The Constitution & The Process of Progressivism

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: David New

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 6/4/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Sam Rohrer:

Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Stand and the Gap Today. And it’s also our bi-monthly focus on the Constitution where we consider the principles undergirding it as they pertain to selected headline news. Constitutional attorney, author and public speaker David New joins me again as he does regularly on this focus on today’s program as we consider today a couple of different items. First, I’m going to go here. We’ll talk about this first, but let me give you some background. We’re going to talk about California and David’s response to the elections that happened this week, but here’s a little reason why we’re going to look at that first from a headline news perspective. California remains our most populous state in the Union. I think we all know that. But did you show this that it represents the fourth largest economy in the world? I mean, if you take California, compare it to the nations of the world, it would be the fourth largest at $4.1 trillion, which places it behind the United States, which is the largest.

We have a GDP 29 trillion. China’s second at 18 trillion. And then Germany is third at 4.6 trillion. California comes in at 4.1, but it puts it ahead of Japan, India, and the United Kingdom. So that’s amazing, isn’t it? So it makes California really bigger than life. It’s also number one in agriculture output, producing nearly 50% of US vegetables and over 75% of all fruit and nuts grown in the United States. California under any measure is incredibly important, let alone that with 54 electoral votes, it represents over 10% of the total electoral votes that are counted in presidential national elections. There’s no wonder that California is described by many as a bellwether for the future of America’s political system. So that being a basis now, that being said, is everything from presidential tweets to comments by congressional members, motivations that we see evidenced and we’re already seeing being shaped.

All of those things we’re seeing being shaped right now in view of midterm elections and those in office getting reelected and posturing themselves for the next go around and consolidating power. And I’m going to say over the honoring and the exaltation of truth. That’s been happening for a long time. In my opinion, further guaranteeing that truth, the Constitution and biblically defined morality will remain on the back burner as historical relics having been replaced by pure pragmatism and a short-term view of what works in the moment. That’s what I think is driving everything how. And all of this further assures, I think, that as we approach our 250th national anniversary, that we’re going to witness a lot of lip service over faithful adherence to the constitution, rule of law. We’ll talk more about that today, form over substance and many professing a form of godliness, talking about God but denying the authority of God’s word.

We’ve talked about that in some other programs. But with that introduction, let me bring in right now David New and get his perspective on a domestic issue that of the California elections this week and what his thoughts are. And then an international perspective that he’s asked to share in regard to certain policies with Iran. So we’re going to talk about all these things in the next two segments in fuller detail. So stay with us as we consider the theme today, the Constitution and the process of progressivism and you’ll see that title will tie that in the last segment. But with that, David, welcome to the program.

David New:

Blessings to everyone. It’s so nice to be with you.

Sam Rohrer:

David, in my intro, I gave some, what I think are amazing facts. A lot of people, maybe we’ve heard them, but we need to remember them because it places what happens in California as a very important thing to watch because of its role and its importance in our United States. Now, there are elections this week in California, which about you are a resident. You have some thoughts. What would you like to share?

David New:

Well, I voted for Steve Hilton as many times as the law would allow,

But we’re all excited. He’s in the lead. So everybody’s excited that we might get a Republican elected to the governorship because this state needs to be cleaned up. It’s interesting the power that California makes up as part of the United States. At the time of the US Constitution, what California is today, the state of Virginia was at that time. Virginia was the most populous state in the United States when the Constitution was written, which is probably why the four out of the first five presidents were from Virginia. It had about 20% of the US population. 51% of the US population lived in the South and Virginia had 20% of the US population at the time of the Constitution. So it makes a big difference. All these, the size matters, you might say.

Sam Rohrer:

Well, it does. And we’ve often said here on the East Coast that the prevailing winds that flowed basically west to East ends up making what happens in California eventually show up across the rest of the country. So anyways, let’s move to the international aspect as well. And that is as you look at Iran and what is happening there? You have some thoughts about Iran policy and the president and what’s taking place. Share those thoughts.

David New:

Yes. By the way, when you come to a lot of schools and they have a small law library, most of them will follow the federal government, they’ll put the Supreme Court in there, but the one state that most states or most schools, law schools, if they have limited space, they’re going to put California law in there. You can see the influence of California law throughout many, many law schools and schools that have law courses. They’re going to put California law in there as part of their library if they have limited space. I do want to talk about Iran.

Ever since air power became an arm of the US military, it has been the dream of military strategists to win the war by airpower alone, by airpower alone. And apparently that was the dream here with President Trump. We went into Iran, we bombed them and did severe damage, which was totally justified and then the President Trump called upon the people of Iran to overthrow their government. Well, it didn’t work. Airpower alone didn’t work this time. It never really has worked and there’s a reason why the United States is suffering this humiliation with this little country that has no Air Force and it has no Navy and it’s able to affect the price of gasoline for over 300 million Americans. Iran has disrupted the world economy. Even red China has been disrupted by Iran’s behavior. Why? Why are they able to do all these terrible things?

Why does our President Trump look … He never looks so weak as when he’s dealing with Iran. The United States has never looked so bad in the international scene as we’re dealing with Iran.

Sam Rohrer:

David, David, you’ve just taken us right up to the break. You’re going to have to hold. People are going to have to wait until we come back for you to answer that question. Stay with us, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be back in just a moment. Well, welcome back to Stand in the Gap today and David New is my guest. And David, in the last segment, you were bringing us up to the point where you were talking about your thoughts about Iran and Trump policies. You were talking about the strategy, the hope that’s been there for a long time, that air power alone could win battles and wars, but you’re bringing us up to the point that something is missing. And finish that thought please.

David New:

Yes, sir. The reason why we’re looking very bad in the international community against this nation that has very limited power is very simple. In my opinion, the reason is the United States does not have an army inside Iran that is loyal to the United States, either dissident Iranians or somebody. And as long as that exists, what that means is President Trump is dealing with Iran with one arm tied behind his back. You must have an army on the ground. Air power won’t do it alone. With an army loyal to the United States, the president could directly threaten Tehran and the regime’s existence. With an army loyal to the United States, it could seize a city or territory in Iran and recognize an Iranian government, a new Iranian government, friendly to the United States. With an army inside Iran, the United States could occupy the coastal lands and put all of those speedboats that are used to threaten the tankers out of business.

And if he had an army on the ground, he could simply go in and threaten the nuclear stockpile that Iran has the enriched nuclear material that they would use to make a weapon.

So

Sam Rohrer:

What

David New:

Happened? Where did the mistake occur? And I hate to say this because I deeply love and admire this president. When Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran, bombed the Marine barracks on October 23rd, 1983, President Reagan right then and there should have accepted that as a declaration of war by Iran against the United States and should have begun the process of building an Iranian army loyal to the United States by people who opposed the regime. Most Iranians opposed the regime and if he didn’t do it and he should have, one good thing he did do is that of the 200 Marines who died, he did take Iranian money and he distributed it to those who lost a loved one and that bombing. By the way, that program is coming to an end very, very soon. So if you have somebody that’s a relative that was killed in that bombing in 1983, you still can apply for compensation with the government, but the program is coming to an end very soon.

Now, if President Reagan didn’t do it, all the presidents afterwards should have already done it and they didn’t do it and it was a big mistake because they thought that you could pacify Iran and you simply can’t.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, David, and with that, that’ll roll us into the next consideration. When we look at some compare contrast, ladies and gentlemen to Iran and the US, but David, I’ll throw in there my thoughts just before we go further is that therein what you’re saying, we’ve had other guests, we’ve dealt with it on the program, that yes, airpower alone cannot bring victory, but there at hand comes the political issue and that is for sure the American people and we do not have the ability to put troops on the ground and frankly, no nation in the history of the world has been able to subdue the nation of Persia. Now Iran because the many, many, many factors, all of those things being done and considered makes what you just said true and frankly impossible and that is putting troops on the ground there. So anyways, a lot of considerations and as we’ve said many, many times and I said right at the beginning of that whole thing, why are we going and what are the objectives?

And they have continued to change and all of that. So we’re going to let there, but let’s just go look at the structure here because when using Iran, David has a basis for comparison. It’s interesting to note how their form of governance appears on paper and how it actually works in reality and how they compare contrast to our US governance system. For instance, I just put together a few facts and I’m going to go to you for further thought. Now on paper, Iran is a republic so is the United States on paper and perhaps surprisingly when I did further research, roughly 75% of the total 193 nations that exist today in the world classify themselves as republics. Yet in reality, republic, while the most common label is not the most uniform system of governance that’s in practice. China, for instance, identifies itself as a republic, though it’s a one party system.

So for the purpose of comparison, part of the research I’ve done, republics are actually in three types of subcategories authoritarian systems, one, two, single party systems like China, all republics, and three, theocracies like Iran. Most all operate with a written constitution and include key components of a constitution which forms the basis of what’s referred to as the rule of law. We hear that rule of law, that means there’s a constitution in place, which establishes the structure, defines the limits on power and describes how leaders are to be elected. But beyond that, what appears in theory and what should be is continually tested day by day, not just in countries like Iran, but I’m going to say actually what happens here also in our country. David, have any additional comments you’d like to make about republics, constitutions, and rule of law first, because those tend to be used synonymously.

Any comments on that first? And then we’ll go into looking at Iran and how you would have actually pulled out three points of difference that you’d like to comment on.

David New:

Yes. There are three key points of difference between us and Iran and you’ve already touched on one of them. The United States is a republic. If you look at Article four, Section four, it says, “The United States shall guarantee to every state in the Union a Republican form of government. A Republican form of government is when the people elect their leaders, when the people elect their leaders. And that means in the United States you cannot have by law, by the Supreme law of the land, which the US Constitution is, you cannot have a dictatorship, you cannot have a monarchy or a theocracy because in this republic there is a separation of church and state. I’m sad to say the ACLU has corrupted the concept of the separation of church and state to make it mean godless America, a godless United States, but that’s not what the original intent was for the separation of church and state.

The purpose of the separation of church and state was to make sure the United States would not be a theocracy, that it would not be run by the clergy and the clergy would not run the government. And the purpose of the separation of church and state was to make religion the contribution of religion more effective and powerful. It was designed to make sure that religion would not be a sectarian influence in the government, but on general principles would influence government and government legislation. So the first key difference between us and Iran is that we are a Republican government. We the people, government of the people by the people and for the people. Now there’s a second difference between us and Iran and this is a fascinating area. In our system of constitutional law, we elect the commander in chief of the military. Every four years we get to decide who is going to head our military.

It works different in Iran. To become the supreme leader of Iran to become an Ayatollah, you basically have to be a super smart Shiite theologian. You go to school, you have to be very, very proficient and you come out and you have to be a master theologian in Islam and in the Shiite version of Islam. And out of that group of men who become this, how is the Supreme leader picked? Well, they have something called an assembly of experts and assembly of experts. These are 88 people and they decide who the next Ayatollah is going to be. If the court one dies, these 88 people, this assembly of experts pick the next Supreme leader and they will pick it from those people who have proven themselves to be masters at Shia theology in Islam. Now, who picks the 88? The Iranian public does. So this is how the Iranian public gets to pick its leaders is through by voting for who’s in that 88 member club the assembly of experts, but there’s a catch.

There’s a catch. Who gets to decide gets to be a candidate to run for office in the public and to become one of the 88 of the assembly of experts. It is another group called the Guardian Council.

Sam Rohrer:

Okay, David, you’re going to have to hold it there to get us out of time. We’ll come back. We’ll complete that and ladies and gentlemen of the next segment and then move from the second point to a third consideration. Right, David, as we move into the third segment here, you were concluding some thoughts in that last segment about point number two, not having to do with the difference between how Iran elects their leader, ultimately the commander of their military and you were talking about that and then we’re going to move into the third point here in a second. So finish what you were talking about that there, please.

David New:

Yes. The Ayatollah is the commander in chief of the military. So he is the real power behind the Iranian government and as I said before, he is selected by a majority vote by the assembly of experts, an 88 member group and the public gets to pick who becomes part of that assembly of experts. But here’s the kicker. To become a candidate to run for those 88 seats, you have to be approved by something called the Guardian Council. This is a 12 member body and they select who could run before the public to become a member of the assembly of experts and guess what happens? You must be supportive of the theocracy in Iran. They make sure that no candidate gets before the public can get any votes unless you are definitely a backer of the theocracy in Iran. In effect, the election is rigged. It’s rigged to always support a theocracy in Iran and this is a big difference.

Sam Rohrer:

That is a big deal.

David New:

Now the third one-

Sam Rohrer:

Okay. The third one, David. Okay, go into the third one at this point then.

David New:

The third one is the second amendment. If you ever needed an argument to prove how important the second amendment is, Iran is an excellent example. I remember when President Trump first said to the Iranian people after the bombing and how much success we had at the beginning, he said, overthrow, overtake, take your government back. And I sat to my chair and when I heard President Trump say that, I said to myself, “Exactly how do they do that? They don’t have guns. Does he think that they can use spitballs to get their government under control to get it back to overthrow their current regime? There is no Second Amendment right in Iran, none whatsoever. They strictly control guns and so when these radical Iranian Republican army come out and just kill tens of thousands of Iranians when they were protesting, there wasn’t anything that people could do.

They didn’t have any guns to fight back with. Thankfully, President Trump is beginning to send guns to the people, but be that as it may, the Second Amendment proves this whole situation proves how important it is for the population to have a Second Amendment. By the way, the Second Amendment originally was fourth on the Bill of Rights. A lot of people think the Second Amendment is the second most important amendment after the First Amendment and the First Amendment is the most important and that’s why it’s first completely false. Originally, Congress sent 12 amendments to the states for ratification to be the Bill of Rights. The first two did not pass the third to the 12th passed and they became the first 10 amendments of the Bill of Rights. So I’m recommending that you don’t attach any significance to the order of the Bill of Rights and that 10 amendment list.

Sam Rohrer:

David, that’s a great point. I’m just going to follow up with some thoughts that just came to my mind here at this moment talking about that because you and I were talking before the program and we were both saying, how many other countries even have anything remotely close to the Second Amendment where firearms are protected under the rule of law, the highest law of the country and there are only about a half a dozen around the world. Really, that’s all that came up. And most of those are very, very controlled. A couple of them like Haiti and another allow firearms to be owned for the purpose of self-defense but have to be kept inside the home. So they’re very limited. It is not at all like what we have. And I noted this as well that right now happening in China, Tiananmen Square anniversary is coming up here very soon and China in anticipation of that and having a potential for the people to respond that they don’t like what’s going on, they are clamping down on their surveillance and control so as not to make that possible.

They don’t have any Second Amendment rights there in China either. But point being, here’s what I was thinking. Many people I think do think, David, as you said, that the First Amendment religious expression and all that is first because it was the most important. You made that clear. It is important, but it wasn’t always at the beginning the most important. And the second, many, many people have said, well, the second amendment was there to ensure the protection of the First Amendment, which what you just said cuts that out also. Our founders were not thinking that. But one thing that I have noticed, I believe, is that there are far too many people in our country who believe that our protection and the maintenance of our freedom revolves around the fact that we have our second amendment, not understanding that ultimately God says he is the one that is the provider of safety for a nation and that fearing him and keeping his commandments are the greatest security.

Our founders said, along with that should go the right to protect yourself. But anyways, I put a few things out there. Comment on any of those things that may have stuck out to you

David New:

The Second Amendment is becoming very, very unpopular with a lot of people, especially those on the left, especially the liberals and it’s unfortunate because our army could never get away with the kind of murder that the Iranian Republican army got away with if they had guns. If they had guns, they could overthrow that government and sometimes when you have a situation like this where the population is not armed, they are limited to a number of ways they can overthrow the government unless there is an army on the ground that’s armed. One of the ways is some general or colonel within the Iranian government defects and takes up the case and the cause of the people and agrees to overthrow the government. Well, I believe if the intelligence reports are correct that when we had the United States had a person in mind who might be able to fulfill that function, but he got killed in the bombing.

So in a way we kind of stepped on ourselves a little bit because this guy did not survive the initial attack at all. They were hoping that he might, one of these Iranian characters break away and break with the government and side with the people and overthrow the regime. And right now I’m sad to say ladies and gentlemen, don’t be surprised where we are today we may be substantially in the same place come November.

President Trump should do one of the things, let Israel go in and confiscate the nuclear material. Of course, they’d have to dig it up, but Israel would be willing to do it because they know they would be the first recipient of a nuclear attack by Iran and the United States could protect them with our air power and they could confiscate all that nuclear material that has been buried deep under earth, dig it out and take it out of the country and at least that would neutralize and neuter the regime to some extent.

Sam Rohrer:

Well, David, that is an idea and it joins with the many, many others that are out there just this morning. It is being reported by good sources that reality evidently it would appear that Iran may be days away from testing something that they have because they’ve actually gone ahead, which makes frankly so much of what is happening there hard for the American people in the world to really understand because it has changed so much, ladies and gentlemen, from when this entire thing began on February 28th, generally promised to be Short, expected to cut the head off, which the Itala original one was taken out as we all know. Tremendous harm was done to that country and the bombing and so forth, but did not bring them to their knees. David, as we wrap this up, it kind of brings me back to the thought that one of the things perhaps Americans or leadership have not taken into account is that the leaders of Iran being a theocracy governed theologically, according to Hlaming Law, do not think like Western thought.

They are willing and actually would love to die as martyrs for their faith because that’s where they return and experience eternal reward. So the way we think is not the way they think. And that in is a major difference between our republic and theirs. We’ll be right back. Well, as we go into our final segment now, if you’ve been with us from the beginning, thank you so very much. If you joined us part way through and did not get all of it, I would encourage you to go back and you can pick up this program at standinthegapradio.com. All of our programs are there informed that you can search for them by month by year. Everything’s an archive form. You can find all of our programs, the Minute Program, this daily Stand in the Gap Today program, the weekend program, Stand in the Gap weekend. And you can also find on our app, Stand in the Gap app or on our website TV programs.

Pastor Isaac Crockett and I do a weekly 30 minute program. We’re currently in the series of the Sermon on the Mount walking through the beatitudes and making an application to that to our life today. You can find those there as well. So I would just encourage you to do that. Can I also mention, I don’t mention this very, very often, but we’re in now to the summer months as we all know. This program depends on your gifts and your partnership. We depend on your prayers. That is essential and number one. But as importantly, since we all run and everything requires money to run, your finances and participation are critical. Summertime oftentimes tends to be a down time, but I also know that we’re increasingly across the country being impacted by increased costs of energy and all the things that we’re talk about often on this program and that is making an impact.

We are feeling it as I think probably everyone is who is dependent upon listener participation. But I want to put that before you as a reminder. If you give, thank you so very, very much. If you give faithfully, that is even more important and I thank you doubly for that. If you’ve never given or perhaps thought that, well, it’s not necessary, let me just say that it is necessary because it’s just the way it happens. We can’t run our homes without funds. We can’t run this ministry without it. And so your help is important. I would just ask you to consider that. All right, David, let’s go into the final segment here and this is kind of this section deals really with how he titled the program and that is on progressivism. Based on a statement by Clarence Thomas, April 15th of this year, just not long ago, Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court at the University of Texas and Austin made a speech that caught your attention.

Most people probably never knew that he did that, but as it relates to ongoing effort to change our constitution and our historic view of the rule of law, and he’s talking about that. Would you share the context of the speech and then walk into the essential points that you felt were made and made well by Justice Clarence Thomas?

David New:

Absolutely. Clarence Thomas gave a speech that got wide publicity. It really hit a nerve in a good way and it woke people up to a concept that we have in this country called progressivism, progressivism. Now just finally before we leave Iran, the one thing I would like to say is that I wish that this is where a pastor who has deep roots in Iran, maybe an Iranian, could have helped the president understand. I know intellectually he understood what the regime was like, but I think it would take a pastor to let it sink in to his mind and his heart of the enemy that he’s dealing with and when they kill, when these Shiite Muslims kill, they will say Allah Akbar, praise God while they’re killing you. These are the kind of people they are and how deadly and regime change is the only solution why President Trump is trying to make a deal that nobody believes they will keep.

I don’t know. It’s regime change period. Now getting back to Clarence Thomas, this is an excellent speech. He talked about progressivism, which is a concept that basically he’s saying it is anti-constitutional because it’s not the concept itself as he explained was adopted by President Woodrow Wilson and I’ve never heard more people say bad things about President Woodrow Wilson than in the last five or 10 years. I mean, his popularity has just sunk. And one of the things that Justice Thomas said about Wilson is that Woodrow Wilson was into progressivism and that it’s not the concept is not native to this country. It came from Germany. It came from Otto Bombismarks, Germany, where it’s a state center society in which the state basically is the source of inspiration of life for everything in the country. He liked Germany a lot. He thought they were quote unquote nearly perfected.

And one of the things that progressivism does, and this is the worst part about it, is that they do not like the Declaration of Independence. Let me read what Clarence Thomas said about what progressivism thinks about the United States Declaration of Independence.

“Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from the government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a constitution premise on the transcendent origin of our right. “This is what progressives, they don’t like the Declaration of Independence. And by the way, as I pointed out in my book, that is the purpose of the concept of secularism. What is the real goal of secularism? The purpose of secularism is to separate the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution and when you do that, then the Constitution becomes a Godless document.

Sam Rohrer:

And David, that is well stated. And ladies and gentlemen, I’d put together some thoughts here on the Constitution. Let me just follow up with it. One of the greatest distinctions of our US Constitution is that it is associated with our Declaration of Independence. It preceded it. It formed a philosophical basis for it. Our representative Republic we know is unique and that our declaration establishes three things that other nations like Iran, France, India, and others who possess a similar component do not do. What are those three things? Well, one, it is this, the philosophical foundation of natural rights, the legitimate authority number two of government, but under God, that is critical. And third, the right to separation from an existing governance structure that challenges those natural rights and those rights as given by God. That doesn’t exist in any other country really other than ours. And I’ll just conclude by saying, you know what?

Details matter. Words matter. What drives those words and understanding is worldview. What really makes the difference? A biblical worldview. That’s the unique distinguishing factor that separates us and our founding from all the others in the world. And that’s what we talk about on this program, everything through a biblical worldview lens. David and you, thank you so much for being with us today here on the program. Always, always good. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with us. Be here tomorrow. Pastor Isaac Crockett will be leading this program tomorrow.