Impact Without Limits

S5 E17: The Bill of Rights: More Than Just History

• Dale and Brian Karmie / Adkins Media Co.

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In this episode of Impact Without Limits, Brian and Dale continue their America 250 series by exploring a foundational question: Is America a democracy or a constitutional republic? They unpack the differences between the two, discuss the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, and examine how biblical principles influenced the structure of American government.

The conversation also takes a practical look at the Bill of Rights, breaking down the first ten amendments and the freedoms they protect. From freedom of speech and religion to due process and states' rights, this episode offers a timely reminder of the liberties many Americans enjoy—and why understanding the Constitution is essential to preserving them.


Episode Highlights: 

  • Is the American form of government a democracy?
  • Why America's leaders rejected pure democracy.
  • The principles behind the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
  • Why every American should read the Constitution.


Links Mentioned in Episode/Find More on ForeverLawn:

This show has been produced by Adkins Media Co.


SPEAKER_01

We need a group of people. We need a population. We need a populace that is educated on our nation, on the foundation of our nation, on the ideals and the beliefs of the men and women that that built and started this country.

SPEAKER_02

So why would two guys leave comfortable jobs and move across the country and start a business in an industry they don't know, in a place they don't know, could it be successful?

SPEAKER_01

We're Dale and Brennan Carnegie. Join us as we share our story and inspire you to become people of impact.

SPEAKER_03

Welcome to the Impact Without Limits podcast.

SPEAKER_01

So the American form of government. Are we a democracy?

SPEAKER_03

All right, good question. I think we're gonna get to that and answer it in a second. Second question: Can you name the big five freedoms that are guaranteed under the First Amendment? That's a good one. Welcome back to the Impact Without Limits podcast. Brian Carmi sitting here with my brother Dale. Hey everybody. Walking through same shoes, different hat. Walking through America 250 and celebrating this great country that we live in. So let's start, Dale, with the question that you asked. Is America a democracy?

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna guess that if we our audience had a chance to pause and answer it. I'm gonna guess the majority of people out there, if not in our audience, the majority of people in general are gonna say America is a is a democracy. And we hear that said a lot. We we see it on TV, we hear it in the news. Um the answer is wrong. America is a republic. It is a representative republic, or maybe better termed a constitutional republic. Although I think republic by its very nature says it has to be based on a charter or constitution.

SPEAKER_03

So Benjamin Franklin, I mean, the famous quote from Benjamin Franklin after they finished publisher or writing the Constitution, somebody asked him, What have you given us? And he said, a republic, madam, if you can keep it. Yep. Right.

SPEAKER_01

So So the question comes up then, all right, why have why do we think it's a democracy? Why do we so much hear hear so much talk about a democracy? What you know, what's the confusion there? And and what are the differences? What why does it matter? And so uh we were absolutely given a republic, not a democracy. And our founders had the opportunity to establish a democracy, and they chose not to. And we we pulled up a couple interesting quotes.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, there's there's some great quotes here from some of the founders. We'll read a couple of them on why not a democracy. Um, so one of the ones I love, it's short, and I love John Adams. I I've watched that John Adams series I talked about multiple times, and it just it made me just really I I love Paul Giamatti, who plays John Adams, and so I I just really have grown uh to to favor John Adams, but this quote remember, democracy never lasts long, it soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide, right? Because by nature, a democracy is the will of the majority.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so so let's let's define that. A democracy is where the people vote, people vote, and the majority gets the nod. Whatever the most people vote for, that's what happens. And you can have a representative democracy where the people vote for representatives, but it's still just the will of the people.

SPEAKER_03

So the reason that's a problem, right? If we decided, hey, we're gonna make murder, uh pass the law that says you can murder.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, let's let's you're right. Let's simplify it. Let's say there are four of us sitting in this room, and you've got um, you know, you're sitting there with a wad of money, and we say, hey, uh, let's take a vote on who gets to to grab some of Brian's money. You know, we think Brian should share his money with all of us, and we vote, and you vote, no, it's my money. I don't want you to have it. And three of us vote, no, we want it. Guess who gets it? The three, right? We get it. We take your money.

SPEAKER_02

Um this makes me really upset that we passed the income tax amendment.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because the government does now have some ability to tax income. However, you can't just take things.

SPEAKER_01

If we all agree, if the majority agreed to do something against somebody else, and and it is wrong in a democracy that would still carry the day. It is mob rules, it's majority rules. And the nature of people leads, that's why you get these quotes. Another quote here is a simple one. It says, A simple democracy is one of the greatest evils. Benjamin Rush, signer of the declaration. There's one that says, the experience of all former ages have has shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating, and short-lived. John Quincy Adams.

SPEAKER_03

John Quincy was a good man, too. Um, here here's here's another one. This one um from uh Fisher Ames, uh, author of the House Language for the First Amendment, which we will talk about in a minute, of the big five freedoms. But a democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness, uh, which the ambitious call and ignorant believe to be liberty. And again, we talked about the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. The French Revolution led to licentiousness, led to uh what they thought was freedom, liberty, which is mob rule, and that led to a vacuum that created the rise of another tyrant, Napoleon. So we're not a democracy, and a lot of Americans today don't know the difference, but let's talk about a republic.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So a republic differs in that uh general population elects representatives who then pass laws to govern the nation. And in this case, we're we're governed by the laws, but we're governed by the constitution, right? The constitution is a framework that the republic is built on.

SPEAKER_03

And if you go back to these founding documents, it's built on something even higher than the laws set forth. It's built on, as we talked about in the declaration, the laws of nature and of nature's God, right? Divine authority takes precedence over the laws that are established.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Uh and again, a couple more quotes. Uh, this one says uh all laws uh may be arranged in two different classes, divine and human. But it should always be remembered that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same divine source. It is the law of God. Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. That is from James Wilson, uh, one of the signers of the Constitution, and one of the early U.S. Supreme Court justices. Here's here's one more.

SPEAKER_03

Um this one is from uh Noah Webster, um, one of the founding fathers. Our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct Republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion.

SPEAKER_01

All right, and last one, and again, we're we're looking at the foundation that our Constitution and our Republic was built on. This is from Alexander Hamilton, signer of the Constitution. Says the law dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe in all countries and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this. So the founders understood biblical values form the basis of our republic, and the republic would be destroyed if we ever lose those values. And what's that one quote? I always have trouble remember it, but this form of government only serves to direct more moral and religious people and religious people. And if you throw morality and you throw faith out, what do you get? You get mayhem, you get anarchy, and you and this government isn't designed to rule that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I the founders understood. I mean, the you read these documents and it's clear, it is based on biblical values. And so what they did is they enshrined into the Constitution protections for some of these basic uh rights. And so that becomes the Bill of Rights. And and the the Bill of Rights doesn't grant rights to us, these rights are given by our creator. That was already established. But what it does is it restricts the federal government and it restricts and and clarifies there are certain rights that just can't be trampled. Um now there were there was actually a split on this because a lot of the early founders, um, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, who wrote the Constitution, Richard Sherman, they were initially opposed to this Bill of Rights because they're saying, no, it's clear, right? You just read the quote from Hamilton that said, it's the divine, right? We we have these laws. Divine laws override all we don't need to put them down. And but there were others, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason, who said, listen, we understand that, but let's make it abundantly clear. Let's make it abundantly clear that there are certain things that are so sacred we don't want any confusion on. And we're gonna put those down. And this becomes, and George Mason was Mason was the one, and he's like, Listen, I'm not going to sign off on the Constitution until you guarantee that we're gonna have this Bill of Rights. And so there were certain founders that withheld the ratification of the Constitution until this Bill of Rights was adopted. And so um, again, it doesn't grant rights. The rights don't come from the government, they come from God, but it protects, preserves, and makes abundantly clear certain freedoms um that are can't be trampled. All right, another pop quiz. How many amendments make up the Bill of Rights? Interesting question. All right, turn turn in your answers, write it down, don't cheat. The answer is ten. The first ten amendments were all passed or ratified together at the same time in 1791. They were ratified together as the Bill of Rights. So these 10 amendments, and we're just gonna high-level hit them, we're not gonna dive into them, but clearly defining um protections for um all Americans, every race, creed, color, everything. So the Bill of Rights, um the first amendment, and that was one of the questions we asked in the opening. What are the big five freedoms that are protected in the Bill of Rights? And the answer is go ahead, in your head, list out a few of them, say them out loud. People usually remember freedom of speech, freedom of religion.

SPEAKER_01

You have freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, uh, freedom of assembly, a peaceful assembly, and then the freedom to petition the government.

SPEAKER_03

So those five are enshrined. Um, and in the freedom of religion, I was just talk about that. That is not freedom from religion. We just talked about how critical the founders saw the Bible, Christianity, to what they were doing. Belief in God. But what it was saying was that the government can't establish an official religion and they can't prohibit practice, so they can't say, oh, you can't be a Catholic, or oh, and and and to be honest, the Christian religion by nature is a religion of freedom. So it it doesn't even force someone to be a Christian. If someone says, I don't believe that, that's okay. Right. Right. But it doesn't create a freedom from religion. And there was a great video recently where JD Vance addressed somebody who was asking about prayer in school, and and he addressed it so well, um, talking about it's not that we'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah, you can't force somebody to pray, but that isn't the same as restricting prayer.

SPEAKER_01

Actually, restricting prayer in school is a violation of this freedom of cement. It absolutely is. And by the way, I'm just gonna throw this out there separation of church and state does not exist in any of our founding documents, it's not in the Constitution. That that doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_03

It was actually in a letter taken from a letter, Thomas Jefferson, two Baptists who were complaining and fearing that there were going to be laws infringing on their rights, and he's saying, no, there is a wall of separation. And what he meant was it's protecting you, the church, from the government prohibiting everything.

SPEAKER_01

And in uh our modern era. So that that is uh amendment number one. Uh, there's look, there's a whole lot there. We're we're flying high. Second amendment. There's a big one, two A. Right to bear arms, to bear arms.

SPEAKER_03

And we don't just mean this kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01

Get the guns out. Brian pulled the guns out. So they're talking. Did everybody see your gun?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know. I don't know if they would have seen it even if the camera was on me. So we're okay. But this is just saying that people have the right to actually read it. Uh I don't have the whole I don't have it in front of me.

SPEAKER_01

It and it's short. I don't I'm pulling from the notes, but it's a well-regulated militia being necessary to a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Right. And so the right to bear arms. And this doesn't mean you hear some people say, Well, I need my gun so I can protect myself against uh a burglar or a break-in, and that's great. Yeah, you should be able to do that, or go hunting.

SPEAKER_03

That's great, but that's not too is to allow the people to be armed to protect themselves. And let let's let's dive deeper into that because some people are saying, well, now that we have a military, we don't need no, that's not what this is. This this is allowing the people to protect themselves from the government, right? What did they just have? They just came out of protecting themselves from the king of England oppressing them with troops and trying to take away their weapons. They're saying, no way, we have the right to protect ourselves from the government. And so uh Second Amendment very clearly um gives the right to bear arms. All right, Third Amendment. No quartering of soldiers. And quick summary government can't force citizens to house soldiers in their homes. And it's this is a this is a response, right? We talked about this in previous episodes, where in Boston you have all these troops occupying the city during a time of peace, and they're saying, This makes no sense. And just having them there is creating this tension, this this environment. Um, it's it's just wrong, it's just bad. You can't force citizens to house these uh soldiers.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And and yes, that was definitely a result of the experience they had had in the previous two decades to the to the uh ratification of this constitution.

SPEAKER_03

And it's one, I mean, I don't think too many people argue that one. Like today, I feel like our First Amendment freedoms are being infringed upon, our Second Amendment freedoms are being infringed upon. So far, I haven't had anybody knock on my door and say you got to hold a soldier, but that's just because they tax us so much they can put the soldiers wherever they want. That's a different, different story.

SPEAKER_01

Sorry, I'm getting off track. Fourth Amendment, uh, search and seizure, the protection against unreasonable search and seizures for for the people, for the individuals.

SPEAKER_03

Right. This establishes the need to have a warrant, probable cause before they can search your home. So somebody can't just knock on your door and say, I'm gonna look around. Why? Right? Because again, what this is doing is remember, this is limiting the government. This isn't granting rights to people, this is limiting the government. Right, keeping the government from overstepping your rights.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. God-given rights.

SPEAKER_03

Um, Fifth Amendment, rights of the accused. Um, and this gets into double jeopardy. And you hear people talk about pleading the fifth, meaning you can't uh be forced to testify against yourself. Um, you can't be uh due process. The government can't take private property, eminent domain. There's a lot baked into this Fifth Amendment. Uh the way you hear it used the most is I'm gonna plead the fifth. And that is part of it, but it it's more than that. It's it's it's a lot more in depth, but it essentially gives rights to those accused of crimes.

SPEAKER_01

Sixth Amendment is a right to a fair trial. So you go down a speedy trial, right to an impartial jury, uh, that you can be informed of the charges against you, right to confront your witnesses. Think about that right now. Right to compel witnesses to testify on your behalf, right to an attorney, right?

SPEAKER_03

A subpoena. I mean, think about how simple that is. And you go back to season three of this podcast, and we went through more of a court situation than we ever wanted to. But think about like if somebody would have accused us of something and we didn't have the ability to confront them or to compel other people to testify, I mean, how do you defend yourself? Yeah, right. I mean, it's it's simple things and it's stuff we take for granted. But man, these guys labored over this and made it so critical. Incredibly smart. And even Sixth Amendment, just the right to an attorney, right? That you can't be forced. I mean, you think about this. Um we have, you know, uh defense attorneys as as they're they're part of um our our the government provides for that now. So if you're accused of something and you're arrested and you're standing trial, you don't have to stand there and defend yourself. You are guaranteed a right to an attorney to provide the defense.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And again, this amendment, if you look back the years leading up to this, this is one of the many abuses that were levied against the colonists by King George in the parliament, where they they were not given a trial by jury. You know, there were soldiers being tried for war crimes, and they weren't put in front of a jury. And they're they were they were they made a mockery of the legal system, I guess, is where I'm headed. Right. And so we're coming out of that. We're saying, we're not gonna do that, we're gonna make sure uh the rights are defined here.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, you you look at that. I mean, we're going so three was quartering troops, four, five, six, seven are all about trials because this is exactly what they had been through where they were being uh they weren't having um due process. So the seventh amendment is civil jury trials, right? It gives you the right to a speedy trial, and it gives you the right to uh trial by jury.

SPEAKER_01

I like I like the end of that. It's uh value to uh where where value in dispute exceeds $20.

SPEAKER_03

Which, by the way, has not been changed in 235 years. I I you could do the math on that, but that's hundreds or thousands of dollars today, but it still sits at twenty dollars in the constitution. So essentially that means any civil trial, will you do have a right to a jury?

SPEAKER_01

Eighth Amendment is no cruel and unusual punishment.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, excessive bail, right? If you get arrested for um loitering, jaywalking, and they say $100,000 bail, right? What bail is is it gets you out of prison until you can have a trial, they're saying no, it's it can't be excessive, right? So it it sets uh some limits there. And Other fines, like just like even if if you'd been convicted of it after you go through the trial and they say, Okay, for for littering, we're gonna give you a million dollar fine and bankrupt you, they can't, right? There's there's limitations, it can't be excessive, and prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, right? You're protected against that, uh, against the government doing something like that by the Eighth Amendment. Um, nine and ten are kind of catch alls. Nine is just saying anything not listed, just because something isn't listed, and this is to to placate or to to uh get the federalists like um Hamilton and Madison to go along with it saying we didn't need to list these out because it's kind of like a contract and loopholes. As soon as something's not listed, does that mean it's not granted?

SPEAKER_01

Look, we we live this one, bro, right? Too much. In the business world, we we have documents, we have supply agreements, purchase agreements, things, um, contracts, relationships. And as soon as you start defining what is a breach of contract, then or what isn't a breach of contract, and anything else is, it it's like that exclusionary language. If if I list this, this, and this is what we're doing, then as long as you do something that isn't A, B, and C, you're okay. Or vice versa.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Um, it is so difficult. I mean, we've given up on several business agreements and contracts because you just all you're defining too many loopholes you're defining the loopholes somebody can use to get around it. So this is a catch-all. Take away the loopholes saying, look, these are the rights we listed and we made obvious. But the fact that there are rights that aren't listed, or or it doesn't mean they're not rights, right? The rights listed aren't the only rights you have.

SPEAKER_03

It's saying that the government can't use, oh, that wasn't listed in the Bill of Rights. You can't use that, say, because it wasn't an exhaustive list. You can't deny other fundamental rights. And so these are uh again assumed to be the divine rights, rights given by uh the laws of nature and nature's God. And then finally, the 10th Amendment is states' rights. So it's basically saying, listen, we've defined in this federal system of government certain things for the federal government, but everything else else is deferred to the states. And you hear this a lot right now, right? Because our federal government has grown and grown and become a little bit of a behemoth, and and honestly, it's it's I would argue out of control. Too big. And so there's a lot of pushback from states right now that are saying, hey, these are states' rights issues, let us decide. And instead of taking over everything, if it's not clearly enumerated in the Constitution as this is the rule of the federal government, it should be deferred to the states. And that was also, I mean, honestly, that was a big topic during the Civil War. And, you know, I think um I've talked about this before. I'm a states' rights guy, right? I I can see the argument from the Confederacy that, hey, you're infringing on some of the states' rights. Now, the problem is some of the laws that the states were passing infringed on the rights of citizens because you had things like slavery and they were infringing on basic human rights and divine rights. So therefore, I do side with the North and Lincoln and say they were right, but there is a fair argument of the Confederacy to say, hey, this is a states' rights issue. So there it is. That's the the 10, uh, the the Bill of Rights. And again, I I just want to pause and and just say a quick prayer of thanks for God giving us these men that at that time to to go through the laborious process of defining a document like the Constitution and like the Bill of Rights that give us so much clarity on how the government should be established.

SPEAKER_01

And yeah, and what what we we're asking you to do, and uh please do it, uh take a little bit of time and read the Constitution. It's not that long, and and understand what is there, and and as you read it, reflect back on the Founding Fathers, some of the quotes we had here, and we'll link to those in the show notes and some of the videos again on the White House.gov website, and understand that the foundation of all of this was um the a belief in God, a belief in a divine power, and that's the basis of everything we have here. Um and and then share it. Like we need a group of people, we need a population, we need a populace that is educated on our nation, on the foundation of our nation, on the the ideals and the beliefs of the men and women that that built and started this country. And again, we need to know it, we need to remember it, we need to preserve it. So as we come up on 250, break out the red, white, and blue, hang up your flag, get out of celebrate America, the bunting.

SPEAKER_03

I'm trying to decide if I can get bunting on my house. I asked Angie, she's not sure where we would put it. I think it would look good.

SPEAKER_01

I'd find a couple places for it. So I don't know. This episode maybe got a little bit detailed as we're reading through the Bill of Rights, but we need to know it. We need we just you need to know it. So hopefully this helped.

SPEAKER_03

All right. Go have a great week. Enjoy your freedoms, don't abuse your freedoms, and uh God bless, God bless America.

SPEAKER_01

God bless the great republic, constitutional republic of the United States.

SPEAKER_00

This is the Fred Colony reminding you that faith looks up, hope looks ahead, and love looks all around to see whom it can help. Good day.