Texas Creates 1836 Project To Teach History In School And More – Leaders start standing up to teach honest and patriotic history! Texas creates 1836 Project to combat liberal education in schools and much more!

Air Date: 06/25/2021

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:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We’re talking about the hot topics of the day in policy, culture, all of these different things, but we’re looking at them from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And a little bit different perspective on Fridays, i’s called Good News Friday. So we’re bringing you some of those good news stories that have not been covered by the major media. And frankly, most of the good news stories I hear from David and Tim, I hadn’t heard about anywhere.

So I’m really thankful for the research, and getting the good news of the things that are working well across the country, because we always hear the negative. We know bad things are happening in D.C. and in some of our states, but there’s also a lot of good things happening because of people of faith getting involved in the culture. So we’re going to cover as many of those stories as we can today on Friday.

As I said, we’re here with David and Tim. That’s David Barton and Tim Barton. David’s America’s premier historian, and our founder at WallBuilders, Tim Barton’s a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, and my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. If you liked the good news you hear today and you need even a little bit more, go to wallbuilderslive.com jump into those archives, you can scroll back to the last few weeks and months and listen to more of the Friday programs as well as the interviews and the Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs.

So there’s a lot of great information for you there at the website wallbuilderslive.com. That’s also the place you can make a one-time or monthly contribution. We appreciate all of you across the country that have been doing that. Thanks for your support. David and Tim, let’s jump in, and get as much good news out there as we can today. David.

David:

Okay, Rick, I’ve got one that is a national story, and it deals with what we’ve been hearing about the Wu Han lab. So we keep hearing now that hey, maybe this COVID virus came out of a gain of function research that the US funded at this lab in China. And when that story came out a year ago under Trump, everybody just dismissed it as being completely crazy, completely stupid. And now suddenly, it’s got legs, which by the way, can I kind of make comment here?

I had a professor who told me back when I was in college, he said, listen, truth is always objective. And anytime you hear truth, you need to accept it, even if it comes from an enemy. I mean, I love the free market, I love America and our republic. So let’s say a communist tells me that two plus two equals four. Do I reject that just because it’s a Communist? No. I’ve got to love truth more than love labels. But we’re now on to the point where, well, if Trump said it, there’s no way it can be true….

Tim:

Well, there’s always an exception to the rule. And I think Trump is the exception, of course, not. No. But it’s ridiculous and yet that is exactly what people are saying. And even now, there are some people saying that you still can’t give credit this theory because this is what the Republicans wants you to believe, this is still conspiracy theory, because Republicans or because of Trump and etc, etc, etc. Even as evidence is coming out, there are still people wanting to reject this, merely because of how they track back the origin of them first hearing about it was President Trump, therefore they don’t want it.

And dad, you’re right. This is something that certainly as people who want to be intellectually honest, as Christians, we want to pursue truth. We should care more about if something is accurate, factual, and true than who it was that actually said it.

David:

That’s exactly right. And I just this past week read the longest article I have ever seen in a national major magazine. And normally in a magazine article, Time or Newsweek or some, it’s going to be four or five, six pages long. No. No. How about 20 plus pages on this one article? And here’s the way the article starts. Here’s what it says up top.

It says “A months long investigation, interviews with more than 40 people, and a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. government documents, including internal memos, meeting minutes, and email correspondence, found that conflicts of interest, stemming in part from large government grants supporting controversial virology research, hampered the U.S. investigation into COVID-19’s origin at every step. In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.”

So here it says much long research through government documents, and they said, hey, this thing in Wuhan is not only real, here’s the documentation of how real it is. Now, here’s the question, what periodical published this? Obviously, it was…

Tim:

I don’t even know if periodical still existed. So you’ve asked me, if I’m reading stuff online in my email, so I don’t even know who still has a periodical. Actually, I think I get some like hunting periodicals. I get some outdoor periodicals. I have no idea who’s still doing periodicals.

David:

This is done by Vanity Fair.

Tim:

I’m proud of you for reading Vanity Fair, by the way. I didn’t know that was your normal reading. It’s interesting. Okay, Vanity Fair. It’s 2021. Who are we to judge if you read Vanity Fair? That’s fine.

David:

That’s great. Vanity Fair may be further left than CNN and MSNBC and everybody we know that’s on the left, these guys are so far on the left, it’s unbelievable. And they’re the ones breaking the story. They’re the ones who actually did journalistic research. They’re the ones who looked at the facts. I mean, this is just amazing to me that we actually have some genuine journalism that’s occurred here. And it occurred from a group we would never expect it from on…

And granted, make fun of Vanity Fair, who thought Vanity Fair would look into political issues like what’s going on at the Wu Han lab? That’s not what I would pick them for. And then to come down concluding that it was absolutely a bad deal that the virus came out of there, and it was manufactured with the US help. That’s amazing.

Tim:

Well, and this is something that I think certainly going forward, we will continue to hear information. And there will likely be more outlets coming out with information, still I think there’s a lot of people who are scared away or even talk about some of that evidence yet. And dad, as you mentioned, our pursuit always should be what is true, and we want to go where truth leads us even if it changes the perspective of what we thought was accurate.

In this pursuit of truth, one of the things that we have seen many states and state legislative bodies coming out now against things like critical race theory, and actually have a few articles, we might talk about some of that later, one of the things that Texas has done and here’s my first piece of good news is Texas creates an 1836 project that teach patriotic education and Christian heritage here in Texas.

And one of the things that, dad, we’ve talked about before is we want to be careful that you don’t start compartmentalizing education so much, you have to study this part or that part or this part or that part that actually you lose the big picture story, you want to make sure you stay inside the big picture and don’t lose probably what instead of saying that you have different kinds of American heroes, you have your Asian American heroes and your African American heroes and your Indian American heroes or whatever the case is. No, these are just American heroes in the midst of recognizing that we don’t want to compartmentalize too much.

It’s interesting to see that Texas recognizing some of this 1619 project or critical race theory that leaders in Texas came out and said we want to go a different direction. And it’s not to change the story or narrative of Texas because Texas has a lot of really interesting history. If you go back to the origin of the Texas Rangers and some of the really great levels of brutality that was happening on these Texas planes, as actually the time Mexico was inviting people to come and live on these planes and they were using oftentimes these families. It’s kind of a buffer between the some of the people of Mexico live closer down to Mexico City. And there was a buffer between them and some of the natives and specifically the Comanches, who were a fierce warring tribes and this is the birth of the Texas Rangers.

When you start going through some of that history, what you discover is there certainly were some bad moments on both sides. And there’s some complexity in this Texas history, so not everything is good and fun and peachy and rosy. However, if you take an honest look at it, Texas does have just like America a very rich history, a lot of great heroes, a lot of people to be celebrated, whether it be a Sam Houston or Stephen F. Austin, some really remarkable people in Texas history.

And so you had Governor Abbott signed House Bill 2497, and the acknowledgement was that they want Texans to know more about their history and heritage, because we are in a culture that is trying to erase and demonize so much of American heritage, instead of recognizing that in history, there’s going to be good, bad and ugly, because that’s just the reality of humans. Humans have good, bad and ugly moments, instead of just saying, hey, here’s big picture, here’s some of what happened, here’s some of the good some of the bad and the ugly.

What we’re seeing so much today is we’re saying that we can’t talk about good moments, or we can’t talk about where good overcame evil, or where good fight against evil and triumphed. We want to just focus on the fact that bad things happen. And that’s a dishonest look at history. So in Texas, really exciting to see that they’re making an intentional effort to say, let’s make sure we’re learning on history in the midst of this.

One of the things Governor Abbott said was that every newcomer to Texas who gets a Texas driver’s license, because we have so many people moving to Texas now, when they come to Texas, get a Texas driver’s license, they will also get a pamphlet that outlines Texas’s rich history. So we’re doing more to help people learn the history of Texas. In Texas, we actually already have a course that kids take in public school about Texas history to learn some of this.

Again, it’s great to see that you have leaders in the state who are being very intentional about saying, let’s make sure we continue to teach an honest history, the good, the bad and the ugly. Well, let’s not let it go too far in one direction or the other. And in this, they want to make sure it’s patriotic education and includes the Christian heritage of Texas. So that is good news.

David:

And Tim, here’s exactly the reason why that law is needed. This is out of Time Magazine. And it’s an imagination kind of thing. They want people to use their imagination and what would you feel like if you were in this situation? Here’s what it says. “Imagine if the US were to open interior Alaska for colonization and for whatever reason thousands of Canadian settlers came pouring into Alaska, they established their own towns, their own hockey rinks, and they’re on Tim Horton’s stores. When the US insists that these Canadians have to follow American laws and pay American taxes, they refuse. When the government tries to collect those taxes, they shoot and kill the American soldiers. When law enforcement goes after the killers, the colonist backed by Canadian financing mercenaries, they take up their arms in open revolt. If you’re an American, how would you feel?” Now you know how the Mexicans felt with the Alamo.

Tim:

I think they need to take that Texas history because that is not at all even close to what happened. But this is the problem. When you don’t know the actual history, but you don’t know the story of what actually happened, it’s easy to go a different direction. When you look at the Alamo, for example, happened in 1836, the Alamo, they were flying a flag over the Alamo, that was in 1824 Mexican flag. The reason was an 1824, there was a Mexican Constitution written. It had a series of rights, protected rights for the citizens.

When Santa Ana comes to power, Santa Ana says, yeah, we’re going to kind of put those rights on hold, we’re going to do something different. And it very much was similar to the American Revolution. When the British military showed up and they go to Lexington and Concord, they’re going to take all the guns, all the military supplies, and the powder, and really whatever else they want to take with them, and the American showed up and said we’re not letting you take all our stuff. What are you doing this? You’re refusing our rights as British citizens.

That was largely the argument in the founding era that that the Founding Fathers, they just wanted the rights that they were supposed to have as British citizens. The king said, yeah, we’re not really going to give you those rights. This is a scenario of Santa Ana. Santa Ana comes to power and this is 1836 of the Alamo. And there he’s taking away…

David:

Which I’ve got to say people look that 1824 flag at 1836 baton often say, I don’t understand that, I thought the battle was in 1936. But they don’t know that that 1824 flag is about the 1824 Constitution.

Tim:

Correct. Santa Ana comes to power says we’re removing this, we’re not going to follow this constitution. Super interesting. One of the guys, a Mexican guy who helps actually draft that Constitution is one of the guys…

David:

Wait a minute. A Mexican guy helped draft the Constitution?

Tim:

The Constitution of Mexico.

David:

The Time article says here that Alamo was all about the heroic Anglo narrative and that racial history has to be reassessed, you’re telling me what not Anglos at the Alamo?

Tim:

Right. If you look at history of the Alamo, there were a lot of Mexicans. And this is also were considered Texicans at the Alamo and looking at…

David:

That fought on the Texas side?

Tim:

Fight on Texas side, the guy who actually helped write the Constitution in 1824 Constitution is fighting on the Texan side, he actually is fighting against Santa Ana, because he recognized Santa Ana is taking away those rights. And even in the midst of this, Mexico had been inviting people again. They’ve been inviting people to come live and settle and they were giving incentives for people to come and settle. They were giving tax incentives and economic incentives for people to come and settle in the state because they wanted a better balance and a cushion between them and some of the hostile natives being the Comanches.

So there’s so much more to this story than what is being told today about how Texas might have been stealing land from Mexico or whatever the case is. There’s a lot more to this story that today, frankly, most people just don’t know. And the narrative is being reshaped just like we’ve seen with a 1619 project, with critical race theory being taught and promoted that is suggesting that America is evil, that America is bad, that all white people are bad, that all people of dark skin have been oppressed by people of light skin, etc. And that’s the history of the nation. That’s so inaccurate. It’s ridiculous.

This is the same kind of narrative people are even saying about Texas. Which again, is why it’s positive when Governor Abbott signs this bill into law saying that we are going to learn Texas history, all the Texas history, we’re going to have patriotic history, we’re going to learn about the Christian heritage, some positive elements that are going to make sure we include in there so that we’re not just learning things that people are going to use to criticize, demean, and try to destroy Texas. So again, really good news, big picture with all that’s going on.

Rick:

Quick break, we’ll be right back with more good news. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

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.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. It’s Good News Friday today. You’ll notice we’re taking fewer breaks this week in the program, getting more content in and sharing as much as possible with you. So let’s get as many good news stories as we can for the rest of our program today. And I think David’s next.

David:

Okay, Rick, I’ve got a story here on a World War II vet, I read this story. And of course, we love talking to military vets here and every once a while in the program, we’ll have military vet tell their story. And I was really intrigued with the story. It’s a guy named Jack Herschel. He was in World War II. And in World War II, he was in the US Army Air Corps, which is what it was before became the Airforce after the war in 1947, or 1948 there about. I think 1947.

So, in World War II, he thought in six major battles, he got all these declarations, and etc. After that, he goes on after the war to start several successful businesses. And he goes on to be an instructor of military science at Texas A&M University. Then he becomes a pastor. And he does all this with a third grade education. He was a third grade educated guy when he went into the military, and he’s an instructor to university and he did all these businesses.

And what’s cool about this is just about a month ago, he’s 99, he finally got his high school diploma at the age of 99. So having done all this stuff in life as a pastor and everything else, I thought that was such a cool story, that he still wants his high school diploma and he got at the age of 99. So this is a really fun story.

Tim:

This is also one of those things that’s so interesting for us looking back in history, and seeing how different the educational system was. Because how in the world could a third grader or someone who drops out in third grade only finishes third grade? How could they achieve that level of success? If you go back historically, you have guys like Benjamin Franklin, who was an elementary school dropout, and he achieved great things.

But in earlier education, they were teaching students how to become lifelong learners. They were teaching them how to be critical thinkers, how to be problem solvers, how to be pursuers of truth. And if you learn some basics, even if you’re only going through a couple years of schooling, when you’re learning how to read, how to write, how to pursue truth, how to think for yourself, you really can go a long way in life. And this is a really fun example of someone who certainly has gone a long way in life.

So along the good news stories, looking now at Florida, which is, unfortunately, as a Texan, it’s one of my favorite places to look these days, because Governor Ron DeSantis is doing amazing. And I say, unfortunately, as a Texan because generally speaking, Texas is a place in the US I am the most proud of. However, when it comes to Governors…

David:

It’s hard to admit that Texas is beat by anybody in anything.

Tim:

You know, I mean, Governor Abbott has certainly not been great in a lot of moments in the midst of COVID. There were a lot of times he didn’t really trust and respect to people to make good decisions because of the mask mandates. Rick, you’ve talked about that many times. With all that being said, Governor Ron DeSantis has been very good at not only following the science at trusting the people giving them the information, etc, etc.

One of the other things that Governor DeSantis did recently is their Florida state school board voted to ban the teaching of critical race theory, and Governor Ron DeSantis actually talked to the board as they were determining what they were going to do and he encouraged what was going on. First of all, one of the really good things is this state school board did, in fact, ban critical race theory. That’s really exciting news. Well, this is one of many states that now are moving that direction. I think Florida definitely is taking the lead on some of this.

And there’s opponents coming out saying wait a second, if you can’t teach all these negative things, it’s because you’re trying to whitewash and cover up and candy-coat history, and you just need to let teachers speak the truth, well, this is what a guy who is the president of the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, his name is Ben Frazier, he came out and just said, this is terrible that you’re not going to let the teacher tell all these things. Ironically, he said, we want teachers to speak the truth.

This is why we are against critical race theory because it is not telling the truth. It’s not being honest about America. This is one of the problems with a 1619 project. The 1619 project is not being honest about America, her origins, her foundations. Even the story of slavery, when we say that, well, slavery started in American 1619, no, it didn’t. African slaves were here in America with other nations, specifically the Spaniards all the way back in the early 1500s. And actually, even in Jamestown, slavery was illegal in Jamestown in 1619. It was violated the common law.

So when those original slaves arrived in Jamestown, they were made indentured servants, which is different than slaves. And I understand some people want to argue, well it’s basically the same thing except at the end of seven years, they were all given their freedom and they became free land owners in America, which had they been shipped anywhere else in the world, their condition would have been drastically worse.

So instead of recognizing that, man, Jamestown was not perfect, and Jamestown, by the way, I’m acknowledging had lots of issues, if you go back and study their history. It’s true, they did. However, to say that slavery was his big problem in 1619 in Jamestown, not true. Now slavery did become a problem in Jamestown. That was more in the mid to late 1600s. 1653 is the first time slavery was legal. Anyway, I digress.

The point is, if we were going to be honest and truthful, we would not be teaching critical race theory. And this is one of the things that Governor DeSantis set up that was so great. He told the board, “Florida’s educational system exists to create opportunity for our children. Critical race theory teaches kids to hate our country, and to hate each other. It is a state sanctioned racism, and it has no place in Florida school list.

Guys, I am so impressed that Governor Ron DeSantis has the moral clarity and the backbone, the courage to stand up and say what is absolutely true, but what is not largely accepted in much of the media, and much of the woke circles today. But he’s not backing down. I am very impressed. And I think this is really good news to see his leadership in Florida, and to see the state board in Florida come out against critical race theory.

David:

Well, speaking of Florida, I’m going to pick up there with another story. Florida has just joined with Alaska to join 22 other states in a lawsuit against the Biden administration decision to cancel the Keystone pipeline. Now the Keystone pipeline was cancelled way back almost like week one of the Biden ministration. So now we’re into this thing like five or six months, and the people who’ve been running the Keystone pipeline have pulled out and taken their stuff out, because it just doesn’t look like it’s going to get done under Biden administration. So they’ve kind of folded up all the tools and moved out of there.

But what I find really intriguing is why these 24 states are going after the Biden administration, this is one of the many executive orders he had issued at the time. And we talked at the time that a lot of his executive orders were more like federal laws. It’s okay to have executive orders. Presidents have done that if it’s only directing your agencies under your control. But when you start making policy, and when you start telling everybody what to do, the legislature, etc, you get real problems. That’s a wrong executive order. And that’s what the basis of this lawsuit.

As a matter of fact, the Montana Attorney General, I love his statement here. He said ““The Constitution is clear that presidents do not have the power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce or to unilaterally undo an act of Congress.” Yes, sir. That’s exactly right. And that’s the problem. Biden undid an act of Congress and he started unilaterally regulating interstate commerce. That’s a power given to Congress. Both of those are congressional powers. They’re not presidential powers. And the President can veto law after it’s already passed and become law, you can’t do that.

So it’s really good at this point to see 24 states step up and say, no, you have done an unconstitutional act. It’s not just about energy, and whether we want energy independence, this is about the Constitution. That’s a really healthy trend to see.

Tim:

Alright, guys, I’m going to try to squeeze in one more piece of good news. And this one’s coming from somewhere I was not expecting to see good news from frankly. It’s something connected to the Biden administration, and it’s actually from the Pentagon. And this goes back to something that happened under President Trump, where there was a policy under President Trump that barred any unofficial flag from flying over military bases in general. And this included the LGBTQ pride flag, which is the rainbow flag.

And there have definitely been times when people wanted to fly this, but Trump said, look, we’re only going to fly military flags in military bases. Part of the reason people argue that maybe Trump did that was it actually limited the Confederate flag from being able to fly, but it also eliminated, again, anything that wasn’t military. So even sports teams flags were not able to fly there anymore. Here’s what was super surprising. When Biden took over, we really would have expected to see so many of these Trump policies reversed.

David:

Well, even going back to that, Trump is the one who reversed the Obama era policies that allowed those flags to be flown. So you haven’t been flown by Obama, Biden, and then Trump says no, and now we’re back to Biden.

Tim:

Right. So these were flown when Biden was Vice President, and now he’s the president, but the Pentagon came out and said that no, we’re going to allow this policy to stay in place. We think it’s good to only have military flags that are official issue flags that are flying. Now this is the one exception of the POW, the MIA flags can also fly. I guess those are not officially military flags. But they certainly represent the military anyway. This was something coming from the Pentagon. Right, guys, I definitely expect to see more wokeness coming from the Pentagon and maybe in other areas there have been, as we’ve seen some issues with Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas talking about how they’re teaching critical race theory. There’s definitely other issues going on. But this at least was a good news thing that I did not expect to see. So, good news that they’re not allowing all these unofficial flags, including the gay pride to be flying from military installations.

Rick:

Alright, it’s all the time we have for good news today. There’s more good news at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. Go into the archives, get some of those Friday programs for some more encouraging news. We would love for you to come alongside us and help us spread this good news, teach this truth to as many people as possible. You can do that by going to wallbuilderslive.com 0nd making a one-time or monthly contribution. It goes a long way to reaching more people. The more people we reach, the more we equip them, inspire them, give them this good news and also give them the equipping they need to make a difference in their communities.

Tim:

Yeah, and we would encourage everybody who’s listening right now that you start praying for organizations who are doing things to engage in culture, who are helping equip you to stand up and do what God’s called you to do. And then we probably are not the only organization that you listen to that maybe encourages you or strengthens you, but we would ask you to pray. And this is the time that we really need to come alongside those organizations, and start supporting them, standing with them. Just knowing that the battles that we are dealing with in culture, knowing where big tech is, knowing some of the cancellations we are already seeing, we want to make sure that we do a good job of supporting those organizations.

And if in the midst of your prayer, and God leads you to want to give to WallBuilders Live, we would certainly welcome that. And we are very grateful for all of those who already do give and support us. We have some very fun stories and testimonies, and actually some young kids who have sent in some money to us recently, some really cool things, but definitely we would appreciate any support to WallBuilders Live.

Rick:

You can do it at wallbuilderslive.com. Thanks so much for listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.