Welcome back to
the "Liberty Insider."
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Before the break
with guest Paul Anderson,
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you made a really
heavy statement about
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where we are
headed and the importance
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of religious freedom.
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And so let's
continue this discussion.
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When I first started
with religious liberty
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I used to quote what are my
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then favorite pieces of writing,
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"Tale of Two Cities," you know,
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because it's the best of
times and the worst of times.
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And I still think
with it, you know,
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we are well along on the
war on terror that scares
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most of us silly
from time to time
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but yet at the same time
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things have never
been better on many levels.
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So, you know, don't you agree?
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I think it's irresponsible
to say we've lost everything.
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Yeah. I think--
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Nobody is
knocking on my door yet,
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nobody has told me I
can't practice my faith
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or indeed they restrict me a
little bit of civil liberties
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but not greatly.
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But yet I can see evidence
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that the understandings
have changed in radical ways,
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even some laws
certainly relating
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to how this war on
terror has been fought.
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I can see that it's a big net
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that could catch many
beyond the real targets.
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I think that technology
has made our lives wonderful
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but I learned that in our cars
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the car
manufacturers have the capacity
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and certainly the insurance
agencies to monitor everything
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we are doing in our cars.
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The speed you drive, when
you braked, all of those things
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can be monitored
especially with the new cars.
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I like the Tesla, don't
have one yet, but that car
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is eternally connected
to the Tesla manufacturer.
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Are church salaries
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ever gonna rise to
want you to get a Tesla?
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No, I don't think so
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but if there's a
benevolent benefactor
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who wants to
donate one, I'd take it.
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But also when
you go to the stores
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and you use your loyalty card,
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that creates a record
of everything you bought.
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Oh, absolutely.
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So there could be
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and I don't want to
sound like chicken little
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but there could
be mechanisms around
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to tell whether or not
by diet or by your budget
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you are compliant
with your doctor's
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recommendations
and prescriptions.
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Oh, it's all
implicit in the information.
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Which is not any sinister intent
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as you said, but the technology
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has pretty much
mapped out our lives
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and everything can be recorded,
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analyzed and perhaps,
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perhaps accurately
given out what we are doing.
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A Seventh-day Adventist
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that works in a government
computer center in Washington
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came to my
office once and he said
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pretty much the same.
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He says, "You have no
idea what's going on."
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He says, since all this
is being gathered he says,
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they can tell a
Seventh-day Adventist
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and I thought about it.
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You know, your travel,
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your buying habits,
your telephone habits.
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He says, there will be huge hole
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around the Sabbath
when everything is grided.
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Interesting.
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Because obviously we are
not on our phones in church
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unless we're
texting and tweeting
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about the sermon, right?
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Yeah, but and that
in itself is not wrong
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but if someone was
wanting to isolate you,
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very easy to do.
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So we tend to think, well,
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they would look at the
church books, he is a member.
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But now that
isn't really the way.
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Yeah.
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And by you signing the
contracts for the cell phones
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or whatever media
that we are using,
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our internet provider,
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we give right to that
information to be collected.
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And what I found troubling
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and I keep telling
my kids to be careful,
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Facebook is bad
enough but you don't know
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what other people
are posting your picture
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and things about you on Facebook
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and then again
that's all gathered.
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It isn't just what
you would put there.
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Everything can
be interconnected.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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And even if that were
accurate, that's fine,
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but inferences can be drawn
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that might not be just because
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I know somebody doesn't mean
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that I'm party to what they do.
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That's true.
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And I guess what
it does boil down to
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is the
responsibility of the believer
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to practice
integrity at all times.
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Yeah, I mean, just I made a
illusion to Daniel over here
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but I think it's a
lesson we should take.
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We live before God regardless
of what is thought about it.
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Pray at that
window even if, you know,
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it's being recorded on
account of our machine.
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Do you remember that term?
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Yes. Yes.
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It was a bad PR name
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and so they've
changed it to something else.
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And, you know, I'm as spooked
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as anyone by what's happening
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but I generally don't
think it's a bad intent,
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but I think it's heading toward
a bad conclusion for all of us.
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Not just
Adventists, not just Christians,
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not just people of faith.
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I think such a
net is being drawn
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that the framers of the
Constitution's idea of privacy
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and the autonomy and
rights of the individual,
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it just
automatically dissipates.
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Technology tends to
change the contemporary dynamics
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on the principles
that we've held dear,
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privacy and autonomy,
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those things are
kind of sacrificed
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when you're on shared networks.
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Yeah.
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You know, I'm a bit of a lud.
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You know, I think it's
best to personally stay away
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but the new generation,
they don't have that thought.
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So the best to say to them is
"Live your life consistently."
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You know, there is a
problem with younger people.
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Well, all younger people had it
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but it's worse
I think currently.
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You know, they will
act a certain way in church
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but they can party
with the hearty of the terms
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and they might
somehow in their mind
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they reconcile it
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but it's not
reconcilable by surveillance.
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Yeah.
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It would undercut you horribly.
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You know, it's going to
challenge us as a church
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on how to communicate
and maintain relationships
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with our younger children.
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I have grandchildren,
the eldest is three and they,
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neither of them can read
but they can navigate YouTube.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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I know Apple computer and
this is not an ad for them
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but I am a pro Apple person.
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You know, they developed
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what they said was
an intuitive interface
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whether it
truly is we don't know
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but I've got to admit
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looking at some of
these kids I wonder,
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are they almost built
in with the aptitude for it
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or is it just a well
designed intuitive interface.
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But these kids are,
they seem to know it
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before they can talk or walk.
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They absorb technology.
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Little children are able
to manage multiple systems
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in order to look at a DVD.
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They can figure out
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how to turn this
thing, this thing,
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that thing on and get to watch
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the DVD they are interested in.
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But maybe all of
these mechanisms are like
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the fruit on a forbidden
tree that we are eating
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that dulls their sense
of what is right or wrong
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or in religious liberty,
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dulls our sense of
what duty holds for us.
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But I think technology is amoral
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but how we utilize it
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is dependent upon
our sense of values.
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Absolutely. Some is not.
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Yeah, that's true.
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I'm not anti TV
but I got to admit
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and we could have
a whole program on it
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that some of the carry away
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and things that are
going on are positively harmful
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and mesmerizing,
the whole mechanism.
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Like, I can
remember few years ago
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there was a spate
in Japan of TV programs
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that had strobing lights
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and thousands of
kids went into seizures.
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So it's not just how
your mind processes it,
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it just affects
the human mechanism
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in a subliminal way.
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Right.
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But there's no
question, isn't it,
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that religious liberty
is a threat or at least
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endangered by
these sort of dynamics
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and we need to be on our guard.
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Absolutely.
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On our guard and able
to process and provide
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what we need without giving
too much of our liberty away
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to facilitate other things.
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And if we are living in harmony
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with what's
right, best and proper
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we will be okay.
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If you ever want to
spend a sleepless night
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then just spend an hour
or two cruising the internet,
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YouTube included, and
look at some of the postings
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having to do with
martial law, internment camps,
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even guillotines
and the whole thing
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and of course don't forget
to end up with space aliens
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and all sorts of
nether creations perhaps like
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Atlanteans live under the crust
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or the surface of the ocean.
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All of these
things are floating around
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and you will be
sleepless for a long time.
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But I want to tell
you all of that aside
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which may contain
small kernels of truth.
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All of that
aside, religious freedom,
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civil liberty is
indeed under threat.
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A lot of it is being sacrificed
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in the battle against terrorism
which is a very real war.
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All of it is being
sacrificed in the culture war
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that has put up
hedonism and self-fulfillment
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ahead of religious
commitment and morality
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or moral godly living.
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The threat is real and
we should not be misled
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by the sitzkrieg if
you like in this war
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where things appear unchanged
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but beneath the
surface real changes,
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real threats
are rapidly emerging
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and will soon reveal
themselves full blown.
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This is Lincoln
Steed for Liberty Insider.
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