Welcome back to
The Liberty Insider.
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Before the break I
was talking with guest,
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Clifford
Goldstein about headlines.
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We've taken another random
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but it was the
yesterday's paper,
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the last paper that I picked up
before coming to this program.
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And they were three, at least
three direct delusions to things
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that concern religious liberty.
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One of them that's practically
in every paper at the time
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is debate about The
Health Care, ObamaCare--
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Yeah, it's been quite, yeah.
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The--so called
restriction on Religious Liberty
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that would
require Catholic Church
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and indeed anyone else
to provide contraception
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is part of the--well
they don't provided it,
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they provide
coverage for it. Sure, sure.
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So again that's sort of
like refusing to pay your tax
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because the government
may be doing something,
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somewhere where
you don't agree with.
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You know, some point it
becomes so indirect that,
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you know, how can you
stop something like that?
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Yeah, well, as I
said, it just comes through
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the whole
question of when you mix,
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that's why we have
separation of Church and State
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as much as possible, but in
some cases you just can't do it.
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You just can't do it.
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Religion and politics
inevitably are going to crash,
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clash or mingle and in certain
cases you gonna have clashes
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and how to work
your way through,
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well that's been the
million dollar question
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since the
founding of the Republic.
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We wanted it different.
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We wanted a different model
from what the world that had.
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We'd seen how bad that
worked and our framers were,
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you know, I really do.
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I thought about
it over the years.
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When you think, even in
countries today where you--
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they even don't want
you to change your religion
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and all we have these
founders hundreds of years ago
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with this radical idea
of keeping Church and State,
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keeping them separate.
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You know, I don't think we today
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because we're so used to it.
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We're so used to the idea,
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but we realize how
radical emotion that was.
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Well, it was
radical in my hobby horse.
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I think it was very radical
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because in their own country
most of them were Englishmen.
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I mean modern day United States
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is drawn from most
of the known world,
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but not in
pre-revolutionary times,
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just up to the
American Revolution
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and only 100 years before
they had an English Civil war,
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religious civil war
and the John Bunyans'
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and others have been
imprisoned as dissidents.
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They were not tolerant
of religious divergence--
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No, no, no. In the--
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And in the colonies
as well they weren't.
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Of course not. These states
they had established churches
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and persecution and
the hangings of Quakers.
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Yeah, yeah. And I
think that whatever reason,
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for some reason these men
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who had some very big
blind spots in a lot of areas
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as we know particularly
on the slavery issue
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how they were able to
come up with this idea
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of as much as possible keeping,
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you know, religious views apart,
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though again we
have to be careful
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not to read our
perspective back in.
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They were totally
content to let the states do
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what they wanted with
religions. So I guess if you--
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I think as much as you
need to, I'll throw in hearsay.
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It was expediency to
get to a Federal government.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, but if they--
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yeah of course,
well many ways so,
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but if the state
wanted to throw you in jail
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because of your religious views
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I guess for you it didn't matter
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whether it was the
Federal Government or the state.
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But I think there was
the idea in their mind
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because a number of states
had disestablished churches.
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It was their
idea that eventually
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this is what they're gonna--
this is where it was gonna go,
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but they can only go so far.
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With that wildcard that I
think we sometimes dismiss
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was that there was a
great awakening. Sure.
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Only about twenty five
years before the revolution.
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And I think that it
brought less, I mean,
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it moved them away
the idea of established
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churches to
personal spirituality.
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Sure, yeah, that's
very important point, yeah.
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So I think that they
were open to the idea
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of getting away
from the old norms.
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Question still was a battle?
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And you feed that in
with political expediency
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where we get--
there'll be less conflicts
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so that came
together. Of course that was,
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they had a battle then look
here we are 200 some years later
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and there are still people
who don't like it. Absolutely.
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There are still
people who don't like it.
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So they really were
miles, miles ahead out of that.
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People that handle
stakes and all of the rest--
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And we could be
very-very thankful for that,
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that how well they did
and what they came up with.
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But this healthcare
debate is incredibly contentious
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and it's been interesting.
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I know you listen to
Rush Limbaugh for example.
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Sure. And you know,
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the hyperbole that he
indulged in to demean young,
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one young man-- Well,
at the same time if you--
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who in a secular level
objected to being deprived
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that this healthcare provision.
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Well I listened to
it, I listened to it,
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and if you would've
listened to the woman,
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I mean Rush was over the top.
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He knows he was over
the top, he apologized.
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Okay, I don't know what more
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they want to take a
pound of flesh from the man.
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I mean he apologized.
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He said he did wrong but--
and he was. He was over the top.
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But if you would've
listened to that woman,
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I mean, I
remembered he played the tape
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and I don't want to
get into the debate.
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But the woman
gets on there and says,
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"when I walked around the
campus at Georgetown Law School
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and I can look in
the faces of these women
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and I could see the
straw look on their faces
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because they can't
buy birthday chocolates.
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I was like, come on, I
mean Rush stopped the tape.
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I mean I listened to this
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and I was appalled
how ridiculous it is.
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So Rush overplayed
his hand. He overdid it.
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But again it
brings up the issue.
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But may be he shared his age
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and ignored a generation
of reality that hooking up
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and grouched it as
casual relationships
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at a whole different deal then.
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Rush made a mistake too.
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He says these
people are so promiscuous
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as they can't afford-- I
think in a way he is right,
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but the very bad way to say it.
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No, no, he wasn't
because he missed the point.
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Birth--if you're
getting birth control pills--
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It's not expensive. It
doesn't matter whether you--
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you have relations once a day,
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three times a day or
once a month, it's the same.
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So Rush went over the
top, Rush went over the top
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but again he was
responding to this woman
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who really wasn't activist.
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She wasn't this innocent
little girl who got caught in.
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Many of the public spokes people
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in the favor of
issue that's what it is.
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Yeah, that was so
funny too when he said,
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well may be she should fight out
what else she needs Telepolis
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and read what else she wants
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to so that they could
buy it for her as well.
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But the point is
that it does bring up,
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it's a contentious issue
because you're bringing up sex.
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You're bringing up religion.
You're bringing up politics.
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You're bringing
money. You're bringing up,
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you know, the healthcare bill.
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Well, it might all be a
move point to Supreme Court.
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You know, was
gonna release there.
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I think they probably already
pretty much decided on it.
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It takes some more
few months to release.
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And yes, it's gonna
be politically chaotic
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if they turn it down.
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They've said
that this is probably
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the biggest supreme
U.S. Supreme Court case
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since may be Roe
v. Wade Brown vs.
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the Board of Education, because,
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see in many ways it's really
not an issue about healthcare.
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It's really the bigger issue
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is really what is the
range of Federal Government?
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How far and that can have some
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big implications
for religious liberty.
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Yeah, I think the
Supreme Court again,
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I usually defend them, I
think they're onto a good thing
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if they limit the centralized
power of the federal government.
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We're way beyond
what these framers and--
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Of course the country,
you know, I remember too.
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We are beyond it, but
you got to remember it,
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Lincoln, I said
this to when America--
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when they wrote the
constitution the U.S. was what?
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Was it 3 million or
13, 3 or 13, states?
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Thirteen states, but I
think only 3 or 4 million.
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Three million a
lot of, you know,
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white Anglo-Saxon
protestant, you know,
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people living on a narrow
strip of land on the east coast.
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It was a much
compared to the vast--
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I couldn't have
imagined the country
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of this size and perplexity.
Yeah, can even my good.
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What do they know about emails?
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What do they know about
you know electronic bugging?
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What do they know about
so many of these strengths?
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We're into a world of complexity
they couldn't have imagined.
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Yes, so yes. So
to hold ourselves
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to what they
originally intended at that time
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I think is a quite a mistake.
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At least to jump into
the middle of something else
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on the Treaty of Tripoli
back in those early days,
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they had the foresight to
say that this is a country
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that's not founded upon religion
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and it's for all including
the-- what they use the word?
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Musulman. Musulman, yeah.
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Funny word for
the Muslims. Yeah.
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Oh yeah, that's a brilliant idea
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and we reap the
benefits of it today.
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But as I said the country's got
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much more
complicated much more complex
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and so the intertwining
of Church and State.
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The intertwining is
much of it's, it's--
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It's happening.
Frequently entwined
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and I think the healthcare
debate over the contraception
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and the Catholic Church
is a prime example of how,
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of how entwined this has become
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and is going to
remain regardless
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of what they do with Osama care.
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Whether they throw
the whole the thing out
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or whether they
throw out the mandate.
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Absolutely, I know the
argument went that way.
00:08:50.87\00:08:53.72
But all of this argument
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and the
unavoidable entanglements
00:08:56.75\00:08:58.78
and of course at same time
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as that rise of
politically activists,
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Christians of this
country, it begs the question
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or the concern,
is there a danger
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that we might head in our own
way in this part of the world
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where we see some of
these Islamic countries
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where religion that has a
hold on societal attitudes
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then uses the power of law to--
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Well, of course, I mean
well that's--I think that's--
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It's always been a
danger what I mean is,
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it's happening to us
and we should look there
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as an object lesson
to where it ends up.
00:09:30.52\00:09:32.42
Yeah, well, I think the framers
knew that's where it was.
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It's really
moving that direction.
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And they moved away from
it, but you know overtime
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I still I think it
depends on what happens.
00:09:38.64\00:09:40.71
We have another
major terrorist attack--
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a great economic
collapse, I mean who knows
00:09:42.71\00:09:45.47
what the future hold but
there is this natural tendency.
00:09:45.48\00:09:47.93
Well, I would put that good
money on one or both of those.
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Yeah, yeah. At some point,
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hopefully not
tomorrow but-- Yeah, yes, yeah.
00:09:51.87\00:09:53.55
But we are in a
dynamic world situation
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where the global
economy is not mended to itself
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and structurally it
will collapse again.
00:09:59.42\00:10:02.46
We have many terrorists with
leaderless in case of Al-Qaeda
00:10:02.47\00:10:06.60
but something will happen.
00:10:06.61\00:10:08.21
So I think we are
stair-stepping towards,
00:10:08.22\00:10:10.57
at least more in that direction,
00:10:10.58\00:10:11.81
and we need to as a society
00:10:11.82\00:10:14.44
and through legal
mechanism hold back
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from that if it
doesn't end well.
00:10:16.23\00:10:18.13
Well, great empires,
none of them lasts forever.
00:10:18.14\00:10:20.88
No, and that's--
None historically,
00:10:20.89\00:10:22.78
none of them lasts forever.
Sobering, sobering realization.
00:10:22.79\00:10:24.94
And America, my
goodness, has never been,
00:10:24.95\00:10:27.02
of course there's
never been anything like it
00:10:27.03\00:10:28.71
because the world has never
been the way the world is now,
00:10:28.72\00:10:32.03
but, yeah, we
have a more tenuous
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hold on our
freedoms than we realize.
00:10:35.72\00:10:38.20
Absolutely,
that's the impression,
00:10:38.21\00:10:39.65
the takeaway I get from
dealing with religious liberty.
00:10:39.66\00:10:42.76
In quite a few years now things
are not bad at any given time,
00:10:42.77\00:10:46.96
but I realize that it's inflexed
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and it could
disappear quite quickly.
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Yeah, yeah, and
we don't realize.
00:10:50.55\00:10:51.76
A lot of things
happen very gradually,
00:10:51.77\00:10:54.37
very gradually
to us and you know--
00:10:54.38\00:10:56.62
the whole thing with the frog
if you boil the water slowly.
00:10:56.63\00:10:59.40
Yeah, wonderful
example, but the other example
00:10:59.41\00:11:01.38
I used in conjunction
with that the Jews in Europe,
00:11:01.39\00:11:04.59
with Mein Kampf out in
printed around thinking,
00:11:04.60\00:11:07.42
well it might not get worse,
step by step and in the end
00:11:07.43\00:11:10.94
they are herding their fellows
into the governance. Yeah, yeah.
00:11:10.95\00:11:13.54
Yeah, I think it's a
good lesson you can't take it.
00:11:13.55\00:11:17.67
You got to fight
for your freedoms.
00:11:17.68\00:11:19.50
You can't let your, what
is it, what is the saying,
00:11:19.51\00:11:21.22
"eternal vigilance is
the price of liberty."
00:11:21.23\00:11:24.68
So, sure we've enjoyed
a lot of religious freedom
00:11:24.69\00:11:28.01
in this country and hope
we can enjoy it for a while,
00:11:28.02\00:11:30.73
but if the past is any
precursor to the future
00:11:30.74\00:11:33.55
it's probably not going to last.
00:11:33.56\00:11:39.17
Daniel writing
in the Old Testament
00:11:39.18\00:11:41.72
made a comment that
certainly relates to our day.
00:11:41.73\00:11:44.56
He said,
"Knowledge shall be increased
00:11:44.57\00:11:47.01
and men shall run to and fro."
00:11:47.02\00:11:49.99
Reading the daily newspaper
00:11:50.00\00:11:51.50
is certainly a reminder
of an explosion of knowledge
00:11:51.51\00:11:55.12
and information that flips
00:11:55.13\00:11:57.35
from one side of the globe to
the other or from pole to pole.
00:11:57.36\00:12:02.80
And something that
happens in the far corner
00:12:02.81\00:12:05.42
of a modern world is
quickly known in other places.
00:12:05.43\00:12:09.23
But it's amazing to me
as I read the newspaper
00:12:09.24\00:12:11.94
how often those headlines,
00:12:11.95\00:12:14.14
those items of importance relate
00:12:14.15\00:12:16.41
to religious freedom
to religious liberty.
00:12:16.42\00:12:20.17
I would
encourage you as you read
00:12:20.18\00:12:22.26
your newspapers
you watch your news,
00:12:22.27\00:12:24.58
as you hear other people repeat
items of concern in society,
00:12:24.59\00:12:28.88
to be sensitive to
religious liberty to events
00:12:28.89\00:12:32.47
that could negatively impacted,
00:12:32.48\00:12:34.49
and indeed for opportunities
to spread the good news
00:12:34.50\00:12:38.16
even in the time
of exploding bad news
00:12:38.17\00:12:40.80
that religious freedom is
our best way forward to know God
00:12:40.81\00:12:45.94
and that separation of Church
and State very much enables
00:12:45.95\00:12:49.92
that quest to know and
to worship the divine being.
00:12:49.93\00:12:55.10
For Liberty Insider
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:55.11\00:12:57.93