Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Greg Hamilton
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000159
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00:22 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:24 This is a program bringing you discussion, 00:26 news, views, and information 00:28 on religious liberty events in the United States 00:31 but around the world as well. 00:32 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine 00:36 and my guest on the program is Greg Hamilton, 00:39 President of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association. 00:42 Good to be with you. In the Seattle area. 00:45 Well, it's a little, you're based a little south 00:47 of that aren't you, in Vancouver, Washington. 00:49 Near Portland, Oregon, yeah. 00:52 What are we gonna talk about? What's on your mind? 00:56 What we're gonna talk about American, 00:57 American Revolution occurring on the streets today. 01:00 Yeah. Now, I wanted to see 01:01 if you had that revolutionary fervor. 01:04 But, there's so much going on in the world at the moment. 01:07 But we are really sitting in the United States. 01:09 Did you know that we're part of the 99%? 01:11 Have you heard that? 01:12 That we're part of the 99%, 01:14 that we're not part of the 1% 01:16 and as if there is no such thing as a middle class in America. 01:19 That's what Occupy Wall Street movement 01:20 is telling us these days. Yes, yes. 01:22 Well, the middleclass is under siege. 01:24 Yeah. In the United States, there's no question. 01:25 But not that much. No, not that much. 01:27 But, you know, I've lived in the United States 01:28 for several decades. 01:30 I won't even say how many. 01:31 And I can see it that this has turned in 01:33 from largely a middle class country to a great divide. 01:38 Although, you know many poor people 01:41 could easily go to the third-world 01:43 and see what they're missing. 01:44 It's not that bad for most people. 01:47 Yeah, Occupy Wall Street, an incredible phenomenon 01:50 and I've listened to many of the right wing talk show 01:53 hosts just dismiss it out of hand, 01:54 bunch of rebel rousers. 01:56 Well, and in some respects 01:57 they're correct in this one sense. 01:59 I mean, you've got anarchists 02:01 coming from Eugene, Oregon and elsewhere coming in there, 02:03 just to create mayhem. 02:05 And if there is any good purpose 02:08 in the Occupy Wall Street movement, 02:10 although I can't see much, if there is any, 02:13 they're certainly giving them a bad name. Yeah. 02:15 If they, you know, didn't have a bad name already. 02:17 Well, and the Tea Party movement was given 02:20 a bad name by some rebel rousers there, 02:23 but we're showing racists comments 02:25 and very extreme things that were disavowed, 02:28 does not bring-- So I think both these two movements, 02:31 Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, 02:35 have some undesirable elements. 02:36 But they're both real movements 02:38 and what do you think we can read into this? 02:40 Well. This, this is a very real phenomenon. 02:42 Here's what I see, instead of a civil war. 02:44 This civil war, civil war paradigm or model 02:47 is when you take a straight line 02:49 and you've got two opposing sides 02:51 and they have, they're absolutely 02:53 opposed to each other. 02:55 They literally go after each other. 02:56 That's the basis of a civil war. 02:59 Whereas a revolution is where you can have 03:02 two divergent viewpoints, who are completely 03:05 at odds with each other, 03:06 but their target is equally the same and in this case, 03:10 the target is big government and Wall Street and-- 03:15 Occupy Wall Street is against the prevailing 03:18 economic order and-- 03:20 Correct, they're not against big government. 03:22 That's right, they're for more socialist 03:23 type approach to things. That's true. 03:25 but they're still railing against government. 03:27 For allowing this. 03:28 For allowing the cheats and the scam artists 03:32 like Bernie Madoff and the Ponzi scheme expert 03:36 to getaway with such stuff 03:38 and not even penalizing them. So-- 03:40 I think many industrialists. Including the Banking System. 03:42 Many of the citizenry have discovered 03:43 that the entire national debt 03:45 and national budget is a bit of a Ponzi scheme too. 03:48 And in the end, usually one or both sides 03:51 get something of something. 03:52 I mean, I look at the French revolution 03:54 in which you had factions, 03:56 various parties really going at it. 03:59 But had the same cause. 04:01 They were both upset with the Louis' so to speak 04:05 and Marie Antoinette. 04:06 And especially with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. 04:09 So they decided what was the term that Voltaire used, 04:15 Viva La Excre, something anyway, 04:17 basically chop off both their heads 04:19 is what they were calling for. 04:21 Then, of course, they made it the French Revolution. 04:23 But blood ran on the streets 04:24 and what happened from that was there was total chaos 04:27 during 10 years Robespierre 04:29 and the French Government could not run the government. 04:31 It was sort of like Cromwell's England 04:33 where once they got into power, 04:34 they really couldn't do much. 04:36 And they were a total failure as a government. 04:37 It got out of control. There were several phase 04:39 to the French Revolution. 04:40 And so the people longed for, 04:42 the people longed for a ruler 04:45 to come back and restore order. 04:47 And what did Napoleon do? 04:48 He basically shot cannon fire into the crowd 04:52 and basically restored order 04:54 and the people loved him for it. 04:55 He became their benevolent dictator. 04:57 You see monuments to him all around Paris. 04:59 So, you have that and you also have the fact 05:03 that most all the monuments in Paris 05:05 are still to the Louis. 05:07 Louis XIV the son king, Louis XV, Louis XVI, 05:10 Marie Antoinette, Versailles, they're all celebrated. 05:13 Napoleon's celebrated but nowhere 05:15 on our French walking tour, 05:16 my wife and I took a French walking tour, 05:18 of the French Revolution in Paris. 05:20 And there is no monument 05:22 to the French Revolution in all of Paris. 05:24 Why is that? And the person giving the tour says, 05:26 well, it's in the hearts of the people. 05:28 And I said, well, yeah, but, you know, 05:30 anywhere else in the world-- 05:32 La Marseillaise. Yeah. 05:33 The French national anthem is revolutionary. 05:37 Yes, but they don't have, 05:38 they don't have any monuments. No statues-- 05:40 Well, it's because it got out of control-- 05:41 This is what I'm saying. 05:42 It's not right to see the French Revolution-- 05:44 They're ashamed of it. 05:45 As one event. It's initial, the initial complaints 05:48 that were act upon in a revolutionary fervor 05:50 were legitimate to a point. 05:51 I mean, there was cause and effect. 05:53 But once began, like a lot of revolutions 05:56 that got out of control and soon those 05:57 that began the revolution were consumed by it. 06:00 Yes. And then began the terror. 06:02 When any leader that popped up they'd last a few months, 06:06 then they'd be executed. 06:07 Well, but here is why I think there's chaos around. 06:09 Here's why I think the Occupy Wall Street movement 06:11 will be short lived. 06:12 Only because and I have no proof of this. 06:14 But I think the economy will be restored, 06:18 whether it's under this President 06:19 or the next President or whatever, 06:21 it's going to be restored. 06:22 I don't think to far off in the future. 06:24 I think it will be restored. 06:26 I think we're in an ebb and flow 06:27 period and probably in the ebb right now. 06:30 But I really think that 06:33 and many of our audience members may disagree with this, 06:36 but I think that there's no reason 06:39 for economic alarm or panic. 06:40 There's an article in-- 06:42 Can I interrupt? Sure. 06:43 We're in a frame of-- Yes. 06:46 Line of discussion, the French Revolution, 06:48 and we need to insert religion and religious freedom, 06:52 is significant to us from a prophetic point of view 06:55 and as religionists because out of the French Revolution 06:59 came an outright hatred of religion. 07:01 Yeah. But, why? 07:04 Well-- I need to ask the question. 07:07 Well, from my perspective, it was because of the way 07:10 they viewed the Catholic Church as being manipulative. 07:12 Church of the monarchy. 07:14 Well this, the church was so supportive of the state. 07:17 Yes. But when the people rose up, 07:19 they saw them as one and the same. Right. 07:21 And I wonder in our present situation 07:28 and in another program we spoke about religion 07:30 in the Presidential election, 07:32 that certain religious factions run a grave peril 07:35 if they've latched themselves on to a losing cause that is, 07:39 is then the victim of an up-- 07:41 spontaneous upraising that made-- 07:44 In terms of a backlash, 07:45 so then you're giving credence to the Occupy Wall Street. 07:48 I can see that, yeah. 07:50 Definitely, but let me share something 07:52 with you that David Brooks wrote in the New York Times 07:54 about the Tea Party movement. 07:55 And he titles this, The Tea Party Teams 07:58 and this was written a little bit while ago. 08:00 Not too long ago but he says in the near term, 08:03 the Tea Party tendency will dominate the Republican Party. 08:05 And it certainly has, in fact, what did the recent poll say 08:09 that was, well, it was a few months ago, 08:12 but it was like 49% of the Republican Party 08:14 is made up of the Tea Party. 08:15 So, the party, the Republican Party 08:17 is definitely divided in half. 08:19 He says it could be the ruin of the party 08:21 pulling it in a angry direction 08:23 that suburban voters will not tolerate. 08:25 But he says don't underestimate 08:27 the deep reservoirs of public discussed. 08:29 If there is and these are certain factors 08:31 that could happen in society 08:34 that could cause a major revolution in this country. 08:37 He says if there is a double-dip recession, 08:39 which some thinks, some people think we're already in, 08:42 but I don't, I don't think that, I don't believe that. 08:45 A long period of stagnation which is clearly happening, 08:49 a fiscal crisis, that's happening, 08:51 a terrorist attack or some other major scandal 08:53 or event that's already happened. 08:56 The country could demand total change. 08:59 Does he mean total constitutional change? 09:01 Well, that's an interesting question. 09:02 And then, he says creating a vacuum 09:04 that only the Tea Party movement 09:06 and its inheritors would be in a position to fulfill. 09:09 Now, you look at Hitler. You look at Mussolini. 09:12 You look at Lenin, who came up 09:15 and rose in the Communist Movement. 09:17 You look at each of those governmental paradigms 09:20 and those revolutionary paradigms. 09:22 In each instance, they rose when economy was in shambles. 09:29 Absolutely that's what I was fishing for earlier, 09:30 the French Revolution. 09:32 Remember the classic statement of Marie Antoinette. 09:34 Yes, yes. Didn't have bread give them cake. 09:36 There was an economic crisis. Right. 09:39 And there has to be other forces at play 09:41 but an economic crisis will unleash 09:43 this pent up dissatisfaction. 09:45 Right. The revolutionary spirit and so on. Right. 09:47 So it's just a fact of history, 09:50 is that we're entering into a deep recession/depression, 09:53 there will be civil unrest. Yes. 09:56 And given that we've good reasons for it, 09:59 it just may not be so easy to put back into the box. 10:02 And that's why we have a revolutionary paradigm, 10:04 not a civil war paradigm. 10:05 We have some people say, 10:06 we're on the verge of a civil war 10:07 because they're either watching FOXNEWS network 10:09 or MSMBC or FOXNEWS network 10:11 and CNN and they think this. 10:13 When in fact the opposite is happening as I see it. 10:16 I see that the, that there are two different movements. 10:19 There are other factions as well 10:21 to the center right and center left. 10:22 They both think the system has failed. 10:24 Exactly, so they're attacking the system, 10:26 they're attacking government. Yeah. 10:28 That's, that's a revolutionary model. 10:30 And none of us really know where it will go, 10:31 but I think, you and I are agreed 10:33 and we can explain to most people good reasons 10:36 for seeing this as not just a time of unrest. 10:39 This is incipient revolutionary thinking. 10:43 They don't want the status quo 10:45 and, you know, I listen to all the surveys 10:48 and well, what is the Congress. 10:51 I think their acceptance is like one or two percent, 10:53 I mean, it's at to the vanishing point. 10:55 Yeah, I remember when I was in, 10:56 in Community College years ago, 10:59 yeah, at Portland Community College 11:01 in Washington County in Beaverton, Oregon. 11:05 I'll never forget the, it was Congress was rated 11:10 at something like 23% approval rating 11:13 and we thought that was really low. Yeah. 11:16 Now, it's virtually zero. 11:18 Single digit, I know it's, I'm pretty sure it was two, 11:20 it's was either one or two percent. 11:21 That's pretty sad when you think about it. 11:23 Because if you think about it, 11:24 we're told by Sister White, 11:26 which is Ellen G White this one statement, 11:29 the fifth volume of Testimonies, page 451, 11:31 she says, in order to secure popularity and patronage 11:35 legislators will yield to the demand 11:38 for a Sunday Law. 11:39 Will yield, what do they yield to? 11:42 First of all, we have to define who legislators are. 11:44 Hold on to power. Who are legislators? 11:46 Legislators are the congressional branch 11:48 and the executive branch. 11:50 Because the executive branch can veto laws 11:52 or sign them into laws, or execute them. 11:54 I think, she really is-- Carry them out. 11:55 Probably talking Congress rather than the President. 11:58 Well, I think it's both, because the President 12:00 has the bully puppet to get Congress to do 12:03 what it wants to do, although this President 12:05 hasn't been very successful at that. 12:06 President Obama, I'm speaking of. 12:08 So when you look at it, it's my whole point 12:10 is that it's not a hierarchical thing. 12:13 It's we the people, the fickle will of the people 12:16 is what causes Revolutionary Movements. 12:18 It's a temporary thing that creates instability 12:22 in society and as a result what do they demand, 12:25 they demand that legislators yield 12:27 to the demand for Sunday Law. 12:29 The revolutionary paradigm or model is right there 12:32 in the fifth volume of Testimonies, 12:33 page 451 by Ellen White. 12:34 And the enabling shift in the United States 12:36 and I've spoken about it on this program before. 12:39 Is that this was founded as a representative government 12:42 by a bunch of not old men but men of old 12:46 who had a deep fear of the people. 12:49 Yes, they did. 12:50 They, or the crowd or the majority 12:52 and we've seen the shift. 12:54 I've seen I wouldn't date it much more than 10 years ago. 12:57 That it caught hold in the United States 12:59 that if the majority wants something it should go. 13:01 We've come to majoritarian thinking. 13:04 That's exactly what James Madison 13:06 wrote in a book that I didn't bring with me. 13:07 But it's his documentation of the first U.S. Congress 13:11 in 1789 regarding the Bill of Rights. 13:14 And he wrote in there that it was the fear of the people, 13:17 we the people, the fickle world of people 13:19 getting out of control. Absolutely. 13:21 That would create another revolution that would undo, 13:23 undo the existing revolution. 13:25 That's my question that they had a fear of that. 13:27 We'll be back after the break to continue this discussion, 13:29 there's something very important at play here. Stay with us. 13:41 One-hundred years, a long time to do anything, 13:45 much less publish a magazine, 13:47 but this year, Liberty, the Seventh-day Adventist 13:50 voice of religious freedom, celebrates one hundred years 13:53 of doing what it does best, collecting, analyzing, 13:57 and reporting the ebb and flow 13:59 of religious expression around the world. 14:01 Issue after issue, Liberty has taken 14:04 on the tough assignments, tracking down threats 14:07 to religious freedom and exposing 14:08 the work of the devil in every corner of the globe. 14:11 Governmental interference, personal attacks, 14:14 corporate assaults, even religious freedom issues 14:17 sequestered within the Church community itself 14:19 have been clearly and honestly exposed. 14:22 Liberty exists for one purpose, to help God's people 14:26 maintain that all important separation 14:28 of Church and State, while recognizing the dangers 14:31 inherent in such a struggle. 14:34 During the past century, Liberty has experienced 14:36 challenges of its own, but it remains on the job. 14:40 Thanks to the inspired leadership of a long line 14:42 of dedicated Adventist Editors, 14:44 three of whom represent almost 14:45 half of the publication's existence 14:48 and the foresight of a little woman 14:50 from New England. 14:51 One-hundred years of struggle, 14:53 one-hundred years of victories, 14:55 religious freedom isn't just about political machines 14:58 and cultural prejudices. 15:00 It's about people fighting for the right to serve 15:03 the God they love as their hearts 15:06 and the Holy Spirit dictate. 15:08 Thanks to the prayers and generous support 15:10 of Seventh-day Adventists everywhere. 15:12 Liberty will continue to accomplish its work 15:15 of providing timely information, 15:17 spirit filled inspiration, 15:18 and heaven sent encouragement to all who long to live 15:22 and work in a world bound together by the God 15:26 ordained bonds of religious freedom. 15:39 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider. 15:41 Before the break, with guest Gregg Hamilton, 15:43 we were talking about fear 15:46 of the framers of the constitution, 15:49 the founding fathers, really a fear of the people 15:52 or a majoritarian view, the mob rule. 15:55 They did not want the mob rule 15:56 and the American system in my view is designed 15:59 to put many, many barriers between reflex response 16:02 from the electorate. 16:05 Well, they want it worked up methodically, 16:06 but not just sort of people to rise up 16:08 in the streets and demand something. 16:10 There's, there are basically two views 16:12 that arose out of the founding, 16:13 from the founders and that is Jefferson's viewpoint, 16:16 which is that the people, the will of the people 16:20 or the people know best. 16:21 And therefore they're pro-revolutionary, 16:23 or he loved the French Revolution. 16:26 Whereas they're to be trusted 16:27 and so therefore let a revolution 16:30 occur every 19 years. 16:31 Let blood run through the streets. 16:33 That was Jefferson's viewpoint. 16:35 However, there was John Adams' viewpoint, 16:37 the Federalist's party viewpoint, 16:39 Alexander Hamilton's viewpoint, 16:40 George Washington's viewpoint, 16:41 and even Madison's for a time that people 16:45 were fickle and easily worked up over nothing. 16:49 And usually over something that's false, 16:51 don't have full information over something. 16:54 And they're rushing headlong, 16:55 dumb and dumber into something 16:57 they don't understand what they're doing. 16:58 So there's two perspectives of government. 17:00 Now, you want me to tell you something really radical? 17:02 Well, let me, let me, let me share some with you. 17:04 It's Rush Limbaugh says this on the radio all the time. 17:07 He says that all the government just, 17:09 those liberals just want you to think that you're stupid. 17:12 And that you guys don't know anything. 17:13 And that you're dumb and dumber when you're not. 17:15 And so the republican right wing focus 17:18 is very much a Jeffersonian perspective, 17:21 is that the people know best. 17:22 And right now the liberals are painted 17:25 in the same brushstroke as George Washington 17:27 and Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, 17:31 James Madison and John Adams, 17:33 that the people are not to be trusted. 17:35 The people, yes, are smart but many times 17:39 are worked up through false information 17:42 and misleading information that works them up into a lather. 17:46 And so there is, these two, these two perspectives 17:49 so to speak that still are with us to this very day. 17:52 Yeah, I agree with you. 17:53 The thing I wanted to throw in and get your reaction, 17:55 because you probably overreact. 17:57 But I think it's a fact of history 17:59 one of the reasons they thought 18:00 that is they had seen firsthand 18:02 how they could manipulate the people. 18:05 I think the United States 18:06 probably would've had a parting of the way, 18:08 sooner or the later and it might have been 18:12 headed on the track for violence. 18:13 But there's no question when it happened. 18:16 A number of these revolutionaries 18:18 with vested interests really stirred the pot and polarized 18:22 the situation before a lot of people really knew 18:24 what was happening. You know. I've.. 18:26 And that was their whole goal to sign 18:27 the declaration of independence 18:29 to sort of cut the bridge 18:30 so that everyone would be on their side of the river. 18:32 I've read a new book by Joseph Ellis 18:34 that discounts that. 18:35 He actually says that it was very difficult 18:38 to even get the Continental Congress 18:40 to even agree, the leading parties 18:43 from each of the colonies to come together. 18:45 When they came together, 18:47 could not agree to go to war against Britain. 18:49 They had the hardest time 18:51 even coming together in a consensus-- 18:53 to write a declaration of independence. 18:54 So a number of them did certain things 18:56 that basically manipulated people 19:00 into a false either or situation 19:04 and then cutting the things outside that the tie was cut. 19:07 what I'm trying to say is most of the American people 19:09 were against a revolution against Britain, yes. 19:11 And it was John Adams' speech in the Continental Congress. 19:14 That really won the day saying 19:17 that we have to go to war with Britain 19:19 if we are going to form our own government 19:22 and be truly independent. 19:23 He says, this is what it boils down to. 19:25 He says it's not about differences in governing style. 19:28 He says really we're one in the same cut. 19:30 We are the same people. 19:31 He says that's not the issue. 19:32 The issue is not the Tea Party protest 19:36 or the Stamp Act or the, 19:38 you know, all those different taxes 19:41 that were placed upon them. 19:42 That wasn't a real issue. 19:43 The real issue is they definitely 19:45 wanted to be free and independent from Britain. 19:47 It's a legitimate movement. 19:48 And one that the western world 19:50 and the British world particularly was moving toward. 19:54 But even, I've read that recently with my son schoolwork, 19:58 the language is rather out of sync 20:00 with the reality at least in the issues 20:03 that led up to the American War of Independence. 20:06 You know, they called, 20:07 they talk about tyranny and all the rest of it. 20:10 In a little hind side, I think we know that, 20:13 that was relatively speaking not so. 20:15 Their perception became more and more that, 20:18 that was so and there were good reasons to separate. 20:20 But my point is that, I think that they swayed 20:24 the sensibilities of the populus fairly easily 20:26 and they did not want that to happen to them. 20:29 And the alien and sedition acts 20:31 as a further proof to my argument that, 20:33 that they didn't. They wanted to cut it off 20:36 when it was their case. Yes, that, that is true. 20:38 But that was a very small segment up in Vermont. 20:40 I mean that, that was not a predominant 20:44 feeling across the country. 20:46 George Washington, just wanted to make them-- 20:47 Well, ask Canadians. There is an awful 20:49 lot of Canadians drifted up there. 20:50 George Washington wanted to make them an example. 20:53 And he did a very good job of that. 20:54 It was a chase rebellion. 20:55 Chase Rebellion, Whiskey Rebellion and that's, 20:58 that's Hamilton is the one that urged that 21:00 upon Washington, and Washington agreed. 21:02 So he took it upon himself, 21:03 to crush that little tiny revolt up there. 21:05 Yeah, but that was brought. 21:08 But they were problematic even during the American Revolution. 21:11 They did not fight hardly for-- 21:13 the American Revolution, They were the one of the biggest 21:17 what you call it when people cut and run from a war, deserters. 21:21 They were some of the biggest now. 21:22 You people from Vermont, 21:24 if you're offended I apologize 21:26 but the historical record is clear. 21:27 Well, it's so far in the midst of history 21:30 that though individual can take personal onwards. 21:32 Yes. But, there's a dynamic of history 21:34 and in most revolutions then and now the same. 21:39 It's a PR battle as much as it is a literal one 21:42 against the force you're opposing. 21:44 And, again my point, I think that they, 21:47 they saw the dangers of a constituency being manipulated 21:52 and they wanted to create a stable system. 21:56 It was not a, I don't think it was cynical thing. 21:58 They wanted a stable government 22:00 that was not subject to this constant ebb and flow of-- 22:03 Let's face America was founded 22:06 in a very providential prophetic way 22:07 because, in terms of outcome, 22:09 there's no way Americans 22:11 should have won the revolutionary war. 22:13 I mean, they were out gunned, out manned. 22:15 They didn't have the technology that Britain had. 22:18 We were suppose to fail at every turn 22:20 and we were practically wiped out 22:21 by the third-battle and Washington held them 22:24 at Valley Forge and of course, the rest is history. 22:27 The comeback was slow and gradual 22:29 but then magic happened at York Town, 22:32 which my relative, Alexander Hamilton 22:34 won the last battle taking out the last two readouts 22:38 and the French ships blocking off the river there, 22:41 the entryway there, 22:43 and the British troops could not escape. 22:46 And you and I both agree from that study. 22:48 So that's providential. 22:50 From our study of prophecy, 22:51 there's a easily read interpretation 22:56 as the United States as a land prophesied 23:00 as a new land that would protect freedom. Yes. 23:04 That's not the same as American exceptionalism 23:07 or that it's everything that it does is God's will. 23:10 But I think it fits into the scheme of prophecy 23:13 and it did carry on. 23:15 And it goes back to the puritan founding, 23:17 which is different from the constitutional founding. 23:19 With the constitutional founders, 23:20 but John Winthrop's famous speech about this land, 23:24 we're to represent God as if we were sitting 23:28 on a hill shining to the rest of the world. 23:30 I mean, the experimentation of freedom 23:33 really started with the puritans 23:34 even though they handled it quite badly. 23:36 Ann Hutchison was-- Yes, was his downfall. 23:37 They handled it quite badly. 23:39 Him and John Cotton and some others. 23:41 Specially the way they treated Roger Williams 23:43 and Mary Dyer and some others 23:45 but yeah, Ann Hutchison. 23:47 But what you have is a progression 23:50 towards enlightenment and understanding 23:52 with the first grade of awakening. 23:53 The second grade, or the constitutional founding, 23:56 there is a second grade of awakening in this country. 23:58 And of course, then in the civil war, 24:00 I mean, it wasn't without its fits and starts, 24:02 and lots of bloodshed. 24:04 And so I guess when we talk about 24:07 revolutionary paradigm or models, 24:08 versus civil war models, 24:11 what I think we're looking at here 24:12 is far more dangerous than a civil war model, 24:15 which was very dangerous. 24:16 I mean, how many people died in that war. 24:18 Something like six hundred thousand or something. 24:21 You know I mean-- close to a million. 24:23 Close to a million more than any of the worse fought 24:25 combined any of our theater and so. 24:29 You look at the situation right now 24:31 and maybe we're panicking but-- 24:33 Well, there's a revolution of ideas. 24:35 There is. Yeah. 24:37 And there might be a little violence. 24:38 But predominantly I think it's a shift 24:41 in thinking about the country. 24:43 What it means? What it'll do and so on. 24:45 And since we've accepted that the strength 24:47 of the United States is its high ideals, 24:50 its protection of civil liberties, 24:52 religious liberty, any rethinking 24:54 of its founding principles will have huge 24:57 ramifications for religious freedom. 24:59 And the stagnation and the unwillingness 25:03 it seems to the federal government especially Congress 25:05 to get the job done or get things done economically. 25:08 To agree on anything or to even compromise in anyway. 25:11 That, that, that clearly is a sign of revolutionary fervor. 25:15 The more they stall and the more they disagree, 25:17 the more the American people are angry at them. Okay. 25:20 Which you'd think that was a civil war 25:22 with the congressional leaders banging heads 25:24 in their partisanship, 25:26 but in fact it's more of a revolutionary model 25:29 where all sides on both left 25:31 and right are made at the government. Yeah. 25:34 And so it was dangerous to draw these parallels. 25:36 But I do think to Rome, 25:39 they entered into their most dangerous phase 25:41 when the senate became incapable of reelection. 25:44 Yes. In their case it wasn't revolution 25:46 but it was a strongman that inserted himself. 25:48 But something will happen when you've got this-- 25:50 You're kind of Julius Caesar. Yes. 25:52 When you have this legislative deadlock, 25:54 something has to break it. 25:56 Yes. It could be-- 25:58 Dictatorship. A violent overthrow of the body 26:00 or of a strongman inserting himself instead of it. 26:03 Some charismatic leader and, you know, 26:05 that wouldn't be surprising to me. 26:06 And I feared dictatorship for the longest time. 26:09 And there are certain candidates that are alive and well 26:13 running in this Presidential candidate. 26:15 We better not name them, but there's always that-- 26:16 They are candidates that certainly have earmarks 26:19 of dictatorship or potential for dictatorship 26:21 and it's pretty scaring. 26:22 And as always, we need to pray that God will overrule. 26:26 If not overrule then guide in the affairs of nations, 26:29 every nation in particularly 26:30 the United States election at this crucial period. 26:34 Absolutely and so let's remember 26:36 the difference between a civil war and a revolution. 26:39 I think we're in a revolutionary mode. 26:41 Lincoln does too. 26:43 So, when you have all factions going 26:44 after the government, we clearly have one. 26:49 John Milton wrote his Paradise Lost 26:52 quite some years ago. 26:54 But sometimes when I listen to current events 26:57 I can hear echoes of what he wrote. 27:00 It was said at the time that one of his characters, 27:03 Lucifer, Satan was almost the hero 27:06 of the story where he was cast out of heaven 27:09 after open war against the Most High. 27:13 When he gives those speeches it's rousing 27:15 where he says that it's better to be free 27:19 in hell than serve in heaven. 27:22 We need to be careful in the Judeo-Christian society 27:25 in a democratic society that we don't, 27:28 prayed our security and our well thought out 27:32 constitutional protections for sort of a Luciferian freedom 27:36 where we challenge everything 27:38 and bring everything down upon our heads. 27:41 We live in dangerous time, there's no question. 27:44 And whether it's Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street. 27:48 All of these things can be very self indulgent, 27:51 very opposed to rule of law and order 27:54 and ultimately by their ramifications 27:57 oppose to freedom of will, 27:58 freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. 28:03 This is Lincoln Steed for Liberty Insider. |
Revised 2014-12-17