From the Easy Chair

Truth or Consequences

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 135-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161CT177

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161CT177, Truth or Consequences, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 287, April the fifth, 1993.

This evening Douglas Murray, Otto Scott, Mark Rushdoony and I will discuss, first of all, truth or consequences.

There are consequences to everything in life. We cannot escape the results of our actions or of anything. But the failure to live in terms of the truth, in particular, has very serious consequences. However, we live in an age when truth is not highly regarded. The honor system used to prevail in the universities in the era that ended with World War II. Since then it has rather rapidly disappeared from colleges and universities. The students—and with good reason—are no longer trusted. We see the consequences of that loss of a sense of honor in every area of life and thought today.

For us as Christians truth is more than fidelity to the facts. It is fidelity supremely to Jesus Christ who is the truth and in terms of whom everything in this world has a moral reference. There is a right and a wrong. There is a falsity and a fidelity, a truth about everything. However, truth has become less and less important in our time.

I will postpone comments on that until later and give the other men an opportunity to make some introductory remarks about the subject of truth or consequences.

Douglas?

[ Murray ] Well, one of the things that we are all faced with today is the government doesn’t tell us the truth about anything that is going on. Each branch of the government is involved in programs of disinformation, changing what we think we know about what the government is doing or has done in the past, disinformation. Or we are simply lied to. Polls that represent a situation to be other than what it really is because they don’t include necessary information that shows a real result, government statistics regarding inflation, health problems. All of these things are... the numbers are massaged to fit a ... an agenda of the particular administration in power.

And the people really don’t have good hard information to make a decision on. That this the reason that elections, particularly the recent one, as far as I am concerned, was thrown, because with only 42 percent of the vote I cant imagine that unless the people were lied to, that they would put a man like Clinton in power and then he can turn right around after telling the people that he was going to follow one particular course of action and do something else. The same thing with his predecessor regarding taxes.

And it seems like people are getting used to lies.

[ Rushdoony ] Otto?

[ Scott ] Well, by coincidence, before we determined this topic, I finished a book analyzing Tacitus, the Roman historian whom I enjoy. And I have read his Annals and his Histories, of course, years ago. And the book impelled me to go back and look at some of these again. And Ronald Belore is the name of the most recent writer. And he doesn’t... he doesn’t quote Tacitus, he analyzes him from various angles very interestingly. And in his analysis Tacitus, you know, was a sort of a modern figure because he went along with the terror and the purges and the corruption of first century Rome under Domitian in particular and obviously suffered pangs of conscience as a result.

Later he continued to rise official under Trajan. He became a governor of Asia. So he was an unusual combination of a writer and a successful politician. He was used to power both from the inside and the outside. And, according to Belore, he finally analyzed in his... his great masterpiece, of course, was the portrait of Tiberius and Tiberius was a great tyrant. Tacitus analyzed the loss of political liberty with the rise of lying. The loss of freedom of speech begins the loss of political liberty.

How do you lose freedom of speech? And he provides the steps in his description of Tiberius and it is very subtle. He does it very well. That it begins by misrepresenting the truth so that, for instance, they maintained the Senate, but they took away all the authority of the Senate while allowing the Senate to keep all its pomp. And then they told the people, “You still have the same government,” which, of course, was the great lie. And in order to put across this sort of lie you have to have a rise of a number of people who want to shut up others. They don't realize that by shutting up other people, they create a situation in which everybody is shut up. I mean, the groups, for instance, that do not accept any criticism of any member of their crowd, are the enemies of liberty, not just in a little way, but in a big way.

So we come to the meaning of the lie in political life is that a lie accompanies the loss of liberty and we are experiencing that. We are losing. We have lost, I should say, we have lost our freedom of speech. And what replaces freedom of speech but lies?

[ Rushdoony ] Mark?

[ M Rushdoony ] Well, I think one good example of the... of a... of a lie that is commonly accepted, at least tacitly, evolution. And it is amazing how many people... and I can’t remember statistics, but it is amazing how many people have been raised in the public school system and have been told that evolution is... is fact and still say they don’t believe it. But you don't really see that in any academic circles, so it is certainly not in any respectable, you know, books or accepted as establishment books or television programs.

And so we always have ... are bombarded with these evolutionary lies. Environmentalism, which is completely based upon evolution doesn’t have a good reputation because people won’t say this is purely evolutionary. Nature is not perfect. And they can’t analyze what nature really is without an understanding that evolution is a lie.

So without... so many in our... our psychology, our anthropology, everything is based upon one lie of evolution that is spread throughout our ... our thinking and our culture. And we can’t fight against it unless we start back and say, “Wait a minute. Here is... here is a falsehood.”

And... and that is just one example of one lie isn't being refuted, because people are refusing to fight against a lie because they are afraid of being considered anti intellectual or ignorant which is the whole reasoning of Clarence Darrow, his whole line of argument in the Scopes trial was that Christians are ignoramuses and bigots and they are stupid. And anybody who believes in creation has to be an ignoramus.

[ Rushdoony ] There have been a few cases in recent years wherein men have lost their college or university teaching position because they have suddenly realized that there was no truth to evolution and that they had been teaching a lie. And, of course, that is intolerable today, just as the truth is where it concerns Margaret Meade or anyone else who has falsified their supposedly scientific reports.

However, this should not surprise us. One of the key figures of the modern age was Frederic Nietzsche and I think it is notable that he ended up his life in a mental institution. With this thinking, that is where he belonged. But Nietzsche wrote vehemently against the truth. He denied that there was such a thing as truth. And he said what is now, by our Christian civilization called a lie, is very often more useful socially or politically so that to condemn the lie is to condemn survival, to condemn life.

So he was emphatically a champion of the lie. Well, Nietzsche’s thinking was aimed at putting life beyond good and evil, beyond truth and error, beyond any kind of religious and moral judgment that would say this is the way, walk ye in it or this is wrong, don’t do it.

Nietzsche was, therefore, totally at war against every doctrine of truth, in particular the biblical doctrine. And I think the success of Nietzsche is reflected in what we see in the world at large.

The first disciples of Nietzsche were the Turks. This is a matter that is very much hushed up now. But the young Turks were enthusiasts for Nietzschian thinking. They thought that all moral consideration had to be abandoned. They therefore planned and executed the Armenian massacres totally without any regard for the truth. In fact, one of their top men {?}, I believe, went to so far as to demand of Ambassador Morgenthau a list of all the Armenians who had life insurance policies and who were... had lived in Turkey and were killed in Turks, because he felt that the Turkish government was entitled to collect on them.

At that time we were not as cowardly as we are today. And Morgenthau indignantly refused {?} which did not phase {?} because he regarded anyone with a devotion to the truth as a man living in the past.

I am afraid that attitude is very common today. If you are for the truth, if you believe the truth, you are living in the past.

[ Murray ] Well, the... they attack you from a lot of different angles. They say that you are ... you are not progressive. They have a whole series of terms that they apply to you. But if you want to use the truth and their epithets and they remind me that the kinds of epithets that you used to hear on the playground when you were in grade school. But following up something that Otto said I just wanted to ask you, Otto, if there is any historical precedent for what we have today where we now have government dictated speech and thought. I mean, this is like another step.

[ Scott ] This is the same step. It is not new, not new at all. It is the same step I every revolution. It begins with the misuse of language. It beings with changing terms so that disguising the purpose of the revolution and the goal of revolution. In the French Revolution they began with first eliminating the titles of courtesy, monsieur, madam and so forth. Then they eliminated the titles of nobility and they substituted comrade, or its equivalent. Finally they eliminated the monarchy and the aristocracy all together and you had accompanying this changes in the French language. Words that became forbidden and words that became mandated.

Going back to Nietzsche for a minute, Nietzsche went around with Emerson’s essays in his pocket and he underlined them. Nietzsche got much of his inspiration from Emerson. Emerson, in turn, got much of his inspiration from Hinduism. Now in Hinduism Shiva, the god of destruction, was also the god of creativity. There is no difference between good and evil in Hinduism. You could go to Nirvana through evil or you can go through Nirvana through virtue. It makes no difference.

The Christian view ... Christianity, of course, believes I the triumph of virtue over evil. But this is not true for the Hindus. They are beyond good and evil. And this, of course, was where both Emerson and Nietzsche who was his intellectual protégé got the whole point of the super man, the man who was above the law.

Now to an extent the revolutionists and we might say that Augustus was a revolutionist because he completely destroyed what remained of the republic. There is one observer, one historian who thought that Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Senate because he refused to rise before when he appeared before them. He sat. And he had them come in while he remained seated. And instead of honoring them by rising he did not rise and they fell upon him which may or may not have been true.

At any rate, it began with a break of traditional forms and the break with traditional forms went into the break with the traditional language. Orwell talked about this. The Socialists have changed our language. They call themselves liberals. A liberal is somebody who shuts you up, not somebody who lets you speak. Donna Shelala as the president of the University of Wisconsin issued a list and it is not politically correct terms. It is official mandated terms. We should not call this politically correct language. We should call it official language. And if you don't use the official language you are going to be in trouble.

So the system of tyranny goes all the way back to the beginning of time. The tyrant does not allow you to speak. He does not allow you to contradict. He does not allow you to have an idea or a thought of your own. You can only say what is permitted and what is official. And that is where we are.

There is a book. I should have picked up when I saw it in {?} New York a few years back. I didn’t I went back the next day to get it and it was already gone. They had removed it. And it appeared... it apparently was about Nazi Germany and the title was They Thought They Were Free. No. We are talking about some very serious and very close issues when we begin to talk about official lies.

[ Murray ] And you say these are the first steps of dictatorship?

[ Scott ] These are the steps. When they become accepted it has been accomplished.

[ Rushdoony ] One of the things that has changed is the loss of respect for truth on all levels. For example, back in the 20s when we used to play baseball, any lot would do. The worst charge you could level against any of the kids who were playing was: You are a liar.

If he claimed he was safe and argued it when he wasn’t and if he persisted in that sort of thing he was excluded. It was with indignation that the others would say, “You are a liar.”

That has been less and less true over the years.

[ Scott ] Come to think of it, I don’t believe I have heard anyone say that in a long time.

[ Rushdoony ] No. I haven’t either.

So we have had a very, very dramatic turn around. We don’t have the respect for truth showing up in children. And that is a tremendous loss, because if they don’t have it when they are five to 10 or 12, they are not going to get it later on.

[ Scott ] When thy are very young they are shocked at the idea of a lie.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] They really are.

[ Rushdoony ] And... in our day it was not unusual for anyone who was a little wobbly in his truth telling to get his mouth washed out with soap. That was a symbolic way of letting the child know, you had better clean up your act. I don’t imagine that happens anymore. I think they would be arrested for child abuse.

[ Murray ] Child abuse.

[ Scott ] Imprisonment, no doubt. Well, I think the most spectacular lies began with Mr. Roosevelt.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] If... I think of social security. They swore that it would not become an identification. And now you cannot have a bank account, you cannot have a driver’s license. You cannot have anything without giving your social security number. And I saw where you can’t work with out it. I saw where an individual in Maryland went to court because he didn't want to give his social security number in order to be a registered voter. And the court ruled in his favor.

Now in California you are asked to give your social security number if you use a credit card in a restaurant and I know that Howard Amundsen refuses to do that. In fact, he danced with rage over the whole question. It was interesting to watch. And the manager came over and wanted to know what was going on. And I said, “Mr. Amundsen doesn’t want to give his social security number and is going to fire this fellow if he disobeys.” And he said, “Well, forget it.”

But it is now our identification. And this is a tremendous lie.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, they said it was an insurance policy, just like any other insurance. And then they said it was a tax and you did not have it coming to you no matter what you put into it if they ruled otherwise.

[ M Rushdoony ] I don't know if it is still true, but when I lived in Virginia till 70... late 70s, on your driver’s license they didn't refer to it as your social security number. They referred to it as your control number.

[ Scott ] Control number? Well, that is more truthful than the other.

[ M Rushdoony ] It was.

[ Scott ] Because there is no security in social security.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Murray ] I went into the social security office one time and I have had this card since was 14 years old when I got my first wage paying job and they wanted to take it away from me because it uses the word insurance on the back of it and they don’t want any of these cards in circulation. They wanted to take it away and give me one of the new ones which has that word removed from it.

It says, “For social security purposes, not for identification.”

[ Scott ] You used to be able to open a bank account with any name at all and the comedian W. C. Fields...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ... who had a great talent for ridiculous names like Rudolph Quakcenbush and so forth opened up a whole series of bank accounts across the country under all kinds of outlandish names. And when he died nobody knew where they were, so the banks, of course, eventually digested them all, digested his fortune. But now you have to give your mother’s maiden name and your social security number.

[ Murray ] Well, the tattoos on the arm will be next.

[ Scott ] Well, they... they it is pretty close because to be chased through the bank is total control. It is impossible to live without any transaction dealing with a bank. So in the commercial society that will suffice. The will equate with the tattoo in your social security number. And then, of course there has been a whole series of nobly named legislation which goes in the same way. It gives a pretty name, affirmative action.

[ Murray ] Window dressing.

[ Scott ] That is a wonderful name for injustice and discrimination.

[ M Rushdoony ] Well, it is that way true when you... when you listen to a political speech. You read between the lines and say, “Well, he is a liberal Democrat, therefore he means this.” When he talks about freedom and justice for all, we know what he is talking about because you know, his... his past.

When a Republican, a moderate or liberal Republican talks about conservative economics he means less debt than his Democratic rival which is one thing that I think a lot of people were very leery of Ross Perot. They weren’t sure where he was coming from so they didn’t know how to interpret what he was saying and what his motives were and what he intended to do.

[ Murray ] He tried to be...

[ M Rushdoony ] Because they didn’t know how to interpret his lies.

[ Murray ] He was sure to protect his three billion dollars in U S Treasury bonds which is going to go in the tank if they default on the government debt.

[ Scott ] Well, you can also lie by not saying anything.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And that is a big lie.

[ Murray ] That is becoming.... that is one of the ... it goes right it there with disinformation and misinformation. There is no information. That is one of the government’s favorite instruments for keeping the people in the dark.

[ M Rushdoony ] That is why there was a movement about 10 or 15 years ago. It actually was successful for a time in a number of states to give Creationism equal time in the classroom. They had to give it as a theory which was a bad ... bad way to go because then you are saying it is... it is of equal validity with evolution and it should be up to the individual who should be teaching that evolution is a lie and anything else is dishonest.

[ Murray ] Well you don’t teach them to think for themselves.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, what we are facing is the gradual obliteration of the importance of truth. And at no level of education in the statist sphere is there a great emphasis on truth, on even accuracy, because now increasingly—and I first heard this about 20 years or more ago—it is held that an incorrect answer on a math test is not necessarily incorrect, because it is how did you work it. Were you moving in the right direction? Therefore that made it correct so that veracity is also disappearing with truth. A great many scientific experiments are radically lacking in veracity and we regularly hear of something that has take place that reveals that an experiment was not valid.

So we do have serious problem not only in the area of truth, but generally. It shatters veracity.

[ Scott ] Well, if you have false grades in school, if the grade is false how can you expect the students to be truthful?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. You can’t.

Earlier today as I was thinking about the subject of truth or consequences I suddenly realized the meaning, the full meaning of something someone had said to me years and years ago. He was going out of his way to try to bait me and he made it clear that he didn’t care where in the Christian scheme of things he went. He was ready to go to hell. After all, a lot of the people he enjoyed most would probably be in hell also. And it would be simply a continuation of the pleasures and the company that he presently had.

And it wasn’t until today—and I don’t recall all that he had to say then—I realized what his premise was. There is no truth. Therefore, he was ready to accept the possibility in a world of infinite possibilities that there could be life after death. And it would be equally valid whatever name you gave it, wherever you were, whoever you were with. It would be so many things of equal validity or equal invalidity so that it would be no different than the world that the knew today. Here were people off in a corner with their idea of truth which didn’t mean much as far as he was concerned. And here were people who were reprobates in the eyes of others. But who was to say what was right and what was wrong? The equal validity of everything.

And I am afraid that is a more common premise than we fully realize. If the world is without God, if it is open to all possibilities and all things are equally false and equally true and equally meaningless...

[ Murray ] Well it is... it is a brain washing technique. And it is a means of disorienting people’s thinking so that they give up looking for the truth. And then whoever is in power, whoever has control of the media wherever they get their information from can tell them anything. It is just like Pravda which is all we have for media today.

[ Scott ] Well, I don’t ... I agree. I don’t think the average person really considers the ramifications of lies. If, for instance, the professor lies about the caliber and the work of the student because the student is either a member of his ethnic group or because he wants to bend over backwards because the student is a minority or whatever, the result is a certificate given to a person who is not truly qualified. So then you have a mediocre or an inefficient physician, a mediocre or an inefficient lawyer or whatever. Now this permeates all the levels of society, because the average person—and in this area we are all average—we cannot look behind the certificate to determine its validity. It is an official, legal title. The person is a... is a doctor. He is a lawyer. He is whatever. If the examiner is a liar then the result is a whole series of lies and frauds.

Now the French philosopher, so-called, Foucault who just died recently and, as usual, after his death it is suddenly revealed that he was a monstrous pervert. Not only was he a pervert, but his footnotes and his sources were perverted and were wrong. They were not just wrong. They were invented. And in many instances they were distorted when they were not invented. So we have here somebody who was worshipped in all the universities of the United States who was a total and complete liar.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And all those who praised him either didn’t know ay better, which means that they weren’t much themselves, or else they shared in the lie.

[ Rushdoony ] The­ New Republic you gave me yesterday was very complimentary to Foucault.

[ Scott ] Well, look at the New Republic.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] A publication that has been wrong since it was first published. It has never been right. It adored Stalin. It went along with every lie of this century. To even associate with the New Republic is to disgrace yourself.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, Otto, they are not totally wrong. They usually have the right year on the masthead.

[ Scott ] Well this...

[ Murray ] What you are talking about really now is from the top to the bottom. Last week the U S Supreme Court refused to hear the case that was brought by the San Francisco police officer’s association where they have, in effect, unequal testing. Now here is the Supreme Court that is supposed to be the guardian of the Constitution with the equal justice for all and they refuse to hear the case where a minority applicant for advancement or entry into the San Francisco police department are given an easier test. Any question... any answer to any question is accepted. There is two different standards.

[ Scott ] Two different standards. And in some instances the minority going into a university gets an automatic addition. This is something like golf. I was a member of a country club at a golf course and somebody asked me why I didn’t play golf and I said, “Well, first of all, I don’t have the time and I have never really picked the game up and I am left handed and for various and sundry reasons golf doesn’t appreciate.” But the men that were playing golf all had handicaps. And the handicap lifts a mediocre player to the level of a good player, which, of course, is dishonest to begin with. And if you believed the handicap that they told you they had, then you are stupider then they are, because they wouldn’t tell the truth.

In fact, one of the ... one of the problems that I have found in writing up corporations is that the younger the men the less truth. They want to find out what I want to hear. They want to find out what is the proper thing to say. They do not trust anybody. They have been raised in a false educational system in a false society where you cannot say Johnny is dumb.

When I was a boy we would say that. Johnny is too dumb. He doesn't understand it. And we were fairly kind to Johnny for that reason. But he was left in no doubt about this status.

Now I don’t believe that is possible in the United States today. Nobody is stupid. Everyone is disadvantaged or victimized or this or that. This is a whole series of lies that build upon each other.

[ Rushdoony ] It is a very interesting point you have made, Otto, about the honesty. Johnny is dumb.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] I had forgotten that totally. There ... it would be regarded as cruelty today, but there was a bluntness about boys as they played and it reminds me of something I had forgotten. This one boy who was determined that he wasn’t what they said he was. He was clumsy. He was incredibly clumsy. I was hard for him to get up and go to the black board without stumbling over his feet. But he was intelligent, but clumsy. And it would infuriate Dicky if anybody ever said anything about his clumsiness. So he never got over it and I was in the same grade with him for about four or five years.

[ Scott ] He never got over it.

[ Rushdoony ] He never got over it. He resented it.

[ Scott ] He couldn't accept it.

[ Rushdoony ] He could not accept it.

[ Scott ] And he couldn’t... he couldn’t over come it by effort.

[ Rushdoony ] No. He came from...

[ Scott ] Because he wouldn’t recognize it.

[ Rushdoony ] ... apparently a very brilliant family. I don't anything about it, but there was money in the family. And Dicky felt he was entitled to respect and so he resented any criticism and paid no attention to it.

[ Scott ] Too bad.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Both my grandparents, my grandfathers, were an interesting contrast. My Irish grandfather was... I guess you would say a skilled workman because he made brick on the brick yard. And my Scottish grandfather was an executive with the Royal Dutch Shell. But they were both very much alike in the fact that they were absolutely to the point. They were as blunt as a nail. And apparently that was something that their generation shared. They were both born in 1860. And that generation was very blunt and to the point. They made no bones about it.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And it cut through an awful lot of nonsense.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] They would say that a girl was homely, but pleasant and decent, period. Or homely but charming.

And homely didn’t mean goodly in every respect either. We... how can we evaluate the reality unless we confront it? And this is where Mr. Clinton the Arkansas Gazette said he has an almost inhuman ability to change his point in mid air. Everything he says is double jointed.

[ Rushdoony ] And he seems so sweet and persuasive as he talks.

[ Scott ] Well, my wife keeps talking about his baby face which she doesn’t like.

[ Murray ] Well, all of the news commentators are ... when asked whether or not he can get his economic plan passed say that he has to sell it. And, you know, here we have a guy who is ... instead of leading has become like a used car salesman. He has to sell his plan.

[ Scott ] Well, of course, the specifics of the plan have not been revealed. He said he had a plan and then he has asked the whole country to tell him what to do.

I think personally that we are in very bad condition, because of the falsity of our life. There is a series of articles that has begun in the Examiner on these adult children who have recalled memories which they say have been blotted out of earlier sexual molestation by their parents. And these memories have been evoked by sessions with psychiatrists and psychiatrists tie this in to multiple personalities. And in many instances the parents have been sued, have been punished and, of course, in every ... every... every indication have been deeply injured.

[ Rushdoony ] There is a major child abuse industry in the United States today increasingly aimed against Christians.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] So it is dangerous for a Christian’s child ever to go to a counselor, a psychologist or a psychiatrist will work very often to produce a story of child abuse.

[ Scott ] Now there is no statute of limitations being recognized.

[ Rushdoony ] No.

[ Scott ] There is no evidence required. There is nothing but the testimony of an individual over events which others deny occurred.

So what is happening here is that the ... the bottom, you might say, the bottom... the basis of fact is beginning to melt away under our feet.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And we have fantasies being accepted as valid. This is Freud’s dreams converted into every day life.

[ Rushdoony ] It is of interest however that increasingly skepticism is setting in about these purported cases of child abuse.

[ Scott ] Yes. Well we have a problem when we talk about a whole social order that becomes fallacious, when it becomes false. Solzhenitsyn said when the Soviet Union was still in its prime that it was the land of the lie. He said everyone was supposed to be cheerful. If you came to work day after day with a long face and scowling and ... and... and obviously unhappy. You became an object of suspicion. And a lot of this was going on here. You are not supposed to say anything critical of anybody. You are supposed to be cheerful. You are not supposed to be serious.

[ Murray ] Whistle while you work.

[ Scott ] Whistle while you work is ... is well put. I... I recall ... I think I have told this before, because this is always stuck in my craw, but Hitler had just conquered all of Europe. Some of my boyhood friends from the Windsor asked me to take them around and show them the sights of New York and I remember at dinner I said, “What do you suppose will happen in Europe?” And they all looked at Eddie Leahy, the leader of the crowd. Eddie said, “Who do you think will win the World Series, Otto?” And there was a laugh. There was a laugh.

Well, some of the boys found out, because they didn't come back from Europe that what happened in Europe meant something. And I never forget Eddie, because there is an awful lot of them on the ground. Subjects like this never come up.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, about the 90s, I believe, of the last century, Emory Store said when hell disappears from church teachings, justice goes out of politics. And we can take what Emory Store said and apply it here. When truth goes out of the popular mentality, when it no longer is important then more than justice goes out of they world. It no longer becomes livable. It becomes a nightmare realm.

[ Scott ] Well, when there is no punishment to public liars, I thought Mr. Bush should have been impeached for breaking his promise to the American people. And I think that judges who put out ridiculous verdicts ought to be pulled off the bench.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] There are... there is machinery in our Constitution, even our state constitutions to remove bad officials. But it has not been used. It is not being used. It never even comes to mind. The idea that a man can campaign on one level and govern on another is accepted.

[ Murray ] They use the term high crimes and misdemeanors, but, you know, that is the term the kids learn in school, but what does that mean exactly?

[ Scott ] It means lying to the people. That is what it means. It means breaking your Word to the people. The social security was a covenant with the people and the government broke it. It turned it from an insurance program into a welfare program. It added Medicaid or it added social security supplements and they added 18 amendments to the original social security program which has overloaded it. At the same time that people talk about the fact that youngsters don't expect to receive it when they get to be 65. They don't talk about the fact that 26 million youngsters have been murdered. How can you murder the young and expect to have the demographic social security program? There is no way. And yet the very young people—we blame the women—let’s blame the men. How many men drive their girlfriend to the abortion clinic, a great many. They don’t want to have the kids. They don’t want to have to support them. They don’t want to have the obligation. They don't’ want to marry. And if you ask them if they are living a lie they get very indignant.

[ Murray ] Well, has government ever told the truth? I mean, they lie to the Indians ever treaty... the broke every treaty that they have ever made.

[ Scott ] That is true.

[ Murray ] When have they ever told the truth?

[ Scott ] Well, the whole business of the Indians we went into not too long ago. I notice that I mentioned the fact that there were never any reservations in Latin America. There was no need for reservations at any time. It was our duty to civilize the Indian and bring him into this society, not to put him on reservations. That was... that was... a... I don’t know where that idea came from.

[ Rushdoony ] Let me add we did break our word as a routine thing, but the Indians did, too.

[ Scott ] Well, the Indians had no word. But we were supposed to have a word.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Murray ] Teaching the Indians...

[ Scott ] The Indians... the Indians had a sense of honor which was entirely different. They believed in coups. If they could fool you that was a coup. Now we were supposed to have a sense of honor. This is that... we are talking about a time now when the average American was quoting the Bible day and night.

[ Rushdoony ] But not the politicians.

[ Scott ] No.

[ Rushdoony ] Unless to fool people.

[ Murray ] Rush, what are the ... the biggest lies that you have heard in your lifetime?

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, I would be hard to remember them.

[ Scott ] That Mr. Roosevelt was a great president.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Roosevelt was a great liar. Incredible what that man got away with and he set the temper of the country. Clinton passes himself off as another Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[ Murray ] I remember when former treasury secretary Simon when they were getting ready to auction off the gold from the U S gold supply and Simon got on television and made the flat statement in front of the cameras that gold has no monetary value whatsoever. And it went from, I think, 35 dollars ... they were trying to auction it off at 345 dollars an ounce and it sailed up to about 120 in about a month or two and I... I ... it would be interesting to find out how much of that Simon and the... the rest of them bought during that period of time.

[ Scott ] Simon paid Edith Ephron 75,000 at the time, I believe to write a book called A Time for Truth.

[ M Rushdoony ] I wonder how much of Al Gore’s book he actually wrote. Nobody .... I wish Quayle asked him that during the debate whether he wrote it. That gets... gore wasn’t quite sure what...what he had said in the book. And it turned out Quayle was... was right.

[ Scott ] Yes and then Gore denied it.

[ M Rushdoony ] He should have asked him whether he had actually written it and whether he had had it ghost written.

[ Murray ] Our politicians have become masters of deceit.

[ Scott ] John Kennedy’s books at times were courage...

[ Rushdoony ] Courage, yes.

[ Scott ] Time for Courage was ghost written.

[ Murray ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] And he got a Pulitzer prize for it. And when he was faced to the test against Khrushchev he proved to have encourage.

[ Rushdoony ] No. He fell apart and ran to his wife to be consoled.

[ Scott ] Did he?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. He was a pathetic figure.

[ Scott ] Well....

[ M Rushdoony ] The {?} of the Bay of Pigs that it really wasn’t his idea. It was really Eisenhower’s idea.

[ Scott ] Oh, yes. Well, right now the Democrats are still blaming the Republicans for everything. You have got a Democratic... total control of the executive branch.

[ Murray ] Well, Otto, what do you think is the biggest lie that has been told that you have heard in your lifetime?

[ Scott ] That this is a free country. That is the biggest lie I know. I never remember when it was. I remember when it was a lot freer than it is today, but it was also a country of prohibition, a country when the constitution was being steadily destroyed in the name of keeping people sober. We were free conversationally. We could say what we wanted. There was freedom of speech and there was a lot of good will, because there was a safety valve. People could express themselves without losing their job although not always to the boss, of course. But now I don’t know of any area of free speech that remains in the country outside the pulpit and even there I read just today in the newspaper, Rush, that a... a church in Virginia—I believe it was Virginia. It was some state, lost all its property, was confiscated. The Church of Christ was the name of it. All its property was confiscated because they had preached against homosexuality and that was...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ...called lobbying. And that is what they lost their religious exemption. And I have never... I have never recalled a period in the United States when things are as... as tyrannical as they are today. And I can tell you from experience that other countries have much more freedom of speech than we do. And yet I saw a program on television, one of those man on the street things in which ... and I think it was Rush Limbaugh’s program, his television program in which he quoted a columnist who asked his readers to write in good things about America. And then he said we will try the man on the street. And he went to two or three different people on the street and they... they said, “Well, yes, we have the ... we have freedom of speech.” They all said that.

And yet you know we don’t. You know it.

[ Murray ] How do they perpetuate the myth? Why do people say that?

[ Scott ] Well, you are expected to say that. It is the proper thing to say. It is official speech. If you don’t ... do not understand official speech, well, then you must be a redneck or an idiot, because there are things that you are supposed to say.

[ Murray ] You know, there were some guys this evening being interviewed on the news about their opinion on whether or not women should serve in the military. And, you know, one right after another said, “Oh, yeah, great idea.”

[ Rushdoony ] Well, our time is nearing its end. You mentioned rednecks. I realized just the other day and when someone called it to my attention that back east now stories that used to be told about women, about blacks, about Jews, about various other groups are now all told about rednecks.

[ Scott ] Rednecks.

[ Rushdoony ] They are the one group they can safely dump on, apparently, in Washington, DC. And New York and elsewhere. So all the old stories now are told about the rednecks.

Well, I have news for them. The Rednecks will outlast them all.

[ Scott ] I think so.

[ Rushdoony ] And they will probably come out ahead, because they are good, hard working, honest people. They are the backbone of this country. And they shall triumph.

Well, our time is up. Thank you all for listening.

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