The 5,000 Year Leap Discussion Group #2

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.

1:25 In conjunction with that, I've also 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. Well, it's about 10 after. We'll go ahead and we'll get started here. I'm sure as normal people jump on as time goes along. So, but with that, we'll just go ahead and get rolling. Melissa, are you in a place where you could give us an opening prayer? Maybe not. All right, Kevin, are you open to give us an opening prayer? Yeah, that'd be fine all.

2:56 Right. Thanks. Our Father in heaven, we're thankful for this nice day. We're thankful that we can meet together and enjoy the Constitution class and talk about godly principles, learn from each other about what founded this country, particularly natural law. And please bless that the Spirit can be with us. And we say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Amen. All right. Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate that. So as, as we discussed last week, this would be a place where we're not going to sit down and just read the book together.

3:42 That would be boring. And so one of the things we talked about was, was doing the reading beforehand and coming back and and just discuss it, having a discussion about it. Now I again, I want to emphasize it. I'm just simply leading the discussion. I'm not trying to sit here and tell you I know all I've read. You know, I've read up on this for a little bit, a little bit of portion of my life, but I certainly could always stand to to know more. So again, I'm looking forward to all your guys's participation. I anticipate learning a lot from you and everybody there. So the this first section here and I think don't think we're going to get all through that this week. I'm imagining we're going to have to come back next week. But a large portion of, of this part of the book dealt with the structuring of a government because prior to, to, to what the founders had done up until that time, almost not all, but almost every other nation on earth was governed by usually one man, usually a monarch of some sort. And so power was very consolidated. And this was the first time that we were going to see see certain ideas become implemented in a government that was successful. Now, we're going to talk a

5:13 little bit tonight about kings and monarchs and those sorts of things. And I do want to make the distinction that the type of king that I'll be speaking about is not the same kind of king we hear about in the gospel. Those are two different things we're looking at. Certainly there can crossover, but one usually ends up going off the rails because it's not divinely sanctioned. So keeping that in mind as we go along, but I want to start with this at at the beginning of this section of the book, it talks about some of the fallacies that people fall into. And real quick, can someone answer? Are they able to see my screen? I shared my screen here.

5:55 I want to make sure everyone can see that. Yeah, I can see Rob. OK, perfect. All right. So at the beginning of the book, it talks about kind of maybe some of the fallacies that we find ourselves falling into today in terms of political explanation of our positions. And we we tend to assign label to those. And one of those are in the terms right and left when it when we get into describing politics and government. I'm curious from you guys doing your reading, what's wrong with those terms right and left?

6:44 Well, I mean, I think there's a lot wrong with those terms. We typically understand that to mean right being conservative and left being liberal right. Right. And I actually have an interesting take on this because I actually consider myself more liberal. Why do I say that? Well, because ever since I was born, abortion has been pretty much de facto status quo in America. And that isn't something that I want to conserve. And so I don't, I, I consider myself progressive in that in that sense, because I want to see that these things, I want to see us improve.

7:29 I want to see us do better than that status quo. And this is kind of a tricky thing, but I think a lot of people are, you know, they just kind of need your reaction. You know, I'm I'm right, I'm left, or I'm conservative or I'm liberal. We don't really think a whole lot about what those terms actually mean, though. And as the world kind of gets worse and worse, I find that I don't necessarily identify with these terms the same way that people used to be able to identify with them. It's not quite so easy as which team are you on anymore? I think it requires a more nuanced approach to say, well, what things do I want to conserve and which things do I think we need to actually progress into something better, Right? And, you know, I was, I was very fortunate in this regard. And that, you know, my grandfather was a staunch conservative and my dad was a liberal. And I heard both sides of the story growing up. And I, I think there's value to that because the way that that this is presented in the book really shows that it's not like 1 is right and the other is wrong. It's they're both good things.

8:42 If they don't extend the bounds of that, the Lord is set. And if they do extend those bounds, then they can both be bad things, like, for example, conserving the status quo on issues such as the welfare state or conserving the status quo on things like abortion and all that. Where, no, I'm actually kind of radically liberal in that regard. I want to see this changed radically. No, that's, that's a good point. Anybody else have anything they'd like to add there? You know, one of the things that I, I came to mind as Justin was talking is that in some ways the right and left in America and, and maybe not so much today 'cause things have gotten so crazy, but let's just go back to, to the Constitutional Convention. Those men didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things and it forced them to go back and to really have debates one to another. And because they were able to do that and do that somewhat agreeably, that allowed them to to forge out what would become our Constitution.

10:01 But they only did that through absolutely debate and disagreeing. Taylor, I saw your hand go up. Yeah, the other thing is in the modern paradigm of right and left, they're really just two sides of the same coin. Cause the right wing, you know, the, the, the conservative wing of politics nowadays, they want big government in certain areas, military, whatever, you know, education. They want to push these, these large things in certain areas that are their favorite things. Or, you know, investing in the economy, bailouts sort of things, which is, is actually in historical terms, very, very, you know, tyrannical.

10:52 Whereas on the, the left, they, they want us, they want government to get way bigger in their pet areas. You know, they want to fund more abortions, you know, education, there's some overlap there. But you know, and so really both the right and left want bigger government and they want more centralization of power and less freedom. They just want them in different flavours. But it's really a misnomer 'cause it's not like you really have a choice. It's just like, what kind of bad do you want? And so it's, it's, it's a prison of paradigm. Whereas the founders, they termed it more in, in the sense of a different scale altogether, a totally different paradigm, which is a healthy paradigm of, OK, proper role of government. And what are the proper bounds the Lord has set? 100% and and that'll, that'll lead into this next slide. And, and I kind of made a few slides to kind of I think show at least my big issue with these things. So if we looked here, this is what the view light looks like in America, right?

12:00 You have the Republicans on the right, you have the Democrats on the left, the Republicans claim to be these days. And this is kind of in a, a perfect world claim to be conservatives, right? Meaning that they want to hold on to these cherished principles and, and whatnot. The Democrats, they tend to look at what can government do for people. And so there, there's this back and forth in this contention. And, and when it's healthy, it, it, that tension can, can kind of work like a suspension bridge, right? It takes 2 diametric forces, it uses it together to make a structure that's both flexible as well as strong. Now, that's from the American perspective. But something happens when we go over to Europe, when we ask what the right and left is in Europe.

12:55 Right is fascism, left is communism, and that is the the view right. One is the Nazis, the other is the USSRK. Again, I don't think it paints the full picture. I think the, the problem with the terms right and left here and, and the scale is that it tends to become enlarged, right. If we were to look at a worldwide view or a, a total view of the entire political philosophy. I think what we can see is that if you were to compare America with, with, you know, Europe just as an example, you're gonna find that we're actually miles apart. And so you would have absolute, you know, conservatism on the right and then Nazism, communism, fascism on the left. And they're much closer together. But you have that forces you to have to zoom out. And so the terms right and left are going to mean different people to different things at different times. Does anyone have anything they want to follow up with or throw out their comment on with this part of it? Kevin, go ahead.

14:18 I'll saw your hand go up. Yeah, that's one thing the book did mention. Maybe I'm getting a little head here, but it did mention the extremes, the right and the left, are they called tyranny? And I can't remember the other word that they oh, and anarchy. And it's it's probably a more accurate maybe for back then. I don't know if that'd work for now, but it did mention anarchy and tyranny as opposed to the right left paradigm and how they tried to find metal. Grant, I hope I'm not getting too far ahead of you all here.

15:00 No, no. And I, I don't think so at all. And, and I think you bring up an interesting point here. And there was, I had a college professor who had come up with an idea that maybe this idea of a political ideology should be put on a circle. Because in all actuality, anarchy isn't that much farther removed from absolute tyranny. You aren't necessarily at liberty to to go about your daily affairs if there's anarchy. You don't have any assurity that your hard work is going to pay off if someone can come get to you.

15:43 And so I'm, yeah, I see, I see what you're saying there. And I, I do think that that tyranny and anarchy are, are actually more closely related than than what it may appear on the surface. Anybody else? You know, maybe along with that, I, I kind of like how you actually have Republicans and Democrats kind of close together over there. I think a lot of people might disagree with that today, but I actually think that is true. Having a lot of friends and family that are of the more Democrat political persuasion. What I have found is that in discussion, in discussing things, we really do have the same ideas of what we want the world to look like.

16:31 It's not that radically different. It's really more of an issue on disagreements on how do we get there. But I kind of really appreciate that. That was mentioned in the book. How, you know, the Founding fathers, they didn't all agree on stuff like, you know, talking about how to elect a president. They had to go through 60 ballots, but they wanted everybody on the same page. That was really important to them. And I think there's a, there's an important truth to that of the value of getting everybody on the same page. And if you're not there yet, let's keep talking about it. Let's keep discussing it, let's figure it out. Because the presumption of that is we really do want the same kind of things.

17:14 We want the same outcomes. What we're really arguing is how to best get there. And I think that's actually to a large degree true, at least maybe not among the, the liberal and conservative politicians, but as far as the, the citizens of the, of the country that identify as Republican and Democrat. I, I think the things that they want, the outcomes they want really aren't that different. The it's just a difference of perception of how things are now and what's needed to to get things to that better state. Absolutely. No.

17:56 That's good and you know it. It is funny. I do think that that most people in America, people, not politicians, not not leaders, not legislators. I think most people just want a, a world in which, you know, their kids can grow up and be relatively safe and have an opportunity to further their dreams and pursue happiness wherever that lies. And it, I think you're 100% correct. The, the argument comes into how do we get there and how are we going? What map are we going to use? And oftentimes people can get confused and think, well, actually this map, you know, according to this map, if, if we take a hard left here, we could reach the promised land when in all actuality, maybe that map is turned upside down and we know that it's going to lead off of a Cliff. So that is the argument, right?

18:55 How do we get to where it is we want to be? Anybody else? Evan, I see your hand is still up. Did you have something or is that leftover from the last time? Oh, there it went down. OK. All right. Well, we'll go ahead and move on here. Then next slide on page 10, it says measuring people and issues in terms of political parties has turned out to be, I can't say that word, philosophical.

19:37 Philosophical. I can't. Basically it's saying politically fallacious if not totally misleading. Yeah. Dave, start a podcast. That'll be great. You talk Well, yeah, let me start that over. Measuring people and issues in terms of political parties has turned out to be politically fallacious, if not totally misleading. Why is this true? Why is that true that measuring things based solely off of in terms of political parties? Why is that turned out to be false? I think that doing that just simplifies the the parties a little bit too or simplifies the person too much because people are are they have depth to them and they have overlapping interests.

20:28 It's kind of like kind of like Justin was saying earlier that, you know, he identifies some with one party and some with another and that he actually redefines who he is. That doesn't align with anyone party. And forgive me if I'm misrepresenting you, Justin, but that's kind of what it sounded like. So here we have this left and right argument, we have Conservative and Liberal arguments, we have, you know, XY and Z arguments that are dividing people when most people have defining characteristics that fall in both camps. 100 percent, 100% I. Yeah, that's, you know, they totally agree, Tim. Yeah, that's exactly kind of what I was saying. And that's the thing, right?

21:12 Are there really only two types of people in the world? Those who agree with the Republican Party and everything it does all the time, 100% of the time. And those who agree with the Democrat Party and what it does all the time, 100% of the time? Because I don't know a single person who really falls within that paradigm. 100% Taylor. Yeah. And the other thing is like, as Justin was just alluding to it, it outsources personal responsibility because if you're part of a group, now you can kind of a lot of times the temptation that humans fall into is you become part of a group and then you identify yourself with that group. So rather than having your own personal individual responsibility to think about a problem and, and kind of wrestle with it and figure out, you know, pray about it, study it out, study the scriptures, take it to God, study other philosophical and, and other sources to figure out what is right.

22:13 And you know, that's your conscience and your personal responsibility when you're just part of a party, the the party leadership makes those decisions and does the thinking for you. And you just have to go along with whatever they do. That just is an abridgment of agency. That's a that's the antithesis of American values, which is about in rugged individualism, right? And like Justin was just saying, you know, when you get into that, when you get sucked into that trap of group thinking, you know, collectivist mindset, then if your party comes up with some really dumb ideas, like, hey, let's kill a bunch of babies, but you hate the other party worse now you just start justifying and and you know, you, you sustain evil that you know that you don't like. And it happens on the other direction too. Like we go along with the Republican candidate because, well, he's not as bad as the Democrats. So you're voting for the lesser of two evils. But if it's the lesser of two evils, it's still evil. We shouldn't be sustaining evil.

23:20 We shouldn't be doing that. And that is another of the consequences of political party mindset. And it's, it's, it's just bad at every level, 100%. Anybody else have anything they want to add there? I I can't figure out how to raise my hand where the button is for that. Well, no problem. Hit Alt Y, the Alt key and then the letter Y for a shortcut. Alt Y OK, there we go. OK. Look at that. Hey, I didn't know about that either, Shahzad. Don't worry about it.

24:02 I, I, Kevin taught us, taught us both something denied on that. What you got, Shahzad? Well, so echoing what what Taylor just said and what actually a lot what a lot of you guys are saying, George Washington's farewell address to the nation spoke very well about these ideas and that parties do 'cause all these problems and we do end up supporting evil just because of it's my team against yours. And this is actually, I use this in a talk in December that that I gave talking about this. And but basically at the end of the day, the party system was inherited from Europe and it's not part of our, the American system, right in, in you know, so people were sold this right left as a way to sort of control us. And we and for the weak minded, you end up thinking the difference between right and wrong is my party versus yours, when really the founders gave us much a better measuring stick of right versus wrong just in the Constitution itself. And as you were saying before, how you how they debated and, and wanted the they wanted the same end goal, but they had differing opinions.

25:27 Well, what was amazing about them is how good they were at arguing to come to good answers. And they called that loyal opposition. You know, we're against each other, but we want the same thing. So let's figure this out. And you'll find in the business world, there's this term that I've used in engineering discussions. Disagree and commit. It's like we all want this company and this project to be successful. So we're going to hammer this out until we kind of align and and so we're this, we're this loyal opposition, loyal to each other, but we're to find the right answer. And so the founders did that and they gave us the foundation. And so we're much better off studying that foundation and knowing, you know, about the 1000 questions they answered to get there instead of re debating on this left right paradigm questions that have already been solved with a lot more wisdom than we generally tend to throw at it. 100% thanks Shahzad, that's awesome.

26:31 I agree more. I I think the other thing is, is that at some level, boy Nah. I'm probably going to get a little spicy here. The party system seems to dehumanize people, it others people. And whenever that happens, dialogue for the most part just shuts down. There is no more trying to understand somebody else's point of view and where they come from. And when you abandoned that, there's no hope at that point that I can see where there's a coming back where you can talk to another person, recognize their humanity, at the same time disagree with them vigorously if need be on what you hold to be right.

27:18 And it's really surprising how far we've come in a short period of time. I want to go back to Reagan and his his time period. And look, I, I want to say this, I like Reagan, but I don't think he was the end all be all. I think he had issues as well. But nonetheless, what I'm going to do here is kind of illustrate the political climate of back then versus where we are now. And one of Reagan's major opponents, who was, I believe he was a senator, maybe a congressman, senator or congressman, I can't remember which one, his name was Tip O'Neill. And him and Reagan did not get along at all, but they found a way to work together. And there there was a great clip of when Reagan got a bill passed that basically kicked off Reaganomics. And there there's this great clip of Tip O'Neill, who calls the president and congratulates him, says job well done, you got the bill through.

28:23 Understand this is on you now going forward, right? This is your baby. But nonetheless, good on you. And we'll work together where we can to make things successful. I thought that's amazing. Like I would give my left arm for a political climate like that today. And even that was riddled with problems. But I can't, I mean, can anybody imagine that happening today? It's just off the charts. And so there is the party system. I, I'm with you, Shahzad. I think, you know, I don't think I know Washington warned against that. And I think we are now seeing the fruition of what happens when party comes before principle. And that's part of the problem here with with these political parties.

29:12 Does anybody else have anything they want to add before we move on here, Kevin? Since you brought up Tip O'Neill, I do want to report or or I do want to comment. I know President Reagan and Tip O'Neill would often bicker amongst each other and one of the things President Reagan would do is he would ask, is it after 6:00? Meaning is it the work day over? Meaning can we act as though the work day is over to get to find some common ground? That's interesting tidbit of information.

29:56 Absolutely. Thanks, Kevin. Anybody else? All right, moving on. The book then goes on to start talking about what Ruler's law is, and it it gives some examples here. And ruler's law usually ends up with power being consolidated into either one man or a very close circle of other men. And so it always tends to be kind of top coming from from the top down to everybody else. Typically it's established by force, violence, or conquest. All that power is in all powers vested in the Conqueror, his descendants.

30:53 People are not equal. They're divided into classes, and those classes are all subject to a king. Now I want to stop here for a minute. Can anybody else give me an example on where dividing people into classes is super important to their political cause? Kevin. Whenever we talk about we're going to tax the wealthy and give it all to the poor middle class, which never happens. If that were to happen them, well, I will. I have disability checks that go up. I'll just put it that way. But whenever you start talking about taxing the wealthy, what happens? These corporations, these wealthy people find loopholes. Why?

31:41 Probably because they're lobbying in DC. Yeah, we understand you got to give, give people these, this tax hike. But we want this. We want our business to be safe or whatever. And so that is pure class division right there. It sounds good on paper that you're going to take from the wealthy and give it all to the poor middle class to have to get them have it to have a hand up. It sounds good, but in reality it doesn't work. I've been around long enough to know that. Yeah. You know, one of the places, one political theory that really needs class conflict or class warfare is, is communism.

32:29 You need to have the worker class, which typically be it means the oppressed class rise up against like capital, right, or management, and those have to conflict. Now, I haven't done enough research on, you know, medieval Europe or Europe under, you know, monarchy. But I would dare to guess that there was probably a little bit of keep the keeping the classes working against themselves. Because if they're working against themselves, you're not really seeing what the other hand is doing. And so dividing people into classes is is almost always disastrous. OK, entire country is the conquerors or the kings. I'm going to ask a question now.

33:27 Again, it's a little bit of a leading question and maybe a little spicy one. But do we have any examples of this in America today where the ground belongs to 1 entity? You mean like the FDA? The FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, Justin. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and elaborate. Well, I mean, they're just, they are the standard. You're not allowed to argue with them. You're not allowed to speak against them. They set the rules.

34:09 And if you disagree, you can privately disagree, but you cannot, you're not allowed to even speak against them under threat of a threat of law. And don't get me wrong, there are some good things that I believe are, are, are accomplished through the FDA, right? And that's, that's really the, that's the, that's the struggle. Like ruler's law isn't necessarily all 100% bad because it does provide a certain amount of stability and expectation. What it doesn't allow for is into is individual innovation and freedom, though, right? And so like, I would go to jail right now if I were to say, hey, you know what?

34:56 I just cured my kids RSV and they got better faster because we put garlic on their feet. If I were to make that claim, the FDA would come after me. I'm not allowed to say that. And is that not rulers? Law? They're the elites. They're the they're the knowledgeable ones. They're the ones who get to decide what, what is food and, and drugs and how all that works out. And you know, the food pyramid for all these years, right? We're saying stuff like, you know, fats, those are bad, like butter and meat fats. Those are, those are really bad for your health. And well, lo and behold, we get a new person in charge of, of the federal government's health and, and they literally flipped the pyramid upside down. And so, I mean, I think the FDA is a really, really good example of a modern day rulers law organization because they have a monopoly and they get to decide what's allowed to be spoken and what's not allowed to be spoken.

36:01 And and they they make the rules. Absolutely. OK. I see. Two hands up. Thanks for that. Justin. Kevin, did. Did you have a comment or was that leftover? Oh, yeah, I, I yeah, I do, actually. Sorry, I thought I put my hand out, but I can comment. The IRS is this way. And now I don't want to get into a debate whether we ought to pay taxes or not or whatever, but somebody out there has decided not to pay taxes. And I know someone that was a character witness for him in court.

36:41 And in court, you know, he said, well, this guy, I guess I can mention his name, he's somewhat of a public figure. Ken Cromer, he made the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven, or he directed it. And he, Sam Bushman, who's a podcaster. I'm not revealing any secrets here. He talked about it on his podcast, said, yeah, Ken is a great guy. He looked out for his mother. That was elderly. She was in a nursing home, but they didn't treat her very good. He put her in another one and the judge said stop and dismissed the whole jury. And, you know, basically told Sam, we're not supposed to say that. And Sam had to oblige. I mean, he could have fought with the jury, with the judge. What good would that have done?

37:29 So they put him in the, you know, they put the jury back in the courtroom and said ignore everything that Sam just said. And Sam just tried to reward it. But the point is, you crossed the IRS. You will spend the rest of your life in prison. And I've heard cases like this over and over. And they definitely have a grip on us. And again, we're not here to debate whether we should pay taxes or not. But you know, a good example of the government acting like a dictator or an agency in this case.

38:10 Absolutely, Tim. Yeah, I don't disagree at all with what was being said about the FDA by Justin. But as he was talking, I was thinking of the DoD and I was thinking of police force. And I think I came to the realization that the entire executive branch is designed to be heavy-handed, that the legislative and judicial branches is where dialogue happens and where ideas are batted back and forth. But when it's your job to execute the law, you don't have room for dissenters at that point. Right. No, that's an excellent point. I'll, I'll tell you where my mind went, and that was the Bureau of Land Management.

38:55 Now, I know that sounds nerdy, but there is. I want to say, and you might have this fact and figure more handy than I do, but I want to say it's almost like 65% of all land that is in the West is controlled and owned by the federal government. And this is land that quite frankly isn't good for much else other than developing. And why is this a problem? the IT becomes a problem because if we look in Utah right now, it was expensive when I left.

39:37 I don't know what it is now, but I think a starter home, which is a typical 2 bedroom or excuse me, 3 bedroom, 2 bath was going upwards of four in some places that I had found. And part of the problem is there's just not a lot of ground left to build on along the Wasatch Front. Well, you get you get down towards Nephi in that area, things start to open up, right? There's there's massive tracts of land out there. Only you don't get the opportunity to homestead it. Look at it. You, they do let you go on parts of it, you know, for national parks and that sort of thing. But other than that, they are absolutely standing in the way of the solution to the problem of, of affordable housing. And that's absolutely 100% in their control. Tim, did you have something else you wanted to say? I see your hand still up.

40:35 Did I interrupt you, brother? Oh, not at all, I just forgot to lower my hand. Thanks. OK, no, you're good. I just didn't want to be that guy that was talking over somebody. OK, no, that's all good stuff. And look, there's going to be one more of these or two more of these that I'm going to talk about here, where I'm going to draw some comparisons and because I think it's healthy to find out where we are here exactly in the country. So yeah, that was in the entire country is either the king, the Conqueror or the kings. I've already mentioned power comes from the top down. We know that that's an issue. The other one, though, that I think can be a big issue, is that all rights come from the king. What is the problem with that idea that that your rights come from the king or from the governor or whatever, the president, Congress?

41:30 What is the issue with this idea that man grants to other men rights? Ghazad, then Tim. If we accept that government or the King can grant them to us, then we must accept that they can take them away. 100 percent, 100%. Tim, I agree completely with that and I would add to it that it also doesn't provide any space for inalienable rights, which is probably the same thing. Absolutely, absolutely. You guys are spot on. This is one of those things that I think is really, really dangerous because if we get to that point to where we make the assumption that man can grant to other men their rights, then they're free to take them away.

42:27 You can do the ultimate in othering of people by saying no, you know, you don't have those rights. If, if those rights can be revoked in some way, you are called less than human. And if you're less than human, now people can do all sorts of bad things to you about this. I think we saw this hot and heavy during COVID, right when Joe Biden makes his his his case that the reason COVID isn't going away is because of all those unvaccinated people.

43:09 He has then othered them. And what he's really trying to do is say you don't have a choice but to take this vaccine. It isn't a right to say that you don't have to take it. You don't have that right. That's a problem. And the more we are willing to cede that to fallible men, and there's no man that's an infallible, the more chance you have of finding yourself knee deep in tyranny. And this kind of ties in with this, this next principle of government of man, not principle.

43:53 What what is the difference between a government of men and a government of laws or government of principle? Their laws in principle are kind of kind of interchangeable here. What's the difference between the two? Well. One thing is everybody's on equal footing. You know, if if it's the laws of men, it's real easy to exempt yourself and pass laws that apply to other people. Like the the lower people, the lesser people, the others. That and it just introduces a guarantee of hypocrisy. Absolutely, Absolutely.

44:37 The other thing is, is if it's the government of men, that means that that man who's in power, he does not operate within a system of laws and rules. Even God himself has said if I do, if I cease to do certain things, I cease to be God, or if I don't do certain things, I cease to be God. So if if the designer, framer and architect of all of creation has to operate inside the rules and principles, why does man think that he is above that?

45:24 And the beauty of being a nation of laws and principles rather than a nation of men is that things get pretty predictable. And when you have a state where things are predictable, you now know what to expect to a degree, and you can make logical assumptions and conclusions based on those those principles. When that's revoked, you're basically left to kiss the ring of the man who's in charge and bend the knee to him rather than to God. Does anybody else have anything on that they'd like to add? OK, we'll move on.

46:09 The next example that we find in ruler's law is that edicts will be issued. That will be called laws. Now, let me ask a question. Do we see this today in the United States of America, Shahzad? Yeah, that's an important one for us as a people to recognize when that happens. Because an edict as in just a declaration of the king, because I said so. This is when the executive branch pretends to write law and use legislative power that they don't have.

46:54 The the power to write law was given to the House of Representatives or the legislature in each state. And it is unconstitutional to delegate that power to the executive branch. And so that's primarily where a lot of the tyranny happens, is the executive branch just making up things and pretending that they're law and that the founders called that pretend legislation. By the way, they had a term for that. Absolutely. That's that's 100% correct. Just out of curiosity, what do we call those today? We don't call them edicts today. What do we call those today? Executive orders. Executive orders, yeah.

47:38 And look, here's the thing, right? And This is why it's important that we become governed by principle rather than by men. And that's why our end goal should be true principles and not getting one guy elected. OK, when when we let let's just use an example. If we saw Barack Obama go up there and issue a bunch of executive orders, which he did right, basically just I am the king and I'm signing this into law. And it just goes through well, for, you know, if, if look, if you're in this class, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to make an assumption. You're probably kind of conservative, right? You believe in smaller government. Maybe not, but I think most people probably would. If all of the laws and edicts, executive orders that Barack would have signed into law were affecting our pocketbook or, you know, hey, you got to take the vaccine or something like that. Well, that's going to really irritate us. But, but it is so important that when we find somebody who we like who is just going to go in and started exercising the that opportunity to to issue

49:10 executive orders, we have to understand that the same club that we would use on somebody else will now be used on us. And so laws coming through edicts is not the way we want to do this. We want actual codified laws that have went through the process as outlined in the Constitution, which we will get to later. But nonetheless, if it can just be signed into law by one man, that's a problem. I see I've, I've been neglectful here a little bit of the chat. So I want to, I want to take a look at that. Let's see at 7:30, Justin said.

49:56 However political parties may now and then answer popular ends, they're likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, excuse me, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will enable to subvert the power of the people and to assert themselves the reigns of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. I'm I'm assuming that's that's from Washington. That's yeah, that's Washington's farewell address. Shahzad mentioned it. I thought I just showed the quote. Perfect.

50:36 Thank you. Taylor says COVID lockdowns were never voted into law by legislature. 100% correct. You know, I think this is this is something worth talking about here for just a second before we move on. I believe the quote was I'm going to butcher this, but Franklin, I believe, was quoted as saying a man who was willing to sacrifice his freedom for a little bit of security or supposed security was worthy of neither. So often. And and look, I'll give a story of about this in a second for my own life.

51:22 So often when, when these rights are going to be taken, they're usually taken with our consent, with the consent of the governed. And it comes through predominantly fear is, is the way it works. When 911 happened, I was a young dad. I was, I was probably, probably 202324. And man, I was nervous. And I remember when the Patriot Act came out and I was, I hadn't made my my trip out to Philadelphia yet. I hadn't got as familiar with with these principles as I have been as of late.

52:07 But as a young dad, I was just like, yeah, whatever we got to do to prevent this from happening again, right? That was a mistake. That was 100% percent a mistake on my part because it was it was in that fear that I was willing to go along with the program. All right, I think that's that's about it for for those for right now. All right, one more pro issue I find with with this, and the book illustrates it as well is this idea that every problem requires a new law. That's not the truth of things.

52:56 I can't remember which president it was. It may have been Calvin Coolidge, who in my opinion is one of the most unsung American, Great American presidents ever. I believe it was his administration. Don't quote me on that. I'd have to go back and look. There was a horrible flood in East Texas and the federal government was going to issue some relief to him and Coolidge said no, we're not going to do that. He said I trust the American people to do the right thing. And he was 100% correct. Money flowed in from across the country and got those people back up on their feet.

53:39 With absolutely $0.00 being spent federally Now, certainly there's going to be times where people have benefited from help from up top like that. And I don't want to take away from their experience, but if we want to be a free people, we have to conduct ourselves as such. We're going to get into a lot of talking about our rights later in this class, but I also plan on contrasting that then with what's our responsibility. So if we don't want government wasting our money, spending $0.90 on the dollar for charity, meaning that only $0.10 on every dollar goes to those affected, then it becomes our responsibility to exercise our right to help our neighbor. And we need to make the government kind of irrelevant again.

54:39 And when we can do that, I think we stand a chance. Otherwise, what's going to happen is, is that government will see a problem, people will cry out about the problem, and the government will take your rights away in order to get that done. Let me give you an example. Few years back, I believe again during the, the Obama administration, there was a group of folks, I want to say it was in Southern California who thought, you know, there's some really hungry people out here was during the, the crash of the, the housing market. And it was a group of philanthropists who were pretty well off.

55:23 They weren't, you know, they weren't Bill Gates kind of rich, but they had some money and they thought, you know, why don't we just do like 3 meals in the park couple days a week. And so they went to do it and the government came out and shut them down. And the reason they came out and shut them down was because they said, well, none of this food has been inspected. So we can't help you with this and you need to stop this. And if people need charity, they should come to us. That's a huge problem. And so we we have to be cognizant that if we don't want a new law for every single problem that America faces, that kind of falls on us to be able to step up and fill the gap.

56:09 Does anyone have anything else they'd like to add on that before we move on? I got something and I don't know where you're going next. Maybe it's the following scousing into the rule of people or the people's law. But what this really to me the bullet point here is saying is every problem requires a government solution. And that's where I take issue. It's not even if it's not a new law, because it would mean these days we don't bother with laws. We just the government just does stuff, right. I'll be honest here, right? There's a problem, the government's going to get itself involved and it's going to, it's going to give us a solution. And if we take that idea that the government's job is to solve our problems to a logical conclusion, it, it doesn't really end until we have surrendered all of our agency unto the government.

57:10 And the government is the Lord ruler over us, You know, in absolute, in absolutism. And you know, I, I, I don't think that's a good thing. I think that's actually contrary to the plan of salvation that God has given us. This is, this is a Mormon discussion here. I think it's worth talking about our own theology. God granted unto men agency and sometimes men use their agency to do really bad things, right. This is This is why a lot of times atheists, this is one of the biggest critiques they have of religion is if there well if there's a God, then why does bad thing happen to good people? But Mormon theology actually has an answer to that. Bad things happen to good people because God respects man's agency, at least up to a degree, until it's been violated beyond redemption.

58:07 And that causes pain and suffering in life. And there's no getting around that, right? Like in our Gospel fundamentals class, we've been going over the Beatitudes and the experiment on the mount, and we were listening to Christ. What is Christ's message is, is that there's going to be suffering in this world. If you want to rise above it, you've got to endure these things because there is going to be pain, there is going to be sorrow. Tragedies are going to happen, not some people are going to use their agency incorrectly to cause you harm. And Christ's message to us is to ask us to forgive those people even. Absolutely. Not, not create laws or empower a government to solve all those problems so it can never happen again. And this is actually a place where I kind of disagreed with Skousen to be honest, because he talks about the rulers law and the people's law, right?

59:07 I, I think he misses the, the, I think he misses the bigger picture here. What, what the Constitution is to a degree. It's God's law. It's above the people and the rulers because there is something to be said for rulers ruling. They tend to be better educated. They're more aware of nuance, right. You look at the, the anarchy that can happen sometimes in populism when bad ideas take root, but they become kind of hyper inflated in the public's mind. And things can kind of go off the rails when, when you have the people in charge. But likewise, things are also off the rails when the rulers are in charge. And what I think the the founding fathers did is they, they made it God's law.

59:53 And here's how I would say that they did this. It's God's law because they put the Constitution above the government and the people as a higher standard that both government and populace are subordinate to and constitutional law, or essentially God's law. Gives man their agency to a degree to do bad things. And that's really tragic. And the government shouldn't be the solution to everything, though sometimes there's value in in experiencing hardships and and overcoming them and learning to grow from them. And where I think if you took the government this this ruler's law to its extreme, there is no more agency, right? We've got cameras installed in all of our homes, watching everything we do, making sure that nobody does anything that might harm somebody else.

1:00:50 And we all essentially become slaves to a system we created. And that's not God's. Plan 100% Shahzad, I saw your hand go up. Yeah, I like what I'm hearing and it's and it's definitely correct how God's law is paramount above it all it I'm just hoping maybe I can be a little bit helpful on there that there there's the founders intended there to be a couple of layers to it. So they absolutely claimed authority from God saying all people had. That's what inalienable rights means, right, Is when we talk about God's law or natural law, we're really talking about the same thing.

1:01:36 These are the laws that are inherent in the universe, that are above us, that God himself governs by. And the founders having recognized that, and them also having recognized ancient philosophers who saw the same thing. They quote Cicero, for example, one of my favorites. And yeah, but I mean, but the Constitution isn't the just one. Slight correction there. Not that it's above the people. It's actually our power in that we in the Constitution and through the Declaration of Independence, we honor God and and did our best in our human frailty to put God's principles into the law of the Constitution. And the Constitution is the law that people in the government must follow, but it doesn't govern the people themselves, right?

1:02:29 It's us as the people giving the rule book to the government. And, and so like the hierarchy goes, God gave us rights and God created law, and then we attempted to put that into paper to control our government so that they obey God's laws. So it's just a just a few layers there that I think adds a lot of insight and value. Oh, I, I completely agree with you, Shahzad. Maybe what I should clarify is when I, when I say the Constitution is above the people, what I mean is it's above populism, right? And so even if the majority of Americans say we want the government to steal from those people and give to us, even if that's the popular opinion, not the elitist opinion, but the popular opinion, yeah, I got the government.

1:03:18 Yeah, the peoples, they're still bound under that Constitution. That's not allowed because the Constitution is God's law. Essentially it is above. That's why people and the rulers. Referendums like you're, that's the people, that's the popular. Yeah, exactly. Vote against the Constitution. They are also are bound. If the people are legislating, they're bound within the same rules that the legislators have to legislate by. Yeah, OK. Exactly. So the rulers law is not good, but people's law can potentially be bad as well. And the founders didn't see this as much as I think maybe we're seeing it now, our current populist administration. But there's some flaws with populism as well, right? When they say people's law, they didn't mean democracy though, so that wasn't what they meant.

1:04:05 People's law means we the people, our ancestors wrote down the law in the Constitution, and that's our law. It came from the people, even though under our authority from God to write it. So I don't think they meant that. And I, I would, I, I don't think Skousen meant that. But if, if he did, then yes, he would definitely be be off. But but the communist side of things tends to say, you know, we the people, but they mean that in a mob rule kind of way, which is incorrect, right? Other than we, the We the People wrote the law, the Constitution as we penned it. Right, right. Well, I guess I'll just say I see value in a certain degree of natural aristocracy. I think there's value to that.

1:04:51 Otherwise you end up with and not defend anyone but, you know, Flat Earth science. But I also believe there's value in populism to a degree, but it can be also taken too far. And so, you know, the rule of the, the, the ruler's law, the people's law, I think both of those are, are inherently flawed premises is what we really need to be is the law of truth or God's law or natural law. And that should be above the people and the elite and the rulers and the government.

1:05:35 Taylor had a great comment here. He said the French Revolution equaled ultimate people's law. Totally different results than the American Revolution. And I think that is that cannot be just glossed over. I think that is hugely important. Before I go on to say any more about this, I want to thank Justin and Shahzad for for what they had to say. I really kind of helps things come into focus here a little bit. The French Revolution goes off the rails and interestingly enough, there was those who who kind of helped foment that revolution in France, used the American Revolution as an example, but 1 ended up didn't stop until they had another emperor, essentially the other the American Revolution.

1:06:28 It stops when it says it has reached its end goal. I want to say this as I've studied history and I'm willing to be, you know, wrong. With the exception of a just a very few other places, America seems to be the exception to the rule. Usually when revolution starts and blood starts running in the streets, it doesn't stop until a strong man comes up and grabs power. The American Revolution was different, and I think the difference is, is that we can see that it was rooted in God. Quite frankly, when the French Revolution happened, there was great pains taken at not only dismantling the monarchy and the aristocracy, but also the religious institutions of its day. You had things like rioters going in and smearing human feces on on the altar at the the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Many of these revolutions tend to follow a far more a far darker path, and that tends to tends to make it go dark quite a bit.

1:07:50 Looks like Taylor has one more thing here. The American Revolution is the only revolution in history that was a revolution of the aristocracy, not the common. Interesting. Taylor, you want to elaborate a little bit on that? Sure. You know, when it's when there's so much oppression and there's so much like the common people have nothing to lose, right? They're living in a hell on earth. And so might as well try to take out some of these, you know, people that are oppressing them along with them. And so it's an act of desperation and it's not generally guided by principles. It's it's just more of a vengeance motivated type of an effort.

1:08:40 The American Revolution is, I think I, I, I've read this, I can't, I am not an expert on all of history of the world, but it, but it, I can't think of any other reasons why it wouldn't be right. But yeah, I think the American Revolution is the only one, only time that a revolution was carried out by the aristocracy. These were men of means. These were men of power and influence and wealth. And that's why their willingness to put it all on the altar, essentially and and pledge their lives, their sacred honor, and their property for this cause makes it. So. Different so it it just stands out as being singular in America in in the world's history this American Revolution and because of that natural aristocracy.

1:09:31 These were intelligent men, men of means and and and honor and integrity beyond the just the average human right. That's I think what God prepared to be able to make this the light on the hill essentially, right? And that's why it set the table for this 5000 year leap, the title of the book. Anyway, just just some thoughts. Good stuff. Thank you. James. I saw you had your hand up. Can you hear me? Yep, I can hear you now.

1:10:15 Sorry, so I was a little late to the party. Sorry. So listening, listening to like what's been said, I think the biggest thing is balance. That's that's why I like one of those images or something that they had on that scale, people's law versus rulers law. It's, it's, it's about balance. And yes, in a perfect utopia, we would all live, you know, this, this wonderful existence if, if it was a certain way. But I think that's God wants us to strive to, to balance these two things because there has to be a government, but there has to be a people to govern.

1:10:55 You know, I think Mosiah 29 covers that pretty well when the transition from Mosiah becoming, you know, a king and turning that kingship over to the judges. There was mention of like an executive order or something like that when I, I remember right. Sorry, I'm not trying to rehash old stuff. But even executive orders, like yes, that's, that wasn't written into law. But what if the executive order, just to play the devil's advocate, what if the executive order overrode something that was unlawful in the 1st place? Is it then unlawful because it you?

1:11:39 Does that make sense? Oh, I I get what you're. Yeah, I get what you're. Saying, yeah, so in, in the the heavy-handed and the thing it is, it's about balance, you know, and as far as the executive office, just because this is on like recording, I'm not going to go into too much detail, but the, there is there's a lot of I, I had a, a mentor of mine that described the difference between anarchy and chaos. And he called the, the line that thin blue line, right? And he said, you know what that is? And he said that that is the difference between anarchy and chaos.

1:12:22 And it's a balance. You have to be, you know, there's, there's days that people are going to, you know, want you to be a bully for them and on their behalf. And you can't do that, right? We have to govern ourselves by principle. And that's what we have to act on. There are decent people in the world that do that. And, and I think the balance is the most important thing, you know, because there is, there's unjust laws and there's, you know, constitutional law, there's statutory law, there's case laws, There's all kinds of different laws. But DNC 98 covers, you know, our adherence to those things pretty well and and and God even allows us to and mend their mistakes. In DNC 74.

1:13:14 He tells, you know, basically about Paul making this thing, you know, about circumcision or or not, it was about circumcision, but it was about, you know, the the marrying of non believers to believers. And he kind of made this arbitrary law. And God comes in and DNC 74 and makes a correction and says, well, that was that was from my servant Paul. That wasn't from me. And then I think if I remember, I somebody could probably correct me. But when Brigham Young was dead, after he had passed away in a revelation given to John Taylor or the council or something at that time that they'd kept praying. And then basically the answer was it was pleasing to him that you guys, you men come together and make a reasonable decision. And so when we're waiting for, you know, the grand, you know, arbiter or somebody to come in and make these decisions for us, what he wants is us to learn these principles and apply them and have them balanced man and woman families, our lives. And that's where you begin is, is in your house and that it spreads out.

1:14:25 That's how you At least that's my take on it. 100% and next week we'll get into some of that. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. James. Is there? Is there anything else there you wanted to mention? Nope. I'll put a if you don't mind, I'll put a reference to a book in the chat for Justin based on what he said about the FDAI think you'll really like it. Sounds great. I want to go to some comments here that's been made and then looks like Justin raised his hand. He said government should serve the people, but law should be the domain of God and truth. Maybe I don't disagree with scousing in principle, but I do in language because today we live under this rulers law and too many people think that the solution to populism, and I don't think that is a solution.

1:15:18 And then Shahzad said an executive order overriding a bad unconstitutional law would be appropriate. It would be someone in the executive branch nullifying an unconstitutional act. Look, I'll be honest with you. If there was a guy that we could count on that would go in there and exit, you know, execute an executive order to overturn every unconstitutional law. And then right after that, say, you know, make a law that there are no more, you know, executive executive orders. I would be totally down for that. And Taylor said Captain Maro and I wasn't following the law when he threatened to overthrow Farrah on lol, no, that's true. Captain Maro and I, he was just coming. And look, I want to say this, but I want to be real careful. Sometimes that is necessary, but I don't think it is now because I don't want to be that guy and none of us want to be that that guy calling for for a violent revolution until every other option has been exhausted.

1:16:31 But I it is a true principle, Taylor, at some point that those things do kind of need need to happen. Justin, go ahead, man. Yeah, I just want to reiterate, I, I agree with what James was just saying there about the need for balance. And that's kind of where I was trying to get at because on the one hand, I like, I with like with the FDA for example, I already mentioned, right, we see, I, I see an abuse of, of essentially an, an unelected executive institutions power. But on the other hand, and that makes me think, man, the people should be in charge, right? But then with the release of the Epstein files and like, I look, I'm not saying there's not some bad stuff in there.

1:17:16 There are absolutely some really bad stuff in there that implicates some people. Nevertheless, though, some of the Epstein files is literally just random tips that people called into the FBI. And some of these random tips had incredibly outrageous, unsubstantiated claims, incredible claims. And this is just some of you called into the FBI and, and made this statement. And I see some people, some of the talking heads or some of these influencers are riling people up as if what some random person called into the FBI to claim was gospel truth. And they're like, ah, well, look, this person says that Trump did this. And this person saying that Epstein did this, people are saying that Bill Gates did this.

1:18:03 And, well, if there's evidence for that, and then I think that definitely should be investigated. But some of these claims that came out in the Epstein files are completely unsubstantiated. And unfortunately, today, people don't seem to have enough common sense to recognize that that's what that is. That's just a random person's claim. That's not an FBI evidence that that actually happened. There's no evidence that that happened beyond this person's anonymous testimony. And so that's kind of what I mean by I can see things going too far there. You know, I see that. And I'm like, man, we need experts in charge. We need, we need the, the rulers in charge.

1:18:45 But then you see the rulers in charge and you think, man, we need the people in charge. And that's the, that's the bit of the, the, the balance that I find ourselves desperately needing. And to me, that balance is constitutional law where God sets the standard and the people, the populace and the rulers abide by that standard. And unfortunately, you know, I, I can't remember who said it, but one of the quotes was basically that, you know, from the founders was that in order for this government to work, it depends on a moral people, a moral and religious people. And I don't think we have that today anymore, unfortunately, at least in a large majority. And that's a bad.

1:19:29 That's like a lose, lose situation, right? Because if the rulers are in charge, it's going to be bad. But if the people are in charge, I'm afraid that's not going to be much better in the current state of things. Absolutely. All right, so I want to say this, if anyone has anything else they'd like to say on this, we I'm willing to stay here. I know everyone else is. But I do think we're going to wrap up this week right here. We're already pushing time and I don't want to dive into the next section, which is people's law, which goes into some stuff that was taken from the Anglo Saxons as well as as the Hebrew Scriptures that that become very important going forward.

1:20:19 But does anyone have anything else they want to want to talk on, on anything that we've covered tonight or other insights you've gained from reading up to this point? All right. Well, perfect. We'll wrap up there next week. We'll we'll move into the second part of this one and then we should be, should be right back on track. So let's see. Josh, can I get you to give us a closing prayer?

1:21:00 Ericsson Yeah, no problem. Our Father in Heaven, we come to you close to this meeting, grateful to have been here and to participate and to edify one another and to learn about these vital principles of law and how they apply to us. And we're so grateful to live in a time when we have been the beneficiaries of the implementation of these things. We pray for your Spirit to go with us as we part our separate ways Until we meet again next week.

1:21:43 We're grateful to Dave for organizing and hosting this these series of lessons and discussions. Pray that you bless him and his family and the rest of us as well bless our homes and our our, our wives and children and husbands and these things we pray in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen, Amen, Amen. Thanks everyone, thanks everyone. Oh thank you. I appreciate everyone's participation makes it go really, really well. So awesome.

1:22:25 All right, we'll see everybody next week.