Member training from January 26th 2026.

Tonight we covered the heart of what it truly means to become the elite defenders of liberty—the kind of men and women who do the hard, disciplined, daily work that has always separated the few who change history from the many who merely watch it unfold. We walked through how elite soldiers, top businessmen, and the Founding Fathers themselves ordered their days with purpose, study, reflection, and rigorous self‑improvement, and how those same habits must define us if we intend to restore liberty in our homes, communities, and nation. We explored the power of commonplace books, intentional reading, honest after‑action reviews, and the disciplined shaping of our character. In short, tonight we laid out the pattern of living required for anyone who seeks not just to admire the Founders, but to actually become like them.

Read John Locke’s book on how to make a commonplace book here
Check out his commonplace book on the Bible here

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TRANSCRIPT

Our Father in heaven, we come before you this evening and are grateful to gather
together to receive these instructions from the Tree of Liberty Society. It is our
hope that you would enlighten our minds, expand our understanding, and impress these
things upon our hearts and minds that we may understand the course and direction we
are to take in order to restore liberty and the principles of righteousness into our
lives and those around us. We ask for thy blessings upon Ben, his family,
and each one that is labored in this responsible position.
May thy spirit be with us this night, we ask in the name of thy son, Jesus
Christ. Amen. This really gets into the thing that I talk about every week, right,
about the importance of
getting knowledge and really getting into how important that is to be able to
prevent our perishing. And so that we can build the understanding and adherence to
the principles that have built free nations to expose the conspiracy and to build an
effective resistance to that conspiracy. The things I’m going to talk about tonight,
if we do not do these things, then we will not be able to do what we working,
what we were working to do and how vital these things are. And so just backing up
a little bit, just kind of giving a little bit of background, a little bit, I
guess laying a foundation to this.
I want to talk about how the tree of liberty society is the elite liberty
organization. And just like every elite organization out there,
whether it’s like Navy SEALs, right, they are in the elite organization in the Navy,
and they are very small. And that is by design that is on purpose and that’s
necessary because only a few people will actually do what it takes to be a part of
that to be in to qualify to be a Navy seal and just on the basis of the
understanding of the masses right now there is only a very few people that will
actually do what it takes to be a a part of the Tree of Liberty Society and take
that step. And I’m going to get into what that means. And so I want to ask
ourselves, though, are we doing the activities of the elite defenders of liberty?
And I want to get into what that means. What are the activities that the elite,
the top of the top, the cream of the crop of those that have throughout time been
defenders of liberty? Because if that’s what we are as an organization, that means
as individuals, that’s what we need it to be. And so just looking at,
right, just looking at elite soldiers or the cream of the crop of businessmen. I’m
not talking about conspirators. I’m talking about what are the top businessmen, what
are the top soldiers that are, have earned their position as the top? What did they
do, right to be in that position what brought them to that and you know it’s as
much as who you know matters but really even more those that have gone into these
situations not knowing anybody not having connections not being already wealthy but
those that really came from the outside and became the elites in these positions
what is it that they do to become the top in their field.
And so I want to talk about first, what is an elite soldier do? And of course,
there’s more intricacies involved. And these are, in effect, in some ways,
broad generalities, but they’re important generalities to help us to get the picture
of what it means to be the top in that field. Okay, an elite soldier, They wake
up early, right? They’re not the kind of person that sleeps in until noon and then
gets, crawls out of bed and starts to maybe get to think about doing what they’re
going to do for their day. They’re up before the average soldiers up.
They’re up before the average person in the population is up for their own personal
training.
It gets them in the mindset that’s needed for the rest of the day. They really put
themselves in a mental position that says, I’m going to overcome my natural tendency
to want to just stay in bed. I’m going to overcome the tendency to just,
you know, get to something when I want to. They’re saying, no, it’s five o ‘clock.
I’m going to get up and I’m going to get to work.
Then seven to ten, they work on their core skills and when their cognition is
sharp, the things that they need to learn, not just the physical stuff, but the
mental stuff that they need to learn because that’s when their cognitive ability is
at its best. Then we go to late afternoon, I mean late morning,
early afternoon. Then they start to do their team training.
And then in mid -afternoon, that’s when they have their meal time, their lunch,
they get a chance to meditate. They do maintenance to, you know, their weapons and
whatnot. They are, that’s their, even though it’s downtime, it’s purposeful.
They’re not just loafing around playing video games, watching TV, surfing social
media. even on their downtime, they’re doing something that is something that is
beneficial to them in the things that they need to do throughout the day. And we
can’t, you know, as much as meal, of course, eating is important. But in addition
to eating,
of course, your time to be able to reflect and to think and to meditate is an
important thing. And it’s, even though it’s during their resting time, they are still
using that rest time to actually better themselves, just as much as a meal is
important. That meditation’s important as well and the maintenance of the things that
need to be maintained. Then late afternoon, they do their after -action review.
They go through what’s worked, what didn’t, and what almost didn’t, who’s responsible
for why it didn’t work. And it’s, it’s what they’re, you know, with, with their,
with their leader, you know, with their supervisor and with those that they’re in,
you know, that they’re working with, that they’re a team with. And that, so that
way they’re not really caring about your feelings because worrying about your feelings
gets in the way of movement. And so they just get to it. What’s what did work?
What what didn’t you do? That was right. What’s stumped. Um, because of whatever,
you know, just by the grace of God, it ended up working, but it almost didn’t.
Why?
And who needs to take the, you know, the blame or the credit for it? So that way
they can fix it in the future to make sure that these things that failed, um,
don’t fail again. And so they’re not not worried about protecting their egos. They’re
just worried about making sure that they’re improving. And you can’t improve if you
don’t know where you’re failing. And so they work with others. They find people or,
you know, they have a sign in this situation, people that will give them that
brutal feedback. And they’re brutal with themselves as well. And then in the evening,
right, they read but they’re not just reading comic books or novels they’re reading
with a purpose something that will help them in their field something that will help
them to improve some cross training and then of course getting the rest that they
need at night these are the things that make an elite soldier an elite soldier
they’re different this is not something that the average person does most people they
wake you know they wake up when they have to with just enough time to get to work
on time they get as many in uh time to goof off or to surf social media or to
watch you know cat videos on youtube as they can as they do they come home and
they go and they watch more movies or more watch watch more tv and then they go
to bet and that’s so that’s a real contrast between the people that make it to the
being the most elite soldier compared to your average person out in the world and
then now businessmen what does an elite businessmen do it’s interesting where you
look at every field the people that are the elite in their field just like with
the military an elite businessman wakes up before the average person wakes up.
They don’t wake up just in time to get to the office. They wake up early, about 5
o ‘clock on average. And they start off the day, you know,
they shower and they get moving, and then they start reading. And they’re reading
with the purpose. They’re not out there emailing or surfing the web. They’re finding
a book that they need to read that will help them be better in their field. That
will help them be excel at the work that they’re doing or to they’re looking at
what don’t they know and what do they want to become and they’re going to and
they’re reading books on how to become what they want to become. And so they’re
they’re reading with the purpose again, not your romance novels or whatnot. Then at
six to seven, then they’re strategizing. They’re going through their long -term
objectives they’re meditating they are setting their daily goals and how they’re going
to implement it for the day they are making sure that their day is not just like
they’re not right you know they’re not riding by the seat of their pants they have
an objective and they are planning it and they are going to implement their day
according to those terms and And then in early to late in the mid to late morning,
they don’t have any meetings. They’re focused on their product decisions, on
negotiations, and a value that’s basically the equivalent to their weapons training,
where they’re just getting into the tools that they are using to be able to be
effective in the things that they need to do for that day.
And then from 11 to 2, it’s allocated for meetings that are short, that the
meetings are just specifically agenda driven, and that they are decision oriented.
This isn’t a meeting to plan a meeting. This isn’t a meeting and about a meeting.
They’re not just goofing around and going off on tangents in every different
direction. They are on, they are on the task at hand. They are about making sure
that we are going to make decisions and what’s going to happen. And those decisions
are made and they’re not dragging on and on and on longer. They need to be.
They’re short as they need to be.
And they’re the kind of meetings as well as, like, what are we going to do for,
they might be having like a lunch meeting to be able to so that the way they’re
actually getting work done while they’re taking time to be able to eat and then
late afternoon they are looking back again what they’ve delegated and they’re making
appropriate adjustments they are following up with people that they assign tasks
they’re looking at what was what was done they’re looking at what other people did
well, and then they’re looking at what the people that they assigned tasks,
what they needed to improve in, and then making sure that those adjustments are made
to make sure that the people that they’re over are improving themselves as well.
And so that, and if the people under them are improving, that helps them to improve
themselves. Then we go to early evening where they do a similar type of after
action review where they themselves are honest with themselves either they have people
that they know that they trust that they’ll do this with or they’ll do it with
themselves but generally they’ll find people that are peers to be able to be as
effective as possible because we don’t always see in ourselves what others might see
and so they want to see What did they do that actually made a difference? What did
they do during that day that made an actual impact? And what was just merely noise?
What was a distraction? What didn’t actually, what, you know, because it’s, you can
be busy all day long and not get something done. And so they want to make sure
that even though they were busy the entire day, were they busy doing things that
actually mattered. And so they want to make sure that they are being honest with
that thing that I did. Yes, I was busy. Yes, I worked hard doing it. But did it
actually produce anything? And if not, why not? What failed? And again,
it’s got to be brutal. They got to make sure that they’re not getting their ego in
the way and making sure they’re not thinking that nothing that they do is wrong.
But they’re on. They’re brutally honest. this was horrible, why this was horrible, so
that way they can make sure and don’t do that horrible thing again.
And then the evening, it’s spent with their family, setting goals for the next day,
being, again, additional reading, more intention. Again, their reading is always
intentional. They’re not reading things that are frivolous. They’re not reading
fiction. And then once they and then they in the average uh six you know elite
businessmen top of their field then gets plenty of rest and so what do they do
they train more than they actually perform you see how much reading that they do um
you look at the planning that they do you look at the reviewing of the things that
they did that day the bulk of their day is in making is in that training process,
just like with sports, where you have people in professional sports.
They are at practice far more than they are at a game that you watch on TV.
The amount of, you know, it’s astronomical, the amount of practice that they’re doing
in comparison to the actual game time that they’re on. And the same thing that we
see with the elites in other fields as well. It’s the same exact thing. It’s not
any different. You’re training more than you’re performing.
So most people, though, they’re just working and doing the thing all day without
reflecting on what they’ve done. They’re not reflecting on what they’re going to do.
They’re just doing the job. They’re doing their, they’re acting as the automaton
doing X, Y, Z, and then that’s it. And then they’re done.
Elites, though, in their fields, they rehearse constantly, but they only perform
selectively and with purpose. They are masters at saying no.
They are
very much deliberate in the activities that they are engaged in.
But what they’re doing to build up to that activity is something that they are
rehearsing and working on all of the time. They focus on the most important tasks
and in making sure that they’re doing those well. They’re never trying to get
everything done. That’s, you know, we think of these guys that are very successful.
They must figure out how to manage their time so well that they can get everything
done. But those that have actually studied these individuals find that they absolutely
do not try and get everything done, that they’re focused. They’re not, what do they
call that, where they’re a jack of all trades and a master of none. The elite in
their field are masters of one, basically. They are masters of the very few.
And they are but they are doing that thing very well and they are indispensable in
that those few things that they do extremely well they ask themselves you know if
if i you know if if i was to die tomorrow and i you know this if these things
had to be done what things wouldn’t i do they make sure they don’t do those things
they put those things last. They put those things further down the list and they
focus on the things that need to be done that will make the biggest impact in the
future.
And so they’re purposeful and everything they’re doing. Nothing they’re doing is
frivolous and they’re dedicated to the job that they’re doing.
Okay. So now let’s, I want to look, use those same ideas of what did the founding
fathers, what was their day like on average? Of course, not every individual, and
even with these other examples I gave, you know, there’s going to be variations of
individuals, but we’re talking generally. What are the commonalities that we find in
everyone in these fields? What are the commonalities amongst the founders? What are
the things that they all did basically in common? And then we can say, okay, this
is the, these are the things, these are the habits that I need to have if I want
to be like them. We’re going to live like them, then we’re going to be like them.
And so it’d be good for us to say, okay, what did they do? And you know, what’s
really interesting is the founders also got up really early. They were not the kind
of people to sleep in. We have just like day, you know, the average population,
people did like to just get up just enough time to work or get to the field or
whatever they needed to do. But the founding fathers were like the elites in every
field where they woke up early. They woke up reading their scriptures and the
classics. In the early hours and they woke up, they were engaged in prayer.
They were engaged in reflection and then review of the previous days’ successes and
failures. So they wanted to remind themselves, again, when they woke up, what were
the things I did well? What were the things I didn’t do well that I could improve
in or that I should just stop doing all together?
Then in the later on in the morning, they read again. They read more.
They read about the law, political theory, history, history. They were writing in
their commonplace books. And I’m going to talk about that a little bit later, but
you remember in the past, I’ve talked about the importance of commonplace books. The
Founding Fathers, without any exception that I’m aware of, all kept commonplace books.
They drafted essays and correspondence. This was essential for them when they were in
their development of what they became because as they’re reading they would write
down what you know they would write their own kind of a modern day or like an
explanation in their own words of certain principles and so they would write an
article basically right and they would send it to their friends and so they would
get feedback and they would somebody would say well, what about this? And you would
say, well, that’s a good point there. And so it really helped them when they were
writing these things out to be able to really formulate their ideas and really come
to be the thinkers that we know of them today. Then 9 to 10 was their breakfast,
kind of a late breakfast in today’s minds, you know, today’s world. And they got
into their physical labor because most of them were agrarian. They lived on farms as
well as their other professions. And so they spent that morning hour eating and then
doing the physical labor that needed to be done at their home. Then late morning,
early afternoon, they then they did their business affairs. There were lawyers or
whatever it was. That was the time dedicated to manage their business affairs.
Then from two to three, they did their midday meals in conjunction with networking
with other people like mind, with business, or with liberty as well.
You know, they would like we have the loyal nine that we’ve talked about, the Sons
of Liberty. And so networking not only for their businesses, but also for building
this groundswell of people that were working to defend liberty and then from the
late afternoon they would catch up on current events that’s when they start to look
at okay what’s going on in the area looking at current events they sharpen their
writings and their arguments so they went back to the things that were they were
doing earlier in the day and again started to hone their skills Say, okay, you
know, the thing that I wrote earlier, this is this this could be rewritten. This
needs to be said better. This is really really nice. And they would be able to
sharpen their minds by Not just reading the things that they read, but But writing
it themselves making the arguments themselves and their own words to see how well
did what they read Actually and did they actually internalize. And you do that by
writing things down, writing them in your own words. I mean, with better arguments,
re -looking at it and saying, looking at yourself, I’ve done this myself. And I’ve
read, you know, when I was writing invasion or when I write other articles, I
reread it later on. I’m like, that was garbage. I don’t even know what I was
saying. I don’t even understand what I was trying to say. And so it’s just
important to go back and reread that and go back over those things and hone them
and sharpen those skills.
Then in the evening, they had their family time. They listened to music or play to
musical instrument, had conversation and built relationships with their family or
friends.
And then late night, late evening, they did their journaling. They did their own
moral accounting, right? They looked at themselves, not just what did they do that
day? What did they fail out? But they said, what was my virtue that day?
What more, what did I do that was moral? Did I, was I honest with my friends and
with my colleagues and with the people I did business with? Was I moral in the
fact that I stood up for what was right?
And then and then they would review the use of their time. And then they would
come up with the goals for the following day. And what’s interesting is the same
thing is done with successful businessman is before they go to bed, they will set
their goals for the day, which is interesting because the founding fathers did the
same thing because that’s important because then that’s one of the last things you’re
thinking about before you go to bed. And so as you’re thinking right as your mind
winds down before you go to sleep you’re thinking about those things and so you
started to get inspiration and revelation and the things that you can that you need
to accomplish for the next day so that way when you wake up in the morning you’re
ready to go and you’re rearing to get to work on accomplishing those goals because
you had all these awesome ideas of hey this would be really cool this would be
really effective
and then they go to bed. So now I want to get into, again, more details about
keeping a commonplace book, because if we’re going to have our day and behave in
ways that the founding fathers behave so that we can become the kind of people the
founding fathers were, we’re going to keep a commonplace book. So what is a
commonplace book? Today, most people either have never heard of it, or if they have
heard of it, probably don’t keep one. But it’s something that if we want to be
like them, we’re going to do. So a commonplace book was a personal knowledge system.
Okay, it wasn’t like a diary. It wasn’t a journal. It wasn’t a quote book. It was
a way to be able to quickly and easily access the things that they’ve learned.
So they were blank books, kind of like a journal, but they were organized by
topics, not by dates, right? Journals are by dates chronologically, but a commonplace
book is organized by topic, which is why it gets back to that personal knowledge
system. And it was used to collect quotes, principles, moral maxims,
historical examples of something they wanted to remember that goes back to those
principles or moral maxims, and then arguments for and against positions.
So it wasn’t like a full -on something that you would use as an essay or an
article, but you would spend some time writing out from the things that you read
that day, arguments for or against something. And so then you could use that as
your knowledge base to be able to then go and use your commonplace book as your
source material for writing your article, your essay, your correspondence with your
friends.
And so they would categorize their entries under headings like liberty,
power, tyranny, law, virtue, religion, history, human nature. So they would have all
of these different topics and they would have them all sectioned off and so that
way they could easily go back and they’d say okay where’s the stuff i need to
about virtue okay here’s my all the things i have that i’ve written about virtue
whether it’s a quote whether it’s a thought that i had whether it’s an argument
that i made in favor of whatever it was i can go find it real quick
because they weren’t just quote books you weren’t just collecting a bunch of quotes
on a topic you work you know it had quotes in it but it wasn’t just collecting
quotes they were comparing authors on a subject they were reconciling contradictions
they would test ideas against history so they would say they maybe they would hear
something somebody would say and they would go back and they would say okay what is
this person saying history about the topic And so they would be able to have all
these different things together in one place by topic that they then quickly referred
to. And because it was an analog thing where they wrote it down, they then kind
of, they remembered like, oh yeah, I remember writing that.
Let me turn to that part of my commonplace book. And then they’d be able to find
the things that they’ve written on that topic before really quickly and be able to
use that either in conversation or in writing their essay.
Commonplace books were really something that was very important to the Founding
Fathers. And one of the individuals that they read and that they looked to to
inspire them was John Locke. And John Locke wrote a book on how to keep a
commonplace book. The book that he wrote on it was called a new method of making
commonplace books.
And so when we put this training up on the website, I will put a link to a PDF
of Thomas Payne’s book on Commerce and Place books. John Locke’s book, John Locke’s
book, thank you, book book on Commerceplace books so that then you can read it and
you can become more familiar with the concept and how to keep one and how to
utilize one for yourself. And so he understood that building a memory system,
he wanted to do it so that to strengthen judgment. He knew that building a memory
system strengthens your judgment. If you know what people have said about topics,
you know the scriptures say this about this. You know that ancient historian’s
learned these lessons. Then it can strengthen your own judgment on a current issue
because you know in history what’s worked and what hasn’t. Right.
But because if we just are reading books and then that’s it, We’re not writing
notes in the margins. We’re not highlighting. We’re not taking those ideas and
putting them in our commonplace book. Our memory on what we read is unreliable. You
probably all heard different quotes about how, you know, if you hear a presentation,
you’re only going to recall 10 % of it afterwards. The same thing as with reading.
Only a very small percentage of what you read is something that you’re going to
remember later on if you’re just reading. But if you’re using it in your commonplace
book as a part of that, then it will increase your actual memory and you’re,
and you’ll, it’ll be reliable because it’s written down and you can go access it.
Also, he said that reading without extraction is wasteful. So just like I mentioned
a second ago, if you’re just reading a book and And that’s it. You’re not doing
all those other things. Then you’re really wasting your time because you’re only
going to, you spent, you know, how many hours reading a book to only retain five
minutes of what you read. And so you’re wasting all that, those hours of time if
you’re only reading it. If you’re not accompanying the reading with those other
things, writing It’s highlighting, putting key things into your commonplace book. And
he also said, knowledge must be retrievable to be useful. So yeah,
you read a book. It’s not great. But if you can’t retrieve the information from
that book for later use, it’s useless.
So he says in his book, just as a brief overview, step one in the place book is
to create an index in the front of the book so
it’s reason and what he would do is he reserved the first 10 to 20 pages to be
his index he would alphabetize the topics right not the authors it wouldn’t go be
like cato or door it would be alphabetized by it’d be by topic and you turn to
that topic and you’d have the writings of all these different people in that topic
and then of course it would be a to z
somebody having a comment okay um
and so um and then And oh,
yeah, let me go, here’s somebody’s hand, is that somebody’s hands raised?
Yeah, Mark, go ahead. When were these in use? Was it in America and in England or
was it throughout Europe? And you know what decades and centuries and so forth? Oh,
for literally thousands of years. They go back, you see like ancient Rome And the
thinkers back then, they were keeping commonplace books, they were writing commonplace
books, and they were very much common amongst people that were leaders in their
field all the way up, all the way through Europe,
as well as in the United States, all the way up, basically into the mid -1800s when
it starts to die off. Much of Western civilization, they were in place.
Absolutely. Yes. Anybody who’s anybody in Western civilization, you know,
last 2 ,000 years kept a commonplace book.
So then the next thing they would do is they would number every page as part of
the index so that you could go and find that very quickly. And then
they would write notes wherever there’s space. So not just in that area, right? When
they were in the book that they’re reading, they would write a note that they could
then come back to to put into their commonplace book.
And so it was just whenever they would carry around notebooks with them, so that
way they would write it there, and then later on they’d go back. And so that’s why
a lot of times you’ll see journals or notebooks, minute books,
where they have a book that’s covering a date and then like the next day is in a
different book. And then they’ll go back to the first book and then they’ll go to
a third book because they just were using what they had with them. And the same
thing with their commonplace book, they would do that, but especially with their
notebook that they would then bring with them and write their notes down and then
bring those as it was on their mind so they didn’t forget it and then when they
came home or to their office with their commonplace book they could then use their
notebook to then put it into their commonplace book
and so really the main point though was to make sure that they were they were
comprehending above everything else right they wanted to if you didn’t comprehend what
you were reading um what what what what matter what difference did it make you need
to comprehend it and so that’s what all these things were to help you to do they
would write definitions of words um i can’t remember the word on it i wrote it
down yesterday there was a word that i just learned yesterday about the i remember
the definition was basically never giving up what’s that
indefatigable was the new word i learned yesterday and it just means like you just
you’re You’re never wearing out. You’re working on it without giving up.
And so they would write the new word that they learned, the definition of that
word. They would paraphrase it. And then they would make an argument,
right? They would about the idea. And then they would just writing that they would
write just enough to revive the idea later on right in their commonplace book and
so the test would get themselves is could this note reawaken the whole thought years
from now so that way it wasn’t like you would write a little note in your
commonplace book and you’d like what is that you would there’d be enough in there
to be able to say oh yeah I I remember what I was thinking and I maybe I don’t
agree with it now or I would add a little bit more to it now, but there was
enough written where you could go back to what you were thinking. And if the answer
was no, then you need to keep going or reword it. But if yes, it was enough.
There was no reason to keep writing if it was sufficient enough to be able to
rekindle what you were thinking about at a later time.
So, But why? Why did he feel that the commonplace book was so important that he
wrote a book about how to keep one? And so he believed that a free people must
remember their arguments,
that they must compare claims, and they must resist emotional manipulation.
And so the commonplace books themselves were a defense against that manipulation,
against passion,
against forgetfulness. I’m going to go back. So because you were remembering these
things and you knew where to go back to to re to get, you know, to rekindle all
of the information quickly, it really helped to maintain your memory. And so that
you were not manipulated by the arguments of the day, and you could then go back
and say, hey, you know, you’re wrong because look at what happened back in ancient
Greece, or look what happened in the Old Testament. Look at the example we learn in
Paul’s time. They could go back and they could say,
and they could recall it very quickly because they had basically a computer where
they, but it was analog, where they had it imprinted on their mind and could go
find it very quickly.
So what’s very important as we see this is looking about what is a commonplace
book, what did the Founding Fathers do, what do the elites in all of their fields
do. Their lives revolve around knowledge in that field.
they were reading in the morning. They’re reading at night. They’re reading when they
were down.
Reading, reading, reading, reading. I’ve talked about this before about if you’re not
reading, you’re not leading.
And we cannot overestimate or over -emphasize the importance of reading.
But again, in conjunction with making sure that we can recall that information,
right? they were reading all the time. They were recording key points of the things
that they read, and they were communicating with others about these points, which is
also very helpful because, you know, if you’re reading it and then you’re writing it
down, but you only have so much access to your own experience.
But when you communicate these ideas with other people, then they’ve got their
experience to go along with it, and they can say, well, what about this? And you’re
like, oh, that’s a good point. What about that? And so it’s important to be able
to communicate these ideas with other people and then applying the knowledge. But all
of this stuff, right? What good does it do to learn about something if you’re not
going to do it, right? And so, but it all revolves around knowledge,
whether it’s being an effective, right? if you’re whether you’re a good at your
sports, if you’re good at military, if you’re good at business, or if you’re good
at liberty,
it all has a basis of knowledge, building knowledge, applying knowledge,
developing knowledge, and then applying that knowledge some more.
But it all starts and ends with, what are you doing to build your knowledge.
And if we understand that and we look at all the people that are leaders in their
field and they’re leaders because there’s few of them. And we look at what the
scriptures say about my people perish for lack of knowledge. It’s because the mass,
the bulk of the people don’t do that. The bulk of the people don’t do almost any
of the things that I’ve talked about tonight, especially with this and are
contemplating these things and going over these things and developing these ideas and
then applying these ideas and so because most people don’t do that we see what
happens over and over throughout history of why they perish and when we have a
society where a larger chunk of the population is doing these things we have a we
have a culture a society that thrives and succeeds and is free
and so i want to go over some of the key ingredients what what did the founding
fathers read and what did they implement because of what they were doing
and so because that that’s an important aspect of as well right the doers right the
application of what they were learning.
And so the first thing is, of course, we’ve talked about this a lot, is natural
law, natural rights. That the world is governed and that they understood they learned
that the world is governed by natural laws which are discoverable by mankind through
the study of God’s word and application of reason.
And the Declaration of Independence is what we can look to, how we know that they
learn that because that is exactly what they say in the Declaration of Independence.
We look at the rule of law, how important the rule of law is, that to ensure the
legal equality of all men, the exercise of political authority must be governed by
the rule of law and the extension of the law to all individuals, including the
political class. By studying history, by studying the scriptures, and then writing out
their ideas, they came to this conclusion, this knowledge, and they were able to
apply it. We see here in James Madison and Federalist 62 says, a government with
unpredictable and arbitrary laws poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
that’s an example of what how they said the above paragraph.
They understood the importance of the rule of law and why they put it into the
Constitution.
Another principle is the domestic tranquility and peaceful foreign policy,
right? Peace at home, peace abroad. The government, they said, must not be allowed
to interfere in the domestic affairs of other nations. Can you imagine we follow
that today? At home, the government must be forbidden from favoring one group or
class above others. And look at this. This is what they said, but we’re obviously
doing the exact opposite on both of these today. And what do we see as a result
of that? We know they taught this Because we see John Quincy Adams saying, wherever
the standard of freedom of independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be
America’s heart, her benedictions and her prayers. But she does not go abroad in
search of monsters to destroy. She is the well -wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
That is, you know, we were looking at this is the first, second, third, fourth,
president, if I remember correctly.
That is, this is early on in the union. They all taught this principle,
this idea, and how we can see now what the problems that arise when we don’t
follow this principle.
Freedom of self -determination is another key ingredient that they implemented.
The right of the people to resist tyranny and to protect or restore freely elected
government must be preserved. The people must be allowed to remove themselves from
societies into which they voluntarily entered. So we can see this in the Declaration
of Independence. It says that prudence indeed will dictate that governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes, but when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, events is a design to reduce them under absolute
despotism. It is their right. It is their duty to throw off such government and to
provide new guards for their future security. So they learned these things from
history. They put it in their own words and they implemented it through their
actions in the Declaration of Independence. And we look at the principle that liberty
will only persist among a virtuous people.
We have, it’s a people devoid of virtue will permit themselves to be governed by
corrupt leaders. And they will not vigilantly protect their rights from being
abrogated by lawmakers. Now, I think as we read that, it is very clear that we are
an unvirtuous people because we do the inverse, right? We allow ourselves to be
governed by corrupt leaders. We do not protect our rights from being abrogated by
lawmakers, which If that’s true, that that means we’re not virtuous. And one of the
thought leaders of the Founding Fathers quoted often and was very much influential
was Algernon Sidney and in his discourse is on government. Alderman Sidney says,
McAvel discoursing on these matters, finds virtue to be so essentially necessary to
the establishment and preservation of liberty that he thinks it impossible for a
corrupted people to set up a good government or for a tyranny to be introduced if
they be virtuous and makes the conclusion that where the matter that is the body of
the people is not corrupted tumults and disorders do not hurt and where it is
corrupted good laws do no good which being confirmed by reason and experience I
think no wise man has ever contradicted him. So you got the founding fathers looking
to Algernon Sidney, Algernon, Sidney looking to McAvel, Macaveli, looking to ancient
Rome, as well as all these men looking to the scriptures as well, where you can
see throughout time what the result is of virtue and lack of virtue.
And then the importance of freedom of speech, where every individual must be free to
criticize and associate with others to criticize the government without fear of
reprisal and without prior restraint. George Washington said, if freedom of speech is
taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.
Freedom of conscience, the freedom of individuals to exercise the religion of their
choice must be protected. So not just mere belief, right? The ability to exercise
the religion must be protected. And James Madison said that the religion then of
every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man.
We have to leave them alone. Even if we don’t like them, we don’t like that
belief. We don’t like the exercise of that belief. We have to leave them to that.
And so we have to become what the Founding Fathers were to restore what the
Founding Fathers had. It’s beyond debate that we have lost the understandings that I
just showed you, that they learned through what I showed you what was in their
daily life. So if we want to be free, we have to follow the pattern of the elite
defenders of liberty that have come before us. And we must be the elite defenders
of liberty today because there is nobody doing the things and saying the things and
implementing the things that we’re doing. We are looking to what people actually did
to defend liberty. And we’re showing you why the things that other people are doing
right now won’t work because we’re looking at the past and what has worked and what
doesn’t work in the past. And so we have to do those same things if we’re going
to be the elite defenders of liberty in our day.
And so with that, we are just about out of time, but I wanna ask,
I’ll open it up just for a couple of minutes until we can go and open a forum.
What are any comments or questions that you might have on the things that I’ve
covered tonight, on being the people that we need to be to do what the founders
did.
Mark.
The commonplace book, it seems like if you could summarize it, it’s a personal
reference book, the Bible, maybe the most important because you’re addressing all
these very important subjects and you’re addressing them in the way that you find a
value, and you can constantly reference it. Is that under -summerizing’s value,
or how would you describe it?
So maybe rephrase that just a little bit so I make sure I’m understanding what
you’re saying. A personal reference book that address the subjects that are important
to mankind to you. Partly, but not just that, because it’s not just like a quote
book to go in reference, which is, it’s that. Like an encyclopedia to some extent?
Yeah. Additional things, words, things, the thought that you had after you read that,
you’re like, why did I put this quote there and then you explain why you put that
quote there and so you’ve got a lot of different things that will help you again
later on you go back you’re like oh I can remember because of all this information
why that’s there and then I can expand on it with the new knowledge that I have
it’s a knowledge base for us you know like maybe yeah encyclopedia might be good
but not so I guess doesn’t have the connotation that maybe an encyclopedia has first
today, a great resource for you to be able to have the wisdom that the founding
fathers had. Yeah, and you’re covering much more than just as what’s in the
encyclopedia in those categories. Just to remind people how important,
we ought to consider John Locke. The intellectual father of our country is considered
Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson identified identified three people, not physical
figures, three people that contributed more to mankind than any other people.
And one of them was John Locke, you know, philosopher, political philosopher position.
And he has a big, if you go to his home on a cello, you’ll see the big portrait
in there. The other two, if you’re interested, is Isaac Newton, and I can’t argue
with him on Isaac Newton. I might argue with him the third one, and that’s Francis
Bacon. But Bacon had great contributions in the number of areas, including much he
added to the scientific method. But I thought it’s kind of important to think what
Jefferson thought of this man. Oh, yeah, and that’s pretty universal amongst the
founding fathers. It wasn’t just Jefferson for sure. Hollisters.
Oh, can you hear me? Yeah, Samantha. Hi there. So I like what you said about in
order to enjoy the freedom and I would say earn the freedom that the founding
fathers lived and died for. We have to act like them, right?
Including being like them and I think that’s such an important point because so
often we we we think oh who me you know I’m nobody and we want to look to others
to be the brave ones or the knowledgeable ones and to be committed to these causes
and we’re just not going to find those people if that’s our attitude we really have
to become those people and I appreciate what you’re teaching here because gaining
knowledge and it’s it’s kind of lost knowledge that we have to regain I mean it’s
out there for the taking but I really appreciate this topic because it’s it’s been
really important to me to kind of grow out of the ignorance that I was for in for
so many years and thinking that I cared about liberty, but really truly only
understanding just a very surface level of it. So what I love about the idea of
recording things is it’s almost as like an investigation into a topic that’s a
mystery to you. And so it’s like you’re gathering evidence and kind of understanding
the nuances and what it is, what it is and what it isn’t, and looking for those
great resources and names and writing them down and collecting all this really
important data and seeing what holds water and what’s shallow or worldly and not
eternal or natural laws. So I really like you kind of breaking this down and
teaching these concepts that we don’t really do in this fast food digital age where
we just want everything to spoon fed to us. And that’s, yeah, we’re not going to
become the people we need to be if that’s how we, you know,
move forward in the coming days. We really have to do what was modeled for us by
those people we admire. We need to become just like them, as you’re saying.
Precisely. Yeah, thank you. I love that. That’s a great comparison is an
investigation, solving a mystery. I love that.
Because that’s definitely how I feel when I’m doing a lot of that.
Mark. Yes, I’d like to respond to you, Holster. That point is so important.
When I’ve been debates with people that are ignorant and trying to promote ideas
that are destructive and argue them, often they get to the point where they’ve lost
the debate, their debate that’s harmful of mankind, and they say their repute is
turning to other people’s statements, turning to people they idolize,
and using their statements, but they can’t argue. I see that one debate where this
One fellow was on Kate’s show regular host, and I argued on that there is no
authority in the Constitution for, in my state or any state, the federal government
to own any land, except they’re very limited and only at the provable of the state
legislature. And he kept trying to throw arguments, and after I collapsed the three
arguments he made, then he said, well, we’ve got to find out what the lawyers say
on this. It’s our responsibility, as you’re pointing out, to learn these subjects
well enough that we don’t turn to others. And when we learn well enough, then we
can argue them as well as better than the source, because they’re in us.
So you’re kind of, I think that’s kind of what you’re saying. We need to know the
Constitution so we don’t have to rely on other people. We need to know God’s laws
so we don’t have to do eye on other people well enough and and you know this the
tree of liberty helps us do that do you understand what i’m agreeing with uh
colster with you
can you hear me i’m not sure if she’s got on mute oh yeah she muted yeah but
yeah i mean i think you know that’s you know good good points So let’s go ahead
and close with the prayer. Samantha, would you be willing to say the closing prayer
for us?
Sorry, I had to step away for a second. Sorry, I’m back. Okay, yes, I can say the
prayer. Thank you. Sorry, Mark, about that. Okay. Dear Father in heaven, we give
thanks for this evening and this dedicated time that we’ve had to learn more about
important concepts and ideas that we can learn and acquire and the knowledge that we
can obtain and cultivate. And we’re grateful for this presentation and abandon all
these efforts to help us to become more principally minded and a free people and to
acquire and keep and share the knowledge that will help us to be free. We’re so
grateful for this land that has been consecrated for liberty and for the truths that
come from our Savior. And we’re grateful that we can be protected and supported in
these endeavors and ask thee to help us to do that, to do better, and to be more
consecrated. Please bless us and our families in these efforts, help us to be brave
and to make those hard choices to separate from wickedness and laws and organizations
that are supporting tyranny. We’re so grateful for our many blessings and ask thee
to hedge up our way as we continue in these endeavors and grow and help us to
grow this organization and to share our knowledge with each other more freely. And
we give thanks always and we’re saying we’re Christ in.