Manifest Destiny, Women in the Draft and January 6th – on Foundations of Freedom Thursday

Air Date: 11/9/2023

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

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Transcription:

Historic Quote: 0:12
Calvin Coolidge said the more I study the Constitution, the more I realize that no other document devised by the hand of man has brought so much progress and happiness to humanity. To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.

Rick Green: 0:38
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders and we’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, and today you get to pick those topics. It’s Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Thanks so much for joining us here. I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution Coach, here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Tim’s a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. David’s America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and we look forward to hearing from you. So send those questions in [email protected] is the place to send them. [email protected]. David and Tim, we’re going to start with John and he’s asking about Manifest Destiny. He said Recently the topic of Manifest Destiny came up during a discussion with some guests at our home. First of all, John, thank you for having those kind of conversations and having guests in your home. We need more of that kind of civil discourse happening in living rooms and around dinner tables around the country. Anyway, John says I was a little surprised by my friend’s strong opposition to the idea of Manifest Destiny. Afterwards my wife, who’s from Mexico, asked me what that phrase meant. I explained it was an idea during the 1800s that Americans were divinely ordained to spread across the American continent from sea to shining sea. I also recall reading a history book that I believe was written in the 1800s, which explained that since white Americans were morally superior to other races, or at least the Native American races, because of our Christian virtue we were meant to dominate the American continent. Hence the reason for my friend’s distaste for the idea. Acts 17:26 says from one man he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. My question is whether there is a non-racist or biblical basis for believing in the idea of Manifest Destiny, or was this a misguided belief used to take land from the Native Americans? Many thanks, John. Alright, guys, we don’t normally read a question that long, but John really articulated that well and, because of the subject, wanted to get the whole concept in there. Go for it.

David Barton: 2:28
Yeah, Manifest Destiny really is a doctrine that has been there for a long time, but in America it was really. It was really crystallized and brought to the forefront by Democrats, literally by Democrats. By the Democrat party started in 1832. It’s our destiny to own all of North America and, by the way, democrats included Canada and Mexico in that as well. And that’s why people like John Quincy Adams were so opposed to Texas becoming part of the United States. Because you had the Mexican War and that was just… He saw that as America tried to steal land from Mexico, because, you know, mexico still claimed to own Texas. I think from the legal standpoint Texas was separate and independent state, but John Quincy Adams was so attuned to Manifest Destiny being against it that he saw that as a cause for them going to war. So there’s all sorts of writings back then with Democrats saying look, this is all supposed to be ours, all of North America is supposed to be ours. It’s our Manifest Destiny. And so they were willing to trample on rights to do so. So when you start taking private property, which they were willing to do with tribes, when you start doing the kind of racism they had, because it’s Manifest Destiny for the white race to be above. That’s all problematic. It’s really really, really problematic. So it’s not that Manifest Destiny is this great American doctrine. It’s a great Democrat doctrine and there were all sorts of Christian people who pushed against it. Now, it doesn’t mean everybody was perfect, but generally it was a Democrat doctrine being pushed and religious people pushed back very hard on it.

Tim Barton: 3:57
Well, you know, Dad, I think we also can say there probably were some religious people that were promoting Manifest Destiny as well, right, just like there were some religious people that were in favor of slavery as well. But when you look at those two, we’re reading the opposition. The opposition was clearly people that were guided by the morals they learned from the Bible. And this is where one of the things that often I will challenge people when they talk about how bad America is and America’s in all these evils and whatever those evils might be I tell them right, you pick a topic and what I would suggest is you ask a couple of questions how do those things come to an end? And who were the leaders that led the opposition movement? And what you discover is, in all these movements it came to an end because there were Christians leading the opposition movement that said this is wrong and we shouldn’t do it. Now, what’s also, I think, the important kind of contextual understanding in this is we’re talking about at this point, this is after the Louisiana Territory has already been added, so you already have a huge portion of what became the United States. It’s already part of America, and also we’re noting that nearly all of that land had been purchased from other nations or other tribes. So, once you get into manifest destiny, the idea that all of America was taken from natives, that’s totally incorrect, 100%. There was land stolen from natives Dad, as you mentioned, that was a lot of Democrat policy Now which, even if you look at someone like Andrew Jackson, andrew Jackson is one of the people largely kind of thought of or credited with manifest destiny. Well, andrew Jackson is not the guy behind manifest destiny, but Andrew Jackson is the guy behind the violation of 60 or 70 native treaties where the US government said, yeah, we’re not going to recognize those anymore. And so, even though he was not the guy pushing manifest destiny, he certainly was the Democrat leader that changed the idea of the way that the government should operate with native tribes or the way that states should operate with native tribes. So there’s definitely more to that story.

David Barton: 6:02
Yeah, and going with that, Tim, going back to what you talked about with the religious principles, you’ve also got John Quince Adams. When he was president he refused to let the land be taken from the Indians in Georgia. It had to be purchased, it had to be a treaty, the Indians had to agree to it. And then when Andrew Jackson came in as the next president, he said all that aside and said no, you can take the landing, throw the Indians off. So Jackson did have that attitude that started so much of it. Van Buren took so much of it past that, Jackson kind of laid the foundation. Van Buren is the one who executed a lot and then Polk after that with the addition of other territories. So it manifests destiny. You’re exactly right, it’s not something you can mark all of America with. It was a philosophical principle of one particular group and they were not very biblical in their orientation. So manifest destiny by and large is not a good concept at all and it is something that religious folks tried to correct and tried to get right.

Tim Barton: 6:59
And it’s also limited to a certain time of the 1800s. And it was not the founding of America, right? This wasn’t the pilgrims, this wasn’t the founding fathers. This is well after the pilgrims and the founding fathers that you see a lot of this unfolding, and not saying that in any kind of defense of what happened under manifest destiny, but just again giving kind of a contextual understanding that this is not who America was foundationally. This is not what the founding fathers intended or wanted. In fact you can go back and read in Northwest Ordinance, under Article three they clarify that you cannot steal any native lands. That’s against the law. That was something that changed under Andrew Jackson and under many Democrat presidents going forward.

Rick Green: 7:46
Man. Such a good question, John. Thank you so much for sending that in. Great discussion guys. Man, that was a good one. Alright, let’s jump to one more before we get to the break. This one is coming in from Savannah. She said I’m 22 years old. I have a question that I’m not sure if it’s something you can answer in an email or program, but I’ve heard from several different sources that if there is a third world war, women aged from 18 to 26 will be automatically drafted in the military. I’m wondering if you know if this is actually accurate and, if so, are there any exemptions available to Christian women? I do not believe God created women to be the defender or protector, and I feel it’d be violating my conscience regarding biblical manhood and womanhood for me to enter the military. A lot of Christians I know feel the same regarding this topic, including the men in my life, and I would like to be prepared to know what my rights are and how to apply these. Any thoughts or advice would be so appreciated. I’m grateful for everything you all do at WallBuilders and for a new source that is actually trustworthy. Don’t give up. Thank you, Savannah. Alright, I love that Savannah. Don’t give up is how she signs off guys, and I know I’ve heard several senators and members of Congress railing against a draft of women. I don’t recall where it landed in terms of what was adopted by Congress or the Pentagon, if they did something on their own, without the Congress.

David Barton: 8:54
Yeah, they have definitely made contingency plans for it. It’s not been enacted, but the plans are there and all the quality stuff, all the stuff that’s come in with the woke stuff. It’s like genders don’t matter anymore for any reason, and so everybody’s going to be part of this. There’s certainly physical reasons why the military has not done a lot of this. Even as we’ve seen one or two women making the special forces, they haven’t been able to perform physically, although they may be good at their brains. So there’s still a definite physical difference. And I’ll just go back to Bible. Remember in Genesis one, two and three, where God creates male and female. He says that he created two genders, but he said that it takes both to be in the image of God, male and female, created He them, and it’s both in the image of God. There are characteristics that are stereotypically male, characteristics stereotypically female. When you put both of those together, you get a good image of God. You know sorry, Rick, you’re not going to be known for the beauty in your family. Kara is, but we know from the scripture that God is beautiful. He’s appealing to the eyes. On the other hand, Kara’s not going to be strong. You are. We know that God is strong and so God represents that joining of male and female and takes both sexes, both genders, to really represent God accurately. And so when you disregard that in policy, you’re getting away from biblical precepts. And the founding fathers were very, very aware and cognizant of it took both to represent God. But there are differences between the two and most thinking Americans today still recognize that difference.

Tim Barton: 10:23
Well, I got to say though on some level I appreciate the fact that someone was intellectually honest enough to say, hey, if men and women are the same, then women should be in the draft. Well, of course men and women are not the same and that’s why women shouldn’t be in the draft. Right, if a guy and a girl are on a date and a bad guy comes up, the guy is the one that should confront and deal with the bad guy. The guy should, the male of the relationship should confront and deal with the danger, not the female. The man should be protecting the woman and not vice versa. And yet again, because we live in this world where the woke, backwards left is saying things that men and women are totally equal, totally the same. You can identify, a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man. You can’t say that and then pretend like women shouldn’t be in the draft. So at least someone is intellectually honest enough to say that, well, if men were the same, then women have to be in the draft. Now I think it’s totally wrong. It shouldn’t happen and, God willing, it never will happen. But certainly it’s an interesting question now, given the fact that we are moving closer and closer to what could be some kind of potential conflict in the very near future.

David Barton: 11:45
And to answer Savannah’s question about would there be a conscious exemption at this point in America’s history, the answer is likely to be yes, because we recognize conscious exemptions for those who don’t want to fight in war, male or female and you don’t have to be a female not want to fight in war. There are those that are conscious objectors. It used to be that you had to come from a recognized denomination, you had to be a quaker or something else, but the conscious protections are pretty strong right now for religion.

Tim Barton: 12:11
Well, and Dad, I would point out too that in the draft, if a draft does happen, I don’t know that you can totally get out of the military, but you might get out of the infantry or the front lines. Right, they might say we’re going to use you in an office because your convictions aren’t there to fight. So I think there’s still a little bit yet to be determined on that. But again, God willing, this is not something we’ll have to see or experience and we’ll get people that have a better conscience and understand that male and female are real things and they are different.

Rick Green: 12:37
Alright, great questions, guys. We’ve got a quick break, We’ll be right back. You’re listening to. Foundations of Freedom Thursday.

Tim Barton: 12:49
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 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 a 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 a story of a perfect nation or 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 Green: 13:52
We’re back on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Paul’s question is this, I wonder if you would mention your thoughts on January 6th. You mentioned in passing during a discussion that your view on January 6th has changed. I believe you said there were some guys who should definitely go to jail while still holding this sum are being overly punished. I heard an interview with an independent journalist who, plea bargain, never actually went into the capital and now cannot get bank accounts because he is on the list. Okay, guys, so Paul actually raises something on that last part. Let’s just hit that real quick. The last part is actually part of the overall problem of the cancellation and the nastiness of using government and institutions to punish people for their political beliefs. That is rampant, and the left ramped that up because that’s a Marxist tactic and it’s working for them. In some ways, it’s silencing a lot of people. So it’s not just people that were at J6, but they definitely are doing that to people that were there on January 6th. So, guys, we could spend a whole program on this where there’s a lot to say about it. I’m going to toss you guys first. I have lots of thoughts myself, but we also just had Barry, on our good friend from Georgia that’s a Congressman Loudermilk, and did a whole program on that last week. So, paul, if you missed that, be sure and look in the archives for that one. He’s chairing the committee that’s actually investigating this for the Republicans, so he’s got a real inside look at it.

David Barton: 15:05
Yeah, Tim and I were just with Barry here a few days ago and Barry was sharing things with us that I’m just not getting in the media, whereas we have heard and probably people may have heard this that we were told there was 14,000 hours of footage. There’s actually 44,000 hours of footage and there are definitely perpetrators on that, that something had to be done with them. I was not aware, for example and Barry has the footage that there was a particular part of the Capitol that while Trump was speaking, while he was doing his speaking, there were people assaulting the Capitol at that point in time. So the notion that Trump brought them over and said attack the Capitol and where Trump was speaking was not there at the Capitol. He was down the mall over toward the White House side, which is like a mile away, and these guys were on foot, and so it’s not that he led them over to attack. And, as it turns out, when you see the footage, these guys that attacked they went in and they were wearing arms, they were wearing tactical gear, they tried to overwhelm the Capitol Police and they actually physically injured some of the Capitol Police. They were there to set up a new regime and so they were forcibly going to install what they believed was Trump, the third Continental Congress. I mean those guys they weren’t citizens who just walked in off the mall and wanted to see what was happening. So there actually were guys there who did damage, who had some bad intent. Their intent may have been good, but they had some really bad information, bad plans on doing it. So that’s what I was not aware of when all this came out a couple of years ago, when this was going on.

Tim Barton: 16:37
Well, and this is why we’ve commented that our position has changed a little bit because we’re getting better information, and this is where we again have a major problem the fact that so much of this information is not public information. And why are you sitting on this for several years now? Is it because maybe one day you don’t want to taint a jury and so you don’t want them to know this information? Well, you might could make that argument. The problem is that these videos are not being even used in these trials, and so people that are having to give a defense they’re not allowed to use video evidence that many of them are arguing, this video evidence would prove that I was not one of the violent agitators. I was someone who just looked around and saw an open door and I walked in an open door and I was taking pictures and I just thought it was so cool that I got to go in the Capitol building. Something still nefarious is going on. Something is still happening where we are finding out more and more information that there are people in Congress, and specifically Democrats, who are suppressing information, and at some point, we have to start asking why. This is where, when Tucker Carlson released some of the video footage that he was able to go through quickly and just showed whatever that shaman guy’s name I don’t remember what the guy’s name was. He was the Navy. He was wearing that little buffalo hat, but when you saw him actually saying, hey, we need to pray for President Trump, and what’s going on right now, when you saw him walking around with police officers and police officers were like escorting him, showing him how to get places because he didn’t know where he was going, that doesn’t seem quite like what the media was saying, and so part of the reason that our position has changed is we have gotten better information that let us know there really were some bad actors there. But it hasn’t changed the fact that we are seeing a lot of bogus prosecutions going against people that, from everything we can tell and see, these people were not the violent agitators. Now you might get charged in with trespass, although at that point you got a kind of big uphill battle on your hands, because if they said, hey, when we got there, the barriers weren’t there anymore and the door was open and we were just walking forward.

Rick Green: 18:58
And literally to that point, Tim, that one thing right there bothers me, because when I was in law school, you had to have not just actus reus, meaning you’re actually doing something, but mens rea. You had to know and intend to be breaking the law. So if you show up at the Capitol by the time you get there an hour later, Trump finishes speaking. By the time you get there, there’s no barriers, the police are inviting you in, but yet these trespass charges that they’re charging them with do not require mens rea, which I have a real problem with just from a legal perspective. But I want to clarify for our listeners too. All three of us have said from day one I mean even that afternoon is we’re all doing media and stuff. All of us have said from day one that if you’re being violent and you’re breaking things, you should be prosecuted. We believe in blind justice and everybody should be treated the same. So that part of our position hasn’t changed. We did always say you should be treated the same as those who burned buildings and broke things in 2020. Blind justice, equal justice, everybody treated the same. What did change, I think, from what y’all are saying in terms of the information we’re receiving is, I would often say, after J6, nobody was trying to actually take over the government. They were trying to let their voices be heard. There were a few crazies that wanted to break things, but they couldn’t take over the government. What you just said, though, David, and what Barry has uncovered, is there was a handful of people that actually thought they could pull that off, and I think they’re crazy, right Like I think these people are literally crazy if they thought they could do a complete takeover of the government, but they were intentional in what they were doing. Well, that kind of person should be prosecuted. I mean, what they were doing was wrong, and no doubt about it, but I would also add I don’t know that anybody that did anything that day was bad enough that their punishment should extend beyond what they’ve already had to do and what they’ve already had to experience in terms of the gulag in Washington DC, because they were treated horribly.

David Barton: 20:48
Yeah, and see and to go to that point. I think that the prosecution has been real disingenuous on this because they’re charging them all with insurrection, which means you can take away your constitutional rights to due process. You can lose the right of habeas corpus, which means they can leave you in jail indefinitely, forever if they want. So maybe trespassing maybe, but like you said, there was not the intent to trespass, they were walking in there taking pictures. So the fact they’re charging them with insurrection is a real problem to me for these, these innocent folks that just wandered in and then we were also hearing when we were DC just recently. One of the trials that’s about to come up is of a guy and it shows body cam footage of him on an officer and they’re saying he’s assaulting the officer, he’s trying to hurt him and damaging. Well, it turns out there’s other body cam footage that had audio with it and that body cam footage the guy’s clearly saying, hey, you’re hurt, I’m trying to help you, let me help you, let me do what I can to help you. And so he’s not trying to injure the cop, he’s trying to help the cop. But when you take the audio out of it and just watch the video, the physical actions would appear to be he’s trying to hurt him, but he’s not. He’s trying to help it. So that’s the stuff I don’t like is whether they’re cooking the books, they’re changing the charges, they’re doing things to make people look guilty so they can get prosecutions.

Tim Barton: 22:04
Well, and Dad, I mean to your point when you’re saying it looks like you’re doing something to hurt them. What it looks like is a seamless, chaotic and the officer’s on the ground, kind of struggling and scrambling, and it looks like he’s trying to defend himself because he’s injured and doesn’t know what’s going on. This other person coming over is trying to offer assistance and he’s getting down where the officer is and the officer doesn’t at first recognize he’s offering assistance but then realizes oh, that’s what it is. But if all you show is that one part of the video where he’s trying to get away and there’s a skirmish and there’s chaotic on the ground, it’s easy to make it appear to be something that it’s not. And that’s where our problem has always been, as we have seen information hidden. I mean, you know it’s. It’s one of the things that, Rick, we have talked about so much when it comes to elections is if we would just be transparent, then we wouldn’t have as many questions or problems. But when there is not transparency, then it raises so many question marks. And then when you’re not being transparent and it seems like you are going so far above board based on the limited information we have, it seems like you are an incredibly corrupt government or the democrats are being incredibly corrupt because of this behavior, and where we would say look, if these people really are guilty of what you’re accusing them of, then just present the evidence like let just be transparent, let us know. Because, as you pointed out, we have said from the very beginning if there are criminals doing criminal things, they should be prosecuted as criminals right. If there’s violent offenders, they should be prosecuted. But when you have grandma just walking into an open door and you’re going to hold her in a cell where she doesn’t get any of her due process rights, where basically you’ve just thrown away the key for several years because she walked through an open door, that is incredibly unjust and I think that’s where so many Americans have since the unjustness of what has happened. And it’s still interesting to me. I was on a flight earlier this week and on the flight there’s a lady sitting across the aisle from me who was double masking and she was the only person really close to me on the flight that had a mask, and she had two of them on. I thought, man, have we not gotten beyond this point? But it reminded me that there are still people that the only information they are getting is still so far on one side that everybody on January 6th they were all violent, they were all trying to overthrow the Capitol, and not everybody is getting both sides of the story, which is where I think it is one of the challenges that we have to make sure we are being very prudent, to make sure we are asking the questions is there more to the story? Is there another side? What is the other side saying? What evidence is there to make sure that we’re not just being swayed by our emotions, to stay on one side of the issue without acknowledging that there could be more to the story? And if there is more to the story, we have to be willing to change our perspective based on what is true.

David Barton: 25:07
And I’ll add to that that this is why what Barry Loudermilk is doing is so important. And, by the way, what Barry is doing in trying to dig out the truth has been really impeded by Democrats. He keeps finding evidence that they had information they deleted and they got rid of, and so he’s having to track down information he didn’t even know existed, but he gets hints of it and then he’s able to find that… it just takes time and so going through that it’s been interrupted, quite frankly, by the speaker turmoil by getting rid of the speaker and not having a speaker because he is a special committee appointed by the speaker and so if there’s no speaker there’s no committee. So this is really even being impeded by what’s happening with all the drama of the speaker’s race has gone on for weeks. But nonetheless Barry is committed to trying to find the absolute truth, whatever that is, and and hold everybody accountable. But it’s taken him a lot longer than he thought because he keeps finding this hidden and destroyed evidence that Democrats did and it takes him a while to recover that, find it and track it back. But good to have Barry there and hopefully with the Congress stabled out somewhat, that committee can get back to doing some serious work.

Rick Green: 26:08
Paul, Great questions today. Thank you for sending those in. Guys, I would close it out today just saying intellectual honesty, that’s what we’re asking for, that’s what we’re trying to do and that’s what we’re asking for our leaders to do. And and that’s how you get to blind justice and equal justice and treating everyone the same. When you’re willing to throw that down the drain, you can destroy the system and what Barry’s doing is helping to bring that back and give us that faith in the system again. Great program today, guys. Thanks so much for listening everyone. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders.