Welcome back to
the "Liberty Insider."
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Before the break
with guest Kim Peckham,
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I was putting
the question to you
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since it how back
the way we started on.
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You given some invaluable
help on putting together
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one of our
program videos based on
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what we are talking about this
real challenge of radicalism,
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how would we--
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how should we project
a video to communicate
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this concern to our supporters
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or to gain
supporters for Liberty
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and what we are doing
for religious liberty?
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Well, I would think we
would need like talk about--
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How do we make it user friendly,
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that's what I'm asking?
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I'm not sure there is anything
really friendly about it.
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But we shouldn't show severed
heads, it's not gonna help.
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No, no but its like,
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I think people would
want to see the connection
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between what is happening
over there so far away,
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you know, by in the
Levant as you said with things
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are not peaceful in
North American communities
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and I would, I would ask
you what is the connection.
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I mean, we are not
as Europe feels like
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they are being pressured
by a lot of Muslim immigrants.
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We don't really feel that.
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Yet here we don't feel like
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that that's going to
become a problem, do we?
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How do we, how
do we express that?
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I got an idea, I'm
gonna follow that next year.
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If we
interviewed my son, your son
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and ask them
about religious liberty
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and what it meant to them
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and what they
expect in their society
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and their communities as
they develop a commitment
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toward religious liberty
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and then interview perhaps
some of the young Muslims
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that are growing up
in the same community
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what they thing?
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What appeal
hopefully they would say
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there's not but still
you could show the tension
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that even among their peers
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and the spectrum of backgrounds
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that are present
in most cultures,
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even in
Hagerstown where we live.
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Yeah.
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Those reasons
really sort this out
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before the problem comes here.
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Well, what
interest me is I've actually
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read through the Quran myself--
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Good. Even I read it.
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Yeah.
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The unique company
other than the Imam's.
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Very few people have read it.
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After 9/11, you know, I
think we got to-- what is,
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what is that they really believe
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and I don't want to
hear everything second hand.
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So you go through that
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and what you
realize is that of course,
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religious liberty is
not any part of the--
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Certainly not
separation of church and state.
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Certainly not.
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Its concurring victorious
point of view like convert
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or you know get out
of the way pretty much.
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And so I would be
interested to know
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and I think
that interesting idea
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you have about
interviewing young Muslims
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is in the United
States they pick up
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the same value
of religious freedom
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that we've had as
part of our culture
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or do they lean more
toward the Muslim point of view
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as that you take
charge politically
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and you bring people inline
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with the same religious beliefs.
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It's an interesting point.
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We are always
depending on our culture
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to move someone in this case,
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in the direction of
cultural constitutional view
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on religious
liberty but in this case
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it might mean
them turning their back
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on what the
holy books are saying
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and I'm not comfortable
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with that process
working on my faith.
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Right, and so they
probably aren't either.
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No. You know, religious liberty
as this program is said over
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and over again is an
interesting conundrum
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because only an uninformed
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or naive person would think
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that all
religions are created equal
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and that they are organized.
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Most of us are
to have our religion
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and we look at others
in the more negative way
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or we have no religion
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and we see it all sort
of, perhaps even as silliness.
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But most people forget
that true religious liberty
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doesn't mean that you bow into
what the other person believes.
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You just accept
the inherent dignity
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and right of human
beings particularly as creatures
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of a creative God.
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The US
Declaration of Independence
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is all to fuse on that.
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It's sort of a guard
not necessarily the guard
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but still that raises the
value of human a little higher
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than just a civil contract.
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Here is the special
creature that has aspirations
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toward religious faith
and we need to respect that,
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wherever that leads that person.
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Yeah, the term is
like liberty of conscience.
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Right. And this is the conundrum
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even though I think its--
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it goes without
saying that an extremist
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or I don't even like that title,
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a fully engaged version of Islam
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it leads pretty
readily to empowering
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at the very least
some of these things
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we see in the Middle East
that we all find problematic
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that is what it is.
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But that shouldn't lead me
to back off from my commitment
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to defend the right of Muslims
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to hold their
beliefs in any context.
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And like anybody else
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whether it's a
Christian, Muslim, Buddhist,
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seculars for that
matter whatever they believe
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as their
spiritual values, you know,
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their sense of how the
world works in a civil society
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if they harm someone,
if they defraud someone
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there is a civil
penalty for that.
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That's quite
apart from their faith.
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And so that takes care of it.
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You don't need to
worry about whether the faith
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inherently has some problems,
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let those problems
manifest themselves
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the society will deal with it.
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But we have to defend
the right of everybody
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to have their belief system
regardless no matter how pure,
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no matter how even dangerous
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we find it by
observation from the outside.
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Now why is that
work so well for America?
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Well--
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And still causes trouble.
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The opposite point of view
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still causes
trouble in the Middle East.
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I don't know if I would--
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I'm a historian or want to be.
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I've studied history
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and that was my
major for many years
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and I love history.
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I challenge that point and
we need to have a program on it.
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I don't think it worked so well,
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it worked better
than most countries.
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Okay. It's a
relative thing then.
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Yes. There have
been many problems here
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but I think what
distinguishes the United States
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more than most
countries is its set for itself
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an ideal of protecting
and advancing religious faith
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and of course at
most points in the country
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that was expected
to be by the society
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as sort of a
generic Protestantism
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and finally even a
generic Christianity
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but at the edge is
it doesn't respond well
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as we are seeing
to oddball religions.
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There is a cultural norm here
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that's being empowered
by the constitution I think.
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Well, that's true
because as you go back
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to the immigration
years in the early 1900s
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and stuff there was large
prejudice against Catholics.
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Irish Catholics. Yeah.
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And all things are complicated
as they are in the Middle East
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because there is
an anti-colonial thing
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that is not religious
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and of course religious
favors being applied to.
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And the anti-Catholic
thing was as much reaction
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against Irish immigrants
who were stealing jobs,
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it was an economic thing.
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So it's an
interesting scenario isn't it?
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And just starting from
the video in a civil war
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where there was
terrorism all this
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you can see the ramifications
that we are dealing
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with when we talk
about religious liberty
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and how do we communicate this,
that's the challenge isn't it.
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It is to communicate I think
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I hope we will always appeal
to fear when we talk about it
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but then we show it
as a God like quality
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a virtue to be respectful
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about the people
as you say now matter
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how bizarre their
beliefs may seem to us
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that we provide
liberty of conscience.
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Yeah. And that's
been the commitment
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and I hope our regular
viewers will recognize that.
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We describe
situations and right,
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very often religious liberty
is described in a negative way
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where the lapses
are the by religion
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or a country or
threats toward it.
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But religious liberty
itself is a wonderfully,
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positive, fulfilling
thing for the human spirit
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I think and we
need to empower that.
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Yeah, absolutely
because its just the very idea
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that in the past
that there was a belief
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that you could
control people's conscience,
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a belief just
seems ludicrous now
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and this is an
improvement we've made
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and we hope we
can stay that way.
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It's often been
said that a picture
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is worth a thousand words
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but some pictures
worth more words than others
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but I think none
more worth more words
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than the living pictures
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that Liberty
Magazine produces every year
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calling it a promotional video.
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I could wish they
were more and longer
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because the stories we have
to tell about religious liberty
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are often incredibly
inspiring and always moving.
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This year for example we
tell the story of Kim Crider,
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a young woman trying to make
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her way with a
university employment
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who found out almost
within hours of gaining a job
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that she would lose it
because she was not willing
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to take her telephone with
her on weekend to be on call.
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This was against
her Sabbath conviction.
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And story is Kim told
that is that losing her job
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and appealing it she was given
the privilege of explaining
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why her faith and religious
freedom was so important.
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This is the
sort of visualization
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of a principle
that is without equal.
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This is the sort of
thing that Liberty Magazine
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I believe is called to do.
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This is the sort of
thing when you see it viewer,
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I think has the
ability to move you
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and should make you a co-partner
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in what we are trying to do.
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Of course, we need money.
Money is what makes it happen
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but more importantly we want
you to be part of the picture.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:10:33.76\00:10:36.70