Understanding Your Constitutional Rights with Rowe

EP 48 - Understanding Your Constitutional Rights: A Conversation with Chris Rowe

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 welcome back to the Ask Ralph Show. If you wanna find out more information about the show, you can always reach us at the as ralph podcast.com. Again, that's askralphpodcast.com. So what are we talking about today?

We're gonna talk about the US Constitution, which might seem like a bit of a departure from what we usually do, but you know what, we're all US citizens here and we need to know what's going on.

So we're gonna talk specifically today about how the knowledge of the Constitution impacts individuals. So we have a very special guest with us today.

He's been a friend of mine for a long [00:01:00] time He's a renowned constitutional expert author and speaker chris rowe. Welcome chris.

Thanks for having me ralph.

It's great to be

here I appreciate you taking the time, the thing is The constitution I was having a conversation this morning with somebody and most people only know a little bit about it You know what they hear in the news or what they remember back in grade school So let's jump right into this and start with a question.

It may seem basic But how did the Constitution come to be

written? how it came to be written basically, Ralph, is that, our, the founders of our nation basically got a little bit tired of a tyrant across the Atlantic, King George, who In all essence, we're seeing a lot today that he, that the founders revolted against or went against when he was ruling, from across the Atlantic from in Great Britain and Parliament basically disconnected itself as well from the colonies.

 and we [00:02:00] saw these relocated Englishman, which is basically what we had here in the colonies were Englishman, many who were first generation or transplants. Okay, that basically said, Hey. We've had enough of this. we need to be able to take care of our own business, feed our families.

We don't need the taxation without representation. and it wasn't a matter of the tax that the Boston Tea Party actually occurred. It was a matter, it wasn't a matter of the amount. It was a matter that they were taxed without any input, without any say. It was just laid upon them. And that's why this anger and angst came up among the colonists, and it wasn't a huge percentage of the colonists.

Again, generally about 3 percent of the colonists were the ones that were making the most noise, but they were of such a class and character of people that it was enough noise to really Raise a stink and how

 it was really a foundational [00:03:00] issue is what you're getting at. They were getting at a foundation and don't let me put words in your mouth, but basic human liberties and rights

 Well, sure, as Englishmen, they enjoyed a bill of rights.

Actually, England had their own bill of rights. Among those were actually the right to defend yourself, the right to keep and bear arms, the right, to question the king. Okay, these were all rights from the, English common law that these Englishmen relocated over in North America.

Had enjoyed as Englishman, but now they were, under the boot of the king who was now stripping those rights away from them, putting military in their homes and communities and basically treating them like they were a conquered people when they were, in fact, Englishman relocating to conduct commerce over in what we know is no, no, that English is my second language.

Sometimes what we what we knew at that time as the new world,

Sure, absolutely. [00:04:00] And and that is so true. And, it's almost like they needed to do something because unchecked, the power from England was just, putting a boot on the people over here in the colonies.

Absolutely. So the, the colonies came together, they formed this Congress, which met at the Pennsylvania State House, which we know, as Independence Hall today.

I remember going there when

I was a kid. That was a one of those field trips you take as a kid to go see where they did all this tough work. You

should revisit it. You're going to see it with a whole different set of eyes as, as now, and we went, my son came in from California. He lives in California.

He visited a couple of years back and we went to, Independence Hall. He wanted to go see it. And then we also went to the Constitution Center, which is right across, the field there from Independence Hall. And it was just a great day, great information and learned a lot myself even more. So it's [00:05:00] just, it's an incredible story of how this all occurred, but we had that Congress.

which the 13 colonies got together. Rhode Island was a bit of a, was a bit of a pain in the hind parts because they didn't sign the constitution. They eventually agreed to it later, years later, but they were just, a whole different story. I'm not gonna dwell on that, but they came together to say, Hey, we need to do something about that.

And the Declaration of Independence was formed, written by Thomas Jefferson, of course, Ben Franklin, Robert Livingston and others. John Adams were on that commission to, to have that written. and that's basically what started it. and what we need to understand is in most times revolution, like the French revolution and others throughout the world were always carried out.

By people with nothing to lose with absolutely nothing to lose. It was usually the common man or the peasants or whoever that revolted against the monarchy, the [00:06:00] king or whoever was in power. But what we had in this nation were men of means. These 56 men who signed the declaration were lawyers, businessmen, people of means people of wealth.

 they understood that the minute they Attach their name to that Declaration of Independence. That was an act of treason against the king.

 It was really a declaration of war, wasn't it, Chris?

yes, it was, but they put it in a manner to basically put out to the world. It wasn't addressed directly to, it was simply a declaration by these colonies to the world.

It wasn't directed at King George, but King George was definitely mentioned and they listed their 27 grievances right on there. But the key thing there is these guys had everything to lose. And that's why you see it the last sentence on there. Okay. that we commit our [00:07:00] lives. And our most sacred honor.

 these men had everything to lose and most of them did lose everything, unfortunately. but that's the first time in history, in the history of the world that we had that type of revolution. Of course, revolution is a relevant term. And we call it a relevant term because from the British perspective, it was a revolution from the American perspective.

It was a war for independence.

Absolutely. and I think the tragedy today is that most people's knowledge of the constitution just stopped where you just stopped. Understand. and they know about this thing that happened and it happened in constitution hall and they might've known it happened in.

Pennsylvania. So let's move on to the next question. Sure. And you talked about, and this is why I think this is relevant for my listeners. we talked about, these were business people, these were lawyers, these were doctors, these were farmers. These are all these type of people that had means.

So I think the question becomes Chris, like what impact does not knowing or knowing the constitution have on the average [00:08:00] individual today?

Well, I would say that the greatest impact is. When we see the goings on in Washington, or even in our state, and we see how government elected officials and governments are operating.

How do we know they're operating within? The bylaws, which is what basically the constitution is. Every organization, a corporation, a non profit, what, they all have bylaws under, even a political party has bylaws under which they operate. And these are the rules they operate by. Well, that was the intent of the constitution.

Let's set forth some bylaws to say, hey, this is the government we want, and this is how we believe it should be run. And. In that, what they wanted to do is place the limitations. Now, one thing they understand in it, mankind is fallible, okay? And there are [00:09:00] many in our species that aren't of a moral nature.

Absolutely.

I think that's very true, Chris. That's well

said. So they, their intention was to bind these people down with the Constitution. Now, we all know the Constitution is not a self enforcing document, and it was only truly written for good and moral people. Now, they understood we're always going to have evil people, but the intention of the Constitution was To basically bind them down with these bylaws, this constitution.

And if we take a look at the constitution when we read it, it was really written for the average guy. You really do not need an attorney to interpret or actually a court to interpret. Although we see on TV today, the Supreme court going out with the Colorado having Trump on the ballot ruling. We see that going on today, but if you actually read it, There's really nothing being applied there, but it was made not just for the [00:10:00] attorney, the doctor, the educated individual, but it was written in such plain terms that the average farmhand or farmer could comprehend that, understand and know what their rights are.

And getting back to the initial question, Ralph, is If the rights we have are rights we get from our creator. Government doesn't give us rights.

You have to be careful even saying that though, Chris, today, because that's even attacked at this point.

Well,

attack away, Ralph, because

we hold these truths to be self evident.

Okay. And it's a truth. The basic truth is we're all created equal by God. We don't have equal outcomes, but we're all created equal. We're all put on this earth, only by the grace of God to live and conduct our lives as we see fit. Now, those lives are supposed to be lives of harmony and peace, as intended by God.

Doesn't always work out that way. And we have [00:11:00] conflicts.

But the key thing here with the average individual, the average American, and I urge you to read your constitution. And if not, I hold classes here in the New Castle County and Kent County areas. Come on out to a class. We'll have some. And we're going to talk about that here in a few minutes.

Okay, cool. So here's the thing. And I'll just sort of, if you don't know what your rights are, how do you know they're not being violated?

Well, that's brilliant, Chris. it took a rocket scientist to figure that out.

Rocket surgeon. You got it.

 But you make a good point, Chris. And that is, in your experience, how many people as a percentage have actually read the constitution?

 I can't even fathom. I know today that it is not a subject or topic that's being taught in the Delaware education system.

And that's sad because I know you're a veteran, my son's in the Coast Guard, and I think to myself how many men and women have given their lives for what that Constitution stands for.

And we as Americans [00:12:00] can't even take the time to read it. And that's just sad. And our education system is not making that part of the curriculum. That is just a tragedy.

It is a tragedy, Ralph.

And unfortunately, that creates a situation where. See, he who wants, I forget the exact way that, that Jefferson says it, he who expects to be free without being knowledgeable is living in a fantasy world basically.

You have to know your rights. You have to know how things are supposed to work. You can't be ignorant and free. In fact, if you go back and look in history, you go back and look at, at the, the South and history and the slaves, they didn't want slaves learning how to read. Because the minute one did, he understood his place, and he understood that he could be free.

So, a good education, an education that's going to teach you, to read, to comprehend, and to understand, will lead, and speak [00:13:00] it, will lead to your freedom. And if you don't know the Constitution, and you don't know that government may be violating your rights, how are you going to maintain your freedom?

And think about what you just said in the Christian context. I mean, endeavor me for this one, right? Absolutely. The Christians read the Bible, right? Because it's, the stuff is in there. You need to know. Absolutely. And think about that. But yet they won't read the constitution.

 and Christians have a duty and it's in Romans.

If you take a look at Romans 13, Christians have a duty to engage in the politics of their community. They have

a duty to do that. It's something that they talked about throughout the

Bible. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think Christians have gotten away from that and we have the old, the old mindset. Oh, well, we don't talk religion and politics.

And I'm thinking, well, no, we need to talk because those are two, two basic things that affect our daily lives.

 Yeah. And, and in my view, the founders [00:14:00] never intended to exclude religion from the people. No, not at all.

 and you might disagree with me, but I would say that the founders, we were based on a Judeo Christian belief system.

It was an expectation that there was a God. So for them to argue at this point that, well, you can't talk about that. I just wrote a book about this. My second book just came out and

It's called the gospel of entrepreneurship. And it's all about your walk with Jesus in your business. And there's this belief right now going on in society that you have to check your Christianity at the door. And that's not what it's intended here. Just like if you're an American, that you're an American, that constitution was written for you because that's what you are.

And if you don't understand what those things are, and I think that's what you're getting at. Cause I don't want to take away to Mike. I think that's what you're

getting at. Absolutely, sir. Absolutely. See, here's the Institute on the Constitution, which is who I represent and who I instruct with. I'm also a board [00:15:00] member of the Institute on the Constitution because I believe deeply and I swore an oath when I entered the military as a veteran, I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

 And how can you defend it if you don't know what it says?

But you have politicians that swear that oath all the time, and I have to tell you, they're either totally clueless, or they're evil, usurping the very oath that they swore. So, you know, how do we, how do we know that? Now, the Institute on the Constitution looks at what we call the American view of law.

And we've gotten away from that American view of law, and that American view is based in the foundation of biblical principles. That's where the American view of law and, and of, of, um, you know, our government is three, three beliefs. We have, there is a God, our rights come from him. They don't come from government.

And the purpose of each and every level of civil government is to secure our God given rights. [00:16:00] Primarily that's the purpose of government. And if you take a look at the constitution and read the constitution, The Constitution places no limit on the individual. The Constitution places all limitations on the government.

And it delineates, in Article 1, Section 8, it specifically delineates the power of the federal government. And of course, they've blown that out of proportion. There are numerous Sections of the government that have no reason to be there whatsoever.

So Chris, let me ask the most logical question.

So I've known you for a while.

 I've known you before you got into this whole constitution thing, which I commend you for doing, by the way, I think you're a standup guy for doing it, but how does the normal Joe, I'll call you normal Joe, get launched into this position where all of a sudden, this is your dedication.

I can tell by the way you talk about it. I can tell by the things you post online, you've become so dedicated to this. What happened?

I saw the [00:17:00] way that our society was going. I, I, I witnessed, I'll tell you, I'm going to go back to, I'll go probably go back to 1988. And I learned about a man by the name of Ron Paul, and I started following him and seeing his speeches and reading his writings, and this guy, this man was just a total American purist on the Constitution.

He believed he strongly believed in liberty, the rights of the individual being superior to the power of the government. And in that I started to become sort of a student of his. But it wasn't until I'm going to say it wasn't until 2012 when he actually ran for president and I saw the Republican Party sabotage the man, I said, you know, parties, parties just, unfortunately run by people who only have [00:18:00] interest in the party and have no interest truly in America, in our U. S. Republic, and in that, I decided to dedicate myself to really learning more about the Constitution and getting behind it. And I ran into a gentleman by the name of Larry Mayo, who is now the president of the Institute on the Constitution. And I sat through the course that I teach now, which is 12 lectures.

I sat through that course three times. And then I said to Larry, I said, you know what, I think I can teach this.

So you did your homework, you didn't go into it without doing your homework.

 No, you can't. You can't. People will find out if you're full of, full of crap right from the get go Ralph,

So you have to know your stuff, and you have to sort of live it too. So

Well, we all need to live it. if we're going to be U. S. citizens, then, we should adhere to what we believe in, in that constitution.

And we see today. That the U. S. citizen is basically take the federal [00:19:00] government has taken the U. S. citizen and put them in the back of the bus and they brought in all these people across the border from out of the outside the nation. They're paying them. They're giving them housing, free health care for all these services. Kids are being ripped from their schools. to put illegal aliens or people that now some of them may be there for safety.

But, if you're seeking, if you're seeking to, get away from your, if you have a problem and you're being persecuted by your government. And you're in Pakistan. Well, I'm sorry, but the U. S. isn't the next nation over that you can, go seek security in or go, I'm trying to think of the word and

 there's a process for that.

There is an asylum process that needs to be followed. Absolutely. And, and I've heard, and not just Donald Trump, But there have been many people that said, if you don't have a border, you don't have a country. Bingo. And you're absolutely right, Chris, and this [00:20:00] is all talked about in the Constitution, isn't it?

Yes, it is. It is. It doesn't go into detail about, it just says, it basically stipulates that the federal government Has to guarantee each state a republican form of government. And then we take a look at article one section 10, which is being argued in the Supreme Court today. And they talk about paragraph three or paragraph three talks about the talks about if anybody is found.

To be or prosecuted as part of an insurrectionist or in revolution against the nation. Well, nobody's been prosecuted. Nobody's even been charged with that. But this is the terminology that we see, the political class against a Donald Trump tried to proliferate through the media. And we continuously get inundated time after time again with these projections of what should be or what it but [00:21:00] isn't.

And it isn't fact. That's, that's not what it is.

 So I guess the most logical question is, if I'm listening to this podcast, watching this YouTube video, and I'm interested in getting more involved, what does that look like, Chris? it sounds like you took the bull by the horns and jumped right into this constitution class.

So what can my listeners do?

 you can certainly come out and sign up for one of my classes. I'd love to have you in class. It's a fun time. We have a lot of good debate, a lot of good discussion, but we also, so you can't understand the constitution. Without first and understanding the history, it isn't a matter that we're here.

How did we get here? Okay, what events what things in Western civilization occurred to create this wonderful nation, the greatest nation on earth in my book that we live in today. Think about this of all the places Ralph, you and I were born. We were born here. Yeah.

Amen. Yeah, and my grandfather used to always [00:22:00] say if you don't know where you came from You're never gonna figure out where you're going

 exactly and the only way you learn what not to do today is by study in the Past learning our history.

Oh, look this they really messed this up That's not the direction to go or this worked wonderfully. Let's follow this Let's, let's mimic this pattern and see if we can improve our society today.

But for the average individual, Ralph, come out to a class, get engaged in your community on any level, because I think the reason, I think it was Plato that said, if a man does not get involved.

in the happenings is community, he'll eventually end up being ruled by evil men or people dumber than himself. So those two, that's basically, unfortunately, a lot of apathy has created the problems we have today. Apathy and ignorance are the two factors in my belief [00:23:00] that have put The United States, on the decline, we're actually physically witnessing today because we haven't

And I think it was him also that said people get the government they deserve.

It might have been Aristotle and I apologize, that's way back, yeah, it's one of those old guys that had a lot more sense than some of us these days. But the truth is, if you don't pay attention, if you don't get involved, I was talking to somebody this morning and they said, I'm just one person.

What can I do? And I said, well, think about this. And I don't want to go down to COVID road, but we're going to go down there a little bit because I remember the day that this happened and I was told everything is shut down and they said, you can't go to church. And I thought to myself, wow, like we've gotten to the point and I'm not picking on any political party at this point.

I'm just going to say what the facts were. They made it so you could go into a liquor store and buy a six pack of beer, but you couldn't go worship God. And I said to myself, wow, that's where we've gotten to. But the [00:24:00] sad part, Chris, is that you didn't see the uproar that you should have seen. Now, I got involved with some other churches.

 we actually got involved in filing some lawsuits against the state. And we kind of kept them in check a little bit, I would argue. Right. But the thing is, it was so sad to watch that and people just having their rights just completely pulled out from underneath of them. And and I don't think people understand it to this day, like your rights are being taken from you on a daily basis.

And I think what you, what I hear you saying, Chris is because mostly because they don't know what their rights are.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, Ralph, you're an accountant. You deal with a lot of businesses. How many businesses do you see fold as a result of the lockdowns put on by Governor Carney here in the state of Delaware?

Oh, absolutely.

 And there was

absolutely, now look, hindsight being 2020, when that first was going on, I think honest people could disagree about, we didn't know what we were getting into. I'll say that's fair. I'll give you 14 days, but at some point, no, I'm serious though, but at some point, at some point, [00:25:00] The BS hit the fan, but yet we're still now three years past that and the nonsense that continues on Related to that, let's talk about an accounting piece to that.

Here's a great example of a huge problem So they set up this thing called the employee retention credit where businesses could go out and per person get like up to twenty six thousand dollars per employee Right. This system is so broken with fraud, but yet the government continues to send checks out like, from the printing press.

And that's what I'm talking about. Like people don't have a clue because, and this is going to sound really harsh, but look, here's what I say about that. If you have your internet. You have your sports on TV and pornography. Most people shut up. And I truly believe that's what we saw. I mean, that, I think in a lot of ways, COVID was the test of, do we really have a constitution?

Yes,

I agree. And it was bread. You just described bread and [00:26:00] circuses, brother. And that was,

tell me what that is. Bread and circuses. I didn't hear that

term before.

Well, the, the Roman emperors, in order to keep the people distracted from them, Here's what, here's what happened in Rome. Part of the fall of Rome was similar to what we see today in the U. S. They had their armies out over in Egypt, over in Germany, they had their armies spread out all over Europe, okay? To basically control the Roman Empire, okay? Because that's what it was, it was huge. And Feeding armies costs money. So in the beginning, the Roman money was basically silver and they were coins.

You've seen some of the old coins. Well, they were, but what happened over time in order to stretch that dollar in order to stretch that money, they had to now fill in with nickel. It wasn't all silver. [00:27:00] So they had to use cheaper, metals in order to stretch that. So that caused inflation. Hello, what are we experiencing today?

The same thing. So the minute you start using a fiat Currency or a fake money system because currency is not money currency is a medium trade money is actually something has Intrinsic value well when the Romans started watering that down because they had to fund the wars so in order to pay the merchants and the suppliers And the armament people and everybody they had to pay, they had to stretch out.

So what it did, it created huge inflation and economically, Rome collapsed. And during that time, okay, you had bread and circuses, but you all also had the moral fabric of emperors like Caligula and everything and the Roman orgies and all that stuff. So morally and economically. were the two basic factors that caused Rome to collapse, and we're seeing that here in our nation today.[00:28:00]

For the pastors not standing up to the governor coming and telling them that their congregation cannot meet, that crushed my heart, Ralph.

That really Mine too. Like, I was shocked, dude. Like, I, I gotta be totally honest with you. I, I know that, Pastor Allen Hines down at Townsend, Freewill, I know him well, we play softball together.

He was one of the few that was willing to stand up and say, this isn't right.

Well, they all need to stand up and come together. And again, we needed to stand up and come together too.

I, I tell you, I had a, I conducted two marches on the Caravel State Building in Wilmington during that time. And one of those marches, we had about 20 men. fully armed with semi automatic weapons walking down the streets of Wilmington. Now, of course, I checked with the Wilmington PD and everything and made sure we're good. And it was legal at that time. That was prior to the new semi auto law that they have out today. But we just walked down the street to show that, hey, we have these freedoms.

 cut us loose here, [00:29:00] Governor Carney, you're beyond your authority in what you're doing. So that's what we did. Why did we do that? Because we knew our rights. We were, we had 20 guys able to walk down Wilmington Street, right down Rodney Square, fully strapped with our AR 15s, AKs, and semi automatic rifles.

Why? Because it's legal because you

weren't trying to do anything, you weren't trying to overthrow the city of Wilmington government. You weren't trying to overthrow the state government. Let me ask you a question.

We're trying to provide an optic. And let

me ask you, Chris, do you, so do you would think.

That covid and all this stuff that went on there. Like I said, honest people could disagree about it I don't want to get into a debate about it but Do you think that has improved the situation with people understanding their rights or are people still just got their heads buried in the sand?

 I think it has brought a lot of people a lot of people's head out of the sand.

Okay, we're no longer ostriches totally anymore and they started to see to say, hey, this isn't [00:30:00] the and and I got to say, it's mostly people over 40 because, this isn't the America they grew up in, we had just freedoms to do what we wanted to do. we weren't ordered to wear face coverings, we weren't, And told, hey, you can't come in this store if you don't have a pay.

Hey, whoa. So it alerted some people now, there's always going to be people that are going to be apathetic and they aren't gonna, they'll never connect the dots and God bless them. I wish them all the best, the information's out there. The funny, here's the real funny thing, Ralph.

See this thing, we hold here more computing power and knowledge than mankind has ever before seen, right in our hands.

And what do we do? Selfies! Do

we learn from it? Oh yeah, and we sit there and we flip through Reels and through TikTok and all that other garbage.

So it's sad to see how Mankind has declined intellectually, okay, and discipline wise as [00:31:00] well. I think both of them feed off each other. But we see what's happened here, and unfortunately, because of our lack of knowledge, and I think it's Hosea 4, 6 says, my people suffer for lack of knowledge.

And I think the Bible tells us, and we see that today. The people in America are suffering. Our liberties are being taken away from us. economically, our money's being taken away from us.

 the inflation that's created from the just a random printing of the fiat currency, is killing a lot of people financially, a lot of businesses and a lot of people, a lot of retirees.

 they're just not, they're scraping the bottom now. They just can't make things happen and God bless them. That's, and that's unfortunate. we need to learn to understand the people that we choose to elect to office. And here's one challenge I have for everybody watching this.

The next time you run into an elected official who has raised their [00:32:00] hand, put their hand about swore an oath to the constitution, ask him how many rights. Wow. That's

the question. And see, and watch them fumble, stumble, and not know. Now, here's a person that swore an oath to this constitution, and they won't even be able to answer that basic question, the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights, but you're going to get it here.

No, absolutely.

So Chris, you segued into something I wanted to bring up and look, we do a lot of business stuff and I know you're a mortgage guy.

So you mentioned that you feel like things are really going down in a negative way economically. And I had a friend of yours, I think, Jason Bockniak, I had him on the show a couple of weeks ago. And we had a long discussion. I

got, I actually got Jason in the mortgage business. Well

see, there you go.

So, so you are the founder then. Yeah. So anyway, Jason and I had this long discussion about where do we think mortgage rates are going to go? And Jason's [00:33:00] position is we're looking at 1979 all over again.

Anyway, I wanted to see what you thought, what we have, what's coming our way. Jason's basic position is, we're gonna see interest rates go back up again because the fundamentals just don't make any sense we've got hostages in the middle east again. We've got government against fossil fuels.

We got weak leadership It's like 1979 all over again Yeah, how do you feel about that chris because clients are asking me right now Ralph interest rates have come down a little bit is this the right time to refinance? Is this the right time to go buy a house? And chris, I gotta be honest with you.

I'm telling them. Yes, because I believe where Jason's going and that is, I think after this presidential election, we're going to see interest rates soar again. And that's not the scary part. the thing that Jason brought was the scarier part was how long it took for them to recover. So I'm gonna leave that open to you, Chris.

What do you think?

 that is a broad question.

 I believe 2024 is going to be a landmark year and it's going to be a [00:34:00] landmark year economically. there are things going on, with the formation of BRICS and the new nations to basically de dollarize. We're seeing the de dollarization of the world right now.

So that's going to play a lot into what's going to be happening here in the markets and here with the value of our currency. cause the BRICS nations, if you don't know what BRICS are, BRICS is Brazil, Russia, India. China and South Africa. Those were the first five nations to develop this consortium of nations to which they want to take the monetary policy and return it to basically asset backed money.

 let's talk about Russia. Russia will back their currency or their money with a gold.

Kind of like we used to do in this country. Sure, we did. We did. Go figure. Well, the Bretton Woods Agreement, Nixon, took us off the, in 1973, took us off the gold standard.

And what we did is [00:35:00] the dollar became the world currency. oil reserve currency. So all oil still to for most part today, but that's going away has to be purchased with U. S. Dollars. And that's what supported the U. S. Dollar and its value. But that's going away. As I said earlier, And the BRICS nations are basically saying, Hey, let's get back to an asset backed currency.

Let's back it with gold. Let's back it with silver. Let's back like Iraq, Iraq's coming into their own. Now, basically their new, their dinar now is coming back and being revalued in the international market, but how Iraq is going to back their money is with oil. Of course. Because that's what they, that's their primary natural resource.

Sure. Okay. and the same with Iran, Iran's coming back as well for that. Of course, Iran's a whole other story. so this is what's going to happen and it's happening right now as we speak. And I think that's going to tell us a lot as to what's happened because what it's, what [00:36:00] we're seeing is we're seeing the eventual replacement of what we know as the Federal Reserve.

Or the international banking system, which has basically been run from Britain in the U. S. and we're seeing that it appears to be replaced with the de dollarization, of, of most of the nations around the planet. and we have

Chris, but that makes sense to me, but let's narrow it down to like, how does that impact?

 Joe and Sally who, are looking to buy a home or Joe and Sally who want to refinance their home. What does that mean to them? Because I had a couple of clients in the other day and they said to me, Ralph, we got into this house. Interest rates were a little high, but now I'm looking at the interest rate being about a point to a point and a half less than when we bought.

Do you think it's the right time to refinance? And I said, you know what? I don't have a crystal ball, but I don't know that they're going

much lower. If, no, I don't think you're going much lower anytime soon either. The numbers have to work, Ralph. for somebody to say, hey, I want to refinance the reduction in the [00:37:00] amount of your monthly payment.

We have to take and see what that savings is in direct relationship to what the refinance costs are, because there are additional costs with being, whether you're paying points or not, you have new title charges, attorney's fees. Okay. All these factors play into it. Now, if the rule of thumb is, if you can wipe those costs clean with what your savings are within five years, then it's probably worth doing it.

Especially, you know. That's the magic number. Yeah. 16 months. Yes. 16 months is generally the rule of thumb that we have learned throughout time. That if you can wipe that out, because hey, that's money in your pocket. Now, a lot of people say, Hey, well, I want to go, I can accelerate the mortgage buy.

Paying it down. Well, you can do that as well. The what we're seeing in the purchase in the real estate market as far as purchase. I think we're seeing right now because of the low inventory of houses on the market. We don't have a lot of people selling their homes. Why? [00:38:00] They're all locked into those two and three percent.

Yeah.

Yeah. No Well, that's the truth like i've had a couple clients in the last few days like ralph my rate's 2. 2 I said you need to hold on to that sucker for the rest of your day. Well, exactly

exactly So but and that's and and ralph as you know, and and most folks looking on here That's the biggest investment the average person is going to make in their lifetime and it's the greatest asset They're going to hold and it's probably going to be the bulk of what their personal wealth Is is the real estate or their personal residence.

So, you know, you have to you have to treat that cautiously. Now, I think interest rates are probably going to creep up again. I'm telling you about this currency revaluation that's going to play into it. So that's going to that's an unknown. At this point as to how that's going to behave. But here's the thing.

If you're in the market to say, hey, I think I can afford a house and you can get pre approved for a home right now. [00:39:00] It's a win. Yeah, you ready? First house I bought. It was back in 1983, 13. 75%. That's what I was

getting ready to say. That's exactly what Jason and I talked about and it took 11 years for those rates to come back down to a reasonable amount.

And again, the rates, I think what we have to cautiously look at is the real estate market and understand that, some different areas, some states, some different areas, some markets, the property's a little inflated. So I'll say exercise caution when looking at that and make sure you're not jumping into something that's just a little bit more expensive than you should be buying.

Again, be a, be an astute consumer, you know, get the advice of professionals. In, in the market, in professionals like Ralph, and how is that going to affect me tax wise? I know I'll be paying this interest. Here's my income. What's going to be my, you know, deduction from that, because that all factors into the [00:40:00] decision.

 and I don't think people realize that, I, I did a podcast about this. I think it's going to launch next week and it's talking about, what are the basics to getting a mortgage? And I don't think people think about this is going to be the largest money you're going to spend. And they don't.

And elicit, information from experts, I'm happy to meet with customers and say, yeah, let's go and let's talk about what you're fixing to do. my grandfather, he said, what are you fixing to do, boy? No, truly though, seriously. I'm

not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you, buddy. I'm getting

ready to take a huge debt that could be for 30 years.

It's going to financially impact the rest of my life. And people, you talk about not reading the constitution. How many people read their mortgage and their, their documents for that? Nobody reads that. Don't hurry up. You shuffle the paper, show the papers, but they have no

concept of that.

No. and, well, again, let's go back to the education system. what are we taught about finance in the government run schools? Absolutely.

Hey, Chris, you're speaking, you preach at the choir. I just wrote a book. The book was released about two months ago. It's called Mastering Your Finances.

And I wrote this book. [00:41:00] It's 47 pages. It's a must read. You can get it on amazon. com. Just go to Amazon, go to Ralph Estep. You'll see the book. But what it does is it replaces what you should have been taught when you were in school. I've given the book to many people and they said, I wish I knew this when I was in high school.

Cause they've wrecked their credit afterwards. And this book sets, a basic guideline of here's how you get yourself in financial order. Chris, but you're right. We're not teaching that, and so look, I don't have a lot more time, but I want to give you a couple of minutes here to talk about.

So first of all, number one, how do people reach you to talk about mortgage work and what kind of work are you doing there?

my phone number. I'll give you that because

And I'll put everything in the show notes too, Chris. So everything you're going to tell me is going to be in the show notes as well, but

Unlike a lot of business people, I answer my phone, okay?

I don't dump your Right to voicemail, okay? Go figure. I'm old school. I didn't get this gray hair for nothing. 302 897 8558. 302 897 8558. [00:42:00] Uh, for Constitution information, if you'd like to register for our class, the next class we're going to have is the end of March. It's going to be at the People's Plaza in People's Plaza.

Okay, which is right out off Route 40 and 896 there. So that's going to be in the Bear area. We're conducting a class right now in Wilmington up near Wawasat Park in Wilmington off Green Hill Avenue. so that's where we're having a class right now. Finished our, lectures three and four last night.

Now, Chris, for people who aren't in the Delaware area, is this something that's taught throughout the United states? Yes, we are in every, we have instructors in every nation. Now, there's also an online course you can take and Ralph, I can get that information to you so you can share with your viewers.

And you can take that online course too. And I can get Ralph will have the link where you can click online and take that course as well. I like the great thing about being an instructor in this. [00:43:00] Is I get to engage in discussions with the students, the people that are there, okay, are there because they're hungry to learn.

They want to know more and they want to discuss the whys and hows of what's going on today and then look back at what the intention of the founders were and say, well, why, why is this way today? And then let's talk about it. let's discuss the reasons because most of the time those things come out in the discussion and through the you know the presentation information and through the actual Document the constitution and declaration itself.

So absolutely. No, you're absolutely right chris and listen, I just want to thank you for coming on today. We've covered a ton of stuff I think we solved all the world's problems we've i'm just being funny, but we've talked about a lot And, and I hope everyone else has enjoyed this discussion with Chris Rowe and learned something new about the constitution.

And I'm sure Chris would agree. I encourage you to get a copy and read

1. Yes. Can I get, can I do one more thing here? Absolutely.

Remember, I told you, you're going to know about the answer to that question. I said, you go out and pose to every elected [00:44:00] official, and if they can't answer this question, they don't deserve your vote.

Okay. What are the five rights covered under the First Amendment to the Constitution? Remember this, R A P P S, RAPS, religion, assembly, okay, press. Speech. Well, that's the third. Yeah. Uh, press, speech. And what's the other P? Look, I got myself set up here, but there's, there's, there's five in there. As I said, religion, uh, right to assembly, uh, right to petition for grievances.

That's one P right. Free press. Okay. and speech. So those are the five rights covered under that one amendment to the Constitution. Okay, if the person that you're deciding to vote for can't answer that question, well then, if the job of government is to protect our [00:45:00] rights given to us by God, and they don't know what they are, how can they protect them?

No, that's well said my friend. And absolutely true. So again, thanks for joining us today. I, like I said, I'm going to post notes about this, show. You'll find that at AskRalphPodcast. com and I encourage you to go there. And if you found this episode useful or, found it valuable, share it with a friend.

That's how we grow and that's how more people learn about people like Chris who are out there, promoting the constitution and trying to get people to understand their rights. You got to understand your rights and we love hearing from our listeners. So thank you for tuning in. God bless you, Chris, and God bless the listeners.

And as always stay, stay financially savvy. [00:46:00]