Welcome to "The
Liberty Insider."
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This is the
program that brings you
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news, views,
discussion, and opinion
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on religious liberty events
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in the United States
and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of "Liberty Magazine"
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and my very special guest
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on the program is
Clifford Goldstein.
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Now, some of our
viewers may know you're Clifford
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but I know you mostly
as the previous editor
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of "Liberty
Magazine" and presently
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you're the editor of the Sabbath
School Lesson Quarterlies
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for the
Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
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But let's talk about
"Liberty Magazine." What?
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For seven years,
wasn't it, you were editor?
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Yeah. I had written for it
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for a number of
years and worked with--
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You have a very long
association with it. Yes.
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And then I came
in and I was there
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about seven years, till I left.
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But, you know,
"Religious Liberty"
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is a movable feast
and you ate at that table
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for a long time. Yeah.
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What are some of your views
on it as you look back on it
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and maybe relate to
what's happening now and what--
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Well, you know,
it's very interesting,
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because when
you're immersed in it
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and I was a lot younger
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and I thought I
had all the answers.
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And everything was clear cut--
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You don't have them now? No, no.
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And in fact even as I-- Yeah.
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The longer, the more, you know,
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it's that classical
thing, the more you read,
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the more you learn, the more
you realize, you don't learn.
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It's a very complex topic. Yeah.
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Well, that was a
thing that was very complex
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and I started out with this idea
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that church state separation
was something that emanated
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from the very
nature of God himself.
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And by promoting
church state separation,
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we were, you
know, tapping into that.
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And even though I'm
for church state separation
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of course, really it's
much more complicated than that.
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Well, it's more
complicated than that,
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but that is a bedrock principle.
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I remember reading recently
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the charter of how
Seventh-Day Adventist Church
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Religious Liberty
moved but not the magazine.
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And they put down there
that they would fight against
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anything and
everything that diminished
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the separation of
church and states.
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What is really funny though,
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you know,
what's very interesting
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to and from our standpoint,
from a prophetic standpoint,
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how among many secular people,
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I mean, among many
of the religious people,
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the concept of
separation in church
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and state has now
become an anathema.
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Well, this is what we need to
dwell on not just this program.
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I want to take another
program to talk about that--
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I think in some
ways it's perverted.
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There are people who
do the stupidest things
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in the name of
separation of church and state.
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Some kid sits down and
wants to pray over his meal
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at lunch in a public school.
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And they say,
"You can't do that,
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that's violating
separation of churches."
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That's got nothing to do
with separation of churches.
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Plus that's
legally false anyhow--
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Yeah, of course, of course,
you know, that was--so there was
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because some
things had been done,
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but the troublesome thing
is many traditional churches
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that traditionally
were very strong proponents
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of church state separation--
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Have changed. Have changed.
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And, you know, are now,
you know, are hostile to it.
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I can remember many years ago
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when Pat Robertson
was running for President.
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Before he ran, he once said
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something about church
state separation being bad.
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And at a press conference,
I asked him about that thing
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and he denied he ever said it.
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Well, we went
back and we found it.
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Now it's common fare.
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They all say they're against
church state separation. And--
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Well, and I'd like to about it
in some length in another show,
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but Rick Santorum-- Yeah.
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Oh, yeah. Yeah,
well, that's an example.
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Nobody 30, 40 years ago,
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they never would have
said anything like that,
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but now every thing has changed
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so much that it's
become, you know--
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They've moved things
around so that's the secularist
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and the
Anti-Americans almost that--
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Well, that was one of
the things too that used to--
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and I'm sure you experienced
this as Liberty Editor.
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There'd be-- some
issue would come up
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and I would go down to
some meeting in Washington D.C.
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And I'm standing here,
you know, representing Liberty
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and you got the ACLU, the
American Humanist Society,
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the American Atheist Society,
some extreme other groups
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that we would have nothing
to do with on any other issue.
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Yeah, but on
this very narrow thing
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and I used to scratch my
head sometimes and think,
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"What's wrong
with this picture?"
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You know, I mean the principle
that we're standing for is good
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and I'm glad
where they're doing it,
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but it sometimes made
me quite uncomfortable.
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What am I doing
with these people?
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I don't agree with
them on anything else
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but this one thing.
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So have you rethought that
we need to be separationist
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in that sense or
what is the change
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that's made it so apparently
unpopular to be separationist?
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Oh, well, I think
what happened is that
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a lot of the influence
of the Christian right,
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they have
twisted the whole concept
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of what separation
of church and state is.
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And when you, you
know, I still remember them
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talking about the war
against Christians in America.
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The war against them
and-- I mean these are people
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some of these big
evangelists and I think of one
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in particular, some guy
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out in Colorado,
big, big industry.
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I don't know since--
because he's very popular
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with a lot of people.
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In fact I had been the at the
doghouse more than once and--
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This wasn't
Haggerty, was it? No, no, no.
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Actually I was thinking
of James Dobson, you know,
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who did a lot of good stuff.
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In fact more than
once we had something--
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he would say something
about religious liberty
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that we didn't agree with.
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And I'd come home and I'd get
a tongue lashing from my wife
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because we raised our kids on
the principles of James Dobson,
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you know, and she
makes me sleep on the sofa.
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You say anything more bad about
him but on the specific area,
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just on the specific
church state separation area.
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But let me put an interjection,
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so that we don't
totally badmouth Dobson.
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Well, he's got a lot of good--
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You know, I'd spoke to him once
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and he said that his principles
of dealing with children,
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he got absolutely from
Raymond Moore. Well, yeah.
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Seventh-Day Adventist
child development expert
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who got it from
Ellen White's writings,
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which is the Seventh-Day
Adventist's heritage.
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Well, I always said Dobson
was great when he would help
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with you bedwetting children
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and men who were going
through midlife crisis.
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But get him on
the topic of politics,
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get him on the topic of politics
and he made a fool of himself.
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He was getting in with
David Barton of Wallbuilders.
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He'd bring some guy that
even a lot of the Christian
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right people say is a nut job.
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And as far as
separation of church and state,
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he made a legal fool of himself,
because his organization
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was a threat with
its non-profit status,
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so he's become a
political operative.
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Yeah, I mean the thing
is here a guy who sat--
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and he's not the only one.
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I don't want to single him
out as I said he's a good man.
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He's done a lot of good.
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But he was a guy sitting on
millions of dollars of property
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that the government
lets him have tax-free
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and they're bemoaning--you
know, what used to get me
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when I would hear these
Christian right people talking
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about the
persecution of Americas.
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I mean every day on my
desk in Liberty and you know,
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we'd get stories of
Christians in countries
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where they're thrown
in jails, they're beaten,
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their properties confiscated,
their children are taken away.
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And you've got these
multimillionaire evangelist
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sitting with
these big vast empires
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and all that
complaining because,
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oh, they don't
let-- they're books aren't
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put on the bestseller
list or something like that.
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And they are talking about
persecution. It was a joke.
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Yeah. In reality
they want political power.
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Well, that was
the bottom line, yeah.
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And as far as they're
frustrated doing that,
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they'll claim
they're being persecuted.
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So what better way to
get the saints all worked up
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to tell them that things like
not allowing legislated prayer
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in school is
religious persecution,
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not allowing a statue
of "The Ten Commandments"
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on public property is
religious persecution.
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They make a big hoopla
about "The Ten Commandments"
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but then none of
them even keep it.
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And what it's really done
even hearing you discuss this,
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it's diverted Christians
attention from real persecution,
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real trouble in other countries.
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Yeah, well, it's just part of--
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Not some
concern, but there's a lot
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of self-absorption in the U.S.
about gaining political power,
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regaining this
mythical Christian identity.
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Oh, yeah. And you're right.
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Nominally it's
always been Christian--
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Well, more than nominally
it was a protestant culture
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as it began, but I've
spoken on this program before,
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structurally it never
was a government of religion.
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They're trying to
turn it into that.
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I remember years ago we
had an article in Liberty
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based on a book called
"Our Godless Constitution."
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And you read the
U.S. Constitution,
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it never says anything about
God and the only time it says
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anything about
religion is to restrict what
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the government can do and
people out of hoopla because
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they sometimes they mix up
the Declaration of Independence
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with the Constitution,
but they think that
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has nothing to
do with us today--
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Well, it's the
founding document,
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but it isn't legal in the
sense of the Constitution.
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It has nothing to do with
the way we run our country.
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We don't run our country--
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And it was the product of just
a couple of people. It wasn't--
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Someone will want
to hang me for this.
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If you read the
Declaration of Independence--
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I mean, Jefferson was
so over the top with that.
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You study the history.
It was a radical document.
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I am an Australian background.
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I've got to be cautious
on what I say about that.
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It was a radical document.
00:08:54.73\00:08:56.10
Sure we're glad we
broke away from England
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and it all worked out fine
in the end but the bottom line
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is the Declaration
of Independence is not
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how we run our country.
00:09:04.63\00:09:06.00
It's the Constitution.
And what do you know?
00:09:06.03\00:09:07.98
There's nothing about God
in the Constitution at all.
00:09:08.01\00:09:10.46
And that's not how
people want to view--
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and they talk about the mythical
days of American history.
00:09:13.70\00:09:16.04
Well, the days of slavery.
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Yeah, what a great
Christian nation we were.
00:09:17.81\00:09:20.57
We had slaves and then
in parts of the country--
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It took, you know, a
civil war to free the slaves
00:09:23.87\00:09:27.62
and then it took another
100 years of U.S. Supreme Court
00:09:27.65\00:09:30.15
to help get parts of the country
to treat African Americans--
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And women to
vote for that matter.
00:09:34.28\00:09:35.65
Yeah, women to vote.
00:09:35.68\00:09:37.05
Yeah, all this in
our Christian nation.
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I prefer the
Christian America today
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than the Christian
America of the Jim Crow laws.
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What I tell people without
meaning and trying to demean
00:09:42.95\00:09:45.46
the Constitution but when you
talk about church state issues
00:09:45.49\00:09:48.26
and higher loyalties to
guard, you got to remember
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the Constitution is a
human construct. Yeah.
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And all human
constructs are fallible.
00:09:52.44\00:09:54.64
More than fallible they're a
product of there environment.
00:09:54.67\00:09:57.24
And the Constitution
is a pretty solid document
00:09:57.27\00:09:59.75
and it's serving the U.S. well,
00:09:59.78\00:10:01.15
but it's not without
its flaws nor without its--
00:10:01.18\00:10:02.81
Well, that's why they
have the amendment process.
00:10:02.84\00:10:04.92
Absolutely. That's
why we've amended it.
00:10:04.95\00:10:06.32
We've amended it.
00:10:06.35\00:10:07.72
Antonin Scalia who has
some interesting ideas,
00:10:07.75\00:10:09.12
but that's his view.
00:10:09.15\00:10:10.52
You don't like it, change it.
00:10:10.55\00:10:11.92
Yeah, well, of course the whole
point is not very easy to do.
00:10:11.95\00:10:13.70
But they made that purposely.
00:10:13.73\00:10:15.70
Yeah, yeah, but
they-- of course it took
00:10:15.73\00:10:18.32
a civil war to get
them to free slaves.
00:10:18.35\00:10:21.79
So, yeah, it was
flawed from the start.
00:10:21.82\00:10:23.73
People understand that but--
00:10:23.76\00:10:26.70
What did you think recently,
00:10:26.73\00:10:28.10
what it's about
a year and a half
00:10:28.13\00:10:29.50
two years ago we
had the congressmen
00:10:29.53\00:10:31.69
reading the Constitution
as a public exercise?
00:10:31.72\00:10:34.28
Well, that's fine.
00:10:34.31\00:10:35.68
I mean it is the
document and ideally
00:10:35.71\00:10:37.63
we're supposed
to follow that but--
00:10:37.66\00:10:39.03
Were you impressed by them?
00:10:39.06\00:10:40.43
What grade would
you have given them?
00:10:40.46\00:10:41.83
Oh, I don't know and
who's gonna--you know,
00:10:41.86\00:10:43.23
the Constitution
is not simple. No.
00:10:43.26\00:10:44.97
You got to take your
time and you got to read it.
00:10:45.00\00:10:46.78
It's complicated.
There's a language.
00:10:46.81\00:10:48.18
But what impressed
me after listening,
00:10:48.21\00:10:49.58
they're not reading it.
00:10:49.61\00:10:50.98
That's the
message I get out of it.
00:10:51.01\00:10:52.38
That's the takeaway.
There were missing sections.
00:10:52.41\00:10:54.23
It was political
showmanship. Yes.
00:10:54.26\00:10:56.06
It was political
showmanship. That's all it was.
00:10:56.09\00:10:58.19
And the
Constitution should be cherished
00:10:58.22\00:11:00.38
and not used as a
political ploy like that.
00:11:00.41\00:11:03.56
Well, you know, what the funny
thing too is I thought about it.
00:11:03.59\00:11:06.19
You got this founding document.
00:11:06.22\00:11:08.71
I mean the instruction manual
for my Honda Civic is about
00:11:08.74\00:11:13.78
five times the size
of the founding document
00:11:13.81\00:11:16.89
of a country now--
Yes, but it only has
00:11:16.92\00:11:19.47
a 3-year warranty
but the Constitution
00:11:19.50\00:11:21.39
has lasted a
couple of centuries.
00:11:21.42\00:11:23.07
So when you were editing there,
what are some of the topics
00:11:23.10\00:11:28.12
that stuck with
you over the years
00:11:28.15\00:11:29.56
that you found significant.
00:11:29.59\00:11:33.22
It was fascinating to see how
our concept of religious liberty
00:11:33.25\00:11:38.65
had changed over the years.
00:11:38.68\00:11:41.25
And so you know it's funny
too how everybody says that,
00:11:41.28\00:11:44.96
you know, the
first amendment says,
00:11:44.99\00:11:46.36
"Congress shall make no law
00:11:46.39\00:11:47.76
respecting an
establishment of religion."
00:11:47.79\00:11:49.33
Well, notice, it says,
Congress shall make no law.
00:11:49.36\00:11:52.60
If, you know, there's a big
argument over original intent.
00:11:52.63\00:11:55.63
Well, if you went back
00:11:55.66\00:11:57.03
to what the
founders originally intended.
00:11:57.06\00:12:00.01
I live in Maryland.
00:12:00.04\00:12:01.41
The way the Constitution
was originally written,
00:12:01.44\00:12:04.72
if the state of Maryland
which was a catholic state
00:12:04.75\00:12:07.71
wanted to make Roman Catholicism
00:12:07.74\00:12:10.17
the official religion
of the state. They could.
00:12:10.20\00:12:12.62
There was absolutely nothing
00:12:12.65\00:12:14.02
in the Constitution
to stand in the way.
00:12:14.05\00:12:16.47
In fact some have
argued that the whole reason
00:12:16.50\00:12:18.87
they wrote the first
amendment was to tell the states
00:12:18.90\00:12:23.75
that had established
churches, our federal government
00:12:23.78\00:12:27.16
will leave your
established churches alone.
00:12:27.19\00:12:29.86
And then what do
you know, 100 some year,
00:12:29.89\00:12:31.77
150 years later
whatever starting in the early
00:12:31.80\00:12:34.50
20th century they
start incorporating
00:12:34.53\00:12:37.84
these to the state
which I'm glad they did--
00:12:37.87\00:12:40.24
You hit on the
nail on the head before.
00:12:40.27\00:12:42.88
The pivotal thing on
many issues but particularly
00:12:42.91\00:12:45.93
religious
liberty is the civil war.
00:12:45.96\00:12:47.78
The civil war
changed the power from
00:12:47.81\00:12:51.05
the sovereign states
to a federal government.
00:12:51.08\00:12:53.71
And I studied
American history and loved it.
00:12:53.74\00:12:56.84
The takeaway I got and
I'm sure I'm right on it
00:12:56.87\00:12:59.91
because it's
unambiguous early on these were
00:12:59.94\00:13:02.14
13 sovereign states, countries.
00:13:02.17\00:13:05.33
But, you know, it wasn't--
00:13:05.36\00:13:06.73
They weren't
giving away sovereignty.
00:13:06.76\00:13:08.96
They were compacting
together for common defense
00:13:08.99\00:13:11.97
and commerce between the states.
00:13:12.00\00:13:15.13
But remember the time
and that was right after
00:13:15.16\00:13:16.53
the war with England.
00:13:16.56\00:13:17.93
They were very
ambitious and very jealous
00:13:17.96\00:13:20.76
for their sovereignty, you know,
00:13:20.79\00:13:22.92
and so on--I remember even
reading somewhere someone said,
00:13:22.95\00:13:25.09
"I am willing to fight
and die for New Jersey," okay?
00:13:25.12\00:13:28.13
So they were very
reticent about that,
00:13:28.16\00:13:29.81
but, you know, 100
years have gone by.
00:13:29.84\00:13:31.27
No, we've changed,
there's a new reality,
00:13:31.30\00:13:33.15
but we need to understand
where that reality came from
00:13:33.18\00:13:35.78
and when these original intent
guys started to look at it.
00:13:35.81\00:13:39.13
They're wrong on the
Constitution and it's,
00:13:39.16\00:13:43.40
you know, creating
an American Republic,
00:13:43.43\00:13:45.13
a Christian
republic, they didn't do that.
00:13:45.16\00:13:47.39
But as you say,
the sovereign states
00:13:47.42\00:13:49.57
I think that they expected
that, that's how it was.
00:13:49.60\00:13:51.98
They had established churches.
00:13:52.01\00:13:53.99
Nobody was uncomfortable
with it expect the people
00:13:54.02\00:13:56.04
in the other
state, they didn't want--
00:13:56.07\00:13:57.44
Well, they weren't comfortable
00:13:57.47\00:13:58.84
if you happen to
be in the minority.
00:13:58.87\00:14:00.24
In fact they say
one of the whole reasons
00:14:00.27\00:14:02.23
that you got the first amendment
was the Virginia Baptist. Yeah.
00:14:02.26\00:14:06.74
They went to
James Madison and said
00:14:06.77\00:14:08.99
we are not gonna
support this Constitution
00:14:09.02\00:14:11.36
if you don't put a
bill of rights in there
00:14:11.39\00:14:13.81
because we needed
to protect that because
00:14:13.84\00:14:15.83
the Anglican Church
was the established church.
00:14:15.86\00:14:17.85
Okay, we'll be back
after a short break.
00:14:17.88\00:14:20.53
Interesting discussion. I
can hardly stop talking myself.
00:14:20.56\00:14:24.11
We'll be back. Stay with us.
00:14:24.14\00:14:25.52