Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI190446B
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00:26 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider
00:28 with guest, Charles Steinberg. 00:30 Before the break, 00:32 I was putting out a proposition 00:33 that I think you were ready to challenge a little 00:36 that at least structurally I think 00:38 there's a danger at the moment 00:40 that the US may be heading toward the same dynamic 00:43 that we see in the 70% Club 00:46 where they might allow religious freedom 00:49 but since the majority are not threatened, 00:53 it's only those on the periphery 00:54 that are restricted 00:56 and so the bulk of the country 00:57 will think everything's fine. 00:59 Well, the bulk of the country might think everything's fine 01:02 to begin with anyway. 01:04 But the issue I see is that the government 01:06 has no business picking winners and losers in religious belief. 01:10 That's the beauty of our constitutional system. 01:13 It's the beauty of the First Amendment 01:15 to the Constitution. 01:16 Congress shall make no law 01:17 respecting the establishment of religion 01:19 or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. 01:22 And we have a lot of court precedent 01:24 establishing very brave individuals 01:28 in the Mormon faith, 01:30 very brave individuals 01:31 in the Seventh-day Adventist faith, 01:34 very brave individuals in the Muslim faith 01:37 standing up for their religious beliefs 01:39 as an individual basis. 01:41 You also have a great history in our church 01:44 or a great history in our country and tradition 01:48 that we are not, 01:50 we don't have a state sponsored religion 01:52 in I think the last... 01:54 See, so people so... 01:55 We can pick up what you said earlier, 01:56 the state's rights still exist a bit 01:59 in some churches there's vestiges. 02:02 Well in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution 02:04 says all those enumerated powers 02:07 expressively here 02:09 and are reserved to the States. 02:10 The US Supreme Court has basically interpreted that 02:13 that it is a dead letter. 02:14 It's like an email going nowhere. 02:16 Yeah. 02:17 But I want to get back to the issue on, 02:19 do I think that the United States 02:21 can go the way of the 70% Club 02:23 of we will pay lip service to religious freedom, 02:26 but we won't. Only for the majority. 02:28 Yeah, only for the majority. 02:30 And I don't think we're gonna go there, 02:33 I could be wrong. 02:34 But when I see so many different... 02:38 Melting pot is not the right word. 02:40 But when I see so many various religions 02:43 flourishing in the United States. 02:46 You have a great melting pot of different religions 02:51 and even though 02:53 some government entity might perceive 02:56 this particular religion as a threat, 02:59 our government is so diverse 03:00 'cause we have legislators that pass laws. 03:04 We have the courts that interpret the laws 03:06 and we have an executive 03:08 that executes or carries out those laws. 03:10 And the executive might say things. 03:13 Yes. Okay. 03:14 Well you're making a distinction 03:15 between legal reality and a political environment. 03:22 Yeah, well, yeah, in other countries, 03:25 they'd know it, like in Saudi Arabia, for example, 03:28 I don't believe they have a constitutional republic. 03:31 I believe they have a dictator that said, 03:33 "Women can drive" last year. 03:34 Well, they have a king. 03:37 And not a dictator, forgive me. So anyway... 03:39 Well, he might act like dictator, 03:41 but it's a royal family that have absolute power. 03:43 So I think after September 11th, 03:46 when you had extremist, 03:49 radical terrorists 03:51 killing 3,000 people in the United States, 03:54 there's a huge risk of painting everybody 03:57 with the same brush, 03:58 if you're not a Christian, 04:00 therefore you're an enemy of the state, 04:01 an enemy of the United States. 04:03 And there's a danger toward that. 04:04 Well, I'll tell you a story. 04:06 And I agree with your point. 04:09 And I have shared it on this program, 04:10 but there's many programs, not everyone sees all of them. 04:13 I saw something years ago 04:15 when Jerry Falwell was still alive 04:17 and kicking on some people. 04:20 He was on television with Al Sharpton. 04:23 Okay. 04:24 And I don't remember the full agenda, 04:28 but they got on to... 04:29 Well, they started then one point on, 04:32 on abortion, 04:35 which they had a similar view on 04:38 and in discussing that, of course, 04:40 who gets the abortions in a city. 04:45 Minorities are probably more affected, 04:48 more vulnerable to the dynamic that's going on there. 04:50 So in the discussion, 04:52 Al Sharpton tried to shift it 04:53 to a social gospel approach and minority rights 04:58 and it bothered Falwell no end, 05:01 maybe just as simple as it was getting off message. 05:04 And so he turned to Sharpton, 05:07 and this is it, what he said out there. 05:09 I'd memorize it and it's no more no less than this. 05:12 He says if you believe that, 05:14 he says, "You are not a Christian, 05:17 you are not an American, 05:19 you are a terrorist sympathizer." 05:21 Wow, so some pretty strong words. 05:23 And I know that that's the progression 05:25 but he did it just in that simple statement. 05:27 Yeah. 05:29 And that's how in the larger sense, 05:30 I think we're even working that way 05:32 and you used the term yourself, extremists. 05:34 Yeah. That's a loaded term. 05:36 One person is extremist, 05:38 there's another person's middle of the road, 05:41 true believer, you know. 05:43 Yeah, but you know, you can do an investigation 05:44 on some of these background. 05:46 You can do interviews of with that person. 05:48 You can form a council on un-American activities 05:51 like Joe McCarthy. 05:53 Yeah, bad phasing. 05:55 And you can do that, 05:57 but to call a US born citizen 06:00 not being an American. 06:02 Well, it was very pejorative, it's horrible statement. 06:04 I know it's very pejorative 06:06 but what gives the right of anyone 06:09 to tell another in my belief system 06:12 somebody created in the image of God, 06:14 they might have interesting beliefs 06:16 but in our country, 06:17 we have a very robust First Amendment. 06:19 Yeah. 06:21 And I might be Pollyannaish here 06:22 and very optimistic, you know what. 06:23 Well, I mean, I have to share the... 06:25 We know that you know there's some ups and downs 06:27 like citizens. 06:29 I mean Japanese citizens were sent to detention camps 06:32 where they lost all that. 06:33 People forgotten the downside of it, 06:35 wasn't just they lost their personal freedom 06:37 for a period of time, 06:38 they lost all their property. 06:40 A lot of them lost all their property, 06:41 lost a lot of property. 06:43 Even where they had to sell it quickly, 06:44 cents on the dollar 06:45 and many others when they came back... 06:48 I've read many articles on it, 06:50 people squatting in their property 06:51 and not going to give it back. 06:53 I think in a time of war, 06:54 there are a lot of mistakes that can be made, 06:55 but the government at the time 06:58 made a determination, it was in the 70. 06:59 It's been apologized for since fairly recently. 07:02 Yeah. 07:04 But back to your issue, 07:08 I think that we need to tread carefully 07:11 when we're starting accusing other people of... 07:15 Well accusing is not the warning. 07:17 Well, Jerry Falwell did in interview with Al Sharpton. 07:20 Oh, that was disgraceful. It was very, very cunning. 07:22 I mean, it calls me back 07:24 to some of my law school training 07:25 and my poor wife 07:27 for my first two years of law school. 07:29 She got to hear, 07:31 I would always say she'd say something that 07:33 she'd heard or research and I say, 07:34 well, what is your basis for that? 07:36 You know, someone might say the sky is blue 07:38 and I'd say, well, what's your reference point for that? 07:40 And, you know, in our country, 07:43 we have such a robust First Amendment, 07:45 protections for religion, 07:46 protections for freedom of speech, 07:48 protections for freedom of the press, 07:50 Liberty magazine, and you know. 07:52 I'm glad you brought it up. 07:54 If I say... 07:55 I am not quite finished but yeah, but you know, 07:57 the First Amendment is not just on religious freedom, 07:59 it's freedom of speech. It's on many things. 08:01 I think it's fairly obvious, 08:04 even if you take contrary views 08:08 that the press is under some attack of late. 08:13 The press is not under attack of as of late 08:15 that they didn't bring on themselves. 08:16 There's a study. 08:19 Okay. 08:20 Let's say they brought it on themselves 08:22 but the net effect is for you and me, 08:25 we're not getting diligence, 08:28 responsible diligence in hunting 08:31 the facts and passing them on to us. 08:33 We are not getting... The whole thing is. 08:34 We are... 08:36 So become the traditional press 08:38 like the MacNeil Lehrer news hour, 08:42 the traditional press... 08:43 Yeah, I like that. 08:45 When I get things from the BBC. 08:46 We are not paid by public radio. 08:48 When I get my news from Deutsche World News, 08:50 and from the BBC, and from Wall Street Journal, 08:55 and from other publications. 08:58 When an independent think tank said 90% of all coverage 09:03 of the first hundred days 09:04 of the current President's administration 09:07 was negative 09:09 and Fox News' coverage of it, 50% of it was negative. 09:13 Which one is more fair and balanced? 09:15 I mean, it's almost like 09:17 they went on attack against the executive. 09:19 Oh, yes, there was a shock to the system. 09:21 But they're continuing it. 09:23 But the thing that 09:24 I'll go further back so and, you know, 09:28 our program is not partisan, you know. 09:29 Yeah. 09:30 I wish the best of the president 09:32 even though we might critique some things now and then 09:34 of him or his predecessors, 09:36 but it bothered me that George Bush Jr. 09:40 in the middle of the panic 9/11 09:43 then started to restrict press coverage 09:46 in the freedom of speech zones. 09:49 You weren't allowed to critique the president in his presence, 09:52 and they would rope off an area 09:53 two or three miles 09:55 from the presidential motorcade, 09:56 that was the free speech zone. 09:57 Well, that's actually going on. 09:59 The same thing can happen on religion. 10:00 It actually happens on college campuses, 10:03 where if someone has a point of view 10:05 where they are disagreed with, 10:07 sometimes the college administration 10:09 perceives that as a threat, 10:11 and says that you can't speak here on campus 10:13 or this is your First Amendment zone. 10:16 The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech for everybody 10:19 and, you know, the timid must look away 10:21 if we're going to have a diverse society. 10:26 We've all been graded 10:27 during those often quite distant school days. 10:32 Seventy percent is not a bad score to get, 10:35 it's a weak C, I think. 10:38 I noticed that our current president 10:40 in the United States is good at grading himself, 10:43 he will give top grades. 10:46 I don't know 10:47 what the United States and probably by extension, 10:50 the rest of the Western world 10:52 would rate on religious freedom. 10:54 We always think 10:56 that we are 90 plus with the tops 10:59 but in many regards, 11:00 while religious liberty is secure in the United States, 11:05 around the edges, it's a little fuzzy 11:07 and some of those multiple choice questions 11:09 just didn't pan out as they used to. 11:12 I think what's necessary is to look at the biblical base 11:15 for Christians of religious freedom, 11:17 the constitutional base 11:19 for United States government and the citizens, 11:23 the role of history 11:25 and the role of morality and fairness 11:29 and think we are committed to religious freedom. 11:34 For liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2019-10-31