Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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with guest Paul Anderson.
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We've been doing our best
to stir up viewer antagonism.
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But we're dealing-- you know,
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we're dealing with
the heavy duty topic here.
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Oh, yes.
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You know, politics and religions
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supposedly the two
things that can stir people up.
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And I'm suggesting
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a discussion of
Clash of Civilizations
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as part of the war on terror.
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So we got
everything turned together.
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Yeah, I think
the clash of cultures
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and civilizations
are really based on fear.
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And if we can be more
informed, we'll have less fear,
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especially, as in a
phobic fear of other people,
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if we know more about them
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and know more about
their philosophical pillars
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and the things that
are important to them.
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Right, well, let
me tell you one--
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and I don't know, I don't
think you meant it this way,
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you're probably
suggesting us to know the other.
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But I'm quite certain
that a big part of the--
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of the burgeoning
distrust of the US and the West,
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is because many
in the Muslim world
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equate what the US
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and its allies
do as Christianity.
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I mean, we know it--
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all the time on this program
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saying this is not
a Christian nation,
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not structurally.
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It was once a Christian society,
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but it may not even be
overwhelmingly that anymore.
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But they judge us
from the other side,
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as all of our
actions are indistinguishable
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from Christianity and
that needs to be clarified.
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There are many
things that are done,
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not so particularly by the US
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'cause I'm not
wanting to pick on the US
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but by western powers
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that might have a
history of Christianity.
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But the actions
of the government
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have nothing to do whatsoever,
good, bad or different
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with Christian
ideology or doctrine.
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And so, you know,
the actions, some immoral
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from the point of view of Islam,
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now they taken
as a designed slide
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and a state projection
of a religious viewpoint.
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I think often times the--
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we are looked at
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from an our
priority perspective that,
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that is an imprecise template
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and, so people will see us
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based upon how
they're told we are.
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And we have the same problem.
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But when there's
exposure and experience,
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many of the people
from other nations,
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who've come to the US
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for college and
university studies,
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have a different
perspective when they go back.
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Because they've seen that
there is a power of choice.
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And that Americans
are not monolithic.
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And Americans who travel abroad
see that people in other places
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are not monolithic as well.
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You're right and that's
been a real plus for the West
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and the US in particular.
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They are training a leadership
class in many countries
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and particularly some
of the Islamic countries.
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But even as you're
saying that I realize
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that we're hitting
ourselves in this regard now,
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because an
awful lot now of the--
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the
refugees/immigrants, they come
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and they did they are
not on a professional level
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and they're in a
very low income area
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or crime ridden, drugs.
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It's sort of the--
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it's not exactly- for
a society or a religion.
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And they could easily,
in fact, almost certainly
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will get a highly skewed version
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of the role of law and
order and faith in this country,
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where they would
get a different one
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if they went to Chapel
Hill, was it North Carolina?
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You know, they are very,
not that everyone is saint,
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but I mean, it's
a church going...
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In Chapel Hill? I'm joking.
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No, but, you know, what I mean.
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Little-- or I could
say, middle America...
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One of the things that...
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Little America is
not the same as downtown
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anywhere near the Y.M.C.A.
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or the unemployment bureau
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where this thing happened and...
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But some of the
projected hedonism
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that happens on
college campuses,
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in university campuses
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might be
disconcerting to an immigrant
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because of the--
the largest perhaps,
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of the college life.
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They may see
that as frightening.
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But another...
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But these are cultural clash
then that's the culture clash,
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what I was saying.
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Right.
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It may be that, if we looked
at the biblical exhortation
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to care for strangers
and to afford strangers'
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opportunities in our midst,
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if we took that to heart
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and embraced some as we have.
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I mean, the United
States has probably
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a more open immigration plan
than any of the other nations.
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But this
situation currently begs
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some dialogue and discussion
about screening etcetera.
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But once here,
once here, what needs,
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I think our Immigration
and Naturalization Department
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might do well to
look at preparation
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for the second generation.
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Because if the second
generation experiences
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the power of the
American economic engine
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and the academics available here
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they'll be very different
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from the experience
that their parents had,
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which is the immigration
story of America from the 1800s.
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You know, I can follow
through I got to be careful.
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I don't want to be an expert
and I just saw it or an ex--
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I don't want to
put myself as an expert
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and then inadvertently insult
rather this country or another.
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But I did see in Australia,
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the immigration system
and it was pretty open.
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I would say
Australia is like the US.
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Because Australia to
this day still wants people.
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I'm not saying
America doesn't like people
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but it doesn't
feel a need for people.
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It will take them
as a matter of charity
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but Australia
needs them, wants them
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and it is gathering them.
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But they don't
just bring them there.
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There's a full
process where they house them,
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they have
training sessions about
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how to fit into
society and so on,
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I think it's for
about three months.
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Then jobs are found for them.
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But I get the feeling
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that more and more
since the end of the Cold War,
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immigrants come to the US
and they sort of landed here
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and then you're on your own.
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Perhaps sometimes they have
someone that signs for them.
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But that doesn't
mean they necessarily,
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they backstop as they
move out into the society.
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That's true but then, you
see the tremendous work ethic
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and it's not uncommon
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for the second generation
of an immigrant family
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to have their
students in a university,
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medical doctors,
teachers etcetera.
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So the father or mother may--
the father may be cutting grass
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and the mother may be a maid.
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But the children
may become doctors.
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But you are countering
what said in the media now
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and it's not true
that the immigrants
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are much more aggressive
about self improvement,
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usually the long term residents.
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They've got this aspiration
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as they come into
a new environment.
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And there's just
opportunity in abundance here.
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Food may be more accessible here
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then perhaps
where they came from
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and you go in the
average grocery store
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and you have the
challenge of so many choices.
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Yeah, yeah.
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There'll be 300
versions of baked beans.
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You know, you see
all the red peppers
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and the green peppers
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and yellows
peppers and you know.
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And thank God
for that abundance.
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May be this is a
good time lead to a story.
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I went to Latvia years ago
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and I love the
Russian style bread they had.
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So I took an extra
case the next time I went,
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an empty suitcase.
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And I bought 60
some loaves of bread.
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Wow.
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And I still
remember all the ladies
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gathered around in
the department store
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and ordered
three loaves of this,
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five of that, six of that.
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And the president of the union
was with me and ordering for me
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and after a while he said to me,
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he says, you know,
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bread is very
expensive for the Latvians.
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It was sort of a
wake up call for me.
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Wow.
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We take things for
granted but in some places
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and then the women were
laughing among themselves
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and so I asked
what they were saying
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and someone says, "Oh,
he must be going to Moscow."
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They didn't have much bread
but there's nothing in Moscow.
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Respective matters.
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This is still in
the land of plenty,
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you are right.
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But, you know, what's your
take on where we're going on
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as I say presuming that
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there's a certain
clashes of civilizations.
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Do you see it improving
or getting worse to it?
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I mean the war on terror
is showing us the crazies
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within the system and
they are not all Muslim.
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Mostly, I think by the
nature of the terrorist thing
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but you know there
was a bombing at a--
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or a shooting at,
at a clinic recently
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so there are several
elements that were...
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Yeah, I think our
eschatology declares
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that we can expect
to see more and worse.
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But that's why we
have to teach, preach
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and proclaim
security in Jesus Christ
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so that in the face of
all these trials and traumas,
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we'll still be steady.
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Absolutely.
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And I think that's the best way
for you and I to look at that.
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We can't solve all of it
we should be ignorant of it.
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But we have to
have a hope beyond that
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we for something that
the Lord has promised.
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So true.
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I hope that going
forward our chaplains
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and believers
will be forward looking
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and faithfully
thinking of how we can
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help the strangers in our midst.
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A few days ago I
was in Istanbul, Turkey
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actually, just about the time
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when the Turkish
Air Force shot down
00:10:45.84\00:10:49.24
a Russian fighter
plane much to the dismay
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of every peace
loving person in the world.
00:10:52.28\00:10:55.45
But what caught my
attention in Istanbul
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was the Hagia Sophia,
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the museum now maintained
by the secular government
00:11:00.39\00:11:04.36
of majority Islamic Turkey.
00:11:04.39\00:11:08.13
But the Hagia Sophia was
once the Church of Christendom,
00:11:08.16\00:11:13.13
at the time
when the Roman Empire
00:11:13.17\00:11:14.67
was based in Constantinople
00:11:14.70\00:11:17.77
as Istanbul was once known.
00:11:17.81\00:11:21.04
At that time,
this was the big church
00:11:21.08\00:11:23.65
into 1,000 years
before St. Peters.
00:11:23.68\00:11:26.98
This was the massive
structure that represented
00:11:27.02\00:11:29.88
not only the power of Rome
00:11:29.92\00:11:31.92
and its sponsorship of religion,
00:11:31.95\00:11:34.52
but it was the seat
of the Christian church.
00:11:34.56\00:11:38.53
That of course is changed.
00:11:38.56\00:11:40.06
And the Ottoman
Turks ruled for many years
00:11:40.10\00:11:43.67
much of the world and threatened
00:11:43.70\00:11:45.60
the rest of the
world from that base.
00:11:45.63\00:11:47.90
It's worth
remembering that Martin Luther,
00:11:47.94\00:11:51.11
a major proponent
of the Reformation,
00:11:51.14\00:11:55.24
probably would not have
survived his challenge to Rome,
00:11:55.28\00:11:59.21
but for the paranoia
00:11:59.25\00:12:00.78
at the time of the threat
of Islamic invasion of Europe,
00:12:00.82\00:12:06.52
there has been a clash
of religions for millennia.
00:12:06.55\00:12:12.36
Not just the crusades,
but a continuing struggle
00:12:12.39\00:12:16.40
between
competing visions of God,
00:12:16.43\00:12:19.73
Allah and Jesus has
characterized what we call
00:12:19.77\00:12:24.44
the development of
Western civilization.
00:12:24.47\00:12:28.14
We should not wonder
then in these last days
00:12:28.18\00:12:31.28
we're seeing this
continued clash of religion.
00:12:31.31\00:12:36.15
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:36.18\00:12:38.92