Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
bringing you discussion, news,
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views and information
on religious liberty events
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in the United States
and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest on the
program is Greg Hamilton,
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president of the Northwest
Religious Liberty Association.
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Let's talk politics.
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Although with this is
not a political program
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but we have to
comment on what we say.
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And you know, there
are actually three parties
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in the United States now days.
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Right.
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The Republican, the
Democrat and the Tea Party.
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Or the independence. No,
it just was through faith.
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I know, I know, I know.
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But we heard a lot
about the tea party
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which really is a
subgroup of the Republican Party
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but it's made a lot of noises
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and I think contributed a lot
to the gridlock in Washington.
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What role do you
see the tea party
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and that whole movement
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and tendency playing in
the religious liberty field?
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Is it entering into it?
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Well, I think it's creating
instability in our country
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that we haven't
seen in a long time,
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not since prior to the civil war
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and or the civil rights
movements of the 50s and 60s.
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What I see is a confederate
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southern takeover of
the Republican Party.
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Now that may sound extreme
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and over the top with
our listening audience.
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But what I'm about to share
is a certain paradigm shift
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that took place in
the Republican Party
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starting in 1980.
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In 1980 Ronald
Reagan's handlers,
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not Ronald Reagan himself,
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I revered the guy personally,
think he was a great president.
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And in fact the
greatest president--
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I can ask you the real--
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Greatest
president in my lifetime.
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Flush you out of cover.
Did Ronald Reagan dye his hair?
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Yes, he did and so do I.
You are at least a realistic.
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And so do I and I
will till the day I die.
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I will keep my red hair.
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Now here Ronald Reagan was a
very user friendly president.
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I think even his political
opponents didn't dislike him.
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He was very beloved
by both sides really
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until the
Iran-Contra affair came.
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But in 1980
Ronald Reagan's handlers
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came up with a slogan
called Reagan Democrats
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and it was intended to reach
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the rustbelt
automobile industries,
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two counties
particularly in Michigan
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and also the entire south.
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And what's
interesting is it worked widely
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because what they did as they
invited them into their party.
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It was a bold
stroke, a bold move
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because here the old
Dominion South Democratic Party
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and forgive me for saying this,
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the reputation
was bigoted itself
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because of slavery,
because of Jim Crow laws,
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because of fighting
the Civil Rights Movement,
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Martin Luther King
Jr., etcetera, etcetera.
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We could go on with history.
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It's very evident even though
people don't like to hear it
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or deal with it or face it.
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And so in 1980 within five years
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in going into the next election
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where Ronan Reagan was
elected in a major sweep
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where Walter Mondale
only won his home state.
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And didn't it also coincide
with the rise of abortion
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as a political--
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Yes, yes, the Roe v. Wade helped
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the rise of Jerry
Falwell the more majority
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who Ronald Reagan
says I can't endorse you
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or you can't endorse
me but I endorse you.
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Okay, that's what he said
in the very famous speech.
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But what that did is it
brought the Democratic South
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in about five years
almost the entire south
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about 70 percent of
the south became Republican
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instead of 70 percent Democrat
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which was a huge paradigm shift.
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I mean, nobody ever
though that that could happen.
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The party of Lincoln
which was pro-civil rights,
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antislavery, anti Jim Crow laws,
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very pro-reconstruction
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and you know late 1800s
and right after the civil war.
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Ulysses S. Grant, the
president at that time
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making war on the Caucus clan
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who sought to revive
the southern confederacy
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and slavery and bigotry
was crushed by Ulysses S. Grant
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by sending their own troops--
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It's true. And
so on and so forth.
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Good grasp on history there.
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So they suddenly come
in the Republican Party
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but guess what, their values
come into the Republican Party.
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And what are those
values? Those values were this.
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And that's why it's
no longer in my opinion
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the Republican Party
in many ways because--
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Well, it has radically shifted.
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Because of the
emergence of the Tea Party
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within the Republican Party is
no longer the party of Lincoln.
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Why do I say that?
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Is because they
took many years for them
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to infuse us within
the Republican Party
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but it comes from
a predominant south,
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Tea Party south and
that is this whole idea that,
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that states rights are--
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that state rights
are ultimately sovereign
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over the federal government.
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That states can nullify
federal law at a wimp, okay.
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What the constitution says in
Article 6 of the constitution,
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they are called
the supremacy clauses.
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There are two
paragraphs that basically say
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that federal constitution trumps
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over any
disputes with state law,
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okay, and states cannot
nullify federal law at a wimp.
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Yes, the message hasn't
always gotten down south.
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Remember Governor Wallace
on the school house steps.
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But more
recently chief justice--
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what's his name down in- -
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Roy Moore. Roy Moore.
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In phase two of his
infamous political career,
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he is thumbing his
nose at federal law.
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But to be fair we can say
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this is
occurring in other states
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like Washington State, Colorado
over the marijuana issue,
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they're thumbing their
nose at federal law right now.
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But there has
been in the same period
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you defined has been a rise
of different states down south
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actually flying the
southern flag again,
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the rebel flag.
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So it's been very avert.
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Remember they've had debates
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whether appropriately even
fly it over the state house,
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in Georgia I think it was.
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It goes back to the
debates between Thomas Jefferson
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and Alexander Hamilton regarding
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the constitutional make up
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of what was best for
the constitutional system,
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what was best for
Democratic Republic
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and Jefferson said economically
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from his agrarian philosophy
versus the industrial north
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and in the
capitalist north with banking,
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Wall Street, the national bank
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and all those things
that Hamilton brought us
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which was the
economic system that we have.
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I mean, he was
an economic genius.
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Jefferson believed in austerity
without raising revenue
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which we see with
the Tea Party today.
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You do not see
that with Lincoln who--
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Abraham Lincoln at the time
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he was very Hamiltonian
in his economic philosophy,
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but he was very
pro-civil rights,
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very much marrying Jefferson,
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even though
Jefferson was proslavery
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in terms of religious freedom
which Thomas Jefferson gave us
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and other
aspects of civil rights
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that Jefferson promoted.
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So there is interesting aspects
to both sides of the party
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but what emerges is this began
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an ultimate takeover
of the Republican Party.
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Not only that but the southern,
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the southern part
of the United States
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the confederacy during
the time of the civil war,
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very much
believed in that the idea
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that the founders
intended our nation
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to be a Christian nation by law.
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In fact if you
look at the confederate
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constitution
during the civil war,
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they said that this nation
was founded by Christians,
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devout Christians
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and they intended this
to be a Christian nation.
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And so they said that we seek
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to make the laws
according to the Bible.
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In other words, the
southern confederacy
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was all about
establishing a theocracy.
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Abraham Lincoln in the
north during a civil war
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was not just about
freeing the slaves,
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it was also about economic
soundness, it was also about--
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You are into a good discussion
here and I agree with you.
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Now, you can
take it further back.
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You can trace the lineage of
lot of that to Crumble's rule
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and the Christian
republic in England.
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It took route
down south, absolutely.
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And Lincoln wanted to make sure
that we were one government,
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one government, one
nation with many states.
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Not many states
who were independent
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and can thumb their nose
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at the federal
government anytime they wanted.
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In fact, during the time
of constitutional founding,
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the Britain was laughing at us
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saying that we would be
forever weak in a confederacy,
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all right, of many states
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in which you had
different coinage,
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different bills,
different forms of money
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and so forth and also this idea
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that if they
can thumb their nose
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at federal
government anytime they want,
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that makes them
ultimately divided, weak,
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they couldn't
establish a national military,
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an arm standing army, a
navy, etcetera, etcetera.
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And so Hamilton
saw these problems,
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Jefferson did not
envision these things.
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Jefferson was weak.
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He was not the strong as we
like to make him ought to be.
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Well, I'll be careful, I know--
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I'm prejudice. I'm prejudice.
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Yes, I related to
Alexander Hamilton.
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I bet you're pro
with Jefferson too.
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Yeah, I'm very pro Jefferson
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on religious
freedom, absolutely.
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But, you know, there's been
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a lot of
interesting views over the years
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and one of the group
that sticks in our mind
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that know nothing party rule.
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I mean, there's been some crazy,
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very divisive
years of different times,
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what seems to me fairly unique
about the Tea Party phenomenon
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and you described
very well how it's moved in
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and pretty much
controlling elements
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of the Republican
Party is the recalcitrance,
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they will not
budge within the party.
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They forced their will.
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I don't think
there is a majority
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but they pretty
much forced their will
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and they're creating, you
know, gridlock in Washington.
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Now, when I look at
England particularly
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in that period I
spoke about the civil war,
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something comes out of gridlock.
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When parliament
cannot upright what you do,
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they go home and
they get an army.
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That's I don't know
that we're that close to,
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but that's
really what's at play.
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When government will not work
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because one
party will not budge,
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very unpleasant things happen.
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Of course, the civil war
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that's really what had happened.
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The south would, you
know, would not budge on slavery
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in spite of the
Missouri compromise.
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It would not budge.
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Where the Tea
Party has hammered away
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very successfully and
so do Thomas Jefferson.
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Thomas Jefferson was
very anti big government
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and so is the Tea Party
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and they
hammered it away at that
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and that was--
has sustained them
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in terms of their popularity.
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Even during the congressional
elections recently last year
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they stormed
back in the Congress
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taking both the senate
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and the house
for that very reason.
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But they are concerned
about the budget statement
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not political flaws.
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If they're concerned
about budgetary problems
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that will cause
the country to collapse
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because they
won't pass a new budget,
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you start to wonder
whether this is a death wish.
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But purposeful
gridlock in the name
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of forcing the
government to size down
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is very popular in the
minds of the American public
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and that has what
has sustained them.
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You may think that
they look like fools
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but in fact, poll and
poll, poll after poll has shown
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that that actually resonates
with the American people.
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Not just voters
in the red states
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but some middle of the voters
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in the Midwest states
have resonated with that.
00:12:07.92\00:12:10.73
And that has been hugely popular
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that they are the ones resisting
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the big giant federal government
00:12:15.66\00:12:18.01
that's so
intrusive into our lives.
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Well, you know, none of us
know the future absolutely,
00:12:21.09\00:12:23.18
certainly not on
politics but it seems to me
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if they have their way
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it will be Greece all over again
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on this side of the Atlantic.
00:12:29.56\00:12:30.84
But there is good news.
00:12:30.87\00:12:32.13
I really believe
with this paradigm shift,
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there is good
news on the other side
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and maybe not good
news but there is a equally
00:12:36.55\00:12:40.27
prophetic shift on the
left with the Democrats.
00:12:40.30\00:12:43.06
And I hope you
viewers are still watching
00:12:43.09\00:12:45.69
after this discussion.
00:12:45.72\00:12:46.88
It's very complex. Yes.
00:12:46.91\00:12:48.60
But now to the other side
00:12:48.63\00:12:51.88
and we can explain
that after the break.
00:12:51.91\00:12:53.19
Let's talk about how this
impacts religious freedom--
00:12:53.22\00:12:55.51
Yes, we will. In
views of liberty.
00:12:55.54\00:12:58.31
Stay with us we'll be
back after the short break
00:12:58.34\00:13:00.33
to continue this complicated
but very important discussion.
00:13:00.36\00:13:04.04