The Constitution and the Necessity of a Godly Foundation with Douglas Gibbs

[00:00:00] well uh thank you so much for being here this evening my name is kevin conover and um you are listening on if you’re

[00:00:06] down here in southern california you’re listening on k-pray is 12 10 a.m and we’re also on fm 106.1 in north county

[00:00:13] and then of course we’re all over the web we’re all over streaming all over the world too and i’ve got good news and

[00:00:19] bad news and uh i’ll share a little bit here with you i’ll give you the good news first this is pretty interesting uh

[00:00:25] not something you would think of when you think of covet but listen to this an annenberg public policy center poll in

[00:00:31] september suggests that the coronavirus pandemic has led to an increase in

[00:00:36] americans knowledge of the united states government and constitution it reported that of the u.s adults polled

[00:00:43] 56 percent correctly named all three branches of government this is the

[00:00:48] highest rate since the survey began in 2006. now that’s a that’s a low bar of course there right but but hey that’s

[00:00:55] good news uh 59 percent of respondents said that they had taken a civics course in high school that focused on the

[00:01:01] constitutional judicial system 48 said they had taken a college course that focused on the u.s system of government

[00:01:06] and the constitution asked to name the five rights protected by the first amendment freedom of speech

[00:01:12] was named by 74 percent compared with 48 percent in 2017. so that’s pretty cool

[00:01:20] um looks like people are because of the threat of uh you know government control

[00:01:25] and it seems like government has decided that they can take away people’s freedoms because of the coronavirus uh

[00:01:31] looks like more people are interested in knowing their rights now here’s the bad news according to a july 2020 pew

[00:01:36] research poll 54 percent of u.s adults say belief in god is not necessary to be

[00:01:42] moral compared with 44 that say belief in god is necessary to be moral now

[00:01:47] between 2002 and 2019 the percentage of american adults who believe it is

[00:01:52] necessary to believe in god in order to be moral and have good values dropped from 58 in 2002 to 44

[00:02:00] in 2019 that’s a 14 drop now here’s a really interesting little twist to this

[00:02:07] this is not reflected internationally so for example in japan it actually increased by 10 and bulgaria

[00:02:15] increased by 17 in their view that it is necessary to believe in god in order to be moral and

[00:02:20] have good values so this is this is all uh very interesting stats here and all

[00:02:25] but um all in all the fact that the matter is is that our constitutional

[00:02:31] rights our view of morality these are all interconnected and my guest today is

[00:02:36] douglas gibbs let me tell you a little bit about him real quick he’s the president of the constitution

[00:02:41] association he’s a fellow of the american freedom alliance a sentinel for the heritage foundation and an instructor on the united states

[00:02:48] constitution he’s he’s had television appearances including on fox news and he’s also a united states navy veteran

[00:02:55] uh mr gibbs douglas gibbs thanks so much for being on the program today thank you for having me yeah absolutely and thank

[00:03:01] you for your service uh we are blessed to have such a powerful uh navy

[00:03:07] and military and americans who are patriotic and dedicated to their country and um

[00:03:13] we are very very appreciative so thank you so much so um mr constitution here um tell us you

[00:03:20] know our topic this evening is that it’s necessary to have a godly foundation in order to have a free

[00:03:26] people in order to have a a constitution that’s upheld um break this down for us and tell us how

[00:03:33] did you how did you get interested in the subject matter and why is it why do you why are you so passionate about this

[00:03:39] uh before i do that i’ll open up with this uh benjamin franklin you know the celebrated deist

[00:03:44] if he was a deist he wasn’t a very good one yeah [Laughter] uh one of his quotes one of my favorite

[00:03:50] quotes by him only a virtuous people are capable of freedom as nations become corrupt and vicious

[00:03:57] they have more need of masters that’s benjamin franklin so to uh start

[00:04:02] our topic today that is uh really the crux of it and the foundation of what we want to talk about

[00:04:08] and benjamin franklin said it so well as for what i do and all that uh i have been a constitutionalist for

[00:04:15] the most part my entire life uh there was this thing when i was a kid back in the 70s on abc called schoolhouse rock

[00:04:23] and schoolhouse rock you know influenced me affected me i was a young a kid and a young kid i was still elementary age at

[00:04:29] the time when i first noticed it but i was an advanced reader at the time and i just asked my mom this you know preamble

[00:04:36] and no more king and all these different episodes i want to know more about it so

[00:04:42] she started taking me uh to the uh public library i started staying after school at the school

[00:04:47] library more and it wasn’t enough so eventually my mom started taking me to the collegiate library uh you at the

[00:04:54] time that was um i think it was long beach uh university california long beach

[00:04:59] but uh i lived in long beach at the time when i was uh at that age and um

[00:05:04] and i’m going through college books to try to learn this stuff like i

[00:05:09] said i was an advanced reader fortunately for me um and uh by the time i was 15 and my folks had moved to

[00:05:17] corona i was an inland empire kid by then um i thought i had a pretty good handle on

[00:05:22] the constitution i entered the navy served four years i’ve been married for 37 years i’ve got seven grandkids two

[00:05:29] two children um and served uh you know in the navy i worked in a credit union i worked for a city i was

[00:05:36] in construction for 20 years did some truck driving and uh

[00:05:41] and all of that and i never really used it and then uh when 9 11 happened i started getting

[00:05:48] kind of involved locally kind of said you know what we have to say you know doug you need to be more involved

[00:05:53] and then the the election of um in 2008

[00:05:58] so when it really got me going uh simultaneously i just happened to started to get involved in the radio i

[00:06:04] start and uh then i was knocking on doors for a congressional candidate and i was talking to the person knocking on

[00:06:10] doors with it she says you know gosh you know you know a lot about the constitution you ought to get to know

[00:06:15] the tea party there’s a local tea party i’m like oh really i heard about those yes check it out so i joined the

[00:06:21] temecula tea party following weekend i’m handing out pocket constitutions i’m answering questions she says to me

[00:06:26] because she’s helping me again she says wow you’re so good at this constitution that you should teach classes like yeah i guess whatever

[00:06:32] two weeks later contacts me okay the gun gun shop has a classroom you can use for your classes

[00:06:38] i had never talked before i hadn’t even been in my mind the first six months was horrible i knew didn’t know what i was

[00:06:44] doing i finally decided you know what i’m just gonna go line by line through the constitution class got so popular

[00:06:49] that i had 40 to 50 people every week free class donations if you want to help with gas kind of thing

[00:06:55] and uh it’s exploded since then i’ve since written eight books my eighth one just came out on december 20th called

[00:07:01] creator oh congratulations that’s fantastic well thank you and uh you know two radio programs one on k parades one

[00:07:07] on kmet up in uh riverside county uh i’ve done a couple of speaking tours

[00:07:12] last october i did a tour that uh covered uh corpus christi uh texas um let’s see mississippi

[00:07:19] tennessee kentucky colorado springs and um and i i’ve done some tv i’ve done you

[00:07:25] know radio with folks like you and it’s just blown up why because people are

[00:07:31] realizing we’re in trouble they know in their gut because we were raised with liberty it’s sort of like being a

[00:07:36] christian when you have christ you know when something’s wrong yeah because he fulfilled the law you know

[00:07:43] it’s self-evident as it says in the declaration of independence same thing with growing up in liberty in our guts

[00:07:49] we know or at least some of us know something’s wrong and so the

[00:07:55] yearning to learn more so that we can pinpoint that has exploded and uh so

[00:08:01] therefore what i do has exploded and you know my main goal is i’m a firm believer that

[00:08:08] not only is a virtuous society capable of freedom but if you go to uh to to a gentleman by the name of james

[00:08:15] madison you know the father of the constitution kind of important guy he said a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people so we need

[00:08:22] to be a virtuous people and an instructed people so that’s what i do i i work on both uh and when i talk about

[00:08:29] the us constitution and i get into it i explain to people while the constitution is the blueprint

[00:08:36] for our structure here that we have the creator god is the keystone

[00:08:43] without that keystone it all collapses i love that and uh you know it’s really

[00:08:49] interesting to me because there is such a thirst for this like you’re saying um what is it that people

[00:08:57] what what is it that people are missing meaning when you when you look out and about and

[00:09:03] you’re you’re traveling you’re speaking about these things or you’re on the radio or whatever you’re doing you’re talking about these and you’re having

[00:09:08] these dialogues with people where is the gap in the education that is

[00:09:14] you know you you just quoted james madison that uneducated people a virtuous people

[00:09:19] where is is there education lacking that would potentially bring harm to

[00:09:25] to uh you know us as a community us as a as a culture us as a nation where is

[00:09:30] that gap in in the knowledge that’s really a dangerous gap unfortunately it’s all the way

[00:09:37] across the board and i’m going to apologize to you ahead of time because even you

[00:09:42] missed the when you were talking before uh you know and introducing you you used some phraseology that was completely

[00:09:48] inaccurate we all have been time and i want to apologize first but you’ll understand when i get into this sure

[00:09:55] we have all been taught wrong because we believe

[00:10:00] well you know you know the old thing right i tell you uh something and then you go tell someone else about time gets down

[00:10:06] to 40 people it’s a totally different story sure we that’s what has happened but it’s been not only happened because

[00:10:11] we naturally do that as humans but because it’s been intentionally done so for example you talked about

[00:10:17] our constitutional rights and the five rights that are protected by the first amendment we don’t have constitutional

[00:10:23] rights we have natural rights god-given rights the constitution doesn’t give us rights it enumerates them it lists them

[00:10:30] but our rights come from god it’s a gift from god and if god gives you something it’s not a government’s business

[00:10:36] it’s yours god gave it to you our rights belong to us because they’re god-given

[00:10:41] and we are the only system built with that act as a part of the

[00:10:47] foundation uh number two the first amendment doesn’t protect our rights the constitution doesn’t protect

[00:10:53] the rights government’s not supposed to protect our rights the word protect is not used in the constitution they are

[00:10:58] there according to the uh preamble and according to declaration of independence to secure our rights

[00:11:03] i don’t want them protecting my rights when rome went from a ruined republic to a roman empire and the

[00:11:10] soldiers became the enemy because they became this horrible mean

[00:11:15] tyrannical enforcement arm you’d you would not have accepted the

[00:11:20] roman troop jumping up in front of you holding up his shield and saying don’t worry i’ll protect you against

[00:11:26] me well of course he’s the problem we don’t want him i don’t want him protecting me from him

[00:11:33] government’s the problem our rights the greatest threat to our rights is government therefore they’re not there

[00:11:39] to protect our rights and the constitution and the declaration doesn’t say they’re there to protect them they’re there to secure them they’re not

[00:11:45] also not there to guarantee them because guarantee is an interesting work well we’re going to guarantee your education we’re going guarantee your health care

[00:11:51] well if the word guarantee is appropriate it would apply to all rights right so where’s my guaranteed gun

[00:11:58] ah suddenly it doesn’t apply well then it’s not a proper definition secure is the word used it says in

[00:12:04] declaration of independence that among these uh rights are life liberty and

[00:12:10] and uh the pursuit of happiness and to uh secure these rights governments are instituted among men and

[00:12:16] then in the preamble says to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves our posterity why the word secure secure is

[00:12:24] not protect secure is to keep in place where it belongs in other words in your possession you put a child in a car seat not to

[00:12:30] protect them you protect them but not by not driving like an idiot but that car seat’s there to to secure

[00:12:37] them in place in case there is an accident so that child’s not flying through the the vehicle and not the you

[00:12:42] know windshield to secure that is what government’s there for to restrain themselves and others

[00:12:49] from uh unsecuring our rights and our possession so if someone for example uh i have the

[00:12:56] right to swing my arm so if i punch you in the nose i just interfered with your right you have a right not to be punch a nose i have to be responsible with my

[00:13:03] right swing arms we have to be responsible with our freedoms and our rights well government doesn’t care until i punch you in the nose now i’ve

[00:13:10] your yours your right not to be pushing those is no longer secure government now has to come in to say

[00:13:17] okay what happened they’re gonna take the report that’s what police are for right they’re supposed to prevent the crime they’re supposed to take the

[00:13:22] report afterwards figure out what happened and then give punishment where punishment is due that’s what government’s supposed to be

[00:13:28] for so they’re there to secure our rights um okay so that’s that’s very interesting uh so if you if you’re just

[00:13:35] tuning in my guest today is douglas gibbs and uh he is an expert on the constitution and you can visit him at

[00:13:42] douglasvibs.com you can also check out his blog at politicalpistacio.com

[00:13:47] and uh so doug when you when we when you talk about these issues again um you know this nuance between protecting our

[00:13:54] rights and securing our rights that you’re that yeah it doesn’t seem like a big deal but it is yeah so so among

[00:14:00] along with that what other issues are there where they’re um let me quote um

[00:14:05] because you quoted james madison and i have a quote here okay actually very similar to what you quoted um from sam

[00:14:12] adams and um he says right here if virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people

[00:14:18] they will never be enslaved this will be their great security that’s february

[00:14:24] 12th 1779. it’s interesting because it seems like a lot of the founding fathers um we’re really thinking along the same

[00:14:30] lines here in regards to this and that they keep emphasizing uh being informed being

[00:14:37] knowledgeable and then being virtuous and so again where is the gap in the education along

[00:14:44] with the fact you just established that hey your rights are secured right they are not protected it’s something that

[00:14:50] god has already given you it’s not something that the government is giving you what other areas are people lacking

[00:14:56] in their understanding that is potentially jeopardizing our future freedoms as a as a country historically

[00:15:02] historically when it comes to knowledge i those who are virtuous tend to want to

[00:15:09] seek out truth those who are not tend to want to seek out something else to protect the narrative so first of all we

[00:15:15] have that and when i said that i guarantee you half the audience went oh yeah of course because they’re watching what’s going on right yeah

[00:15:21] frederick douglass which is one of my favorite people escape slave basically taught himself how to read and he had

[00:15:28] poor white kids he’d offer them bread to help him learn how to read and he said that

[00:15:33] knowledge is the ultimate emancipation knowledge is the ultimate emancipation

[00:15:39] our bond we have we’re not in bondage and i don’t think people understand that

[00:15:45] first of all you need to be involved and you need to understand this stuff i i have a person in my life one time i’ll talk

[00:15:52] about this he says you know there’s nothing you could do government does what it does and i’m just gonna run my life

[00:15:57] that’s the attitude of most people and we do that that’s like that’s like the people that are out there with the cars

[00:16:03] that are supposed to stay in their own lane and they just go take a nap they think the car is gonna drive for them

[00:16:08] you still got to have hands on it can only do so much you’ve got to have hands on to make sure

[00:16:14] that you steer it in the right direction or you’re going over the cliff and so first unless it’s a tesla unless it’s a

[00:16:19] tesla yeah or from what i hear for certain minivans uh but uh from what

[00:16:26] from what i’m seeking people don’t understand that involvement is important see liberty if you look back in history

[00:16:33] liberty is an exception not the rule tyranny is the rule why tyranny’s easy

[00:16:39] you’re told what to do and you obey but liberty that takes work you’ve got to maintain it you got to change the oil

[00:16:46] you got to change your tires you got to check the spark plugs liberty takes work you gotta do everything you can to keep

[00:16:51] that thing running properly and to be honest with you first of all most people don’t have the intestinal fortitude to

[00:16:58] do it and second of all most people don’t realize it anymore because there’s there is a group out there and a segment

[00:17:05] of people who don’t want liberty maintained and they have been fooling us so we believe things is not true so i

[00:17:11] hear words all the time democracy nation i climb the walls we’re not supposed to be a democracy we’re not a democracy we

[00:17:18] shouldn’t be while we’re becoming one democracy is part of our problem we’re supposed to be a constitutional republic

[00:17:24] we’re not supposed to be a nation we are a federation of states a nation is a is an entity that has a central government

[00:17:30] that controls everything but we’re a union of states that came together voluntarily and said hey you

[00:17:36] know we need to be a country let’s have a central system to help us handle the external stuff but the internal stuff

[00:17:42] will handle ourselves very different from the rest of the world we’re not supposed to be a nation it drives that word drives me nuts and

[00:17:49] and and i may be nitpicking sometimes it seems like but there’s a reason it’s just like when nationalism or nationalists you know and

[00:17:56] certain people are called oh i’m a proud nationalist no you’re not nationalist means you want a centralized system that

[00:18:01] controls everything so that’s so it’s it’s it’s really all these details that people just aren’t aware of

[00:18:08] i mean but here’s the thing here’s why it’s important yeah because you can’t understand the whole if you

[00:18:14] don’t understand those itty-bitty little parts yeah the whole suddenly starts to make different sense suddenly a

[00:18:20] well-regulated militia is not a collective militia uh that is necessary because it’s military

[00:18:27] suddenly we realize wait a second the word regulated means to put in good order back then so what a well-regulated

[00:18:32] mission really is is a militia that’s in good order that’s actually what they meant and

[00:18:38] who’s the militia george mason the whole of the people and a few politicians

[00:18:43] wow so but we have to understand those truths so you get those little details down suddenly the bigger picture then starts

[00:18:49] to make more sense and so i focus on teaching everybody those little

[00:18:54] details because when you become a mechanic to work on a car they don’t just give you an overall view

[00:19:00] of what the car is how it’s supposed to run you got to get in there you got to figure out why each bolts where it’s at why it uses this type of oil you know

[00:19:08] what what the what the the the pressure and you know with the pistons and all that is is what that means and so on and

[00:19:13] so forth you need to know the details if you’re going to properly work on that vehicle otherwise you’re just a passenger

[00:19:19] yeah no i mean everything you’re saying makes so much sense and especially understanding it in the context of like

[00:19:25] you’re saying the way the founding father fathers meant it to be uh otherwise you’re imposing you know

[00:19:31] modern modern terms on on terms that didn’t mean what you what you thought they meant yeah you know it’s one of one

[00:19:36] of my favorite things i actually talked this today in one of my classes is uh in article one section uh

[00:19:43] five uh it says that congress shall meet at least once per year

[00:19:48] and there were those that argued that was too often now that’s funny

[00:19:54] it’s very funny well why would he argue that because the federal government didn’t have any domestic authorities

[00:20:00] it doesn’t have any domestic authorities all of its authorities have to do with either preserving the union protecting

[00:20:06] the union union or promoting the union in other words external stuff or internal stuff like communication

[00:20:12] through postal services or disputes between the states that’s about the only internal stuff they have authority over

[00:20:17] everything else it’s external and so if we’re not at war exclaimed a

[00:20:23] mr jackson from georgia uh in one particular uh a congressional hearing

[00:20:29] afterwards when they were debating over whether or not to ratify the constitution she says why would i want to go to the capitol

[00:20:35] and spend more time time up there more than often than once a year

[00:20:41] if we’re not at war because there’s nothing to do i’ve got a farm to take care of i got crops to take care of i

[00:20:47] don’t have time to be doing all of that it’s not their job anyway to do anything unless we’re at war so unless we’re at

[00:20:52] war i’m gonna tend to my farm boy if it feels like we’re a real long ways from that that attitude yeah

[00:21:00] well so and we have this idea of a do nothing congress well you know they they they don’t think they’re effective

[00:21:06] unless they’re making more laws yeah they’re not supposed to be making laws like that i love do nothing

[00:21:12] congresses i remember when mr obama was president and people were criticizing him from go for going to the golf course

[00:21:17] so much i’m like no go golfing yeah don’t be take congress with you have a

[00:21:23] like a two-year tournament there you go you know uh that that and and so you know people though we’ve been

[00:21:29] convinced no government’s gotta be doing this they gotta be doing that and you know uh you know the writing happened government’s gotta fix this no we’ve

[00:21:35] gotta fix it yeah we handle our local stuff governments for that external stuff our local government and us we are

[00:21:43] the ones and we we go we are so quick to say oh where’s government we need their

[00:21:48] help no we need to get off our bottoms and start

[00:21:53] being involved in doing what we do and that’s a part of what the constitution is about the first three words are we the people for a reason hmm

[00:22:00] so that i mean obviously this you know the huge contradiction here is all the federal mandates coming down from

[00:22:06] uh from biden and yeah and others you know trying to tell us obviously the glaring issue is covid and

[00:22:14] and that all of a sudden for whatever reason the government feels it’s got to have its hands in every everything it just exploded uh beyond where we were at

[00:22:21] so what’s the way back um is this is this more people doing what you’re doing and just getting educated about i’ll

[00:22:27] give you the way back real quick but see what they’re claiming is their authority is emergency powers

[00:22:33] well see for the good of community your your individual liberties have to be suspended for a moment

[00:22:38] and you know the last time i checked i didn’t see an asterisk in the constitution it doesn’t say

[00:22:44] freedom of speech unless there’s a virus it doesn’t say freedom of religion

[00:22:50] unless you know as long as you’re vaccinated or whatever yeah it doesn’t say that

[00:22:56] there’s no asterisks it’s none of their business it’s individual liberty liberty

[00:23:01] is the free excuse me liberty is the freedom to say no first of all so what’s the way back you

[00:23:07] know what the whistle here the tough part about talking so much is your toe gets dry yeah um

[00:23:14] so uh what’s the way back uh so i’m gonna talk about the spiritual way back of the political way back the spiritual

[00:23:20] way back is this there was a gentleman by the name of alexander tyler he was a scottish

[00:23:26] philosopher political philosopher he died in 1813 and he had created this cycle that

[00:23:32] governments typically go through and he explained that systems of liberty and democracies uh

[00:23:38] don’t last longer than 200 250 years and we’re at the edge aren’t we yeah and

[00:23:44] um and he said that all cycles do this they begin in bondage then from bondage

[00:23:49] the people because you know there’s no atheist in a foxhole they cry out to god so from bondage you have spiritual faith

[00:23:57] from spiritual faith courage from courage liberty well you look at the american revolution you can

[00:24:04] use that as your guide stone on that and then from uh liberty abundance then

[00:24:10] from abundance the system goes into selfishness complacency apathy and

[00:24:15] ultimately dependency on the government and back to bondage wow now understand that the whole and of course we’re close

[00:24:21] to that into that cycle the whole thing doesn’t happen though the courage the liberty and the abundance none of it

[00:24:28] starts unless you have spiritual faith first so and and that’s what he pointed out

[00:24:33] first amendment what’s the first right that’s enumerated in the first amendment the freedom of religion why because we

[00:24:40] need to be in prayer first we need to be good with god first the second amendment came second for a reason while i left my

[00:24:47] gun first amendment says i got something even more powerful the sword of the spirit

[00:24:52] my first offensive weapon is the sword of the spirit from ephesians 6. it came first in the bill of rights for a reason

[00:24:59] and they understood this because what had triggered the declaration the constitution of the american revolution

[00:25:05] was a great awakening that had begun back in 1734 i’m sure you know the story jonathan edwards george whitefield

[00:25:12] that you know they went from the halfway covenant they were literally teaching hey you know when you accept christ you

[00:25:18] become well kind of a new creature half of it you know as long as you’re half good you’re good

[00:25:24] i mean that’s pretty much what they were teaching right no edward says no you you accept christ you’re a new creature

[00:25:30] completely yeah it affects all parts of your life and and it took off it became this great

[00:25:36] awakening that water spreading through the entire set of colonies if that had not have happened

[00:25:42] the revolution the declaration and the constitution would not happen so from a

[00:25:47] so how do we get a hold of this one of our problems is we think we’re supposed to force government back into

[00:25:53] its godly box no we’re supposed to lead them there we if we can’t get the political house

[00:25:59] in order if we can’t get our spiritual house in order a culture the politics runs as bright andrew

[00:26:05] breitbart you say that that politics ran downstream from culture if your culture is out of whack your

[00:26:11] politics will be out of whack get your culture under control the the cockroaches in washington will

[00:26:16] be gone so so when you say get our culture under control what are you talking about

[00:26:21] specifically you’re talking about the schools you’re talking about media talking revival i’m talking first to the

[00:26:27] people it will then spread to media and all those things but we need a revival we need conversions we

[00:26:34] need our country to turn back to christ we need well i mean we’re this close to needing a nineveh situation man well

[00:26:40] we’re on our knees with sackcloth on our back uh we better get our spiritual house in

[00:26:46] order we can’t liberty is not possible if we’re not a virtuous people we don’t we we’re not

[00:26:52] capable of the constitution if we don’t have our godly house in order if we are not a godly people

[00:27:00] if we don’t understand the virtues from christ and our faith

[00:27:06] it none of it’s possible it’s not going anywhere you can hope all you want hope does nothing if you don’t have the faith

[00:27:13] in the uh uh powerful uh being that is our creator so i wonder they understood

[00:27:20] that they said that in their writings yeah i want to talk about the spiritual

[00:27:25] way back uh so my guest today is doug gibbs if you uh are just tuning in or

[00:27:31] um you want to check this out more douglasvibs.com you can learn a lot more

[00:27:36] about the constitution and the necessity of a godly foundation politicopistacio.com

[00:27:43] and and of course i’m kevin conover my website’s educateforlife.org and we’ve got all kinds of resources on there as

[00:27:48] well for you um so doug i wanted to ask you about this you know in the very beginning of the show i

[00:27:53] quoted a poll from the pew research poll this is just from july 2020 um not that

[00:27:58] long ago 54 of us adults say belief in god is not necessary to be moral compared with 44 that say belief in god

[00:28:05] is necessary to be moral this seems like a a pattern that we’ve been seeing for

[00:28:11] quite a while now um is that the country is moving more towards agnosticism atheism

[00:28:17] um moral relativism these sorts of things how would you respond to the person that says um that we do not need god to be

[00:28:25] moral because you’re emphasizing uh very strongly that that is exactly what we need um

[00:28:30] to be virtuous right before the collapse of the roman republic cicero wrote in his writings we

[00:28:37] have abandoned the traditions of our morals and that is why we are collapsing uh

[00:28:44] any society in history the moment they abandon the a moral foundation they’re

[00:28:50] done in our current age at moral foundation was built upon

[00:28:55] the the uh foundation of christ our god uh and all of that that creator

[00:29:02] as i like to say was the is the keystone of the system without the creator without that beliefs now i’m not saying

[00:29:08] everybody has to be a christian or this has to be a theocracy theocracies are dangerous i don’t want that that’s not

[00:29:13] what i’m saying but i’m saying our culture may be based on those values and we better be christians at least the

[00:29:20] majority of them and following those values because honestly you know first of all your faith is dead

[00:29:26] without the works you’re you are going to be known by your fruit and we and our fruit has been sour and

[00:29:33] the polls that you just quoted that was the same thing was happening between 1662 and 1734 which is what ushered in

[00:29:40] that great awakening in order to get butts in the pews that’s why they decided to do the halfway covenant

[00:29:46] well you know maybe if we softened things didn’t sound so scary they’ll start coming to church

[00:29:51] they watered down the message and what happened it was almost that there was more tyranny and

[00:29:58] everything was falling apart and then one pastor one person jonathan edwards

[00:30:03] said you know this isn’t right and he he was the spark that lit this wildfire that became a revival we need

[00:30:11] that revival number one number two whose fault is it that these kids are

[00:30:17] learning this or believing in god and everybody will say well the school system and the

[00:30:23] uh uh the the teachings on the entertainment industry in the movies and the music no

[00:30:29] look in the mirror we didn’t we weren’t the spiritual leaders of our households we were

[00:30:35] supposed to be and we’re all guilty i’m guilty and our pastors are also

[00:30:41] not involved in civics they’re not preaching that you need to be involved oh i’m just

[00:30:46] supposed to evangelize that’s all i’m supposed to do is what i hear a friend of mine trevor lowden just came

[00:30:52] out with a movie called uh enemies within the church and it talks about how the church has been

[00:30:57] infiltrated as well and so we’ve got a real problem here and if we’re going to wait for the

[00:31:02] pastors or the politicians to fix it we’ve got another thing coming look in the mirror we need to get our spiritual

[00:31:08] house in order as americans we need to

[00:31:13] what uh i’m not i just lost track of where it is in the bible but it says that that if my with my people repent

[00:31:19] and call out my name i will heal their land yeah that is what we need to do first

[00:31:26] that’s the first step then there’s a second step after that i would love to talk about yeah and um

[00:31:32] i i want to quote another i thought this was really powerful and you were you were um

[00:31:38] referencing the founding fathers and um their view of things uh this is a quote from uh benjamin rush

[00:31:46] and he says here i do not believe that the constitution was the offspring of inspiration but i am as satisfied that

[00:31:52] it is as much the work of a divine providence as any of the miracles recorded in the old and new testament by

[00:31:58] renouncing the bible philosophers swing from their moorings upon all moral subjects it is the only correct map of

[00:32:05] the human heart that ever has been published and um

[00:32:10] back to this by the way was a medical doctor and uh a big supporter of constitution

[00:32:17] he feared the lack of bill of rights at first along with some of the other anti-federalists but uh but ultimately

[00:32:24] he was happy with what the constitution became so so you know along these same lines

[00:32:29] and and i want to talk about um you know what you were saying what is the the second step here moving our country back

[00:32:34] in the right direction of like you said it’s it’s to repent first and to get right with god and um

[00:32:41] and and the virtuous uh the virtuous people is necessary the

[00:32:46] knowledgeable people is necessary you cannot be virtuous without god um

[00:32:52] because benjamin rush here says you’ve lost your moorings there’s let me give you a quick story on something that’ll

[00:32:57] help you understand this sure so but during the first four to five weeks of the the constitutional convention of

[00:33:04] philadelphia in 1787 they were fighting like cats and dogs they got nothing done the only thing they got done was they

[00:33:10] had adopted james madison’s basic framework for the constitutional convention and the constitution itself

[00:33:16] and when i say basic framework i’m talking an outline and some lines and scribbles and they had voted uh george washington

[00:33:23] as president of the convention that’s it everything else was pure fighting the uh

[00:33:29] elder statesman in the room 81 year old benjamin franklin you know that dies that’s not supposed to be a christian

[00:33:35] yeah yeah remember i told you he wasn’t a very good deist here’s a good example so um so he’s watching all this fighting

[00:33:41] he says gentlemen we have forgotten something have we forgotten our powerful friend

[00:33:46] that when we were during the war we were on our knees to the father of lights should we not be in

[00:33:52] that prayer during this time important time in history if he knows every sparrow that falls to the ground

[00:33:59] surely he is involved in the affairs of men in the creation of empires and he recommended they pray before accession

[00:34:04] what’s funny about it is then uh a contingency a segment of the convention

[00:34:10] led by alexander hamilton argued against his proposal uh alexander hamilton’s quote was we do

[00:34:16] not need foreign aid he feared that if they went into prayer the people would think they didn’t know

[00:34:22] what they were doing and that’s why they’re reaching out to god uh or at least that’s what he said that’s what he claimed i think is he had

[00:34:27] other reasons too so for four days they argued over whether or not to pray oh wow

[00:34:32] and then at the end of that argument someone moved that they hire a clergy

[00:34:38] to leave them a prayer before each session and somebody seconded it but it went down in the vote not because they

[00:34:44] believed they shouldn’t be praying but because they couldn’t afford the clergy and they really didn’t want the outside eyes to really know what they’re up to

[00:34:49] because they were afraid they would misunderstand what they were up to but then what do you do so the ones that

[00:34:55] wanted to pray what they decided to do is walk down to the nearest church which was a calvinist

[00:35:01] reform church but they trus but they got a hold of a pastor they trusted a guy named william rogers he was a

[00:35:07] baptist minister who when the revolution war broke out took off his black robes

[00:35:12] and put on a uniform and went with the troops and he fought with the troops and he was a chaplain during the

[00:35:18] revolutionary war he led them in their first prayer ironically it was on july 4th 1787. oh wow and i matter of fact i’ve

[00:35:26] got the prayer somewhere on on one of my websites i am afraid i wrote about it i

[00:35:31] don’t know a week or two ago on political pistachio but and you know what happened after that prayer folks

[00:35:37] the miracle the miracle the constitution was because those guys that went into the

[00:35:42] constitution convention a lot of people don’t realize this also john taylor explains this in his book a new view the

[00:35:47] constitution united states published in 1823 they all went as nationalists they were all big government guys and when

[00:35:53] they went in interesting so so let me let me afraid let me frame that for you properly

[00:36:00] a bunch of big government politicians i won’t i won’t give any parties i won’t talk about party but it has something to do with the donkey and they say hey

[00:36:08] we’re going to write a new constitution for you nothing to worry about are you going to feel good about it probably not that’s what was happening

[00:36:15] big government guys said hey we’re going to write a new constitution a bunch of guys walked out of the constitutional convention over it two

[00:36:21] guys from new york one being robert yates was like you’re gonna write a constitution that’s it we’re out of here

[00:36:26] um and so it was but as they went through the process and they gave put it in the hands of god

[00:36:33] most of them changed from being big government guys to what we have with the constitution they believed in that

[00:36:39] limited government madison was a big government-minded guy going in he was more like hamilton going in he

[00:36:46] was more like jefferson coming out oh wow it was an amazing so it was so the

[00:36:51] miracle wasn’t just the writing of this but the miracle was that most of those men suddenly changed their perspective

[00:36:59] it’s an amazing thing when god gets involved how you can sometimes change your perspective i’m sure you’ve seen it

[00:37:04] i was unevenly yoked in my marriage for 21 years my wife accepted the lord bam her change perspective made it for a

[00:37:09] great marriage now we’re married 37 years and we’re happy as heck but awesome yeah it’s amazing what god can

[00:37:15] do to your perspective and and he did it to the and he did it for those uh constitutional convention delegates it’s

[00:37:22] an amazing thing prayer is an amazing thing we’ve seen it yeah with the constitution so why are we not following

[00:37:29] the same lead now so so let’s get to the second second

[00:37:34] part of this uh solution that we are talking about um break that down for us what’s the second

[00:37:39] part of the the solution here so the first is to be a virtuous people the second is to become a republic again the

[00:37:45] republic has mechanisms that were in place the mechanisms protected us against the

[00:37:51] dangers of tyranny aristocracy and even democracy and two and two of the key is what ones

[00:37:58] will or the ones i’m going to talk about there’s many of them we could be on for hours and hours and hours i got into

[00:38:04] this so i’m going to focus on two key ones the first one is the 17th amendment 17th amendment was

[00:38:10] ratified in 1913. what it did is it changed the us senate the us senate

[00:38:16] originally was the voice of the states they appointed the u.s senators they were not voted in by the people

[00:38:22] and the reason why the states did that with the writing the constitution is because it was the delegates from the states that were writing this

[00:38:27] constitution and creating the federal government so they wanted to make sure that the state legislatures had an oversight over everything

[00:38:34] the federal government did and those u.s senators was a part of that mechanism of having oversight so

[00:38:41] now you’ve got the state legislatures people who they appointed involved in the law making process in approving

[00:38:47] treaties and confirming nominations for judges and things like that it’s huge

[00:38:54] when the 17th amendment was put into play the states the state legislatures

[00:39:00] lost their suffrage in the senate and that’s the way it’s worded in article 5. article 5 says that

[00:39:07] no state shall lose its equal suffrage without its consent now that’s an interesting thing so the

[00:39:13] states lost some of their power some of their influence well they’re they’re oversight they’re the parents yeah

[00:39:19] they’re the ones that created this thing not only were they removed they were forced to give the their child the keys

[00:39:26] the liquor cabinet and the ferrari we’re in trouble here yeah all right okay the the states also used to before the 16th

[00:39:33] amendment used to review all of the budgets oh wow the electors for president were

[00:39:39] appointed by the state legislatures the state legislatures were involved in every aspect of the fed the federal

[00:39:46] government could not do anything without indirect or direct approval by the state legislatures originally now you just

[00:39:53] think of that statement right there that’s an amazing thing you would not be in trouble if that was going on that’s wildly different than what we’re

[00:39:59] experiencing now we need to be a republican so 17th amendment’s a part of it is that the

[00:40:05] state legislatures need to appoint the u.s senators again now it ties into

[00:40:11] the second thing that’s the reason why i’m putting them together the second thing is called reynolds v sims in 1964

[00:40:17] reynolds v sims here’s what happened when the u.s senate was created

[00:40:22] and that our government was created the whole federal government backed way back with the constitution the states modeled

[00:40:28] their legislative systems after the federal system so your assembly or or a

[00:40:33] state house of representatives depending on what the state calls it that was like the house representatives

[00:40:38] in uh the people were the members of that body were voted in democratically

[00:40:44] based on districts that were based on population no different than today but the state

[00:40:49] senate was based on the us senate not by population rather than so because usm is

[00:40:54] what two per state right the state senates were one per county regardless of population

[00:41:02] and they weren’t voted in they were appointed by the county legislature which today we call the board of

[00:41:08] supervisors now the reason for doing that is because and madison and jefferson talks about

[00:41:14] this quite a bit tyranny rises out of population centers so we got to find a way to make sure the rural areas also have a voice

[00:41:21] by doing things that’s based on uh these segments of land rather than population

[00:41:27] you’re giving the rural areas a larger voice so those rural areas have a little bit

[00:41:32] louder voice in the senate than they do in the house right yeah they connect the stakes can i ask you about this because

[00:41:38] uh this is really i feel like this is a really key point um which is you said that tyranny rises out

[00:41:44] of population centers can you explain that a little bit further for for our listeners because i think that’s

[00:41:49] something that’s not explained too often jefferson argued that the united states should be an agrarian society because it

[00:41:55] was agrarian areas where uh the politics were not tyrannical why because the

[00:42:01] people had to work the land take care of themselves be individualistic and they didn’t depend on government that’s a

[00:42:06] natural uh result of being in an agrarian area when you get into the cities what happens is people congregate

[00:42:14] they begin to expect gifts from the treasury and then the politicians realize it so they offer

[00:42:20] gifts to certain people to get their votes and before you know it you have an entitlement system and once you have an

[00:42:25] entitlement system and you can buy the votes of the people the tyrants will be the ones that will be more

[00:42:32] successful with that so i don’t think and it creates a system of tyranny i don’t think i’ve ever heard

[00:42:38] that before i think that’s that’s not a point that’s what happened in rome yeah wrong’s a great example

[00:42:45] yeah that’s that’s powerful because uh again that just really emphasizes the whole um reason that we have what

[00:42:52] you were just explaining one person per county versus yeah you know now here’s what’s interesting now let’s talk about

[00:42:59] california for just a second on that just hypothetically if california was

[00:43:04] just of course we have 58 counties 40 senators so we would probably either wind up with 58 centers or a couple of

[00:43:09] senators representing two counties but if we went back to the old way of doing it and it

[00:43:14] was no longer by population do you think this california state senate would look a little different oh yeah oh yeah oh

[00:43:20] yeah how many states you think that would be true in illinois maybe new york

[00:43:26] connecticut yeah there’s a number of states where that would change where suddenly you’re gonna have these split legislatures if

[00:43:32] we went back that old way now if we’ve gotten rid of the 17th amendment and the legislatures are appointing the senators

[00:43:39] and we have a split legislature or we can have two democrats from california for example no you’re going to have two

[00:43:45] uh parties on with on the two different parts of the legislature in california

[00:43:51] so they’re gonna have to compromise yeah so suddenly you’ve got a republican

[00:43:56] from california in the senate uh based on my calculations if we were to get rid

[00:44:01] of reynolds v sims and 17th amendment and that were to happen we would wind up somewhere between somewhere between 70

[00:44:08] and 75 uh republican u.s senators in the u.s senate wow now now my question is yes yeah does

[00:44:16] that change the dynamics of what we’re up against yes if we become a republic again

[00:44:24] all the other stuff starts falling into place just with those two things the other stuff now becomes easier

[00:44:29] because we have those two things in place and we have to be a republic again and those are just two mechanisms that’s

[00:44:35] just two of them yeah and in most people’s conversations people have completely dropped dropped

[00:44:40] the word republic it’s it’s where democracy people are yeah but how do we get those two mechanisms

[00:44:46] in place and see this is what i want to tell you so when the 17th amendment was ratified

[00:44:52] there’s nine states that never ratified it two of them weren’t states yet hawaii and alaska when they became states they

[00:44:58] didn’t need to it’s already ratified six of the states were uh in the south you know virginia

[00:45:05] and in south carolina georgia and louisiana and so forth and they just never ratified it they didn’t

[00:45:11] necessarily agree with it but they didn’t they didn’t need to anyway it’d already been ratified then there was one state that said no we disagree with this

[00:45:18] we refuse to give a ratification voice vote utah

[00:45:24] utah is also one of the last states to give in to reynolds v sims and change our state senate to the new way of doing

[00:45:29] things after the warren court uh ruled against alabama doing it the old way and then ordered all the states to be more

[00:45:36] democratic with their state senates reynolds v sims and utah was one of the last states to change over so

[00:45:43] what i’m working on one thing i’m working on and this is where folks if you want to help out constitutional association.com is my non-profit and i

[00:45:50] do this stuff through the nonprofit is we are working on developing relationships with the legislature

[00:45:58] in utah because if any state has the right to say you know what we’re going to defy this

[00:46:03] we’re not going to ask permission we’re just going to start appointing our senators again if any state has the authority and the

[00:46:10] right to do that it’s utah and if any state when it comes to political thinking

[00:46:16] would be willing to do something like that utah is one of them so i am trying to work at my fact

[00:46:22] i’ve got a couple people who know legislators we haven’t gotten developed the relationship with the legislators yet we’re working on it but if we can

[00:46:28] get utah now to buck the system and say you know what we’re going to do it the old way what’s going to happen lawsuit

[00:46:34] and everybody says yeah but doug you’ll lose a lawsuit perhaps first of all i wouldn’t lose it utah be federal government versus utah

[00:46:41] first of all second of all that’s not the court i’m trying to convince if there is the federal government sues

[00:46:48] the state over something like defying the 17th amendment and reynolds v sims what’s going to happen everybody’s going

[00:46:54] to hear about it education court of public opinion yeah if the

[00:46:59] court of public opinion gets educated says whoa i didn’t know about this this is crazy

[00:47:04] wait a second how can i work on something in my state suddenly

[00:47:09] we’ve got an explosion we got a virtuous people and a call for going back to the republic at the same time

[00:47:14] good things come out of it yeah that’s fantastic does utah have the incentive to do that do they have the

[00:47:20] instead i think they do but i haven’t convinced them of that yet because i haven’t had a chance getting from other legislators this is something we’ve been

[00:47:26] working on since last september okay uh so it’s so it’s new i also have a court case i’ve been dealing with uh we’re

[00:47:32] actually constitutional association actually has a lawsuit against kamala harris for being ineligible for office

[00:47:37] uh natural born citizen requires both parents to be citizens at the time of birth being born in oakland’s not enough

[00:47:44] according to historical documents and both of her parents were students here on student visas they were not citizens

[00:47:50] so we so we sued her uh after a year and by the way she defaulted she has

[00:47:55] never responded but the us government has but not on her behalf they finally dismissed the case of a

[00:48:00] couple of weeks ago so we so we appealed to the ninth circuit and we just were given the green light

[00:48:06] from the court a week ago to give our reason for the appeal but we need to have our uh reason behind the appeal and by the 25th of january so

[00:48:14] yeah i’m doing a lot of people don’t realize how in there i am that’s a big deal it is a big deal and people say

[00:48:19] well chuck do you really think you can win no but if word gets out court a public opinion people don’t want to know

[00:48:25] more about this stuff they’re going to want to learn and then and in the future they’re going to not put up with this garbage i love it that’s fantastic yeah

[00:48:33] you got to get in there and get your hands dirty so that’s yeah well and as people around me have learned

[00:48:39] about me i have this weird desire to sometimes just run to the edge of a cliff and jump and uh

[00:48:45] so and that’s what we did with this kamala case so i’ve got some great people around me uh you know uh funding has

[00:48:51] been up and down donations are always of course contributions are always welcome uh either one of those websites you

[00:48:56] could do so but uh uh it you know it’s and it’s necessary it is back to what i

[00:49:04] the very beginning of our show it’s necessary to be god a godly have a godly foundation to get this country back

[00:49:10] where it belongs but guess what being godly is a wonderful thing and that’s the starting point but you know what

[00:49:17] it’s nothing if there’s no action to go along with it amen amen well uh doug i’m really grateful for you

[00:49:24] being on the program today and uh thank you i think what you’re doing is fantastic so i’ll continue to spread the

[00:49:30] word and for those of you listening um and if this if this stirs your heart um get involved douglas v gibbs dot com

[00:49:37] politicalpistacio.com and uh tell us the the uh the foundation again

[00:49:43] constitution association if you want to go to the website constitution association dot com and the best way to

[00:49:49] email me is at constitution speaker yahoo.com constitutionspeaker

[00:49:55] yahoo.com oh fantastic well thanks again doug for being on the program oh pleasure all the time absolutely yeah

[00:50:02] and uh for those of you listening uh my website again is educate4life.org all kinds of resources on there all

[00:50:08] kinds of classes you can take on everything uh oriented towards apologetics and defending the christian

[00:50:13] faith and really the christian worldview and its influence on our culture in every possible way whether that’s

[00:50:18] government whether that’s uh what’s going on in our schools and

[00:50:24] our social issues all the different things are available there on my website you can check that out we’ll be back

[00:50:29] again next week with another really special guest and uh a lot of really a great stuff so

[00:50:35] uh i look forward to seeing you next time god bless you i hope you have a fantastic week take care