Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000397B
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00:05 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:08 Before the break, with guest, Greg Hamilton, 00:11 we were talking about rights 00:13 and Brown v. Board of Education. 00:15 Just tell people very clearly what that case was. 00:19 Well, it eliminated discrimination... 00:21 It was aimed to eliminate it. 00:23 In public schools, yeah, that was the ruling 00:25 that segregation was essentially 00:29 a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. 00:33 And that lay behind two things, 00:34 I think, didn't it? Or maybe I'm wrong. 00:36 One, I know for sure, picture of that little 00:39 African-American girl with the police taking 00:42 her up the stairs to school against the objection to... 00:44 And Governor Wallace saying that... 00:46 Staying on the steps. 00:47 We will not let the federal authorities 00:50 dictate over us as a state. 00:52 That I think it led directly, 00:54 although there was another court case 00:56 that mandated it to school busing, 01:00 which was part of forced desegregation 01:02 which was itself a problem. 01:04 Yes, but that was still overarching, 01:06 the ruling was overarching 01:08 in terms of segregation altogether. 01:10 But what I am trying to introduce in it, 01:12 there could be a problem, 01:14 but sometimes the solution can bring 01:16 in another problem almost as bad. 01:18 Yes, but what's the other problem that's almost as bad? 01:21 I mean, the police show up. 01:23 I mean, the Marshals show up and the state guard was there 01:29 and it was like a showdown 01:30 but they had to stand aside and they did. 01:31 Well, I was thinking about busing. 01:33 We relocated populations out of their area. 01:37 Oh, yeah, right, yeah. 01:39 Because that's sort of shades of Stalinism, 01:41 that's what Stalin did in Russia. 01:44 Right. 01:45 And you know, people died when they were sent 01:47 radically from one end of the Soviet Union. 01:49 Well, and that's where systemic injustice comes. 01:52 I mean, systemic racism, and one fix leads to, 01:56 you know, maybe more problems, 01:59 maybe lesser but still problems, 02:01 and that maybe the case, 02:04 really especially when you see, you know, 02:07 neighborhoods in one section of the community, 02:09 they obviously have been sectored off. 02:13 Well, let me throw in a thought. 02:15 Religious liberty has been called the first freedom, 02:18 and it's in their magazine's first thing, 02:20 I think they are playing on that. 02:24 But I know and I am back to what bothered me 02:26 when I first came into religious liberty. 02:28 Practically, every religious liberty law and many other laws 02:33 has a little clause in it that this is so, 02:36 freedom of religion or whatever, 02:37 unless there is a compelling government interest. 02:40 Right, compelling governmental interest. 02:41 So we are talking about a right, 02:43 you think it's an absolute right 02:44 or stand-alone right, but government at least 02:48 always reserves the right to throw it out when they choose. 02:51 But a compelling governmental interest is so very hard 02:54 to meet, you know, it's still a very high bar. 02:56 The courts have put it that way, 02:58 but again, it's not an absolute, 03:00 it's someone's determination. 03:02 It might be a lower bar in time of emergency. 03:05 It still provides protection against minorities. 03:08 There's protection, and I've talked to lawyers 03:10 and you know, we are not about to take that out, 03:12 but it does trouble me, and it's at least 03:15 a historical reminder that outside divinely instituted 03:22 and administered rights, 03:23 human understanding of rights is a little bit changeable, 03:27 variable according to the dynamic 03:29 of the human experience, not absolute. 03:32 No, of course not. 03:33 I mean, and nobody is suggesting that 03:36 they are absolute in every case and in every sense. 03:40 But I think that the ideal is something we are striving for. 03:44 Of course. 03:45 Ideals are always worth striving for. 03:47 Yes, but in law and in practice. 03:49 I don't mean just as an ideal not to be carried out, 03:52 I mean, even if it's gradual, as long as there is progress, 03:57 you know, you've heard of the progressive movement, 03:59 as long as there's progress 04:01 and I think that that's a good thing. 04:04 Well, let me quote from my own editorial recently. 04:07 Well actually in my editorial, 04:09 I quoted from the musical Popeye. 04:12 Have you seen it? It's cute. No, I haven't. 04:15 And in the musical, Popeye comes ashore 04:19 and his robot from being drifting in sea, 04:21 and he is looking for his father as it turns out, 04:23 but he lands at this little self-satisfied community 04:27 that is absolutely dysfunctional 04:30 and they sing a song, they say, 04:31 "Sweethaven, God must love us." 04:36 And then they... 04:37 In other ways, they are the blessed of God, 04:39 it was a highly symbolic musical, 04:42 and then promptly Popeye is taxed for stepping ashore, 04:46 he is fined at every point, he is not allowed to... 04:49 Walking wasn't allowed. 04:51 So, you know, that's a divine thing, 04:54 they've got all the rights, 04:55 but they're not going to give them to anyone else. 04:57 And, you know, rights and religious liberty rights 05:01 are subject to too many vagaries in my view. 05:04 We need to uphold the idea but not be under illusion 05:07 that any state, in my view, and this is deeply held view, 05:11 no state is going to go to the... 05:15 It is going to threaten its own viability 05:17 to guarantee your right. 05:19 Basically, it's a matter of convenience 05:21 for the state to give you that right, 05:23 more in very convenient times, they will give it gladly. 05:27 In stressful times, as in England in World War II, 05:31 a friendly state, Germany and other places, 05:34 they start to... 05:36 I believe the rollback of civil rights little by little 05:39 is the precursor to the attack on religious freedom rights. 05:43 Of course. 05:44 And I think we don't take that seriously enough. 05:46 When we see systemic injustice carried out 05:49 against African-Americans, 05:51 do we take that seriously 05:52 as upfront against ourselves or not? 05:54 It's a change in the attitude of how one group of humans 05:58 see other human beings. 06:00 And that's easily transferable to another thing 06:03 they might differ on religion. 06:05 You know, it's been pointed out I think very correctly that, 06:09 you know, with all the prejudices that float 06:11 the human race, I mean the human beings, racism, 06:16 yes, is a very pernicious one, but it's made more pernicious 06:19 because people look different, easy to identify. 06:22 But we are prejudicial in many other areas. 06:26 It's a little more subtle to identify someone that thinks 06:29 differently than you either politically or religiously, 06:32 that's not on first sight. 06:33 So racism is like the canary, 06:36 in my view, it's like the canary in the mind. 06:39 You will notice it first but it's not the only problem, 06:42 and the end result of all of this is the dissipation 06:46 of the whole waterfront of rights. 06:49 Well, let me bring up another example. 06:51 You know, you've seen the kneeling football players 06:54 before football games, you know? 06:56 The ones that President condemned? 06:59 Yeah, let me ask this question. 07:02 Defending the constitution and everyone's 07:04 equal constitutional right to free speech, 07:06 is that more important or coercing others 07:10 through peer pressure or threat of unemployment 07:12 to worship the flag? 07:13 And, you know, that to me is a very important question 07:16 because you know, if you deny free speech, 07:20 even on the job, okay, and they're kneeling 07:24 to protest systemic racism in the country, 07:27 they're not kneeling to condemn the troops, 07:30 they're not kneeling to condemn the flag, 07:32 and that sort of thing. 07:34 And the reason why I bring that up 07:36 about flag worship is this, nation worship. 07:39 The United States has already faced this test 07:41 in two years Supreme Court involving 07:43 the Constitutional Right of Jehovah's Witnesses 07:45 to politely refuse to pledge allegiance 07:48 to the flag in public school classrooms. 07:50 Cantwell v. Connecticut, 1940 07:52 and West Virginia v. Barnette, 1943. 07:55 Even the Seventh-day Adventist church took 07:56 to lead in defending their right before the High Court, 07:59 so and the Supreme Court has ruled many times 08:02 that even flag burning is constitutional, 08:05 not that I am advocating for that, 08:07 I am very much against that, but that's not the point. 08:09 The point is that it is constitutional. 08:12 I remember hearing Scalia once in person talking about that 08:16 and he says his own wife vilified when he got home, 08:19 "How dare you take that," 08:20 and he had to tell his own wife 08:22 why he had to defend the right of burning the flag 08:24 even though he found it abhorrent. 08:26 Well, my question is troops, when you think about... 08:29 Are those football players trying to insult the troops? 08:32 No, the troops' attitude is, or it should be, 08:34 at least I've heard a lot of troops say this, 08:36 "Hey, we are there to defend the constitution? 08:38 What's more important? The constitution or the flag?" 08:41 And I'll point out... I'll even differ from you. 08:44 We should...I mean, I am a Vietnam-era person 08:47 and I didn't go to Vietnam, 08:49 my number never came up, it was horrible the way 08:51 the military were treated back then, draft days. 08:54 But be careful of the opposite. 08:57 Why are we duty bound to be flag raisers for the military? 09:03 They're like anyone else, and as anyone else in a free 09:06 society, they can be criticized. 09:08 But we're creating a hierarchy where they're above criticism, 09:11 and that's not good for all civil liberty and rights. 09:14 What I was trying to say is that... 09:17 Yeah, and exactly what you're saying is what I was trying 09:19 to say is that when it comes to the flag 09:24 versus the constitution, the soldiers say, 09:26 "Hey, we go and fight wars and die for the lone crazy 09:29 in our country to defend their constitutional rights." 09:32 And that's how it should be. And that's how it should be. 09:34 But a lot of people don't view it that way, 09:36 and so they are viewing this whole idea 09:40 of rights as something that's a privilege and not a right. 09:42 Absolutely, very good point, 09:44 confusing rights with privilege. 09:46 And that's a problem. 09:47 We have rights and we need to defend them, folks. 09:50 They are not just privileges. Remember that. 09:52 We are a nation of rights. 09:55 Otherwise it would be tyranny. 09:59 When the Apostle Paul came into conflict with the authorities, 10:03 it's very telling that he used his citizenship 10:06 and the rights that went with it 10:08 to support his evangelistic effort. 10:12 But it's very important to realize, 10:13 as you can see from his writings, 10:15 that that was not the basis for why he was preaching 10:20 and indeed why he was imprisoned. 10:22 In fact, in imprisonment, 10:24 he said he was imprisoned 10:25 because of the resurrection from the dead. 10:28 We need to defend what sometimes is called 10:31 natural rights, we have a right, 10:33 under guard for certain freedoms, 10:36 religious liberty is a prime one. 10:39 We should never imagine that such basic eternal rights 10:45 originate with and depend upon 10:48 the authority of civil governance for their execution. 10:54 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2018-08-09