David Barton is the founder of WallBuilders, a pro-family organization that teaches principles, preserves history, and teaches principles. He speaks to over 400 groups every year. David is on a mission to preserve our history and teach it. He is described as America s historian. Time Magazine called him a hero to millions, including some powerful politicians.
00:00:13.380He is the founder of Wall Builders, which is this great pro-family organization that teaches principles, preserves history, teaches principles.
00:00:24.980He speaks to over 400 groups every year.
00:00:27.840David himself has authored many books.
00:00:31.720One of them, I remember when I was just starting to wake up in my 30s, one of them I read and I loved the book and then forgot about it.
00:00:41.060And one day I met David Barton and I'm like, hey, you're the guy that wrote one of my favorite books.
00:00:47.140He has been involved in Supreme Court cases.
00:00:50.280He is very involved in national politics, local politics.
00:00:54.260He is even a guy who has, under a nom de plume, helped write some of the history books in many states to make sure that our standards in schools are right.
00:22:12.880So what's amazing about Poland is you can, if you go two kilometers in any direction, a little over a mile, 1.2 miles, you will come on a mass burial site throughout the entire nation of Poland.
00:22:26.200You cannot go more than two kilometers without hitting a mass burial site.
00:22:29.640And so if they put in a parking lot for Walmart, they have to stop because they will uncover three or four mass grave sites.
00:22:36.120It's just amazing to imagine living in a country where they lost that many, much of their population.
00:23:01.680I mean, as you're driving away from Auschwitz and we had George Lang going with us because we were making a documentary.
00:23:11.080And Tanya and I will look at those pictures once in a while, you know, just keep them on the computer and once in a while be looking through pictures and stuff and we'll see those.
00:23:21.880And without anything in the background, we know which ones were taken at Auschwitz because you see it in us.
00:24:53.820Ordinary gentlemen or ordinary, something like that.
00:24:56.160And it's fascinating to read, David, because if you read it, you start to see patterns on how you just break people down a little bit at a time.
00:25:07.720And before you know it, you're not the same man.
00:41:04.680That's when the Supreme Court said, hey, religion, we're going to redefine all that.
00:41:09.320And so that's when they said no more voluntary prayer in schools, no more Bible.
00:41:12.660And then came graduations, then came Ten Commandments, then came nativity scenes, any religious, all gone.
00:41:18.960And all that hinges really on two cases.
00:41:21.580One's called the Lemon case because in 62, 63, when they struck everything down, for the next 10 years, people said, well, we've been doing this for centuries.
00:47:27.400Well, you don't have to get rid of old stuff.
00:47:29.120At this point, we're going to be able to put new stuff in because the court's done something else that's pretty cool.
00:47:34.700And by the way, there's one more just came down Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago where that they challenged having prayer at the legislature.
00:47:40.800Because Pennsylvania says, we open our legislature with prayer, and you've got to believe in God to pray.
00:47:46.680And atheists said, that's discriminating against us.
00:48:33.960So when Coach Joe Kennedy up in Washington State, after a football game, went over by himself and took a knee without the kids,
00:48:40.860and he just knelt down and said, thank you, God, nobody got hurt in the game, because he took a knee, they fired him because they said that's prayer.
00:49:13.420So they're asking this case to come back so they can deal with Oregon Smith, which is the other thing that's killed religion for the last 60, 70 years.
00:49:20.820So the court has not only given us Bladensburg, which is the establishment clause, they're now asking for a case to get the free exercise clause back.
00:49:30.020So we're looking at a First Amendment concerning religious speech we haven't had in 70 years, 60 years.
00:50:28.500But they were open enough to see the principles, what would happen, and give you the right, as future generations, to augment the Constitution, to fit anything that didn't fit right now.
00:51:00.900But we are entering a time now where the Supreme Court, the government, is covered by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but corporations aren't.
00:51:11.780And corporations now are, my free speech in the public square.
00:51:17.960Well, it used to be the actual public square, the town green.
00:54:12.840There's no rhyme or reason and nobody can hold them responsible.
00:54:16.900Well, yeah, you could have held them responsible because under the bill of rights, you could take them into all 50 courts.
00:54:22.740Now they're a national corporation, but if you get the feds out of this and get this back into the hands of the states and Texas starts going after Google and, and they are, but they are.
00:54:33.640And so what happens is it, what, what we're looking for and what we have seen and what justice Breyer is complaining about is that the federal Supreme court is starting to respect the 10th amendment and give jurisdictions back to the states.
00:54:49.000And it's going to be a whole lot easier to whip Google and state courts than it is in federal courts.
00:54:53.260And it's, and it's, I, I mean, this is the thing that people don't understand.
00:54:59.380They really think that if you're a conservative or if you believe in the constitution, you're, you want to use it for your own, you know, if you, I mean, there are some conservatives that are like, Oh, we'll get them.
00:55:11.460Um, but I will give you conservatives, constitutionalists will give protection on those rights.
00:55:22.780Because it's the philosophy that you have that right.
00:55:27.820And I have no place to interfere with you.
00:55:30.860And we have, we have, we've lost that idea.
00:55:37.120And so it's, we're, we're not, we're not fighting the right fight.
00:55:42.100We're not, and we're not fighting at the right levels.
00:55:44.820One of the things, um, little commentary on what I think is one of the things that's seriously wrong right now is we, I don't care where you get your news.
00:55:57.12024, seven, three 65 news will all be national.
00:56:00.280Now you have to work really hard to get local, local news.
00:56:02.840So we see everything from a more global perspective.
00:56:42.640And so you get paralyzed, you get totally paralyzed and you'd stir up your hands.
00:56:47.060What I love about the American revolution is when you look at the first four battles in the revolution, if you take the battle of Lexington, the battle of Concord, a couple hours later, a couple hours after that, the road to Boston, 19 mile battle.
00:57:00.260And then if you go to the fourth battle, Bunker Hill, nobody called headquarters nationally and said, George, what do you want us to do?
00:57:08.580In Lexington, Reverend Jonas Clark said, this is my town.
00:58:23.340And when it comes to the Second Amendment stuff, he says, if someone breaks into your home and something happens, you're the only one responsible.
00:58:49.460And see, this is where we don't have the mentality, if I'm going to do everything I can do right now, we're looking for somebody else to do it.
00:58:56.580And let me just use a Christian example, us being Christian.
01:00:14.860What's happening in the EU is if they would have done the American thing, not now, but originally, they would have gone to them and said, Italy, you're fantastic.
01:00:28.340You've got all this culture and everything else.
01:00:57.360People don't understand that where we went wrong, really seriously wrong, was in around 1880 when you started having this philosophy coming out of the German universities.
01:01:11.780The people who trained the Nazis were the ones who gave us this kind of theory.
01:01:19.040And we didn't have a doctorate program.
01:02:56.260And so California now is we have six states punishing nine states because six states actually in Texas, we think there ought to be a male and female bathroom.
01:09:01.120I thought, I mean, I think I lost 10 pounds for just in sweat.
01:09:05.620And, uh, and my head was spinning as we got up from dinner.
01:09:09.460And he said to me, uh, I thought there's, you know, this was just a nightmare and there's
01:09:16.580no way we're ever going to see each other again.
01:09:18.680And he put his coat on and he looks at me and for the first time he smiles and he puts his hand out and he said, it's really rare that you get to have, uh, an evening of conversation with somebody who knows what they know, knows what they don't know.
01:09:50.320Um, are you going to be arrogant and think that you're the smartest man in the room, but more importantly, why do you believe the things you believe?
01:10:25.620Uh, I was doing a little article the other day.
01:10:28.520I don't mean to be logical here, but let me be logical for a minute.
01:10:31.760The thing that happened a week or so ago where they had the 3,600 strikes of young people because of climate change and all the signs of, well, you're enjoying your life.
01:13:53.700Well, the thing that comes out with socialism, because the stats we've seen, we see stats that right now up to 75 percent of college students support socialism.
01:14:04.460It's 69 percent of millennials support socialism and 41 percent of the entire nation support socialism.
01:17:28.180And that's what I think we miss so often is we don't understand the principles that undergird what we do because we can add technology all day long and it does not change the principle.
01:17:39.560And what the founding fathers gave us with a set of principles that have lasted, the average Constitution lasts 17 years in the history of the world.
01:18:36.260It's the greatest mission statement ever.
01:18:38.100And so getting getting kids to understand that which is you know what what we see with the leadership training program is transformational stuff because I kind of look at them like the founding fathers.
01:19:12.180And so the ability to follow truth rather than belong to a tribe.
01:19:17.100That's a big deal in today's culture because the tribalism is massive.
01:19:21.200Because we've lost the most important tribe.
01:19:24.660And that is the tribe that believes all men are created equal and endowed by the creator with certain rights.
01:19:30.900Because because we no longer believe that we have to break up into little tribes and it doesn't work.
01:19:38.460We were having dinner last night with a university president president and yeah really nice guy.
01:19:45.840And he said I am starting to tell people now when parents ask me I'm now starting to say don't send your kids to college.
01:19:55.800I was floored by that yeah it's a university president and he said there's so a very successful one by the way yeah and he said they are so off track are are the he said Hillsdale and University of the Ozarks right and that's the College of the Ozarks.
01:20:14.900He said other than that he said everything's off track just it's just they are they are indoctrination camps and I said I keep telling my wife this I why would I we've spent 18 years trying to mold these kids and to teach them how to think not what to think how to think I'm gonna just I'm going to pay somebody to just destroy that.
01:20:43.120Yeah and pay a high price destroy and by the way there was a University of Connecticut study that came out even if I mean I'm with you destroy faith and worldview and philosophy terrible.
01:20:56.280But the University of Connecticut came out with a study that proved what they called negative learning.
01:21:01.360They actually followed kids through four years of college at what are considered elite universities and they found that testing the kids going out as seniors they actually knew less academically than when they came in as freshmen.
01:21:13.960They actually lost knowledge in that period of time.
01:21:16.100So you pay extensive money six-figure money to have them lose their faith their character their belief and they lose knowledge along the way.
01:21:24.800So we were we were talking last night because we were talking to this guy about our leadership training program and I don't want to break any news and make an announcement.
01:21:35.480We are we are we are actively engaged in a collecting all of this history but then giving access to this at home and also teaching it because he said get an apprenticeship.
01:21:58.100And then take then take then take real specific courses on what you want to learn skill courses and and what you want to learn and then look for great teachers of how to think that's on certain subjects not what to think not what to think that's right.
01:22:18.500And and and I'm I have to tell you David I'm really excited about what we're working on and and I think this has been that is the future talking this vision for 10 years and years I know and we're now we're looking over the threshold getting close to seeing this come in the house and it really is.
01:22:38.740Can I can we share the conversation that we had recently about how I've said we have to change.
01:22:45.100Do you think that's worth saying David and I we've been partners now for a long time and we both have the same heart and we both have the same vision on on so much and our priorities have been to first teach people how to help themselves locally.
01:23:10.140That was the first goal of Mercury one is let's not reinvent the wheel let's help people who are actually making a difference where they are in their community right and find the people who are making those changes with the least amount of waste.
01:23:25.800You know we look at charity as an investment in people.
01:23:28.960I want to invest in somebody that's going to be able to make the biggest impact in their community.
01:23:33.800So that was the first one the second the second goal was to to gather the history and something that came you know 10 11 years ago and I think I first told you before anybody else keep feeling and hearing clay pots.
01:23:51.380And I think that means one of two things and I think it actually means both preserve the history and then put it in a safe place.
01:24:01.820But also and by the way that is the Dead Sea Scrolls the Dead Sea Scrolls were in clay pots.
01:24:06.780Yes have been put away for 2000 years why they exist.
01:24:09.920That's why they exist because clay pots preserve that history preserve the faith.
01:24:15.020Right so I saw that at that time and David you and I were talking and I said we need to preserve this history and we need to have a place where it is safe for whatever might come our way because I don't trust you know if the government goes rogue and they have all of the documents and everything else you know you're not going to see it.
01:24:37.700Yeah so do that but also look at our children as clay pots and plant it deep inside of them and and so we we have been focused on the first part of clay pots and we have dabbled strongly I think in planting it and we've been testing it for a few years and it's working really well and testing it and and I think because of the time we live in David and I
01:25:07.680I just had a conversation just recently about how I don't want to build a building I don't want I it we're losing too much time we've got to teach children yeah and it is it's one of the reasons why we were meeting with we've got to teach them principles not indoctrinate them oh I mean if you I've been so exciting about the LTP when I this when I come because I come at the very first day
01:25:37.680so I meet everybody the first day and I know the ones who are like you know got a chip on their shoulder or they came because somebody said you should go there and you should talk to these guys because you'll rat them out you know or whatever and I so I see where everybody is and then I see everybody at the very end and most of them are crying when they come up to me and they're like this has totally changed my life and it's exciting it is exciting it's exciting
01:26:07.300and I and I I don't know how to say this well but every session we've had at least one kid who's gone back and changed their professor yeah by asking their professor the questions they were asked and their professor can't answer the questions and good for the professor we're willing enough to look for truth that they actually changed but one of our students was actually teaching their professor that's
01:26:37.300the professor the professor said it was great yeah he got he got this this student's essay back or paperback and wrote on it you are either the dumbest person ever and you deserve an F because you're making stuff up or you know stuff I don't know yeah come see me and she went in and said no professor here here and here let's look it up together and he said I didn't know any of this yeah I didn't know any of this
01:27:07.300he said he said where did you learn this yeah she said I just went to this leadership training program for a couple weeks and we went through all the original documents we went through the stuff and we and he said that's it let's come in once a week I want you to show me the stuff that you learn and she took her notes from the summer and just started taking him through all those things so let's let's end this here we need a couple of things and didn't really talk about doing this but I think this is a good place to do it need a couple of things we need an army of people
01:27:37.300that can can take original documents handwritten documents and then write them out transcribe them transcribe them and and and accurately transcribe them and we you know if we had 120,000 people we could get it done in one day that's right just just your collection so we need we need people that are willing to carefully prayerfully and
01:28:07.040uh patriotically really go and look at them and make sure those things are right some of them aren't that that are shattering remarkable you know they may be a land deed they may be a uh jury summons we don't know what they are all of them which is another handwritten and a lot of them are by founding fathers who signed the documents and they just gotta be transcribed um because what we're doing is we're building a website and hopefully it'll come out be ready maybe next year at least to start the start of it um uh where you'll be able to find
01:28:36.840you know david and you know david and i were talking yesterday i want to be able to go you know free speech and it'll pull up all the original documents and you'll be able to do your own research there and
01:28:47.420you will have the greatest footnote i loved what you said about one of the ltp students that came just last year and said
01:28:55.500goes to a really good university and said i i've never been asked for so many footnotes ever yeah um because we are
01:29:03.840rigorous on that well you know after we get them for a week and a half and they start knowing that
01:29:09.620we're giving them a lot of knowledge and a lot of things on both sides we get to where we say why do
01:29:14.160you believe what i just told you you should be asking me how do you know that where did you get that
01:29:19.180information why are you just because we've had you for a week why are you believing us right and so don't
01:29:24.280trust us right don't trust us is child and that's where they get that footnote stuff go back and find a
01:29:29.740footnote for everything and you document and you can't use wikipedia as a source sorry you got to
01:29:34.560use an original source somewhere right i'd also ask if if you have uh things even things from today
01:29:43.180like people think it's crazy but um you know we just as an object we just bought uh those betsy ross nike
01:29:51.540shoes yeah because that's a part of american history to tell the story of how screwed up these companies
01:29:57.720were i'm trying to get a pair of vans now because they had vans had the sneaker made for the hong kong
01:30:04.900uh um protests oh wow and vans pulled them off because it offended china um but we need we need you
01:30:14.420to collect even things today yeah um that will be historic and just let us know if you have things
01:30:22.200that you would like to be preserved we can preserve those things if you just don't know what to do
01:30:28.320with them we can also if you have something of real value we may end up purchasing it or we can put you
01:30:34.900in touch with people who uh you know do that for a living or if you want to contribute it we'll take
01:30:39.760that we'd love to have you contribute the other thing is we want to make an offer and that is send
01:30:45.680your kids to our leadership program and right now it is only happening in the summer but uh we'd like
01:30:53.240a very long waiting list um and so you just go to mercuryone.org i think it's under leadership
01:30:59.300training and you can sign up uh we are hopefully going to be opening this up for more ages age groups
01:31:06.820and families um in the future uh but right now we're taking anyone 18 to 25 um and sometimes a
01:31:15.940little lower than that if you're going to college at 17 instead of 18 fine uh but we um we're designing
01:31:22.240courses right now we've been working on the 18 to 25 year olds we'll be designing things for younger
01:31:29.320and for older and for family and we would love for you to uh uh have your children sign up for for
01:31:39.500this or if it happens to be you and you're 18 to 25 we'd love to see you you will get an experience for
01:31:45.260two weeks uh that nobody gets nobody gets for instance you'll get to now this is a gentleman's
01:31:53.700magazine that's when i was growing up a gentleman's magazine did not look like this and it had pictures
01:32:01.260in it this doesn't no pictures no pictures and your gentleman's magazine didn't did not have poetry in
01:32:07.080it yes this is may 1773 why is this important david because a little black girl named phyllis wheatley
01:32:17.460has a poem in that and the story of phyllis is such a cool story how she got to america and
01:32:24.840you know as a slave and and the wheatley family that bought her and raised her as a daughter and
01:32:29.360and so she's the first black published poetess in america and there you go right there she our first
01:32:35.640uh what do you call those poet laureate wasn't she no no she wasn't that wasn't going at the time
01:32:42.400um but she became good friends with benjamin franklin she wrote a poem about benjamin franklin
01:32:48.740she wrote a poem about george woodfield she she wrote a poem about the stamp act the repeal of the
01:32:53.840stamp act she wrote points about washington washington actually had her come to cambridge
01:32:59.420and read poetry to the troops kind of like a uso you know like bringing bob hope in and and so
01:33:05.200i mean she's just a remarkable remarkable lady and uh uh she was someone that benjamin franklin who was
01:33:15.220really a strong abolitionist i mean really paid for it uh dearly in the end uh brought her around
01:33:24.340uh to to like stage shows if you will and uh had her read poetry just to convince those stupid people
01:33:33.640yeah that no you know what blacks are just like you she's black and she's a lot smarter a lot
01:33:40.940smarter than you that's right a lot smarter than you david thank you thanks bro all right
01:33:45.760just a reminder i'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it