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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.
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The Constitutional Debate: Term Limits vs. People's Will
The fundamental tension between constitutional limitations and citizen self-governance takes center stage in this thought-provoking episode exploring questions that strike at the heart of American liberty.
When 22-year-old Janessa from Missouri asks about presidential term limits, the conversation ignites a friendly yet passionate debate. David Barton argues that term limits fundamentally don't trust citizens to make good decisions: "You want term limits because the people aren't doing what they're supposed to do." Meanwhile, Rick Green counters that term limits serve as an essential separation of powers mechanism, preventing the dangerous accumulation of influence that comes with decades-long incumbency.
This tension—between trusting voters completely and acknowledging human nature's susceptibility to power—mirrors the founders' own careful constitutional balancing act. The discussion highlights how Washington's voluntary two-term precedent sufficed until FDR's unprecedented four terms triggered constitutional amendment, demonstrating how America's governance evolves through both formal changes and informal traditions.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when exploring whether government should withdraw from sectors where private enterprise now excels. Using the constitutionally-authorized postal service as a case study, the hosts examine how this once-essential government function has become "a dinosaur" compared to private alternatives, raising profound questions about when federal powers should contract rather than expand.
Perhaps most timely is the examination of presidential immunity and its constitutional boundaries. The hosts carefully distinguish between the constitutional definition of treason (taking up arms with enemies against the nation) and other serious misconduct that might warrant impeachment or criminal prosecution. This nuanced explanation demonstrates how preserving precise constitutional terms protects the rule of law while still allowing accountability for wrongdoing.
Throughout this wide-ranging discussion, one principle remains constant: power ultimately belongs to an informed, engaged citizenry. Whether you're passionate about constitutional structures, concerned about government overreach, or simply seeking to understand America's founding principles better, this episode offers clarity on how our constitutional republic was designed to function—and how we might preserve it for generations to come.
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us on this Thursday. Always love Thursdays, getting your questions, send those to radio at wallbuilders.com. It's what we call foundations of freedom Thursday. And your questions get to drive the conversation. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. If you'd like to learn more about us and the program, a couple of websites to go to wallbuilders.show. That's our radio site. And of course you can catch up on the programs from the last few weeks and months there and share them with your friends and family. That's a great way to engage in the debate out there over how we're going to rebuild Liberty. In our country is by simply sharing the wallbuilders program. It's a wonderful way to get people informed. So do that at wallbuilders.show and then wallbuilds.com is where everything else Wallbuilders can be found. And of course, when we say WallBuilders, we're literally rebuilding the walls and, and we're laying the bricks. We're putting the right foundation back in place for the country. And if you want to be a part of all that, go to wallbuilders.com a lot of great activities, get involved in send your pastors to our briefings that we do in DC or to send young people and teachers and everything to our summer programs. There's a lot of opportunities to get involved. And then of course just getting educated, self-governing first, making sure that we know personally the principles of liberty and we're doing that in our own lives, that we know what biblical citizenship is. We know how to apply the Bible to our lives as citizens and then in our neighborhoods, our families, our churches, and throughout the country. So all of that available at wallbuilders.com. And lastly, that's the place to make a one-time or contribution. We appreciate all of you out there. That are supporting us and helping to amplify this voice of reason out there, this voice of liberty, this biblical voice, and so we appreciate that. Everything we do here, we look at it from a biblical, constitutional, and historical perspective, and we're gonna do that with your questions today. And that first question is coming from Janessa in Missouri, only 22 years old. Janessa, thank you for being involved at a young age. She said, I'd like to start off by saying how much I love and appreciate y'all's show and the work you do as y'al help to preserve freedom. My question is this, what's your opinion on term limits, but mainly term limits for presidents. I've been having a discussion about this topic with some fellow patriots. And I think my mind may have recently been changed in favor of not having term limits on presidents, as long as there is still fair and free elections every four years, but there's still some things I'm not totally sure about and I wanted to get y'all thoughts on this, any information or help that you could provide me with to understand if this lines up with our founding and what the founding fathers would have wanted would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Thank you, Janessa. I think it's, we've had a lot of people ask about term limits, guys. I think she's the first one to ask specifically about term limits for president, which of course is the 22nd amendment. When we finally, installed that after FDR got elected to a fourth term. So president specifically, would y'all like for Bill Clinton to still be president 40 years in a row or 25 or 30 years, whatever.
David Barton [00:02:50] I'll go back to say that this has always been a fun discussion. You've always been wrong. I've always been right on this. It's, it's,
Rick Green [00:02:58] This is going to be good. See, folks should come to Patriot Academy. This is the one issue that the Bartons and the Greens get. Actually, no, you've got all my kids on your side too. So it's pretty much just me against all of y'all.
David Barton [00:03:08] Listen, truth always wins out the truth and logic. And it just common sense always wins, Rick. And that's, that's the way it is. And someday you'll come around to it. So it's, it's all right. I'll get wiser as I get older. Yeah. Well, you're getting older. I don't, we'll see about the wiser that may or may not come. We'll check on that. But yeah, Janessa, the way I go at this, there's, there are several principles that I think are involved. And for me. Rick's got more of a pragmatic view, I've got more of a principled view on this, and he and I still agree on most of the stuff.
Tim Barton [00:03:42] Well hang on a second, that makes it sound like Rick has no principles in his view. I think he's got principles in his view.
David Barton [00:03:46] Now that you caught that, now that you've caught that. So, and I'm gonna say, Rick and I really do agree on this in many, many, areas, especially on the big things. So one of the things I say is all right, why would you want term limits? And the answer is usually cause you don't want people to stay in office too long. Why would they stay in the office too long? And the answers is cause people didn't throw them out. So what you're telling me is you want term limits because the people aren't doing what they're supposed to do. So you want the term limits to do what people should be doing. And that's where I have a fundamental problem. I think you have the right to have stupid leaders if you have stupid people and that's just that that's part of it. I think the constitution gives you the right to choose your leaders. And I don't think you need to be saved from yourself. So that's kind of where I am on term limits. I kind of have a philosophical opposition to them. Because even though I agree that we have a lot of people in Congress who shouldn't be there as many years as they have been, it doesn't change the fact that their people keep putting them back there time after time after.
Tim Barton [00:04:48] Now, one caveat with that, George Washington did step down after his second term and it wasn't because he couldn't have been elected again. He said, this is about how long you should be president is two terms. And the reason no president was a president longer than two terms after George Washington was because they followed the example he set. It wasn't until FDR, and this is not unusual with progressives and really, there's a lot of flesh and sinful human nature involved. There are people that love money and power. And if they have the opportunity to have money and power, why would you give that up if you're feeding your flesh and the human nature? When you have a guy like FDR who says, hey, I'm the best person to lead right now, war time, crisis, let me just keep doing my thing. FDR is the one that caused everybody to realize, you know what George Washington did really was a good thing and nobody violated that until FDR and so it wasn't a problem that needed to be resolved, per se, until FDR and this is where I do think that If you go back to the Founding Father's original intent... They had a lot of wisdom in the way they set things up, but we also recognize a lot of the way that they set up was based on a system that was rooted in religion and morality. And they acknowledge without religion and reality, this thing is not going to work. And some of the checks and balances they set up were checks and balances against sinful human nature. Were against individuals not following some of the basic religious and moral underpinnings of the nation. And I say that to give maybe context for this caveat. Is even though people fundamentally we would say they should have the right if they're going to make stupid decisions they should the right to enjoy the consequences of those stupid decisions and that's what happens when you elect some of these people but there also is something to be said that the way that politics is set up today is people are able to build such a war chest And they can have tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal and so then when it comes time for election, ultimately, that the individual with the most money oftentimes is the ones that wins the election because they're the ones who are able to saturate the market with their campaign ads. They're the ones that are able control the narrative. And so sometimes it's not just that the people are dumb. It's that people have gotten really bad information. And how do they get the bad information? Because the market was saturated with ads and campaign leaflets or depending on what era we're living in from people that had the most money. So I do think there are more factors to this, even though I think the fundamental principle is the Founding Father said the will of the majority that should prevail, that we the people are in charge, and so people should fundamentally have the right to choose who their leaders are, but the way it's come today is very, very different from the way it was at the founding time, and it has presented some unique modern challenges, I would say.
David Barton [00:07:48] Yeah. And I think part of what you just said is, is part of why people want term limits, but I think they're addressing the wrong thing because as you point out, you're now looking, we've got a Senate race coming up here in Texas, US Senate between John Cornyn, the incumbent and Ken Pax and the attorney general. And Cornynn has already made it clear. He's come about $130 million into that Senate race. Now your salary as a Senator is a couple hundred thousand, few hundred thousand. And so how are you gonna pay for that 130 million? That's about 15 lifetimes to be able to do that. And so what you're looking at is all the laws that regulate finance, not regulate the legislators in office. So what we need is campaign finance reform. Oh wait, we did that. Because McCain-Feingold said there's too much money in politics, we're gonna pass a federal law to take the money out of politics. And that's where they started 527s and now that's where all the money comes from. Now that's unaccountable because Soros can dump how many millions into any race. The rest of us are limited to about $3,000 a person on federal stuff, but no, if you use a 527, if you're really wealthy, you can just buy yourself a candidate essentially. So what we're talking about, term limits doesn't fix the system. They'll just buy a different candidate and put a different candidates in and they'll pick people that are more like them and more like what represents their money. So we're really talking about fundamentally the power needs to be with the people. And every time we keep trying to change that, we keep moving power away from the people like to the sources and those that have a lot of money. And so that's why I am on term limits. And Tim, you just laid it out, but the money problem is not going to be solved by term limits because it means you've got more people pulling strings behind the scenes that are less accountable to the people. You want people more accountable. If I were to have term limits on anything, It would be on unelected bureaucrats, the people that have been 30 years and the department of education, 30 years in the department of justice. Those are the guys that are making policy and I've got no way of changing the policies they make. They come out with all these regulations that are have the effect of law and, and they make all these things that here's what you have to do. And, and they're not accountable to anybody. They're career people and you can't fire civil servant people unless maybe they, they murder their wife and maybe even not then, I mean, it, it takes really something absurd. To get rid of them. So I think power goes back to the people as much as you can. And anything that keeps our power from being in the hands of the people, whether it's finance campaign laws or unelected bureaucrats, they get essentially a lifetime appointments, their job. That's what needs to change in my opinion. So, and Rick, I think you're probably the same place we are on that, even though I made fun of you at the beginning, cause you and I often have this debate over, we need something to disagree on and this is something we can disagree on.
Rick Green [00:10:38] That's right it's actually fun at Patriot Academy because it because it's a process issue and not really a you know fundamental principle issue. It's how are we gonna? You know set this up? What's the age gonna be for when you can run for office and that's where that's the way I picture it is It's more of a technical, how will the table be set and all of these other things you're talking about are absolutely essential. So I'm always one of these it's like man. Let's fight on every front and have the system as good as possible. And clearly, you gotta have the education system to have better candidates and people that vote better. But then also, I do believe in making sure that the system itself, the structures and how they operate is good. And I just love separation of powers. And in my mind, that's what term limits does. It separates the power to as many people as possible because you're still gonna get a left winger out of a left-winger district. It's just that instead of them having 40 years of incumbency and all the power that comes with that. It spreads that out and puts a freshman in there, and they no longer have that kind of power. So I just see it as a good way to get more people involved in the process. And just like we said, age limits or geographic limits on who can run to represent a district that you set some sort of a limit on how long somebody, including judges, I'm also for term limits for judges. I think they get there and they're there too long. But to your point about the president versus local and congressional and all that, I do get less passionate about term limits, the closer you get to the people. So like the further away the office is, the bigger the office and, and for instance, president or Congress or federal judges, I'm more for term limits than even at the local level. It gets, it's a little easier to hold people accountable at the local or a lot easier to holding them accountable at a local level than it is the further a way they get. And I've actually found at Patriot Academy, as we get into these debates, kind of the same thing. People are more willing to go for term limits at the federal level or certainly president, then they are for say state rep or even city council or, that sort of thing. But yeah, it's absolutely a fun debate and a good debate to have. Cause it makes you start thinking about the types of people you want to get elected and you know, how the system's going to work and how, long is too long for somebody to accumulate that power. And fortunately, the country decided to put term limits on president. And we still have that. I think the country should decide to do it on Congress and federal judges. And eventually maybe at the state level. But I'll have to debate that one a lot more because we're halfway through the program. So let's take a break, guys. We'll be right back. More questions from the audience. You're listening to Foundations of Freedom Thursday on The WallBuilders Show.
Rick Green [00:14:17] Welcome back to the WallBuilders show. Thanks for staying with us on this foundations of freedom Thursday. Next up in the questions we got Nicholas and he has asked about, well, first of all, he thanks us for all that we do and for the show. And, he mentioned, igniting, or he mentioned that I had said on a recent talk, igniting flames of Liberty and that that fired him up. He was talking with some of his friends and he said, one thing we were discussing is if the government has put certain things in place because no one could or was doing it at the time. He believes the United States postal service and education fall under that because now there's other people doing that once the free market catches up and is statistically verifiable that the free-market does a much better job in that space than government should government have an obligation to bow out of that space in order to allow that space to flourish. So I like what he's asking guys. He's basically saying you know, if there's nobody in the market doing it, there's no body out there doing it. You need a railway or you need it. Well, actually the market did do that. You need post offices and post roads like the constitution calls for, then government might have to do it. But once you do get a UPS or FedEx or the market starts catching up and providing that, should government have, maybe not an obligation to bow out, but does it just make good policy for government to bowout and let the market take care of that? Interesting way to look at it.
David Barton [00:15:34] Yeah. And free market really does make a difference. But I think you go back here to the original thinking of the founding fathers, they said, and essentially why did they keep a postal service? And it was because there was 13 separate states and something's got to connect those states and you can't count on Georgia getting it right for New York. And you can count on Massachusetts getting it, right for Virginia. So we got to communicate with each other. We learned that in the Revolution. The committee is a correspondence. We have people to talk and communicate. People have to know what's going on. If you don't have an educated citizenry at the federal level, you won't get the right kind of people or president. And so that's one of the few things in the constitution that actually goes beyond just one state or state boundaries. This is something where they tried to unify the nation, but they said outside of that. And so, that's why even with the founding fathers, they did absolutely nothing at the Federal level in education. Education was not something because Education was provided by each separate state. And in 1790, in a great piece that James Madison did in what's called the Codfish Debates, he was saying, how absurd would it be for the federal government to get involved in education? I mean, that's ridiculous. That's a state issue. And so essentially what they did was if it cannot be done by the states, that's what the federal will do. But if it can't be done about the states, then the Fed's gonna stay out of that. And so I think in many ways the post office is irrelevant now, although it's constitutionally authorized and it's becoming smaller and, and less effective. And you know, who sends letters anymore? We all do instant text or messaging or emails or something else. Why do we need to post off? Well, there's packages delivered. Yeah, but we got UPS and we got Amazon, all these others. And so that really the post offices is kind of irrelevant. What keeps it alive is the fact that constitutionally has to be able to serve all the states, which means you have to have all those physical office buildings, all those fiscal post offices in every community. You got to have a postmaster in the community. You got have male carriers and delivers, even though they're having less and less to deliver. And so it really is the free market that drives that nobody really relies on the post office. Now, if they were to go away, we probably wouldn't even notice it. The only reason that they exist I think is because they are constitutionally specified. But outside of that, I think everything else is a free market. And when people get tired of it, they move away from that and go to something else. And so, you know, look even at, you know, mall bell, how, how bell telephone back in the eighties dominated everything. It was such a big industry. The government had to break it up as a monopoly. Who's got landlines now, you know, what, why would you have a land that's a dinosaur? So I think that I think the question is exactly right and spot on. And I think the post office is a dinosaur, but the fact that it is specifically mentioned in the Constitution is the only thing that keeps it alive.
Rick Green [00:18:29] All right, guys, let's go to the next one. Jubal Jones says, and this is a presidential question. Maybe we should just follow up our term limits question with this. If the president of the United States is guilty of treason, does presidential immunity allow him to get off? Is it constitutional? Is it in the bill of rights? Can the president commit treason? Then get off scot-free because of presidential immunity. Please answer this and post a video. And guys, I think this obviously is falling on the heels of the potential prosecution of president Obama over the Russian hoax and, and, and literally, you know, according to Tulsi Gabbard, a treasonous conspiracy that took place. Of course, David, you know, being against term limits and all, you'd probably be okay with him being in president for, I'm kidding, I am kidding. Okay, so how do you think this should work?
David Barton [00:19:11] So, when you- at something like that, it is so difficult because treason is actually considered in taking up arms with the enemy against your country. So these are treasonous actions of sorts, but the constitutional definition of treason, is very different than undermining or weakening or whatever. It's actually taking up arms and it's gonna be super hard to convict any. President of that kind of trees and taking up arms with an enemy to overthrow the country now undermining the country and conspiracy and other stuff yeah you can you can go for that but treason is going to be really I think off the table on this and we can talk about treason's actions and they were because they were trying to overthrow the the country but they're not doing it with an enemy and treason involves trying to overthrow with a with an enemy and so they're trying to throw internally, it's like a domestic insurrection, which, you know, the Constitution deals with some of that as well. So I think it's been really hard to do that and presidential immunity is not going to allow them to get off. I mean, there's, there are certain things you can do, but if the president commits murder, you don't get off for that. And so there's only a few federal felonies that the Constitution recognizes, and it doesn't make the president immune from those constitutional felonies and it max actually doesn't like immune from any felonies, per se in that area. Yourself. Criminal stuff is very, very, very different than what discussion is that's going on now with treasonous type of activities, which is the adjective used to describe it, but it doesn't rise to the level, Constitutionally, of what treason actually is.
Rick Green [00:20:50] Yeah, and of course, this whole thing is complicated by that Supreme Court decision for Trump's immunity. But like you said, I mean, something that's actually treasonous, it's gonna depend on what they can prove and whether or not it was, even if it was an act of the president, an official act of president, I don't think people really paid attention to the details of that decision. It didn't give the president blanket immunity. And so people do have to dive a little further into this one.
Tim Barton [00:21:17] I think one of the things we're highlighting is that certainly what President Obama did, it was very bad, right, was maybe unethical, certainly was anti-American, but the question is at what point does anti-American become treasonous, and add to your point. When you're talking about taking up arms with the enemy, supporting enemy, taking up arms against your nation, that's certainly not what he did. What he did was very detrimental to the American system, was very anti-American, but was it treasonous? You'd have to toy with the definition of treason just a little bit to get there, but certainly it was very, very bad behavior from a president.
David Barton [00:21:54] And by the way, if it's bad behavior, that's where the Constitution allows you to impeach. And so you can definitely impeach, now he's out of office, so you cant do that. But impeachment is the constitutional solution for bad behavior. And that's in the Constitution multiple times. So that would have been the right appropriate response at that point, but he's now out of the office. So all that to say, it probably doesn't match the Constitutional definition that the founding fathers set forth for treason, although it is certainly bad behavior.
Tim Barton [00:22:24] But this is also something that they can now look to see, was there criminal activity that was done? To what extent was he part of it? And there can be criminal charges brought against him. And there is not necessarily presidential immunity if you did criminal things like this. Again, that's going to be a longer conversation and other people looking at the evidence and evaluating what's there that's not. We don't have access to all of that right here and so it's hard to draw a good conclusion. However, there are definitely people looking into it and seeing was there any activity that has crossed legal bounds that might warrant activity against the president and again, I don't think he's immune from something like this.
David Barton [00:23:02] Yeah, and this is particularly where you can get into election interference and conspiracy to interfere with elections, because those are felonies. And so there's conspiracy charges are very possible in something like this. And particularly election interference, there's a lot of felonys in that area. And so that that probably is the most likely. But again, that'll be something prosecutors look at that will be something the attorney general looks at, they'll make those decisions. So there's options I think available if they find the evidence is actually there as it appears to be right now.
Rick Green [00:23:36] Yeah, I think two important takeaways. Number one, the immunity case did not get blanket immunity and treason is not the only thing outside of that immunity. And David, to your point, we should not in our zeal to get justice, change terms or manipulate terms. That's what the left does. And so we need to be careful at what we call treason or not treason and make sure that we don't weaken that term or dilute that term like the left tends to do just to get the guy or gal that they're after. So really, really good points. Okay, guys, final question for the day is from Nicholas. Nicholas said, hello, David, Rick and Tim. Have you seen the founding father videos posted on the official White House YouTube channel? There are roughly 30 short videos might be AI generated in which a founding father gives a quick summary of their life. I've watched a couple and very, and I'm very impressed. These videos do a fantastic job personifying our founding fathers. However, I like to see original source documentation, which is not offered in these videos. Are these videos accurate and trustworthy? If so spread the word. Thank you all for everything you do. God bless you guys. I had the same question because I watched some of them. They're fantastic. I love them. But I don't, you are not sure. I know they got good people doing the input here and doing research and that sort of thing. So I'd be surprised if they're getting off track with these. And we're actually we're doing the whole Prager U thing that the team that you know, the thing that they created for the founders wall. We're going to rebuild that here at Patriot Academy from the White House. But what about the videos? Do y'all know how accurate these are?
David Barton [00:25:01] Well, I can tell you, I have not seen all of them, but earlier this week at the White House, I was with the folks who produce these things and those folks have good heart, good intent, and they're trying to do the right thing. So they're not looking to alter history. We're not talking about revisionists. There might be a fact or something wrong here or there. I haven't seen them, but I would trust them overall, I would trust them. And they're so short that there's not anything of substance that's going to, you know, alter the way we interpret the constitution or run the government or anything else. I think the tone is really good on these. And you're gonna be seeing a lot more coming out as well. As a matter of fact, WallBuilders are working right now on doing a short biography on each one of these founding fathers, signers of the declaration. It will be out before long as well, but I think the tone is right on these things and it comes from people that we do trust and they do not have an agenda.
Rick Green [00:25:47] Yeah, I think it's super exciting to see that kind of material coming out of the white house and it's just a drop in the bucket compared to all the things that, that, that they're doing this, uh, this wall that they had designed with, with, with PragerU is fantastic. It's kind of like walking into the wall builders museum, honestly, guys. I mean, it's got, you know, the, the plaques with the picture of the founder and then a bio about them and, and then all kinds of other cool stories and so we printed off all that stuff from, uh from their website and we're having it redone and And, uh, and it's going to be really nice. We're gonna do that at the Patriot Academy campus, but just super excited to see the, the white house and the administration go all out to bring back a love of the founding fathers and the founding documents. So great question, Nicholas excited to, for more and more people to see those videos and see that material, send in your questions, folks to radio at wallbuilders.com. We'll have more of those that we'll tackle next Thursday, but for tomorrow on Friday, be sure and tune back in to catch some of the good news from the, uh from this week and from previous weeks as well. Good news Friday tomorrow. Thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show.
