Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is a program
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that brings you
discussion, news, views,
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up-to-date information,
all on religious liberty,
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both of 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 Greg Hamilton,
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President of the Northwest
Religious Liberty Association.
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Thanks for having me.
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Now that's a good ticket
into our discussion here,
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because let's talk
about recent events
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in the light of
religious liberty.
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Now you would have to be
from far sight of the moon
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to have not known
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that in recent months the
United States was convulsed
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as I've never seen it before
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by where it was
going with its leadership
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and the whole electro process
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and it brought
into question in my view
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almost everything
about our civil society
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including how we
treat other people
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and how we
treat other religions.
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What's your take on it?
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Well, if you look at
the whole immigration ban
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that's been proposed.
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Well, that was my tip for you.
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You know, the
immigration ban suggests
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that your nationality
and your religion is suspect
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and so that's part
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of the "New
Wedding" requirements
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which is being challenged
as potentially unconstitutional
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by the State of
Hawaii as we speak.
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It was challenged.
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The first ban which
was widely unconstitutional
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was challenge by Washington
States Attorney General
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and the Night Circuit...
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They used the
establishment close
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as the rational.
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Right or part of it
and mainly due process,
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but yes, the due
process clause was used saying
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that there was
no due process here
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and that they
couldn't sight a real threat.
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Okay, because
there was no threat
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or never has there been a threat
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from those
particular seven countries.
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That's what's fascinating to me.
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Now you made, you said something
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that I want to
follow through on this
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'cause this
crossed my mind before.
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In banning everybody at
first from those countries,
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majority Muslim countries,
the assumption was made
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that these are Muslim countries,
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they are synonymous
with their religion,
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now and
immediately, demographically
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that somewhat true.
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Sure, sure.
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But I really
don't like that concept
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that if you're a
Syrian, you're a Muslim,
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if you're an American,
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you're some sort of
a generic Protestant,
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you know, that's
what's developing,
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and then in Russia
we're in the middle
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of seeing their war on terrorism
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where to be a Russian
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is to be an Eastern
Orthodox nationalist.
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Well, not only that,
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but what was really driving
this whole immigration ban
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was a sense of
Christian nationalism.
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Now you're getting the vibe.
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That we have to
rescue Christianity worldwide
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especially in the Middle East.
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So it almost had a
crusade tinge to it,
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which made it suspect,
now that, that said, I mean...
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There is a real threat.
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There's a real threat
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to the existence of Christianity
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in the Middle East.
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So to say that there
isn't one is also fallacious,
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so we have to be careful
how we package this discussion.
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And how come they didn't
include Saudi Arabia in that.
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Yeah, isn't that curious,
I mean the main offender,
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you know, it all
boils down to one word, oil.
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And let's just not pick
on Saudi Arabia the country,
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but if you're talking
about Islam the threat,
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which was really
the subtext here,
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then the dangerous
part of Islamic ideology
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that we're dealing with
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does demonstrably
come from Saudi Arabia
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and at the very
least the US should use
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its undeniable leverage
to restrict the promulgation.
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Well, but
everything will always emanate
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out of Saudi Arabia
because I mean that's,
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that's the homeland of Muhammad.
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Of course, Mecca, Medina.
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And that's where the
Sunni, Shia split occurred
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and that Sunni split
is still very dynamic
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whether we're talking
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the Ottoman
Empire based in Turkey
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or whether we're talking
about Iran and the Persians,
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umm, and so forth.
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So you have the
emergence of ISIS
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which is
basically a Sunni group.
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Okay.
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A little further than
that it's a Saudi group.
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That's true,
Sunni Saudi and Iraqi.
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I remember when it first
caught the attention of everyone
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and they first
started cutting off heads.
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I read the
demographic breakdown of the,
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at that time they
thought about 15,000 fighters,
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7,000 of them were Saudis.
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Wow. That's incredible.
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It's way out of
proportion to the Islamic world.
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Yeah, and when you consider
that most of the terrorist
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attacks have occurred
on our soil are home-grown.
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Yes, they may have been
influenced and inspired by
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whether they had
relationships to the Taliban
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or other terrorist
groups like Al-Qaeda,
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ISIS whether in Pakistan,
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Afghanistan, Saudi
Arabia, or wherever.
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The point is that
they have been home-grown.
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They're actually
already US citizens.
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Now how are you
going to vet something
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10, 20 years down the road,
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when somebody is all
of a sudden been inspired
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only in a matter of
days or even months?
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So that to me is
very difficult to detect
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and that's why our country,
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I think is before
along we're in danger
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turning into a
major police state.
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I agree and that's,
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that sounds
like another program.
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We need to have
all discussed on it,
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but let me try what
was that TV station,
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the TV program where
the six priest would say,
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and then they give
you a choice, right?
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Could you say that again?
Yeah, so the real, let's...
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here's the question
greatest threat to the US
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global warming or
Islamic fundamentalism?
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Well, you know,
I'll be honest with you.
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I'm rather hawkish
in my foreign policy.
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I'm not a liberal when
it comes to foreign policy
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and I really believe
that our presidents have done
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what they've had to do.
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Now, some people would disagree
about invasion into Iraq.
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I personally
believe that it was,
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it was, it was necessary.
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That's your personal view,
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it's not of Northwest
Religious Liberty Association.
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It's my personal
view and it's not,
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yeah, it's not
attached to our program,
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The Northwest
Religious Liberty Association
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or Liberty Magazine.
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But I think Bush did not lie.
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I don't believe
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that there is
any conspiracy here.
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I really believe that
he went on the intelligence
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that was given him.
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Even Colin Powell did
for crying out loud, I mean,
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he, he...
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You talk about
a balanced fellow.
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It came from sources that
seem credible at the time.
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So you know the
invasion of Afghanistan.
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Well, I'd rather
put it another way,
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there's a group
psychology not just the mob
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that smashes windows
in the university town.
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A whole country,
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there's a paranoia that
can grip a whole country
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to the highest
levels of planners
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and things become so fulfilling.
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I think there was
an element of that.
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In retrospect we can see
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that it was clearly
over hyped and unjustified.
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There's a movement towards
isolationism in this country
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it's a Jacksonian populism
that Donald Trump seized
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and got elected as
president and it says,
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"Isolate this
sense of isolation,
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" that what's good
for America, I mean,
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everything that's good
for America we need to do.
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Jobs, not fight foreign
wars, and so on and so forth.
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It's been a sort
of a new phenomenon
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that has developed
within the Republican party,
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because the Republican party
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has always been very
hawkish in their foreign policy,
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interventionist
type foreign policy,
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neoconservative foreign
policy and I think that,
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that my belief is
that the United Nations,
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I mean the United States
is the indispensable nation.
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It's the last nation.
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The last superpower
revealed in prophecy.
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It is the last major
superpower in prophecy.
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Charles
Krauthammer, Fox News once said
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that the United States is
the Ancient Roman Republic,
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the Rome of the Caesars
and the Holy Roman Empire
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with church state
unity all rolled up into one.
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In other words, he says,
we're almost there and he says,
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listen our military
is in over 300 countries,
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Lincoln, our military.
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The expanse of our power
in the world is enormous.
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Most Americans
aren't aware of that
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the US literally occupies
the whole world militarily.
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Yes. Right.
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And it's never pulled
back even from World War II.
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We still occupy
all those country.
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Correct.
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By the way Charles Krauthammer,
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I have great admiration for him.
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He's married to an Australian.
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Okay.
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And I can see
once I found that out
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and he wrote a
column once about his wife
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and his sympathies to Australia.
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Yeah.
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But I can see now that
callus all of his views.
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By the way,
talking about Australia,
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we had a most interesting,
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dynamic earlier on in
this new administration,
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a conversation with Australia,
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and suddenly Australia
and the US are at loggerheads
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for the first time in my life.
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Yeah, that was kinda...
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Now the world has
turned on its head and,
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you know, it might
just be simple politics
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and unfortunate politics,
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but still Australia is
another liberal country
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like the United States
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that has protected
civil and religious liberties
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the same way.
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What does that
mean when we're so...?
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Well, remind me
what the dispute was
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in Australia?
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I don't know what's going on.
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Well, it does go back to
what you were talking about
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because even before 9/11
there were Iraqi, Afghan,
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and Syrian refugees
making their way down to Asia
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renting or buying ruined ships
trying to make it to Australia
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and then scuttling them
inside of the Australian Navy
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and Australia has
refused to integrate them.
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And they've kept
them in a detention camp
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on Christmas Island
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and initially
they sold some of them
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to the Island of
Nauru for $16,000
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a head in arrangement
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where they would
take citizenship but...
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Oh, this is related
to the phone conversation
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between Donald Trump
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and the
Australian prime minister.
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So there was obviously an
agreement which, you know,
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we don't need to know
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and it's not an
earth shaking thing,
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a 1,000 of them would
have been dealt with by the US
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probably settled
in a larger country
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not as important
but for Australia
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to take a 1,000
highly suspect people,
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they couldn't deal with it.
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Right.
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What I think
normally would have happened.
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The new administration
when it got the call.
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No, that's an
interesting proposition
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but we are good buddies,
we want to work in with you.
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We'll get back to you on that.
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Yeah. But instead...
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And Donald Trump hung up
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on the prime
minister supposedly.
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Right, and I've
checked on Australia their,
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for the first
time since World War II
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looking again at the
special relationship with the US
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and they are
thinking of establishing
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their own nuclear deterrent.
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Wow.
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So it could have
huge ramifications not...
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How serious is that?
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I would take it serious. Really?
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'Cause it was an
agreement post World War II
00:11:04.93\00:11:07.83
as top allies Australia
agreed not to develop the bomb
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because the US would
provide the umbrella.
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I remember the breeder reactor
in Sydney when I lived there.
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What nuclear threat
is aimed at Australia?
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Well, they are
always very suspicious.
00:11:19.84\00:11:21.71
I mean, China
would be the closest.
00:11:21.74\00:11:23.24
No, they're very
suspicious of Indonesia...
00:11:23.28\00:11:25.15
Oh, India. Indonesia...
00:11:25.18\00:11:26.51
And India.
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200 million
Islamic country about it.
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But anyhow that's
the world as it is
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and with religious
liberty we work with it but...
00:11:34.36\00:11:36.93
Well, that's not right
00:11:36.96\00:11:38.29
because Britain and
Australia are too close
00:11:38.33\00:11:40.90
and Canada are
three closest allies.
00:11:40.93\00:11:45.37
And always will be,
00:11:45.40\00:11:47.27
regardless of
who hangs up on who.
00:11:47.30\00:11:49.90
At the end of the day
the special relationship
00:11:49.94\00:11:51.87
is really a cultural
affinity that will continue,
00:11:51.91\00:11:55.28
but my point is that a
rash phone call is going
00:11:55.31\00:11:59.78
to sort of shift the
dynamic in those countries
00:11:59.81\00:12:03.25
and Australia will become more
of a regional military power
00:12:03.28\00:12:06.79
rather than
auxiliary for the US.
00:12:06.82\00:12:10.26
You think Donald
Trump will calm down
00:12:10.29\00:12:11.73
and settle into his
role as a president?
00:12:11.76\00:12:13.63
Probably.
00:12:13.66\00:12:15.00
All presidents do
that and I have no brief
00:12:15.03\00:12:17.17
to publicly criticize
the president particularly,
00:12:17.20\00:12:22.07
but the problematic
thing on religious liberty
00:12:22.10\00:12:24.91
that you and I will
discuss more than this program
00:12:24.94\00:12:27.58
I think need to and
others to come after you.
00:12:27.61\00:12:32.41
Donald Trump for
better or worse thought
00:12:32.45\00:12:34.58
that it was necessary in America
00:12:34.62\00:12:36.35
first to
integrate a newly developed
00:12:36.38\00:12:39.99
political religious sensibility
with the religious right.
00:12:40.02\00:12:43.16
And pretty much give
them a blank promise.
00:12:43.19\00:12:46.70
It's White nationalism,
00:12:46.73\00:12:48.06
it's White
Christian nationalism.
00:12:48.10\00:12:51.37
At its worst form
00:12:51.40\00:12:52.73
and there's been
some critique of this
00:12:52.77\00:12:54.24
that is pretty much
Arian Nation thinking.
00:12:54.27\00:12:58.57
Well, you know, you
know what's interesting,
00:12:58.61\00:13:00.28
I was just reading
Foreign Affairs Journal
00:13:00.31\00:13:01.94
about this from the
Council on Foreign Relations
00:13:01.98\00:13:04.11
and one of the
things that was brought out
00:13:04.15\00:13:06.15
is that this whole
Jacksonian populism
00:13:06.18\00:13:08.75
that Donald Trump seized upon
00:13:08.78\00:13:11.55
is based upon
the fear and threat
00:13:11.59\00:13:15.16
that ethnic minorities
and religious minorities
00:13:15.19\00:13:18.66
are making up the bulk
00:13:18.69\00:13:20.50
and the vast
majority of this country
00:13:20.53\00:13:23.23
and so, white
Christian nationalists,
00:13:23.26\00:13:26.53
the working class so to speak
00:13:26.57\00:13:28.30
who are out of
work feel threatened
00:13:28.34\00:13:31.84
especially by illegal immigrants
00:13:31.87\00:13:33.64
taking their jobs.
00:13:33.68\00:13:35.01
Well, and they're
correct to a certain point,
00:13:35.04\00:13:36.41
there are social stresses
00:13:36.44\00:13:38.31
that we haven't
seen for quite a while.
00:13:38.35\00:13:40.32
They're just wrong in thinking
that's the solution to it.
00:13:40.35\00:13:43.42
And even the new
president is wrong to suggest
00:13:43.45\00:13:46.15
that just an
American first policy
00:13:46.19\00:13:48.59
will undo all of
the global dynamics.
00:13:48.62\00:13:51.39
Yeah, like free trade and NAFTA
which has taken jobs away...
00:13:51.43\00:13:54.96
For better or worse the
world is interconnected...
00:13:55.00\00:13:57.10
Shut down factories
and plants here in US.
00:13:57.13\00:13:59.03
Electronically and in trade
00:13:59.07\00:14:01.30
and sociologically and
ethnically, religiously.
00:14:01.34\00:14:05.04
Let's take a break.
00:14:05.07\00:14:06.41
We'll be back
after a short break.
00:14:06.44\00:14:07.78
Let's continue this
interesting discussion
00:14:07.81\00:14:09.34
in my view
00:14:09.38\00:14:10.71
of what's really going
on now in the United States.
00:14:10.75\00:14:12.65