Why Freedom And Liberty Matter With Congressman Barry Loudermilk – Freedom and liberty matter, but why? How is the government slowly taking away our liberties? Why is Biden’s latest speech disturbing? Tune in for the answers to these questions and more with Congressman Barry Loudermilk.

Air Date: 09/26/2022

Guest: Congressman Barry Loudermilk

Guest: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.

 

Rick:

You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining WallBuilders Live today. I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution coach, here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor, president of WallBuilders, and most importantly, you the listener, thank you for being a part of the program today.

 

I’m going to challenge you throughout the day to take action. Do something to make a difference in your culture and your community. There’s so much going on right now. I know it feels like whacka mole, you’re just dealing with all kinds of attacks on the culture and attacks on the church and Christianity. We’ve got Washington, DC completely out of control and a White House that is literally calling half the country the enemy. So there’s just all kinds of challenges out there.

 

Now, you can either curl up in the fetal position on the floor and be depressed and do nothing and let it fall apart, or we can get up and say, Lord, here am I, send me. What can I do to make a difference? You’re probably that kind of person or you wouldn’t be listening to WallBuilders Live. So today we hope to encourage and inspire and equip you and then, of course, send you to our website, wallbuilderslive.com, because there you can get even more involved.

 

And one of the most important things you can do is become a Constitution Coach, start hosting classes in your home or at your church or somewhere in your community. We have 150 Constitution Coaches now across the country doing biblical citizenship in modern America, or constitutional life, or constitutional defense of your family and freedom. There’s lots of options, American Campfire Revival with Kurt Cameron and Marshall Foster, so many tools available to you, check it all out at wallbuilderslive.com today and take some action.

 

You’ll be amazed that when you do take action, instead of curling up in the fetal position and just crying about what’s going on, when you take action, you’ll find hope. And let me tell you, the most important action you could take, I don’t want you to think you got to go become President of the United States to make a difference or you have to donate a million dollars. Now, if you got a million dollars you want to donate, gladly, we’ll accept it at WallBuilders. But you don’t have to do something that big to make a difference. It’s the little things that make a difference. In fact, let me just give you number one action step you can take today is to read God’s Word.

 

Now, I know you may say that sounds simple, some people might even say try it. But no, it’s the most important thing you can do because all the answers are in God’s word. And with only 9% of Christians reading God’s Word on a regular basis, how can we expect to find the answers and then apply the answers? So number one thing you can do, spend some time in God’s Word and then start looking for ways to take action and apply that in your community.

Alright, David and Tim, we got our friend Congressman Barry Loudermilk with us when we come back from the break here in a few minutes. He was very outspoken in public about how upset he was with President Biden’s speech and just the demonizing of half of America and some of the things that were said. I think there are a lot of good leaders in this country that are not going to stand by and just let this division happen, they’re definitely going to speak up and push back.

 

Tim:

 

Well, just to make sure everyone is on the same page, this is the Third Reich speech where there’re the…

 

Rick:

 

I thought it was the galactic empire, the new emperor from Star Wars.

 

Tim:

In front of the Senate, right? Yeah, that one. I mean, as dystopian of a novel as it could be or dystopian of a movie as it could be, that was the backdrop in the setting, even using the military in the background of his speech. But this is certainly something when he did this, people all over the nation recognized this was wrong. Even more of your moderates, your people who are leaning Democrat and vote liberal, often even many of them looked and went, that’s a pretty bad look. This doesn’t seem to be a good thing. And then the idea that he’s going to suggest if you don’t support his vision, then you are the problem with America, you are the enemy of America, etc, this is a major issue.

 

And to your point, Congressman Loudermilk was one of many voices who came out and talked about not only the danger of what this was, but I’m trying to think of all the phraseology that was his and not everybody else’s, but the very un-American, un-unifying spirit, that he was supposed to be the unifier, he was supposed to be the middle of the road guy, and what he’s doing is literally labeling half the nation as evil, this is not a unifying president. It’s a very divisive message, and it’s a specific attack against the Constitution, against Christianity, against conservatives, not against some extremist group that doesn’t represent the majority of America.

 

David:

 

I was really struck with the speech on several things. The Democrats have always been really good at imagery and at wording, and they usually choose imagery and wording that is not at all what they really believe, but it always makes you feel good about what they’re saying or what they’re trying to move forward, and you feel like they’re not being radical, etc. And…

 

Tim:

You mean like hope and change?

 

David:

Oh, yeah, like hope and change.

 

Tim:

Yeah, it’s great.

 

David:

Yeah, all that good stuff. And they’ve always been really good at using sound bites. And I watched this, and both the left media and the right media were just really mystified with what happened. And I saw descriptions that generally most of them said, this is somehow this is a wedding of Stalin and Hitler. I mean, this is the way it was set up, the language, the rhetoric, the imagery, the red lights in the background look very communistic. And then to threaten groups of American people and have the military standing there at attention in the background when you’re threatening groups of American people, that is so unusually unlike what the Democrats usually do. They want you to feel good about what they’re saying. This was just so far out of character.

 

And I don’t believe it’s because he’s not competent. I think this was real imagery that was planned and deliberate. Those guys are not that absent and unaware of what people will think when these things come across. That’s why they do the polling.

 

Tim:

Except what we also know is that in the middle of the speech, CNN began to change the lighting and faded it from being the dark red to more of a soft purple because you saw the colors in the flag change. And so somebody recognized, even if CNN recognized, this is not good. This is really not the message we want to send. And so unquestionably, it was well thought out. It was meant to be something that showed him as being powerful and if you’re against him, then you are a bad guy. Really did not come across well.

 

And as mentioned before, Congressman Loudermilk was one of the many voices that came out very boldly and strongly against us. So I am excited to talk to him in just a few minutes and see what all he’s going to say about this.

 

Rick:

Alright, then, guys, let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Congressman Barry Loudermilk, our special guest today.

 

AMERICAN HISTORY

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. The second amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees to every individual the right to keep and bear arms has been targeted for years now by those who are determined to dismantle the individual right to self-protection. Opponents argue that only the militia the military and law enforcement are to have and use firearms.

 

But those who wrote the Second Amendment strenuously disagreed, including founding father Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration, a president of the Continental Congress, and one of those who actually frame the Second Amendment. He declared “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught to like, especially when young how to use them.” For more information about Richard Henry Lee and the history of the Second Amendment, go to wallbuilders.com.

 

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. You’ve seen him in Biblical Citizenship in Modern America, and of course, he’s on the front lines for us in Washington, DC, always fighting for freedom and liberty. Congressman from Georgia, Barry Loudermark, always good to have you, brother. Thanks for some time today.

 

Barry:

Well, Rick, it’s an honor to be with you. And I can’t believe I’m actually only here with the Rick Green. I mean, so many people, look, so many people know who you are because of the Constitution Alive. Come on, man.

 

Rick:

I tell you what, brother, they are watching you, Rabbi Lapin, Kirk Cameron, David Barton, Tim Barton. They learned from so many people. I think that’s what made that course take off was like, okay, we’re getting all these different voices on these subjects that nobody taught us about before, and now we’re getting to hear all these experts and then they want to share it. So that’s why it’s grown like crazy and appreciate you being a part of it too man; really, really do.

 

Barry:

Yeah. And now you guys are doing what, Biblical Citizenship, which is just going to add to this exactly what we need in this nation today.

 

Rick:

It is 100%. It’s what’s been lacking. I mean, we were warned, we got to know our rights or we won’t proceed when they’re violated and certainly won’t know how to defend and assert them. And of course, now you’ve got this just, I guess because of that lack of civics, people buying the lies that come from the establishment. And right now that establishment is a regime that’s calling you Barry and me and David and Tim and anybody that loves the Constitution, loves the Bible, loves defending liberty. Now suddenly, we’re a threat to the nation, we’re the enemy. I think people are a little bit in shock over the President’s speech and just how hateful it was and that he would be willing to say those things about half the country. How do you feel as a congressman that he’s saying these things about?

 

Barry:

Well, it’s really an act of desperation on their part. That’s part of it. There’s no getting around. Where we are in this nation is the direct result of their bad policy decisions. Now we see it as going in the wrong direction.

 

I really believe this is the way they want it to go. They know if you bring in socialism, you’re going to pay more to get less, and you’re going to wait longer, and it’s going to be a poor quality. And I believe there’s an element of the folks that are trying to run this country, that’s the direction they want to go, and they just really want hey, get used to it, this is the way it’s going to be.

 

But whether it’s intentional or not, they’re obviously very comfortable with having to pay so much for gasoline, having to pay so much for groceries, having less supply and fewer choices, and they’re comfortable with it because they’re not doing anything to fix it. And so they have to use some type of diversion and they can’t spin it anymore. I mean, it’s to the point, what are you going to do?

 

I told people, look, we are going to be in a recession in the second quarter. I don’t even have to wait for the numbers to come out and tell you we will be in a recession. Because a week before the numbers came out, the Democrats started redefining the word recession. So that told me right there, okay, they can’t even spend themselves out of this. So what do you do?

 

You attack your opponents on the very things that you’re doing. It’s a distraction. It’s like the whole thing from the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy standing before the almighty Wizard of Oz and all of a sudden the curtain kind of blows to the side and you see the guy back there operating the machinery and he says, pay no attention to the guy behind the curtain. This is what this was, it’s look, don’t pay attention to the truth. Listen to what we’re telling you. And it’s these people that are dividing the nation, not us.

Rick:

That’s right. It’s so true, man. I think it is a cry for desperation as well. They know that people are paid attention now, and so this projection of everything that they are doing, they’re trying to label others with. In fact, I’m sure you saw some of the clips where somebody put together as he’s giving his speech and talking about violence and how horrible all these MAGA people are on the other side, they’re showing all the violence from BLM and Antifa and the very things he’s saying that the people on the right are doing, his people that he supported are doing, the very people that Kamala helped to bail out. And it’s just projection.

 

But I think people are seeing through it. I mean, I really do. I think they’re ready to say enough is enough. And I hope that means handing you guys the majority in November and giving you a chance to fight back against this and stop this nonsense. How are you feeling about November in terms of national, I know your race looks really good, but in terms of the overall control of Congress?

 

Barry:

Well, I’m optimistic, and I’m getting to the point of confident, and I don’t pay attention to what the polls are saying. Usually, this far out from an election, if the Republicans are down by 5-7 points, we consider that we’re going to win at that point. When you’re looking that we’re even on generic ballot, skewed, polls even are up a little bit, I think it’s definitely a red wave, maybe a tsunami we will see. But I think the key part of this is something that you just said. People’s eyes are being open.

You, I, David, Tim, we have all been praying for a Great Awakening in this nation, meaning people are all of a sudden going to come to the realization of what big government socialism will do to your personal lives and to your freedom. It’s unbelievable where we are questioning what is a male and a female? Come on. If you can’t figure out what is a woman, you do not need to be in public service, period. You need to go back to elementary school, right. But we’re in a decade right now where it’s okay, it’s acceptable to use the F word that we would never use, but yet don’t use other F words like faith, family, and freedom. Oh, those are the bad F words nowadays. That’s who they’re going to go after. That’s who they’re going to attack, those that stand on those traditional American values.

A new trigger out there is the date 1776, that’s actually a trigger for the woke culture. My phone number in my office is 4291776 for my official office. I’ve been attacked for that. Why? Because it’s what happened in 1776, not a revolution. No, it’s the Declaration and the principles that are laid out in the Declaration, that’s what they don’t want the American people adopting. That’s what they don’t want the American people rallying around. But that’s exactly what we’re seeing, is under this Great Awakening, people are like wait, something is wrong here. And that’s where it falls back on us now.

Look, we’ve got to shift our messaging as conservatives, as Christians, away from how bad things are. We don’t have to campaign on how bad things are, because every time someone goes to the grocery store, they’re living it. What we need to do now is have a message of forward looking over the rise and hope, we can fix this. We can do this. And it’s by lessening government, not empowering government. It’s by putting things back at the state and local level, just like the Supreme Court with the Dobbs decision.

Look, we’re winning some major battles here. It’s now we need to be the solution providers here, which is not doing more, but actually doing less and the people are going to respond to that because they’re living the problems. We don’t have to remind them of that anymore. We just have to give them a solution.

Rick:

So good, Barry. Congressman, you said it, you said these things like socialism, the things they’re trying to do, how it affects your actual life, your kids, your business, your street. And then on the opposite side of that, when you do return to 1776 Declaration principles, the principles that made America great in the first place, that affects your family and you personally, I think that’s the difference is.

This stuff used to be this esoteric classroom kind of thing, and now people are realizing, no, actually, this affects my life, it affects my family, my business. So now it’s more personal, which is why I think more and more people are involved and awake and paying attention. And you just described, I mean, the winning formula and the winning message for why people should vote against this hatred and against all of this demonizing and division of Americans and instead vote for what are the things that can bring us together? Well, it’s freedom of speech, and it’s freedom of religion, and it’s the things in the Bill of Rights that we should all agree on. And that’s what you guys are fighting for. And we have a chance to restore if everybody will get involved and be a part of the solution.

So I think we’re in a good place in terms of an opportunity, right. We got a window here where millions of people are willing to get engaged, and we can convert them to lovers of liberty and lovers of freedom.

 Barry:

Exactly. And you brought up the freedom of speech. What goes along with freedom of speech? Tolerance. Right? We have taught that we need to be tolerant. Well, it’s the people who have told us that we need to be tolerant that are intolerant to any speech that doesn’t line up exactly with what they have described as the acceptable speech. Right?

So it would be interesting, I think it’s something for the listeners to do. Go pick up your copy of the Declaration of Independence and go through the grievances and see how many of the grievances back then really apply today. I think you’ll be surprised.

Rick:

I was thinking about actually, even as the whole announcement about the 87,000 IRS agents, I mean, that’s grievance ten, he’s erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. I mean, my goodness, 87,000 new officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. I think the Founding Fathers would have had a little bit of a problem with this thing.

And I’m guessing I don’t even know if I should ask you this on the air, but I mean that’s an example of one that’s going to be hard to reverse. Because even if you guys win in November, you’ll have the votes to do it but not enough to override a veto, so what’s kind of the strategy there? Is it kind of stopped the damage, and then it’s going to take another two years to get the white house as well? Or do you think there’s things that can be done to take ground back as soon as you guys do take over in November, Lord willing, these elections go well?

Barry:

Yeah, there’s stuff we can do. I mean, keep this in mind, and you know this. There are not three co-equal branches of government. You look at the Constitution, read the federalist papers, it was clear, congress was given the most powers. Executive branch next. And then the inferior branch is our framers defined it was the courts.

One power that has been given to congress that we have advocated in the past, we need to take this back wholly right now is the power of the purse. All we have to do is not fund those 87,000 agents and put in the legislation that they cannot fund them through any other mechanism because congress is given the sole power of how tax dollars are spent, and so they’re not going to fill those vacancies. We can’t even get people to go back to work in this nation. You’re not going to get 87,000 new IRS agents. They don’t even have all of their agents back to work yet.

So come January through March, when we’re doing our appropriations, hopefully we get those done by April or May. We will just defund, that’s what should happen. But it’s going to take us getting back to the letter of the Constitution, which, thank god, we have a Supreme Court that is finally ruling on the manifest tenor of the Constitution, the original intent, the words of the Constitution as they were intended to be interpreted.

And there was a huge decision that came out right after the Dobbs decision that basically said, congress is the only branch that can make law, because we’ve had all of these executive agencies that have been making rules and regulations. That’s fine. But when you put a penalty associated with the rule of regulation that takes away your rights or your property, that becomes a law, because there’s punishment associated with it. And Supreme Court ruled that the EPA, their Clean Air Act, violated that: only Congress can make a law.

And so being able to take knowing where the Supreme Court is on that, we should be able to now take that and move it across the entire executive branch, the entire bureaucratic state, and start reining in a lot of these agencies and say, no, you cannot just arbitrarily make a rule and punish people for violating a rule, because every four years then the rules change. They come and go. I had a business owner one time saying, look, just tell me what I’m supposed to do. It changes every four years.

 

And so the point is we have to go in and uphold the Constitution using every tool that the framers gave us in the Constitution as a Congress to hold and check these other branches, especially the executive branch. It is our responsibility to do that, and we have to be bold and take that authority.

Rick:

That’s so encouraging. Everything that you’re saying is so encouraging and a great reminder of how important it is to take back the most powerful branch. Man, good stuff. Barry Loudermilk, Georgia Congressman on the front lines doing a lot of great work and a great friend to our program here at WallBuilders. Appreciate you, brother, keep up the great work. Let us know anything we can do to help.

Barry:

Well, we may just have to have the awesome Rick Green come up here and give members of Congress a Constitution Alive class.

Rick:

That would be fun. Oh, man. Hey, man, have a great one. And seriously, I know people are always saying thanks for serving and all that, but most people don’t realize how much of a sacrifice it is. And even you just got to DC right now, you had to be away from home, away from family most of the time. I know you all get a little bit more of that than a lot of Congressmen do because you all do so much of this together. But it is a sacrifice, man, and I can’t thank you enough. I would not want to serve in Washington right now. And so I am so thankful for guys like you and so many from our side that sacrificed to do this. It really is. So God bless you, brother. Keep it up.

Barry:

Well, thank you, brother. I appreciate all that you guys do.

Rick:

Thank you, folks, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

THE AMERICAN STORY

Hey, guys. We want to let you know about our new resource we have here at WallBuilders called The American Story. For years, people have been asking us to do a history book, and we’ve finally done it. We start with Christopher Columbus and go roughly through Abraham Lincoln. And one of the things that so often we hear today are about the imperfections of America or how so many people in America that used to be celebrated or honored really aren’t good or honorable people.

One of the things we acknowledge quickly in the book is that the entire world is full of people who are sinful and need a savior, because the Bible even tells us that all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God. And yet what we see through history and certainly is evident in America, is how a perfect God uses imperfect people and does great things through them. The story of America is not the story of perfect people, but you see time and time again how God got involved in the process and use these imperfect people to do great things that impacted the entire world from America. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and check out The American Story.

Rick:

We’re background WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us and thanks very Loudermilk. I appreciate the congressman taking some time to be with us today and of course, always doing a great job. And David, man, you alluded to a lot of this last week when we had some great Foundations of Freedom questions about what can Congress do if Republicans get it, how can they stop some of these executive orders or stop some of these bad laws that are being passed right now? So it sounds like Congressman Loudermilk and some of his buddies and colleagues are already planning for ways to do that.

David:

Well, he said take back the power of the purse. If you stop funding this stuff, the stuff dies, it dies on the vine and so just stop funding it. Now, we’ll see how far that goes. He’s certainly got a will to do that. And he’s one of many we now have that will. Can you get the Senate to go along with that?  Now the purse is in the hands of the House, but you got to get the Senate to go along with that. So it will be the House that makes a change if they get the Senate to vote with it.

But he made so many other good points, I hadn’t thought of it. The Democrats really are going to spend, but they’re not even trying to spend it anymore. They’re just redefining inflation, redefining recession. They’re coming up with brand new definitions you’ll find in no dictionaries on the face of the earth. And the point he made about the bad F word, that’s no longer a problem. The new F word for these guys are faith, family and freedom. I thought, boy, that’s a soundbite. I mean, that is the thing that drives them through the roof, just like the bad F word drives so many parents through the roof when they hear kids say that. To say faith, family or freedom is what drives the other side.

And the other thing that really jumped out from what Barry said was, look, I think we’re in a great awakening. And I looked up on dictionary while he was saying that awakening is a great wake up, it’s like wake up. And sometimes getting awakened is not what you enjoy. Somebody grabs you and shakes you in the morning and you want to keep sleeping and now it’s time for you to wake up.

And I think we are watching a wake up. I think what’s happening here is something that is waking us up. Whether we want to be awakened or not, it’s waking us up. And that’s part of a great awakening which will lead to good things. So I’m just really excited to hear what Barry is talking about and how they plan to aggressively go after this and looking forward to after the election. If we can actually pull off what we think is going to happen, we’ll have an opportunity, and hopefully we’ll maximize that opportunity.

Rick:

Well, folks, thanks for joining us today. Special thanks to Congressman Barry Loudermilk for joining us as well, when I really encourage you to visit our website today. As I always do, I know I closed the program every day like this, but there’s a lot to do, folks, and we need you to come alongside us. Don’t leave it to us. It’s just three of us here on the radio program. We need more people to be engaged, and I know you probably are, or you wouldn’t be listening to WallBuilders Live if you weren’t engaged, if you weren’t taking action.

 

But today I’m going to ask you to go to our website, WallBuildersLive.com, grab the link to this program and send it to as many friends and family as you can and just make that a habit. Every time you listen, share it and let people know there’s good information here. We’re bringing people on that are making a difference in the culture. Our Good News Friday programs are going to encourage people. Our Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs are going to really dive deep and educate them on so many of the issues that very few people talk about anymore. So there’s a lot of great stuff there on our website, be sure to check that out.

And then, of course, consider making that one-time or monthly contribution, but take some sort of action today: small step, big step, lots of steps, whatever what works best for you. But we appreciate you being a part of the program and coming alongside us. Be sure to visit today at wallbuilderslive.com. I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution coach. Appreciate you listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.