Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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This has been an
interesting discussion
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with guest, Alden Ho.
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We've been looking
at the global situation,
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obviously with
us, not a subtext,
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but a background
view of religious liberty,
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how has it
affected the worldwide,
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the whole world is
shaking on its axis
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socially and even politically.
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And your view is that
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this is the
beginning of trouble,
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it's not the end of it.
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It is not just by the pandemic.
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It's not just political,
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but it's also in
the natural sense
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with all these
hurricanes and cyclones.
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Now, you know, first example
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that people haven't always drawn
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the things, we know in China
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that well under
the three self-movement
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of government controls
their religious activity,
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the certain organization
and apparent liberalization.
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The home church
movement in China
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is under increasing oversight,
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and even
attacked by the government
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because it's
illegal religious activity.
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And that's the key in China.
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I don't think
they particularly care
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to analyze Christianity
versus any other religion,
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any other ism.
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It's not the right one.
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Or other than
the Communist Party,
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and that's why they persecute
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the Falun Gong
movement so rigorously,
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it's barely, in fact,
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it never claimed
to be a religion.
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It's sort of just
a health viewpoint
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and a slight
veneer of spirituality.
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But it clubs together
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and the Chinese
government was troubled to see
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too many millions of
people thinking alike
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on something
different from communism,
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and they've
tried to wipe it out.
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And they've imprisoned them
by the hundreds of thousands,
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harvested their organs,
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all sorts of unspeakable things.
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So, China is been
moving against Falun Gong,
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it's been an eye, every
time I get on Washington,
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I see their representatives
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demonstrating in
front of the White House
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or other events on
the Ellipse there...
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So, it's an ongoing problem.
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They are
persecuting the Uyghur Muslims.
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I think for nothing
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other than that that's connected
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with a
geographic distinction from,
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you know, the
massive Chinese population,
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that they have
illusions of autonomy,
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but they're not
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a particularly pathetic
political threat to China,
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but they persecuted them deeply.
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And we saw it at Wuhan,
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incredibly rigorous restrictions
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on individual freedoms.
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So, I think China is,
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is at least at the very least
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using this new
health control measure
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to further its
ongoing restrictions
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of religious and
other minorities.
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Since the US has moved
a lot of production stuff
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out into China.
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China's GNP,
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I guess you could
say, has just boomed.
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I mean, you have
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very, very wealthy
young people today.
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So, for them, I
mean, they don't realize
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that all these things
are just starting to brew.
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And once again brewing.
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Well, I know you're
Asian and I could guess,
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is your
background from some Chinese?
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I'm Chinese. Yeah, I'm guessing.
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So, I'm sure you have some
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more than some thoughts on that.
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But tell me if I'm wrong,
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my study of Chinese history
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is it's not been an
expansionist country.
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China's very self-absorbed.
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And further back
you go in history,
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the more they had
which other countries have
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but with a vengeance in China
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that they are the Middle Kingdom
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and the rest of the world
is barbarians and whatever.
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I don't see China is
even in this late point,
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very expansionist.
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What they are
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is aggressively
improving their lot
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and they're trading
empire without equal.
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Everywhere
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I've been in the
world in my career,
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in this job,
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like in East Timor, for example,
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the ends of the world,
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little tiny, newly
independent country
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of 300,000 people
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touched a little
bit above Australia
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particularly I can't
get there from Australia,
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used to be part of Indonesia
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until Civil War broke out
in Australia and New Zealand,
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help broken of
their independence,
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the cost of
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I think about
100,000 people were killed.
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When I flew in there
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I'd say half the plane
full of Chinese businessmen,
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we get there we find
that the Government House,
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sorry, the President's palace
built by China given to them,
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the government
assembly given by China,
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the port built by
China, they own the mining,
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built the railroad.
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So, they've got
good, good friendship
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with the government
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and the goods
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are being
funneled back to China.
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Nothing wrong with
that, but that's the method.
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That is how they're doing it.
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Absolutely.
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So, in that sense, yes.
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They're a threat to US
dominance of the world,
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but not in the way
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that the US
normally perceives threat,
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they're just outdoing us.
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I was, a few months
ago I was in Belize,
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same thing over there.
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When you look at how
the, the actual marketplace,
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all the grocery
stores, and the variety stores,
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I guess you could say
were all owned by Chinese.
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You had Mennonites
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that owned the
electrical market.
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You had another group of people
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that had the furniture
market, but they're all there.
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And I mean, they
speak the language.
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They're the very
much Asians have the,
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the entrepreneurial mindset.
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I can't say that
they're full of pride,
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because every
country has its own pride.
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But yet,
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I even heard that the
dollar is shifting now
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where it's no
longer the trade value,
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and it's going to the Yen.
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Now that's the biggest story.
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That's the great
geopolitical threat
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but, but my point is
the world is changing
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and there's a new
trading empire rising,
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which short of
nuclear annihilation,
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I don't think the US or
any other power can stop.
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And the US itself rose
in somewhat unexpected ways,
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the fix was in
with World War II,
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US won't disappear.
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But these are creating stresses
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that the different
countries are going to deal
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with in different ways.
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And religion is
always the subtext to it
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that that I know.
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You know, it's interesting.
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There was a
saying many years ago
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when I used to travel that
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because the US was so
strong that when the US sneezes,
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the rest of the
world catches a cold.
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But I think today,
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it's not as
strong as it used to be
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because when you
look at, for example,
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amidst the
COVID stuff right now,
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it's not the US that sneezes
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the US basically
shut off all the ports.
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Now the US is hurting
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because all the products
that we were getting from China
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is not coming into port.
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And so, the economy hurts too.
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Well, we're living
through an interesting period
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and I remember
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the western civilization changed
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once the trade
routes were opened,
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remember Columbus,
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Vasco da Gama
and all these guys,
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they were trying to find a
way to bring stuff from China,
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other than across the land.
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Yeah.
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And it was, it
was Chinese spices
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that made the difference
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between stinky royal quartz
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and, you know,
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at least they
puffed part of that.
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I remember there
was a classic statement
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from one of the
royalty of England
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back in the Middle Ages.
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They said they
took a bath once a year
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whether they needed it or not.
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Mercy, wow.
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They didn't have plumbing,
that was part of the reason.
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And so, you know, China
is an ancient civilization,
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but that's not
really the point here,
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the point is
that there's a shift
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and the geopolitical
realities are changing,
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I don't think
the US will disappear
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with all the
nuclear weapons out there,
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you know, like Russia
which has faded a bit.
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We still take
them very seriously
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because they can
cause a lot of harm,
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but the world is shifting,
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and on this program
it's my job to remind people
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that religion as in
the soul of a human being,
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it's the most
important thing at play.
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Religion cannot be unaffected
by this changing dynamic.
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It has to stand firm. Yeah.
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And, you know, China
is for mostly for worse,
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I was gonna say,
for better or worse
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has spent a lot of effort
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restricting religious dissidents
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or even just
religious sensibility
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and in our reaction
to their rise to power,
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it's possible
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that we will in a
self-protective way
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be turning
around and restricting
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free religious
thought within the West.
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Sure.
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So, it's an interesting period.
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So, you let's say,
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you've been to a
few different countries,
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I've been to a few,
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where do we see this
going now with a global,
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you know, there was a period
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of about 100, 150 years ago
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a global
missions for Christianity
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particularly exploded.
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You think we'll see
another repeat of that?
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Or is it coming in?
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You know, we were told
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by one of the founders
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of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church,
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Mrs. Ellen White.
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She said that what we
don't do in times of prosperity,
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we'll have to do
during very difficult times,
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and I believe the
Bible does tell us
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that this message must go out.
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This is the Great Commission
of Matthew Chapter 28.
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Matthew 24 says,
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this gospel has to be
preached in all the world.
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It's got to go
to all the kingdoms.
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The problem is, if
we're not doing it now,
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when we have the freedoms,
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then we're certainly
going to have to do it
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during very difficult times.
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I believe that the
door will slowly close.
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So, there we'll have,
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there will have
to be sneaky ways
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of going out in newness.
00:10:04.10\00:10:05.43
Well, sneaky but not
innovative like the...
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I'm trying to
think of the Protestants
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that went door to
door in Switzerland
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and other places,
they were salesmen.
00:10:15.44\00:10:17.18
Yeah.
00:10:17.21\00:10:19.28
In the post Reformation era,
00:10:19.31\00:10:21.15
some of them
undercover of selling
00:10:21.18\00:10:24.29
basically tinkerers, and so on,
00:10:24.32\00:10:25.65
selling stuff door to door
00:10:25.69\00:10:27.02
they were then sharing the Bible
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and selling God's Word.
00:10:28.56\00:10:30.56
I remember when
I was in Cambodia,
00:10:30.59\00:10:32.93
I met a pastor from Vietnam.
00:10:32.96\00:10:36.40
And as I was talking to him,
00:10:36.43\00:10:38.77
he was sharing
with me the difficulties
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that they have to take
everything underground now,
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they can't do it on the surface
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because
everybody's watching them.
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And I said to him,
00:10:46.71\00:10:48.41
well, I will be praying for you.
00:10:48.44\00:10:50.05
In fact, I would like to pray
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that you will have the freedoms
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to be able to share that
and he says, please, please,
00:10:52.81\00:10:55.48
don't, don't pray for that
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because the work is
spreading faster underground.
00:10:57.69\00:11:01.09
You and I think alike,
00:11:01.12\00:11:02.46
I've seen experientially
00:11:02.49\00:11:03.99
within the Adventist
Church in particular.
00:11:04.03\00:11:05.73
But reading
00:11:05.76\00:11:07.10
Christian church
history in general,
00:11:07.13\00:11:08.46
it was turned in
times of difficulty,
00:11:08.50\00:11:10.20
even persecution
that it went quicker.
00:11:10.23\00:11:12.27
And that's the...
00:11:12.30\00:11:13.64
For us today this
pastor, it was very interesting.
00:11:13.67\00:11:16.17
This pastor said,
00:11:16.20\00:11:17.54
the challenges really
are that it's on the surface,
00:11:17.57\00:11:21.84
but it was
growing so much faster
00:11:21.88\00:11:24.01
when it was underground.
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So, he says,
please, whatever you do,
00:11:25.41\00:11:27.02
don't pray for
the religious freedom
00:11:27.05\00:11:30.05
that we have
00:11:30.09\00:11:31.42
or religious freedom
00:11:31.45\00:11:32.79
for the work to
be able to carry out.
00:11:32.82\00:11:34.49
Pray that the work
will continue underground
00:11:34.52\00:11:37.13
because as it
continues underground,
00:11:37.16\00:11:39.56
it will spread so much
faster than above ground.
00:11:39.59\00:11:42.66
In a document that
we will likely hear
00:11:45.93\00:11:48.04
a lot more of
on the environment,
00:11:48.07\00:11:51.71
Pope Francis speaks of the world
00:11:51.74\00:11:54.21
as our sister who is
hurt, wounded and dying.
00:11:54.24\00:11:58.38
He may have a
personal agenda to that,
00:11:58.41\00:12:00.88
but there's no
question that in our moral
00:12:00.92\00:12:03.99
as well as a situational
sense the world is hurt.
00:12:04.02\00:12:08.39
And when you talk
about religious liberty,
00:12:08.42\00:12:10.19
it's obvious
that in many countries
00:12:10.23\00:12:12.46
people are
suffering for their faith,
00:12:12.49\00:12:14.73
whether it's the
Uyghurs in China,
00:12:14.76\00:12:17.17
in concentration camps,
00:12:17.20\00:12:18.97
as involuntary organ
donors being tortured and killed
00:12:19.00\00:12:23.81
in large numbers.
00:12:23.84\00:12:25.34
Religious liberty is the
source of a lot of that hurt.
00:12:25.37\00:12:30.45
Even in the United States,
00:12:30.48\00:12:32.28
many people that
believe differently
00:12:32.31\00:12:34.82
than the socially
accepted religious norm
00:12:34.85\00:12:37.25
are being socially hurt.
00:12:37.29\00:12:40.29
We need to
recognize that we're all hurt
00:12:40.32\00:12:43.06
but we can all be healers,
00:12:43.09\00:12:45.59
not just those that demonstrate
against police abuses,
00:12:45.63\00:12:49.76
we need to demonstrate
against abuses of conscience
00:12:49.80\00:12:53.27
all around the world.
00:12:53.30\00:12:55.54
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:55.57\00:12:58.17