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Why Are Socialists and Communists (Even Islamists) Allowed To Run For Office? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Thirty six minutes past the hour, we are rolling out
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  Speaker 1: the big hitters this hour in the program and joining
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  Speaker 1: us now. Longtime friend of mine, I've known John Steenberger
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  Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty seven, have followed his career. He's been
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  Speaker 1: an incredible asset to the state of Florida and is
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  Speaker 1: one of the legal minds I have the greatest respect
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  Speaker 1: in admiration for. He is the president of Liberty Council.
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  Speaker 1: Action works with Matt Stavorite. Liberty Council as you well know,
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  Speaker 1: we have Matt on the program frequently throughout the year,
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  Speaker 1: as well as others on staff. John, Welcome to the show.
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  Speaker 1: How are you, sir, Preston.
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  Speaker 2: Great to be with you again, Great to hear your voice.
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  Speaker 1: Just give everybody a little bit of a snapshot. Lcaction
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  Speaker 1: dot org. What's Liberty Action all about?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, Liberty Council Ministries is actually eight different organizations
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  Speaker 2: operating into the same umbrella. The flagship is Liberty Council
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  Speaker 2: and that's founded by Matt Stafer. We do religious liberty litigation,
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  Speaker 2: protecting Christians and other citizens for the First Amendment right,
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  Speaker 2: the freedom of speech, freedom of religion. We've done a
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  Speaker 2: lot of litigation during COVID for people that had conscientious
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  Speaker 2: objections and religious objections to take in the vaccination and
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  Speaker 2: the mandates and that kind of thing. So we do
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  Speaker 2: a lot of litigation in that space. But there's also
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  Speaker 2: other entities. We have Christians in Defense of Israel. We
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  Speaker 2: have a national school called Covenant Journey Academy. We have
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  Speaker 2: Liberty Council Action, which is the group I had, and
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  Speaker 2: this is the policy and political branch of Liberty Council Ministries.
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  Speaker 2: There are there's a printing operation called New Revolution Printing.
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  Speaker 2: So there's eight different entities operating. I lead the political
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  Speaker 2: and policy group, the National five oh one C four
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  Speaker 2: Liberty Council Action.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to ask this question, and I've asked it
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  Speaker 1: of people that I have regard for in terms of
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  Speaker 1: their knowledge of the Constitution, people like Hans von Spakowski,
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  Speaker 1: and I want to get your thoughts on this, John,
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  Speaker 1: How is it possible that socialists and communists who oppose
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  Speaker 1: our system of government are even allowed to run for
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  Speaker 1: an office inside our government? And let's start with the
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  Speaker 1: federal government.
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  Speaker 2: So I love the creativity and the uniqueness of this
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  Speaker 2: inquiry because it shows a citizen you and others who
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  Speaker 2: are grapping with the Constitution and trying to find a
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  Speaker 2: way to prevent this kind of subversion that we're having ideologically. So,
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  Speaker 2: but the problem is there's tension in the Constitution. And
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to lay up four different provisions. Okay, if
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  Speaker 2: you want to take notes and somebody wants to do
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  Speaker 2: a deep dive. The first is Article six, and this
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  Speaker 2: is basically requiring In the same article, it requires an
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  Speaker 2: oath of office to support the Constitution, but it says
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  Speaker 2: no religious tests shall ever be required as qualification in
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  Speaker 2: the office. So, in other words, just being a Muslim
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  Speaker 2: doesn't or whatever right any it would be ideology, worldview
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  Speaker 2: doesn't prevent you to be disqualified from being in office. Okay. Secondly,
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  Speaker 2: the First Amendment protects political beliefs, so unfortunately the Constitution
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  Speaker 2: also protects religious and political beliefs. So if you believe
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  Speaker 2: in socialism as opposed to capitalism, or if you believe
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  Speaker 2: in whatever you know anarchism, or if you believe in
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  Speaker 2: monarchism or radical libertarianism, those are belief systems protected by
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  Speaker 2: the First Amendment. But that's different. Beliefs are different than conduct.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm going to get to that in a second, now,
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  Speaker 2: both you and I, so we have Article six, we
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  Speaker 2: have the first Amendment. The third area is Article five.
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  Speaker 2: Both of us, Preston have advocated for amendments to the Constitution.
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  Speaker 2: So if we believe, oh, Florida is Constitution's evil because
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  Speaker 2: it has a right to privacy that is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: protecting abortion, we can advocate against that and have an
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  Speaker 2: amendment to change. That does mean the fact that we
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  Speaker 2: want to change the constitution. You know, if we're elected official,
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  Speaker 2: Let's say we can both support the Constitution and want
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  Speaker 2: to change it because we think it's not right or
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  Speaker 2: we think there's something that's better. So the Supreme Court,
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  Speaker 2: which is the institution that reconciles these tensions we're talking about,
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  Speaker 2: has said that you can advocate for abolishing electoral college
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  Speaker 2: replacing capitalism of socialism through constitutional amendments. And that's okay. Now,
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  Speaker 2: the final caveat is this, there's a difference between belief
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  Speaker 2: and conduct. There is a constitution. This is the fourth provision.
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  Speaker 2: The Section three of the fourteenth Amendment has a disqualification clause,
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  Speaker 2: and in the Civil War they did disqualify elected officials
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  Speaker 2: who took the office if they engaged in an insurrection
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  Speaker 2: or rebellion are given aid or comfort to the enemies.
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  Speaker 2: So that's where the conduct comes at. If there's conduct
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  Speaker 2: that is subversive, this is strange because some of the
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  Speaker 2: beliefs and speech lead to this, right, then then that
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  Speaker 2: is something that could disqualify a person if they be
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  Speaker 2: pray the oath of office, through insurrectionar aid to enemies.
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  Speaker 2: All right, those provisions kind of by the answer to
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  Speaker 2: the question.
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  Speaker 1: Ran a couple of minutes long. In that segment, John
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  Speaker 1: Stenberger with me and I suspect John, this might take
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  Speaker 1: another visit with you and me and UH a little
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  Speaker 1: more time to kind of go through. I have struggled
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  Speaker 1: with the idea and you know this as well. And
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  Speaker 1: Islamist does not believe in our Bill of rights. A
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  Speaker 1: true Jihadi Islamist that we have being elected in various
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  Speaker 1: places does not believe in the Bill of rights, in
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  Speaker 1: the equality of women. Even even those that that are
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  Speaker 1: in behind same sex marriage and all that, they don't
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  Speaker 1: agree with any of the rights that we bestow people
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  Speaker 1: in this country. So how so is it a matter
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  Speaker 1: of a you can believe what you want and you
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  Speaker 1: can be elected, but if you act on those beliefs
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  Speaker 1: we can throw you out of office. Is that what
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  Speaker 1: we're dealing with?
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  Speaker 2: You know, that's right. The Constitution distinguishes between belief and conduct.
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  Speaker 2: What the solution is, and the framers could have never
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  Speaker 2: envisioned this kind of nonsense right, along with a lot
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  Speaker 2: of other nonsense. So they held certain truths to be
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  Speaker 2: self evident in the declaration. They never envisioned this kind
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  Speaker 2: of radical ideas we're seeing today. But the solution, the
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  Speaker 2: resolution is exposing these people when they run in the
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  Speaker 2: public square, exposing bad ideas, criticizing false beliefs and bad
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  Speaker 2: policy ideas, and just saying we should elect on elect
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  Speaker 2: these people. But the Constitution itself, as interpreted by the courts,
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  Speaker 2: are not going to disqualify anyone because of mere beliefs.
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  Speaker 2: And that's the unfortunate reality.
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  Speaker 1: Once, for example, let's look at Zoron, mom, Donnie, because
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  Speaker 1: I see two interesting possibilities here. One, as he begins
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  Speaker 1: to enact socialist policy mandates, wouldn't that be conduct?
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  Speaker 2: Well, if the conduct involves insurrection, right, or something that
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  Speaker 2: would trigger that provision in the Constitution regarding giving aid
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  Speaker 2: or comfort to the enemies, then yes, there could be
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  Speaker 2: an issue that's there constitutional, but otherwise no, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: he can advocate for the redistribution of wealth. He can
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  Speaker 2: advocate or even act upon socialism and replacing it, you know,
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  Speaker 2: with capitalism, with socialism and those kinds of ideas and
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  Speaker 2: providing free stuff for everyone and basically taxing everyone out
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  Speaker 2: the wazoo. He can do all that. That's unfortunately, that's protected.
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  Speaker 2: We have to as citizens criticize that and say, no,
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  Speaker 2: it's bad policy, these are wrong ideas, there's a false beliefs,
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  Speaker 2: and let's push back, let's get rid of this guy.
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  Speaker 2: That kind of thing. That's where the you know, the
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  Speaker 2: process of our republic comes in and trying to replace.
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  Speaker 1: People in the big picture is this is this waives
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  Speaker 1: something that you think is just We're going to just
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  Speaker 1: have to live through it and come out the other
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  Speaker 1: side because they're the socialists are picking on voter districts
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  Speaker 1: with low voter turnout where they can energize a base
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  Speaker 1: and get people in with sixteen percent of the vote.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, we've got to use the free
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  Speaker 2: marketplace of ideas, right, I mean, that's the whole purpose
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  Speaker 2: of that. We have to make the argument for why
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  Speaker 2: socialism is bad, why communism is bad and don't have
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  Speaker 2: people roll their eyes. This is real, like communism is
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  Speaker 2: coming to us. We're seeing candidates all over the country
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  Speaker 2: advocate for these radical ideas that we've already seen in
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  Speaker 2: other countries around the world defeated and realized they're not bad,
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  Speaker 2: but they're being coming up again. So we need to
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  Speaker 2: go back to the foundations, back to the first principles
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  Speaker 2: of why we believe America is great, what the country's
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  Speaker 2: founded upon, what's good public policy, and advocate for that
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  Speaker 2: and try to elect these people that are infiltrating government
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  Speaker 2: at every level.
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  Speaker 1: Do you believe people on our side of the argument
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  Speaker 1: are listening and know anything about messaging.
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  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of people that know a
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  Speaker 2: lot about messaging. There's a lot of people that are
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  Speaker 2: just cowboying it and just doing what they want to do.
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  Speaker 2: But we have to go back to first principles. We
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  Speaker 2: have to make the case for why is capitalism better?
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  Speaker 2: Why is it better for people to hold their wealth
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  Speaker 2: and not for government to take wealth? Right those simple principles,
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  Speaker 2: Why is it? Why is why is there free private enterprise?
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  Speaker 2: Why is their private ownership instead of public ownership with
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  Speaker 2: the government owning everything. We've got to go back and
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  Speaker 2: make those arguments about why those things are better from
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  Speaker 2: a policy standpoint.
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  Speaker 1: John, As always, I appreciate picking your brain. Thanks so
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  Speaker 1: much for the time this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Take care of Preston.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: All right, John Stenberger with US president of Liberty Council Action.
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  Speaker 1: Did you like his answers? I didn't like him, but
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  Speaker 1: he's probably right. Yeah, I was afraid of what he
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  Speaker 1: was going to tell me. Just seems wrong, doesn't it.
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  Speaker 1: We gotta fight the fight that we can fight and
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  Speaker 1: not the one we can't fight and win. And so
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  Speaker 1: he's right. You got to go back to first Principals.
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  Speaker 1: Forty seven past the hour,