Biden Reinstates Systemic Racism – With Rick Esenberg: In the last half century has there been systematic racism in America? Is America starting to put racist measures back into place via the federal government under the Biden Administration? Should we award government subsidies simply based on the color of skin? Tune in to hear Rick Esenberg from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, discuss the fight we’re facing with Biden’s COVID debt relief.

Air Date: 06/08/2021

Guest:Rick Esenberg

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

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Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, culture, everything that affects your life, your family, your backyard, your church, you name it. If it’s happening in the culture, we’re going to cover those hot topics, but we’re always going to look at them from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

I have the honor of working with David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, and I’m Rick Green, former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. Check us out at wallbuilderslive.com. 

You can get archives of the program their list of stations across the country, and just some good news of the day. And also you can plug into one of our Biblical Citizenship classes, and start hosting that in your local area.

Later in the program, Rick Esenberg will be with us from the Wisconsin law and liberty organization. They do great work there. Guys, let’s just dive in. This is a hot topic. We actually, a week or two ago, been talking about critical race theory. 

We’ve got legislation all across the country on this issue. Tim, you talked back on the interview we had with Ken Mercer about how they use that to try to divide us and create this racial division in the country.

There was a time when we said we didn’t want to be divided on race that we wanted to see each other as fellow Americans. But now we’re starting to not just judge each other based on the color of skin, but actually award government subsidies based on the color of skin. It’s unbelievable.

Systemic Racism in America?

Tim:

Yeah, it’s so backwards thinking that when people today argue that maybe they’re systemic racism in America. And of course, we hold the position that even though there is racism in America, that the systems of America are no longer racist. If you go back to the era of the Civil War, certainly there was racist systems there because slavery was legal. Well, that is a racist system. But then here the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment that and you’ve largely removed that system.

You can go forward, you have Jim Crow laws, right? You have redlining. There are things that definitely are racist things that are part of the system. But then you have the civil rights era, you have civil rights legislation that passes. And so those systems are done away with. 

We hold the position that if you can show us a system that is still a racist system, then we will oppose that with you. But to be overly generic and say, well, no, America itself is racist, and if you don’t recognize it, it’s because you’re part of the problem, and maybe blah, blah, whatever, right?

We’re so overly generalized now that we’re not recognizing the fact that no, no, there certainly have been those problems at times in America’s past. But that’s why you identify those. You work to fight against those change those overcome those.

And one of the great ironies is MLK is incredible “I Have a Dream” speech. He says that, I’m dreaming one day when my kids can be raised in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but rather by the content of their character. Guys, I can tell you, for me growing up, I’m the beginning of the millennial generation. 

When I was growing up, like this is exactly the message I learned that the prints around me, this is what we thought growing up, when I played sports, we didn’t care what somebody else looked like, right? We cared were you good at sports or not, right? Can I pass you the ball? Are you going to make a turnover? Are you going to score. We didn’t care about the color of skin.

And this is one of the things that when you look at millennials, you look at Gen Z, you have more interracial marriages and relationships and like that the racial issues are not the same kind of problem, it was when you back up the 60s, back up the 1800s of civil war. We have overcome so much getting to where we are.

Moving Backwards

Now again, we understand racism still exists. We’re not saying this is perfect. But the systems are not the same they used to be. And yet now, we are reinstituting systems in America. There are literally government agencies, government contracts, that are trying to reinstitute systems that say, we are going to award you or penalize you based on the color of your skin. 

Guys, that is re-implementing systematic racism because a system is being a racist except they’re saying, well, it can’t be racist if it’s in favor of a minority and against a white person, which again, is utterly ridiculous if you look up what the idea of racism actually is.

And yet, when America had made so much progress, again, we were not there and arguably as long as humans exist, we will never be there because humans aren’t perfect. It’s a reason Jesus came, we need a savior, nobody’s perfect. But America made so much progress. And now the progress that was made has largely been thrown out the window. And systems are being put in place now to reintroduce racism back into the system.

David:

One of those systems in place is called the federal government under the Biden administration. If you go back, the Biden administration just did the sixth COVID relief package just a few weeks ago. Backup to the previous ones that happened under President Trump for example, they would give paycheck protection and that was considered a loan, but then they would forgive the loan for many businesses. 

And so for a period of two or three months or whatever the federal government would help cover your employee expenses so that people could still get a check, even though they weren’t able to go and work at the time. There was still some coverage there.

So with COVID, still underway, or at least Pope Fauci says it’s still as bad as it was a year ago, and so we’ve still got to keep things locked down. Here came the bond administration with the six COVID relief plan, except this one’s a little different. This does not allow the federal money that comes to a business to be forgiven unless, the business owners are black, or Native American, or Hispanic or Asian or whatever, but not whites. So, all businesses, loan’s forgiven, unless you’re a white business owner. And then for you, no it’s different for you.

Judging Based on Skin Color

So the federal government is specifically saying, if you’re of this race, you are going to be treated completely different. Everyone else gets a bonus, but this race is being targeted. This is just crazy stuff. And what’s at stake here is you had some farmers all over the upper Midwest, there’s a lawsuit filed against this policy by the Biden administration. 

And the lead plaintiff on this actually happens to be a dairy farmer from Wisconsin, a disabled white man. And he said this is just bad policy. I mean, to say that because I am a white man that I cannot participate in the benefits being offered by the federal government, that’s wrong.

This is exactly what Tim you just went through. We’ve been fighting this for decades, years. We finally get to the point where America is getting close to having that view of equality that we should have had years ago. And now the federal government, the Biden ministration specifically for a minute, it just seems a crazy thing to be going on.

Rick:

Well, Rick Esenberg will be our guests when we return. He’s representing several of these farmers that are being discriminated against based on the color of their skin. It’s hard to imagine that’s actually happening in America today. But that’s where we are. Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back a WallBuilders Live.

A Moment from AMERICAN HISTORY

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. As the American war for independence began, the president of Yale was the Reverend Naftali Daggett. When New Haven, the home of Yale came under attack, about 100 citizens rushed out to meet the British, the Reverend Daggett gout by them on horseback, his clerical robes flowing behind him in the wind, and he took up a solitary position atop a hill.

The 2500 British soon put the townsfolk to flight. But the Reverend Daggett continued to stand alone, firing down on the advancing troops. A British officer confronted him, “What are you doing there, you old fool, if I let you go, will you ever fire again on the troops of His Majesty?” “Nothing more likely” was the preacher’s reply. America’s early pastors personally confronted danger and courageously led their communities.

For more information on Pastor Daggett and other colonial patriots, go to wallbuilders.com.

Welcome Rick Esenberg

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today, really excited to have Rick Esenberg back with us. These guys in Wisconsin are doing a phenomenal job. He’s the founder and President of Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. It’s one of the groups we support. We encourage you to do the exact same thing. The work they’re doing there is not only for the people in Wisconsin, it also helps across the nation.

Rick, thank you for all that you did, I mean, during the COVID crackdowns pushing back on the abuse of power, all the fights that you fight, it’s so important. And we just appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to share with us.

Esenberg:

Well, thank you for your kind words, and right back at you.

Rick:

Well, you guys have a full plate, no doubt about it. And one of the big cases you’ve got right now is for some of these Wisconsin farmers that are being quite literally discriminated against based on race. Now I thought that was the big goal was to take race out of the equation and make sure everybody was treated the same, not judged by the color of their skin. 

And yet we have an administration now that is blatantly doing exactly that, giving aid totally dependent upon the color of your skin. How could this not be against the law?

Esenberg:

Well, it is against the law, you know. I’m old enough to remember as a very little kid the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement, and the moral force that it had the idea that we should be treated by the content of our character and not by the color of our skin. And it took us a long time to live into that principle. 

But we’ve done it now. And it’s very, very distressing the degree to which, particularly since the ascendancy of the Biden administration, some government officials are willing to abandon that.

And here we had really an extraordinary program. I mean, usually they try to be a little bit indirect about it. But here we have a loan forgiveness program. I mean, you get your loan forgiveness, you get 20% on top of that. And it’s based entirely on whether you’re a member of a given racial class. 

No Longer Indirect Racism

You don’t have to show that you were as a member of that class discriminated against and past applications for agricultural department loans. You get benefits just because of the color of your skin. And that crosses a line that we crossed too often in the past, and we stopped doing it now, and that is all to the good. And we simply cannot go back.

Rick:

It seems like and going back is the right way to describe it. I mean, we’re literally reversing and going back to the 60s and just shifting the color of skin that gets special treatment or gets bad treatment. And I always tell people, I mean, this is literally spitting on MLK his grave. The success that he had with peaceful protest and literally changed the world and get us to change our thinking and our laws in a positive way. And here we are just 60 years later, and it just boggles my mind that we’re buying into this stuff.

So you got an administration clearly sold out to this. They even initially said the same thing, and probably are doing the same thing with the COVID relief packages, giving preference to people based on the color of their skin. How are you fighting back on this for these farmers?

Esenberg:

Well, we filed a lawsuit. This one is in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, the farmers that we represent are really farmers across the Midwest. They aren’t privileged individuals. Our lead point is a guy named Adam Fosse, he’s a double amputee who purchased the farm from his parents, and he’s struggling to make a go of it. And you know…

Rick:

But he’s the wrong color of skin.

Esenberg:

He is. And I mean, look, we filed another case just today down in Tennessee. And in that case, there’s an SBA program, and again, this is part of the COVID relief package. And what the government is doing, this is a program that would provide $28 billion to people who own restaurants across the country that lost money because of the COVID pandemic. 

Problems Caused by the Government

And restaurants did. I mean, my dad owns a restaurant and they did worse in 2020 than they did in 2019. And this is an effort to help them out, might not be the wisest effort given the fiscal state of our government, but whatever it’s what they pass. But the problem…

Rick:

You can make an argument for being a fifth Amendment takings.

Esenberg:

Yeah, the problem here, that’s right because their problems were caused by the government. Government advised them to shutdown. But here, what they’ve done is they’ve said to people don’t own restaurants, okay, apply for this relief. But for the next 28 days, we are not going to process your application unless you’re female or a member of certain racial groups. And when the money is gone, the money is gone. And everybody expects that the money will be gone. And so once again, we have a…

Rick:

They’re that blatant about it. Like you said, it’s not even stealthy anymore.

Esenberg:

Yeah, it’s still racial classification, right. In this case, some people are told to get to the end of the line based on their race. In the case that we were just talking about, the one about farmer loan forgiveness, if you’re the wrong race, you don’t even get to get in line at all.

Rick:

No, Rick, it’s so blatant. I mean, I’m speechless. Because like you said, normally it’s stealthy, or they call it other things. I mean, they’re just coming out and saying exactly what they’re doing. Based on the statutes that govern a lot of these things, what do you think your chances are on the cases?

Subject to Strict Scrutiny

Esenberg:

Well, I mean, I think the United States Supreme Court has it made clear, that any classification based on race is subject to what lawyers call strict scrutiny. And what that means is that you if you make a racial classification, it must be absolutely necessary to achieve a compelling government interest. 

That is, it must be very narrowly tailored and necessary to do something which is really, really, really important. It can’t just be a good idea. It can’t just be defensible. It almost has to be existential.

And in this case, it’s one thing to say that there were black farmers who were discriminated against by the US agricultural department in the past, there were, but the way that you remedy that is you say okay, if you were discriminated against, make a claim, and we’ll pay you for the damage that you suffered because of this discrimination that was done to you in the past. 

That would be narrowly tailored. But this isn’t narrowly tailored. If you’re the right skin color, you get benefits…

Rick:

Even if they weren’t hard

Esenberg:

Even if you weren’t. Say you bought your farm in 2018, now, nobody thinks that the USDA is doing this discrimination anymore, you would still be eligible to have your loans forgiven. And people have to understand the breadth of this program. Because if you are a small farmer in the United States of America, the odds are that you have government sponsored loans. You know, farming it’s tough business. 

And cash flow is very, very difficult. And so there are lots of government loan programs available to allow farmers to get their crops in the ground and to keep their animals fed until such time as the revenue starts to come in. And so they all have loans. Now, not all of them, but many of them.

Farmers at a Disadvantage

And so, this is really placing one group of farmers at a tremendous disadvantage, and it’s doing so based on the race when it was black farmers who were suffering that type of discrimination. It was wrong, and we did something about it. There was a lawsuit. There was settlements paid. 

And now it doesn’t mean we don’t get to catch up, even it out by doing the same thing to white farmers. Because the principle that we fought for in the civil rights movement that you should be treated on basis of the content of your character, and not the color of your skin had tremendous moral force. 

It was the right thing to do. And that’s why the civil rights movement won. And if we abandon it now, we’re really throwing away the hard earned victory that we want.

Rick:

No doubt, turning the dream into a nightmare, you said something in the email that I got from you about this case. And by the way, folks, you can get on that email list so you can be made aware and keep up with it by going to will-law.org, so it’s will-law.org, make a donation there, get on the email list, and stay informed on these things. 

But Rick, you said something, I think it’s so right. But you said this is unconstitutional, immoral, and illegal. And that immoral part, I mean, that how can they keep the moral high ground when they are doing exactly what they have railed against in the past?

Esenberg:

Well, the only way that they can keep the moral high ground is if they treat the right to be not discriminated against, there’s some kind of a group right. Like what is important here is for us to socially engineer and to eliminate all disparities between groups. But our Supreme Court has made clear that that’s not how this works. 

Individual Rights

This is an individual right. We all have individual right to not be discriminated against on the basis of our race. We are all equally children of God. And we are entitled to be treated on that basis as individuals, and not as some archetype of sometimes.

We have some member of a group in which our only moral value is, are we black or white or Hispanic? What are we? That’s not the case. 

I mean, it’s Rick Green, is supposed to be treated Rick Green, and so on and so on. And that is what we believe for most of us based on our Judeo Christian tradition, and for all of us, based upon the assumptions of our American founding documents. And this flies in the face of that.

Rick:

Man, yeah, this is just crazy stuff you’re saying, Rick. I mean, the next thing, you know, you’re going to be saying you believe in blind justice.

Esenberg:

Yeah, that’s right. I mean…

Rick:

I’ve got your website pulled up and right, as I was saying that, it went to the slide of the statue of blind justice in the background. But I mean, because that’s what you’re describing, an American principle that you’re not judged by the group or by what your parents did, or grandparents or color of your skin. 

It’s blind justice that we look at each case individually based on the individual rights, not group rights. That’s, boy, I mean, that’s the group rights, that’s a whole Marxist idea. Right?

Esenberg:

Well, yeah. I mean, it is certainly a cultural Marxist ideas that that concept has developed over the years.

Rick:

Well, Rick, you guys do fantastic work. I want to encourage all of our listeners to go to your website today, will-law.org, support what you’re doing. And like I said, I mean, I know these are Wisconsin battles that you’re fighting, but it has a huge impact on the rest of the nation as well.

Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty

Esenberg:

Yeah, these cases are not. I mean, the farmers case, we’ve got farmers who are farmers in many, many states across the upper Midwest. The case we filed today is on behalf of the owner of a Bar and Grill in East Tennessee near Knoxville. And so this is happening, everybody everywhere, and groups like ours, I think we are called to fight it wherever it happens.

Rick:

Well, we’re going to change the name from Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty to Wisconsin and Beyond.

Esenberg:

Yes.

Rick:

Bless you, brother. God bless you all for what you’re doing. Keep up the great work. Look forward to getting you back for an update soon.

Esenberg:

That’s great, take care.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

The AMERICAN STORY

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today.

And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things, like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Rick Esenberg for joining us today as well. We’ll have a link to their website so that you can help this organization continue to fight these good fights. Back with David and Tim now, and guys, we’ve said this on the program many, many times with all the different legal organizations we’ve had on. 

But thank God for these attorneys that are fighting the good fight. More believers need to be called into this arena, to be the boots on the ground to defend religious liberty, to defend constitutional rights. It’s just great to have highly skilled folks in these roles.

Tim:

Yeah, it is. And it’s something that we’ve talked about for a long time. There’s so many different industries and areas where that we can serve and worship God in those industries, by the way we live our life. And we are so grateful that so many people follow that calling going into the legal arena. 

The Disadvantage

As we’ve talked about on Good News Friday, so often, we’re seeing victories with court decisions, whether it be circuit Judges, or even US Supreme Court or District Judges, whoever else making good decisions, these religious liberty law firms, or in some cases. These constitutional law firms, that’s what we’re dealing with today, this constitutional law firm saying, guys, this doesn’t make any sense at all, that we’re saying that they cannot participate in this government program because they are white. That is where you’ve now gone over the line.

And it’s also interesting, one of the things that we know, is true and government programs is oftentimes they do look for people that are disadvantaged. If you’re talking about disadvantaged, a double amputee would seem to fall in that category, which is more with a double amputee…

David:

But when you’re wide, it negates all of that.

Tim:

Right, that’s how crazy the argument is, right, saying that no. And even the point that he made was that because you are doing this just based on the color of your skin, and not the fact surrounding your case, right, if you were a black farmer rancher, and you bought your farm or ranch in 2018, you didn’t deal with some of those old systems of discrimination that have largely been done away with at this point. 

And yet, even though you don’t fall in that same category from the fact pattern, you can be awarded something when maybe somebody who has been fighting an uphill battle for most of their life, his family farming, right.

Generally, one of the things that you can know about people that work on a farm or a ranch is it is not a glorious life. Now, it’s a wonderful life, because you get to be outdoors and in God’s creation and working with your hands and your body. But it is one of the most physically demanding, one of the most exhausting and one of the least financially rewarding occupations you can have.

Not What MLK Wanted

David:

And I will add to that. Not only is it that, when you throw a dairy farmer on that, that has to be made at the top of the heap. Because those cows, they got to be milked multiple times a day. You do not get a vacation. You cannot take a weekend off to go somewhere. 

I mean, agriculture, okay, I’ve been through, done a lot of that, done a lot of work on it. But I cannot imagine a dairy farm because that is maybe the most demanding part of American agriculture culture.

Tim:

And certainly, there’s new technology that helps some of these processes go better. Obviously, with somebody, the definitely amputee, you’d imagine that there are some systems in place that help with some of what’s happening. Nonetheless, not take away, this is one of the most physically intense demanding long days exhausting jobs you will ever have. 

And the people that get into this, they’re not getting into it, because this is a lucrative opportunity for them. Rather that this is part of who they are. This is their identity. This is their way of life. It’s what we do. It’s part of what our family does.

And we are obviously very grateful for people to do that. Because we like milk, we drink it. It does the body good way. That being said, this is where it gets crazy that we now have a federal government that we’ve come so far from what MLK said that we want to judge people based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. 

And the federal government says well, yeah, we’re going to throw that out the window. And now we won’t have a system in place where we solely judge people based on the color of their skin, not based on fact pattern, not based on whatever extenuating circumstances they might be dealing with.

And that’s why obviously he thinks that they have a very good legal position. Because certainly, this does seem to be unconstitutional. This does seem to be against the law. 

You cannot discriminate against somebody based on the color of their skin when there’s no surrounding fact pattern that would fit the case and what is being argued. So this is really good news that there are people representing this case saying that this is not right.

And guys, we talk so often, that a lot of times it just takes somebody having the backbone and courage, willing to stand up and fight this fight, because this fight could take years, literally could take years. 

Biden Reinstates Systemic Racism – With Rick Esenberg

But having attorneys willing to wage that war with you, willing to go through all those years, all those long nights and phone calls and depositions and all things happening, when you are willing to fight the fight, we win so many of these battles when people stand up.

And so I’m very excited to see what happens in the coming years. About this one, certainly, it would seem the law would be in favor of saying discrimination is not a good thing. This should not be where it is. And we definitely don’t want to get back into a system of racism.

Rick:

Alright, folks, we’re out of time for today, you’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live. Be sure to visit our website today at wallbuilderslive.com, make that one-time or monthly contribution. And you can help us continue this fight as well as we educate and inform and inspire people to make a difference out there and really call on young people to find that desire God’s put in their heart for where they can make a difference. 

So a lot of the programs that we do, and things we’re involved in are raising up that remnant, raising up a new generation that will be the attorneys fighting these kind of battles or running for office, or educators or whatever it might be. You can be a part of that solution by donating today at wallbuilderslive.com. Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders Live.