From the Easy Chair

Crime

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 84-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161BS128

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161BS128, Crime from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 232, December 3, 1990.

Otto Scott and I are now going to discuss the subject of crime. Crime is an increasing problem not only to the United States, but every country the world over. One writer recently said, “The barbarians have already taken over New York and are taking over the major cities of the United States.”

A few nights ago television called attention to the problem in Philadelphia where because a judge has ruled against overcrowding they cannot hold people whom they arrest and they cited the case, for example, of one man who was arrested for robbing a store, armed robbery and was out that same evening and went back to the same store to rob it again, a man with a long record.

Now this kind of problem is increasingly in evidence everywhere in the western world and outside of the western world. It is an aspect of the de-Christianization of western culture and the collapse of faith in other cultures.

Perhaps today’s paper, the Stockton Record in a brief article tells the story very well. The article is titled “Lennon Assassin says he is Basically Decent. Attica, New York. Mark David Chapman who shot John Lennon to death 10 years ago wants the world to know he is sorry. ‘You can’t judge a man’s life by one act. Before I became the man who murdered Jon Lennon I was basically a decent person,’ the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported in its Sunday edition.

“Chapman, who is suffering 20 years to life for killing the former Beatle was interviewed in his isolated cell at Attica state prison. ‘I am not an evil person,’ he said. ‘Like everybody, there is a small part within me that is evil and that is what took over in my case. My energies turned foul and went toward something destructive.’”

In USA Today, today’s paper, the front page story is also about the man who killed John Lennon, the former Beatle. In this long essay which goes on to about a fourth of page two as well, this assassin really vindicates himself.

[ Scott ] He forgave himself.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, yes. He wants other people to forgive him. And he says it was the phoniness of John Lennon that enraged him. Here he was teaching all this left wing gospel and far eastern renunciation and he found that he and his wife Yoko Ono lived in Manhattan’s exclusive Dakota apartments, had servants, limousine with a chauffer and had millions. And he said this hurt him. “I became hurt and raged at what I perceived to be his phoniness,” he says. He went on to kill Lennon.

[ Scott ] He is a very self righteous envious person, isn’t he?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Yes. So his interview is basically self justification. Now he says that he is basically a good person. Well, we are living in the world of Rousseau rather than the world of Calvin. If we were living in Calvin’s world, we would realize that we are all sinners by nature, fallen creatures and we wouldn’t indulge in that kind of Pharisaism. But Rousseau was the epitome of the Pharisee, convinced of his virtue and has had a profound influence on the western world.

So here we have an assassin assuring us of what a fine, moral person he is and asking us to believe him.

[ Scott ] Well, the whole question of guilt is an interesting one. The... generally speaking even children feel guilty when hey know they have done something wrong, although they are not sure of why it is wrong in all cases. But we have not only Rousseau, but we have psychiatry. We have social therapy to relieve people of their guilt. They can blame their parents or they can blame the environment. I have a friend whom I like, but I have very little respect for his intellectuality who is a judge down in San Diego. And he was appointed in the closing hours of the Brown administration and I said that proves that Brown was an idiot, because he made you a judge.

Then a year or so after that I asked him how he was coming along as a judge and he said, “Oh, fine. Fine.” He said, “I enjoy it.” And he said, “You know, most of those people that come before me are victims of society. They are not really bad people.”

And I said, “That is just what I expected you to say.”

Even the experience of sitting on the bench wasn’t going to open his eyes.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Scott ] We have an entire... this is what people are taught. We can’t expect any kind of reaction. The whole business of Freud’s couch, his stealing of the confessional from Christianity. It turned the instruments of the faith against the faith.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] He wrote openly that this was his intention. And to lift guilt... so you lift guilt from the alcoholic. You lift guilt from the drug addict. And I read recently, not too long ago, somebody said, “At one time there were a lot of drug addicts in the United States, people that were taking opium with this patent medicine and so forth.” But he said the atmosphere changed. People began to look at somebody... look down on someone who took drugs as a contemptible person. And immediately people stopped taking drugs.

Now we look at them as victims and victimology has added to our crime and enormous expense. Here we have black defenders of the black youths who raped and almost beat to death that jogger in Central Park. They are now portraying those men as victims.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, I made reference to the contrast between Rousseau and Calvin. In a brilliant essay about 30 years ago, Eric Von Kuehnelt Leddihn the Austrian political scientist said that the future of civilization depended on the outcome of the battle between these two figures and what they represented. Rousseau representing a belief in man’s goodness and Humanism and leading to the enormous evils of our world and Calvin with his belief in man’s total depravity and his call for a total reliance on God in Christ. And he said, as a devout Catholic he was not happy about coming out on Calvin’s side, but he said that the future of civilization depends on the outcome of this conflict. And he was on Calvin’s side.

[ Scott ] Well, even the Catholics never argued that there is no guilt.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Scott ] The whole instrument of the confession was to enable the sinner to admit, to confront his guilt and to repent. And it was only if they repented that there was any opportunity, any chance of God’s grace. But here there is no guilt. There is no repentance. And this is what is shocking so many observers is that the most atrocious crimes are committed by people who do not repent.

From the excerpts you just read to me from the assassin of John Lennon, he never once says anything about that victim.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Scott ] He doesn’t say he is sorry.

[ Rushdoony ] Or that he has changed his opinion that the man was a hypocrite.

[ Scott ] Well, if he was a hypocrite, it didn’t give him the right to kill him.

[ Rushdoony ] That is right.

[ Scott ] I mean, Lennon’s sins had nothing to do with this fellow.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] You don’t go to heaven by getting rid of somebody else’s sin.

[ Rushdoony ] No. Well, if we start killing all the hypocrites we are going to depopulate the world.

[ Scott ] Very, very few left.

[ Rushdoony ] We might have no more than an Adam or an Eve left, if that.

[ Scott ] Well, of course, there is an atmosphere conducive to crime. We have a film industry that, for a long time, was not able to export its films into other countries because of their Sadism.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Over a period of years the pressure that we have placed upon the English and other countries has forced our films into their market place. It wasn’t the sex that they objected to. It was the Sadism, because Sadism is absolutely the worst. It makes an enemy of humanity out of the individual. And I have to wonder that the Hollywood community which is, as we all know, interrelated to the social science community, the psychiatric fields and so forth, has never been analyzed. Nobody has ever done an analysis of the producers and the directors who produce these sadistic films. And what... no one has ever talked about their quite obvious hatred of people.

[ Rushdoony ] Or the warped standards that prevail and are promoted by our intellectuals. Thomas Fleming called attention to the fact that a nativity scene is regarded as insensitive and a threat to freedom and an insult to a sizable segment of our minority groups and yet he said at the same time to put a crucifix into a jar of urine is a great work of art and it is insensitive on the part of Christians to object to it.

[ Scott ] Yes. Now that is Sadism taken to a very high degree.

[ Rushdoony ] And it is a total moral and intellectual bankruptcy that says that we are in the last stages of civilization.

[ Scott ] Well, it is a little bit different, I think. The assumption is that these people don’t know that they are insulting you and I wouldn’t go along with that for one second. This is a sadistic act of dominance. It has absolutely nothing to do with freedom. It is the only freedom they are talking about is the freedom to put somebody else down.

[ Rushdoony ] But when you do that, you are dispensing with all the amenities of civilization and law. You are resorting to a barbaric practice.

[ Scott ] Well, in other words, you know what it is going to lead to.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] I mean, everybody knows in their heart that this is going to lead to blood.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] This is going to send an awful lot of these characters running for their lives. There is no way that they can continue that pattern in safety.

[ Rushdoony ] They are creating a lawlessness all around them that will destroy them.

[ Scott ] Well, of course. Of course. And then they can have the pleasure of being victims.

[ Rushdoony ] Today the youth gangs alone vastly out number the police in all our cities.

[ Scott ] Well, I have read the figure 80,000 in Los Angeles.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Eighty thousand. Now ordinarily you would say the rise of crime reflects a weak government and I still thing that its true. We have a government which has lost the will to govern. And we have this dispute or sort of dispute. It was a friendly dispute, really, with some Texans at the dinner table the other night down in Dallas. And one of the men that I was shouting at and was shouting back at me said that he was a staunch Republican and he wasn’t going to do anything that would upset the Republican party or a Republican president.

And I said, “The Republican party is absolutely finished.”

And he said, “Upon what grounds?”

I said, “On the grounds that a castration is irreversible.”

I mean, a group that has lost its nerve is irretrievable.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] A people that have lost their nerve is a decadent people. The men of the United States do not protect the women anymore. The women are afraid to go out at night.

[ Rushdoony ] Well....

[ Scott ] And sometimes in the day time.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Yes. On one college campus, a major university where rape by the students of other students, male students raping girls it is so flagrant that the girls are now, according to the Stockton Record, November 29, 1990 page B-7, are scrawling the names of their rapists on the bathroom walls in a guerilla attempt to get the school to do more about sexual assault among students. And all that the university is doing—it is an ivy league school—is to have a janitor go around and...

[ Scott ] ...wipe off the graffiti.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. On the grounds that it is legally actionable. Nothing about investigating what these girls are charging. The girls say they are not being heard. And this statement.

“Court proceedings can take years and a victim could be sitting next to a rapist in classes for a few years,” Said Jen David, 21, a member of the university’s disciplinary council and a founding member of BASH.”

[ Scott ] Well, in previous ... pre revolutionary eras where the people ... the worst elements had gotten out of hand, the culmination has been revolutionary and people’s courts. That happened in Venezuela and I think I referred to it in an earlier tape some years back. The {?} was put in power and I was told that homes are looted and that people were assaulted in broad daylight on the street as they are today in New York. In New York women no longer wear jewelry.

Before Anne and I moved out of New York and we moved out in 67, she stopped wearing her purse, carrying her purse. She put her money in a pocket or something, because of the purse snatchings. She also said—and this I have never seen in print anywhere and I have never heard anybody else refer to it, but I must say it, because it is the truth. She said that whenever she passed black men they said horrible things. And I discussed it with the police. I was at lunch with a police lieutenant amongst other men and I bought it up and he said, “Well, I don’t know what can be done about that.”

I said, “Well, the day will come when women will be insulted when their husbands are with them. And that can lead to some problems.”

He said, “Well, I hope not.” He said, “They...”

I said...

He said...

I said, “ You mean a person can’t be insulted.”

He said, “Well, there is no legal definition of an insult.”

I said, “What should they do?”

He said, “Well, call a policeman.”

I said, “From their pocket phone? What good are you?”

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] What good are you? I said, “Who needs a policeman like you?” He... he didn’t answer.

[ Rushdoony ] Good.

[ Scott ] Now what good is this government if it cannot guarantee our safety.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, when it protects the criminal more than the victim.

[ Scott ] Well, it doesn’t protect any of us.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, go back to this case I referred to at this college, university where the girls are writing the names of these rapists on the bathroom walls. Just reading a little more. It is a long article.

“No sexual assault cases have come before the disciplinary council. But it has considered cases of racial and anti homosexual assault and sexual harassment.”

She blamed the schools lack of a written procedure for dealing with rape and said, “The deans were insensitive, blaming the victim and steering them away from taking action. They had the rapists write a letter of apology to the victim or attend a three hour alcohol counseling session.”

And with regard to the list on the walls, “The university spokesman said the school had written on them ... the men on the list inviting them to file complaints, file complaints the girls.”

[ Scott ] Their abusers.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Well, we ... as you know, Margaret Thatcher eliminated tenure for the professors of England. She didn’t use the word. She simply said, I think, I the Reform Education Act copy I received it said, “No member of the teaching or administrative staff will be safe from discharge for reasons of redundancy or incompetence.”

Now the people of a country really cannot be forgiven for living under the tyranny when they have a climate such as ours. Our government has given way to every pressure group that has ever arisen.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] There is no reason in the world why those girls couldn’t get the men in their family to come down on that university. There is no reason in the world for everybody to sit back and say, “Well somebody is going to come along and do something about this.” That was the theme of that speech I wrote for Rex, the silent majority, that those who haven’t the nerve to open their mouths will in the end not be able to open their mouths because they will be under a tyranny.

I...I should think... I have never heard of any of the representatives of our government being punished because of the rise in crime in the communities they represent. I mean, if they are not punished for not doing their duty, I mean, the most elementary steps it seems to me could be taken. I mean, indignation isn’t enough.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] I have seen so many indignant articles and I have heard so many of these terrible things that I just can’t stand it, but no action appears.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, George Washington in his farewell address dealt with the new ideas that were coming from France, from the French Revolution. And at the climax of the speech he struck out at the idea that was coming into prominence of morality as something that could stand without religion. And he said that that was a vain belief. And he put his finger on it. We are trying to teach values in the public schools, self created values. And we are producing barbarians. We are doing precisely what Washington warned us against. We have separated morality from Christianity with the devastating consequences.

[ Scott ] Well, the Supreme Court of the United States verifying what you are saying, rule that the 10 Commandments could not be posted on the walls of a schools... the schools of Kentucky.

[ Rushdoony ] I was a witness in the trial. Yes. I was... I was on the stand perhaps an hour or more.

[ Scott ] What was the argument against them, against the 10 Commandments?

[ Rushdoony ] It was religious. It came from the Bible.

[ Scott ] It was religious...

[ Rushdoony ] And that the...

[ Scott ] The 10 Commandments came from the Bible.

[ Rushdoony ] And the... A... the ACLU was against it.

[ Scott ] They are against the 10 Commandments.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Because of their origin.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] I mean, that would be like saying we are against shoes because we don’t like the people who invented them.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. But it was a bitterly fought trial.

[ Scott ] But was it in Kentucky?

[ Rushdoony ] In Kentucky and there were two such trials. One was in North Dakota, I believe, and I was in on that trial as a witness and then Kentucky. It was won in the state court and the state Supreme Court also and went to DC and the US Supreme Court struck it down.

[ Scott ] Struck it down.

[ Rushdoony ] And wasted no time in doing so.

[ Scott ] Was that the... the... who was the chief justice at that time? Was it Warren?

[ Rushdoony ] It was still Warren. I believe or ...

[ Scott ] How did the...?

[ Rushdoony ] No. It was his successor.

[ Scott ] Burger?

[ Rushdoony ] Burger, yes. It was Burger.

[ Scott ] Burger is an ass.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] So was Warren.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. It was...

[ Scott ] And what was the... how did they treat you on the witness stand on that? They... explore the origin of the 10 Commandments or the Decalogue?

[ Rushdoony ] It was one of the easiest trials I have ever been in.

[ Scott ] Well you won it in the state courts.

[ Rushdoony ] And the thing that was obvious was that the ... oh, by the way, the state attorney general’s office called me in because I had been a witness against them in a Christian school case and they decided they want me... they wanted me on their side in this one.

[ Scott ] Interesting.

[ Rushdoony ] But...

[ Scott ] So the... the state of Kentucky was defending the 10 Commandments.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...in the case.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And it was interesting. The man who was in charge of the trial did not have any strong personal feelings, but he told me when I commented on the irony of being his witness this time, he said, “I hate to lose a case.”

So it was a purely personal thing. But the ACLU attorney was quite relaxed. He didn’t care what happened there because he was sure that in Washington, DC he would win.

[ Scott ] Now these are... you know, the Supreme Court of the United States... Howie Philips, by the way, talking about his third party, the US Taxpayer’s party, has as one of the planks the fact that you do not have to be a lawyer to be a judge and that he would put some non lawyers on the Supreme Court.

[ Rushdoony ] We once had them regularly.

[ Scott ] Because, of course, you don’t have to be a lawyer to have common sense or experience or knowledge. And most of the cases that arrive at the court really are matters that intelligent people can rule upon.

[ Rushdoony ] At one time the justice of the peace was the basic law man in the United States. And he was rarely a lawyer. He was basically a moral, outstanding man in the community.

[ Scott ] Like a squire in England.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Yes. Well, we have come a long ways from that type of situation, where a ... a moral premise governed the law.

[ Scott ] Well.... well lawyers are simply men who know the rules.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And they only go to school for a couple of years, you know. What is it, four years at the most?

[ Rushdoony ] Three years.

[ Scott ] Three years.

[ Rushdoony ] ... for a law school term. And they really get everything the first two years and the third year is there to help the school look professional like other graduate schools.

[ Scott ] Well, I like them. They are all individualistic and they are very different. Before we get through this segment I will have to tell you about the lawyer whose client over paid him and he said, “That is an ethical problem now. Should I tell my partner?”

USA Today has in the past week or so had front page stories and sometimes two pages and more dedicated to this matter of campus crime. The grim irony is that congress really has confused the issue because they have passed a law requiring every university and college to report campus crime, something they have refused to do heretofore so that supposedly a parent can find out in going to a university with his or her child what the crime situation is there. But there are so many loopholes that the bill is worthless to a great extent.

The November 29, 1990 USA Today front page story reads, “Campus is No Longer a Safe Haven.” And knifings, rapes and even murder are now part of the college experience. That while colleges are still safer than the country at large, that data doesn’t mean too much, because the data on the colleges is not accurate and when you compare it, let us say, to Los Angeles or Denver or any other city, you are comparing it with the totality including safe suburbs and all. But if you compare it neighborhood by neighborhood the college and university campus is a dangerous neighborhood.

It says that today’s university is a sophisticated city where police often deal with fire bombings, assaults by hate groups and turf wars among gangs. Court cases, too, are pressuring colleges to warn and protect. A 195,000 dollar verdict against Pine Manor College near Boston where a freshman... where a freshman was raped at knife point is the kind of thing that is scaring the colleges. A two million dollar suit against George Washington University, a reported 700,000 dollar settlement by Catholic University in Washington, DC after a freshman was raped on a track and shot in the face. A USA Today study shows that at least one rape is reported on a campus every 24 hours. Counselors say 10 times as many go unreported.

And it gives cases for many students, college brings their first brush with crime. During his first week, it gives a case of another student. He was subjected to more than one crime.

So schools are facing rising insurance costs and the problems are increasing. Another problem is developing in that because it is a lawless area homeless people are now going to the campus in order to sleep there and to crawl under their dumpsters to keep warm. They know it is a place where the police are likely to be more lax, the campus police.

Now yesterday’s USA Today front page story again, “Knife Wielding Rapist Altered Student’s Life.” Another story on an inside page which is entirely dedicated to campus rape. Rapists are rarely prosecuted.

Then, perhaps not in this issue, but in one recent issue there were two inside pages that listed recent college rapes and murders across country. So it is a grim fact. The statistics are appalling. And, really, nothing is being done to alter the situation because the colleges and the universities are more concerned with their reputation than with the life and welfare of their students.

[ Scott ] What reputation? What reputation? If anyone still believes in that nonsense, I am sorry to say, they must be living in a different world. We have millions and tens of millions going to college in this country. I mean, the idea... the time when colleges produced a gentleman are part of the distant past.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] It is no longer anything to talk about. In... in 30, 40 years from now anyone who talks about when I was an undergraduate will be laughed out of the room, because who refers to their high school teachers?

[ Rushdoony ] Well, one of the non legal crimes that is prevalent on university and college campuses is a violation of the PC stand...

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ...politically correct stand.

[ Scott ] Yes, that is it. There has been much about that recently. Suddenly they have discovered that.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Because the New York Times found out about it.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] The New York Times is the fount of it and finally one of the editors let a fellow write an article about it. But the whole educational establishment is corrupt. They ... the way they award contracts is corrupt. There are kickbacks. There are feather beddings. There is concealed costs thrown in, extra costs. The educational system in New York City has been proven to be a cesspool, an absolute cesspool. Even down in Dallas one of the speakers said most children are introduced to drugs in school.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Most of the drug addicts we have today got their drug education in school. They got an education in drugs by using drugs, not by the ... what the teacher talks about drugs. They begin with the schools.

And, of course, all crime is not sexual. So we have these crimes of violence. We have crimes against property. Then we have crimes against justice. What standards do our professionals have? They tell lies. They put in false reports. They plagiarize. We cannot trust scientific journals.

The New England Journal of Medicine is the one that is always quoted and it is absolutely unreliable, totally unreliable. I don’t know how the fellow gets away with it.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, one of the problems, too, is that the way the trials are conducted the insurance company bears the brunt of it. And so the college or university is not greatly concerned. Let the regents worry about the finances and the high liability insurance, but if a personal suit were brought against the regents of a particular college or university then something might happen.

[ Scott ] Well, this is the fault, you might say, of the Christians and the conservatives. Here the left has opened up all of these instruments of harassment, the tort, of which they claim... they claim to be upset...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...desensitized and so forth and yet the Christians... I have never heard of a Christian group suing anybody for the way they have been tortured over the whole question of Christianity in the public arena, about not being able to wear a cross in the public schools of New York City, but a yarmulke is permitted. That was passed under Lindsey. How come no lawsuits?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] How come their regents aren’t sued? Why? What is there about Christianity which denatures the believers and takes away all their spirit?

[ Rushdoony ] Well, that is a very recent thing. And ...

[ Scott ] Obviously we couldn’t have been like this all along. We wouldn’t be here.

[ Rushdoony ] No. No.

[ Scott ] What is wrong with... why is nobody ever lynched anymore? I remember when Westbrook Pegler’s first column was in defense of lynching. Now that may sound pretty horrible, but if the courts don’t do it what should the people do?

[ Rushdoony ] Well, lynching is evidence of a breakdown.

[ Scott ] Well, look at what we have left? What... what... what could break down more than what we have?

[ Rushdoony ] What we have to do is to take back the government from the element that has had it.

[ Scott ] Ah.

[ Rushdoony ] The average Christian is likely to be indifferent to politics. The conservative element in this country and the evangelicals, about 50 percent of them, are registered. They are indifferent to the issues.

[ Scott ] Well, they cannot remain indifferent because they are going to find themselves in the sewer...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...up to their neck.

[ Rushdoony ] Of course. Of course.

[ Scott ] I can’t understand it. I used to be very proud of this country. And I cannot say that I am proud of this country today. It would be a lie. I am not proud of it. This country doesn't behave. It doesn’t behave like a free country and these people don’t behave like free people.

One of the reasons we are in this problem is because of the prevailing dishonesty. I mean, dishonesty in a moral sense. People are giving lip services to things that they do not believe in. The haven’t the nerve to stand up and say what they actually think.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, there are signs of a change. Here we elected a Christian Reconstructionist to the state assembly, David Knowles. Yesterday afternoon his dedication service took place in Sacramento. I was supposed to b there, but I was otherwise committed. And David Tilton spoke for 10 minutes and drew the contrast between Rousseau and Calvin and said, “This was the fundamental issue in our political life.” The interesting thing is there was a tremendous crowd out for that service, because there is an awakening taking place. As you know, in one eastern state we have two men in a state legislature. There is a great deal of hostility in the media to them. In fact, a concerted effort was made to run them out of office. But they were returned to office with an even greater majority.

[ Scott ] Good.

[ Rushdoony ] So there are signs that a change is underway.

[ Scott ] Well, they will have to do more than educate them on the intellectual premises that are leading the country astray. There are certain reactions which should be innate and natural to people. To turn your life over to individuals who will not protect you is an act of stupidity. For a community to allow itself to be terrorized without doing anything about its government is absolutely unforgivable. And the same thing is true about the government as a whole.

I am coming to the conclusion that the electoral system is not working in this country. We keep telling other people that they... everything will be all right if they have the vote. But both the major parties have protected themselves in the same sense that the legislators have protected themselves against any competition. So we are constantly confronted with a choice of one of two men, neither of whom we want.

Now that has to be ended.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. But let me call attention to a couple of problems. And one is something I have heard from a number of people about across country. If you stand up to any of this, either in the pulpit or by rank or office or by writing a letter to the local newspaper protesting some of these evils, you are subjected to a venomous hate campaign.

[ Scott ] By whom?

[ Rushdoony ] If you are important enough, the media treats you as though you were the ... a menace to the community. You are a fascist.

[ Scott ] Well, you....

[ Rushdoony ] If you write a letter, you can be subjected to venomous phone calls.

[ Scott ] Well, I think it is ironic that you are saying this when you are the target of much criticism, have been for years.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And when I have been black listed out of the publishing business...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] I mean, we know that these things cost something.

[ Rushdoony ] That is right.

[ Scott ] And that hasn’t stopped either one of us.

[ Rushdoony ] That is right. But people are going to have to learn the hard way to stand up to this.

[ Scott ] Well...

[ Rushdoony ] They are not so far doing it, but they have to.

[ Scott ] Well, of course. I mean, if you stand up, you are bound to have people who won’t like it. But what has that got to do with the price of fish? It is no excuse.

[ Rushdoony ] Then the media enables the opposition to be particularly weighted. For example, right now Willy Brown and his cohorts are in a rage over the fact that their terms have been limited.

[ Scott ] I am sorry that it went retroactive.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And that their outside income has been limited here and in Washington. And they are actually planning reprisals against us for doing so.

[ Scott ] Well, that is fine. Let them start the war. They will lose.

[ Rushdoony ] Of course.

[ Scott ] And ... and my feeling about this... you know, I don’t mind arguments. I really don’t. I... I couldn’t care less. I expect the other fellow at some point to argue about it. And this country is not going to get out of the morass it is in by sweet reason. There is going to have to be reprisals. The people should... should get up against those 1400 dollar suits that Brown is... Wily Brown is wearing or whatever his name is. And ... and investigate that man. Find out where all that money comes from. I mean there is thousands of actions that could be taken place.

Schlafly, Phyllis Schlafly... But I talked to her about how she stopped the Equal Rights Amendment which, of course, was a redundant amendment in the first place, because all citizens are supposed to enjoy the same rights. And to pass an amendment specifically saying that women have special rights is... was obviously stupid on the face of it. But she said, “Whenever we heard something we didn’t like from the opponents on the air or in the radio or on the newspapers,” she said, “My girls and I would get together and we went down there personally and said, ‘We want to tell our side.’” And she said, “We were able that way to get our side out. And that is how we defeated the measure.”

Well, you have to get off your ass. You have to do something. You ... complaining is nothing. I mean, to be indignant about it is... is absolutely a waste of time.

[ Rushdoony ] I am trying to think of the name of the French scholar who early in the century wrote a book in which he called for something like a clergy of intellectuals and religious leaders, people who have the freedom to speak to speak for the rest.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] I recall being at a conference in the last two, three years and having some of the men who worked for some of the local corporations telling me what happened to them. If they joined a pro life group or if they spoke out against some of the flagrant evils in the community...

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... an executive ...

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... would let them know that the corporation did not look on that with favor.

[ Scott ] Well, we have this. That is true. The other did come up since I was more active. There is a younger group come up that is the most fearful and timorous I have ever seen.

[ Rushdoony ] yes.

[ Scott ] They are afraid of their shadow and business is making the great mistake. Business has got flowing into state capitals and the United States capital and it is wining and dining and giving favors and money and gosh knows what to the politicians. Well, politicians are dangerous animals. If you give them strawberries and cream, well, then they ask for steak and after steak an arm or a leg. And they are not afraid of those kind of lobbyists. And, therefore, the lobbyists do not have very much influence.

You have great influence over a politician who is afraid of you, who can organize opposition against you.

I will never forget J. B. Saunders story about the senator from Oklahoma that came out in favor of gun control. And J. B. wrote and said, “We don’t prescribe. You know, I have had out at my hunting lodge and we know you are a hunter and you like guns. Why are you in favor of this gun control measure?”

And the fellow wrote back that he was really concerned about the people in the inner cities. And the control of guns there. And J. B.’s response was, “You weren’t elected by the people of the inner cities. You were elected by the people of Oklahoma and we have now organized a committee to see to it that you will not be reelected.” And they did.

[ Rushdoony ] Good for them.

[ Scott ] And they defeated him. That is what citizens are supposed to do.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, I was very interested recently in reading a statement by {?} in which he said one of our problems is that our capitalists no longer believe in Capitalism.

[ Scott ] Lack of belief. I was told that in England some years ago when I did the Black and Decker book. He said, “That is the problem throughout the West.”

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Robert Applebee, the head of Black and Decker in England. He said, “We are now dealing with men that have no faith.”

[ Rushdoony ] And men without faith are cowards.

[ Scott ] Yes, they are. There is nothing to hold on to. They are not willing to ... they are not willing to pay the price of being free men.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Freedom was never free. I mean, you are always turned down by the sheep. And fine. It feels better without them. I... I... I don’t believe that a man who is capable of holding an executive position in a corporation is going not be ruined by losing... losing that position. There is lots of corporations in this country. There is all kinds of alternatives.

[ Rushdoony ] One of the things I read when I was in high school and I went through all of the major writers of the time. I read extensively in H. G. Wells and ....

[ Scott ] He was a very pessimistic writer.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. I didn’t care for him, but he was regarded as very important those days. So I read him and others. But he had one sentence in one book and it was this. “Brave men are men who do the things they are afraid to do.”

I have never forgotten that. And it has since then been the definition of bravery for me. Then later I knew someone now dead who was kicked out of the air force because he had no sense of fear. And they felt he was...

[ Scott ] He was dangerous to the others.

[ Rushdoony ] He was dangerous to the others and dangerous to multi million dollar equipment. And I thought, he is not a brave man. He is a fool.

[ Scott ] Well, he lacks something, some common sense.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And we are not talking now about lack of common sense. The are very few things in the English... very few situations or {?} for that matter that cannot be decently expressed in the English language. Really and truly if you put your mind to it, you can say anything you want and anything you think. All you have to do is put it in the proper term. And my experience has been that although I have delivered unpopular opinions they never cost me a thing.

As a matter of fact, I remember once sending a memo to the man in charge of everybody telling him that felt what he was doing was shocking and foolish and short sighted. And he told me late that he said it was shocking, but salutary. And he said, “I showed... by the way,” he said, “I showed it to Bill.”

I said, “What did Bill say?”

He said, “Did you ever see a fellow leave an office from under a rug?”

So he told us a lot of...

[ Rushdoony ] Well...

[ Scott ] ... about Bill. And really the dangers of non conformity are not as great as most of the conformists think.

[ Rushdoony ] That is right. Well, an interesting thing is happening. People are beginning to speak out. I learned that one of the major intellectual journals supposedly conservative took quite a swipe at us in Christian Reconstruction. And they didn’t expect their readers to react unfavorably to that, but they did hear some very ...

[ Scott ] Did they get some angry letters?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Heavens.

[ Rushdoony ] So we are developing unexpected friends in a variety of quarters.

[ Scott ] Well, that is marvelous.

[ Rushdoony ] And this is what is beginning to happen because after all who has something to say that is contributing to the reconstruction of the future?

[ Scott ] Well, what is our message? Our message is that we have to strengthen the faith, that we have to renew the faith, that we need a new reformation.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Anyone who looks around at the shape of things would, I think find it difficult to argue with that.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. So this is one reason for our appeal. Things are happening. The assault is heightening. I had a phone call yesterday, Sunday morning, from Australia. The media is waging a war against the churches as sexist.

[ Scott ] Sexist.

[ Rushdoony ] ... because they are not ordaining women or not all of them are. Some of them are submitting to that.

[ Scott ] How many of the editors in chief are women?

[ Rushdoony ] That was exactly the thought that came to me. So they are afraid of arts and this is why they are waging this all out war the world over.

[ Scott ] Well, any groups that decide to launch the global campaign against the Christians are picking a fight they cannot win.

[ Rushdoony ] That is right.

[ Scott ] And history has proven that time and again. It seems to me that it is ... it is... it is tempting to do it because Christians are the most tolerant of all groups.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] They accept everybody no matter who their father was, no matter what their color is, no mater what language they speak, no mater where they come from in the world. This is not a hereditary religion.

On the other hand, the Christians, once aroused have proven many times over that the faith can overcome all its enemies.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. And anyone who attacks Christians wrongly will sooner or later be confronted with almighty God. There will be a day of reckoning.

Well our time is about up. Thank you all for listening and God bless you.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.