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00:00:29.000 | For this side note, I'm going to expand upon a Facebook post I wrote up recently.
00:00:34.000 | Much of what I'm going to say is just verbatim on my post, with an extra side of meat I guess.
00:00:39.000 | I try to keep my Facebook posts a certain size since a long Facebook post just becomes too much text at some point.
00:00:48.000 | So, just to get into this, let me start off by quoting to you an article written by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida,
00:00:55.000 | himself a Cuban, it was for the Daily Wire, he stated the following with respect to the protests in Cuba.
00:01:02.000 | He said this, "Cubans have a right to be free, and the American people should support them.
00:01:09.000 | On Sunday, July 11th this year, we saw something in Cuba that we have never seen, protests in over 52 cities.
00:01:18.000 | It is important to remember that this all started as a Facebook Live broadcast from one city that then spread throughout the country.
00:01:25.000 | It was organic, it was leaderless, it was not part of an organized effort.
00:01:31.000 | It was just people who are tired and couldn't take it anymore.
00:01:34.000 | But this had been brewing for some time in Cuba.
00:01:37.000 | It began with the opening of the Internet and with Cubans having access to information,
00:01:41.000 | websites and social media from all over the world, and the ability to communicate with one another.
00:01:47.000 | Communists, socialists, Marxist dictators always use the same tactic, they keep people divided.
00:01:54.000 | They keep people from speaking to one another, they keep people separated from one another, and unable to compare notes.
00:02:01.000 | What you are hearing now is people who are tired of living in a country where you cannot have your own opinion,
00:02:07.000 | where you cannot express yourself, where the government wants to control everything, everything you do and everything you say.
00:02:14.000 | They control where you live, control where you work, control how you can travel, and control what kind of work you can do.
00:02:21.000 | And they hold it all over your head. Cubans are tired of it.
00:02:25.000 | These protests were not about COVID. These protests were not about food shortages.
00:02:30.000 | Cuba has been dealing with food shortages forever, and COVID is spreading throughout the world.
00:02:36.000 | These protests were about what the protesters said they were about, libertad, which means liberty.
00:02:42.000 | The Cuban people want to live like Cubans live in Miami, and Tampa, and Orlando, and all over the United States and the world.
00:02:52.000 | They want to live free. They want to be able to pick their own leaders.
00:02:57.000 | They want to be able to work with their own hands and provide for their family.
00:03:01.000 | And they want to live in a country where thinking differently than the people who are in charge is not a crime,
00:03:08.000 | particularly when the people who are in charge are people you cannot replace and have no role in putting there whatsoever.
00:03:17.000 | Justice, liberty, and freedom are the most noble causes any of us can be a part of, and we are inspired by what the people in Cuba are doing.
00:03:26.000 | We should continue to amplify their voice and support them and their cause.
00:03:30.000 | They have a right to be free, and we should support them.
00:03:35.000 | That was Senator Marco Rubio writing for the Daily Wire.
00:03:40.000 | I said this before, and I'll say it again. Ideas have consequences. Ideas have consequences.
00:03:51.000 | Richard Weaver wrote the book Ideas Have Consequences. He coined that term, and it is very, very true.
00:04:00.000 | At some point in any nation, when the vast majority of the citizens decide to abdicate their command for personal responsibility and accountability,
00:04:10.000 | they will eventually seek government to be their savior.
00:04:14.000 | You see this pattern over and over again with various nations serving as examples.
00:04:20.000 | This same pattern holds true because all of mankind carries the same nature, or in other words, they are built the same way.
00:04:29.000 | You also see this, though, in the history of Israel.
00:04:32.000 | Let me read to you 1 Samuel 8 verses 10-22.
00:04:40.000 | It says this, "So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked of him a king.
00:04:47.000 | He said, 'This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you.
00:04:52.000 | He will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen, and they will run before his chariots.
00:05:00.000 | He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest
00:05:07.000 | and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
00:05:10.000 | He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers.
00:05:14.000 | He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants.
00:05:19.000 | He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants.
00:05:25.000 | He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work.
00:05:34.000 | He will take a tenth of your flocks and you yourselves will become his servants.
00:05:38.000 | Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves.
00:05:43.000 | But the Lord will not answer you in that day.
00:05:46.000 | Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel and said,
00:05:51.000 | "No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like the nations,
00:05:58.000 | that our king may judge us and go up before us and fight our battles."
00:06:02.000 | Now after Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the Lord's hearing.
00:06:07.000 | The Lord said to Samuel, "Listen to their voice and appoint them a king."
00:06:11.000 | So Samuel said to the men of Israel, "Go, every man, to his city."
00:06:15.000 | You see, for the nation of Israel at this time, God was supposed to be their king.
00:06:21.000 | But they decided collectively to take God off of his throne.
00:06:25.000 | They wanted to be like the other nations who were mercilessly under the tyrannical rule of despotic kings.
00:06:34.000 | Before their wish is granted, Samuel even warns them, letting them know that indeed a human king will be cruel and merciless.
00:06:45.000 | They will not experience the freedom they had under the rule of God.
00:06:51.000 | And this is what people don't understand.
00:06:54.000 | We will all be ruled by something or someone.
00:06:58.000 | It is within our design to be ruled.
00:07:01.000 | You will either be ruled by a holy God who is completely wise, loving, kind, and just.
00:07:08.000 | Or you will be ruled by flawed and sinful humankind who is exactly the opposite.
00:07:16.000 | Either God will reign over you or sin will reign over you.
00:07:22.000 | And so people forget the creation mandate, that we are called to subdue and cultivate creation.
00:07:31.000 | All of us are called to engage in our natural and God-given design to work, to be productive, and to reflect God's image upon creation as a worker, since God himself is a worker and a creator.
00:07:44.000 | When this command is negated at some point, society will cease to function since no society could self-sustain with a significant portion of its population living off the other as parasites.
00:07:57.000 | Communism, socialism, Marxism isn't just some economic philosophy.
00:08:02.000 | I've already talked about this in the Marxism podcast.
00:08:06.000 | It's not just an economic philosophy.
00:08:08.000 | It's a complete and totalizing worldview.
00:08:12.000 | And when that viewpoint becomes the lens of the government, only those in charge will prosper while the rest will become property of the state.
00:08:21.000 | It is a form of Gnosticism that has just put on a different jacket.
00:08:28.000 | It is straight from the pit of hell.
00:08:32.000 | What is completely unsurprising to me is that the practical outworking of this ideology is total destruction.
00:08:39.000 | But that is to be expected since evil is nihilism eventuated.
00:08:46.000 | What is also completely unsurprising is that in this wreckage and carnage, many people will cry out to God out of despair.
00:08:53.000 | Those that know should take advantage of every opportunity.
00:08:59.000 | This is James Hong, and I'm signing off.
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