Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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with guest, Charles Steinberg.
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Before the break,
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I was putting out a proposition
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that I think you were
ready to challenge a little
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that at least
structurally I think
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there's a danger at the moment
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that the US may be
heading toward the same dynamic
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that we see in the 70% Club
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where they might
allow religious freedom
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but since the
majority are not threatened,
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it's only those on the periphery
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that are restricted
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and so the bulk of the country
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will think everything's fine.
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Well, the bulk of the country
might think everything's fine
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to begin with anyway.
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But the issue I see
is that the government
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has no business picking winners
and losers in religious belief.
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That's the beauty of
our constitutional system.
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It's the beauty of
the First Amendment
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to the Constitution.
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Congress shall make no law
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respecting the
establishment of religion
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or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof.
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And we have a lot
of court precedent
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establishing
very brave individuals
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in the Mormon faith,
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very brave individuals
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in the
Seventh-day Adventist faith,
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very brave
individuals in the Muslim faith
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standing up for
their religious beliefs
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as an individual basis.
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You also have a
great history in our church
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or a great history in
our country and tradition
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that we are not,
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we don't have a
state sponsored religion
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in I think the last...
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See, so people so...
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We can pick up
what you said earlier,
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the state's
rights still exist a bit
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in some churches
there's vestiges.
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Well in the Tenth
Amendment to the Constitution
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says all those enumerated powers
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expressively here
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and are reserved to the States.
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The US Supreme Court has
basically interpreted that
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that it is a dead letter.
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It's like an
email going nowhere.
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Yeah.
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But I want to get
back to the issue on,
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do I think that
the United States
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can go the way of the 70% Club
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of we will pay lip
service to religious freedom,
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but we won't.
Only for the majority.
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Yeah, only for the majority.
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And I don't think
we're gonna go there,
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I could be wrong.
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But when I see
so many different...
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Melting pot is
not the right word.
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But when I see so
many various religions
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flourishing in
the United States.
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You have a great melting
pot of different religions
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and even though
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some government
entity might perceive
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this particular
religion as a threat,
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our government is so diverse
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'cause we have
legislators that pass laws.
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We have the courts
that interpret the laws
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and we have an executive
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that executes or
carries out those laws.
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And the
executive might say things.
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Yes. Okay.
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Well you're making a distinction
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between legal reality
and a political environment.
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Yeah, well, yeah,
in other countries,
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they'd know it, like in
Saudi Arabia, for example,
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I don't believe they have
a constitutional republic.
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I believe they have
a dictator that said,
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"Women can drive" last year.
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Well, they have a king.
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And not a dictator,
forgive me. So anyway...
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Well, he might
act like dictator,
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but it's a royal family
that have absolute power.
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So I think after September 11th,
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when you had extremist,
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radical terrorists
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killing 3,000 people
in the United States,
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there's a huge risk
of painting everybody
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with the same brush,
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if you're not a Christian,
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therefore you're
an enemy of the state,
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an enemy of the United States.
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And there's a
danger toward that.
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Well, I'll tell you a story.
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And I agree with your point.
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And I have shared
it on this program,
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but there's many programs,
not everyone sees all of them.
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I saw something years ago
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when Jerry
Falwell was still alive
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and kicking on some people.
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He was on
television with Al Sharpton.
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Okay.
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And I don't
remember the full agenda,
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but they got on to...
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Well, they
started then one point on,
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on abortion,
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which they had a similar view on
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and in
discussing that, of course,
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who gets the
abortions in a city.
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Minorities are
probably more affected,
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more vulnerable to the
dynamic that's going on there.
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So in the discussion,
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Al Sharpton tried to shift it
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to a social gospel
approach and minority rights
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and it bothered Falwell no end,
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maybe just as simple as
it was getting off message.
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And so he turned to Sharpton,
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and this is it,
what he said out there.
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I'd memorize it and it's
no more no less than this.
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He says if you believe that,
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he says, "You
are not a Christian,
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you are not an American,
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you are a
terrorist sympathizer."
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Wow, so some
pretty strong words.
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And I know that
that's the progression
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but he did it just in
that simple statement.
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Yeah.
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And that's how
in the larger sense,
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I think we're
even working that way
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and you used the
term yourself, extremists.
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Yeah. That's a loaded term.
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One person is extremist,
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there's another
person's middle of the road,
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true believer, you know.
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Yeah, but you know,
you can do an investigation
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on some of these background.
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You can do
interviews of with that person.
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You can form a council
on un-American activities
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like Joe McCarthy.
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Yeah, bad phasing.
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And you can do that,
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but to call a US born citizen
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not being an American.
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Well, it was very pejorative,
it's horrible statement.
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I know it's very pejorative
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but what gives
the right of anyone
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to tell another
in my belief system
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somebody created
in the image of God,
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they might have
interesting beliefs
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but in our country,
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we have a very
robust First Amendment.
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Yeah.
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And I might be Pollyannaish here
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and very
optimistic, you know what.
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Well, I mean, I
have to share the...
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We know that you know
there's some ups and downs
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like citizens.
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I mean Japanese citizens
were sent to detention camps
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where they lost all that.
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People forgotten
the downside of it,
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wasn't just they lost
their personal freedom
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for a period of time,
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they lost all their property.
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A lot of them lost
all their property,
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lost a lot of property.
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Even where they
had to sell it quickly,
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cents on the dollar
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and many others
when they came back...
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I've read many articles on it,
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people squatting
in their property
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and not going to give it back.
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I think in a time of war,
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there are a lot of
mistakes that can be made,
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but the government at the time
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made a
determination, it was in the 70.
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It's been apologized
for since fairly recently.
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Yeah.
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But back to your issue,
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I think that we
need to tread carefully
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when we're starting
accusing other people of...
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Well accusing
is not the warning.
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Well, Jerry Falwell did in
interview with Al Sharpton.
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Oh, that was disgraceful.
It was very, very cunning.
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I mean, it calls me back
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to some of my
law school training
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and my poor wife
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for my first two
years of law school.
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She got to hear,
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I would always say
she'd say something that
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she'd heard or
research and I say,
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well, what is
your basis for that?
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You know, someone
might say the sky is blue
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and I'd say, well, what's
your reference point for that?
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And, you know, in our country,
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we have such a
robust First Amendment,
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protections for religion,
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protections for
freedom of speech,
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protections for
freedom of the press,
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Liberty magazine, and you know.
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I'm glad you brought it up.
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If I say...
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I am not quite
finished but yeah, but you know,
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the First Amendment is
not just on religious freedom,
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it's freedom of
speech. It's on many things.
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I think it's fairly obvious,
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even if you take contrary views
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that the press is
under some attack of late.
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The press is not
under attack of as of late
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that they didn't
bring on themselves.
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There's a study.
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Okay.
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Let's say they
brought it on themselves
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but the net
effect is for you and me,
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we're not getting diligence,
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responsible diligence in hunting
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the facts and
passing them on to us.
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We are not
getting... The whole thing is.
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We are...
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So become the traditional press
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like the MacNeil
Lehrer news hour,
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the traditional press...
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Yeah, I like that.
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When I get things from the BBC.
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We are not paid by public radio.
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When I get my news
from Deutsche World News,
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and from the BBC, and
from Wall Street Journal,
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and from other publications.
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When an independent think
tank said 90% of all coverage
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of the first hundred days
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of the current
President's administration
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was negative
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and Fox News' coverage of
it, 50% of it was negative.
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Which one is more
fair and balanced?
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I mean, it's almost like
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they went on attack
against the executive.
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Oh, yes, there was
a shock to the system.
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But they're continuing it.
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But the thing that
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I'll go further
back so and, you know,
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our program is not
partisan, you know.
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Yeah.
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I wish the best of the president
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even though we might critique
some things now and then
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of him or his predecessors,
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but it bothered me
that George Bush Jr.
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in the middle of the panic 9/11
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then started to
restrict press coverage
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in the freedom of speech zones.
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You weren't allowed to critique
the president in his presence,
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and they would rope off an area
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two or three miles
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from the presidential motorcade,
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that was the free speech zone.
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Well, that's actually going on.
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The same thing can
happen on religion.
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It actually happens
on college campuses,
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where if someone
has a point of view
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where they are disagreed with,
00:10:05.37\00:10:07.64
sometimes the
college administration
00:10:07.67\00:10:09.50
perceives that as a threat,
00:10:09.54\00:10:11.34
and says that you
can't speak here on campus
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or this is your
First Amendment zone.
00:10:13.78\00:10:16.41
The First Amendment guarantees
freedom of speech for everybody
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and, you know, the
timid must look away
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if we're going to
have a diverse society.
00:10:21.92\00:10:26.42
We've all been graded
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during those often
quite distant school days.
00:10:27.82\00:10:32.69
Seventy percent is
not a bad score to get,
00:10:32.73\00:10:35.73
it's a weak C, I think.
00:10:35.76\00:10:38.17
I noticed that
our current president
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in the United States is
good at grading himself,
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he will give top grades.
00:10:43.57\00:10:46.14
I don't know
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what the United States
and probably by extension,
00:10:47.78\00:10:50.65
the rest of the Western world
00:10:50.68\00:10:52.65
would rate on religious freedom.
00:10:52.68\00:10:54.85
We always think
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that we are 90
plus with the tops
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but in many regards,
00:10:59.12\00:11:00.79
while religious liberty is
secure in the United States,
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around the edges,
it's a little fuzzy
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and some of those
multiple choice questions
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just didn't pan
out as they used to.
00:11:09.60\00:11:12.23
I think what's necessary is
to look at the biblical base
00:11:12.27\00:11:15.44
for Christians of
religious freedom,
00:11:15.47\00:11:17.47
the constitutional base
00:11:17.51\00:11:19.04
for United States
government and the citizens,
00:11:19.07\00:11:23.51
the role of history
00:11:23.55\00:11:25.48
and the role of
morality and fairness
00:11:25.51\00:11:29.42
and think we are
committed to religious freedom.
00:11:29.45\00:11:34.06
For liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:34.09\00:11:36.89