Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI200492B
|
00:01 Welcome back to Liberty Insider.
00:02 Before the break with guest Clifford Goldstein, 00:05 one of my quieter guest. 00:09 We were talking about anything but quietness, 00:12 the figurative agitation 00:15 we get back from readers, this can happen with listeners. 00:21 And how do you react to that? 00:22 And we've both have 00:24 very interesting experiences with that. 00:26 Well, when I edited Liberty, I get the wackiest letters, 00:29 and I publish them. 00:31 And then I would write the snide comments after 00:34 and I thought it was the most interesting 00:36 part of the magazine. 00:38 And I got away with it for a while 00:39 till my boss got on me. 00:41 And then at one point, he made me stop. 00:45 And then I wrote, "Well, I got to stop this because 00:47 too much flak from the boss." 00:49 I put it in there, you know. 00:51 Did you? Yeah, I put in there. 00:52 And I did it for a while, but I stopped, 00:53 really, because events... 00:55 It was the best part of the magazine. 00:56 Events have sped up so much. 00:57 It's very difficult to impossible 00:59 with something like Liberty 01:01 to put the latest thing in because there's... 01:04 Even if I drop the editorial in as we go to press, 01:07 which I do, it's still basically a month 01:10 until anyone reads them. 01:11 And then you get caught. 01:12 And with letters, it really was, 01:14 someone would send a letter in and that was the second issue 01:17 from them when they see it. 01:20 And then a few of them objected to. 01:21 What I myself would object, 01:23 I would take their letter do what you did, 01:25 not necessarily, 01:27 but I would put my answer sort of setting them straight. 01:29 Well, this is the bully pulpit that they didn't like, 01:31 where they would sort of skew it. 01:32 Well, you're the editor and that's your prerogative. 01:35 And one thing I do in Liberty, which I will defend, 01:39 as I've had to in front of the board. 01:43 Not every article is exactly as I would want. 01:47 But it's not right for an editor to take 01:49 someone's philosophical and factual and, you know, 01:53 the production of their mind and twist it your way. 01:56 You know, it would... 01:58 Why even steal somebody's published articles 01:59 that I didn't necessarily agree with? 02:02 Yeah, I'm not quite that far off. 02:03 I thought it was a valid point, you know. 02:05 Like I remember, it was, in fact I used to have... 02:09 Nick Miller, I think you've had on the show, 02:12 he had an article one time about prison... 02:15 You know, some guy is a mass murderer, 02:17 you know, rapist, he does a horrible, and he's in jail. 02:21 And, you know, what he wants, 02:22 you know, some religious thing or something. 02:25 And they go to court to sue 02:27 to give some violent serial killer 02:30 or some secular predator. 02:32 But those cases are not usually really about 02:34 that crazy, perverted guy. 02:36 There's a principle that take... 02:38 There's a principle. Yeah, but I get. 02:39 But even the principle, 02:41 and I get, but to put it this way, 02:42 I disagreed with Nick on it. 02:45 But, you know, he's a good scholar, 02:46 knows religious liberty. 02:48 And I've read his article, 02:50 and I didn't even comment on it. 02:52 You know, as long as it wasn't something wacko, 02:56 you know, there could be different views on it. 02:59 I had no problem running different views on it, 03:02 even if I didn't agree with it. 03:03 Well, you know, I don't believe in forcing views on people, 03:07 any more than you. 03:09 But that's a different approach. 03:10 When you have a publication, 03:12 there has to be a viewpoint that it's known for. 03:15 And so I wasn't inclined to do... 03:18 I think you did sometimes with good effect. 03:20 You'd have two sides of an argument, 03:22 you put both of them on. 03:24 What do you mean, do that? I just run with other. 03:25 I will put an article in there may be some... 03:28 aspects of that I'm uncomfortable with 03:31 and I would write a footnote. 03:33 I remember D. James Kennedy 03:34 pushing for the Jones amendment wanting to break down 03:38 the constitutional inhibitions about churches 03:41 acting as political parties. 03:42 I put it in, I told him, I said, "I'll run your article, 03:44 I won't change it but I will put a footnote." 03:47 And I explained in the editorial footnote, 03:50 why we differ from that position, 03:51 why we respect it, but it was wrong 03:53 from a religious liberty point view. 03:55 I remember, I used to, 03:57 the magazine I salivated over for years, 04:00 which is The New Republic. 04:01 This is the old New Republic... And you so be on it. 04:03 Not the new one, it's been an intellectual flop. 04:06 Be careful they might sue us. 04:08 For 15 years. 04:09 I'm talking about the old New Republic. 04:10 But you were ardent reader. Oh, yeah. 04:12 And I remember, you know, they were definitely 04:14 more left wing and I still remember 04:16 they had an article in there. 04:19 It was Bush running against Clinton, okay? 04:22 Clinton... 04:24 And I remember they had a beautiful arc 04:25 in there by Richard Vigilante. 04:27 He said the case for Bush, 04:29 will you knew not one person in the New Republic 04:32 was going to vote for Bush, and they read that article. 04:35 And I thought, you know, I really... 04:37 That's intellectual honesty. 04:38 And I wanted to make that somewhat, 04:43 I mean, you don't want to do with that often. 04:45 But at times, 04:46 I would run something as long as it wasn't 04:50 whackos stuff that I didn't necessarily... 04:52 As I said, a perfect example 04:54 was Nick on the prisoner rights, 04:56 the prisoner rights, 04:57 and I just wasn't as somebody who's in jail, 05:02 you lose certain rights, okay? 05:05 And religious liberty too, I mean, how far, 05:08 you know, I mean, 'cause some of those guys 05:10 really took it to extremes. 05:11 Be careful, you know... 05:14 Yeah, you might throw, yeah. 05:16 Prison right, you do lose rights. 05:18 But think about when there's a persecution underway, 05:21 which could even happen in the United States 05:23 where for COVID, 05:26 churches that are opening now 05:28 there's even a threat against one pastor, 05:30 I know of that he's defying the government. 05:32 You can agree or disagree with the government mandates, 05:34 he's defying it on principle. 05:37 It's possible he could go to prison for probably 05:39 not more than a few weeks in this case. 05:42 But the judge can pretty much determine where you get sent. 05:46 And in prison, that person could be 05:50 persecuted depending on the prison. 05:52 They could be brutalized, many things have happened. 05:55 And because we're always writing about 05:58 whether you need a certain diet or whatever. 06:00 But think about it another way. 06:03 There's a whole group that the state doesn't like 06:05 their religious viewpoint. 06:07 So on technicality, 06:08 they can get sent into prison 06:10 where they lose all their rights 06:11 and then all sorts of mental and physical abuse 06:14 can be visited on there. 06:16 Well, that's bad. That's a whole separate... 06:17 Well, let's go to a real world situation in the Soviet Union, 06:20 in its waning days. 06:22 Yeah, I remember that... 06:23 Philosophically didn't agree with religion, 06:25 they went persecuting it like Stalin did. 06:27 But they were starting to treat people of faith 06:30 and conviction of faith as mental jobs. 06:33 And they would put him in a mental institution 06:36 where they were subjected to... 06:38 all sorts of chemical treatments 06:40 and subhuman treatment, wrong, 06:44 but it all started because 06:46 they were flipped on to the side 06:47 where they lost their rights 06:48 just because of religious viewpoint. 06:50 Well, that's a separate... That's not work... 06:52 Well, whatever, whatever we obviously agree, 06:54 that's bad, and so on. 06:55 And that was one of the geniuses 06:56 of the founding fathers in separating church and state, 07:01 and giving us this religious liberty. 07:03 But we need to be wearying and I've picked this up 07:05 in the years that I've been editing Liberty, 07:07 except there's a Stalin or you know, 07:09 some Pol Pot of someone that's gonna just wipe you off 07:12 because, you know, you have a tune 07:15 or look like you might be religious or educated. 07:18 By and large, persecution in the modern world 07:22 is on technicalities, lose your building permit. 07:26 It could be as simple. 07:27 And I think this is the way it'll come in the US 07:30 if when it comes. 07:32 They don't like say, Seventh-day Adventists. 07:34 So the police are parked around the corner 07:36 from the Adventist Church, 07:38 when you get out of church and just stop people 07:41 one after the other, 07:43 you know, your traffic light doesn't look good or whatever. 07:46 Do you have any money? 07:47 You know, the police can do this. 07:50 Fine you've got money, you gave offering. 07:52 So you've got your wallet with you, take all your money. 07:55 What they're doing in some places now, credit card, 07:58 run it to the limit, empty your credit card, bye. 08:01 So basically, there could be a systematic effort 08:05 to fleece people as they leave. 08:07 And you wouldn't think, "Oh, that's religious persecution, " 08:09 but it would arise from nothing but religious... 08:12 Well, that's a separate from what we were talking about. 08:14 But yeah, that is bad. 08:15 That is bad. 08:17 And, but that's how it happens. 08:18 Not in the US yet, particularly but in voting, 08:21 which would jump through, come through. 08:23 That's how the voters were intimidated. 08:27 Police down the street from a voting area 08:30 in a certain precinct and intimidate people. 08:34 As we even saw this time, people with guns hanging about, 08:37 up front monitoring. 08:39 There's a lot of things that show an attitude 08:42 toward a certain viewpoint, either voting a certain party, 08:45 or worshiping a certain way. 08:47 And it may not appear as persecution. 08:50 You know, what you're talking about reminds me 08:53 there was an article that came out 08:55 in the Atlantic Monthly at the end of last year. 09:00 And, you know, it was freaky, because it was, 09:03 how to avert a civil war. 09:06 So it almost wasn't, 09:08 we might have a civil war or whatever, 09:10 it was almost like the civil war is coming, 09:14 and what can we do to stop it. 09:16 Now that's pretty freaky. 09:18 And this was even before the COVID thing came, 09:23 and COVID... 09:24 Whoa, how quickly life changed, 09:29 how quickly everything changed, 09:33 things we took for granted, just shushed, were gone. 09:38 And if they were worried about that then before COVID, 09:41 after COVID, and there was a line in there, 09:46 where the author said the American experiment 09:50 is not guaranteed to last forever. 09:55 And if you happen to be into prophecy, 09:58 and understand a little of America, 10:01 in prophecy, it was like, wow! 10:05 Here's the secular magazine saying something 10:09 very, very scary, 10:12 more scary than they realize. 10:17 Jesus Christ said that this gospel of the kingdom, 10:22 not of a Great America or a United Europe, 10:26 this gospel of the kingdom, the kingdom of God 10:29 shall be preached unto all nations as a witness, 10:33 and then the end will come. 10:36 In many ways, our age reminds us 10:38 that the end is near. 10:40 But there is a great work to be done. 10:43 And as we've discussed on this program, 10:45 many countries may have a nominal religious connection. 10:48 Many countries may nominally be 10:51 part of what used to be called Christendom. 10:55 But in this age of COVID, this age of social dislocation, 10:59 this age of the intimations of financial collapse 11:03 and disarray, 11:04 it's worth remembering that this gospel 11:07 of the kingdom still needs to be preached to every nation, 11:11 kindred and tongue. 11:12 And when that's done, and not until that's done, 11:16 the end will surely come. 11:20 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2021-02-18