Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break with
guest Ambassador Robert Seiple
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we were talking about religious
liberty in the United States
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and of course
talking about the history
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and how it came to be.
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And we have given a pretty
good grade overall I think.
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Of course, we have many, many
programs with ongoing issues
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like Workplace Religious
Freedom that initiative
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but its not yet had been
passed, show up accommodation
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in the workplace
but it can never be
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as you said acquitted
with the upright persecution.
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Sometimes a threat of life
of laymens in other countries.
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I will tell you
something that during the break
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we even thought about
what about religious freedom
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in the armed forces.
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Is that just like anywhere else
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that all the rights
are given and guaranteed?
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First of all I'm gonna
say I saw more Christians
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and I'm using the term
in terms of developed people
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who know why they
believe what they believe.
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I saw more
Christians in the military
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and I have seen in every--
any other segment or society.
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So I think there
is a high degree.
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I mean, people who are
gonna put the lives on the line
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they better know
how the lives are safe.
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There's an old saying not so
many atheists of the folksong.
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Well, that's true and
I, I say in my 13 months
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in Vietnam I'd
learned how to pray.
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I prayed more than
anybody ever prayed in my life.
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But it is, it's
a difficult subject
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because if someone is in
uniform there is certain things
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that we require of
that person professionally
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and certain things that we
don't allow that person to do
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with the power of the uniform.
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I was in marine there
is no more powerful uniform
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than United States.
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Sympathizer right.
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So you have to be careful.
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You have to be careful
that you don't get on a soapbox
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and everybody is
got to be like, like me.
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And we've situations where
people would join the events,
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conferences and
so on as keynoters
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or inspirational speakers
would wear their uniform,
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wear the weapons.
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Was it marine but
was it General Boykin.
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Boykin.
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Very exemplary seem to
cross that line, recently.
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Not seem to what I
would say but general sense.
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Yeah, yeah but you know if
you never push against the line
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you don't know when
you have crossed it.
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So someone has got to
cross the line somewhere
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to see if to make
sure we have gone too far
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and have to pull back.
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We have chaplains that do that.
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We all grew up with two subjects
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that we could not
discuss Employee Company.
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Religion and politics
you can imagine someone
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coming in from the
outside to the state upon.
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So this was in the military?
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Well, well but outside
of the military, I mean
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inside of the military
it's even because you got,
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you got a command structure
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they can tell you what to do
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but outside you got
parents and school teachers
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and everybody else and oh don't,
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don't talk about these subjects.
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Now the problem is 95%
of world's problems today
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take place at the intersection
of religion in politics.
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Absolutely.
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And we failed to discuss
this issue in those terms
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and our considerable call.
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Yeah, you are right.
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By the way this, this program
talks about politics a lot.
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And I'm not embarrassed
but that it is unavoidable
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but what I try to
remind people now and then
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when people say that we
should be careful with politics
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really what it is, is
partisan political expression
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I think can become toxic
and divisive and dangerous.
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But when we are talking
about events in the world
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and particularly
with religious liberty
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you can't really even
get into it without talking
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about political
developments, right.
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Here is a major one
that's taking place right now
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and it's important to me, my
son and I teach a Bible study
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on Monday nights
in the community.
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And we are teaching
First and Second Samuel.
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And we are looking
at this character Saul
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whose been broken by
a covenant on theology
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that he doesn't understand.
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What happened on Mount Sinai
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when God puts this high premium
on obedience, faithfulness?
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And he and he can't get there.
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And he has to go through Samuel.
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And it just doesn't work out.
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And ultimately he
is rejected as a king.
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And we talked about he should
have made some compromises.
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He should have understood
that he can learn of all this
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and little of that.
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And then someone
asked well we compromise
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all over the place, don't we.
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There is a cultural today.
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There is a
cultural state of soul
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to obey is
better then sacrifice.
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Yes, yes that's it, that's it.
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To obey obedience,
faithfulness is better than
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trying to create
a religious right
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even if you are not,
even if you're not a priest
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which he wasn't.
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Samuel always did the sacrifices
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but you come around today
and trying to find an example
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of some group that
has never compromised.
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And we get this
spurge on newspapers
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the little sisters of the
poor and they're going against
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unarguably the most
powerful person in the world,
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the president of
the United States
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and the Affordable Care Act.
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Now I know this makes
people queasy because its--
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we are talking
about something that has
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all kind of detractors.
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I only want to make one point.
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I was wondering if
you're gonna break up
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the Affordable Care Act.
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Well, I only want
to make one point.
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Follow this group
whose belief is in obedience
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in faithfulness and
no compromise in terms
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of how they feel and what
their behavior should look like
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as it relates to the people
they feel called to serve.
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Now the optics are terrible
for the big powerful people.
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The little sisters of the
poor are going to win this.
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They're gonna win
this particular thing
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because of their
faithfulness and obedience.
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On that personal level
yes, it's the right attitude.
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There is a bigger issue on the
dynamic of the healthcare thing
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that I have even
discussed on this program
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that makes me
uncomfortable sometimes.
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I think there is almost a
readiness by people of faith
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to use that as leverage
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against the state
to an essence project
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their religious viewpoint
to the larger population.
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I think we need to
be careful of that.
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We are talking about compulsion,
and compulsion works two ways.
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That's true.
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I'm taking the
other side of the pulse.
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Yeah, so I think your
point is, is correct, yeah.
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But we were
talking about the military
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which starting to
get into the military
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and their how they
relate to religious freedom
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and there's been
sort of few embarrassments
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slightly at the
Air Force Academy
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and so we're
supposedly religious hidalgos
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where sort of projecting
and our religious viewpoint
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there in a protected
environment that was felt wrong.
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What do you think
about the dynamic of religion
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in a military environment?
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That's a microcosm of
what's happening across society.
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It just happens we
don't. That's true, that's true.
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I think you're troubling up
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of what was
happening else where yes.
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But there are lots of
things that are happening
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into the
academies cheating scandals.
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Yeah. Rapes, date rapes.
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There are things
that you would say chief,
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I'm up a discipline approach
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a highly geared
towards professionalism.
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These things should not
be and they shouldn't be
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but they speak I think probably
to a larger issue in our society
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where our compromise is
put us on the slip of sound.
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Anyway I hear the statistic
the other day on womens,
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women in the military
being sexually harassed.
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Like I think it was a
stronger were that harassed
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and it was
something like one in three,
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or it might be one in four
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that is very high
percentage about that order.
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And then they
said that numerically
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there are more
men in the military
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that are sexually harassed.
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Now that's interesting
not a higher percentage
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but a higher number of
course there's less women.
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But it means that
there is a great incidents
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of this sort of problem.
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So you are right, its not
just religious impropriety.
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I have a concern as
the Seventh-day Adventist
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that with the demise
of the volunteer army
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and not the volunteer army
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the draft obligatory
service with the volunteer army
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the, the allowances
for consciences objection
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and Sabbath and other
religious accommodations
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are not as readily granted.
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You think there's a need
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to protect
religion in an environment?
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Yes, I do and if someone,
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yeah I think there are many
ways you serve in the military
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without putting a
gun to your shoulder.
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Well, that one might not
to be so hard to insist on
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because it's a choice
now whether you go in.
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But certainly a person
in the military if they have
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any conscience religious
related conscience issue
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I think then there needs to be
effort made to accommodate them.
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Not just sort of well
it's, you know, you came in
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and you have given it away
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because you give
away certain civil rights
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when you enter a military.
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But as you have said
right now with a profession army
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not all volunteer army
you're making a choice to go in.
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You're making
choice with eyes wide open
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and you may change that.
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And that's some cases we
have had you could in way
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we have been
hrough that in Liberty.
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Yes you could even allow
well they made that choice
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but within that entity
then they had a change of mind
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they discovered a new faith
and now commitment rises up.
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So it can't be sort of,
it can't be totally does
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just because
they chose to go in.
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I mean, it takes some
insight and some discernment.
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I mean, I know
there are number of people
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who become consciences objector,
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objectors when the
first shot is fired in anger.
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It's not
supposed to work that way.
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It supposed to reach this
point of your belief system
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when you're
putting in the context.
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Well, you're going
back to your and my or too
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I just didn't go to Vietnam
00:10:06.22\00:10:07.36
I had a number but
there were many people
00:10:07.39\00:10:09.39
the first shot that was
fired was at their own foot
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so they can go home, right.
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Well, I think a
lot of us felt that.
00:10:13.92\00:10:15.24
Yeah.
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If we can get that $16
million wound let's take it.
00:10:16.33\00:10:20.21
Vietnam was not
a good place to be.
00:10:20.24\00:10:22.97
Yeah.
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I went to take the
experience for anything.
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And as I say I was 22,
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who had never been asked to
do anything for his country.
00:10:30.65\00:10:34.13
And now I'm at the age group
00:10:34.16\00:10:35.87
where my age group
younger and some older
00:10:35.90\00:10:40.60
were populating to the tune
00:10:40.63\00:10:42.46
of three-and-half
million of military.
00:10:42.49\00:10:45.74
Now people make decisions
00:10:45.77\00:10:47.96
unlike mine they were
much more difficult to make.
00:10:47.99\00:10:50.78
But the decision
I made was to go in
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and I have to say I
have never regretted it.
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You know, I have
all the family members
00:10:56.74\00:10:58.63
who have followed suit
regretted, regretted it either.
00:10:58.66\00:11:02.12
Years ago when the
Soviet Union was intact
00:11:05.32\00:11:08.36
I often saw
pictures of the workers
00:11:08.39\00:11:11.50
surging forward with flags
and Soviet slogans under them.
00:11:11.53\00:11:15.45
It took me a
long time to realize
00:11:15.48\00:11:17.05
that they were invariably
saying onward to communism,
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they never arrived.
00:11:21.03\00:11:22.90
When we talk about religious
liberty in the United States
00:11:22.93\00:11:26.48
its worth remembering
that the call is onward
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and upward in
some ways the same.
00:11:29.78\00:11:31.99
You know those words
under the Statue of Liberty
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say you know "send me your tired
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and your huddled
masses longing to be free."
00:11:36.46\00:11:39.08
But it's worth remembering
that the US constitution accepts
00:11:39.11\00:11:43.58
that it is a present reality
00:11:43.61\00:11:45.46
inherent in our status
human beings that we are free.
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When you read the Bible
00:11:49.85\00:11:50.88
and Jesus charged
there in Nazareth to freedom.
00:11:50.91\00:11:55.30
We are free and
its great privilege
00:11:55.33\00:11:58.41
I think to live in a land
00:11:58.44\00:12:00.16
that accepts our inherent
state of religious freedom.
00:12:00.19\00:12:04.93
And it's our
privilege and our responsibility
00:12:04.96\00:12:07.71
to work toward that end to
protect what we already have
00:12:07.74\00:12:12.17
and project it
to others in a way
00:12:12.20\00:12:14.02
that will further empower them,
00:12:14.05\00:12:16.14
to participate in this
great American freedom.
00:12:16.17\00:12:21.17
For Liberty Insider
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:21.20\00:12:24.12