The WallBuilders Show
The WallBuilders Show is a daily journey to examine today's issues from a Biblical, Historical and Constitutional perspective. Featured guests include elected officials, experts, activists, authors, and commentators.
The WallBuilders Show
AI Got It Wrong: Why America Is Not a Democracy
Our constitutional foundation gets challenged daily - not just by politicians, but now by artificial intelligence. When our podcast AI mistakenly labeled America a "democracy," it highlighted a disturbing trend of historical revision that threatens our understanding of what makes America unique.
The WallBuilders team dives deep into why this seemingly small distinction matters enormously. The founding fathers rejected democracy more vehemently than dictatorships, monarchies, or socialism because they recognized its dangers. As David Barton explains, the Constitution's Article IV, Section 4 explicitly guarantees each state a republican form of government - making democracy constitutionally prohibited.
We also tackle the fascinating history of Alexis de Tocqueville's famous work "Democracy in America," revealing how American translators altered the title to "The Republic of the United States of America" when publishing it in 1851 because they understood this crucial distinction.
The conversation shifts to practical applications when exploring whether President Trump could eliminate the income tax without a constitutional amendment. Just because the 16th Amendment permits an income tax doesn't mean it must be implemented - similar to a speed limit sign that sets a maximum without requiring you to drive that speed.
This episode serves as a powerful reminder that constitutional literacy remains our strongest defense against both human and technological misrepresentations of America's founding principles. Whether you're concerned about AI-generated misinformation or want to understand how constitutional constraints apply to taxation and judicial power, this conversation equips you with the historical and constitutional perspective to navigate today's complex political landscape.
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. This is the WallBuilders Show taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And today you get to drive the conversation. So send those questions to us radio at wallbuilders.com radio@wallbuilder.com. And of course, wallbuilds.com that's our main website. Great place for you to go get some good materials for your family. Now there's all kinds of great swag there. So everything from hats to coffee mugs, you name it. And then of course that's the place to make that one time our monthly contribution. This is a great time. To sow into Liberty. The harvest is amazing. People are paying attention. They wanna learn the things that we're teaching here at Wall Builders. And when you donate at wallbuilders.com, it helps us get that information to people. It helps us reach more people and train pastors and legislators and young people and teachers and all the rest. So be sure and check that out today, wallbuilds.com. And Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. Guys, we've got a lot of questions to get to. We'll see how many we can get to and how quickly. But Linda is first up. She said, I'd like to say that I have learned so much from listening to your show and other resources that I've been accumulating and look for opportunities to share with others as much as I can. I would like to ask if there's an appropriate way to use quote democracy to describe our American system of government. Some will call a republic a type of democracy or they will call us a democratic republic. The social studies department head in the district where I am a school board members uses that. I noticed the title for your show on April 10th, 2025 used the term democracy and I wondered why. Which also makes me wonder why Alexi de Tocqueville called us that in his writings. Second question has to do with immigration. The governor of Pennsylvania just granted five million to an Islamic community in Philadelphia to enlarge a community center where they use it as a private school. And they received tax credit dollars for their student tuition program offered in our state. They want to grow the capacity from 300 to 3000 students. He is actually encouraging their growth and establishment in our State. How can we fight back against these misguided actions to welcome a group that would actually destroy our nation and remove them from our land? I love what you shared at the legislature's conference last November. Thank you so much for what you do and God bless you all. Okay guys, sorry, that was really long, but really good. Linda, thank you for the multiple questions and thank you for paying attention and for sharing. I love guys that she said, not only does she learn from the show, but she shares, so she's a force multiplier. Really cool.
David Barton [00:02:21] Well, first thing we start with is that she points, she asked the question about democracy, republic, representative republic, democratic republic, all that kind of stuff. And it shocked us to find out that they had the word democracy as part of the title on the program. You know, Rick, you and I exchanged quick emails, say, whoa, whoa whoa, that can't be. And so we brought Justin in on it because he's the engineer over all this and helps produce it. And it turns out that the titles are given by AI. So what happens is, Justin explained, is Buzzsprout generates the titles after going through the program. And that was just one that we just didn't see. But guarantee, we did not put democracy on there. That wasn't it. That's AI. And that leads me back to something that... Oh, wait, David, that means...
Rick Green [00:03:10] That we need to do a constitution class for AI.
David Barton [00:03:15] Yeah, that's right, I wonder if AI is teachable that way, we'll see, but that leads me back to a couple that goes back, I don't know, three or four weeks, because I was talking at that time, I just talked to a friend who spent a lot of time on Grok, and he was talking about how good Grok was, and how much better it was doing than some of the other ones, that it went to a much deeper level, et cetera, and so I shared and said, it looks like Groff's gonna be pretty good deal. Then we had a deal where that our staff got involved in stuff. I was, that's back when I was asked to go speak at the State Department, do some stuff for the State department. And so they started getting in. What did the founding fathers say about foreign aid, et cetera? And man, did Grok come up with some great quotes from the founding father's. And so we said, all right, what's the footnote? What's the source on this? And they gave us a source. And we went to those sources and looked it up and it wasn't there. And so, we kept pushing Grok on this. And Grok finally admitted that it made up the quote. So I think we can say it admitted that lied. It didn't use the word lied, but it made it up. So AI, what I thought was gonna be a good deal, it made-up the quote!
Tim Barton [00:04:26] Now it's also worth pointing out that our research team would say that Grok has helped reduce their research loading capacity significantly because it is a very good search engine in a lot of ways, but when they, they're, they're having to learn to say Grok, pretend like you're an expert of Thomas Jefferson and using only his original writings from this date to this date, what did he say about this topic? And if they're not very specific in how they phrase it, then to add to your point that there have been times that Grok came back with a quote that when we couldn't find it upon further questioning, he said, well, he didn't really say this, but this is a summary of several thoughts that I put together to make this really good quote. And we're like, that's not gonna work. That's not how quotes work. Right. Right. Right. That's when you're putting quotations on something, you've misunderstood what quotations mean but it's not that there's not some benefit from it, and certainly it is better than, than chat GPT and several of the other things that are out there and I, I have the app on my phone and it seems like every day they're doing updates for it. So it's only going to get better, but at this point where, you know, Ronald Reagan at one point said, trust, but verify, we're going to verify before we trust, we're gonna verify every quote it gets us. That's right. That's good. But again, it is a useful tool in many ways, but certainly not one that is reliable enough that we can take its word without going back and confirming it from that original source.
Rick Green [00:06:08] You guys have, has this happened to you yet? It's all, it's kind of weird actually. So I've done that with Grok where I've asked for something and I kind of knew there was something out there at a particular time and it didn't do it. And so I said, well, wait a minute, didn't this happen? And, and this AI, this artificial intelligence apologizes to me and says like, I'm sorry, you're right. Da da da da. Like this is getting weird when AI is apologizing and going, okay, yeah, I found this. Anyway, I feel like I'm talking to a robot and I am. It's just weird.
David Barton [00:06:38] You are. And it's kind of like who's training who here? I mean, it's training us. Yeah. And it was interesting to when they were learning how to use this as Tim pointed out, they've had to learn their protocol. But it's like Grok has taught them the protocol by doing all the wrong stuff. And so you have to learn how to ask the right questions and narrative. But they even sent him to our website for a quote that we have on our website said, go to this website and find the quote and Grok came back to that quote is not on that website. Wait a minute. We asked you that because we knew it was there on the website. And no, the quotes, not so it's the kind of thing that it does cut down so much time on so many things and there are so many beneficial things that does do. But man, if you just jump in and don't know how to ask the questions and don't figure out how to the questions or don't put enough boundaries around it. I don't, maybe it's like a 18 month old or two year old or whatever. You got to have that, all those boundaries around. So it won't crawl off in the stuff it's not supposed to be into. But nonetheless.
Rick Green [00:07:37] Well, you know, David, actually, before you go on... I want to ask you because what is the right approach now for us to kind of encourage people because everybody's going to be an expert now right everybody's gonna claim you know to be an expert based on just quoting from one of the AI sources so it's it really is a brave new world it's a it's kind of a weird deal so what do you recommend as people start doing homework on these kind of things I mean I know I always say go to wallpapers.com but i mean in addition to that. What do we? What do we encourage people to do?
David Barton [00:08:07] You have to demand to see the sources. Show me that source. Show me where it comes from.
[00:08:13] Actually footnote, get Grok to footnote it for you.
Tim Barton [00:08:17] But, but, but to that point, there is a challenge when you're saying, did George Washington say this, did he write this in a letter and Grok says, no, he didn't. And literally there have been times we said, go to founders archive.gov and search Washington's letters and look for this phrase and Grock came back and said, that phrase does not appear in any of his letters. And then we jump on, we go to founder's archive.gov. We put in the search engine, that phase and it pulls up the letter. And so... Certainly you want to see the original source, but the problem is when it tells you there is no source for that when they're clearly is and one of the things that Are our friend Glenn Beck used to say quite often, there's a reason that as much as possible you should try to get physical copies of some of these documents some of those books whether it even be a downloaded PDF something where you can have something in your hand so that If AI starts changing the narrative, starts changing the story, starts being dishonest, that there will be something beyond what is currently there and accessible and available. You know, one of the things that we've seen with textbooks that are all online, it was a battle we fought even inside Texas with some of the educational push saying we're just going to put all curriculum online and that's going to make it better because then if something is incorrect, we can just edit it online and they can go live the very next day. The problem is you can constantly change what's there. You can remove things or add things or whatever it is. And that certainly is one of the challenges with AI. And so getting those physical copies makes a difference, but then also knowing that we should not just rely on it. At this point, things like Grok, these AI can be really good finger pointers, but they're not reliable, certainly to any sense that I would have great comfort. If it tells me that John Adams never said that, Benjamin Franklin never said that. Now, if I go to foundersarchive.gov and I type it in and it says, that doesn't appear or that phrase doesn't appear, I would have more confidence in that search than I would in AI searching just based off our experience to this point.
David Barton [00:10:27] And I would say to another thing is make sure you get the context. So once it tells you where something is, go look at it and then read what's before it, what's after it, what's around it see what's really going on in that letter. Cause you don't want to, this is the kind of thing that happens with our friends has happened with us where the opposition just picks a line or two here or there and says, this is what they believe. Well, that wasn't in part of a 35 minute speech with context all around that you didn't put in there. And Grok can do that as well. Now, one of the things we found that is really interesting, and I think we're benefiting from is once we get the paper done, we have a review it, and it says, you know, this part here was a little weaker than it should have been, and this part wasn't as clear as it could have been. And I don't agree with everything it says but it's been really good for reviewing because I find that as an editor, when I go through this stuff, by the time I have finished editing the book, I have read the book 50, 60, 70, 80 times, literally. And therefore, there are things in my mind that I think it says that it doesn't say, but I'm so used to thinking it's there that it's not. And that's what's turned out to be really good too, is having it review and point weaknesses out, but then you have to ask it specifically to do that. So there is a way that I go to it again. It's actually training you to train it is what it amounts to. You have to figure out what it needs and how it needs to be asked. And that kind of stuff. But if you can do that, it's gonna be an interesting phrase. But all that to say, I'm really not surprised that AI came up with democracy. Now AI is supposed to have access to all the constitutional documents, all the old speeches, all everything else. And if it did, it would find out how hated the word democracy is with America, that that's a progressive word and term and moniker. But nonetheless, AI is what came up with that, Linda. So first, Linda, thank you for pointing that out. We don't wanna use that term because we disagree that what leaves the question you asked, when is the right term to use the word democracy when it comes to America? And the answer is there isn't a right time to use it. Now there are sometimes cities and the closest you can get to democracy is like a homeowners association where that all the homeowners get together and vote on what the policy is gonna be. You have to have a complete plebiscite that votes on something and then you get a democracy. But short of that, we have a representative system and I'm gonna go back again, Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution prohibits America from becoming a democracy, we just can't do it. Now there are, again, small groups you can do that in, but right term for our government, they can't use that.
Tim Barton [00:13:08] Well, in one of the challenges to guys worth acknowledging is that definitions have certainly changed over time and the fact that democracy now is being used to maybe convey the idea that since people are allowed to vote, therefore we are a democracy. Well, that's not truly what a democracy is because a democracy is a reflection of the will of the majority, which is kind of true in America, except not really because We, first of all, live under a constitution. So it's not just the will of the majority. There's a constitutional foundation. And then to go further, the idea that we are a republic because we elect leaders to represent us because in a democracy, you would expect that the people would be voting on every issue for every situation that arises. And we don't. We elect officials, but this is where people would say, well, because we all vote on that, that's a democracy. The democracy is electing your officials to represent you. No, that's a Republican form of government, but we have begun really for, I guess, a couple of decades, we've been in this era of the redefinition of words and we've begun to see the term democracy being reshaped. And I think it could be, to some extent, a reality of the life we're living in, but I think also could be intentional on some level where We have seen universities try to make socialism more fashionable, more trendy, more acceptable, and certainly the same thing with democracy. It could be because there's people that don't want the constraint of the Constitution and therefore they're saying, hey, well, if the majority people vote on it and the Constitution tells us we can't, well that just is an indication we should get rid of the constitution. So it certainly could be more darker motives that this changing of definition and embracing of a term that certainly the founding fathers did not embrace could be part of the narrative. But dad, to this point, I think in some level it could even be innocent because the word has been redefined for some people to mean something different than certainly what that word would actually represent in a government capacity.
David Barton [00:15:19] Yeah, and our education system is so poor that they cannot look at that and even tell the difference anymore. And if you go back to founding fathers, the founding fathers had a number of specific forms of government they did not like. They did not liked socialism. They did like monarchies. They did no like oligarchies. They did now like dictatorships. And all the things they didn't like, the one they disliked the most was democracy. They put it below dictatorships and monarchs and they put it below socialism. So to them it meant something very specific and we've gotten away from that. But she had Linda asked a really interesting question is hey, when you go back to Alexia de Tocqueville democracy in America, how did that name get there? It's an interesting thing. Go back 1831 Alexia De Tocquville comes to America because America is so unique. He's heard the reputation of it is so different from any nation in Europe. All these other nations are having turmoil and wars and confusion and what's, well, he came here to see the criminal justice system because he was part of the criminal justice system in France. He heard that it was real different in America. He wants to see it. And when he got here, he said, oh my goodness, this whole thing is so different. And so he ends up writing a book. He intended to just come see the criminal justice systems. And then everything struck him. And one of the first things he says is the first thing that struck me on my arrival there. Was how prevalent the Christian faith was and biblical faith. And so, I mean, that just captivated him. And it was so different from everything he had seen in France that he just starts chronicling what he's seen in America. And he goes through all of our various systems, no longer just criminal justice. He wants to see everything. This is really unique. So he did that in 1831. His book is published in 1835. By the way, when it came out in 1835, It was a four-volume edition. There were leather-bound volumes, and so his full work was four volumes. Now, it took it a while to get to America. It was 16 years later in 1851 when it was first printed in America. So they had to translate it into English. And so when they translate it in English, it comes out as one thick volume, and they call it two volumes in one. So it says that right up front, 1851 edition. And it's interesting that right there on the title page, When you read it, it doesn't say democracy in America. It says the Republic of the United States of America. And so the translators knew that, look, they're calling it democracy over there. That's fine. That's what they call themselves. That's not who Americans are. Here's America. And so as you go through, when you get to the second half, the two volumes in one, you get the second one, it actually does say Democracy in America there, because that's what he called it. So it's interesting that in the English translation, the American translation, They make that distinction that it's the Republic of the United States because that's how Americans know us. That's who we are. He's describing our nation. So it's an interesting cast there, but even that work kind of affirms the point that America is not a democracy and the translators knew that when they brought it over
Rick Green [00:18:25] Good stuff. We're going to take a quick break guys. We've got more questions in the queue. Stay with us. You're listening to Foundations of Freedom Thursday on the wallbuilder show
Rick Green [00:19:38] Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on the Wallbuilder show. Foundations of freedom Thursday today. And the next question comes from Mark and Cindy in Ohio. And I would try and pronounce the name of the city, but I'm going to get it. I'm gonna try it. Chili Cotha. Chillicothe. Chillicothi. From Chillicothe, Ohio. And, uh, Mark and Cyndi asked.
David Barton [00:19:56] Wait wait a minute that's the way i've heard it said maybe that's just a Texan thinking that's the way it's said maybe, that's not it yeah but that's what I've always heard it called we might get corrected yeah i've probably heard louisiana people pronouncing it who knows
Rick Green [00:20:09] Well, Varkin said, he said, there's been a lot of talk in the news about president Trump getting rid of the income tax. How does that work? Wouldn't we need a constitutional amendment to undo the 16th amendment? So guys, it's a great question to come in today since we just had Bill Federer on yesterday and although we were talking about tariffs, he gave a little bit of a primer on how the income taxes came about. So good question. What do we need to do? How does, what can president Trump actually do? And is he just pushing for a constitutional amendment or are there things he can actually do without the amendment?
David Barton [00:20:37] Well, it's not that you need a constitutional amendment to do this, and let me just kind of back up real, make this real easy. Speed limit signs in Texas are regularly 75 miles an hour. That doesn't mandate that you drive 75 miles and hour, that's just speed limit. You can drive 55, you can drive 60, you can 63, you drive 71. So just because there is a law that provides for an income tax doesn't mean you have to use that law. It doesn't mean that that's a mandate. It's not a mandate to have an income tax. It's something that allows the government to have one. So it can easily be not used. And there's so many federal laws that are not being employed, not being used. I mean, there are thousands of laws that are still in the books that don't get used. So the way to look at this is the fact that it exists in law in the 16th Amendment doesn't means you have to have income tax, You can very simply. As Bill Federer was saying yesterday, man, we went all the way up until Woodrow Wilson and even more to FDR before we started genuinely having a serious income tax that started really affecting the mass of people. So even when they had that constitutional amendment to allow them to have that graduated income tax, they didn't apply it all the time. They didn't use it all of the time, there were still a lot of tariffs and duties that were used as well. So when you look at that whole concept of income tax it's, it doesn't have to be used. And we've kind of talked about this in a different way too. Over recent weeks, guys were, we're talking about how that, you know, president Trump is essentially abolished the department of education, but he really can't do that because there is a 1979 law that set it up and the president can't just wipe out what, what is set up by law. He can not, he can essentially ignore it unless there's a mandate he has to use it. But there's no mandate that says you have to have an income tax. It allows you to do that if you want to. There's no mandate that says you have a department of education. He can use it if he wants to. And probably after Trump is gone, the next president may come back in and put it on steroids. Maybe not. I don't want to be negative about that. But so often the presidents kind of undo each other and hopefully Americans will be weaned from that department education, won't use it with the next President, won't even want it back. But you have that situation. Where just because it exists in the law, and even when we talked about USAID, how that foreign aid, President Trump has said, we're done with that. Yeah, but he can't wipe that agency out because it was created by law back in, I think, 1961 under John F. Kennedy. So it can be a shuttered agency. It can sit there as a building with just a janitor or custodian to go in every once in a while and make sure it's still there, but you don't have to use it. And so that would be really the thing with the income tax is we don't have to use it. And if Trump can, as Bill was talking yesterday, if you can have tax cuts that stimulate the economy to where you have the economic growth that provides the income you need. And if you combine that with the cuts, with the spending cuts that the house is trying to do, the 1.5 trillion, and with what DOGE is trying do, if they can eliminate one to two trillion. I mean, you throw all of that together. And you can have a really good, prosperous economy. And so that would be my answer to the income taxes. You don't need to get rid of it. It's in the constitution. You're not gonna get two thirds of the Senate to pass that. You're gonna get the 60% to do it, to break the filibuster, but you don't have to. We just don't do it. You can set it aside and not follow it.
Rick Green [00:24:20] All right, well we could do a- whole program on income tax but don't forget folks yesterday we had Bill Federer on talking about some of those things so be sure to check that out at our website wallbuilders.show we do have a couple minutes left let's try one last question from Pat she said a while back I heard you explain that original intent of the judicial branch was to not be as big and powerful as it is today I was wondering how we could get back to its original intent please share your knowledge and wisdom on this present-day situation that we are now dealing with that the branch has morphed into of course David we talk a lot about this in Constitutional Live and how it's the institution now and it's outside of the way the founders designed it. But it is the, basically the hand we've been dealt. So what do we do with it at this?
David Barton [00:24:56] It really goes back to citizen knowledge. You have to have citizens who know, and by the way, don't forget that congressmen are citizens too. They don't necessarily know more than other individuals except after they've been there a while, they learn the process. But when they go in, most citizens had the same education. And so most congressmen think that the judiciary is supposed to do what it's doing and they don't even understand that. So if we were back to studying, what the founders said, or reading things like the Federalist Papers, which we used to do in school, which we use to do college. They used to be part of civic courses and government courses. If we were back to doing things like that, we would learn that the founding fathers said absolutely unequivocally that the judiciary is, as they said, beyond comparison, the weakest of the three branches of government. And so it just goes back to learning that. And unless more citizens learn that, we won't be able to sustain any pressure to make the change. This is kind of like the same thing we do with the Bible and faith. You just got to tell other people about it. You got to get them to see it and read it. We actually have a book on this called Restraining Judicial Activism at Wall Builders. So you can go to the website and get that book and learn a whole lot about the judiciary. But that's something that definitely needs to happen is the judiciary needs to be put back inside the constitutional box that it was originally given.
Rick Green [00:26:16] All right, so we had a lot of good constitutional questions today, folks. You can send those in radio@wall builders.com. It can be constitution declaration history, maybe a biblical application of some of these principles, whatever you got, send it in to radio@wallbuilders. Com and we'll get to those in future foundations of freedom. Thursday programs. And then of course, tomorrow you don't want to miss all the good news. We're going to have a good news Friday program for you. Chalk full of good news you probably haven't heard from us for the major media. Thanks for listening today. You've been listening to the wall uilder show.
