Civics Before Committee Power

What if we stopped pretending “anyone can lead” means “no one needs to know the basics”? We dig into a listener-driven idea with real constitutional teeth: you cannot add extra requirements to be elected to Congress beyond what the Constitution already lists, but leadership can absolutely decide who gets committee assignments, chairmanships, and real influence. If you want the gavel, prove you understand the country you are governing.

From there, we explore why the U.S. citizenship test keeps coming up in this conversation about civic literacy. Immigrants often learn enough in a short course to pass at high rates, while American students can struggle with the same material after years of schooling. That contrast raises hard questions about civics education, constitutional knowledge, and what we should reasonably expect from lawmakers in a constitutional republic.

We also pivot to two fascinating listener questions: whether everyday citizens have the right to investigate a decades-old crime and what that looks like without police powers, and whether Freemasons truly shaped the founding the way conspiracy stories claim. We talk history, primary-source context, George Washington’s actual connection, and why Freemasonry in the 1700s is not the same as modern Masonry, even if the name sounds familiar.

If you care about the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, faith and culture, and practical ways to rebuild civic understanding, share this conversation, subscribe, and leave a review so more people can find it. What standard would you set for committee leadership?

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's the WallBuilders Show on a Thursday. So we're getting to your questions. If you'd like to send one in, you can send it to radio@wallbuilders.com. It's radio@wallbuilders.com. We call it Foundations of Freedom Thursday, which just simply means we return to some of those foundational questions that you're interested in with regard to the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the Declaration, maybe even some of the issues going through Congress right now or your state legislature, or even locally. Send those questions into radio@wallbuilders.com. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And guys, we will dive right in. First question today is a bit of a, a reminder of some previous questions we've had on this very issue. But Joel says, Aloha, not Joel from Davenport, but Orlando. Now I don't know why I thought aloha meant it was like Hawaii. So I'm confused, but anyway, he says, while there are limited items before the election, might this be something the speaker and leader won't allow assignments to committees of the reps or senators unless they take a constitutional course and pass the naturalization exam. Would that be a possible option? All right, guys. So we've stirred the pot on this question and gotten several from the audience and we've, uh, we've tossed it around a couple of Thursdays in a row. So here we go again. What about committee assignments being based on? 

David Barton [00:01:23] This one is part three and it does go back to people said hey can we just say you can't be elected to Congress unless you can pass the immigration test and we went through; no, the Constitution tells exactly what it takes, what age you have to be, how long you have be in the country and you can add anything other than what the Constitution says. And so then there was a second question the next week said, well how about doing this at the state level and no you can do it there because the state Constitution also defines it. And so this is iteration number three. And this one, I think, is actually very good for what you can do. You could, now the Constitution gives the stipulations for what's required to hold office. And it doesn't say you have to be smart. It doesn't you have be literate. It doesn't say you can be anything other than dumb. There's nothing like that. It just gives you specifications, but that's the end of it. But now it says, all right, once you get elected, could maybe the leadership of the House keep you from holding a committee or a committee assignment unless you can pass an immigration test? And that you could do. The Constitution says that each body gets to set its rules for that body under the things that the Constitution requires. So other than being 25 or 35 or a citizen for five years or whatever, now you could get to this. And we've already seen this happen in some of the state legislatures. I think it was Tennessee when they were doing a redistricting in Tennessee a month ago the Democrats went crazy and got up and jumped on their desk and danced and yelled and shouted and used megaphones in the ears of Republicans. And so the Speaker of the House just simply said, okay, you've all lost every committee assignment you have. You no longer serve on any committee. You're a member of the house, but you don't get to do any work on committees. That is okay. You can do that. You can hold the committees out and say, we can't keep you from being elected. Your people put you here but we can keep you from having any influence or power inside this body once you get here other than the right to vote. You can't take away their right to vote on things. So that's where we finally have come to one that yes, you could do this, if you want to make sure that I mean you can even have a literacy test not only a civic literacy test maybe we ought to have a basic ABCs test and make sure you can read before you get here you know that's not required by the Constitution because that was never you'd have people like that. But we're at a point today where you just don't know anymore. So great question, great follow-up, but we finally got to something the Constitution would permit you to do, and that is you could withhold committee positions, committee assignments, committee chairs, other things, unless you could show yourself to be literate, and that would be a great thing for state legislatures to do.

Rick Green [00:04:03]  Man, that would....I suggest, you know, if you're the speaker or the leader of a caucus, require them to take Constitution Alive with David Barton. I think that'd be a great way for those legislators to get educated. So Tim, what do you think is the citizenship test? Would that be the easiest way to do this? At least they'd have to know something. And I think most citizens probably couldn't pass the test, but at least it's some kind of thing to say, Hey, you want to be a chairman of a committee, we got to know you at least know as much as our immigrants know when they pass the citizenship tests. 

Tim Barton [00:04:30] Yeah, I think to assign committees and especially chairmanship, that makes a lot of sense to have some basic standards of civics or American education and knowledge. I think it's a great idea. You know, going back to the way we answered, a similar versions of this question earlier, that you really can have requirements, you just have to do it through constitutional amendments. And I do think there's a lot of things at this point in the Constitution that, unfortunately given the lack of basic education and understanding in our culture, we need to clarify some things, but at least in the short term, yes, having some kind of, of standard metric measurement for committee assignments and especially committee leadership, I fully support that. 

David Barton [00:05:15] And back, Rick, to the comment you made just before Tim about that citizenship test, I'm just gonna throw out that right now, if you come to America, the citizenship course lasts about three months. Now, you've gotta be here for five years before you can become a legal citizen, but you can take the course in three months, and right now 91% of immigrants who come to American pass that test on the first attempt. So three months you can know enough to be a citizen. There are now 12 states that use the same citizenship test as a high school exit exam. And right now, a high-school exit exam, only 4% of students can pass that immigration test as a school exam. So you're talking, people who've only been here three months know more than kids who have been here for 13, 14 years of school, and know much, much more. That 91% versus 4%, it is pretty unbelievable. I, it just almost seems like you have to be deliberately misteaching stuff to have a whole life lived here in America and you can't make but 4% on the immigration test. That that's just wild stuff. So that's how crazy it is right now. And that's why this whole discussion got started and people saying, well, can you require the immigration tests to be a congressman? Which yeah, you would hope so, but you would hope you'd have an immigration test just to be a high school graduate. And if you were a high-school graduate that knew the test, that would help you qualify to be a congressman. So I don't think the Founders ever believed it was possible to come to the level of civic illiteracy that we have now. It's just, it's unbelievable. 

Rick Green [00:06:55] Well, I could see where that would be, you know, pretty easy to sell, actually, if you say, hey, if it's got to be passed by immigrants that come here and high school students of 12 states have to take it, hey, come on, state reps and state senators, you're just taking a high school test. And then you can be a chairman of a committee. Anyway, definitely civic literacy absolutely needed in our country. And certainly, by those who are going to make laws under our constitutional republic, they should know that that Constitution as well. Okay, next one's coming from let's see Robert. He said, I'll listen to the podcast daily. I also love Adventures in Odyssey. Even though my kids are grown, I still listen to them. Anyway, there was an episode from several years ago, the mid to late 1980s. 

Tim Barton [00:07:31] I know what he's going to say. I haven’t even read the question. I know what is he is going to say!

Rick Green [00:07:32]  Oh, you know what he's gonna say, what is he going to say? Okay, Tim has not seen the question. So, Tim, you get to guess. 

Tim Barton [00:07:40] Now, Rick, for clarity’s sake, is this something he's saying that he thinks is wrong, that they made a point or argument? Because I have some friends that are in the religious liberty side of attorneys, and there's one or two of actually one specific Adventures and Odyssey where like, that's totally wrong. They totally messed that up. Now, if it's some of the history ones, that's different, so, I jumped, I put this cart way in front of the horse, but I was like, oh, if he's about to complain, I know the exact episode he's gonna talk about. But if you're gonna ask like the history of you know, the Lincoln or the Star-Spangled Banner, some of their really fun American history episodes, then, then I don't know what he's going to ask. So, let me back up and say, I have no idea, but if it's a complaint, I have a strong suspicion which one it is. 

Rick Green [00:08:23] I just think it's fun that you got so excited about Adventures in Odyssey. If our, if our listeners could have seen you jumping up and down on the studio desk and waving, then they would know that you must have grown up listening to a lot of Adventures in Odyssey. 

Tim Barton [00:08:36] I'm just so glad that my kids are old enough now that I can share it with them. So I don't have to listen to it in the car by myself anymore. Now we can listen to do it together. Have I gone to iTunes and purchase basically every album from Adventures and Odyssey? Yes, I have. And so, I, I still to this day, enjoy a good Adventure and Odyssey every now and then. 

Rick Green [00:08:57] You and Robert, both of you for sure. So Robert, now back to your question, Robert, if you're listening today. You said, anyway, there was an episode from several years ago, mid to late 80s, called The Case of the Secret Room. In it, a police investigator is refusing to investigate a case that would be considered a cold case, I guess. Someone was murdered in the 1940s and John Avery Whittaker, everyone calls him Whit, is upset. He says, no one holds the inspector and the police in higher regard than he does. To make a long question set up short, The police refused to investigate the decades-old case. So Whit says he has no choice except to exercise his right as a citizen and investigate the case himself. So do citizens have such a right? Thanks Robert from Delaware, Ohio. All right, Robert, great question. I don't know the answer to this question, so I'm going to toss it over to the Bartons. And the first question is, Tim, did you ever listen to that Adventures in Odyssey? 

Tim Barton [00:09:48] I know that exact one. That is definitely not what I was thinking of. I was, thinking when it was, it was like Connie's graduation from high school. And she was really torn. Cause this was back, this was before the Coach Kennedy decision, which happened in 2022, which overturned the Lemon Decision. So, this is back when kids were being told, Hey, you can't talk about God. Or mention Jesus at graduation. And Connie was really, torn with, well, I need to honor my officials. Like the Romans 13, you have to obey everybody in authority. But I want to honor Jesus. So, like, how do I find the balance? And where she landed was that she did not want to challenge the authority. And so, my friends with the religious liberty law background, I, when I listened to it, I emailed them, this was just recently, cause I don't remember that one as a kid. I listened to that one is an adult and I was like, guys, What were, what were they doing at Focus on the Family for this episode? This is terrible advice to tell kids not to mention Jesus in their high school graduation speeches. Anyway, not to digress, I definitely know the one Robert's referring to. It's not the one I was thinking of, but anyway, I am not the lawyer. I have strong opinions about this. 

Rick Green [00:10:57] The fact that you even remember Connie's name though, come on. I mean, that's impressive. You, you must've listened to that one recently. That's pretty good. I'm sorry. I digress. I'm just, I'm impressed with your Adventures in Odyssey trivia knowledge. 

Tim Barton [00:11:11] Well, we did, my family, my girls, and I did listen to two episodes today in the car. So, this is really, it really is a fresh, normal part of our life to this point. 

Rick Green [00:11:23]  You guys know what's gonna happen, right? Since we've, you know, belabored this point a little bit, we're gonna get a ton of Adventures in Odyssey questions. And it's gonna be like a trivia stump Tim questions. I'm just kind of, you now, priming the pumpier audience. There you go. Those would be fun. Okay, so I would think you have, you know the right to investigate. What you don't have is police power. So, you can't like force people to ask question s. I don't know. What do you think, Dave?

David Barton [00:11:48]  Yeah, spot on. That's exactly it. You have the right to investigate. You don't have the tools. You can't do a subpoena. You can do a search warrant. You can get witnesses and put them under oath on charges of perjury. You can investigate, and that's what investigative journalism used to be. They go in and dig around and see what they can find and then they write a story about it. You can bring things to sunlight and a lot of times when you bring things to the sunlight. It causes officials to jump in and say, oh yeah, we were just looking at that. And it kind of spurs them to take action when they weren't gonna take action. So absolutely, you have the right to investigate, you have to right to go find the truth or try to get the truth. You just don't have all the tools in your arsenal. You can't compel people to testify or even put a threat of jail or contempt or anything else that they don't. You don't the right go in with search warrants and search and seizure. But you do have the rights to investigate. And that's what investigative journalism used to mean. That means a hatchet job and an attack and defamation, except you can't sue media for defamation anymore. And that why Judge Clarence Thomas and others want to go back and look at the Sullivan case and get it to where the average, common, ordinary people can be held accountable, including the media, can be hold accountable for not telling the truth when they do it in a broad way, in a media setting that causes defamation. Right now they're exempt from so much of that. But yeah, you were right. You guys are right. You definitely can do that. You just don't have the tools at your disposal that the law enforcement has. 

Rick Green [00:13:23] So, what you're saying is that Whit in Adventures and Odyssey is actually Nick Shirley and that Nick Shirley is out there doing the investigative journalism thing and so we need to get Nick Shirley on to find out if he grew up Listening to Adventures and Odyssey just to bring this whole thing full circle. Quick break. We'll be right back folks. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show  

Rick Green [00:14:49] Thanks for staying with us. Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It is Foundations of Freedom Thursday. So we're taking your questions. Send them in, especially the stump Tim on Adventures in Odyssey questions. I'm looking forward to seeing those. OK, Laurie's got the next question. She says, I was recently at a gathering where one woman was praying for our country and she prayed against the influence that the Masons had in the founding of our nation. She mentioned George Washington by name in connection with the Mason's. I have often heard of WallBuilders talk about Washington's Christian faith, but I don't remember you ever mentioning the Masons. Please comment on the Masons, their influence, if any, on the founding and any connection George Washington had with the Masons. So I know, I know you got a great answer to this, David, Tim, both of you. I do want to recommend people get the resource because you opened my eyes on this issue big time with your book on Freemasonry and the Founding Fathers. It is so good. And it just shattered all the conspiracy stuff that I had been told. And it was so fact driven. About who was what and what the Masons were like back then, just all those things. Anyway, I just want people to get the resource. We're gonna talk about it here, but that resource at wildbuilders.com is fantastic. 

David Barton [00:15:54] Yeah, it's really interesting. This question does seem to come in cycles and generationally. This was a big deal back in the 60s and the 70s. We did the book on this back in the early 90s, maybe late 80s. But it was a issue in the 60s, it was big issue in 80s and 90s. It's becoming an issue again now. And so just to kind of put this perspective. There's a resurgence of masonry right now. A lot of young men are getting into Freemason and masonry. We thought it was kind of dying off after the 60s. It plummeted down to where there were only about 3.2 million Freemasons in America. And this is a fraternal organization. They do public stuff like the Shriners, which is a 32nd and 33rd degree mason that does civic kind of work and benevolent work and help kids with problems. And they have the Shriner's Hospital and they do all this work. And so they're seen as a benevolent fraternity. They actually go back, the start of it goes back to 1734 in America, Ben Franklin, he brought it over from England. Particularly got started in America in the 1750s as part of the French and Indian War when the British came to America to help us fight in the French and Indian War. The British brought it in a big way then. And so all this to say, there are so many conspiracy theories about Masons out there. But the big deal is just know that what masonry is today is nowhere close to what it was at the time of the Founding Fathers. At the time at the Founding Father's, the Masons literally were a religious arm of the Anglican Church. It was part of the Church of England. They literally did Sunday schools and they went to the poor and helped them to learn the Bible, et cetera. And it was a religious organization. It did not have the oaths and if you know much about the Masons or don't know much about the Masons, there's the Blue Lodge where there's a first three degrees and today you take an oath at each degree and it's kind of a blood curdling oath. If I'm not telling the truth, may it rip open my chest and pull my tongue out by the roots. I mean, it's pretty blood curling on the curses they put on themselves. And then if you decide to go either in the York Rite or the Scottish Rite, which is the fourth of the 10th degree or the fourth to the 32nd degree, then you get in those branches. You go further in masonry. And so it's all this secret organization for men and it's, it's not all that secret because so much of the stuff's been published. There's a lot of people who left masonry thought it was bad spiritually for them. So all that going back to the Founding Fathers, when the Founding Fathers were doing this, it was really a fight between the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists against the Anglicans. The Founding Fathers. Some of them saw this as a tool that the were Anglican's were using to expand the state church. But it really wasn't about the stuff it is today. And it didn't become that until a guy named Captain Daniel Morgan was murdered in 1825 by Masons. And that led to the rise of the anti-Masonic party. At that point in time, the Masons had gotten into having oaths. They didn't originally have oaths for the degrees, but he was going to expose the oaths and he was kidnapped and murdered and it became a big political scandal. So you can go back and get our books, The Question of Freemasonry and the Founding Fathers and find just a whole lot of this, but I can tell you that that was not an influence on the Founding Fathers in the way that Masons claim it is today. 

Tim Barton [00:19:20] Well, Dad, if I can add a couple of things, which might add some clarity to some of it. So to say it wasn't an influence on the Founding Fathers like it is today. Well, the beliefs of the Masons today did not influence and were not the beliefs of their Founding Fathers. Some Founding Fathers, although the overwhelming majority were not ever Masons. There were a few Founding Fathers that were Masons and some of them that were long-term and long-time Masons, but to your point, when, when you acknowledged that really, this was something that worked in conjunction with the Anglican Church. The one thing I think I would clarify is when you mention this is virtually an arm of the Anglican Church, this is something I think historians would say, well, no, they were independent. Yes, they we're totally independent. But here's why you would say that. And here's where the important connection is. A lot of the early Masonic lodges met in Anglican churches. That was their official kind of lodge. The Anglicans pastors would come and deliver sermons for them every week. When your lodge is meeting in a Christian church and it's having Christian services. And by the way, back then they believed in God, they believed in Jesus, they believe in the Holy spirit. They were Trinitarian, largely in a lot of their thinking. So a lot of what Masons became is not what they were at the time of the Founding era. And so a couple of very important things. First of all, very few of the Founding Fathers were ever part of the Masonic Lodge 

David Barton [00:20:42] Yeah, and by the way, when you look back, you know, Masons today like to claim the Founding Fathers that these Founding Fathers are all Masons. Not so, I mean, there's about 250 folks we would probably call Founding Father's. 56 signers of the Declaration, 39 signers of the Constitution, 55 at the Constitutional Convention. So that's another 16 at the convention other than those who signed. You have 17 early generals. You have the First Congress, the original Supreme Court, the first four or five presidents, 250 folks, and maybe. Out of 250, maybe you have a couple dozen, maybe. So it's not even that big an influence, even among the Founding Fathers back even in their day. 

Tim Barton [00:21:21] Well, and to that point, Dad, even though that there were, and some of those few Founding Fathers were apart, there's, there are some prominent names like a Benjamin Franklin, like a George Washington, there is some prominent names, but it's also worth noting. George Washington toward the end of his life, when there was a biographer writing about him and said, Hey, you know, we're, we are including your incredible, heavy involvement and leadership of the Masonic Lodge where you're from. And he writes back and he's like, guys, I, I haven't been part of Masonic Lodge in like 30 years. That's not who I am. It's on how I want to be remembered. And so even when you start reading some of their own writings, first of all, go back and realize there was a much heavier Christian influence early on. It didn't become really secular and then really anti-Christian and so largely after the Founding Fathers, number one. Number two, though, not very many Founding Fathers were actually part of the Masonic Lodge. And number three, many of them who were actually left the lodges and left way before they became the really anti-Christian, kind of promoters that they are today and a lot of what they do. Now, all of that also, if you keep in context that because there was a heavy connection with the Anglican church and the Anglican church was a church of England. When we separate from Great Britain, that's where a lot of Founding Fathers begin their disconnect with Masonic Lodges in America. So again, a lot more we could say to this, Dad, you literally wrote the book on this. But these are things that you actually can do a pretty basic search right now on the internet and ask some, some pretty simple questions. Were early Masonic Lodges connected with Christianity at all? Did, were they connected with the Anglican church at all. And you can just start reading some of those nuanced answers. And you can ask some more questions around. And again, what you will discover is that the Masonic Lodges of the 1700s were nothing like the Masonic Lodgers of the 1800s, you can look up and see which Founding Fathers like of the 56 signers of the Declaration, and you can GROK this, Chat GPT it, whatever else, how many of the 56 Signers were members of Masonic Lodges? And you start looking. Well, when were they there? How long were they  there? Tracking their involvement, their influence, et cetera. And so what you'll discover is just like today when people say that the Founding Fathers really weren't religious, they were atheists, agnostics, and deists. They point to a few examples of Founding Fathers that might not have been Christians, although mostly it's overstated, but they'll point to a few and say, see, all the others were like this. This again is where oftentimes we learn history and overgeneralizations that are misrepresentations of what actually happened. And the book, Freemasonry and the Founding Fathers at wallbuilders.com is a great place to go. And get some more details on the true story of Masonic lodges and their influences on the Founding Fathers. 

Rick Green [00:24:00] Well, you guys know, I've rarely disagreed with you, especially on history and, and your research, but I just got to tell you guys, I, I did some really important research. I watched National Treasure with, Nicholas Cage. And at the beginning there's a scene with Charles Carroll oldest, you know, last survivor of the signers. And he clearly hands off a Masonic message to Nicholas Cage's great-great-great grandfather. So I just, I just trust Hollywood. I just I can't imagine that. 

Tim Barton [00:24:30] Well. Rick, this is the funny part though, like you're, we're saying that joking. Guys, we've all had moments where people have come up to us and been like, Hey, so it's Charles Carol, really a Mason? And we're like, actually guys, no, he was the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration. Hey Dad, what was the, what was the relationship and dynamic between Roman Catholics and Masonic Lodges? 

David Barton [00:24:51] If you're a Roman Catholic and you become a Mason you are excommunicated. You are thrown out of the church. So I don't think Charles Carroll, a Catholic a good standing, was ever a Mason. Which you know, it's part of the irony they choose the one guy that absolutely would not be a Mason and they make him a Mason in the movie.

Tim Barton [00:25:13] Well, and what so many of these movies do, they get one part correct and they make up the rest because it's correct. He was the last surviving Signer of the Declaration. You know, guys, as, as we get closer to 4th of July, we will be telling a lot more stories because actually, I mean, this week is when Richard Henry Lee, I guess it was this weekend, but when he made his motion, 250 years ago, he submits it, that the resolution that we separate from Great Britain, they table it, and so we're coming up on time when Thomas Jefferson, part of the Committee of Five, for 17 straight days, he's working on hammering out the original draft of the Declaration. We'll go through some of that history and tell some of the stories to some of these people, really cool things to know, remember, and celebrate, but the idea that Charles Carroll, the Roman Catholic, even though it's correct, he was their last surviving Signer of the Declaration. Because there was three guys left, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson both die on the 4th of July 1826 the 50th anniversary so that he's the last surviving Signer. The movie got that part right. They just got basically everything else wrong. 

David Barton [00:26:15] But it was a fun movie by the way. 

Rick Green [00:26:16] Yeah, it was a great movie, but I wish we had done this show, you know, a few months ago before I went to Philly and scaled down the side of Independence Hall trying to find those glasses of Ben Franklin's that Nicolas Cage had found. Because that would have been, yeah, much safer. Anyway, no, guys, great program, great answers, and folks, we got a lot more questions to get to, but you can still send some more in. We'd love to hear them. Radio@wallbuilders.com, and we appreciate you listening to our Foundations of Freedom Thursday. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.