Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Greg Hamilton
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000326A
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00:28 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:30 This is a program bringing you news, views, 00:33 discussion, argumentation 00:35 even on religious liberty events 00:37 because religious liberty is the issue 00:39 all around the world right now. 00:41 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine, 00:44 and my guest on the program Gregory Hamilton, 00:48 President of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association. 00:50 Good to be here, Lincoln, thanks. 00:51 And repeat guest. Thanks for having me. 00:53 Always good for a good discussion. 00:55 Thank you. 00:57 What are we gonna talk about today? 00:59 Well, we're gonna talk about the rising, 01:01 the rise of the state, the all powerful state. 01:06 This is a topic that can take three or four episodes, 01:09 but let's try it in one. 01:10 I have a friend 01:12 who often writes for Liberty Magazine 01:14 from the Rutherford Foundation. 01:16 Ah, yes. 01:17 And he's written a book recently on this 01:19 called the Nation of Wolves, 01:20 and it's quite shocking to read the book. 01:23 Is that John Whitehead? 01:25 Yeah, John Whitehead. Yeah. 01:26 Well received, I noticed, 01:29 I think Rand Paul wrote the preface to it, 01:31 of course that doesn't make it mainstream. 01:33 Yeah, right. 01:34 But... 01:36 But Rand Paul has some good ideas. 01:37 Absolutely. 01:38 Many people are very troubled of what they see our shift, 01:41 and we even have 01:43 an article in Liberty called 01:46 slouching towards totalitarianism, 01:49 something like that. 01:51 Because I think most people, it's a cud to them that... 01:54 Slouching toward democratic totality. 01:56 Yeah, you got the issue. 01:57 Right here. 01:59 And then the key there is democratic. 02:02 People think 02:03 that these things are enforce upon societies 02:06 where, you know, it's always dangerous to invoke 02:09 Adolf Hitler, but people should remember 02:12 that was a democratic Germany at the time 02:14 and through democratic process, 02:16 they brought this man to power 02:18 and with the enabling act actually handed him... 02:23 Dictatorial powers. 02:25 Essentially fascist power, 02:27 we think of fascism as just Mussolini 02:29 but they were the two fascists... 02:32 Well, there is a book by Friedrich Hayek, 02:34 who was a famous economist 02:36 that immigrated from Hungary 02:39 many years ago, 02:41 in the 30s I believe 1930s, 02:45 and he wrote a book called The Road to Serfdom 02:48 which became the... 02:49 I believe he won the Nobel Prize for economics. 02:53 And in the book he talks about 02:57 social planning or government planning. 02:59 And he says if you think that 03:01 communism is the only form of socialism, 03:04 he says that's wrong. 03:06 There is democratic socialism, 03:08 and he says on the right there is fascism, 03:10 it's government planning, it's socialism in another form, 03:13 but it's socialism on the right and people forget about that. 03:17 People forget that socialism is also on the right, 03:21 and a lot of people on the right 03:23 don't want to accept that, 03:25 and they don't like the accusation of fascism 03:28 when it comes up. 03:30 But in the classic form, 03:32 we are drifting into that in many ways. 03:34 Even though on a simple level 03:36 I can say living in the United States, 03:39 you know what's certainly the most benign system 03:42 that I know in the world 03:44 and then they're knocking on my door... 03:47 I would say we're drifting more towards democratic socialism. 03:50 But structurally we moving that way. 03:52 And the reaction to it is a factious reaction. 03:56 And I think we have to be careful of, 03:58 and fascism really has a strong populist element to it, 04:03 um, that basically says, 04:06 hey, you know, 04:08 we feel that so many people 04:12 who are immigrating from Mexico, 04:14 it should stop, 04:15 you know, we should do such and such and such and such, 04:19 and they make their proclamation that 04:21 Muslim should not even be allowed to enter the country. 04:25 I mean, and to make such 04:29 grose over simplications and proclamations 04:33 leads toward that sense that you have to say, 04:37 or you have to ask yourself can it withstand, 04:40 can the constitution withstand such an onslaught, 04:43 or on the other hand 04:45 whether it comes to Obama's healthcare plan 04:48 or any other issue. 04:50 From the left, 04:52 the rise of the state is very much there. 04:54 Is that what we want or do we not want it. 04:56 It seems like we're either going 04:58 towards democratic socialism run amok 05:00 or the reaction to it 05:02 which is the other pendulum 05:03 potentially fascism on the right. 05:07 I agree with you 05:09 but to try to define it for our viewers, 05:12 I think a lot of what you're describing 05:14 these are the, the operative actions of a factious mindset. 05:20 But what is fascism? 05:21 Fascism is according to 05:25 on Google here, 05:26 you just look it up 05:28 and it defines it as an authoritarian, 05:29 a nationalistic right wing system of government 05:32 and social organization. 05:34 In general, extreme right wing authoritarian 05:37 or an intolerant views or practice. 05:39 And in Merriam Webster, it says, 05:42 one often capitalized a political philosophy movement 05:46 or regime as that of the factious that exalts nation 05:50 and often raised about the individual 05:52 and that stands for a centralized 05:54 autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, 05:57 severe economic and social regimentation 06:00 and forcible suppression of opposition. 06:04 Right, that's what I wanted to bring in. 06:05 Rebel fascists what was that, this is where the sticks 06:08 are all bundled together and it's the state, 06:11 the state has power, 06:12 it's the worship of the power of the state 06:15 and, and its principles that supersedes 06:18 all individual rights and so on and so... 06:21 And if you think about it 06:22 with the centralization of power 06:24 that's happening in the United States 06:25 that I think is unconstitutional 06:28 rather than the three elements, 06:30 I think more and more the executive rules today 06:33 and the mechanisms, 06:36 you know, two big defile even in 2008, 06:38 we would support the financial instruments 06:42 ahead of the people. 06:44 But what causes that? That's fascism. 06:45 A congress that won't act, that defies a pressure... 06:49 Well, it's the same cause as in Rome, 06:51 why the Caesars and the despots came 06:54 because the senate became weak and vacillating and so on. 06:57 But when the senate... 06:59 When they aggregate their role, they allow despotism. 07:02 In this case the despotism of the state. 07:05 When the senate in the house obstruct 07:08 any proposal coming from the White House or vice versa 07:12 where the president vetoes everything 07:14 congress puts forward. 07:16 It creates basically a break down 07:18 of our three branches of government. 07:19 Some say that's not true, 07:21 but in fact it seems to be what's taking place. 07:25 Now you even have a congress 07:27 refusing to even meet 07:31 with a Supreme Court nominee. 07:33 So, the system has become dysfunctional 07:35 and something will move into the vacuum. 07:36 Exactly. 07:38 And... 07:39 You know, 07:40 I'll freely admit to that I'm... 07:42 It's a huge potential... 07:43 I have huge fuzzies for dear old Richard Nixon, 07:45 who embarrassed himself greatly, 07:48 you know, there's many levels to his... 07:51 It's interesting you should say you weren't fuzzy 07:52 for Richard Nixon, that's interesting. 07:54 Well, that's right but he was-- 07:56 No, of course not. 07:58 But he was actually quite a modern republican. 07:59 Right. 08:00 But he did things that I think deserved 08:03 the impeachment that he avoided by leaving. 08:05 Of course. 08:06 But, you know, now I've lived through several eras 08:10 where things are done way beyond that. 08:12 Powers taken, 08:16 abusive power and things that are 08:18 so out of the principle of the constitution, 08:20 and you know, they happen from time to time 08:22 but when they're not accounted, 08:25 we are on our drift toward 08:27 what amounts to some sort of fascist 08:29 or dictator view. 08:33 You and I know that law is set on precedent, 08:36 and if you allow that precedents to accumulate, 08:39 at the light point how can you ever counter that. 08:43 I mean, even the Iraq War 08:44 which is now trendy for people to say they are opposed to it 08:47 because it's so abundantly self evident 08:50 but that whole era, 08:51 we should have been seeing hearings 08:54 at the very least, 08:55 I mean serious hearings and perhaps 08:58 I think from that would have come consequences 09:02 but none of that happened, 09:03 and so, now the threshold's very high, 09:06 almost anything can happen 09:07 and there will be no calls for impeachment 09:10 or a change or whatever. 09:14 But how does religion factor into all these, I've read... 09:16 Well, because civil liberties 09:18 are the key to a democratic system, 09:20 the United State, the most democratic, 09:23 the most free of the systems, civil liberties are the key 09:26 and religious liberty as Hillary Clinton herself 09:28 one of our Liberty dinner said, 09:31 you can pretty much tell 09:32 it's a litmus test on civil liberties, 09:34 how religious liberty goes 09:36 and religious liberty is being toyed with 09:39 redefined dismissed in the United States today. 09:45 How does religion really affect this discussion 09:47 and I was reading a book by Robert Erickson 09:51 from Pacific Lutheran Institute 09:54 or Lutheran Pacific Institute, 09:56 I forget how you name that, but it's in the Seattle area 10:00 and he is considered 10:02 the leading scholar on the holocaust 10:04 and especially the rise of Nazi Germany 10:07 and it's called a complexity in the holocaust, 10:12 churches and universities in Nazi Germany 10:16 and it talks about the Weimar Republic and 10:19 how they were way ahead of their time 10:21 in terms of democratic reforms, 10:22 they were going down the road of, 10:25 you know, rights and so on, civil rights, 10:29 they were sort of the, the arch reformers... 10:34 It was a very liberal government? 10:35 It's a very liberal government 10:37 and at that time of course 10:39 you had the Lutheran church in Germany 10:42 which was very conservative 10:44 and they were wanting a political and economic savior 10:49 which they had with the Treaty of Versailles 10:52 after the, in the aftermath of World War I 10:54 with Woodrow Wilson, President Woodrow Wilson 10:56 and so on, 10:58 that basically was a failure 11:00 but it basically put all the owners of World War I 11:03 and the death on Germany which they had to then, 11:07 you know, in terms of war reparations pay back 11:10 and it really humiliated Germany 11:12 and so they were looking desperately for a savior, 11:15 and so Hitler who was a back water politician at best 11:20 and not very popular, 11:21 but a socialist and a fascist 11:25 in the style of Mussolini and Franco of Spain 11:29 and Mussolini of Italy 11:31 was propped up by the Lutheran 11:34 or the Christian right of that time. 11:37 Because he was promising moral renewal 11:40 which he delivered. 11:41 Which was totally fake, I mean it looks like some billboards 11:44 we see even around the United States right now. 11:46 Pray for the nation 11:47 with the picture of a particular candidate. 11:48 Well, it was spiritually fake, 11:50 but it wasn't procedurally fake, 11:52 I mean, the brown shirts went around 11:54 and just like the-- 12:00 trying to think of the religious police 12:01 in Saudi Arabia or the Taliban, they enforce morality. 12:06 And then when Hitler came into power, 12:08 they rounded up the prostitutes and the transgenders. 12:11 He pretended to be religious but then when he became, 12:14 when their diet which is their congress gave 12:18 Hitler unobstructed powers... 12:22 The enabling act. The enabling act. 12:24 That was after the rugsted emergency 12:26 and just like after 9/11 everyone felt threatened 12:30 so rather than deal with all of the details here, 12:33 we give you the power. 12:34 But what did he do? 12:36 As soon as he got that power, he basically dammed religion, 12:39 he dammed the Lutheran church, 12:40 he restricted it so terribly 12:43 and the other factor in this was the Catholic Church, 12:47 the Catholic Church was very reluctant 12:49 to go along with Lutheran Church 12:51 and propping up somebody like Hitler. 12:53 Over a time 12:55 they came across the line to do just that. 12:58 Okay, he signed-- 13:00 But fortunately, I mean, 13:02 I will hand this to the Catholics 13:04 for them being reluctant. 13:06 I mean that was a good thing, 13:07 I mean, when I was reading this book about that, 13:10 how they were so reluctant to come on board, 13:13 that suggested a lot to me. 13:16 I've read some of those same books 13:18 and for the history what we need to tell people. 13:21 Hitler made a lot of cuing noises 13:24 about religious-- 13:28 In fact, he said that 13:29 the Germans state is founded on freedom of religion. 13:32 You know, he actually said that. 13:35 Then he signed a concordant with Rome 13:39 but within Germany, 13:41 faithful Roman Catholics objected. 13:44 Yes. 13:45 There was some of the large numbers, 13:48 some of the bishops ran in Rome's line, 13:51 but many of the Catholics went to court, 13:56 refused to support the regime 13:58 and the church from Rome 14:00 didn't backed them up and they were executed. 14:02 We'll be back after a short break 14:04 to continue this interesting voyage through history. |
Revised 2016-08-04