys, it is crazy to me that we are having a conversation about vaccine passports here in the US, right? I mean, this is something that that not to be conspiracy theorist, although at this point I feel like if you just wait a month or two, your conspiracy theory is not a theory anymore. With all that being said, it is crazy as Christians, growing up, not lightly joked but I mean, some of you make the joke about we’re going to have something stamped on our forehead or we’re going to have something stamped on our wrist and you make the joke because in the end times, right, it’s kind of that thought, that’s the mark of the beast, and you can’t do business unless you have the mark of the beast.

And I’m not saying that the COVID vaccine is related to the mark of the beast. That’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m just saying it is crazy that we are talking about a day and age where we are suggesting in order for you to be able to buy or sell or trade or even go into somebody’s establishment, that you might have to show a piece of paper verifying you’ve been vaccinated. 

This is so contrary to science on so many levels, when the largest study done to date is the one out of Israel that identified if you’ve already had COVID, then the antibodies in your system, the natural immunity you’ve developed from overcoming COVID is like 27 times more effective than the vaccine itself was. And this has not been refuted on any level.

The CDC even acknowledged the people that have had COVID and had those natural antibodies, that they’re not the ones that they found no evidence that those people are actually spreading coronavirus, even though, for people who have the vaccine, they can still contract COVID, they can spread COVID. Like so much of this is just crazy that people are wanting to promote this agenda.

Democrat Strongholds

But this is why I think it’s really good news that in Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee did sign a piece of legislation banning all vaccine passports in Tennessee and limiting where a facemask requirement can be used in the city or using a state in those various cities. So, some good news on that front.

One more kind of side note looking just political climate, one of the things we’ve talked some about with the election results that happened back early November. And this one, probably at this point most people already are familiar with the truck driver from New Jersey who beat the most powerful Democrat arguably in New Jersey. We’ve kind of joked about the fact he had this really small budget.

Well, initially, the Democrat candidate, President of the Senate, Steve Sweeney had challenge the election because initially, he said they found several thousand votes somewhere and they wanted to factor those in, etc. Well, just a week or two ago, we finally conceded the loss of the election. So now it is official. There’s no challenge there. Edward Durr is now the senator from that area of the state.

And this is something that in the midst of the craziness we are seeing around us, this is an indication that there are a lot of people who are waking up who are getting involved. When you have New Jersey and the President of the Senate from New Jersey, presumably he was in a strong district, that’s why he was able to achieve a level of power, so to speak, in the state and being the President of the Senate there in the state of New Jersey. 

For him to be unseated, says a lot about some of the potential things we could see in the future of our nation with even in some of these strong Democrat strongholds, American people are waking up. They don’t like the taste of tyranny in their mouth, and they’re pushing back. And the New Jersey election is one really good indication that the American people are not going to put up with a lot of this nonsense.

Rick:

Very good news. Yeah. And this just think that’s New Jersey, right, so this is not a red, red state. And it’s happening in blue states as well. So, a lot of good news across the front. So we’re going to take a quick break. When we come back from the break, we’ve actually got a guest for our good news stories this week and Garritt Hampton’s got a new movie out. He and his wife, Yvette did this “Schoolhouse Rocked”, and it’s a homeschool revolution that’s happening across the country.

So we wanted to talk a little bit about that movie because that’s good news, just the fact that so many people are choosing that education for their kids, and there really is a revolution happening as these school boards and all these other things are happening where people are coming out of the woodwork to say hey, enough is enough, tired of the CRT, tired of the crazy boys and girls bathrooms and all that nonsense. So it’s going to be an interesting interview for our good news stories this week all throughout Thanksgiving week. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

WORLD WAR II VETERANS

Hey, friends, if you’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live for very long at all, you know how much we respect our veterans and how appreciative we are of the sacrifice they make to make our freedoms possible. One of the ways that we love to honor those veterans is to tell their stories here on WallBuilders Live. Once in a while we get an opportunity to interview veterans that have served on those front lines that have made incredible sacrifices, have amazing stories that we want to share with the American people.

One of the very special things we get to do is interview World War II veterans. You’ve heard those interviews here on WallBuilders Live from folks that were in the Band of Brothers to folks like Edgar Harrell that survived being Indianapolis, there’s so many other great stories you’ve heard on WallBuilders Live. You have friends and family that also serve.

If you have World War II veterans in your family that you would like to have their story shared here on WallBuilders Live, please email us at [email protected], [email protected] Give us a brief summary of the story and we’ll set up an interview. Thanks so much for sharing here on WallBuilders Live.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Garritt Hampton with us, great new movie. Now Garritt’s on and we’re going to talk, and I just want everybody to know that Yvette gets all the credit, his wife gets all the credit for all the hard work. Garritt, God bless you, man. Love your family, and so excited about the new movie “Schoolhouse Rock”. Thanks for coming on.

Garritt:

Thank you, Rick, it’s good to talk to my favorite Texans.

Rick:

Oh, man, you got a lot of good Texans to choose from there, so I feel honored. But I am super excited about your movie, I’ve had a chance to watch it. I just think this revolution in education that’s happening, the timing is perfect. Only as the Lord could do it for your movie to come out right now when people are so hungry for an alternative to this messed up school system. So man, God’s really moving in your lives, I know that right now.

Garritt:

Yeah, he really is. And this timing couldn’t have been more God-ordained. We had originally planned to put the movie out quite a long time ago. And had it been according to our plan, we would have missed COVID and we would have missed this whole parental involvement argument that really moved a whole election in the last election cycle. So God’s timing is perfect.

For More Than Just Homeschoolers

Rick:

Yeah. And people that can benefit from this movie are current homeschoolers, people that are just curious about whether or not it’s something they want to do, and people, they just want to know what’s happening in American education right now, and that there are solutions to turn this thing around. So I’d really recommend everybody watching, you got some of my favorite folks in here, some wonderful interviews with folks that have been through this–

Either the kids that have grown up in it, or the parents that have been through it, and just the overall status of education in the country. So, incredibly, incredibly well done. Now you have a Hollywood background, involved in a lot of big movies in your background. Is this the first one you’ve done on your own or as the chief producer and all that?

Garritt:

Yeah, this was the first time I directed anything. And we, actually, Yvette and me produced the movie. We had to go out and fundraise to get it made. And we did the whole thing really from scratch. But to say we did it is really not giving credit to who really made it happen, which is the Lord because everyone you see in that movie, their interview was ordained by God. Every penny that came in and support was provided by the Lord. So we definitely weren’t alone in it. But it was a total adventure getting it made, and it was really fun.

Rick:

Love it. Love it. Now folks can see a preview of it or promo for it at your website schoolhouserocked.com. They can go to our link there at schoolhouserocked.com/wallbuilders. And what an opportunity to get educated, have a good time. I this one you sit down with the whole family, you think, everybody watches together, especially if you’re not homeschooling yet, your kids might be I’m not so sure?

Garritt:

Yeah. One of the greatest responses we’ve heard is that several of the families who have seen the movie have seen it with their kids. And we expected parents to be moved and affirmed and encouraged by it. But what we didn’t know was that kids would be so encouraged. And we’ve heard several times that kids have gone to their parents after the movie, and actually thanked them for homeschooling them. So that was a great benefit.

SchoolHouseRocked.com/WallBuilders

We would suggest watching it with kids down to probably 10 or 11. There are some issues there because some of the things going on in public schools are so literally pornographic that it’s impossible to cover them in a way that’s probably totally sanitary for really young ears. But we have seen it with lots of kids and so far it’s been received very well.

Rick:

Very cool. Very cool. Okay, so schoolhouserocked.com/wallbuilders. You also have a way for people to do this as a group at their church. How does that work?

Garritt:

Yeah, the Faith Content Network is allowing people to show it at churches and homeschool co-ops, and even local theaters, if you can schedule a time. We actually did the opening at a local theater in Tulsa, and it was great, the room was packed, which was really fun. So if you go to schoolhouserocked.com, you can click ‘bring it to my church’ and figure all that out. It’s actually really easy to do, they hold your hand through it. And churches are hosting organizations actually get 15% of the ticket sales. So it’s a great way to fundraise for say your homeschool Co-op.

Rick:

Love it. Love it. Alright. And you got online virtual cinema events that people can sign up for and be a part of up?

Garritt:

Yes, we do. Yeah, we just added more showtimes due to unprecedented requests and so we’re really excited. It’s pretty easy to see at any time right now.

Rick:

Garritt, what do you think long-term on this whole education revolution? You know, actually, before you answer that question, I love the name, by the way because I’m always like on a regular basis every week when I’m going to the airport, and I go through TSA, and they make me put the mask on, I always say, have you not watched ‘Schoolhouse Rocks.’

You know, Saturday mornings how a bill becomes a law from Capitol Hill, not from the white…? Anyway. So ‘Schoolhouse Rocks’ is definitely on my mind, and the fact that the schoolhouse has now been rocked, and there’s a homeschool revolution going on. I mean, I just think it’s a brilliant title, so great job on the title.

Raising Up a Remnant

But long term, like the effect of this movie is part of a movement that truly is revolutionizing education. What do you think long term is going to happen here with families that want to teach their kids the right values and have them reinforced and not destroyed by an education system? You know, is a remnant being raised up? Can we turn the culture around by getting a hold of the education of the next generation? What do you see happening?

Garritt:

Yeah, I certainly see God raising up a remnant. You know, if you want to think about the long term effects of what we’re trying to achieve and what we see God doing right now, you really have to look at the long-term plan of the opposition. And we understand that what we’re seeing in culture right now is the symptoms of generations being educated in an educational system that doesn’t really believe in the Constitution, that really, really hates families, and that was founded on principles that are actually detrimental to society.

So when you see Portland burning for over 100 days straight, you have to understand that that is the outcome of a worldview that’s been implanted into these kids over generations and generations. So our hope is that in order to reverse that trend, we’ve got to take back the hearts of their kids, and start discipling our children at home. 

We understand that God cannot bring about a revival without individuals and families first being changed. And that’s what we see happening with home education; parents are finally starting to stand up and say enough is enough and take back the hearts of their children.

Rick:

I love it. That is exactly what’s needed. I mean, we can complain about the White House and federal issues or even state issues, but it all comes back to the home. It’s cliché, we’ve said it for a long time. It’s not as important what’s happening at the White House or the State House as what happens in your house. But it’s true. I mean, that’s the smallest level of government, self-government, first individual but I mean, the family unit, that’s where it’s got to happen. So this is revolution in education is fantastic. 

And you guys are helping equip people and educate them inspire them to get engaged in this, so super excited about it. Schoolhouserocked.com/wallbuilders. We have an easy link today at our radio site wallbuilderslive.com. Garritt, God bless you guys, so excited about this, and just excited about all the people that are going to be impacted by it. Excited for your family, but excited by, I mean, I just think it’s going to have a huge impact on the education revolution.

Garritt:

Thank you, Rick, and thank you for what you guys are doing at WallBuilders. You are a blessing to our family.

Rick:

That was Garritt Hampton. Thanks, Garritt, for joining us today on WallBuilders Live and for sharing the movie with us. Back with David and, Tim, let’s dive into some more good news stories on this very special Thanksgiving week. And I believe it was David’s turn when we went to Garritt’s interview. David.

Religious Jurors?

David:

Well, I’m going to go to a court decision that came down from the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Back in, I think, it was about 2016 2017, Congresswoman Corrine Brown, Democrat from Florida was indicted on 22 charges of various things, corruption, money laundering, whatever. And went to trial, and at trial, she was convicted 18 of those 22 charges.

And during the trial, as they are going through the potential jury pool and picking the folks that will sit on the jury, they asked them various questions, and they ask questions like the judge would say, well, do you have any political or religious or moral belief, or do you have anything that would keep you from being a fair and impartial juror in listening to the evidence and making a decision based on the evidence? 

And so they finally picked a jury that were fine, and they went through and screen all the jurors. And the Judge found a juror who said, well, I prayed for divine guidance in making my decision and the Judge said, okay, you’re off, you’re getting outside help, you can’t have outside help for making your decision.

Wait a minute, timeout. You’re going to pray, how do you know which way the outside help win? I mean, maybe it was conviction, maybe it wasn’t, maybe it’s exonerate, anyway, the Judge said you can’t do that. And so the jury took it on to the higher court and at the 11th Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, they overturned the Judge’s decision saying you can’t do that.

It’s interesting, Former US Solicitor General Paul Clemente, who is a great guy involved with so many religious liberty cases, I don’t know of anybody in our generation who’s argued more cases at the US Supreme Court than Paul Clemente. But here’s a statement he made. And he’s arguing for the juror in this brave and he says:

“A nation that enshrines religious toleration in its founding document and invokes the religious beliefs of its citizenry to reinforce their public oaths can’t dismiss jurors based on the way they express their religious convictions. Now, how strange that jurors taking oath, ‘so help me God’, and how strange that we are a religious nation we have constitutional freedoms, religion, but if you use this in any type of a criminal trial, you’re less of a citizen, and you don’t have those constitutional protections.”

So the good news is the 11th Circuit said, no, no, you can’t throw a juror out for having religious convictions and religious beliefs. And I like what they said here. They said that “Corrine Brown was entitled to the unanimous verdict of the jury of ordinary citizens. 

“The removal of juror number 13, a juror who listened to God’s guidance, as he said in judgment of Brown, and deliberated over the evidence against her deprived her of that unanimous verdict of the jury of ordinary citizens.” Way to go, that someone can be religious and be an ordinary citizen, what a strange thing that is.

And literally, I say that because for a number of years, in the courts, if you had religion evolved, you were an ordinary citizen, and you were entitled to a place equal with anyone else. This is a good sign of the return of religious freedoms coming back in. We’ve talked about it in the last couple of years with decisions of Bladensburg Cross and others. But here’s another good indication of reversal of policies that they’ve had in the last 20 to 30 years as they’ve been so religious and hostile. Great decision by the 11th Circuit.

Moving in the Right Direction

Rick:

Religious liberty continues to trend in the right direction. And of course, we heard from Kelly Shackleford at the ProFamily Legislators Conference just case after case and he predicted that the next 10-15, 20 years is going to look really good for religious liberty in the courts. So, Tim, where are we headed, religious liberty, or something else?

Tim:

Well, something else, although probably there’s some connections on some level. We’re going to Florida, which is already a lot of good news on a lot of levels. Which actually recently, I was up in South Dakota, and I told the people in South Dakota, you know, as much as we travel, it’s not often I’m somewhere and I feel like there might be more freedom here than Texas where I’m from. 

And South Dakota is definitely one of those places where you just kind of you feel the freedom that’s there. Their state legislature has done a great job fighting to make sure that government did not overreach and the state government and limiting the federal government. Of course, Kristi Noem has been standing up.

But then in Florida, the kind of superman of the last year and a half has been Ron DeSantis, as he has led the way showing governors how you can stand up for your state, preserve the 10th Amendment, and not allow the federal government to come and intrude on your own state, and then certainly, as he’s respecting the rights of the individuals in the state to have the freedom of choice in a lot of what they’ve done.

Well, one of the things that is as a growing trend now is police officers, the New York Police Department are continuing to remove officers from the force who have not gotten the vaccine. And actually, in New York, they had a lot of problems with fire department, with police officers because some of the guys that were on the fire department or on the police force, when they started kicking out guys that weren’t vaccinated, some of these guys in a sign of solidarity and protest said well, then we’re not going to stay around for this. Even though some of them were already vaccinated, they were just standing up for their friends who were being kicked off of the fire department or law enforcement.

Well down in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has encouraged hey, all police officers are welcome, you guys come on down, we’re going to take better care of you. And it’s interesting there are several stories that I have in front of me dealing with more than a dozen police officers who left the New York Police Department and gone down to Florida. And one of these officers headed up in New York, he was a little embarrassed sometimes to tell people that he was law enforcement because of the resentment and pushback at times he would receive. And now that he’s down in Florida, you’re on some level kind of a hero, you’re regarded highly and you’re favored.

And actually, Ron DeSantis encouraged that those police officers will move down that he would give them a bonus incentive for coming and working in Florida. And so, just a lot of neat and positive things for law enforcement. And again, you have a state that seems to be doing so many things well, and in Florida is a very elderly state. 

And we know that generally speaking elderly people and people with comorbidities are hit harder by COVID. And yet Florida’s in the middle of the pack, they have not had lockdowns and they have fewer cases and fewer issues than some of these liberal states with incredible lockdowns, whether it be California or Michigan or Minnesota or New York, they’ve just done a very good job.

Guys, let me try to slip one more before we get out, I’ll have a few seconds. But one really cool story, there was an Ohio a fifth-grader who was leaving school and there’s a crossing guard and it was raining and the crossing guard was just out there in the rain just helping kids go. 

A Week of Thanksgiving, Day Two – With Garritt Hampton

And this fifth grader stopped and recognized you know what, somebody should help this crossing guard, the fifth-grader went back with an umbrella, the 10-year-old was Carl West, and he went back and held the umbrella for the crossing guard to keep the crossing guard dry while the crossing guard was helping students to be able to get across the street. So, just fun stuff happening around the nation where even just normal everyday people are standing up and doing good things.

Rick:

Alright, friends, we are out of time for good news for today. But don’t forget, we’re doing this all week long. So, more good news coming at you tomorrow and throughout the week for Thanksgiving. I hope that you enjoy these special programs that we’re doing this week for Thanksgiving. And I hope that you’ll share some of this good news with your friends and family as you get together this weekend and you celebrate and you thank God for all the freedom that we have for our family, for all the blessings that we have.

I know there are tough times in America right now. I know there are things we can complain about. There are things that you probably will complain about when you get with friends and family this weekend. But also take time to share some of these good news stories and let your friends and family know there is much, much to be thankful for in this country and that the principles still work, every time they’re tried. 

In fact, if we apply the principles that were put in motion by the Founding Fathers in our Constitution and Declaration, then we get good results in our country. When we actually take the Bible and we apply it to the culture, we get good results: salt and light actually works.

So there is much to celebrate. Be sure you share that with your friends and family this weekend for Thanksgiving. And listen, throughout this week we’ll be sharing good news, normally, Good News Friday type stories but good news throughout the week. Thanks so much for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.