Randy Forbes At The ProFamily Legislators Conference – Part 1: Join us in this two-part series as we listen from Randy Forbes as he shares with us strategies to influence culture, save our nation and preserve our principles for the future generation. What can we do as citizens? What kind of 21st Century strategy will save our nation? Tune in now to learn more!

Air Date: 12/23/2019

Guest: Randy Forbes

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

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

Faith And The Culture 

Rick Green:

Welcome to the intersection of faith in the culture, this is Wall Builders Live. We’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, the culture, all of it from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. If you’re wondering about that name WallBuilders that actually comes out of the Old Testament scripture in Nehemiah that says, I’ll rise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach.

Think about it back then if you didn’t have those outer walls, you were run over as a nation, they had to be rebuilt to be a strong nation today. It’s the foundations. It’s the foundational principles. It’s the formula for what kind of society you’re going to have is what WallBuilders do is restore the American formula, the American system that produced the most amazing modern nation in history. We do that by influencing the culture, we add educate people on the Constitution.

What Wallbuilders Is About

We educate people on biblical worldview of how a society should work. And of course, educate folks on the history of where we came from. As a nation, we tell the good, the bad, and the ugly, all of it and we learn from all three, so that we can do a great job at preserving the torch of freedom and passing it intact to the next generation.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s constitution coach. I’m here with David Barton, America’s premier historian, and the founder of wall builders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of wall builders. And we are so appreciative that you are listening today and we’re going to actually take you on a little bit of a journey.

Pro-Family Legislators Conference

Today, we’re going to take you out to the wall builders Pro-Family Legislators Conference. Now that means it’s a conference of legislators, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not good stuff for you as well, whether you’re a legislator or not, it’s actually great information on how to preserve the culture, how to be salt and light, how to make sure that this freedom truly is passed to the next generation. And here’s what we do at a legend. Leaders conference.

We’ve been doing this pro-family legislators conference for more than a decade. And what we do is we bring legislators in from across the nation, at state representatives, state senators, they come in from across the nation and they gather for the weekend. It’s kind of a rest but it’s a little bit of rejuvenation if you will. I can tell you as a former legislator myself, sometimes you feel like you’re alone. You feel like there are no other biblical worldview folks out there that are standing firm on those principles. And so, it’s great to get these legislators together, give them a chance to sharpen each other’s countenance to exchange ideas of things that are working or not working back in their home states. And then to hear from speakers that will encourage them, equip them, inspire them to go back home to their states, and be salt and light in their state legislators.

And those same messages from these great speakers. We have the chance to bring into the pro family legislators conference, those same messages apply to you as well as a citizen. So, we want to bring as many of those to you as we possibly can. We’ve done a little bit of that over the last year.

Few weeks ago, we had Bob McEwen, former congressman from Ohio who spoke to the legislators. We shared that one with you last week. The week before we shared Dana Lash and her talk on the second amendment to the legislators. We also shared one from George Barna.

We Have Randy Forbes Joining Us On Today’s Program

We’ve had all kinds of great speakers here at the pro family legislators conference that we’ve been able to share right here on the radio program. Today and tomorrow, we are sharing former congressman Randy Forbes and Randy Forbes just a phenomenal guy.

We actually had him on for a live interview here at Walters live a few weeks back, but he was one of the speakers that our legislators conference this year and just phenomenal, really helps to look at strategy for how to influence the culture, What are the strategies that are going to save our nation and save those principles preserve them for future generations and what can we do as citizens or and for this audience that he was speaking to, as legislators what kind of 21st century strategy will save our nation let’s go out to the pro family legislators conference and join congressman Randy Forbes as he addresses the legislators.

Randy Forbes:

Well, Rick, thank you and thank all of you, I want to take just a moment and personally thank Dave and Tim Barton. They are true treasures for this country. They have been, dear friends to me, and you can just look at this conference and I will tell you everything changes, and this conference has changed. It’s got better and better and better, but not all changes good. And I want to suggest to you that if you will look at the footwear that David Barton is wearing today.

For years, he wore boots at every one of these conferences, and he got me wearing boots to this conference. And I came here today with these boots to honor him but look what he is wearing now. tennis shoes, I can’t live with all of this kind of change that were taking place. I don’t know where the world is going but I also want to tell you that some of the speakers that you have are not just smart men and women but they are wonderful men and women and you are so blessed to have them here and I wish that I was one of them.

21st Century Strategy

All I can tell you is I honored to be here. And I appreciate all of you and David and Wall Builders, devoting a few moments to this topic, which is 21st-century strategy. And let me just tell you why, I believe that you are involved in two of the greatest fights this country has ever seen. There two most important fights that we will have in our lifetime and it’s the fight for faith and the fight for conservatism. I also want to tell you that as I stand up here today, with every ounce of my being, just as objectively as I can, by every metric, I know you are losing those fights.

And the second thing I will tell you is that from everything that I know, in my career, everything that I studied as a strategist across the country teaching strategy at the War College in Newport, Rhode Island, I will tell you that I believe the number one reason why we are losing is because our opponents understand this concept 21st-century strategy, and they know how to use it and implement it far better than we do.

Now if I were to be asked and I have been asked before, to share with countries, with our military with other militaries, with fortune 500 companies 21st-century strategic thinking and analysis.

If we walked into a major corporation today to look at these concepts, I would spend a half a day with their leadership team and with the company trying to go through what 21st century strategy even means, and trying to extrapolate from them the principles that they need to understand to be able to function in a 21st century world with 21st century strategy.

America’s Hidden History

David Barton:

Hi, this is David Barton.

Tim Barton:

And this is Tim Burton. And we want to let you know about a series that’s happening right now on TBN on Thursday nights and TBN of the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Every Thursday night there’s a series that we filmed called America’s Hidden History and this season is called America’s hidden heroes. The reason is we highlight heroes from American history for years we’ve been focusing on the forgotten history and heroes and nation. And now we have a TV show, just highlighting some of those heroes.

David Barton:

These are inspiring stories about some of the greatest people maybe you’ve never heard about. We go on location, we go to the site, we show you where the events happened. And it’s the story of folks like Bronco Charlie and Stagecoach

David Barton:

Mary, and Jedediah Smith and Robert Smalls, and so many aspiring folks.

Tim Barton:

Now this happens every Thursday night, and the time is going to be different based on where you live. Either way, we think this is something that will so encourage and inspire you and learning some of these great stories from America’s hidden history.

What Frightens Me Is I Hear People Everywhere I Go Talk Strategy

Randy Forbes:

The next half of the day, we would spend with our leadership teams breaking down and saying how do these principles overlay with your planning, how do they work? How can you create strategic opportunities from that, but I don’t have a day to spend with you?

I have about 35 minutes left to be able to do this and this is my goal is just to open the curtain and invite you to walk in with me just for a moment and to look at 21st century strategy, and hopefully to open up open avenues of thought for you so that you will walk out and do one of two things either, which is okay with me.

To walk out and say, by Gosh, I think he is right and I need to understand more about this and I need to study more about this and I need to get schooled on what 21st century strategy is and how to do it. Or to walk out and say, I don’t think he has a clue what he’s talking about. I totally disagree with him and none of that is applicable, because either way we have done the most crucial thing we can do, which is the half the debate about what 21st century strategy really means and to be able to begin to understand the principles behind it. What frightens me is I hear people everywhere I go talk strategy.

Let’s Pull Back The Curtain

And then I asked them the follow up question, what do you mean? What are you talking about what strategy what are the principles you’re looking at, and this glaze goes over them?

So, if you’ll walk with me now as we just pull that curtain back and walk in.

Let me, first of all, tell you why this is a concept that’s so difficult and it begins with, it’s just hard to define. If I were to go to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, which I believe is the best in the strategic thinking in the world, not just in the United States. And I want to bring back five of my colleagues, five of my friends who are the best professors on strategy that I could possibly get, and put them up here on a panel, and then just ask them this question. Tell me what strategy is, there’s a very high probability that they would probably all have a different definition.

The second thing is it’s not only difficult to get a definition of it, but it’s difficult for me to tell you where to go read about it. Every single week, I will have people contact me.

Let Me Give You Two Examples

Let me just give you two examples this week, because they’re representative of what I get every week. I had a naval officer that from Michigan that sent me an email just two days ago, he said I’m getting ready to take command of a ship in the Pacific. He said I need to understand that the strategy of the Chinese and understand the strategy that we have is the United States called the War College. They told me to call you, I call three think tanks in Washington, DC, they told me to call you, I know you’re too busy to meet with me, will you just give me a reading list of what I need to read, understand these principles.

And I didn’t know what to give him or how to give it to him. I had a former NFL football player he played for the Detroit Lions for years. He was a leading tackler in 2015 for the country. He called me the other day and he said, I heard one of your talks and strategy.

I want to learn more about it. Where do I go to read about this? When I was in the NFL, I could always go and find something that I had to read and to learn about it. Where do I go to learn about strategy? And I don’t know what to tell you to do.

It Is Difficult To Define

Because there aren’t very many books that really talk about 21st-century strategy. Let me tell you the other thing that’s really difficult, it’s not only difficult to define, it’s not only difficult to go somewhere and get books to read about it but the third thing, it’s very uncomfortable and here’s why it’s uncomfortable.

Balls And Strikes

Because at its core what I have to do as a strategist is called balls and strikes. I don’t get to walk in and say, I wish this were the right principle. I wish I could agree with you because you’re a wonderful man, and your wonderful woman. And I know that you think this is the right way to go and I wish I could come in and tell you it’s the right way to go but it’s just not what’s lining up with all the principles.

So, it’s kind of uncomfortable when you’re coming in and just calling balls and strikes. So why do we even do it? Here’s why we do it because I believe as I mentioned earlier, it is the game changer for the 21st century and here’s what’s the game changer.

It wasn’t a game changer just 10 years ago, 15 years ago. But what makes it a game changer today is because of the surging capability we have to collect, analyze and disseminate information. That’s what’s made strategy so important, not just for you and me, but for our military and everything else that we look at in today’s world.

We Miss The Game Changer Of Our Time

And if we miss it, we miss not just an advantage, but we miss the game changer of our time to be able to understand what strategy is. So let me just take one bite at trying to put in perspective what we’re talking about when we talk about strategy and let me begin with the concept of planning which we all understand and here is planning, planning is when I am thinking about activities that surround or lead up to a particular goal I have and all of you have done planning.

Strategy And Planning

So what is strategy and how does that differ? strategy is when I analyze and I study and I look at other planning and other actions and I try to distill from them consistent principles, which lead to success or failure and then I take those principles and I in a methodical and disciplined way apply them to my planning so that I am using the benefit of those principles to bake by planning work.

A Moment from American History

Tim Barton:

This is Tim Barton from Wall Builders with another moment from American history. America is a special and unique nation. The average length for constitution and other countries is only 17 years but we’ve had ours for over two centuries, and our 4% of the world’s population produces 24% of the world’s gross domestic product. And every year we produce more inventions and technology and the other 96% of the world combined. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville of France, came to America traveled the country and in his famous book democracy in America reported, the position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. This is the origin of the phrase American exceptionalism and affirms that America is unique because of the distinctive ideas on which we have been based including inalienable rights individuals and limited government and the importance of religion and morality. For more information about American exceptionalism, go to wallbuilders.com.

Randy Forbes:

So, when somebody tells me Oh, this is a really smart guy, he’s thinking strategy. First thing I ask is okay, what are your principles? What if you still work you got when I walk into a corporation, every corporation America has a strategic team a strategic, but they said, Here’s your strategic team.

How You Apply Them To Your Planning

First thing I do, I’ll walk into listen to him for 20 minutes, tell me all the stuff they’ve done. And then I’ll just ask them, Okay, tell me what you’ve done to analyze 21st century strategy where the principles you’ve distilled and how you apply them to your planning, and you know what, I get this glazed look in most corporations and they say, tell us how to do that, you know.

And so, what I want to try to do today is to again, I’m not going to go through all these slides because we don’t have time. But I want to point out this slide to you. This is where you are today.

Fight For Faith And Fight For Conservatism

You’re in these two fights, fight for faith and fight for conservatism. And for most of your lives, people have tried to distinguish these two fights. Some of you have tried to distinguish the two fights at times I’ve tried to distinguish them. I don’t think you can do that anymore. I think they overlap and here’s why they overlap.

This first fight, the fight for faith depends on one core principle and that is that we have the right not only to believe but to live as if there is a being greater with greater moral authority than mankind. The core of conservatism today is that there are a set of rights or principles or laws, something that is greater than what the collective will of the majority of people can determine and ascertain.

Where Liberalism Is Going In America

Now, the reason that these two overlap is because it is almost impossible to sustain the belief that there is some set of principles or laws, greater than what a collective majority of people in power can ascertain or determine if there’s no greater being up there that sets those laws out. And the reason to fight for faith needs the fight for conservatism is this.

I want to just show you this is where liberalism is going in America. When I was a boy, which was just a couple of years ago, this is what the United States marketplace of ideas look like. The Supreme Court called us a marketplace of ideas. It was that we had ideas and that’s what made us the country, faith within the marketplace of all ideas in America and it was welcomed. It wasn’t dominant. It wasn’t overpowering and telling everybody they had to believe there. It was simply that it was in that marketplace of ideas up until about two months ago. This is where the left wanted to take faith in America.

They wanted to say the only place that you could have the market faith in the marketplace of ideas was in the four corners of the church. That changed a couple of months ago when a major candidate for the liberal side of the political equation in the United States came out and said if a church even within their four corners disagrees with what we believe

They Should Lose Their Tax Exemption

The right principles, they should lose their tax exemption. That’s the first time you actually penetrated and said, No longer are we just content to go here, we actually want to carry them within the four corners of the church walls. That’s why I believe these two fights are very similar.

Now, let me tell you in a very brief way, a look at some of the principles of 21st century strategy and I’m only going to tell you a couple of the highlights. But the first one is that all strategy involves planning but not all planning involves a strategy I told you earlier. It requires an honest assessment of where we are and who we are but this third one is a big one.

Every place I go, I’ll get introduced as a national strategist, I walk into a corporation, I walk into a military setting, they want me to look in some bag and reach in and pull out a product and hand them and say, here’s the bumper sticker I put on my car and all of a sudden I changed things around.

Front Sight Firearms Training Institute

Rick Green:

Friends, Rick Green here from Wall Builders Live. What do Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, Ben Shapiro, Rick Green, Tim Barton, David Barton, what all these folks have in common other than the fact that they’re conservative commentators that defend the constitution and educate America on the Constitution. They’re all raving about Front Sight Firearms Training Institute effective you go to my website right now today at rickgreen.com.

You can watch the video of Dennis Prager training at front side or Larry elder training and front side or Tim Barton myself training out their front sight. It’s an opportunity for you to learn how to defend yourself and your family to make sure that you’re ready and able to do that. It is a fantastic place to train. They train literally 30, 40 thousand people a year and they’re just wonderful to work with and you can go with us, we’re headed back out we’re going to have a great time out there as the wall builders family and if you’re a supporter of wall builders, we have an amazing deal for you.

It’s actually going to cost you one 10th the normal price to attend this 2-day hand Gun training because you’re going with us and you’ll also get the constitution Crash Course.

I’ll be teaching on the constitution you get the intellectual ammunition that you need to defend the Second Amendment and our constitution as well as getting the physical training on how to defend yourself and your family. And this is for everyone, guys gals. Everyone should take this class will no matter how much you’ve shot your whole life or if you’ve never touched a gun, learn how to defend your family. We’re going to be going several times throughout the year and we would love to have you be a part of that. Check out rickgreen.com. today.

To find out the dates and all the specifics and get all of your questions answered. Check out rickgreen.com today to join us on this front side trip for both your constitutional and your handgun defense training.

Strategy Is Not A Product; It Is A Process

Randy Forbes:

Strategy is not a product; it is a process. It is that distilling of those principles and applying them to our plans. So that we make them work. The other thing that’s is important to remember is that strategy is based on me changing my competitive position, every single step along the way. With nations, we talked about changing the balance of power. But you and I, if you’re trying to protect the status quo, you are losing in 21st century strategy. You need to be constantly saying each day, how am I increasing my competitive advantage, but these next two are the ones that I think are incredibly important. Next three, first of all, it will by definition, create conflict. That’s why it’s very difficult for churches to be in this fight, because conflict is very difficult for them.

Rick Green:

Well, friends, we got to interrupt Randy Forbes, former congressman Randy Forbes, who you’re listening to right now he’s speaking to the pro family legislators conference our gathering we do once a year with legislators from across the nation.

And we’re going to have to interrupt because we’re about out of time for today’s program, and we’re going to pick up with Congressman Randy Forbes tomorrow, here on Wall Builders Live.

Now tomorrow, you can actually get both programs at our website wallbuilderslive.com. If you haven’t a tune in in the middle of the program today, or for some reason, you’re going to miss tomorrow, just be sure to visit the website wallbuilderslive.com. and there in the archive section, you’ll be able to pick up both programs.

Again, the legislators conference, as I mentioned at the beginning of the program is a chance for state reps and senators from across the nation to come together and exchange ideas go back to their states, inspired and equipped by the speakers that we bring to them and by each other, go back to their states and pass good legislation and help preserve freedom for future generations.

What Can I Do About That? 

You might say, Well, what can I do about that? Well, one of the things you can do is inform your state rep or your state senator about this great weekend so that they can prepare to attend next November in November of 2020 have an opportunity to attend the legislators conference. So, you can go to our website wallbuildesrlive.com and find out more and share it with your state rep or state senator.

The other thing you can do is pray for your legislators. Make sure you’re praying that they have Godly wisdom as they make those decisions, pray for good legislators to be elected in 2020 in your district, and in your state, and get involved in helping elect good folks. And maybe you’re one of the ones that needs to run for office in your home state get involved, be a good citizen.

How Am I Going To Be A Good Citizen?

If you’re asking yourself, Well, you know, what am I going to do? How am I going to be a good citizen? And what more can I do I vote if you’re not voting, that’s certainly a big step. I think most of our listeners to this program, do vote if you’re not then get informed. Go to ivoterguide.com and click on your state and get some of those voter guides so that you cast an informed vote when you walk into that booth.

But one of the most important things you can do in fact, the one thing you can do that will have more of an impact than anything else, is actually start getting people together in your home or at your church, to discuss what’s going on and to study and to become educated.

American Heritage Series

We’ve got a lot of great programs that you can get a wallbuilders.com to do exactly that. Our American Heritage series has a workbook with it that you can walk through in a Sunday school class, or in your home, are building on the American Heritage series our foundations of freedom program. And probably the most important one for this year as an election year coming up in 2020 is to do our constitution class to actually take constitutional live, and walk through that with a few people that you invite over to your home get you just pick up some extra workbooks.

Or you can do it at your church, we have people that are hosting this class, this biblical citizenship class centered around the constitution and looking at that, from a biblical perspective. They’re hosting that in churches across the nation.

Some of them have hundreds of people coming out once a week to study the constitution and what biblical citizenship is all about, if you’d like to be a host and do that, if you’d like to be what we call a constitution coach, and you don’t have to be, you know, have a background in the law or the Constitution. We train you on all of that.

And the main thing is that you put in the DVDs or you pull up the videos online, and just hit play, and invite people to watch it with you and then go through the workbook together. But if you’d like to be an official constitution coach.

Constitution Coach

You can do that at our website we’ve set up for this constitutioncoach.com, you can sign up right there at constitutioncoach.com, and it gives you a chance to get trained on how to host these classes.

You can host multiple classes and churches around your community or different community centers or wherever you want to do that, or just right there in your own home. Get the workbooks necessary.

It’s a great way to get folks engaged to be good citizens in this very important year of 2020. So, go to constitutioncoach.com today, to find out more and be a part of that. The last thing I’ll say before we sign off for the day, is that if you are interested in not only studying the Constitution, but also learning how to defend and protect your family, we have a great program called constitutional defense.

Patriot Academy

We do it through patriot Academy, you can learn more at patriotacademy.com organization that David and Cheryl Barton helped me start 20 years ago, and that has trained thousands and thousands of young people and military veterans, by the way, at our state capitol boot camps and that’s another opportunity for everyone really, we’ve got young people 16 to 25 that come to state capitals across the country and live the life of a legislator.

We have military veterans of all ages that do the same. And then we have a citizen track that trains all citizens of any age. You can find out more about that at patriotacademy.com, but I sidetracked a little bit there. What I wanted to tell you about is our constitutional defense course, that gives you the chance to study the Constitution, and learn how to defend your family at the same time, and the way we do that is we actually bring people at the front sight in Pahrump, Nevada is the largest, most effective firearms training facility in the country.

And you come with us we bring 50 to 100 people at a time. It’s a great time of fellowship, and we study the constitution and we learn handgun defense so that you can defend yourself and your family. I know I had a handgun license for years and didn’t carry because I was concerned that I wouldn’t know what to do or negligent discharge or whatever the psychological reasons are that keep us from being ready.

I actually encourage people even if you have a license you shouldn’t carry if you haven’t had any training, and this is a great chance to get that training you will leave our course confident and prepared you will have the skills that you need to defend yourself and your family.

So, go to patriotacademy.com today, check out those capital boot camps, but also check out constitutional defense courses and join us. We’ve got several dates coming up in the spring, that will give you the chance to join us for a three-day class or a five-day class you can choose and it’s chance to study the constitution and learn how to defend your family. Check it out at patriotacademy.com today, I know I’ve given you a lot of websites today.

They’re all available at our main website wallbuilderslive.com. But you can go to patriotacademy.com or constitutioncoach.com as well. Thanks so much for listening today. Tomorrow we’re going to pick up with Randy Forbes for the conclusion of his presentation on a 21st-century strategy. Thanks for listening to Wall Builders Live.