Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break
with guest Alden Ho,
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we were, both I think,
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waxing eloquent
about the changes
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that the COVID
emergency is wrought.
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And the social distancing
is troubled me more and more.
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Yeah.
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And with that social distancing,
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you compare,
what you said before
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about people going
in the underground,
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having meetings, but
I'm not finding that now.
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Social distancing
has really stopped it
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and Zoom has taken over
taken over, whatever you think.
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Right. And Zoom has its place.
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But I don't know,
isn't the Bible say,
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"Forsake not to gather
and get yourselves together?"
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There were reasons
for the early Christians
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needing to gather
and share experiences
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and pray together.
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Just as there have
always been reasons
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for any group with an agenda
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needing to gather in the cell.
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And I'm not really sure
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in spite of all
of the claims made,
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even as far back
as Tiananmen Square,
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the Twitter
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and all these
other social media things
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can mobilize a rebellion.
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In fact, I'm not that
so always a rebellion.
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But, you know,
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that they were
talking about a rebellion.
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But I'm not even that sure
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that was called the
green rebellion in Iran
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when the young people rose up.
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I don't think that
was just social media,
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but it was clearly a part of it.
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And it wasn't successful anyway.
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I don't think
there's any real substitute
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for face-to-face.
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And so for us to hide
our faces from other people,
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keep to our homes...
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That's what I
believe at its fullest.
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That's breaking down
what I studied in school
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is the social contract.
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It would have been
interesting to see 100 years ago
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with that Spanish
Flu when it came up,
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where there underground meetings
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that were going on,
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or people more fearful
because of their health.
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They were fearful.
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But I don't think they
were the same prohibitions
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from a central authority
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'cause they didn't understand
the disease very plainly.
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It was people
commuting to work apocryphally,
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that would fall
dead in the streetcar.
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They seem healthy and gone.
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Now we're doing
some necessary steps
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to contain it.
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Some countries
better than others,
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and I don't think
the US could hold it
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and set up the highest.
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It was late to the
party and short of masks.
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And we were even
fed this information
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which should get
people a little suspicious.
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We were told
specifically masks had no value
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when we had no mask.
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Now that we have
them, everyone wear them.
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So people should be
a little bit careful.
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It's not particularly
the US more than others.
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Authorities tell the messages
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what they think the
message they'd hear.
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And the Bible says
this calls for wisdom,
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we need to be wise as
serpents, harmless as doves.
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Don't believe everything
you're told by every party.
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But if you don't believe
it, and if you don't do it...
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Well, that's the bottom line.
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And, you know, I have no burden,
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never had a burden
to encourage Christians
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or any people of
faith in testing any system
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whether it's a relatively
free democratic system,
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like in the West
or repressive like,
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let's pick on someone is
gone, Saddam Hussein's Iraq,
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oppressive North
Korea, very oppressive.
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I don't think in any
system people of faith
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should test the
system just to test it.
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We're not called to be rebels,
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but we're called to practice
our faith in any situation.
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And no matter
what that system is,
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if it's restricting our
faith we push back against it.
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It seems to me...
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And more than that,
which comes hard to Americans,
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I think the Bible shows
that there's always a cost.
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You can't expect to do that
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and for any system
to hold you harmless.
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Even in a democracy
there might be fines,
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there might
even be imprisonment.
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But if your faith holds,
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with your faith that's important
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you take the consequence.
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But how do you go
against that, as a church,
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for the forsaking of
the assembly of ourselves?
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Amidst all this,
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there's a pastor
that did go against that,
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and they were threatening
him and throwing him in prison.
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And without knowing
that particular case,
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I still think from
a point of conscience,
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that's admirable,
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somebody that
follows their conviction
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has to be admired.
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Is it admirable or rebellious?
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Well, that's you need to
decide on that individual,
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it might be rebellious.
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Paul's made it very plain
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the authorities
have legitimate control
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in civil matters
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and we're to obey them
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when they wield
the sword not in vain.
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But if they're
wielding the sword like...
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What's his name?
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Nero, who
persecuted the Christians.
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Clearly that was not something
that Paul would be happy with.
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Nero was persecuting.
It was an evil sword.
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So then that I guess the
question I want to ask you
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is social distancing,
is that constitutional?
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What if you don't?
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Well, let me put it another way.
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And this is a thought
that I don't think very many...
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I've not read
anyone questioning it.
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It's reasonable
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from a public
health point of view,
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to chase down a virus
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or pandemic or plague, whatever,
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you know, the manifestation
of this pestilence,
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survival with that we used to.
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Yes, if someone's got leprosy,
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to go biblical,
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the Old Testament
was very plain on it,
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they to be kept apart
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because they were a
threat to healthy people.
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But what we've done
which has almost no precedent
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in any system,
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particularly in
the West is to restrict
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the freedoms of healthy people
because they might get sick.
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That's bizarre.
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I think that runs
against all the norms
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of civil and religious freedom.
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But they say at the same
time, governors are saying,
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"You need to stay home,
but it's okay to walk your dog.
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It's okay to ride your bike."
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Well, in practice,
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I can only speak to the
US which I've experienced.
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In practice, it's not
done in an onerous way.
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I haven't seen anyone arrested.
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And this is really my point.
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Suggestions were put out
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and most churches and
faith groups just fell back
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and just ceased
operation instantly.
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When there clearly
was a middle ground
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that they could have occupied
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and without any
sense of the authorities
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wanting to persecute Christians,
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I think they
would have been fine
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but instead they just shut down.
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And the one area...
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And this has been mentioned
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in an article
of Liberty already.
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The one area
that's a little ambiguous,
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one state they even forbade
drive thru church assembly.
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Now, I thought
about that a lot of times,
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I can't see any rationale
that that's a health threat,
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none whatsoever,
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to have a whole bunch of
people sitting in their cars
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in the open
area, in the open air,
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either watching a screen
or listening on the radio
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to some, you
know, group broadcast
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that it's affected
sort of a halfway house
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from Zoom and other things.
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But there's a lot of
stuff that's been going on
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that they have.
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I don't know who does this.
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They sit in their
office and a bunch of them say,
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"What can we do to make
it difficult for people?"
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And just make it so stupid,
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because they showed a
park that had bathrooms,
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but the bathroom said
it was clearly locked,
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please because for COVID-19
we're just trying to keep safe,
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but please be free to use
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the porta
potties in front of them.
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How does that work?
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Well, a lot of its illogical
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because we're
dealing with a panic.
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I understand that.
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And the panic is not
just with the population,
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a lot of public
officials are panicked.
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And with some cause...
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I still remember early on,
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seeing the foreign news
media and the health minister,
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I think it was in
Iran, was on television,
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telling people not to
worry, and he's wiping his brow.
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He died a couple of
days later from COVID.
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They clearly have
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a more pernicious
form of it in Iran,
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and, you know, there's
pictures of mass graves
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and so on.
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But obviously those officials
they should have been panicked.
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And in England,
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we had Boris Johnson
treated nice, elated.
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He said, "You
know, the risk is there."
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I know President
Trump doesn't seem to care,
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no masking.
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He's very lucky.
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But there are reasons
even for officials to worry,
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but just looked at it
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structurally and I
think this is a thinking point
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for this program or
for all around the world,
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I hope people at
least think about it.
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Social distancing
makes a certain sense.
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And, of course,
we're doing it now,
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for practical reason.
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Yeah. Right.
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For sure.
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It's not wrong, it makes
good public health sense.
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But taken to a limit,
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it will tend to
break down the social glue
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that makes the whole world work.
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Even a democracy needs,
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I alluded to earlier
as the social contract,
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an agreement
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that you will
abide by the rules,
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you will react this
way with your fellows
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because you
respect other human beings.
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Once we become
only autonomous islands
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of existence
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and we don't see the same way
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other human beings the same way,
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things start to fall apart.
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To use, you know,
poem by William Bentley,
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it's the second coming.
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He says, "If the
center cannot hold,
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things fall apart."
00:10:07.47\00:10:09.77
And over the years
I've read many, many things,
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especially, from
repressive governments.
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I remember reading
Solzhenitsyn's writings
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from Soviet Russia.
00:10:18.21\00:10:20.92
And he described
social distancing
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the sense of social isolation
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that was engendered in
the dissidents, the idea,
00:10:26.72\00:10:30.79
not just an idea but
how they were kept apart,
00:10:30.83\00:10:33.86
they were even sent the Siberian
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and sometimes isolation
in a cell for months on.
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This was all
designed to give you a sense
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that you have no other support.
00:10:43.14\00:10:45.87
You are simply by yourself.
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And here there's this
massive power structure
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that you don't dare challenge.
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And I really believe
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that we're going through
advertently or inadvertently
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the makeup of what
we're going through
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the process that sets us
up for the same, sort of,
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centralized control
and inhibition of freedoms
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that we've seen
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in some of these
most repressive places.
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And that word control
is very critical word.
00:11:08.63\00:11:12.10
Let me read you a quote
that the Governor Newsom
00:11:12.13\00:11:14.90
from California said,
00:11:14.94\00:11:16.47
at the beginning of
all this COVID stuff,
00:11:16.50\00:11:18.01
he says, "People
will self-regulate
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their behavior.
00:11:19.91\00:11:21.24
They'll begin to
adjust and adapt.
00:11:21.28\00:11:23.08
We will have social pressure
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that will encourage
people to do the right thing."
00:11:24.85\00:11:27.52
Yeah, I'm sure the governor
didn't really have a sinister
00:11:27.55\00:11:30.35
under meaning to that.
00:11:30.39\00:11:31.75
But when you just
take it at face value,
00:11:31.79\00:11:33.82
the implication is very plain.
00:11:33.86\00:11:35.86
There's an inhibition of freedom
00:11:35.89\00:11:38.09
and the right of the individual.
00:11:38.13\00:11:40.26
And will that bring
00:11:40.30\00:11:42.06
about something
in the future for us?
00:11:42.10\00:11:43.57
I think so.
00:11:43.60\00:11:44.93
I think rulers and citizens,
00:11:44.97\00:11:48.07
I don't think
there's a bad guy in this
00:11:48.10\00:11:49.64
but we're all sort of in a flow
00:11:49.67\00:11:51.61
that is tending to
redefine rights, freedoms,
00:11:51.64\00:11:56.31
and the role of the
individual versus an authority,
00:11:56.34\00:12:00.12
figure out group.
00:12:00.15\00:12:02.08
And for us today, I
mean, we have to decide.
00:12:02.12\00:12:05.25
For me it's
troubling when I read that,
00:12:05.29\00:12:07.62
and I started
seeing what was going on,
00:12:07.66\00:12:10.99
they actually have I mean,
00:12:11.03\00:12:12.76
you look at the
latest iPhone update,
00:12:12.79\00:12:15.20
they can report
things through that
00:12:15.23\00:12:17.23
where your location
is, all those things.
00:12:17.27\00:12:19.10
You're getting
into another thing.
00:12:19.13\00:12:20.47
We need to have
a program on that
00:12:20.50\00:12:21.84
because I do believe
00:12:21.87\00:12:23.20
and I've mentioned before that
00:12:23.24\00:12:24.57
technology have sort
of handed the mechanism
00:12:24.61\00:12:26.61
to any authority group
to control and to persecute
00:12:26.64\00:12:31.25
and devil gets the individual.
00:12:31.28\00:12:34.62
But it's a brave new
world, isn't it, to borrow from,
00:12:34.65\00:12:38.19
a famous piece of work?
00:12:38.22\00:12:39.55
It is, but my concern still is
00:12:39.59\00:12:41.39
when you're looking
at this whole thing,
00:12:41.42\00:12:43.26
and what they're saying
00:12:43.29\00:12:44.63
and having the
people monitor you,
00:12:44.66\00:12:47.90
it's almost like the people
00:12:47.93\00:12:50.03
become the new police
system to be able to say.
00:12:50.07\00:12:53.27
We'll have the people
that are going to tell us
00:12:53.30\00:12:56.27
who's complying and who's not.
00:12:56.30\00:12:57.64
Which has horrible shades
of the Communist Bloc Group
00:12:57.67\00:13:01.21
where you as citizens
reporting on other citizens.
00:13:01.24\00:13:03.65
We need to fight that. Yeah.
00:13:03.68\00:13:05.15
But today right now for us,
00:13:05.18\00:13:06.98
what we have to do is
00:13:07.02\00:13:08.35
we have to figure out
where we're going to be going.
00:13:08.38\00:13:11.85
And as a people,
are we going to fight?
00:13:11.89\00:13:16.59
I guess for me,
I look at all this
00:13:16.62\00:13:18.63
and I have some concerns
that this is where all things
00:13:18.66\00:13:21.70
are going right
now today in our world.
00:13:21.73\00:13:27.14
In the middle of a crowd,
00:13:27.17\00:13:28.50
it's often very hard
to notice the individual.
00:13:28.54\00:13:33.04
Of course, in this COVID-19 era,
00:13:33.07\00:13:37.15
a crowd is a
very relative thing.
00:13:37.18\00:13:38.98
Six foot apart takes a
lot of space to make a crowd.
00:13:39.01\00:13:45.12
But I read in the Bible
00:13:45.15\00:13:46.49
that in the
midst of a great crowd,
00:13:46.52\00:13:48.52
the press of the crowd,
00:13:48.56\00:13:50.56
Jesus felt somebody
touched the hem of His garment,
00:13:50.59\00:13:54.16
a woman that needed healing
00:13:54.20\00:13:56.33
and received it by touching Him.
00:13:56.36\00:13:58.90
Somehow we Christians,
00:13:58.93\00:14:01.27
we people of faith
in a time of COVID-19,
00:14:01.30\00:14:04.64
social distancing,
00:14:04.67\00:14:06.47
still need to realize
00:14:06.51\00:14:08.28
that there is the
touch toward the master,
00:14:08.31\00:14:11.81
toward a spiritual
power beyond this necessary,
00:14:11.85\00:14:15.12
obligatory, and
that social distancing,
00:14:15.15\00:14:17.92
while in a civil sense
may create a passive populace,
00:14:17.95\00:14:23.73
may soften us up for
abuses from the powers here
00:14:23.76\00:14:29.13
that are above us,
00:14:29.16\00:14:30.50
that ultimately we do need
00:14:30.53\00:14:32.53
a touch and a
contact with the divine.
00:14:32.57\00:14:36.64
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:14:36.67\00:14:39.97