For me a sense of loyalty. Loyalty is one of the main qualities of my faith. And I think that as far as the decisions and actions that have been taken by our country, as far as our military is concerned, not necessarily from a political standpoint, but just from a military standpoint, my religious beliefs and conviction has forced me to stand firm with loyalty and support our country in all the actions that have taken place over the past year.

I’ve had kind of the opposite thing happen. I think the war in Iraq challenged me to ask myself where does my alliance need to be and where was it strongest. And for me, lead me to think that my citizenship in the U.S. is second to my relationship to God.

I agree with Patti in a lot of ways. It did really present a challenge. It made me rethink that commitment that you make to your country, and I have never been pro war. I think there always should be much more dialogue and more ways to settle issues in the world. It really tested my faith to say that over and over again to people that I know are just as committed on the other side.

As a Buddhist I believe in the sanctity of all life and so it was really disappointing to me that my country went in there unilateral without more effort at dialogue, so I hated to see that.

As a Christian I felt that the attack on the United States was just not an attack on the structure but it’s an attack on the values and the beliefs that we have. Although I was mad after Sept. 11, but my Christianity controlled that anger to the point that if an answer has to be given, it has to be calculated, not in the spirit of revenge but in the spirit of justice. And I believe that we prayed during the elections, we have a president that was a result of these prayers and I felt the decisions were made the most rational, patient way. Therefore I felt there was no other option except being loyal to the max to the decisions of the government.

We heard the statistics earlier where the United States has perhaps only 5% of the world’s population yet is the lone superpower, and as a Christian I see God’s hand on our nation and the responsibilities to conduct ourselves in the appropriate way. The power that we have I think needs to be brought to bear in certain ways. And where you see evil in the world I think someone has to adjust that evil. To not do that I think is probably equally as evil to not deal with it.

I see war as being one of the greatest evils in the world and that’s why to me dialogue is so important. I think that we rushed in there without the backing of the world. The world was asking us to take our time to see if this could be resolved some other way. When you talk about evil I think that war needs to be avoided as much as it possibly can be.

One of the things that my faith advocates is a search for truth. And I read an article recently in Newsweek, in which Jonathan Alter said that one of the first casualties of war is truth. And so for that reason I had a real, it was a real challenge for me to look at war and see it as a good thing knowing that truth was being sacrificed.

Before 9/11 I had the feeling that dialogue should come first and you should be able to try to reason with people but after 9/11, and I saw how many innocent people were completely annihilated just because a few felt that they didn’t believe in our principles as to how we lived, our religious beliefs and that kind of stuff. Then if we wait until the world says ok, it’s ok, let’s sit down and talk.

You know while we’re thinking of ways to try to resolve these issues they are killing us, you know continuously, they don’t care how we feel or how the world feels about us. They just feel, I have an issue with you guys and the best way to get rid of you is to completely annihilate you.

So I hate to say this, but I felt that this attack was justified. I feel that we didn’t have to wait for anyone else to tell us to go in there and do what we did. It wasn’t them who got killed, it was us. I mean the attack was on America. And if you’re an American and you have your family, you want to be able to have your children sleep safely at night.

Thank God we didn’t have a war continuously in this country. But just the fact that we see what happens in other countries, how people are living under constant threat, and I believe if you can eliminate the cancer before it spreads, then do it.

The holocaust taught me to be a realist, not an idealist. And the theme coming out of the holocaust is Never Again. I think 9/11 taught America, Never Again. And I that’s why I think going into Iraq, stopping Saddam Hussein before he and Iraq got nuclear weapons was the right thing to do.

Today in the NY Times there is an article that says that the US forces found a terrorist library in which there were detailed maps not only of Israeli cities but also of US cities, and particularly, and this strikes close to home, excruciating detailed surveillance of Salt Lake City, prior to the Olympics.

The things that the president had said about the right for all people to have this freedom throughout the world has resonated with me. I’m wondering if people who opposed the war before it was and predicted the casualties and all of the things that would happen. I wonder if they’ve moderated their views as they’ve seen how the war has indeed been conducted. And have seen what I consider actually a true evil, Saddam Hussein and the treatment of his people, and the things that have come since.

I see in those young soldiers that are over there a genuine effort to bring freedom to those people. And you know it is going to be a long slow process. People have never had democracy but we should be patient with them, we should be grateful that others are going to have this taste of freedom that we enjoy in our country.

Is God on my side? And I think the question is, “Am I on God’s side?” And that’s the question I found more difficult to answer. Because, certainly notions in my scriptural heritage of resist not evil, of turning the other cheek, of the fruit of peace being enjoyed by the peace makers, and with my own particular tradition of the idea of raising the standard of peace repeatedly, and that certainly there’s a question in my mind as to how preemption fits into that, because it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You can invariably find something to justify the war post-facto. Especially when it’s not understood in a particular context as to who in the regime or not in the regime had maps or documents. So the problem we run into it’s making those sorts of ties before you go in. And I think the case has to be made because preemption, in essence, casts aside all objective standards for waging war, including faith-based standards. So what you do is you say, “When my fear reaches a certain point, I’m justified in taking whatever action I want” and the claim is “I have to defend myself.” I would rather see objective standards put into place such as just war doctrines or faith-based doctrines that ask questions about justification before.

In terms of conduct of the war, I think the conduct of the war has been as good as the war can be. But again, that obviates the real question which is, “Do you bully, do you push around?” and do you essentially say, “I have the football so you’re going to play by my rules,” or on the other hand do you extend the hand of fellowship, do you raise the standard of peace repeatedly? That’s where I came down. So I guess I would respond by saying I was opposed to the war before it started, I’m opposed to the war now, because I still don’t see, even post-facto a clear linkage of justification and I want to make sure in my heart that I’m on God’s side.

The old testament has a phrase: “Do not stand aside while your neighbor’s blood is being shed” and when 9/11 occurred and when Al-Qaida bombed a 1,900 year old synagogue in Tunisia blood was being shed. So my feeling was, the United States has the ability to do something the same as when the Israelis bombed the [nuclear] reactor in Iraq. That time the world condemned Israel. Now, two decades later people look back and say, “Boy am I relieved this guy didn’t get the bomb.” So history, and you are a professor of history, I think we’ll all have to wait to see how these things turn out.

I always worry about the escalation as you pointed out. That the fighting just gets bigger and better and more technical and more high-powered and whoever has the more toys is going to win. And there was absolutely no question as to who was going to win when we walked in.

I just think the reaction of the people that are exposed to all of our grandeur is going to be even more deceitful and even more terrorizing and even more scary, because they have to come up to the standards we have set for killing people. And we’re better at it than anybody. I mean we really are, we can do it better, faster, and cleaner. And I just think that that’s not what I would like to be known for.

I guess I just respond and say that the technology certainly is there and you’re right, nobody comes close to what we are able to do. I think we also have to come back to the issue of the responsible use of that. And I think that as a group of people who are here on a faith-based grouping, all of us would see war as a last choice, none of us want to see people die.

But on the other hand, I think that there is a just sense to what we’ve just gone through in the sense that there were innocents being hurt. We heard earlier, Sheila mentioned, the truth is coming out as far as women, children, men being tortured, the rapes, other things going on that most of us would find unspeakable.

Regardless of our desire to see peace, recognize that perhaps something has to be done. We would not tolerate that happening in our own house if somebody came and began to hurt one of our family members, we would probably take a stand. Our ability to do that as a nation, with the technology that we have almost makes it, to use the term, cleaner. You don’t want to use words carelessly in this particular topic, I don’t want to.

But the issue there is, if you can, through technology, minimize the collateral damage, so to speak, that you’re targeting a target that is of a strategic nature and minimize the injury, the death to others, I think that’s good, if you can use that term good. It’s a preferable way to conduct a war I think, as far as minimizing the pain to others and eradicating the evil. We heard the terms, Stop the cancer. It’s a surgical procedure perhaps where you want to remove just the bad parts and maintain intact what’s good, and it should be maintained.

I have to wonder if we didn’t have the capability that we have today, how free would we be? Would we be able to be sitting in this room today discussing those topics without having the fear of having someone monitoring what we’re saying, and if they don’t like what we say, they would do like what Sadam did, they would take you into some chamber room and just pull your fingernails out and God knows what else they would do.

I just thank God for the fact that America had the capability that we have, we are not abusing the strength that we have, but when we have to use it I think we should. It’s a deterrent. I feel grateful again that I’m sitting here this evening and I know that my wife is home safe, my grandchildren are home, they’re safe. We don’t have to worry about anybody, the Gestapo or anyone going knocking on our door or kicking our door down, dragging them out just because for whatever reason.

You know, we’ve been blessed and we don’t seem to recognize that you know we’ve never had a war in this land so we don’t really know how it feels to be under constant threat and bombardment. But you know we have to recognize one thing, if it wouldn’t have been for the fact that we are as strong as we are, we would not have the freedom we have today.

I want to just add that the war is probably the last tip of a process and the war that started against us was really the war of wills, whose will is stronger than the other. So I do not focus a lot on the structural damage to our nation or what happens to other nations during the war, as it is the ideology behind it.

So if we are attacked to the point that the principles of this country, and the values and all that we stand for, is crumbling around us little by little we would come to a point that no matter what we cannot defend ourselves, even if we have the best technology in the world. And we have to be aware of that.

The other is that the war strategy itself is being used against us, has changed from a focused war to a phantom enemy that’s all over the world. And therefore you have to come to a point that you attack when it’s controllable before you lose completely and it can’t even find out where to fight.

If I remember correctly in the 12th Chapter of Luke Jesus Christ is asked by one of two brothers to divide the goods of inheritance between them. They have a conflict as to who should get what, and he says something to the effect of “Who made me a divider of goods?”

I think that that’s a central question. Just because the power exists within the United States, I’m not sure that . . . I’m pretty sure I do not posses the wisdom necessary to decide the fate of entire nations around the world. I’m not certain that I wouldn’t end up supporting as indirectly as an American or as a country a Shah of Iran, who used the secret policy terribly with American support.

America has some great moments of history, but it also has some moments that are far less than great. And so I guess my religious problem is: who made me a divider of goods? Who appointed the United States to be the one that possesses the truth and wisdom necessary to understand and deal out the fates of people around the globe? I just don’t have confidence in that. I have more confidence in allowing people to express themselves and working long term. I suppose the scripture that comes to my mind is, to let patience have the perfect work. I think that standard of peace has to be raised and again and again and we have to watch ourselves as well as help to watch other people.

You make very good points, and very compelling points. But so does AJ. In not acting, then evil can come forward. The point that was made that we have 5% does carry with it some responsibility.

I feel in the present instance, maybe there has been mistakes in the past. I feel in the present instance that people are acting very responsibly in carrying it forward and I so I feel very comfortable in supporting what we’re doing. And had we waited, and waited and waited who knows what evil would have come in the matter of the Holocaust? We waited too long before when there was a Holocaust. So I think we share religious beliefs and it’s very interesting to hear your perspectives on it, but perhaps I’m a little more appreciative of America moving forward and doing what is doing right now.

The scripture says too much is given, too much is required, and I think to echo what Dan said earlier, we are escaping a sense of reality. The world that we live in, everyone knows is not perfect, and from far back as we can remember, even in the Old Testament, there has been wars and there has been bloodshed. Some of my first times reading the Old Testament kind of just blew me out of the water, like wow, what is going on here. But that’s the world that we live in unfortunately and is due to circumstances that took place. As you go into theology you understand that.

And so to this date, we’re in a situation where we have a responsibility – approach one- we have to be the police of the world. That’s just the reality of the world that we live in. Now automatically, I think we kind of spill over into the second option, as far as when you police you automatically draw into the influence of whatever it is your political stance is, which for us is democracy, and that kind of sheds it in a negative light.

As a young African American man in this society, it hasn’t been always peaches and cream living in Southern California. I was part of history with the Los Angeles riots. But that doesn’t at all for one minute make me escape the fact that I still love this country. My father was a Vietnam vet, in the service for 20 years. And if they would call on my right now, I would go. I don’t have time to debate whether what I feel is wrong or is right. I have my opinion and I can stick with that as with everyone, but at some point I have to say, The machine is moving forward and I’ve got to jump on board. And that’s the reality of the world that we live in, we haven’t made to heaven yet. When we get to heaven it will be that way.

Somebody raised the issue of who should be the divider of goods. First of all I think the strong have an obligation to protect the weak.

Second thing is if you look at Numbers, Moses is in the wilderness with 12 tribes. He’s got 12 tribes but he doesn’t have a nation. He’s got large tribes and he’s got small tribes. If you go to Numbers you’ll find the actual number size of tribes. The first thing he does when he sets up the camp in the desert, is he puts the largest tribes furthest away from each other so that they can gang up on the smaller tribes, and so he creates buffer states in between the large tribes with two small tribes in between two large ones. And so he divides the goods and he keeps the strong from ganging up on the weak. And the metaphor for balance of power is right there. And the United States is still working with that paradigm today. It’s a strong nation protecting the weak.

I think that President Bush is sincere, he has a good deal of integrity. But in all seriousness I would say I wish to God we had a Moses.

Aside from that, one of the dangers I see, and what we might refer to as the perception of other nations, is if this is not a war on Islam but it’s a genuine war on terrorism, then we have to look if you will back at history. Over the past two decades the country with most terrorists acts in it is Colombia. By far. It has far in excess of any other country. Three times more than India, which was second in 1999.

And so if it’s a war against terrorism, then we have to take into account the Basque separatists, and the Shinning Path in Japan, and the IRA, and the drug lords in Colombia.

If we have the morality, all of us in the United States, and I think the United States is a great country, I’m not trying to talk down the United States, but if we had the morality, we’d stop using street drugs. That’s the war on terrorism, because that’s where the terrorism starts in Colombia.

In other words, there’s a lot of things we can do to help, that resides within the purview of faith, and in the purview of morality and the purview of religion, which teaches us to live good, clean, honest lives. And I think that if we focus on that there’s a lot of good that can be done in the war on terrorism, short of combat and troops.

I would comment too and say that first of all we have had a war on drug-related terrorism when we went to Panama and removed Noriega from his position. It hasn’t turned out probably as well as we’d like to as far as a democracy there but that was what that effort was about.

I come back to the whole issue that as a Christian it is a difficult issue to undertake war. I believe our president earnestly sought the guidance of God in his decisions. I know many of us pray for him; probably continue to pray for him on a daily basis, for him and his family, for wisdom for him and his advisers.

There reaches a point, and this is stepping back, stepping away from the faith-based perspective, just for a moment. As a nation, we have interests and our president, whether he’s a Christian, and I believe President Bush is a Christian, I believe that. Whether the President at the time is a Christian or not his foremost responsibility is the defense of the nation, national security.

And so you’re almost forced into an issue of picking and choosing where you’re going to get involved internationally, because how does this impact, how does this impact us as a nation, how does this impact our allies? And now come back into Iraq, and while we as a nation are not dependent upon Middle East oil, our primary oil comes from Venezuela, our imported oil, our allies depend heavily upon Middle Eastern oil. And it gets back to a sense of loyalty, and we talked about that earlier. You spoke very well about that, I appreciated what you said. There’s loyalty among nations as well, and the alliances and coalitions we’ve formed.

So I think that this war was first of all not a unilateral effort. We had the consensus of a number of nations that said, Let’s go do this, we think it is the right thing to do. The United Nations initially said yes, go do it, then it seemed they got some cold feet about it eventually, but nevertheless, it wasn’t simply President Bush saying, Let’s go to war.

It comes back again to dealing with evil when you are able to deal with it. This is my own personal sense. Involved in ministry in different ways, but also working in the secular environment. I’ve had number of people ask me, How do you feel about this? And this is prior to the war starting. And there was a time, some of us have mentioned and talked about how we’ve had to deal with this self-reflection, How do I feel about this? Is this right? Is this something God could condone?

In my own mind, and I said this several times, but I came back and I said: this is an evil person, is an evil environment, is an evil government. Bad things are happening to good people, somebody has to do something. And we find ourselves in that rather unique position, as the lone superpower. I think that’s the hand of God. That’s my sense. I think it is the hand of God on our nation called to do the right thing.

We refer to Jesus in scripture as the Prince of Peace. I was reading the other day in Revelation where the Prince of Peace in the interest of righteousness and truth prepares to go to war against evil. And there’s a difficulty there, because you can place yourself in those shoes. That’s not what I’m saying. But there’s a time somebody has to do something. I think we did the right thing as a nation. I think we did the right thing as a nation that claims to be a Christian nation.

I think prior to the war the National Council of Churches and the International Council of Churches proposed a six-point plan that the U.N. Security Council was looking at, and looking at real favorably. And it was not a roll-over-give-them-your-belly thing; it was a plan to move more slowly. And I know that President Bush is perceived and says he’s a man of prayer. But it was puzzling to me that the Church leaders asked to meet with him for a time of discernment and prayer and take just a bit of time there to explore that. And it seems that the momentum carried on passed that, and he wouldn’t meet with them.

We look at clergymen and we have to remember they’re human beings and they interpret the Bible in the way they think is right. But I feel that I went to school, I can read and I can make up my own mind when I read the Bible about certain passages. Take for instance when Jesus was in the town square, where the money changes, when he kicked them out of the plaza, whatever it is, because they weren’t, what were they? They were corrupted right? They were corrupt.

I feel, whether Bush acted too quickly or not, the fact is, we have a bunch of corrupt people in Iraq. They were killing people. Sadam was paying people to go out and blow up people in Israel, you know. They were paying them $30,000, whatever it is, per family. If your son would go out and blow himself up and kill some people in Israel, hey I’ll give you $30,000. A lot of clergymen would say, Well, we have to talk, we have to pray about it. Well, we are praying about it, we are still having people being killed by those terrorists.

You know there has to be some kind of leverage there, somebody has to do something. I mean God is not going to come down and say, you, you, and you, out! No, he’s not going to do that. No, God is not going to that. He’s not going to come down and do it himself. So I’m hoping that someway, someone would be touching, you know, I have . . . I cannot tolerate this anymore. We have to do something about it.

You can call me names, you can call Bush names, but the fact is tonight we’re safe. We don’t have to worry about Saddam taking his weapons of mass destruction, giving them out to the terrorists, and then they coming in on the planes, or they coming in on the subways, or wherever else, blowing us up.

I am happy to say this, that I am happy tonight that I am sitting here. We can discuss this intelligently; we don’t have to worry about being blown up.

When 9/11 came we were all fat and happy just relaxing. What happened? Almost 5,000 got killed and then we started panicking. And we reacted in a panic mode. That’s not the time to react. When you’re in panic mode you can’t really react, you know. You have to be able to analyze the information in front of you. Where are the threats are coming from?

So I’m saying you know, we know that a lot of the preachers and the clergymen you know, they want to follow the scriptures and they want to read the scriptures which is fine and I respect them. I believe I am a Christian, I believe in reading the Bible, I believe in all that good stuff, yet people are still getting killed while we read the Bible, while we’re talking about it. I think Bush did the right thing.

We’re sitting here safe tonight, but there are human beings that are still being killed in Iraq. When they blew the ammunition dump in Iraq, they showed the people around from the neighborhood who had family killed because of that. And one young man’s face sticks in my mind, the anger, the hatred on his face. We’re not always going to be safe from those people.

We go over there and kill people. It starts that cycle of hatred and revenge and violence. So I don’t believe that war is the way to make ourselves safe. We need to go over and educate people, we need to help people, we need to show them that we do have the right way of life. And that means to let people have a voice, and it’s not about killing.

It’s not about killing and it’s not about war. But again, getting back to the way life is, repeating what has just been said. We’re sitting here and none of us know what it is like to have soldiers marching down the street from another country on your block. The closest I can even come to imagining is the National Guard during the L.A. riots.

Even though we’re in a situation, our country is in a situation where you know the country is split on whether it is right or whether it is wrong. I think there is a sense of obligation. David, King David in the Old Testament, had an army. Solomon had an army. Israel, for the most part has always had an army. And that army, the responsibility of that army is to protect and to serve the people. And because, if that army was not there, 9/11 would occur on a regular basis.

So sometimes, the scriptures say turn the other cheek. I’m a clergyman and I preach from the pulpit that you turn the other cheek. But you only got two cheeks and you can’t keep turning or you won’t be able to eat dinner. And so at some point you have to defend yourself. And it’s not even about yourself. Because I don’t think it is about Bush, because I don’t think Bush is worried about his family in particular. It is the people of the country.

If a strongman comes to my house, I’m going to try my best to discourage that strongman from entering into my house and doing something negative to my family. But if that strongman steps across the threshold, then we have an issue. I’m going to rise up like David’s army did in the scriptures, even though I’m a preacher. And I just think that’s the reality of life.

Several people have alluded to the scriptures and to what God has done, and I just think that we just really have underestimated the power of God in this whole thing. I mean we keep saying we have to do this, we have to do this. Well, why don’t we let God do some things?

Man has tried and tried and we have not evolved very far from Samson and his armies and everybody else’s. And I think if we give something else a chance—it is like that song, Give Peace a Chance—and give God a chance in our lives and in our communities and really live out what we keep saying we are, then we might not have so many chances to throw our weight around and show how powerful we are.

You showed us a clip of American religious leaders on American television. I wonder what is being shown on television in Saudi Arabia and in Syria. Our religious leaders say that we should engage in prayer so we won’t enrage people who might be oppressed by us. These people already want to kill us. Whatever we do around here in terms of prayer isn’t going to change that.

Let me give you an example, in terms of how that’s worked. And I use a television series as a metaphor. In Star Trek we had three classes of enemies: we had Klingons, Romulans and the Borg. Now the Klingons were the Russians, they basically were the metaphor for the cold war. Now we solved that all right. The cold war is over, the Klingons are our friends, you got a Klingon on the deck of the Star Trek Enterprise now. The Romulans are the Chinese, but when the Chinese had SARS who did they call? They called the U.S. Center for Disease Control. But the one group that Captain Picard hasn’t been able to deal with very effectively is the Borg. They’re implacable, they want to do just one thing: assimilate or die.

30:13 And radical, fundamental Islamic groups who are funded with state-sponsored terrorism have just one goal in mind, they want us to die. And all the prayer in the world isn’t going to stop that. We need something else.

I’m not a real deep thinker, but I do believe a lot of things that have been said tonight. I agree that I’m against the war, number one. I believe that we need some justification. I agree with a lot of things that David has said, with what a lot of people have said. I do believe that we do have to look back in history. And what have we learned from history and the war issue in history. The only thing I have seen, that I‘ve been involved with, a father who was in the Second World War, a husband who was in Vietnam. I’ve lived that side of the war issue. And the only thing that I’ve seen come from it is hate.

And I think as a human being, we have to look at the world differently than, I’m going to go over and annihilate whatever the problem is. I doubt that we do that when we have a war. I doubt very seriously. I believe that we create dividing lines, we create hatred for other races, for other people in the world when we go in and act as the bully. And I believe very strongly that war is not the way to go, that dialogue is the way to go.

And if we want peace in the world, we can’t talk out of this side of our mouth and say we want peace, but we are going to kill hundreds of people to do it. I just feel very strongly and I get very emotional about that issue, because, as Neldon said, when you’re watching the movies, the video clips, the result of what has been done, by anyone, us, anyone, you see the agony in human beings. And the agony and human beings is the issue.

Is the fact that we do this act of what we learned from God to be merciful and to be kind to everyone we can. And we’re not using this, we should not use this at all to convert somebody. It’s just a natural action based on what the Lord gave us so much and therefore we have to give out of what we learned from him. So if these people are doing it based on desire to convert, we are not better than others who’ve tried to convert by other means, force or other means. But if we are doing it out of spreading God’s principles, and his love, and his kindness, we show it. And if they choose to believe fine, and if they don’t at least we planted the seed there.

I agree with the premise of going to do good for good’s sake. And I think that’s the highest motivation of Christianity and what Christ taught with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The person who’s the good Samaritan served one who had no call upon him for anything and I think that’s the way that we should react in this case and I think the greatest good will be done that way.

In the Jewish tradition charity is given anonymously and the reason it is given anonymously is because therefore the individual giving the charity, number one, has no ego involvement, and number two, it will not expect a return favor from the person receiving the charity.

Basically, every major religion in the world has some form of golden rule. I find it interesting that when Paul writes about charity in the 13th Chapter, First Corinthians, you run into part of that passage, the 12th verse words, where it’s almost a digression: “For now we see in glass darkly, but then face to face”. But perhaps even a more technical translation would be: “Now we see enigmas in a mirror, we see puzzles in a mirror.” My worry is that as I look in the mirror, I’m going to see everything in reverse. If my ego is involved and I’m narcissistic, I’m looking in that mirror and I see everything in reverse. I think right is left.

And as I do what I think is good, if my motives aren’t pure I can end up doing the opposite of it. I can end up creating more evil. And I think that that right there suggests that we have to take the golden rule perspective, which is to see what is needed from the perspective of a refugee in the Middle East. Whether it is Afghanistan, or the West Bank or whether it is now refugees coming from Iraq. Wherever they are, what is their world like? That’s what the golden rule suggests. And that’s how you get out from the mirror. That’s how you break free from the ego as you say, I’m not going to see what I would want and then dream up the way in which I could justify superimposing it on somebody else because I have . . .

You want another metaphor . . . I got the ring of power. The ring of power should be entrusted to the person who won’t use it, not to the person who will use it.

As Gandalf, another metaphor, said, I will try to do the greatest good with it and I will end up causing the greatest evil because he knows his ego is involved and he’s looking in that mirror.

I think that we should never try to change a person. We should always try to accept that person for who he or she is. And work with them, but we don’t want to change them, you know, because I would hate for somebody to come over and try to change to try to make me be somebody that I’m not.

So I think after the war, when we’re over there, we shouldn’t try to change the Muslims. This is what they want, that’s what they do, but then we should be able to make them see the difference between religion and democracy. See, that’s where we have to really work on, not changing their religious faith. But it’s just showing them a better way to live, where everybody can live in harmony, respect each other’s religious faith, for who they are and what they are. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the government has to be under the religious umbrella.

This is one of the things that we have to be sure that we don’t go over there and say, Ok, we’re going to make you all Christians and you’re all going to become Republicans. We can’t do that, you know. So what I’m saying is that we have to be able to accept people for who they are, help them with what they need the help the most and not try to change, make them into something that they are not.

Jesus essentially, his last direction to his followers was, “Go make disciples of the world.” So we would be remiss, the Christian community would be remiss, would be negligent, on not doing that. However, to ignore the needs of someone who needs food, who needs clothes, who needs medical attention, certainly those are the things that we see in the news over the last few weeks, to ignore that would be very wrong and very un-Christ like. So I think we go with that perspective. To administer to the very practical needs and allow the Holy Spirit to communicate to those people, to the recipients of that practical work, that there’s something here beyond what I’ve experienced before and I want to know more about it. And now in a nation that has been liberated from a very oppressive government they have that freedom to make that choice and to make it for themselves.

So I think that we have to come back from a faith perspective and remember that Jesus said, Go in them to me, go tell them about me. But we do it in a practical way as well as in a literal way.

I’m one of the directors at the Soup Kitchen here in Idaho Falls. And when we started that, we had to make a conscious decision, because it is an ecumenical, we have like 12 different churches that help, and we had to make a conscious decision to say you cannot proselytize, and come here and feed people. You feed people. And some churches could do that and some churches could not. They have a conviction and we honored that.

I believe that all religions are one. I think we have to respect that. In my faith, God sends them all. And over a period of time to people to see a promise. What has caused division in the world is that exclusivity that each religion wants to hold on to.

And if anything is going to help and aid in bringing peace, it is to understand that there are many paths to God but they all lead to the same place. To me that is very fundamental in our way that we approach the world and we make understanding of what we really know about why we are here.

I think one of the key components to love is the freedom to choose. If you love someone, like the saying, you have to be willing to let them go. If you have two individuals, two young ladies and one man, and the man has to make a choice. And one of the young ladies goes off and throws the other young lady over a bridge. And comes back and says, Hey it’s you and me. And the gentleman says, No, I don’t have a choice. So you don’t really know if I really love you or not, cause I didn’t choose. However if you back up and say, Ok, I choose you, that person knows that I was chosen, and so they really truly love me. And that’s what Christ is all about. The freedom to choose.

And so go over there, if they want to have a government based on their faith or their religion, then I say, hey, go full steam ahead. Doesn’t mean I agree with it, but that’s their choice, they have their choice. I think that the reality is that, hey, they need to have a choice. And so I think that, hey, I would love to see the Christians over there. If God called me to go, I’d go or send somebody. I’d love to see the Mormon, the Unitarian the Buddhist, all of them, everybody go over there, and give everybody a choice. Now, of course don’t give them the soup and say, Ahaaa!, you know. Let them have the soup, and if they want to listen to you, then listen. If they don’t want to hear it, then they don’t have to hear it.

I think that the United States, since it is the occupying power in Iraq, ought to delay elections for a period of time. Here’s why. When Moses took the Jews out of Egypt, he had several generations of people who had been raised in slavery. And in Iraq you got people who have been at least 20 years under a dictatorship. Now what Moses did is he deliberately wandered in the desert for 40 years so that a new generation of people that were born to freedom would be able to enter the promised land. And I think the United States has to, not 40 years of course, but the United States probably should delay holding elections in Iraq until the Iraqi people are self-aware enough to decide whether they want a theocracy, which is a dictatorship, or freedom.

One of the stories I really like in the Old Testament, is Jesus, in the New Testament rather, Jesus got a bunch people out in a boat, in the water. If you translate that whole story into mother psychological terms, the boat is the ego, and Jesus is basically the self, and the water is the subconscious. And what Jesus walking on the water to me always was, hey, be self-aware or you’ll be unconscious. And it seems to me that that metaphor really applies to democracy.

The Iraqi people have to reach a level of self-awareness and not be unconscious so that they can make a choice.

I think you’ve hit on the conundrum of democracy. If you go to people and say, Choose your government, and 65% of the population says we want an Ayatollah, sign of God. And we want a theocracy. Then how do you claim that that lacks some form of legitimacy? Because it is the choice. By saying they’re not self-aware? Well, if they were self-aware they would have chosen what I would have chosen. Because I’m the definition of self-aware. I do that all the time. It’s my ego. I do it with everybody I meet. I do it with my kids and my wife. The notion of breaking down the ego, again, has to be the golden rule. 4:12

What do they want? I don’t see another way around it. Because if it’s going to be democracy, they get to choose, but if I pull out the trump card of “Well, they weren’t self aware . . . ” All that does is it shows the procedure to be a sham to them. And I think they would resent that very, very deeply.

I think the self-awareness has to come with certain kinds of tools. I think the Iraqis need a toolbox. They need a rule of law, they need a court system. They need a stable population.

If you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs first thing of course is food, clothing and shelter. But you still, in order to stabilize a country, need a rule of law. And you can’t have elections and you can’t have free choice if you don’t have a rule of law.

One guy showed up in Iraq last week or the week before and declared himself mayor. And he ran around for four or five days until the U.S. army said, hey pal you know, that’s not the way it’s going to work.

So free choice has to take place with a rule of law and if you don’t have a rule of law you don’t have choice.

I agree, I think democracy is a lot more, and a lot deeper than just voting. And in order to vote you need to be an informed voter and I think it has to be organic, it has to come from within.

And if you want a democracy that, except for Rumsfield who said you can have a democracy but you can’t have a Islamic one, which I thought was very interesting. But I think is so much more, it’s just not voting. I agree with Dan totally that we really should give them some breathing room and some growing room.

Because it was secular, the women in Iraq are much better educated than any other Islamic nation, they are much more aware of what’s going on in the world than we give them credit for. And I think if we allow them to grow in this newfound freedom they might just surprise us. I mean to me it’s like they’re kind of in their teenage stage, and you know, let them grow into adults and flourish. I think they’ll surprise us.

I agree with what’s been said and I think there’s a great need for patience. We are not particularly known for patience in this country. But we do need patience.

You think of how the roots of our American democracy really started with the Magna Carta, don’t they? And the great traditions we had coming from England . . . We’re talking hundreds of years, centuries. So we need to have patience. I agree with all the things that have been said, to give them time to grow into it and faith to do it.

The real problem is going to be if they don’t choose. If they do something that’s going to exclude women, and it’s going back to where it’s tight and it’s going to be harmful to other people. And I don’t know the answer to that, and I’m not sure if those who are in charge know the answer.

I think it has to play out, I like what you said about the toolbox, I totally agree with that. And give them some time and space and faith and prayers, right?

I think if you leave the Iraqis alone eventually they will come up with the right answer. But you have Iran, you have Syria, you have all the surrounding Muslim countries that are pushing them in one direction, they are pushing them to go in one direction and right now they’re saying, don’t listen to what the Americans are saying because they want to strip you of your oil, they want to strip you of your heritage and this and that, because they want Islam to grow even more.

So the dilemma is how do you weed out all of the outsiders, kick them out, and let the Iraqis make the decisions that need to be made that will serve them?

It seems to me that it needs to start with a rule of law somewhere. I would say at the beginning to just start with a constitution. Don’t label it anything, just find out what principles these people want to live by. What is meaningful to them? What do they want to achieve? Where is their country going? Which they have never been asked that question, they’ve always been told, you know, where it is going to go and how it is going to be.

So to me, it would seem like perhaps introducing some thoughts about what do you want with the very basics of law and constitution and let the people have an opening their minds to thinking and taking their future in their hands by becoming education in ways of how to choose their destiny.

Our form of democracy may not be suitable for every other part in the world. Although we’d love to see that, but I’m not sure that this necessarily has to work the same way we have.

I think that the best we can do at this point is just isolate them from the outside pressure and give them some time to come to the point that they can compare different systems and choose for themselves what they but we cannot force our form of democracy on them because even if it works now, it’s not going to work in the future.

I think we can giggle at an ad like this [What would Jesus drive?] and think is just kind of an absurd concept, “What would Jesus drive?” But I think maybe we, those of us from the Christian heritage consider the choices that Jesus would make too little.

You know I think tonight we’ve talked about reality and what it might offer as our first option in things, and I think a lot of the teachings of Christ is how we live in relationship to each other, and how we take care of our creation. Jesus talked a lot about taking nothing for the journey. And giving up your life so that you can have your life.

So I think that on all these political and environmental and global problems, for people of faith to ask the question, What would Jesus do about AIDS and Medicare and the elevation of women, and how would Jesus draft the national budget? And when we have four hundred billion going to the military, in my mind that doesn’t go with Jesus’ teaching of, Feed my sheep. If we had even 100 billion of that, 200 billion of that for sheep feeding, I imagine, I could envision a huge difference.

I think that that is one of the problems, is that there is no vision. We are so wrapped up in living our lives day to day and we are so busy, and we don’t take time to have a vision of what it could be if we actually lived out our faith, lived out our convictions, asked questions instead of following.

Instead of giving over all of our decision-making to someone else, to actually make a decision in your life. To know I’m not going to put up with this anymore, I’m going to do it different. I’m not going to follow, I might not lead, but I’m not going to follow. And look for the truth in the situations where it happens and be a good steward of what God has given us.

I went to the Amazons a few years ago, and it was incredible to me to see creation as, you know, you kind of envision it in the Bible, you know God created the trees and everything. I mean that’s all there was, was all this creation around you, and you realize as you saw the tiny little ants and the great big trees and if you pulled one little section out of that ecosystem that was so incredibly invented by God, and if you pulled one little section out, the entire thing is going to tumble. And so you have to be very very careful with every little part of it.

And I think we focus so much on getting what we want that we forget about what we actually need.

I think the Bible teaches us also that after Jesus conducted the miracle of feeding the 5,000 he asks the disciples to collect what was left over. And that tells us that waste, as society handles it now, is not a godly concept. So really being conservative and being not wasteful and respect all our resources.

But I want to mention another thing here, and that’s not necessarily faith-related as from the technical background I have, that we produce a good percentage of the world’s food. And we are blessed by the ability to do that. And therefore if we are consuming energy more than other country we should take that into consideration. So we just can’t say that we conserve without knowing, without conserving what we produce. Because that’s not fair either. So just avoid the waste.

The other thing that I want to mention here is the fact that as a Christian your confidence is not coming from the materials things around you.

You really have the internal support that you have and therefore you do not need all the luxurious materials, wasteful things to make you distinguished.

Because you really have the confidence that you’re distinguished as an aid of God and therefore you do not need a lot of those things that are just waste, that are just there for appearance but not for reality.

You know in the Old Testament, there is a passage that says, “God sets before man life and death, therefore choose life.” I once had the opportunity to see in a scanning electron microscope a leaf in the process of conducting photosynthesis. That’s the essence of life. Photosynthesis is the basis for our food chain.

So when you see life, then it affects the way you make choices. Now the problem is our society puts a lot of stumbling blocks in front of us, and if I have to choose for lunch between a salad bar and a cheeseburger and I’ve got 30 minutes and I can’t get across town to the one salad bar that I wanted to deal then I’m going to have a cheeseburger. And so we really do have to look at these barriers and see how we’re going to have fewer cheeseburgers and more salad bars.

I guess I would say that, Cher said very well, to be good stewards. I think we need to do that. Certainly starting with ourselves and our lives and how we conduct ourselves and what God has given to us to make sure we used those things wisely, whether they’re the talents and abilities he’s given us, or the material blessings that we have. Certainly in America we have tremendous material blessings.

I think also from a Christian perspective is coming back and looking at some of the environmental concerns and they’re valid.

We need to remember, one, this is God’s creation. There’s a tendency among certain people to place creation above the Creator. And I think we’re upside down that way as a nation at times. So bring it back into perspective. Being good stewards of our own life and being good stewards of the creation that God has entrusted to us. I think part of that is using the creation but using it wisely and responsibly.

Mohammed is attributed in the Hadith with saying, “Not one of you is a true believer until he desires for his neighbor what he desires for himself.” And I think that until we can have the same anxiety over the welfare of others than we hold for ourselves that we’re going to fall short of helping other people. I think this is another ego breaker.

And I think that same anxiety within my own religious tradition is stated as “We as human should be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness for the power is in us.” And so this is a test of our faith. All of this to me is a test to our faith.

Do we really believe what we claim to believe and are we willing to lay it on God’s altar of sacrifice, knowing that it may not seem realistic? Just as laying Isaac on the altar. I don’t see how that can possibly seem realistic. He was to be the father of many nations, the child of promise. And before he reached puberty and could be the father of many nations he was to be killed. An act of faith that goes against our reason. And I think that as stewards we have to take that step. Also we have to be accountable to ourselves and desire to be honest and forth right in what we do.

Along that line in Buddhism, there are two terms to this. First one is “Esho Funi,” which literally means the inseparability of man and his environment. As such, as stewards of this ship that we are on in the planetary system, we are each ecosystems in and of ourselves. And Buddhism teaches that, that it is all interconnected.

The other term that I wanted to share is “Renge,” and that is cause and effect. What we do comes back in an effect, positive or negative; some people refer to that as karma.

The positive or negative effect of taking care of our planet, I think we see everyday. And as you’re saying, as stewards of this planet, we really need to look within to see exactly what we need to survive.

I recently sold my SUV, by the way. (laughter)

We are a country that is rich in many, many ways. But being stored, we have to recognize that individually we can do so much, but collectively we can do a whole bunch. And this is where I think, we fall short.

If you look around and see how many people who live in poverty. We are so rich; we have so many resources, you know, you name it. But there are so few who can fully enjoy the fruits of what this country really has. And there are so many other people who are… they live in poverty. They can’t even get the medication that they want. They can’t get the clothing, the food, you know.

When I see people who have to make a decision between, Do I buy medicine this month or do I buy food? You know. This is horrible for a country that is so prosperous. But you see we don’t look at it in terms of . . . we talk about being a steward; we talk about this as a Christian nation. And in certain things we do, yes. But in the areas where it really counts to look out for each other, we don’t do that.

We will send billions of dollars overseas and God only knows where that money really goes. Who gets it. But here in this country, I’m talking about here in this country we have a whole bunch of people who really need the help, on a daily basis are starving. Kids that never get their booster shots. They haven’t got clothing. They haven’t got breakfast to go to school in the morning. Our kids go to sleep at night, they’re hungry. Or they haven’t got a decent place to live.

You know if you just stop and take a look around yourself, I mean it’s nice to be able to say, I have an SUV, I have this, I have that, I have an 800,000 dollar house. But how many other individuals are around you who don’t have anything?

We just have to search our hearts and our minds, and I’m saying do it collectively, not as an individual, because as an individual we’re limited to what we can do, but collectively we can do a whole bunch.

I think it starts with personal conviction. Your personal conviction leads you to obviously do the right thing. AJ was saying collectively. Even though it is collectively, it starts with . . . There’s a saying that I have, “Each one teach one.” Each person has to take the responsibility. And she sold her SUV . . . and not to minimize what you did but who did you sell it to because somebody else is still driving it? (laughter) And so you know, for example when I first began to live my life according to the scriptures, to the Bible, I looked at the sacrifice that Christ Jesus made. The sacrifice meaning dying on the cross, and the empowerment being raised on the third day according to what the scriptures teaches us. That’s the same concept that I want to have in every day life. Trying to bring back to reality.

I had a bunch of CD’s that most of you probably never even heard of, if I mentioned some of the names. Although I think I’ve seen some of you in traffic you know . . .

I took these CD’s and my first thought was to sell them, but I said, If I sell them, some other young person is going to listen to them. So I decided to break them. I got a lot of slack from friends you know, you could’ve sold that and made a lot of money. But I wanted to get rid of them because I took the responsibility myself to say, hey it stops here, and so according to one’s faith, so be it.

I have a very hard time with the administration’s stand on the Kyoto treaty. It’s so disheartening to me to think of all the work that went into it. All the previous administrations, not just the Democratic, but previous administrations for all those years went into all that work and then this administration just dumped it. And it is because it didn’t fit into what they wanted to do. Another unilateral decision made by an administration that is not a good steward and I feel very strongly that if he’s going to profess this great Christianity that he’s got that he ought to be living it out a little more convincingly in the world view. Because to tell you the truth I think he’s giving a lot of us a bad name. I just feel very strongly that… I mean, he might be a Christian, I may be a Christian, but it’s certainly not the same Christianity that we see which is luckily why we live in America.

I just think that it is so irresponsible of this nation who uses more resources than any other nation in the world, to say to the rest of the world, Go ahead and be very conservative and conserve all your energy so we can use it. Thanks a lot. I find that very, very hard to swallow.

I’m having a hard time with this because I think the Kyoto agreements were flawed. And I agree with all that’s been said about been a good steward and all of those things too, but we need to look at the practical thing of what those treaties are. The countries that were really causing the pollution that were exempted.

And I get a little tired of big business being dumped on. I think they have done more to elevate and help people around the world. I’m a great believer in capitalism. I think that this country, and even though we are large consumers, we’ve done much to elevate the whole world. So I don’t think we need to apologize. I think we need to look at the realities of that. I’m glad for the administration who stood up to it under a lot of pressure not to.

When I think about the experiences that I’ve had in life that I would call spiritual, a lot of them have been in nature, watching a sunset, or watching birds fly, or a lot of things that have happened out in the wilderness. And so to not protect that and not subscribe to agreements that protect our environment, whether it is here or across the world, I think would be, like Cher said, irresponsible. So I think we have to be responsible and protect things like that.

One of the aspects of the Kyoto accords I think that we could talk about, even apart from the environment, are land mines. Now land mines are not weapons of mass destruction but they’re weapons of indiscriminate destruction.

And when the move was made toward war with Iraq, I remember reading that Donald Rumsfeld said, no weapon would be withheld as a potential weapon, and he said specifically land mines.

Now with the overwhelming force of the United States I just can’t see why we cannot say, apart from the environmental agreement, or whatever disagreements we had about that, why we can’t say land mines should not be used. Especially given the fact that children overwhelmingly, hundreds of thousands of children, find the tens of millions of land mines that have been left by the superpowers and the great powers of this world.

I think that that is a travesty and I would’ve like to see whether, I don’t care if it’s a Republican or a Democratic administration or independent or anything else, get up and say, we will draw a moral line here. They’re not mass destruction but they are indiscriminate and we will not cross that line.

I go back to the Kyoto accords. I’m not well versed in the specifics of it. I do know that some of the criticism was based upon some of the inequalities of who’s going to do what or who’s going to be favored to do certain things, whatever.

From a Christian perspective and I would come back to our discussion of being good stewards, certainly we need to take care of the creation that God has blessed us with. Part of that taking care of is to use the resources that are part of it in a responsible way, whether it is oil, coal and other things. I believe that those are provided for our use. The byproducts of those things are identified as being problematic in our environment.

Certainly in the United States we have ample regulatory requirements imposed on various industries to minimize the amount the pollution and damage to water, air, and so on, and so on.

So I think as a nation and from a Christian perspective we are making strides. I don’t think that we should hamstring ourselves. I do think we ought to seriously look at what else can be done but I also don’t think that we should deliberately hamstring ourselves so that other nations can use things in ways that might be irresponsible and may cause more harm to the environment. So I think it’s an issue of fairness and being responsible and I think that that’s consistent with being good stewards.

At one time I was for free trade, but I see the harm that unfair restrictions for example, the products that come down from Canada without any restrictions competing with our people here. I see impacts on families.

So I don’t know. I think there’s a legitimate thing that people say about protectionism. Again, maybe a selfish kind of thing, but then, isn’t kind of caring for your family a good Christian or faith-based thing to do?

We keep talking about us and them, you know. We’re on this planet where we’re all human beings. They’re all our brothers and sisters, you know. So it’s selfish. To me it seems selfish of us to live like we’re living and let over 20% of the people in the world exist on less than a dollar a day. I think that we need to do something.

The one place that I see some hope, is these non-governmental organizations that are working around the world, kind of grassroots movements. They had a conference in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 1992, and out of that came the Earth Charter.

Yes, it certainly seems unfair to deliberately take away from others. In other words a nation and certainly a government is responsible to its people in agreement that we may all be human beings.

We do have obligations, I think, to those who are closest to us as a nation. Obviously there’s a loyalty there and we want to make sure that we take care of our own. And I’m sensitive to that word when I say our own first. That is a biblical principle I believe.

Where I would go as a nation, and from a biblical perspective, is to look at the World Trade Organization, and where there are nations in the world who are desirous of being part of the WTO, but they don’t do things in a way that may seem very fair.

And we can use that as leverage and I use China as an example. A nation that would like to become a major player and certainly would like to be a permanent member of WTO.

There are things, from a national perspective, we can almost use as leverage to get them to allow for human rights and other things that I think are Biblically sound concepts.

So we can use trade to promote Biblical aspects, but I too share the difficulty in trying to remedy those differences as you spoke about too, Sheila.

I think another way that faith informs the issues of free trade is that in terms of awareness.

One of the things my faith teaches is the interdependent web of all existence that we’re all connected on this earth. We only have one earth.

And awareness in terms of when I have a cup of coffee in the morning. Where does that coffee come from? You know it makes you think about, Well, it comes from Costa Rica or Brazil. And what effect am I having on those economies? I am just starting to think about some of those issues, I think helps inform us about issues of free trade.

And another thing that faith can provide when we’re thinking about free trade, it’s just a counter-balance to globalization and local capitalism.

I just finished reading Thomas Freedman’s book The Lexus And The Olive Tree, and faith is sort of our olive tree to counterbalance the Lexus, to use his metaphor.

When we look at China though and we look at Iraq and you look at economic investment in people and the raising of the standard of living and the empowerment of choice on an economic basis, I think one of the sad opportunities that was missed was an attempt to give that a shot.

We’re willing to with China, which has a horrendous human rights record, but we weren’t willing to do that with Iraq. And I wonder what the morality . . . or how faith helps informs of as to how we might make those choices? Is it just because we don’t like Arabs, we don’t like Muslims? But the Chinese are some how acceptable?

You see, I would’ve liked to . . . That’s another standard of peace. When we saw the bankrupt nature of sanctions, they just weren’t working. Maybe there were other alternatives. And I know it’s problematic because of who Saddam Hussein is. But at the same time if a carrot or a stick works in one place, why can’t we decide how it can work as a policy that covers a broader number of nations? At least it wouldn’t seem to me like this is a war against Islam. It would seem broader.

The concept of democratic peace is pretty much established in history. Democracies do not go to war against one another. And that stood up over several hundred years in historical records.

Democracies recognized that allowing people to become who they are through freedom, through human rights, through education, through interaction with other nations, through trade, recognize that this is sound principle, and dare I say it, a godly way of living, of fulfilling life.

I think from a Christian perspective, promoting democracies in nations is a sound, historically sound principle for good government and allowing people to become who they are. And the beauty of that from a faith-based perspective is that it allows people to choose how they want to worship. That to me is important.

The interest base from a national perspective—whether a nation is a democracy or not—is significant also. We just tend to get along with other democracies. We have something in common. There’s something to that that stands up to the test of times. So I think that’s why I think we promote democracies.

It comes back to what we want vs. what we need. And I think that we do need to take care of the needs. But we really need to look at the wants and the wants of the rest of the world that probably has more needs.

One of the things in my mind, whether we’re talking about the economy, or free trade or bringing the rest of the world up so that all the boats are afloat, I think there is one common thing that would change that and that’s basically common to all of us who have faith and that’s love.

When we choose to love our brother, wherever they reside on this planet, then we will find ways, and there will be ways made to us that we have no knowledge of now, because of that. So to me the divine economy is based on love.

Getting back to free trade and the fact that if we open our borders to all sorts of products, people, ideas, then we do have to have a relationship with those people.

That is not political, necessarily, and it’s not necessarily religious and it’s not necessarily governmental, but you do have to exchange ideas.

That’s how so many of the ideas have come across the world on ships and trains and planes. It has nothing to do with governments. It’s trading stuff. And as far back as any civilization ever, you find seashells in the middle of Nebraska. And they got there from trading, the Indians traded with one another all the time, they traded ideas, and they traded . . . but they had to have a relationship with each other.

And it’s a lot harder to kill somebody you know, than it is to kill somebody you don’t know. And I think that would make it a lot harder to have wars, if we had relationships with all these people.

The thing I want to say the most is, as we’ve talked about all these global wonderful things, is just the importance of personal responsibility, for each person to take the responsibility for themselves, for their families, then for their neighborhoods, for their community. There’s a real sense on that ownership of what you can do.

And you know it’s been wonderful to sit here and talk about how we can solve the problems of the world, and love is the key to it.

But we need to start with really governing ourselves, and our own relationship to our God and to our families and to our neighbors.

We have to remember one thing: free trade is predicated on economics. That’s the only reason why we do open our borders for free trade. It’s because it is economically advantageous to us.

So therefore, if we see where we can make the money bucks, we’ll go over there and we’ll say, Hey, I’ll forget what you did, you ran over this guy with a tank, but I’ll forget about that if you let me open a McDonalds in your back yard.

So we have to realize what’s really happening. We like to camouflage a lot of the things we do with words and this and that. But the bottom line is economics. I don’t care what we say, we can put it behind the Bible, we can put it behind this and that, but as far as this country is concerned economics is the only bottom line thing we’re talking about.