Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break we were getting
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into some real imponderables.
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And I'm sorry in the
way for starting it up.
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But you know, we're living
in a distinctly a typical times
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and this pending appointment
of Supreme Court Justice
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to create, just to
replace Justice Scalia
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is exposed against stability
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and what should be the ultimate
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of the three
departments of the government
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where's the last
resort, isn't it?
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Well, I don't
think in terms of that,
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a typical with
regard to this example...
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But it's, well, you're right.
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I know historically
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there's been some
cat fighting on this.
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Vice President Joe Biden said
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when George Bush
was the president,
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the Democrats were not going
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to confirm any of
his traditional nominees,
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in the last year
of his presidency.
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So that's not as if
this just arose yet.
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But it is causing
problems and you know that,
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because it creates the potential
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of a deadlocked court.
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No, I don't
think it's any problem.
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I mean without the appointment.
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Well, the longer we go
with just, the eight justices.
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The problem with
deadlocked court a problem,
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I agree it's better to
have an odd number of justices.
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However the
Supreme Court is not...
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The US Supreme Court, Excuse me.
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The US Constitution
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does not specify
the number of justices
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that need to be on
the US Supreme Court.
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That's true.
I've forgotten that.
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So, we can go around
with eight as long as we want.
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We've got some elderly justices,
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may we'll soon have seven.
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They will be
back to an odd number.
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Yeah, that's an
interesting point.
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I never thought of...
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I knew that it
didn't specify the number.
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So maybe we need to do
is, just cut the court.
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Will save tax payers money.
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I've got a very interesting book
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called Parkinson's Law,
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semi humorous book written
in England in '50s I think.
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But it was based
on actual studies
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and there is an optimum
size for any deliberative body.
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And as I remember,
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the optimum breaks
down somewhere around 20.
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Oh.
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And they say,
whenever that happens like,
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whenever the
king's privy council
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got to a certain size,
it becomes dysfunctional
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and then you
have to start chamber
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or a smaller group
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because you can't
have a major deliberation
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with too bigger group.
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So, 20 you say
is the optimum size.
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So we should have 20
Supreme Court justices.
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Not the optimum.
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That's the point where it goes.
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Oh, that's the point...
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Okay, okay.
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You know, with regards
to State Supreme Court,
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very often they have
fewer than nine justices.
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That's very common,
they'll have seven or five.
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Didn't the Romans at one
point have three councils?
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You're asking me
about history again.
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Anyhow let's talk
about American history
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of the Supreme Court.
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Helping out, you're saying,
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you're talking
to me about history
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and yet you say,
let's talk about history.
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Yeah, but you
know the Supreme Court,
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about the cases you know,
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let's see if we
can connect that.
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I myself connected a
bit, the Citizens United case.
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Yes, another great decision.
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Explain to our
viewers what that case was.
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That case had to
do with whether or not
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the Federal Government can
limit the ability of citizens
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to get together and
promote a political candidate.
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My answer is the First Amendment
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allows people to speak with
regard to political matters,
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contribute their money with
regard to political matters,
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and then Citizens United,
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they're creating a film that
dealt with political matters.
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And it seems to me
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that citizens should be
able to freely get together
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and support
whatever candidate they want.
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As a coalition
rather than individual.
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Well, it was a corporation,
they've been formed to do this.
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So the question again
like in the Hobby Lobby case
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that we discussed is
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"Do corporations have
constitutional rights?"
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And the answer is
that corporations exists
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as persons under the
law, and so there's no reason
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why they shouldn't
have constitutional rights,
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particularly when we're talking
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about closely
health corporations
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like the Green
Family owned Hobby Lobby.
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And so we're talking about
the constitutional rights...
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I'll throw real
well cut it on you.
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But first of all, I
need to make a statement
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that just an observational
one, but it seems to me
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that Citizens
United had a huge effect
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on the US presidential
election, or any election,
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and it neatly undo it and
did the McCain-Feingold campaign
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reform movement or actions.
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Well, I'm personally
against the limitations
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on campaign
funding, if it's voluntary.
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Now with regard to labor unions,
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it's not voluntary,
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because they say
you're going to get fired
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if you don't pay your dues.
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And again I reiterate,
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my shorthand way of
understanding religious liberty
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is it's not liberty,
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it's certainly
not religious liberty
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if on religious matters.
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You've been coerced if
there is any cohesion involved.
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Right, and so when citizens
decide to freely get together
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and support one
candidate or the other
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or if a citizen decides
to use his or her own money
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to support a candidate,
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I believe they
should be able to do that.
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And you know, there has been
a very interesting experiment
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in contributions in
the effective money.
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If you look at the
Republican primaries,
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right, we saw that large field
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narrowed down to Donald
Trump, as far as I can tell...
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He didn't spend much money.
He didn't spend much money.
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Bush spent
millions, millions were spent,
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Donald Trump
showed up on television.
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Yes, it's the rough equivalent
in the whole political scenario
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if the emperor has no clothes.
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Well, doesn't it
tend to disprove the idea
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that just throwing
money in the system...
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Well, in a way...
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I think what no one candidate on
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was the
readymade celebrity status
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that he had established
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through a number
of television programs
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particularly The Apprentice
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and you can't put a
price on that publicity.
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So he was already a known figure
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and then he practiced
disruptive public relations
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to say, even the
more outrageous things
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gets you publicity.
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I can remember in
Australia years ago,
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when we had a very real
religious liberty problem
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following the
Lindy Chamberlain case,
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where her child
have been taken by dingo,
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she was in prison for many years
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accused of killing her.
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But religion
was thrown round is,
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she was a religious fanatic
and all that sort of stuff.
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And the press was very
bad for her church, very bad.
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And a public figure,
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Seventh-day Adventist was
on the major television program
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as the doctor like
on the tonight show.
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We brought him into
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and ask him, how
can we deal with this,
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how can we solve all
this bad press on the church
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and we've been
vilified and accused
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at being child
murderers and what's...
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And he says, well
he says, I don't know,
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he says but I figure any
publicity is good publicity
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and it will turn out well.
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I'm not really sure
of totally about them.
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But to some degree
and Islam in America
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is showing this to be true.
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I mean, there's
pretty bad press.
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All this just cavalcade
of fundamentalist Muslims
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blowing themselves
up and other people.
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But they've never had
more interest in Islam
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or more accessions
in western countries
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in the recent history.
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So to some degree
publicity is publicity.
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And we've seen that
working in this campaign
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and ironically
this major candidate
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didn't spend very much
money but he got the publicity.
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See, that's what
we're discussing before.
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Freedom of choice is involved.
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You can vote for a candidate,
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you can use your money
to help support a candidate.
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That's all consistent
with the First Amendment,
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the freedom of speech.
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And so, I'm against
government limitations
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on the right of
people to spend the money,
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just like I'm against
government limitations
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on the right to vote.
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And I think in the
sense that's been enunciated,
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we should all be Republicans
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often said they were
for limited government.
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Not always
worked that in practice.
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But when you're talking
about religious liberty,
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that's the best approach.
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The government
should be hands off
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as the First Amendment says,
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no restrictions on
the free exercise thereof.
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Right, in fact, Lincoln...
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Now funding...
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we'll just say
funding but no establishment,
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in other words no
neat cozier arrangements
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where the state is
supporting the church.
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You hit up on a point, I
think it's incredibly important
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and that is the
growth of government
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is bad for religious liberty.
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Because when government is small
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and impacts the
individual very little,
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then there is little
opportunity for conflict
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between religious
belief and the government.
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But when the
government becomes all pervasive
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and constantly
impacts and affects your life,
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then there is huge opportunity
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for conflict with
religious liberty.
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And that's what
we're seeing today.
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Yeah, I know that's a lot
of what we're dealing with.
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And we got be
fair to government.
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It's not full of
sinister individuals,
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least on to the
west that are after...
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you or I particularly,
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but I think complexity
of the modern society,
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the technological advances,
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it's providing
constantly if not the necessity,
00:10:32.39\00:10:35.83
the overwhelming
temptation for the government
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to be involved and
we need to resist that.
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It's filled with
individuals who think,
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they know better
what to do with my life.
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Yes, well you said it.
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I didn't want to
put it that naked.
00:10:47.81\00:10:50.31
But Supreme Court is definitely,
00:10:50.35\00:10:52.98
back to where we started.
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The Supreme Court
and the Hobby Lobby
00:10:54.38\00:10:56.35
which we have slightly
different interpretations
00:10:56.38\00:10:58.99
but still they erred on the side
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for my perspective
of empowering people
00:11:01.49\00:11:04.86
with the religious
faith and conviction.
00:11:04.89\00:11:07.26
That's exactly where Hobby Lobby
00:11:07.30\00:11:09.06
I believe is a huge
advantage and a huge victory
00:11:09.10\00:11:13.30
because the
Supreme Court came down
00:11:13.34\00:11:15.40
definitively on the
side of religious freedom.
00:11:15.44\00:11:18.71
And do you think
that court saw it that way
00:11:18.74\00:11:20.88
or that was a by-product.
00:11:20.91\00:11:22.24
Do you think that
they followed through
00:11:22.28\00:11:24.45
on a long-term commitment
to uphold religious liberty.
00:11:24.48\00:11:29.05
I think the five
and the majority did,
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the conservative justices said
00:11:31.79\00:11:33.99
that what we're concerned
about is religious freedom,
00:11:34.02\00:11:37.83
and we're going to
uphold that over other interests
00:11:37.86\00:11:40.60
such as interest
in promoting abortion,
00:11:40.63\00:11:43.26
interest in
promoting women's issues.
00:11:43.30\00:11:46.40
I consider religious freedom
to be the number one freedom
00:11:46.43\00:11:51.47
that gives us
all the opportunity
00:11:51.51\00:11:53.81
to worship God in a way we want,
00:11:53.84\00:11:56.38
keeps us from being compelled
to support religious ideologies
00:11:56.41\00:12:01.02
that we disagree with
and it's the main spring
00:12:01.05\00:12:04.22
that seems to me
for individual rights.
00:12:04.25\00:12:07.39
I must admit that when
I go shopping nowadays,
00:12:07.42\00:12:10.69
which I do on occasion
00:12:10.73\00:12:12.06
traveling for
liberty appointments
00:12:12.09\00:12:14.83
and I drive past
the Hobby Lobby store,
00:12:14.86\00:12:16.73
I look at it a
little bit differently,
00:12:16.77\00:12:18.53
because it's proven to
be one of the seminal cases
00:12:18.57\00:12:22.17
recently on
religious accommodation.
00:12:22.20\00:12:24.44
Not for the employee
00:12:24.47\00:12:26.64
which is where many
of our cases devolve,
00:12:26.68\00:12:29.64
but in this case the employer
00:12:29.68\00:12:31.68
granted the right to
withhold in this case,
00:12:31.71\00:12:34.98
in medical insurance
00:12:35.02\00:12:36.62
because the
employer might take...
00:12:36.65\00:12:39.19
employee rather might
take advantage of some closures
00:12:39.22\00:12:42.66
that were
against the deeply held
00:12:42.69\00:12:44.09
religious
viewpoint of the employer.
00:12:44.13\00:12:47.40
This might be problematic
00:12:47.43\00:12:48.83
and I can certainly
give complicating arguments.
00:12:48.86\00:12:51.53
For example, what if
the employee wanted to use
00:12:51.57\00:12:56.07
some fitness allocation
from the employing organization,
00:12:56.10\00:13:00.14
and maybe jazzercise
that would go against
00:13:00.18\00:13:03.18
the religious
sensibilities of music.
00:13:03.21\00:13:05.81
But in reality, accruals aside,
00:13:05.85\00:13:09.18
this is a great
confirmation of the right
00:13:09.22\00:13:12.29
for an employer for a
religious accommodation.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
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