Katie Hopkins (and Larry Lambert)

I had British Comedienne and political commentator Katie Hopkins on the show.
I asked Larry Lambert to join us.
Katie ended up being a little late (a ladies' prerogative) but she joined us shortly.

Transcript:

Ed Bonderenka

So our guest this hour is far-right political commentator, former columnist for the Daily Mail Online, and genuinely funny person, Katie Hopkins. But she's not here yet. I just got a text from Katie and said she's going to be running about 15 minutes late. Fortunately, I asked my friend Larry Lambert to join us today. Okay. And let's see, what do I have to say about Larry Lambert in my notes? Totally lost them. So the dude joining us is my friend and Katie Hopkins aficionado, author, blogger, former Navy SEAL commander, international man a mystery and defense contractor Larry Lambert who's the purveyor of the blog virtual mirage dot com right Larry org org dot org okay not work org okay there are some things that the three of us have in common so I thought I'd have Larry come on and we could all talk but oh oh I think Katie just signed on give me one second here okay Katie did not sign on but she appeared momentarily we'll just wait but while we're waiting for care Katie I told Larry I want to talk about his book series the dualist which started out with the Confederate cipher which we interviewed him about and then up the last chapter is Larry the title again before I butcher it.

Larry Lambert

The last book is vengeance and retribution.

Ed Bonderenka

Vengeance and Retribution, which is really interesting because I think it was last summer or the summer before I had Daniel Greenfield come on and he was talking about the threat of the left from the very beginning of our founding. And one of the groups that he mentioned as he went on was the Golden Circle and a few of its derivatives. And the Golden Circle figures prominently in Larry's, well, at least the last two books, I believe, if not just the last book. And there's so much history in here. There's a lot of fiction in it too, but it has this historical background that's very, very satisfying to a person who's interested in history and will particularly your interest in learning more. Why talk about your book a bit?

Larry Lambert

Well, in Vengeance and Retribution, the narrative changes from an army officer to a Crow Indian scout who was raised by Jesuits and is now telling his story from his perspective. And it's an interesting story that incorporates, as you mentioned, the Golden Circle and some of the conspirators that are alive and active. And the book is sort of a countdown to the Lincoln assassination. And so almost all of it is historical. There are fictional characters that interact with the historical characters, which is the nature of historical fiction. But the book itself is based on sound history. And I think it's history that most people are not aware of, which is why I wrote the book and the book series.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, actually, the city of Detroit features prominently in this series not so much in the last last book but you named the character after the Hudson family right yes you're not even from around here that's interesting.

Larry Lambert

Prominent families in Detroit history and actually the also it includes oh oh we have Katie.

Ed Bonderenka

Katie, you're laying down on the job. Reorient something.

Katie Hopkins

Oh, I see. Well, I wouldn't say you all. Hold on.

Ed Bonderenka

Oh, good. I'm not getting dizzy now. Well, so we will talk more about Larry's book later, perhaps. But let me reintroduce our guest. Our guest this hour is far right political commentator, former columnist for the Daily Mail Online, and genuinely funny person, Katie Hopkins. She recently posted on Instagram Dear British police, hate speech departments, you're going to need to book your time slot with me and schedule my arrest in turn. Thank you. Because Katie is in the United States on her free range tour. That's the name of the tour we can say on the radio. Okay. And if you're aware of Katie and you followed her on YouTube, you know she's a very witty, funny person and she has a lot of insight on what's going on in England. I'm frankly wondering how she's going to be funny about those terms, that stuff, when she's speaking at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle in Royal Oak tomorrow night. And I don't know if you guys know about Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle. I've been following that place for years, since the 70s, and that's where Tim Allen got his start. So we're hoping for big things for you, Katie.

Katie Hopkins

No pressure. No pressure at all.

Ed Bonderenka

So like I said, this, Katie, I want to introduce you to my friend Larry Lambert. He's A Katie Hopkins aficionado. He posts your, I didn't say fanboy. He posts your clips on his widely influential blog frequently. And actually that's how I became aware of you. And when you called into Thayrone Exington's radio show the other week, I think it was last week you called in. Man, how did he get Katie Hopkins number? And so Derek got me the number and that's how I got a hold of you. So it's all networking, right?

Katie Hopkins

Good facts.

Ed Bonderenka

Okay, so who is Katie Hopkins and how did she get to be who she is today?

Katie Hopkins

Well, they say never speak about yourself in the third person because only people with huge egos do such things. But short story is, I set out to be in the British military. I went through the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. I signed up to fight for my country for 35 years. Second story to that is I'm also, or I was, epileptic. And the military decided in its wisdom that an epileptic with a semi-automatic weapon was not in the best interests of the country.

Ed Bonderenka

You took the term passing out ceremony seriously, right?

Katie Hopkins

Very seriously. Yeah, quite literally.

Ed Bonderenka

Passed out, right?

Katie Hopkins

I used to have huge seizures. Anyway, cut to how many decades later, I suppose, 28, 38, 48, oh my goodness, nearly three decades later. And I find myself actually doing the thing I set out to do, which is fight for my country. And I've done it now through a number of different ways. My loyalty is always to the army and any armed forces, but I've been fortunate to be able to work my way into the media for a while before being fired from everything. And now I continue the fight, but I use comedy as my device because where I live now, speech is outlawed. almost completely. And this is really hard for Americans. And I don't mean that in a patronising way. I mean, the truth of it makes me sound like I'm lying for effect, but we are not allowed to post online things that are unapproved by the state. We're not allowed to hold a poster in the street. if the words on it are perceived to be hateful to someone who might perceive themselves to be offended. And we are not allowed to protest anymore in any decent and respectful way because we get lynched. And one of our guys just got lynched yesterday and is now in awaiting sentencing.

Ed Bonderenka

You're not even allowed to stand in a certain area and pray quietly, right, to yourself and not say a word out loud and then you get arrested. I remember reading that abortion clinic.

Katie Hopkins

Yes, but that would be like, that's quite an extra, I mean, how random this is to an American audience, but that is quite an extreme example. So here in the UK, if you said, oh yes, someone was praying outside an abortion clinic, British people, I don't want to generalise, but the view would sort of be, well, what did they expect? Because that would be seen as kind of troublemaking, right? I'm talking about people who are just at home and on their Facebook they post, look, we just need to get rid of illegals and that needs to happen fast. You can expect to knock at your door. You know, I've been arrested recently. I referred to my epilepsy earlier. My manner of dealing with this is through humour, as with most military people. I called myself a word that is deemed offensive by the state. The word is ****. I choose to call myself that. I don't call anyone else that. For that, for calling myself that word, I was arrested, detained, interviewed for two hours under caution, my case sent to the Crown Prosecution Service for charging, and my crime was causing offense to myself. And none of that is made-up.

Larry Lambert

You know, Katie, let me sort of interrupt Ed here. Ed characterizes you as far right. In the United States, I think we consider you kind of middle of the road. I mean, you know, we don't view you as far right. We view you as practical and reasonable and moderate in a lot of ways.

Katie Hopkins

Yeah, I don't have a great deal of time for other people's labels.

Larry Lambert

Well, you know, for us, you're just a rational, reasonable human being. So that's all.

Katie Hopkins

Thank you.

Ed Bonderenka

A lot of our political thought derives from England. the Magna Carta, the writings of John Locke and other luminaries in British literature and judicial thinking, you know, we have a debt to England and you guys are throwing that all away. Is that, I mean, you've said that, right?

Katie Hopkins

Yeah, and you know, we're quite a long way past that. We have a prime minister that nobody voted for, not one person. in the UK last week at the UN, he talked about this new ministry of truth, and I'm not making that up either, a ministry of truth to fight disinformation. And what that means is that facts, like I speak, facts become hate speech, and then the truth becomes an arrestable offence. And as we speak, one of our, you know, more forthright speakers, as I say, is now awaiting sentencing. Tommy Robinson, my ally, the front of the United Kingdom marches. He had a knock at the door at 2.30 this morning to say there's an imminent threat to his life. And another lady, a normal lady, normal mum, wife, she spent 31 months her sentence for one tweet, which was not by an American standard. offensive in any way. She just said we need illegals out of our country with a bit more powerful language. 31 months in prison she was given for a single tweet that she deleted. So this is a serious time for us now. We are, I've known for two decades, obviously, and been speaking out about it for two decades, hence losing everything. But we are now really reaching a crunch point in the UK.

Larry Lambert

Do you think the UK is at the tipping point or do you think it's past that?

Katie Hopkins

I think it depends on the tipping point. If it's the tipping point towards some sort of violent uprising across the countries, I think we're at that tipping point. In terms of the tipping point of being lost, that probably was woven in a decade or so ago. because numerically, just speaking from a pure demographics point of view, and that's before you start importing illegals, which we've been doing 83,000 illegals in the last year and a half, which is greater than the size of the number of the forces in the British Army. But even before that, demographically, Muslim births outnumber births to all other religions. Our primary schools, 7 out of 10, 8 out of 10 children are Muslims. So in terms of demographically we're gone, but that real crunch point when you really feel it, when the rubber hits the road, we're now approaching that point. So yet starting to get serious. And I guess the people who understand us best are white South Africans who are down to about 3%.

Larry Lambert

If reform were to win, do you get a place in the government?

Katie Hopkins

No, because of lazy labels and the need to, in order to still speak in the press, you have to disavow people who are seen as too open mouthed. That would be me, labels, labels, labels. And for reform to still get TV time, they need to disavow people who are, in my argument, speaking truth, saying reason that I'm not allowed to be on. any news streams in the UK. I'm not allowed. I'm banned from Fox News now, despite having a long relationship historically with Tucker when he was still saying. So, you know, the pressure points are coming in from all angles. And Americans, of course, feel that as well. You guys know it. You see it?

Ed Bonderenka

Well, under the Biden administration, you see the door answering devices on the wall behind me. particularly this one right here that's my favorite door answering device because I often feel that there was going to be the knock on the door particularly for this broadcast and other things I've said fortunately that has not happened and thank God for that but do you guys do you think that if you guys had retained possession of arms that this would not have happened to you or that tipping point would have been illustrated already.

Katie Hopkins

Yeah, the tipping point would have been illustrated already. Having a civilian militia is the only way that you keep your nation safe. And it's why I have such faith in America. And also, if I was able to defend my family and my home, I would feel much, much more secure. But the knowledge that the invasion is upon you, that you have no voice and you have no way of defending yourself. is really the issue and it's what separates you from us amongst other things. And South Africans speak to this very well because the same weapons that were taken from them during apartheid are now the weapons that are used against white farmers by black gangs and black police officers. I've spent time in there to know this. So it is always the case that if you lay down your weapons, they are the weapons that will be used against you. And it's why, yeah, I'm very, very, very reassured. Every time the Democrats do something stupid, decent Republicans or just decent Americans go and buy another weapon. And that to me is very, it's very reassuring.

Ed Bonderenka

Larry and I know some bloggers that are from South Africa. There's Kim DuToit and he speaks of the danger. And then Peter Grant. yeah Peter Grant is an author and he's from South Africa and these guys were military men they knew what was going on and they warn often about what's happening here.

 I'd like to ask you something I have a reason for asking you this and I hope you don't mind if I get a little bit personal here you were at Sandhurst and then you had epilepsy and nocturnal epilepsy Actually, a friend of mine was in marine intelligence and during a period where they didn't have force recon, he was doing that job. And basically he had a seizure and he had to leave. And my wife has not had a seizure in eight years, but spent, I don't know, about 40 years. I'd wake up with her in the middle of the night with nocturnal seizures and often be a trip in the ambulance. and to the hospital. So I understand where you're coming from there. You are seizure free now, right?

Katie Hopkins

Yes, I am.

Ed Bonderenka

You said you had a third of your brain removed.

Katie Hopkins

Yes. That's how much. And some of my more vocal critics say that is very self-evident.

Ed Bonderenka

That's exactly the situation my wife finds herself in. She had a small tumor removed in the 70s, and then a few, maybe 10, 15 years ago, I could think to date exactly, she went in and had more removed. And it's amazing, you'd never know to talk to her. I mean, she says I have half a mind to... Well, you only have half a mind, but you never know that to talk to her. She remembers names and dates far better than I do. I rely on her, you know, for medications and the like.

Katie Hopkins

Yeah, it's a crazy thing. It's a crazy thing. But I have to go in a moment because I have to get ready for another thing. But I am at 38 years old. So I was told by my surgeon, there was luckily 1 surgeon who was willing to try and get mine sorted. And so he said, look, within two years, a seizure will get you in the night and you won't wake up. And it was becoming obvious that was becoming more likely. by how serious my seizures were, dislocating my arms, biting my tongue off, all those things. And so he said, right, within two years, but as is always the way with the medical world, he couldn't tell you when. So mine was like a terminal diagnosis, but more like with a gambling casino backdrop to it, because there was no, you could not know which night would be your last. And so I got my surgery. They told me a seizure would get me within two. I got put on a wait list for surgery and the wait list was three years long. NIH. Yeah, which is really like a fun argument for why socialized health care might not be the best solution. But anyway, I got cured. So thanks to that one amazing guy and his team. But I so it means that I'm on already on extra time. And I typically go about the place doing uplifting, positive and upbeat conversations because as dark as things may get, in history there have been many times of darkness and humanity does prevail. I'm already on extra time so I'm very fortunate to have been put in a position where there's nothing anyone can take from me to stop me or silence me because I've been given this gift of extra time. And also because I choose to see the good. it doesn't matter how irrationally man may act. As long as you know you have moral courage and you're telling the truth, that will always be right. It doesn't matter if you have to be deported or arrested multiple times or threatened or any of the things that have happened to me, lose everything, have your house taken. All that matters is that you stand in truth. And that's what I do on a daily basis. And I'm very grateful, just let me say this, I'm very grateful to you guys for your support, for sharing what I try and do as part of the bigger puzzle of good people working together, because in the end, we win.

Ed Bonderenka

Excellent. Thanks. We've been talking to Katie Hopkins. She's going to be at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle tomorrow night. Check it out. Thanks for joining us, Katie. 

Welcome back to this segment of your American heritage and joining me is noted author raconteur man about town and defense contractor Larry Lambert and we were talking to Katie Hopkins before the break and I had assumed we'd be talking to her after the break too but she had somewhere to go and so we still have the ability to talk you have the ability to talk and if you want to call in the number according to Derek is 734-822-1600 that's how a professional gives the phone number out over the air folks pay attention closely so during the break actually I'd I'd like to share you something share with you something that a friend of mine a very erudite guy very good thinker and I you might know him as Jay Poplar on Facebook if you if you're a friend of mine on Facebook up but he refuses to call in he said that he was a quoting Tommy Robinson, Britain is well on its way to bringing Oceana to life. And he said of our conversation with Katie Hopkins, "that was so moving, I didn't expect it." That's, you know, we didn't get a dose of comedy. We got a dose of far right, far right political commentary, right? 

Larry Lambert

A dose of reality. I mean, the reality in Britain that if you even tweet a sentence about illegal aliens. They're going to send people to your door, kick the door in. Remember, there's no right against search and seizure in Britain. There's no Fifth Amendment right. There's no Fourth Amendment right. A search warrant is a boot on your door in the morning. And that's true. It's always been that way. We take things in the United States for granted. We take constitutional rights, the Bill of Rights and everything as a sort of a baseline. But that's not true everywhere. And it's certainly not true in Britain.

Ed Bonderenka

Exactly. Like I was saying to Katie, they gave us the Magna Carta, which is sort of like a template in a sense, a shadow of having a constitution. And they did that so that the king couldn't run over the nobleman's rights. It wasn't even the citizens, but it kind of devolved into citizens' rights. But they don't have any rights. They are all subjects to the crown, and they pretend to be. what we call a democracy, but they are not a constitutional republic. They have a parliament that looks like our Congress, but they don't have the rights, same as Canada. Canada sure looks like America Lite, but they don't have the same freedoms. And the Constitution doesn't give us these freedoms and rights. God gave us these. That's the important thing to realize. That's critical to the whole conversation. Because if you think the government gave them to you or the God didn't, somebody else did, and that means somebody else can take them away. And in Canada, they don't recognize the God-given rights. They come up with some, you know, milk toast, oh, we go for this or that, you know, and they're what they call a constitution.

Larry Lambert

That was never more evident than during COVID. During COVID, the Canadian government ran rough show to the Australian government. ran roughshod over the public. A friend of mine, who's also a blogger, who goes by Jules, talked about how the British government delivered alcoholic beverages to the public during COVID so they could all stay drunk.

Ed Bonderenka

She's from England.

Larry Lambert

She lives in England.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah.

Larry Lambert

I mean, to us, it's just so crazy. It's insane. It's a species of insanity. But in those places, it's real. And Alberta's going to have an opportunity to make a decision as to what they want to do. And we'll see how they behave and how the Canadians react. So that'd be interesting. That's coming up.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, it is. I've read different um um scenarios there if I can't think of how else to put it but that oh if they vote to leave then the parliament Canadian parliament has to approve their leaving and I've read the opposite of that too so I'm not sure we had uh an Albertan separatist on a couple of times and we haven't been able to get him back recently I want to clarify that so that's that that is a big deal what's going on in Canada it's certainly their western provinces are not happy it's like our western provinces aren't happy you live in one of our western provinces right Arizona?

Larry Lambert

Right I live in Arizona which is somewhat different than Michigan.

Ed Bonderenka

Yes exactly and I think the very concept of having our our our she you know as our he pretends to be, pure Michigan. And I'm sorry, that's not the Michigan I remember as a kid. Of course, Canada is not the Canada I remember as a kid either. I mean, I remember going to Canada, wonderful people, freedoms, buy firecrackers, smuggle them back into the United States, shoot guns, do stuff, and now all of a sudden it's like, it's socialism. That's all you can say about it. And I'd like to point out something I shared on Facebook because I think it's witty. And so I want to share it here. And I don't often get to espouse my own personal views here or thoughts that I have. So basically you've got capitalism. versus socialism is what's shown to be the the choice are we gonna have capitalism or socialism and then there's some people say oh there's the evils of capitalism capitalism runs roughshod but how about we say some people said how about free markets versus socialism well that's not the same thing because free markets is not necessarily the antithesis of socialism. But what is the antithesis of free markets is slave markets. And I think the analogy is very apt that basically socialism is a slave market. You have, by definition, lost your agency. You no longer have, like we're talking about, the right to speak freely, the right to interact with others, to sell what you want to sell to another person, to own what you want to own by yourself. That's personal agency. that's freedom and liberty as long as you don't intrude on the rights of the constitutional rights of other people that's a free market but when they tell you can't do that then you've lost your agency and we call people who've lost their agency servants and slaves right yeah.

Larry Lambert

Free men have the right to bear arms slaves do not.

Ed Bonderenka

Amen yeah that's there's reason for that.

Larry Lambert

Well I mean that but that's you know as Katie was talking that's really The difference, I mean, that is the critical difference between free people and slaves. Slaves cannot protect themselves. Slaves do not have the right to own arms. Free people do. And the Brits are slaves. They don't like calling themselves that. They're offended by that. The Canadians are in the same boat. I feel bad for them. But you have to stand up for your rights or you're going to lose them. And that's just that's just the reality of it.

Ed Bonderenka

So we're during the break you were pointing out to me we were talking about Britain and of course the insane immigration lack of policy they had that the mass importation of people without judeo-christian foundations and most of them are named Muhammad And you were telling me, what's the number one? What was the statistic you gave me? I don't know how to phrase it correctly.

Larry Lambert

Well, it's in both Britain and Germany, the number one name for babies being born is Mohammed. So, and I don't, look, I'm an American. I believe in the freedom of religion. I'm not anti-Islam for its own sake. But There's a cultural dynamic that we accept in the United States for the most part, wherein we are not a caliphate and we do not practice Sharia law. And the Constitution is not based on Sharia law. It's based on English common law. but the English common law that we take for granted and to some extent Napoleonic law if you're from Louisiana, but it's the point is that the Islamification of Europe and in places in the United States, the Islamification has not led to a happy society. Let me put it that way. I think there are a lot of problems associated with it. And in Britain, they've lost the freedom of speech. They've lost the right to free speech. They've lost the right to assembly. They've lost the right to stand at a street corner and pray. I mean, these are such basic, basic, basic rights. You know what? You've got to understand my background. And I'm a pretty conservative guy. I wouldn't say I'm far right, but I'm a conservative guy. But during the Tea Party, I held a sign. During, you know, I would never have thought that I would have been one of the people out holding a sign. But I was. And I was very vocal during COVID, as you'll recall on the blog and everything else, talking about the origin of COVID. We all knew what it was. We all knew what it came from China. We knew that it all knew it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We all know that that's the communist Chinese weapon lab. You know, come on, that wasn't a secret. And some of the development for that came from Canada. It did. I mean, it's I'm not making it up. It did. And now it's wide open. Now it's common knowledge. But at the time, and you were part of that, we stood up for that. And we said, look, yeah, it's a mask isn't going to stop it. It's a virus. I mean, it's the mask is a symbol of submission. It's not a symbol of They adopted that as a symbol of submission. They still do. There's still places in this country where I drive around, half of the people are wearing masks.

Ed Bonderenka

Ann Arbor.

Larry Lambert

What the hell's going on?

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, Ann Arbor is like that.

Larry Lambert

That's crazy. That's crazy. It's a virtue signal to say I submit. No, they're probably not at my house. So probably not at your house.

Ed Bonderenka

Why are you wearing this? Why, don't you realize you're being, this is a symbol of your enslavement. You're a primarily black people too. My friend Walter will attest to that. You know, it's like, why are you wearing a symbol of oppression on your face, a muzzle? Let's not even call it a mask, let's call it a Muslim, because my wife will tell you, I can't understand you with that thing. We go to the doctor's office. Will you please take that off so we can hear you? Hey, take it off and there's a beautiful smile. Yeah, it's just a habit, you know, whatever. So, back to Islam. I'm not a... I've had Jake Lang on this show a number of times. when he was in prison and the day he was released from prison, I had him on this show. And I asked him at that time, are you going to become politically active? Are you going to run for Congress? And he said, yes. He did. He didn't get far doing that. And now he's leading this anti-Islamic crusade across the nation going into Dearborn and burning Korans with bacon on top of them and I I see that kind of counterproductive I don't see that as I don't see it as Christian I don't see it as I don't know I I I see it very a very dark side to that although frankly when I look at Islam I see a religion that's an ideology that is antithetical is the word I'm looking forward to freedom and prosperity. And when we look at the historical basis of Western civilization, it's Judeo-Christianity. When we look at the Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, and the harems and the enslavement that goes on to this day even though the caliphate has fallen enslavement is still there this is all a extension of the Quran and belief in the Quran so I do have a problem with importing a bunch of people you want to believe that fine you know but we shouldn't be importing people with these values with no intent of assimilating I grew up here I'm talking too long I grew up in an immigrant community that for whatever reason I don't want my parents chose to live there but I grew up with poles and Japanese and Germans and hungarians and I heard all kinds of voices spoken in the house by the babushkas but the kids all spoke English and they were encouraged not to speak the parent language you become American now

Larry Lambert

right I think that I think that I think that the constitutional values, and I'm going to put it to constitutional, that we have enshrined are antithetical to the widespread practice of Islam, especially when it begins to encroach in government, especially when Sharia replaces the court system and the mullah is now dispensing justice. That is not how we do it in the United States. That's A violation of church and state. We've enshrined with the state the right to do these things and to act in our common interests. And in areas of Islamic majority, that's not the case. And that's part of the problem. It's political Islam more than simply the expression of faith.

Ed Bonderenka

I know. some people talk about and in particular I know people who are missionaries to campuses like Eastern Michigan and University of Michigan and people come into this country from other countries the students do on student visas and these missionaries actually see this this influx of foreign people as a mission field this is a great place to get people you know and reach them for Christ and and I think when you become a Christian your I know personally myself your whole world view changes and how you look at things change and your basis of of all thought and ideology changes to yeah basically well in terms of freedom and law you realize it's not just all come catches catch can you know you do your thing I do my thing no there's a lawgiver there's a law and if you bust the law you're gonna pay the price let me warn you what that price is so you don't bust the law and I'm not forcing you to obey God's law but I'm informing you that it's there and you may not be aware of it because your culture never spoke of it let me tell you about it and that's And there's freedom in that. Oh good, I'm not going to hell. I don't have to worry about some pushing a boulder up a hill and then have it roll down at night and then have to do it again the next day for eternity, right? And so there's this freedom that comes from that. For instance, I'm willing to stand up both for my faith and my government right now, my freedoms I should say, because I know where I'm going. It doesn't bother me so much. Other people, it's like, where will I go? I say all that to say this. We have this influx, this community of people coming in saying to Dearborn, I know missionaries there. And frankly, they are upset with the Jake Lang types because they are hurting their opportunities of ministering to these people the truth. because they take offense at it, now they don't want to talk to any Christians. That's the kind of stuff. That's why I don't think that having a rally and burning a pig in Dearborn is the best way of approaching these people.

Larry Lambert

Well, as you know, I travel the Middle East as part of my work, and I deal with Muslim people all the time. And I have friends who are Muslims. and I interact with them as one-on-one and I understand it. In fact, the first Muslim site on the internet was called Understanding Islam. And that was mine. I put it up. To try and help people to understand the difference and to understand, so you have a common frame of reference. So understanding Islam to me is important. It's a big part of the world. And being able to come to common ground and to understand people and to meet in a friendly way, right, in an engagement without animosity is very important. And putting bacon on a Koran, why would you do that? I mean, why insult people? That is not Christian behavior at all in the slightest. But being able to engage people honestly and openly to me is very important.

Ed Bonderenka

I've worked with a couple of Muslims. One was my plant manager. And just a few weeks ago, he texted me and said, hey, I'm thinking about leaving where I'm at. And do you know anybody that's hiring? And I hadn't talked to him in a couple years, but he felt We had that great a relationship when we worked together. We were both supportive of each other. And there's a maintenance guy at one of the last places I worked, just in the last couple years, and he's Muslim and he's actually from Yemen. He goes back there every year, visits his family, takes back money and gifts from America, and then comes back here again. And he's observant. He goes to the mosque. But when I was in the hospital with cancer, I hadn't talked to him in two years and he texted me and said, Hey Ed, I hear you're in the hospital. I'm praying for you. Now, do I think the prayers of a Muslim are effective? It depends on what he's praying for. I don't think the guy he's praying to is the right guy to be praying to. But do I enjoy the sentiment of thinking that this guy thought well enough of me? Why would I want to insult that guy, right? This guy's a friend of mine. Why do I want to insult him over his choice of religions? However, at the same time, I would like him to realize, you're not making the right choice of religions here. But we can talk about it, right?

Larry Lambert

Right. either everybody has a freedom of religion or nobody does.

Ed Bonderenka

Yes, exactly.

Larry Lambert

So we have to protect their right, but political Islam is very different. And when you get into that situation, we get into trouble.

Ed Bonderenka

Yeah, yep. So, boy, anything you want to promote or talk about, Larry, before we close out? I think, Derek, how long do we have here? Three minutes. Well, you know, I wanted to make an observation.

Larry Lambert

You're all welcome to visit virtualmirage.org. It's a fun blog. It's a political blog. You know, not everybody agrees with me and that's okay too.

Ed Bonderenka

You know, I wanted to talk to you. know the Middle East. And I just had an epiphany the other night. I was watching Brett Baer interview I can't pronounce his last name, Pakshashi or something like that, the president of Iran. And I realized listening to the president of Iran how much I had been misled by our government and the media here in this country to think that Iran was a bunch of bloodthirsty nuclear bomb throwing radicals. But actually there's just a group of peace-loving people that just want to get along with the rest of the world. That's what I heard him say and he sounded really convincing. What do you think?

Larry Lambert

There are a lot of thugs. the Iranian government is a criminal government. And it's a thugocracy. It has been for a long, time. And the people can take it back if they want to and make them an honest broker and a good neighbor and everything else. But that has to be a popular uprising and the people have to support it. Just like We believe in a government of the people, by the people, for the people. They have to do the same thing and they have to decide whether they want the thugs or whether they want what they have.

Ed Bonderenka

Okay, well folks, we've been talking to Larry Lambert. He's actually the representative of the Kurds to the American government. He knows a thing or two about the Middle East. So thanks for joining us, Larry. I appreciate it. And once again, virtualmirage.org. Go there. I'm there. Talk to you later, Larry.