Speaker 1: The best way to support this podcast is by going
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Spotify and Apple and write a review on Apple to
help us move up the charts. This week on Softcore History,
we're talking about a man who I believe may be
the first ever person in human history who was quote
two online, which is especially impressive considering he was born
one hundred and forty years before the Internet even existed.
This man spit out spicy take after spicy take in books, pamphlets,
news articles, and everything else, and his greatest take of
all that America should expand slavery to not only every
black person, but just most people in general. Today, we
are talking about George Fitzhugh, an American lawyer in the
nineteenth century who believed that most people, no matter what
their race was deserved to be slaves.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Softcore History.
Speaker 1: What is up? Welcome back to softcore History. I am
your host, Rob Fox, joined as always by Dan Regester
and this week special guest no One, no one else.
We don't have a deep bench.
Speaker 2: We don't, We truly don't. Everyone's leaving Austin.
Speaker 1: Everyone, A lot of our friends are leaving Austin. And
even like our normal guests couldn't be here this week,
Boosh is moving up. He's staying in Austin, but he's
moving apartments. Gabby's in Europe.
Speaker 2: I think they hate us. It's probably it's probably the
truth of the matter. They're like, you're not paying enough
and we're not going to contribute.
Speaker 1: That's act. I mean, that's an accurate statement.
Speaker 2: So sorry, it's a podcast.
Speaker 1: No one wanted to do it. Joel's over there editing.
He can't can't get on the show today.
Speaker 2: It's fine to get us. Just means I have to
step up, yeah, which I'm not a fan of.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean maybe.
Speaker 2: It'll improve your day, since maybe I typically like to
pick my spots. I'm like a cheato vera when it
comes to podcasting. No, you don't get that reference. I
don't abud Crawford, a guy that's just you know, he's
not a lot of volume, but I'm going for that heavy.
Speaker 1: Hand okay, Yeah, fighting some MMA, yeah, and some boxing Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't don't watch either. Really. Yeah, I would like to,
I guess, but even when I watched him, just like
I don't know what's happening. Someone killed somebody, is all
I ever really think.
Speaker 2: There's no like equivalent to a sport you would understand
because tennis it's not like you can pick your spots
in tennis.
Speaker 1: Kind of can, but you do need to win most
of the stuff, right.
Speaker 2: You can't just refuse to send the ball back.
Speaker 1: It's a bold move, I guess. But all right, you
get this point, Yeah, just take it. I mean they
do that sometimes, but not to the same degree. My
favorite thing, my favorite tenn of strategy is pooping for
too long.
Speaker 2: What do you mean? Uh?
Speaker 1: You get bathroom breaks in between sets sometimes a player
Djokovic is really noted for this, especially like you ice
the other Yeah, staying there for too long about Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, he's a fan. I like the tennis players that
are like brick walls where I'm not gonna really offensively,
take the game into my own hands. But I'm gonna
make you fuck up right right right? Well, he is
that like a Mevedev.
Speaker 1: He No, it's like a Rafa or a Djokovic, or
trying to think of like the younger guy. Honestly, al
Karaz gets to everything. Al Karaz gets too fucking everything.
Speaker 2: But Alkaraz will try stuff. I'm talking about a guy
that is just like all right, nope, I'm sending it over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Djokovic is the best defensive player of all time.
So probably Djokovic for sure. As Nick Kyrios once said,
it's my favorite quotbo Djovic. It's like, first he takes
your legs, right, he makes you just work too hard
to get points, and then he.
Speaker 2: Takes your soul as you're already tired.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then you're just like then he just crushes your
fucking soul, your hope.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Anyway, it's enough tennis talk for today. Djovic got the
gold medal. That was the only non American I was
rooting for, was Joker.
Speaker 2: Did we tie in gold medals? Uh? We went, We
tied China.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we won the medal count by like a million.
Speaker 2: I know, but we could have won if the fucking
high jumper just split the gold.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to. The guy, Oh, the guy didn't want.
Speaker 2: To dude, all right. So it was before the basketball game,
the worst sporting event I've ever seen in my life.
It was just two dudes that couldn't clear at the
bar for twenty five thirty.
Speaker 1: Minutes, and they were like, do you guys just want
to share?
Speaker 2: Yes? And the guy the Americans like fuck no, And
he lost to a white Kiwi. He lost to a
New Zealand guy. Respect that though, Actually I did too.
Speaker 1: That's fair.
Speaker 2: I like that we could have beat China.
Speaker 1: They'll split the gold and anything. They should have split
a silver. What is what should have been the offer
that neither of you did it? No gold is awarded
for the fuck that we're actually going to cancel the sport. Yeah,
that's insane. I guess women's volleyball loss too.
Speaker 2: We got run by Italy. Yeah, but I didn't know
the Italians were so good at volleyball.
Speaker 1: A lot of these European countries are good at very
random sports, obviously handball.
Speaker 2: I think this is a new development for Italy.
Speaker 1: No, they're I have Actually you are jogging a memory
that they're generally quite good at volleyball in both men's
and women's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, handballs dominated by like the Dutch and outrageous. I
don't know if they won or not. You could just
I was tweeted, like countries around the tweeting other days, like.
Speaker 1: You could just send like like all the skill players
from like Akrons football team.
Speaker 2: Doug, I could be on the US handball team.
Speaker 1: Fuck, and that's game over, like a mac skill position
football team in handball, like murders.
Speaker 2: You know, two twenty five. Right now, I'm running through
these dudes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not it's not fair or close. Actually, a
handball account tweeted back at me and was like trying
to correct me.
Speaker 2: I ignore them. I don't buy it. Yeah, blocked. That's
a sport. There's a lot of Olympic sports that I
think I could actually compete in. Handball is one of them.
Speaker 1: Handball is the number one for everyone, every white dude especially.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, we can play handball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll play goalie.
Speaker 2: I'll be the handball goalie. No, I'm blocking shots. I'm
just gonna catch it like lacrosse and just chuck it.
I'll just play attack pitching, even if that's positioning handball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever, I'm pitching a shutout. That's all I'm saying. Uh. Anyway,
let's get into this week's episode. We have a good one.
I'm excited about this one. This is actually one of
those episodes whereas I was writing it, I was like,
I might be doing this a huge disservice, Like there
might be so much more to this, and I'm just
like skimming Wikipedia ing it. But we're softcore history. So
that's our that's our cop out, right.
Speaker 2: Somebody was chirping us the other day that we essentially
just read Wikipedia. It's like, did you read the description?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for the Wikipedia da also for there did you
find it? Did you know about this? No, we're telling
you about it, so you don't even know the Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: We're history aggregators, really we are. We are history aggregator caught.
Nobody makes original content these days. Look at the Internet.
It's all dead. We used to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gone, unless you want to go listen to
original sketches on our Patreon patreon dot com slash.
Speaker 2: That's true. If people are raving about your sketches, check
that shit out. I'm in an appearance you did popped
in co starred in it, I would say so. Patreon
dot com slash software history, you get two additional episodes
every week, including a at this point two and a half
year back catalog of evergreen content, and you got a
normal episode kind of like this where we cover a
subject and then yeah, Rob will write a sketch.
Speaker 1: War stories of Jimmy Stewart. I think I'm gonna do
another hooker diary.
Speaker 2: We did a hooker diary we've done. The last one
was about.
Speaker 1: Just like a Brown da Vinci code spoof.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, pair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I do love the DaVinci Code and Dan Brown,
but it's like he's a ludicrous right, so.
Speaker 2: Check that out. It was actually really good. It made
me laugh a couple times, which is hard to do
with Rob.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked you even admitted that. To be honest, I
mean Gamerspec game well, speaking of which I respect your game.
And You're gonna like this guy a lot because he
reminds me of your writing it at TFM.
Speaker 2: Back in the day just being a ship poster.
Speaker 1: Suffice it to say that someone like you, who who
pitched sending the Homeless to colonize.
Speaker 2: Mars killed two birds with one stone.
Speaker 1: You might be into this, gentleman we're going to talk
about today.
Speaker 2: That was also around the same time, where like that
Mars one mission was going on, and people will only
signed up for a clear scam.
Speaker 1: Just like live in a box.
Speaker 2: Right. First off, it's a sc It was very obviously
a scam. But second off, married people, people with children
were just like, you know what, Earth's not good enough
for me. I'm going to abandon all of you and
then die on a red rock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, underground too. You can't live on the surface of Mars. No,
because there's too much radiation, because it doesn't have an atmosphere. Yeah,
and that'n't make netosphere. I think make a Netisphere's this
space radiation? Whatever the fuck? He just gets right in.
I mean, it's just a cancer factory.
Speaker 2: And all I did was suggest, hey, man, maybe didn't
work out for a couple of people on this planet,
those that live in la those in Austin, you know,
the sidewalks and tents, Maybe go be king of Mars.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, I was trying to.
Speaker 2: Make something of yourself, and all of a sudden, you know,
years later, Gavin Newsom's cleaning up the streets of California,
and he could have just taken my idea back in
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, founded New California on Mars idiot, New California Republic.
So this guy we're talking about today, as I read
about him more and more, I feel like if he
was alive today, his name is George Fitzhugh. If he
was alive today, he would at minimum have a very
popular and very controversial Twitter account. This is the type
of guy who would objectively have a lot of fans today.
Speaker 2: Just the guy that would poke the bear. Yeah, soaked
the fires.
Speaker 1: He had wonder he had one issue in particular, So
he George with Hugh was a lawyer turned sociologist and
social theorist in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Oh so he thought he was smarter than everyone. Oh yeah,
you get that lot of green in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: He mostly had one particular pet cause, and that was
his main belief was that all black people should be slaves,
even the free ones. What year, it's like the eighteen fifties, Okay,
all black people. Hard to build off this to uh
yes and this, don't worry, we'll get there. In fitz
Hughes defense, I'll just defend him here. Now that may
sound racist, especially because he said the Negro was quote
but a grown up child, so they needed to be slaves.
They need it.
Speaker 2: You'll cut that, yeah, yeah, Like for the clip that's
going to be on our Instagram, I'll make sure that's
out of context completely.
Speaker 1: That'll go bananas on YouTube. Yeah, YouTube. Short. But in
his defense, if I can defend him for a moment,
he also thought that most white people should be slaves.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he's fair and balanced or Fox News.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, men are not born entitled to equal rights.
It would be far nearer to truth to say that
some were born with saddles on their backs and others
booted and spurred to ride them. And the riding does
them good. They need the reins, the bit and the spur.
So he's an elitist, Oh yeah, kind of. It's like
it's mostly that.
Speaker 2: A socioeconomic or is it more meritocracy?
Speaker 1: A little bit of a lot would be. I think
he thinks that the way the socioeconomic landscape is laid
out is the meritocracy already.
Speaker 2: Okay, so if you're born poor, you deserve to be poor. Well,
we'll get to that all right. He has a sort
of paternalistic view of slavery universe, your ancestors for not
working hard enough grind, not.
Speaker 1: Being on that grind. He he has sort of like
a universal paternalism would be his kind of point of
view here. So, I fitz you basically looked around the
pre Civil War South and thought, too many of these
people are free?
Speaker 2: How many is too many? Like what what percentage of
the population.
Speaker 1: He'll actually give us kind of a percentage in a
little bit, We'll.
Speaker 2: Like, only five thousand people in this splenet should be free,
a kind of like it was a low number. So
he has developing the society that's elysium.
Speaker 1: It's not far it's not far off from that. So
he basically thought that modernity's political ideas, modernity being the
eighteen forties and fifties, were ruining human beings who were
happier to have their purpose spelled out for them. But
liberalism and capitalism had freed too many of these people,
but they didn't know what to do with their freedom.
Speaker 2: And people yearned for direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you yearn what is it? What does Loki say
in The Avengers? He's like, you yearned to be ruled.
Speaker 2: Isn't life simpler this way? I can't Yeah, I can't
quote Loki. I can quote Loki. I don't arrive for
the movies that hard. I've seen them once.
Speaker 1: So basically, he's like, people are happier when they don't
have to worry about so much stuff. And who has
to worry about less than a slave?
Speaker 2: Got everything taken care of. You got a roof over
your head, food provided literally literally, Sometimes you might get
punished if you don't meet quota. Well, we kind of
on you, right, We'll get to that too.
Speaker 1: He says that quote slavey, slavery to human masters was
less intolerable than slavery to capital. So essentially, like humans
are gonna be nicer to you than than the markets
within the system because the mark Yeah, the system doesn't care.
Speaker 2: Okay, So he was a pro slavery, pro commie.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that.
Speaker 2: This man had a very unique point of view.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you, this guy's Twitter would have crushed, Like,
this guy would have fucking two million followers on Twitter
because everybody, ain't nobody think they're a slave. Everyone they'd
have a million follow and all million of them would
be except for maybe a few deranged chicks, like that
Pearl chick who's like take away that women's rice to
vos like that.
Speaker 2: It's just like, can we just talk about for a second. Yeah,
I know how insufferable x slash Twitter has become.
Speaker 1: I know you hate Twitter now.
Speaker 2: It's awful, Like it is, truly some of the worst
stuff imaginable.
Speaker 1: You got to curate your content better, bro.
Speaker 2: I used to, and then I worked at a place
that cared about politics and now it's ruined. No, you know,
it used to just be jokes. Actually, Twitter just used
to be jokes.
Speaker 1: You know what the problem is is that Elon Musk
bought Twitter, turned it into x and freed your algorithm.
You were a slave to an algorithm that was serving
you what it needs, but it thought you needed to
hear shit post. Now you're free.
Speaker 2: Now I see the N word every other post and
you're getting a white dudes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're getting everything. You were happy your slave.
Speaker 2: I guess so to the algorithm. Algorithm knows what I want. Yeah,
but now the new algorithm's kind of serving me just nothing,
just nothing but ass.
Speaker 1: It's like a lack thereof you know what I mean.
It's like a lack of algorithm, and yeah, you're free
and you're worse off, and it's just two sides battling.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't care about either of you.
Speaker 1: You might be a fitz uist, are you a You're
a social fitsuist, a tech fitzuist. You want the algorithm
to do everything for you, so you don't have to
think you're it's easier that way.
Speaker 2: As Jesse Jesse Wiseman's kind of like that where she
just wants things provided for her with ads.
Speaker 1: We should have had her on for this one.
Speaker 2: No, that would have been great, because you know, sometimes
I do buy the things that are served up in
an advertisement, sometimes a shirt or I can tell design
the need throughout my household.
Speaker 1: For a fact, the sweatshirt and shorts I am wearing
algorithm provided.
Speaker 2: But Twitter, for whatever reason, just serves me nothing but
things I do not want to see it.
Speaker 1: And you see, like see dead people every day.
Speaker 2: I see someone die at least four times a day
now between like the Ukraine war ship in Gaza and
then yeah, just some random dude in the streets of
like Sacramento getting murked at a gas station.
Speaker 1: Oh good times.
Speaker 2: No warning there's no like you know. And then underneath too,
it's nothing but porn porn bots you and then none
of the replies have anything to do with the actual
content provided in the original post. It's either porn bots
or it's videos that have nothing to do with it.
It's like the worst you social media out there, you
actually are.
Speaker 1: I just get like baseball and stuff. I mean, I
get politics too, but I get like baseball. That's the
thing about death videos too. You can't look away, no, no, no, it's.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, all right, fine, I guess I'll click on
this fucking drone video and see a rush and get
is just like hambling like.
Speaker 1: A Russian like slave conscript who was like a prisoner
who was forced to get in the army.
Speaker 2: Some dark shit, dude. I saw a Ukrainian soldier pick
up the phone of a dead Russian and call his
girlfriend to tell him he's dead.
Speaker 1: That's pretty metal.
Speaker 2: Or she called the dead Russian. He answered the FaceTime
and showed her the body. Oh what pretty sick? Are
we sure we're on the right side? I don't know.
That's pretty dark though.
Speaker 1: Send me that video. Though I kind of want to
see it, I.
Speaker 2: Don't want to look for that. I don't want that
in my like at least search history. And then Google's going.
I mean, they're getting sued left and right for the
things they're doing. Everything is bad. We need to blow
everything up. I think we need to get offline. I
know this is our careers and this is how we
make money. But I'd be fine going working the oyster
farms with Jake if it meant the Internet was over
do it? I guess no, it would have to come
with Okay, you can't the total destruction of our platform
and of.
Speaker 1: Our You'll only give up your platform if everyone's platform dies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, deep platform, everyone forget just Rogan everyone?
Speaker 1: Wait? Should we uh?
Speaker 2: We have to make that t shirt that might sell
deep platform? Everyone?
Speaker 1: Deplatform everyone. I want no one to have a voice.
You're a fit fewest, You're a fits Youwest all right?
So Fitz you himself was unsurprisingly not that great with
people live at the party. No, and thus he did
not frequently touch grass, as the Internet kids say.
Speaker 2: Man, dude, sometimes you just gotta go outside.
Speaker 1: Touch grass, bro, touch grass.
Speaker 2: So fucking podcast quipments needs to be more expensive. Most
people need to talk.
Speaker 1: I do. I mean that is deplatform everyone price to
everyone out. Yeah that's what that was my Uh, if
you really wanted to like I mean no, no, like
actual like gun owner would be for this. But my
theory on how to like stop gun crime is you
make handguns illegal and then the only people who can
afford guns. It's like a rifle at that point, and
rifles are I mean, it's like a thousand dollars for
a fucking.
Speaker 2: Oh I have all the answers for that shit. So
but the left doesn't want to listen to them. The
right doesn't want to listen to me either.
Speaker 1: Criminals are priced out.
Speaker 2: But if you want to get rid of guns in
this country, the easiest thing is to just like make
them as gay as possible.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to gay. You have
to gay shame to get rid of.
Speaker 2: Guns, Like, oh you have a fucking gun, you pussy.
Speaker 1: You have to be homophobic and misogynistic to enter.
Speaker 2: Oh the left does someone or fifteen look at that
limpris bitch.
Speaker 1: That's how you know the left doesn't actually care about
school shooting. It don't because they won't call someone fucking gay.
Speaker 2: For real, men shoot compound bows. All right, there's my
platform you know there was a bow and arrow mass.
Speaker 1: Yeah, arrowing in France.
Speaker 2: I think that was kind of dope though, just fucking
Hawkeye and everyone from the building.
Speaker 1: I mean respect. If you if you're going to commit
to that, then you just gotta like you gotta give
it to him, so fits you to me. As I
read more about him, I was like, this dude was
literally two online, one hundred and forty years before the
internet existed. He might be the first two online man
in recorded history. Though he did get married. He married
Metcalf Mary Metcalf brock and brou in eighteen twenty nine,
and he practiced. He had a law practice in Port Royal, Virginia.
He did not get out much something. Yeah, he didn't
get out much, which, by the way, seems like if
you're going to judge society, you might want to walk
around in it a little bit.
Speaker 2: No, why would you do that? Why would you have
things that would actively counteract your points right with evidence date?
Speaker 1: Why would you go seek different data?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Actually, in whose defense he did so? He did do
that a little.
Speaker 2: He did do that, if anything, seek confirmation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did read opposing points of view. But the
whole problem is he only read, so he spent all
his time in this like rickety Rundown mansion that he
inherited from his wife's family. The mansion was mostly notable
for being riddled with bats, just bats everywhere in this mansion.
Speaker 2: Well, now that we still do have a platform, I
would like to just put out my take that no
one should read like men. What are you doing?
Speaker 1: Oh? I actually had a take. I didn't know how
to put it on Twitter, but I'll say it here.
Speaker 2: Is that you.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't read your children books because that's analog screen time.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true, but also, why are you reading the
words of other men? It's cooked? Yeah, yeah, write your
own book, go out and experience things, and only read
your own books. There's nothing worse. You know. There used
to be movie quote guy, but now.
Speaker 1: We've it's a gift and meme guy.
Speaker 2: We've evolved into Oh I read three books and now
just quote everything that are red. Guy. He tried. You
try to appear to be more intellectual because you spew
out the same regurgitated bullshit. You know, three books, you've read,
read your entire life, and then all of a sudden,
you're smart. No dog, you.
Speaker 1: Clapping at Jake right now for reading one Courtmack novel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am, yeah, Jake, I know you hear me
right now. I know you still listen, you bitch.
Speaker 1: Should we come up with a slur for Jake for
as an oyster farmer like a cage Polar?
Speaker 2: Okay? I thought, I mean, there was a very clear
and obvious what slurer we could have went with?
Speaker 1: What begins with k oh? Yeah, I didn't mean a
Jewish thing. I meant an oyster farmer slur like I
like cage Polar.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, Oh, that's what I was going
to go with. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I
don't know what the fuck you're talking about?
Speaker 1: What about? Who does? Anyway, We're glad that cage Pollar's gone?
He uh so, Fitz, you've spent most of his days
just in his mansion, in the little library he had,
just reading books, newspapers, pamphlets, reading, reading, reading, reading, reading,
never going out, and pamphlets by the way, and first
well newspapers right at the time we've done. We did
an episode on this a while ago. It's one of
my favorite episodes I've ever written. I think it was
entitled something like we never wanted real news, yeap about
how you know people today whine about the media being
super biased and all this stuff, and it's always been
that way. It started with the penny papers in the
eighteen forties. In fact, there was just a weird period
of time from like the nineteen fifties through the nineteen
nineties where things were actually kind of neutral and unbiased.
Speaker 2: I mean depaired. Yellow propaganda start with the explosion of
the main.
Speaker 1: Yellow journalism was around in the Gilded Age. Yeah, and
then but.
Speaker 2: That was kind of like the major catastrophic moment was
when they blew up the main.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, so the main exploded and the newspapers immediately
ran with Spain blew it up even though it was
it was definitely an accident.
Speaker 2: Was not an accent. It was definitely us, but it
was an accident, or like the was it Cuba? It
was in Cuba, but it was it was either US
or the Cubans that were on our side.
Speaker 1: No, it was I believe it was an accidental explosion.
Speaker 2: Due pretty I'm pretty sure we did it.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I think it was an accidental explosion that
the media ran with because they wanted a war to
sell papers.
Speaker 2: Nothing's an accident.
Speaker 1: Well, it also could have been if you want to
go that conspiracy route on the Main could have been
in the US, I guess, or more likely it could
have been Cuals.
Speaker 2: There was so at the time likely the Cuban nationals
to get them get us on.
Speaker 1: The big story at the time leading up to the
Main and the Spanish Man War was how badly the
Spanish treated the Cubans.
Speaker 2: Essentially so and we had that ship. Yeah, we gave
up Cuba. I that fucking Travesy.
Speaker 1: Slam my head into a wall every time I think
about that. Uh So, Again, most of what he was
learning about society was from the very you know, propaganda
news of the day pamphlets, which is essentially like a
Twitter account or a blog like that. You know, it's
like somebody substack essentially, and uh yeah, and and that pamphlets,
news and and and whatever.
Speaker 2: Books and it just sounds like this guy got no bitches.
Speaker 1: Well he had a bitch, he had a wife, but
I only gave her fucked her no bitches, Like he
was just in the library all day. So essentially this
guy was.
Speaker 2: What cheated on him all the time.
Speaker 1: One would think, yeah, essentially this guy was, like, imagine
a person today who never leaves the house. But and
and but like is a is an information addict who
is constantly putting cable news and Twitter into their fucking brain.
Speaker 2: They can't open the door and leave their residence and
they have to get everything door dashed pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, regardless of political affiliation, imagine that person. Think
about how you imagine that person's brain works. You probably
know a person not unlike that, not terribly unlike that.
That person's brain is fucking broken. That is George fitzs you,
that's a nightmare person. To his credit, I though, like
I said earlier, he did read a lot of a
lot of opposing views. Again, he thought that everyone should
be a slave, pretty much, and so he read a
lot of abolitionists pamphlets and newspapers and stuff like that
to kind of get the opposing pov.
Speaker 2: But gotta get ammunition to attack your enemy.
Speaker 1: If all you're doing is getting information from the loudest
people who just write their strong opinions down, whether those
opinions are wrong or right or whatever, that's not a
good way. You're not going to get a good view
of the world doing that. No, No, matter what they're writing. No,
you gotta go out and live in the world to
understand the world. So that's how he learned about the world.
More or less. He did practice a lot of like that,
but he really he was a shut in by all accounts.
Speaker 2: Dude, imagine the generation coming up now.
Speaker 1: I remember someone I won't say names, but we know them.
They have a kid who's like fifteen or sixteen, and
they were telling me that their kid would often just
fall asleep on FaceTime with their friends.
Speaker 2: Yep, it's gonna be like no, it's gonna be worse though,
because with the advancement of AI, the advancement of being
able to manipulate video and photos, you're not gonna know
what's real and what's not.
Speaker 1: I actually think you're better off just assuming nothing's real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we're gonna get to the point where
video evidence is gonna be dismissed from court. Oh yeah, easily.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, can't wait.
Speaker 2: Just gonna be so much cram.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. So, after unsuccessfully trying his hand at his
own pamphlets, Fitzhugh finally published his first book in eighteen
fifty four, and this book was decently successed, not huge successful.
The second one was the bigger success, but did well enough.
It was entitled Sociology for the South, or the Failure
of Free Society, which, by the way, most people are
most historians are pretty sure, is the first book that
ever had sociology in the title. It took on some
big names and some big themes. It thought capitalism was
bad and Adam Smith was a dipshit.
Speaker 2: I disagree. I just disagree that capitalism's bad.
Speaker 1: His biggest enemy is capitalism basically throughout most of his life.
It is also extremely critical of two noted dipshits in
Fitzhugh's mind, John Locke and Thomas Jefferson. He fucking thinks
Thomas Jefferson, it's the dumbest asshole. He thinks the Declaration
of Independence is full of shit.
Speaker 2: He was just like, we need slavery everywhere. Keep the wheelchairing, yeah,
he said of the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 1: It quote deserves the tumid yet appropriate epitaphs which Major
Lee somewhere applies to the writings of mister Jefferson. It
is exuberantly false and aborescently fallacious. It's full shit, full shit.
Basically the entire theme of the book is that capitalism
and liberty have ruined humanity and we have to go
back to feudalism. Asat he thinks it. Feudalism is the
perfect human state.
Speaker 2: You have a little lord, little liege, lord, look over everyone.
Speaker 1: We did an episode on that meme that goes around
from time to time where it's like a feudal serf
only worked like half the year. Basically like you work
more than a feudal surf. But what that meme doesn't
take into account on purpose probably uh, is that they
only worked for their lord x amount of days a year.
So yeah, they had more days off than you working
at whatever fucking cubicle job you have. However, every fucking
second that they weren't tilling the fields for their fucking
duke or whatever, Uh.
Speaker 2: They had to do all their other work, all of
their other work. Also, if they call their banners, maybe
you gotta go five for them.
Speaker 1: War you don't give a fuck about. Yeah, I mean
there's you could get drafted now, I guess maybe, But
so like anything like that, and I will like tending
to your own livestock, getting your own crops, getting your
own like fixing shit in your on your house, everything
every fucking second of a serf's life with work, So
that meme is a lie.
Speaker 2: We did a whole episode of that basically, uh, but.
Speaker 1: Fits you.
Speaker 2: You know your your lord is it's Will's far Go,
Bak of America, Man Lockheed Martin, Man Raytheon. I trust
in them, that's whoever you work for.
Speaker 1: I trust it.
Speaker 2: I trust them to keep me saying back in the
day was NBC for me those dicks.
Speaker 1: Part of me is a fitzguist in that regard where
it's just like, do I.
Speaker 2: Really want to get rid of the booty industrial complex?
I feel pretty safe. Yeah I do. I would. I
would probably get rid of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fuck off, communist cook.
Speaker 2: I would probably get rid of Conflix. We don't need
to be involved in. See.
Speaker 1: That's the yeah, that's the uh, that's the plantation I
live on. That's the fits you plantation I live on.
So he wrote in the book about capitalism, add to
the evidence of these social philosophers who watching closely the
working of the system, have proclaimed to the world it's
total failure the condition of the working classes. And we
have conclusive proof that liberty and equality have not conduced
to enhance the comfort or happiness of the people, Crime
and pauperism have increased. Riots, trade unions, strikes for higher wages,
discontent breaking out into revolution are things of daily occurrence
and show that the poor see and feel quite as
clearly as the philosophers that their condition is far worse
under the new than under the old order of things. So, basically,
if society is so great now with all this liberty,
then why is everyone yelling so much? And things aren't perfect?
Speaker 2: Less opinions, less cooks.
Speaker 1: I think his argument is a basic and I actually
kind of appreciate it for how funny it is.
Speaker 2: Is.
Speaker 1: His argument was basically like you could tell people who
were happier under feudalism because look how much quieter they were.
Speaker 2: They didn't have a voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one could plained under feudalism.
Speaker 2: For them, No one fucking could complain now.
Speaker 1: But it's funny. It's a funny, Like he's not his
logic is never great, but man, he's.
Speaker 2: Fucking he's just fire and takes though.
Speaker 1: I mean he is.
Speaker 2: This man is take city, and you're gonna have want
to back your own takes with illogical fallacies. Yeah. So
I think.
Speaker 1: When I got when I was saying about this episode
where I was like, I'm I probably I'm not doing
it justice just because he wrote so much. So he
wrote these two books. His pamphlet career didn't take off.
But on his Wikipedia alone, not even in the sources,
just enlisted other works, hundreds of articles. And these articles
are not like an eight hundred word column in you know,
Newsweek or something like that. These are long pages and
pages of opinions that like, you could probably do a
sweet deep dive on it. But again, this is softcore history,
so we're obviously not doing that.
Speaker 2: He's doing a thesis on every single topic.
Speaker 1: I mean, dude, it's yeah, you could do that. And
he had time again to online. This guy's a super
user on Twitter, Like he is tweeting all fucking.
Speaker 2: Day, and what else is he gonna do?
Speaker 1: He doesn't have anything else to do. It is not
of his home practices law, I guess, but like fun.
Speaker 2: Does he though, because actually he'd be a great lawyer.
He might.
Speaker 1: He commits to the argument.
Speaker 2: He might be one of the best lawyers as long
as he does the proper research and work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he commits to the argument. And here's
an average like he is like an obsessive reader, like
he reads constantly. He also argued that the reason there
are revolutions and riots under liberty and capitalism is essentially
that most people yearn to be ruled and they're scared
and confused, so they start just lashing out.
Speaker 2: Do you buy that? Uh?
Speaker 1: I think people.
Speaker 2: I think people like routine.
Speaker 1: If people do like routine and they like purpose, which
is two things, he argues for why they should be slaves.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if they go hand in hand though.
No purpose and routine do not. Routine almost feels like
you're obligated you need.
Speaker 1: That's not purpose though, Pursue your purpose with the routine.
Speaker 2: Although I do kind of agree though not everyone needs
to follow their dreams, right, That's that's how we get
an environment that nobody can live in.
Speaker 1: Oh, we'll get to that.
Speaker 2: We need we just need dudes to pave roads.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or even like actually so the roads.
Speaker 2: We need people that you know, you don't grow up
wanting to do construction, But who the fuck's going to
build the houses?
Speaker 1: I feel like the road paving and house building takes
care of itself. With immigration, I'm more worried about kind
of what you said of people not wanting to be
plumbers or I think we were talking about it in
the car a while batter Range, just like there was
one year saying like, uh, like who runs like power plants?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: How many young people are like, dude, I want to
be in charge of a power plant, or.
Speaker 2: Just anyone that goes to trade school?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what we really I do think there's a
pivot to people realize in college isn't necessarily uh the
way to go, especially if you're not going to be
a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer. Yeah. So I
think the next generation coming up might actually go back
to a trade.
Speaker 1: To see that, or they just skip college to be
a YouTube star.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's gonna be the downfall society. Really, Yeah, we
don't need this a deep platform everyone. This is terrible.
But at the end of the day, too, how many
people are wasting away at these middle management jobs at
don't really matter.
Speaker 1: A while ago, they have an hour work a day, they.
Speaker 2: Fuck around for seven hours listening to us. I know,
I thought it was.
Speaker 1: A while ago when I was working at some like
stupid marketing job. I like worked with a lot of
like smart talented people and I was just like, you
would be so much more useful like teaching or something,
you know, like teaching high schoolers or teaching kids than
like making ads for a local air conditioning company, Like
what's the point of that.
Speaker 2: But then on the other into that kind of razor
is the people that are like so pro communist and
they talk about what they're gonna do when you know,
when they're in their commune and they're in their socialist
society after the revolution, and they're all like, oh, I'm
gonna be a poet inside a coffeehouse and it's like, no, no,
you're not.
Speaker 1: Or like the most the closest to blue collar they'll
get is like I'm going to be a baker.
Speaker 2: It's like you got to contribute, dog, Like if you
want this society, the thing you want the revolution shove,
you better pull your share, dog, because you're very expendable. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fucking no one, No one needs a U
what are the what is it called the Middle Ages?
The like tribune person who plays a little lute and
sings poetry.
Speaker 2: Forget the name, it doesn't matter. Piss me off, doesn't matter, dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't need that person. And and by the way,
but you don't.
Speaker 2: You don't need people being middleman for like hard mine.
Speaker 1: No, if it's you is all about that belief. He
is very anti individuality. We'll get into that. So he
essentially says that every society has what he calls a substratum.
Not everyone's meant to be free and this is better
for them.
Speaker 2: What if we do limit the options of like you
still have the ability to choose, but instead of a
million options, you have twelve.
Speaker 1: I mean realistically that's what you have.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it becomes like a video game where you have
to pick your specialty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's like you know, you open Netflix, it's
too much to watch. You don't know what to watch.
Speaker 2: Dude, you spend forty five minutes scrolling. Nothing's good. I
do think nothing's appealing.
Speaker 1: If you want to get people into like trades and shit,
like that's talk that you're saying earlier the best thing
to do, Like if you want to convince people to
be a plumber whatever, I don't think it's actually a
heard a plumber, but is like to going to engineering
or whatever. It is like just like you got to
tell people, like most of you don't have dreams, but
you can still have lots of money. And the actually
the big best life hack to getting lots of money
at this point, at this point is like being a
plumber or.
Speaker 2: We're like going into a field with not a lot
of competition.
Speaker 1: H hvac repair guy in fucking Texas.
Speaker 2: You become the best at that. You're gonna be hired
over and over and over again. You're gonna make a ship,
a ton of money, rack up that money, start a
good family. I think I think we're gonna go back
to that.
Speaker 1: That's what That's what we need a value again, it's
just making a lot of.
Speaker 2: Money, make a lot of money, dude.
Speaker 1: Like what we we need to We need to devalue
fame and value money.
Speaker 2: This wasn't our first choice. No, no, no, we're making money,
dog doing what we can. We're trying.
Speaker 1: Uh So he wrote about the substratum. If it's you did,
Every social structure must have its substratum. In a free society,
the substratum the weak, poor, and ignorant is born down
upon and oppressed with continually increasing weight by all above.
So in a free society, in capitalism, you're just constantly
fucking weighed down upon on, We have solved. But then
he writes, we have solved the problem of relieving, relieving
the substratum from the pressure from above. The slaves of
the substratum and the master's feelings and interests alike prevent
him from bearing down upon and oppressing them. With us.
The pressure on society is like that of air or water,
so equally diffused as not anywhere to be felt. So
basically he's saying, we figured out how to be nice
to the substratum so they don't feel so bad, and
partly because it's in our best interests to be nice
to them. And he actually was very against rough treatment
of slaves. He there was a book at the time
called Types of Mankind. It was sort of the typical
like racial pseudoscience that was popular from then up to
through the Gilded Age, you know what I mean, Like
like a like in what do you call it, the
Quentin Tarantino movie, Jo, You're paying out the school, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yah yeah, So that's like that type of situation. Types
of Mankind was like that type of book fits He
was not a fan. He wrote, he wrote of it,
we abhor the doctrine of the types of mankind first,
because it is at war with Scripture, which is a
whole other can of worms about him in Scripture. And
I'm not sure that Jesus was super into slavery, but anyway,
he says, which teaches us that the whole human race
is descended from a common parentage, that being Scripture. And secondly,
because it encourages and incites brutal masters to treat negroes
not as weak, ignorant and dependent brethren, but as wicked
beasts without the pale of humanity.
Speaker 2: So he's He's like, they're people, man, Black people are people.
Speaker 1: They're just helpless people that we need to be nice
to real quick before keep going. We do have some
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Kaba purchase. So essentially, again, like you said earlier, people
care about people. So it's better to be enslaved to
a person than to the markets. Because the system doesn't
care about you, right, the system will be mean to you.
People will be nice to you, which I don't know
about that. He also goes in on cities in the North.
Hates cities in the North.
Speaker 2: Damn the Yankees.
Speaker 1: Well, just cities. It's kind of like what you've heard
about cities here.
Speaker 2: He's pool of Vermont in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: I guess I mean, but he's I'll just read it
because it's he says about this with them, it's the
pressure of the enormous screw, never yielding, continually increasing. Free
laborers are a little better than trespassers on this earth
given by God to all mankind. The birds of the
air have their nests, the foxes have holes, but they
the laborers have not where to lay their heads. They
are driven to cities to dwell in damp and crowded cellars,
and thousands are even forced to lie in the open air.
This accounts for the rapid growth of northern cities. The
feudal barons were more generous and hospitable and less tyrannical
than the petty landholders of modern times.
Speaker 2: So basically he's.
Speaker 1: Saying no one actually wanted to live in Boston and
New York or Philly. The reason these are growing is
because they're a jam in twenty two room and there.
Speaker 2: Were hobos everywhere.
Speaker 1: So it's just like he's saying that the economic success
of these cities is like a lie.
Speaker 2: Now, don't get me wrong, he is right.
Speaker 1: Working conditions and factories at this time are a fucking nightmare.
We're just greasing gears with Irish fucking intestines, but.
Speaker 2: Three or four year old into the factory. Yeah, but
he is also extremely down. Those tiny hands can get
into the crevices.
Speaker 1: They can get the other bones out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anything that kind of jams up the line, sending
the child, sending the toddler, he'll be able to kind
of fix that issue. He'll get grind up. But he's
so small that the assembly line keeps going.
Speaker 1: Boy, boy, get over here, bring me the boy. Yeah,
and then that taller guess. So yeah, it's all it's
all fun.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I was living it back then and
I had a big family, my strategy would be I'm
going to send in all my four to ten year
old children around the neighborhood to be chimney sweeps. Oh yeah,
as one of them or two of them are actually
working on the chimney rob the other people blind.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen the child chimney sweep picture I have, Yeah,
where it's like a fucking three year old. Like with
his dad, they both were like he entangles three year old.
Speaker 2: That's going to be a distraction, right, everyone that's in
the home watching the five year old sweep your chimney
just covered in you know, dust, And I mean that
kid is like black long by ten.
Speaker 1: Also, I don't under like I my child is one
less mount to feed. My child is almost three, my
oldest child. He will literally be three and less than
a month. And I cannot explain to you how badly
he would do at cleaning anything. I asked him to
his hands, and he doesn't do it.
Speaker 2: He's a soft hands. He has a soft hands.
Speaker 1: His hands are verse.
Speaker 2: It's the way you're raising your kid. If I was
in the picture a little bit more, he'd be a hardened.
Uh you know, paycheck better his job. Yeah, he'd be
working right now. I would make him work, I know.
Is there a reason? I mean, you guys should move
to Arkansas really if you want to? For what the
wheels moving child.
Speaker 1: Labor if they have good child labor less.
Speaker 2: Oh, they got rid of it, I think. Oh yeah,
hell yeah, that Tyson factory needs needs more chicken. Yeah.
What do you think is in the nuggets? Dude? Kids
eating kids, cannibals, dude. Apparently there's a pretty good over
fifty percent chance that every human being in the United
States at this point has ingested other humans. Hell yeah,
from what like a finger? The food that is, I
guess crops and everything that are grown with human decomposition.
Speaker 1: Oh, you've told me about this before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we grow food with human bodies, with human bones. Yeah,
well that used to be a big thing back. We've
done an episode on that too, where they went to
Waterloo to kind of get all the dead bodies to
sell us fertilizer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well first they took the teeth for dentshers
and shit, but yeah, they did use the bones and shit.
Speaker 2: And that has continued to go on to this day
in I think, like every state but Idaho. It's something random.
Speaker 1: Potatoes don't need it.
Speaker 2: Potatoes don't grow with dead bodies apparently, Yeah, I mean
the Irish know, Yeah, the Irish know.
Speaker 1: So, Fitz, you also wrote quote, the slave always has
a home, always an interest in the proceeds of the soil.
So how do we fix all society's ills according to
fits you more slavery, more.
Speaker 2: Slavery, double down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is but one remedy for this evil, he writes,
So inherent in free society and that.
Speaker 2: Thing, right, if everyone's a slave, is anyone a slave?
Speaker 1: Well not everyone's a slave.
Speaker 2: Like ninety nine percent of the population is a slave.
You're really not a slave, You're just the norm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just another You're just you're just a dude. Yeah,
so inherent in free society, and that is to identify
the interests of the weak and the strong, the poor
and the rich. Domestic slavery does is far better than
any other institution. And he was actually kind of critical
of feudalism for not being overtly obvious in declaring that
serfs or slaves. He's like, they should have had the
balls to say it. Just call them slaves what they are.
But either way, he wrote that every great ancient civilization
was great because of slavery. Not only were societies like
Roman Greece great, but they were better than modern America
or England or France. Their art was better, their philosophy
was better, so on and so forth, and he writes,
but this high civilization and domestic slavery did not merely coexist,
They were cause and effect. So essentially, Fitzhugh concluded not
only should all free black people be immediately enslaved because
capitalism and competition between workers put black people at an
immediate disadvantage since they weren't as smart as white people,
but also, quote every other form of government than that
of slavery has failed in the case of the negro
He is an enemy to himself and an intolerable pest
and nuisance of society. Experience has clearly proved that it
is the practicable mode of governing them slavery. But all
working people of every races should be immediately enslaved as well,
to help them, to give them purpose, to keep them
safe from themselves. His second book comes out in eighteen
fifty seven. It's called Cannibals All or Slaves without Masters.
In that book he actually agrees with Thomas Jefferson. Every
person is born with inalienable rights.
Speaker 2: What are his rights?
Speaker 1: He writes, fits he rights. The order and subordination observable
in the physical animal and human world show that some
are formed for higher others for lower stations. The few
to command the many to obey. We conclude that about
nineteen out of every twenty individuals have a quote natural
and inalienable right to be taken care of and protected,
to have guardians, trustees, husbands, or masters. In other words,
they have a natural and inalienable right to be slaves.
Speaker 2: That's not a right.
Speaker 1: They have a right to be protected and all that
other stuff. And he thinks, in his version of slavery,
you work, and you have your purpose set forward for you,
and everything else is taken care of.
Speaker 2: Sweetie.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have your food, your house, you can get
married and have kids and stuff because we're needing more slaves.
But everything be taken.
Speaker 2: Care of for you.
Speaker 1: You have a right to not have to worry.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the dystopian future that's always portrayed in movies. Yeah,
like ahead of his time. So I guess every science
fiction writer kind of rip this. Dude, Oh a debt
to fits you? Yeah, yeah, because oh oh no, don't
worry about this, just go to your job, pedal the bike.
Speaker 1: I mean again, I have to ask you, would this
guy's twitter or not have crushed No, dude, I don't
think so. I think it would have. I think a
lot of people because again you go back to this
is that nobody thinks they're going to be the slave right.
Speaker 2: I guess it's horseshoe theory too. So like the radical
left and the radical right would be kind of about dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll talk about the radical left and and
what he thought of them, and he and and how
he kind of agreed with them.
Speaker 2: Because this isn't that the whole thing with immigration now
that the left is like, oh, well, they're just not
They're taking the jobs that nobody wants. You want to
go pick the tomatoes. It's like, all right, so you're
essentially calling the fucking Mexicans slaves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was offensive to call them fruit
pickers or something like that. Yeah, it's like you want that, Like, yeah,
Farther people like, well, I mean they are that just
mean to call that. I love it so much.
Speaker 2: I guess it's imported labor. It's cheap labor. That is
the reason immigration is happening. It has nothing to do
with human rights, has everything to do with the economy.
Speaker 1: Always it's always money, baby, this country's business.
Speaker 2: And we ain't. We ain't producing enough kids. Well, speak
for yourself. I know it's my fault. Uh.
Speaker 1: He also mentions Fitzhu also elaborates on the rights of
the rulers of the one out of every twenty who
are fit to rule. The one in twenty are as
clearly born or educated, or some way fitted for command
and liberty. Not to make them rulers or masters is
as great a violation of natural right as not to
make as not to make slaves of the masses, a
very little individuality is useful and necessary to society for
the rulers, much of it begets discord, chaos, and anarchy.
Speaker 2: So he is more or less saying there's way too
much individuality in society. Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: Can't say I feel like I feel like we overshot
the runway on individuality.
Speaker 2: We did.
Speaker 1: Everyone has worth, but like, yeah, not everyone's gonna hit
the home running Game seven of the World Series.
Speaker 2: You know, we need ditch diggers, We need people that
you know, just take the shit that has fed to them.
Speaker 1: Actually, I'll give you, I'll give you a good example
of this that I think actually.
Speaker 2: Not for their whole life, but like, yeah, you know,
parts of their day.
Speaker 1: There there was I think the best example of a
a moment of collectivism producing maybe the greatest series of
individual accomplishments in American maybe human history is World War Two. Right,
everyone joined the army or the military, I should say,
and it made more heroes out of a generation than
has ever happened before or since. Like, but it was
collectivism that started that, right, It was not individuality. Even
though there's things to be said about American individualism, making
the American soldier kind of like a force to be
reckoned with it's it was still like an act of
collectivism in that and the sort of like shared sense
of purpose of not being overly I mean, they're you're
gonna read about that constantly. With the Olympic team just
winning the gold, right, everyone had a had to like
dial down there, or even.
Speaker 2: For World War two? Right, what's more powerful? Three or one? Yeah?
One common cause? Yeah, to beat Germany, Italy and the
g Apps.
Speaker 1: Oh you're gonna drop that.
Speaker 2: Jane a word Japanese?
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I think that's an
interesting argument. I do think we've overshot the run with individuality.
I think people need to Actually it's not like you
don't need to be an individual, but I would say
that like people are too concerned with individuality, do you
know what I mean? Just just exist, just exist.
Speaker 2: A lot of people do just exist, though, I think
most of the saddest part.
Speaker 1: I think most people do just exist.
Speaker 2: And they try to find some meaning or purpose individuality
that is always escaping them, and I think it leaves
them more depressed because they feel like they have to
have it. Everyone else is like looking for it. You
have to have like a thing. Yeah, something has to
make me unique, something has to make me special. But
at the end of the day, much like myself, nothing does. Man,
and you have to accept it. And it's it's fine.
It's it's cool over here. Man, get in the water.
It's it's nice in here. We'll paddle out, we'll catch
a couple of waves here and there. But we're not
we're not destined for greatness. It's okay. We're gonna be
long forgotten in history. No one's ever gonna listen to
the show.
Speaker 1: I mean, even even the people you think are gonna
be remembered are immediately forgotten.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Like that's what this show is about, really,
first off, forgotten people throughout history.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I mean, like you look at like a president,
right and you're like, oh, that's a president. That's a
great person. Name all the presidents. You fucking can't.
Speaker 2: Name one thing McKinley did besides get died.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, or even like you see like a TV show,
you see an actor on TV show and you're like,
that's a great person. That person did something memorable.
Speaker 2: Kids. Now I can turn on a TV show from
the age, show them Humphrey Bogart and they'll have no
idea who he is, no fucking clue. Yeah, so, Dogu,
I don't even really know who Humphrey Bogart is. And
I went to film school and I saw a lot
of his films, and he was really the same actor
and everything for.
Speaker 1: Every Napoleon or I'm honest, honestly, this is what's even crazier.
Go ask Americans, Americans, who was the commanding general in
World War Two?
Speaker 2: Eisenhower of course, Yeah, but how many the most important war.
Speaker 1: In human history that America was the spearhead for.
Speaker 2: I think they might get lucky though, because he was president.
Speaker 1: Dude, I don't even know how many people fucking just
know who he is. Dwight Eisenhower is one.
Speaker 2: Of the ike.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's just the yeah, it does. The immortality
is impossible in both name and like, yeah, great, there's
a Caesar, there's a Napoleon, there's an Aleexander that great.
For every one of that, there's people who did even
similar stuff.
Speaker 2: Dude, I it's grim, but I don't think thirty percent
of the population would know who Alexander the Great is
a minimum or minimum even Caesar, see I more uh
more would know because.
Speaker 1: It's more Polish on Caesar.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the dressing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, so I fits you. Ultimately, he just
really cares about the little guy when you think about it.
He says, it's the duty of society to protect the weak,
but protection cannot be efficient without the power of control. Therefore,
it is the duty of society to enslave the week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, I did just looking out for the
little guy. Yeah, it's in your best interest, It's okay. Yeah,
we don't want you to hurt yourself. Mommy and Daddy's
got it.
Speaker 1: Daddy's got it. Mommy's got it. Let believe it or not.
There were some logical holes in his arguments. Really yeah,
as proof that serfs are happier than free workers, he wrote, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think so, though, because you're dying as you're trying
to tell us right now. Yeah, yeah, so I think
this is him from the grave hand out poking holes
into your fucking.
Speaker 1: Throat, he writes. During the decline of the Roman Empire,
slavery became colonial or pradial, which means tied to the land.
The slaves occupied the place of tenants or serfs, were
at scripty solely and could only be sold with the farm.
The serfs of Russia, Poland, Turkey and Hungary are happier
and better provided for than free labor than the free
laborers of Western Europe. They are not overworked. They are
not overworked and underfed as are the free laborers of
Western Europe. Hence, they never rise in riots or insurrections,
burn houses, commit strikes, nor do they emigrate. So here's
my problem with that argument.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Nor do they emigrate. So they're slaves forced to live
on the land basically by force. And your proof that
they like it is they can't escape.
Speaker 2: They haven't left jail.
Speaker 1: They must love being in prison.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, like they just can't get over these walls. Yes,
the barbed wire.
Speaker 1: Not sure.
Speaker 2: I'm here.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I agree with that love private prison. I
will say he makes a better point about on this.
I don't On this one, I'm about to raid. I
don't agree with it, but it's not the worst argument
in my mind, So if it's you had some thoughts
on the American Revolution as well. He wrote, we do
not agree with the authors of the Declaration of Independence
that governments quote derive their just powers from the consent
of the govern the women, the children, the negroes, and
but few of the non property holders, and but a
few of the non property holders were consulted or consented
to the revolution or the governments that ensued from its success.
So he's saying, like consent of the governed, You didn't
ask hardly anyone. They were like like thousands of people
that made the rules for millions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean we talked about this at its peak,
like forty percent of the US population actually supported the revolution. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he goes on to write the very term government
implies that it is carried on against the consent of
the governed, which I don't necessarily agree with that, but
I do agree with like, obviously not everyone being governed
consents to what they're being governed by. Often quite a
few people don't listen.
Speaker 2: I bet he's a no tax on tips guy. I
think he's tax. Taxation is theft.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know, but.
Speaker 2: You can't really tax so it's not getting paid, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So basically, in his mind, I guess the only real
freedom is anarchy or you're full of shit.
Speaker 2: Even if it is anarchy, there has to be an
established set of expectations with it.
Speaker 1: Well, there's always gonna be a social structure no matter
what happens, right, Like it's you just you would just
socially make rules about like, ah, don't fuck my dog,
you know, like.
Speaker 2: Hey, where everything's just free game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess in a true anarchist society you can
fuck anyone's.
Speaker 2: Dog, So no chasing God.
Speaker 1: Though he hated capitalism, fits you, was not a socialist,
he had a lot to say about them. Actually, my
favorite though, is that he's he kind of is annoyed
at socialist because he's like, I get what you're saying,
but like you're too much of a of an activist
about it. Like what you're suggesting true socialism, it's just
what I'm suggesting with it's slavery with extra steps. So
let's just do my thing.
Speaker 2: Just listen to me, dude, Yeah, I got it, He writes,
You're being too vocal and it's a whole ordeal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you're kind of like cucked about it, Like
you're kind of like a bitch about it, like just
you want you want slaves. I want slaves.
Speaker 2: Let me lead you to the water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but my slavery, I'm honest about it, He writes,
socialism proposes to do away with free competition, to afford
protection and support at all times to the laboring class.
And by the way, he is against free competition. He
thinks it demeans the workers, all that stuff rat race
to the bottom type of situation. UH, to bring about
at least a qualified community or property, and to associate labor.
All these purposes slavery perfectly, all these purposes slavery fully
and perfectly attains. So he's saying, like, dude, if you
want socialism where there's like a few people in charge
making decisions but everyone gets equal shit, do my thing,
which is slavery slavery? Does it again? Socialism slavery.
Speaker 2: That's just obsessed with this ship. I'm over it at
this point, Like, let's let's get on, let's let's move
on to this this guy's final thesis. Well, so give
me crazier shit like cause you're kind of beating the
same drum.
Speaker 1: This is my favorite thing about Fitz. You his views
on slavery published in these books and a ton of
newspaper articles. They made one person in particular, incessant, incredibly angry.
Speaker 2: Who was this one individual that was so a gast
by these takes a ghast is a good way to
put it. Furious at them. Abraham Lincoln, Oh, he was
a needle and Abe, hold honest, Abe fitz Hughes, How
did he even get Abe's attention?
Speaker 1: Fitz hughes first book, Sociology of the South, allegedly reinvigorated
Lincoln's passion for politics after in the late after so
he lost.
Speaker 2: Lincoln was a congressman in the Whig Party, and he lost.
Speaker 1: He lost after one term, and the Whig Party shortly
thereafter dissolved, and.
Speaker 2: He was like, I'm done with politics.
Speaker 1: He was like, I don't know where to go. He
wasn't done with politics, but he was like he was
really disheartened. He was certain he was he was kind
of done with it. And between he.
Speaker 2: Was trying to find his purpose.
Speaker 1: Between losing his congressional seat after one term, his political
party literally disintegrating, ceasing to exist, and his son Edward
dying at the age of three of tuberculosis, Lincoln was
lost at sea, like he was a drift, right he was.
He was sad that he had no impact on society
that he felt he could have a great impact on.
He had no idea what to do. He was uninspired
and didn't know where to turn, and he read the
words of this man. He read the Sociology of the South.
Speaker 2: And that was the catalyst, essentially for you know, one
of the greatest presidents of our country.
Speaker 1: One of the greatest leaders of any country in human history.
As far as I'm concerned, this book literally reinvigorated Lincoln
because he hate read it and hated it so fucking much.
Speaker 2: This man, he's like, I need to become president. This
man brought Lincoln back from the dead. I need to
stop slavery. Like he's like, Okay, I was pretty whatever
on slavery, but this book maybe want to free the slaves.
Speaker 1: Lincoln's law partner, William Henry Herndon said that it quote
aroused the ire of Lincoln more than most pro slavery books.
Inspired by his reading of Fits You, Lincoln wrote, although
volume upon volume is written to prove slavery is a
very good thing, we never hear of the man who
wishes to take the good of it by being a
slave himself. This guy was so fucking crazy.
Speaker 2: George Fitzhugh was so fucking crazy. He's about that life.
He was willing to be a slave.
Speaker 1: That brought that he brought Lincoln back, but he himself
said he would be as That's how Lincoln took it
that Lincoln was like, this guy would be a slave
himself if it made got him what he wanted.
Speaker 2: Well, we never think we're going to be the slave.
We're always the exception, right, no one ever thinks. Yeah,
but when he prod came back from the political grave,
yeah him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the same way, like everyone thinks, Oh, when
society collapses, Like I own a gun, so I'll be
a warlord?
Speaker 2: Will you you will will you? Will you? Yeah? Maybe
a lieutenant to what will you?
Speaker 1: Will you? Eventually, of course, the Civil War happens, slavery's abolished,
and finally fits Hugh sees the light. Oh does he
that capitalism is good because it also enslaves people?
Speaker 2: Actually, and he became a New York Times bestseller.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, specifically private landownership, in which rich people box
out poor people and have more control over the government
and thus those poor people. So he's really into land monopoly,
like he likes it, like a small few who have
a lot of money owned most of the land.
Speaker 2: So he's in the black rock. Yeah, Oh, he would
love black rock.
Speaker 1: He would be.
Speaker 2: All about or like a gray star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he likes that most people can't own can't own
property just out of financial means alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just the natural order of things worked it
out for what he was arguing all along.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the markets didn't what he needed.
Speaker 2: The markets were his friend along the way.
Speaker 1: He never knew, Yeah, he never knew. But he wrote
in eighteen sixty six seven something like that, Desiring the
luxuries of life, they say to the land about the landowners,
about why they're so just and great. He go like,
and good to them, he goes, But desiring the luxuries
of life, they say to the land, list will permit
you to live on our lands and cultivate them, provided
you furnish us not only with the necessities, food, whatever,
but also with whatever beautiful or ornamental architecture in dress, furniture,
or whatever else that we need. With all the luxuries
on the table. Essentially, he's saying that we're back to
Roman times, right. He's like, Oh, the slaves help us
create beautiful things, because as they free us, free up
our time to make beautiful shit. This guy just fucking
loves slavery, so he kind of I think he kind
of talks himself into he got what he wanted.
Speaker 2: The slaves are our role players, yeah, the glue guys.
So he kind of let me cook. They let me
just kind of like get open shots. They're sending the picks, and.
Speaker 1: He kind of just talks himself into that everything's fine
and I got what I wanted. He kind of talked
him off into he was right all along.
Speaker 2: Again, as one does this, ever, admit defeat, always reshape
your argument if it ever incurs some type of speed bump.
Speaker 1: I every every word I read about this man, I
was like, shit, this is just a he's a shit
don't change guy, through and through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think earlier in the episode you said
I would be much like him, which, go fuck yourself.
Speaker 1: No, I said you would appreciate his spicy takes.
Speaker 2: I don't. I really don't fair enough. I'm willing to change. Okay,
I'm never on a block. That's my whole thing. I
stand for nothing. I don't.
Speaker 1: I know you're not immovable, but I just think you know,
I thought you might appreciate spice stakes anyway after the
Civil War fits you actually put his money where his
mouth is a little bit. He spent time judging for
the Freedmen's Court, which was essentially a court that like
helped black people who were slaves like get a life,
you know what I mean? And I think I think
he did that because he was like, dude, what are
they going to do when they're free? They don't know
how to be free. Not that he's not kind of
a piece of shit, but it was interesting that he
actually like kind of put up a little bit. His
wife died in eighteen seventy seven and he moved to Kentucky.
He later moved to Huntsville, Texas, where his daughter lived.
He died in eighteen eighty one, and he's buried in Huntsville.
Speaker 2: Texas to this day. I should go visit his grave.
Maybe would you learn it all over it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What'd you learn today?
Speaker 2: We're always laying everything is slavery, If everything is slavery, if.
Speaker 1: You want it to be, I guess, which is what
most people are like now right, Like you'll be like slavery.
It's just I'm telling you this guy is just like
I feel like I'm reading somebody's Twitter account. Who's today's hitler.
It's probably this good Georgey, probably piece ship for sure.
Probably not a great husband.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet she cheated on him.
Speaker 1: She died as simphilist one would hope.
Speaker 2: Out there.
Speaker 1: Fair enough. But yeah, that is all I've got for today.
Thank you so much for listening. Please leave a review
on Apple and Spotify. By the way, five stars, you
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YouTube and pretty faces. We get a wide today, so
I'll boom one of those legs and one of those legs.
Speaker 1: Lord thick fi those thick things.
Speaker 2: And by the way, the fucking foot guy back.
Speaker 1: If you're a listener, like you, listen to us at work, okay,
check this out. Pull up YouTube on the TV, leave
it on for your dog, leave it one of our
playlists on for your dog, and then just listen. But
then you can still listen to us at work. If
you're an audio you know, audio person, YouTube for the dog, audio.
Speaker 2: For you, just both. Yeah, really, just listen to our
episodes over and over again, over and over. Let us
be your takes.
Speaker 1: That's all I got for today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just got saft served