Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI190452A
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00:25 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:27 This is your program 00:29 designed to get you thinking about religious liberty. 00:32 We'll be discussing events in the US and around the world, 00:36 designed to highlight this most important principle. 00:39 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty magazine, 00:43 and my guest is Greg Hamilton, 00:45 President of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association. 00:48 Very good. 00:50 Yeah. 00:51 I've had problems in getting your name out before. 00:53 But now, we've known each other from many, many years. 00:57 Years over which the political landscape 01:00 has changed drastically. 01:03 And even going further back for when I first met you, 01:06 I came as a teenager to the US. 01:07 And in short order Richard Nixon was facing 01:11 the music and then fled for his life. 01:15 I remember him crying about his mother 01:17 and getting on the helicopter and waving and off he was gone. 01:20 I remember that too. 01:21 Interesting era. Yep. 01:23 And yet, I like Richard Nixon. 01:25 And he did many good things. 01:27 Tricky Dickie that they used to call him. 01:30 Yeah, that was his reputation going into the presidency, 01:32 but a man that had been part of a Red-baiting Movement 01:38 with the house of un-American activities. 01:42 You know, Dwight Eisenhower, 01:44 President Eisenhower did not like him, 01:45 but he chose him. 01:46 Yeah. 01:48 Well, this is often the case with presidency. 01:49 To satisfy the right wing of his days. 01:51 But I admired the fact 01:52 that someone that could be a red-baiter 01:53 from way back could open up Communist China. 01:57 Yep. 01:58 I was thinking about that as I came to this program, 02:00 I was listening... No. he did a very good job. 02:01 I was listening to an ever on guard opera 02:03 called Nixon in China. 02:05 He was a master of foreign policy. 02:06 Yeah. That's for sure. 02:08 And when I think back on it, 02:10 he betrayed the national trust in real ways, 02:14 but most of his sins were of a personal nature that, 02:20 that if he'd been less 02:22 convinced of his own place in history and more humble, 02:25 it wouldn't have happened. 02:27 He was paranoid about the Kennedy's, 02:28 and that's what led to the Watergate break-in. 02:30 Was his paranoia and... 02:32 To investigate a political uphold... 02:33 And then stubbornness to let it out, 02:35 because you know if he'd just fest up early on, 02:37 you know, time would have gone on. 02:39 But today, we're living through stuff, 02:42 many things, you know? 02:43 You know it, this is not a program 02:44 to criticize an administration or our leaders directly. 02:48 But there's no question, 02:49 we are all living in an environment 02:51 that is far more troublesome for the illegalities 02:56 and the irregularities of governance 02:59 than characterize the Nixon era. 03:02 And I thought about it the other day, 03:04 our president who has done many good things was up, 03:07 standing up in public. 03:09 You know, we're coming up to the Christmas season, 03:11 I don't know when this will be shown, 03:13 but he says, 03:14 you know, "We're going to talk about Christmas. 03:16 Christmas, well, he said, 03:17 "No one is going to be ashamed to mention Christmas." 03:19 And... 03:20 I say Merry Christmas to everybody. 03:22 And right, Merry Christmas. 03:24 It's not a problem. 03:25 And he made a comment about religious liberty. 03:26 And I thought, 03:28 "Is it really just liberty to speak of Mary 03:32 which is overturns of drunkenness and revelry?" 03:35 And Christmas which... 03:38 You know, we'd like to think of it. 03:39 So we're not talking about Mary Magdalene, 03:40 we're talking about merry, M-E-R-R-Y, to make merry. 03:45 Right, to make merry. 03:46 And Christmas, like Easter, that has many pagan origins, 03:51 as it does Christian, you know the Yule log 03:54 and the Mistletoe are not Christian. 03:55 Right. 03:57 So you know, is it our religious liberty 04:00 to foist or compromise, religious compromise 04:03 or worst to have a government endorsing this, 04:06 and pushing it through. 04:07 So there's an ambiguity, even as religion is promoted. 04:12 I see it sort of playing fast and loose 04:16 with what we should be doing 04:18 to uphold true freedom and true religion. 04:20 And I think it's part of this, 04:23 this dislocation that's came upon every aspect 04:25 of our federal government in the United States. 04:28 See you brought up Nixon, 04:29 you know, it's funny you should bring up Nixon 04:31 because you know right now 04:32 we're going through impeachment hearings. 04:34 In fact, the Congress, 04:36 the House of Representatives is bringing up the vote today. 04:40 They had a debate on the floor 04:42 and now they're gonna bring up the vote 04:44 as to whether President Donald J. Trump, 04:48 President Donald John Trump is impeached in the house. 04:52 I think of the first time a president, 04:56 it was Andrew Johnson, 04:58 he was impeached with 11 articles 05:00 for defying a Republican led Congress and its position, 05:03 positions regarding reconstruction. 05:05 Then there was Richard Nixon who resigned to avoid certain 05:09 impeachment in the wake of the Watergate scandal, 05:12 the break in. 05:13 Then there was Bill Clinton, who was impeached for, 05:15 in the house for lying about sexual misconduct. 05:18 Now, all of them survived the senate trial. 05:23 Now this, and those are all domestic issues, 05:26 okay, for impeachment for those three presidents. 05:29 This particular president, President Donald Trump, 05:32 it's different because this is the first time 05:34 a president will possibly be impeached 05:37 for misusing his foreign policy authority 05:41 in the service of personal, political interest. 05:44 And what makes us interesting is when you look at 05:47 the original intent of the framers, 05:50 their whole idea of impeachment of a president 05:53 was centered around the treaty making powers 05:57 of both the senate and the president. 05:59 And they had to do with, 06:00 whether a president would abide by 06:05 what the senate viewed was appropriate 06:08 in terms of upholding 06:10 the country's national interest, 06:11 that if the president did not uphold 06:13 its country's national interest, 06:15 and actually betrayed its national interest 06:18 by going along with a policy scheme 06:23 from a foreign country, 06:24 then that president was worthy of impeachment. 06:27 That's made clear in the history of understanding 06:31 the impeachment, 06:33 language of high crimes and misdemeanors, 06:36 treason and bribery. 06:39 And that's what's fascinating is that, 06:41 it was just centered on that one thing, it did... 06:44 To be honest with you the original intent 06:46 had nothing to do with the first three impeachment 06:50 trials of Andrew Johnson, 06:53 Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, 06:54 that had to do with foreign policy. 06:55 Well, get back to the Andrew Jackson, 06:59 not Andrew Jackson, John... 07:02 Johnson, Andrew Johnson? And. 07:04 Yeah, the, the... Nixon and Clinton. 07:05 Yeah, Johnson. 07:07 I'm getting mixed up with another president. 07:09 Johnson was impeached really, 07:11 as a blowback from the civil war 07:14 and pent-up issues following... 07:17 Right. 07:19 And that's what led to my royalty of selection... 07:21 So really, they had no real call. 07:22 Julius Caesar's Grant. 07:23 It was over an appointment, he's right to fire one of his, 07:27 one of his cabinet 07:28 which they go every day in and out. 07:31 Yeah. 07:32 So, but really that with the... 07:34 That it was a very unfair impeachment and he survived. 07:37 What? Wait, wait a minute. 07:39 I'd like to debate that with you just slightly here. 07:42 You see, Andrew Johnson really was turning back everything 07:47 that a civil war was fought over. 07:49 So when it came to, 07:52 even the Fugitive Slave Act 07:55 and in terms of returning slaves 07:58 to their southern plantation owners 08:02 and so on and so forth. 08:03 I mean he was defying 08:04 every single thing that was passed, 08:07 including saying that the south could go back to the ways 08:10 that they were doing things the way they were in the older, 08:12 old days... 08:13 Oh, it was a misguided way of conciliation. 08:15 And it was overturning 08:17 the whole result to the civil war. 08:19 'Cause it was not confined to him, 08:20 the whole period of reconstruction 08:22 in the Jim Crow era and all rest of them, 08:24 that's a long story 08:25 and many politicians to this day 08:29 would like to go back to making America great again. 08:32 Well, not. 08:33 Certainly we don't wanna go back to that. 08:35 No, I'm being facetious. 08:36 But with in some people's minds... 08:39 Well, there is a lot of people who, 08:40 who would like to do that, you're absolutely right. 08:42 But... 08:44 And Bill Clinton's, I wanna make a point on. 08:47 Nixon's was a criminal destruction 08:51 and a crime laid behind it. 08:52 Yep. 08:54 But it was not of huge national importance in my view. 08:57 He made it so by the way he covered up, 09:00 and maneuvered and all the rest. 09:04 Any one that's read US history knows 09:05 that the parties have played a heavy gang with each other, 09:09 and at times it's directly crumbled... 09:11 There's lots of hanky-panky, 09:12 and most of time they don't get caught. 09:15 Yeah, it's even violence involved, 09:17 not good, but not innate to Nixon. 09:21 But we mustn't always assume that either, 09:22 otherwise we go down that road of conspiracy, we know. 09:26 I have this false feeling, Lincoln, 09:27 that we should never assume a conspiracy 09:30 unless it comes out in the light. 09:32 You know, otherwise if you think that way 09:35 about your government, then you'll think 09:37 every things a deep state, everything is conspiracy. 09:39 I don't believe in that. 09:41 And then we'll go down the road where everything's, 09:43 "Must be the illuminati." 09:45 Yeah, it must be the trial out or commission. 09:46 Absolutely. 09:47 And thank you for bringing this up. 09:49 On this program we've often said that, 09:50 these deep conspiracies... 09:52 Yes. 09:54 Waylay people and without evidence 09:56 a conspiracy is just paranoia writ large. 09:58 And they think they don't have 09:59 to know anything or read anything, 10:01 because everything it is published, 10:02 every magazine it's published. 10:04 It's all part of a syndicate, it's all part of agendas, 10:06 so therefore, you should just trust your senses, 10:09 you don't need to know anything... 10:10 But any discussion of the US, not discussion, 10:14 any analysis of US's history, Timothy Hall, 10:19 Chicago with the regime there, or the Daley's and so on. 10:24 No, I mean this being political... 10:26 Oh, sure. 10:28 Actions that are just unreal. 10:30 There's been brutality behind the scenes for sure. 10:32 But what saves the United States 10:34 as in any progressive country, 10:36 or as a critical mess of people that are public spirited 10:39 and move into government to better their fellows, 10:44 not just to help themselves. 10:46 But you know, human nature is what it is. 10:48 But Richard Nixon, 10:52 I'm trying to give a pass 'cause I said I like him. 10:55 But there's no question, in my view, with the Clintons, 10:59 whether or not, 11:01 either of them have done anything reprehensible 11:03 during their political careers, probably. 11:06 But there's no question that when he came into office, 11:08 as he is charged against this present president, 11:11 there was a move to get him, no matter what. 11:14 It was, it was just, keep at it, keep at it... 11:17 Immorality was equated with treason which it's not. 11:19 No, but it predated that, 11:20 they were inquires of from day one, 11:23 and finally, they got him with his moral weakness 11:27 which is indefensible. 11:29 Yeah. 11:30 But as far as impeachment, 11:31 I didn't see a huge matter of state. 11:33 Yeah. 11:34 Well, that backfired big time. 11:36 They maneuvered someone 11:37 to publicly further embarrass themselves 11:39 by immorality writ large and all of that. 11:42 Right. 11:43 At the moment, 11:45 whether or not you're pro president, 11:50 we also would support whoever the leader is, 11:52 but whether or not you politically pro him 11:54 is immaterial, 11:55 because the questions at stake are matters of state. 12:00 And what you were alluding to I think is very important 12:04 that they had a paranoia in this country 12:06 about people coming from England and taking over, 12:09 in other words split loyalties. 12:11 Yes. 12:12 And the great quisling to mix a metaphor 12:16 of the United States, 12:18 Benedict Arnold, that was his problem. 12:20 He couldn't sort out his loyalties. 12:22 But think about Benedict Arnold, 12:23 I mean think about his life, the guy was the, 12:26 the general although was getting that job done. 12:28 The guy was heroic in battle. 12:30 I mean the guy was masterful in strategy. 12:34 I mean, he really turns circles around George Washington. 12:37 But here is the thing about George Washington, 12:39 he liked the guy. 12:40 And he thought he was being treated badly. 12:41 I'm glad you know the story. 12:43 In fact, George Washington went to Benedict Arnold's defense 12:46 and trying to make him a four star general 12:48 before the Continental Congress, 12:50 and the Continental Congress refused to do it. 12:52 That was the leading figure 12:53 in the New York area of government 12:54 that was getting at him so much 12:56 that Arnold almost felt that he was damn, 12:59 no matter what he did, and so he moved that... 13:01 Yeah, and so he was resentful and that resentment led to, 13:05 and there's another factor, 13:06 his wife was a Tory sympathizer, 13:10 along with his father-in-law. 13:13 And so that didn't help any, 13:15 and that's also what brought him 13:16 over that sort of tweaked his resentment 13:19 that was been building, and so was, 13:21 it was not hard for him to cross over. 13:23 Yeah, so, but that was their paranoia. 13:26 Yes. 13:28 And to this day we have the provision 13:31 that president must be native born. 13:33 It's for that reason, 13:34 not that there's any 13:36 deeply sacred thing to be born on the soil. 13:38 Right. 13:39 In other countries, there's been leaders, 13:41 you know, came 10, 20 years before, 13:43 and they're patriots. 13:45 But this is a residual thing. 13:47 The other thing that I believe is very much at play 13:50 is the idea of legitimacy of the ruler. 13:55 And it hit me the other day, 13:57 and we need to take a break 'cause I'm on a riff. 13:59 We'll be back. 14:01 We'll take a short break, 14:02 and I want to share something about 14:04 what might be at play at the moment. |
Revised 2021-02-08