Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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before the break
with Clifford Goldstein,
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a man of very few opinions.
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I'm sure you've been.
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We started to talk about COVID
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and how it's changed everything.
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Scary.
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And no matter when
this program comes out,
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I can confidently be certain
that it will be a changed model
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from before COVID.
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Yeah.
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Like probably
will never get back.
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Yeah, they talked about that
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and people have found
it very disconcerting,
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you know, where we were so used,
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and it's scary
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because you know,
you'll look at history
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of where some of
these fascist regimes
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and this oppressive regimes.
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It's times of uncertainty,
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people want certainty
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and COVID has
changed everything.
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Well, I think any
student of history knows
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we're in a model now
that clearly will give rise,
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maybe not in the U
S that's debatable,
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but it clearly will give rise
to a new fascism, absolutism,
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that's said.
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Well, you know, it's
very interesting too,
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from a religious
perspective, and even from a...
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I'll say a Seventh-day
Adventist perspective.
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I became an Adventist
about 40 some years ago,
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and I learned the
Adventist message.
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And I was
interested in religious liberty
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because of our understanding.
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The Book of Revelation
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clearly talks about
religious persecution.
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Absolutely.
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The mark of the beast,
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you can't buy or
sell, if you don't worship,
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you worship God, the Creator,
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or you worship the
beast and his image.
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By the way, I need to interject.
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I've told people
over and over again,
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the subtleties of
this escape many people,
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but there's one litmus test.
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If there's coercion involved,
it's not religious liberty.
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Yeah, right. Yeah.
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It's an easy way to think.
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Well, yeah, yeah, well, okay,
you're right or you're right.
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I mean, there's
always a certain amount of,
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well, whatever, anyway, but I...
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They're not coercion. Yeah.
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You're forced into
to love God is not love.
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You're forced, it
just can't function.
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It's self canceling.
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Yeah. Anyway. All right.
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Fair enough in terms of worship.
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Yeah. But anyway, I...
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We've often,
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it's always was hard
how to see this happening,
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how to see this,
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and our understanding
of the role of America,
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it's always hard
to see this happening.
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I believed it.
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I live by faith, not by sight.
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I remember when I
first heard this message
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and the role of
American prophecy,
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I used to think, well, you know,
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I heard this in 1979, we
just gotten out of Vietnam.
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We're still licking
our wounds out of Vietnam.
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We couldn't kick
a tin pot dictator
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for 90 miles off our shore
because of the Soviet Union.
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The Soviet Union was supporting
the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
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Fidel Castro was
sending troops to Angola.
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The Russky sent
troops to Afghanistan.
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And what did Jimmy Carter
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who kept the pole vaulters
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out of the Olympics
or something, you know.
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But the point is, it
was very hard in 1979.
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I need to correct your history,
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the US made an
undertaking with Khrushchev,
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they never would invade Cuba.
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Yeah. But whatever it was.
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But I'm just saying,
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the Soviet was a
big power everywhere.
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The Russian bear.
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And we were
projecting Christian values,
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Western Christian values
against God was communism,
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an easy construct.
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But the thing was in 1979, 1980,
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I used to think,
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how could
prophecy ever be fulfilled?
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How could America ever
fulfill its prophetic role
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with the Soviet Union?
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What?
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Was the Soviet Union going
to just disappear or something?
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Yeah.
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And, well, that's
exactly what happened.
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But even then,
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even after the
collapse of communism
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and the Eastern Bloc,
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you know, America's
democracy has been social.
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We talked
earlier about Watergate.
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I mean, what happened?
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The most powerful
man in the world...
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Was sent
packing. Was sent packing.
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Crying about his mama.
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But what
happened, what happened?
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Nixon gives a speech,
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gets on his
helicopter, flies away.
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Jerry Ford
raises his right hand,
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puts his hand
on the Bible swears
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and a transition of power.
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Our democratic
institutions were so strong
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that we have that,
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not a tank in
the street, nothing,
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but where we are today?
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Well, what you're getting at.
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Where we are today, I
don't see a thing of that.
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The institutions were only,
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they were no
stronger than they are now.
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They were only more solid
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because the general assumptions
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throughout the
population was supportive...
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Yeah, but now?
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And they are not now.
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Oh, yeah, now it's so...
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And then the difference today,
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which I think is a danger point.
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The US is a powerful country
and you can't ever remove it.
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I mean, 300 and
some million people
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has its own...
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We were plummet, whoo!
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But the US as an empire,
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which it never
was narrowly speaking
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is not in
ascendancy, it's in decline.
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It feels under stress.
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And in my take on history,
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it's a power under stress
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that is more inclined
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for radical of the
ill thought actions.
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Well, I think through the COVID
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with between
the internal dissent
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in the country
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that we had before COVID,
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and then you add
COVID to it and whoo,
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I mean, this is a
whole new ball of wax.
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I'm 65 years old.
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I've lived in this
country most of my life
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I've been
overseas, lived overseas...
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I didn't realize
you were so old, Cliff.
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Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
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And I feel it
too. I won't give mine.
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Yeah, yeah.
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But I've never
seen it like this.
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Now, it is spooky.
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It's a shake up
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for all of the norms of society.
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Very good for Amazon.
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Yeah.
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Mail order and
internet and so on.
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But the norms of
society have been shifted
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and let's get back to religion.
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The original sin
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of the response to
COVID in this country,
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and in many others
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was religion didn't pass
muster as an essential service.
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Yeah.
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It was, I don't
think it was done
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with deep seated malice.
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Yeah.
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But it was done with
a sort of a dismissal
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of the value of
religion by people
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that were nominally religious,
perhaps, but secular leaders,
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you know,
separation of church and state.
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Yeah.
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But they just slapped down
and, you know, go home and,
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you know, zoom your way to God.
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It's a balance.
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You've got to
strike a balance there too,
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because yeah, yeah, no,
it was a, it's a problem.
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It's a problem, I agree.
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And...
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And at very
least I believe it's,
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you know, I
can't make a good case
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for the governance in the US
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deciding to
persecute those that worship.
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I mean, elements of
it were prejudicial,
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but I don't think there's
any, but I can make a good case.
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This is a good moment of truth.
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Those that were ready to resist
persecution and all the rest.
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Yeah.
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Why did they go to
sleep on command like that?
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Yeah.
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If you went down so
easy, what will you do?
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As the Bible says you haven't...
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If you've run with the
horseman and is wearied.
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And if you run with the horseman
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and he is wearied,
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then what will you
do with the horses?
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That's right. Yeah.
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And something that I
said with Liberty Magazine,
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and it's worth thinking about,
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in the US we have
a good constitution,
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not divine, but
pretty well thought out.
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It's worked well,
separation of church and state.
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So people have become expectant
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that you would be
granted your religious freedom,
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but in reality,
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it maybe not to the ends
degree and you have to decide
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there's a price to pay
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for my faithfulness to God
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in this case with my conscience.
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I need to be
prepared to pay that price
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if it's required of me.
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People don't seem to be,
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if the
government says shut down,
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I shut down and I don't think,
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but maybe my conscience says
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I should, you know,
forsake not the meeting
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of itself together,
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Yeah, in fairness even
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to a lot of the
religious people,
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COVID was scary at first.
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And your wonderful news media
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that you seem to think so highly
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of, you know, it's hard to know,
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you know, I mean,
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this disease has like
what a 98, 99.6% survival rate,
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but oh, you know,
were going to be massive.
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You know, the ships at sea...
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But nobody knew initially.
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We know now. Okay.
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But see, that's what I'm saying.
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So in the beginning,
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I didn't have a problem at first
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when they were talking
about not going to church.
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Well, you know, you've
got this deadly disease
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and you'd be smart to...
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Yeah.
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Like in the
Middle East there's MERS,
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another
Coronavirus, 40% death rate.
00:08:52.73\00:08:54.66
Yeah.
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So I thought the other day,
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can you imagine
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if this thing had a
10 or a 20% death rate?
00:08:58.87\00:09:02.60
Whoo!
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It would be a
whole new ball whack.
00:09:04.41\00:09:07.34
Yet the Black Death in Europe
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paved the way
for the Renaissance
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and the Reformation.
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Well, so great.
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So kill 30, 40
million people and we will...
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But we are at a moment of truth
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and COVID really has brought us
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face to face
with certain realities
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and how we respond
is important, isn't it?
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Yeah.
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Well, you know, COVID
has changed everything.
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Where it'll lead, I
wouldn't begin to guess,
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but if history is any...
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Old history, we
can learn from history
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times of stress and strain
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and fear things
like civil freedoms,
00:09:46.21\00:09:50.39
things like religious freedoms,
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things like political
freedoms have not fared well.
00:09:52.89\00:09:58.66
And so I think we...
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For those of us who
care about religious liberty
00:10:02.10\00:10:04.27
at a time like
this, especially in COVID,
00:10:04.30\00:10:08.14
you'd need to
really take heed or phew.
00:10:08.17\00:10:12.64
It surprises no one
that the New Testament
00:10:17.65\00:10:20.82
should clearly
mention the Roman Empire.
00:10:20.85\00:10:25.29
Since, the Roman emperors
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had so much to
do negatively often
00:10:27.62\00:10:30.46
with the development
of early Christianity.
00:10:30.49\00:10:33.63
For us living, what is palpably,
00:10:33.66\00:10:37.63
if not the end of
time for some secularists
00:10:37.67\00:10:41.04
a time that
appears the culmination
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of the run of history
to quote Francis Fukuyama.
00:10:44.31\00:10:48.24
It should
surprise no one in this age
00:10:48.28\00:10:50.75
that the United States
00:10:50.78\00:10:52.11
might be also
mentioned in prophecy.
00:10:52.15\00:10:55.32
There is an apocalyptic
vein to United States' history,
00:10:55.35\00:11:00.06
the manifest destiny
00:11:00.09\00:11:02.22
to go from one shot or the other
00:11:02.26\00:11:03.79
to dispossess,
00:11:03.83\00:11:05.39
and ultimately to
all that exterminate
00:11:05.43\00:11:08.53
the original dwellers.
00:11:08.56\00:11:10.27
This is the stuff of Rome
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and perhaps the
stuff of a great power
00:11:12.37\00:11:15.30
predicted to play a part
in the very end time events,
00:11:15.34\00:11:19.57
compelling to a
certain form of obedience.
00:11:19.61\00:11:23.61
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:23.65\00:11:26.82