Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a
program as those of you
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who watch this regularly know
that discusses religious liberty
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in the United
States and around world
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bringing you
up-to-date opinions information
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and discussion of
these serious ongoing issues.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest on this program
is Ambassador Robert Seiple.
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Among your other accomplishments
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you were the first
ever US ambassador-at-large
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for Religious
Freedom for the United States
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which has given you I
think an incredible box seat
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to understand some of
these issues around the world
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but you are representing the
United States, this country too.
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Let's talk a little
bit about the United States
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and religious liberty.
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Of course, it's
a great tradition
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and more than a tradition
it's a legal requirement
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for the
constitution that there be
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as much non involvement
by the government as possible
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and as much
allowance of individual freedom
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of religious expression.
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Do you think we're doing well?
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Let's go have a
state of the union address.
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Well, that's what it's supposed
to be and I think by and large
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that's what it's happened, yeah.
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We have tended to beautify our
religious freedom along the way.
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I mean we make a big deal with
the pilgrims in Massachusetts
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that wasn't very religious
salary free environment.
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I mean, not of your Quaker or
woman who act to like a witch.
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You had some problems there.
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I wish we have done
more with Roger Williams
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who comes out of that context
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and creates a much
more diverse and free.
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Does I remember Roger Williams,
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he was in personal
contact had gone to England
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and it was in discussion
with some of the puritans there
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who ended up establishing
their own common wealth.
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And before you got kicked out
which she had to be kicked out.
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From the colony, yeah.
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From the colony, I
think it was Governor Winthrop
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that has an active grace
said "get in your paddle.
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Yeah, I will get in your
canoe and start to paddle
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and you got more room
over in Rhode Islands."
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So he comes up the arrogance,
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obey with an
arrogance of Indians
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and sets up camp as a,
as a Baptist which of course
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has a long tradition of
religious freedom as well.
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Yeah, no, and
Seventh-day Adventist church
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was trying to do as much as it
can do advance religious liberty
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for all people in the
US and around the world.
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And very often we
found ourselves in
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I don't know
alliance is the right word,
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but you know with fellow
travelers with the Baptists.
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And I know that's a
great history in the US
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of Baptist thinking
on religious freedom.
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But, yeah, you're
making interesting point.
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I read an article the other
day it was an older article
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but I just found
it for the first time
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it had been in
the Mezonin Magazine.
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It started off by
saying something in the effect
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that we talk
about religious freedom
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and the lack of religious
conflict in the United States
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but they've said
that it's not true
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this is how an incredible
record of religious conflict
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started with
the colony of course
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before there was an entity
known as the Untied States.
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But it continued
then with the Mormons
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and their problems
and making going on and on
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and it seems to me
we've had the conflict
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but not as broad
based as in Europe
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where there were whole people
groups that were in conflict
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but we have our
struggles haven't we.
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Everybody got a
piece of territory it seems
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and you know
the catholic settled
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in Talbot
County down in Maryland
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and Quaker settled in
Philadelphia area and so on.
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But the fact that
they had to settle
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kind of as a closed in community
with them with parameters
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to their
thinking and their living
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so it is always
not as good as we like
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to embellish as we think back.
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Well, this article
mentioned one thing
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that I remember
reading but only once
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and it's never come up
until I saw this article
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that in Boston I think
it was and in mid 1800s
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there was a whole
weekend of rioting
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where mob of thousands
rampaged around stringing up
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any catholic they
could get the hand on.
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And those things
are they are not secret
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but they are
sort of inconvenient
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for the high
school history books
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and we forget about them.
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I remember as a young
boy listening to my parents
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talk about the wars between
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the Catholics
and the Protestants
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up in the hills and
there were fascinating.
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People use to get
shot. People used to die.
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And everybody
knew where everybody
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was in terms of
their religiosity
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and who you could date
and who you couldn't date.
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So we don't have a
pure record nor should we.
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We had to work
things out and yet today
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in terms of religious freedom
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I don't think anyone we
talk about a war on Christmas.
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I don't think that service to
people who are under persecution
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They know what
was like persecution
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in terms of its
international definition.
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Its basically physical mayhem.
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It's prolonged detention
without cause its rape,
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its killing, its
torture and so on.
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We don't' have
that widespread anyway
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or at all in this country
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and for that we should be praise
that we got the constitution
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that we have, the
bill of rights that we have
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and the people who let us into
those kinds of documentations.
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Now I think the
word is not wrong
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there is a tradition
of live and let live.
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I mean there are religious
thoughts that are often
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and violently expressed in
the last presidential election
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not violent but you know
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they're
expressed in the rough way.
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There was some crude
comments about Mormons
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I think when governor
Romney ran that were regrettable
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but as a free
country and no one was
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that I know was harmed directly
by them its just was intemperate
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that they were
said their way of terms.
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I personally think religious
expression is very free
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in the United States
that the developing problem
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is more insipient
tendency towards establishment
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and state funding and ownership
of religious expression
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but free
exercise is not very much.
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No, I think it was set
up obviously to tilt towards
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making sure that the church
could be free with government.
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Much more than government
than free of the church.
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One is freedom of
religion and the other one is
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freedom for
religion or against religion.
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Or from it the
religion-- excuse me,
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yes, you got it
freedom from religion.
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And that's we see
atheistic groups and so on.
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Well, you gave the opening.
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Right now, we have the Freedom
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from Religion Foundation
which is as far as I know
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is probably no more
than a handful of people
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with some money.
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But they have ran also to
challenges from the pledge
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now that they settled
on ministerial exemptions
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but they get very
highly publicized cases
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that several have gone
up to the Supreme Court
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but they state of
dime is to remove religion
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from public life which
nobody that respects religion
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would be comfortable with that
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and that's not in
the American tradition
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nor in the legal
continuum that we are part of.
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I think there will
be a backlash to that.
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I mean they're strain at
a gnat and swallow a camel.
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And everything is
everything is a gnat
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as far as I'm concerned
these gnat picking things.
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But they will
take on one at a time,
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one at a time, one at a time.
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Remember when they
tried to take out in regard
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from the Pledge of Allegiance
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the entire Congress
came out on the steps
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put their hand over
their heart and we recited
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that didn't make me feel
any more secure in my faith. No.
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And I never take a--
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Well, emotion
kicked in and I don't think
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they did a bad thing on that.
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But most of them
didn't quite think clearly
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on how to got
there in the first place.
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So it was put there during
the cold war really is a way
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to position ourselves
as God fearing Christians
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as opposed to godless communism.
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Which again was not a bad thing
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but may be sort
of playing footsie
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with the original intention
to allow personal expression
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but keep the government
largely out of the business.
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Yeah. Yeah. Well--
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I would like to see
more strong feelings
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earnestly held from
a reflective backdrop.
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But from individuals even,
even individuals in government.
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We had articles in Liberty
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and most people
don't understand it.
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Even you're arguing for
separation of church and state
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you can't and you
should never take away
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the rights of
religious expression
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of the individual
people that are in government.
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I never felt offended
when George Bush made comments
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about his own personal
faith that's his right. Sure.
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I felt suspicious perhaps
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when I could see
some foreign policy
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that might have been
expression of the wish list
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to the religious right
say that's another question.
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But you still didn't
question his faith. No.
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Or is right to
speak about his faith.
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No, absolutely not. Yeah, yeah.
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We need to defend that
and be comfortable with it.
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And when its--when
we're not comfortable with it
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when we have people speaking up
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and everybody else shying
away we have lost something.
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We have lost of the rich
tapestry over of who we are
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and who we said we want to be.
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Now, you know one of
the more insidious things
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that's happened lightly
under the present administration
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and I know the political
rumblings that gave rise to it
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but its repeated
it's like the blood liable
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against in this
case a precedence.
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It said that he
is a closet Muslim.
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Well, even you and I know that
that's just a silly statement
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but so what if he were.
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Its not, it's not a
high crime or a misdemeanor.
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In fact, it
would be an endorsement
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of religious
pluralism of the United States.
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Yes, I don't moment
think that the president is
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I mean he is not he is made
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very public statements
of his religious faith.
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But it's not antithetical
that the American civil system
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that there be a
Muslim or a Hindu
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or whatever
holding top office, right.
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You know, if I am
going to a mechanic
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because I got to
broken automobile
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I'm not gonna ask him his faith,
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I'm not gonna ask him what
denomination he ascribes to.
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I want to know if he
is a good mechanic. Yeah.
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I feel its two
ways about precedence.
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Whether they are
catholic or Jewish
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or Christian or
my kind of Christian
00:11:02.61\00:11:05.01
or evangelical
Christian or what have you.
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I want to make sure that
person understands leadership
00:11:07.99\00:11:10.53
and understand
governance and has the guts
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to get the right
people around him
00:11:13.16\00:11:14.76
to do the job
that has to be done
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and that's a whole
different exercise.
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I think its when
we, we conflate the two
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when we say my
president has to be a Christian.
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My president has
to think this way
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that we lose
something on both sides.
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And I would like to think
whoever he is our president
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or people in public
trust they're good people,
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moral people, honest people
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and those things can reside
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in any belief system
or a no belief system.
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I mean, I like to
think as a Christian
00:11:49.56\00:11:51.00
that the highest
good and morality might be
00:11:51.03\00:11:55.29
in my modern
tradition and in my viewpoint
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and hope of the
Savior and beyond
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but its hardly impossible
and it should even be expected
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that the nonbeliever
still should exemplify
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strong principles of behavior
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and keep the
public trust and so on.
00:12:13.64\00:12:17.08
But there is a lot
that can be learned
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from the simple admonition
to render into Caesar.
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Oh, yes, separation
of church and state.
00:12:22.70\00:12:25.39
And the law the
things that are of the Lord.
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We don't always articulate
the separation very well.
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I'm not sure that
Jefferson would really like
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where we have come down
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I mean he talked
about a serpentine wall.
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Well, he was talking about
something that it was flexible
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and even some of the legal
scholars today say that wall
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and he works when you
got some windows in it.
00:12:46.38\00:12:48.74
Well, Jefferson is an
interesting guy to invoke.
00:12:48.77\00:12:51.09
I mean, you can't blame alchemy
of history turns Jefferson
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into a funny I was about to say
00:12:54.40\00:12:58.08
but I will use a
cultural Christian.
00:12:58.11\00:13:02.09
He is not a cultural Christian.
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I happened to own
the Jefferson Bible.
00:13:03.47\00:13:06.22
It's very thin.
Yeah, the redacted one.
00:13:06.25\00:13:08.54
Yeah, because
Jefferson as you know
00:13:08.57\00:13:11.24
anything that had to be
tuned to faith or tied to faith
00:13:11.27\00:13:14.78
he cut out of the Bible.
00:13:14.81\00:13:16.34
So all the miracles are gone.
00:13:16.37\00:13:17.98
So he is like the
way of sayings of Jesus,
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so the like
sayings of the Buddha.
00:13:19.88\00:13:21.36
Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:21.39\00:13:22.54
So he ended up
with a very thin Bible
00:13:22.57\00:13:24.99
which says in
awful about Jefferson
00:13:25.02\00:13:27.46
that we should that
should make us nervous.
00:13:27.49\00:13:30.57
He was essentially
creating God in his own image.
00:13:30.60\00:13:33.56
It's an
interesting take I like that.
00:13:33.59\00:13:36.05
Well, we are at a
good point to take break
00:13:36.08\00:13:38.46
and I would like to
continue this discussion
00:13:38.49\00:13:40.29
and I like you to
comeback so stay with us
00:13:40.32\00:13:42.47
and we'll be
right back to continue
00:13:42.50\00:13:44.01
this discussion
with Ambassador Seiple.
00:13:44.04\00:13:46.53