What Nature Teaches About Rights And Responsibility

TSA delays, shutdown threats, and airport security drama raise a bigger question than most headlines admit: who should be responsible for keeping travelers safe, and what does the Constitution actually allow? We dig into the growing push to privatize TSA-style screening, why some lawmakers argue airports or airlines should carry more of the burden, and how accountability changes when government runs a system versus when a private operator runs it under a clear standard. Along the way, we talk candidly about what travelers experience on the ground, why effectiveness matters more than optics, and why a “Chick-fil-A run the line” joke lands because people are hungry for competence. 

We also tackle the confusion around ICE at airports and the way social media can turn routine law enforcement into instant political theater. Words like “police state” and “fascist” get thrown around fast, so we slow down and define terms. If we want honest debate about immigration enforcement, homeland security, and public safety, we have to start with reality instead of outrage. We connect that to the Senate funding fight and the deeper issue underneath it: politicians rarely change course until voters make the consequences real. 

Then we shift gears into one of the most important lines in the Declaration of Independence: “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” What are those laws beyond self-defense? We share a practical way to think about natural law through observation and Scripture, including why Job 38 is a powerful crash course in learning from creation. If you care about constitutional government, biblical worldview, and everyday policies that affect real families, this conversation ties them together. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway from the TSA and natural law discussion.

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders Show. We take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. We appreciate you coming along for the ride and for helping with the direction by sending in questions. You can send those to radio@wallbuilders.com radio@wallbuilder.com and on Thursdays, just like today, we'll do Foundations of Freedom Thursday, which means we'll answer as many of your questions as we possibly can. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton to find out more, go to wallbuilders.com. And then to listen to the radio program or share the radio program, go to wallbuilders.show. I guess you can actually listen there as well. But if you'd like to share links with your friends and family, that's the easiest place to do it at wallbuilders.show David and Tim, we've got lots of questions to get to. First one's from Nicholas. He said, greetings WallBuilder's trio. Hope you are all having a great day. I appreciate all you do. My friends were talking recently with the issues going on with TSA. With them not being paid. At what point do you think airports are going to stop taking federal money and start privatizing? How would that change things? Is that constitutional? Thanks. All right, Nicholas, great question. I know, guys, as much as we travel. Now, I don't know about the two of you. I haven't asked you the last few days. I've been so blessed. I didn't have anything on the calendar over the last week. So, I've at the campus all week long and didn't have to fight the lines. How about y'all? Have y' all had to deal with a lot of TSA lines during all this? 

David Barton [00:01:27] So for me, I haven't seen really any change. I mean, I've been able to go through the lines. Lines have been short and with the ICE guys now coming in, they say that it's probably gonna be about the same, except now the ICE guys will be able to arrest illegals and arrest people with criminal records, which TSA couldn't do. So, I guess this is a new way of also expanding the ability to pick up criminals who are walking freely in the streets. So, we'll see what that does. You know, that'll be kind of interesting if you see an arrest going on in an airport. That's going to be kind of unusual and new, but nonetheless, I don't see much difference in. Tim, have you seen difference? 

Tim Barton [00:02:01] Well, and I do want to clarify, we have seen not personally necessarily, but people do get arrested at airports sometimes. They get unruly on a plane, they get drunk, they're ridiculous, and so arrests do happen. And I say that because there was a big social media viral thing this week of somebody being arrested by ICE at an airport, but as the report indicated, it had nothing to do with ICE helping with TSA, get people through, et cetera. And I say that again, because there are some people I'm hearing, Republicans right now saying, man, we're in a police state. It's, it's crazy right now. And, and Trump is being this communist fascist, et cetera. And again, this is coming from people that have long been identified as conservative Republican, and that's absolutely not what's happening with ICE going in the airports. We see in many cases and occasions this week; the videos have been posted. You see ICE actually handing out bottles of water to people as they're coming through lines, you see people, many of them that look like maybe the America was not the nation of their birth, that they have broken English, but they're now American citizens and they're saying, we love ICE, we're so grateful for ICE. So, I have not, first of all, I have not seen the interruption because in Dallas, Fort Worth, there, thank God, are enough agents who, I don't know how they're doing this, not getting paid. We've seen reports that people are having to sell their vehicles to continue to pay their mortgage, that they're having to go to food and soup kitchens to get food, to feed their family. So it's horrific conditions, which we'll get into later of why that is going on and really who should be a blame and what the solution is. But I haven't been delayed necessarily. A couple of flights I've done in the last week or two. Have not been as bad as some of the airports where they're reporting the several hours of delay So bless the Lord, I've not had to deal with that yet. But also, Dad, as you're saying, you know, ICE is able to arrest some of these really bad people. Police officers are made arrest already before ice was there and again, I'm saying this to defuse the argument accusation from conservatives or Republicans that says Trump is now being a fascist because he has ICE there etc., etc. It's as silly to me as when some of the Democrats say, well, we don't want ICE anywhere near a election poll site because we don't want them to interfere with elections. And if all they're doing is making sure it's Americans that are voting, well then who do you think they're going to interfere with? It's just some of this is just silly, accusatory, political kind of positioning that's not reflective of reality. 

David Barton [00:04:38] And by the way, I've got to throw out those who are thrown around the definition of fascist, don't know what it is because fascist is not because you strong arm or something fascist means is the government cooperating with private entities to do government business. And that's not what you have with these public airports. That's not, what you have with Trump doing this. That is not a, the government taking over private enterprise or private entities because the TSA agents were also government agents as well. So, I'll just point out that's a really bad use of the term fascist. And it just kind of indicates that people really don't know what that is anymore. They're just throwing it around as a pejorative kind of an insult. 

Rick Green [00:05:16] Well, so let's go to the constitutional question guys. What about the TSA and privatization? I'm hearing more and more of this. Mike Lee's been posting quite a bit about it, senator from Utah, the one that's actually pushing the save act right now. Just talking about, you know, Hey, this should, this should be going back to the, to the airport security and the airlines paying for it  and, you that, that  they, I think I saw one post might've been Matt Walsh, I can't remember who it was said, I don't know if this is or not, basically 80% of the tests, what do they call it when they basically stress test a system and 80% of the time the weapon got through the, you know, through the line. Which I can't, I don't want to admit how many times my boys or me have had a pocket knife get through security on the other side and realize we've got it and going, Oh, wow. I'm glad they didn't catch that. What do I do with it now? Anyway, big topic here, I guess. I, I, don't know. I've never asked you guys what you thought about TSA and whether or not the Fed should do it or the airport security or what's best. 

Tim Barton [00:06:14] Well, guys, one of the things that we have long held and still believe is that one of things, I think Jefferson was attributed to saying this, Lincoln repeated it, that government should only do for us what we can't do for ourselves. And anytime the government gets involved, you know, a little bit like what Ronald Reagan said, the most terrifying words in English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Generally speaking, the government does not solve more problems. They create more problems, especially when they get outside of their biblically created jurisdiction and their constitutional boundaries. And certainly, the idea that we want to be secure, make sure it'll sense it. That's part of the role of government. What's happening with TSA is not effective. Rick, to your point, not just pocket knives, there was a couple of years ago when I showed up at an event in another state and I looked at my bag and I had a loaded mag in my bag and I literally, and it was, it was defense rounds and so at the event. I asked the event host, I was like, hey, who here shoots 9-millimeter and would like, you know, 15 rounds? 

Rick Green [00:07:18] You should have done a trivia question, like from the States. Hey, I'm gonna give away this magazine if you can answer who this founder was. 

Tim Barton [00:07:25] I mean, that would have actually been awesome. I should have done that. I did a little key, because I was like, I can't believe, I found it in my bag and I was flying out the next morning. But to your point, it's not that the TSA agents are bad people, but the whole infrastructure government system, when government is operating, controlling, directing things, especially outside of some of their bands of jurisdiction, it's great, but even within the lines of their jurisdiction. Milton Friedman, you should talk about this all the time, about how any time the government does something, it's going to cost twice as much and be less effective and efficient than if it was privatized. So, to Senator Lee's point, I think there absolutely is a way that this could be privatized, it could be done very well, very effectively, and not only save taxpayers' dollars, but be more efficient in the whole process. One of the great memes I saw around this week was I think Babylon Bee is the one I did it; is that the way to solve the TSA problem is just put Chick-fil-A employees in charge of the lines and, you know, they would just they would streamline that thing no problem. 

Rick Green [00:08:31] And they'd say, my pleasure after you went through instead of you filming, yeah. 

Tim Barton [00:08:35] That's it. Well, yeah, the pat downs might be different coming from Chick-fil-A employees and TSA, not to digress, but yes, certainly I think the position that I hold and I would assume the rest of us do is anytime you can remove things from the federal government and get them in private hands, you're going to tend to be more effective and efficient in the whole process. Dad, what do you think? 

David Barton [00:08:57] Well, it's interesting because going back, even what Mike said, Mike Lee, that, you know, the, the airport should pay for this. The airline should pay for it. Even he is not saying take it away or take it out. It's just saying, hey, let's shift the burden to who pays for this. And this is an interesting thing because when you get into this public/private kind of argument, that Nicholas has raised here. We already have a ton of private airports. Look, I have a private pilot's license and I can fly out of private airports all the time. It's the public airports that have all the regulations to them. As you have a lot of traffic going through, a lot a public traffic going through this public safety stuff. But still, even in private airports, I've got requirements. I mean, my plane, every 100 hours or once a year has to go through an annual. They have to do an inspection check on it so that while I'm flying somewhere, it's not gonna be in such bad shape like some pickups going down the road that's gonna fall apart in the air and rain on somebody's house and kill a family or whatever. So, there's all these safety requirements that are generally out there. The fact is, though, you don't have TSA at those private airports. You have TSA at the public airports where you have a bulk of people going through. And we do this another thing. I mean, we even do it on our interstates; the local communities can decide what the speed limit is, but they can't decide which side of the road you drive on. We have some uniform laws that bring some consistency, but then past that, you have local choices. 

Tim Barton [00:10:22] Well, and Dad too, I think it's different to say, maybe different standards, different airports, which is not what the argument would be from us, but rather if you're looking at who, who is in charge of TSA, when the federal government is in charged, there's different levels of accountability, right? The accountability structure is different. The efficiency, the effectiveness is different, so even if you kept TSA but you put somebody else in charge, it's a little bit like when Elon Musk took over Twitter, right. It's virtually the same app, but when you have different leadership, and you have different standards, you end up having a very different outcome. And as he went in right with the kitchen sink, which was just great walking in, showing right what he was going to do. 

Rick Green [00:11:02] I remember that scene. Yeah.

Tim Barton [00:11:03] It was so great. And, and he removed so many people from Twitter. He removed so much of what they were doing because he saw how ineffective and inefficient it was, how much money was going to employees who were virtually doing nothing for the company. And when he removed a lot of the, the woke, the virtue signaling, the DEI, et cetera, et cetera, not only was he able to maintain, he improved what was there. Even though it was again, X largely Twitter's largely the same thing. And I think you could do something very similar with TSA, but if you remove it from government's kind of autonomy where government's controlling it and you privatize it then you could have different people in charge it would run differently effectively more efficiently etc. etc. So I don't disagree with you that we don't want there to be different standard at different airports necessarily i think it makes sense there's a uniform standard to some extent but, when you have a different entity that's in charge and maybe they have a little bit more of the DOGE mindset, the business structure, the effectiveness, the efficiency, et cetera, I think there could be a very different and a better result certainly than what we have now. 

Rick Green [00:12:13] Well, before we leave that one and go to our next question, what do y'all think about just this, the Senate deal or the process that they're going through right now? I mean, people need to be reminded these lines are happening because Democrats literally want to stop our government from deporting rapists, murderers, you know, gang members, other illegals. That's what this whole fight has been about. So this lack of funding for DHS and TSA and, and, and ICE and everything is it's all really about Democrats wanting to the deportation of the worst of the worst illegal immigrants. And apparently the deal that's, that might be made will fund TSA, but not fund the immigration, you know, enforcement that President Trump's trying to do. So, before we leave the question, your thoughts on where that's at in the Senate and just how crazy this is, cause Democrats 20 years ago would not have done this. That they, they were also saying that we should not allow for these people and should be deporting them. So it's just a weird moment, but anyway, the Senate process for getting this done. Thought y'all might address that. 

David Barton [00:13:14] Well, it's a weird moments, a weird process, it's weird thinking that we're even talking about. We're not going to fund law enforcement because we want people to break the law and get away with it and not be punished for it, which literally is what the Democrats are doing. But they will be able to keep doing that unless they get punished in the elections, unless the country itself. I mean, we had a special election this week in Virginia where that a Democrat was elected to Congress to fill out the term of a plus 11 Republican district. And if you're going to have results like that, Democrats feel empowered and they'll keep doing stupid stuff as long as people allow them to do stupid stuff with no consequences. So, at this point, I think that whether in my opinion, what the Democrats are doing is very bad, not enforcing laws that are proper laws that actually punishing lawbreakers. I know. I can be a law breaker for reading the Bible if there's a law says I can't read the Bible. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about where you literally violate the rights of others and we have the high percentage of illegal immigrants that are committing crimes and are being deported and even Democrats are, you know, protecting them and they're getting them released back in the community even after several convictions. That's a whole different thing. But whether they can get away with that and at this point I have seen nothing That would cause the Democrats to think that they're going to pay a price for the position they've taken in the Senate and if they're not going to play a price I don't see anything changing particularly in the Senate on this this is a philosophical logjam. And the old axiom goes you don't you don't see the light till you feel the heat. They have felt no heat and so they're not going see the lie yet or feel like they need to alter their positions until they start feeling some public heat. 

Tim Barton [00:15:01] Well, guys, one of the things I think, too, in the midst of this analysis is that there's a lot of discouragement and suppression on the Republican side, and partly because you have these so-called conservative voices that have become very anti-Trump, or they're saying that, right, he's stolen MAGA and he's not the real MAGA, et cetera. So, there's a suppression on their Republican side. But the reason that I think this matters is when we talk about politicians, oftentimes they need to feel the heat. Right that they need to feel the pressure before they see the light. Well, right now, it's overwhelming 70/80% of Americans support having a voter ID to vote. And yet, even though that's where the majority of the American people are, Dad, to your point, the Democrats have not changed their position, because they have not felt the consequence of their different direction by any kind of electoral process. So, because people are still voting for them. They don't feel a reason to stop being crazy and start supporting what the vast overwhelming majority of American support that you're a U S citizen. Yet you have a voter ID and those two are basic requirements for you to be able to vote. It shouldn't be controversial, but because that's your point, they are winning elections, maintaining crazy positions, they're not incentivized to change, even though the majority of the American people are. And at this point, I would really encourage and challenge Christians who are listening and I'm not saying Republicans or Democrats, I'm saying Christians, although I would challenge, I don't know how you could be a Christian and support some of the Democrat positions. I don't know how you can be a Christian and support abortion and transgender in kids and write the gender mutilating surgeries, etc. I don't know you can be Christian to support that but not to digress in that. If Christians just recognize their call, their God-given duty and responsibility to say, I've been given a stewardship of the place where I live, I want to steward it well, so I'm going to choose the best of these candidates, which is always going to be the lesser of two evils, but who is the best of those two options I have? Or if it's a primary, you might have many more options. But when Christians don't show up and vote, it allows nonsense to progress and continue because Dad, again, to your point, when people are winning elections, having crazy positions and doing ungodly things they have no incentivization to stop. Because they keep getting elected. And this is where, again, I would point back to Christians and say, everybody, just a reminder, some states are still having primaries coming up. Some states gone through primaries, like in Texas, we have runoffs that are coming up, we need to make sure that we don't sit out of an election because we're frustrated, we're discouraged, we don't like somebody. We've been given a stewardship and we are responsible to steward well this responsibility we have for helping lead our free nation, because the Constitution identifies we the people are in charge. We are the ones that determine the direction of this nation, but if we don't vote, if we do not help put the right people in place, then ultimately what we are doing is we are turning it over to people that have a different worldview. Generally speaking, we would say they're ungodly people that are choosing these elected officials that promote ungodly things, and that's why our nation's in trouble. We can't sit out because we're frustrated or discouraged. We have to make sure we keep showing up to vote. 

Rick Green [00:18:16] That is certainly foundational and a good topic for Foundations of Freedom Thursday. We're going to take a quick break. We'll come back more of your questions as we're going to break, you know, just pointing out, hey, immigration, you know, securing the border, removing illegals, that's a legitimate function of the federal government under the constitution. That's one of the things that's unquestionable. They should be doing while the TSA thing we could debate, but man, one of few things they're supposed to do and the Democrats don't want to fund it. Crazy, crazy. All right, let's take a break. We'll be right back. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:19:51] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show, Foundations of Freedom Thursday today. Let's see. Next question comes from Nelson in North Carolina. Nelson, now this might be Nelson Long, great friend and supporter of both of our ministries. And, and I love the fact that he has huge flags outside his business. I've seen the picture. So, Nelson, if that's you, thank you for what you're doing. Great question too. The Declaration recognizes that God entitles the people with the laws of nature. One law is the right to defend ourselves. What are some of these other laws of nature. And is there a book to learn more about the laws of nature? So, guys, he's referred, of course, to that, that, in the first paragraph of the declaration, the laws of nature, nature's God, what do we say? 

David Barton [00:20:29] You know, the laws of nature, nature's God, I think it's really interesting. I think a lot of that is observable by observation. The scripture tells us there's nothing that we can't know about God through studying what He's created. So the scriptures are real clear on that, but very rarely do we sit down and take time to contemplate. You know if we got time, we're on social media, we're busting through emails, whatever we're doing. And very rarely you just go out and for example, sit down at the corner of a cow pasture and look over the pasture and sit there for two hours and think about all the things that you can see and what do they tell you and what are you doing? So the time to contemplate, I would say that growing up farming, ranching, country life, the kind of stuff we've had, I've seen a lot of things that stir me, but at the same time I'm always looking to see what I can find. So, I don't really know that there's a good work on the laws of nature and nature's God. Much of that is observable. The founding fathers wrote about it based on observation. They would point to creation as indications. But I was just, you know, with Nelson asking this question, I just went through and started writing down things that I know from nature that are laws of nature and nature is God. Self-defense is one. In nature, I don't care whether you're a mouse or whether you’re a lion. If somebody tries to hurt you or mess with you, you're going to fight back, you're gonna do this. So, law of self-defense is one. 

Tim Barton [00:22:00] And Dad, for everybody who is listening, if you wanna go read the Founding Fathers, they called it the law of self-preservation or the right of self-preservation, which ultimately is what self-defense is. But the reason I bring it up is a little bit like one of the reasons we will read the King James Bible often in our Bible reading and Bible study. It's not just because we like King James' Bible, although we do, but it's because that is the Bible the Founding Fathers were the most familiar with that utilized the most. And so much of their quoting of the Bible is in the King James language. And so when you're familiar with the language they use, it's easier to see, identify and recognize. And so if you're reading the Founder's writings, look for when they talk about self-preservation, sometimes they say self-defense, but self-preservation is one of those things that is very evident in their writings. 

David Barton [00:22:46] You know, and it's interesting too, if you go to the last chapters of Job, after Job and his friends, if you know the story of Job. Job was the righteous, godly guy. He went through some terrible tribulations because Satan in heaven had a conversation with God and said, well, you know, if you'll turn against Job and hurt him or hurt his family, he'll turn again to you. And God said, no, he won't. I know Job better than that. So, Job went through a lot of things that are inexplicably unjust to us. If we were just observing and saying, man. I can't believe Job just lost his whole family. I can believe Job lost his health. I can belief Job lost as wealth. We wouldn't know what was going on in heaven where the God's saying, see, I told you, he's not gonna renounce his faith just because of what happened. So, if you're not aware that there are oftentimes spiritual things going in the heavens that you're aware of, then you can't understand what seems to be fair and unfair and just and unjust in this life. So, after all this happens, you go through 37 chapters of Job just getting his brains beat in by every possible scenario situation. His friends turn against him. His friends say, you must be ungodly to have this much bad stuff going your life. It's all there. And then God finally shows up in chapter 38 and said, none of you know what you're talking about. And He says, don't you understand? And so, from Job 38 to the end of the book, all He does is give them lessons out of nature. He says, haven't you ever seen the way the horse does this? Haven't you seen the way? And He just goes from animal to animal to animal giving lessons. And He didn't give them the theological treatise. It became a theological treatise, but He did it by pointing to His own creation and the lessons He had put there. And so that's one of the great books. If you want to get time to introduce the laws of nature and nature's God, read the book of Job and get frustrated for 37 chapters and then let God show up in chapter 38 and sit you straight by pointing you to nature and so many examples. And so, the Founding Fathers did that. Other things that I've noticed is once there's conception; you have a right to be born. I don't know of anything, I can't find an example in nature of once something is conceived that is terminated through an unnatural process. There may be miscarriages or other things, even in nature that happens with cattle and other things but once there is conception, there is a right be born in nature. there's only two genders in nature, all mammals, there's only to genders, there's no other options. There there's procreation and it's in the sense that they produce children. Producing children is a natural part of nature. You don't see single, solitary things unless you're an eagle that loses your mate and then you'll be single for the rest of your life. There's some species that are monogamous. They mate with the same for life, others don't, but they do have children. That's part of the laws of nature, they also form a society, they're not isolated, solitary. They will have interactions with others of their species. And so, there's this social element that of the herds They also have self-determination They determine what they're going to do and what they are going to be and if they get out of bounds. There is accountability other others in that herd will discipline those that get out-of-bounds. So, there's just so many things you can point to I mean, savings accounts are part of nature, whether it's alligators or whether it beavers or mountain lions or ants, they store up their provision so they have savings accounts. They understand they're gonna need stuff on in the future. So, there's just a lot of things you can point to from the laws of nature. I don't know of a great book, but observation is a great starting place. And then reading the Bible and Job 38 on and then other books about the laws of nature would be good places to start. 

Rick Green [00:26:21] And wallbuilders.com, of course, go there and search through those articles as well. And in Constitution Alive, I recall David teaching on this when we were first recording that years ago. So good stuff in there as well, all of it available at wallbuilders.com. Thank you for the questions today, folks. We are out of time. We've got more questions we'll hit next Thursday. Don't miss tomorrow. Got a lot of good news to share with you on Good News Friday. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.