Faith, Freedom, And First Principles

What if the entire arc of American freedom hinges on where we say rights come from? We take you inside a spirited, timely conversation that ties together the founders’ reliance on prayer, the moral sequence of life before liberty, and the hard economics of why voluntary exchange creates wealth while coercion destroys it. This isn’t a history lecture; it’s a practical roadmap for evaluating candidates, policies, and institutions by a clear standard of truth.

We unpack the core fork in the road: man as the measure versus God as the source. From that single choice flow wildly different outcomes on speech, taxes, education, borders, and defense. You’ll hear why “group‑granted rights” inevitably drift into socialism, why identity blocs replace individual dignity, and how compelled speech corrodes public trust. We share vivid examples—from campus showdowns over truth to crumbling output under redistribution—alongside a simple test: does a policy protect innocent life and expand ordered liberty, or does it reward power and punish productivity?

Then we zoom out to strategy and statecraft. Innovation requires honest rules and abundant energy, so we dig into rare earth supply chains, nuclear approvals, and the power needed to fuel AI. Strong defense, limited government, and low taxes are not contradictions; they’re complementary shields for freedom. Pair that with a culture that prizes contribution over category and you get a nation that attracts builders, aligns allies, and regains confidence. If you care about how faith informs policy, how truth stabilizes markets, and how prosperity actually happens, this conversation will sharpen your lens and strengthen your voice.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a rating to help more listeners find thoughtful, good‑faith conversations about faith, history, and the Constitution.

Chapters

• 0:00 Framing The Conversation
• 0:51 Speaker Invite And Mission
• 1:53 Founders, Prayer, And Constitutional Roots
• 4:37 Life Before Liberty And Policy Tests
• 8:10 From Economics To Faith On Campus
• 10:40 Who’s The Author Of Rights?
• 13:45 Truth As The Non‑Negotiable Standard
• 18:08 Socialism Versus Free Enterprise
• 21:30 Reward For Contribution, Not Identity
• 23:39 China, Rare Earths, And Energy Strategy
• 26:10 Geopolitics, Momentum, And Closing

Transcript

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. I'm Rick Green with David and Tim Barton. You can learn more about us at our website, wallbuilders.show for the radio program and wallbuilders.com for everything else. If you were listening yesterday, you know that we're kicking off the year learning about the principles that make America different by diving into a presentation from Bob McEwen just a couple of weeks ago at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. Yesterday was the first half today is the second half but we're gonna take a quick break here early in the program today. When we come back, we'll jump in with Bob stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:01:53] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Here we go Bob McEwen and at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference. 

Bob McEwen [00:01:57] You don't want to go into business with a person who thinks they're God is and furthermore you don’t want to elect people to office who think that they're God. So that's what we got to do first. So, our founders understood that and so they started out and they were trying to put in this room where they had met eleven years before and done the Declaration of Independence they're trying to form a country and they could agree upon absolutely nothing. And everything began to break apart and finally, as you remember, as David points out so well, one of only four people that were in that same room eleven years before said, look, I'm, he was the most respected man in the world, by the way. If he showed up in Paris or London, they shut down the city. He said, I am an old man, but one thing I've learned is that God governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall without His notice, is it probable that an empire could rise without His aid? We have been instructed this in the sacred writings except the Lord build the house they labored in vain to build it. He said, well, I believe this, that we shall be no more successful in this political building without His aid than were the builders of Babel. He said in the conflict with Great Britain, we had daily prayer in this room. Our prayers were heard and they were graciously answered. You get this, 11 years, not 200 years. He said have we now forgotten this powerful Friend or do we imagine we no longer need him? He says, I move that we have daily prayer. And they did. They then wrote the Constitution of the United States, the oldest government on the planet, creating that little 4% that blesses the world like no place else. And they said, well, let's make sure people don't forget how this is. Therefore, Congress shall never meet without first calling upon God in prayer. What does that do? It's the purpose of saying you don't, you think you might think you're God, you're not. We're going to stop. We understand it comes from here. And secondly, that in order to take a position of public trust, you'd think you are so good. And so this is the difference between the parties, that is that you swear allegiance to God on the Bible. So you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me, God. And the Democrats, always wanna leave that part out. Now, without God, that means that you're like Oprah, my truth, all right, to tell truth. And, you know, a two-year-old can do that. I mean, that's called lying. Without God as a standard, but then it also, and if you're gonna take a position of public trust, you just swear allegiance on the Bible, and then in every official document, there were two events that changed the whole world. The most important events in the history of mankind, and on every official American document, I don't care if you're declaring Groundhog Day, or if it's a Presidential Proclamation, at the end of it, when you're all finished, final line, Done in this the year of our Lord, the 2025th, What's the second-best day? And of the independence of the United States, the 246th. Those are the two dates, so that people will never forget as to where this all came from. Now, as you remember, at the same time, the English, I mean, the French, God love them, they did something right somewhere. I don't know where it was, but nevertheless it was somewhere. And so, they wanted to have a revolution too, but they didn't need the God part. If you don't need God part, you then don't have any protection for life. And so, they had liberty, equality, and then fraternity. So, your rights come from, another word for fraternity is group, another word group is union, another word union is soviet. So because of the group that I belong to, our rights come from the group, and what happens when the rights come from the group? You get a guy, mayor of New York, we're gonna take from those people and give to those people. And when you do it, it's called theft. When you're a politician, it is called socialism. And when people object, what happens is when they object, there's only one thing you can do, that is that you cut their head off. And so, the symbol of the French Revolution, was the guillotine. Now in America the difference was that we always had God who gave us life and then gave us liberty and you've all heard me say notice the sequence because liberty is a precious little value if you're dead and so you have to have life first, then liberty, then sewer systems and overpasses. But the first thing you do is life and it's appropriate that you can ask about where because it says that this was the reason that government was established. And so, you can ask a person running for sheriff, where do you stand on life? Well, I'm just a sheriff, I don't know. What about school board? What about city council? Where do you stand on? Life? The purpose of the United States government is to protect innocent life, then liberty, and then the rest. And if you don't believe in that, then you told me, Dennis Prager used to say, if you do not have time to ask a politician, just ask him two questions. You want to know about domestically? Ask them where they stand on life. That'll tell you, 90% you need to know. Internationally, ask them where they stand on Israel. From those two questions, you'll know both of what you need know because, as I had here just a second ago, any politician who will take innocent life will not hesitate to take your liberty. And you will notice that we had a candidate, the Democrats had a candid for president who could read these prompters, not very well, but she did her best. And literally, I'm not exaggerating, you can go back and check, up to half of her speech, when she's running for office, when the election is a week and a half off, when there's trouble in Ukraine, when people are concerned about schools and safety and the border, and what she talked about taking innocent life. They constantly talked about the women's right to kill and on and on, and on, continually, continually over. And the second thing was the sexual perversion, the idea of the rainbow alphabet and all that. So, the first thing we would do, fear God. Secondly, oh well, let's just go this a little bit more. Why does it matter if God matters? You know, I'm on the board at Turning Point and we started out by doing this with college kids and at first it was economics and socialism sucks and I had the little shirts and all, and everybody said, but why does it? And they began to understand about politics. And so, it went from... from economic went to political liberty. So, then they say, aha, those are the people that are stealing our freedom, I see that. Then the next question was, well, why are they doing that? And the first thing you know, they were asking spiritual questions and it was so overwhelming, we're leading all the kids to the Lord. So, we formed Turning Point USA faith because it's all tied together. And when I see one of these liberals that suddenly are saying the right thing, I think you scratch them a little bit and they had an encounter with the Lord somewhere. Russell Brand, I mean that fellow was a crazy man from Britain. We had him speak at Auburn the other day, and he had long hair and the tattoos and things. I mean this guy was, you'd turn and run from him, but he got up in front of all these college kids. He said, I'm from Britain, I don't know anything about your government. All I know is if Jesus Christ is not at the middle of it, you're gonna go down the tubes just like my country did. And those young people stood and cheered and clapped and whistled because what truth overcomes error as we're going to see in a moment. So who says what's the standard? That is either if you want to know what this battle is all about, it boils down to this; if you believe that man created God? Or you believe the God created man? That's the fork and from that once you understand this you don't need to go back to the cloakroom to find out how people are going to vote because if a man believes that he's God, then you believe, that man has his own standard. If you believe that God created man, you believe God has a standard. You believe if man is his own standard, then man is basically good. Just stop and think about that. By what standard would he not be good? He's the standard, right? But we recognize that man is not perfect. And so, the third thing is if anything goes wrong and he's basically good, it can't be his fault. And so if somebody comes in and starts shooting people, can't his fault, he's good. So whose fault is it? It's that gun's fault. Got to regulate that gun coming in here doing those nasty things. That almost makes sense to those people. We recognize that if something goes haywire, it's not because of the fact that our environment, we're individually accountable to God. But here's the most important thing. Here's the final thing. If you don't believe there's a God, and this gets back to Rwanda, if you do not believe that God is a source, then where do rights come from? And when you listen to Democrats, they constantly talk about women's rights, Hispanic rights and gay rights. Everything's rights come from some group. As you know, there are no blonde left-handed rights. There's only rights that came from God and they apply to all of us. And if you understand that, then you understand how government should work. How does it, what's the public policy? If you believe that man is the best then you will always want to fix things by having more and more government. But as we recognize, limited government allows us freedom. How do you get more government? Very simply, more taxes. The more money I take away from you, the more I control you. These people always want fewer taxes. These people want a weak defense every dime that they spend defending the country that they don't believe in and don't trust and think This is a waste of time Anyway, they want to open the borders and collapses value, those people don't want to spend any money on defense. Where these people want a strong defense. Now that causes Katie Couric to have a heart attack. She said why do you people always claim you claim you want limited government you want fewer taxes? But then you want a strong defense and the answer to that is yes, that's correct, you got it! Because limited government protects our freedom and fewer taxes protects our freedom and strong defense protects our freedom. And that's what government is supposed to do. And finally, here's this. If I am the standard, then I can say that marriage is between three men and a horse. And because I'm the standard, I can make it a hate crime for you to laugh at my definition of marriage. That's not a threat. That's the facts, Jack. If you call some man a man and he's decided that he's a woman, in New York City, you can be fined $250 per occurrent. Now, that gets to the next point of truth, whereas we recognize, now, if you know these four things, you show me where a person stands on passing out condoms in a classroom, and I will tell you within a 90% certainty where they stand on cutting the capital gains tax. Now, my father would say, hey, Bob, that's crazy. No, no, absolutely you can. It is a worldview. And the worldview leads to prosperity or not. And then the second one, the next thing is, Moses, when you have those that fear God, and then we have truth tellers. You don't want liars. So, this is the ingredient for the success of the country. But then if you're gonna have business, you and I cannot have business unless there's truth. Unless I can, when your sign a contract, you have to honor it. Anybody violates it, the government says you have honor it, that's what makes America wealthy. That's why. I tell these folks who come across the border from Latin America, why do you come here? Well, there are no jobs where I come from. Why are there no jobs? Well, nobody invests. Why does nobody invest? Because you steal, and they lie. And one of the major ingredients is, well, we'll get to that next. Let me quickly just touch on truth if I can. And you all know that the standard is from God. And I can say this room is 75 feet wide. You can say it's 65 feet wide, you can say its 50, you could say it is 45. We can talk about it, we have white papers, we can have a degree in it, we can get a PhD, and the way, I mean, some of the standards that they have at colleges is so absurd, but everybody's happy until someone comes and measures it, and that measurement is truth, and the significance of truth is that it reveals error, and so when I said it was 65 feet wide and they measure it and it's 57, everybody in the room knows what I said was wrong, Therefore, error hates truth. And those that said it was sixty-five, boy, we could all talk, but suddenly, once truth shows up, they all turn on the truth. That's why a little ninety-five-pound girl from Turning Point could show up at a college, they've had every crazy idiot in the world talk all the time, nobody cares. But once truth show up, then they have to have bodyguards and all the rest because error hates truth. And so the Islamists and the rainbow alphabet, they have nothing in common unless truth shows up. Unless Christ is mentioned, and then they all turn on it. That's why, as I say, you can pray in the name, at an inaugural, you pray in name of Mother Earth and eagle feathers, and nobody cares. But you pray, in the Name of Jesus Christ, all hell breaks loose because Satan knows where truth is. And so, when, and you can't learn without, well, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If you take God out of it, people, they can't tell a male from a female. I mean, they're lost. And so... When they founded Harvard, the theme was Veritas Christo Ecclesia. Truth is Christ in the church. So first of all, they did away with Christ part, and then it was Veritas Ecclesia. And then in the 1860s they did it away with Ecclésia, and so now it's just Veritas, which is truth. And here's what the president said when she took office. It said  "the Veritas or truth in Harvard's shield", this is in her inaugural address, "was originally intended to invoke the absolutes of divine revelation in Puritan religion. We understand it quite differently now. We've progressed beyond all of those things. Truth is an aspiration, not a possession. Yet in this we, and all universities defined by the spirit of debate and free inquiry, challenge," and here's what I underlined and here is what I want you to see. "We" , she proudly said, "we threaten those who would embrace unquestioned certainties." In other words, we hate truth. That's how she becomes president of Harvard. And that's how those people can't tell a dog from a tree. And so enough of the truth part. And then when Charlie used to talk about how people would aggravate, why do you care if I want to call myself a woman? And it's because truth, because it's not true. So if a person says that they're Napoleon, don't tell me I have to call you Bonaparte because I'm lying. Or what's worse, I'm not I'm not joking I'm telling truth. He says I'm not only I'm not only Napoleon; I'm Josephine I'm Napoleon and Josephine both. And I went and I put on my college signature they/them. Just in case you didn't know I was demon possessed, you need to know there's more than one of me. And there's a political party that is dedicated to doing that to our country. And our founders said, Moses, you don't want liars in your government. And finally, is this, I've told you spiritually what to do. I've taught you business-wise what to do economically. And now here we have to talk about this, Moses. I've only got three things to tell you. This is it. You don't want people that are socialists. Socialism will destroy this operation. Socialism is taking from one group and give to another. And the degree to which you do that is the degree of which you create poverty. The more I take from that person who says, well, I'm not gonna produce if you're gonna steal it from me. And you give it to somebody who didn't produce it, they say, well, why should I produce if you were gonna hand it to me? And the agree to which do that is the agree of which create poverty! And it only works like that every time! When the communists- socialist took over in Chile, they said everybody's going to be paid the same regardless of what, you've always heard about this in colleges that you gave everybody the same grade, what happens? The people say why should you study because you're not going to help you any? And so, the grades just collapse and people don't know anything. The very first month the copper mines in Chile production fell 80 percent in 30 days. Just by saying that you're going to give everybody equal regardless of whether or not you're performing. Moses, don't do that! That would not be a good thing to do. And so America was founded on that. Final point and we'll go to questions. And that is, I want to talk about how is wealth created, and that does bug me, because a great deal of members of Congress do not know how wealth is created. And so, let's just quickly say, there's a car going down the street out here, there's two ways I can get money out of that car. Number one is called free enterprise, that's where I lay awake nights, dreaming up ways to do something good for the person... Such that they slam on their brakes and pull in, you're gonna wash my car and sweep the carpet and wash the windows and do the dashboard. I'm much more than have that than have this $20 bill. I much rather have this pair of shoes and have these hundred dollars. Under free enterprise, I figure out ways to do something good for them such that, they voluntarily, freely, reach in their pocket and make an exchange, which at the end of the exchange, they are both better off. They have created wealth. And if they don't, if they aren't, they don't make the exchange. They only make the exchange if they're better off, if they are wealthy. That's how wealth is created. I was raised Pentecostal, so I know that if you say something profound, you're supposed to say it three times. So let me say, that is the only way that wealth is created. That is the ONLY way. Now I said there are two ways to get money out of that car going down the street. The other is to stop at the parking lot. I come up knocking on the window and I say, I point a gun and I say, I want 50% of everything in your purse. Now, have I created any wealth? No. Have I redistributed wealth? Yes, thank you, Manswami, but the degree to which I am benefited is the degree to which the other person is diminished. No wealth is created. And when you do that, you create poverty. So socialism never has worked and never will work. The thing is about free enterprise, why does that little four percent do all the rest of these other things? Because let's take the richest man on the planet. The richest man, he was born in Africa. But he's here in America, because America, we don't work harder, we're not smarter, we're freer. It's the freedom that creates wealth. And when those people can escape from those socialist countries, they can come here and create wealth. So I was leaving the house one day and we're going to the airport and my son said to me, he said, Dad, you have that app that shows where your gate is on your plane. I said, what are you talking about, Robert? He said, and he showed me. I said you put in the number of your flight and it'll show you that when you land, what gate you're coming in, where you're going and how far it is. By the way, that's now incorporated in, but back in those days, you had to buy it, and it was 99 cents. And so I asked the question, is that worth 99 cents to me? Yeah, I had it on my phone for three years, number one. Number two, did they do that in hopes that I would not get lost in the Atlanta airport? Nope, they didn't care. Whoever made that hoped that a million of us would download it and they would become a millionaire. Now here's the significance of it. That is, Was it done by a six foot eight African-American male or a four foot-eleven Asian female? I care not a whit. Why? Because under free enterprise, you're rewarded not because of who you are, but because of what you do for others. And the greater the contribution, the greater, the wealth. That's why people could, the computers, I took computers in college. I had to tell you how old you had cards and it was a mess. And they came up with a thing called Windows. And my granddaughter is here. She's just turned 16. And I remember when she came and jumped up on a couch and sat and snuggled up next to me with an iPad, and she sat there and downloaded stuff while I'm watching the news, just to be with her. And she could run a computer better than I could as a 40-year-old because of what made that possible. The greater the contribution, the greater the wealth. That man that did that became the richest man in the world. And they were all Americans because they do that. So it's essential that before we elect people to office, who know how to steal... See, just because you used Internal Revenue to steal it, that doesn't make any difference for what you're doing. You're stealing from a productive person and punishing that person. And America is the richest nation on Earth because it does less of that than any other nation. And if you understand that, you can make any rich place poor. You can make, when I was young, the richest city in the history of mankind was a place called Detroit, Michigan. Wasn't close, by the way, by nearly a fifth, 18%. And now it's the poorest city north of the Rio Grande. Do you like those people? They can make any rich place poor or they can make poor place rich. You've got to, you understand all that. Let's go on to your final point. We're rewarded for a portion of our contribution to others because of what we do, not because of who we are. And that's what Democrats always want to talk about the group that you belong to. They never say Americans. They always talk about blacks and Hispanics and this and that and the other thing. People into groups. We don't care about that. We are made in the image of God, and the greatest thing that can be American, and back to my principle again, being an American, by the way, is spiritual. You cannot physically, you can go to Japan, you can't be Japanese, go to China, can't Chinese, but anybody can become American, why? Because American is spiritual, it's what you stand for and what you believe in. Let me just close up by saying as to what happened when we chose new leadership last fall. You take the rare earth things, see the Chinese were thinking while we were sleeping. And so, they went and got all the stuff that was necessary for computers and for communication, the rare earth. And they gathered it all together and we surrendered and let them do it. We let the environmentalists come in and say, you can't mine it and you can produce it. So China said two weeks ago that anybody who used rare earths that were mined or processed, 93% of all processing rare earth was done by China. If you had mined it or processed it, you couldn't use it without their approval. Toyota, Samsung, everybody else. And we have a president who got on an airplane and went to eight countries and signed up agreements because rare earths are not that rare by the way and they said we're going to do it outside of that we're gonna do it on our own. And he made deals all throughout for starting at Japan and Korea and throughout Asia and said we'll do it regardless. And you know what China did last Friday? Said forget that idea, that really wasn't real good. We were real good about that. Let me just say that we are on the threshold of a wonderful time. The the governor of Montana filled in for Charlie Kirk the other day and gave the whole plan of salvation and told people they need to get right with God in this place, standing ovation and cheering. We're on the threshold of a great time. We almost missed it AI as we said is coming in order to have AI in America artificial intelligence in order to have enough electrical power we have to increase it by 30% By 2027, 100% by 2030. And you know there isn't a public utilities commission in the country that would allow that to happen. And thank God we had a president that said, I know that, they'll sue you forever and they'll have the environmentalists on your back. Here's what I'm gonna do. You go ahead and build your AI. You make your own power plant. You put your own nuclear fuel and I will certify you from a national basis as a utility and we'll bypass all those folks. And if that didn't happen, America would be finished. China was gonna go ahead and leave us in the dust. And because of that, we're leaving China in the dust, and when Trump went into Iran, you notice that nobody said a word. China didn't say word one, none of the Arab countries said, they said America is right and we're standing with it. He went to Egypt last week to sign a piece of paper. He's on the ground less than four hours. Just because he was doing that people said, I wanna be there. Over thirty heads of state, the prime minister of Great Britain, the president of France, the president of Indonesia, the fourth largest nation on earth, the president, Pakistan, the sixth largest nation on earth said we're gonna nominate him for the peace prize. They came there just to stand, not to say anything, not to do anything, just to be close to the head of America. Eighteen months ago, we had a man who was sleeping on the beach and people walked by, wouldn't even pay a bit of attention. America is coming back. We're on the threshold of a great time. God bless. 

Rick Green [00:26:32] All right, everybody, out of time for today, of course. That was Bob McEwen, wrapping up at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference. We'll have more of these fantastic presentations for you over the next few weeks and months. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilders Show.