Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is your program designed
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to bring you up to speed
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and catch your interest
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on the importance
of religious liberty
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in the US and around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed.
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For 22 years,
editor of Liberty Magazine
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and my guest on the program.
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Referring to that
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is the new editor
of Liberty Magazine.
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Now of just a few months,
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but maybe 25, 30
years, who knows?
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The young Bettina Krause.
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How are you?
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I am well.
Welcome to the program.
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It's good to be
with you. Thank you.
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We've spoken before and...
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So in some ways,
this is a continuation.
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And let's jump off on
where we are now as we record,
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and I doubt it'll
change in the next few months.
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We are in the second
phase of the COVID epidemic,
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the global COVID epidemic.
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And I think it's something
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around 4.5, 5 million
people globally that have died.
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Not yet close to the
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so-called Spanish flu
of about 50, 60 million,
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but enough to catch
the world's attention.
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Oh, yes.
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How would you
place religious liberty
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and Liberty Magazine
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in the ongoing
challenge with COVID?
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How would you place this
beginning with the failure
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to designate church
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and church activity
as essential services?
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Yeah, well, I think
this whole situation is just
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such a vivid reminder
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of how fragile our
civil liberties are.
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I mean, clearly,
public health measures
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were absolutely vital in dealing
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with this COVID situation.
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But it has reinforced
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just how willing we
can be as individuals
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to give up our
freedoms in the face of fear,
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you know, in exchange
for perceived security.
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And I think that
is a stark warning
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for us going into the future.
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We need to be prepared.
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You know, I think
it was James Madison,
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he said, you know, "It
is proper to take alarm
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at the first
experiment on our liberties."
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And I think we have been
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shown in an incredibly vivid way
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just how careful and
vigilant we need to be.
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And how fragile some
of these liberties are
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and certainly religious
liberty as much as the others.
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Yes.
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But also, Lincoln,
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it has shown us
that as a nation,
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we are finding it
increasingly difficult
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to talk about difficult issues.
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It has showcased
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just how broken
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our political
dialogue really is.
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And I think that
also is a warning for us
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going into the future.
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Because we know that
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there will be contentious issues
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that we'll have to deal with.
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Yeah.
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Are you aware of
some of the state actions?
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I was going to say legislation,
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but I don't think
legislation is the word.
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But the governor, as I remember,
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of Mississippi has passed
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some edicts recently
on dealing with COVID.
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And someone sent me a copy.
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It was the official
document from the state.
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And it says there,
among other things,
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that committal proceedings
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can be done over the phone,
an evaluation for committal.
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Yeah.
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And then as a follow
up, I saw the connection.
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The detention centers
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where people will be sent
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for not going along
with some of these things,
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they're not to be supervised
as before given the emergency.
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Do you remember
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in the Soviet Union
toward the end there?
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The dissidents, not
all of them religious,
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but in particular,
the religious dissidents
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were treated by the
state as mentally defective.
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You remember? No.
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They would
determine them by definition,
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with the religious mania,
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not understanding
things for their own good.
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And they were
declared mentally incompetent
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and imprisoned and subjected
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to chemical procedures
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since they'd lost their rights.
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And I don't think
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it's much
different for us today.
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Well, I mean,
authoritarian governments,
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they will do anything
to shore up their power.
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Well, let me put it another
way from my own perspective.
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I personally think
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there's an element
of QAnon type craziness
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for someone
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that's just so adamantly
opposed to immunization
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as though it's, you know,
it's the tool of the devil.
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You and I are probably alive
at the advanced ages we are.
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You're not as much as me,
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but you know, anything over 35
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in previous ages was luck,
it was the luck of the draw.
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And it's only
because of immunization
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that we have the
lifespans we have today.
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So it's just
flat-earth thinking to be
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adamantly
opposed to immunization.
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So that sort of troubles me.
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And yet, of course,
there's a conscience aspect.
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And someone,
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if they're under deep conviction
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that they don't want to take it,
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that should be respected.
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But I don't particularly respect
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just paranoid thinking.
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And so I can see it's
drifting toward a time
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when people that invoke religion
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to not go along
with public health,
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in this case, procedures,
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they could easily be determined
to be out of their mind.
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Right, right.
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I mean, in many ways,
what we're seeing here
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is a stress test
for our entire system,
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for our legal system,
for our social system,
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for our ability
to function together
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as a diverse community.
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It is a stress test
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and we are
seeing in many ways that
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it's functioning
exactly as it should.
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Because, you know,
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we see instances of
churches being closed,
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and we see challenges.
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And we see
courts making decisions
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which we agree with
and courts making decisions
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we disagree with.
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But the system is working
more or less as it should.
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But, you know,
some of the instances
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that you mentioned,
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you know, changes in the way
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people are detained, et cetera.
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I mean, again,
this is a stress test
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for our constitutional
system of government.
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And we as individuals,
people of faith need to be
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aware of what,
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not just what the
consequences are now,
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but as you say,
what the consequences
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could potentially
be if left unchecked.
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You're probably
aware of the book,
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and I'm sure
over the many years,
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I've mentioned it before.
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But when I first
started with Liberty,
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I was more free
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with my opinions
to our power group,
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our public affairs of
religious liberty group
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within the church.
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And I was going on
about the War Powers Act
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that exists in the English
and the Australian system.
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And somebody recommended a book,
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which I've since
read by the Rehnquist,
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the chief justice years ago.
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And it was called,
All The Laws But One.
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Have you read it or heard of it?
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I have not.
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And it cites the Roman
maxim that in times of war,
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all the laws are silent.
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Right.
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And Rehnquist looks
within the US history of times
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when the law was swept aside.
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And Abraham Lincoln was one.
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He suspended Habeas corpus
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because he saw
enemies everywhere.
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He arrested a couple of
hundred so-called enemies.
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No charge, no
trial, just locked them up.
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And he was ready to do the same
to the Supreme Court Justice
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who said this was
incipient dictatorship,
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but was finally
dissuaded from doing it.
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And so there's
many cases of that.
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I think that's what
we are heading toward.
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You and I both
believe in Bible prophecy.
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And Jesus said there'll
be increasing calamities,
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you know, by land and sea,
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and earthquakes, and
pestilences and so on,
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although these are not the end.
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Remember, it's persecution
that's the real end sign.
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But in those sort of
stresses, historically,
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even in stable democracies
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bring sort of chinks
in the armor, don't they?
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We are under the
emergency at hand.
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People can be dealt
with rather summarily
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and prejudices
kick in and so on.
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Right.
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I mean, you know,
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just think of
the Second World War.
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The internment of
Japanese nationals
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or Japanese Americans.
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We do have a tendency
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to cling to our
constitutional protections
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until there is an emergency.
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And that is why we
need to be vigilant.
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You know, I think, Lincoln,
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that all the areas that
you're talking about here.
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I think you also need to
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add another
layer on top of that.
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And that is the
issue of technology
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and how technology
plays into all of this.
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You know, we see in a
country such as China,
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an authoritarian regime.
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Where technologies
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are being developed that
increase surveillance capacity
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that allow the
government to control...
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I mean, I was interviewing
Ambassador Sam Brownback
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who, as you know,
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was a former ambassador at large
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for
international religious freedom
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under the previous president.
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And he said one thing
that keeps him awake at night
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is the idea that China
is digitizing its currency.
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And if it
succeeds in doing that,
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then it has this
sort of unparalleled power
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over its populants.
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You know, if the government
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has something
against a certain group
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or religious
community, you know,
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it's just a flick of
a switch, a turnover.
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We're almost there too.
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Haven't you noticed
during the COVID emergency,
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they've been withdrawing cash
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and it's been less
useful as in commerce?
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There's an
attempt to withdraw cash.
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And we are heading
toward a digital future.
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It's interesting that
he was worried by that,
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but that is actually
in the planning here.
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Well, it's interesting.
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I think what worried
him in particular was that
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it was actively being utilized
by an authoritarian regime.
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And its purpose was
specifically to control
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a certain group within China,
which is the Uyghur Muslims.
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As you know, you know,
they are a persecuted group.
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Yeah, I read an
editorial on it once.
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Yeah.
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The systematic
imprisonment and abuse,
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and they're mixed up in
China's physical traffic
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and the bodies of prisoners.
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And many of them
are Uyghurs. Exactly.
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And China is not only
developing the technology,
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it's exporting it.
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And so you have Pakistan,
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which is increasingly
becoming an ally of China.
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Has followed China's
pattern in installing controls
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on the internet to
control the flow of information
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that its populants can
access via the internet.
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And so these tools of
repression are increasingly
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being used by
authoritarian regimes.
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Now I only raise this
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because I think
going into the future,
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we need to be aware that
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we're not just talking
about old fashioned term,
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you know, methods of repression
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and abridgement
of civil liberties.
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Now we need to be
aware of the potential
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of technology to be utilized.
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Well, it's more
than the potential.
00:12:10.43\00:12:11.76
It's here and now.
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What we are...
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And we can't be
Luddites and oppose technology.
00:12:16.93\00:12:20.74
I think it's inevitable.
00:12:20.77\00:12:23.27
All we can do is be vigilant
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and call out the wrong attitudes
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in the powers of the be
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or in society
that's allowing this.
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But we're not quite
as advanced as China.
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I've spoken to people
that have visited China,
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and there are cameras
about every hundred yards
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along major roads
that are photographing you
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and they notice
when you deviate.
00:12:42.32\00:12:44.03
So they're tracking you
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in the real
world the whole time.
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We have a bit of the same.
00:12:47.43\00:12:48.76
It's not by accident that
every time there's a crime...
00:12:48.80\00:12:51.80
January 6th is case in point.
00:12:51.83\00:12:53.97
There are myriad
pictures of people,
00:12:54.00\00:12:56.30
not just selfie shots,
00:12:56.34\00:12:58.71
almost everywhere you go
00:12:58.74\00:13:00.08
there's a camera
photographing you.
00:13:00.11\00:13:02.38
And, of course, your own
cell phone is spying on you.
00:13:02.41\00:13:06.48
There are downward looking
00:13:06.51\00:13:09.48
radar satellites that can see
00:13:09.52\00:13:11.45
and track you in your home.
00:13:11.49\00:13:12.82
I mean, it's endless.
00:13:12.85\00:13:14.52
And I don't see how we
can hold back the technology,
00:13:14.56\00:13:17.96
but we do need to
hold back the attitude
00:13:17.99\00:13:21.56
that breaks down what
Justice Coke in England
00:13:21.60\00:13:25.40
said that, you know,
00:13:25.43\00:13:26.77
"An Englishman's
home is his castle."
00:13:26.80\00:13:28.70
There has to be some
place you can retreat
00:13:28.74\00:13:31.34
from oversight and monitoring.
00:13:31.37\00:13:34.74
Yes, absolutely.
00:13:34.78\00:13:36.11
You know, it's passA(C) now,
00:13:36.14\00:13:37.68
but way before I
was with Liberty,
00:13:37.71\00:13:39.58
I used to write on 1984,
the novel by George Orwell.
00:13:39.61\00:13:43.69
But, you know,
that's almost the norm now.
00:13:43.72\00:13:47.09
I don't pay for cable,
but cable gives the ability
00:13:47.12\00:13:51.96
for them to look at you,
00:13:51.99\00:13:54.00
exactly as the
character in Orwell's novel
00:13:54.03\00:13:56.97
was being watched
by the television.
00:13:57.00\00:13:59.20
We're becoming
increasingly comfortable
00:13:59.23\00:14:01.20
with surveillance of all kinds.
00:14:01.24\00:14:03.00
Absolutely.
00:14:03.04\00:14:04.37
And I think that's with
us till the end of time.
00:14:04.41\00:14:07.18
But it just
means that we've got,
00:14:07.21\00:14:08.84
as you say, we've got to
00:14:08.88\00:14:10.21
up our game on protecting
civil and religious liberty.
00:14:10.25\00:14:13.92
Yes.
00:14:13.95\00:14:15.28
Let's take a short
break and then I'll come back
00:14:15.32\00:14:17.12
and we'll look
ahead to the future,
00:14:17.15\00:14:18.95
and how you and Liberty Magazine
00:14:18.99\00:14:20.52
and all of us are going to
relate to these challenges.
00:14:20.56\00:14:23.43