Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider,
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before the break
with Greg Hamilton,
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we were on dangerous ground.
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We're talking to the...
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to the very troubling situation
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in the United
States find herself
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in by extension to
the rest of the world,
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because the US is a...
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Beacon might be the wrong word,
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but it's a focal
point for lot of,
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the economy and governance
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and so on in the world at large.
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And then, what I was
wanting to bring out,
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that on impeachment
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what really troubled
the framers in my view
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was loyalty to a foreign power,
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and they were scared
because in their era,
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you could have a loyalist
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or a royalist sort of
slide in and take the,
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even the top job and
not really be dedicated
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to upholding this new republic.
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And something clicked
with me the other day,
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reading one of my
favorite authors, John Milton.
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He wrote many, many things
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and he was a political as
well as a religious writer.
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He was the chief
political pamphlet writer
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for the Cromwell era
in the civil war they had.
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And he also put his signature
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to the death
warrant for King Charles,
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when they executed him.
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And he wrote a large
document called a book,
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but it's not a long book,
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called on the tenure
of kings and magistrates.
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And giving his argument
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as to why a king who said
that he was divinely put there,
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that he had higher
power that the lower tribunal,
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the parliament could not,
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did not have the
right to even judge him.
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We're hearing that talk again.
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And he says, "Why did
they take his head off
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and what really clicked with me,
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I've read it before
but looking at it again,
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I suddenly realized the language
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is close enough to think
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that a high school
student could read from it,
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it's close enough
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to Jefferson's
Declaration of Independence.
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The logic there
is why they cut loose
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from the king of England.
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Well, sure.
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I mean it sounds
like he drew a lot,
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in terms of inspiration
from John Milton's treaties.
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Yeah, now, you know, John Locke
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was almost a
contemporary with Milton,
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but followed him.
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John Locke is been credited
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with the lot of the
ideology of the new republic.
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But I really believed
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and Locke was
influenced by Milton.
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Milton, how could,
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the other was at a time
of incredible dislocation
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in the England civil war
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with the religious...
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It didn't start with
the religious battle,
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but it turned into
religion as things always do.
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Because when you
have two factions
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especially in the civil war,
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one has to have
the moral high ground,
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so they invoke faith
in God's and all the rest.
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Right.
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And I think, we're
very close to that again.
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Impeachment, people
have their pros and cons,
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the system will work through,
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and all signs out that
this will be a statement,
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but not a...
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So what you're equating
that with is today's rise
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of the imperial
presidency essentially,
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which is what our
founding fathers warned against.
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I mean, there's a
number of books out there
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by various scholars right now,
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one by Peter Shane,
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whose book is called
"Madison's Nightmare:
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How Executive Power
Threatens American Democracy."
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There is another
one by Gene Healy,"
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The Cult of the Presidency:
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America's Dangerous
Devotion to Executive Power."
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James Madison once
wrote on Federalist Number 47,
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"There can be no liberty
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where the
legislative and executive powers
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are united in the same
person or body of magistrates."
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What's interesting
about that to me is that,
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not to change your subject
but to me it demonstrates
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that Congress are not
the only legislators, okay?
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The office of the presidency,
the executive branch,
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the executive
office of the presidency,
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he also serves as a legislator
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because they can propose bills
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just like
governors can propose bills
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or competing
bills or maybe do bills
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that basically
tried to do the same thing
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but a little differently.
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So to make sure that at
least one bill gets through,
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that happens a lot.
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So remember how,
we have to remember
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that the president
has his own bully pulpit
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to propose laws or to
sign executives orders
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and to pretend to speak
in behalf of the people when,
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which is interesting
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because
according to James Madison
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and the writers of
the Federalist Papers,
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Alexander Hamilton,
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John Jay, they
said that the people,
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the representative
speak for the people,
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okay, in
Congress, not the president.
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But that had, that changed a lot
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with the rise of
Ronald Reagan in essence.
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And you could even date
it back to John F. Kennedy,
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where they pretended
to speak for the people
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and they used a bully pulpit,
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especially the TV to say,
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"Hey, I identify
with your values,
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even if it didn't
line up with their values,
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it persuaded a lot of people
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to jump on board
their point of view
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and to get their agenda done.
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And so that's
been the big danger,
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it's an
evolution that has occurred
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in our country's history
that is basically media driven.
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Now, you know,
there's a separation of powers
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and they're
mandated by the Constitution.
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And I think when the
powers are not separated
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and when the
government is functional,
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never gonna say
it's dysfunctional,
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but that's how it was planned.
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They beat each other's throat
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because there's not a
primacy one or the other.
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And I think when that happens,
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we will not have
separation of church and state.
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We will have mandated religion.
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I'm pulling across a
long gap to get to that.
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The president was never intended
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to be a populous leader.
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That was never
intended by the framers,
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and that's what makes the times
we're living in so interesting.
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So when I read a
read a statement,
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for example from someone
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who is revered as a reformer,
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Protestant reformer
E.G. White or Ellen G. White,
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she writes in a passage
from Testimonies of the Church
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for the Church,
volume 5, page 451, she says,
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"To secure
popularity and patronage,
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legislators will yield to
the demand for Sunday law."
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Well, who best puts forward
that appeal or bully pulpit,
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it's the president.
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A populous
president can do a lot of harm
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to our constitutional system
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and even
overwrite it all together.
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And that's what
people don't seem
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to understand right now,
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that's what's happening with,
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what's happening
with Visa v Congress
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and the impeachment
trial of our current president.
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Something that
struck me the other day,
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I've been reading the
Constitution a lot lately,
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and I wish for one of
a broader description,
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I wish more
journalists would read it again.
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I read plenty of articles
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and I know,
they haven't checked.
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And, but it just
hit me out of the blue,
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that the
Constitution doesn't talk
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about people
voting for president.
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No, it does not.
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And how many people
read the Constitution?
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I mean, that's
just it, I mean...
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All it says,
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is that the electors
appointed by the states
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will determine who is president.
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Well, and then,
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and what brought
about the Electoral College,
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you just brought up a
very sour point with me.
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Now I understand the purpose
of the Electoral College,
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but if you
really think about it,
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it was a kin in
the Constitution to,
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to the
three-fifths of a person clause,
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okay, in dealing
with apportionment
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with southern states, saying,
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we don't have enough population,
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we've got all
these slave plantations,
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so therefore we
need to count each slave
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as three-fifths of person,
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so we have equal
representation in Congress,
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as do the north,
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to compete and
have a same equal voice
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as those in the north.
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Well, it was the same thing
with the Electoral College.
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It was that we want small states
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to be able to
have as much of a voice
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in determining the
outcome of election
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as large states,
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and that was largely an argument
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put forward by the south, okay,
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during the Constitutional
Convention in 1787.
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And so, if you think about
it, I mean we're now being told,
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I mean President
Trump won the election
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through the Electoral College,
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but he lost the popular vote
by over three million votes.
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Now they're
saying, Mr. Silver of...
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Uh, what is it?
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958 or what's it?
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What's that?
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Poll and survey, a
prediction of elections,
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I forget what it's called.
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Anyway, Nate Silver is his name.
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Yeah, I know that guy.
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But anyway, he says that
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in the future
presidents could win or lose
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by as many as
eight million votes
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and still win the
Electoral College.
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Well, that doesn't matter,
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this was never meant to
be a numerical democracy,
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it was a
representative government.
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Well, and some people say
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that's a reason why
we're Democratic Republic.
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And I agree with that argument,
except that in the modern era,
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I mean, where does this take us?
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And what...
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To bring it back to the
point I'm trying to make,
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the dysfunction in government,
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you and I didn't cause it,
we can't personally solve it.
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Right, that's true.
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We're observers.
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Yep, while we are voters.
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Yes, in that minimal sense,
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but I mean, there's
a big issue at play.
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Who are we in this program
to wade in on the impeachment,
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whether or not, whatever,
it's not really our thing.
00:09:42.74\00:09:45.75
But when you mess
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with the major
structure of government,
00:09:47.42\00:09:50.45
a key element religious liberty
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or the right of a government
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to move across the line,
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and force its will on people,
00:09:58.66\00:10:00.83
not through
purely democratic means,
00:10:00.86\00:10:02.90
is enlarged in my view.
00:10:02.93\00:10:04.57
We're entering
into an autocratic era.
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President feels
Congress is becoming autocratic.
00:10:07.47\00:10:10.81
They are impeaching him
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because they
believe he is autocratic.
00:10:12.21\00:10:13.88
And I think
conscience and the individual
00:10:13.91\00:10:16.85
is a threat in this environment.
00:10:16.88\00:10:20.35
We're facing
really troubling times
00:10:20.38\00:10:22.58
in our country right now,
00:10:22.62\00:10:24.22
and if anything our countrymen,
our fellow Americans,
00:10:24.25\00:10:29.16
and I appeal to you is
00:10:29.19\00:10:31.23
that we need to
pray for our president,
00:10:31.26\00:10:33.09
we need to pray for our country,
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we need to pray for Congress,
00:10:34.50\00:10:36.20
we need to pray for our leaders,
00:10:36.23\00:10:37.63
we need to pray for ourselves.
00:10:37.67\00:10:39.00
We need to pray for
sound reasoning and thinking
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and also to hope and pray
00:10:43.94\00:10:47.68
that sound minds will
prevail one way or the other.
00:10:47.71\00:10:52.98
Let's pray for justice.
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Let's pray for our
constitutional system
00:10:55.58\00:10:58.22
and let's pray for
one another is my prayer
00:10:58.25\00:11:01.56
as a result of
this discussion today.
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Thank you.
00:11:03.36\00:11:04.83
I sometimes pity
Daniel, when I think back
00:11:10.87\00:11:13.74
of what that great man of
Bible history live through.
00:11:13.77\00:11:17.51
The dysfunction of Babylon
arriving there as a captive,
00:11:17.54\00:11:21.61
he had to face of
against an arrogant king
00:11:21.64\00:11:24.11
who had the
power of life and death
00:11:24.15\00:11:25.48
over all of them.
00:11:25.51\00:11:26.85
And yet, when he saw
the divine intervention
00:11:26.88\00:11:29.15
on behalf of
Daniel's three friends,
00:11:29.18\00:11:31.59
he stole the God
of heaven and says,
00:11:31.62\00:11:33.46
"Worship Him or I'll
burn your house down."
00:11:33.49\00:11:36.62
There was a true believer.
00:11:36.66\00:11:38.96
And yet that fateful day
00:11:38.99\00:11:40.33
that Nebuchadnezzar stood
looking over great Babylon
00:11:40.36\00:11:43.26
and he said, "This
great city that I've built."
00:11:43.30\00:11:46.37
And after that
heaven cut him down,
00:11:46.40\00:11:48.60
and for seven years he
wandered like an animal.
00:11:48.64\00:11:52.11
I don't know how
much of Bible history
00:11:52.14\00:11:54.08
in that regard we can
carry forward to the day.
00:11:54.11\00:11:57.15
But in a dysfunctional
political situation we live in,
00:11:57.18\00:12:00.05
we need to realize
that it's not enough
00:12:00.08\00:12:02.32
to speak well sometimes of God.
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There is a
responsibility to rule
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and to act
rationally and responsibly
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before our
fellowmen and before God,
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the ruler of the heavens.
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For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:16.87\00:12:19.77