Polls Show Support Of National Statues-Vandals To Be Treated Like Criminals And More: National polling in support of our National Statues, President Trump says vandals are to be treated like criminals, and much more on Good News Friday!

Air Date: 07/24/2020

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 find your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. That intersection means that we’re applying our faith to the culture and we’re doing that with a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Very simply, it means whatever the subject of the day is, whatever the hot topic of the day is, we’re taking on that issue, looking at what the Bible says about it, what does the Constitution say about it and what can we learn from history.

My name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And I’m here with David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders, and also with Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. Now, if you’re not sure what WallBuilders means, it comes from a scripture in Nehemiah that says arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach. What we’ve been doing here at WallBuilders for decades is working to rebuild the foundation of America, bring back those foundational principles that make a society free and prosperous, all the things that will make a culture thrive, those are the biblical principles that our founders put in place from the beginning. So, we’re restoring those, we’re making sure those constitutional principles are revived.

We do that here on the radio program, having guests on the program and talking about whatever that hot topic is and applying that perspective. Our Good News Friday programs that we’re doing just like today is an opportunity to point out where things are being done right in the culture and celebrate those victories that are often overlooked.

But we sure appreciate you being a part of this and joining us today. Be sure to visit our website today at wallbuilderslive.com. That’s a great place to make a contribution. There’s a button right there at the top, right when you go to that homepage and it’s a way for you to come alongside us. We’re a listener supported program and those contributions are what make this program possible. That’s how we’re able to reach so many people across the country and around the world. It’s also what makes it possible for us to train young leaders in our leadership training program, to do our pastors’ briefings and our legislators’ trainings and all the different things that we do. Thank you so much for contributing to help make that possible.

Well, let’s dive into some of that good news. Guys, who’s going first?

David:

Okay, Rick, let’s start with some national polling. I got a couple polls here that look at what’s happening with statues, attacks on statues and we’ve gone through before. I mean, every statue under the sun supposedly, this was against racism when it first started. And so, Confederate statues are coming down, but as we’ve noted, it didn’t stop there. Every statue you could find of any founding father or Texas Rangers or the Armenian Genocide or World War One, World War Two, anything that relates to America or to history evidently was a bad deal, because it got attacked somehow, even statues of those who are advocates for civil rights, whether it be Frederick Douglass or the Mass 54 or all these others that can be pointed to.

So, with this, I was really kind of concerned the way the reporting has gone. It seems to me and watching how violent some of the protests have become, that it was really more a polarizing issue in the sense of I was afraid it might be a 50/50 kind of issue in the nation. And the argument was, you need to tear down statues of those from the past who have done wrong things. If they’ve been, I don’t know slave owners or if they made bad comments or whatever it is, they need to come down.

And it’s really interesting that the poll I’ve got here says that only 10% of all voters believe it’s better to erase the wrongs of the past. 84% disagreed and said, it’s better to learn from the wrongs of the past. I mean, that’s massive when only 10% are saying erase the culture. If there’s something bad in the past, let’s… Only 10% bought into that. 84% said, no, you should leave those out and if there’s something bad about them, learn from the wrongs of the past. But don’t take them down. So that was a really high percentage and I was really pleased with that.

And then I was looking also here that Kristi Noem who is the governor of South Dakota, there were some noise about taking down Mount Rushmore. Because two of the four people on the monument, Washington and Jefferson were slave owners and the argument is they’ve got to come down, despite the fact that Jefferson is the guy who signed the first law in the history of the world banning the slave trade, despite the fact that George Washington passes a federal law to prohibit slavery in any of the federal territories. And so, they both did a lot on the antislavery side.

And, you know, it’s interesting, they lived in a state of Virginia that was really a tough state. If you wanted to free your slaves, it was extremely difficult and some times, it was nearly impossible in certain circumstances. That’s kind of where Jefferson was, the circumstance he faced under the state law he couldn’t free his slaves the way he wanted. And so, they did some significant work, particularly in Virginia.

I mean, they really did some work in the nation leading to federal antislavery laws and advocated in the state level. But to ignore all of that, particularly in the culture of that day, particularly in that state, I mean, they were so far ahead of what was going on with others there.

Tim:

Well, yeah. and let’s go even further. I mean, the fact that they’re on Mount Rushmore was not because of their positions on slavery even, but even though we could argue that they did in many points in their life have antislavery positions, they argued against slavery at various points in their life, the reason they’re there is for the contributions they made to certainly America, arguably even the world at large that Washington is the father of America. Jefferson is the first one to espouse in a government document that all men are created equal. There’s a lot of foundational things with our nation.

The reason we celebrate these guys is because of what they contributed, not because of weaknesses or faults or sins or failures, which is what people want to point out. And that’s why there’s a lot of cancel going on.

But I mean, dad, even as you mentioned, you know, Governor Noem is saying that we’re not going to take this down. I’ve got an article on my stack, where she’s saying, presumably the same thing that is in your article, that she’s not going to let this happen, she’s going to stand up.

And I even loved when President Trump was there, kind of 4th of July, weekend and there was a Blue Angel flyover and some of the pictures coming from that event were just amazing, made me a little bit jealous that I didn’t get to be there and celebrate and see what was going on. But it does make it kind of silly seeing some of the canceled culture and where they want to go.

My piece of good news related to that is that Governor Nome from South Dakota has taken the position that, you know, she’s going to defend it, she’s not going to let it happen. President Trump is now come out saying he’s going to defend monuments and national parks and various things. So, there definitely is some good news in the midst of this canceled culture and craziness and chaos.

Rick:

Have you all noticed how many times we bragged on this South Dakota governor over the last three or four months? Man, she just keeps on getting it right. I’m telling you, we’re going to write a leadership book on her for 2020 before this thing is over. Let’s take a quick break, we got a lot more good news coming at you folks. So be sure and check out wallbuilderslive.com. In the archives, you can go get more of those Friday programs for more good news. We’ll be right back. I’ll help others WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. It’s Good News Friday today and Tim Barton’s got our next piece of good news.

Tim:

Alright, well, following up with this notion of canceled culture, looking at something that has come now from the Trump administration, from the White House, this article says the White House will now prosecute criminals for burning and vandalizing churches. Which we could say, right, maybe it’s about time, we could have started with the very first one. We’ve talked about churches in Washington, DC that have been targeted, that have been burned.

There was even controversy, right, when President Trump went, I think it was a St. John’s Church, and it was shortly after it was burned and he held up the Bible and people said, he’s just there for a photo op. And as Franklin Graham pointed out, well, even if it was a photo op, I really appreciate the president is going to hold up a Bible in a photo op and say, this is what’s important to me. That’s a really good thing to promote.

David:

Yeah, I was going to say, what’s wrong with it being a photo op? You’re holding the Bible up to all of America and saying, this is a good deal and it’s under attack, what’s wrong with that photo op?

Tim:

Yeah. So, if the argument was, right, the photo op, he’s just being political and he doesn’t really care what’s going on, I mean, you could see how one sided would try to spin this and make it a problem and a bad deal. And certainly, you can think with President Trump, everything is going to have a level of drama or politicization to it.

But again, if you’re bringing attention to the Bible and you’re bringing attention to the value that churches play, the role they play in society and especially now when my goodness, so many churches are still battling whether we’re going to be open or closed and there’s question of our church is essential when it seems that so much of culture that we could argue, whether there’s levels of ‘essentialness’ to it or not, I mean, or alcohol stores or marijuana distribution centers really that important? We would argue against so certainly and especially if it looks to the reality of churches being closed and those being open, etc, etc.

And so, the fact that Trump now again, is taking a position saying that, look, we’re going to treat these vandals as criminals, they’re going to be prosecuted. And this article highlights some Catholic churches that were destroyed. Catholic monuments like the Virgin Mary statue in Boston, the Jesus statue in Miami that were being destroyed, Trump said this absolutely appalling. So, it is good in the midst of the time that we’ve been sitting around, so we’ve been saying we need some leadership and where are the leaders and why won’t they step up.

And Rick, as you mentioned before we went to the last break, this is one of the reasons we’re so grateful for a governor, like the governor from South Dakota, who’s actually being a leader and stepping up and saying, yeah, we’re not going to do that, we’re going to do this, we’re going to solve this problem.

You have to have some governors like in Minnesota, the mayor of even Minneapolis who let their cities literally be destroyed and then they’re asking Trump for money. And he says, no, you shouldn’t let it happen. Now, they’re blaming Trump that they can’t rebuild their cities that they let destroy, you just see a lack of leadership in so many areas.

And so, it’s really great, especially when it comes to protecting religious liberty, protecting churches in general, protecting religion in general, it’s great to see President Trump stand up and say, yeah, we’re not going to  let people just arbitrarily go and burn down churches anymore and get away with it, they never got away with in the first place. They should have been prosecuted from the very moment that it happened. But it’s great that we now have a president standing up taking action saying, we’re not going to let this continue anymore.

David:

And in addition to that, I was just thinking, Tim, even as you were mentioning earlier about how that Trump when he held with the Bible, got attention. You know that they call it pandering? And that would be plausible if it wasn’t for the fact that over the last four years, we have had so many good news articles on his systemic march of doing things for religious liberties. I mean, what he has done to promote religion, Christianity, biblical stuff, both here and across the world, that’s not pandering. That’s genuine.

Tim:

Well, yeah, it shows he’s been consistent, right? It shows that this is not something out of the norm, that as you’re saying, pandering, right, that he’s just doing something, throwing red meat to a base, when this is not necessarily throwing red meat to the whole base. Because right, there are many people from the base that criticized him for this, but you’re seeing a more consistent pattern from him when it comes to protecting, defending and promoting religious liberty. And that certainly is good news at this point in America.

Rick:

Alright, quick break, guys, we’ll be back with more good news. Stay with us. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live, time for more good news today. And be sure to visit our website today at wallbuilderslive.com for additional good news in the archives and that’s also the place you can make that contribution. Do that at wallbuilderslive.com and you’ll be locking shields with us, coming alongside us as we work to save America’s constitutional republic. David, give us some more good news today.

David:

This deals with the Supreme Court decision. We are now past the close of the Supreme Court term for this year, so they’re all gone. And the last, really last couple of weeks, there’s just a lot of decisions that come down and some were higher profile than others. But this one really caught my attention. And this dealt with really what be considered border immigration issues. And there has been a whole lot of attention on that. And over the last three years as the Left particularly has wanted to make sure the borders were open and there wasn’t a control of the borders.

They would pick and choose courts, such as the Ninth Circuit who would strike down Trump’s immigration orders or immigration executive orders or policies or whatever. And so, this time deals with one of those that was struck down lower courts really few years ago and it’s now worked its way through the US Supreme Court.

And by a 72 margin, the US Supreme Court gave a huge victory to the Trump administration. And this included also Justice Briar and also Justice Ginsburg going with the other Justices. It was Kagan and Sotomayor that went against it. So, you have liberals joining the conservatives here to say no, when an immigrant comes to the United States and they claim that they are part of a persecuted minority or that they suffered danger if they go home, they have to make that case when they get here. They can’t just make a claim in order to get into court and tied up for several years.

And so, what happened was in the case of a guy from Sri Lanka, he got beat up while he was in Sri Lanka and he came to America. And he said is because of my beliefs and if I go back and they said, well, what are your beliefs that get you beat up? Well, I really don’t know. So, you mean, it could have been a question? Well, and so he couldn’t defend it. But he wanted to get into court because that keeps him here for several years.

And so the Justices said no, if they ruled at the border, if they did investigation into this and it doesn’t hold up that you’re here for religious asylum or because your life is in danger because of your political beliefs or whatever, if it’s not that then you don’t get to start using the American system to try to stay here and keep you here perpetually. So, that’s a huge, huge win as far as being able to let immigration, naturalization, service border control or others do their jobs and do their investigations and not have it thrown in the lap of every federal judge every time someone wants to stay. So that helps with the immigration side. That was, I think, a good decision. And that does follow the rule of law. You’ve not got Judges making immigration policy, they give it back to the elected officials.

We also had a decision we mentioned briefly, where that the US Supreme Court overturned a Montana law that said well, we’re going to allow scholarship aid to private schools as long as those private schools aren’t religious. And the Supreme Court said, no, you can’t do that. Montana had done that on the basis of what’s known as the Blaine Amendment, which said, hey, you can’t have state money going to religious schools. Well, that was really an anti-Catholic amendment. We wanted the money going to Protestant schools, but not to Catholic schools. And the states that passed that amendment, it was really for Protestant versus Catholic Stuff. It was a bigotry amendment.

And so, the Supreme Court knocked the legs out from under that, say, look, the state doesn’t have to get into private education, but if it chooses to fund scholarships from private education, you can’t exclude religious private schools from that. So, that’s a big ruling and that a lot of the states, actually up to 38 of the states had what was called that Blaine amendment. And so, this really chops the legs out from under that. Here’s another decision…

Rick:

And that’s what the David we’ve been talking about for years. I mean, I remember you first teaching me about the Blaine amendment and it has always stood as just this huge hurdle that has killed school choice and so many state legislatures when they were debating it. So, we’re going to see some good news coming for weeks and months and probably years as a result of this decision.

David:

Well, what it does is it puts it back in the political arena rather than the legal arena. And so instead of legislature saying, oh, we can’t do that, we have the Blaine amendment. The court said, no, no, that’s not a hurdle anymore. Now, it’s a matter of getting legislators to introduce school choice legislation. We’ve seen here in our home state of Texas that the statewide, I think it’s 68% wants school choice and we cannot even get a bill dropped here in Texas, because the public school systems, they are like the mafia when it comes to school choice. I mean, they pull out all the stops.

We actually had a bill introduced last year in Texas that said, look, if you have a child who suffers with severe disabilities, we’re going to allow them to have school choice. They can go find any school they want that can help them with that disabilities. And by the way, we’re also giving a boost to public schools. We’re going to increase their funding, but we’re going to let disabled kids go find whatever services. And the public school teacher said, absolutely, no way. We’ll give you back all the money you’re trying to give us an increase, but we’re not going to let any occasion, any situation be used for students to go look at other schools.

So, it’s now a political battle. And it often centers around rural districts where that the largest employer in many state representatives rural district is the school people. And so, the legislators are scared of the teachers unions and don’t introduce a bill. Now, I think, was it Idaho that 82% of the state supported the school choice? The point is that now puts it back in the political realm. The guys can’t hide behind and say, well, the Blaine memo, let us do it. Well, the court has said that you can do it.

Now, kind of buck up and face your constituents and face the voters who at high percentages wants school choice and that I think will be the new battle. One of the case I’ll throw out is, I don’t know how to explain this one. But the Trump administration issued rules that say that hospital have to put their prices up front so that people can do cost shopping. So, hospital has to say, here’s how much this test cost or this test or whatever. And the hospitals objected to that. They wanted no price transparency at all. And so, they went into federal court, file in and so, the federal court said, no, you have to be transparent. I mean, a lot of hospitals receive federal funding and we want transparency. And we want the cost of the product out there and the hospital’s objected it. And I can’t imagine why they would object to that. I mean, that just seems to be a losing proposition. But the good news is, the federal courts came down on the side of consumers and said, no, you need to put your prices out there so that people can price shop, get better cost effectiveness. That’s a good win for the people.

Rick:

Quick break, guys, we’ll be back for our final segment of good news. Stay with us, folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes we, parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read.

And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The Courageous Leaders collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, friends, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

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This is Tim Burton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Founding fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson originally worked closely together, but later became ardent opponents. This trouble Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration who knew both of them very well.

In the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5:18 tells us that God has given each of us the ministry of reconciliation. Dr. Rush believe this and set out to bring the two back together. It took a while, but Adams and Jefferson once again became close friends. And looking back on his role and helping bring about this reconciliation, Dr. Rush stated, “It will give me pleasure as long as I live to reflect that I have been in any degree instrumental and affecting this reunion of two souls destined to be dear to each other and motivated with the same dispositions to serve their country though in different ways.

For more information about Dr. Benjamin Rush and his other remarkable achievements, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Thanks for staying with us today on WallBuilders Live one final segment of good news and Tim Barton is got this segment

Tim:

Alright, guys, this one is in Wyoming. It starts off in a very sad and kind of graphic way and ends in rather a remarkable and inspiring way. There was a boy, 6 years old up in Wyoming, his name was Bridger. He and his little sister were over at a friend’s house and family apparently was inside, friend was in the backyard with Bridger and a sister, Bridger is 6, little sister was 4. And Bridger’s friend points to one of their dogs, they had two dogs and said, okay, that’s the good dog and then pointed the other dog, said that’s the bad dog.

We don’t really know details of what happened. Somewhere along the way, the bad dog who was a German Shepherd came in charge Bridger’s little sister, now he’s 6, sister was 4. So, Bridger steps between the dog and his sister. The dog apparently positions a little bit, trying to get the sister, Bridger stays in front. The dog jumps and bites and Bridger is in front of the sister. The dog latches on to Bridger’s face, the side of his face, his cheek. As the dog is latched on, he tells his little sister to run.

And the dog has latched on to him, sister runs. You can imagine the screaming, the commotion. Parents come outside, the owners able to get the dog off. They take Bridger instantly to the hospital. When he gets to the hospital, they put an IV in and his parents said the only time he ever cried was when he got the IV in. And he ends up getting more than 90 stitches in surgery for two hours as they are helping sew everything back together.

But here’s where the story becomes much more heartwarming, not only is this brave 6 year old, right, wanting to rescue and save his sister, which just tells you something about, maybe something in terms that God puts in us that we want to protect our family, our loved ones, right, something about just a guy being a guy he wants to protect the girl he loves and in this case, it’s a sister. And actually, his dad after the event asked him hey, you know why do you think you need to jump in front of your sister? He said, well, if somebody needed to die, I thought it should be me. And you’re just going, oh my gosh, right, like you’re getting this emotional tears in your eyes. Like this dude is crazy. He’s awesome. You love this…

Rick:

You said he’s 46?

Tim:

He’s 6 years old.

Rick:

Not 46?

Tim:

Not 46. He’s 6. But here’s where there’s a levels of like kind of restoring your faith in humanity a little bit. This went viral, because his parents begin to share videos of him watching his iPhone or his parents iPhone or iPad as different Hollywood actors would send him video. So, Chris Evans, who was Captain America sent him a video talking about how brave he is and he’s just like Captain America. And Hathaway, an actress sends him a video. Zachary Levi who played Shazam sends him a video. Robert Downey Jr. who plays Iron Man sends him a video. Tom Holland who play spider man sends him a video. And as you’re seeing him just watch these videos, it is so refreshing to see kind of humanity at work, where you see people just loving people, wanting to help people and reward this brave little 6 year old. It’s definitely worth getting online finding out more about his story. His name is Bridger Walker, go watch the video.

Rick:

Alright, David, Tim, thanks for the good news today. We are out of time for today. But we’ll have more good news for you next Friday. Really, we have good news throughout the week. Because if you have truth and you have answers to the challenges of the day, that’s good news, even when you have to take on a tough topic, like the COVID crackdowns or infringement of constitutional rights, which is happening all over the place.

And as David has said here on the air many times four of our five First Amendment rights have been, we’ve seen those being violated all over the place: Second Amendment rights, Third Amendment rights, Due Process rights, Fifth Amendment Takings clause, I mean, you name it. There is some violation of constitutional rights taking place on a daily basis all across the country due to these COVID crackdowns. So, this is a time to know your rights. This is a time to study those foundational principles.

Check out constitutioncoach.com today, we’ve got a program going right now while we’re educating people on their constitutional rights. And also, if you need legal help or connecting you with the best of the best. I mean, the champions out there that are winning cases all over the place and protecting constitutional rights. Go to constitutioncoach.com today and we will connect you with them.

Also, be sure to visit wallbuilderslive.com today, that’s the place to make your contribution. If you want to help us continue to teach truth, to train young leaders of the next generation, to take pastors to Washington, DC, to train legislators and bring them together for good biblical worldview legislation across the country, all of those things we’re doing here WallBuilders Live, you can be a part of it by making that contribution at wallbuilderslive.com.

We appreciate you listening. You’ve been listening to all WallBuilders Live.