Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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where before the break,
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we were really getting
into one of my favorite topics,
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the discussion of
the English Civil War
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and its direct affect
on the American experience.
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You mentioned how, I
think, either on camera
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or maybe it was after we broke,
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how it's always
doomed to failure
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when you try to by law
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or a legal structure
determine people's behavior
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and try to make up a difference
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that religion should have done.
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The knock
against Oliver Cromwell,
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if you read the
few history books
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in general
circulation that talk about him
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is that people rejected him
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because he didn't allow dancing
and frivolous entertainments.
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I've more and
more come to believe
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that's largely disinformation
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because under Oliver Cromwell,
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yeah, Oliver Cromwell,
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he himself often
had concerts and stuff
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in the palace that he took.
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It was the
palace built for Wolsey
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during the break with Rome.
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So he personally was
not against entertainment.
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I am sure that they
discouraged the outrageous,
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profane public entertainments
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that existed
before the revolution
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during his reign itself
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which is being characterized
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by his many
enemies as autocratic.
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Oliver Cromwell
was amazingly benign.
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He even allowed
them to publish a book
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telling how to kill
the ruler, himself, the...
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His title was
Lord Protector. Yes.
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That wouldn't be allowed
today in the United States.
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You think any New York
Times would dare publish a book
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that told you how to plot
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and plan the
murder of the President?
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You'd have the FBI at your door.
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Yes, actually it's nice
that you've mentioned that
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because one of the
things that I've picked
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is how when you
talk of Oliver Cromwell
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and the people who were involved
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in these full Civil
War, even the Puritans,
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the way that they are depicted,
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the American Puritans,
they are depicted as killjoys,
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and people who were
just autocratic and the like.
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And yet people tried to sanitize
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the French philosophers,
Rousseau, and Nietzsche,
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they actually
said some very extreme,
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some very cruel things
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and yet their
thought is sanitized today.
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You know, we literally
worship people like Rousseau
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and Nietzsche and
people like, even many people,
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they are not even aware
that they worship them...
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Of their mental
and social problems.
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Yes.
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It troubled me
maybe when I was reading
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on these people.
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Yes.
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So we don't
hear, like John Milton,
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we don't hear.
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And yet these people
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have influenced
western culture positively.
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We don't hear
anything about them
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and if we hear
anything about them,
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their Christian thoughts,
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that you know,
the Christian roots
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of their thought is
literally amputated.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And, but it's important
for us to go back there
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because these are people
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who tried to work out
God's designs in their life
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and tried to strike a balance.
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And that for me, I am African
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but I am attracted to
the Anglo-Saxon tradition,
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I believe it is the one
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that is most
open and we can sit.
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Yeah.
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The Anglo-Saxon societies
have been the most open
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in terms of even
assimilating immigrants.
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You know, you look at
Britain, you look at Canada
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where I come from,
Australia, and the US
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and so as the light...
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Well, Daniel to Assad...
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Let me throw in
something that you smack me on.
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Daniel to Assad, in
the last 2000 years,
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what empires and
global influences
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have there been?
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There was Rome.
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Yes.
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And you alluded, was it
Hobbes or someone you said
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was the ghost of
Rome and still with us.
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And I think that is
because as Rome collapsed,
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its power was
picked up in many ways
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by the Bishop of Rome...
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Yes.
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With huge secular
and religious claims
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and you know, the
pope still stands forth
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in his white robes
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but he is not a legal domination
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around the world.
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So other than the Roman Empire,
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what have we seen
in the modern era?
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It's the British Empire. Yes.
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For better or worse,
it's in its rampant now,
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but you know, there was a period
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where it controlled
about a third of the world.
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So the influence was pervasive.
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And I think you can
make a very strong case
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that while it was
cruel, Australian,
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I would say how cruel it
was, shipping off convicts,
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you know, the slave
trade to the US was horrible,
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but it was just about as bad
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the way they
dealt with the convicts.
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More than half of them
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would typically die
on the ship out there.
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They would treat
them like dirt, right?
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But that was
the underside of it.
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But the successes
and the good things
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about the British Empire,
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I think, many of
them derive from the fact
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that there was the
Protestant Reformation
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and England was
the prime exemplar
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of Protestantism.
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Yes, it's not
recognized though rather...
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You see how the
Anglo-American tradition
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is compared to the Communists.
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Right.
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The Totalitarian ideologies
that were underwritten
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by continental philosophers
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are responsible for the genocide
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of more than one
hundred million people.
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You are talking of
Stalin, Nazi Germany,
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you are talking of
Pol Pot, Cambodia, China,
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you can trace all that to Cuba,
even in Africa, in Ethiopia,
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you can literally say
they have been responsible
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for the shedding of more blood
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and yet when it is compared,
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you know, America, I
know, a lot is said of America,
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how America has caused this,
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but nothing is almost said
about the millions of people
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that have been murdered by
the Totalitarian ideologies
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because the
American Anglo system is...
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Well, you mentioned America
and that's the third empire.
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And it's a very short duration,
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no longer in my view
than post World War II.
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Yes.
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I mean it was rising to power
but there was the trade over,
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England entered World
War II with an empire,
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came out nothing.
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Most of its holdings
either became independent
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or became involved in struggles
between the great powers,
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and yeah, Russia was,
the Soviet Union rather,
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challenged America
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but America has been
the singular super power
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for a very short period.
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But there's really only
been those three massive powers
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in 2000 years in my view.
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Yes, the British Empire, yes.
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You can actually see the
fulfillment of prophecies.
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You say the American sanctuary
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has been very, very, very short.
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And what we are
actually seeing today in America
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is this collapse
of Pax Americana,
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the collapse of the...
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And that's sad,
but you are right.
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It may...
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You know, you and I
think of an apocalyptic again,
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that's probably very soon,
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but if time goes to
another 200-300 years,
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I am afraid that
the American moment
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in the sun is going to
be relatively very brief.
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It shows no signs...
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Don't you feel that the
American place in the sun
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is already...
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Yes, I do. And it's not my idea.
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I mean those
great thinkers think so.
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But that doesn't
mean it's finished.
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Remember Rome fell
for hundreds of years.
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Yes, you are
right. You are right.
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And this is not Rome.
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Things are sped up.
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But I think it's
going to be very brief.
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England was around for
many hundreds of years.
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But people are not
aware of what America did.
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Again, America
had the opportunity
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after the Second World War
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to actually
establish a global empire
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but they didn't.
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They didn't.
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And I know a lot of people
will challenge me on that,
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but when you
actually look at recession
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of the Second World
War, Europe was devastated.
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And decolonization
would not have happened
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if America had not
created these institutions
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like World Bank and the like,
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I know they are responsible
for a lot of problems,
00:08:02.08\00:08:04.75
but they did create
institutions that allow...
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It was relatively benign.
00:08:07.82\00:08:09.15
Yes, they did
create institutions
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that allowed the decolonization
and the freedom and the like.
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We need to take note of that.
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And I think the better angels
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to quote Abraham
Lincoln of the American presence
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are explained by this continuing
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Christian/Protestant
sensibility.
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Yes, and I can
sight something to...
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I don't think you can
counter it in any other way.
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Again to go back to Zimbabwe,
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people are not
aware that all the people
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who fought for the
liberation of Africa
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were educated in
Christian missions.
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Without the
Christian missions in Africa
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our liberation of
weaker from colonialism
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would have been delayed.
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Robert Mugabe was
trained by the missionaries,
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just to quote from
Zimbabwe, all the African...
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It went a little
wrong in his case.
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All the African nationalists
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were educated by
Christian missions.
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Yeah, I know.
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I've seen the path...
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And my myself, I
am grateful for that.
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My father went to
an Adventist mission,
00:09:00.64\00:09:02.34
that's how he became a Christian
00:09:02.37\00:09:04.31
and he gave me
this unique heritage.
00:09:04.34\00:09:06.81
You know, and so without
those Christian missionaries,
00:09:06.84\00:09:10.38
they did a lot of
errors, I am not trying,
00:09:10.41\00:09:12.61
they did like all human beings.
00:09:12.65\00:09:14.85
But when you
compare their errors
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compared to the ones committed
by the communists and the like,
00:09:18.42\00:09:23.09
there is no comparison.
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And yet today, the
missionaries are demonized.
00:09:24.49\00:09:27.73
And these...
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Particularly the
missionaries of yesteryear,
00:09:31.17\00:09:34.14
I think they gave
themselves totally.
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Many of them died there,
and even in our own church.
00:09:36.97\00:09:40.68
Our mission service
used to be a lifelong thing.
00:09:40.71\00:09:42.78
You went and you were
not expected to come back.
00:09:42.81\00:09:45.61
I'm old enough to
remember in Australia.
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The only way the
missionaries could come back
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was if they had family problems,
00:09:49.95\00:09:51.89
the children
needed it and, of course,
00:09:51.92\00:09:53.52
more and more,
that was exercised.
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There is a cemetery
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actually in Solusi
full of older missionaries
00:09:56.39\00:09:59.29
who went there and
they never came back.
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Died from malaria,
some natural causes,
00:10:01.46\00:10:04.40
but they never came back.
00:10:04.43\00:10:05.77
And they actually saw,
the deceased, the literacy,
00:10:05.80\00:10:08.20
in teaching Africans
literacy and many things,
00:10:08.24\00:10:10.84
they actually saw the...
00:10:10.87\00:10:12.71
So there is
something in the gospel
00:10:12.74\00:10:14.21
that is so dynamic.
00:10:14.24\00:10:15.58
Absolutely. It changes lives.
00:10:15.61\00:10:16.95
It does change life.
00:10:16.98\00:10:18.31
And you have recognize
00:10:18.35\00:10:19.68
that people have given
of themselves selflessly,
00:10:19.71\00:10:21.52
even though day to day
00:10:21.55\00:10:22.95
there were all
sorts of quicken things.
00:10:22.98\00:10:25.09
Yes, and in
reading the Bible anyway,
00:10:25.12\00:10:26.52
people should know
00:10:26.55\00:10:27.89
that the whole
basis of challenging
00:10:27.92\00:10:29.89
white supremacy is in the Bible.
00:10:29.92\00:10:31.93
It is as those
Africans were reading the Bible,
00:10:31.96\00:10:34.70
they started to say, well,
00:10:34.73\00:10:36.40
I am just as good as you.
00:10:36.43\00:10:38.00
So many times today
we talk about equality
00:10:38.03\00:10:40.20
and we attribute
that to these ideologies.
00:10:40.24\00:10:42.30
But it is the
Bible that taught people
00:10:42.34\00:10:44.64
about equality of human beings.
00:10:44.67\00:10:46.41
Yes, I think so.
00:10:46.44\00:10:47.78
Well, and the
American Civil Rights Movement
00:10:47.81\00:10:49.31
was the proof positive
00:10:49.34\00:10:50.98
and that became sharply
focused on a Christian witness
00:10:51.01\00:10:53.75
to challenge
and holding justice.
00:10:53.78\00:10:55.68
And may be the problem
00:10:55.72\00:10:57.05
that we are actually
having today in America
00:10:57.09\00:10:58.42
is that that Christian substance
00:10:58.45\00:11:00.69
is actually decomposing
00:11:00.72\00:11:03.22
and because of the decomposition
00:11:03.26\00:11:04.79
of that Christian substance,
00:11:04.83\00:11:06.49
people today are more fighting
with each other than before.
00:11:06.53\00:11:11.60
And so for me...
00:11:11.63\00:11:13.23
To return again to what
I said in the last segment,
00:11:13.27\00:11:16.10
the only hope,
civilizational hope
00:11:16.14\00:11:19.04
is in reviving those
primitive Christian values,
00:11:19.07\00:11:25.01
the love for your neighbor,
00:11:25.05\00:11:26.41
the love for your
community, that's what we need.
00:11:26.45\00:11:28.95
Many people incline just to have
00:11:32.65\00:11:34.79
an American-centric
view of history,
00:11:34.82\00:11:37.83
forget that the
American experiment
00:11:37.86\00:11:40.50
came about at a
time of world revolution,
00:11:40.53\00:11:43.97
the old systems
were shaking and falling.
00:11:44.00\00:11:48.60
And, of course,
00:11:48.64\00:11:49.97
within a very short time
of the American Revolution,
00:11:50.01\00:11:52.67
there was the French Revolution
00:11:52.71\00:11:54.38
and redo if you like of Europe.
00:11:54.41\00:11:58.71
That's worth remembering
too that the first war
00:11:58.75\00:12:00.75
that America fought in 1812
00:12:00.78\00:12:02.88
was also the great
fight against Napoleon
00:12:02.92\00:12:06.19
and England was
otherwise occupied
00:12:06.22\00:12:08.02
and weakened
enough to not prevail
00:12:08.06\00:12:10.03
in the second run around.
00:12:10.06\00:12:11.96
We are living now in
an age of revolution,
00:12:11.99\00:12:17.07
and revolution as always,
00:12:17.10\00:12:18.93
it's not just
fought with violence,
00:12:18.97\00:12:20.57
it's fought for principles.
00:12:20.60\00:12:22.50
And it's worth remembering
00:12:22.54\00:12:24.24
that the principle of
good and evil is at play
00:12:24.27\00:12:27.14
beneath the superficiality
of human revolution
00:12:27.18\00:12:31.21
and God needs to win
00:12:31.25\00:12:33.18
and His people need to
be on the winning side.
00:12:33.21\00:12:37.39
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:37.42\00:12:40.46