Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break with guest,
John Ashmeade, the attorney.
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John Ashmeade,
that's a lot of credibility
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because
attorneys if nothing else
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should know history, right?
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Oh, my goodness.
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Isn't that one
of the prerequisites
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pretty much?
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No, it's not, but...
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Well, may be
prerequisite is the wrong word.
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I've been told many
times that's a good backdrop
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to going into law.
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Right.
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Yes, you have to
know case history.
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Right. Case law, right.
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Yeah, case law.
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But we've been talking
about the state of freedoms
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and religious
liberty in the US today.
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And you have a very
sunny up, weekly over,
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you know,
cleared of the horizon.
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But then you mentioned religion,
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which, of course, is central
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to religious freedom.
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And the predictions,
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I think it's clear enough
in the Bible in Revelation 13,
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arguably talks about the
role of the United States
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in conjunction with a
despotic ancient power.
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And Seventh-day
Adventists believe that
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that likely
will work out through
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direct religious legislation
as far as the day of worship.
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You don't see that eminent.
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What signs do you see
of that or lack of signs?
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Right, I don't see
that as eminent right now.
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I think that,
you know, right now
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there is an epic
struggle taking place
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between the
religious point of view
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and a secular point of view.
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And in many respects,
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a secular point of
view still is dominant.
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You know, you can
take any number of issues,
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and, you know, you
see that playing out.
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So, you know,
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I see religious people
working together more and more,
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and you know I think
there's a sleeping beast
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that can be
awakened at some point,
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but it's still sleeping I think.
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And, you know, we see
the secular point of view
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still holding sway.
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Much has been made
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of the secular
character of Europe
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and the residually,
or more than residually
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that the
prominent role of religion
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in the United States.
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And, you know,
and on this program
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I've often quoted
Alexis de Tocqueville's
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pretty searching comments
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we see in the early
1800s, he came to the US
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and sort of looked
at it like a lab rat.
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And he was very plain
that the role of religion
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under the
separation of church and state
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had made the US a
very dynamic place
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as far as religious expression.
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You think that's
gone or in recession?
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Right. You do?
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No, well, you know,
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you look at
different news stations
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and you get a sense
that things are really bad
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and then in another
center not that bad.
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You know, people talk
about not being able to say
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Merry Christmas anymore,
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and, you know,
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you have to say Happy Holidays.
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And they view that
as religious oppression.
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I don't
necessarily view it by the way.
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No, I agree with you.
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I don't think it's
religious oppression.
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I think, you know.
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But we drove a few
hours to get to the studio.
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I don't think it's any secret
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that the
recording studios for 3ABN
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are in what's commonly
called fly over country.
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Wonderful country, but
it's not Hollywood country,
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it's not big city country.
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But it's where a good percentage
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of Americans live.
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And they have all the
problems of people everywhere.
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It's not sweetness and light.
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But I can tell you
the residual standard view
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out in these little towns
while then people may not be
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devoutly
spiritually religious, it's...
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This is...
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Religion is my identity,
it's a country's identity.
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I don't think that's gone away
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if anything is
hardened in the US.
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And that's a positive,
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you know, it's a good thing
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that on a
Sabbath or on a Sunday,
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you know, a large
majority of Americans
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can go to church
and they can worship,
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and, you know,
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the government
isn't there monitoring
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and trying to
prevent them from worshipping
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or placing limits on them.
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And so I think that's
the strength of this country.
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You know, my pastor can stand up
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and give an impassioned
sermons that at times
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can have a
political flavor to them
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and make some
people uncomfortable.
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But, you know, after
doing something like that,
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the government doesn't come
in, swoop in, and arrest them,
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and, you know,
card him off to prison.
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And so I think, you
know, in this country
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that still is
there, and that still
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is our basic
bedrock and foundation.
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Yes, and another thing
that I used to say a lot
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when I first started in my
job was I quoted for your...
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Before the program,
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you asked me about good writers.
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And one fairly good
writer was Charles Dickens.
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Actually, not the best,
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but at the time he was
thought to be the best.
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And his book, The
Tale of Two Cities
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written about the time
of the French Revolution,
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I'd think for a
second is very telling.
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He says, "It was
the best of times,
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and the worst of times."
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And that's sort of how I
characterize world at large,
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and particularly
the United States.
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But because
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it's good in one
regard and bad in another
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doesn't mean it's
not moving palpably
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and inexorably
towards the destination weeks.
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Right.
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And, you know, I
know I've been painting,
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perhaps a rosy picture,
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we have some serious
challenges in this country.
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We still have the issue of race
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that we have never dealt with.
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And it continues to
percolate below the surface
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and present some
real challenges for us,
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you know, the country
still almost seemingly remains
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in a civil war between
the south and the north.
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And, you know,
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we haven't figured out
how to overcome that problem.
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And that's, you
know, in the country...
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We can do a
whole program on that.
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We can do a
whole program on that.
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And even in the church,
we haven't solved that issue.
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And so, it remains
a real problem for us,
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and that we will have
to tackle it at some point.
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And I have radical views of that
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is coming as an outsider,
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I think it plays out in almost
every aspect of US culture.
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Even the way the police
force works towards communities
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is basically an
extension in my view
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of how the
plantation was managed.
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Even getting to your,
especially the Supreme Court,
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some of the
decisions they've been flirting
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with the corporate
thing on rights and so on.
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And that's the
Constitution in my view,
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it was predicated on property.
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And the
corporate view, that's...
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If you think about
it, if it hadn't been
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for this
corporate thing on property
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and so on in the Constitution,
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the contradiction would
have been so self evident,
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they wouldn't have
dared to put it down
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with the
proportional representation
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of slaves and so on.
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But when you think
property and a business right,
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it fits nicely.
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And we're going back to it.
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The US, over the
warnings of people
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like President Eisenhower
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is going to a very
corporate, even fascist,
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you know, it's a loaded term.
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But fascism really is
the instruments of government
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and its
departments, and the power,
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and the machinery of it
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has precedence over the
rights of the individual.
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This is a
fascist style democratic,
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representative democracy.
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I think what's
driving a lot of this is fear.
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Well, yes, the
cold war, we grew up.
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Right. You and I both grew up.
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But I know, but in
terms of just people,
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you know, people are fearful,
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they don't know
who's on their side,
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they don't know if they
can trust the government,
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they don't know if they
can trust their neighbor.
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And when you add
to that, you know,
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the mix of social media
and all the misinformation
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that's flying around,
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you know, it
creates an atmosphere
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where people, you know,
can really be led astray
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from really what the truth is.
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And, you know,
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this is turning out
to be a good discussion
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that I'm in danger of revealing
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too much of my
worldview with you.
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Okay, that's okay,
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I'm gonna pull it
out of you, Lincoln.
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But, you know,
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there's an upside and
downside to everything,
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but this fear
thing is very real.
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But there's a conundrum on this.
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In Europe, even in recent years
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say in the
ex-Yugoslavia Republic of Serbia
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and so on down there,
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you know, they've
had pate neighbors,
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liquidating neighbors,
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so, you know, not naive,
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but I think in
Europe as a whole,
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they're not afraid of
their neighbors the same way.
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There's the peacefulness
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especially when you get to
countries like Switzerland,
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that's never existed in the US.
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And I sort of I'm
constantly analyzing it.
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I don't think the US
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really has a fixed
friendly neighborhood concept.
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We're all
travelers, we've settled down,
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and this is suspicion
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that arises from
the reconstruction
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and the civil war of,
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you know, the knight riders
and all that sort of stuff.
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There's just been agitation
that people are very uncertain.
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They don't
trust their neighbors.
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And I don't think
it's just modernity
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that's brought it on in the US.
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I think there's
always been these walls
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and these, the unstated
threat that destabilizes.
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Anybody that comes
from another country
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knows that in the US
there's electricity in the air.
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You don't know,
someone might randomly,
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it doesn't happen
often, but it happens randomly.
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Someone might shoot
you, it might be violent act.
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That's not really true
in other Western countries.
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Sure.
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I mean we are melting pot
that's never fully melted.
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Yes, that's a
good way to put it.
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Yeah.
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And so the challenge is,
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you know, bringing
us together as a nation,
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and it's very difficult.
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But anyhow, I appreciate
you bringing this positive view
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because we all
need to keep in mind,
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there's a half full
00:09:51.49\00:09:52.82
and a half empty
view of the glass.
00:09:52.85\00:09:55.52
And at the end of the day,
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there's no question
that United States remains
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a spectacularly
positive force in the world,
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it's not always
positive, but as a totality.
00:10:02.86\00:10:06.13
And we have a lot
to be thankful for.
00:10:06.17\00:10:07.64
Sure.
00:10:07.67\00:10:09.00
So where do you think
it goes from here though?
00:10:09.04\00:10:12.84
Is the positive to be sustained
00:10:12.87\00:10:14.78
or how do we
guard against the drift
00:10:14.81\00:10:17.55
to a darker side?
00:10:17.58\00:10:19.68
So I'm very concerned.
00:10:19.71\00:10:23.28
I'm very concerned because,
00:10:23.32\00:10:25.09
you know, what I
see occurring is,
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you know, social media is
presenting a real risk to us.
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There are, you know,
I'm on Facebook regularly,
00:10:31.43\00:10:34.36
and I... The things that
I see my friends posting,
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you know, quite
often I will say to them,
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you know, have you
vetted this and they haven't.
00:10:39.73\00:10:42.37
And you just do a quick
search, and you find out
00:10:42.40\00:10:44.57
that what they're
saying isn't really true.
00:10:44.61\00:10:46.27
I've seen a lot of
representations of the earth
00:10:49.28\00:10:52.41
spinning or floating
through limitless space.
00:10:52.45\00:10:57.32
In some of the
more bizarre ones,
00:10:57.35\00:10:59.15
there's all sorts of explosions
00:10:59.19\00:11:00.66
and cataclysms
erupting like pustules
00:11:00.69\00:11:03.29
from the surface
of a dangerous planet.
00:11:03.32\00:11:05.89
In other, it's a lonely planet,
00:11:05.93\00:11:07.86
blue, and silent,
and not much happening.
00:11:07.90\00:11:10.47
In reality, this little world,
00:11:10.50\00:11:12.73
this spec among a
cascade of specs in space
00:11:12.77\00:11:19.14
is the center for us,
00:11:19.17\00:11:21.48
and arguably the
apple of God's eye
00:11:21.51\00:11:24.78
if you like
because a great principle
00:11:24.81\00:11:26.55
is being worked out here,
00:11:26.58\00:11:28.08
a cataclysmic battle
between the anti-God principle
00:11:28.12\00:11:31.69
and those who are loyal to God.
00:11:31.72\00:11:33.99
This world is in
turmoil, there's no question.
00:11:34.02\00:11:37.33
But we need to see beyond this
00:11:37.36\00:11:39.06
a resolution, a great victory,
00:11:39.09\00:11:41.33
and this little blue planet
is going to brilliantly shine
00:11:41.36\00:11:45.30
not because of what it
is because of what God is.
00:11:45.33\00:11:49.80
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:49.84\00:11:53.21