5,000 Year Leap Discussion #3

0:00 Hey everybody, if you remember a few months back I mentioned that we were going to be starting a discussion group on the book The 5000 Year Leap. Before I go into all the details here, I want to tell you what the book's about. The book goes into the principles behind our founding documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and it really illuminates and and brings those principles to life. It was written by Kleon Skousen some number of years back, but it's still a very pertinent book to this day. If you want to understand what the original plan was for America. Now we've started holding the discussion groups. In fact, it just last night, on Monday, we finished up the. The 5th discussion.

0:42 Now it was suggested to me that maybe I go ahead and I post these on the podcast. And so with the help of another gentleman, we went ahead and we've cleaned it all up. It's it. And we're going to start loading those today. Now we've done 5 to this point. My plan is, is I'm going to load the 1st 4 today all the way through Friday and you'll be able to find those and just be able to listen to them and get a feel for what it's all about. Now if you decide you want to join the the discussion group live, I've tried to make that easy for you. I put a link to the Zoom discussion group. That we hold. Every Monday night at 7:00 PM Central in conjunction. With that I've also.

1:27 Uploaded the link and all the episode notes for, for kind of this discussion group where you can join on that Telegram group and kind of join in some, some extracurricular discussion if you'd like throughout the week. You'll also be able to find the slides I used for my presentations and that sort of thing there. Now this in no way effects anything I'm doing on Saturday. You're you'll still be able to get the, the normal podcast as it always is on Saturday. This is just something extra that'll go till May for you. So again, I hope you guys enjoy these things. If you wish to join the discussion group and the Telegram group, you can find those links and all the discussion group episode show notes.

2:13 Anyway, I hope you enjoy this if you decide to join the discussion group. I look forward to seeing you there again. That's every Monday night, 7:00 PM Central. Thanks everybody. Bye, government. Did we have? Oops. Thanks, Justin. Sorry about that. No, it's all good. What kind of government were or what? Excuse me, what was the document we were operating under prior to the Constitution, after we'd won the Revolutionary War? Does anyone remember? You mean the article's a confederation? The article's a confederation. So, Justin, what was what was wrong or anybody what was wrong with the Articles of Confederation?

2:56 My understanding was it was it would be more of like what Europe is or like the. Well, yeah, well, more like what Europe used to be where, you know, the states would all be essentially separate countries and it wouldn't be a, you know, a harmonized nation. We probably would go to war with each other a lot sooner than we ended up doing and all that kind of stuff. No, no, that, that's exactly right. So what you had is you essentially had 13 different countries. They weren't calling, you know, they were no longer colonies. They were their own separate country. And look, I think if we're honest with each other, we could understand the knee jerk reaction to that, right?

3:39 This is a people who were probably not probably. They were definitely coming out of a very tyrannical system. And that system left no room for the people to operate on their own. And so there's a snee jerk reaction, right? And and that knee jerk reaction is keep power as as as close to the people as possible, right? And and that's a good thing. And we're going to talk, talk. You're not a United States at that point. You are simply a collection of 13 different countries that happened to inhabit the same continent.

4:23 And it led to a lot of chaos. It led to problems with money, right? Imagine. And, and I was just back there. So I was thinking about this when I was back there, actually take Vermont and and New Hampshire as an example, pretty close together, right? You, you can drive across there and probably an hour from one state to the other. But back in the old days, despite how close they were and look, it took a little longer to travel, but still they were very close together. You couldn't take the money that you made in Vermont and spend it in New Hampshire. They would just not recognize it. And so you have problems that way, right? Countries that are that close together, that are that separated in in how they administer things, leads to chaos.

5:17 The other thing is, is that I think the founders recognized early on that this would be a way that other countries could come in and disrupt what the founders had originally intended, which was to at some point get to be a United States. And so like a state like Pennsylvania, it could be surrounded, you know, by different monarchies, right? You could have Spain coming in and trying to lay claim to one of those or, or whatnot. So the founders understood that, hey, we got some problems here and, and they need to be addressed. And so that that is essentially what spurs on the Constitutional convention.

5:59 Now I want to share a little story here about that before we dive into what it is the founders ended up giving us. And my favorite founder of all is George Washington. And I think I think it was Jefferson that summed him up best. He said he wasn't the he wasn't the most intelligent, he wasn't the most articulate, but his honor was above reproach. So if Washington said something, you could take it to the bank. And so as Madison is is recognizing all these problems and a lot of the founders are Madison understands that they're going to have to get all these leaders of these different essentially city states to come together in Philadelphia and try to hammer out a new a new constitution, a new form of government.

6:49 And they go to, you know, he goes to to all the big names, right? The Adams, the, the Jefferson wasn't there. He was overseas. They go to, oh, I'm sorry, Franklin, all those other big founders, right? And he, he kind of lies to him, not kind of, he flat out lies to him. He says, you guys should come. And there's some consternation, right? There's some folks saying, gosh, I, I don't know if I want to go and Madison to, to kind of lure him in. He says, well, George Washington's going to preside at this and then everybody is on board. Now, this is all well and good, except for Washington doesn't know that Adams is making this this claim. And so as he's just a week or two away from the convention, he's like, I guess I better go talk to George now and see if this is going to work.

7:45 So he goes and he he ends up talking to George Washington. He says, you know, this is what's going to happen. And I kind of told everyone you were going to be there. And Washington is pretty perturbed. And Washington says something that's that's profound. He says, have I not yet bled enough for my country? And I think it shows his character that he just wants to go back. He's done his service. He just wants to go home and be a farmer. Nonetheless, there's we know that he goes now, we don't know how the decision making went on this. We have no clue at all, but there is a very interesting journal entry from Martha and I read it and I can't prove this.

8:35 I'm not saying this happened, but boy, it sure feels right. And all it says is spent hours with the general this night in in in the parlor as he was very unsettled. And I could only imagine that she was like, look, you know you're going to go you you can't not go. It's who you are. And that next morning he saddles his horse. He saddles his carriage and and makes makes off for Philadelphia. But this this would be a collection of men who really didn't agree as much as we think they are or what were led to believe. These were men of high integrity, high intelligence, and they were going to argue things to the death. But through that conflict, which would be Philadelphia, the the Constitutional Convention, they give us our Constitution, which today is the longest operating constitution in the country. Now, that doesn't mean that it's it's perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they gave us a heck of a head start. And to do this, they essentially borrowed from two places. And the first place that they borrow is Anglo-Saxon common law.

9:54 And now this one, I can't verify for certain the seal here, but I'm pretty certain that this was gonna be the seal, part of the seal for the first seal of the United States. There's two parts to it. And these are two prominent Anglo-Saxon men, Hengest and Horse. I believe they were brothers and it was just kind of a nod to it. It, it played a huge part. Can anyone here tell me who the Anglo Saxons were? The Anglo Saxons were, were essentially the Vikings. And they, the interesting thing is, is we always think of Vikings as as those guys who are out there, you know, marauding and pillaging.

10:51 And look, they did that, but they also had some interesting ideas on government. And so some of the things that they borrowed from the Anglo Saxons were, were things like, excuse me, it's not working here. Here we go. So out of this there's comes what's called people's law, right? And under this Anglo-Saxon kind of ideal, they were considered a Commonwealth of free men, right? They weren't subservient to each other and in the same way we would think of with kings and stuff, they certainly had their chieftains and their rulers.

11:33 But there was this idea that all men were were free. They were considered a Commonwealth of, of of free men. Leaders were chosen by the governed. Laws were considered natural law or given by divine dispensation. Power was dispersed among the people. It was never allowed to concentrate in one one person. And then when it came to problem solving, there was a definite order that the Anglo Saxons had right If there is, if there was a problem with a family or a person, it would first go from the individual to the family to the tribe, then the community, the region and the nation. So it was this ascending order and to to give you an example of kind of how serious they were about this, this is what's known as the the public land survey system. Now I'm going to get a little nerdy here and talk about what I do for a living.

12:37 And West of the 13 colonies, Jefferson devised a system of dividing up land for people to purchase. And how he would do that is that he would take what was what was called a Township. And a Township was divided up into 36 square miles. And so you can see how they're kind of numbered here. They go from 1:00 to 6:00 here, drops down to 7, all the way down to 36. This would be the next Township over. Now, what's interesting about this is that when Jefferson first devises his plan, not only is he saying, OK, this will be great for settling, but he also gives some instruction that that these should be used as voting districts as well.

13:26 So again, remembering that ascending order it when when you were voting, you would vote, you know, here and then the bulk of the 36 how it was divided or if it was split, they would inform that. But then the Township would vote and then on up to counties and state. And likewise, it was supposed to work the opposite way when if things ever got bad right that OK, if the federal government ever went down, it would go to the state, then to the county and then eventually down to these townships. But we've ignored that. The other thing this if we would have stuck to Jefferson's principles here, and I believe the principles of the rest of the the the founders, we would not have the problems we have now with cherry meandering where where politicians are dividing up voting districts based on where people live. If we'd have stuck to that system, it would have been there.

14:22 But nonetheless, I the overall point here is that the founders definitely borrow this idea of kind of an ascending order when dealing with problems. The other place that the founders drew heavily from was the Bible itself. This was going to be the other part of our national seal. And what it represents is the Exodus story. So here you have Moses and the children of Israel being LED across the, the, the Red Sea with the, the, the pillar of fire and the cloud of smoke and Pharaoh's armor armies being drowned in the ocean. And so these were these were men who borrowed from these sources. So we just kind of talked about what he what they borrowed from the, the Anglo Saxons.

15:13 Now we're going to talk a little bit about what he, he, what they borrow from the Hebrew Bible. If the Bible itself is, interestingly enough, has a little bit of emphasis on liberty. In Leviticus 2510, it says, And ye shall hollow the the 15th year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land until all the inhabitants thereof. OK, pop quiz real quick. Where else does this part show up on one of our national monuments? Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. There is one American artifact that has this inscribed on it. Anyone want to take a guess?

16:05 Is it the Liberty Bell? It is the Liberty Bell. Yep, it is the Liberty Bell. You can in Philadelphia, they have it set in behind a glass case, but you can still go in and look at it. And interestingly enough, there is a, there was a second bell that was cast out of that, that particular cast. And I believe it is an ownership right now of a gentleman down in Texas who who actually bought the second Liberty Bell and has it preserved in his private collection. My hope is, is that one day he will part with that because from what I understand it is still operational. It can be rung and every once in a while, I believe there's plans this year of rolling it out in a celebration in Texas somewhere where he's going to put it on a on a wooden oh kind of plank and hold it up and he'll ring that bell and sound out. I would love to hear it anyway.

17:05 So yeah, they're they're borrowing from from the from the Hebrew scriptures here and the Lord is very clear here. He's he's he even criticizes or or chastises Israel when they mess up and Jeremiah 34 seven the Lord tells them therefore, thus saith the Lord, ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty, everyone to his brother and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim liberty for you, saith the Lord. OK, so Israel was expected to walk up to to liberty here, and if they didn't, the Lord was quick to to, to beat him down. Now, it's more than just principle that the founders are drawing from when it comes to to the Hebrew Scriptures.

17:54 They actually borrow some structure. And this is this is pretty interesting. So this comes from Exodus 18, verses 13 through 26. And this is a problem that's going on is that Moses is kind of at this point acting kind of like a king. He is, he, he's like trying to solve all the people's problems. And so he's, he's kind of starting to wear down and Jethro's going to come in and he's going to submit his plan, his idea for something. And so I, I find this real interesting. I want to read these 'cause I, I don't think we can do it justice if we just glossed over it here.

18:39 Let me, let me go back one here and try to get rid of the screen here. There we go, starting at 13. And it came to pass on the Morrow that Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood by Moses from the morning until the evening. And when Moses's father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, what is this thing that thou doest to the people? Why sittest thou self thyself alone? And all the people stand by thee from morning until evening. OK, so Jethro and and it's pretty interesting here. I want to make another connection. Most likely I, I don't have anything that I can point to for certain. If someone else does, I'd love to hear it 'cause I'm willing to be wrong here.

19:27 But my, my thoughts are, is that Moses probably got his, got ordained to the priesthood from his father-in-law. And so it's interesting that his father-in-law, who's kind of a priesthood man, is the one that's about to illuminate, you know, the problem and then the solution. So Jethro sees Moses, and he's just there morning tonight, hearing all the concerns of the people, all the problems that they have. And you can only imagine the problems that would be there, right? I mean, so and so, you know, took my cow or, you know, so and so broke something to mind. And so Moses has to just sit and constantly mediate these issues. So in going on in 15.

20:13 And Moses said unto his father-in-law, Because the people come unto me, and inquire of God, when they have a matter, they come unto me, and I judge between 1:00 and another, and I do not make them excuse me, and I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws. And Moses, father-in-law, said unto him, The thing thou doest is not good. Thou shalt surely wear away both thou and this people that is with thee, for this thing is too heavy for thee. Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. Hearken unto my voice, and I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee. Be thou for the people to God word that thou mayest bring this cause unto God.

20:57 OK, so Jethro's illuminating the plan here. He's like, look, you're going to wear yourself out this, you know, you're going to wear out the people. Even that's interesting that the people themselves would be wore out and he said hearken to my voice and be for your people to Godward saying OK, when the problems are that tough, look to God. That's your role going on in verse 20, that thou may teach them ordinances and laws, and shall shew them the way wherein that they must walk and the work that they must do. And moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating, covetousness, a place such for them to be rulers of thousands and rulers of hundreds, and rulers of 50s and rulers of 10's. And let them judge the people at all seasons. And it shall be that every let me move the screen here. Every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge.

22:10 So shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing and God command thee, then thou shalt be able to endure. And all this people shall also go to their place in peace. So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people. Rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of 50s and rulers of 10's. And they judge the people at all seasons, the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judge themselves.

22:52 So what does that kind of sound like? Does anyone want to take a take a guess here? Taylor, I saw you. You made a, made a response. Oh, sure. I was just putting in the chat a few things. So First off, the reference for Moses, he was ordained by Jethro. It's not recorded in the Old Testament, but it is in section 84, verse 6. And in fact, another interesting note that who was it Tim was asking about is because I, I just mentioned that it's interesting to me that Jethro's line of authority is contemporaneous to Abraham's, but it's a separate line and, and it's actually in section 84.

23:39 I'll just read a few verses. It gives the, the, the priesthood line genealogy. Jethro received under the hand of Caleb who received under the hand of Eli, who who was under the hand of Jeremy, who was under the hand of Gad, who was under the hand of Isaius and Isaias received it under the hand of God. Isaias also lived in the days of Abraham and was blessed of him. So Isaias was apparently a peer, you know another king and a priest in the days of Abraham and they knew each other and and he received a blessing at his hand. The other thing that I wanted to to point out here is the parallels between these verses that you just read with the the revelation that the the Brigham Young received about the organization of the camp of Israel as the Saints moved from Nauvoo out to Utah, organizing into captains of hundreds, captains of 50s, captains of 10 with the president and his counselors at their head under the direction of the 12. That's in section 136, verse 3 and and it's it's the emphasis is about the covenant that they will walk in all the ordinances of the Lord in verse 4.

24:49 I just see some striking parallels to these verses that you just read. This is from Exodus, right? Yeah, that's that's all I had. No, that's great. I think it's also interesting to point out, and I'm trying to find the reference here and I, I didn't write it down and I wish I would have. But there, there is a section where it does talk, talk about that leaders were elected. And, and you can find that in Second Samuel, in Chronicles 29, in Second Chronicles 10, and that the people also voted on new laws as well. And so there's a, there's a tradition here within the Hebrew scriptures of of, you know, keeping power and governance close to the people.

25:40 And that's important. Why is it important that government stay as close to the people as possible? Well, the opposite. That would be like Pharaoh, right? They just got out of Egypt. They just been under this total totalitarian government system. And in that kind of a system, if you're a Hebrew slave, you have no recourse. There's no justice. There's the law can't defend you. It can only be used to hurt you. Absolutely. Anybody else. It's interesting, having lived all over the country, I've had the opportunity.

26:26 I mean, I've lived in Alaska, I've lived in Idaho, I've lived in Utah, North Dakota, Maryland, and now Missouri. And the one thing I find interesting is that each state has its own unique characteristics and along with that its own unique problems. And so if you were trying to govern a a land and a people is diverse as Americans to try to impose A1 size fits all solution on those problems, it's not gonna work. And so by keeping the government close to the people, the people themselves have the opportunity of looking and saying, OK, what are the issues here and what can we do about it? That also provides a nice framework of not only being able to address the problems from those people who are affected by it, but also those folks are going to be way more sensitive to the needs of the people within anyone jurisdiction. If that, if, if we wait for DC to make all the laws, we have to look at the problems that DC is having, right. I, I use the, the homelessness problem a lot in this, in this argument here.

27:46 We hear people from like major population centers a lot of the time say, well, we need to allocate more money for homelessness and for social programs and these sorts of things. And folks like the majority of us who live out in the country, right, we tend to be like, well, we don't have those problems. And So what you get is an overbearing federal government that wants people who don't have those problems to pay and fix problems of somebody else. And it makes no sense. And quite frankly, it tramples on rights. And by keeping the government close to the people, you can get rid of some of that. Now, the founders, they drew from from other sources as well.

28:29 These weren't the only sources that they drew. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Go ahead. Sorry, I repeat it. Come off mute. Yo, you're good. Before we move on from that point, I just want to tie it in to King, King Mosiah before, before his death and kind of succession because he he was the king and and he was a great king. You know, talk about the ideal situation. If you could have a king like Benjamin or Mosiah or Jesus, you know, we wouldn't need to worry about elections and, you know, keeping power less centralized or, you know, having too much power focused in one person. But because King Mosiah recognized the the tendency of men, if it's a kingship, it's usually a genealogical. So it's just passed down to the sons. And as we saw with wicked King Noah, that can have catastrophic problems.

29:25 And so it's real good to so King Benjamin proposed. He's like, not only is it not fair to the people to just be at the whim of, oh, hopefully we have a good king, but if his son's a scoundrel, then we're kind of screwed. That's not fair to the people, but it's also not fair to the king to have so much burden of responsibility. And so he proposed a, a dispersion of that focused power in one person. And he said it was to make men accountable for their own destiny, you know, to have individual say and and influence in the affairs of the nation, rather than it's just the one guy making all the calls and calling all the shots, right. So I think that it the the centralization. So as you know, you're everybody's probably familiar with the expression power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely.

30:19 When you have a king that is absolute power and it can have a very corrupting influence. And so I'm sure King Mosiah even struggled with like, do I, we don't really have the full record of every dealing in judgment that he made, but I bet he had personal experience. And that's why he's like, it's not fair to the king either to have to to bear that whole weight of responsibility on his own. And so he proposed the people have, you know, say, and he was kind of in stating some of these Old Testament laws, you know, precedents that you have mentioned, like from Second Samuel, the, the involvement of the people in submitting, you know, they have to have consent, they have to have a vote, they have to have a say before new laws get passed.

31:07 The other thing, and this is backing up just a little bit. I just wanted to comment, you were talking about where are the origins of the Anglo Saxons. The Anglo Saxons are, you know, and many other European tribes like the early like Dark Ages types of tribes have actually been traced to some ancient civilizations that no longer exist. But the archaeologists are discovering they're called the Scythians or Scythians. It's CSCYTHIANS and the Cimarans, which is with a CCIMMARANS. I'm pretty sure that's how they're spelled. And the Scythians and the Sumarins came out of nowhere, so to speak. You know, there's no archaeological record that I can trace back exactly.

31:55 But they just, they just came and they, and then they were there and they had quite highly developed societies and, and economies and all of these arts and all of these things that they're finding these relics and artifacts from these ancient civilizations. But they emerged right about where the Romans dumped the Israelites from the northern kingdoms after they took over in about 600 BC and destroyed the temple and all of that sort of thing. So it's really interesting that the Romans did forced relocations to try to, you know, nip in the bud any kind of revolts and things like that. And so when the, when the OR not Romans, but the Babylonians and Romans did this too.

32:39 But so like some of these ancient empires to, to try to quell uprisings from these newly conquered territories, they would do forced displacement. And it wasn't, they weren't unnecessarily harsh. I mean, obviously they had no say. They had to do it. The, the, the, the soldiers were making them move, but they guarded them along their journey and all these things. So, so we have records of where these tribes of Israel were moved to. But then they're just, they disappeared. And that's why we call them the lost 10 tribes. But right about where these lost 10 tribes disappeared, the Simran and the Scythian ancient civilizations just came out of nowhere, quote UN quote and and thrived and built up these civilizations.

33:22 And so I actually am quite personally convinced, you know, I could be wrong, but this is there's a lot of compelling evidence in my opinion that these are actually Israelites, the Anglo Saxons and, and even the American founders, the the George Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, all of these guys are actually of the blood of Israel, but they've lost their identity. But they, yet, that's why I think that these Anglo-Saxon and these Old Testament precedents and the ways that the way they organize themselves and their societies spoke to the American founders and they patterned a lot of the constitutional principles of, of our nation upon these ancient structures. So that's just another kind of thing. I, I almost shared earlier.

34:10 I I I thought it was probably worth mentioning. Absolutely. No. I'm glad you went there. I didn't do that research. I just wanted to identify where they are. But I'm glad you brought that up because I think it does add more credence to that scripture we read in Genesis where it talks about Joseph growing over the wall. And it'll be a fruitful bow, right. I, I do think that that we can find evidences that, that that definitely takes place through, through the Anglo Saxons and and the, the other names that were given to him. It's fascinating stuff. Thanks, Taylor. I appreciate that. I was going to save this part to the end. I think that that now that we've had a little bit of discussion about kingly government, I, I want to throw this out here. There's a quote by Franklin that says there's a natural, there's a natural inclinations in mankind for kingly government. Why do you think that is?

35:08 Why do you think there is a natural inclination towards kingly government? I think there's probably 2 answers for why we are inclined toward that or why people as a whole would be inclined toward that. I think the the 1st and probably the most obvious is that natural man is inclined to offload the responsibility to somebody else and let somebody else make the decisions for them because it's easier for them. But the other thing too is that a dictatorship or a king is a very effective government.

35:49 And so when you have an external threat, you want a powerful government. I think both of those those play hand in hand. No, I think you're 100% correct. I think look for, for guys who look, I, I can definitely zone out with the rest of everybody else, right? I want to be clear, I'm not saying I'm, I'm immune to this, but it does make it easy, right? And in a weird way, I think we've done this with the two party system in America where we can just say, you know what, somebody else has that problem worked out. They, they, you know, they'll, they'll fix it. And it allows us to be entertained with bread and circuses.

36:33 And so I think it's I think it's one of those things that that we constantly have to fight that part of us who just want to roll that off to somebody else. So how do we guard against these inclinations in our own lives? How do we make sure we don't become susceptible to accepting the rule of a of a one man or a king? By being willing to take upon ourselves personal responsibility by by not offloading that to somebody else.

37:17 What do they call it? Extreme ownership. 100% So yeah, that was a great book. Did you read that, Tim? Yeah, I did. Oh, that's a good book. OK IA 100% agree with you. A lot of times as people who are maybe more in favor of limited government right, we don't want to have government trying to solve every single problem. That means that we we have to look at our rights and understand and, and this, this will come up again and again throughout this book as we go through it. We have to not only look at our rights, but look at the responsibility that goes along with that right.

38:07 And if we flex our responsibility as well as our rights, we won't need a big government. One of my favorite presidents, aside from Washington is, is somebody that most people kind of like raise an eyebrow at. He was labeled a do nothing president actually, and it was Calvin Coolidge and Coolidge was was entering office. I can't remember who it was that was assassinated before him, but he gets into office because somebody the the president was shot. He was vice president and as he is taking the oath of office, he takes office by candlelight.

38:53 But when he leaves the White House, in most American homes, there's now radios and cars. It was a a fantastic leap forward. Now, what makes it even more impressive is that when Coolidge comes to to power as president, when he's sworn in, America's starting to go into a really bad depression. And they asked Coolidge, what are you going to do? And he says nothing, I'm going to leave it alone. And it got worse for a minute. It it got way worse for, for a minute. But by leaving it alone, he allowed the market to correct itself. And what came out of that was essentially the roaring 20s. And there's been some fascinating, fascinating research done as of late to suggest that the depression in America was called the Great Depression, but it took us the longest to come out of it because we kept fiddling with it.

39:51 And it was actually government intervention that caused the Great Depression in the 1st place. And so there, there's this idea here, right? That that if you can just leave it alone a little bit. Let people do their thing and and and exercise their rights. People will figure it out. The other thing Coolidge did that I really liked, there was a horrible flood down in Texas during his administration. And Coolidge was asked, you know, are you going to send federal monies down there? And Coolidge says no. I have faith in the American people that they will do the right thing.

40:33 And he was right. The rest of Texas and neighboring states came to the aid of that area in Texas and helped their brothers and sisters out in that area. But I think that's because people in that time, they not only were familiar with their rights, they were familiar with their responsibilities that were associated with those rights. Sometimes we, we, we, we like to yell and jump and scream about our rights when we haven't bothered initiating what our duty is in terms of keeping the responsibility of that right. So like today, if we look at the 1st Amendment, our right to free speech, that is fantastic. We need that.

41:21 But what's the responsibility of free speech? Does anyone want to want to venture into those waters? I think it's to be informed. I think it's to to make sure that that we are spending adequate time familiar, familiarizing ourselves with whatever it is we're going to speak on. Now, you can speak regardless of that, but if we're going to exercise that right, I do believe there's a responsibility that goes along with that. Likewise, if we look at the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, I, I think the responsibility there is that you are a responsible gun owner, that you, you have your guns stored in a safe place and that you are familiar with your firearms and know how to use them.

42:15 And so we look at all these things, all these rights that we have, right? But there are corresponding responsibilities and they'll be illuminated later in this book. But I, I do think that that is a, a huge part of the problem that we face today. Does anyone have anything you'd like to add on that before we move on? OK, So what comes out of the founders research and, and, and, and the, the constitutional convention? And I do want to say that the founders did borrow from other sources. It wasn't just Anglo-Saxon law and the Bible. They looked at Greece, they looked at Rome, they looked and you know, they looked everywhere for examples of, of good government and tried to collect as much as they can. And what, what they come up with is a system that is while certainly you, you can look at almost every part of the constitution and say, well, that's really not unique, right? We we've heard about this in other places, but this is the first time that a group of men got together and said, let's extract all those ideas and see if we can encapsulate them into one form of government.

43:34 And in the book, it's Skousen kind of, and I love the way he did this. He kind of makes a a symbol of the cut type of government we got and it's the three headed eagle. And we're going to go over what each one of those those symbols mean in this Crest here. So we'll start here on on the left side of thing here you see this wing and Skousen calls this the problem solving wing. On the right hand side of things, the right wing is called the conservation wing. And then up here you have the the powers divided up in America.

44:15 You have the executive branch, which would be president, the House and the Senate and the judicial. So let me ask this question. If we were to kind of split this eagle down the middle here, how is this right side kind of the conservation wing of the of of the federal government, How does the judicial tie into that? Well, the. Judicial. Branch isn't they're, they're not making laws and they're not enforcing laws. So they are the far more methodical branch.

44:58 They're their, their jobs are to deliberate. Their jobs are to are to. I don't know what I can say it better than I already have, but to but to to judge is to basically keep what you have and make sure it's it's well understood as opposed to creating something new. Exactly. Exactly. I didn't mean to cut you off, Tim. Go ahead. Oh. No worries, no worries, I'm good. OK, Yeah. So when a new law gets passed, the last place it's got to go through is the Supreme Court, the judicial wing. And the judicial wing's whole responsibility is supposed to be, is this constitutional right? And so you can look at that, that that conservation side of, of the government as trying to protect the rights of the people, trying to make sure that all these laws are going to be to be copacetic with the Constitution. Now, I'm going to be honest with you. I kind of disagree with scousing here, with putting the Senate up here now today.

46:12 I think originally I think it was supposed to be on that side, but who can tell me what the issue would be with the Senate today as opposed to what the founders originally intended the Senate to be? Popular elections. Yes, yes. Why is that important? Was that Justin that said that? Yeah, yeah. Why is that important, Justin? Well, because this, the Senate originally is intended to represent the state, the state government, not the people in the state necessarily, but the government of the state. And that's a kind of a check against potential overly progressive ideas that could be reckless, right? Somebody's got this great new idea. He's his name's Marx.

47:02 We ought to give this a shot, right? And the and the the people might be in an uproar about something like that, but the, the state government should be more focused on stability. And they're the ones appointing the senators. And so the senators a lot, I mean, not nearly as much as the Supreme Court, which are appointed for life and but are also appointed, right. We don't vote for Supreme Court justices either. We weren't supposed to vote for Senate. We would vote for House. And then we have this, you know, complicated system for the executive. But but yeah, that tends to create more stability and more long term interest perspective than you get when it's just, man, I can't afford a house, let's vote this guy in.

47:46 He says he's got a solution. 100% and so so the senators were essentially appointed by the governors of each state. And I can't remember what law it was that changed that what? But you know, on the surface you could what which amendment was that, Taylor? The 17th Amendment passing 17th. Thank you. What it did is it essentially turned the Senate into the House, right? And that's, that's not like there's nothing wrong with with Congress, with with the House of Representatives. But if the Senate was able to be the stop gap between the an encroaching federal government, it's, it's a healthier check.

48:39 And I understand that there's a knee jerk reaction because we've been conditioned to think of America as a democracy rather than a Republic that, well, if they're democratically elected, they will, they will absolutely do a better job of governing. And I don't think that is necessarily true. I would, I'll be honest, I, I would like to go back to having senators appointed by the governor. I think that that it might make for a cleaner separation as well. Likewise, the the that senator is going to be still be beholden to the people of his state because he's going to have to answer the governor and the governor answers to the people. And I do think it would be an easier way of, of unseating senators too when they when they run amok. So let's go over this left hand side of, of things here real quick and let's talk about this.

49:36 So here we have Congress or the House, the House of Representatives, we have the executive branch. And this is looked at more as the problem solving wing. And I want to get some people's ideas on why Skousen maybe would have used that as or or likens that to the problem solving ring of things. And Vanessa and Charisse, don't feel bashful. Feel free to hop in here anytime you want. I think you know, you talk about the problem solving wing, it's like that's the side of change where you're looking for something new or you're looking to do something different. The conservation wing White likes to keep status quo, likes to keep things stable.

50:22 And then the problem solving wing is more dynamic, I think. And so I think it's kind of like a duality of nature's and so they have different qualities that we need. It's like flexibility and strength. It's you need, you can't be too flexible or you'll fall apart. You can't be too rigid or you'll, you'll be stagnant. And so I think it's a very balanced perspective. I think you're 100% correct. That was that was that was great. I appreciate that, Vanessa. No 100%. I think if either one of these are out of whack, we're going to have problems, right.

51:07 I would dare to say that today we're probably I well, I don't think I can just say it. I think I can say it with it with some absolute certainty. This branch of government has become way too powerful. And what ends up happening is that things get passed because this branch over outweighs this branch here today. They're not equal anymore is that we tend to get more progressive ideas, right? And look, I think we all like progress. That's not a bad thing. But I don't when it comes to principles, if, if your progression is not checked by making sure it's staying within the original confines of protecting human rights, protecting liberty, those liberties and rights are going to get trampled on.

52:03 And I think that's what we're seeing today. But let me say this, if we were too heavy on the right side of things, well, now all of a sudden we're not getting anything done, we're not innovating, we're not trying to find the solutions to problems. We are just stagnant. And so both of these things have to be in play here. And and Vanessa, I love what you said and, and Justin kind of talked about this. I believe it was our first class when he was talking about progressives versus conservatives and how Justin kind of and forget Justin, correct me if I'm wrong here. You said you, you kind of consider yourself more of a progressive in terms of not maybe how we use the word today, but the word in its truest sense where we were always kind of looking forward, right?

52:52 Right. Well, I mean, what are we, what we've got, how many, you know, how long has abortion been implanted as legal in our society? You look at the welfare state, all this, I mean, I'm from when I was born, I'm a younger guy, right? And so I'm looking at America now and the stuff that the liberals got away with is now become the status quo. And so I kind of look at that as I'd say that like that the left wing kind of got broken and that middle head is leaning way to the left. So, but on the other hand, you know, I think I think correctly the left wing there wouldn't be the problem solving wing. I think it would be more fair to say that's the that's the progressive wing, right?

53:38 But that wrong ideas about that a lot of times. And I kind of tend to consider myself more progressive today because I'm more focused on solving problems because we're we're kind of in a in a Marxist trap right now. And I don't want to conserve that. I want to get away from that. Absolutely, absolutely. I, I've often compared, you know, the, the plan that the founders had put forward with divided powers and, and whatnot in kind of like a suspension bridge. And if you've ever seen a suspension bridge, they're, they're actually kind of really cool to look at.

54:22 And if you can stand back a ways, if you can gain perspective on, on that bridge and actually be still for a moment and just watch that bridge. I remember I first saw this, gosh, it was in the Pacific Northwest somewhere. I think it was up, up along the, the Columbia right there as it kind of divides Oregon and Washington. And there was a suspension bridge and we actually had to go out in a boat and get some shots about 1/4 of the way into the river because we were looking for high water. So we take a shot on the bank and then go out. But we, we anchored and I just kind of watched the suspension bridge.

55:03 And as cars would drive over it, it would flex, but it never flexed enough to where you would if you were driving on it, you would feel it. But I thought, man, the balance that that's got to take, right? Because if it's too rigid, it's going to have weight that goes over the top, that's going to crack the structure. If it's too loose, every wind that comes along is going to rock it and then start the process of of momentum taking over and it's going to rock that bridge and it's going to eventually snap and collapse. And so I do believe that in these things, we're looking for a healthy tension, right? How do we keep things strong but yet flexible? And I think that's exactly what the founders were going for here.

55:52 Is that in this, in the system of government, it was designed to be strong, yet flexible. And I think we've lost not only that strength, but a certain amount of our flexibility to. And I think as we look around today and we see some of the problems, it's because we have a lack of that healthy tension. And so in order to get back to that, we, I think we do have to look back this time rather than forward and, and progress this time might be going back and reinstituting the, the, the original idea there. Did anyone have anything else they'd like to add to that? I have a comment.

56:39 Yeah, it's been interesting in studying the human body in the in the field of fascia research and other things. There's a model that's been brought forth that describes the human body as a tensegrity machine, meaning that we're a combination of rigid and flexible. It's like like a toy that has wooden dowels connected by elastics that you kind of squish it, but then it pops back into its shape. But I think these principles exist within our human body, within our government. I think they're very important to keep everything healthy, whether it's our body, whether it's, you know, the, the nature of female and, and male, it's, it's why we're commanded to be married is because it brings that balance.

57:28 It's not just one side, it's, it gives the other perspective. And anyway, it's just very interesting that it exists on all the levels and it's what we need to stay healthy and to stay adaptable to whatever's going on in the environment. Absolutely. You know, it's, it's also worth worth noting here that that the founders were were concerned enough about the executive branch having the flexibility they needed in a national crisis that they kind of made the Marines the president's personal, I don't want to say Army, that's not right. But the the president can do things with the Marines for a short period of time to go to war. It takes an act of Congress, but the president as his disposal always has the opportunity of dispatching the Marines for a certain period of time.

58:27 Tim, correct me if I'm wrong, is, is that still the case today in in the United States? Do you know you're you're in the Navy, right? I'm aware of of emergency powers that the president has across all branches of the military. I'm not aware of anything unique about the Marines, but that could just be something I'm not aware of. Thanks Tim. I'm I'm a look it up here real quick. But yeah, if I'm not mistaken, they he he can dispatch them for a certain period of time without Congress declaring war. While you're down, I'll just ramble a little bit about I think all branches are pretty, It's pretty well understood that the president can activate any branch for anything that he can justify as an emergency up to I think 90 days. It's for, you know, safety of our shore, safety of American interests abroad.

59:26 But I don't, I think that's Army, Navy Marines. I think that's any branch that he has that ability to do that with. And so if there's something unique about the Marines, I I'd like to hear it. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'll, I'll try to look it up and if I can find it again, I'll, I'll put it on there. Or if I misread it, I'll own up to that too. And so we do need that flexibility because if we don't have it, we're, we're going to snap. At the same time, we just can't be blown about by every wind of political doctrine. And so that conservative way comes in real hot and heavy. So that pretty much wraps up this section. We've gone for just a little bit over an hour now and I knew this one would be a little shorter because we we covered part of it last week and didn't get a chance to go all the way through.

1:00:14 Does anybody have anything else they'd like to add before we wrap this up? OK, perfect. Then with that, I think we'll go ahead and wrap up for the night. Taylor, would you mind giving us the closing prayer? You bet, our Father in Heaven, we come before Thee tonight to give Thee great thanks for all of our blessings. We are grateful for the legacy that we've inherited from our founding fathers and those generations that have come gone before us. We ask you to help us to be able to learn these principles and let them sink deep into our hearts, into our children's hearts.

1:01:08 Help us to teach them and prepare them for their generational responsibility. And please let us preserve these principles. We know that you hold the destiny of nations in thy hands and we don't have the control that that it would take to be able to make great macro level changes. But will you ask You to help us and bless us and prepare us for that we can set our own homes in order? And that we can teach our children and use our influence to lift and elevate and educate and inspire those around us and our communities that we can instill these principles deeply into into Thy gospel and into our communities and that will one day be able to establish Thy Zion upon the earth. And we pray for those who are in power that they can have Thy spirit and yield to their better natures and receive good counsel and make good decisions.

1:02:32 And we thank thee for this class and the opportunity to come together and discuss these ideas and seek to better understand them and, and learn from one another. And we love you very much, Father, and pray for all those who are sicker and in need at this time, and that they can recover and have what they stand in need of, and that those who are in mourning can be comforted. And we say these things humbly and gratefully, in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, Amen. Thanks, Taylor. I appreciate it. All right, everybody, We'll see you next week. Thanks, Dave.

1:03:18 See you guys. See y'all. Thanks, Dave.